#its hard to like a guy whos most said line is something about a man and trying to show up for him and very easily getting bodied

[oexen]

naruto was written by someone with the emotional intelligence of a literal peanut

[8siangemini]

Listen my guy I got something I want to request like it's angst like ANGST ANGST bro like ite miles 45 fighting spider women or man reader and miles won and killed us and when he took of the mask it was us! HIS GIRLFRIEND OR BOYFRIEND! Like and can you recreate the scene when Peter got killed by king pin? But it's us and miles

Don't have to do this request and if you do can you make it angst with no happy ending or fluff? Unless it's at the beginning or he's remembering happy moments with us

🧑🏼‍🦲👹

I Am So Sorry Mi Ángel (Earth 42 Miles x Spiderwoman!Reader)

Summary: Up on top :)

WARNINGS: Gore and angst, mentions of death and killing

Author’s Note: I would love to do this!! Sorry it took so long I just figured out how to get my inbox 🥲 Anyways I didn’t know how much I liked and how good I was writing angst even though I don’t read it often 😭 also after writing this I was thinking about write a part 2 if anyone wants one 🤫

You’re on your last leg, your last breath. You layed underneath the ruble of the colapsed collider with your back against a broken piece of concrete. A pain spread through your body from your ribs, your ankles were very likely to be sprained or even broken, your back was scratched and sore, you wre in pain. It was hard to breath even though you were trying to relax. But you knew you couldn’t, you needed to run from the Prowler.

You heard footsteps from the rubble and you snap your head up, which caused a painful cramp to spasm your head. There he was, the Prowler, right in front of you with his claw open, walking up to you like a predator. You flip your body over meekly onto your stomach and tried to crawl away pathetically. Fear spread through your body, there was nothing you could do you were going to be killed, a meer teenager.

You feel a strong hand on the back of your neck and you eyes widened in fear. Your limp body is lifted up and turned around to face the mask you feared the most. His non-clawed hand holding you up by your throat, your airway being blocked. You begin to cough and your vision goes blurry as it goes in and out. Your hands try and pry the hand off but the grip only got stronger.

His claw wide open, slashes at your gut, an immediate feeling of warm blood began to run down your legs. You couldn’t yell, you couldn’t scream, you couldn’t do anything. This was the end of the line for you, you won’t be able to see your parents, you won’t be able to keep the city safe, you won’t be able to be here for your Miles.

The claw balls up into a fist and punches you in the gut. Your mouth falls open, pain staticing throughout your whole body, everything began to feel cold, there was no more warmth in your body.

The only thought you could conjure was Miles. You were not going to see Miles anymore, this morning at school was the last time you were going to see Miles. You won’t be able to have the feeling of love from him no more. Then a different pain went through your body when a single reminder went through your head, you were going to give Miles the bracelet you made for him tomorrow, for your one year anniversary. The bracelet which beads were made from the roses he gave you last month for Valentine’s Day.

“M-miles…” The last thought and last word you said before fate took you.

The Prowler looked at you with wide eyes. Your blood dripped down his claw as he withdrew it from your stomach. Your body fell limp in his hand and he carefully placed your down on the concrete. He took his hand off of your neck and looked down at your lifeless body. He then realized, by the maturity of your body you were only a teenager, no older than him.

His heart raced at the realization that he had taken a teenager’s life. Just as he was about to get up he thought about it, people are going to know who Spider-Woman is. He wanted to know, he needed to know who he killed and not just Spider-Woman.

He liftd his finger underneath the hem of your mask and his heart dropped. Just from the lips and nose he knew who it was. He had kissed those lips just a few hours ago, he had kissed that nose when you fell asleep on his chest. He fully yanked your mask off and his fear and regret fell over him. His mask retracted and now it was just you and him, face to face. His own love in front of him, lifeless, due to him. The claw retracted from his hand from a loud thud and he quickly pulled your shoulders up and held you against his chest.

The tears finally fell, his lips quivered, and a loud cry of distress came from his lungs. He buried his nose into your neck which was bruised from his hand.

“Mi c-corazon…” He cried out as he pulled you away and looked at your face.

Your body limp in his hand as one of his hands held your back and the other up to your cheek. Your eyes were lifeless, cloudy, and your mouth was agape with small drips of blood from your lips. He hated this cite of you, he wanted to protect you from the world. He would have burned down the world for you, he wanted to in this very moment if that he meant he could have you back. He was a monster.

“No, no, no, no, mi corazon please.” Miles cried out helpless remarks as he eagerly moved his hand around your body.

First from your face, to your neck hoping that he could find a pulse, none. Then to your chest, no heartbeat. Then to your wrist, no pulse. He looked at your eyes as his eyes filled with tears, they use to be so full of love and happiness. He imaged your smile that caused your eyes to close, but your face was nothing like that. No happiness, no smile, just lifeless.

He looked up as his tears fell down his cheeks. He held to your body, knowing this would be the last time he could ever touch you again.

“You,” He said talking to God. “you gotta be playing games with me. First my pops now her.” He pleaded. “Why her?”

He cried into your hair as he closed your eyes with his fingers. He held your face as he pressed a kiss onto your forehead. Your skin was cold which made him cry more. His lips went down to your’s, hoping he could feel a sign of life from them. There was none, there was no press back from you as he kissed your lips, they were cold. Miles drew away only a couple inches away from your lips as his lips quivered in front of you.

“I am so sorry mi ángel.”

——

He walked around your empty cold room as he heard his mom talking to your parents just in the living room.

“I am so sorry for your lost.” He heard his mom say.

He looked around the room full of posters with clothes pouring out of your closet. It felt like the skin of you, the room looked like you but had none of the happiness it use to give him every time he came into it to find you on your bed. It felt cold and empty, lifeless. Today would have been your guys’ one year anniversary, the thought of it weighted on his heart. He walked over to your desk to see what your last art projects were to try and salvage any part of you so he could possibly keep you in his life.

There were multiple drawings and sketches of him that you drew to practice anatomy on your pinboard above your desk. There were many pictures pinned as well with you two. He looked down and he saw a small gift bag on your desk. He opened the tag which read, To: Mi Vida From: Tu Corazón. His heart picked up.

He hesitantly pulled out the tissue paper and saw a small bracelet a long with a card. He pulled out the card and took the letter out of the envelope.

‘Happy One Year Mi Vida!!!

365 days later and you still deal with me. I made your gift (like always) out of the roses you gave me for Valentine’s Day :). I love you so much Miles and I can’t wait for more years to come <3.

-Love, Tu Corazón’

A pain came to Miles’ heart, knowing that there will be no more years to come with you and him together. He reaches inside of the bag and pulls out an elastic beaded bracelet with dark red beads. He immediately put it on his wrist and reached I side of his jacket pocket. He pulled out your torn up, bloody mask from last night. It was one of the last things he had of you left. He held it to his forehead, imagining that your face is still underneath the mask to comfort him. But it wasn’t.

He had destroyed you with his own hands, he could not forgive himself for that. He had killed the one person that saw him in the way he didn’t, an actual human being and not a monster. But now after what he did he could only think of himself as a monster.

“I am so sorry, mi corazón.” He said through silent cries as he kept your mask close to his face.

[ohtobeleah]

Was It Over? // Jake Seresin

-> Chapter Ten: [The Potato Head Society & The Other Guy, Jarred?]

Summary: Jake helps you shave your head in hopes of keeping your power and control. Facing your own mortality makes you question your faith in a higher authority and Jensen and Jake met for the first, and what you hope, will be the last time.

Warnings: Sick!reader. Breast cancer diagnosis. Jake Seresin x F!reader. Angst, hospital & medical inaccuracies. SLOW BURN ROMANCE/ Inaccurate medical information. Relationship turmoil. Mentions of religion

Word Count: 4.2K

Author Note: It's no secret I've been having a little bit of a rough go on this hell-site as of late. But I'm still here, working on this series. Seeing your weblogs, comments and concepts truly mean the world to me. so please, don't be hesitant to share.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“My only real advice for this kind of thing is this.” Jensen sighed as he stood on the steps of his townhouse with you. Coffee in one hand, end of life brochure in the other. Things had taken a rather drastic turn for him in the last few days. After your birthday, his health started to drastically diminish–so much so that his doctors weren’t too sure how much time there was left to combat the cancerous cells spreading through his body. “Go right through it.” Jensen smiled, never once did you ever see his positivity falter. “Like right through it, feel it all, be in it, don't avoid it because the moment you start avoiding it is when it's truly won.” 

Little Sammy held your hand as you stood next to Jensen–he was too young to understand that the man talking to you was dying, hell, you weren't even sure if you understood the significance of the pamphlet Jensen had picked up after your first CCA meeting. He’d told you it was for a friend, little did you know that friend was standing right in front of you. 

The Cancer Counseling Association held biweekly meetings at the hospital. You hadn’t planned on attending when your oncologist, Doctor Morrison, had first mentioned it. But when Jensen said he’d been going almost religiously for three years? You thought, what's the harm? 

The harm was it was depressing as fuck. 

“You go completely in the tough times, feel everything and get out the other end of it all.” You’d asked Jensen something along the lines of how he’d managed to keep fighting all this time and still be so positive about life and all its underwhelming rewards. He was for the most part, a happy guy despite it all. But even the strongest of soldiers have an achilles heel. 

Jensens just so happened to be the fact you were forbidden fruit, he wasn't about to tread on another man's toes. Especially when he was tiptoeing towards the sweet release of death's gentle hands. None of that stopped his heart from racing whenever you smiled though. 

“Many of these things you don't have a choice in.” Jensen continued as his eyes lingered down to little two year old Sammy who stood holding your hand in his. If anything you needed the encouragement to fight this battle for your children. “You know, fuck, whats that expression?” Jensen mulled it over as you chuckled, still standing on the path right outside his street facing townhouse. “Uhh–oh yeah! It's not how well you walked through the fire, but how you walked through it regardless.” 

“I think I'm just barely crawling through the flames right now–” You answered honestly. There wasn't a nice way to say he’d looked better than he did right now, with sunken eyes and skin that looked as if all the life had been drained from his soul. 

So you never mentioned it. 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“So—“ The library wasn’t Jake Seresins favourite place to go, but there was someone who made the isles of hard covered literature easier to understand that always seemed to draw him in. Like a moth to a flame. “Did you have a good Christmas?” The silence that followed as you stared across the desk where you were processing returned textbooks had Jake's heart racing, he couldn’t read you and that fact made him all the more nervous. “Or not? If you’re Jewish maybe? Don’t celebrate Christmas that’s cool too I just thought—“ You had to giggle at the college football star standing across from the reception desk with his elbows leaning on the ledge. Your smile was pure happiness, it wasn’t hard to make Jake's heart melt inside his chest—a chest he once thought was hollow. 

“I had a wonderful Christmas, I went home to visit my mum, she always says that if the Christians can steal Christmas from the pagans then us non-religious folk can celebrate too.” You shrugged your shoulders politely as you kept checking off the returned textbooks from students who’d taken them home over the summer. 

“What do you mean when you say the Christians stole Christmas?” Jake Seresin grew up in an incredibly conservative, extremely religious household that attended church every Sunday rain hail or shine. Jake swore his mother nearly spontaneously combusted when he had to stay in hospital overnight after having his appendix removed. It was a Saturday afternoon when they’d presented to the emergency room—poor old Janeen nearly dropped dead at the mere thought of her ten year old missing church the next morning. 

“Lord have mercy upon us, for we have sinned.” Jake could still remember his mother crying vividly when he woke after surgery. Even at ten he knew his mother was somewhat of an overly sensitive soul. 

“Well technically, in order to convert the Germanic pagans who, like, celebrated the winter solstice and stuff—the Christians were like, fuck it, let’s just say that Jesus was born on this day and you can hang tinsel and stuff.” Again, you shrugged your shoulders like it was common knowledge, but as Jake stared down at you with confusion swirling in his emerald eyes, you thought for a split second that maybe this was actually news to the college athlete who’d been following you around for the better half of nine months. Respectfully. 

“You can’t just change someone’s birthday like that? Can you?” Jake, in all his years of attending Sunday services, Sunday Schools, being forced to read the bible and knowing far too much about parting seas and burning bushes, he’d never once been told that Christmas was just a day. 

“It’s kinda like how King James was rewriting the bible on one side of the castle and had witches trying to turn his pee into gold on the other.” Jake was speechless as you looked up at him from your chair, your eyes seemingly swirling with knowledge beyond your years. It made sense that you worked in the library on campus. 

“How the hell do you know all this?” Jake asked through a sheepish smile he couldn’t hide, your intelligence intimated him in the best of ways. You made him want to do better, be better, strive for more in life. It wasn’t that Jake wasn’t smart, he was. But next to you? It was an unparalleled excellence. 

“I uh—I tend to read a lot.” Jake caught the way you faded into yourself, never one to want to outshine others. “Just get lost in here sometimes, books are sometimes easier to understand than people.” Jake could sympathise with that sentiment, he knew what it was like to feel like everyone was watching, judging a book by its cover so to speak. Everyone knew him as the meathead footballer who’s weekends were spent racking up the body count. 

But with you? Jake just felt like Jake. Because that’s who he was to you. Simply and forever Jake. 

“Do you like, not believe in God or something Miss Y/l/n?” Jake asked cautiously. He didn’t want to offend you or come across as rude or anything—he was simply asking a question he thought he may need to know if he was ever going to introduce you to his mother. 

“I find it hard to believe in a world full of stories about Gods and Goddesses from a plethora of different perspectives that there can only be one, if one exists they all have to right? Harmoniously and complacent with the way the universe has fallen to shit without their divine intervention.” Jake had to take a moment to take what you had just said in. He was almost rendered speechless, but not quite. Not Jake Seresin. 

“Damn Honeybee, you’re fucking fearless aren’t you?“ Jake couldn’t help but to smirk as he tried to keep his voice down. “You’re just raw doggin’ life with no religious affiliations.” It was then your turn to laugh. 

“Guess I am. What about you? Do you believe in a God? An all mighty man, or woman, that sits in the clouds and judges your every action?” You asked with a teasing smirk as Jake bit his bottom lip, mulling over your question: 

Did he believe in God? 

“My mother would probably prefer if I said yes, but, the more I look at life without the rose coloured glasses I tend to think perhaps the big guy in the sky is all just some story.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“Did you know hair holds memories.” The sound of buzzing clippers echoed off the walls of the bathroom as you sat before the mirror. Jake stood behind you with those big emerald eyes you loved so dearly, looking at you with a sympathetic look of understanding and support. “In some cultures people don't even cut their hair because it would upset the gods.” Jake could see the tears in your eyes as you looked at him through the mirror, understandably rambling to somewhat buy yourself some more time. “Medusa's hair was alive, there's certain styles linked to different cultures and full hair cutting ceremonies in–” If Jake didn't interrupt now you would have gone on forever. You had a habit of information dropping in situations where nervousness got the better of you. Not that Jake ever minded, he just knew if he didn't get ahead of it, you wouldn't stop. That would ultimately lead to you sitting in silence when the information swirling around inside her head had all been said. Panic would begin to rise inside your chest, the air would soon get thin, the room would suddenly get a little hotter and before you could even realise you'd be in the midst of a full blown panic attack. 

The last time Jake witnessed such a thing was when Sam had colic. 

“Honey–” Jake cooed as he turned off the clippers he held in his hand, only to place them down on the countertop to rest his hands on your shoulders. “Noone is forcing you to do this, if you don’t wanna cut your hair we don't have to.” 

“No–” You sighed. “No, I want to do this, it's just a lot.” You tried to explain. “It's probably one of the only things I still have control over.” Jake understood, it would be hard not to. After all, he wasn't heartless. If he could Jake would have taken this all away, he would have given anything, including his own life to take your pain away. “I just hope I don't have a weird shaped head.” 

“I'm sure you have a really nice scalp dear.” Jake chuckled as he massaged your shoulder tenderly. “And look, if you want my professional opinion, I think you’ll make an awesome live action Mrs. Potato Head.” 

“Jacob!” You tried to hide your smile as you felt your cheek heating with a hume so pure it made your heart skip a beat. “You’re cruel!” 

“But I made you laugh.” Jake countered through a shit eating grin, that signature Seresin smile you loved so much. The very one all three of your children had inherited from their father. “That's all that matters, now–let me work my magic alright, I've got you.” 

“You’re probably a worse hairdresser than you were a husband–” It was a low ball, but Jake took it like a champ as he reached out for the clippers. The buzzing was almost immediate as he used the pad of his thumbs to complete the electrical circuit. With the tool now in full gear, Jake chuckled as he looked at you with fake shock and horror casted across his face. 

“Oh now who's being cruel huh?” Jake watched as your eyes followed his hand that held the clippers. “Technically we’re still married Honey, you still have my last name.” He mumbled under his breath but still loud enough for you to hear, seemingly trying to keep your attention on what he was saying rather than the clippers approaching your head. 

But–you moved:

“Should we cut my hair with scissors first?” 

“Y/n–” Jake sighed as he once again turned off the clippers and placed them back down on the side of the sink. 

“No no no I'm not trying to stall, I just don't want you to accidentally scalp me when my hair gets caught up in the shaver.” Jake saw your point, for the hair you did have left it was pretty thick and full of life still. He held the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes and let out a sigh. Not in frustration towards you, but in defiance of his new quest. 

“I'll go ask the nurses station for some scissors.” 

“Thankyou–” Was all you managed to say back before Jake stepped out of the bathroom attached to your hospital room. The Christmas lights still flickered in the dimly lit room, seemingly consuming the entire room in bright blues, greens, reds and yellows. Even in sickness you couldn't help but to lean into the christmas cheers. 

It hit Jake in that moment as he rounded out of your hospital room that he should get you something small to open when you wake up from surgery. The hospital has a gift shop right? Perhaps some flowers and a small gift you could keep with you during chemo. Maybe a book or a– *Thud* 

Caught up in his own train of thought as he made his way to the nurses station, Jake ran straight into someone coming out of the elevator. There were two very distinct things Jake noticed as he came back into the reality around him. Those distinct things being that the man he’d run into was carrying not only flowers, but a small gift. Huh, uncanny. 

“Sorry man, my bad.” The man apologised almost immediately after the mild impact. 

“No worries, I wasn't watching where I was going, my bad, really.” Jake responded with a polite smile his mother taught him about, the kind of smile you give to a stranger after mild inconveniences. “Jake–” Jake reached out to shake the guy's hand, in retrospect he should have kept walking. Jake really should have just let the interaction fizzle out, but he couldn't. He was too polite for his own good when it came to small interactions. 

The most paranoid fantasy Jake could think of would never have prepared him for the name that the man spoke next as he took Jake's hand in his. 

