#if this happened in our universe fans would be so much more pissed about their sound becoming more melodic than toki being missing

[taasgirl]

say something pt 1.

summary: although playing for the same club, pedri and y/n cannot stand the thought of being around each other. enemies to lovers for all my girlies out there - i got u

a/n: not proofread and all in english + more installments coming soon!!

"I told you I can't go out." Salma hadn't stopped bothering me about some party with the men's team. I had so much school to catch up on.

"Come on don't be a party pooper. You study every night and train every day." I spun my chair to face my laptop. "Seriously Y/N, it's only one night." Rolling my eyes, I continued writing my paper.

I had been at university for the past year or so, while simultaneously playing football. For Barcelona. I know, pinch me moment. But I was so determined to graduate high school, and get a degree. I wasn't going to let anything stop me.

Even if it was my dream profession.

The coaches and staff at Barcelona were very understanding, however they weren't too happy when I had to leave training early for lectures.

But I guess I make up for it, I'm the league's top goal scorer, currently on 21 in 9 games. A feat slightly unbelievable to my lecturers and classmates - they think it's insane that someone 'famous' would even bother with university, but I love journalism. Something about writing is so me. Especially topics that I love.

"Don't be a bum Y/N." Truth is, I really wanted to go, but I had already agreed to help one of my classmates with some work.

"I'm supposed to be studying with Alex." Salma instantly spun me around. "The hot one?" I didn't respond.

Alex and I had our fair share of flirty kisses and almost intimate moments, with Salma being our first and only 'fan'. Seriously her words not mine.

"Well bring him then. You two should loosen up. Literally everyone will be bringing a plus one." Now that would actually be a good idea, but he seemed like he really needed my help, and lucky for me, he didn't want to bother me so it would all be through facetime. I could study in the comfort of my bed, in my pyjamas.

"Sorry Sal, you have fun but I'm staying back." She scoffed, this happened a lot, she'd invite me, I'd reject, and then say, "You look really hot though."

"Wait so what did you write about?" I would be lying if I said this wasn't awkward. We had hooked up a few times, and yet each time we spoke to each other it was just as awkward as the last. The term 'friends with benefits' was definitely not applicable to us.

"Umm, mine's just about some of my teammates. You know, sports injuries and that sort of stuff." He smiled when I spoke.

"It's so cool knowing you." Awkward silence soon followed. "Hey uh, I'd really like to take you out. To dinner maybe? You know, when you're not busy being a professional and all that." Well I can't really reject the guy who's made me orgasm multiple times.

"Yeah sure. I'm sure we could go out after class one day." Yeah I was not going to go out with him.

After a few hours of studying with Alex I got a call from Salma. "Hey Alex, I'm getting a call, I'll message you later." Hanging up our facetime, answered Salma's call.

"How's hot boy? Have you fucked yet." She was slurring her words. Definitely off her face drunk. "Hey is this Y/N?" I replied to the voice, one of a man's. "Listen we need you to come pick Salma up, she's drunk." The boy on the other side of the phone said it almost annoyed.

"Who is this?" Immediately he replied, "Pedri. Now can you hurry? I'm sending over the address." The notification popped up on my phone, she was at a club downtown.

"I can't." Pedri didn't speak. I knew him from our minimal media interactions, but other than that, he had a reputation as a dickhead fuck boy. "What do you mean you can't?" Because I was so preoccupied with school and work, I never had the time to get my license.

"I can't drive, I don't have a license." I could almost hear him roll his eyes.

"Are you serious? How do you expect her to get home?" He was clearly pissed off. "Maybe be a gentleman and drive her home?" He groaned, obviously unwilling to do so.

"Don't put her in a cab. Drive her home, here I'm sending you the address." As soon as he received my message through Sal's phone he hung up. What a dickhead.

After about fifteen minutes, I heard loud banging at my door. Rushing over, Salma practically fell in my arms. "Y/N you won't believe the night I had." She needed to sleep, we needed to be at training by 6 tomorrow for fitness testing. I have no idea why she'd pick tonight as the time to get wasted.

"Thank you Pedri, I'll see you tomorrow." As I went to shut the door, he stuck his foot in, pushing the door wide.

"So I leave a party with beautiful women to drop your lightweight friend off, and you don't even offer me a glass of water?" His tone was condescending, as he followed me through our apartment.

"Yeah well, sorry for ruining your night." As I helped Salma into her bed, he leaned on her doorframe. "You know usually when I take a girl home it doesn't end like this." He smiled, that kind of dickhead-fuckboy smile. I didn't respond, walking under his arm as I made my way to the front door. I opened my wallet and handed him €10. "For the petrol, now please leave." I pushed the money against his chest as he scoffed. "I don't need your money." He looked me up and down. "See you later Y/N."

Salma and I successfully made our way to the Barcelona grounds, a round of water and plenty of bread slowly sobered her up.

"So how was your date with sexy classmate." I smacked her lightly. "Awkward as fuck. You'd think that someone who's seen me naked plenty of times would know how to talk to me, but I guess not." We walked past the front desk. "Morning. And it wasn't a date, just a study session."

Making our way to the changerooms, I made eye contact with a certain somebody. That certain somebody came over to us. "What do you want?" He looked at me puzzled, in a dismissive way. "Oh I'm not here to talk to you." He diverted his gaze to Salma. "You were quite the partier last night." She smiled at him, I have no idea how.

"We gotta go. Bye Pedri." I pulled Salma away from him. "You're literally gay stop making eyes at him." She looked at me as we sped walked through the hallway. "Doesn't mean a girl can't look." I rolled my eyes. I can't take this girl seriously sometimes.

By the time we had made it out to the field, everyone could tell that Sal was hungover. She wasn't hitting anywhere near her top speed and was very slow at our reaction training games.

Jonatan pulled her aside, and soon enough, she was escorted inside by our assistant coach. "Bring it in girls." I stood next to Lucy as Jonatan began a speech.

"It has come to my attention that there was a party last night." The girls began looking around at each other. "And I understand that you are young and want to have fun, but when alcohol or even drugs are involved, it becomes a problem for the club." Lucy looked down at me.

"I need you to all be aware of what you're doing. You are professional footballers, and now is not the time to be partying let alone drinking." The girls started to whisper to each other.

"And I especially need you to look after the kids here. They're young and vulnerable. If you see them in a less than ideal situation, you need to help them out." Jonatan didn't raise his voice, one of the reasons why he has been my favourite coach. "Now get back out there."

Training was tense, and by the time we had arrived inside Salma was lying on one of the physio beds fast asleep. "Sal are you alright?" She groaned, covering her face. "Lucy said she'd drive you home, but I really need to get to class." I gave her a quick hug before I headed for the showers and prepared myself before class.

It's hard being a student-athlete, or an athlete-student depending on how you look at it. As I left the building I saw Gavi standing outside.

"Hey Pablo." He turned around, immediately hugging me. Gavi was my first friend here in Barca when I joined the academy, and although we haven't kept in contact as much, I still consider him one of my best friends.

"Looking good Y/N. You off to school?" I nodded, signalling to my laptop bag clutched in my hand. "You're seriously the hardest worker I know." After a short conversation a car pulled up to the kerb. A short honk alerted us.

"Get in Gavi. Y/N." Hey, at least he didn't dismiss me. "Can Y/N come, we just need to drop her off at the uni. It's down the road." Before I could reject Gavi's idea, Pedri spoke up. "Yeah no. Come Pablo." Gavi didn't get in the car.

"Seriously Pepi, let her come with us. It'll be a short trip." Soon enough, Pedri agreed, unlocking the back door for me.

Pedri didn't speak the entire ride, and even though it was short, I felt completely unwelcomed. By the time we had arrived on campus, Pedri drove right to the communications building. I thanked him, and stepped out of the car.

As I began to walk away from the car a familiar voice called out to me. "Y/N wait up!" Alex ran up to me, and immediately pulled me in for a hug. I could feel Pedri and Gavi's eyes on me, the car hadn't moved.

"Thanks for the help last night." We walked into the building together and found our seats.

After a boring three hour lecture, I quickly made my way down to the exit. "Y/N wait up." I spun around, facing Alex. "Is now an alright time to ask you to lunch?" I could help but blush. Now normally I would've politely declined, but I am so unbelievably hungry, so I agreed.

"As long as you're driving I'm up." He smiled and brought me to his car.

"I told you that class boy was your guy!" Sal yelled at me after being dropped home by Alex. "When you aren't preoccupied by the dick-"

"Yuck don't say that Sal!"

"It's true, see he's a good guy. Hot too."

I pushed a pillow to her face. She was really too much sometimes. We were sat on the couch, relaxing until it was time to sleep. She was telling me about this incredible girl from last night when I heard a knock on the door. I got up and answered it. To my surprise Pedri was standing there.

"Uh, um you left this in my car." He handed me over an unfamiliar plastic bag, but after a quick look inside, I could tell that it was my sports bra and socks from training.

"Oh yeah, um thanks." We stood there awkwardly in the frame of the door until Salma came up. "Left them in his car huh?"

Pedri immediately tried to speak but his mumbles were cut off by Salma. "Leaving your clothes in one guys car and then going out with a different guy the same day is truly boss energy." Pedri looked at me concerned.

"He and Gavi drove me to class ok, so let's get inside. Thank you Pedri, I really appre-" "Come in Pepi! Take a seat." Salma cut me off and ushered him in. Looking down at me, he made his way to my seat on the couch.

"You know what guys, I'm actually gonna head to bed." Salma pouted at me. "Come on, it's only for a few minutes." I shook my head and went into my room, grabbing my clothes so I could take a quick shower.

By the time I finished my shower, I could still hear Pedri and Salma talking. I wrapped a towel around myself and made my way to my room. That was of course, until I bumped into him.

"Maybe look where you're going next time." He said to me, a look of disgust plastered on his face. "Get the fuck out of my house." He laughed.

"Yeah cause this two room apartment is a house. You seriously need to get a life." I pushed past him, opening my door. "Oh and maybe you should try and be welcoming for once. God knows it'll do you a world of good." I slammed the door after hearing his comment. I have no idea why I even gave him the time of day.

He's such a piece of shit. I'm literally a university student who also happens to be a footballer - a women's one at that. I have no choice but to live in a shitty apartment with my teammate. I don't have the type of money he has.

pls let me know if you like this! i'll update as often as possible and pls give me some requests! i'll write about anyone (m+f)!! thank you!

part two!

[ryin-silverfish]

LMK S5 trailer, Chinese pantheon infodump, and some ideas

…Man, normally, I feel the urge to write fix-it AUs after rewatching episodes and coming across particularly bizarre theories and takes, not before the new season's even out.

Thanks, S5 trailer.

Consider this your spoiler warning, because the rest of this post will all be my personal opinions about a few major story beats that were revealed + the rough outline for a fix-it AU.

It's also a bit ranty, and features some criticisms of the general narrative, so if that's not your cup of tea, feel free to avoid this one.

Li Jing becoming JE/the regent of the Celestial Realm is just hilariously absurd. I mean, it makes a teeny tiny bit more sense than the "Nezha will be the new JE" fan theory, but that's not a very high bar.

1) In-universe, he had done a grand total of nothing while shit was hitting the fan, and only showed up after it was all over. Which, tbh, isn't too far from his role in FSYY. No, wait, at least in FSYY, he killed Luo Xuan via a pagoda to the head, after the guy had all his fire-based magical treasures neutralized and taken away by Princess Longji.

Yeah, congrats, LMK's Li Jing, you've somehow become even more useless than your FSYY and JTTW counterparts——which is a true feat.

2) Even if someone's making him JE/regent, it wouldn't be the Ten Kings. To put it simply: the Underworld doesn't have that authority. They are the most pathetic of all divine bureaucracies, who pretty much only show up to get pushed around and revive the occasional dead guy in JTTW (and I still love them).

Like, they ain't no Hades or Satan. Just the 10 judges of the Dead People Supreme Court. To heavily paraphrase Di Ting in the original JTTW novel:

"How much power do Underworld gods really have? (幽冥之神，能有多少法力)" "...Certainly not enough to stop a rampaging demonic macaque who's as strong as SWK, if I say the truth out loud in here and piss him off. Just send them to the Buddha, please."

An analogy: if the Celestial Host is the imperial court, the Underworld is the ministry in charge of judicial processes and prisons. They don't even have authority over the imperial censors who answer directly to the emperor, let alone the power to determine a successor to the throne during a major crisis.

If this was to make the tiniest bit of sense, Li Jing would be the one commanding THEM, not the other way around. Or if it's Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha himself giving orders to Li Jing…for some reason.

But we know that ain't happening bc of the show's strange aversion to showing Buddhist deities on screen, not to mention it would be very OOC for Ksitigarbha, whose job is granting relief and salvation to souls in the Path of Hell, not judging and punishing them like the Ten Kings.

3) If you must make Li Jing the emperor/regent, you have a more mythos-accurate and obvious choice than the Ten Kings, considering you already got the Four Divine Beasts involved!

Yes, I'm talking about their bosses, the humanoid "directional + elemental gods": Lord Father of the East (Wood), Queen Mother of the West (Metal), Emperor Zhenwu of the North (Water).

No South though...because our mythos can't agree on a single directional god of the South, but for shit and giggles, just imagine Zhurong, Yandi, Huaguang, and the Star of Fiery Virtues all sitting on the same narrow bench, staring awkwardly at each other.

Maybe we can have Ziwei, Great Emperor of the Central Sky and North Stars, who is one of the Four Sovereigns(四御) in Daoism (two of which could also be an alternate choice, but maybe a bit too obscure for foreign audiences).

He commands the stellar deities and heavenly bodies——which the Four Divine Beasts would technically fall under, as guardians of the four quadrants of the sky, each in charge of 7 Lunar Mansions.

4) But if you already have these deities, why the hell would any of them make Li Jing the regent? Wouldn't it be more likely for them to create a Celestial Council of Regents themselves, with Devaraja Li Jing under their command as the leader of what's left of the celestial army?

Like, you can still have them, or one of them, going after the gang and ordering Li Jing to put the fillet on SWK.

I can see Zhenwu the Demon-Vanquisher doing that, since the fillet isn't too different from what he did to Huaguang and a lot of the demons he subdued in JTTN: feeding them magical water/fire pills that would corrode/ignite their insides whenever they tried to resist.

(Yeah, compared to that, the fillet would look like the lenient option, since it's just pain and won't actually dissolve/cook you alive from the inside out...)

And it wouldn't be bc he thought SWK was to blame for the Brotherhood's epic fuck-up...somehow. Like, what even is that logic?!

I mean, I can kinda see the Ten Kings doing it as a pre-emptive "Don't blame us for our shitty security, blame that guy over there!" move...except they are no longer answering to any higher authorities who'd hold them responsible at that point!

"What about Li Jing?" You may ask. Yeah, WHAT ABOUT LI JING? Why does Li Jing have to get involved in this?

If he's forcing the Ten Kings to pass judgement on the gang (which surely doesn't look like it in the trailers), why's he enlisting the help of the weakest faction and not, y'know, his celestial soldiers and other gods?

If the Ten Kings get Li Jing to be their enforcer...well, how the Eighteen Hells did they manage that? What could the Ghost Supreme Court and their crappy prison-torture chamber-soul customs office complex even offer Li Jing as a bribe?

And if their goals were to avoid responsibilities by blaming someone else, how stupid did they have to be to actively involve/create a higher authority who can punish them once the cat gets out of the proverbial bag, instead of, I dunno, just stay where they are and keep their head down???

So in my fix-it AU, it's more of a "Better safe than sorry" scenario, where every demon working for the new Celestial Council must prove their loyalty via swallowing the water/fire pill, now that even more dangerous demons have escaped and are running around in the aftermath of S4.

And Great Sage and company are not exempt from that new law either——"If you are truly righteous and Not Like Them and not planning to rebel, what's there to be afraid of?"

Horrified by the Demon-Vanquishing Mansion's 16th century standards of "justice" and "mercy", they naturally would not have any of it, and thus the conflict begins.

Not only would this show the fallout of Azure's misguided rebellion——that, in trying to make a better world, he had made it 120% worse for both humanity and demonkind in less drastic and more realistic ways aside from dooming reality to irreversible destruction, it would also help with the major show-not-tell problem about Celestial cruelty bc the "good guys" in power saw no problem with this kind of shit.

If you want your lawful antagonists who take Order to its extremes, the warrior sovereign in black leading an elite army of demon-hunters + penal legions made of "reformed" demons would be a better choice than the Ghost Supreme Court, don't ya think?

(Fun fact: in Zaju plays, Zhenwu was often said to be the boss of Nezha and Erlang, so him commanding Li Jing wouldn't be too out of place either.)

Now, you may ask, why do I even care? After all, isn't it clear that the show is neither mythos-accurate nor trying to be, considering the JE got K.O.ed by a Bodhisattva's cat of all things?

Not to mention the season's not even out yet, so why jump to conclusions so quickly? Maybe the actual episodes will have explanations that make sense. Relax.

...Cause I don't mind less-than-stellar animations if the story's good, and since I keep noticing the less-than-stellar animations, it clearly isn't good enough.

Also, it's not like it's only the implications that are absurd——my problem is with the whole premise of "Li Jing becoming the new JE/Regent" and "The gang is prosecuted by the Ten Kings for bullshit reasons, even though these guys should not, and never have the power to enforce anything over SWK."

I don't like calling narrative choices "wrong" per se, and prefer to see it on a gradient of "least to most narrative potential". When it comes to adaptations, if the option that is faithful to the original work will result in a less interesting story, then I'll happily take the one that isn't as faithful and takes creative liberties, but makes a better story.

And here, I feel like being faithful to the Chinese mythos inspirations will add to the narrative potential instead of subtract from it, and the idea they come up with kinda...goes against how Chinese pantheons work, in a very simplified and "westernized" manner.

Mostly bc I am a Chinese Underworld mythos lover and think they deserve better than being ominous Hades/Grim Reaper knockoffs. And out of all the possible Chinese gods, Nezha's asshole dad is the least qualified or interesting candidate to fill in the power vaccum left by JE's death.

[talkinfanfic]

Hi Storyshark! I'm a big Oasis fan and I think you're such a great writer! Is there any chance you would write more Gallaghercest "origin stories"? I always love to read about how it all started and like stories that are set in the early days of the band and before Liam even joined.

Did you ever entertain the idea about writing something that touches on the topic of why Liam's relationship to big brother Paul is so different to big brother Noel? I think it's quite interesting to think about what could have happened in their childhood and youth that made Liam crave Noel's attention and approval more than Paul's and made Noel more of a father figure to him. And I think anyone who meets Liam would be attracted by his beauty and charisma, so I think it's also interesting to think about how Paul reacts in a different way to it than Noel. And the topic of Noel feeling guilty of what he's doing to and how he's feeling about his baby brother is also always so interesting.

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

Thank you so much for reading and submitting an ask, gosh how flattering! For anyone interested in my writing, you probably already know I've got a blog over here (@storyshark2005) To answer your question-- Yeeeesss actually! I've got a few ideas and WIPs going right now in the "Been and Gone" universe. It's just a matter of time and me focusing long enough to get the next one out!

Paul in particular is the story I'm probably most focused on. I was just working on it last night! I'll stick a teaser below :) But here's kind of a rough checklist of what I'll be trying to accomplish...

Gene POV - done! Summary: “The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” Falling down (2005 - 2019).

"A Week in Mustique" - multi POV, some shorter glimpses from multiple characters over the course of a family holiday in Mustique!

Paul POV - Paul trying to be his own man. Some possible romance with Katie. His complicated relationship with his brothers. Feeling outside.

Sara POV. - Set during and after Story IV. Honestly I had a whole thing for this, but story 4 turned out a bit different, so I'll have to mull this one over... but it'll prob flash back to Sara's upbringing, and also go into some of broke down in their marriage, which isn't JUST the Liam factor. (*cough* freaky fridays *cough)

Matt Morgan POV - A night out, late in 2022. Maybe a party to celebrate one of Noel's singles releasing. He finds out about Liam/Noel. Debbie brings him into the circle. We see Debbie stressing being the 'secret keeper'.

