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#it may have helped that i uh. was stuck in the first 2 areas for way longer than intended so i got to spend more time with him
amphibianaday · 3 months
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how long have you been aware of Atul from spirit farer?
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day 1532 this is obviously just an excuse to draw him again (referenced straight from an ingame screenshot) i've been passivley aware of him for a while. i'm pretty sure someone requested him and i intended to draw him and just forgot actively aware - about a week, since i started playing the game myself :)
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goblin-spider · 12 days
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[Log 480]
<year: 3065/2124>
<Time: 2:03 am>
«Spotted troopers today. No sound yet from Patrick about food. Noah gave me a pack of those things I used to eat called prawn chips. I wonder where he's getting them from? Is it from the Chinese place in downtown? Is it from Sydney, down in that little bar called madame Brock's? I'll never know where he gets the stuff he does. Sweet kid. Pat and Bowe raised him well. If I don't get my butt moving soon, someone might see me out here. The stars are lovely company though. The sand... Not so much.»
<Time: 6:30am>
«Made it halfway out to a swap base. The cars in this area are all out of fuel and broken down. Wonder if I can bum a smoke off of Kirk? He's always got something stupid on him. Grove sap would be nice for once. *Adjusts his goggles* Then again, it's probably non existent now. How longs it been? 4 years since I had my last drop? Would have to ask Kirk.»
<Time: 6:45am>
«*Sizzling of a steam powered door* morning Kirk. Found anything good in here?»
~Only some dead guys! Stole their clothes though. Designer alchemax boots! Retro! *Looks towards the goggles* oh come on you cunts would too if you were stuck in the wastelands, in hiding.~
«Kirk, please, cease your senseless yapping and help me lift this thing.»
~Back still bad from last week?~
«Yooouu bet. Found any medicine on these max workers?»
~Mate, do I look like the medicine retriever. I wish you'd just turn yourself in. No more running.~
«*rattling of medicine bottles* What happened to you hating troopers and bootlickers? I'm not going back to society. Troopers may be old but the culture is newer now. Nothing we knew will be there. Found some blight pills. Might help if we catch it.»
~I don't exactly like wandering out here, okay? Sometimes I get sick of you. oh and I'm immune honey. Just like you're immune to settling down or turning yourself in so we can actually shower.~
*he just stared blankly under his mask and goggles*
«uh huh... We showered on Monday, quit complaining.»
~ You smell like sand and death. Aren't you tired of running and killi- oh! Found a cellar! Wanna go in?~
«Not really. Gotta get a move on. We can sleep at the next swap base.»
<time: 1:00pm>
«*alarm goes off* manual, quiet mode.»
[Of course.。⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠。 reminder: it's time to go check on your friends.]
«My fri- you mean firelight and Harry?... Can't be that time of year already.»
[your readings show that your cortisol is high and your serotonin is at its lowest.]
«... Okay. I'll go see where they are now.»
~*mumbling sleepily* don't go. don't want to be alone...~
«*leans down and whispers in his ear* I'll only be gone for a few hours. I'm sure you can handle things without me. I just want to check. Okay.»
~ okay... I'll get a Bauhaus record on by the time you're back. ~
«seeya scrotum face.»
~seeya blight victim~
<Time: 5:45pm>
«*Boots thumping on the apartments floorboards* hm. No one's home. Good. Hopefully I don't leave any sand about. That'll be too hard to clean.»
«*Takes off his thick heavy gloves and puts them on the coffee table while he tidies just a little bit, like he usually does when he visits. He washes the dishes and cleans up the rubbish, takes a rag and dusts here and there and puts any dirty clothes he finds in a basket. He was just putting some things away when he spotted something* Huh, what's that?»
«*there's a recorder on the counter, a really old one, like from Bowes era. Curiosity gets the better of him and he picks it up to inspect it or hit play and listen, only to hear the front door unlocking. He quickly darts behind a corner and peers very carefully around it*»
«*He sees Harry come home and plop on the couch, covered in spray paint. Gabe must've heard him because he came out of his room and made his way to the kitchen cabinet to grab a snack. That's when he started internally swearing at himself for making so much noise without scanning the place first to make sure he wasn't home.*»
«*by that point, mer had stuck himself to the ceiling so that Gabe wouldn't see him peering out from around the corner. He looked a little different than he used to, seemingly spending a lot of time deciding what snack to eat. Then Gabe's head started to turn in his direction and he decided right then and there to quickly portal the hell out of there.*»
[end log]
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halfawitch-willow · 6 months
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Someone Tell Lady Luck I'm Stuck Here ❁ WSoH 2
Willow is training at the Court of Miracles and her exhaustion is catching up to her. Again. Lucky for her, Tony and Jessica notice. Takes place on Oct 12th 1 // What Do You Want From Me, Blood? @foreverydinger & @notbad-justsungthatway tw: none
WILLOW
Willow was slowly getting the hang of this serving thing. Jess was starting her out slowly, mercifully, and mostly paired her with another server to help deliver food or drinks. This worked for two reasons: one, Willow got to observe the other servers and how they interacted with the patrons, and two, Willow got to stick to her comfort zone and come out at her own pace.
It didn’t hurt that Willow’s sense of balance was second to none, and she had already mastered carrying multiple trays without spilling a single drink. Sometimes, having a tail was really convenient.
She was paired with Tony tonight, which suited Willow just fine. She arguably knew him the best out of all of the servers. She stood in the drinkwell, waiting for the next table to come in, and leaned her head back against the wall. Willow hadn’t been able to slip back to her dorm that day to catch a nap while Kim was in class, and she was feeling it. She was about to attempt sleeping with her eyes open when Tony walked over and she shook herself back to attention.
TONY
Tony knew the Court’s layout like the back of his hand, as he did most spaces in Swynlake these days. Sure Enchantra and Pride University were still a mystery to him but the former he didn’t tend to seek out and the latter? Well, he was going to get there. So he dodged and weaved his way through the Court of Miracles crowd with ease, telling Willow he’d be right back as he went to bring a few drinks to the performers.
Mostly he was checking on Jess but that was neither here nor there.
He felt his social battery charging as he said hello to familiar faces and greeted new ones entering the Court for the first time (mostly tourists of course). Tony was energized and invigorated by the work. It was hardly even work anyway when he had so much fun. That’s how the saying went, right? Well either way he scanned the area for any issues that needed assisting before ducking back to the drinkwell to meet back up with Willow.
“Hey! You doing okay?” Tony saw a sort of blank look on Willow’s face, though he knew the stress of learning a new job could do that to people so he wasn’t too concerned. It was still important that she feel comfortable in this environment, though. He knew it could get overwhelming. “Have you had water yet?”
WILLOW
Willow blinked at Tony owlishly before giving him a small, wry smile. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she reassured. “I, uh, may have forgotten my water bottle at home.” She was doing that more often; forgetting things. She would usually remember before it was too late, especially with her school work, but she’d left for shifts at the Garden Grove without her gloves more than a few times recently. She really needed to just buy a second pair for work.
“Do you think anyone will mind if I just,” Willow gestured at one of the glasses. It was probably a silly question, but she’d rather be silly than misstep. She’d been very lucky to be hired on by Jessica, and she didn’t want to repay that kindness by screwing up.
TONY
Now there were technically rules about cups and where they could be for employees and what have you but Tony knew that Willow wasn’t about to litter the whole establishment with glassware so he shrugged nonchalantly. “Nah, you should be fine to take a cup. Just don’t leave it where patrons can see and don’t forget where you hide it. Also it’s good to have a cup dedicated just for work. Helps a ton!”
The rules were simple, at least to Tony who had done this for so long, so bending them just enough not to snap them wouldn’t be difficult. She seemed smart.
“Though you may want a soda or something at some point. Get that blood pumping!”
WILLOW
Willow nodded, filling the glass with ice and water quickly and taking a sip. The cold water shocked her brain, and she felt a hit of relief. She gave him a small smile at his recommendation. “I should be fine,” she promised.
They were quickly called back onto the floor and Willow made sure to hide her glass of water. She trailed after Tony, making sure not to get underfoot, and helped carry trays of drinks around through the club.
Thirty minutes later, Willow was feeling light-headed. Her exhaustion was dragging her down, like two iron weights strapped to her ankles, and she stumbled into the wall the next time they went back to the drink well. She tried to pop back up quickly to hide how she was feeling and instead fumbled the empty tray she was carrying right out of her hands. Willow cursed under her breath, clutching her shaking hands close to her chest.
“Ha, clumsy,” she said weakly, clinging to the wall as she bent down to get the tray.
TONY
Now there really was no good way to learn how to balance than simply doing it but Tony was grateful when Willow only fumbled the empty tray. It was normal to break one or two (or seven if you were some of the unfortunate servers who had worked at the Court in the past as uni students) but he had a feeling it would be a real confidence destroyer for Willow.
Also, uhhh, most people didn’t cling to the wall like that when it happened.
“You good? Need to take a break?” He glanced from her to the tray and back toward the direction of their section. Shit. Tony couldn’t really take a second. But he supposed Willow could.
WILLOW
“Yeah, I’m okay!” Willow said with a nervous laugh. She clutched the tray to her chest like a shield, hoping it hid how she was shaking. It wasn’t her first shift, but she still didn’t want to appear like she couldn’t keep up after Jessica took such a risk on her!
But honestly, the longer she went, the more she could feel all the sleep she hadn’t been getting. It was heavy on her limbs and her spine, pressing down until her head felt twenty times heavier than it should.
“Probably just need some more water, or some soda like you said-” Willow cut off her rambling when she saw Jessica approaching.
JESSICA
It wasn’t accurate to say that Jessica knew everything that went on in the Court of Miracles these days, but she knew enough of it to give that impression. Especially when it came to her employees. She always kept a close eye on them to see if there were any issues to be aware of as it was too easy for them to accept problems as ‘just how things are’ sometimes. 
It was Willow who had her attention tonight. Partially because she was new, and Jessica wanted to make sure she was adjusting well. Partially because it was easy to see that there was something wrong. She made a note to talk to Willow at the end of the shift to see if there was something she could do, and then had intended not to bother her as she continued her own training. The dropped tray and the way she was leaning against the wall changed that. 
“Tony, could you get that water? Let’s go into the back for a moment Willow, it’s all right.” 
She gently shooed Willow back towards the employee only section, trusting Tony to follow as soon as he had a chance. She shot Jared a meaningful look and he gave her a small nod as they made their way into the back. 
“Why don’t you take a seat Willow, I know shifts like this can be a lot to adjust to especially on top of school. Can you tell me when is the last time you’ve eaten?”
TONY
There were plenty of times that Tony had forced a coworker or friend to make sure they’d had some water or eaten something or sit the fuck down but at work was typically not one of those times. And, well, Tony didn’t really know Willow like that. Maybe she was just clumsy and starting a new job was always awkward and—
Oh thank God! Jess was here! Mother Hen of the Court of Miracles swooping in to handle it.
“You got it, Boss!” Tony chirped, winking at them both as he finished filling the glass and disappearing back out onto the floor. “Have fun you two!”
WILLOW
Willow followed Jessica meekly, still clinging to the tray. She was mortified, and wished more than anything that a Vein Worm would burst out of the floor and swallow her whole. But Swynlake didn’t have veins, or gigantic, toothy worms in them, so she shuffled after Jessica and tried not to look like she was about to cry.
She sat down at Jessica’s urging and gave Tony a weak, shivery smile. “I-I’m sorry, Jessica,” Willow started before she could even process the question her boss had asked. “I can keep up, I promise! I ate earlier this afternoon, it’s probably just a little dizzy fit. I can finish the shift!”
JESSICA
Well, that was something. Although Jessica still might start sending Willow home with some food. Even with Elliot in the house, she still ended up with plenty of leftovers she could share around, and it was getting into the time of year when she tended to make a lot of soups and stews that could stretch pretty far. But that would have to be for another night. 
If food wasn’t the problem the concern was illness or exhaustion, but at this stage it could be difficult to tell those two apart. She ignored Willow’s protestations for the moment, focusing on the issue at hand. “And how much have you been sleeping?”
WILLOW
Willow didn’t have a good answer for that and she knew it. What could she say? ‘I have sleepover trauma that I thought I could deal with right up until I had a roommate every single night, and now I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time in weeks? I was so zoned out at the Garden Grove this week that I sliced my hand open and my have accidentally created a new hybrid death flower?’
“I get enough,” Willow said softly to her knees. “I’m… I’m adjusting to the new dorm assignments, I guess. I’ll be better soon, I promise.”
Maybe she should bring some of her energy drinks with her to work? They’d been helping her stay awake in class, even if they gave her terrible jitters.
JESSICA
Ah. That was the lie. Of course, if she was sleeping that badly, it meant she likely would get sick before long as the body had ways of forcing a situation when it got bad enough, and Jessica had a feeling Willow was close to that point. 
Softly, she said, “Willow, if you’re having issues with your roommate that mean you’re not sleeping, you need to tell someone. Or find some other places that you can sleep until you can find a better solution. I know it can be hard to have these conversations, but your body needs sleep. And caffeine can only do so much before it starts adding strain to your body as well.”
She let out a small sigh. “It would be irresponsible of me to allow you to continue your shift tonight. Both as a person worried about you and as a manager. Instead, why don’t you sleep in my office? The door locks and no one will bother you there. I can wake you up when we’re closing.” 
WILLOW
“Oh, no! Kim is great!” Willow said quickly, not wanting Jessica to think otherwise. The fear that it would get back to Kim and they would have a problem was an irrational one, but very real nonetheless. “Just never shared a room before,” Willow said with a nervous laugh.
It wasn’t a good lie, but Willow would choke on her own tongue before she admitted to anyone how badly she’d been treated by her peers. Then she really would have to find a Vein Worm to swallow her whole.
Willow deflated at Jessica’s sigh, shame welling up her throat. She wasn’t being fired yet, at least. And the idea of a nap in a room with a lock appealed to her greatly. It would just be for a few hours…
“... Does it lock from the inside or outside?” Willow asked quietly, not able to make eye contact as she asked.
JESSICA
Jessica filed the name away. It wasn’t one she recognized, but she had a feeling Eilonwy would be able to tell her a little bit more about the girl and if there was something to worry about. For now, she let that go. It was Willow’s story and Willow’s secret to keep. As long as she took care of herself. 
Because Jessica didn’t want to let her go. The girl worked hard, and it was obvious she needed to build up some of her confidence and have places that felt safe. The Court could be good for that, and she trusted every person in this building. But protecting that feeling and that environment would always come first for Jess. It was a good place but you still needed to be careful. After all, broken glassware could result in injuries, and the late night crowd could get rowdy even with security keeping an eye on things. An employee this dizzy with stress was in danger here, let alone the danger they could cause to the business. 
“There’s a key to lock it from the outside, and the lock flips on the inside. I can give you the key and then you can lock yourself in so you’ll be the only one who can get in there.” Without waiting for Willow to respond, Jess reached into her pocket and pulled the key off the ring to hand over to Willow. 
Of course, she could pick the lock to get into the room if she really needed to. But Willow didn’t need to know that. It was enough for her to feel safe enough to rest for a solid few hours. 
WILLOW
Willow held the key in her palms like it was made of solid platinum. She hadn’t been able to lock the world away in… a while. Kim had a key to their room too and kept kind of odd hours, so Willow never knew how much time she’d have to herself. And locking herself in the bathroom for too long meant that someone would inevitably knock roughly on the door and scare the bile out of her.
She hadn’t had a place to just relax in ages.
Willow felt herself tearing up and quickly ducked behind her hair to hide her wet eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured, clutching the key tight in her trembling hands.
JESSICA
Jessica smiled down at the girl, catching the glimmer across her eyes before she looked away. Jess only had her instincts to work on, but that had clearly been the right move. Whatever was going on, the first step was to give her a chance to rest and recover a little bit. They’d see what came after that. 
“Of course. Come on, let me show you.” 
She waited to make sure Willow was following before picking up the glass of water Tony had brought earlier and leading Willow up the stairs. The VIP section was always quieter than the main floor anyway, and with the door closed all sound was pleasantly muffled. 
She hadn’t spent much time in her office since the night of the demon attack, but that was something else Willow didn’t need to think about. The room was fine. It would be clear of memories and would let her sleep - and maybe this kind of thing would help Jess clear out a few memories of her own. 
“Here you go. I’ll make sure to get you before I leave for the night so you can head home. But for now, go ahead and get some sleep.” 
WILLOW
Willow followed Jessica quietly, giving Tony a small, embarrassed wave and mouthing “Sorry” as they passed him. She managed to stay upright as they went up the stairs, but now that she knew she would be able to sleep soon, she found it nearly impossible to keep her eyes open. Part of her worried that when Jessica came to get her after closing, Willow might be too gone to hear her. 
She clutched the key tighter in her hands.
Jessica’s office was small but tidy, and there was a very comfortable looking couch against the wall that was practically calling Willow’s name. She took a deep breath, looking at Jessica as she spoke. Willow nodded. 
“I will, thank you,” Willow said softly, too tired to properly apologize for only making it halfway through her shift. 
Jessica closed the door behind her as she went and Willow hesitated for a moment before flipping the lock. When she tried the knob, it didn’t budge. Trembling, Willow went to one of the chairs in front of Jessica’s desk and pulled it over and put it under the knob as well, just in case. Paranoid? Maybe. But Willow could already feel the tension draining out of her shoulders and back.
The tears were rapidly flowing down her cheeks now as she walked to the couch, sitting in the corner facing the door and curling her knees up to her chin. Her tail curled invisibly around her ankles, and only the fear of cameras kept Willow from taking off her concealment stone. 
Slowly, as the minutes passed and there was no attempt to breach the door, Willow started to relax. She wiggled into a more comfortable position, wiping her cheeks before curling tightly around the key still held in her hand.
And when she fell asleep, Willow sunk so deep that she didn’t dream at all.
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annaphoenix1994 · 8 months
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Ch.112 - The Call
Previous Chapter - Masterlist 1; Masterlist 2 - Next Chapter
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Kiera receives a call from the last person she'd expect...
This is a very short chapter and I'm sorry! I may come back and add to it later, but I've been compiling many ideas to keep adding to this story so that I don't have to wait until the new game comes out in November and I'm sure you guys wouldn't want to wait until November for an update!
*
"I really don't want to leave," Kiera sighed once they stepped into the airport terminal towards the waiting area. "I had such a great time. I'm definitely glad you didn't give me any hints about the surprise!" 
"I'm glad, love. You looked stunning wearing that dress." 
"I can say the same about you, babe. You pulled off looking good in that suit. Too bad we can't stay in that era forever." 
"I'm sure it was worse than what it is now." 
Once they took their seats to wait on their next flight, Kiera crossed her legs while Simon's left hand rested on her knee, again bouncing his foot impatiently while he kept a stark eye on the entrance and exit points of the terminal. "Uh oh," Kiera giggled, breaking Simon out of his protective glance and pulling her phone from her purse. "Baler is calling me." 