“Jensen–” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“Okay, I'm ready.” Neither Jake nor Jensen knew if you had mentioned either one in conversation, so, respectfully, both men chose to play the fool. Neither one really wanted to ask. Neither Jake nor Jensen wanted to be the one to open that can of worms. 

When Jake returned with the borrowed scissors in his grasp–he acted as if he hadn’t just met the man he assumed was the very Jensen in your contacts. 

“Last chance Honeybee–” Jake cooed as he leaned in to kiss your cheek. “Are you positive?” He asked with a smile so pure it made your heart skip a beat. “I’m all in with you, just say the word and we do whatever you wanna do.” 

There was a momentary pause in the conversation. Jake's questions lingered in the air around you, it was hard not to get caught in the moment, get lost in the emerald eyes looking at you through the mirror. Jake stared you down as you shifted in your chair to look at him. He saw no hesitation in your eyes as Jake followed your gaze, searching for any sign or signal that could indicate that the next few moments were about to be a mistake. 

“Honey—“ Jake tried to heed the warning lights flashing before his very eyes as you closed the gap between the two of you. Jake stood leaning over your right shoulder, looking longingly at your lips. “Don’t do anything stupid now.” 

“Loving you is stupidity—“ Was all you said before you let your lips softly connect with your husband’s. Jake kissed you back with enough love in his heart to knock the wind right out of your lungs. The fleeting moment was broken, however, when Jake pulled away. The idea of another man kissing you on his mind, what was this guy's deal? Jackson? Jason? 

“Come on Mrs Potato Head, hand me those scissors—“ Jake chuckled, hiding his own insecurities about the man he’d unintentionally met in the hall. You took a second to keep up, but as you licked your lips to savour the taste of Jake's signature vanilla chapstick, you nodded and handed him the scissors. 

“I’m ready.” You sighed, once again looking back at your own reflection. “Let’s get this over with.” Change is an inevitable part of life, but that fact didn't make the current circumstances any easy to process. “Do you think that there's gonna be a place for me despite my inability to believe in a higher being?” Jake understood what you were saying, but he didn't have the answers. “I'm starting to wonder more about if there could ever be a life after death.” 

Clumps of hair in small sections fell to the tiled floor around you as Jake worked his hands through your hair. Cutting strands from your head like the local mower man cut grass. It felt like such a mundane task to complete, like this was an everyday run of the mill, average experience. But for you? This was a hard and confronting pill to have to swallow. 

“I’ve spent my whole life not believing in religion, so who am I supposed to pray to to keep me alive Jake?” Jake saw the tears in your eyes as he cut your hair with caution and steady hands, he heard the small but audible sobs that escaped your lips as he switched from the scissors to the clippers. The buzzing all but silenced your cries but Jake knew this was hard on you. The tears that stained your cheeks clearly reflected your sadness, anger and the inner turmoil that had been engulfing your entire existence since your diagnosis.

“You don’t pray to anyone Honey, you’re stronger than this cancer could ever be.” Again, no one ever sits you down and prepares you for this. No one gives you the heads up about the possibility of one day having to shave your wife's hair off in the name of dignity and control. But as Jake ran the shavers across your scalp, leaving nothing but a small layer of fuzz in their wake, he saw just how much sorrow and pain was swirling in your eyes. 

Jake thought to himself in that very moment: ‘I've been needing a haircut for a while now anyway.’ 

With one quick motion and in the blink of an eye, Jake was running the shavers right down the middle of his head. You really had to take a second to process what he’d just done, what your husband had just done right behind you. 

“Jake!” The shrill that escaped your mouth was something unmatched to any emotion you had ever expressed before. “What are you doing?” The image of Jake shaving his head in solidarity would forever be burnt into your mind. 

“You said it yourself–hair holds memories and we can make new ones together.” Jake cooed as he shaved off those golden boy locks you loved to run your fingers through. He suited the buzz cut a little more than you did if you were being perfectly honest. 

With teary eyes and puffy cheeks you stood on weak legs. The simple gesture of a haircut meant the world to you, Jake knew that. He didn't want you going through this alone. If shaving his head with you brought you a sense of solace? He was more than happy to. 

“Looks good–” You smiled as tears ran down your cheeks. Jake reached out to cup your face in his hands, wiping away your tears with the pads on his thumbs. “Mr. Potato head.”

“Consider us the founders of the Potato Head Society.” Jake chuckled as he leaned in to kiss your forehead. In order to cherish you the way you deserved, Jake had to be the bigger man here. He knew that a cloud of uncertainty loomed in the halls, one by the name of Jackson or fucking Jeremy for all Jake cared. But as he stood in the bathroom with you, surrounded in the locks of hair that had once been on your head, he knew damn well at the end of the day it was still his last name you chose to take. “Good thing you don't have an odd shaped head after all, it kinda suits you.” 

“Would you still love me if I did?” You asked quietly, giving Jake an excuse to confess his love. Jake's lips were soon pressed softly and ever so tenderly against your once again in the blink of an eye as gentle hands still worked to soothe your stained cheeks. 

It wasn’t a hard question to answer, nor an easy question to ask—but as Jake pulled away to rest his forehead on yours as he ran the pad of his thumb across your bottom lip, you knew it was an easy concept to understand: 

“I’ve never, and I will never, stop loving you Honey.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

For as much as Jensen hated all things hospital related, over his past few years of treatment, he’d come to know these halls better than he knew the back of his own hand. 

From countless radiation treatments, to endless chemotherapy sessions. Hours upon hours of remedial therapies and acupuncture sessions to stimulate nerve endings, Jensen was a man who was just about ready to pull the plug and live out the remaining few months he had, or less, from the comfort of his back deck. 

He’d been poked and prodded, sliced and diced, far too many times to count on both his hands and for what? A few extra months tacked on top of a few years spent battling pancreatic cancer. No thankyou. Jensen had always had an optimistic outlook on life, until his life started to become the same bland halls and the same bland rooms, with the same bland doctors and nurses who all shared the same look of medical sympathy. 

Jesen, for all intents and purposes, was ready to give up his signature status of being the resistant ‘pin cushion’. The student nurses could learn how to change cannula sights on the lady, Paola, who sat in the same chair for every chemotherapy session. 

The last few days hadnt been too hot for the six foot one, brown eyed, brown haired (allegedly) man. His prognosis had been diminishing ever since he got the news his treatment was no longer as effective as it once had been. 

The day Jensen was told he only had a few short months to live before his organs would begin to fail, even with treatment, was the same day he saw you crying outside the local doctors office. The Hermitage centre as they called it. 

The last thing Jensen ever wanted was for his life to be meaningless, before he knew what he was doing? His feet were padding against the concrete as the psalm of his hands began to sweat inside his jean pockets. 

“You look like you’ve just been told you’re dying?”  As the elevator counted up the floors of which Jensen had to take from the ground floor of the Rhode Island Hospital to the oncology unit, he could vividly remember asking you that question. He recognised the look on your face because not ten minutes prior he;d been told the very same thing. 

“I'd start to get your affairs in order, Mr. Hughs “ It hadn't been just a regular check up with his local general practitioner. But it had been the almost final nail in a long awaited coffin. 

As the elevator dinged, Jensen took a few steps out into the bustling hallways of the oncology ward. Within seconds, he was met with a force so muscular it damn near knocked him back a few paces. But the cancer ridden ex fireman squared his shoulders and kept easy on his feet. 

“Sorry man, my bad.” Jensen almost immediately apologies after the mild impact. He assumed that it was him that had caused the slight collision. His special awareness was pretty shot these days. The flowers he carried were almost crushed on impact, however he managed to save the bouquet of sweet peas, peonies and pansies. 

“No worries, I wasn't watching where I was going, my bad, really.” The man responded with a polite smile Jensen could only assume his mother taught him about, the kind of smile you give to a stranger after mild inconveniences. “Jake–” like a slow motion car wreck, Jake reached out to shake Jensens hand. In retrospect he should have kept walking. Jensen really should have just let the interaction fizzle out, but he couldn't. He was too polite for his own good when it came to small interactions. 

The most paranoid fantasy Jensen could think of would never have prepared him for the look of utter betrayal that smeared itself across the blonde headed aviators face as Jensen shook your husbands hand: 

“Jensen–”

***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags: @blindedbythelightt @starset21 @tayl0rhuynh @mamachasesmayhem @marvelogic @itsmytimetoodream @maverick-wingman @kodzukenmaaa @eternalsams @seitmai @nota-professional @jessicab1991 @hardballoonlove @senawashere @lafrone @fanficfandomlove @withahappyrefrain @dizzybee03 @maisie-rebloging-blog

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[steddieas-shegoes]

steddie fic request: due to some miscommunication Steve believes a night in with Eddie is a date. it's not and its devastating when Steve realizes he has read too much into things Eddie had said to him. maybe the feelings are requited at the end? tysm!

Honestly guys, this is probably the most likely scenario in how Steddie gets together. They're both fucking clueless. Sure, Steve was a lady's man, but only when he was popular enough that he didn't have to really try. Eddie probably has kissed one and a half people at most because he's fuckin' weird, okay? You think these two actually have a single clue how to do things normally? Ha. - Mickala ❤️

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His hair was not doing what it was supposed to be doing and it was really starting to irritate him.

Steve had been trying to get ready for almost an hour now, and nothing was going his way, not even the shirt he wanted to wear.

That was another issue entirely, but one he was trying very hard to get over.

Tonight was his first date with Eddie.

He had to look perfect.

They weren’t even doing anything special really, just going to the diner for some burgers and shakes and then driving to the quarry to get high.

It helped to know it would be casual though, that it would probably feel like any other time they’ve hung out.

He still wanted to look good though. Eddie deserved his best.

“Steve?” Eddie called from the bottom of the stairs.

Shit. When did he get here?

Eddie, Robin, and Dustin all had keys to his house for emergencies or to make things easier if they were coming over. He hadn’t thought to ask Eddie to knock tonight, and Eddie apparently didn’t think it was any different than any other time.

“Be right there!” he yelled back, voice pitched much higher than usual.

Great start, Harrington.

He rolled his eyes at himself in the mirror as he tried one more time to get the flip in the front of his hair to do what it needed to do.

When it didn’t, he sighed, shutting off the bathroom light and walking into his bedroom, where Eddie was sitting on his bed.

Steve froze as he took in how relaxed Eddie looked against his headboard, his legs crossed at the ankles and arms crossed over his chest.

“You look…nice,” Eddie said, sounding almost confused.

“Thanks,” Steve blushed. “Uh. So do you.”

Which was true, but Eddie looked the same as he always did.

It was something Steve loved about him, that he didn’t really put effort into impressing anyone. He was who he was and you either liked it or you didn’t.

Steve loved it.

Eddie looked even more confused, but shook his head and stood up.

“Ready? I’m starving.”

“Yep, let’s go.”

Steve didn’t do his usual moves, didn’t try to reach over to hold Eddie’s hand while he sat in the passenger seat, didn’t try to put in his “First Date Mixtape,” didn’t even pull any lines out of his hat when Eddie so easily offered him the chance.

He didn’t want to be obvious that he was already head over heels for him, definitely didn’t want to make him uncomfortable before the date even really began.

He kept it up over dinner, kept it casual enough that it felt like any other time they hung out. Usually Robin or Jonathan or Nancy or the kids were with them, but he just pretended they had to cancel. It kept him from letting himself go too far in public.

They were still in Hawkins, after all. Two dudes holding hands at a diner might as well scream “beat me up!”

It was easy, which just further sent Steve spiraling about how perfect they could be.

When the waitress brought the bill, he stopped Eddie from reaching for his wallet.

“I asked you, I pay. That’s how this works, right?” Steve asked as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Um. I mean, sure. We can just split it, though,” Eddie said, that look of confusion back on his face.

“Nah, I got it. Maybe you can get it next time,” Steve winked before pulling out enough cash to cover the bill.

“Oh. Okay. Sure.”

He wasn’t paying attention to the way Eddie was suddenly messing with his rings nervously or biting his lip like he was trying to think of something else to say.

When they got to the car, Steve turned the radio on, smiling to himself when Head Over Heels came through the speakers.

“This is my favorite song right now,” Steve said as he turned it up a little, smiling over at Eddie as he drove towards the quarry.

“Not surprising,” Eddie snorted. “Do you like anything that can’t be heard on mainstream radio?”

Steve knew he was just teasing, but it still kind of hurt when he thought about how quick Eddie was to judge his music taste.

He liked a lot of genres, he just liked what was easy and fun most.

In fact, most of their group had similar taste, but for some reason, Steve got the brunt of his teasing.

It was fine, though. He didn’t want to ruin the night with something so trivial.

“I like plenty, but sometimes it’s nice to just have something fun to listen to.”

And then Steve reached a hand out and set it on Eddie’s knee, squeezing once before letting it rest there while he continued to drive.

Only a few seconds passed before Eddie spoke and Steve’s heart almost instantly shattered.

“Uh. What are you doing?”

It was the tone of someone who didn’t like what was happening, and Steve immediately pulled his hand away and bit back the tears he felt pooling in his eyes.

He had the sudden realization that they’d never actually called this a date.

He’d run with his own assumption that when Eddie asked him to hang out with just him he shared the same feelings, and that clearly wasn’t the case.

“Sorry. I-”

“Steve, did you think this was a date?” Eddie asked, not harshly, but serious enough that Steve felt the first tear fall down his cheek.

He tried to subtly wipe it from his face, but Eddie saw.

“Okay, pull over please.”

“It’s fine. I can take you home. Forget it ever happened,” Steve rushed out.

He didn’t want the night to end like this, but he knew he couldn’t look at Eddie right now, or maybe ever again.

Robin was going to make fun of him for years over this.

“Steve. Pull over.”

So Steve did.

He had blurry vision from the tears anyway, so it probably wasn’t safe for him to try to drive at dusk.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you thought this was a date. I guess it kinda explains the looking extra nice and paying for dinner, but I just thought you were excited to hang out,” Eddie said quietly.

At least he was letting Steve down easy.

“Yeah. I should have asked I guess,” Steve said, still looking down at his lap instead of at Eddie.

“Did you want this to be a date?” Eddie asked.

Steve considered lying. But what could he lose at this point? He’d already embarrassed himself beyond redemption, he might as well go all in.

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you out for months. I was pretty excited when I thought you’d finally done it for me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

They sat in silence, the radio playing a song Steve didn’t recognize.

And then rain drops slowly started pelting the windshield.

Of course they did.

Steve sniffled and then looked up, watching as the rain started falling heavier with every second, a bolt of lightning lighting up the sky for just a moment.

“I guess we should get to my house before it gets worse,” Steve said, voice barely above a broken whisper. “If it gets too bad to drive, you can take the guest room.”

“Steve-”

“It’s fine, Eddie. I get it.”

“Do you?” Eddie asked. “Do you get why this is so shocking to me? I didn’t even know you were into guys! I didn’t think I could ever be an option for you, man. I didn’t let myself feel that way about you because I couldn’t deal with you not feeling the same.”

Steve finally looked over at Eddie, who was watching him with wide eyes.

“I thought you were there when I told all the adults about being bisexual?” Steve asked, wracking his brain to remember that night not too long ago. Robin had held his hand the whole time, Nancy and Jonathan and Argyle all giving him hugs after. He couldn’t remember where Eddie was.

“Was that the night I was helping Will DM?”

Fuck. He really thought Eddie had been there.

“Shit. I think so.”

Eddie reached his hand out, placing it against Steve’s jaw as he turned completely towards him.

“Stevie, if I had known, I would have been taking you out every night. You have no idea how much I care about you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Eddie teased, finally giving Steve a smile.

“So you do like me?” Steve couldn’t help confirming, his stomach in knots, his heart racing in his chest.

“So much, sweetheart. You have no idea,” Eddie said as he leaned in closer.

Steve knew what was going to happen, he wanted it to happen.

But something made him stop Eddie when his face was only an inch from his.

“Wait.” Eddie pulled away a few inches and looked at him, concerned. “This is gonna sound so stupid, but,” he looked outside at the rain pouring down. “I’ve always wanted to have a big romantic kiss in the rain.”

“And you want that to happen with me?” Eddie smirked.

“If you’re up for it.”

Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he opened the passenger door and got out, almost immediately getting soaked.

Steve didn’t make him wait. He pushed open the driver’s side door and rushed out, meeting Eddie halfway in front of his car.

Eddie wrapped his arms around his waist, making Steve melt against him.

He barely noticed the rain as Eddie closed the distance between them, his lips meeting Steve’s in a surprisingly soft touch.

It wasn’t exactly a passionate kiss, but it was still perfect.

It lasted a few seconds, their lips moving together slowly, not pushing for more yet, just appreciating the easy glide.

“I’m sorry our first date kinda sucked,” Eddie said as they rested their foreheads together.

“We’ll just have to have another one,” Steve said before placing another quick kiss to his lips. “Wanna watch a movie at mine?”

Eddie searched his face for a moment, before looking around at the completely empty road they were on.

With the rain like this, it was doubtful anyone would drive down it for a while.

“How about we dance first?” Eddie asked, gleam in his eye.

“Dance? To what?” Steve giggled.

Eddie started to sing Head Over Heels quietly, rocking them back and forth in something barely resembling a dance.

“I thought you hated this music,” Steve looked at him in awe.

“No, I just like to tease you for being so stereotypical. I don’t mind any music. And I like anything that makes you light up the way you do when this song comes on,” Eddie admitted.

They were absolutely dripping wet, and Steve knew this was probably a stupid decision without having something to protect the seats of his car from getting wet.

But as he rested his head against Eddie’s shoulder, listening to him sing his favorite song while they kind of danced in the rain, he couldn’t give less of a shit about anything else.

[thepotentialof2007]

Quick reference for the LH excerpts from Kate Wagner's behind the scenes at COTA article.

All sports are powered by the personalities of their practitioners, and Formula 1 has those in spades—the chipper, effusive Daniel Ricciardo; Mr. Suave, Carlos Sainz; plucky George Russell; the deep-feeling Charles Leclerc; and, perhaps above all, the sport's longtime great champion, a man from some of the humblest beginnings in motorsport, the regal and soft-spoken Lewis Hamilton, who just announced an absolutely shocking move to Ferrari after an illustrious 11 years and six championships behind the wheel of a Mercedes (and six seasons and one championship with Mercedes-powered McLarens).

. . . .