Debbie POV - Debbie finding the Liam/Noel thing more intense than maybe she’d thought, navigating where she fits in. The REAL start of the Noel/Debbie bit of the triangle!

Anyway here's a bit from "Paul" below the cut:

Saturday, 19 August 1978. Burnage, Manchester

“Eeyare,” Noel pokes his head in the door. He’s all sweaty, fringe stuck to his forehead. “What’s the score, our kid?” 

“One-nil to Derby. Charlie George, overhead kick.”

Noel’s nose wrinkles. “Gooner cunt. Can I borrow your guitar?” He nods to the corner behind Paul’s bed, where the cheap little Yamaha acoustic lay dusty and neglected.

“No.” 

“Well you’re not fuckin’ playin’ it.” 

“Yeah, and neither are you.” Paul adjusts the dial, swiveling from the commentary on Picadilly Sport, over to the BBC2.

“Whatever. I’ll just play it tonight while you’re out helping the old fella.” 

The dial skitters to a staticky stop. Fuck, but he’d forgotten. 

“It’s your turn,” Noel says flatly. “He’s got 32 Club tonight.”

He’s right, is the thing. Noel hadn’t come home last night till almost 3am. It’s Paul’s turn to haul the boxes of vinyl into the club, and then nurse a coke in the corner for six hours while Tommy DJ spins his tunes and then pisses away the week’s earnings on cards.

A sudden thunder of trainers pounds up the stairs, and Liam comes skidding into frame, crashing up against Noel’s hip. He’s bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, and just as sweaty as Noel, fringe split in half by a violent cowlick. He’s wearing a faded old ringer tee with Ernie from Sesame Street on the front that used to belong to Noel (and possibly Paul before him). 

“I want a Capri-Sonne,” he curls a fist in Noel’s shirt and tugs. He’s got grass stains on his knees from chasing Noel and his mates around the park. 

Liam’s a horrible little brother. Five-going-on-six, he’s lightning in a bottle, caught only just barely-- crackling and popping with a heaving, restless energy. He’s also a charming little fucker when he needs to be, which he never does around Noel or Paul. The church ladies and the aunties think he’s an angel.

Noel ignores the tugging and whining. Paul can see a fading bruise above his elbow where their Dad had grabbed him last week, screaming about some perceived slight or uppity attitude Noel had apparently been giving off.

“Hewitt nicked the Pistols record from Sifter’s. Youngie and Vince are comin’ over, we’re all goin’ round his in a bit for a listen.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Noel shrugs. 

Liam butts his face into Noel’s stomach. Noel allows it, resting a hand on top of his bowl cut. Noel casts his gaze somewhere out the window, out to the clouds, barely invested in the conversation, or the little brother buzzing under his hands.

Liam gives another headbutt, drawing a scowl and Noel’s attention back.

“Fucking stop it--” 

“I WANT my FUCKING DRINK!”

Paul looks down at his scorecard. “Maybe after the match.” 

Noel looks up, distracted with Liam wrangled into a one-armed headlock. Liam has his arms wrapped around Noel’s waist like an obnoxious little squid.  

“What?” 

“I said, maybe I’ll come round after the match.” 

Paul’s not really planning to show up. He could go round Hewitt’s any day to listen to the album. And it’d be better without Noel there, anyway, talking all the way through. (Mister fucking McCharmley, was Noel. Hewitt had been Paul’s mate, originally.)

Anyway. Noel’s only asking ‘cos he knows Mam’ll ask him where he’s off to, and why Paul’s not going with. 

“Whatever.” Noel shrugs and turns out of the room, disentangling himself from Liam’s sticky grasp. “Liam, getoff--!” 

“I’m coming, too!”

“No you’re fucking not.”

“Noely!” Liam curls his fingers into the back of Noel’s shirt and tugs again, whining for his Capri-Sonne. 

“Get it yourself!” 

“Mam put ‘em on top of the fridge, I can’t reach--!”  

Noel groans but diverts down the stairs, and Liam gives out a joyous whoop of triumph.

Paul sighs, turning back to the radio. Halftime, still one-nil. He skips back to Radio 2. Which is when he hears it. 

Years and years and years later, Paul will meet this photographer friend who’s into fucking birds, of all things. Like...photographing them, and going on trips to find rare ones. This friend, she tells him about her ‘spark bird’. Apparently, a spark bird is the first bird that lights the match in you, that makes you want to get up at the crack of fucking dawn and go creeping through a marsh for a glimpse of some rare South American ruffle-headed whats-a-ma-doo. 

Paul doesn’t give a fuck about birds. But he knows what she means when she talks about a spark bird. Because Paul’s always liked music, same as he likes talking to pretty girls, and the smell of brand new trainers, and Man City winning a string of matches. 

But something about what he hears crashing through the speakers that Saturday afternoon; that strange, hitching synthesizer bit in the intro; the fast-train staccato of Keith Moon up on the hi-hat, nervous like a racing heart; Entwhistle dancing patiently underneath, holding the rhythm down; Townshend’s carelessly cool, yet exacting and luxuriant guitar work; and above it all, Roger Daltrey’s relentless, fearless growl demanding an answer to the most important question that Paul had never heard asked before, by anyone, including himself:

Who are you? 

Who? 

Who?

Paul listened that day, and then bought and nearly wore out the single over the next few months, totally entranced and unable to answer. Anything he could have mustered seemed superficial, insubstantial: ‘Paul Anthony Gallagher, son of Peggy and Tommy, brother to Noel and Liam.’ 

And what else, the question seemed to beg, what else?! Give me something real-- who the fuck are you??

Make something of yourself, it seemed to say. Find an answer.

Years and years and years later, despite the fire burning in his belly to do something, be someone...he still doesn’t have an answer. 

‘The other brother,’ maybe. 

Anyway. Fuck knows. Maybe he’s nobody. Most people are nobody. They’re born, they live and they have a few dreams, and then they die with most of those dreams unrealised. 

That’s just life, mate. It’s not that tragic a story. ***

[tlouxobsessed]

College Affairs

why hello there, this is my official story on here; this is going to be a longish story. I had posted previously what it shall be about (for the most part) I'm also going to do a quick Q/A about me; my stories and my other socials. ALSO!!! I am completely new to this app, I have no idea how to use Tumblr or make it aesthetic. I have seen a few amazing profiles and wonder how they get it so nicely. So please bear with me if my story setups are shit. I take requests, my dm's are always open for messaging on how to be better and or write better. The actual story itself is going to start further down on this page. I'm not very sure how many chapters exactly it'd have but we will see y'know? Anyways back to the Q/A

My name is Maddie; I enjoy writing stuff like this. I have a wattpad, instagram and tiktok account for tlou fan stuff. I don't post much on Instagram nor tiktok but it is more for promotional purposes. I have my wattpad linked at all times in all my bios. @tlouxobsessed

I have an amazing girlfriend who also writes. Her @ on Wattpad AND Tumblr is @iluvtlou; she's an amazing writer and we both write pretty hot smut on there.

ANYWAYS!!! with that being said here is the story. For those of you who do not know what this story will be about; scroll on my page and you should find the small description :) Please don't forget to like this story and follow me :) as I said my dm's are always open 24 hours a day, I hope you all are having a great day/night! enjoy my loves :3

The beginning of this story will be mostly in Y/N's point of view. There will contain SMUT! smoking, drinking, sexual content; assault, swearing, aggression. There will also probably be LOTS OF SMUT/KINK TALK!!!

enjoy you freaks ;)

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CHAPTER I

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I was seven years old when my mother passed away, I was nine when my grandfather went into a coma; four months later my father had chosen to take the only man who ever cared for him, off of life support. When I was twelve my cat ran away, I found him beaten to death presumably by the neighborhood kids. Soon after my fourteenth birthday my grandmother had gotten hit by a car trying to pick up my younger brother from school. I was pretty used to the overgrowing grief in my life; none of my friends ever stayed, my family members died left and right, my pets my little crushes never liked me back. My life felt like the universe hated me. That was until my first year of high school, It had been a few months since my grandmother passed. I was living with my dad, brother and old sister.

We had two pets, a dog and a cat. Every now and then when I'd stare at Miley for long enough, I thought about Robin; god I felt so bad when I found her, her once grey fur was caked with dried blood. Her big green eyes stared at me begging for me to help her or at least take her out of her misery. I laid there holding her decaying body for hours, I sobbed into the crevasse of her neck. I went home later that day after burring her in the woods behind our home. I walked into my house covered in dried blood, in my hands was a ball of once fluffy grey cat hair. I sobbed, running into my older sisters arms.

"Y/N? what happened? baby look at me" I just resting my head on her shoulder sobbing, gripping the back of her white tank with my blood crusted hands. I'd think about that day when I'd stare into Miley's bright blue eyes, she was a white and brown cat. God she's a sweetheart, Robin was monstrous. She tore up whatever she could, she'd piss in your shoes if she didn't like you. One time Mackenna brought over a guy, slept with him but when he went to leave his shoes were both filled to the brim with piss, cat litter and a small toy that would squeak a "MEOW" when pressed on. I couldn’t stop laughing when my sister had told me about it. She cursed me, pushing me off of her bed. I landed on my back hitting the side of her dresser with my right palm while cracking up once again.

See my life wasn’t all that bad? Middle school wasn’t horrible. I made some friends that actually stayed. Lila, Katie and Richard. I loved them to death. I met Lila the first three months into ninth grade.

~flashback~

I walked into second period, we were about three months into school, I was exhausted from the night before. I studied my ass off for Mr.Brown's class. I was not prepared for that test but I had no choice. I had always gotten good grades until I started realizing I had feelings for some for the girls around me. I couldn't focus anymore; I felt wrong and gross with myself for looking at Madelyn Calvins like that or Jessi Smoldminor. I felt weird feelings when Jessi would come around but I tried brushing them off. I didn't have any friends after I came out to Jessi. She told everybody that I was a "fucking weird homo that you should stay away from." I spent the ride home on my bus that day sobbing, I screamed at myself when I got home that night.

"PLEASE JUST BE NORMAL!!" this all ended soon after I watched videos on youtube, realizing Jessi was probably just closeted. A mean internalized homophobic girl.

Anyways, I walked in sitting down by myself perusual, I didn't realize I wasn't alone until I felt a tap on my shoulder. A few weeks had gone by since the incident so I brushed it off as some person trying to bother me. "hey" I glanced over at the girl. She was probably 5'3, blonde hair and blue eyes. She had huge tits for a fourteen-fifteen year old. "hi" I said back questioning why this pretty girl was talking to me. I prepared myself for the worst until she just asked "do you have a pencil?"

four years later and we're the best of friends. When Brody Hunters broke up with her to go date Olivia Leone, she was devastated and I was by her side. When Jordan Micheals cheated on me I sobbed into her arms while she concealed me. We were inseparable. She never judged me for liking girls; even when I liked the most VULGAR girls.

I met Katie in tenth grade, she was in our gym class. She soon became our friend, we were known as THE trio at school. By tenth grade Katie had come out to us as Bisexual, obviously we supported her. Around this time I was already openly gay at school so I was usually told first when people were questioning. I had always gotten the “how did u know u were gay?” texts from girls I had never really spoken to. Or even the “I’m gay 4 u” comments on my posts. I always cringed but went along with it because I adored attention.

We met Richard because Lila and him started going out, they met at some fair in the Summer of late tenth grade. Ever since it has been the four of us. We graduated high school last week. I never thought I was going to make it but my friends really did help me. Before anybody asks, yes Katie and I DID have a small thing that went on but we both decided it was better off as friends.

We all got into the same College, University of Seattle. I was excited and so was Katie, her and I had become even closer since Richard and Lila. I suspected Katie was catching feelings for me again but I was NOT about to ruin our friendship again.

I walked over to my bedroom mirror staring into it. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've grown a lot since freshman year, I used to be 5'4, long light brown hair, blue eyes and small breasts. The girl that stared back at me was nothing like that. She was 5'6, medium length dark brown hair from being dyed so many times. Bright blue eyes, long eyelashes and plump lips. Double D's and a solid ass. I didn't realize how much I had progressed. I threw on a white tank top, some blue jeans and a hoodie. I slipped on my converse and grabbed my phone taking a quick pic of my room before heading out. Today was the last day of being at my house, I live a few hours away from my new school. Katie was on her way, I was shitting bricks. I was hoping to room with Katie but we got placed on different floors.

katieee my lovey - hi baeee i'm almost there 'kay? i wanna stop at panera after we get richie and lil

I adore Katie, I really do. She is a sweetheart, we did way too much together to ever truly be considered just friends but I saw her as a best friend just as much as a fuck buddy.

y/n - hiiii kk sounds good txt me when ur here i have smmmm shit to bring to ur car. gnna make mack and shawn help me ;(

katieee my lovey - okay my love ill come in and help too love u almost there xoxo

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I ran downstairs towards the kitchen grabbing out a juice box pushing the straw into it and sucking out the liquid. I sighed at the orangish liquid coming through the clear straw just as I heard somebody coming in.

"heyy mama" Katie said walking towards me placing a sloppy kiss onto my left cheek. "hi babe, ready?" I asked gesturing towards my stairs.

Katie and Mack helped me carry out my items while Shawn sat on the couch watching his cartoons. I rolled my eyes at his laziness while we strained our backs carrying the heavy boxes into Katie's car.

"i'm really nervous Katie" I said to her once we were in the car alone. I wish I was still eleven laying in Mack's bed while we snuggled and watched movies talking about her new boy crush on the week. I must've dozed off because when I opened my eyes we were at Panera, Richard and Lila in the back seat swapping spit as Katie pulled into the parking lot.

"we're here you fucking love birds, yuck you're making me loose my appetite!!" Katie snarled. I laughed unbuckling myself heading into the building. I knew Katie's older sister Dina, went to Seattle university but that was the only upper class man I had knew. I was nervous trying to get down as much of my BLT as I could.

Once back on the road, I heard the two in the back once again swapping spit, their mouths smacking until finally I turned around.

"guy's SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled, the two looked at me laughing then turned back to eating one another's faces.

"you ok babe?" Katie asked.

"I dunno I just feel really off, I'm nervous ya'know?"

"you need to get laid" I couldn't help but laugh at Katie's stupid comment. She looked at me smirking, no no no no. I was not going to do that again. I turned my head quickly looking out the window. I could feel the head spreading between my legs when I recalled that night. We were thirty minutes away now, I'm sure a little reminiscing wouldn't hurt anybody....right?

~flashback~

I was distraught. The text message I had just gotten from my girlfriend of over a year and a half. The "i'm so sorry my baby please- i didnt mean to she just was there i was drunk!" I broke up with her right away running to Katie's house.

She opened up the doors, I ran in collapsing into her arms. "oh my- baby what happened c'mere." Katie scooped me up placing her on her bed, I sobbed loudly until Dina and some girl walked by the slightly ajar door. The girl with her had auburn hair, green eyes and was around 5'5. She was pretty, her freckles sprouted out, her green sweatshirt and dark brown pants snug nicely on her body. I was attracted immediately but too sad to talk to her. Around this time my body was growing, my breasts were now a solid C, my ass was fatter and my make up skills were getting better.

I glanced away from the door looking into the Katie's eyes, I couldn't help what I did anymore. I was sad and needed somebodies love. I pushed my lips against hers. I was the one facing towards the door so I was able to see through the small crack, the auburn haired girl watched for a few minutes as my hands rose up the back of Katie's shirt, unclipping her bra and cupping one of her breasts while continuing to kiss her. I saw her finally walk away then shutting my eyes so I'd be back into the moment with Katie.

Normally I would've gone to Lila to sob but Richard was over so they'd defiantly be busy. My hand lowered down Katie's pants rubbing her clit-

"we're here!!" I glanced over at Katie who had her hand on my thigh, I was soaked at this point and I needed her. The last time we had hooked up was a few months prior. Katie hadn't ever been with someone until after we first ever fucked, then she dated some girl but that didn't last long.

We all carried what we could to the front desk, I looked around seeing tons of newly adults crying while hugging their parents goodbye. My dad was at work today, he said he'd come down tomorrow and help me upack, but meanwhile I knew Dina,Katie, Richard and Lila would help.

"Hi name please" the woman said at the front desk, she was wearing a tight black blouse and a purple skirt.

"y/n" I said watching as she aggressively typed into the computer, the keys clacking gave me a sense of relief. It had reminded me of when my mother would be typing on her computer while I sat with Mackenna eating our grilled cheeses.

"Here you go hun! room 3476...." she handed me the keys, I heard her say something to Katie but I walked a few feet away analyzing the keys. I saw a girl walk up to me meanwhile my head still being down.

"AHH MY BABY!!!" I looked up just as the black haired girl wrapped her arms around my neck tightly. I realized it was Dina, all my tension left. I felt so much better knowing she was going to be here, behind her stood a 6'2 Asian guy and the auburn haired girl. I hadn't seen her in years.

Her hair was shorter, her green eyes more vibrant and her freckles more prominent. She smiled at me putting her hand behind her head, scratching the back of her neck.

"how have you been my love??" Dina asked pulling the man behind her closer up so she could introduce him.

"I've been okay! you? anddd who is this?" I asked smirking.

"I've been great thank you lovey! this is Jesse my boyfriend" she said back raised her eyebrows. I laughed pushing her shoulder just as Katie walked up next to me. She leaned her head on my shoulder, I felt her warm breath hitting my neck. Chills went down my spine, I could feel my thighs getting warm again.

"Oh hey Ellie" Katie said looking at the auburn haired girl. SHIT! that's her name I literally could not remember. "hey katie" she said glancing down at her feet shuffling them around.

"anyways babe I got room 2489, so not THAT far but far enough hah" Katie laughed while dragging me along.

"wait what's your room?" Ellie asked referring to me. I looked at her struggling to make eye contact..."oh uh 3476..."

"no way...that's my room...c'mon I'll show you to it" I followed the girl up to the elevator as Katie and the rest followed. I was assuming Richard and Lila would stay back so they could have a quickie.

"It's just right this way, they told me I was getting a roommate but I thought it was jus' gunna be some random senior" I nodded, Ellie glanced back at me raising an eyebrow at my quiet reply.

She opened the door which had revealed a medium sized room. One of the sides was completely empty aside from a dark oak bedroom set with a small side table. There was a twin sized mattress which I was assumed to be mine.

I placed my box onto the bed taking out my light grey sheets and dark grey comforter, I began placing it onto my bed just as Katie ran over stopping me...

"I got it baby, you just unpack the rest of your shit, 'kay?"

I started unpacking the other tow boxes I had brought in, Jesse and Dina pulled Ellie aside telling her something. i could hear the aggressive whispering as the two left the room. Leaving it to be Katie, Ellie and I. God I'm so uncomfortable.

The room had a small island counter with a stove, a microwave above that; a sink, and a medium sized refrigerator. A door was shut which I was assuming was a bathroom.

Katie had finished making the bed for me, she walked over to me hugging me, "I'm gonna go start unpacking my shit, here is my spare key for when you go get the rest of your stuff. Let's get dinner later, I'll text you around six. Love you" She said to me kissing my cheek.

She waved Ellie a goodbye, walking out the door slamming it shut. Oh shit she was mad mad.

"okay I have to know.....are you guys dating orrrr"

I looked over at Ellie dropping my beaver stuffed animal onto the bed, turning around to face the girl. "no." Was all I said. I didn't feel like explaining but I knew I'd have to eventually. "okay...uh well I gotta go to my girlfriend's so see ya after?"

Aw shit. she had a girlfriend.

I nodded turning back to what I was doing, I had lots to unpack.

an hour later

"fuck man" I said harshly breathing out as I threw my last box onto the floor. I opened it up taking out my last few pairs of jeans placing them into the bins under my bed. I walked over to the drawers on my side of the room opening them hoping for some empty space.

I looked down seeing a large light pink strap-on. I was just about done. I closed the drawers gagging. I quickly pulled out my phone snapping a picture.