"Brace yourself for a heap of trouble," Simon grumbled. "Your mum has been calling us twice a day since we've left telling us about the twins, but when that lad calls, he's either up to something or is testing the water..." 
"He might just be calling because he misses us!" She rolled her eyes after Simon shot her a glare that said the teen was lying. 
"He's a teenager. The last thing on his mind is calling his parents who are on their honeymoon just to ask how they are. He's probably sleeping in our bed, eating all of my favorite snack cakes for when I want to cheat on my diet, drinking all of your Dr. Pepper, and feeding Kimber what he doesn't eat." 
Kiera couldn't help but laugh, "I thought you were quitting eating those cakes altogether?" 
"I am... Once they're all gone. I only eat one once a week." 
"Yeah," She scoffed. "One pack! Which has two cakes in the pack!"
"I can't help there's two in the pack!" 
"I know, Simon. It's okay to have a favorite cheat food for someone as strict on yourself like you are." 
"Have to stay in shape for my job." 
"Yeah, and when you eventually deploy again," She frowned at the thought, looking down at her lap to answer her ringing phone. "Hello?" 
"Momma, when are you coming home?" 
"Depends on what you're about to tell me," Kiera replied, arching her brow and putting him on speaker. "Is everything okay?" 
"Well," Baler huffed. "Everything is fine here at home, but my ego isn't okay." 
"Bloody hell." Simon scoffed, rolling his eyes. 
"What happened?" 
"So, Nana couldn't pick me up from school today because she was still stuck at the doctor's office, so she asked Johnny to come and pick me up..." 
"Okay? What's the problem with that?" 
"Well... He couldn't find the keys to his car at first and - you know how they've been staying at the house with me on the weekends?-"
"They have their own house to stay in!" Simon barked, startled, ignoring the breathy laugh Baler let out at his father's sudden rise of blood pressure. 
"Take me off speaker, mom... Dad's going to get mad." 
"Okay," Kiera giggled, not doing as he requested because she too was eager to see how Simon was going to react with whatever it was that Baler was about to inform them on. "Alright, you're off speaker." 
"Good. Anyway, Teeter was going to take your truck like you told her she could, but the truck needed diesel and DEF and she didn't have time to run to the store, so-"
"Don't fucking tell me they took my car." Simon muttered quietly. 
"-She gave Johnny the keys to dad's car." 
"Oh... Is that all that happened?" 
"No, being picked up in a Hellcat definitely didn't hurt my ego," Baler laughed. "It's what Johnny did when he picked me up that did." 
"What did he do?" 
"I didn't know it was him at first until I saw my name on that big ass - sorry - big ole card that's supposed to go on the dashboard and at first I got excited because I thought it was dad coming to pick me up and you were going to surprise me by coming home early, but anyway Johnny started blasting that stupid bagpipe song or whatever it was at max volume yelling "SCOTLAND FOREVER! SCOTLAND KNOWS WHAT TIME IT IS!" out the window like he's some drunk idiot and wouldn't even turn it down after I got in the car. I saw his phone too, so I know he was taking a video to probably send it to dad later to piss him off. And he was shouting something like "GIVE EM STEEL LADS!" and I'm emotionally vulnerable until you come home."
Kiera couldn't help but laugh at the imagined scenario, looking over at Simon to see his face beet red. Even though she knew he was livid, she knew he'd be laughing about it later. Especially if they were to somehow see the video from Johnny himself. 
(Author's Note: Here is the video in question to give you a full picture ;) Please giggle and enjoy it like I did because it's 100% accurate! I also couldn't find it on YouTube, so I'll have to copy the link to the video here so you can open it on TikTok or your Safari browser: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Fejgkk/
"I'm sorry, baby," Kiera giggled. "Did he at least get you home safe and sound?" 
"Yes. He didn't even scratch dad's car and I'm surprised." 
"He better be glad he didn't, lad." Simon scoffed. 
"Mom! I thought you took me off speaker!" 
"Um, I did! Simon can just hear really well!" 
"Yeah, right. When are you coming home?" 
"We're at the airport now." Simon grumbled. 
"That doesn't tell me anything." 
"Love, he's getting his attitude from you. You should do something about that." He murmured with a playful glare. 
"Maybe it's a good thing," She retorted. "We're at the airport in Manchester. We were supposed to fly home yesterday because our cruise got cancelled, so we stayed the night in a hotel and are taking the first flight back to the States. We're going to land in Nashville and stay a night before getting on another flight that takes us to Cody." 
"Okay." 
"Are you at the house or with your Nana?" 
"I'm at Nana's. It's not a far walk," He snickered.
"How're your brother and sister?" 
"They're good. Never caused any problems since you two left. I think Evie said dada at one point, but she's been quiet ever since."
"She did??" Simon questioned, his heart thudding with excitement.
"That's what Nana was sayin'. I'm just laying on the couch while she's making dinner-"
"Why don't you go and help her?" Simon scoffed. 
"Alright. Oh, hold on. Someone's knocking on the door. I'll get it, Nana!" They heard Baler exclaim from the other side of the phone. "Um... Hello?" 
"Hello," The sound of a woman replied back. "Do you know where I can find your mother?"
Kiera's brows furrowed at the conversation she and Simon were both hearing from the other side of the phone. 
"May I ask who you are?"
"Tell her that Kate from Butte came by to see her. I was in town and wanted to catch up." 
"Um... Okay, I'll tell her," Baler spoke before directing his attention to Kiera on the other side of the phone after the mysterious middle-aged woman dismissed herself from the porch and back towards her car, Baler keeping a confused eye on her from the window after he had shut and locked the door. "Momma, some lady from butt came to see you." 
"From where?" 
"Butt - you know, that town in Montana?" 
"You mean Butte?" She breathed a laugh. "I don't know anyone from Butte, honey." 
"Well, she sure knows you," Baler scoffed. "Said her name was Kate." 
Kiera's breathing halted briefly, immediately looking at Simon who shared the same expression as her. Why didn't she call me? "Okay." 
"She's still sitting in her car. Want me to take the phone to her?" 
"No, that's fine. I'll call her. Our flight is boarding now. I'll call you when I can, okay?" 
"Okay, momma. Be careful. I love you. Tell dad I said I loved him too." 
"Love you too." Simon answered, hearing him as clear as day since he was on speaker. 
He looked at Kiera with a concerned gaze, watching her end her call with Baler before finding Kate's phone number. "Put it on speaker." 
"I can't if it's classified, Simon," She sighed before reaching into her purse to pull out a pair of AirPods from their case. "Here, put one in your ear and I'll put the other in mine. Just don't say anything." 
"Okay, love."
They both heard the phone ring roughly four times before she answered, "Kiera, I see word travels fast when I come to visit." She chuckled. 
"Was it just a visit, though?" 
"I wish I could say it was," She sighed. "I had forgotten you were still on your honeymoon when I pulled up to your house and realized that you weren't home with your truck and car sitting in the driveway. Is there any way you could meet me in Jackson Hole after you get back?" 
"Why Jackson Hole? Why not meet me at the ranch?"
"With what I'm about to tell you doesn't need to be said on your ranch." 
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crystalcow · 3 years
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𝑆𝑎𝑝𝑛𝑎𝑝𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑//𝑆𝑎𝑝𝑛𝑎𝑝 𝑝𝑡 4
Masterlist // child reader ML //
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Sapnap x reader !p !child reader
Pronouns used: none specified!
Warnings: swearing, mentions of death, casinos
➳➳➳➳➳┄┄※┄┄➳➳➳➳➳
𝐊𝐢𝐧𝗼𝐤𝗼 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝗼𝐰??
Quackity was telling you all of his plans
He rambled on for hours of his ideas for casinos and how he was going to marry Karl and sapnap
It sounded great
He had his whole plan set up! He even had Sam helping him with the building
But then he left
Just like everyone else
But that was fine! You were just with sapnap
Before Karl came running over rambling on about needed to move his library
He had a library?
“[Redacted] you need to stay close, please”
You looked at him weirdly
Who the fuck was [redacted]
“Karl my names Y/n you idiot” “flame..” “sorry”
He didn’t even notice it and then you had to spend the next couple days hauling over 100 books
“Oo hey what are these! The covers look really weird”
You had found his time travel books
Woops
That man raced over and in the kindest way possible, snatched it from your hands
“Don’t touch those, they are my special books”
You just shrugged and let him be, he freaks you out enough
So you all traveled to this area in the spruce forest and built a really ugly mushroom hut
But hey it’s fine! Foolish thankfully came around later that day and made everything better
So you stuck around
Maybe you needed this, this new start
Oh but prime knows that wouldnt last long
Karl started forgetting
At first it was simple things as just forgetting where he was or little stumbles with names
But eventually he was going away longer and longer
He started calling you by these strange names, some that sound Victorian and western and others that are unlike you
One day he didn’t call you by your name at all
You were hanging around the Sakura trees and the big yin Yang pond waiting for sapnap to come back with George
Then you saw Karl exit the library, running up to him for a hug
It’s been two months since you’ve seen him
You fucking hated it but you couldn’t help but consider him another parental figure
He loved it
But he just stood there as you wrapped your arms around him
Expecting the usual “[reda]- Y/n, I’ve missed you so much my sweet flame!”
But there was nothing just a sad one sided hug
“Hello? I’m sorry but do I know you?”
You were ready to cry
“I’m sorry, I uh must’ve mistaken you for the wrong person” “No that’s fine! Hugs are nice?”
So you left and ran into the library
Scouring throughout all of the books until you found them
The same 8 books you shrugged away
You read through all of them along with Karl’s other journals
You didn’t like going through his stuff especially, a whole invasion of privacy
The more you read the worse it got
What were you gonna tell Sapnap?
Who the hell is James, and [redacted]?
And why couldn’t he stop
It’s no use anymore
You were simply just forgotten
𝐋𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐬
The closer you got to the large building, the sicker you got
Kinoko Kingdom was supposed to be your free pass
But somehow you always end up here
You called for Sam on the comms waiting for the beep
The inside looked great to say the least
“What are your past relationships with the prisoner?” “No answer.”
“Where are you currently resided?” “No answer”
“Do you believe the prisoner deserves his sentence?” “Maybe”
You put all your shit in the locker and followed him through all the safety checks
“I’m glad you didn’t bring anything with you”
You stood on the platform heart racing as the lava went down
It was like a ticking time bomb
The small squeaks and scratches of the hovering bridge
He just stared at you
That sick stupid mask was broken by tommy that day in the black stone room
So you had to look into his face
Lets just say he looks good in Orange
“Barrier up or down?” “Down”
He backed up into the corner as you stepped in
Smiling
Once the lava cascaded down your smile turned into a sick frown
“Hello” is that all he had to fucking say?
“Screw you. Fuck you. Damn you”
He just looked you a small chuckle escaping from his lips
“Those all mean the same thing.” “Well I’ve been living in cinnamon town for the past couple months, and I’m ready to fucking burn some buns”
Yeah he just laughed
“I’ve missed you Hot shot”
“You ruined our damn life!”
Someone went quiet
“If you didn’t have to have a petty little war, or criminalize children we could’ve been fine! It could’ve just been you, dad, me, and George.”
You were pissed, everyone just kept leaving you.
Tommy and Tubbo, Quackity, Karl, Dream, and hell even Wilbur
“You come and visit me, after not having seen me for months and you just yell? Not a hello or ‘how are you dream?’ ‘How’s prison dream’ ‘how can I help you get out of this damn place’ “
You just sat down ready to just walk out into the lava
“I’ve been stuck here for months! None of you even cared enough to visit me, hell even Tommy came around.”
You might have felt a little bad after leaving him
The prison was cold even tho lava was flowing right there
“Why would you leave the discs alone..” “Because I had to end it.”
What were you doing here
What were you planning on saying?
“So, what do you do in prison”
“I have a clock.”
You got up to go look at the pretty clock
Then threw it at his face
“Ow” “deal with it bitch”
The longer you stayed the worse the feeling in your stomach got
so you buzzed for Sam waving goodbye
“Wait.. Do they miss me?” “Can’t say, but I think this may be for the best.”
He wanted his best friends
But he just got the annoying teenager
Oh but that wouldn’t be the last
𝐋𝐚𝐬 𝐍𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐬
You got a letter in the mail one day
Who the hell uses letters??
You were shocked to see the address and the small post card
“Come around some time”-Quackity
Ans on the back it had the cords
Oh well what did you have to loose? Sapnap was focused on Karl
and well Karl didn’t even know you
So you set off
It took you a couple hours travel by horse to get to the desert area
The large sign blaring in the red text
You gotta admit the place looked beautiful
There was a giant dick and different shops
You were shocked to see this random un human like guy
“Hello, I am Charlie a totally human guy!”
Yeah totally not slime
“I’m uh, Y/n?” He reached out for a handshake sort of thing
“Dap me up!” “Another time Charlie”
Maybe when you had hand sanitizer
“Ohh so your Y/n! Mister Quackity talks about you all the time, come on in!”
You were skeptical but followed anyways
Stopping in your tracks when you saw Fundy
“Furry?” “Fire shit?”
You went over to give him a side hug, ruffling his fur
“What the hell are you doing here ginger boy!” “Oh you know, just escaping nightmares”
You were confused then just let him be
You walked to the entry way of the place
A beautiful pond with flowers and an arch
“Did what the place where Mr. Quackity was going to propose!”
Going to?
You shrugged it off following inside
You hated to admit it, but you were excited to see him
Yeah you really needed a parental figure in your life at the moment
So when you saw him, he immediately pick you up in a hug
You didn’t fail to notice his change in appearance
That beanie stayed the same tho
Thank god
“Hey hey! Let me show you around the place, we can also go for lunch and talk.”
The casino looked great to say the least
Loud music booming from the speakers, along with the live jazz band on the side
Slot machines were going off every minute
“Have a chip, something to remember this by”
He handed you a red poker chip
It was a cool one tho, in the middle has a blocky sort of smile
Creepy and dopey.. sick!
So you put it around a spare silver chain
“So how have you been kid? ‘Ts been a while hasn’t it.” “Could be better..”
You both walked around the city in silence, offering to go in the super model shop
“No” “why not” “keep walking”
On your way to lunch you had to squint at what you were seeing
“Oh my goodness you’re still alive?!” “You’re alive!?”
You and revivebur just stared at one another
“Yeah he came back after I died!” “you what now-“
You just stared at Tommy and back to Wilbur
Oh god those shrooms were messing with your head
You should’ve gotten out of there a while ago
Quackity came over placing his hands on your shoulders
“Do I have to execute you both? Get off my damn property”
“Sorry Q. Say, Y/n wanna join Lmanburg 2.0?”
You back away holding your hands up
“I denied that offer once, and I’ll do it again. Fucking zombie freaks”
You obviously muttered the last part
Why the fuck did dream revive those two shits??
When did Tommy even die??
Your visit here has just gotten weirder and weirder
𝐌𝗼𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬
Quackity got you away from the brits as quick as he could
So he brought you over to his office
“So kid, how’s your dad..”
Ah you expected this question
“How the fuck am I supposed to know. He’s living his life, Karl’s time traveling! Oh yeah did I mention he doesn’t even remember me.”
He looked at you with wide eyes
“So I’m not the only one they forgot..”
You slammed you hands on the fable dramatizing the situation
“How would you feel about moving here? I mean you could work for me in the casino!”
You thought about it for a second
You have two options
1. Live in shroom town with bubbles
2. Move to las Nevada’s with Quackity
You were sure Sapnap wouldn’t mind
I mean would he even care?
He hasn’t for the past couple months!
“You feel abandoned there, over here there are hundreds of people. You’ll have the time of your life”
You thought about it for a sec
“Alright hand me a contract”
So you signed
Making deals with the devil huh
Little did you know it would cost you your life
Devils little soul
➳➳➳➳➳┄┄※┄┄➳➳➳➳➳
and this is the finale! I will take requests for sapnaps child, and I’ll do some shit with Quackity and the casino and go in more depth if wanted!
As always request and ask anything! And ask if you want to be on a taglist (child reader or general)
For those on the taglist I don’t know if you wanted to be tagged for all child reader shit or just dreams child.. so please tell me :)
@creatorofstars @georgenctfound @samistheidiot @smolbox-png @ghostlysenses @stellarinstigator @bobaducky
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Text
Lost Time (The Ashes of Yourself Part 2)
Part 1     Part 3    Part 4
Spotify Playlist (collaborative)
Warnings: mentions of suicide attempts/ideation, swearing, daddy/abandonment issues
Word count: 3,879
You and Techno stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, both of you not knowing what to say to each other. So much was left unsaid between you two throughout your childhoods and the past four years that you didn’t know where to even start. You supposed a simple ‘how are you?’ would suffice, but that’d be too simple, far too simple for not talking to each other in literal years. But you couldn’t just say ‘hey, I’m incredibly jealous that you are Dad’s favorite and I totally didn’t send you my suicide note that you may or may not have seen’, that’d be way too much trauma dumping for your taste. You couldn’t think of anything else to say, so you chose to sheepishly grin at him and awkwardly wave. 
“Heh uh, how’re you…?” Smooth, (y/n). Real smooth.
You watched as he furrowed his brows slightly before he hesitantly gave you a small wave with his gargantuan pink hand. “...I’m doin alright. You?”
“I’ve seen better days.”
“Right…”
An awkward silence fell over you two as you glanced down at your bloodied hands. “Sorry bout the blood. It won’t really stop until I stop moving.”
He shrugged, “that’s fine. I’ve bled everywhere in this house. Nothing that won’t come out.”
“Alright then.”
You wanted to crawl into a pit and just let yourself die, you hated this awkward atmosphere you created. Your mind scrambled to find something to say to the man other than a stupid ‘alright then’. You haven’t even seen him in four years, surely you would be able to find something to talk about. You were snapped out of your thoughts when you heard him clear his throat.
“I uh got some clothes for you. They’re Tommy’s old clothes from when he stayed with me during his exile. I don’t know if they’ll fit, but I’m guessing that they’re better than the wet ones you’re wearing.”
When he saw you wince when you tried to stand up, he rushed to your side and helped you stand up. You could feel the backs of your knees start to drip blood. “Do you have any spare lava?”
His hands paused on your upper arms, “yes, but why would you need it?”
“It kinda heals me. I mean, just enough that my skin stops cracking open and bleeding everywhere.”
“Why don’t we just take you to a lava lake in the Nether?”
You glanced out the window at the flurry of snowflakes falling to the ground and being whisked off to other places by the harsh wind. You shuttered, remembering what it felt like to be fully engulfed in water. “Water hurts. I don’t want to get burnt out again.”
“Right, I’ll go get a few buckets full. Stay here,” with that, he ushered you to sit in front of the fire once again and draped the large blanket over your shoulders again. You could hear him move to another room and rustle around what you presumed was a chest before you heard his heavy footsteps walking behind the couch. You could hear the billowing of the wind when he opened the door before it was cut off by the door closing. 