The day's activities commenced with a tour of the garage. In the garage, there are many mysteries one is not allowed to know or see. The use of phones is forbidden lest one incur accusations of espionage. When we got into the garage, Lewis's car was naked, its insides visible for all to see. I think this was the moment where my respect for the sport as it exists really made itself clear. It is hard to describe what I felt looking at that car. The closest phrase I have at my disposal is the technological sublime. I pictured a living, breathing animal of extraterrestrial origin, hooked up to a thousand arcane sensors that delivered messages in little pulses. All the tubes and sculpted carbon-fiber parts and the endless net of wires all working in service to the godhead engine, formed something totally incomprehensible to me, a feat of engineering so vast it breached the realm of magic. Hamilton himself walked through in his helmet, unexpectedly on an errand. After being in the presence of the car, I perceived him differently than before, when he was just a guy driving in circles on TV. The scope of his capabilities became more directly known to me in the face of that which I believed to be unknowable. All of that was built in service of him. He stopped and looked into the open maw of the car. The tour guide led us hurriedly into the back room where the coffee and tire bags were stored so that no one could listen to what Lewis said.

About half an hour later, they brought him up to the paddock to talk to us. It wasn't a press conference, but rather a kind of a TED Talk. The questions were rote and a guy with a microphone asked them as though they were being broadcast on television. Hamilton talked rotely about how much he loved America and the fans here, talked—to the people who needed reassurance—about how the car was "getting there" but made it pointedly certain that they knew it still needed some work, which surprised me, making me realize this was still a private setting. I come from a sport where chivalry never died and no one is allowed to say anything negative because it is "unsportsmanlike" and every cyclist has to play his part in the farcical pageant of being a dull, humble farmer's son. It is a pretty open secret that a lot of cyclists don't like their bike sponsors but they would never, ever, ever say it. It's somewhat contradictory, but the sheer financial calculus of F1 is what makes it possible for Hamilton to be critical. This is a multibillion-dollar industry putting its full heft behind him doing well. It's reminiscent of the patronage system of precapitalist times, when rulers and nobles with endless riches paid musicians and composers to live in the palace with them.

. . . .

Frustrated, I returned to watching the cars as they started up again, knowing that the drivers were pushing them to their limits, engrossed in their personal kaleidoscope of motion and color. Hamilton was in one of them. In the last shootout, he drove differently than before. A great verve frayed the lines he was making, something we can only call effort, push. Watching him, I understood what was so interesting about this sport, even though I was watching it in its most bare-bones form—cars going around in circles. The driver is the apotheosis of quick-moving prowess, total focus and control. The car is both the most studied piece of human engineering, tuned and devised in lab-like environments and at the same time a variable entity, something that must be wrestled with and pushed. The numbers are crunched, the forms wind-tunneled. And yet some spirit escapes their control, and that spirit is known only by the driver. Yes, we watch this perfect blend of man and machine, but we speak of the machine as though it were not of human origin, as though the machine, being born from science could—eventually, through its iterative processes—sublimate human flaws. The driver, being human, knows this is false. His intimacy with the machine is the necessary missing connection, and even if the machine were perfect, it was made for imperfect hands. But it is never perfect. The gaps in its perfection are where disasters transpire, but also miracles. As we waited for the van to take us where we were parked, a part of the track was still visible to us. Hamilton distinguished himself by the lines he cut along the corner and the loudness of his engine, that pushing. We heard over a loudspeaker that he had finished third, a remarkable improvement above the last two sprints, where he lagged behind in the midfield. This made everyone in our camp happy. They always called him by his first name. It reminded me of how I used to talk about cyclists after I started interviewing them, with the swagger of knowing them.

. . . .

When Hamilton came into the room he was wearing a cool pair of pants with shimmery colored mesh sewed in and had an exhausted appearance, having come just from the track. We were allowed to talk to him but were told not to make any recordings or transcriptions. When he spoke, it was notable how often he mentioned his father and how deeply-felt his political convictions were. Some people are totally different off the record, but Lewis was simply a more lively version of himself. I find him a fascinating figure. A lot of fans either love or hate him, see him, paradoxically, as both humble and arrogant. The word quiet is better. Not reserved, not shy, just quiet. He belongs to a special group of people. The ones I've met in life include the violinist Hilary Hahn and Pogačar, the Tour de France winner—human beings who walk the earth differently, with an aura that transcends it. He appeared perpetually relaxed, controlled and refined, both present with us in the room but on a higher plane within. We used to call this magnificence when we believed in kings. I don't know what we call it now. Excellence, maybe. The irony of parading someone incredible like that around in the backrooms of petrochemical executives is not lost on me. I was grateful that I got the opportunity to speak to Lewis Hamilton, someone I am not ashamed to say I admire. I would have preferred it if they let him go home and rest instead.

[henrysglock]

Local Man Uses The Cyclical 27-Year Torment Nexus To Try And Change His Fate [EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

You probably guessed that this is the time-travel post I've been slaving over. You'd be right. This is the newest and most formal iteration of my long-standing time loop theory (I have drafted flowcharts back from February that actually predicted a dimension/time fuckery event in 1943 in relation to Brenner, which was made canon by TFS). So...Let's just dive right in. Note: I'm planning to keep calling TFS Henry "Henry" here just for simplicity's sake.

Now, fair warning: There are a few big "bear with me"s in this post. I promise they make sense, I just need you to hear me out.

It all started with Henry's self-proclaimed superhero name: The Stardust Spider.

Some of you may have seen my original post about The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (here).

Before anyone says "Oh, but that album didn't exist yet", a reference in 1959 about a Bowie album that wouldn't be recorded until November of 1971 is in keeping with TFS's habit of directly referencing things from the '70s that "don't exist yet".

However, all that aside, there's a specific piece I want to return to, because it bugs the living daylights out of me.

There was a cut song that was meant to go on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars titled "Shadow Man":

For obvious reasons in relation to Henry in The First Shadow, this song already stuck out.

Specifically, though, these few stanzas hit me weirdly:

You should call and see who answers For he promises to come running Guided by the truth For the Shadow Man is really You Look in his eyes and see your reflection Look to the stars and see his eyes He'll show you tomorrow, he'll show you the sorrows Of what you did today You can call him foe, you can call him friend You should call and see who answers (see who answers) For he knows your eyes are drawn to the road ahead And the Shadow man is waiting 'round the bend ('round the bend) Shadow man is waiting up ahead

The Shadow Man is you from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show you the the truth/the consequences of your actions.

Considering that the TFS version of Young "Henry" has a direct connection to both the Shadow and Dimension X from a young age, and he also experiences what seem to be Vecna-type visions, this becomes particularly interesting to me...Especially seeing as said fates are not only possible for future "Henry", but also canon for future "Henry". (See: Vecna guy vs Mindflayer guy)

So, when I see an almost comical number of lines in TFS relating to rewriting known, undesirable endings (here are a few of my favorites):

And when we revisit some of the on-film classics:

I start to think it's time we revisit the concept of time-travel and trying to change your own fate.

It's always hard to know where to start with posts like these, so I'm going to kick things off with the technical aspect: The Cycle.

Something I've talked about in the past year, mostly on Discord, is this concept of a time loop. Not just any old time loop, though. A 27 year cycle, specifically.

Not 20, not 30...

Now, we all know the TFS timeline is messy as hell and doesn't actually align with anything that's possible in filmed canon...or within its own time span, even.

For example, the attack on Mr. Newby happens both some point after October 1st, 1959 and before November 20th, 1959...but the papers for the incident report it on March 20th, 1958:

The timeline we're given also largely fabricated, as I pointed out in relation to the newspapers with dates that don't actually exist.

However, much like NINA, the sequence itself being fake doesn't mean the events didn't happen. It's just not happening in the time frame we're told it's happening in:

It's a set of real events, just portrayed on a different time scale.

So, with all that in mind, I want to lay out a timeline, starting from Season 4 and moving backwards in time:

— Vecna opens the rifts, and El opens a gate to Dimension X in NINA, both in 1986. The March 1959 Creel Murders occur exactly 27 years before the Rifts and NINA's Dimension X gate open in 1986...at which point the Mindflayer is shown to be active.

— Mothergate opens through to Dimension X at some point between November 1983 and October 1984, this being somewhere between 16-28 months prior the Rifts opening. The paper about the attack on Mr. Newby, dated March 20th, 1958, is released exactly 610 days, or 20 months, prior to the Creel murders on November 20th, 1959. It's not necessarily the exact dates that are important here (again, these dates are relatively unreliable), but the gap between the dates.

When put in accordance with filmed dates (i.e. setting the release of this paper exactly 610 days prior to March 22nd of 1959), the paper for the attack on Mr. Newby would have been released on July 20th, 1957. This would be in line with Edward Creel's move to Hawkins in the spring of 1957...while also occurring 27 years before July of 1984, at which point Mothergate is open, and the Mindflayer is active.

This July date is especially funny to me considering we get "throwaway" lines like this...with shots in filmed canon from summertime:

Top: Joyce and Jim beginning their investigation into the attic attack. Hopper Sr. is questioning why Joyce and Jim are investigating, rather than attending school. Bottom: Alice and Henry with the rabbit death scenes in filmed canon, the setting showing full foliage and both children in summer clothing. "Is it summer break?" I don't know. You tell me, Chief.

Per TFS, Henry went missing in a cave system near his home town of Rachel, Nevada (hold that thought) at some point in the year prior to the attack on Mr. Newby. We've been told that Dimension X was involved in this event in Nevada, something happened there that left "Henry" altered physically. He was also flayed at some point around this time.

This all coincides with Henry's dramatic mood shift from a "normal and good" boy to one suffering from Mindflayer-induced psychosis. This change happened in tandem with the Nevada incident, dating back 10 months prior to the attack on Mr. Newby:

If we set Henry's initial disappearance in line with filmed canon like before, it becomes September of 1956, which is just over 27 years before Will's disappearance in November of 1983, at which point we know at least one gate is open.

We also have 1952, at which point TFS Henry would be 7 per his age as a 14 year old/freshman in play canon. This exists in a 27 year interval against 1979, when El opens the original gate that sends One to Dimension X, where he subsequently shapes the Shadow into the Mindflayer.

Here comes the first "hear me out".

My questions are:

Since Henry/Vecna/The Mindflayer/etc. in general don't show any capability for opening gates before 1986, then how the hell is the Mindflayer possessing anyone in 1959?

How did "Henry" get involved with Dimension X in Nevada in the 1950s?

Unless, by some chance:

Dimension X exists all the time simultaneously (i.e. it's a space outside time)

The gates exist simultaneously across time and space in the Right Side Up in 27 year intervals. By which I mean: A gate that opens in, say, 1983 would exist simultaneously in 1956, so on an so forth.

There's the disappearance of Captain Brenner and the USS Eldridge in 1943, which would, interestingly enough, align with 1970, the supposed year of El's conception.

Then, 1952. Now, I'm not sure what's special about 1952, when TFS "Henry" was 7, because they don't actually say what happened to make that year important! They make a point to show it to us, though, meaning something happened...we just don't know what. All I can say is that 1952 does exist in a 27 year interval against El's 1979 gate. Hold that thought.

Those addressed, let's fast-forward 4 years: 1956/1983.

Now, to be fair, there is some uncertainty in my mind about whether this specific gate incident stems from Brenner's involvement with Project Rainbow in Nevada pre-1957*, or if it stems from Mothergate in 1983, or if they created some kind of wormhole between the two locations 27 years apart...but that's a concept I need to explore more thoroughly in a another post.

In short, though: Did a singular El open a singular Mothergate? Did El open mothergate? Did Mothergate actually open on November 6th, 1983...or are we just supposed to assume it opened the same night Will went missing/the demogorgon came through? We're never given a concrete date for when Mothergate actually opened.

* In TFS, Brenner claims he's dedicated his life post-1943 to Project Rainbow with the goal of finding Dimension X, and that he's doing so in pursuit of knowledge regarding the circumstances of his father's death in connection with the Philadelphia Experiment. The USS Eldridge, Brenner Sr.'s ship, disappeared into Dimension X briefly on October 28th, 1943. "Brenner Sr." was the sole survivor. "He" returned to the Right Side Up with a completely unique blood type, supposedly altered by his travels into Dimension X. This is what ultimately led to him succumbing to his injuries, due to his body rejecting all forms of blood transfusion. Brenner Jr. tells us that about 10 months prior to Henry's first stay in HNL, a scientist from Project Rainbow escaped Brenner's lab carrying a container of a dangerous material, and ended up near the same Nevada cave system Henry disappeared into. We don't know how or when this material was collected, or what it was, but we know they found Henry's Captain Midnight spyglass next to a body (identity unspecified) with no trace of that dangerous material. We get no further detail about the Nevada Disappearance.

Anyway, someone opens a gate in the fall of 1956 and/or 1983 (my money's on it being directly linked to an El in 1983 either way). No matter who did it, though, someone opened a gate at both time points, showing us this 27 year link between the 2 dates, 2 key locations.

"Henry" goes missing in Nevada in 1956, and ends up involved with Dimension X...Which aligns with the choice of song surrounding this version of the Creel family while they move into their new home:

Coincidentally, 27 years in the future, so does Will, in Indiana. Their experiences are linked across those two spaces via that 27 year period.

We know that regardless of the gate in Nevada...Mothergate, at least, stays open until from fall 1956/1983 to fall 1957/1984. That covers exact time frame that the adjusted dates for both Henry's accident with the boy in Nevada and his accident with Mr. Newby fall in (as well as Will's time between his disappearance and his flaying).

The closer we get to Will's flaying in 1984, and the closer the Mindflayer gets to crossing through Mothergate, the more TFS Henry sounds like One (post-1979) while he's possessed in 1957, the more strangely he behaves in general (almost as though the Mindflayer is more enmeshed in his everyday life/closer to the surface), and the stronger the possession attempts seem to become overall. He begins giving nightmare visions to other people, namely tormenting Virginia with spiders and her past. He has his final and most powerful "Vecna" vision on the night of the attack on Mr. Newby.

Any kind of reciprocal gate irt Mothergate in the '50s would have gone unnoticed, since the papers in TFS indicate that HNL wasn't established until Brenner showed up to take Henry in.

Mothergate closes briefly, only for a gate to open in July 1958/1985 in the underground location of the future Starcourt Mall. This, in 1958, is during our unaccounted-for 20 months between the attack on Mr. Newby and the Creel murders. (Something rattles about this and the scene where Henry nearly makes full contact with the Mindflayer, when he has a handful of duplicate lines re: his 4.07 monologue self, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make that claim with any certainty.)

That gate closes, until Vecna opens gates in Hawkins in March of 1986, and El opens a Dimension X gate briefly and simultaneously in both Hawkins/Nevada in September of 1979 (September of 1952) and Hawkins/Nevada in March of 1986 (March of 1959) during NINA, concurrently...at least one of which may have gone unnoticed, since the Rainbow Room and the surrounding labs seems to have been abandoned entirely after 1979, and HNL as a whole has once again been abandoned after the events of 1984 ("unnoticed" and "abandoned", I say as if the building isn't still being surveilled by Brenner/Owens et. al...I just mean that the building isn't in use by the government at that point in time.)

We're shown the Shadow activating all the way in Russia due to one or multiple of these events. 27 years earlier, in March of 1959, the Mindflayer once again becomes active, per TFS's adjusted dates. Chaos ensues.

At this point, "Henry" starts swapping between sounding like his young self and sounding like his 4.07 Monologuing Adult self again, doing that kind of "I've seen the future" foreshadowing talk with Joyce that his visions did with him:

Here, he also sounds distinctly like ST3 flayed Billy, specifically in the way of the scene with El in the cabin when "Billy" outlines the Mindflayer's plans for her, her friends, and all of Hawkins while crying.

The rest is, well...history. Whatever fuckery went on, it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. After all, TFS is a "canon event", meaning it had to end the way it did.

Remember those thoughts I asked you to hold?

TFS being a "canon event" means it had to end with Henry in the lab alongside baby El...thus completing our loop, which starts again with the events of 1979/1952. A 27 year loop. TFS may be indicative of a time loop.

Hence:

Out of place dates from the 1970s start to bleed into the 1950s: - A town like Rachel, Nevada, which wasn't established until 1978, now exists circa 1952-1959 after El opens a gate to Dimension X circa 1979 in Nevada circa 1986 via NINA, which exists...about 40-50 miles from Rachel.

- An album like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (November, 1971) or a song like "Chuck E's In Love" (April, 1979) gets referenced circa 1957-1959. - An article about a "younger, more handsome" alien clone of Elvis appears in a 1959 Weekly Watcher paper about the Creel murders, despite Elvis having been 24 at the time...making this an article more likely to have appeared in the '70s or later, likely sometime around Elvis' death in 1977.

2. The Shadow is always depicted as the fully formed Mindflayer circa 1956-1959, despite the shaping event happening in the 4 years between 1979-1983:

3. Henry has Vecna-type visions, despite being the only vision-giver we know of circa 1957-1959.

4. 6 different guys later in the HNL massacre: 2 with the original baby El, 2 with teen El via NINA, and 2 in an as-of-yet unseen product of NINA's Loop (see: the final scene of TFS).

All this laid out, some questions remain:

Why do Henry's visions show him the genuine, terrifying reality of his future?

Why are these visions generally lacking in coercion?

Why are Vecna chime sounds heard before the major supernatural events that deal with visions, even though we never actually see the clock? (They're heard before Virginia in the attic, before the attack on Mr. Newby, before the Creel murders, and in the basement when Henry monologues at Joyce while viewing the corpses of his family.)

Why don't these chimes play when the Mindflayer alone is present, e.g. when no visions occur? (See: Henry contacting the Mindflayer in the lab)

And we don't really get an answer to any of these. Not an easily spotted outright answer, anyway.

But what's really fascinating, which I mentioned just a second ago and takes me back to the top of this post, back to the "Stardust Spider" and Shadow Man, is the fact that despite occurring concurrently with the possession attempts...none of these visions contain an ultimatum. There's no "If you don't obey me, I'll hurt someone you love", no "I'm showing you what's going to happen if you don't obey me", nothing of the sort.

The closest we get to coercion is the bathroom vision, when Henry fights off a possession attempt in the school bathroom and ends up in a vision regarding Patty. When "Patty" starts to talk to him about his future, about how Henry's going to kill her and so many others, Henry says "you're not Patty...what are you?" Then he gets into a physical brawl with her, which is surprisingly well matched. Vision Patty encourages him during that fight, saying things like "That's it!", "We want the same thing!", and "We can have her!"

Those seem like pretty straightforward "the Mindflayer's encouraging Henry to kill" encouragements, right?

Yeah, at first glance. However...lets read that back right quick, but with Moral Objectivity Goggles on this time. Henry openly, verbally identifies that Vision Patty is "not her, not Patty", but is, in fact, something else. He does this multiple times before he lunges at "not Patty", and he is subsequently encouraged by not-Patty...who tells him they want the same thing. That's not suspicious at all. The motives here are definitely crystal clear and totally aren't conflicting in any way.

There's the straightforward surface aspect, and then something else piggybacking on it, complicating it. Hold that thought.

Other than that instance, the negative parts of Henry's visions are all just...information. They're showing him what will come to pass...almost like they're motivating him to fight the Mindflayer. Hold onto that thought too, it buddies with the previous one.