"MY BABIESSS"

y/n - why is my roommate a strap-on lesbo.

*one attachment*

lila baby - LMAOAOAOOA BROOOO

katieee my lovey - IM CRYING NOOOOO

richard (dick) - no way GROSS

I laughed turning my phone off. This was going to be hard.

Quite 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲.

Part 2

[darkpoisonouslove]

Fixing Enchantix

Enchantix is the fan favorite transformation from the Winx franchise and while there's a lot to be cherished about it, there are also certain problems. Namely, Tecna and Bloom's ways of earning it. I've always disliked both because they break established rules without any hints that those can be broken. Especially in Bloom's case, the narrative is leaning so hard into her angst over never being able to earn Enchantix because everyone from her planet is gone that at times it even sounds like she mourns her inability to earn the form more than she does the loss of her planet and people. The script completely disregards the fact that Daphne still exists and she's from Domino so there could have been amazing conflict between Valtor, who's trying to destroy the last of Bloom's support system and connection to home, and Bloom, saving her sister's spirit and consciousness from being obliterated by him and thus earning her Enchantix. But that's not what I'm here to talk about as it fixes only the problem with Bloom. Plus, there's a way to do it that adds something to the worldbuilding as well.

Now I wouldn't mind Bloom willing herself into an incomplete Enchantix IF it weren't framed as "uwu Bloom is the most specialest, bestest girl ever and did the impossible just so we can have our cake and eat it, make her the most powerful WInx again and still milk the fact that she's at a disadvantage because her form is unstable". THAT is what is pissing me off. And there was a very easy way to fix that.

Say that anyone could change and advance their magic through their will but it's almost impossible to do. And then show it. Do it with Tecna. She was already convinced she was the only one who could close the portal between Andros and Omega. Take it a step further. Make her believe so hard that she can do this, she can save everyone, that she wills herself into an Enchantix. No one expects it to happen. After all, it's against all the rules; she's not sacrificing herself for a person from her planet. Tecna herself never would've thought she would will herself into an Enchantix here and now or at all. But she's so focused on helping, being the support, saving her friends, and that one-track determination is the very definition of will. Maybe it's not selflessness but is driven by arrogance - it doesn't matter. Her will is strong enough to grant her the actual power to close the portal - her Enchantix. She can use the fairy dust to close it and maybe even try to use it on herself to shrink herself and get out through the shrinking opening between the worlds... and it doesn't work.

Her Enchantix is incomplete; her confidence has failed her despite reshaping reality itself to grant her the transformation. That way you don't mess with Tecna's arc, you make her Enchantix make sense and set up Bloom's Enchantix and its limitations. The Pyros arc would only need minimal changes of Bloom now knowing she CAN earn her Enchantix but because she's focusing on that idea, fixating on it and questioning if it will work for her, too, she can't actually achieve it despite how much she wants it. Then when the Trix show up, she completely forgets everything else but protecting Maya and Pyros and her friends and the universe from them and Valtor and wills herself into an Enchantix. We already know this is possible but also poses limitations on her. There you have it.

And just to make things better, in 3x20 instead of the ridiculous pixie episode that was full-on useless filler, we can focus on Tecna returning home after the Omega near-death experience. She needed some time to get a handle on her emotions and trauma before seeing her parents and she asks the Winx to go with her for moral support. We can see Zenith and Tecna's parents and unpack a little of the psychological damage the experience caused her right before Valtor attacks. We see Tecna ask for help this time because she knows she can't do it alone, especially with her incomplete Enchantix, and because she knows she doesn't have to. She was willing to risk it for Layla's planet and she knows the other are as well. With all of them together, no one has to sacrifice themselves just to achieve success. And then she gets separated from the others and makes the choice to sacrifice herself for a random Zenithian citizen even after what she went through, because of it. She knows she almost died and can't bear the thought of leaving someone else to die if she can help them. Even if it means sacrificing herself. She is only alive because her friends didn't give up on her and came to save her.

And she earns her full Enchantix. This time it was definitely selflessness driving her actions because she knew she'll have to sacrifice and actually lose but she did it anyway. And there's the setup for Bloom completing her Enchantix by saving Daphne in a soul-crushing battle against Valtor in the finale instead of him using the Specialists as hostages. That is his desperate last stand. 3x25 can stay as it is (although I'm sure that could be improved as well but not off the top of my head in the current moment). He's lost his magic, his human form and the Trix. His only thought is to take Bloom and Daphne - the last remnants of Domino - with him. Maybe it's a thought the Ancestral Witches are forcing on him but it's his, too, because that's all that's left. Perhaps he wants to take Bloom's Dragon Fire and destroy it by forcing her to give it up in order to save Daphne. Bloom instead does what she did on the show and absorbs his Dragon Fire but she still can't save Daphne.

Fairy dust isn't working, nothing is working until a thought occurs to Bloom. Daphne gave her the Dragon Fire and sacrificed her life to keep the Ancestral Witches from finding her. Daphne is already dead but she's not gone. Bloom won't let her be gone. She can't bear the thought of being the last person from Domino, a truly lost princess. So she decides to give the Dragon Fire back to Daphne while absorbing whatever magic Valtor used on Daphne (perhaps some curse from the Ancestral Witches, that they MADE him use to drive home the point that he is their puppet in this form). It will kill Bloom without the Dragon Fire, that's for sure, and there's no guarantee Daphne will become corporeal again but Bloom doesn't care. She just wants to save her sister and she does. She completes her Enchantix and there's enough Dragon Fire for both of them. Daphne is not corporeal yet but the Dragon Fire created the whole universe, every ounce of matter, and Bloom has reshaped reality with her will before. Recreating Daphne's body is just a matter of time so that they can go search for their parents together.

Oh, well, I guess I am here to talk about the Daphne situation, after all.

[kurokoros]

If they don't put the stage play on Netflix, what's the point, because I'm from a non English speaking country. How am I supposed to know stuff when that play won't be in our theaters? It takes also so much time to translate it in order to be played. It's stupid, honestly why not give us the information in the actual show? Or make a separate mini series. They just should have given us more episodes within the show, even if they are just "filler" ones. God I hate this so much because I just know as an international fan I keep losing yet again, which makes me upset. Every time someone claims the Duffers are geniuses I have to laugh because did we watch the same show? Stranger things had so much potential, it hurts me physically what they have done, especially to the characters, worldbuilding aside but the way they assassinated 70% of the main characters for action plots is insane to me. Def hard to be a Steve stan when we get nothing each season.

I'm not a huge fan of any secondary media for works of fiction that have direct tie-ins to the primary media. Like, a huge part of why I refuse to get into the MCU is because it's basically impossible to enjoy later films without having watched everything else.

With Stranger Things I think it would be fine to do tie-in media that's part of a shared universe, but has absolutely nothing to do with the Hawkins characters. Because why the hell do we need a prequel about Hopper and Joyce? In stage play format? When nothing sci-fi has happened in Hawkins yet?

S4 was an absolutely shitty attempt at trying to tie everything into a nice big bow with Vecna/Henry/One and I absolutely hated it. Like, wow Duffers you introduced three new characters with mystery backgrounds??? Obviously they're all the same fucking person. And now we need a prequel about Hopper, Joyce, and Henry Creel? I'm already mad about the Creel murder retcon because a huge part of S1 was how Hawkins is a small town where nothing bad happens, and then the town is suddenly bombarded with missing person's cases (and a suicide that doesn't make sense), and the Duffers directly took away from that premise when they threw in a mysterious family murder that no one mentioned for three seasons.

I'm not even going to talk about the stage play anymore. I'm not going to watch it purely on principle because I can't think of a worse waste of time than a tie-in stage play. Like... we know what happened with the last stage play tie-in to a major franchise.

I'm just pissed about how far Stranger Things has fallen from S1 and S2. The early seasons actually focused on the characters and their trauma. Now everyone is a caricature with a vague semblance of personality, the worldbuilding is inconsistent, and the plotlines are horrible. I know some people think Stranger Things is slow-paced and somewhat boring, but I really do wish there was more filler to fully flesh out the characters. They could even add more action to the filler. Win-win.

I haven't trusted the Duffers' writing since S3 when they did that to Hopper. I also don't like the way they made Steve into kind of a loser. blah blah blah people will argue that it makes him endearing because the internet loves pathetic wet men, but there's a clear shift between S1-2 Steve and S3 Steve specifically, and the shift is that they made him stupid and took his charisma out back and shot it because they're insecure nerds who hate jocks.

The Duffer Brothers don't have teeth. Regardless of what they say, they aren't willing to make bold choices with their storytelling. They aren't willing to flesh out their characters more, or delve into their trauma. They aren't willing to make the world--the Upside Down--a real threat to the characters, because that means raising the stakes and needing to come up with more clever solutions to the plot than "El screams at the monster until it dies".

Regardless, I'm not watching the stage play. I'm only watching S5 because I still want to see how the story wraps up, but I'm not going to hold my breath about it being good.

[cecebookworm07]

Edit: Rereading this now you can so tell that I’m half asleep. I type like I’m ten when I’m half asleep. I’ll just edit this in the morning when I can actually understand what I’m typing and thinking. :)

What I learned from my most recent rereading and annotations of the first KOLTC book in no particular order:

- Fitz and Sophie’s first encounter is so much funnier than I remember OH MY GOD

- Dex and Sophie are really adorable together in the “two silly best friends” kind of way in the beginning

- Dex pissed me off when there fight happens. Like bro, she’s losing the people who she was CONVINCED we’re going to be adopting her but noooooo focus on the fact that she might be adopted by the Vackers just cus you don’t like them. Believe me, after Flashback I haven’t been a fan and if I was an elf in that world I would hate them too, but STILL. You keep that to yourself in that instance.

- This whole book I just kept thinking about the fact that Sophie is midway through an adoption and Rayni has already been abandoned and forgotten. Yikes.

- The first time we’re introduced to Oralie I wrote, “First mother daughter meeting.” on the top of the page.

- I realized after being forced to basically highlight 75% of the pages that this book is 100% pure set up.

- Honestly underrated. I perfer the more recent books but MY GOD if Grady and Edaline didn’t have my heart in this book (there my next point)

- I skim read this book for fan fic reasons a lot and I tend to skip over the whole adoption debacle on one hand because it likely won’t play a part in the fan fic but also because I don’t have the emotional strength to read that. I literally started balling my eyes out midway through chapter 39 even though I knew everything would be okay in the end.

- Grady and Edaline. Just them being tragic and compelling af in this book. Like honestly there relationship and relation to Sophie in this book are SO well written. Criticize this series all you want, but some of these platonic relationships hit like truck.

- My dumb dumb brain never put together the significance behind the three original councilors to meet her. Brontë: Suspected dad for a book, later close mentor. Kenric: Honsstk idk, I thought he was a mystery after Unlocked but he just got more mysterious after Stellarlune I swear. Oralie: … Mom…

- Keefe isn’t that important in this and it kind of hurts.

- At this point in the series SoFitz was 100% Endgame.

- If I was at Foxfire, my favorite subject would 100% be history (thought it’d be 75% propaganda) and the universe.

- Telepathy is overrated

- This world is aristocratic and that’s just so funny to me.

- Biana is so bad in this book OMG. And honestly so is Alden. The twist at the ending. Horrible.

- Marcua and Stina are legit awful in this book too regardless of there later redemption.

- I can’t pick between any of the abilities I would want so oh well. There’s to many.

- Iggy is the real hero of this series

- The councils apology to Sophie at the end of the series is honestly both funny and horrible. Like they basically said, “Sorry that you were stalked, kidnapped, and tortured right under our noses but we’ll do better next time. Consider that your official punishment for saving the world! (Plus promise we’ll catch them!)”

- 8 books and one novella later and no one has been caught.

Anyway, book one was fun and all but mostly I was just thinking about how much of it was set up. Like seriously. Almost EVERYTHING was set up.

[yandere-daze]

hi i just found your blog and i read like,, everything in your enstars yandere masterlist 😭 but i was afraid to leave likes and reblogs cause i read that doing that makes the algorithm think you're botting your posts or something like that? if it doesnt im going to go back and like everything because they were so good 😔

anyway this isnt a request and i just wanted to bounce around this idea in your head but like this is an imagine the self aware yandere au because reading it got me thinking how itd work out with my history with enstars 🫡

so like i was a fan of enstars since its like 3rd anniv cause i saw some photos of ryuseitai and i was like "haha these guys look so goofy and cute" which then translated into two years of fervently saving fanart of ryuseitai (but especially chiaki and midori 😭) though i never actually played the game all that properly since it was in japanese and i didnt really know where to find tls yet

then came engstars and i was finally like "omg i can finally understand chiaki" cause i had a phone that could actually run it at that time but when i played the game i instantly just swerved to hiiro ,, like he was the one i picked for the starter pull and he was and still is my favorite and most collected character (i got his vermillion card in like 12 hours 😭)

anyway going on to the actual self aware au thing wouldnt it be kind of funny to see the "original" cast members of enstars just see their beloved reader not even give them a glance, just completely focused on the new units and characters??

like some of them would be so pissed it would be downright terrifying, some would be so heartbroken (sorry chiaki) because they thought you loved them most of all??? and you just know some of the more obsessive ones would not take that disrespect lying down 💀💀

anyway thats all! i know my experience isnt exactly universal so i get it if you cant relate to it at all! i really just wanted to get the idea out there

First of all thank you so much, I'm really happy to hear that you like my yandere enstars writing!! 😊

As for your question, I'd really appreciate leaving likes and especially reblogs on my works as it shows that people actually like what I'm putting out there! Staying silent and lurking is not going to give creators any feedback so it might make them think that their works aren't really appreciated or that no one really cares about them. It's very unmotivating to have zero comments or reblogs with tags on your writing ( made worse if the post actually has a good amount of likes because it just means only around 1% of all people reading your writing though it was good enough to hit a single button to support you :/)

Silent readers and lurkers don't do anything for creators and just take our work for granted which is why I often block people that follow me that haven't reblogged anyone's writing before.

I'd definitely appreciate it if you went back to reblog my works because it shows that people care and it feels good ^^ For me, the main issue I have with spam-liking is if you do that and then reblog or comment on a single post. Because it obviously shows that you liked my writing enough to immediately read everything there is of it but not enough to want to support me :/

Sorry to go onto a rant in this post, it's not really directed at you in particular or anything like that!

As for your question for the self-aware AU, I'm actually not taking any new asks for that AU right now so you won't get a very in-depth reply for this, sorry!

But Chiaki would probably be very sad about that, thinking that he must work harder to regain your approval!

Something kind of similar actually happened to me because I chose Rei as my starter card in jp and now I'm not really much of a ReiP at all and instead chose Shu for my starter card on en ejej

[phlistopher]

Change of Blood

I wrote a humor column in college for the Hofstra Chronicle under the pseudonym Silence Doless, a nod to Benjamin Franklin I didn't come up with.

I was very proud of this work at the time. It's all very Hofstra specific, and the mid 2000s. Against my better judgement, I've decided to republish the series here.

This is the seventh cringe article, originally printed December 7th, 2007. Commentary at the end.

Last week I challenged University President Stuart Rabinowitz to a duel. The rules were simple: no lasers, no cheating and no wimping out. I waited patiently at the designated place and time, yet Rabinowitz failed to show, thus breaking two of the agreed-upon rules. I’m sure he would have broken all three if it were possible to fight with lasers while cheating and chickening out. This could have been because I said the meeting place was at the quad, and apparently there’s more than one on campus (why didn’t anyone inform me of this?! I’m looking at you, editors). That, or maybe our president is a lily-livered, yellow-bellied, pants-wetting wiener. Whatever the case may be, I hereby decide that his conduct was dishonorable. As punishment, I shall ignore him for the rest of the column.

Have you ever wanted to be something, or someone, you’re not? Have you ever thought, “Oh, if I was only this other person or had these certain attributes, everything would work out for me”? Perhaps you imagine yourself as a famous actor, thinking, “Wow, if only I was Danny DeVito my life would be great!”

Personally, I’ve always wanted to be Native American. Why, you may ask? Because it’s badass. Think of the perks. You could walk to the front of any line in the country and if anyone gives you guff just say, “I was here first!” Guaranteed to work every time. Also, you can have a lot of fun with scalping puns outside concert venues. And by “a lot of fun” I mean “have a lot of people pissed at you.” If this happens, just scalp them (by which I mean sell them a ticket…to an Atlanta Braves game! The fans will do the rest).

Native American culture is also very rich, heavily emphasizing a symbiosis with nature which has been all but lost in today’s hyper-developed society. With all these benefits, there must be a catch, right? I mean, why wouldn’t you want to become Native American?

The truth is, there is no catch. The hard part is actually changing your ethnicity. Hard, yes, but impossible? Quite possibly. But I for one am not ready to give up. What is the most essential element of ethnic identity? That’s right, blood. If blood denotes brotherhood, motherhood, sisterhood and Hepatitis C, it can damn well denote ethnicity-hood. All the clichés about blood being thicker than water affirm that this is true.

So in light of this, I propose a startling new medical operation to swap the ethnicities of two people through blood transfusions. With said blood transfusions you could exchange blood with a person of the desired ethnicity; in this case a Native American. If your doctor had a high powered compressor you could transfer large quantities of blood at a time, making it possible to become as much as half Cherokee in a single visit! Of course, you’d have to find a full-blooded Cherokee willing to become half “Crazy blood-lusting whacko wannabe.” But this is in the future, my friends. This is a future where everyone can be whatever, and whomever they want (especially Danny DeVito), whenever they want (especially 10 years ago).

Critics may argue that this is nonsense. “Why can’t people just be satisfied with who they are?” they may ask, “Besides, the technology for blood transfusions is still decades away.”

Sometimes I think they’re right. Sometimes I think, “We’re all 99.9 percent the same genetic material, what’s the difference anyway?” Then I realize that that is just the Apes talking, who would have us believe that we share 98 percent of our genetics with them. Convincing us of this would enable them to infiltrate our society, posing as Rogaine test patients (or Robin Williams) and from there, take over the world giving them free reign to finally achieve their ultimate goal: sinking the Statue of Liberty into the beach.

I would be extremely mad at those damn dirty Apes if I didn’t want to be one so bad. Man, if I was a gorilla I’d kick Rabinowitz’s ass! Those dishonorable walls won’t hide you from my 12 pound fists, shorty!

And now I’ve broken my own ignoring rules. That’s okay, at least I didn’t wimp out.

As the person who wrote this, even I have to say this is really hard to follow. Plus, even more importantly, it’s not clear enough that I’m the butt of the joke with becoming Native American, and the whole thing is again just sweaty and gross. Why am I republishing these?

[livewireprojects]

Old Sally Acorn stuff(Lost Prince AU)(I'm sorry for my rambling)

I confess that I barely know Sally, I didn't grow up with the show she was in.(I saw Sonic X, a little bit of Sonic Underground & like two episodes of that Sonic cartoon with the robot monkey sidekick of Robotnik) The first time I heard about Sally is from Sally.EXE when I was maybe in middle school & I think it made me think she was a fan character. Looking back on stuff I use to watch someone who had a Sonic fan character who was a pink version of Sally in a red vest & boots.

I also want to mention again I never read the comics past one chapter of the one that introduces Lara(Knuckles's daughter) & a comic book I got. Even then any parts of the comic I saw focused on Lara's life & going to prom, anything past that I didn't get a chance to see. The comic also was all about Shadow(I think it was called Sonic Universe: Shadow Saga), Sally was never in it & funny enough has a preview of Lara.(It also has a really funny image of a pissed off Shadow thanks to Marine confessing something she did) Admittedly a few years back I learned a little more & saw some stuff due to Dillin Thomas(I don't watch him anymore) & just by chance especially when I went looking stuff up for comic characters I learned about & looked up so I could add them in to my stuff.

Sorry for my rambling but the point is that I don't exactly have any strong feelings about her(as a fan) like I would with other characters like Sonic or Cosmo. She's mostly here cause I got inspiration from my boyfriend mentioning her in one of our Sonic RPs that kind of incorporated my Lost Prince stuff for no reason.