You leaned forward and put your hands in the fire, relishing in the feeling of the flames melting away the charred skin slightly. The flames licked and caressed your dark skin slowly giving you more feeling back in the damaged tissue. As you were turning your hands over the flames, you thought about your voluntary near death experience just about an hour before. 
The thought of the ocean finally taking you and dragging your charcoaled corpse into its depths never to be seen again was alluring. After feeling the intense pain and the suffocation that came with chucking yourself into the ocean when you’re part blaze was definitely a deterrent, but you just had to push through the pain. This was something you’d dreamt of doing since you were fifteen and you’d be damned if you were going to let pain stop you. 
You know you felt sort of… grateful that Philza saved you when you were laying on that beach, but now that you had time to reflect on what happened, you felt resentful that he did. Of course he’d take away the only good thing you had going on in your life, he was full of audacity and impudence when you were a kid. He hasn’t changed at all much to your disappointment. You shouldn’t have expected him to change in the first place, that was just something that you knew in the back of your mind would never happen. A large part of you craved his approval and affection, but you knew that wouldn’t happen. 
Your thoughts were cut off by someone pulling you back gently from the fire. “I got the lava. Uh, I can set up an area for you downstairs with netherrack.”
“No, you don’t have to, I just have to put it on my joints for a few minutes.”
“Don’t you want to, uh, fully cover yourself?”
“I can hold off until the snowstorm dies down. It’s nothing too major.” You dipped your hands into the large bucket of lava and sighed in relief, “that’s much better, thank you Technoblade.”
“It’s no problem, but you literally just almost died. How is that something that’s ‘not major’?”
“I’m used to… well, this,” you took a hand out of the lava and gestured to your stone covered arm. “It’s just more than I’m used to. Kinda uncomfortable, but I’ll live.”
“What do you mean you’re used to it? You don’t live by water do you?”
“Yeah, I live by the ocean so I’m bound to get a little charred. No big deal,” you took your hands out of the bucket, shook the excess lava off, and stuck your elbows in. You looked at your now dully glowing hand and wiggled your fingers. There were more blackened scars etched into your skin on your joints, but you didn’t care.
“Heh? Why the hell would you live by an ocean?” 
You wove your hands nonchalantly in the air, “I always liked how the water looked when the sun set. The way that the pinks and yellows would reflect and bounce off the waves? Breathtaking.” You also lived by the ocean so that you had an easy way out of living, but you weren’t about to tell him that. Too much trauma dumping.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 
“Have you ever seen the sun setting over the ocean?” You rose a brow at the piglin hybrid sitting on the couch. 
“Well, no but-”
“Then you can’t knock it till you try it. I’ll take you to my old place after I can take a proper lava bath. You won’t regret it, promise.”
“Still, you’re literally made of fire. Look what happened to you… Er, speaking of, how’d this happen?” He looked you up and down inquisitively with his red eyes. 
You sighed as you took your elbows out of the lava and dipped your feet into the buckets. “...Do you still have your communicator?”
You watched as his floppy ear flicked and his eyebrow rose at you, “...Yes, but I only talk to Dad. Why, did you leave me a message?” Before he could stand up to grab his communicator, you stopped him with a hand on his shin. “No, I didn’t. I was just wondering.”
He didn’t look convinced, “...tell me what happened. Were you pushed?”
Your shoulders tensed up against your will before you forced them to relax. “I fell in, got too close to the edge.”
“You’re so lucky Dad was already at your house, you could’ve died. How could you be so careless?” 
You only responded with a blaze-like frustrated grunt that rumbled in the back of your throat and removed your feet from the buckets. Picking up one of the buckets, you took a swig of the lava. The viscous liquid crawled slowly down your throat and soothed your burned esophagus and stomach. Clearing your throat, you looked over to your estranged brother. He was looking at you with disgust, his snout scrunched up slightly and his mouth twisted into a grimace.
“What?” Your voice sounded less strained and scratchy. Overall, it felt better to speak.
“Your- your feet were just in there. That’s disgusting.”
You blew out a puff of smoke and watched as it drifted to the ceiling, “my feet were just in water, remember? They’re clean. And besides, I swallowed and inhaled a lot of water so I needed it. I mean, my lungs are still stone, but there’s nothing I can do about it except wait it out.”
“That’s still gross. Wait, can you not drink water?”
“No- well technically I can, but it hurts. Gimme one sec.”
He was quiet as he watched you take a deep breath and dunk your entire head into the lava bucket you weren’t drinking from. His youngest sibling was… strange, but he found that he enjoyed your company so far. The only company he’s had at his cabin recently was his brothers and dad, which burned him out slightly with their big personalities. You were as awkward as he was and that was refreshing. But he couldn’t help but feel guilty after hearing the majority of yours and Philza’s argument. Now that he thought back on his childhood, the majority of his memories were of him and Philza. He didn’t have many negative memories past his adoption, and that was because he spent all of his time adventuring with Philza. He did everything with his adoptive father and absolutely nothing with his siblings. He knew nothing about Wilbur, well Ghostbur now, or Tommy until they stayed with him during Tommy’s exile. He’s never talked to you or spent any time with you before, and he wanted to get to know who you were. He wanted to make up for lost time.
After you were under for a while, he started to worry that you drowned yourself. Just as he was about to pull your head out of the bucket with a hand close to your forehead, you slowly removed your head from the lava and held it over the bucket so that the excess would drip off from you. Panting slightly, you sat up fully and wiped your eyes clean of the lava. You could hear some rustling in front of you so you opened your eyes to see your brother holding out clothes to you. 
“Go change, I’ll make dinner. There’s a spare room upstairs, second door on the left. You can stay there for now.”
You hesitated before you took the clothes from him, “I… Thank you Techno.” You weren’t expecting him to be so kind to you, he was known as the blood god after all. He was ruthless when he battled, leaving thousands without families. You saw him a couple of times when you were younger coming home with Philza covered in blood with a malicious expression on his face. That always made you try to avoid him; not that you had any difficulty doing that, he was never home. 
He curtly nodded before he turned to walk into where you assumed was the kitchen. You trudged up the stairs and tiredly drug your feet down the hallway towards the second door on the left. When you opened the door, you were pleasantly surprised. You didn’t know what you were expecting to see, but it certainly wasn’t this. It was simplistic, yet it looked like a professional decorated it.
The bed looked incredibly comfortable and soft with a large white comforter draped over the top. At both sides of the headboard, twin chests sat underneath double hung windows with wooden frames that matched the spruce planks that made up the walls. You were sure that once the relentless snowstorm stopped you would be able to see a spruce forest in the distance. Lanterns hung at the far corners of the room opposite of where the bed sat. Glancing at the opposite wall, you saw a framed portrait of a nether fortress. You assumed that it was the nether fortress on the other side of his portal. If you squinted, you could see orange specks that you assumed were blazes. 
After you got dressed, you were pleasantly surprised to see that Tommy’s clothes fit you. Despite the slight bagginess of the pants and the sleeves of the jumper hanging halfway past your hands, they fit relatively well. Humming in satisfaction, you hung up your wet clothes to dry and made your way downstairs following the savory smell of cooking meat and potatoes. Your mouth watered at the smell, it’s been a while since you’ve eaten an actual meal. You’d just been surviving on an apple a day with the occasional potato when you had some leftover from making homemade vodka. 
You walked into the kitchen and looked at your brother standing at the stove, the stove looked miniscule compared to his seven and a half foot tall form. That man was a giant and you wouldn’t be lying if his height alone didn’t intimidate you slightly. If he wanted, he could grab your entire face with his hand. Various light pink scars decorated his muscular arms that poked out from the rolled up sleeves of his blouse. He wasn’t wearing his huge fluffy cloak, instead it was draped over the back of one of the chairs at the large wooden dining table. Every part of your body wanted to take it, wrap yourself up into a blaze hybrid burrito, and take the best nap you’ve ever had. His corseted form moved gracefully around the kitchen grabbing various spices and herbs. 
You saw his ears twitch before he moved his massive head  to look back at you, you could see the corners of his mouth quirk up ever so slightly. “They fit you, that’s good. Take a seat, dinner's almost ready.” With that, you took a seat at the table. You felt like a child again, the table was huge, the tabletop coming up to your lower chest. The table and chairs were made of what looked like dark oak wood. The wood was carved intricately with complex patterns etched into the frame and the back of the chairs. 
You eyed the cape draped over the chair next to you. It was a deep royal red with black speckled white fur lining the border of the fabric. If you looked closely, you could see that the pendant that connected the two ends was made of gold and had a diamond encrusted center. It looked incredibly soft, it would be so easy to just reach out with a finger to pet it. Your brother wouldn’t notice if you did it quick enough so that you could touch it before he turned around. When you gathered the courage to touch the cloak, you reached out with a slightly shaking hand to pet the fur, watching Technoblade the entire time. 
Everytime he would move to grab a spice, you would quickly retract your hand and try to act as innocent as possible only to try again after he didn’t turn around again. Just as you finally touched the fabric, you were in awe with how soft it was. It was like petting a newborn puppy but better. You truly couldn’t put into words how soft it was. 
You were snapped out of your trance by a small chuckle, “soft isn’t it?” You jumped, quickly retracting your hand and smacking your head against the back of your chair in the process. You could feel your cheeks heat up more than they usually did, you could see the glow of orange intensify at the bottom of your vision. Your brother was staring at you with amusement, his mouth quirked up in a small smile. He was carrying two plates full of steak and potatoes, putting one in front of you before walking to sit opposite of you. 
“Uh, yeah. It- it’s really soft.” 
“I got it from a nation thousands of blocks from here, it wasn’t easy to get. Those guards were not happy to see me stealing from their king.” He chuckled before he started to eat his food. 
“Is that where you got the crown too?”
“No, Dad got it for me as a going away present when I moved out… You’ve grown up so much since I’ve last seen you. I remember when you barely reached my waist and now you’re only about a foot and a half shorter than me.” 
“You’ve gotten taller also, more scars too.”
“You as well. Are all those from water?” 
“Yeah, it only scars when I crack the stone on my skin though.”
“Ouch. So like you get scars whenever you move?”
You shrugged, “basically.” Turning to your plate, you struggled with not wolfing down the entire thing in one go. You didn’t want to have your brother get the impression you had bad table manners. Wilbur raised you better than that. When you took a bite of the stake, you moaned slightly at the taste. Quickly swallowing your mouthful, you looked at your brother with wide eyes. “Ender Tech, where’d you learn to cook? It’s delicious.”
He gave you a small bashful smile and shrugged, “when you’ve been living alone for this long you pick up on a few things.”
“I’ve been living alone for about a year now and I still can’t cook.”
He raised an eyebrow at you, “well what do you eat then?”
“Just an apple a day, maybe a potato too if I have any to spare.”
He narrowed his eyes, “how the hell are you still alive? That’s hardly enough.”
You blankly stared at your plate, “I’ve been asking myself that everyday, things aren’t… amazing living alone. Uh, let’s talk about happier things. I wanna get to know you.”
He stared at you for a while before he sighed, “fine, but we’re talking about this later. How do you wanna go about getting to know each other?”
“It’s gonna be hard cuz we have like seventeen years to catch up on, but I think we can do it. Let’s… let’s play the favorites game. We take turns naming a category and we both say what our favorite thing in that is. I’ll start, what’s your favorite type of mythology? Like Greek, Egyptian, Norse…”
His eyes lit up at the mention of mythology, “I like Greek mythology. I can talk for hours about it.”
“Nice! I personally like Norse mythology better, we have to exchange myths sometime.”
“My turn, what’s your favorite myth?”
You matched his excitement, “I really like the Ragnarok myth. The fact that the gods know of their impending doom and destruction and are actively working towards it is- is just really intriguing. What’s yours?”
You both abandoned your meals as your conversation diverged into telling each other various myths from your respective favorite mythologies. Your favorite ones he told you were the tales of Orpheus and Eurydice, Persephone and Hades, and Psyche and Eros. You were a sucker for romance even if the thought of you being in a relationship was something you were uncomfortable thinking about. Romance stories just made you happy to see people finding comfort and fulfillment in each other. You told him more about Ragnarok, the creation of Mjolnir, and the murder of Baldur. 
Before you two knew it, hours passed by. Your untouched dinners grew cold and the clock struck midnight startling both of you out of your story telling. You both looked at the grandfather clock then back at each other in shock, “we’ve been talking for four hours Tech.”
“Yeah, we did. It- it was nice talking about mythology. Usually people get bored when I talk about it.”
You rolled your eyes, “Ender, I know. Why don’t they find it as interesting as we do? It’s been a while since I’ve had someone to talk to, it’s nice.”
“We better go to bed, we can just eat a bigger breakfast tomorrow before we take you to the Nether and your house. You probably want to sleep in your own bed.”
You laughed nervously, “yeah about that… I don’t really have a bed anymore. Or an actual house for that matter.”
“The fuck happened?”
“I may have burnt it down accidentally.”
He was silent for a bit before he looked at you suspiciously. “Are you gonna burn my house down?” And there’s the thing you hated most when you told people of your lineage and abilities. They always believe that you’re a being of destruction and inferno. They always grow to not trust you around them or their possessions fearing you would burn them to a crisp. You cursed your biological parents daily for giving you these genes.
You shrunk in on yourself slightly, “no, I’d never do that to you. I’m in control as long as I keep my emotions in check. Can’t get too excited, scared, or happy. I just can’t do anything extreme and my temperature stays low.” 
He grunted, nodding in satisfaction. “We probably should get to sleep soon if we wanna get stuff done before the family reunion.”
“I forgot about that… Have you met the kid Phil’s gonna adopt?”
He drew in a long breath into his nose and huffed it out of his mouth. “Yeah, his name’s Ranboo. And he’s actually only about half a year younger than you are. I don’t know how to feel about him yet, but he seems like he has good intentions.”
You drug a hand through the flames idly flickering on your head, “is Phil seriously gonna adopt another kid? I don’t think it’s a good idea for him.”
“That’s what I thought, I don’t need any more orphans running around here. You, Tommy, and Wilbur are more than enough. We can talk more about this in the morning.”
With that, you picked up your plates and took them to the kitchen. Before you could turn on the water faucet, a hand on your shoulder stopped you. “I’ll get it. You can’t be around this stuff.”
“A little water won’t hurt me. It’s the least I could do, you made dinner.” 
“A little water will hurt you. Go to bed, I’ll handle this. It’s only two dishes.”
You opened your mouth to argue with him, but it snapped shut as soon as he gave you a warning look. “Go to bed (y/n).”
“...Aright, thank you for doing that. I’ll see ya in the morning.”
He grunted as you walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and into the guest room. You walked straight to the bed and plopped down onto the surface. You felt sort of bad that you were rubbing soot off onto the white comforter from your still charcoaled skin, but it was nothing that you couldn’t clean in the morning. The bed was extremely comfortable, a stark contrast to your old one. Your old one had lumps and some exposed bedsprings sticking out of the fabric. With the weight of the heavy comforter and the plush mattress, you were out like a light.
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 @crybabyjabby  @izzybobizzy13  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @bunnyz-pxstel  @averytiredfanfictionwriter  @dcml04  @sparkling-gayyyy  @bbigbbrainn  @thaticecreambish  @kiinokochii
Series taglist (comment if you want to be added):
@appetiteofapeoplepleaser  @misfortunatem00n  @hee-hee-haw  @bi-narystars  @akikko-yataro  @snapple311  @jo171718  @alex--awesome--22  @cinnamonmochi  @waterstrawberry  @jefferyepsteindidntkillhimself  @imamusicalnerd  @fo-love  @sylumarts  @theshitinmytrunk  @rinzyx05  @wasteofspacze  @bands-are-amazingly-addicting  @im-a-depressed-gay  @charlotte-is-missing  @s-n1428  @lifestylesleep  @dame-sunflowers  @bongwaterflavoredgatorade  @aestheticpkmntrainer  @emma-the-duck17  @pek0ra  @wreny24  @willow404  @shiningsunrises  @vanhakirja  @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander  @soulless42  @giavanna
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simpfor501 · 2 years
Text
You're My Pick Me Up
Wreaker x reader
Reader (afab) is now on the Havoc Marauder. Living with 4 advanced clones, and being a field medic can be stressful and smelly but a gentle giant may help them power through
Words: 1.4kish?
WARNINGS: Drinking, drunkenness, acting like an idiot while drunk, loud clubs, gagging, vomiting
Chapter 2 1, ♡, 3,
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Hunter clapped you on the shoulder as you stood next to the ship, “Welcome aboard, Ma’am”
“Oh please Hunter, (y/n) is fine.” You waved off his formality, “You’re stuck with me. So let’s not make it stuffy.” He smirked and moved to the side,
“I’ll take those in, We have an extra set of bunks, one of them has their own small ‘room’” He used his finger as air quotes when saying “room” You knew it wasn’t going to be all that private,
“I brought something for that already.” You had been on the Havoc Marauder a few times before. You know that the extra bunks had an almost perfect view to the cockpit door and if standing in the cockpit you could see the little indent where the bunks were. You packed a sheet to hang up, you needed privacy sometimes with them. Hunter nodded, he stepped away to pull your things on board, Tech waved, not bothering to look up from his Holopad. "Where's Cross?" You asked as you stepped through onto the ship. 
"In his bunk," Hunter said nodding his head to Crosshair and Wrecker's shared bunk, "That hit did a number on him." You lightened your steps as you toed past his range of hearing. Hunter paused just outside of your area. One set of bunks were set in the wall on the left side, back wall infront of you had shelves and drawers build in for storages and the other wall wad blank, ready for personality. 
"Thank you, Hunter."
"I'll let you settle in," he started to walk away before turning back, "Oh, we're going to stop at the 79's later if you'd like to join? Well, us minus Cross, Doctor's orders." He leaned against the wall. You smiled,
"Of course. I'd love to." Hunter nodded,
"I'll leave you to it then." He walked off. Your first order of business was to set up the sheet. It was a simple grey, GAR administered blanket that you barely touched you entire time with the army. Next was your bed. You ripped off the scratchy and uncomfortable bedding and stared to change it out with your own bedding. Sheets you had bought out on the town, surprisingly you had the same size bed as the clones bunks, just a larger room. As you started to make your bed a cough came from the other side of the sheet. Followed by an unsure "knock knock"
"Come in Wrecker." He lifted the sheet, he was taller than how high you put it up, but he still shrunk himself down to not peek in, "you can raise it up if you want. If your nervous about seeing in accidently" you offered he nodded and quickly tired to move it up. It was hard for him, only having one arm and all but after a minute or two he did it. The top reached above his head and the sheet now tickled the floor rather than pooling on it like before.
"Better?" He asked,
"Much. Thank you Wreck." His smile grew.
"Wrecker. Hunter needs us, were meeting in front of Crosshairs bunk." Tech stated from the other side of the sheet. 