Henry's freaking out about Prancer because he's getting close with Patty, and he's worried he'll hurt her?

His vision informs him that he's going to kill more, that he's going to hurt things, that he's going to kill Patty if he stays around her and/or gives into the Mindflayer's desires. And then it happens. All of it. He kills more animals. He hurts things and people, the pets and lab animals, Mr. Newby, and Inmate 58361 being prime examples. He gives in to the Mindflayer's desire to kill and kills Virginia. He does, by the extent of his perception, kill Patty in the accident.

The same goes for his vision in the attic. Henry's up in the attic using his powers to find someone/snoop on them, fearful of opening himself up for a possession attempt?

The vision version of Patty's mother catches Henry and tells him she "wants to tell him a secret" while his body is being puppeted to attack Mr. Newby. The next time the curtain rises to show us the inside of Henry's mind, he's seeing himself as Vecna, strung up on the tentacles and strangling people with them...just like the end of Season 4. Once again, he's seeing the future that will come to pass...should he fail to fight the Mindflayer off.

We can tell it's a vision, not what's physically happening in reality, because: a) Henry's watching himself in the attic from the stage below. b) It's got the messed up red lighting c) They show us reality just moments before, not a tentacle in sight and without Henry on the stage there observing:

d) The ending of the vision doesn't match with reality:

At the end of this vision, Henry passes out both in the void and IRL, while the vision version of Henry remains crouching. That is a different guy, entirely separate from IRL/Void Henry. There is at least one other person in the visions who is not a product of the vision itself.

Remember those thoughts from a bit ago that I asked you to hold?

Well. This also happens to be the sequence where we not only get Vision-Patty repeating Henry's own words from just after Prancer's death ("It's not real. It's not real. It's a nightmare") back to him, a phrase IRL Patty has never heard, but we also get:

Visions Patty telling Henry how to fight and evade the possession, as if she knows what she's doing ("It's your dream, remember? Anything is possible").

Vision Patty telling Henry she loves him as the last-ditch effort when his "good dream" memory of the real Patty fails to save him from the possession.

These are both things IRL Patty wouldn't know or think to say, since IRL Patty fully believed that Henry attacked her of his own volition out of malice, and she needed to be shown a drawing of the Mindflayer by Mr. Newby in order to abandon that belief.

IRL Patty's behavior is not the behavior of someone who a) knows the ins and outs of Henry's situation with the Mindflayer, and b) coached him through overcoming a possession attempt a little while earlier. It's just not.

Just like before, we're seeing contradictions and complications between vision-selves and IRL selves, along with a sense of piggybacking within possession attempts, wherein the vision serves as motivation for Henry to fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer...while the Mindflayer is possessing him.

It's starting to become my favorite thing in the world: A pattern of behavior.

In summary:

Henry's are visions are visions of his future, and they're being shown to him by someone.

They are separate from, but piggybacking on, the Mindflayer's possession attempts.

The purpose of the visions isn't solely to torment Henry or coerce him into doing the Mindflayer's bidding. In fact, the content of the visions seems curated to make Henry fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer.

So if, for example, Vision Patty ≠ IRL Patty, but she's acting against the Mindflayer's best interest/in support of Henry...then...

I think my answer to the questions of "who", "when", and "how" should be at least somewhat clear by this point:

Someone...from the future.

Specifically, someone from 1979-1986 who has access to the gates from the Dimension X side, someone with both vision-giving and time-related abilities who's directly connected to the Mindflayer/the Hive Mind, but who has a vested interest in countering the Mindflayer, saving Henry Creel, and trying to change the course of the future.

A traitor. A spy, if you will.

"A spy...from the future?"

[gestures at the Signs] Yeah, you heard me.

A spy from the future.

So, on that note: The point in this section wherein I ask you to hear me out.

I get the feeling TFS Henry is being told and/or shown what will come to pass in the future by himself...the Mindflayer.

And you're probably going "How do you figure that one, James? Isn't the Mindflayer a villainous force?"

I mean, yeah. Of course it is. However...

There are clearly multiple forces at play within the Mindflayer (hive mind!), and TFS shows us that Henry Creel wouldn't choose to be a villain.

Thus I think the visions in TFS are situations where, as in the 4.07 rabbit scene, things look really damning on first view. They play on our empathy using small, visibly-frightened, helpless victims and shocking, violent circumstances to guide us into making the assumption that everything about the situation is inherently malicious.

We're shown this poor little guy, "Henry". He's 14 years old, he clocks in at 5'5", he's skittish/scared of (ha) his own shadow, and he's geeky to the nth degree about comic books (just LOOK at that Captain Midnight salute? What an cute little nerd). He's immediately lovable. He's also, we find out rather abruptly, plagued by horrific visions and murderous fits of possession.

The immediate response is to go "He's being psionically tortured by some sick, sadistic son of a bitch who hungers for nothing but blood and control", just like Nancy and the ST fandom collectively did with Young Henry's rabbit scene...only to be proven wrong about Henry's intentions via TFS.

I mean, does anyone (anyone who's able to read this post, anyway 🤭) look at TFS Henry, filmed Young Henry, or even Orderly Henry and go "Yeah. He totally wanted what he got, and if he had the chance, he definitely wouldn't try to save himself from that fate"?

No.

TFS Shows us that "Henry" was a terrified, traumatized boy who wanted it all to stop. He's kind, brave, and stronger than he seems. We're also shown that he's capable of overcoming the Mindflayer to issue warnings to people he cared about (i.e. telling people to run, or prophesying dangers he'd seen via the visions). He was trying to survive with next to no help while causing as little harm as possible. He was a good kid, and he certainly wasn't evil.

So, all that said...I think that, via the Shadow's hive-mind capabilities, Henry's "fronting", in a manner of speaking, in order to show this version of himself the future. Probably as a warning, probably as motivation to fight the Mindflayer, and all with a nice side-dish of "here's how you fight this thing off so that my current future doesn't become our future" before someone else tapes over the figurative laptop camera.

[coughs, drops this Brenner-Mindflayer collage on the table in front of you, and then scurries away]

With that said, I'd like to loop all the way back to the top of this post: The "Shadow Man" may be Henry from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show his younger self the true outcome of his choices.

We all know how TFS ends, though. Hence:

[EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

This brings me to my final "bear with me" point: The matter of the strange double-agent vibes from the UD in every season.

I'm not sure if anyone else outside the unholycule has noticed this, but in every season there's at least one instance of the UD just...offering up information.

"It does?"

Yup! Let me explain.

On first glance, we look at things like Nancy's vision and even El's vision with Billy in the cabin, and we go "Oh, it's because [insert "the bad guy's cruel/he wants to scare her/his hubris will be his downfall/all serial killers want to be known for their crimes" etc here]"...but maybe that's not the case.

For example: Vecna told Nancy his backstory, and then he immediately went

"Oh hey, so not only am I revealing my identity (Which may help you find out more about me via lab records later on, things like...maybe a list of my abilities, or my weaknesses, like the fact that I have a nut allegry. Allegedly.), but I'm also gonna give you a sneak peek of my apocalypse plans. For free. As a treat. Don't use these to prepare or anything. I'm totally not giving you a head start".

Terrifying, yes. A taunt and a threat on surface view, yes...but also showing his hand. "I want you to tell Eleven everything you see" Why. Why would he want that. He may be confident in his plans, arrogant, even...but he's not that stupid.

I'm serious, though. Check it out in comparison to Henrys visions of the future. The pattern is patterning:

We can track that back to El's cabin scene with Billy, wherein he tells her she shouldn't have looked for him, warns her that they all can see her, and that they're going to be coming after her...and he cries about it. That's vision Billy. That's someone else who piggybacked into El's mind from Billy's mind. That's not real Billy, just like how Billy in Max's vision wasn't the real Billy. The person giving El that vision warns her. Why on earth would he tell her that they can see her, that they're coming for her? That's sensitive information! It would be smarter to let her think she's safe and use that false sense of security to catch her off guard.

In fact, this pattern patterns so well that I'd like to argue this: Henry's TFS visions, Nancy's vision, and El's vision are all the same type of behavior displayed in NINA's chess scene, just in different contexts.

Henry ("Henry") gives some kind of scary prophetic information ("He and the others are going to attempt to kill you", "I would very much like to show you where I am going", "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"), and then we're left to question if it's a scare tactic, manipulative misinformation, or helpful inside information.

It's not that the Mindflayer or Vecna can't hide things from people (see: "Somewhere he didn't want me to see")...like, say, the fact that the Mindflayer is now able to see El, or that Vecna's planning to open 4 gates with his 4 kills.

It's always this miraculous "Huh! Weird info-dropping behavior from the UD's side. Shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth though. It's probably just a writing oversight or a shoehorned exposé, so really there's no need to question it." situation where it's just...information that's offered up with no real explanation.

Some of my favorite examples:

...and it's all topped off with Max's line:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time".

That is to say...You're telling me:

The first message from the Upside Down isn't any of the messages that are concretely Will's, but instead it's the one that's a repetitive Henry line...and it's conveyed in a distinctly not-Will style? A message that saves Joyce, something that's definitely not in the UD's best interest given her tenacity in finding her boy...but is definitely coming from the UD nonetheless?

Will, who fell total prey to the Mindflayer in less than 3 days, was not only able to figure out how to defeat the Mindflayer, but was also strong enough to convey it in Morse code? The Mindflayer, who is able to keep secrets (see below), just...let that information slip?

El, who acknowledges that the Mindflayer is more than able to hide things from her, is suddenly released into Billy's memories and allowed to find the source unimpeded?

The Mindflayer, as Billy (Remember: not actually Billy, because Billy can't give visions or invade minds), is telling El that because he's able to see her now, she shouldn't have looked for him? The Mindflayer, which was supposedly building the Fleshflayer to track El down and kill her? Suddenly he's telling her she shouldn't have done the thing that allowed him to find her more easily?

Vecna's giving up all the information about himself and his plans before he's even gotten the 4th gate open, despite him being so secretive about it up until that point?

Henry's visions in TFS are going to scare him into resisting the Mindflayer, making it less likely that he's going to upgrade to killing humans, i.e. the very thing the Mindflayer wants him to do?

None of that makes any damn sense...until we hit this last point:

Orderly Henry is known for giving inside information about "Papa" to El with no clear motive other than getting her to leave the lab.

Now, if you know my page then you know Em's been talking about double meanings in phrasing recently (see: this post about "who"s and "what"s).

So, with that in mind, I'd like you to chew on this:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." vs "He's been telling us His plan this whole time."

By which I mean: "He's been telling us some other man's plan this whole time."

[Mike voice] Superspy.

As a parting thought, I made it all into a nice, neat set of collages:

Not to mention this final, parting bit:

[miaunifest]

“find your own seat!”

summary: your best friend steals your unassigned assigned seat before a debriefing. you’re somewhat dramatic, though you’d disagree; but suddenly you’re in his quarters confessing your love at 2 am.

a/n: bc u guys r sleeping on him while im sleeping with him 🤞🏼 i have not written an actual fic in so long bare with me pls…

You left behind “seating charts” and “assigned seats” the moment you graduated highschool - which is exactly why you were making a fuss about a certain Sergeant Kyle “Gaz” Garrick sitting in your seat. It offended you more than it should’ve, really, considering how Kyle spent every waking moment with you and knew how territorial you could get.

This had most likely been the biggest betrayal of your life, and it happened right under your nose. From that stupid, handsomely smug grin Kyle had been wearing since you first chatted in the morning to the way he stared at you innocently, your figure towering over his.

“Do you need something?” He asked, biting back a giggle.

“I do! And I am so glad you asked me,” you sneered (somewhat) playfully.

“You know I’d do anything for you, (Y/N). What do you need?”

“For you to get out of my seat.”

Was it ridiculous that you were upset over this? Yes. Would Soap be making fun of you for getting defensive over a chair later? Without a doubt. Are you a drama queen who lives to cause unnecessary scenes? Absolutely.

A tension sat in the air, bordering on sexual and romantic, while successfully being hostile. Not hostile enough to remove your best friend from your spot, of course. All you could think about while looking at him was about the nerve this man has; does he not know everyone has their own unofficial seats? You sit next to Kyle while Soap sits across from you. Price and Ghost interchanged their seats, not really caring who they were across or next to.

Even with that, one thing was certain - the seat across from Soap was yours. It had been since you first walked into that godforsaken meeting room, Kyle beckoning you to sit next to him, a smile plastering that stupid face of his. That stupid face you wanted so badly to hold and pepper with kisses, listening as he giggled, body undoubtedly getting warmer.

Another thing that was certain happened to be your unmoving gaze, the only thing breaking your trance being a gentle kick to your boot. Back to the point, your seat was stolen - or something along those lines.

“Move.” You demanded while puffing your chest in an attempt to appear bigger, an attempt Kyle found albeit cute.

“Unless Price walks in here with a seating arrangement, I don’t think I will,”

An exasperated sigh left your lips, “find your own seat!”

By some miracle of God (Ghost and Price walked through the door) he moved back to his seat, sparing you another 5 minutes of stress as your meeting began.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Kyle nudged you gently, holding open the door for you.

“Tuh! Not even,” but you were nothing short of it.

“Yes even! You looked like you were ready to beat me half to death with that damn chair,”

“I’m the most rational person on this team!” Your right hand found its way to your heart, resting over it to exaggerate.

“Said nobody ever,” he smiled, earning a shove from you.

Your eyes rolled playfully, thinking about how there’s never a dull day with him around.

That mindset is probably how you found yourself inside of his quarters at 2 am, your heart was beating so fast and irregularly a doctor would’ve mistaken your feelings for a heart murmur. In all honesty, you can’t blame them - he really did make you feel like you had a heart murmur sometimes, as niche as it sounds.

“Why are you awake?” Kyle asked with sleep in his voice. God, it just made you want to bite him so hard like he’s pure jello. Not in a sexual way (though you wouldn’t mind it), call it cuteness aggression. A whole bunch of it. An unhealthy amount, you’d argue.

Suddenly your knees wanted to buckle and you tripped over your own tongue, tumbling on every single word that refused to leave your throat. Only strings of, “uhhh,” and “ummm”s leaving your mouth.

Are you supposed to feel this way around your best friend? Definitely not. Were you going to ignore this feeling? Not for any longer.

“Couldn’t sleep, I was thinking,” you were being honest, truth only ever left your lips - well, most of the time anyway.

“About..?” He dragged out the ‘o’, your breath hitched.

Adrenaline and anxiety were far from new feelings, they’re considerably familiar around Kyle. It wasn’t just tonight those feelings kept you up, for someone who (literally) pushes him around all the time, he plagued your mind. There was something so comforting and scary about what you were going through. Comforted by the fact that it’s your best friend you are very obviously in love with, but scared by that same thought.

Who wouldn’t be scared about losing it all? Completely tarnishing your friendship, one you’d spent so much time building and cherishing. There was everything to lose with only one thing to gain: clarity. Clarity about his feelings, because you’ll be damned, he was so open he could be difficult to read.

You were going to say something you’d regret tonight, if you could get out any cohesive sentences that is.

You. I was thinking about you and that dumb laugh you have and how you always hold the door open for me and you’re the first to notice what’s wrong and the fact you listen to me when it feels like I’m drowning myself out and -

Your reply was only said the first word, of course. Confidence and courage were not your fortes, but if you hoped hard enough one day you’d speak your mind freely.

“You.”

He smiled? You think he did, at least. There wasn’t much, or any light, actually. Was his room always this hot? The sweat forming in your palms tells you otherwise, but the temperature distracts you from whatever words might come out of Kyle’s mouth next.

“I was thinking about you too.”

Your body froze. Algor mortis is what they call it; the second stage of death where your internal body temperature starts dropping beneath the standard, which is 98.7°F. But you weren’t dead, no not even close, you were very much alive and your painfully loud heartbeats contested to that.

You’ve never been so incredibly alert, you could feel your blood rushing all throughout your body, how uneven your breathing was so you started manually inhaling to fix it, and at some point you’d stopped blinking? Your body was on autopilot but it was so .. not, all at once.

That was when you said the thing you knew you’d regret. Those 3 damned words that had you entangled in your thoughts for so long, you failed to notice who was right in front of you. Your eyes didn’t move, observing the floor with an awful intensity.

“I love you.”

Shock? Fear? Happiness? Relief? Actually, whose emotions were you even trying to read? Either way, it was about as clear as heavy fog. Those emotions were only dogpiled onto when you felt a rough, but gentle hand cup your chin to make you look at him. Out of all the ways you’d envisioned your death, suspense was definitely not one of them.

Fortunately, his following sentence eased your nerves as fast as they’d been created.

“…Enough to let me steal your seat in the meeting room?”

[sixteenthchapel]

Hello! Just wanted to say that I'm in love with your art and ur one of the people that made me fall in love with jttw jdjdje Also ur characterization of Wukong and Tripitaka makes their dynamic so charming and amusing 😭 (They r so dumb god)

Random question! Do you have a favourite moment in the book?

First of all, thank you so much!! oh my gosh that is so kind TToTT I'm really happy you liked them!! The pilgrims all being dumb together is my favorite thing hhaha As to your question, oh man, absolutely. Its more a bunch of moments all from one chapter. My favorite chapter of the book goes something like this: And I've said this before but should say again, it has been several years since I read the novel cover to cover, so I may not remember all the details just right, but as I recall it, my favorite chapter is the one immediately following the story of the White Bone Devil, which is one of the most famous chapters. But to me, the story of the White Bone Devil is nothing compared to their ridiculous conflict with Lord Yellow Robe, Kui Mulang.

After Monkey is banished by Tripitaka, he goes back to Mt Huaguo, leaving Pigsy and Sandy to look after the priest. Which goes about as well as you'd think. Pigsy says he'll go find food, then just takes a nap, Sandy I think goes looking for him, and when they both don't come back for a while, Tripitaka goes looking for them and ends up walking DIRECTLY into this demon's lair.

When Sandy and Pigsy learn of the priest's capture, they attempt to stage a rescue. During the middle of the fight, Pigsy thinks they're going to lose so tells Sandy to cover him, he has to go take as shit IMMEDIATELY. Runs into the bushes, and escapes all the while Sandy is captured and yelling at him for being a fat, useless, coward (rude.. but in this case very true lol)

Pigsy, now alone and unsure what to do, flies to Mt Huaguo to find Monkey and ask him to come back and save everyone. He tells him everything that's happened, and that Trip has been captured and will surely die if he doesn't help. Even after hearing all that, Monkey refuses. He's still upset that Trip dismissed him and thinks dying and reincarnating ought to teach the brat a lesson! Pigsy gives up at first, skulking off and mumbling to himself about what a flea-ridden bastard Monkey is... this is overheard by some of Monkey's minions who deliver the news to the king himself. Monkey orders Pigsy to be brought back for execution LOL Thinking on his feet, Pigsy tries to redirect Monkey's ire, and thinks one of my favorite lines in the novel. "A warrior is more likely to answer a challenge than an invitation".