I'm planning to rework Sally & Sally(jr) because when I first made a post about them on DA I made a large mistake. The mistake being I fucked up my math cause I forgot how fucking long 50 years can be.(Or in my reworking of shit 40 years)

For context Sally in my Lost Prince AU & the freedom fighters(I had to look some shit up) are in my version of Sonic Underground having gone to help the resistance against Robotnik. This is 40+ years in the past so if Sonic were to meet her again she would be older.

The second Sally is meant to be her descendant in modern Sonic time. The error I made comes from calling her Sally's great granddaughter. Going off the how far back the events of Sonic Underground were at best Sally Jr would be Sally's granddaughter or maybe daughter depending on how much time passed.

I didn't think about how much time passed so it looked really weird without adding time travel.(Ignore Blaze & Sliver for this) So thanks to that I need to figure things out.

Here is Sally back during Sonic Underground & Sally Jr as she is in present day. Sally is based off the design were she was in nothing but a vest & boots while Sally Jr is based on her redesign for the comics. There's extra clothes cause I don't really draw characters naked a lot & I can't draw Sonic characters like a normal person.

I'll try to fix things at a later point when I've worked things out.

Below is the summary for Sally & Sally Jr(I honestly don't know why I named her that past the idea her parents decided to name her after her great grandma), I'm putting it under a keep reading cause I feel like I've rambled too much as it is.

Just a heads up the summaries also involve spoilers for my Lost Prince stuff & also mentions Mephiles for my butterfly effect stuff.(Who is still part of my Lost Prince stuff) The Mephiles stuff might end up scrapped because I put stuff back to the original time. What I mean is the project that made him was 10 years in the past but for some reason early in I had the idea that something caused the project that made him to happen far enough in the past that when he started traveling he was able to be part of the Sonic Underground stuff.

Just a lot more stuff I need to work on... I'm not looking forward to doing homework.

Sally(left):

Sally was the princess who's family is allies with Sonic's, she & some of her family went to Christmas Island to help Aleena & the resistance against Robotnik. She met Sonic & his siblings along with Knuckles & Mephiles by chance which was lucky as her family could make sure the triplets had support when the family knew they were heading somewhere. While she would help Sonic some, she & Knuckles were at ends due to Knuckles being suspicious of her at first but calmed down after being stuck together on a mission, she even helped him & Sonic when Sonic broke up with him due to something the hedgehog blames himself over. Sally went on to help the council put in place of the royal hdgehog family while Aleena, Sonia & Manic were gone & made sure Knuckles was ok while in stasis. Sally would eventually return to the mainland & take the throne but would secretly be in charge of the Hidden Knights Aleena put together as they searched for Sonic.

Sally was a strong willed person that wanted to help out, she preferred to do things on her own terms & got irritated when things didn't work out. She's mostly calm but can get annoyed easily, if she snaps it's out of concern such as if someone attempted to go fight in the rebellion even though they had a broken arm. Even though she was little head strong & trying to be a leader she'd make sure people had support when they needed it especially if it was emotional support, she had seen enough to know how to be a good listener.

Sally(right):

Sally is the great grand daughter of the Sally from the war against Robotnik on Christmas Island around 50 years ago, her family has told her stories of it with her father & what little she remembers of her great grandma always talking about a blue hedgehog that helped but disappeared. Her family's interest in the triplets(especially Sonic) has lead to her being curious about the blue hedgehog that she often sees keeping places in the kingdom safe. Aside from Eggman the kingdom is mostly at peace which has given her time to go on adventures & travel when not studying to be the next in line for the throne.

While it's a little annoying at times she's pretty much the spitting image(is that term spelled right?) of her great grandma as a teen & has traits from her as well. She only got to meet her some as a kid & some of her memories are foggy due to being upset about when she finally died & not liking to think about it. Like her great grandma she is strong willed, she's a little bit of a free spirit but knows when to make time for her duties as the heir to the throne. While not as experienced as the Sally before her due to not living in a time of war she's still capable of being a leader & fighter when needed.

[hopeandmanymilestogo]

the most unrealistic thing about metalocalypse is dethklok releasing blazing star and half their fans not throwing a hissy fit over their sound being different from their first album

[musclesandhammering]

Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

[drasin]

Welcome to the BlaCage Week July 2022!

I made this to help myself get back to writing in a more enjoyable way. But I also invite anyone interested and willing to participate!

Any form of fanwork will be accepted: fanfiction, fanart, video edits, moodboards, etc.

To make it easier to find all the works, tag each one with #blacageweek2022 Also feel free to tag me (@drasin), if you want me to reblog your post!

I would love to see more works with that ship done by you!

Rules & dictionary are listed under the cut:

Rules:

There are no requirements for length, size, etc. of the work.

Each day there is one main lead trope as well as three prompts to choose from. You can use just one prompt, or all three for any given day!

The work cannot be old, it must be new created for this week.

No need to sign up. Just use the tags and tag me if you want your work to be reblogged!

At the beginning, mark what day it is, what main trope it has and what prompts you have chosen.

You can participate as much or as little as you want/can; you do not have to make a work for every day or prompt.

If necessary, use page breaks to shorten long works/posts

Tag all NSFW works as such, and keep NSFW content below a page break

Any work that is not properly tagged in terms of NSFW or potentially triggering content, will not be reblogged, until the tags and/or warnings are added

If your work is not reblogged within 48 hours, please DM me and let me know (we all know how Tumblr tags can be)

Have fun!

Dictionary:

(If you don't know the meaning of a particular trope/prompt. Of course there are many approaches and solutions, this is just a general explanation to know where to go.)

Trope meaning:

Slice Of Life: A cast of characters go about their daily lives, making observations and being themselves.

First Time: Cause characters to experience something they have never experienced before (ever or with a particular person) such as first: kiss, date, feeling something, doing something ect.

Angst: That is dark and depressing, often in which characters suffer from lost, not being able to be together or unrequited love.

Hurt Comfort: One character being sick/injured/generally worried about something, and someone else taking care of them and helping them; could also be an argument, etc. Generally have a happy ending.

Fluff: A lot of light-hearted, wholesome, or even heartwarming interactions going on.

In Vino Veritas: Confessions under the influence of drink, drugs, truth serum, truth spell or the like. One character confesses to something for another character.

Meet Cute: Two people who will form a future romantic couple meet for the first time, typically under unusual, humorous, or cute circumstances.

Meet Ugly: The logical opposite of meet cute, where they meet for the first time, accompanied by problems, misunderstandings and an initial dislike of each other.

Alternative Universe: is a setting for a work that departs from the canon of the fictional universe that the fan work is based on e.g: (fantsy AU, crime AU, Modern AU, Coffee Shop AU... ect.)

Prompts meaning:

workplace - We focus our attention on what is happening in the place where our characters work. This may simply relate to the setting of our story or it may relate to the relationship the characters have with each other in that particular environment and how that affects them and the reactions of their co-workers.

age gap - Where one character in a ship is much younger than the other. So we pay attention to what comes with it and how big deal it is for them.

holiday - We choose any holiday and put our characters there. Will they spend it together? Will it mean anything to them? Does something important happen then?

angry kiss - That furious kiss that happens when two people who are utterly pissed at each other and arguing grab each other and kiss sloppily, intensely and a little bit aggressively.

benefits - When the two characters make some kind of deal with each other or spend time together for mutual benefits. Also friends/enemies with benefits overly sexual. It can also be just one side taking advantage of the other without the other side knowing, or simply getting benefits involuntarily.

lost bet - One character loses a pre-arranged bet and faces the consequences of his failure.

amnesia - One or more characters lose their memory. Generally, the plot will then be formed around the repercussions - how the character deals with it, how characters around them deal with it, the quest to retrieve the lost memories, or coming to terms with the loss.

holding hands - A simple physical activity at which we focus on how they do it, under what circumstances, whether they do it willingly or perhaps ashamed, and how others react to it.

being carried - Whether on their arms or the piggyback. How did they happen to be doing this and how they feel about it.

bed sharing - Two characters one bed. Is this the bedroom of one of them? Or maybe a hotel? They wanted to be together or it's a mistake, are they forced? That and everything in between.

time loop - One or more characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition.

miscommunication - When a misunderstanding between characters plays a big part in the plot. Creates problems, or even the opposite.

fake dating - When two people act like they're in a relationship for social gain or because of a situation that forced them into it. The main purpose is to throw the characters together in extended proximity and then explore the hidden, or not so hidden, feelings that develop.

jealousy - angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has ora a sad feeling caused by the belief that someone you love likes or is liked by someone else

trapped together - Two characters are stuck together for an extended period of time, and romance blooms. It could be some place like a room or a tight closet or a situation that forces them to stay together.

injury - Someone is injured, it could be serious or harmless. What is important is how the other person reacts to it, whether they worried, if they helped. Or even whether they're the cause of it, by accident or not.

blind date - A set date between two people who have never met before. Usually, however, it comes out that they know each other, so the focus is on how they will react and whether they are willing to continue it.

undercover - Working in secret, using false identity and disguise to gain access to information.

If you have any other question feel free to DM me!

[deniigi]

hi I have something for y’all called a disaster.

I wrote an Inimitable!Spiderman/Modern Star Wars AU because no one can stop me, not even myself. it is like 47 pages long. I am handing it tenderly to y’all.

--------------

Title: impossible scenario

Summary: Peter runs into some drunk assholes arguing, calling each other Han and Luke. He lets it roll off him until he can’t anymore and eventually finds himself for the first time on the other side of someone more chaotic than himself.

------------

There was an argument happening under a fire escape. Peter knew about it because a concerned dude wearing a fuckin’ Yankees cap had flagged him down with waving arms and told him that someone needed saving, Spiderman. Some tall asshole was kidnapping a young blond dude, the guy  and his too-cool-for-him girlfriend explained. They’d heard the two scuffling.

Peter maybe stared for a beat too long at them because the gal pointed two blocks behind him and said, “That way. I think the blond guy might be drugged. He’s slurrin’ something strong.”

Peter liked her shoes. They looked like Miles’s, but blue.

“Spidey?”

Miles told Peter all the time that he wasn’t cool enough to wear Jordans. MJ and Johnny had agreed. Such sad times.

“Spidey.”

“I got it,” Peter sighed.

The gal tsked.

“Man, you’re too young to be this jaded,” she said.

Peter sighed.

“You’re the third person to say that this week,” he said. “You think I should go back to therapy?”

There was a pause.

“You know that answer, dude,” cool-gal said. “Go save the twink.”

Twink. Got it. Thank you, citizen.

“There are websites for that shit, Spidey.”

Bye now.

“Apps, even.”

Bye, bye.

“BetterHelp or Headspace or somethin’—”

“Two blocks, you said?” Peter asked.

 --

 Two blocks away, there was indeed a man with dark hair trying to lift a violently intoxicated twink up onto the first steps of a fire escape. Peter examined his options. There were many ways to ruin a potential kidnapper’s day. His favorite involved coke and mentos, although he’d received feedback that that was a waste of perfectly good food. Down the list was also the option to walk over and scream bloody murder so that the kidnapper shat themselves and dropped their target.

That was good, but Peter was tired and the thought of mustering up the energy to scream at a noticeable volume made his thighs turn to Jell-o.

That left snark and violence.

Today, he would not choose violence. Only for today.

He strode out of his dark temporary residence between two dumpsters directly towards the tall dude and his mark. The mark was a messy one. Bless his heart, he was unwittingly making himself the most noncompliant victim to have ever victim-ed. Every time the tall guy got him almost vertical, he gave up his corporeal form to become drunk slime and ooze back to the ground with various moaning sound effects.

It would have been funny if not for the kidnapping context.

The fact that Peter had been standing there under the beams of two separate side-building security lights and neither of those two had noticed yet was also objectively funny—or would have been, if Peter had the capacity for processing humor at the moment.

Alas. This was what he got for telling Tony that he’d evolved beyond the need for sleep. He got caffeine-pilled. And there would be no true rest until that shit wore off, exhausted as Peter’s body yearned to be.

“Kid, work with me here,” the tall guy said.

“I can’t, I’ll die,” the shorter one moaned.

“Luke.”

“I’ve done my time—thirty years in AZKA—”

“Keep your voice down, oh my god.”

Peter was just standing here, fellas.

“Luke.”

“Why’s it always me? Why’s it always gotta be me? The hell did I do to piss off the whole galax-galaxy? HA. My bad, my bad. The whole universe?”

God, what a mood.

The tall guy dropped his grip on the smaller one and loomed over his puddle of ooze with poison in his gaze.

“People are going to die, Luke,” he said.

“So what? They’re always dyin’. Everywhere I go, people’re dyin’ and when it’s not them dyin’, you know who is?”

“Kid.”

“ME.”

“So you’re just gonna wallow there, feelin’ sorry for yourself?” the tall dude snapped.

“Sure am,” the puddle of ooze hummed.  

This was not a kidnapping. This was a come-to-Jesus in the back alley of a bar. Peter was not needed here. He turned around on his heel and stopped when he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Is that?” someone whispered.

“Don’t mind me, pal, just your friendly neighborhood—” he started.

“Look what you did,” Tall and Handsome hissed at Ooze-Man. “Someone went and called Spiderman on us.”

Peter lifted a brow as Ooze-man ripped its chest up from the asphalt and composed itself back into a human shape with fluffy blonde hair and huge wide eyes.

“Omigod, it’s Spiderman,” the guy said. “Wait, no. Gimme a hand. No, not that one, fuck off, nevermind, I don’t need you.”

He drew himself up to standing, only leaning slightly on his buddy there and gave Peter as lopsided smile.

“Hi, there,” he said with a twang that Peter couldn’t place. “Were you lookin’ for someone, handsome?”

Ah, they had reached the time of night when all the drunks needed to tell Peter things he already knew about his ass. He loved this time.

Not to mention that this dude looked eerily like Johnny. Scarily like Johnny. So much like Johnny that Peter almost wanted to take a picture of him to send to Sue so that she could print up some lost and found posters.

“Just lookin’ at you, babe,” he said. “This guy botherin’ you?”

The tall guy blanched and then grabbed at his face in horror. Peter swallowed his laugh.

“He sure is, hon. You got time to rescue me?” Blondie crooned.

“Luke, please. Please.”

“Because I’m in real distress,” ‘Luke’ said with a pout mighty enough to fell Thor.

“You sure seem like it,” Peter said. “C’mere. I’ll walk you home. Leave that tool, he ain’t worth your breath.”

He held out an elbow like proper gentleman and was pleased at the hand that Luke laid over his heart in response.

Peter could imagine Johnny’s face in six different expression of jealous horror at a selfie taken with this look-alike. Each was beautiful in its own special way. As payment for being referred to counseling by the public, he at least deserved to receive at least two of those faces.

“You mean that?” Luke asked him.

“He doesn’t,” his tall companion said.

“I sure do, where do you live? I’ll walk you,” Peter said.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna cry, he’s gonna escort me,” Luke said, all choked up and fanning his eyes lightly.

This tall friend grabbed him before he could escape, though, and pulled him back behind his own body.

“Listen, Spidey, this is a misunderstanding,” he drawled. “I know this idiot—he is technically my idiot— and I’m the one escorting his ass home. Thanks, though. You’re a real menace. Beat it.”

MMMMMMM.

And here Peter had been planning on being jaded and miserable this fine night. How could he now when this dude was ticking every box that made him feel alive?

“What’s your name, dollface?” Peter asked across the short distance.

“None of your business,” Tall Guy answered abruptly.

“Luke,” Luke said around him. “Are you gonna save me?”

“In just a minute,” Peter said, striding forward with a hard roll in his shoulder and deep drop in his knees.

It was amazing how Tall Guy wanted to take some steps back all of the sudden. Peter couldn’t help but let a smirk widen his face as he advanced.

“Okay, hang on now,” Tall Guy said with both palms out in front of him. “You don’t know what this is about, Spidey. You don’t want to get involved with this, trust me. He’s just bein’ dramatic. No need to get testy.”

“You sure do a lot of talkin’ for your friend there,” Peter noted through his grin.

“Yeah, Han,” Luke said.

Ha.

Han. Han and Luke. Ned was gonna be enraptured when Peter told him about this later.

“Luke. Back me up.”

“Why should I?”

“Because,” ‘Han’ finally snapped. “I’m not doin’ this because I want you to suffer, alright? I don’t want nothin’ to do with it either, okay? No one does. But it’s this or—”

“Or everyone else,” Luke finished for him in a strangely toneless voice.

Han sighed.

“It’s always everyone else,” Luke said.

“Not here.”

“Why’s it always everyone el—No, no, here. Why not? We’ve got fucking Spiderman in our midst, how much more surreal can this moment get? No. You listen to me, Han—”

“I’ve been listening to you all damn evening and you know what I’m hearing?”

“—I lost my life for this. I lost my home, my aunt, my uncle, my hand—”

“I’m hearing you making this about you.”

“—everything I ever knew, and I tried to make it right, didn’t I? I made the school. I gathered the kids—”

“And it’s not just about you this time, kid. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, or Leia, or Chewie or—”

“—I lost my kid and the love of my life, and I finally get a second chance at finding them and giving them the goddamn happy ending they deserve, and the next thing I know—”

“Luke, you’re the only one,” Han said.

“I WAS NEVER. THE ONLY. ONE, HAN,” Luke roared out of absolutely nowhere, sober as a saint. “I was never the only one. EVER. Ahsoka. Go find her. She’s everything that I’m not and more. She’s the real—”

“Luke.”

“Stop saying that name. I HATE that name. I would do anything for twenty goddamn seconds where I didn’t have to be him.”

“You don’t mean that,” Han said quietly. His shoulders had rounded out and become black and heavy under the weight of their shadow. Luke’s eyes, however, looked like topaz.

“I mean it,” Luke said.

Oho.

So shit had gotten real tense, real fast, so Peter about to make a decision that was gonna make Shelley so proud of him she would weep when he finally slunk back in through her office door.

He was leaving. He was turning around and taking a wee jog. Maybe turning a corner, having a little jump over a fence, up a wall, to a place as far away from this one as superhumanly possible.

Bye, bye.

“This galaxy needs you, Luke.”

Peter stopped five paces away.

“They need you,” Han repeated. “And I need you.”

Peter slowly looked back to see that Luke’s face had twisted sharply out of the light, towards the alley wall.

“I’m sorry that we met again like this,” Han said quietly. “I’m sorry it’s always you. You don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.”

“Shut up,” Luke said.

“But if you don’t do something, then it won’t be just me and you and all these random others sliding back into that cesspit we all barely crawled out of.”

“Stop.”

“You’ll never find him if things go back the way they were.”

“You—you don’t know that. There—maybe—”

“Luke. Listen to me. Please.”

“Maybe there’s a chance—”

“Luke,” Han said reaching out and putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder and clenching it hard enough that Peter should see the bunched fabric, “Do you want Din to live through this shitshow a second time? Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

Peter shivered. The pressure at the base of his neck was building. The Spidey Sense wanted to hiss in his ears like white noise. It pinned him where he was, staring over his shoulder at those two solid shapes, one digging a hand into the flesh of the other.

His stomach turned.

Luke said something that Peter couldn’t hear. Han pulled him toward his own body by the grip he had on his shoulder. At first, Luke seemed to stagger, like he was walking on black ice. He stopped a single step away from Han’s body, still with his face angled severely away. Han said something to him.

There was a long pause, then Luke seemed to fall forward. Han caught him and crushed his head into his shoulder, lowering his own until it was almost touching Luke’s ear. They clung to each other.

Luke was crying.

The Spidey Sense started to crackle and pop in Peter’s ears.

“I gotchu, kid,” Han said in a rasp. “I gotchu. We’re gonna get through it.”

Peter blinked once and finally unlocked the muscles in his neck. He wasn’t meant to witness this. He held out a wrist and fired a line.

  --

It was weird.

It was just weird.

Something wasn’t right. And Peter couldn’t make his stomach not writhe about it.