"Coming." You both said at the same time. Wrecker moved the sheet and waved you through. You smiled and stepped past him and into the main part of the ship. It was a quick walk over to the other bunks. And there was Crosshair, top bunk, rolled over to face the rest of us. 
"Game plan. We have tonight off. 79's. But General Skywalker needs us for a mission in the morning, don't go too hard. (y/n) how well will Cross be for the mission?"
"Oh! Uhm. It was only a minor injury. He should be fine if he takes it relatively easy for the next 10 to 15 hours. Just in time for the mission." You stated, remembering his log.
"Fine. Don't have too much fun with out me." He grumbled. The brothers nodded, Hunter was the first to leave. Walking back to the cockpit. Tech was next, probably to work on fixing anything that needed his eyes. Wrecker sat his bunk,
"Uh. I'll, uh, let you get back to what you were doing." He stuttered. You thanked him and quickly skipped back to your little cave. You pulled out your clothes and quickly orginized them in your shelves, shirts and pants on the top, uniforms below them, underwear and socks in one of the drawers toiletries next to your uniform (you didn’t have a beside table or anything so you had to make do), and shoes on the floor. This was clearly for a technician or medic to live in as there wasn’t space for a trooper’s case or equipment. You finished with a ton of time to spare so you took to climbing up to your bunk and watching trashy reality programs on the holonet.  After your third or fourth program, you brain was properly melted, when a gentle knock came from the other side of the sheet,
“(y/n)?” Hunter’s voice asked, “Are you ready to go?” Shit. It was time to go already? You looked down, you were still in your uniform. You weren’t gross, you didn’t smell bad but you diffefnly didn’t want to go out clubbing in your uniform. You slithered out of your bunk, still groggy and tired. You tossed your holopad on the free bunk and pulled out a pair of white boot cut jeans, blue platforms and a matching crop top. Simple, sleak, fun, perfect. You pulled your hair away from your face and threw on some delicate make-up, just to cover some redness, make your eyelashes longer and define your face. You rushed out, grabbing the other things you’s need. Hunter, Tech, and Wrecker were all waiting outside. Crosshair was still laying down. 
“Took you long enough.” Tech looked you up and down,
“Sorry. I fell asleep.” you laughed a bit, Hunter raised his hand to stop Tech’s next thoughts.
“I’m glad you can still join us.”
“Thank you, Hunter.” Wrecker stayed silent. You looked perfect to him. Everything about you was angelic. You’re hair, face, eyes, smile, lips, “Wrecker?” those lips. He shook his head to snap back to reality,
“Wrecker? Are you ready?” You asked again. He nodded quickly, his face bright red.
“Sorry. I was daydreaming.” 
“Well get back down here, we’ve got a club to go to!” You pulled him along, Hunter and Tech had already started walking down the street to the 79’s. He quickly struck up a conversation,
“How are you settling in?”
“Good! It’s a bit tight but it was worse when I was in combat training.” Wrecker blinked,
“Combat?”
“Yeah, all medics have to go through on field training. This includes combat. We had to carry guns. Half of us pretended to be troopers the other half had to go into ‘active fire’ to save them. We used decommissioned Repubic droids to simulate the clankers. I haven’t been on the field in a few years now.” You smield sadly, remembering your training.
“Do you miss it?”
“Training?”
“Being on the field.” He clarified as he opened the door for you. The bouncer nodded to him, and looked you up and down, Wrecker gave him a look. The bouncer quickly averted his eyes, but you didn’t really notice. You were too busy looking for Tech and Hunter through the blaring blue and pink lights and the clubbing music. They had found a booth on the other side of the bar, and two women had found them first. You frowned, you had no intention of trying to pry horny women off your boys,
“What’s wrong?” Wrecker asked. You gestured to the table, “Oh.” He nodded, “Do you want to find a different booth?” he asked
“No. Let’s just pretend they don’t exist. If they keep bothering me though I may have to be carried back to the ship.” you grumbled. Wrecker stayed silent as you grabbed his hand and walked over to the guys. As soon as you go to the table a voice called out for you,
“(y/n)!” You let go of Wrecker’s hand, there was Kix and another ARC trooper behind you.
“Boys! Hi! You hugged them both, “I thought you had a briefing tonight?”
“The Captain does.” the arc trooper smirked down at you, “The entirety of 501st ARCs are here if you wanna sit with us?” You chuckled at his offer.
“That’s very kind. But I have a new crew I want to be with for a bit. Maybe later.” You nodded your head toward Clone force 99. The two other women stared at you, shocked that you of all people got to be around these men 24/7 and that they knew you by name. 
Wrecker was sitting by the time you turned around again. His arms were crossed and his gaze was directed to the dance floor, "first round on me?" You asked him. The girls cheered as their drinks arrived. Wrecker ignored you, "Come on Wreck. What do you want? On me!" He shrugged, you pulled the waitress aside. You handed her some credits and said, "two shots please." She nodded and walked off her hips swaying as she did.
After a while the shots came back. You handed one of the brightly colored drinks. He didn't look at you. You frowned. Downed your shot. And walked to the other side of the room and took a seat next to the newest 501st ARC troopers. After a few minutes, and more than a few drinks you were dragged onto the floor by a Reg that was flirting with you since you sat with the 501st. 
The music was loud, and is made the alcohol in your blood simmer. You felt electric, especially while you were pressed against the trooper. His hands trailed down your sides, yours stayed around his neck. You were there, and you could feel other troopers and their dance mates bump up against you. 
Suddenly. A tight grip landed around your waist. You stopped, there was Wrecker, his arm looped around you. He pulled you away from your partner. You shrieked in annoyance. Pushing him away, who was he to get jealous after not talking to you. You stormed off, barely hearing his voice over the sound of the music and your own anger. 
You stumbled up to the bar and ordered another shot. You quickly downed it and asked for another. Wreckers voice came from behind you, 
"And water as well?"
"Shit Wrecker. I don't need to hang over my shoulder" you pushed him back before downing yet another shot. Your voice was starting to slur and you felt as if your body was on fire. He pushed the water towards you. 
"Please"
"No." You slurred at him. "Maker, Wrecker. First, you're all into me, flirting, being all sweet. But then you're ignoring me. And now you're trying to sober me up! Kriff off!" You yelled at him, "And it kriffing sucks because I can't even express how I feel about you!"
"What do you mean?" He sat at one of the empty bars stolls, his hand in yours, he lead you close to him. Maker even sitting he was huge.
"Maker, Wreck." You sighed. Tears started to cloud your vision and alcohol clouded your judgment. You pushed forward and smashed your lips against his. Anger took over as you pushed yourself into him. He melted in your touch however, he had wished for this. This moment, his first time kissing you. But you pushed him away and ran off. Tears ran down your cheeks as you fled back to the ship and stormed back onto it. Cross was up, looking and feeling better as he was drinking a cup off caf when he saw you come in.
"Maker. What happened to you?" He smirked. You sobbed and felt your stomach heave. You gagged and ran off into the refresher. Cross not to far behind with water. 
"Remind me to never let you try to out drink me" He was mocking you for being a light weight. But that wasn't it, you felt sick with regret and pure joy all at once.
"I kissed him" you sobbed into the toilet.
"What?" Cross asked
"I kissed him. You sobbed louder, "I kissed Wrecker. I broke a law. I'm going to jail. I kissed him. Kiff his stupid sexy face, his warm heart. And now I have to live with him" you felt more of the night jump to your throat and you turned back to the toilet.
"Damn, (y/n). You're in deep bantha shit now." He smirked at you. You glared back. 
"Look. Do you like Wrecker?" You nodded, the drunkest minds tell the most honest truths, "but you're regretting kissing him?"
"Non-clones aren't-"
"Thats a load of bantha crap." He rolled his eyes, "Half the women there flirting with us are non-clones hired in the GAR the other half work at the bar, the bar that is funded by the GAR." That didn't make tou feel any better. Crosshair sighed, "Just get ready for bed, and soon. Wrecker commed me that he's on his way back"
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gammija · 3 years
Text
The final Web!Martin evidence list
Now that canon is done, and we’ve got word of god confirmation that Web!Martin wasn’t complete nonsense, I decided to go back to my lil chronological evidence list and actually clean it up a bit, delete parts that in hindsight weren't all that indicative, and put everything in a slightly more readable format. (Obligatory disclaimer that i don’t and never did believe or advocate for some kind of evil web!martin, and that I'm not intending to connect a moral judgement to martin (or anyone else for that matter) having some of these traits)
So here: The (hopefully, please) final list with Web!Martin Evidence! Presented in order of importance, according to. me
The final (hopefully) Web!Martin evidence list
(In order from most to least obvious)
Spiders
I mean, it’s called the Web. TMA reiterates quite a few times that Martin liked spiders. Sometimes it IS that easy.
MAG022: Martin: "I like spiders. Big ones, at least. Y’know, y’know the ones you can see some fur on; I actually think they’re sort of cute -"
MAG038: | Sasha: "A spider?" Jon: "Yeah. I tried to kill it…" [...] Sasha: [Chuckles] "Well, I won’t tell Martin." Jon: "Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem."
MAG059: Jon: "I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders."
MAG079: Jon: "Apparently, biologically, his account of the spiders doesn’t make any sense according to Martin."
MAG197: Martin: “What? Because I like spiders? Well, used to.”
Lies and subterfuge
Martin is able to use lying and subterfuge to achieve his goals, and is called manipulative a few times.
Lies:
MAG022: Martin: "[He] became slightly more co-operative after I lied to him and told him that one of the upstairs residents had buzzed me in."
MAG056: Martin: "I lied on my CV."
MAG158: Peter: “But you said –” Martin: “Honestly, I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear.”
MAG164: Jon: "You – I actually believed you!"
MAG189: Martin: “Sorry. Sorry, John. Not sure how much everything up there actually understood what was going on. But, y’know, I didn’t want to take any chances so it made sense to… um…” Jon: “Put on a show?” Martin: “Yeah, basically, more or less.”
MAG191: Martin: "That's not true." Arun: "Liar!"
Subterfuge:
The plan in 118, which revolved around convincing Elias that Martin was only “acting out”, to create a distraction for Melanie. (Also compare the way he evades giving a straight answer here with the way Annabelle talks in 196.)
Working with Peter in s4 under false pretenses, to distract him from Jon and eventually try to learn what Peter wanted.
Manipulation accusations:
These, I know, are somewhat contentious, since it’s mostly villains saying this to him. I’m still including them, since
1): From a media analysis standpoint, being mentioned 3 times is a sign to pay attention, even when it may not be the full truth.
2): I only see it as describing Martin’s behaviour in the previous points, not as a moral judgement; Especially since he almost always ‘manipulates’ people in positions of power over him.
Still, if it bothers anyone, feel free to ignore these.
MAG138: Martin: "That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!" Elias: "That makes two of us."
MAG186: Martin: “I can be a real manipulative prick, you know that?” Also Martin: “Oh yeah.”
MAG196: Annabelle: “Because you always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed.” [SMALL SOUND OF MARTIN’S CONCESSION TO THE POINT] Martin: “Point taken.”
The Lonely/the Web
The Lonely and the Web sometimes affect Martin to similar degrees.
In season 3, when Martin is getting used to reading statements for the first time, most of them leave him emotionally affected: MAG084, MAG088, MAG090,
MAG095: Martin: “S-S-Statement… done.” [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] “I don’t like recording these. There. I-I said it.”,
MAG098: Martin: [Panting] “End of statement.” [Deep breath] “I, um, I think I might need to sit down. Oh. Yeah, I am. Right. I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure if these are actually getting easier or harder. I mean I don’t feel –”
Only the last two statements he reads are remarkably easier. This might be a hint that Martin is just getting used to reading them, but the quote from MAG098 seems to contradict that. Either way, it’s likely not a coincidence that those last two happen to be the Lonely and the Web:
MAG108: Martin: “Statement ends.” (exhale) “That wasn’t so bad…”
MAG110: Martin: “Statement ends.” [...] “I mean, I think it sounds like a Jurgen Leitner book. About spiders. Hm. Good John didn’t have to read this one, anyway. I know he’s not a fan. Although, this one wasn’t too bad, actually! I – yeah. Anyway.”
In season 5, there are two powers’ Domains that actually affected Martin mentally, as opposed to only physically: the Lonely’s, in 170 (and arguably 186), and, depending on your interpretation, in 172, when Martin went exploring without knowing why he did so.
Proximity
Martin investigates a lot of the Web statements during season 1 to 3 (in other words, when the archive team still researches statements). The only ones he isn���t mentioned in during this period are MAG019 and MAG020, when he’s being harrassed by worms, and MAG081, which Jon records by himself outside of the institute.
Most notably, he’s the one who discovered the statement in MAG114, ‘Cracked Foundations’, which is the one statement in the entire show that sets up the interdimensional properties of HTR.
The Web!Lighter passed through Martin's hands first, before he gave it to Jon.
Similarly, Annabelle mostly spoke to Martin in season 5, despite most other Avatars usually focusing on Jon.
Aesthetics
Apart from the above obviously Web related areas, there are some other aesthetics which are mentioned in connection to both the Web and Martin, throughout canon.
These are describing the Web;
These are describing Martin.
Tapes:
Martin is the only character to treat the tape recorders as friends - any other character is either indifferent, or treats them as enemies.
MAG039: Martin: "I think the tapes have a sort of… low-fi charm."
MAG154 Martin: “Oh. Hi. Hello again.” … (small laugh) “Sorry pal, false alarm this time.”
MAG156 Martin: “Mm? Oh.” [HE LAUGHS, GENTLY.] “Yeah. (rustling paper) I was going to read one. Hate for you to miss it!” [SHORT, FORCED LAUGH, AS HE FLAPS THE STATEMENT AROUND.]
MAG170 Martin: “Oh. Oh, hello. What’s this? Wow, retro! What are you up to, little buddy; just – listening? That’s okay. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
MAG190 Jon: "[The tapes] seem to like [Martin]."
Retro:
MAG069: Statement: “I only saw Annabelle Cane once during this period. She wasn’t hard to pick out. She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her, and her short bleach-blonde hair stood out sharply against dark skin.”
MAG160: Jon: “Anyways, don’t tell me the phonebox down there doesn’t appeal to your retro aesthetic.” Martin: “It – might. Maybe.”
MAG163: Annabelle/the Web callying Martin via an old payphone: [ A PHONE RINGS. IT’S NOT THE TINNY, ELECTRONIC SOUND OF A CELLPHONE – NO, THIS IS A TRUE, HEAVY, CLASSIC RING.] Martin: “Uh. John? Uh, J, John – the, uh, payphone that’s – here, for some reason – it’s ringing?”
Hatred of burns:
MAG067: Jack Barnabas’ statement: “I looked up and noticed within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider’s web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke.” “Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundreds of tiny spiders.”
MAG139: Statement by member of Cult of the Lightless Flame: “The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.” Agnes burned down Hilltop Road.
MAG145: The Web ties Gertrude to Agnes, stopping the Desolation’s ritual (the only Power whose ritual the Web is known to have prevented).
MAG167: Gertrude enlists Agnes’/the Desolation’s help in order to burn her assistant Emma, who was Web aligned.
MAG169: Martin: "Look, I just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever. [...] I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!"
Phrasing:
MAG039: Martin: "I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t… move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck. [...] It's just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think."
MAG079: Martin's poem: "The threads of people walking, living, lovi–"
MAG117: Martin: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope John doesn’t actually listen to these. “Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?” No, John, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies."
MAG167: Jon: “Methinks the Spider dost protest too much.” Martin: “Jon –” Jon: “Joking! Just joking.”
Personality:
How applicable these are depends heavily on how you interpret Martin's own personality, so your mileage may vary.
MAG008: Statement: “Nobody ever said a word against Raymond himself, though, who was by all accounts a kind and gentle soul [...]”
MAG123: Jon: "The Web does seem to have a preference for those who prefer not to assert themselves."
MAG147: Annabelles statement: "I discovered a deep and enduring talent inside myself for lying. [...] My manipulations were not intricate, but they were far beyond what was expected of a child my age, and I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans."
Word of God and Annabelle
I kinda wanted to ‘prove’ that Web!Martin had quite a bit of evidence to back it up, hence this header being last. But of course, in this post-canon world, there are a few lines that most obviously confirm the theory:
MAG197: Martin is Web enough to be able to read the 'vibrations', like Annabelle, and see Jon and Basira (the latter being especially notable, as he hadn't known she was there beforehand): [CHITTERING, BUZZING AND HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS CHANGE CADENCE] Martin: "Wait… Wait, hang on, is that him?" Annabelle: "Yes. I guess you’re better with the Web than we thought." Martin: "And – Wait, ha– No, uh… is that… Basira? He – He’s got Basira with him!" Annabelle: "Yes."
Season 5 Q&A part 2: Jonny: “Essentially, it was fascinating looking at the fandom and, like, the Web!Martin believers, because what they were doing was correctly picking up on hints dropped in the early seasons that were later, like, not exactly abandoned, but it was much more like, ‘Well, no, he does have like aspects of The Web to him, but he is moreover The Lonely.’ And that came about very… very organically, really. Because throughout Season 3 and going into Season 4, we had this conversation and we were like, ‘No, actually he's like-” Alex: “‘It can't be, it cannot be, it must be the other way round’ Yeah.”
(Note that they say “throughout season 3 and going into season 4,” which likely means that season 1, season 2, and at least part of season 3, aka half of the entire show, were written with Web!Martin as an intentional possibility.)
If you read all that, thanks so much! Obviously, Web!Martin never really came to fruition, so it's fine if you still don't like it. This is just a post explaining where it was coming from, at least for me and the other theorists I've spoken to.