He tells Monkey that it wasn't him... This demon, Lord Yellow Robe, he's the one who called Monkey a weak, pathetic, cowardly fool.

And this makes Monkey ENRAGED

Monkey springs into action, flying to confront this demon. Screaming about all the nasty things this demon said about him while Lord Yellow Robe has no idea who the hell this monkey is or why he's so pissed off.

And boy, does Monkey go HARD on this guy. After he beats him up and along with a bunch of his soldiers, the demon retreats into his lair and Monkey is left out. He can't find a way to get to him, so instead takes out his anger on Kui Mulang's wounded but still living soldiers, killing them all. He meets back up with Pigsy and Sandy and tells them his brilliant idea to draw the demon back out.

By taking his half-human children and killing them outside the gates, hoping that will enrage their father enough to come back out. Even his companions think he's malding a little hard

This has gone on awhile so to cut the rest short, Monkey is eventually "victorious". I think I recall a subplot about Trip being turned into a tiger too, and there was this captured princess subplot too.

But this is my fave chapter lol. Basically "Monkey Accidentally Saves The Day By Avenging An Imagined Insult To Himself"

Peak Monkey behavior, absolute mad lad, everyone is an idiot. Its just a mess and I love it.

[soothinglee]

slow train | tao xu x reader

summary: you see a handsome stranger at the train station, seems like you knew a little more about him than you thought. first feelings are- different. do you like mr. unknown?

warnings: none.

authors note: in this fiction we are pretending like elle and tao are not a thing. we still love them but for the purpose of this we do not. at first i had written half of this and still didn't have a character in mind and then i realized i haven't written for heartstopper. how heartbreaking. also maybe a little out of character, first time writing for this character.

inspiration: the wonderful sebastian crofts song; "slow train to nowhere."

pairing: tao xu x reader (no pronouns specified. though reader is mentioned to go to higgs.)

masterlist | part two

line 141 has got be written down as the slowest train in history. the electronic board above the waiting station said that the train would arrive around 2:47, though when you look at your watch its five minutes till 3 o'clock.

feeling a little antsy, you brush back the fly away, trying to calm down your jittery legs. the crowd around you grows as the seconds pass, all radiating the same aura as you, impatience. one person in particular stands out to you the most, a soft brown knitted vest adorned his white long-sleeve blouse, matched with tan colored trousers. he looked well fit, a handsome young man, and as you continue to watch him it seems as though he's looking right back you.

underneath the cream fluorescent lightening the hue of his cheeks change a flamingo shade, and right when your eyes meet his gaze is adverted. he looks nervous.

"cute." you whisper to no one but yourself, the old lady next to you glances in your direction with a shy smile. hopefully, she did not think you were flirting with her.

taking a quick peek at the man again you can't help but feel fuzzy. you have no clue who he is, nor ever spoken to him but something about him makes you feel-lightheaded. what a concerning reaction. he's intriguing to say the least, the way he too checks his watch as the time finally hits 3, or how his fingers hover over his hair when he goes to brush it but then ultimately brings it to his side. you want to know more. but he is a random stranger waiting for line 141 and who knows how dangerous of a person he could be.

but that doesn't stop you.

right as you muster up that courage to walk his way the faint hiss of the train tracks stop you as a gust of wind tips you backwards. just your luck, the train finally arrived.

in the commotion of everyone trying to make it onto the transport before it leaves you loose sight of stranger. the people blocking your views as you make your way onto the train to find a seat, many people go onto other cars leaving just you and a few others in the cart alone. what a waste.

as you make yourself comfortable you can't help but notice a melodic voice pull you out of your thoughts. it starts with the shoes, then the shirt and finally a young man stands before you, wringing his wrists together in a nervous manner. a timid smile etches its way onto his face and it's one of those where you can't help but smile back.

though remember, stranger danger.

"hello, d'you think i could sit here?" giving him a once over, he looks harmless, thin, lean gentlemen with great hair. really great hair.

your lips form to make a sentence but nothing comes out and suddenly-comically, your mouth is dry. that has to be the most embarrassing reaction because the man laughs. it was quiet but very pleasing to hear.

"i, you, yeah- go right ahead, there's enough room for the both of us." you respond to him with an awkward grin that probably came out more like a grimace then you had hoped for. god, why was it so hard being normal when a cute guy deliberately goes out of his way to talk to you. normally, the red flags would be shaming you but in the comfort of his presence, the tint fades green.

a moment passes between you both, and from the corner of your eye you see a pleased smile rest upon his face. "y'know," he starts and almost immediately you give him your attention. you might've caught him off guard by the forcefulness of it but he doesn't seem too bothered. "I saw you waiting for the train and for whatever reason you caught my eye. I wanted so badly to say something but my nerves got in the way." he laughs again, god that laugh. "I was beating myself up for it, thought that I let you get away, but, when I saw you from the other cart I thought, this is my chance."

you turn your gaze away from him bashfully, "well i'm glad you took it." you utter softly.

his grin grows, "i'm glad too, you seem like a nice person."

"i'd hope so, i was scared that you took me looking at you as intimidation."

he gasps playfully, resting his hand on his chest. "no, never! I hoped that you wouldn't think i was some creep checking you out." he admits faintly, but then is quick to add, "not that i was checking you out! because that's weird, and disrespectful, and- oh my god i'm making this worse." he covers his face with hands, and hunches over, trying to cave in on himself.

a loud bark of a laugh escapes you and cover your mouth with a hand, trying to suppress the giggles. though it's no use, the blush on the mans cheeks grows down towards his neck, his whole upper half is pink.

"don't worry," you reassure, placing a hand on his shoulder, "i didn't take that in a nasty way, you're okay."

the gentlemen takes a deep breath and sits back up, the color subsiding. the look in his eye is indescribable. the fuzzy feeling from earlier returns and it's hard to ignore. are you catching feelings for a guy you don't even know? seems like it.

as the conversation progresses you start to learn more about the man. firstly, his name is tao, and being on a first name bases doesn't classify you as "strangers" anymore, it brings a new-found hope. he lives with his mom, loves flims, hanging out with his friends and goes to an all boys school.

when asked what the name he is hesitant, of course, but gives the name quickly. upon hearing it you gasp;

"I go to Higgs! who knew we were closer than we thought!" at this point you are full on beaming, your whole body and posture screams he has all your attention. he nods his head happily.

for a second he pauses with an eyebrow raised, "do you by chance know a girl named elle? she transferred there last year, friends with tara, darcy, and sahar?"

hearing the names sparks a familiarity and you wiggle in your seat. "how could i not! i sit next to elle in homeroom and eat lunch with all four of them! 'known tara and darcy since gradeschool!"

he laughs loudly at the information, "this is crazy! the four of them are apart of my friend group. what a coincidence."

as you go to speak the lady on the overhead announces that the stop is coming up. tao looks towards the door and sees the next station start to slow down in the window. a pitiful sigh leaves his lips.

"your stop?" you inquire sadly, upset to see him leave. your stop isn't for another ten minutes. the rate this train moves is ridiculous.

tao nods his head slowly, trying to move as slow as possible when getting up, as the train lets out a rhythmical chime- the doors open and the people who once sat around you flood on onto the pathway, "it was really nice to meet you," he says, bringing your attention to him once more. something in his eyes shifts in the way he looks at you and you can't help but feel small under his gaze, in a good way. "i'll make sure to seat you next to me on my wedding day." the words were muttered so quietly that you had to strain to hear him, yet you did, and ghost of a smile hushes you as you watch him exit the train doors, joining the others on the other side.

"see you soon?" you hope, wondering if this would be the last time you would see him even though he's a five minute walk from your school.

his voice is airy and the way he holds himself is sincere. he pauses and then nods your way, "of course."

that was the most enjoyment you had in a long time- sad to say, it was fun until he had got off the train.

[sluckythewizard]

BUT IM NOT A WRITER. something strange possessed me to write my first proper fanfic in maybe a decade. be niceys to me but also grill me so i can get stronger. this one is a stupidly self indulgent bit between Soda and Emizel, a day or so after emizel was sired. CW for gore descriptions, but thats about it i think. image below is a snippet of the start. the rest of the whole dang thing will be under the cut. ive never posted fanfic ever in my life. read my tags for secret behind da scenes commentary

"Oh shit… I think hes dead…" It was another night, another patrol, another fight, and another win, for Emizel and Soda.

Under moonlight, under street light, under interwoven wires above, the two stood here in a quiet and damp alleyway. The air was drenched with the smell of a previous rain, and the puddles of said storm remain huddled in corners and pot holes.

One splashed as soda found himself stepping forwards into one. The residual adrenaline of the fight had left his body shaking, his heart still pounding, his wounds still throbbing. They had still won; or more-so, Emizel had won. A particularly nasty blow to the side had Soda reduced to the side lines for most of the fight, left to watch as his newly vampiric comrade had absolutely eviscerated the competition.

Emizel had only been turned a day ago, but it was impossible not to notice how it had changed him. He already acted so goddamn confident, so on top of the world, and this newfound power, newfound speed and strength, only built upon his insane ego.

The Fangs that they encountered here on this night stood no fucking chance. Emizel was too quick, too strong, and he easily chased off the rivals. It was only now, as the final unfortunate opponent had turned to flee, a clean clock in the jaw sent the human tumbling to the ground with a dull thump, and it did not move afterward.

Soda shifts his shoe out of the puddle, the cold seeping into his sock being one of the few things keeping his mind in his body in the moment. Is the guy breathing?

A low laugh bleeds from Emizel as he stretches his arms, licking his sharpened teeth as he stares off in the direction the remaining Fangs went. Soda knew that look on his face, the look of a tiger pondering on its next kill, he knew well that Emizel wanted to chase them.

But the guy on the ground.. It was one punch to the face, and the wicked crack sound that came from it had planted a seeding dread within Sodas chest.

As he steps forward, around the puddle, the resulting sound made Emizels attention click back over to Soda, the snap of his gaze making Soda flinch.

The two lock eyes, and Soda weakly gestures to the limp body on the floor. "The uh.. I think.. Is that guy dead?" He finally asks, having a hard time keeping contact with Emizels intensely red eyes.

Emizel turns his attention to said body, tilting his head as he goes to kick at the thing, turning it over. "Man no way hes dead, I punched him once." He mutters.

"Well, yeah, but his head almost twisted all the way around when you did.." Soda steps up to stand beside Emizel, the two boys standing with their hands in their pockets, down at this unfortunate, limp body.

"Should we hide it?" Soda asks, glancing back over at Emizel, who had.. An odd look on his face. He was clearly pondering something, but Soda could only guess whatever was going on in that brilliant head of his. He knew and trusted that Emizel was smart. If anyone could figure out what to do about this, it would be him.

But the lack of an answer had anxiety chewing at the back of Sodas rib cage, and after a second, he speaks up again, compelled to fill what he perceived as a tense silence. "Like.. I dunno, I've never uh... killed a guy..." He shrugs, prompting Emizel to let out a big sigh.

"He's not dead man, just out fuckin cold." Emizel kneels down next to the body, putting an ear up to its chest, and pondering on that for a moment. An uncertainty twists his expression, as he decides to instead place a hand on the victims throat, checking for a pulse. A moment passes, and seemingly finding nothing, he pulls back.

"Uh... Okay, so he might be dead."

Something about the confirmation from Emizel made a shiver run up Sodas spine. That, or maybe it was just the breeze agitating the cold water in his shoe.

"Huh… Damn.." Was all that Soda could really get to leave his mouth. Which was hardly a splash compared to the torrent that was slowly churning in his head. They just killed a guy. Or, Emizel just killed a guy. And it was so easy. They had to hide the body now, right? That was the usual progression here? Getting caught for murder was way more extreme than getting caught for breaking mailboxes with soda cans. It was so, so disturbingly easy. It really was just one punch. It's not like the Fangs are weak by any means, so just one punch? And this guy is dead? Forever?

Or, perhaps by human means, their rivals were fairly tough. But Emizel was on a whole other level. No mortal could stand up to him now...

"Hey, are you okay?"

The question had pulled Soda back from his head, his gaze flicking back over to Emizel, who was looking up at him with those eerie, piercing red eyes. Soda felt another shiver.

"Uh, ieah man, I'm all good." Soda nods, swallowing down whatever anxiety was bubbling up in his throat.

But Emizel didn't seem satisfied by his answer, standing back up and staring down his human comrade. Soda couldn't meet his eyes, his gaze instead traveling downward, and pausing on Emizels red, cut-up shirt. There was something off about the color, the way it seemed darker in some spots, brighter in others.. Wait, wasn't Emizel wearing a white shirt before all this?

The vampire boy seems to pick up on Sodas expression, following his eyes down to his shirt. "Oh, yeah! While you were on the floor, the knife guy got me a little" He says, a stupidly simple smile on his face. Soda was about to let out a laugh at how unbothered his friend seemed by it, but it gets caught in his throat when Emizel goes to pull his shirt up.

The sound of the bloodied fabric peeling away from skin made Sodas own skin crawl, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the sight of the intense gash running from his collar bone, down to his stomach.

"Oh, fuck dude!" Soda gasps, but Emizel laughs it off. Even despite knowing Emizel well, Soda was still surprised by just how much Emizel could shrug off. "Shit, doesn't that hurt, dude?"

"Oh yeah this fucking hurts!" he says with a laugh, his smile big and toothy and proud as he presents this egregious wound. Swollen and angry, pulsing with a slow heartbeat, and still oozing with thick, dark blood.

The sight of the split flesh, and the glints of bone beneath the dark, dark red all tugged at Sodas gag reflex, and yet he couldn't pull his eyes away. So Emizel's just been walking and talking so normally this whole time with his chest just cleaved wide open? Soda felt just as impressed as he felt horrified.

It wasn't until Emizel reaches down to poke at the abhorrent wound that Soda snaps out of it. Watching his friend press his fingers into the bloodied flesh, and slowly pulling it apart, allowing more ichor to seep from the gash, it was too much to watch at this point.

Soda reaches up to put a hand on Emizels wrist, the vampire boy stopping, and looking up at his friend.

Soda found himself freezing again when he locks eyes with Emizel. He was going to say something now, right? "U-uhm.." Is all he really chokes out, giving Emizels wrist a gentle tug. "D-do you. Uh. I suppose a hospital Isn't a place you can go anymore..?"

Emizel just smirks at that, letting Soda pull his hand away from the wound. "Oh, yeah no, but it's fine. I mean, I don't think it's gonna kill me" He shrugs. It was so, so impressive just how unphased Emizel was by all this. Fuck he's actually so cool.

"Well yeah man but it's like, still a bleeding hole. Like you're soaked in blood dude, I'm pretty sure that even a vampire needs that stuff on like, the inside." Soda rubs the back of his head, still unnerved by the sight of it all. "Vampires have like, super healing, don't they?"

"Oh yeah like, regeneration powers. I know I heal faster sometimes but I dunno how to just, activate it on command.." Emizel hums, his eyes narrowing down at his own injury, as if trying to will it into mending. Soda looks away, unable to watch that vile gash ooze any longer.

"I dunno man, how do they do it in like, video games?" Soda tosses the question out, trying to click together some sort of solution in his own head.

"Uhhh.. Huh, video games.." Emizel repeats to himself, chewing on the thought while idly poking at the laceration; until an idea audibly flickers to life in his head. "Oh, I just gotta refill my blood meter. Or whatever."

"Oooh yeah, blood meter!" Soda perks up, "Of course, see this is why you're the brains, man" Soda smiles, glancing back over to his cool friend, but immediately needing to look away again when the sight of that egregious gash tugs bile back into his throat.

While Soda averts his eyes, Emizels eyes wander back over to the body, and that classic 'Emizel has a bad idea' smile creeps across his face.

"Well, if this guys dead, I'm sure he's not gonna need all that blood.." He grins, kneeling down next to the body again.

The word 'wait' had hardly gotten the chance to crawl from Sodas mouth, before Emizel lifts up the arm of the unfortunate body, pulling the sleeve back, and immediately sinking his teeth into the exposed wrist.

The sound and the sight of blood gushing around Emizels teeth made Soda cringe, his hand impulsively coming up to aide his own wrist. An empathetic phantom pain made his wrist ache, his imagination simulating the feeling of shark teeth cutting into skin, sinking deep into the flesh, and clacking against bone. That was a lot of blood, that was streaming down the arm of this fodder.

A low growl bleeds from Emizel as he adjusts his teeth, cutting into more flesh, opening the wound further, and allowing a pulsing torrent of red to stream down his chin, onto his coat. It was an annoying thing, to clean blood out of clothing. Most of the Demons deemed it easier to just let the stains remain. But the night that Emizels throat was torn open, and liters upon liters were granted freedom from his human form, the unbelievable mess had practically changed half the color of Emizels iconic coat.

That was the first time Soda had ever seen that much blood from one person. And well. This would probably be the second.

The sight was unnerving, but it was impossible to look away. The alley was quiet, save for the distant bustle of a distant city, which made the noisy squish and squelch of teeth gnawing on flesh all the more apparent and nauseating.

Emizel had become a monster for sure, and watching it feed on something was… thrilling, in a way. It reminded Soda of feeding a pet spider, or lizard. A mouse for a snake.

It's a heavy thing to witness, the end of a human life. The fear of death is a primal thing, and Soda was no different from any other living thing. He figured everyone else feared death just as much as he does. Well, maybe except for Emizel, of course.

It made sense. Emizel was such a cocky and noisy kind of guy, but hes always had the power to back it up. Even when he lost, or seemed at his lowest, Soda still saw this sort of fire in him, one that Soda admired.

Of course Emizel would be the one to become something like a vampire. Something that Soda had always figured was just a fantasy creature thing. He wondered; if vampires were real, what else was real? Werewolves? Zombies? Unicorns? Are there real demons? Like from hell? Is hell real? Is he going to hell?

The sudden ttteeeeaaaaarrrr of flesh rips soda from his wandering thoughts. Emizel was tugging his head away from the arm of his kill, his teeth clamped down into the chewed meat, and pulling it apart. Soda had seldom seen so much of the inside of a human arm, and the sight of spilling threads and squirming veins was hardly something he ever wanted to stomach again.

"Oh fuck, dude, hey-" Soda steps forward, raising a hand, but the way Emizel snaps his head back over to him, twisting to an unnatural degree, Soda cant help jolting back.

Reddened teeth glint menacingly in the low light, a threatening growl thundering from its clenched, dripping jaws. Emizels eyes were focused, yet wild, glowing with whatever light they could reflect.

