#no child would ever want to fight bad guys or do magic or have superpowers or save the world

[jewfrogs]

when people say that any child who does anything interesting in fiction for children is a “child soldier” or is performing “child labor” you know that they’ve forgotten everything meaningful and sacrosanct and torturous in childhood. go ahead and try giving kids only fiction where adults do everything worth doing and the children sit safely at home living lives devoid of danger and adventure and anything remotely worthwhile. i bet they’ll love that.

[keroseneinhalers]

my favorite part of warrior cats is the grotesque story of squirrelflight, ashfur, and the extended cast of cats that sound like they came out of an ajj song

this gal named squirrelflight flirts with a guy named ashfur a few times. typical 80s romance song. its quick, its fleeting. squirrelflight gets together with brambleclaw. its all real lovely. brambleclaw gets promoted to leader after squirrelflights dad goes into retirement and makes his deputy the chief. brambleclaw is now bramblestar

(before the promotion and after the marriage, brambleclaw leads the entire 4 clans to a new territory. not relevant. he also stabs his brother in the neck with a tent stake)

and then squirrelflights sister leafpool, who is a medicine cat and sworn into celibacy, has sex with a guy from windclan named crowfeather. this is something all the cats are sworn not to do. double illegal.

crowfeather is a bit of a whore because he was previously in love with another girl who went on a magical journey with him when he was a child. (brambleclaw was there for that too. brambleclaw is eternal and everywhere) the girl crowfeather was in love with got impaled by a falling stalagmite while protecting a tribe of savage feral cats with names very similar to english translations of a few native american names i know. interesting. racist? there was a mountain lion involved

yeah so they have sex and leafpool gets pregnant. but since she did two crimes in one she gives the kids to squirrelflight and pretends they belong to her and brambelstar. theres an uncomfortable birthing scene because the kids decided to emerge from her cat uterus in the middle of a snowstorm. this is very telling of their characters after birth

theres three kids. jayfeather lionblaze and hollyleaf. jayfeather is very angry. lionblaze is angry but in a brave way. hollyleaf loves rules. they are a legendary trio

theres a thing about superpowers, and a prophecy or something. jay is sickly and blind and can see peoples thoughts. lionblaze never loses any fights, ever, and he maims ashfur a little while theyre trianing. hollyleaf doesnt have any powers, but she is absolutely obsessed with the warrior code and gets caught up with a guy named sol who says the world is gonna end. none of this is relevant except the "bootlicker hollyleaf" thing

ashfur is stewing. ashfur has been stewing for years now. long enough that they literally brought all 4 clans across the continent to a new territory kind of stewing. hes lonely. he misses the girl he was madly in love with, and shes married to the coolest guy in town. hes in agony. (over in windclan, crowfeather has a new girlfriend. manwhoring as long as he lives)

theres a big fire. thunderclans entire territory sets on fire. everyone is escaping, except for squirrelflight and her three kids. jayfeather, lionblaze, and hollyleaf, who is contemplating becoming an antivaxxer or something

imagine this: a clearing on the edge of a pit. the pit is where the cats live. everything is on fire around this clearing. there is one log running across the clearing, and squirreflight and her fake kids are going along it to escape. theyre the last out

ashfur appears he stands at the other end of the log. hes pissed. hes crying. he hates squirrelflight. he hates her so much. his rage is all consuming, like the fire that burns around them. he says he wants her in as much pain as possible, and he knows how: taking the only thing she loves in this world. her 3 kids

we all know something ashfur doesnt. the kids arent hers. squirrelflight, though non an omnipresence, is gifted with this knowledge herself.. she sees ashfurs twisted evil mind and tells him, flat out that they arent hers. she doesnt love them. he can kill them, they mean nothing to her. they are, after all, just her sister leafpool's. why would she care for them?