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sissyjamieray · 3 years
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My journey into feminization how did it begin? It is difficult to pin point a specific age, but I would guess I was about 11 years old. Yes, confused by sexual urges and excitement when looking at pictures of pretty girls in magazine ads wearing only panties and bras. Mmm, then 'borrowing' intimate female garments and wearing them. Feelng the overwhelming rush of pleasure and my first orgasm while wearing female clothing. Through the years I've tried to suppress this urges to dress as a woman. Being married was so frustrating as my wife left her intimate garments all over the house. It was like being in a candy store: bras, panties, lingerie all within reach. Unable to resist I would carefully try on bra or nightie when she was out shopping. At one point she mentioned something about one nightie being worn out in the "wrong" places. But she never questioned me. After all why would her man be turned on by wearing panties? Looking back she was very smart, she knew better than to confront me head on, lol. She knew I would not admit it or make up some bullshit story. She was very subtle, one night after making love she asked me if I had any sexual fantasies, my response was no love, none that I can think of. Another time she make the following comment, " I wish I had something to poke you with". Wow, she was so close. I was a bit stunted, didn't have a good response, lol. Several months later during our forplay love making she starts licking my nipples, omg, wtf!! Do you like it she says, with her hand on my growing manhood there was no escape, no denial. You like it don't you? I said yes, grasping for air and moaning as she began to rub the tip of my cock with her finger while continuing to lick and suck on my nipples. Then she slid her hand below my balls and started stroking and messaging the area just above my ass hole. After five minutes or this action she get up, pulls off her soaked panties then leans towards me with panties in hand and whispers in my ear, ' guess what I found in your bag Jim?' I found at least 10 pairs of my panties Jim, wtf all stained with your cum! "So you like to jerk off and cum in my panties, really?" What could I say but yes. I tried to explain why but she was upset? She then took her wet panties wrapped them around my almost limp manhood and said show me how you like you jerk off im my panties! I was so embarrassed, but I was wrong to have taken her things, this was my punishment, Yes? I reached down and started stroking my cock but it was very limp by now, I could not get hard. She saw my problem and whispers in my ear, "what's the problem, sissy panty boy, can't jerk off in front of your hot sexy wife? never touch my things again!, if you do, you will never fuck or cum inside me again. Do you understand me? Yes, hon I understand, good. Now where are my panties, Uh where you put them dear, yes they are yours now. Uh, keep them clean and if you wear these out (giggle) we will go out together and buy you more. Yes, I'll let the pretty sales lady know my size and yours (giggle). One more thing, when we make love, make sure you are wearing a clean pair of lacy pink panties. You are my panty boy husband now (giggle). I guess you better learn to get excited and hard while wearing female panties or you will never fuck me again (giggle): panty boy. Next day I after work I set out the task of hand washing 'my' panties in hope of getting lucky later that evening. Ok, hot water and some laundry soap and a 15 minutes soak, rinse and then toss into the dryer should to the trick right? Right before we went to bed I quickly grabbed my panties and climbed into bed. My wife had been observing my laundry duties activities that evening and I assumed we were cool. My hopes of an evening of
having sex where dashed when she turned the lights on stating: it's panty check time, stand up and let examine your feeble attempts to clean these! Ok, I can still see your nasty stains, what temperature did you wash these in? Hot I relied, she laughed, you idiot you should have used cold, as now you've 'set' the stain and ruined a pretty pair of panties. Oh well I guess we will have to go panty shopping tomorrow. Maybe Victoria's Secret? I understand Nancy, your friend Mike's wife just started working there (giggle), maybe she can let us use her discount? She then put her hand on my softening member and said, 'well give it some thought, panty boy, good night. WTF, now she is straight up trying to sexually blackmail me and expose me really? I got out of bed headed for the bathroom sobbing, how could my sweet wife be so cruel. Fifteen minutes or so she knocks on the door, " Jimmy are you ok"? No I'm, how could I be ok when you want to humiliate me and expose my fetish to my friends? Oh you admit it now that you are little perverted panty stealing panty boy? Her words cut me through me like a knife, but she was right. Stand Jim, look at yourself in the mirror wearing my soiled panties, tell me baby who and what did I fall in love with? Then she placed her had on my limp cock and said, I love you but tell me about all your fetishes now or we are done: confess! I'm not going to play a guessing game with you understand! Sobbing, I began to spill my guys about how was molested by an older boy at 11, my Aunt confessed to dressing me as a girl when I was very young,
dressing my mothers lingerie. Yes, I've have fantasies about being fucked my a man while being dressed as a woman. With years in my eyes I looked at my wife, what she was crying too? Why are you crying I asked? I'm so sorry that so many people have hurt you babe and that you are so fucked up now. Maybe we can both get into therapy, you know get some professional help? But for this moment, let's promise to be more open and honest with our sexual feelings and desires ok? Babe I'm sorry I got do angry with you but you did sneak my panties? I had no idea that my panties turned you on so much to the point that you would willing wear them? She started rubbing my pantied cock as she spoke, you know Jim, have a little fantasy of my own. What she whispered in my ear next blew me away. Jim, sometimes I think about being with a woman, coddling and fondling each others breasts? Jim, I, I think I might be Bi? I sorry I've never shared this with you but you understand right ? At that moment, my cock began to swell, she got her answer. Now pulling my panties down she began licking the very backside tip of my cock, you know Jim, maybe I will be willing to support you, like helping you dress like a lady, apply make up and maybe if you wish be with a man as a woman. With these words I erupted a stream of thick sperm all over her beautiful face. Wow, that was fast hon, you agree with my suggestions? Awesome, now for your first lesson Jamie, lick up all the cum you sprayed over my face. Yes, play the part bitch you need to learn to love the taste of your cum. Yes, your female name is Jamie now, do you like it? That's right clean me up, good gurl. Now it's my turn to be pleasured, now be a good lesbian bitch and eat my sweet pussy, XOXO.
Chapter 2 The List
The next morning Carol, my wife was up early and out of the house without waking me. No breakfast or coffee, man that woman be slipp'in, I thought. Well, what looks good in the frig? Oh man, lookie here, a heart shaped note from wifey. [Hi Jim I went shopping with Margie this morning, not sure when I'll be back but, please pickup the following items at the corner drug store:
tampons, pantyhose, nail polish (pink), eye shadow base & palate, concealer, face primer, eyeliner (water proof), mascara, blush, bronzer, highlighter, lip gloss, cosmetic brush set, foundation, setting spray and pamprin. Jim, if you need help just ask the salesgirl in
cosmetics, you know the one you always flirt with, you know Desiree, giggle. Oh and make sure you are wearing the pink lace panties that I let in your drawer. They are yours now, Jamie. Love Carol XOXO, P.S., I've invited some friends over for dinner so please be home by 4 pm.] Groan, I HATE shopping, especially for girl stuff! Ok, so off to drug store I went, stright to the cosmetics counter, list in hand. There she was, Desiree behind the counter, may I help you, she asked? Desiree was the gorgeous offspring of Spanish and Irish parents, about 5' 9" light green eyes and light brown to blonde hair. Her makeup was always impeccable, skirts and blouse always tight and ample cleavage on display. Carol was right that I did flirt with Desiree in the past, but Carol was always with me. It was different now, I was alone and what she possibly thinking? I mean, Carol had always shopped for her own cosmetics and fem items? Looking into her eyes my mind went blank, dry mouth, etc. I handed her the list and mumbled, my wife needs this stuff and I have no idea. Sure, no problem, I can get these for. Carol is your wife right? Yeah, she was in earlier, something about a need for a change and wanted you and I to help her with a make-over surprise. I can help you with every thing on the list except the tampons, their in aisle 12. Oh, and I'll need your help with selecting the foundation shade to ensure a good color match. Ok, what ever I said, I'll be back with the wifey's tampons in a couple minutes. As I walked away, Desiree's last words, "color matching" stuck in my head... Carol's skin tone was much lighter than mine? Mmm, aisle 12, ok here we go, no idea really what to buy my wife, so many confusing choices. I must have been searching for the correct tampons for at least 15 minutes when Desiree found me. Hi, need some help? Absolutely? I have no idea what she needs. Laughing at my ignorance of feminine hygiene products, explained that Carol would at minimum need pads and most likely will need a tampon for her 'heavy' period flows. My suggestion is get her both. Is so sweet and thoughtful of you to do pick these up for you wife, I'm sure she appreciates it. Now let's go go back to the cosmetic department and I ring up your items? Sounds like a plan, I said. Ok, let's try this new foundation shade shall we? Desiree reached for my hand, this was a new level: physical contact. I could feel my heart beating faster, well if well if you have to I said? Desiree, her hand still gently touchind my hand, looked me in the eyes and said, Jim, it is necessary to be sure we get an accurate match and you do want to please your Wife don't you? Yes, of course I want to make Carol happy. Well good, smiling as she applied the foundation to my hand Desiree said, you know Jim, it's not like anyone's going to make assumptions about your sexuality. I mean, why would a handsome stud like you want to wear make up? Ok, of course your are right, I told her. Oh, awesome Jim, this color is perfect. Carol will love it.
Great what is the final damage for all this, I asked? Sure, your total comes to $75.65. Ok, wow this stuff sure adds up fast! Ok here's $76, as Desiree handed back my change she dropped a dime. Oh, so sorry, no problem I said bending over to retrieve .10 cents and at that moment exposing my pink lace thong panties in full view of Desiree. So humiliating, I was speechless. Desiree with a big smile handed me my merchandise but me close and whispered, I love a man who likes to embrace his feminine side, Carol is so lucky.
Chapter 3 - No Refunds, No Returns
So I returned home with all the cosmetics Carol had on your list. She met me as I entered our apartment with big hug, then said that she had to leave again. No big deal, but asked me to read a letter she had written to me. Ok, problem, writing letters was something we did when we first started dating. Jim, l'll be back in about 2 hours, so please read my little ' love' note before I return. One more hug as she felt up my ass for the outline of the thong panties, still wearing them I see? Good, I so happy you did, it says you respect my wishes. I am going to make you so happy you did. Then she kissed me deeply and left without saying where she was going? Oh well, now where is this letter? I found Carol's letter on my pillow, she started, my Dearest husband, tonight I will make your fantasy of being a woman a reality. Don't deny it Jim. I found your hidden stash of female undergarments, shemale porn, etc. Really, why did you NOT trust me enough with your kinky desires? No matter, I know now and I still you move than you realize. Tonight I will give your fantasy, but know this our relationship will change. The changes will be (giggle) sort of a role reversal? To start: take a nice hot bubble bath, yes use mine girly stuff XOXO. Next, use my sugar rub all over your body to exfoliate your skin and then shave all your body hair, yes lov, your arms, legs, chest, balls and ass. Next raise in with cold water
and gently dry ourself. Next, hydrate your skin with some lotion be liberal with it. Now Jim, you don't have much time left so get started. Oh, once your done with this bathing routine, look in your drawer and closet. Yes I picked out some cute girly things for you to wear love XOXO. Make sure you are wearing each item when I return? If NOT, trust me You will sorely regret it!! But I know you will be a Good girl for your wife, your Mistress now won't you? And don't act like you don't know how to put on a bra, panty hose, corset, or breast forms. Please Sissy, remember I know what you've doing when your alone and I'm at work. You see I also found your pictures lol. Well, no more secrets BITCH! I demand you to be ready for me to apply your make up and wig when I return. No excuses! Yes dear, I will be fully shaved and dressed when return. Ok, good, I will be at 7 pm sharp! Out of fear and excitement I started drawing my bubble bath. While the tub was filling I looked into the closet and drawer to see what my wife had purchased. My sweet wife had filled my drawer will so many pretty panties and bras all different styles and colours. These were all mine, really? Wow, what was in my closet? Just a quick peek, so many cute skirts, dresses and tops, all mine? Ok, time was slipping away and the tub was nearly full now. As instructed, I soaked in the fraguent bubble bath for a half hour so relaxing then scrubbed every inch of my body possible with a sugar exfoliate scrub. I then covered my body with a girly shaved cream and shaved my legs, arms, chest, groin, balls and ass. I then showed in cold water to rinse off the remaining shave cream. As I dried my body off the scent purfume and softness of my now hairless body caused me to feel so girly/ feminine, excited and horny. I resisted my base urges to pleasure myself and pushed on to getting dressed as it was almost time for my wife to return. So many panties so many choices, will of I selected a cute pink lace thong panties with matching bra and garter belt. Slipping the panties on another temptation to pleasure myself. Not enough time, 6:30 pm, still had to put on the breast plate and corset. I secured the 38 D breasts to my chest using the medical grade adhesive. Looking the mirror was a bit of a let down, so much work and I still looked like a man, a man with big breasts and small waist. I was nearly in tears when I heard the front door open, Carol would be coming in bedroom any moment and I was pretty much half naked. I quickly grabbed a blouse, skirt and heels got them on and posing on the bed, just as door opened. Knock, knock... omg Jim, Carol told me to just let myself in, that my make over project would be sitting on the bed. It was Desire, Carol WTF!! I was humiliated once again, I began sobbing uncontrollably, why Carol, why? Desiree gave me several tissues to dry tears. I don't understand, why would do this? She came closer and hugged me. I never been this close to Desiree or so absolutely vulnerable before. She knew just like Carol that I was to be a sissy no denial. Jim, she said, Carol is giving you a gift, this is what you want really. Carol loves you didn't understand or how to help you experience being a girl. I can sweet heart. Yes, Carol may have, did violate your privacy by sharing your sissy feelings with me but I agreed to help you both. She then kissed me on the lips and said go wash away those trears hon and let's transform you into a beautiful woman. Before she applied my make up she asked me to remove my skirt and blouse, something about not getting any make on my clothes, ok made sence? Desiree was wonderful explaining the fairly complicated process of applying the various types make up, contouring, eye shadow, liner, etc. I almost forgot that I was half naked inches away from a gorgeous woman. The scent of her purfume and beautiful cleavage got the best of my unrestrained manhood. Desiree noticed my problem and said, I see you are getting turned on baby? You like it that I'm feminizing don't sweety? Oh of course you do
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sineala · 3 years
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Tony Stark and Arthuriana
Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!
I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.
(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)
Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.
We've got:
Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1
A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187
Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest
What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?
Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare
Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4
Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest
Civil War: The Confession
Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side
In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.
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The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."
The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!
(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)
This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)
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But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.
The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.
As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.
Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)
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Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.
So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)
So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.
IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.
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They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.
We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.
Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.
The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.
So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!
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Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.
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Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)
Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.
So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"
The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.
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This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.
Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.
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He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.
So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.
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So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.
Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.
Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.
Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.
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Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.
So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?
Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.
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It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.
The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.
Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.
Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.
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Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.
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Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.
They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.
And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.
Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.
Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.
(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)
Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)
At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.
I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.
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Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.
Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.
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(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)
(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)
Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!
Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.
It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!
Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.
That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.
"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.
"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."
Then Tony gets it.
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So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.
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So that's a thing that happens.
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And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.
We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.
Whew.
Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.
But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.
(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)
Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."
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The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.
The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.
Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.
The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!
So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.
Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)
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So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.
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"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"
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Clint speaks the truth, clearly.
Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.
The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 
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Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.
But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 
(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)
In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.
And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.
I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?
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As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.
You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.
So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.
This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.
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So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.
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Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.
Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.
And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.
There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.
If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.
So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.
The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!
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boldlyanxious · 3 years
Text
Love in the Time of Taco Trucks
Jasonette July SC 2: fluff
Part of bittersweet ever after
My masterlist
Marinette had been stuck on a series of buses all evening and she was exhausted. Her work day was long and the subway was backed up. The bus should have gotten her back over an hour ago, but she was not the only person who switched to the bus after waiting too long at the subway platform. She was hungry and tired and didn’t want to have to cook when she got home. Luckily she had spied the taco truck down the block so she had a plan for that.
She smiled as she approached Grant, the taco truck guy. She had been there a few times when her tips were good, so she was familiar with him. He was so proud of having called his taco truck Tuesday so it could always be taco Tuesday. He told her that joke every time. She rushed down the block and waved at him when it seemed like he was cleaning up for the evening.
“Please serve me before you close, Grant. I’m desperate,” she begged.
“Long day?” she nodded at him. “I have just enough for one order.”
He looked to his left and made a sad face at her. Marinette looked over. There was a man with a mask approaching.
“Sorry Marinette, I can’t serve you tonight.”
She didn’t even get a chance to protest because Grant had turned and greeted the masked man.
“Good evening, Red Hood.”
“How is it going Grant? Is it too late for tacos?”
“It is never too late for you. I’ll have them right out.”
“Seriously?? This day sucks.”
Marinette felt silly at the rage that filled her but she couldn’t help it. Her whole day was filled with people expecting special treatment and then her commute home was so long and full of more people who had no concern for the inconvenience they caused others. She had been so happy at the simple solution only to be denied when someone else showed up to get special treatment.
She barely felt the first couple drops of rain when she stepped away from the taco truck. But before she was even halfway down the block the water was pouring down on her. She ran for the nearest awning to get out of the deluge. She dug through her bag but she must have left her umbrella at work. She heard footsteps splashing the wet ground behind her and then stopped. She turned when the man’s voice spoke.
“Hey, Marinette?”
She hadn’t expected him to know her name. She wondered what Grant had told him about her. She was trying to place who he was. She didn’t know all the costumed alter egos in Gotham and always felt awkward when others talked about them. Most Gothamites already knew most of them and assumed others would as well. She supposed it was the same way with how it had been in Paris when Hawkmoth had been active.
“Yes?” she said hesitantly.
“Grant said you had been ordering food but he only had enough for one. I had him make it into nachos to spread out the ingredients so that way there would be enough for both or us.”
He handed her a box. She looked up at him when she accepted it.
“Um, thanks. I was really disappointed.”
“Probably how I felt watching you walk away.”
“What??” Marinette looked up at him quickly.
“Can I walk you home? I have an umbrella.”
Marinette nodded. It may not have been the best idea. She found that out more the next day when she mentioned that she had met the Red Hood. Her coworkers wanted to know how she had gotten away and if Batman had come to rescue her. She chose not to give any additional details. He had seemed very sweet walking her home. They had started off in silence but he asked a few questions and worked out that she had a really rough day. He listened to her and wished her a good evening before he left.
---
She was starting to think that Red Hood was planning their meetings. Grant refused to confirm, but it was the third week in a row that he had just happened to show up when she was walking past the taco truck. Each time he insisted on getting her tacos because he had made her think that she would have to go without on a day she really needed them. The first time could have been a chance. The second time it could have been his routine. The third time was definitely suspicious. But now, she looked down the street and Grant was already closed.
It was a shame. Red Hood had surprised her with tacos three weeks in a row and now she was craving them today. Oh well, she had food at home she could make. Somehow tacos always sounded better. Even if they weren’t free courtesy of the notorious crime lord Red Hood.
She was a little surprised when Grant called to her from behind the taco truck. She had thought he was closed up and gone already. She was really surprised when she rounded the corner and saw the set up. There was a blanket laid out and lights strung around. The area was hidden enough that someone would have to look around the truck to see them. That was probably best for a crime lord who may not like to stay out in the open. He was sitting there at ease, waiting for her, with probably enough tacos to feed an army. Marinette couldn’t help the smile at seeing it all.
“What is all this?”
“Tacos.” he said with a laugh.
“Okay, smart guy. Why did you get an entire taco truck worth of tacos today?”
“Sit with me.”
Marinette tucked her legs under herself and sat in front of him on the blanket. He handed her a plate with tacos and picked up one himself. Neither spoke for a few minutes. Marinette followed his lead and started eating. He stopped eating and watched her for a moment.
“I like you,” he said simply.
She almost choked on her taco. She suspected as much since he kept showing up. She didn’t think he was just interested in her thoughts on how to improve fashion to be useful to workers or how to improve the look or the various heroes and villains in the city. But he stated it so clearly and easily that it somehow made it more difficult to take in.
“Oh-uh-aahh. I like you too.”
“Really? You don’t sound so sure.”
“You just came right out and said it. Who does that?”
“Well, I do.” he paused. “So I guess Jason does.”
“Jason?”
“Yes. Jason. Me.”