Sodas eyes were wide, and his body was frozen in the thick, electric tension within the air. It was like staring down an angry dog.. Suddenly a light bulb in his head flickers to life. It was kind of like an angry dog, right? One hunched over a meal it didn't want to give up. Memories of old encounters and unfortunate dog bites resurface in Sodas head, and with that experience, and with those lessons learned, he gathers the courage to react.

He shuts his eyes, keeping them closed for a few seconds, as he slowly pulls back his arm, and slowly steps back. It was an eye contact thing, wasn't it? Eye contact makes dogs angry, right? That was how you dealt with an angry dog? As he pulls back, and takes in a breath for composure, he finally dares to peek at the angry vampire before him again.

Its snarling had died down, but its eyes were still trained intently on Soda. After a tense, and agonizingly, slow pause... It blinks back, lowering its head back down to its meal, but keeping its anxious stare on this potential threat.

A relieved sigh falls from soda as the tension finally melts. He didnt realize he was holding in so much of his breath. "O-okay, man.. It's yours, you uh.. Earned it.." Soda mutters, stepping back further, until he was standing in a sufficiently dry enough space to sit down in. Now that he wasn't standing, he was finally taking into mind just how much his hands were shaking.

It's odd. Soda couldn't really describe this feeling thrumming in his chest as something like fear.. Nausea? For sure. Disturbed and rattled? Oh absolutely. This was certainly a sight he would have a hard time scrubbing from his eyelids when he sleeps tonight. But he wasn't scared. The memory of the night that Emizel was sired still coated the inside of his mind like an unwashable film. Even in that moment, when the unnatural teeth from the unnatural maw of an unnatural thing hovered over his throat, he couldn't say with confidence that he was scared.

Emizel really is his best friend in the world. And he knows with his whole heart that Emizel feels the same. He knew and trusted that his best friend would never hurt him. Not too badly at least. He loves Emizel, and would give anything to support him.

Like a mouse to a snake.

This really is an incredible power that his comrade had come across, and Soda especially felt a sort of pride in his friend. He felt it was worth it to help him feed it.

The bile in his throat had made its point, and Soda agreed, that watching someone die, and get torn apart and drained might be too much for him. Despite how much he hated the Fangs, the end of any human life seemed like such a jarring thing. To have such an intense fear finally get confronted. Would he go to hell?

Maybe he couldn't just feed people to his friend. So an alternative could be donated blood, right? Soda wouldn't mind giving up something like blood. His body makes it for free, after all. Maybe some other Demons would agree to give up some blood too. But they shouldn't have to take on such a burden. Soda wouldn't mind being the only one. The only one. The only one.

His hand comes up to rub at his neck, as his imagination conjures up what it might feel like to have teeth sink into his flesh. He's been stabbed before, is that sort of what it would feel like? Would he have to get stitches? He didn't really want to get stitches, so maybe there could be a more effective way to get the blood out of him. And there was so much vital stuff in his neck too. There's' a vein that's safe to cut into somewhere, right? He would have to look that up later.

A STARTLING RINGING;

Splits the moment,

Prompting both Soda and Emizel to jolt in shock,

As the phone in Emizels pocket rings away.

Acting as if nothing abnormal had taken place, Emizel pulls out his phone, and answers it.

"Heyy, Johnny! Yeah we chased em off, I don't think those bastards will be infesting this street again anytime soon. Yeah, ieah we'll be heading back soon. Oh fuck yeah dude, save us some!"

Emizel covers the speaker of his Nokia, turning back to Soda with a big smile on his violently bloodied face. "They got some pizza waiting for us back home, dude!" he whispers out to him.

Soda does his best to crack a smile, and to suppress the look of unease that probably stained his face, as he stares at the literal murder scene that's been splattered about in front of him.

"Oh, yeah, hell yeah man.." He swallows down the bile again. "What kind of uh.. Soda did they get?"

Emizel ponders that, before turning back to the phone to ask Sodas question.

"Sprite and a big pack of that one strawberry mountain dew" Emizel tosses the answer back over to Soda, who gives a nod, and thumbs up.

Mountain dew is so neat, Soda really liked all the wacky flavors those guys come up with. The thought of going home and opening a can of soda was certainly a comfort. After witnessing all this blood and gore and viscera, Soda absolutely needed to get back home and get a nice cold glass of something bright red .

As Sodas mind wanders off to soda, Emizel wraps up the conversation on the phone, before hanging up, and standing up.

The movement had pulled Sodas mind back into the moment, enough for him to timidly voice a concern he's had since the start of this debacle.

"Uh, hey, so.. The body, should we… Uh.." He gestures vaguely to it, and Emizel grants it a nonchalant glance.

"Eh, I can toss it into a dumpster or something, I dunno. I'm sure its fine. I'll handle it."

The vampire boy goes to pick up the corpse, the wound in its mangled arm no longer even dripping with blood, the flesh pale from the absolute absence of red in its veins.

"Go ahead and meet me by that one mailbox, the one with the bullet hole in it." Emizel casually instructs, tossing the drained body over his shoulder. "I'll catch up."

"Uh, yeah, okay.." Soda musters up a nod, and the strength to rise back up to his feet, wincing as that bruise on his side makes itself loudly known again. He still felt anxious, but even despite it all, he knew he could trust Emizel to take care of things. He always does. "Just stay safe man, I'll see you there." Soda assures with a smile, and Emizel matches it, tossing him a wink. And then suddenly- -He's gone! If Soda had blinked he would've missed it, but he was fortunate enough to just barely catch the glimpse of Emizel darting off at an inhuman speed, probably looking for a place to dump the body. Right, he would take care of it. Emizel always makes sure his crew is taken care of. Well... Guess all that's left for Soda is for him to walk back to that meeting spot. He looks around the alley for a moment, taking in the sight of that enormous pool of blood in the middle of the concrete. Or whatever the floor of this alley is made from. He ponders on the present moment a little longer than he meant to, the shock of it all leaving him aimless for just a few, soothing moments of just, decompression. The night is quiet, vast, and cold, but the stresses of just the past 5 hours had left his body radiating with fiery aches and pains, so the chill of the occasional clawing breeze was welcomed. Except for when said breeze agitated the cold water still soaked into his sock. He should step in another puddle on his way back to even it out. The smell of rain still rested heavy in the air, heralding another storm on the horizon. There was that, and then, well, there was also the blood. The stench of it felt far too intense to just ignore it, the metallic miasma making itself maliciously unmistakable. Maybe the impending storm will wash this mess away... He looked forward to putting this unfortunate night behind him. With one last rattled, but deep breath, he stuffs his hands in his pockets, and turns away, strolling back over to the mailbox that Emizel had described.

He couldn't wait to get home and drink some soda with his friends.

[aloneatpeace]

𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙲𝙰𝙻𝚈𝙿𝚃𝙸𝙲 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳

DARK DAYS '3'

Being awake for some time, you lay there for some time still thinking about the dream? Or memory.

W.I.C.K.E.D. IS GOOD.

You heard that before, before you were coming here when you were in the box and the voice, the guy.

Who is the lady in white lab coat? Did you know her? Does she know you?

“you’re up early” Namjoon voiced and comes in your view; he gives you a smile before giving his hands “come on I wanna show you something”

Curiously you accept his hand he helps you out the hammock and lead outside, the sun was bright and birds chirping sound “it’s peaceful, isn’t it? I know it’s hard to believe, but it wasn’t always this way. We hand dark days. We lost a lot of boys to fear, to panic we’ve come far since then. Established order made peace”

“Yeah. Maybe because I hit my head hard, I don’t get it why are you telling me this?” you look at him with uncertainty..

He let out a small laugh “yeah you did hit pretty hard. had us all worried for a second” before a seriousness comes over his face that made you little scared but you tried not to show “I’m telling you this because you’re not like the other”

“I think that pretty much clear for everyone” you said point at yourself then to him

He sighs “that is not what I meant. You’re curious but you’re one of us now. You need to know what that’s means.” He takes your hands in his which was pretty large you stopped for whole minute as he places a knife on your hand.

Wait was this a cult do you have cut your palm or something worse you were ready run until he points to the wall behind you.

Namjoon watches as you take step towards the wall where names were carved into it, there his names as well as everyone’s alongside him but there was some that had lines over them as if it should be erased from the wall.

“What happened to them?

“Like I said dark days, y/n” he answers and nod at you, taking a deep breath you also carve your name on it.

Later Namjoon had taken show you to kitchen area where everyone gets served breakfast, after freshens up you walk inside finds no one there hesitantly you look around searching for the guy who is in charge of the kitchen.

“Huh I finally get to meet you” a voice behind you said and you look back to see the most handsome man on the planet you thought some of the guy who met was beautiful but this is another level and he clearly is the cook what else a girl need.

“I don’t know if you know my name its seokjin” the guy smile at you and starts to things in a plate “you had one long day right. You must be really hungry”

Feeling the friendly aura, you loosen yourself “yeah.” He points to the table asking you make yourself comfortable.

“Did you get sleep well?” he asks as he put the plate Infront of he go back for a second before coming up with another plate.

You shrug “it was alright”

“Can I seat with you?” he asks politely

 You scoot over giving a space “yeah” he sits next to you and digs’ in enjoying his meal  

“Finally, I can eat in peace” he let a hum when he bites into the food

“You didn’t eat?”

He shook his head “after a few hours the sun rise the everyone will be coming in and it’s a would be hectic here, so you won’t get time eat in peace until everyone is gone”

Yeah, feeding the boys not just any boys but troublesome ones can be exhausting

“Have you decided what you wanna do?” jin asks

You shake your head even though you know what job you want to do but you want make him fun of you even though he looks like harmless.

“But you do, right?” he states

You look at him surprised “how did you know?”

He pauses his eating looking at you intensely “I don’t know felt like you have made your decision but you just refused to share with me”

You glance at him sighing “I wanted to be runner but yoongi said no. and no one clearly support me” you wait for him laugh at you but glancing up he give you a smile.

“I know you want to go out there try to find something that could help us all get out here. But it’s dangerous, terrifying even” he places a hand on your that was on the table “we are just trying to keep you safe we already lost some of us, we don’t want another one to be added to the list” he squeezes your hand.

Just then taehyung come in his eyes finding your figure “hah, finally I found you” he walks over to your place.

He sits next to jin and tried to eat the food in jin plate but jin yells and push him making him fall to the floor and walks away giving you a last smile.

“rude” taehyung said getting up sits next to you he looks at you for moment “huh I forget today you’re mine”

 You raise eyebrow at him “what?”

“I mean toady you are going to do the garden work with me” taehyung lean in “what did you think” he pokes your cheek.

You stare at him with unimpressed look “I was going to apologize for kicking you but now I’m not”

He huffs “rude”.

You taehyung and Zart was gardening and working on the ground to plant more seeds “has anyone tried climbing to the top?”

“Tried it. the ivy doesn’t go all the way to the top. And besides, where are you gonna go from there?” taehyung ask as he place the seed to the hole that you’re digging.

“What about the box. You know, next time it comes up...”

“No, we tried that. The box won’t go back down with someone in it. “

You pause your work “okey, what if we…”

“No, we tried it, all right? Twice. All right trust me. Anything that you can think of, we’ve already tried. The only way out of here is through the maze.” He sighs look away from your downcast face “look you wanna be helpful?” he grabs the empty basket place that one your front “go dig us up some fertilizer.”

He gives you a sweet mocking smile.

You walk to where the fertilizers were talking to yourself because no one else will “just get some fertilizer, y/n”

“Are you sure, guys, I can’t help in any other way?”

you deepen your voice to match taehyung deep voice “No, just get the fertilizer.”

You look around the woods it seems so real but they are also not real something deep inside you knows what is going on what it cannot reach the surface of your mind. Mentally and physically your trapped.

You walk down the woods and stumble upon a board with a name carved George on a wood and around it files buzz and bones of animals or human you can’t determine most of them looks like ribs and leg bone scarred around it.

You back away and gasp when you see the one the runner standing behind you breathing heavily “oh, you are the runner ben right” you assumed he just got back from running that why he is looks that pale and sweaty.

But when he starts breath more aggressively grunting looking at you manically you stop talking “are you alright?” you ask tenderly

He shouts and jump on you making you fall down and you groan when hit the floor, he grips your arm hovering over you “get the hell off me what are you doing” you yell at him.

“It’s your fault” he leans down towards your face “I saw you. You did this.” You look at him confusion at the accusation.

He let go your wrists and starts to choke you, struggling under him you tried to push him off you your strength doesn’t seems to matches his. Searching for something in the ground to help you out your fingers reach the skull of an animal and bashes that on his head while kicking him on his middle as well successfully making him release you.  

Sprinting away from him as he tries to grab you, looking at the opening you make the run to get away from him yelling and screaming to get anyone’s attention on the crazy kid that now chasing to probably kill from the away he acts.

Jimin who was asking where you gone to taehyung hears your scream for help as well as almost everyone at the glade.

Seokjin and yoongi who was take the fresh vegetables sees you coming running out the woods with ben behind you, you scream yoongi’s name calling him out as you see him.  Yoongi runs to you with jin with a spatula that he keeps in his pocket.

Ben jumps down and push your leg making you fall down as he crawl on top off siting on your waist hands griping your wrists with death grip “I’ll kill you” he snarls.

You scream and yell trying to get away when taehyung who first reached you yell making ben look up he hit him with the stick on his cheek making him fall off you.

While yoongi and Jimin helps you to stand up and jin stands beside you as gally and other gladers restrain ben with taehyung.

“What the hell happened?” taehyung asks

Yoongi and Jimin look at your shaken up foam “he just attacked me out of nowhere”

Jin frown and checks you up and down for any injuries “are you okay?”  sees the tears your eyes as you nod at him and bruise on your wrists as well.

Namjoon walks up with Jungkook with him, when ben sees him, he starts whimpers “No.No.”

He glances at you who now tucked in jin side and to ben “alright, lift his shirt.”

Ben starts to protest and squirm around the hold while gally lift his shirt everybody gasps when they see the infected wound on his body vain are darkened.

“he’s been stung. In the middle of the day?” gally voiced look around him

Confused you walk towards him against seokjin protests and Jimin walks closely behind you. Namjoon command him to put him in the pit and gladers obey starts to carry him away without minding bens cry for not to.

Jimin stand beside you watching you and starts to swipe the mud and dirt off you his hands lingering on your body a little too long, moving around your hair caressing your cheek lightly he feels eyes on him looking up he sees Namjoon, yoongi and seokjin give him look judging him while Jungkook tried not laugh.  

“What? I’m just helping her?” Jimin said making you come out of your thoughts and glance at male that’s stand too close to you giving you a sweet smile.

Namjoon shook his head in disappointment seokjin take matter to his hands pinching Jimin by the ear making him wince and walk away with a now snickering Jungkook who give you a wave as bye.

You, Namjoon, yoongi, seokjin, Jimin and Jungkook gather around, sitting in circle with Namjoon on your right and yoongi on your lift with seokjin next him and Jimin next to Jungkook who complete the circle with Namjoon “It’s called ‘the changing’. It’s what happens when someone gets stung. Listen. We haven’t been able to get to a clear word out of ben since it happened. H’s not making any sense. And it’s only gonna get worse.” Looking eyes with you “the infection is spreading. He’s dangerous. What did he say to you?”

You glance at him gulping down at his intense stare “he said he saw me…and that this was all my fault.” Turning to Namjoon “how could this be my fault?”

“When you change, you’re not in control” yoongi said making you turn to him “you can’t predict their actions that’s what make them dangerous, they don’t have control over what they think, speak or do”

 “But it doesn’t feel like that, he was angry and mostly…scared” you state eyes dimmed the light you had “what going to happen to him now? Is he going to stay in the pit forever?”

 Jimin glance around the nervously while Jungkook also shared the same question this is the first time he also encounters this situation.

Seokjin and Namjoon share a silent conversation before Namjoon sigh and get up “you should get some rest”

His reluctance made you frown as you stand up as well glancing at the second commander “tell me what is going to happen”

Namjoon mutters your name but you cut off him “No, you said I am one of you yet you won’t tell anything completely. You all treat me like I some threat to you and others, like anything I have to say is not worth of your time” you glance around eyes looking at yoongi and taehyung who look down as your eyes meet his while yoongi just stare at you ticking you off “now ben just attacked me out of no where saying it is all my fault. And I can’t even sleep in peace”

You sigh heart racing as tears well up as they watch you “I know I’m being difficult but I’m…. I’m…. forget it “you walk past Namjoon.

Jimin try to follow you but seokjin stops him shaking his head, Jungkook knows where you come from, he too felt like that when he first came being left out and turning down his thoughts by his fellow gladers but he overcome it faster he hopes you do too. Seokjin and yoongi knew you would blow up again sooner or later, ben attacking you wasn’t in their prediction though, according to Namjoon he is doing what is better for everyone he cannot give you special treatment but seeing walk away from them making their inside twist painfully for an unknown reason that they just want to run to you wrap in their arms and take away your pain. 

The evening all the gladers gather around the front of the gate, yoongi seokjin taehyung and gally stands with tall stick in their hands with Namjoon in the middle. hoseok drag ben by his heck compelling him to walk as ben pleads him to listen unable to do anything as his hands were tied behind his back, he is growling and grunting. Hoseok takes him to the middle of circle boy who points the sharpened bamboo stick at ben to protect themselves.

Hoseok making him kneel to the ground cutting the rope that tied ben. You stand behind everyone with Jungkook and jimin beside you as ben sobbing on the ground. Hoseok walks to the front and throw a bag inside the maze with an unreadable look on his face as ben his runner partner look at him with pleading eyes “No, please. Please, don’t. hoseok”

Hoseok and Namjoon nod as the walls starts to shift and gears starts to move the wind whooshes as hoseok move away from the front and Namjoon commands “poles” they starts lower the larges poles towards ben as he stands up growling.

Jimin grab your wrist when you try to move towards them as you all watch ben pleads them to let him go. they push the poles at Namjoon’s command making ben starts cry and the walls starts to close and they finally push him inside the maze.

The last thing you see ben standing there looking out as the wall completely close Infront of him, you breath heavily as you collect yourself as the gladers stand there all sharing the same emotion, the pain of losing one of them, something that they can never get used to even if its not second or third time.

Namjoon sigh placing the pole on the wall turning to his people “he belongs to the maze now” he said while looking at you he walks away finally before giving you a final glance soon seokjin yoongi taehyung and gally all other boy leave.

Gally and some boys scratch the name of ben during the night.

“Do you think he might make it?” you ask Jungkook who is laying in his hammock

“Ben? no” he answers what he thinks “no one survives a night in the maze.” He turns to you “we just gotta forget about him. “

Jungkook sigh when he sees you lost in thought he get up from the hammock and sit down in yours making you snap out of your mind.