Luke.

Han.

An offhand mention of like, characters. Character names. They were character names. Leia, Chewie.

Peter had heard of people who lived their lives honestly believing that they had been other people—fake people—in past lives, but like, damn man. Why would you put yourself in a position like that were you were moved to actual tears for some elaborate street-drama?

Maybe it had been a joke? That was the only thing he could think it could be. Maybe the universe had gazed upon his hubris at work and gone ‘ah yes, I know what this young man needs: emotional confusion at midnight on a Thursday. That’ll fix him.’

If that was the case, then yeah. Good job, universe. Good job, larpers. Y’all are equally sick.

But if not—and Peter no longer lived in a world where he could rule out any possibilities—then he had just witnessed—Dude, he’d just witnessed—

He couldn’t even think it. It was beyond him. It was so far beyond him that like he might have a real stroke taking the thought seriously.

There was only one person who could hold that kind of information unscathed.

Only one.

  --

PP: Ned. I need you to listen to me and tell me I’m not crazy.

NL: no promises but go on

PP: I think? I just saw? Luke Skywalker? And Han Solo? In an alley behind Kitty’s?????

NL: fascinating

JS: Say more

PP: who let you in here?

JS: you?

PP: SECURITY

NL: Peter say more

PP: I can’t there’s a nerd in here and it’s vibrating at the wrong decibel. SECURITY???

MJ: yeah?

PP: I’m trying to have a breakdown. Can you remove Matchstick please?

MJ: what kind of breakdown

JS: he thinks he met Luke Skywalker

PP: Security has failed me. God?

NL: Peter can you name three things you can see.

PP: I am not manic. I am in touch with reality. I’m just having anxiety because I just fucking saw two people calling each other Luke and Han fighting behind Kitty’s. Like real fighting.

JS: nicknames?

PP: I—

PP: oh my god nicknames

PP: Johnny I’m so sorry I ever doubted you. never leave my side

JS: 😊

MJ: wow that’s cringe. Imagine naming yourself after SW characters

NL: does kitty do a cosplay night now????

PP: idk it was wild. People thought that ‘Han’ was trying to kidnap ‘Luke’ but when I got over there, Luke started flirting with me and then shit got real and they started arguing over like him hating his name and not wanting to do something and losing everything or some shit

NL: that’s a lot. I’m sure it was nothing, though, peter.

PP: yeah it was. My SS has been going nuts ever since I left. You think they bugged me?

JS: yes I will come search your body imminently

MJ: my job storm, back off

JS: after MJ has finished prelim checks, I will then search your body for you out of the kindness of my heart ❤

NL: that’s weird, the SS doesn’t usually freak out about cosplayers

PP: ikr?

NL: lol imagine if they were serious

MJ: don’t say that

JS: well now we have to lean in. thanks ned

JS: they were definitely real. God they were so real. You hear that Fate? You got us. They’re definitely real.

PP: BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE?

MJ: cue breakdown

NL: that would be so fucking funny. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo trying to save the world from the hellscape of nyc. The rats alone would thwart them.

PP: ned I’m freaking out

NL: oh you mean you’re actually freaking out?

PP: deeply

NL: oh shit sorry. I’ll be over, have you slept yet?

PP: NO

MJ: on it

JS: can I join?

NL: no johnny

MJ: no johnny

PP: 😭

JS: one day our love will build a bridge, peter. In the meantime I am stroking your ear comfortingly from midtown

  --

Need and MJ’s weight pinning him to a mattress brought sleep but not necessarily comfort. They both thought that this was a sick joke someone had played on him that was now destroying his psyche. They thought that the couple pointing him back towards the cosplayers had been in on the joke.

Peter would have agreed with them if it wasn’t for the Spidey Sense. Everything else lined up perfectly.

Ned sighed in the morning and told Peter to go talk to Wade.

 --

 Wade’s hallucinations were, by far, more auditory than visual, but he stayed quiet while Peter talked his ear off over the phone in his locked office. He waited until Peter had run out of words to describe the feeling of impending doom and then huffed a bit of a laugh into the receiver.

“Them Star Wars people are unreal, Pete, you know this,” he said. “Look at Ned.”

Ned was perfect.

“Take off those rosy shades, hon. Now, look again.”

Ned had perhaps memorized the entire scripts of the first three movie and 90% of the spaceship names and the jedi lineages.

“Uh-huh. Keep going.”

Peter didn’t want to.

“We all gotta do shit we don’t want do.”

Fine.

Ned’s goal in life was to go to his wedding in a stormtrooper suit.

“Keep going.”

Every Lego project they’d built together since 13 years-old had been a Star Wars-related one. When Ned had decided to move out of his parents’ place, he’d shed actual tears over MJ and Peter mutually suggesting that he sell some of his memorabilia.

“Will this delightful buffet before our very eyes, what is the likelihood of your two pals being drunk larpers in too deep to quit?” Wade asked.

73%.

“Uh-huh.”

“Thanks, Wade.”

“No problem. Although, now I gotta see this. You said they were behind Kitty’s? You think I can get a stormtrooper costume in 8 hours?”

“They’re not still gonna be there, Wade,” Peter huffed. “It’s 10 am.”

“You ain’t know that. What if Luke Skywalker’s a useless drunk, huh? You ever think of that?”

No.

“What’d he look like?”

Peter groaned.

“He looked like Luke Skywalker,” he said. “Blond hair, blue eyes—sort of like a chipmunk that forgot its stripes.”

“I’m onto you, Skywalker.”

Peter hung up to Wade’s cackle. He slouched low and tapped his pen against his desk. Then against his fingers.

He stared at the edge of his keyboard.

“What’s the weirdest thing you could imagine, Pete?” he asked himself.

 --

 PP: sam

SC: yeah?

PP: do you like star wars?

SC: nah

PP: you’re perfect

PP: do you believe in past lives?

SC: like spiritually or culturally? I know I was a cult-kid for a min there but before that we were Buddhists and like, past lives are part of the package

PP: that’s cool. What do you think of people being reborn as themselves again like, 500000000 years later? From a galaxy far far away?

SC: I don’t think about those people

PP: okay well, hypothetically. Let’s say that you were going to imagine someone who embodied that whole spirit. Who would it be?

SC: Buddha

PP: not buddha

SC: is this a riddle? Is it Jesus?

PP: THOR. Thank you this has been helpful ily bye

  Mr. Stark asked him over a cup of viciously black coffee why Peter was seeking out the demigod of his present nightmares.

That usually meant that he and Thor had disagreed on basic physics principles again. Peter took that also to mean that the demigod was still in the building. Possibly loose.

“He’s with Banner,” Mr. Stark said scathingly.

“Thanks, you’re amazing,” Peter said as he sailed out of the room.

 --

 Thor was sitting on Dr. Banner’s lab table, despite Dr. Banner telling him to get off no fewer than two times in the five minutes that Peter was in there, schmoozing and making pleasantries. He warmed Thor up to the home-run hit by asking him all about past lives and present lives and what the soul was on Asgard. Thor was only too happy to explain a load of nonsense that made Banner roll his eyes and poke at his muscles with a thermometer.

“So, hypothetically speaking,” Peter drawled in a very casual lean, “With the infinite galaxies and universes, etcetera, there could be one where Star Wars people exist. And so hypothetically, they could get reborn into a universe like ours.”

Thor blinked at him.

“You remember the laser swords?” Dr. Banner deadpanned.

Thor lit up.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he told Peter indulgently. “But if that was the case then it would be a long tragedy, no?”

…yes…

Say more, Thor-man.

“Well,” Thor said with a big, happy smile, “The series of events that unfolded in that story seemed to me to be one of triumph and tragedy. With one would come the other—that’s how these stories work, yes?”

…yes.

“So if Master Luke Skywalker and his companions arrived into our space here, then they must experience the same in order to be themselves,” Thor said, bobbing his head in pity. “Perhaps what would look like a new start for such people would result only in terror and disappointment until the same conclusion was reached.”

Peter felt his own grin twitch.

“So it’s not impossible?” he asked.

Both Thor and Banner looked at him quizzically at the same time.

“Peter?” Dr. Banner asked. “Is this coming from somewhere?”

Peter’s grin twitched so violently, it turned into a grimace that even superstrength would not let him maintain.

“Can I borrow one of you?” he asked.

 --

 Wade was not happy to be met outside of Kitty’s in the middle of the day, especially because his stormtrooper outfit, in his words, ‘did no justice for the size of his balls.’

Peter was ignoring that. He dragged Thor past Wade’s righteous anger until he was standing on the place where the other two had stood the night before. Thor stood there gamely.

“There,” Peter said. “Any like, energy signatures?”

Thor glanced around and shrugged.

Wade scowled at him and hounded him off the spot so that he could stand there instead.

“I feel nothing,” he said, devoid of emotion.

“Same,” Thor said.

Damnit.

“Perhaps you are—”

The Spidey Sense smashed through all of Peter’s sense and screamed at him to get to the street.

Get to the street. Get to the street. Get to the—

There.

Across the way. Chipmunk, no stripes.

That was the guy from the day before. He was on the opposite sidewalk smashed in with the crowd, dragging a hand through his hair and laden with a backpack and two separate totes. He was wearing a strange set of clothes—a mash of casual and formal—and seemed to be in a hurry, the type of hurry that involved pushing past folks at a half-jog and not stopping at streetlights.

“Got ‘im,” Peter hissed.

“No shit?” Wade asked over his shoulder.

Thor made a sound of interest.

“I see him, too,” he said. “What incredible energy, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Wh—

Peter whirled on him.

“Don’t you fucking say that,” he warned. “I’m gonna go distract. You two, on my six.”

 --

 Peter broke four traffic laws on his way around the block. He swung himself around a corner and fucked up the collar on his labcoat and counted to four before stepping out right into ‘Luke’s path.

They collided. Luke stumbled back and dropped one of his totes.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Peter blustered. “Are you okay?”

Luke swore and dropped down without answering, collecting the odd ends of metal that had clattered out from his bag and now rolled loose over the pavement. Peter stooped to join, gathering rings and pipes of all sorts of sizes in his hands. Oncoming folks gave them a wide berth.

It took a moment for Luke to realize what Peter was doing, but when he did, his shoulders went stiff as a board.

“DON’T TOUCH THOSE,” he snapped, just as Peter made to pick up a little plastic bag with a wad of tissue inside it.

Peter froze.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said.

This time, Luke finally met his eye.

“Oh, Jesus. No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Luke blustered, “Thank you. I’ll—I’ve got them. Thank you, though. It’s okay.”

He took the metal out of Peter’s hands and stuffed them back into his bag. He snatched the plastic bag before Peter could touch it and put that on top.

“Excuse me,” he said as he stood. “Thanks again.”

And just like that, he hurried off past Peter down the pavement.

Peter watched him go.

“Catch?” Wade asked softly from the corner.

“Negative,” Peter said, reaching into his sleeve and holding up the thin aluminum tube he’d hidden up there by the edge of his shirt-sleeve.

It was shiny and longer than he’d expect for any plumbing project. The inside appeared to be coated with some sort of heavy, non-reactive material, and half of the outside had grooved bands carved into it.

“Someone’s building something,” he said.

“Mid-century sink?” Wade asked, taking the tube.

“Nope,” Peter said.

 --

 NL: That is a lightsaber hilt

NL: where did you get that? It’s like mega accurate. Was it etsy?

PP: I stole it

NL: give it back

PP: I can’t I stole it from Luke Skywalker.

NL: Peter.

NL: we talked about this.

PP: He’s Luke Skywalker. I swear on the grave of my mother

MJ: this is a problem. This is now an intervention.

PP: I will prove it. If he’s Luke Skywalker, then he will do ANYTHING to get this thing back.

NL: and if not?

PP: then I will wait two days before politely tracking down his home address and then I will return it via wall crawling

JS: UM

JS: SORRY

JS: PETER CAN YOU CALL ME?

PP: no

NL: no

MJ: no

JS: are

JS: are you sure??? Because there’s a guy in Reed’s lab right now talking to him and Sue, asking SUPER politely for access to—I shit you not—the crystals we picked up from that space trip the other day???

NL: …

PP: …

MJ: …

PP: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

MJ: fake

NL: no way

PP: WHAT’S HIS NAME, JOHNNY BOY????

JS: I can’t

PP: nope you gotta

JS: I can’t I’m gonna cry I didn’t ask for this

MJ: out with it

NL: please say it’s obi-wan

JS: HHHHHHHHHHH

JS: nope

JS: just a guy named Ben 🙃

PP: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

PP: I told you motherfuckers

JS: right. So like. Awkward. But you uh, know that hilt thing you have?

PP: …is Obi-Wan Kenobi about to beat my ass, Johnny?

 --

 There was something about putting the hilt into the palm of someone more famous than Captain America that made Peter’s knees weak.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker had flirted with him the other night.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker didn’t recognize him as Spiderman.

Nothing helped, really, especially when those big topaz eyes lifted and Peter could see that their rims were red and raw.

“Thanks,” Luke Skywalker—the embodiment of hope itself—said in a soft, defeated rasp.

Every alarm in Peter’s head said to save him. Save him from what? How? Who knew.

Ned and MJ seemed to feel the same way, if the pressure on each of his arms was anything to go by.

“Well, that’s all cleared up, then. Thank you so much for your help; it is deeply appreciated,” a stupidly pleasant gentleman with a perfectly combed beard and lovingly coifed light hair said to the room at large.

Obi-Wan Kenobi—pardon, Ben Kennedi—was far more handsome than any movie could ever dream to make him. What they’d done to him in the 1970s, Peter saw now, was a fucking crime. He watched as this beautiful human being set a warm hand on Luke Skywalker’s—pardon, Luke Naberry’s—shoulder and used it to steer him towards the Baxter Building’s front entrance.

He watched as the two of them, like true Master and Padawan, stepped out onto the landing and opted for the stairs. For one fleeting, unbelievable second, Luke looked back over his shoulder at all of them before taking the next step after his Master.

He was right the other night.

He wasn’t the only jedi. Not anymore.

“So that just happened,” Sue acknowledged for everyone after the door had clicked closed and the sound of footsteps had faded off to nothing.

“I’m going to cry,” Reed announced.

“This is single-handedly the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Ned said.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi walked into our kitchen,” Reed told Sue like she hadn’t been there right next to him.

“The empire is trying to establish itself under our very feet,” Sue said back a little viciously.

“The real empire,” Reed whimpered.

Wait.

No, go back.

“For real?” Peter asked.

Sue and Reed looked back at the rest of them and then exchanged a look.

 --

 Peter was sad now. Depressed and laid out on his side staring back at Valeria’s huge eyes on the floor while Ned and MJ and Johnny asked Reed and Sue two hundred clarifying questions.

Peter didn’t need the specifics. He was thinking back on the conversation that he’d witnessed between Luke and Han Solo—Han Solo who was tall with dark hair and dark eyes and an accent straight out of New Jersey. Solo who had probably been charged with forcing Luke to face the facts in front of all of them because he was the one who Luke trusted most.

But it had shattered them—both of them.

The New Hope had given up everything. He was tired. His heart was torn. He was jaded just like Peter had been that same night. He’d been avoiding the tightrope that Peter had already started crossing, though, probably looking for every possible way to not have to set the first foot on that wobbly line.

He’d walked it before.

Valeria reached out with a chubby, round hand and touched the side of Peter’s face.

“Spiderman,” she said with terrifying understanding, “Someone needs help.”

He wriggled in close enough to bonk heads with her.

“Baby Storm,” he whispered, “I think you’re right.”

  --

MJ thought that Peter needed to leave things alone. She pointed out that he had plenty of problems without getting involved in universe-saving. She gestured to Johnny and volunteered him for the job.

Johnny refused on account of needing to be the prettiest blond in any room. He claimed that if he wasn’t, he had to fight for dominance.

Ned was on the other end of the spectrum. He had 43 reasons why Peter should get involved with things, and 40 of them ended up in the same place which was ‘it would be cool.’

One of Ned’s better reasons, however, involved pointing out that Peter had already stolen half of a lightsaber. He was good and involved now, whether he wanted to be or not. And that was enough for Peter to decide to go on a hunt to give a formal apology.

He recruited Ned to help him locate Luke Skywalker.

That didn’t work.

They tried Luke Naberry.

That didn’t work either.

They ended up going through every possible iteration of every Star Wars name they knew and then filtered out the people who’d been named by exuberant parents and then filtered out anyone who didn’t live in New York and they ended up with fat lot of still nothing.

It was like Luke Skywalker didn’t truly exist in this world.

Until MJ found his Instagram by typing in ‘guys who look weirdly like Luke Skywalker.’

She held the phone aloft in triumph and they all gathered round to gape in awe at her intelligence and research skills.

Luke’s Instagram was nothing but pictures of coffee.

He had one selfie and this selfie was enough to have gotten him onto a BuzzFeed article. In it he was holding—you guessed it—coffee. Iced coffee. One in each hand.

He was shaking them, and one had been labeled with his name—hence the public connection made.

“Someone needs to tell him that coffee is not a food group,” Johnny observed.

“Maybe he works nights,” MJ said.

Ned lifted an eyebrow.

“Maybe this is his job,” he said.

There was a pause.

Some snooping revealed that Luke was an honest to god food website editor. He was a cameraman.

Repeat. Luke Skywalker, cameraman. He filmed all the food hosts for his company’s Youtube channel. He edited videos. He more or less blended into the background of everything, while having his finger prints on damn near everything.

This was a man after Peter’s own soul. They were kindred spirits in hidden identities, content creation, and suffering under a boulder of responsibility too great to cope with.

He had to find him now.

And after they had his Instagram it wasn’t too hard. He seemed to hang out in various parts of the Bronx and Peter just so happened to know some folks out that way.

 --

 Louis told Peter that he would never speak to him again if he found, befriended, and then didn’t share Luke Skywalker (the man, the real man, I’m not fucking with you, Louis). But he also recognized a place on Luke’s instagram that he seemed to be working his way through the menu of. He sent along an address and told Peter not to forget his promises.

Angel asked why he was looking for Johnny Storm in the Bronx.

Peter left Louis to rattle sense into her.

He took a walk on Saturday morning. A long walk. A long train ride, then a walk, then a half hour of squinting, and then, lo and behold, he found a blond guy banging his head into the center of an out door metal table across from a woman with heavy braids trailing down the sides of her neck. She was much older than him and drummed white-painted fingernails across her cheek as she thought.

Peter hid and called Ned and MJ for an ID. He peeked the phone’s camera out enough for them to see the other two and then snatched it back.

Ned was about to flip a table.

“That’s clearly Ahsoka Tano,” he said. “She—the braids, dude. Dead give-away. And she put ribbons in them, like what even is discretion?”

Peter didn’t know that person. He continued not to know this person, even as Ned dragged him through a trainwreck of Star Wars lore.

“So she’s a friend,” he said.

“She’s like a jedi, but not like a jedi, she was a jedi, but then she said ‘fuck the order’ and—”

Great. Peter was approaching.

Ned held his face in his hands. MJ told Peter to report back on his findings. Peter ended the call and inched closer, weaving through the crowd and slipping into the coffee joint to see what nonsense they were selling.

It was nonsense with lots of syrup. He could never say no to syrup.

He watched the two outside while waiting for his order. Luke gesticulated to his friend and she spoke, giving reasonable gestures back. He stopped her and dug out his phone and that little plastic baggy full of fluffy material. He answered his phone. His friend took the little bag and held it up to the light.

She frowned at it.

Luke pushed away from the table and walked away to take his call. Peter’s order was called. He grabbed it and swerved out towards the patio.

“Hello,” he said at the edge of Luke and his friend’s table. “Is this seat taken?”

Luke’s friend stared at him.

“It is,” she said. “Move along, hon, you’re ten years too young.”

Wow.

“For your friend?” Peter tried. “Could I leave my number?”

He had this lady’s attention now. She was looking him up and down, appraising. Peter tried not to flex. He stayed cool. Matt-levels of cool. He smiled winningly.