ashfur is stunned. he gives up. he leaves. squirrelflight and her three kids leave. its a bit awkward. imagine the thanksgiving dinner table after a particularly bad argument. thats all this is really

anyways. hollyleaf is broken from this. shes the daughter of a medicine cat and a manwhore from a clan that only eats rabbits. she cant take it. much like ashfur, she snaps

there are these big clan meetings, once every month. everyone goes, except the old people and the dying people and the kids who just want juiceboxes and lunchables. thunderclan is heading out to the Meeting Island. they find a body in the river. surprise! its ashfur

they go on to the gathering despite finding the body of one of their finest, most mentally haunted warriors polluting the stream with the blood seeping out of his slit throat. the three kids are there. squirrelflight is there. leafpool is there. bramblestar is there

this story has very weird heathers energy to me. its there, but it isnt coherant. like a bad remix of 100 gecs, sort of. this part is no exception

hollyleaf runs up to the big tree the clan leaders stand on and monologue. shes not allowed to do this. perhaps the sense that she lost her identity with her illigitimate birth turned into something real, that the warrior code didnt matter anymore. perhaps she was just tired of being kind; she wanted to go apeshit

she confesses. to two things. number one - the muderder of ashfur. how tragic. number two - leafpool. leafpools affar with crowfeather. squirrelflights lies to her for her entire life. theres chaos. thunderclan is like stan twitter after a minecraft youtuber said something racist 8 years ago. the 3 other clans are trying desperately to get in on this drama. the hot tea of the hour if you will

hollyleaf says her share. she runs away. lionblaze and jayfeather chase after her all the way back to the thunderclan territory. she yells at them. she runs into a tunnel and gets crushed by rocks. thats the end. shes dead.

jk jk that was a lie shes alive and shes living in a huge cave system with a ghost cat. remember the native american coded mountain tribe? yeah, they had ancestors. the ancestors lived at the territory the 4 clans moved to after squirelflight flirted with ashfur and before she got together with bramblestar. they used to drown little kids in the tunnels. jayfeather is the entire reason why the ancestors moved to the mountains and became the racist mountain tribe. i wont explain the timeline of this, and i dont think i could if i tried

up above hollyleafs slowburn romance with a transparent cat, theres a new girl with superpowers. prophecy fulfilled yadda yadda. her sister is annoyed that she isnt #quirky and so she joins a fighting cult run by the cats in hell. i cannot stress this enough its literally every cat from the 50 some books before this who went to hell. they have an army of children. theyre training them. the sister kills one of her classmates and becomes equals with the hell cats. my second favorite plotline in the series

the hell cats come to the land of the living. the sister betrays them. theres a big battle, and its supposed to be the end of the series but you know theyre gonna continue it for at least 20 more books. (they did). hollyleaf appears, and i dont think its ever explained how or why. but shes back, and she joins the battle. everyones too busy with the literal hell cats to care much about some kid with a body count of 1 appearing randomly

hollyleaf fights a bit. she gets mauled to death. thats the end. its just over. she dies and she doesnt come back. rip to a queen

i think my biggest question besides why would someone create this ad continue to do so for fifty plus books, is how the fuck brambleclaw stabbed his brother with a tent stake when he literally doesn’t even have hands. what.

[allhailthecoffeegods]

A lonely kitty in Gotham

Chapter 1

Tired... Marinette was extremely tired. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep but instead she sat staring at the wall of her office in her small apartment she had bought and was now living in because her parents kicked her out.

Why was she staring at the wall you may ask? Short answer, she had finally done it! She had finally tracked down Hawkmoth and Mayura after 3 years of fighting she now knew both of their identities (Gabriel Agreste and Natalie Sancoeur) and not only that but she had an entire file filled with proof. Now all that was left was to take back their miraculous and hand them over to the police (not before cursing them first... obviously).

Unfortunately it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. You see Marinette or Nettie which she goes by now was alone, completely and utterly alone.

No Parents, no family and no friends.

Three years ago Nettie had all of the above she was happy, she had a best friend Alya and a group of many friends from her class, she had two loving but slightly distant parents who ran the most popular bakery in all of Paris possibly even France and her amazing grandmother Gina who traveled the world and told her all about the crazy things she did (some of which she promised not to tell her parents about because it may have been considered breaking the law but nothing reallllly bad).

But all of that soon changed over the first year Hawkmoth terrorised Paris with his akuma and was later joined by mayura with her sentimonsters. Slowly she lost everything including her partner in fighting crime Mr.Bug holder of the ladybug miraculous.

Nettie is in procession of not only the black cat miraculous but also forcefully became the last remaining guardian of 18 other mini gods that are bound to jewels (excluding the butterfly and peacock (not that she would ever give them up because they are basically her family now and she will do absolutely everything to protect them)). How?