“What you said earlier...”

“Oh…...I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me”

“No. I understand you” he said making you look at him “I felt like left out too; they didn’t want to deal with that, I thought they did not care, Namjoon didn’t care. but then I realized they just don’t know how to deal with my problems it when they couldn’t deal with their own. But they trying own their own way, without any recollection of our past heck I don’t even know how old I’m just like everyone. They’re just trying to keep us safe in the only way they know. It’s the first time I’m seeing something like that but its not the first for them” he said glancing at Namjoon and hoseok who sitting in silence as yoongi and seokjin patrol the glade.

He glances back at you “and I know you blame yourself for what happened to ben.” You look up to him with teary eyes he gives you a soft smile taking your hands in his “but it’s not true……I don’t know how to convince you. I was never good with words just like yoongi” he said with a laugh that made giggle a little. “I will be always be here when you need me though, don’t blame yourself because of things that you can’t control”

“Thank you” you said and surprise him with a hug that made Jungkook eyes wide his lips parted a silent gasp escaping from it his cheeks and ears goes the shade of pink his body feeling hot at the sensation of your body pressed against his, he gently wraps his arms around your waist his hands feel hot he could almost feel the flesh of your skin through the top of yours.

“You should get some sleep” he mentally pat himself for saying that correctly finally savoring the feel of you against him he moves away his back turns to you with a gleeful smile on his face as he settle on his hammock.

 And that day you too slept without any disturbance.

Series masterlist

[sl-walker]

Today in Lines I Loved Writing

From the second chapter of Stardust:

“Heads up!” Ted shouted, cheerily, swinging off of a catwalk like some kind of acrobat, only to smack Random Henchman #3 -- on a shelf below him beside an open crate -- in the middle of his back with both boots, which--

--sent him flying down right into Booster’s outstretched arm, who clotheslined him neatly, saving him from a potentially bone-crunching meeting with the floor. “And down!”  The henchman dropped in a heap with a grunt and wheeze.  Booster winced, looking down at the guy.  “Oooh, might wanna watch the face, those ski-masks aren’t really much protection.”

Random Henchman #5 was running for the doors after #4 tripped and tumbled, because it had frankly only taken three minutes of chasing them around the warehouse to take most of them down.  “Grab him?” Ted asked, sounded surprisingly winded, and Booster glanced down at the guy he’d just dropped before taking off after the one running.

It was a quick collar -- literally! -- and just so he wouldn’t have to babysit, Booster hoisted and hung that guy off of a pulley by the leather belt he was wearing before flying back to make sure #3 and #4 were still subdued along with the others.

In the meantime, the Blue Beetle wasn’t looking so good even in the dim light; he was still hanging from the catwalk and something about his pallor was alarming.  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Booster asked, wasting no time flying over there.

Ted’s skin was sweaty where it was exposed, and up close, he was clearly having an incredibly hard time holding himself up. “Heart.  Ride down?” he panted, and sagged with a grateful sounding sigh when Booster took his weight and he could let go of the catwalk. “I’ll be okay,” he said, shivering. “Just need to lay down.”

Booster was less convinced, but he landed them soft and didn’t let his alarm show when Ted literally stretched out on the floor of the warehouse, thumping against his chest with the side of his fist.

“--should I tie them up?” Booster asked, even as he hit his wrist-comm. “Skeets, call the police, send ‘em to our position?  Then hone in on my position and get here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yeah, please,” Ted said, though he had picked up his head and was watching; he beamed despite looking like hell. “Do I get to meet your robot?!”

Booster smiled, shaking his head, and went to go figure out how to secure their random henchpeople.  “Your lucky night.  Hey, do you have anything I can use as handcuffs?”

Ted fished something out of that thigh holster, then held up a handful of zip ties that were sticking out of his fist like porcupine quills. “These work?”

“You came to a bust with zip ties?  And while I’m at it, do you actually keep a gun in there, or is it just like your all-purpose junk drawer?”

“Actually, I do have a gun!  It’s called the BB gun, because I’m clever like that.”  Ted let his head rest back on the floor and took a slower, more even-sounding breath.  “But yeah, I also stick random stuff in there because I don’t have pockets.  It’s got pouches in its pouch,” he added, with a snicker. “Like a Liefeld comic.”

Booster didn’t get the reference, but he did happen to think the word pouch was funny, which was why he was giggling like a twelve-year-old as he zip-tied their disgruntled henchfolk.  “And don’t want any civilian games of guess that lump?”

“Give the man a cookie!”

“I’ll settle for some all-night diner pancakes, but if a cookie’s all I’m getting for saving your butt--”

“It’ll be one of those really big cookies.”

“They do make some impressively sized baked goods in this era,” Skeets said, zipping through the half-open man door. “Also, the police will be here in approximately forty-five seconds.”

“Skeets!”  Booster grinned, then nodded back towards where Ted was sitting up gingerly. “Your new biggest fan ever wants to meet you.”

Skeets paused for a moment mid-air, a barely noticeable hesitation, then flew over to hover in front of Ted, offering a cordial, “A pleasure to meet you, Mister Blue Beetle.”

Ted made a noise that Booster might’ve ascribed to an overly excited young dog being shown a new toy.  Like-- maybe a verbal flail of excitement, if that was a thing.  Then he said, “You are so cool.  Booster!  I’ll buy the pancakes if the ‘bot comes with us!”

Booster sat back on his heels and watched, even as the sound of vehicles roaring up outside filtered in; something about the scene -- Ted sitting there in wide-eyed wonder and Skeets hovering at eye level -- grabbed him by the heart.  Good, mixed.  “Blueberry pancakes?” he asked, rising to his feet so he could go lead the cops in.

“Pal, I’ll get you the whole damn blueberry bush.”

“Deal!”

--

Why I loved writing them: OMG, the dialogue. I've had the fortune of occasionally having pairs of characters who, if you give them even the barest kind of space, will take a scene and run away with it. And writing Booster and Beetle is just like that; one of them starts, the other builds on it, and then they just keep going, rolling it along and chasing it down the road.

So, I had fun having Ted taking a potshot at Rob Liefeld because I cut my teeth on comics in the 90s and don't even get me started. For all those fans out there who might be unfamiliar, Liefeld's not like-- the only reason 90s comics are just Like That, but he was a big contributor of it. Like, I really can draw a very clear, unambiguous line between Cable's design and Booster's look post-Overmaster arc. It's not even subtle. So, everyone who ever squinted at that really godawful run of really bad design, you almost have to blame it on Liefeld.

Ahem. Anyway. The other part is the whole bit--

“Give the man a cookie!”

“I’ll settle for some all-night diner pancakes, but if a cookie’s all I’m getting for saving your butt--”

“It’ll be one of those really big cookies.”

--starting with that. It's not the first example of those two kind of 'yes, and'ing' each other in the story, their introduction to each other was the first, but it serves as a good illustration of their easy patter and ability to build on one another. And there's something super charming about them basically turning a joking bit of banter into a decision to go out to eat together, which leads to them spending almost the whole day together, which--

I've also had friendships like that, albeit without the unresolved romantic tension. But where you just enjoy the other person's company so much that you don't want to let them go. LOL! @b-radley66 can attest. @shadowmaat can, too. And many, many other people over the years.

And finally, I just also really love the mental image of Ted and Skeets meeting, just as much as I love Booster's reaction to it.

[docholligay]

What was your favorite thing you did in the UK/Germany?

That's such a hard thing for me to say on these sorts of trips, because there are so many things that go into "favorite." Apologies that this won’t be very poetically written, I’m sitll musing on my thoughts about it. 

The event I loved the most: Dickens Christmas Feast

We all know I love Charles Dickens, and even more so, we all know I love A Christmas Carol. I have seen so many versions of it, I will continue to watch versions of it, it is the best thing about Christmas, I think. So, on the one hand, very low bar to entry foe me.

On the other hand, I cannot recommend it enough to people. I would see anything this theater company did. They did such a wonderful job of building tone as you walked to where the theater was, you get this sense that you’ve about to hear something no one has ever heard before, even though this is probably one of the best known stories in the Western world. They even had a map of London from the late 1800s. I genuinely told people to just go past us in line (We had Royal Circle tickets--everything else had been sold out--so it didn’t matter if we were first or last) because they had a magnifying glass to look at the city map. It was so interesting to me to see the ways its different, but also the way its the same. What parts of the city cropped up, where were the nice areas, all of that. 

I loved dressing up. I love dressing up anyhow, but it was so much fun to do it for a Victorian themed event, and people reacted so positively to the handful of us who dressed up. There was one gal who stood by us in line, turned to her mom, and said, “I told you people would dress up! We could have dressed up! I love your costumes.” and then when we thanked her and said we loved to take an opportunity, she said, “Did you bring all that from America?” and upon confirmation, she turned to her mom again and said, “They brought it from America!” I loved her, I hope next time she dresses up. 

The food was shockingly good. I don’t put a lot of faith in dinner theater, foodwise, but the duck was well cooked, I love the potted cheese, and the cocktails were flat out incredible. I had smoking bishop, which I liked so much I think I’m going to try and make it at home this winter. Also, in the Royal Circle the service was incredible. Our gal Lily was so very attentive and wonderful, and she let us know that she couldn’t come out during the three acts, but in the meal breaks, she would. I let her know I was going to want to put a cocktail order in about ten minutes before each act began, and she was SO on it, like CLOCKWORK, asking me what I’d like for the next act and having hit the table RIGHT before the lights dimmed again. She was amazing. 

And the play. Again, I love A Christmas Carol and I acknowledge that fully, but I never imagined that one of my favorite reworkings of it would be a one man show that is represented as Charles Dickens acting it all out of you in his deeply involved, hyperactive, scattered way. I ADORED IT. I cannot express to you how well the guy did, and how much, in moments, it really felt to me like the feeling of being a writer--especially in the earlier parts of the play--with him saying a line “wrong” and then going, “No, I don’t like that” taking up the exact same position, and redoing it. It was very much the feeling of me pacing around the office in the old days writing something. At the end of the second act, when they had this huge clap of thunder roll, lights flashing, the actor as Scrooge in this moment crying out in fear over the approach of the third ghost, and then the whole room goes pitch black and silent. It’s SO tense. The lights come up, he smiles and goes, “Pretty good, right?” ANd it just captured, for me, that feeling of knowing you’ver written something that’s going to get to your reader, and it is this MOMENT in the writing, but you’re sitting there grinning like an idiot over your desk, chuckling. 

The only other players in the work, actually, were the musicians, who were live, and walked around playing the violin and little drums and other instruments, it was such an excellent way to really loop in the music aspect and give this so much more of a live feel. 

The whole thing is done as a theater in the round style, and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. I was in the royal circle, but mostly what we had was more attentive service and much more comfortable seating (They were these sumptuous plush banquettes. So nice. Everyone else was on a regular chair) because the seating was so good for the play itself. And because of how it was done, it had to have sparse staging, but what they did have was wonderful. In the center stage, especially, they had a doorframe that popped up, and when they lowered it, they couldn’t do it without a light slam, so they worked it into the play SO WELL, at one point one of the musicians was holding it for the perfect dramatic moment to hear that slam, and it was such a clever way to work in something that could have been annoying into being absolutely perfect. 

It was so cleverly done, I would go see it again despite the cost of it, absolutely, if I were in London at the time. 

Thing I think everyone should go see in London: Westminster Abbey. 

A lot of the things I recommend are ‘use cases’ because there’s very little int his world that is uniformly bad or uniformly good, there are just good and bad use cases. I think the London Eye would be a fucking horrfying waste of time and money, but if I were bringing beeb, she might love it, as she loves to be up high. When i went with my wife one of my favorite days was when i took the train out to the shitty OW office and walked back to Mile End at the route I think Lena would take, and basically just bopped around the East End.  Many people would find that boring or too much walking. I thought the British Museum was an annoying waste of my life. Many of you are audibly gasping at that statement. Use cases. 

ANYHOW, Westminster Abbey is one of the only things I can think of in London that everyone she go see. I am not a big historic church person, so please trust me when I say its a very beautiful church, but it’s much more than that. I’m not sure if I just wrote this in my diary or said it here, but it feels like the collective hopes of a nation, and what it makes itself to be. What do we hold dear? What do we call ours? This is even more striking with seeing the scientists, and poets’ corner, the RAF chapel. It’s about what the UK thinks of itself as, what it hopes it is, as much as it is anything else, and I think you get a fantastic sense of that HOPE going through there. There’s a reason Oliver Crowmwell was there, and then wasn’t. Its striking for me in a way churches rarely are. I love that aspect of it, my wife loved the straight history aspects of it, the craftsmanship of the building itself and the graves are absolutely worth study, if you’re a royals person, that’s where the coronation is, if you just want to hit the tourist highlights, it is a major one. I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

Thing I didn’t expect to love: The Christmas Garden Path at Blenheim Palace. 

I cannot express to you what a tonally bizarre journey the Blenheim path was. It was as if they asked several different people to come together and make this, but refused to allow them to speak to each other, so you jump from moment to moment and it has absolutely no unity whatsoever. You begin in a very boring “Nice lights set to Pentatonix” Christmas display that in no way prespares you for what is about to happen. At one point, in what I called, “The Annual Tory Salute to the Blitz” it is literally the glowering face of Winston Churchill, illuminated, against a backdrop of flames. If you do not believe me ask @morkaischosen who was there with me. Then we went into the “Christmas Rave” where there was, I am not joking, pulsing lights as you walk in a circle around them to techno music. Is this related to Christmas? Who knows? WHo cares! There are dancing fountains! There’s a love tunnel! One of the areas I just called “A Eurovision entry from Eastern Europe” and I was completely right. It was bonkers. It was jarring. I loved it. 10/10. Also, whoever planned it out had amazing wisdom with the drink stops, I am so serious. I never had to chug nor wait, they were spaced PERFECTLY for finishing one drink and wanting another. 

But one of my actual favorite times, that I will look on with extreme fondness, is something that I think most people would have found boring to hear about: Sitting on the living room floor with @verbforverb while @tallangrycockatiel sat there and knitted, sampling whiskeys. It was not anything you’d find in a travel guide but in many ways was what I came there to do and will be one of my favorite memories (also verb trying to fucking murder me during a monring run)

[someonexsomeone]

Street By Street

Title: Street by Street

Author: SomeonexSomeone

Word Count: 3.5k

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Reader

Summary: It's really hard to love someone with everything you have when they have already lived.

Authors Note: guys!! its the first fic of Laufeyfest! I really wanted all of these stories to be love stories, but sometimes love stories are too easy. instead, how about a story that hurts mwahahaha

Miguel O’Hara was a man of a million expressions and emotions, but very few words. Though intimidating at first, it didn’t take long for anyone to listen to his short, clip sentences to realize that his care was beyond the measure of any normal person. His heart, despite being hurt, thumped with care for his city and its people, and his actions were always first and foremost to help those in need. It was, admittedly, that care that put you in his path.

It wasn't often that a civilian drew his attention. To be fair, most of his life had been surrounded by astounding people, whether the other geniuses that surrounded him in school, the classes he took at university, the capable scientists that worked alongside him at Alchemax, and even now, with the best the multiverse had to offer (though, he refused to admit that out loud to anyone but LYLA, the only other person who knew his complete plan). But, there was something about the way your eyes shinned in dedication, the absolute fury he saw on your face when the city treated its people poorly, the pride in the way your shoulders sagged after making progress in a corrupt city, that had him returning for more, whether it was stopping by to monitor you while you worked in a way so uniquely you, or to personally meet you in the lobby to once again say no, he didn’t have time to do a meet and greet at the Rec Center despite how great it was that you were fighting for union workers working the steam lines. He wanted to, more than he cared to admit, just to see that blinding smile he saw only occasionally thrown around whatever new project you were working on, but things were unstable right now. The dread in his stomach at the thought of being away from his computer long enough to let a world-destroying anomaly get away was too much, even for you. He did, however, feel his resolve slowly chip away whenever your posture slumped a little, despite the countless times he said no already, and bid a pleasant farewell with a promise to visit again soon.

“Don’t bother coming back”, slowly turned into, “I look forward to it” faster than even he could believe, and it surely didn’t help that the more Spiderpeople joined HQ, the more were there to witness his pathetic wave and gentle hand on your back as he lead you back to the front door. 

“You know,” Peter B remarked one day, appearing behind him with a giggling MayDay. Only a few months old and she was already a little ball of energy, squealing and making more noise than Miguel ever wanted to hear at work. “She really seems like a nice woman. You should give her a chance.”

“What would you know?” Miguel growled, spinning on his heel.

“I’m just saying, man. You got this whole miserable brute thing down pretty good, but it wouldn’t hurt to let yourself live a little.”

“I’ve done that already, and look how that turned out!” Peter B stepped back, whether for his own sake to escape Miguel’s wrath, or to protect MayDay he didn’t totally know. Miguel huffed, shaking his head once. “You know my story already. I’ve lived plenty, and we can’t afford any distractions while the Multiverse is falling apart-”

“I’m not saying you should give everything to go on a coffee date,” Peter B interjected, ignoring the glare Miguel sent him. “I’m just saying that you lived a life that wasn’t yours. Why not give this world a chance to make you happy? You know there won’t be any chance of anomaly here.”

“You don’t know that,” he snapped. Despite his annoying tendency to bring his child to work and butt in when he wasn’t needed, Miguel didn’t know if his frustration was from Peter B’s interference in his personal life…or the fact that he desperately wanted him to be right.

“Coffee. You can do that, can’t you?”

“And who will be here if something goes wrong? You?” Miguel huffed in amusement, nearly missing the slight smug twitch in his fellow spider’s smile. Peter B placed a hand on his larger companion's shoulder, willing himself to keep it there despite every nerve in his body twitching to take it away.

“Sure, I can do it, if you want.” Miguel eyed the hand on his shoulder. “You also have LYLA and Jess and even Ben.” They exchanged a single, pointed glance. “Okay, not Ben, but you do have people you can trust to notify you if anything goes wrong. And, besides, it’s not like you have to hide who you really are, unlike the rest of us..”

So, in a rare instance of trust, Miguel approached you and asked you out for coffee. 

Well, he really swung by while you were working downtown, scooping you up in his arms and bringing you to the quiet cafe inside HQ, demanding you tell him all about the fundraiser you approached him about last time. And, in a rare instance of admitting Peter B was correct, he didn’t have any regrets, not after your smile lit up your face, pulling out a folder from your bag to show him the plans.

Miguel was…to be honest, there wasn’t any word that could describe him better than odd. After a near year of being treated like every other average citizen to seeing him nearly every day to spending most nights together was a pattern you never expected to happen. Even more, you thought the unusual behavior was just that, unusual, but you had never met someone who could keep you on your toes so much. And, if you were honest with yourself, you loved every minute of it.