“Alright, why not?” she said, digging through her bag for a receipt and a pen. Peter beamed as he leaned down to scrawl his number down on the back. He got halfway through before he heard a step stop nearby.

“Look alive, kid,” Luke’s friend said. “Hey, Luke, this guy was just—”

“You again?” Luke said.

Peter lifted his head and brows.

“Hi,” he said. “I just wanted to apologize.”

There was a long silence.

Luke’s friend looked between them and then gave Luke a long, judgmental stare.

“You don’t have to,” Luke said. “Thanks, though. How did you find me here?”

Mmm. Beginner’s luck.

“Here,” Peter said, offering his number on the receipt. “If you ever need someone to talk to who gets it.”

Luke’s friend bit her lip and looked away in secondhand embarrassment. Peter ignored her for now.

“Thanks,” Luke said. “You don’t and you won’t. But you’re very pretty.”

Nice.

“You’d be surprised,” Peter told him. “Gimme a text. I’ll leave y’all alone now. Enjoy your coffee.”

He left. But not before hearing, “but that ass, Luke.”

 --

 Ned told him that there was no way that Luke was ever going to text him and he was disappointed in Peter’s hostage-taking skills.

But he was proved wrong two hours later and, for his crimes, had to admit Peter’s brilliance publicly.

 LS: hi sorry. This is Luke. This morning when you stopped by our table, did you happen to see a little plastic bag on it?

 Why yes. The one in Peter’s pocket right now? That bag?

 PP: hi!! I did, actually. You guys aren’t very subtle 😏

LS: it’s not coke

PP: I’m not judging

LS: no, it’s not coke, I swear. It’s something INFINITELY more important. Did you happen to see if it had fallen on the ground?

PP: ah, no, sorry. I didn’t see it

PP: OH NO

PP: oh my god I’m so sorry, I think I took it with me when I accidentally took your friend’s pen.

LS: I

LS: what’s your name?

PP: Peter ❤

LS: Peter, you have a fucking problem

LS: I’m starting to think that you want something from me. And listen, you’re a handsome guy, but I’m not available and my type isn’t kleptomaniac. What do you want for it?

PP: well you got me

PP: to talk

LS: about what?

PP: mostly about why you look like you’re a wet phonebook in a bad gutter

LS: a phonebook???? What era are you even from????

PP: I could say the same to you, sir.

LS: I

LS: wh

LS: alright touche. The point is that I’m not going to talk to you. I just need that bag back. It’s a life and death situation.

PP: what are they? They aren’t coke crystals.

LS: how would you know?

PP: what are you, a cop?

LS: NO. This is going nowhere. What. Do. You. Want?

PP: To. Talk.

LS: I’m not going to talk to you.

PP: then why did you ask me to rescue you?

 He held his breath.

 LS: I didn’t

PP: you did

LS: I didn’t ask you for shit. This is it. What’s your last name.

PP: Man 😊

LS: Man what

PP: That’s my last name.

LS: Peter Man.

PP: oop, nope, sorry. That’s someone else.

LS: …so I’m calling the police, now. That’s what we’re saying?

PP: depends. Do you still need to be rescued?

 Come on, Skywalker. Come on, remember.

 LS: I never asked you to rescue me.

PP: You did. Think back.

LS: I didn’t

LS: I just made a joke to

LS: WHAT AFAJSDFA DTTH E FUCK

 Peter cackled and let himself fall onto his back.

 PP: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ❤

LS: YOU’RE

PP: Just your friendly neighborhood guy ❤

LS: YOU

LS: you

PP: me

LS: THAT’s how the storms knew you

PP: yep 💋

LS: I don’t even know what to say

PP: it’s okay, you don’t have to say shit. The main thing I wanted you to know was that I hear you. And if you need it, I’ve got you.

LS: You’re literally trying to rescue me??

PP: it’s my job

LS: IT ISN’T. How have you never been arrested? how did you find me? Did you track my phone? Is it some kind of spider thing???

PP: yes

LS: I am legally obligated to kill you with the force now

PP: harder daddy

LS: ADaaSDASFSDFSdd

LS: oh my god Han is going to lose his gourd

LS: I’m sorry I just I can’t believe you of all people stole my damn hilt

PP: I’ve got……………………..sticky fingers

LS: go die

LS: no I didn’t mean that sorry that’s a thing with me and my sister. I mean, okay. You got me. Hero of NYC.

 Peter’s cheeks were starting to hurt.

 PP: I’ll bring them back to you.

LS: Please do, Ben’s about to have a stroke.

PP: you mean obi-wan?

LS: he’s convinced his cat ate them. There’s a staring contest happening. No one has blinked in two minutes and I don’t want to be here for the internal investigation.

PP: where do you live?

 Luke sent an address. Peter held his phone high and walked it into the living room where Ned was bitchily composing an Instagram post. He and MJ looked up at the same time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Peter said. “Luke Skywalker and Co. live in a cemetery.”

 --

 It wasn’t a cemetery. It was a funeral home, but close enough.

Luke was waiting outside on the stoop in a cardigan about four sizes too big for him. It was there probably to protect him from the equally large ragdoll cat in his arms.

Peter smiled. Luke stared at him and then shook his head and went through the screen door. Ned gave Peter a biting look.

“Made friends, I see,” he said.

“We’re doin’ great,” Peter told him, hopping up the stairs. “Look at us, totally—”

“Insidious.”

Peter stopped and turned nervously to see through the screen door where Obi-Wan Kenobi had seized both of the cat’s cheeks. Luke continued to hold it with maximum doneness levels.

“Where have you been?” Obi-Wan asked the cat seriously.

“We have guests,” Luke said. “Take your beast.”

Obi-Wan snatched the cat out of Luke’s arms with contempt all over his face.

“You are a villain of the highest order,” he told it.

“Ben. Guests. Please evacuate. I am hosting negotiations,” Luke said.

“We should have named you ‘Sith.’”

“Ben.”

Peter was not going to laugh at Obi-Wan Kenobi. That was too surreal.

“Come in,” Luke said, returning to hold open the screen. “I hope you’re not allergic. There are two of them.”

T-two?

“The other one is Junior.”

Peter stepped over the threshold and found himself in a room that looked like a human birdhouse. It was full of surfaces that were almost completely empty, as though an enrichment object had once lived there but had been removed as punishment. Luke waved Ned and MJ in and accepted their apologies on Peter’s behalf.

Peter ignored them to lock eyes with a creature more stunning than any he had ever encountered. It sat on the kitchen counter by a single clear jar labelled ‘Not Spice.’ It blinked grumpy green eyes.

“Oh, it’s these people again?”

They all looked behind them to see Obi-Wan peering around a doorframe with the first cat draped over his shoulders.

“Kleptomaniac,” Luke said, pointing at Peter. Peter waved.

“Huh,” Obi-Wan said simply. “I will distract Ahsoka.”

He vanished. Luke grimaced after him.

“Let’s go talk in the back,” he said. “There are no bodies, I promise.”

 --

 The funeral home had a little deck and a yard small even for this far out in Queens. It was crammed full of plants that appeared to be in a competition to bloom. Luke invited them to sit and then left to make coffee.

Coffee, yes, how had Peter forgotten.

He peeked over the side of the deck down where there was a large stone set in the center of the garden.

“A seeing stone,” Ned whispered to him.

“Oh, how did you know?”

They all jumped.

Peter swore that Obi-Wan hadn’t opened that sliding door. How had—what—

Ned was at a loss for words in the face of one of his greatest heroes.

“I—uh. M-movie? I mean, sorry. It was in The Mandalorian, second season, with the—”

“Yet more television,” Obi-Wan said derisively.

They all stared.

“Can you teleport?” MJ asked him.

“I thought you were bothering Ahsoka?” Luke asked, from inside. He squeezed past the man and his cat with three glass mugs in hand. He set them down on the little square table off to the side of the desk railing.

“I was, but then I got curious,” Obi-Wan said. “And I lost Junior.”

Luke stared at him.

“I’m going to lock you in the basement,” he said.

“Try, try, and try again,” Obi-Wan told him, petting his beloved cat’s head.

“Do you even know who Spiderman is, old man?”

“More television.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Peter had to keep a conscious watch on his jaw, lest it fall open in the face of the most handsome, clueless man on the planet. He watched as Obi-Wan, disgusted with all this ‘television’ nonsense skulked back off into the guts of the home. Luke shut the door behind him.

“So,” he said, holding out his hand. “We’re talking. Fork ‘em.”

Ah.

Fair was fair.

Peter produced the plastic bag from his pocket and handed it over. There was a shout somewhere inside followed by someone going ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

“Ben keeps our home ghost free. He terrifies all the wannabee haunters,” Luke said simply. “Thank you for these. I imagine it’s somewhat of a shock to learn that it’s all real.”

It was, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing Peter had encountered by far.

“How long have you lived in New York?” he asked conversationally.

Luke gave him a weird brow.

He seemed smaller than before in that enormous cardigan. Certainly smaller than the movies made him seem. His face was a little thinner too, and his lips seemed to slope into an almost permanent pout.

“About twenty years,” he said. “We were born in California, but Anakin moved us here when we were eight.”

Anakin? Like, Darth Vader, Anakin?

“’Luke, I am your father’—yeah, that guy,” Luke said with a scoff. “Except, you know, he ain’t dead. And he’s the only one who can make Ben remember that tea isn’t a meal, so we keep him around for that and to scream back at Leia.”

Peter was already completely lost to the dynamics of this household. It wasn’t like the books and movies—Ned’s twitching for his phone to take notes was proof enough of that.

“That’s awkward,” MJ said. “So did y’all do like, collective counselling for the past life shit?”

Luke deflated and moaned into his hands.

“It’s not past life shit if your damn name is the same,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

It sounded like it.

Imagine growing up with your apparently-Star War-obsessed father and uncle who’d built a home and a business (presumably) around that shit, only to find out later that they’d done it because it was literally their religion.

What a trip.

“When did you find out?” Peter asked gently.

“Oh, you know. Last week,” Luke said with a bitter grin. “Quit my fulltime job. Dumped my ex. Broke my lease and now here I am. Once again. Back at this place.”

“Do you want a hug?” Ned asked into the awkward silence.

“You’re very sweet,” Luke said. “If I touch another human, I will start crying and never stop.”

Yikes.

Barely holdin’ on by a thread there, buddy? How’s the hyperawareness going?

“Why does it matter, is my question. For you, I mean,” Luke said with a suspicious squint. “You fought a goblin guy, didn’t you? With a hover board?”

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, yeah.

Yeah, Peter sure had done that.

“And like, the bird dude? Didn’t you down a plane?”

Perhaps.

But Luke had blown up the Deathstar, no?

“These things are not equivalent,” Luke said flatly. “I joined a rebel alliance. There were loads of us.”

Mmm. Perhaps so.

“God, how old are you even? You look 22.”

Peter gawked.

“I’m 27,” he said.

Luke did a double-take.

“That’s a lie,” he accused. “Tell the truth or be compelled.”

“By the Force?” Ned asked hopefully.

Luke blinked at him. He pointed at the glass sliding door which revealed Obi-Wan holding Junior the cat above his head by the kitchen sink.

“The Force,” he said.

Ned’s face fell.

“Do we not have the Force, here?” he asked.

Luke flinched.

“Listen,” he said abruptly, “We’re workin’ on it. This isn’t our original galaxy. The rules are all different. The only one who’s managed to make even a spark happen is Obi-Wan so far, but as soon as we find Master Yoda, it’s over. We’ll already have won.”

“You lost Yoda,” MJ mused.

Luke stammered and caught himself.

“We lost a lot of people,” he snapped. “It happens when you shift galaxies. Anyways, that’s what the stone is for.”

MJ glanced back at the stone and then leaned her forearms onto the small table.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said. “You jedi folks all popped up over here by some cosmic accident. You don’t have the Force. Most of you don’t even remember who you are. You lost your most experienced Master, and you’re going to fight the Sith?”

Peter stirred his coffee nervously.

Luke’s eye twitched.

“We don’t need the others,” he said. “We only need the Force. To fight the Sith. Yes.”

MJ frowned deep and held her chin with both hands.

“So you need the thing you for sure don’t have the most,” she said.

Luke opened his mouth, but not before the window by the door snapped open and Obi-Wan leaned out to say, “We always have the Force.”

Luke covered his face in despair.

“I was listening from the kitchen window,” Obi-Wan told him lovingly.

“GO FIND CODY ALREADY,” Luke roared at him.

“I did, he’s right here,” Obi-Wan said soothingly, stroking his angry cat.

“The other Cody.”

“Oh, I am trying, don’t you worry.”

“Ben, so help me God—”

“Force.”

“SO HELP ME FORCE—”

Star Wars had really left out the part about Luke’s explosive temper. Peter winced, but Ned laughed and the sound seemed to have a calming effect on Jedi-on-Jedi crime about to take place in the kitchen. Obi-Wan appeared pleased with this development and emboldened. He wove past Luke out onto the desk and came over, cat and all, to point down to the seeing stone in the middle of the garden.

“Others who feel the Force’s energy will be drawn to it,” he told Ned fondly. “It’s how we got Luke back home.”

“It’s not,” Luke said. “You called me.”

“And so others will also come,” Obi-Wan said with confidence. “The most important thing is that we believe in the Force. And from that, we will find guidance and power and—”

“He means Yoda,” Luke translated. “He’s been putting frogs on it as an offering, even though me, Ahsoka, and Anakin told him that this is a human’s world. A human’s world, Ben. Even if he did eat them, he’s not eating them raw.”

“Don’t be discouraged by Luke’s attitude, he is very stressed,” Obi-Wan told Ned and Ned only affectionately. “I told him not to be, you see there are four of us here already, and the Chosen One is among us.”

“Anakin told you to stop calling him that,” Luke moaned, massaging his temples.

“He was the first to be aware of our present situation,” Obi-Wan said.

“He took a hallucinogen and had a paranoid breakdown,” Luke pleaded. “Ben, please. Go inside. Think of your blood pressure.”

“Perhaps, but it was a useful breakdown, was it not?”

“I am so sorry for him, he’s getting senile,” Luke said to the rest of them.

“Your energy is different,” Obi-Wan informed Peter out of absolutely nowhere. “Are you also Force-sensitive? Were you drawn to the stone?”

Er.

No.

Sorry?

“He’s Spiderman,” Luke said, gesturing pointedly. “Remember Spiderman?”

Obi-Wan did not. Peter suspected, actually, that Obi-Wan still used phonebooks, if he used phones at all, that was.

Luke took a deep breath and let it out.

“Okay, let me just lay it out,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with what we have. You don’t have to get involved with this. We appreciate your help, but what would help us even more is if you stay out of it, alright?”

Yeah, okay. Sure. Peter could respect that.

“Amazing. And don’t tell other people.”

Understood.

“Unless they’re Force-sensitive,” Obi-Wan said. “In which case, ask them how they feel about rocks.”

Luke just stared at him coldly this time.

“You didn’t used to be like this,” he said dangerously.

“No, I used to be stressed,” Obi-Wan told him. “But you and Ani are doing that for me, so I have resolved to be a free spirit. Nice to meet all of you. Have more coffee. I don’t like this one; I will have it out of the house by sundown.”

He left, and possibly for good this time. No one knew what to say in his absence.

“So,” Peter tried, desperate for something to break up the tension. “You said a few days ago that you were looking for someone?”

Luke finally stopped making growling faces towards the sliding door. He lit up like a bulb.

“I am, actually,” he said.

 --

 Luke was looking for a very particular person named ‘Din.’ He described him as ‘six feet tall and covered in armor.’ He asked if they knew of such a person.

Peter had to shove a hand against his mouth in case he made an unwanted connection between this description and Obi-Wan behavior.

“Haven’t,” MJ said. “Who is he?”

“My husband,” Luke said.

Ned choked.

Peter choked.

MJ tilted her head.

“You have a husband?” she asked. “I would have remembered a husband in that series.”

Luke leaned his chin on his palm and gazed sideways over the city. He seemed to sigh.

“I don’t know why he isn’t connected to me in the media created here,” he said. “It’s probably because he’s always been very shy.”

Oh, aw. Peter loved that. The contrast between them was heart-warming.

“We had a son together,” Luke said. “His child. He brought him to me. One of my students, at first.”

Hang on a minute here.

Peter exchanged a glance with Ned. Ned tried very hard to pick a way to approach this sensitively. He landed on asking, “What was his name again?”

“Din,” Luke said. “Din Djarin.”

Ned cringed.

“He was a Mandalorian,” Luke explained. “Very, very, very shy. Like, he would rather chew off his own leg than make small talk with a stranger. I think, before I knew all this, I was still subconsciously looking for him. All my exes are the same type.”

That—

Okay, so like.

Did these people own a TV?

“Do we look like we own a TV?” Luke deadpanned. “No. If Ben senses anything bigger than a datapad happening in this place, he’s driven to madness and breaks it.”

UH?

“He doesn’t actually break it,” Luke sighed. “He just finds a way to make it unusable—putting clothes on it, disconnecting the monitor, that kind of thing. He thinks they waste electricity.”

What a guy. Peter wanted to put him and May in a room and see what conspiracies they could spin together.

“Why do you ask?” Luke asked.

Ned cleared his throat.

“Do you have a, uh, datapad, then?” he asked.

 --

 “DIN. That’s DIN. He’s got his own show. Oh my god, that’s—stay right there. Don’t move.”

Bless this man. Peter wanted to hug him so bad. They’d lost him to the staircase leading up from the second floor to the attic. Peter wondered who he was showing the tablet to.

Maybe Obi-Wan?

“I told you this already,” a voice up there said.

“LOOK AT HIM.”

“You’re killin’ me, smalls. We had this exact conversation last week. Did you forget?”

“You knew where he was.”

“Alright, alright. Downward march.”

Anakin fucking Skywalker came down the stairs with a handful of Luke’s shirt in one hand and the tablet shoved under his other arm. He paused and frowned at the three of them in the kitchen frozen in shock, and then apparently decided that that didn’t matter. He carried on dragging Luke with him towards the kitchen counter. He dropped the tablet onto it and Peter realized that the lower half of his sleeve on that side was empty.

He watched as the guy let go of Luke and chased the not-angry cat off the counter, cursing.

“Alright, this?” he said, tapping on the tablet. “Is the link I put here.” He rapped the same finger on what Peter now saw was a whiteboard covered in rows upon rows of symbols that he’d never seen before.

“Din here? Din here. You see?” Vader told Luke with untold patience.

“I can’t read that,” Luke moaned. “You lied to me.”

“It’s up in the kitchen, Luke.”

“You’re a liar and a cad. Do it in Basic.”

“This is Basic.”

Oh, dear. All that fanfic about Luke meeting Darth Vader and having a breakdown was looking real embarrassed now, wasn’t it?

“If it’s Basic, why can’t I read it?” Luke demanded.

“Because, like I told you last night, the night before, and the night before that,” Vader said painstakingly, “It doesn’t all come back at once. It’s going to take time.”

“We don’t have time,” Luke snapped.

Vader leaned his head back with half-lidded eyes. Luke didn’t look even remotely like his kid, even with him looking all pre-quels-like now.

“We talked about this, too, remember?” Vader asked.

Obviously not. Luke was distressed. He had eyes only for the tablet now.

“No, of course not, silly me,” Vader said. “Why are humans here?”

“Ahsoka went home,” Luke said.

“Thank you, that was not my question.”

“What was your question?”

“Why are non-order humans here?”

“I told you, Ahsoka went—”

“Son, I will kill you if you continue to act like Obi-Wan,” Vader said without missing a beat.

“You can try,” Luke said offhandedly. “But only one of us has two handed grip.”

There was a long stare.

“It’s Obi-Wan,” Vader told him. “Why do we have living guests?”

He gestured back to Peter, Ned, and MJ like they were flies on a set of blinds.

“Oh, because that’s Spiderman and he stole your kyber crystals,” Luke said.

Vader rounded on Peter, and Peter actually felt fear.

Vader blinked once.