Running late to class 3 years ago she saved a (very) old man (186 years old to be specific) from being hit by a car, and for some reason that was enough for him to “gift” her the black cat miraculous as he saw her true chaotic soul and aura (it didn’t matter that she was only 13 YEARS OLD!) he thought it was a brilliant idea to turn her into a child soldier fighting a war against two supervillains more than double her age.

After and introduction to the one and only God of Destruction, who by the way is OBSESSED with the stinkiest of cheeses, she became one of Paris’ main superheroes Kitty Noir alongside her partner Mr.Bug who she guessed to be around the same age as her at the time. It was easy to deduct that he was going to be more of a problem instead of a partner due to his obsessive and intense flirting and lack of skills other than some possible fencing training, all in all he didn’t have a clue how to fight. He was also apparently extremely reckless... like more reckless than her pouring 2 energy drinks into coffee before downing it and has died so many times in a fight she now also has a close relationship with tiki the God of Creation having had to end the fight herself (honestly why did the old guy pick him because it seems like he didn’t even do a similar ‘oh help save me’ situation like he had with her otherwise the old guy would already be dead!) Even though she wasn’t that much better to begin with she did have some hand to hand combat training curtesy of Gina and her ‘friends’ (let’s talk about those later). And she was now training in martial arts and going to the gym to build more muscle and become better without the enhanced supersuit just incase (she also sticks a domino mask on before transforming because she’s paranoid okay and if she is ever forced to detransform she doesn’t want anyone knowing her identity right of the bat to use against her, okay!)

Alongside that she was also extremely smart (like genius level) great with technology and quick to come up with some absolutely insane but brilliant plans. This all resulted in her taking on more of a leadership roll whilst fighting akumas. Mr.Bug only got worse as time went on and her civilian life went downhill, it took 8 months for the old man (previous guardian of the miraculous and temporary mentor for 2 of the months) to become compromised and pass the roll onto her. And the first thing she did was take the ladybug miraculous back and erase the holders (Adrien Agreste her former friend) memories of being Mr.Bug.

The only problem with that was the battle Miracle queen where master fu (the old guardian man) was compromised, and so were all 8 of her temporary heroes except Viperion, holder of the snake miraculous, who had started to tour around the world with his farther Jagged Stone) this ment there were two consequences of taking The ladybug back, the first being she was now alone against two superpowered terrorists but also that she had to switch transformations at the end of a battle to be able to purify the Akuma and cast the miraculous cure to fix everything and yes that did include... resurrection of people who died in the cross fire.

Anyways, back to how Nettie is alone. Only a few weeks after the first attack, an exchange student transferred to the the newly dumbed Akuma class *sigh*. At first she seemed nice and had and was telling the class of her interesting life, her mother was a Italian diplomat and she’s traveled the world.

But Nettie had a bad gut feeling about Lila Rossi which unfortunately was correct. On her third day in the class she started gushing over how kitty noir aka Nettie dearest (obviously unknown to everyone else) saved her from and Akuma attack and they became “best friends”, to say Nettie was left speechless and confused at the lie is an understatement.

Regrettably Nettie was unable to prove her story was a lie because how would she know said superhero didn’t save her without revealing her secret identity.

But the girl carried on creating more and more outlandish claims, such as how she saved Jagged Stones cat on a jet runway (like come on seriously what airport would allow a CHILD of even a cat to run out onto the tarmac). But pointing this out was apparently a mistake which Nettie soon discovered in the girls bathroom after class. Lila sauntered in with a sickly sweet smile that was soon dropped when Nettie refused to give into this girls bullshit.

Hence she was pinned against the wall and threatened, that if she didn’t go along with lie-la’s lies she would lose everything she loved before leaving so she wasn’t caught. Not believing her Nettie continued to point out inconsistencies and facts that contradict her story’s but no matter how much proof was presented to the class lie-la was able to turn it around (meta theory coming into her head: maybe she wasn’t affected because of the miraculous magic) and plant the idea that Nettie was a bully into all her friends heads which apparently all share one brain cell ( or so she thought until Adrien confirmed he knew they were lies to but he was taking the ‘high road’ because nobody was getting hurt, it’s definitely not like lilas ruining all there future careers by promising favours and opportunity’s that will never come and convincing them they no longer need to put in any effort for their futures *insert eye-roll* ).