Yes, his demeanor would flip at the drop of the hat, but his morals never swayed from the dedicated man you loved. In a day you watched him badger a teenager before demanding they visit the medical ward for their injuries, pulverize a criminal on the street before swooping in to give you a gentle kiss, and throw a table across the room immediately after taking a selfie with his close digital companion. If you didn’t know him any better, you would be concerned for his health with the fluctuation in his mood, but there was something always stopping you from being afraid. 

That thing? The simple adoration in his eyes when they met yours. 

Being in his arms was always a pleasure, but you could stare into his eyes for hours without break, running your hands through his hair and just drinking in his entire being. Work would pass in a haze until you returned to his arms, and days off were spent walking around the HQ with him, staring longingly at him, and helping out where you could, which primarily meant distracting him when he started to bounce on his toes with impatience.

(Multiple Spiderpeople have caught you two sprawled on the couch in his office, you laying on top, just staring into his eyes and giving him gentle kisses every couple of seconds. It was the reason he now has a crude ‘Do Not Disturb. Idiots in Love’ sign outside his door that LYLA puts up near daily.)

So, when Miguel had to leave suddenly one morning, you thought nothing of it. HQ was needing him at any hour of the day, and being the protector of the multiverse was more than a simple 9-5 job. He planted a heavy kiss on your lips before departing, like he did every time (a silent apology for waking you up), and jumped from the landing outside your window. One glance at the clock, blinding numbers far too early to even comprehend, you rolled over and drunk in the scent he left behind on his warm side of the bed. Not seeing him that night was also not unusual, though you typically for some sort of message from him, just to let you know he was okay. Despite this, you tucked yourself into bed after a long day, ready to see him in the morning.

Then the morning came. By lunch, you still hadn’t heard anything. Dinner came and went. Then, two, three, four days and still not a word from Miguel. Now you were getting worried.

“LYLA?” you called into the watch on your wrist, legs crossed as you sat on your bed. A gift from Miguel if you ever needed something when he wasn't there, but you haven’t really had to use it recently. In fact, it took you over a minute just to clasp it around your wrist and find the button to turn the damn thing on, since it lived in your bedside drawer most days. Why have it on you when you were glued to Miguel’s side anyway?

“Hiya!” Her sudden appearance made you jump, a titling laugh escaping her digital lips. “What can I do for you?”

“Have you seen Miguel? I haven’t heard from him recently.” At this, her eyebrows furled.

“What?”

“Is he on a mission or something?” When she didn’t move, you clenched your fingers nervously. “I know I’m not really supposed to know any details but I figured maybe you could tell me if he’s okay or not. That’s something I’m allowed to know, right?” She continued to stand still like her model was completely frozen. “LYLA?”

“Sorry!” Her entire being glitched, bouncing up and down before swaying like she gave herself an electric shock. “I was just trying to see where Miguel’s watch was to let you know.” She gave you a pleasant smile, but there was something making the corners twitch suspiciously. “He’s currently at the cafe at HQ. I thought he was here with you this whole time.”

“With me? But he left five days ago and hasn’t come back. This is the first time I’ve heard anything.” Her smile turned completely.

“He hasn’t been with you? I thought…your watch is usually here so I didn’t even think to check…” She looked at your earnestly, before glitching again.

“LYLA? Is something wrong?”

“It’s just…he hasn’t let me come into the office recently, so I thought…And he hasn’t really been on duty since we had a minor anomaly warning the other day in the underbelly.” Your confused look turned to alarm. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he just found … something?”

“But wouldn’t he tell you?” When she didn’t say anything, you jumped up, practically throwing the watch around while you threw your jacket and shoes on. 

“Woah, woah, woah! What are you doing?”

“LYLA, he’s acting weird. Weirder than usual. If something’s going on…I need to know.”

“But you shouldn’t go out right now! It’s really late, and you have no one here to-” You smiled gently at her.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. Dedicated myself to it. Don’t worry, LYLA, I’ve walked these streets long before the protection of my Spiderman.” These reassurances didn’t do much to stop her from practically begging you to stay home and wait until the morning. You could hear her telling you she was threatening to send messages to Miguel that you were coming, threatening that she wouldn’t let you in the building so there was no point in going, even going as far as to activate the beeping notification on your watch that sent Miguel your location. You didn’t care. If something was bothering Miguel, you didn’t want him to be dealing with it alone, not after learning all about the near-debilitating, self-destructive depression he went through after losing his daughter.

HQ wasn’t close by any means, and your body was nearly frozen by the time you arrived at the front of it, too worried about Miguel to do anything about your pajamas. The building was burning like the brightest beacon, still managing to catch you in a moment of awe, before you approached the front doors. When you pulled on them, they rattled but didn’t open.

“LYLA?”

“I think you need to go home.” Her serious tone alarmed you.

Raising your arm so you were eye to eye, you stared at her. “What? LYLA, seriously what’s going on?” Her body glitched in and out on your wrist, her eyes flickering between you and the door. “If it was a mission or some Spiderman-related thing you would have just told me, so what’s really going on?” 

Her mouth opened and closed, before deciding on, “He’s in there with a woman.” Your eyebrows raised.

“Okay? A woman I know?” LYLA flinched but didn’t say anything. “LYLA, seriously. He’s a grown man, not some hormonal teenage boy. What woman?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“What?” She hesitated, then circled her hand in a motion you didn’t recognize. Beside her holographic body, a screen appeared. Miguel and a woman sat side by side, so close together that her side completely lined up with his. He was holding her hand gently, and her eyes were batting up at him, the HQ cafe’s sign brightly lighting up their faces so you could see their dual smiles. It took a double take to realize that, while you didn’t exactly recognize her, you did recognize her features. Your knees gave out, hitting the ground hard enough to bruise.

LYLA didn’t say anything, taking the photo away from your searching eyes.

“But...but…but…” Your brain couldn’t process it. What was Tempest doing here? You tried a few more times to form words, but your brain and your mouth refused to work together. Finally, they managed to form, “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t want you to know.” Your eyes narrowed, mind stilling.

“You knew?” LYLA’s eyes widened.

“No!” Your skepticism was clear on your face. She winced. “Okay, I knew. But I promise that I didn’t know what was really happening.” You scoffed. “Miguel returned back from the investigation like he had seen a ghost. Then he asked me to replay the footage from the surrounding streets, and that’s when we saw her. He didn’t know that there would be a Tempest here! He left almost immediately after that, and when I saw his signal head towards you, I assumed…”

“But that doesn’t-”

“He brought her back to HQ later that night. He asked me to run scans on her and said he was going to distract her while I ran an analysis. That was it.”

“But it wasn’t, was it?!” Your furious tone made her flinch. Your eyes widened. “This is what you meant, wasn’t it? When you said he found something.”

“The scan came back negative for anomalies. She’s supposed to be here, she belongs in this world.” Your heart stopped.

“You mean…he has a chance…?”

“Any time I tried to get in contact with him that last couple of days, he told me he was off duty and that I should only contact him if there was an emergency. I thought…I was hoping he was spending it with you.” Your body was burning, the cold mixing with the chill that settled deep in your bones. Miguel, who you thought was the love of your life, had found something to bring back Gabriella, a second chance at the life that was cruelly taken from him. The happiness he had that, while he was very happy with you, didn’t stop you from catching him staring longingly at the only photo he had left of his daughter. “He loves you, you have to know that-”

“But why would he?” You ripped the watch off your arm, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. “I just…I want him to be happy, more than anything. And I can’t…I can’t give him Gabriella.” LYLA started to protest, but you just shook your head. “Just…take care of him for me, okay?”

“No! Wait!” You placed the watch gently on the floor of the building. She continued to shout, the familiar ding of Miguel’s notification blasting rapidly. “Don’t leave! Please!”

You smile sadly at her, turning on your heel, taking the short walk back to the sidewalk with her voice slowly fading away. Despite your best efforts, tears spilled over, too large to allow you to see beyond your feet as they dragged along the pavement. Hiccuping sobs made your steps stagger, nearly crashing into the hedges that ran along the length of the Spider Society HQ. With a huff, you finally had to sit down, allowing the painful weeps to bubble over. Your heart was breaking into a million pieces, and your hands were shaking too much to catch the pieces.

“Hey! You there! Are you okay?” The voice was faint, barely audible over the whirling thoughts that muted everything around you. A figure crouched down in front of you, but it was still too hard to make out any features. ”Woah! Wait, what are you doing here? Where is Miguel?” The figure’s hands came into view, but they didn’t get close enough to touch you, only just enough to see that they hovered awkwardly in mid-air.

“...Peter?” you said softly after a minute, blinking rapidly enough to barely make his face. You pushed the heels of your hands into your eyes, wiping away as many tears as you could. “What..what are you doing here?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?” He finally settled on patting your head, though you could tell it did not come as easy to him as it did when he did the same to his daughter. “Why are you out here?”

“I, um…” You huffed. “I was just leaving.”

“Leaving?” You nodded.

“Yeah. I, uh…,” Think brain! Come on! “...am about to start a new project at work that will take me away for a while so I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone. I didn’t realize how late it was though.” Finally clear-visioned, you made eye contact with the Spider person you had come to know the most, smiling gently at him. “I didn’t think I would be seeing you, though.”

“I’m on patrol tonight since Miguel couldn’t be here.” Your heart panged dangerously hard. “I thought for sure-”

“I’m glad I was able to see you before I left,” you interrupted, pulling yourself to your feet. Peter B just stared in confusion, slowly rising after you. “It’s so last minute, I was just going to send you a message through L-LYLA,” you pushed through the stutter, “but now I can give you a real goodbye.” You hugged him fiercely. Peter B hesitated only a moment before hugging you back. 

Your knees almost gave way at the comfort he provided, your arms locking even more. You were going to miss him, dearly. Now that Miguel had found his real love, where would that leave you in the mess that was the Spider Society? There was no reason for you to come back, not when Miguel was the only reason you went in the first place, but there were people in there you had come to care deeply for. Surely they would come out once in a while, maybe you could catch them then? Or maybe you could just walk up to the building like you always did, requesting LYLA to send them down so you guys could get something to eat together? The thought of your new friends made the pit in your stomach grow.

What would you do now? You had been so wrapped up in Miguel the last couple of months that you weren’t even sure what was going on on the day-to-day. Work had been so far from your mind that you had only taken on small projects here and there, leaving the bigger decisions to others so you wouldn’t have to stray so far from HQ. You hadn’t met up with your old friends and coworkers in months, let alone without Miguel at your side. Would they even want you back? How could they, when you had essentially broken their trust in you by picking a man over your friends, your work, your city? 

You pushed your head into Peter B’s chest further, allowing yourself just a moment more of his support. 

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” His voice broke your swirling thought cycle, jolting you back to reality. You gently let him go, twitching your face into the best smile you could muster.

“I’m fine,” you lied, “just tired from all the preparation. I need to be heading back though.”

“Let me take you.” Before you could protest, he stopped you with a raised hand. “Please.” You smiled again, this time a little more sincere.

“Thank you, Peter.”

After arriving home, you rushed to your laptop, typing the fastest message you could to your coworkers. After a minute, the late crew chimed back, more than happy to have you on board for the underbelly project they were having a hard time finding a leader for. Their enthusiastic, praising messages brought a smile to your face. 

This time, you swore, Miguel was going to get his happy ending, and you were going to get yours.

______________________________________________________________

masterlist  l What is Laufeyfest? l Laufeyfest masterlist

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

i actually love you’re losing me haha

but i got a little sad/frustrated at the thought that most people taylor’s writing songs about won’t ever get the chance to tell their side of the story. and it’s such a complicated matter, too. because while yes, i believe that singing/writing about one’s own experience shouldn’t be viewed as wrong, it’s hard to ignore the audience’s reaction to the songs.

i remember this one interview, i think it was from red era, when taylor was telling a story about a guy who after breaking up said something along the lines of “don’t you think about writing songs about me”. and taylor played it off as a joke, and i think she said that she replied i won’t, and then she did, with the sassiness that was on-brand for her back then, and which i loved. but this particular interview always was in the back of my mind whenever one of her exes was brought up within the fandom.

i remember that people would bring up this quote as an example of jake’s(?) assholery, and i get that, because trying to control another person’s way of expression is kind of an asshole move, but. it must be extremely frustrating for taylor’s exes to be painted as the bad guys and then be hated by thousands (if not millions) of people for years after.

and it’s not even the ‘rabid’ fans, so to speak. one of my best friends, a fellow swiftie, reacted with confusion and mild disgust(?; i’m sorry, not sure if that’s the best word for it haha) upon hearing that one of my comfort movies is one in which jake plays lead role. and she’s really rational and level-headed. granted, she’s probably not tweeting hateful stuff about him, but it still impacts her choices about which movies to watch, for example. and i imagine there’s more people like that.

i have this one song of john mayer’s that brings great memories, cause it was my camp counselor’s favourite and he used to play it for us on his guitair & sing, and i felt guilty listening to it for YEARS bc of what john mayers did to taylor.

i went on quite a rant, but what i mean is: the view that taylor only writes songs about her ex-boyfriends is *extremely* damaging and frankly not true, but it’s hard to deny that her songs impact (sometimes more, sometimes less) the lives of people about whom the song are about. the question is, should artist take it into account while creating, or would that impact the craft too much? i don’t exactly have an answer.

but i do understand why people would be afraid to start a relationship with taylor.

also, your blog feels very safe, so thank you for that :D <3

Okay, so... I'll get back to this when I'm not as frustrated with the fandom as I am today, but there are a couple of things I wanna say.

I need everyone who says "it's her story, she can say whatever she wants!" to please reflect on what such a blank statement entails and what are its consequences.

EXAMPLE A. Lev Tolstoy is one of the greatest writers that have ever existed. He was also a horrible human being who vexed and tormented his wife, Sophia Tolstaya, for years. I'm not gonna go into that here, but there was abuse, of all sorts, involved. Tolstoy crushed her spirit and made her life miserable while forcing her to bear more than ten children. Tolstoy is also the author of "The Kreutzer Sonata", a novella about the hatred of a man for his wife, which ends with the former killing the latter (described by him as "hysterical" and "mentally diseased") and which can be read as an ode to sexual purity. Did Tolstoy practise what he preached in the novel? Absolutely not. And yet, his word was taken as gospel by everyone in Russia, and people pitied Sophia. They thought that she was the woman portrayed in the novel and that she was making poor Tolstoy's life miserable, even though she went to great lengths to stop people from speculating and talking about it (she went as far as protesting the censorship of the novella in front of the czar). After the author's death, she was also despised by scholars and her entire persona was reduced to that of a frigid wife holding her husband back. It was only at the beginning of the 2000s that Sophia's diaries and two novels were finally published and studied. And they told the story of a woman who longed for a loving marriage and who was dying in her husband's shadow. It took 100 years for people to learn the truth about Sophia, because they'd only paid attention to Tolstoy's art before then.

EXAMPLE B. Hélène Devynck is Carrère's ex-wife. He is, without any doubt, one of the most famous writers alive, and arguably a top 10 writer worldwide when it comes to literary fiction and nonfiction. He is, again, an amazing writer (read "The adversary"). In his latest work, Yoga, he had a few passages where he wrote avout Devynck, even though in their divorce there was a clause that forced him to submit anything he wrote about Devynck to her, so that she could delete it, no questions asked. The story is long, but this quote from Devynck sums it up nicely: "I'm asking for distance. I don't want to be his literary object anymore. I just want to exist elsewhere".

So, to sum up: to every fan out there who's saying "she can do whatever she wants with her story! She shouldn't care about the consequences!", PLEASE remember that that's the same excuse used to justify what famous and powerful MALE artists have done for years: write about their female partners, make them a character in their story and delete their personality without any care for the consequences.

I don't have a solution. And I think that art should be as free as possible. But if you can't recognize the precarious position of "the muse", if you can read Carrère's ex-wife plea and still think that the author can do whatever the fuck they want, then I really don't know what to tell you...

[iamheretemporarly]

Making a list of my AUs cause why not

-“Where did the years go?”:

its a mutant apocalypse au, where before thebomb went off, Leo’s brothers ended up trapped in a whole different dimension fighting the kraang, after 5 months of trying to go back, they finally manage to do it, but when they arrive at the lair, its eerie and quite, at the dojo they hear footsteps and when they turn around they meet face to face with leo, who’s older, bigger, and vadtly different

what happened is that only 5 months to them were 13 years to leo, he lived throughthe mutagen bomb and spent his years fighting to survive in the apocalypse with Chloe who he managed to rescue from the apocalypse and metalhead who gained sentience after accidentally being mutated by chloe

now thats a change in the course of their lives thats honna need some getting used to

-“ghost karanas”:

inthis au the boys grew up missing a brother, mikey, donnie and raph, lost their older brother as children because of the kraang, they managed to catch him and he didn’t survive

fast forward karai shows up, after she finds out the truth about herfather and moves in with the turtles and splinter, her father gifts her with twin katanas,karanas that were meant for someone else, not anymore

the moment she wields them, something awakens, and it takes her a bit, but eventually she notices the little figure that has been following her around ever since she touched the weapons

the true wielder of said weapon, a little ghost, the ghost of a little turtle child

now shes on the oath on discovering who this child is, and what his relation to the hamato family is

which is going to be hard considering how everytime she brings that topic up its immediately shut down

-“wrong place, right time”:

after a fight with the kraang, the boys wind up dropped through a portal that transformsthem to a whole different dimension, a dimension that seems at war

after hiding and exploring, they notice a man, fighting some kind of creatures, but what they also notice is the robot above him about disintegrate him, leo leaps and pushes the man out of the way saving his life from the red laser that was about to strike him dead

one smoke bomb awayand now they miraculously ran away and found a place to hide

seeing the man closer, they notice that hes actually a mutanatturtle with twin katanas and a blue mask

hes Leo’s counterpart

looks like theirgonna do some patching upand waiting for him to awaken, cause they have a lot of questions

-“Sunset linings”:

a the last ronin and 2k12 tmnt crossover, the boys are dropped in the last ronin universe and try to navigate through it, after being spooked by a decapitated cyborg they tripped over they decided that hidingn the sewers is better than being exposed like this in a world they have no idea how it works

in their walk in the sewers they stop when they hear someone talk distantly

“QUITE, no more talking”

they follow the sound and stumble on a passed out turtle guy in the sewers, looking all grimy and emo, they immediately turn to look at leo, earning them “what!?l” from him

to mikey’s begging and puppy eyes they end up dragging the guy to help him (which results im ronin not meeting casey marie at that point)

after examining donnie declares that most of his injuries are internal, probably caused by a huge fall or something, so leo decides to pull out the healing hands, which works

and now they’re sitting and betting on who’s counterpart this guys is while they wait for him to wake up,they’re all betting that its leo