“You told me your name. Isn’t that like vigilante 101? Keep your identity secret.”
“Probably. But I don’t want to be a secret from you. I want to know you.”
---
It was much easier for Marinette to date Jason than it would have been to date Red Hood. He had managed to keep his identity and personal life away from his home life because of the mask. Even those who knew who he was by given name had no idea where he lived or that he was dating a waitress. Grant knew but he was very loyal to Red Hood. They may have met through the protection racket, but Red Hood had proved he was worth it when the Black Mask had come knocking. Literally.
They had come on a night Grant’s daughter was running the truck for him. She usually only helped out on busy nights and wouldn’t be alone but Grant had been sick and she set up for him. They must have decided that she was easy to convince and went after her when she was there alone. But she refused to pay so they trashed the truck and knocked her around a bit as a means of convincing her. Red Hood had heard the shouts and crashes and saw her land on the ground after being shoved into the door. She had turned the handle to help her escape the onslaught but she broke her leg in the fall. Her lip was already split from being slapped.
Red Hood did not even need to ask what had happened. He saw Black Mask’s goons exit after her and walk up to her menacingly. He waited until they were fully out and focused on tormenting the girl before he attacked them. He never found out if they survived the beat down he gave them. He didn’t even care. He stayed with Kara until her parents were able to come and get her help. Red Hood visited Grant a couple days later. He assured him that his truck would be in business again and covered all the expenses not covered by the business insurance. Property and injury. Grant never complained about the protection money and Jason never paid for another taco.
It was their first time visiting the taco truck together after officially starting dating. Grant didn’t say anything about the boyfriend Marinette showed up with who had the same build as Red Hood. He served them with a smile, not even a wink when he told them their meals were on the house.
He had even taken Marinette’s favorite picture of them. Jason was teasing Marinette as he snatched her last taco. He was putting it up to his mouth but rather than trying to fight with him over it, she lunged at him and bit the other side. The picture was snapped right as they both were appearing to eat the taco. She cheered in triumph for besting him. He laughed and put her taco down before he leaned in and kissed her for the first time.
---
Jason grasped Marinette by the shoulders and kept her upright. He ended up having to leave her for a few minutes to handle something that couldn’t wait. He was incredibly frustrated at the interruption but she just took the bumps in their relationships as they came. It was one of the things he loved about her. She never shamed him when his work interfered with their relationship. She knew he worked hard to make sure that his work wouldn’t interfere but that their decision to keep her hidden from everything in his criminal life would sometimes take precedence over their plans.
She had been perfectly happy to sit and wait. But she had wanted to wait for him to order food. She had a bit of bread with her drink. Jason had left the instruction to keep her happy while he was out back on the call. He found out when he returned that they might have kept her too happy. Her drink was full when he returned but based on the check she had drunk several of the drinks in the time he was away.
She was drunk. She was teetering on the line between tipsy and happy drunk. He liked her like this. Happy and affectionate. He almost decided to just carry her back home but she squealed with delight when she saw the taco truck. She hadn’t had more than a couple pieces of bread and plenty of drinks. He looked over and Grant was waving at them.
Jason smiled down at her while he let Grant fix them the usual. Marinette turned and kissed him while they waited. She usually didn’t like to be overly affectionate in public but when her inhibitions were lower she cared far less about them being noticed. He could see that Grant was trying not to laugh at him as he tried to keep her from doing more than he knew she preferred before they got home. It was much easier once the food was ready. She clapped in excitement to get her tacos. She probably enjoyed the food more than the fancy dinner he had planned.
He watched her sit to eat, not even wanting to wait until they made it home. She looked back up at him and smiled then looked devastated as her taco dumped out onto her tray. He got up to retrieve her a fork. He didn’t think she would even hear his wistful comment in her current state.
“You silly beautiful woman.” He kissed her on the head before he sat back down. “I was supposed to be asking you to marry me right now.”
He was looking at the small box from the fancy restaurant. He just took it with him, planning to remove the ring and come up with a new proposal plan. He glanced back at her. She was looking at him, frozen. It took him a moment to figure out what had made her react like that. Her eyesb were wide but somehow got even wider when he opened the box. A gleaming diamond ring was displayed in the fancy slice of cake.
“You want to marry me?”
“I have never wanted anything more.” he said seriously.
Marinette didn’t even answer. She lunged at him and hugged him. He tried to stop everything from falling but her tray of tacos and the slice of cake hit the ground. He had to hold himself steady to keep her from knocking him to the ground with the force of her enthusiasm. He pushed her hair back from her face and leaned down to kiss her deeply.
“Marry me?” he asked when he pulled away.
“Always.” she said as she leaned to kids him again.
---
It was a small ceremony. Jason had family but he didn't talk to them and Marinette’s situation was even more complicated. They kept the engagement short and invited only a few people. Jason’s idea was to do it behind the taco truck since it seemed to always make an appearance in their lives. But Marinette wanted some place prettier. She found a park with an old stone stair path that came out of the trees and into a clearing. It wasn’t by the seating area in the park but with a few flowers and battery powered fairy lights it turned out perfect.
They did it at dusk when the city was quiet. Darkness had just settled. Jason almost fell over when he saw Marinette walk towards him. She hadn’t let him see anything of the dress ahead of time but he knew she had spend countless hours working on it. A pale gold dress with thousands of tiny rose gold beads sewn on and tiny fairy lights attached to the dress. Her hair was swept up with glittering jewels and curls cascading down her back.
He was the luckiest man alive. Not even because he was alive for the second time. He had her and he was better for it. He couldn’t even bring himself to think of the 'what if they had never met' or he had never followed after her that first night. He wouldn’t have anything in his life if she weren’t smiling at him like she was right now.
Having the taco truck cater for the small wedding was the first decision made after they found the ring in the cake and dirt. Grant had come out to congratulate them and Marinette had happily declared that they had to have tacos at the wedding. It seemed fitting since Grant had been at all the big moments from the beginning of their relationship. He felt like family.
---
Marinette ventured into their living room to see that Jason had already set out coffee and was bringing a tray that presumably had breakfast if the smell was anything to go on. She sat at the breakfast bar and poured coffee into the two mugs he had set out. She paused with the cream halfway tipped toward the coffee when she spotted a familiar logo on a take out box.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing at the offending box. “Did you get tacos without me?”
He pushed the box towards her with a grin.
“Open it,” he said.
She looked at him skeptically but opened it like he suggested. There were a couple bits of food in the empty box but not the tacos she was hoping he would surprise her with.
“Gee, thanks.” she said, before pushing it into the trash.
The grin melted off his face and he frantically went for the box in the trash. He pulled it out and opened it before flipping it over and checking the bottom. He stuck his finger through a small hole and wiggled it. He dug back into the trash briefly before dropping the box in the can and tearing frantically around the apartment. Marinette was worried at the unexplained reaction as he crawled along the floor and flipped over cushions. She abandoned the coffees on the counter to follow him when he moved towards the bedroom.
“Jay, what’s wrong? I’m not mad about the tacos. I know you were out late and I was already asleep.”
“It was your gift.”
“You got me tacos and they escaped into the apartment?”
“No, I got you a hamster and it escaped in the apartment.”
“A hamster?”
“I know we said anniversary gifts weren’t necessary and that we both prefer spontaneous gifts but it was. I saw it in the window on the way home last night and remembered that you had always wanted a hamster.”
“Maybe the taco box wasn’t the best place for it overnight.”
“I’m not that ridiculous. I put it in the box just a few minutes ago when I heard you waking up.”
He opened the closet and pulled down a box from the high shelf. It was full of all the things they could think to need with a hamster. The hamster case was set up and looked to have a little snuggly area where it had spent the night. The only thing missing was the hamster. They looked all over. It was an exhausting day and they ended up missing their dinner reservation for their 2 year anniversary. They ended up sprawled on the couch snuggling at the end of the day with no sign of the hamster.
Taglist
@jasonette-july-event | @theymakeupfairies | @emjrabbitwolf | @vixen-uchiha | @trythisagainlove | @trippingovermyfeet | @tbehartoo | @adrestar | @zynna | @laurcad123 | @woe-is-me0
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itmightbeneb · 2 years
Text
Say no to Netherite
part 1 | part 2 | part 3
tw: same as part 1, vomit
Also massive shout out to @foolishalex for helping me write Foolish better!
rb > likes <3
He was going to be good, he was going to follow Quackity’s every command to the letter, at least to begin with. Being Quackity’s little pet was better than being stuck in that cell, anything would be better than being in Pandora's vault any longer.
The first thing they did was get Dream back up to health, or at least healthy enough to not raise any eyebrows. Bandages soaked in health and regen potions were wrapped around still healing wounds, and some scars were even reopened in order to heal them properly. It was painful, but it was better than the torture that had caused them.
Food as well, he was given actual food. It shouldn’t have felt like a luxury to get given steak, but after so long of raw potatoes and sandwiches snuck into his cell by Badboyhalo anything else would felt like a luxury. Bad had been kind, had always been kind, Dream wondered how he had managed to get employed at a place like the prison, how he had managed to stand it. Those were questions for another day, however, for when he might actually see the demon again, for the moment he had to focus on staying alive, on making sure he never saw that prison again without plenty of TNT in his inventory.
The food may have been a luxury, but his body had gotten used to hell, the first time he had some steak it didn’t take him long to throw up - if anyone asked if he deliberately aimed for Sam’s shoes he’d deny it, even if it were the worst lie he would ever tell.
“Fuck, man,” Sam shouted as he stepped away as quickly as possible, “I, uh, don’t think he’s ready for that yet,” Sam talked as if Dream wasn’t in the room with them. Quackity frowned and looked towards Dream, who was sitting on the side of the bed they had given him. The room they had made his was small, but still bigger than the vault. It held only a bed and a double chest, but it had a window that looked out towards the main square of Las Nevadas. Dream was at least mildly impressed by the scale of the place, the effort Quackity had put into it. Las Nevadas looked good, if a little empty; Dream guessed that was partly why he was there, to help bring people to see the star attraction, the mighty Dream himself tamed and obeying Quackity’s every word.
“You’re going to have to clean that up, you know,” Quackity said to Dream, motioning to a bucket and mop in the corner of the room. Dream nodded and tried to get up, but his head was light from the pain and being ill so he just collapsed, luckily in a clean area, and almost threw up again. He managed to keep it down though, but fuck were those tears? Dream blinked them away before they could fall. He was weaker than he had guessed, weaker than he should be. No, he couldn’t be like this, he forced himself up and started towards the mop again.
He heard Quackity sigh dramatically behind him, “Why can't he ever fucking give up?” he muttered to himself, “Get back into bed I’ll get someone else to clean this up,” he said to Dream, sounding almost defeated.
Dream looked at him for a bit, staying still before moving slowly back towards the bed. When Quackity placed a hand on his shoulder, presumably to steady him so he didn’t fall face first into the vomit, Dream tensed up. Staying deathly still, he was once again reminded of everything Quackity had done to him, he had more freedom now, or would do when he was healthy enough to move, and Quackity probably didn’t want to hurt him in a way that the guests could see, but that didn't mean he was free, that didn’t mean Quackity would stop torturing him. He was Quackity’s little pet, there to be obedient and look pretty, attract people to Las Nevadas to gawk and spend money, he was nothing more than an attraction. It was better than being in a cell.
“Go to bed, you’re going to rest and heal until we can use you,” Quackity commanded, his voice low and dangerous, “Someone will come to clean that up and give you easier food.”
Dream obeyed.
He couldn’t sleep, his wounds were too painful and the bed too soft, he was too used to the hard obsidian floor. Dream just lay there with his eyes closed hoping that that would do something to ease the tiredness. And Prime he was tired, he didn’t know if it was because he was healing, moving more than he had in months, or the fact that he was finally allowing himself to slow down and stop worrying about the next Quackity visit. So he just lay there, halfway between asleep and awake, until someone walked through the door. It wasn’t even an iron door, a simple oak one was the only thing between him and the rest of the world. Except, the silver band was still on, he had gone near the boundary they had set earlier, and it had stopped him from moving any further. He had felt a force pushing him away, back towards Las Nevadas, and maybe he would get strong enough to fight it eventually, but for now he needed to rest and get healthier again. Sam was an annoyingly good engineer. He was still trapped, that's why they could afford to only give him an oak door.
He looked up at whoever just came in, and to his surprise it was Foolish. What was Foolish doing working in Las Nevadas?
“Oh, they did listen to my suggestion then!” Foolish said as he picked up the mop and got to work.
“This was your idea?” Dream asked, shifting to get a better look at Foolish.
“Yeah Sam was just going to use that device thingy to keep you in the prison but I thought you’d do great here working for us,” so Foolish was the one behind this change then.
Dream owed him, if it wasn't for Foolish his escape plan wouldn't have worked, not that it would now. But escaping from Las Nevadas would be easier than the prison.
“What are you ill or something?” Foolish asked, “Quackity asked me to bring you some easy to digest food so I have a bunch of soup for you, I’ll, uh, put it in your chest?”
Dream sat up straighter at the mention of soup, “Can, can I have some?”
Foolish handed him a bowl of beetroot soup, watching Dream’s hands shake as he brought it up to his mouth. It was easier than the steak, and more filling than raw potatoes, it was the best meal Dream had had in a long time. He hated that his best meal was beetroot soup but he didn’t have much room to complain considering the circumstances, how did they even have enough beetroots to make it anyway? Who the hell grew beetroots?
“Don’t worry about the new job, I’ll show you the ropes, wait you’re performing right? Of course you are, that’ll be great! You’re going to bring in so many new people. Might want to get you some new clothes though, you look kind of rough. But! When we get you dressed up you're going to be an amazing attraction!”
What did Quackity have in store for him?
“Do you know what kind of attraction I’m going to be? What will I be doing?” Dream asked, Quackity hadn’t let anything on, instead focusing on healing his wounds.
“Oh, you know, like a circus performer or something, we assumed you’d be an ok gymnast because, well obviously, so you’re just going to be showing off mostly.”
Dream chuckled, “I almost expected him to make me a stripper,” he had more experience as a pole dancer after all, having stripped for Primes on multiple occasions, he was almost a professional.
“Oh no no, Sam actually suggested that but I didn’t want to make anyone do anything sexual without their consent, you know,” Foolish shivered as if he were remembering something, “You’re not one of thise catmaids.”
Catmaids? Dream knew he had missed a lot but what the hell were catmaids doing with Foolish?
“Just please at least tell me the outfit’s not embarrassing,” if it was bad enough he might suggest stripping instead anyway, just as an excuse to get it off him.
Foolish paused and looked almost guilty, “Quackity designed it.”
“So it’s terrible then.”
“Yeahhh. I’m sure we can let you have another one once you get started!”
The outfit was terrible. All frills and the ugliest shade of green Dream had ever seen. He wasn’t exactly one to care about what people thought of him, his whole plan revolved around people hating him even, but if he was going to be a performer, he wanted to be a good one, at least good enough that Quackity would keep him around.
“You know what? Maybe I will take the torture if this is what I have to wear,” Dream muttered just loud enough for Quackity to hear, who just looked over coldly.
“You can always wear your prison clothes if you really want,” he said.
Dream laughed, “And the whole SMP will know what happened, or at least would be able to guess, the rips and bloodstains don’t look too good on Sam, or you.”
“And what do you suggest instead, Dream?” Quackity asked, clearly not intending to actually listen to Dream’s suggestion.
“Give me some fishnets and a corset and Las Nevadas will finally have one of those strippers you keep on advertising.” Screw his impulsive nature, why the hell did he just say that?
Quackity looked at him with an almost pained expression, “I know I was your torturer but that’s a line I’m not willing to cross, unless you genuinely want to I’m not forcing you into anything sexual.” Quackity sounded almost soft.
Dream stayed silent, and a strange atmosphere developed between the two. Quackity pulled the hideous thing from Dream’s hands, “This was a fucking mistake,” he muttered as he walked towards the door.
“This place is empty,” Dream called after him, causing Quackity to stop just before he got to the door, “You need me, or something at least, to bring people in while the casino is still under construction. Nobody’s gonna care if I look like some random circus performer and they can’t even tell it's me,” Dream walked closer to Quackity, a dangerous move but he needed him to know he was serious, “You want me to be your tamed killer, your little pet that can kill but won't make a move without your command, make me look the part.”
Quackity looked up at Dream, at the scar they had left on his cheek for exactly that purpose, “Let's get you something more deadly looking then,” he said with a grin.
“Yes sir,” Dream said, “And for the record, I used to be a stripper, I wouldn’t mind too much.”
Quackity just laughed as he exited the small room Dream could now call home.
Dream was sure he'd pay for that particular trick later, but for now he was just glad he wasn't headed straight back to prison.
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robinrequiems · 3 years
Text
hey any1 want some superman jon and batman Damian hcs? too bad cause you’re getting them
• damian realized why no one wanted to be batman when he turned 18 and Bruce decided to give him batman when he was 22.
• jon realized why jon didn’t want to be superman when he also turned 18
• oh and right, by gave, I mean bruce sorta can’t be batman anymore. medical reasons…
• damian sorta uh. persuaded clark into giving jon superman.
Damian: look. I don’t wanna be worlds finest with you, old man.
Clark: im- im not old—
Damian: listen here, jon and i? we are gonna surpass you and my dad. so give it to jon and let me prove it.
Clark: this doesn’t seem like a good idea— you aren’t ready— neither is jon
Damian: wait- wait, you don’t believe in your son and i??? wow. WOOOW. okay. i see.
Clark: that’s not it!-
Damian: sure. sure. don’t worry. I see now.
Clark: wait I do!
Damian: no, no you don’t.. it’s— it’s okay, I get it, it’s me, huh?
Clark: no!
Damian: I get it
Clark: please i do! I’ll - oh my rao, you’re playing me
Damian: i am. i cant do this without jon though. please, Clark.
Clark: *sigh, how did he get manipulated by a kid he used to babysit* okay.
• okay so now jon may be a little overwhelmed because one day he’s flamebird, the next, he’s becoming superman? huH. it’s extremely uh. worrying. and really just? wow.
• does Damian feel bad? oh yeah. he does. so bad. but he really can’t do it alone. they always dreamed of being their parents. or being better than them. but they grew up and realized that they really didn’t want to be their parents.
• but here they were, getting fitted for their suits and adding their own details to it.
jon: hey, you look hot
damian: please. shut up.
• they could do this. they could do this. shoot they can’t do this.
• damians own anxiety was going 50 mph. look, okay? remember before heretic when Bruce thought that Damian would become a satanic batman and basically rain hell all over gotham? yeah. that’s what is going on in damians mind.
• he doesn’t want to be that. ( “you won’t be like that, cmon, d, we’re gonna be better.” ) and how Damian wants to believe jon so bad..