“This may as well happen,” he decided somehow placidly. “I’m going back upstairs. Where did your grand-master go?”

“Into the mist,” Luke said. “Can you feel Din?”

“Negative, ghostrider.”

“When the Force chooses you first out of favoritism, can you feel for Din?”

“Ah yes, can I feel for your Force-repellant life partner with all of the Force energy that I do not have? Yes, I sure can.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, primary monstrosity of my loins.”

UM?

This felt a little hostile for Peter’s tastes. Not that it wasn’t earned. Clearly it was earned. It was just horrifying.

“Guests, you are dismissed,” Vader said in their direction. “Unless you’re drawn to the rock outside, in which case, you may stay. Otherwise, do not darken this doorstep again, or else we will leave you with the other dead in the morgue.”

“Thanks for bringing the crystals,” Luke said from behind him. “And for talking. I do feel better, actually.”

 --

 They left the funeral home. Obi-Wan was outside by the mailbox as though waiting for them. Peter wasn’t sure he had any emotional energy left to approach him with.

“Thank you for speaking to Luke,” he said as the three of them attempted to pass unnoticed. “It’s good for him to talk to others his own age.”

Uh-huh. Good night, sir?

“Good night, Peter, Ned, and Michelle.”

They hadn’t given their names.

They definitely hadn’t given their names.

 --

 Ned wasn’t sleeping for two years. He made this clear with a lot of clapping gestures and then rolled around on the floor, talking about all kinds of shit that Peter couldn’t decipher. MJ watched him and flicked her eyes up to Peter with concern on her forehead.

“That family is cinematically dysfunctional,” she said.

Correct.

“They’re barely their own characters.”

Correct.

“What now?”

Peter wasn’t sure. The best he could think of was to just keep an eye on the situation. Maybe check in every couple of weeks?

“If you say so,” MJ said. “I think you made Ned’s life, by the way. Good job.”

 --

 Peter tried checking in every two weeks. It started because he happened to hear of a tunnel collapsing in Queens nearby the funeral home. He texted Luke to ask if he needed a save and all he got back was a ‘well, not anymore.’

After that, Peter kept a close eye on happenstances occurring around the city. There were more than he bargained for. And when he glanced at Luke’s Instagram after the first week after the tunnel collapse, he noted that two of the nails on the hand Luke held his coffee to the camera with had gone completely black.

That was worrying.

Peter was used to be the danger-prone asshole in his friendgroup. He did not like this role-reversal. MJ asked him sarcastically what the problem was.

He texted Luke again.

 PP: how many nails do you have left bro?

LS: we put a hole in one to release the pressure

PP: that don’t sound great bro.

LS: it’s fine. Oh, but good news

PP: oh?

LS: the most predictable thing ever has happened. The Vader has regained force power

PP: that’s worrying

LS: ? why?

PP: won’t he go dark?

LS: ah, no. He fucked up and raised me and Leia with Ben this time after our mom died. He had his chance to go dark and traded it for 8 consecutive hours of sleep instead.

PP: I truly don’t know what to say

LS: It’s fine we did 12 years of family therapy after the accident so we are no longer on the DSS watchlist

PP: I know less what to say

LS: he won’t find din :/

PP: is that your priority right now?

LS: aren’t you supposed to be spiderman or something? Don’t you have chaotic things to say?

PP: you know normally I do, this is literally out of character for me. but I think you also might be absorbing my chaos.

LS: that’s fair. I have that effect on people. Hey, is your buddy Ned available to chat? He knows more than I can remember about my old life. Can I borrow him?

 That sounded like a horrendous decision.

 PP: yeah let me get you his number.

LS: thanksssss

  --

Ned reported a few days later that his services were needed at the funeral home. He was leaving them all now to befriend Luke Skywalker as was his true destiny.

He came back a few hours later and reported that his services had been helpful and he was pleased to say that Darth Vader was now the official herder of ‘wans’ in the house. This included all Obi-Wans and padawans.

He seemed to be the only guy there who could like, retain information given to him for some reason. He accepted this as his lot in life and went around repeating the same things to the others ad nauseum until they finally stuck for them.

Peter wondered if that was his personal hell.

Ned didn’t think so. He thought the guy was pretty chill about it and had probably been doing it for a while now. He did it more for Ahsoka Tano and Luke than he did for Obi-Wan. Although that was probably because Obi-Wan appeared to be on a hunt that made all non-relevant information given to him slip off his back like water.

 --

 Another two weeks. Another text.

 PP: hey luke, I saw you drowning on the news. You okay?

LS: GOD my ex-workplace keeps calling welfare checks on our house. We’ve had more cops here then flies these last few days.

PP: ex-workplace is one way to refer to your old job. Sounds like they cared about you. What did you do?

LS: preschool teacher.

 Peter was going to lose his shit right here on this bed.

 PP: was that your calling?

LS: that was Luke Naberry’s calling. Luke Skywalker’s calling is to make the lightsaber go vrrrrrrm

PP: you honestly terrify me

LS: thanks han says the same thing. OH. HE FOUND CHEWIE.

PP: no shit??

LS: yeah I told Ned, not you. But yeah. He found him lugging boxes for a bodega. And now they both work at the same bodega. Which like, objectively, is a bad thing because Han was a UN translator.

PP: I’m

PP: sorry

PP: what?

LS: I know he was all respectable and shit. It was awful. I can look at him again without feeling like I’ve failed in every part of my life.

PP: dare I ask what your sister does?

LS: lawyer

PP: not senator?

LS: we’re not old enough to be senators.

PP: every moment becomes more concerning than the next. You fascinate me. This is why they put you in like, all the films.

LS: because I’m sexy yeah

PP: that too

LS: not to you. I’m off-limits bub. I’m married.

PP: how’s that going for you?

LS: Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

PP: I see. So no Din yet?

LS: I will find him if it kills me

PP: that’s so romantic. Hey you should watch that series. They gave him a little green yoda in it. Really cute.

LS: that’s my son you piece of shit

 There was no winning here.

 --

 MJ asked him a few weeks later if he was still keeping up with the Jedi drama since the whole city had recently decided that Peter was a snack.

Obviously he hadn’t.

She told him not to worry, Ned had. She told him to talk to Ned, so he went and talked to Ned with a heatpad in one hand and a coldpack in the other.

Ned patted at him sympathetically and informed him that Luke had reunited with the Force. It was going poorly for him, mostly because the Force wasn’t used to people being in touch with it in these parts of the universe. It kept telling each of the jedi that there was a disturbance and then luring them to each other to fight to the death.

Luke described it as the Force-equivalent of an auto-immune disease.  

They’d taken to gathering in the living room of the funeral home to meditate in a circle, as though to calm the Force’s anxiety while scenting each other for protection.

It had a 40% success rate. Everyone was sleeping in locked rooms for the time being, just in case someone got compelled to do something rash.

Peter asked Ned if he’d finally lost his crown as King Chaos of NYC.

Ned patted him on the knee more firmly than before and said that he could regain his crown by introducing a calming element into the jedi household.

Peter had his pride to defend, so he asked what that element ought to be.

  --

Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, the leader of all Mandalorians, was bound to have a name that looked nothing like the one they had for him. Luke nearly exploded when Peter approached him to asked him (and his taped fingers) more about who Din Djarin was outside the name.

They proceeded with caution, however. So far, Peter and Ned had discovered only dissonance between Luke’s account of his life partner (his ‘heart, stars, sun, and sand’) and the guy on the screen for the tv show. That was to be expected, given that they had met Luke now and learned of his somewhat explosive personality.

But even still, Luke’s description of Din Djarin as ‘kind, compassionate, tender, shy, emotionally stable, dependable, sweet, caring, and hunky’ seemed slightly biased.

Peter just wanted to know how tall this guy was. Hair color. Eye color. Skin color. Blood type. That kind of shit.

Luke said that Din had brown hair, brown eyes, Type Who Knows What blood, and was about six feet tall. He had no idea how much he weighed. He’d never had need for that information. He knew that Din was human, which was probably helpful in a galaxy far, far away. He knew that he spoke Mando’a as his first language, then Basic, then a whopping fifteen others. And he knew that Din was probably looking after their son.

Vader asked Peter over a mug of coffee (also labeled in the funeral home’s cabinet as ‘not spice.’) if Spidersenses could overcome a dearth of information. It took Peter a few moments to realize that he was sympathizing with him.

“You’re not going to find Din,” Vader told Luke. “You need to look for the kid. You’ll find the kid first, you always have.”

Luke took his coffee and poured it down the drain.

Peter decided that he didn’t want to get in between that burgeoning battle. He told Luke to text him if he remembered anything else.

  --

Wade was pissed that Peter had been meeting and ‘cavorting’ with Luke Skywalker without him. He claimed ownership of the Din Djarin mystery in order to cram himself into Luke’s good graces. But quickly, he ran into the same stumbling blocks as Peter.

Din Djarin was six feet tall with brown eyes and brown hair.

That was what they currently had to go on.

Wade would have torn out his hair if he had any, but he stopped himself and accepted the challenge. Peter watched over his shoulder as he chicken-pecked his way into a list of social security numbers held by the NYC State ID issuing department and started methodically filtering names that did not sound like ‘Din.’

He started broad with all ‘D’s and then narrowed it down further and further and further until he was left with a shitload of Daniels.

He stared at the screen before him and vibrated.

Peter massaged his shoulders before he cracked.

It helped. Wade started filtering by height, then by eye color. Then by hair, and only ended up with several hundred people.

He vibrated again, but this time, Peter couldn’t help him.

He sighed. Wade said that there had to be a better way to do this. He got up.

  --

Wade made about four thousand missing posters with the name Din Djarin on them which he recruited the whole team to plaster up around NYC. This was not a request.

Miles asked him why they were doing this for a tv character and had to be let in on the gig.

He lost his shit.

Louis tried to retain his shit.

Angel still didn’t know how the whole jedi thing worked.

Dave hummed and haw’ed and took his time in calling bullshit. Wade asked him to look deep into his eyes and ask if he was entertaining bullshit that fine evening.

Dave changed his opinion and took a stack.

  --

There was no way that shit was supposed to work. There was just no way. A) because Wade had the worst ideas of all mankind and B) because Peter had the worst luck of all mankind. So the two of them together should have destroyed all the prospects of success for that job.

But instead, while they were hatching a new plot involving setting up a sham sociological study for people who responded to Star Wars names, Wade’s phone went off.

He grabbed it and opened the message and lo and behold right there was a note that read,

“I hope you are not a reporting body because this is going to sound certifiably insane, but I think I might be the guy you’re looking for?”

Wade screamed.

Peter scolded him not to get too excited too soon. They had to see the man first.

Wade texted furiously, asking for a picture and got a message back that said, “please do not dox me.”

They got no answer until Wade promised not to dox the guy.

And then they got an image of a man with brown hair and brown eyes with olive skin. His face was remarkably square. The picture wasn’t just him, though, he had in his arms a little boy with a head covered in tight ringlets. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black and he was maybe two years old.

The caption said, “apologies, my son needed to be in the picture.”

Wade cooed and entered Dad Mode to ask how old the baby was and what he liked to do and Peter lost the fathers to that small talk for a while before Wade oh-so-casually asked, “So you feel like you’re from outer space?”

“It sounds strange,” the guy on the other said wrote back, “But I do. Like every day I wake up and look in the mirror and something is wrong. I feel like I’m always forgetting something when I leave the house. I watched the tv show of the guy who’s name was on your fliers and the kid in it reminds me so much of my son. It’s eerie. They make the same sounds. He made the same sounds before we even watched that show.”

Wade whistled.

“I think this is him, Pete,” he said. “He called Baby Yoda a ‘kid’ not a yoda.”

Peter stared. He hadn’t even caught that. That was smart as hell.

“So what now?” he asked.

Wade sniffed.

“Get Skywalker to send you a selfie,” he said.

  --

PP: Luke are you pretty right now?

LS: My face is intact

PP: take a selfie and send it to me

LS: cannot do that. Face is intact is a baseline situation. Let me find an old one. Oh, they all have my ex in them. This is awkward.

PP: it doesn’t matter I can crop it.

LS: no I have to be cute or I’ll perish hold on

PP: are you sure you’re not Johnny Storm?

LS: yes, he’s got loads of muscles. Sent.

 Selfie acquired.

Luke looked very smiley in it. His eyes were blown out from the lighting, but it showed his sloping smile and his low, back-set dimples. Peter sent it to Wade. Wade sent it to his new friend.

They waited.

They waited five minutes.

Then ten.

Then half an hour.

Then nearly two.

And finally, Wade’s phone rang. He picked it up and set it on speaker so that Peter could hear.

“Hello?” Wade said.

There was a long pause.

“Where did you get that picture?” a low, almost smoky voice demanded on the other side.

“A friend,” Wade said sleazily. “You know him? He’s a cute little thing, ain’t he?”

It took the dude on the other side of the line worryingly long to respond.

“What do you want?” he finally asked.

Wade brought his head down in interest.

“What’re you willing do to?” he asked.

They waited. Peter didn’t know what was taking this guy so long to—

“Anything.”

Ah.

Okay. That.

That sounded about right.

Wade cackled.

“You know his name?” he asked.

“I do,” the man said.

“What’s his name then, pal?” Wade asked.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

Holy shit. Holy shit. Peter clutched the back of the couch. Wade was grinning so hard, Peter could see it through his mask.

“You want him, you need to show me that you know who he is,” Wade said. “I ain’t got ‘im here, but I know where he is. Come on, big boy. Who is he?”

Peter could hear the man take in a deep, shaky breath.

“His name is Luke,” Din fucking Djarin, the Mandalorian himself, said.

  --

Din fucking Djarin’s name at the moment was Danny Jabaran. He stood six feet tall with a medium build and that baby of his in his arms.

He was not afraid of Wade.

He was not afraid of Peter.

The suits didn’t scare him; this man was a space warrior. The leader of the space warriors. Peter was humbled to stand in his presence, old jeans and tattoos and all.

“Vigilantes,” he acknowledged.

“Deadpool,” Wade said, offering a hand. “And this is?”

“Grogu,” Djarin said.

Baby Yoda lifted his big liquid eyes up to Wade and blinked twice. Then he wriggled around and hid in Djarin’s neck. Djarin put a hand on his back and didn’t drop eye contact.

“Tell me everything,” Djarin said.

  --

Ned screamed. Michelle screamed. Peter reminded them that he had neighbors and invited Mr. Mand’alor to sit on the couch for a bit while he called Luke.

Michelle claimed the spot next to Djarin and asked Baby Yoda Grogu for his little hand. He studied her and hid again, making a prolonged sound of distress that Djarin cut off by saying, “Hey. Manners.”

This somehow made baby Grogu turn back to Michelle to stare at her offered hand.

He took it. She shook with him and then took hers away.

Grogu perked up and reached for it again.

“You’re the Mandalorian,” Ned said.  

Djarin looked right at him.

“A Mandalorian,” he corrected.

Ned blinked back tears.

“You’re so cool,” he creaked.

Djarin frowned.

“You...are too?” he tried.

Ned wept into a fist.

Peter left them to call Luke in his bedroom. Luke picked up on the third ring with the start of an ingrained greeting that sounded a whole lot like a customer service recording. He caught himself, though.

“I have someone I’d like you to talk to,” Peter said. “I think you might want to sit down.”

Luke’s unusual quiet on the other side made Peter grin.

“Are you sitting?” he asked.

“I’m sitting.”

“Alright, one moment,” Peter said, walking out into the living room. Djarin had edged far, far away from Ned, as far as he possibly could without being rude. He looked up when Peter came over and sat down on the arm next to him.

“Say hi,” Peter said.

Djarin frowned at him and then the phone.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Peter waited. Djarin lifted his head over to see the phone’s screen.

“Hello?” he tried.

“Din?”

The Spidey Sense crashed through Peter like a tidal wave.

Djarin had gone completely still.

“Din? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

“Shit,” Djarin said, lifting a hand to cover his eyes. “Goddamnit. Jesus.”

“DIN.”

“Dank Fucking Farrik.”

“Oh my god.”  

Baby Grogu’s face snapped toward the phone with huge eyes. He grabbed at Djarin’s collar, then his jaw and started bouncing a little in his arms.

“Bu?” he asked.

Djarin couldn’t make himself move.

“Grogu?” Luke asked. “Hey, baby, is that you, bubba?”

Grogu grabbed Djarin’s face urgently, so that he couldn’t hide his raw eyes anymore.

He pointed at the phone.

“Yeah, I hear ‘im, kid,” Djarin said.

“MMMMM. Gib.”

“Ah. That’s not ours. We don’t grab. We ask,” Djarin reminded as Grogu pleaded for the phone. Peter snickered and gave it to him. He just held it, staring.

“Do you wanna see him?” Peter asked. “Luke, can we maybe video chat?”

“Y-yeah,” Luke said. “Hold on. Oh god, my face. Uh, hey Din are you still near-sighted, hon?”

Djarin huffed a laugh that turned into a whole-body tremor.

“I got contacts,” he said a little hysterically.

“You got WHAT?” Luke yipped, “Okay, no. No, I gotta. Be still, this heart. Okay let me just take off the butterflies. On moment, Grogu, Daddy’s just gotta dunk his face in the damn sink.”

MJ bounced her eyebrows at Peter as he gently took the phone back from Grogu and tapped on the camera. He offered it back the kid and received a deep gaze of wonder in return. Djarin turned the screen right-side up in his hands.

Luke finally turned his camera on and revealed himself to be very swollen in the jaw with damp hair and a cut very close to the rim of his left eye.

Grogu screeched.

Luke laughed.

“Look at you,” he said, “I’m gonna cry. Oh my god. Where’re your ears, pal?”

Grogu analyzed this reaction for 2 full seconds and then shoved the camera right into his dad’s forehead. Djarin took it from him and liberated himself so that he could see Luke who was clutching at his face, absolutely already sobbing, bless him.

He looked up to see Grogu and instead got Djarin and finally just broke right in half.

Peter swallowed back the growing lump in his throat. His eyes were starting to warm a little.

Djarin found a watery smile in himself.

“I know you’re not cryin’ because of me,” he said gently.

“Where’s your helmet?” Luke sobbed, wiping viciously at his eyes. “People are watching, you harlot.”

“I know,” Djarin said. “I lost it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Luke.”

“This is all my fault. I should’ve—I should’ve—”

“Luke,” Djarin said again, full of warmth, “You died for us.”

Luke shook harder than ever.

“There is no greater sacrifice a warrior can make,” Djarin told him. “I was honored for you to have made it for me and our son. This has always been the Way.”

“This is the Way,” Luke stammered.

“I missed you,” Djarin said. “Where in God’s name have you been?”

“I was a preschool teacher in the Bronx, man, I dunno what happened,” Luke said tipping his face up to force the tears back in.

“In the Bronx? Where?”

“Uh, off Allerton and Lurting?”

Djarin started shaking with laugher.

“I work off Laconia and Mace,” he said.

“You what?”

“We’ve been blocks apart this whole time.”

Awwwwww.

“I’m going to stab myself,” Luke moaned. “I’m going to stab myself in the arm. I was right there and I sold out for my part-time gig barely weeks ago. Oh my god. I’m going to—move, old man, I’m suffering—Wait. Din, did you find your parents?”

Djarin stood up and held the phone out straight.

“Where are you right now?” he asked.

  --

Look at all these people hugging each other.

Look at them crying all over. There was a baby in there, wailing because he was so happy to be back in the arms of his other dad.

Aww. AWWWW. Peter was getting emotional again, he was going to see himself out.

“Wait. Peter.”

He looked up to find Luke holding a hand to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “You really are a superhero, you know that?”

Yeah.

Sometimes, he did.

 --

 The city had plenty of problems as it was, yeah, more now with a bunch of jedi running around, linking up with each other and spreading memory like mushroom spores. But it didn’t feel that much different.

What it felt like now was Ned showing Grogu how to hold his hand at the seeing stone in the funeral home’s back yard to make the Force happen while Obi-Wan reported cheerfully that the cat perched on it was still not levitating.