So life continued and her friends started to turn on little Nettie the scattered brained, clumsy girl who bent over backwards to protect and make sure they were all happy. It hurt more than words could describe the day Alya her BEST FRIEND led the class to turn their backs on her and declare they no longer want to be friends with a jealous bully anymore.

Luckily Nettie wasn’t akumatised but she came very close to it. The only things keeping her going were her duty to Paris and her family.

But as a consequence to that good luck, bad luck hit like a truck. She didn’t know for a few weeks until a guy named Jason called her parents to inform them that her favourite person in the whole world her amazing grandmother Gina had passed away in a accident somewhere in the United States. And if that wasn’t bad enough Lila also managed to place a seed of doubt in her parents around the same time. Life fucking sucked. She wasn’t able to process and grieve due to Hawkfuck still being around so instead she threw herself into creating her own business (NeTi Designs) doing commissions, did I mention she’s a talented fashion designer... no, well now you know. As well as diving head first into a very thorough investigation on mothfucker in between fighting Akuma, helping in the bakery, plus training and patrolling the city of lights for two hours each night.

Atleast she didn’t have to make excuses to not hang out with her ex-friends anymore heh heh *cough*.

Eventually this resulted in her parents questioning her on her disappearances from her room after randomly checking in one night while she was out patrolling and the conversation sort of went like this.

“Marinette, where have you been?! I just checked your balcony and you weren’t up their. It’s 2am” Sabine exclaimed when she dropped back onto her bed moments after detransforming. “Mamma I swear I was up there and I fell asleep in the corner near my pillows behind the deck chair. I just woke up from the cold and I thought I herd movement and panicked because ‘oh my gosh!’ Is it an Akuma but it wasn’t it was you mamma” Nettie responded with dramatic waving of her hands and a fake smile.

Sabine was NOT impressed and most certainly knew it was a lie but it was 2am and she couldn’t deal with this right now so she glared at her daughter whilst leaving her room through the trapdoor.

This continued for two weeks with both her parents randomly checking in. Nettie had to eventually relocate her research into a small apartment a few streets away from the library (which she paid for with commission money that nobody but her knew about especially since her business was doing well and she didn’t put it past her class to try and destroy that if they ever found out) and say she was studying to not be caught doing deep background checks on all her suspects, making files for every Akuma and tracking the butterfly’s on a app she created that has multiple resources available to the public ranging from an alert for attacks that can be activated all the way to videos she made in her hero persona showing things such as meditation or basic self defence that should only be used if they’re unable to get to a safe area away from the Akuma or to buy time to then get away depending on the powers of said Akuma. (Could also be useful in regular crimes like attempts at mugging)

This lead to longer disappearances to the point all her stuff that had any value to her or was related to business and miraculous matters (so basically everything) she was practically living there already. Not that she realised since she got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep and week? She was so enclosed in her little world when her parents decided they had enough (after multiple accusations of her sleeping around with older men and doing drugs (all tests came back negative because her choice of drug was caffeine) which where definitely lilas doing) her parents yelled at her to get out and never come back... so she did the only thing she had to grab where her pillows and fairy lights and she was out of the door, the situation was dubbed a future Nettie problem because ya know suppressing your emotions so the world doesn’t end.

(Authors note: I have plans on making this a series. Hope you guys like it 🙃)

[coco96]

LDAF - The Avengers

Hiding Magic (Avengers X Teen!Reader) Warnings: Mention of crime (stealing) Request: ... reader who is a very powerful magician ... who also robs because their family is poor ... One day all the Avengers comes to their school to give a speech. However, the reader gets there late and sees the Avengers thinking they’re about to get arrested. They then go to the Bathroom to use magic and escape. Right when R using magic Peter, Tony, Strange walks in. After talking the R ends up an Avenger.

Serenity (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Sick child, illness Request: ... reader being a part of the avengers, but the others gets suspicious when she starts refusing missions on particular dates and she always sneaks of, but it turns out she visits a children’s hospital or something because she wants to give them hope? ...