• he doesn’t want to become obsessed with Batman like his father did, he still wants to have a life. he doesn’t want to isolate himself away and adopt kids as a coping mechanism. that’s why he needs jon to be superman. jon helps him, he helps him not go off into his own little world and stay there. he believes that with Jon, he’ll be okay. he has to be. maybe he uses jon as his own coping mechanism, but that isn’t the point.
• together, they will outshine their parents. the supersons can do this. they are the next generation, and it’s not like they are alone. they have so many other people to help them. they’ll be okay.
• they have been preparing for this their whole life, but they both feel like they got it too soon. they thought they had more time. Damian does feel guilty when he hears jon talking about how stressed he is about superman and not living up to whatever the hell he has to live up to, but Damian does fear what would. or could. have happened if he didn’t have jon with him. becoming batman took a lot out of him, more than he would like to admit. he just got constant flashbacks to heretic and that whole fiasco he thought he put behind him a loong time ago.
Jon: are you sure you’re okay?
Damian: yes idiot, quit worrying.
Jon: I’ll always worry about, d.
• jon somehow becomes MORE sappier when he becomes superman.
• okay, also, funny story. ( Clark and Bruce don’t find it funny AT ALL ) superman and batman? yeah they sorta kissed after an almost alien invasion. in their suits. uh. in front of an alien who they were arresting for the green lanterns. most people believe that when people say it, it’s a lie, kidding. no they don’t. there were pictures.
bruce: you want to explain this?
damian: not really, no.
• the public knows there’s a new Batman and Superman since yk. Jon’s face is public and was seen as superboy flamebird and now superman, and batman was slightly smaller and had some different moves
• but here’s their main line up: batman ( dami wamie, obvi ), superman ( jonnyboy kent ), nobody ( maya:)) ), green lantern ( tai pham, my baby boy ), lace ( wallace west 2, he goes by lace instead of flash because i said so. ), and shazam ( billy b ).
• fun fact, they have a den mother even though they are all in their 20s. poor dinah.. yeah black canary is their den mother. ( stole it from from yj )
• dinah makes sure they get their injuries checked out, train regularly, and you know. don’t blow up a building.
• again.
• ( when damian and jon were younger, in their teen years, they stupidly accidentally blowed up a building. in their defense, the building was owned by the penguin. and there were no civilians in the area. but they also got a lot of men sent after them.. oops. )
• they are very chaotic. they are the definition of dumbass energy sometimes.
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• damian tries to keep the pda down whenever he’s batman, BUT JON DOESNT KNOW HOW TO DO THAT
• hence the amount of photos of jon hugging Damian or kissing him
• damian has never once initiated one in suits
• ( that one time jon almost died does not count )
Damian: thought you were gonna be batman.
Tim: nah, i don’t wanna be bruce. i saw what it did to dick. I would’ve became just like him.
Damian: am i like him??
Tim: god no, bruce would never kiss superman or date him or spray paint the new justice league logo— nice logo, by the way— onto villains bases
Damian: is that a good or bad thing?
Tim; good, that means you probably won’t be a total emotional stunted person using crime fighting as an outlet for unresolved childhood trauma.
Damian: you do realize why i became Robin right
Tim: .. not the point im trying to make. I mean now, brat.
• sometimes you can see some of the heroes dropping by to surprise kids, they heard that their old mentors used to go to children’s hospitals to visit sick kids, so they did that too. on a rare day where there isn’t any crime, which is really rare, they go to a school and talk if it’s a weekday, or they drop by an orphanage to hang out with kids.
• they have gotten into a lot of trouble though. they’re still learning how to work as a team. jon and damian are used to being solo and working with each other, Tai had tagged along a few times when they were younger and knows how they work, along with maya, but billy and Wallace do not.
• they often all get into arguments.
• damian lacks a filter and will criticize everyone if they mess up. and he often goes off alone or is too blunt.
• it takes a long time before they all realize that Damian is just: Damian, he doesnt mean to be mean. ( surprisingly )
• billy is used to being the big kid stuck at the kids table, it’s funny that he’s actually the second oldest when he used to be the youngest. ( lace is like.. 27? shazam is 25.. nobody 24. & the supersons 22. pulled all those ages outta my ass. you’re welcome. )
• dinah is also their therapist. poor dinah.
• like really giving pity to dinah. but dinah loves those kids, she has known some since they were kids. she used to take damian out for ice cream and train with him, and also babysit him. ( AUNT DINAH IS MY FAVORITE GOODBYE ). and she did the same with Jon.
• dinah actually does help a lot of them get over their trauma, not completely, but most have finally spoken about it. they began talking after they all got hit with fear gas.
• that was a bad night.
• they had almost disbanded before when they thought lace had died by the hands of captain cold. they had been arguing all day, and if they didn’t, they might’ve saved him:
• but turns out he wasn’t dead.
• but the argument was still there, and it was strong. it took a while for them to actually work together without dinah forcing them.
• then soon came another new member after maya left to go do some undercover mission for the justice league regarding some alien tech being distributed some place. it was a sad goodbye, but she would be back and she would have a place here.
• welcoming: yara flor. yara was a bit headstrong and wild. damian has screamed at her a lot and almost got into a fist fight with her before being dragged off by his boyfriend 💋
• but she settled in fine. minus the fact damian really wanted to shove a batarang up— anyways. she just had to learn teamwork and shit, she was used to being a solo and she was somewhat new. so they helped her out and she became a solid member of the team.
• sometimes damian and jon just go and sit on a rooftop like they did as kids togeyher. just alone with each other. thinking about how their life changed so quickly.
Damian: i thought we’d ruin our fathers’ legacies and plummet to the ground.
Jon: *he coughed* ..what?
Damian: yeah. i didn’t think we’d get this far, but here we are.
Jon: of course we got this far, and we’re gonna get further.
Damian: i know.
• oh yeah. so. superman. fucking proposed after they defeated darkseid. ( the battle was long, so many people were left injured and on the brick of death, Damian and jon had been separated when it all started. Damian had stayed on earth at first before going to apokolips. Damn he hadn’t seen it since he got resurrected.
Darkseid: oh. I remember you.
Damian: mhm?
Darkseid: ah yes, the little boy who was resurrected here.. the chaos share, your father used it on you.
Damian: i know. i remember what happened. I was there afterall.
Darkseid: I wonder if you are as smart as the original batman.
Damian: i am.
• damian was buying time. he was waiting for reinforcements, namely the people who had powers and could take him down. damian wasn’t stupid. he realized darkseid liked to talk. his friends were fighting off the female furys or whatever they were called. he just had to wait and entertain.
Darkseid: quite the ego there.
Damian: i saved the justice league when i was 13, i deserve to have an ego.
Darkseid: oh, you are by far more talkative than the original.
Damian: thanks.
Darkseid: not a compliment, you fool.
• yeah so. darkseid tried to kill damian, with a beam thing. Damian was about to flip away like the baddie he is, but. jon. went out and yk. took the hit. dumbass.
Damian: you have such a big hero complex.
Jon: wow I just saved you and that’s what you say?????
Damian: yes.
• anyways, after they defeat darkseid, jon pops out a ring from his pocket and asks damian to marry him on apokolips.
Damian: you seriously couldn’t wait til we got on earth?
Jon: dames you almost died. what if- what if something happens, I’ve been putting this off for so long. cmon please?
Damian: you’re seriously asking me to marry you here where, I’m pretty sure, a lot of shit happened to our parents here.
Jon: no time like the present.
Damian: fair. okay.
Jon: just okay???
Damian: im sorry, do you want me to cry or something?
Jon: ughh, you can be so extra and petty sometimes.
Damian: i am not being petty.
Jon: just because I ask you to marry me here you wanna be like “okay” and that’s it
Damian: you’re so dramatic. I’ll marry you. I wanna marry you. Better?
Jon: yeah:)
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meichenxi · 3 years
Note
Hey, could I ask you how you do shadowing? Like the different ways you do it? You mentioned in your tag that shadowing is good and I'd love to hear how you do it! I do not attempt shadowing much so I don't really know what helps, etc. ToT (my studyblr is rigelmejo)
Hellooo! Thank you for the interesting question!
Tbh I think I do it fairly basically - I don’t use any particularly fancy software, but software like Language Learning with Netflix has certainly made it easier. There’s a whole video on how to get the most of it here: [on mobile, link didn't work - How to study Chinese with Netflix! by Chinese Zero To Hero] (I’d recommend checking out all of their videos actually, they’ve done a bunch of livestreams recently and they place a lot of emphasis on shadowing + the course they are trying to sell you is…actually phenomenally good)
(Also, I have to preface this by saying that I have been very lucky in terms of pronunciation: I learnt about 80% of my current vocabulary by ear without characters or pinyin. I have been in China for eight months in total, and while I didn’t speak Chinese for all of that, I was constantly soaking in info on natural sentence intonation. I still often don’t know officially what the tone of a vocabulary item is, especially if it changes tone like 教, 为 or 相, but I don’t get yelled at so I have definitely internalised a lot of those changes. I definitely would have more trouble with this if I hadn’t had that experience - my other areas are waaaay weaker because of this though- my reading SUCKS lmao and I can literally handwrite about ten characters)
Anyway. How I shadow:
1) Quite simply by playing the line, and repeating it with all the emotion it has!! I usually use Netflix or Viki for this. I try to do it as fast as possible, and if I can’t do the whole thing, I ‘chunk’ it: if I were doing the sentence 我们还不知道他会不会来, I would start from the end with 他会不会来, then 不知道他会不会来, and then the whole sentence. Notice that this isn’t breaking it down into words or even grammatical phrases, but intonational phrases: it would be perfectly sensible to just do 会不会来 without the 他 but realistically, since this is a question, it’s likely that a strong stress will be placed on the first 会, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate that without also included the more weakly stressed syllable before.
2) I locate (intentionally or subconsciously) the main locus of stress within the sentence, and I focus on that accordingly. Tones may become less extreme if they are not stressed, and may become more exaggerated if stressed. This is always a good exercise. I accompany this with physical actions - I throw my hands down, I sigh, I groan!
3) I put away the text, and don’t look at the tones or even my computer screen - more on this below.
4) Finally, when I think I’ve got it reasonably accurate, I’ll record them speaking the line into my phone with an appropriate pause for copying and play it back to myself at various points throughout the day.
5) I then go and find other words with the same tone contour to slot in, and copy it again. After that, I find words that are slightly different tonally and pop them in too.
6) I finally do fun things like hold a conversation with myself. This can be really simple phrases imbued with some kind of emotion - 这个女子到底是谁呀?为什么不认识我?应该是新手吧。You can do this either really informally, or very formally, or both - trying to speak in the latter way is very fun! So then it’d be idk something more like: 那位姑娘是何人,来自何处?This is fun because you can really slow down your speech and sound as elegant as you like!! (this will sound stilted if you do it for modern speech, but it’s a very fun exercise)
Choosing your media!!
1) Don’t use donghuas. Seriously. The voice actors usually speak at a ridiculous pace and not with the same range of ‘normal’ intonation
2) Your Chinese is definitely good enough to recognise when anyone is quoting poetry or speaking in a paricularly sexy literary way so, uh…don’t do that. That rules dramas like Nirvana in Fire OUT.
3) Modern dramas and reality TV shows CAN be great, but they can also be quite intimidatingly quick and almost too mushy at times. I’d recommend informal speech in guzhuang dramas more, because they have professional voice actors and extensive sound editing, meaning that although it might be fast and the vocabulary harder, it’s actually much more accessible and easier to copy. You don’t want to be stuck with the awfulness of 50% failed foreigner and 50% 12 year old boy who can’t enunciate properly!!
4) CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON WISELY. I try to find characters that speak in a dramatic, whiny or childish way. This is so important! There’s literally no use copying Lan Wangji unless you want to be able to have that particular cadence and tone of voice you get reciting poetry. Childish/whiny/dramatic characters on the other hand stress some words very strongly, and rush others together - this is great for hearing what actual real speech sounds like. Whininess wins. In The Untamed, characters like Wei Wuxian (not yllz!wwx but just…regular wwx), 一问三不知 Nie Huaisang, Jin Ling, and Jingyi are all great. Also Jiggy, who is just very extra constantly and speaks much slower as well, which really helps. In SHL characters like Gu Xiang are good.
5) CHOOSE YOUR VOICE WISELY! If you are really aiming to copy them 100% (which you should try at least sometimes), you want somebody with your pitch range to sound normal. I have a sort of party trick in Chinese that because I’ve spent so much time listening to women in guzhuang dramas I can change my voice and sound like a) a scheming concubine with honeyed words, or b) the voice of the Beijing metro. My teacher found it hysterically funny. But it’s not my natural voice, and if I speak like that for too long it hurts. The women usually are too high for me, and the big burly manly men too low - so I’d recommend finding a man with a higher voice, or an older woman (like some of the female characters in Nirvana in Fire). Again, sorry that this is mostly the Untamed (I’m just most familiar with it) but the voice actors for Wei Wuxian and some of the juniors (+jiggy) has a higher voice. Likewise Chengling in Word of Honour.
On intonation in general:
- The thing is that whilst shadowing is useful it requires prior ability in a whole bunch of other skills that you can train - it relies on your ability to accurately mimic pitch, emotion and other contrasts. Training this in ANY language, including your native one, will help your ability to do this in Chinese - so I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time practicing shadowing (or speaking just after somebody whilst listening to a string of text, like monolingual simultaneous interpreting) in your native language too. Any training copying accents or mimicking other people is going to similarly help, regardless of the language.
So, with that in mind, further tips:
1) Hum / try to copy the intonation without any words. What this does is force you to pay attention to what the intonation actually is, versus what you may think it should be.
2) Don’t look at the text! Do! Not! Look! At! The! Text! If you look at the characters or pinyin you’re telling yourself ‘ok this is a third tone here’ etc, but you want to override the part of your brain that has gotten into bad habits and is supremely self-confident in how you’re pronouncing the third tone, and actually just go straight back to mimicking.
3) Don’t be afraid to do it with vocabulary that is way beyond your level. Actually, I find this can sometimes be helpful, because you don’t have a prior idea about how a particular tone pair should be useful - and you don’t know which tone you should be producing.
4) Learn vocabulary by ear - listen to a vocab podcast or even make one yourself (I often do this; I record my daily Anki and listen back to it through headphones copying throughout the day - if you’re not confident in your pronunciation you can get Google Translate to do it). Similarly, pick unknown vocabulary out of a longer segment and remember it, trying to internalise the tones instead of figuring out which tone it is.
5) Find emotional sentences, and copy them with emotion. This is SO CRUCIAL!!! We remember things when we relate to them, and when we imbue them with emotion - and it also helps in hearing exactly how an angry second tone sounds, for instance.
6) When you’re copying, look up, and imagine you are having an actual conversation. Carry yourself with conviction and poise!! Really try to whine like wwx or slime like jgy. After a couple of turns copying them, try to turn off the audio and keep delivering it in the same manner.
7) Swap individual words out. Once you have a line properly figured out, swap a word or two that has a different tone pair, and focus on delivering it with the same pattern of stress.
8) Finally, practice doing this in your native language too!! It’s a skill that we don’t use often, and it can be trained. Some people are terrible at it at first go even in their native language, but you can work on it!
About intonation in general:
1) I think a lot of pronunciation problems with people sounding unnatural or stiff ultimately come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what intonation looks like across different languages. In English we mark it by pitch: and we are so used to the rhetoric that Chinese has ‘tone’ and not ‘intonation’ that we try and focus on blindly copying every single word textbook perfect without listening to how it actually sounds.
2) Chinese does have intonation!!! Except that, unlike English, when you stress a word, the pitch doesn’t change, but the tone contour is exaggerated - basically the only time you will ever hear a full third tone is in isolated or very exaggerated speech. If you have a Chinese friend, get them to record a sentence like the English ‘I didn’t ask her to steal his rucksack’, and put stress on the different elements of it - I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, and so on. Notice and copy how the tones change. When shadowing, you should always be paying attention to where the stress is in the sentence: when you speak by yourself, practicing saying a sentence neutrally, and then with stress on one component, the next, and so on. If it feels unnatural, it’s because you might not have practicised like this before - it’ll get better!
Hope that’s somewhat helpful / interesting!
- 梅晨曦
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goldensstateofgrace · 3 years
Text
Dream Of How You (Tasted) - Chapter One -
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(So... my first Series!!! I’ll be working on this a lot, and i want you to know it’s not gonna be perfect because I’m not perfect and my writings definitely not perfect, so bare with me on this journey please!! Who’s ready for some Camgirl!y/n??)
A story about Y/N becoming a camgirl because she needs the money but also because she gets off on the praise she gets from total strangers. She enjoys helping other’s get off while doing so herself. When talk about a one on one session with a guy who always watches her streams becomes reality, what happens when she finds out it was her crush/best friend all along?
I hope you guys are excited!! bc I know I am!! Hope you enjoy, happy reading!!
(Also, i picture Harry as long haired harry, but you can picture him however you’d like!!!)
Word count: 1.7k (4 pages) (i promise the other chapters will be longer!)
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Y/n didn’t know college could be so expensive, her job at the coffee shop on campus just wasn’t cutting it anymore. She needed to find something else to help pay for school and her rent. 
She’s in her second year of uni, all the book costs and the rent for having an apartment so close to campus is outrageous. She tried to find a second job to help with the money problem she was currently having, but couldn't find anything that could work around her classes and coffee shop schedule. 
Her best friend, Harry, tried to get her a job alongside him at his job, but again the schedule didn’t work for her and they couldn’t change it. So now, she's stuck trying to find something to do so close when she needs to pay her rent. 
It was outrageous how much the rent was for a one bedroom apartment close to campus, it’s a thousand - some dollars a month just to be close to campus, but that’s including her light and water bill so she can’t complain too much. 
Harry had offered to let her move in with him to cut down the cost, so she could save some money for school. But she declined because her boyfriend at the time didn’t feel comfortable with it, only to find out on their one year anniversary that he had been cheating on her for a while. Asshole. 
Nothing has been said since, but she wished he would. Moving out of her apartment would help so much, but she didn’t want to ask. 
Lost in her thoughts she didn’t even notice Harry walking beside her, as she walked across the courtyard to class. 
“Why so glum” he nudged her in the side with his elbow, startling her out of her thoughts. She slaps in on the arm, chuckling, “Harry! Don’t do that!”
“You didn’t answer the question, What’s wrong? And don’t give me the ‘Nothing im fine!’ thing you do,” he says, mimicking a higher pitched girly voice, chuckling once he was done. 
“Heyy! I don’t sound like that you twat!” you backhand his abdomen making him rub his stomach area as he grimaces in slight pain. 
“But” she starts, “i’ve just been struggling again, i tried looking for a job but, just like last time the schedule didn’t line up with any of my classes or with when i was working at the coffee shop.” she says, huffing in annoyance. 
Harry nods his head as she talks, listening to her, wishing he could help in some way. He tried before, but she turned him down, she didn’t even tell him why. He figured it had something to do with that cheating ex of hers. 