It also felt like watching Luke freak out over text to Ned and Michelle about his ex losing their mind at him dumping them after two years to marry this random mechanic within a week of getting together.

Peter got to see this from new angles, too, one of which was the bottom of the funeral home’s attic stairs, which Anakin Skywalker liked to sit on while his grandkids—both Grogu and Han Solo and Leia Organa (pardon, Leia Naberry)’s son—came over to show him things that he was very well aware of. These were stolen from him by Auntie Ahsoka and her friends who Ned knew and Peter did not.

And there was something warming about how even these folks—people from a galaxy far, far away, occasionally needed a Spiderman.

   --

[bigskydreaming]

Something else to keep in mind is the way things compound? Like for instance, I’ve seen a mini trend of fics lately focusing on the issue of Dick dropping out of college or not wanting to go, which for the record, I feel is another way of building up to the idea that he and Bruce have all these fights during this period that are two way streets instead of like....what canon actually was (reminder that in the canon that Dick actually dropped out he and Bruce actually were never really NOT on good terms, like there’s never been a big fight in the comics about this topic so.....incheresting).

But anyway, my point is its worth keeping in mind that how you frame something at one point in a narrative like.....ideally, you want it to mesh up and align with other things you’ve brought up throughout the narrative, and not accidentally contradict yourself narratively.

I mean, this is really the big gripe most Dick Grayson fans have with his fanon characterization overall:

The fact that it just doesn’t make sense.

In Jason-centric fics that are after his resurrection, how often is Jason utterly convinced that Dick can’t even wipe his ass without Bruce’s approval? And yet in Jason-centric fics that are before his death, how often is Jason thinking about how Dick and Bruce are constantly fighting and Bruce can’t seem to do anything without Dick objecting? Reconcile these two things. They make no sense.

Same thing with fics that talk about Dick being the emotional glue of the family, the one keeping a cool head to calm down everyone else when they’re all taking shots at each other.....until randomly he just pops off without warning because he’s just that hot-tempered. These things mesh, how?

Same thing with Dick being frequently referenced as idealized by the hero community......but every time he interacts with someone like Roy or Kori or other Titans he can’t seem to avoid pissing them off and creating epic grudges. Make it make sense.

Or how Dick disliked or didn’t care about Jason to the extent that he only references him as a cautionary tale because of one line in canon......but the whole damn story where he kills the Joker because of Jason doesn’t count.

Or how its not okay to blame Dick for his own rapes but both of his major breakups which are intrinsically linked to the actions of his rapists like....were clearly and objectively all his fault somehow.

Dick Grayson fans aren’t on board with most of fanon because you can’t sell people on a constantly conflicting characterization that makes no sense and has no internal consistency.....you can only cater to people who don’t NEED to be sold on that because they’ve already decided they’re down with hating a character or largely ignoring him.

And I think people have gotten so used to not thinking twice about contradictory takes on Dick Grayson that they unintentionally undermine their own fics by contradicting themselves without even realizing it.

Like its ridiculously common to come across fics that reference Dick being beloved and charming everyone at the society galas they all have to go to.....but these fics take pot shots at Dick’s name, fashion, mannerisms etc all throughout it just because the author likes it or fans expect it or whatever reason.

But actually THINK about it:

Think how snobby the socialites at these galas are characterized as being any time its Jason their noses are turned down at.....and then look at like.....the constant jokes you as the author make YOURSELF at Dick’s very name, fashion and circus origins......how on Earth does it make ANY sense that these same people aren’t doing the same damn thing about Dick? That they’re actually any more fond of him than they are Jason, if no matter how charming he might be in the moment, the second he turns around its just as easy and likely for them to make a joke about his circus background or name as it is for writers and readers? If you can’t resist doing it, you really think snobby one percenters would bother in-universe?

Hell, they’d be more likely to hate him BECAUSE of his name, his fashion, etc.....because think of how often people not so subtly infer that he’s making a bad choice when he refuses to go by a different name, or dress more accordingly to normal fashions, etc.....

Dick has a million ways he could more easily fit in with the society he was brought into and ease his passage through it, but he puts his foot down at practically every opportunity. The idea that everybody is just dazzled by him at these galas makes no sense because the most consistent character choice made by Dick throughout the decades is that he refuses to CONFORM to others’ expectations of what he should be like. 

EVERY SINGLE CHOICE he makes from his name to his wardrobe to his costumes to his education to his city to his living arrangements and on and on is in complete and utter DEFIANCE of what people expect of the eldest son or ward of Bruce Wayne, Prince of Gotham, and that’s by Dick’s conscious and consistent choice. He knows damn well how to be more what people want or expect of him, and that’s not what he wants so he says mmmm but also how bout no.

Dick constantly embodies the idea that you can take the boy out of the circus but you can not and will not take the circus out of the boy no matter what environment you place him in or who you surround him with. He will not allow it. He will not play along.

In what universe is that going to endear him to the very people who would most likely view his choice to prioritize the very things they look down upon as something he consciously PREFERS over their projected expectations or assumptions?

Its not.

Personally, I think Gotham high society despises Dick Grayson no matter what they pretend to his face, and he’s perfectly aware of it. And probably gets some kind of trollish glee out of it because fuck them too, anyway.

(And all of that is WITHOUT even taking into account the fact that a good number of the people at these society galas all along were looking at Dick as their future property, given that they were Owl members who knew all along what they intended for their Gray Son. These people simply do not view and treat Dick as an equal. Its impossible. There’s no way).

Or then back to the idea of Bruce and Dick’s fights in his later teenage years being a two way street....

The core problem at the root of all this is the very idea of a two way street implies a certain give and take. A clashing of equals.

And that’s just not the reality in ANY continuity.

Because the question is, in any given fight between Dick and Bruce in ANY canon....

When does Dick ever WIN these fights?

When does Dick get the outcome he wants OVER what Bruce wants? When does Bruce ever cave? When is it NOT Dick leaving the manor without getting what he came for, or even being kicked out? When has Dick ever been able to say no, I’m NOT fired, or no, I’m NOT giving you control over what happens with Robin. Even when he DOES confront Bruce on these matters, Bruce STILL infamously never caves. He never actually apologizes or admits wrongdoing, he still usually tells Dick to leave. Like I said, basically the only time Dick’s ever got the upper hand in an argument was over the college thing and that time it wasn’t even a fight! Bruce didn’t actually care that much! That was the good timeline! LOL.

But there’s never actually a reversal. There’s no real precedent for Bruce caving to a teenage Dick Grayson and saying hey you know what, you’re right here, I’m overstepping or I’m in the wrong or I’m the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about because our divergent life experiences here have mine as less relevant to the issue in question than yours do?

It doesn’t happen.

And here’s the problem with that:

Dick’s a literal genius. Every member of the Batfam is. Its how they’re able to do what they do. They’re ALL smart as fuck, capable as fuck. Put any of them in any other situation where they’re the only Bat present, and everyone usually defaults to them. They know what to do, they know what call to make, their approach is borne out by the narrative as being the correct approach. Their intelligence and strategy is validated by the narrative, with Dick being no exception here. In fact he’s particularly NOTED within canon narratives for being the guy everyone in the DC universe trusts to lead them.

Now.....imagine being this guy, who while although still a teenager, is in his late teens, and has YEARS of leading his own team under his belt. Years of being responsible for the lives of teammates and civilians. Years of becoming aware of and comfortable with his own natural brilliance. Years of becoming confident in being capable of making the right call when the situation demands it. Years of learning to TRUST in his ability to make the right call, to know the right approach, because not only are people relying on him to make those calls, he needs to be able to trust he can make them in order to have the confidence to follow through and DO so instead of being frozen with indecision or trying to pass the decision off to someone else, which he NEVER does?

With all that....and even with all due respect to Bruce’s own genius and experience....

What are the chances that in all the times that Bruce and Dick clash in his late teenage years....

Dick is NEVER right?

And yet.....when in any of these conflicts.....is he ever validated in that, versus shut down by Bruce who insists his way is still right?

Imagine being an acknowledged genius with years of experience and responsibility under your belt, but NEVER getting to be right in any arguments with your father, even when just based off pure freaking statistics, its frankly impossible for you to be 100% wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME?

Do you see where the two way street thing starts to fall apart? How can it truly be a two way street if part of the reason the two of them so often end UP aggressively opposed to each other during this time period.....is because of how many times previous encounters have only ended ONE way no matter WHAT?

It makes sense for Dick and Bruce not to clash as much during their younger years, because even the most stubborn kids do understand on a fundamental level that they have things to learn from more experienced adults. And Dick has never been someone mindlessly predisposed towards conflict. He didn’t become an exceptional acrobat by the age of eight by butting heads with his parents every time they tried to teach him, he couldn’t have. He KNOWS how to listen, he KNOWS how to acknowledge when someone else is right. 

But as he grows older, when he has more and more experience under his belt, more and more confidence in his own insights in large parts thanks to Bruce’s own efforts in buttressing his confidence in his younger years.....what happens when the balance of who is right and who is wrong in their arguments NEVER EVER starts to shift in his direction even a little bit, no matter HOW much more experienced he seems to get....and what happens when communicating this problem, this imbalance, to the person that really matters here, Bruce himself....still inherently requires Bruce accepting blame and acknowledging even just in THIS case, the idea that he’s not always right at this point and Dick has insights that can challenge his?

Of course there’s going to be more and more conflict....but can you truly argue that its a two way street, even just based off THIS? Is the teenage son truly to blame for being frustrated that he’s not allowed to ever be right, because the thing getting in his way is his father never ever being willing to back down or cave or not have the last word?

This is the sort of inherent contradiction I think lies at the heart of a lot of conflicting viewpoints here. It doesn’t matter how much lip service is being paid to the idea that Dick is intelligent, that Dick is respected, if all your content continually bears out the idea that actually no he’s not, because Bruce is always right, Dick never is in the right in arguments or conflicts.

The latter evidence just is not aligning with the former claims, and thus readers are innately forced to make a choice as to which to believe.....and more likely than not, they’re going to err on the side of substantiating whichever stance actually has more narrative support behind it, in any particular story.

See what I’m saying?

You need to make sure your story is ACTUALLY saying what you think you’re saying or you intended to say....or you end up undermining your own intentions.

Anyway. Just throwing that out there. 

[consumeconstantly]

Lady Cross (first aid)

Summary: Somehow, Marinette always ends up biting off more than she can chew. It started off with a kid and a nasty gash on their knee. The sudden escalation to treating the new head of Gotham’s underworld? It can only be explained by the fact that she’s catnip for trouble. 

_____________________________________________

Marinette supposed she should have expected something like this to happen eventually.

Really, she patches up a few street kids and offers a meal and some resources and suddenly she's made a name for herself in the slums of Gotham. It’s not like she’s doing anything revolutionary. Well, okay, maybe she does cheat a little bit and uses her healing powers on a few of the tougher cases that really should have been out of her realm of expertise, but she’s living near the slums of Gotham for a reason. That reason being Marinette is just a little broke and can’t really afford to send everyone she comes across to the hospital, and the people who are injured certainly can’t. It’s not like she can leave them to die. That would be heartless.

When she stopped treating scrapes and cuts for kids on the streets as she came across them and instead found her apartment balcony frequented by families who needed her help, she couldn’t just say no. And so, more and more serious wounds started coming in. Kids brought their parents and friends. The parents and friends brought... well, if the police stopped by her apartment any time soon, she’s fairly certain they’d have a field day.

But again, it’s not like she’s going to turn these people into the police when they’ve come to her for help and have a small army of people who swear up and down that they’re good people and only doing what they have to do in order to get by.

Morality comes in such a variety of shades, who was she to judge? Ladybug and Marinette have both certainly had their fair share of mistakes that they’d gladly go back in time to rectify, and her hands weren’t clean of blood either. Sure, the Miraculous Cure may have brought people back, but their deaths were still on her. And Hawkmoth? Yeah, he’s alive now, but she hammered him into the pavement after dropping him from the top of the Eiffel tower, and she’s not going to pretend that she didn’t take a bit of morbid joy in that moment.

But back to the matter at hand. Which was, the notorious Red Hood—responsible for a coup amongst Gotham’s drug dealers and responsible for taking down a man whose morality truly vanished with the wind, Black Mask himself— was currently bleeding out on her second floor balcony, smoking a cigarette and lounging against the rail like he owned the place. 

“Lady Cross,” he inclined his head.

“Red Hood,” Marinette returned his greeting.

God, she really didn’t want to get involved with Red Hood. She wasn’t opposed to helping out street thugs and criminals, but Red Hood was a different league. He seemed to be a fairly decent guy, ensuring that kids weren’t dealt drugs and tried to keep them out of the circuit as much as possible. He took down plenty of worse criminals while he was at it. In fact, Marinette would go so far to say the Red Hood as one the good guys.

But the issue was, once she started treating people of a certain level, she’d be open game. And that didn’t seem very enticing to her. Not at all. Everyone knew that Red Hood had beef with the Bat Family for some reason or other, and also made enemies with almost every single rogue in Gotham, and a good number of enemies outside of it as well. Basically, Red Hood was a universal enemy of both the vigilantes and rogues. Someone she shouldn’t get involved with while she was trying to investigate the darkness surrounding Gotham whole running her online boutique and going to college at Gotham University.

Unfortunately, Tom and Sabine and her own stint as Ladybug taught her that she could never ignore someone in need. Marinette sighed and slid the mesh open, leading Red Hood to her living room. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

“Real nice place you got here,” he said.

With the mask covering the whole of his face, Marinette had no facial expressions to figure out whether he was poking fun at her current living situation or not. His voice sounded genuine, but vocal emotions were easy to fake.

The apartment she was living in was not on the nice side of town. There were three bullet holes in the wall between her living room and bedroom that she just didn’t have time to patch up, some pretty nasty looking stains on the ceiling near her kitchen, and a huge, spray painted red cross on one of her walls, which was where her street name derived from. Her floor and coffee table were also in states of disarray; she hadn’t gotten the opportunity to clean up after working on two commissions and the last guest whose wounds were heavy enough to warrant several rolls of gauze, which was now half stuffed into a garbage can sitting next to rolls of fabric. Perhaps not the neatest or most sanitary situation, but she didn’t have time to clean up before every single one of her unexpected guests came in.

Look, it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have time to fix things up real nice and neat. She’d only been living in the apartment for a month and a half, and most times, she barely spent any time in it other than to sleep, cram last minute projects for her design course, or to help heal people. Her living situation wasn’t the biggest of worries.

“Sit,” Marinette gestured to the one of the few pieces of furniture that she specifically bought for the apartment. She didn’t mind the stained, half broken, and extremely creaky couch the last owners left behind for the first week, but after she started bringing back her first… visitors, it seemed important that the couch was comfortable, sturdy, and most crucially, cleanable.

Rummaging through a cabinet, she pulled out a tattered briefcase she thrifted a while back to keep all of her medical supplies in. Not the prettiest of things, but she tried not to keep expensive looking items in her apartment because she wasn’t a fan of getting mugged. The medicine she kept was already expensive enough, she didn’t need to attract everyone’s attention by owning one of those metal containers used in hospitals. Even though most of the people who dropped by her apartment were thankful to be treated, she had a few instances where people tried to steal things from her.

“What’s the damage, doc?” Red Hood’s voice came through rather tinny through his helmet. 

Marinette grimaced. The helmet must have awful air circulation. It looked like some sort of metal, and wet and metal never smelled good together. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

“Thought you were supposed to be some mystic healer who came from the far east.”

She paused and looked at the man, trying to judge whether he was racist as well as rude. “That’s rather insulting.” 

Red Hood shrugged. Marinette applauded the man for showing no outward sign of pain at that, even though there was a bullet embedded in his shoulder, and shrugging had to bite. “That’s what the word on the street is, though you sound French to me. Thought I’d come and check out who’s healing Gotham’s criminals. What’re you planning?”

“Sorry to foil your plans, but I’m not planning anything other than getting my college degree and not pissing off the people I live near.” She paused, flipping the lock on the briefcase upwards. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use me as your go to healer from now on. You’re going to bring trouble my way.”

“Trouble? Me? Perish the thought.” His hand rested comfortably on the holister of his gun, ready to shoot if the girl pulled out a weapon from the briefcase. “We’ll talk about repeat appearances after I see how you do today.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Any wounds other than the obvious?”

“Just need the bullet out, and some stitches on the gash.” His shoulder and his abdomen, respectively. The gash looked nastier than the bullet; no shrapnel, but the cut on his stomach was jagged and wide. Not a normal, sharp blade. Probably needed a good cleaning.

She grabbed the tweezers, a sterilized needle, and medical thread. “That’s fine. Now are you going to undress, or am I going to have to cut your… costume… up?”

“Getting me naked already? We haven’t even had our first date yet.”

“Very funny, little Red Riding Hood. Now hop to it. I have class at 9 tomorrow and projects to finish tonight.” Somehow, trouble always seemed to find her when she least wanted it to. Not that she wanted to have trouble find her at all, but luck was a two way street, and for all that being Ladybug granted her good luck, she attracted criminals like catnip. 

“And here my informants had me thinking you were a regular Florence Nightingale.”

Marinette snorted. “They wish. I’ve got to ask who told you, because everybody should know the rules. You know, the ones where they don’t speak of my existence to their higher ups?”

“I’m not a rat,” Red Hood said, taking the top part of his outfit off. “And it’s not like you would have gone unnoticed anyways. You might be treating small timers now, but people catch on to healers pretty easy.”

“Because some gauze and sewing skills make me such a prime target.”

“No, your magic does.”

Shit. Marinette never told anyone she was using magic, and she rarely used it unless it was a dire situation. If she could patch them up using regular skills, she did. 

“Yeah right, if I had magic healing powers, do you think I’d be shoving my fingers into your shoulder to get a bullet out?”

“Not a very good liar, Lady Cross. You have this deer-caught-in-the-headlights look about you.”

“Thanks for the compliment. I’m also the deer that tramples through your windshield and takes a dump on the driver’s seat.” She maneuvered the tweezers a little rougher, hoping to make Red Hood hiss in pain. He just chuckled, amused. His high pain tolerance was getting rather annoying. She had half a mind to pour hydrogen peroxide over the wound just to see if that would make him show he was in pain, but thought better of it. Even though she didn’t like the man, she also didn’t want to piss him off. Or worse, have him come back and make her fix him up again. 

Threading the needle, she made quick, small stitches on his shoulder, sewing the bullet hole up, then put some petroleum jelly to speed up the healing process and reduce scarring. At least the wound was in a position that didn’t require a lot of gauze. She needed to go out and buy some more soon. She barely had enough to wrap around Red Hood’s waist.

“So, the magic,” Red Hood started. “Is it a conditional thing? Can you not use it all the time?”

“Again, I don’t have magic.” Marinette did have to use some antibacterial on the knife wound. He would need to take good care of that one to make sure it didn’t get infected. 

“So a meta, then. What are you doing in Gotham? Everybody knows Batman hates metas.”

“Not a meta, either, sorry to disappoint.” She tied off the gauze, then stood to wash her hands. “Make sure to clean the stomach wound well. Hope you have your tetanus shot, otherwise you should look into getting one.”

“Surprisingly, I’m inclined to believe you on the not-a-meta thing. Back to the first thing, then. Magic. Why don’t you show me the old razzle dazzle? Do you have to say one of those weird spells like the godmother in Cinderella? Bibbity bobbity boo?”

“You’re hilarious,” Marinette dead panned. 

“How’s this for magic? Bibbity bobbity boo, kindly leave. Shoo.” She followed his suggestion, made a show of jazz hands as well. “Pity I don’t use magic otherwise you’d be gone now. Anyways, it’s time for you to make your exit. It would be great if you didn't visit me again. Ever. Thanks.”

She ushered him out onto her patio, then slammed the sliding door. He saluted her before dropping off the side of the building. She could imagine the man under the helmet smirking.

Marinette ran a hand through her loose hair. “He’s going to come back, isn’t he.”

@jasonette-july-2k20