“Y/n, if you need help, all you have to do is ask. I’ll always be her to help you in any way I can,” he tells her, his eyes flickering over her face, showing nothing but seriousness, a drastic change from his happy light hearted self he was just a few minutes ago.
She casts her eyes away from him, focusing her eyes on the pavement under her feet as she walks. She doesn’t say anything for a while, but eventually she looks up at him, tears filling her eyes. 
“I know” she nods, “Thank you, Harry. You don’t have to, but thank you,” she says, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill down her cheek but they don’t get the chance as she wipes them away before they do. 
Harry wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side and placing a kiss to her head, “I may not have to, but i want to.” he mumbles into the top of her head. 
Her arm wraps around his middle as they continue to walk to their second class of that morning, “Thank you.” 
--------------
“You know what you should do?” Harry's friend Niall says as y/n, Harry, Niall and y/n’s friend Amy sit around a table in the coffee shop having lunch. Y/n quirks her eyebrow up as she takes a bite of her turkey sandwich, motioning him to go on.
Y/n had just got finished telling them about how she was in search of another job, and about how she needed the money to pay rent soon. 
“You should do only fans, or p*** h**, they make lots of money and that way you get something out of it other than stress and tiredness.” he says, making her almost choke on her sandwich. 
“W-what!”  y/n says just as Harry says “Dude! No!” 
“What’s the big deal? Lots of people do it, and you don’t even have to show your face. You could even go by a different name!” Niall reasons. 
Y/n was shocked by his suggestion, but she wouldn’t lie and say she was put off by the idea. Nobody would know it was her, and he did have a point about her not having to go by her own name. 
She couldn’t believe she was actually considering this but, you have to do what you have to do. 
“yeah uh” she clears her throat, “good suggestion Ni, but i think i’ll just stick with trying to find a job near campus” she says, chuckling as she takes another bite of her sandwich. 
“eh, it was worth a shot,” he laughs, before the conversation steers to assignments everyone had to get done and ones they’ve already done. 
After they all finish eating they sit around talking for a little bit before Y/n and Harry had to head for their last class of the day. 
As they walk to class, Harry’s arm that’s thrown over y/n’s pulls her into his side, “You know Niall was coming from a good place, right. He didn’t mean to offend you or anything,” he says, making you look up at him with your brows furrowed in confusion. 
“yeah , i know. I didn’t take any offence to it, but…” she trailed off, “What?” harry asks, motioning for her to continue as they walk past a group of people blocking the sidewalk. 
“Would it be so bad? I mean he had a point about me not having to show my face or use my actual name” she said, her eyes flicking over his face for some kind of clue into what he thought of it all. 
Harry doesn’t say anything for a while, it’s just as they were about to walk into their class that he pulled her to the side and let their other classmates go in first, “I don’t have a problem with it, it’s your body, you have the right to do whatever you want with it. If you decide that that’s what you want to do to make the money you need i’ll support you 100%, if not i’ll still support you, no matter what,” He tells her, looking into her eyes with nothing but seriousness splayed across his face. 
Y/n nods, standing up on her tiptoes and reaching her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, “Thank you, Harry. I honestly don’t know what i’d do without you!” she mumbles into his neck as his arms wrap around her waist pulling her impossibly closer to his chest. 
“I don’t either honestly” he laughs, pulling away from her with a huge contagious smile across his face, only making her laugh and smile too. 
“Come on, let's go to class,” he said, throwing his arm back around her shoulder and leading her through the classroom doors. 
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It was later that night, y/n couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts running wild with what could happen if she did decide to become a camgirl, or whatever it was called these days. 
She was laying in bed, trying to find out more about what comes with being a camgirl, what she needed to do and what other people were looking to watch. 
She had found a girl, her page consisting of videos showing off her curves and sexy lingerie, along with videos of her using toys on herself. All of the videos have over thousands of views, y/n decided that she would message the women who went by ‘daddiespet20’. 
Rewrote her message so many times she lost count before she finally found what she wanted to ask and sent the message,“Hey! I’m y/n, i was wondering if you could maybe help me, i’ve been looking into getting into only fans. Could you maybe help me with some questions I have?”
She waited a while for a reply back, along with going down a tiktok rabbit hole, laughing at the stupid tiktoks Harry posted the other day. Her phone finally pinged with a notification, she quickly pulled the notification bar down to see it was a reply from the women she had messaged, “Daddiespet20: Hi! Yes ofc, ask away.”
She honestly wasn’t expecting to get a reply back, thinking the women must have thousands of people messaging her all day every day. 
Y/n quickly wrote out a message of the main questions she wanted answered, “Thank you sm! It’s only a few questions, 1: does the amount you get paid rely on the amount of views you get on each of your videos?, 2: how did you gain your audience, and keep them interested in what you were putting out?, 3: Do you have any tips on where to start (seeing as I'm new to all of this)?”
The woman answers all of y/n’s questions with no problem, along with telling her some tips on how to get started and how to gain followers. The conversion ends after messaging back and forth for almost an hour, y/n’s walking away with all the information she was looking for plus more. 
Talking to her really helped y/n come to the decision that this is what she was going to do, she was going to make videos of her showing off her body and pleasuring herself. Never in a million years did she think she would come to this just so she could keep a roof over her head and stay in school. 
Now all she had to do was buy some sexy lingerie and some toys, well more toys. What? She’s not a prude!
 It was getting late so she decided she would go to bed and figure everything out tomorrow, along with ordering her underwear and the toys online. She definitely didn’t need anyone from school seeing her by that stuff. God, she could just imagine the embarrassment she would feel if that happened. 
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Feed back is highly appreciated!! Hope you enjoyed 🥺🥰
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whump-a-la-mode · 3 years
Text
Escape: Part 2
This is a bit different from what I usually do. @equestrianwritingsstuff recently posted a one-off piece, and I got a little bit obsessed with it. So, with her permission, this is a continuation! The original post can be found here.
Summary: After being captured and forced into a torturous reform program, Villain attempts escape-- but throws it all away to save the life of his foe.
CW//Attempted conditioning, denial of food, denial of water, intentional self injury, broken glass, blood, mentions of car crashes, collars, chains, firearms, attempted murder
“Okay.” The sigh was sharp, enough so to make Villain bite their own tongue in apprehension. “Let’s try another one.”
Nosey shuffled through the stack of papers piled before them on the desk. Villain glanced down at the pile-- noting its sheer height. He wasn’t expected to go through all those, right? No, that would certainly take all night.
“Here.” The hero before him settled on one of the pages, picking it up. “This one should be easy.”
Villain muttered something under his breath, laden with swears and insults.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Mhm.” A haughty exhale. “Here. If you get this one on the first try, you can go back to your cell and... I don’t know, do whatever it is you do. I’m tired of looking at your face.”
Back to his cell. That made Villain perk up, nearly straining against the cuffs holding him firmly to the table.
“Okay, let’s just get this over with. Here’s the scenario. You’re walking along the street, and you see someone hit by a car. The car does not stop, and the victim is thrown onto the sidewalk in front of you. They are clearly alive, but severely injured. Do you:
A: Use your healing powers to treat their injuries.
B: Search the surrounding area for a civilian with medical training
C: Contact the Heroic Civilian Treatment Team to take the victim to hospital.”
“Um...”
Villain felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up, despite being half wetted down with sweat.
If someone had been struck by a vehicle, the obvious answer would be to help them as quickly as possible. As soon as injuries like that were inflicted, the clock was already ticking.
The heroes were terribly resistant to him using his powers in any situation-- that was somewhat the whole point of the Villain Containment Practices. But in this case, it would certainly be an exception, right? Their whole job was supposed to be protecting life.
“Uh- I- I think A.” He at last croaked out. “Use my healing powers to stabilize them, then find a civilian doctor to get them to the hospital.”
Nosey sighed.
“A situation like this should always be deferred to us. Using your powers is never the answer.”
They placed down the paper, hastily rearranging the messy stack of them.
“Let’s go back to the gym. I’ll let you off with ten laps, this time.”
Villain gulped, phlegm sliding down a dry throat, as a pair of guards advanced to untie him from the table.
“C- Can I have some water? Please?”
“You’ve already lost your food privileges for the day. Do you really want to lose your water, too? You get water once you’ve earned it. For now, we’re going to the gym.
At this rate, maybe you should just become a permanent resident in our program.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━   
The glass was mocking them.
Villain was certain of that, even as he kneeled on his cot of a bed, half delirious, half exhausted.
The glass of water sat on a small table at the bed’s end. Just a glass, hardly even filled halfway. Haphazardly placed under a faucet for a few moments without thought.
He knew he had to drink it. He didn’t have much of a choice. Tomorrow would only bring more questions, more laps, more push-ups, more lectures. It would be terrible, certainly, but the small amount of liquid would make it at least the tiniest bit more bearable. Give him the tiniest bit more strength.
It was all he had. He’d spent the day watching his classmates-- that’s what the heroes called them, they were fellow prisoners, at best-- eating their meals, while he sat at an empty table.
Just because he had started a fight didn’t mean he should have to starve. Besides, they had it coming. Stuck up ass.
Villain frowned, cracked and dry lips sticking together, and reached forth to pick up the glass.
He needed to drink it, but as soon as he did, it would be gone. He would have to earn the next few drops through countless tears and buckets of sweat. At the very least, right now, he had control. He had a choice.
Not a very good one, but...
When had he gotten to this point? Having a crisis in a barren room over a half-glass of water? He was supposed to be a villain. Others were supposed to fear him.
Besides...
Villain’s hand shook, water sloshing, even as he was careful not to lose a single, precious drop.
He didn’t know how much longer he could survive like this. Endless exercise, endless questions. Maybe they would never let him out. Maybe they wanted him to die here. Hell, they probably wanted him to die here. One less problem, drained of strength until they no longer had enough to breathe.
This was one long, drawn out execution. Even if it wasn’t, he could hardly imagine a situation in which they allowed his parting. In which they considered him at long last “reformed.”
Villain had to leave. He had to. He was leaving here either in a glorious escape, or in a body bag. Or, worse: In a hero’s uniform.
He downed the water, feeling the heavenly moisture fill his throat. It was the best thing he had ever tasted, despite the fact that water had no taste to it.
It was far less pleasant than what would come next. He knew from unfortunate experience that there were only two things that could get him out of this cell: Going to ‘class,’ or having an emergency.
The first wouldn’t work.
There was no camera in the room, he had searched long and hard to confirm that fact. At the very least, he didn’t have to do much in the way of acting. Not yet.
He swung his unsteady legs over the edge of the bed, standing, stumbling halfway to the end table.
Before throwing the glass to the floor.
It was a miracle, that the heroes allowed him glass dishware. The cup exploded, a thousand shining pieces scattering about the floor.
Now, for the unpleasant part.
Villain gritted his teeth, throwing himself onto the broken glass, ensuring that it dug into his flesh, his legs and his palms. At the very least, his screams were genuine.
“Help! Help!” He wailed. “I’m hurt! Help, please help! Oh god, that’s my blood, oh god oh god...”
There was no camera in the room, but the door was plenty thin, and in this facility, screams carried far. To ensure this, he let out a few more cries, carrying them on until the door lock was frantically turned, the door thrown open on its hinges.
Hero’s inhale was quick enough that she nearly started choking on her own breath.
“V-Villain, oh god, that’s- That’s your blood?”
Of course it was, dimwit. It was flooding from his skin, wasn’t it?
“Y- Yes. I tripped, um, oh god, oh...”
The swaying and slurring of his words were not pretend, either. Dehydration and hunger made sure of that.
“Can you walk?” How was there so much concern in her tone?
“Don’t know.”
“We need to try. I can carry you, but- We need to get to the infirmary.”
The hero hurried to their foe’s side, arms under his shoulders helping him to his feet. He could walk on his own, not well, but he could-- though Hero had no need to know that.
“Okay.”
“It’s a pretty long walk. We can take it slow, okay?”
“Yeah.”
That was exactly what they did. Their movements were so painfully slow that at times Villain wondered whether or not they were moving at all, but, after some time, they did cover some distance. The few people awake at such an hour steered clear, seeing a villain covered in blood and wanting nothing to do with it in the slightest.
The infirmary was on the bottom floor, Villain had seen it on his way in, making note of its placement. Of course, Hero wasn’t about to make him struggle down all those stairs. No. She went straight for the elevator, stepping into the isolated box with her foe and letting the doors closed.
This was it. The elevator ride would only last a few moments-- it was now or never.
As subtly as he possibly could, Villain placed his hand upon his injured leg, the minty thrum of healing powers knitting together the slices. Though, it did nothing to dry the blood that had already seeped out.
He was healed, and Hero was alone. Trapped.
By all accounts, it was a fight that Villain should have lost. He was exhausted, stomach left empty for far too long, and veins severely lacking in blood. Hero had the benefit of being well-fed, well-rested, all of it.
But that explanation left out one thing.
Villain was desperate.
He watched the small, digital screen count down the floors.
4...
3...
2...
Now!
The strike may not have been powerful, but it was aided by the sheer speed at what it was launched. Villain’s fist collided with Hero’s temple, knocking her sideways, stumbling. He wasted not a millisecond in preparing his next strike, hearing the crack of a cheekbone beneath his knuckles.
Hero let out a cry, holding her face where a bruise would certainly bloom in the hour. Limbs still soaked in scarlet, Villain swung out with his leg, catching Hero in the knee, sending her to the elevator floor with a hollow crash.
1.
The elevator doors opened.
It was the fastest Villain had ever run in his life, he was certain of that. His legs were little more than blurs of red as he sprinted forth, tearing through a lobby that was nearly barren. An infinitesimal distance between him and freedom.
“Oh no you don’t!”
His legs came out from under him, his face striking the tile floor, almost certainly giving him an identical blessure to Hero.
The voice-- it was Nosey’s stupid, avian squawk. And, too, their polished boot struck Villain’s back.
“You really thought it’d be that easy?”
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The metal chafed horribly against Villain’s neck, somehow making his throat’s desiccation more acute. He laid his head against the thin carpet, spine aching terribly. The movement shifted the chain latched onto his collar, the slight clinking noise making his heartbeat stutter.
Tied up like a dog.
“Is this really necessary?” He grumbled, shifting himself to a sitting position, gazing upwards.
To Hero’s bed. Her legs dangled off the side of the mattress, hands gripped into fists around gathered bedsheets.
“We’ve been over this. That cell was a privilege, and you’ve lost it.”
“And so you chain me to the wall like a dog.”
“Exactly. You need to be under my direct supervision.”
“Yeah, whatever. Did you really have to stick this stupid collar on me?”
“I’m no happier about this than you are. But I’m not giving you free reign of my bedroom. You already tried to kill me once tonight.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“Whatever. Unlike you, I actually have things to do in the morning. So, if you would please let me sleep?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“If you do something for me first.”
“You are in the worst possible position to make demands, right now.”
Villain’s sigh tore at his throat.
“I just want some water.”
“Just that? Wait. You’re not going to smash the glass again, are you? I’m way too tired for that nonsense a second time tonight.”
“Just don’t put the water in a glass, then.”
“You actually just want water?”
“Yes.” He added rather pathetically. “Please?”
“I... Fine. Then you’ll let me sleep?”
“Mhm.”
“Fine.”
Hero stood, glancing suspiciously at her captive as she made her way across the room. As if he could do anything-- the chain was maybe three feet in length. He could barely lay his head down.
She maneuvered to her kitchenette, returning with a plastic cup-- filled to the brim with that precious liquid. She placed it before him. He was already drooling.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Villain.”
“Goodnight.”
Was that really all it took to domesticate him? A glass of water? It hardly mattered. As soon as Hero turned off the light, bathing the room in shadow, Villain downed the liquid as though his life depended on it.
Perhaps, it did.
It wasn’t long before Hero’s steady breathing had turned to soft snoring. Villain shifted himself into the most comfortable position he could manage. Even that, however, was far from being pleasant, with the chain threatening to strangle him at any moment.
That wasn’t what kept him from sleeping, however. He needed to sleep. He knew that, he wasn’t stupid. He would need his energy for the next day of lessons, of shouted orders and lectures.
That was all his life would be from now on, wouldn’t it? Orders and exhaustion and being forced to earn the most basic of needs by answering moral quandaries incorrectly.
Villain wanted, longed, to cry. To let out all the horrible emotions that had stuck in his chest cavity, threatening to drown his lungs in sorrow. But that would break the conditions of the deal.
He had to be quiet, or else he might never again be allowed water.
It was that dread in his chest, that hopelessness, that forced him awake.
So, he laid, still, listening to Hero’s snores as his own body refused to allow him unconsciousness.
Snores, and...
Footsteps.
Footsteps? Villain tensed, holding stock still, pricking his ears for the noise. They drew louder, louder, before stopping. Stopping outside the dorm room door.
He held his breath.
The door opened gently enough that the hinges made only the slightest noise. Then, the footsteps were inside.
Villain shrunk down in the corner, making himself far smaller and quieter than anyone of his status should ever have had to be.
Two sets of footsteps. Growing louder, coming towards the bedroom. The bed.
Hero.
“Are you sure we need to do this?” An unknown voice, whispering.
“If you want this plan to work, we don’t have a choice.”
That voice, that voice was not unknown. It was loud, terribly high pitched, terribly-
Nosey.
“We really have to kill them?”
“We won’t get the chance if you keep talking. Just do it, don’t chicken out on me, now.”
“Okay, okay.”
Villain’s heartbeat shivered.
The cocking of a gun. That horrible sound, that precursor of bloodshed.
Then, the shot. Two pairs of footsteps, fleeing, slamming the door behind themselves.
Villain gulped.
It was no doubt what had happened-- if he had had any doubts, they were quickly drowned out as Hero’s breathing hitched, then quieted to an almost imperceptible level. Growing slower, weaker by the second.
They are clearly alive, but severely injured.
In the scenario, he had had three choices. But this wasn’t a training scenario.
Now, he only had two.
A: Praise his lucky stars and use the opportunity to escape. There was a fire escape, just outside the window. He would be gone into the night before anyone knew any different.
Or...
B: Do the right thing.
Villain threw himself against the chain about his neck, collar threatening to cut off his airways. He spun about, gripping the chain in clammy fingers, pulling and tugging and-
Her breathing was getting quieter, weaker.
He pulled harder, muscles straining with the effort. The chain was anchored to the wall with a spike, drilled in. There was no way he could break the chain, no way he could break the spike, but-
Villain’s heel slammed through the plaster and drywall, chain flying backwards at his face. He hardly made note of it. Spike and chain and all dragging behind him, he tore to Hero’s bedside.
It was almost fortunate, that the lights were off. He couldn’t see the extent of the wounds.
He placed his hands upon her head, that minty feeling rushing to his fingers, his palms, her skin.
Using your powers is never the answer.
No. No, that wasn’t true.
Rules didn’t matter. Training didn’t matter. All that mattered was doing the right thing.
58 notes · View notes