Crushing The Grape (Avengers X Male!Reader) Warnings: Spoilers to Infinity War. Death. Reader basically tortured Thanos. Think Magneto with blood. Request: Could you do avengers x male reader where male reader kills that giant purple grape(thanos) on Titan

The Happiest Avenger (Avengers X Reader) TRIGGER WARNING: Depression and self harm mention Request: ... R is very happy to a point where they’re the happiest person on the avengers but the R is secretly messed up, they never shows it. The R has a secret they self-harm. So one day Steve finds the scars while they’re talking in the kitchen then thinks the worst. So he sets up a meeting with the crew and the next day R walks in and the crew have to act normal but then comfronts the R but the end is very fluff

Young Weapon (Avengers X Teen!Male!Reader) Warnings: Mention of violence, mention of fire, death of parents, mention of torture Request: ... reader where he’s discovered as a brainwashed assassin (like bucky) where he was taken when he was like 5 and is now 15 and he suffered worse than bucky did and they try to help him oh wow that was long

Not Happening (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Mentions of torture, brain washing, ptsd/nightmares and killing. Request: ... reader is a superpowered teenager that the avengers took care of after finding her in a hydra base. She’s still trying to fit in but the government is trying to take her away due to her past crimes when she was still controlled by hydra ...

Scratches (Avengers X Male!Reader) Warnings: Sexual mentions Request: … Where male reader was training and took his shirt of and the avengers see he has scratches(from late night activities) on his back and tease him about it and he comes up with a sassy response. The whole late night activities don’t have to be detailed

No More Fighting Pt 1 (Avengers X Reader)     |     Part 2 Warnings: Death of character Request: ... before the battle cap and iron have a fight but the reader plays peacemaker and makes everything alright. At the battle the reader sacrifice themself to help the avengers get away before getting captured ... but the avengers think they k.i.a. And at the funeral cap and iron make peace for the sake of the reader

Ranger (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Fighting Request: .... a steampunk style and meets the avengers after they see her beating up bad guys or something ...

Testing Patience (Avengers X Fem!Reader)     |     Part 2 Warnings: Mild swearing Request: … a very calm reader who life with the avengers in the tower and one day she is mad at something and all the avengers are there and think she is very cute when she is angry and hug her and joke on her, and she gets more angy because they think she is cute …

Anomaly (Avengers X Teen!Male!Reader) Request: ... reader who is a powerful being and all they know about their life is that they’re human with powerful powers. Avengers are trying to capture them, they’re trying to capture him to question him. because he robbed a bank and seen what the reader could do. The powers he has are called Imagination Manifestation its like imagining something and comes true. And at the end he some how gets a job at avengers

Blind Meeting (Avengers X Blind!Reader) Request: ... reader is really nervous to meet the avengers because shes blind but peter assures her that itll be fine and the avengers end up loving her

Loyalty (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Torture, memory loss Request: ... reader gets compromised, tries to take down the avengers ... They refuse to fight her ...

Revenge Is Bloody (Avengers X Vampire Reader)     |     Part 2 Warnings: Blood and gore Request: ... hydra operatives keep showing up dead drained of their blood? The team are called to investigate. Bucky is fine with it but everyone seems kind of nervous cause they don’t know what their dealing with. They find out it’s a girl in her teens that hydra experimented on turning her into a vampire and she was able to over power and hunt them down. They track her and she willingly goes with them to join the team.

Much Needed Sleep (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: passing out, swearing. Request: ... reader has insomnia and barely sleeps. She lies to the rest of them (the avengers) so they don’t worry. She has about 4 hours sleep a night, sometimes less. When she’s doing a mission, she collapses from exhaustion ...

Mistake (Avengers X Reader) Warnings: Injury, death Request: ... one day the reader messes up badly on a mission and the avengers talk about how the reader let down So the reader quits and the avengers go looking for the reader and finds them and talks about how they’re sorry ...

Real Magic (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warning: Falling from heights, presumed deaths, dangerous stunts. Request: Peter and The avengers go to a circus they decide to go see a magic show, and tony is totally not buying it. It turns out the reader is the star, and her magic is real. Maybe they try to get her on the team. …

“Did you have to seduce the entire team!?” (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Request: … reader is young and beautiful and starts living in the tower with the avengers and she flirts with all of them just for fun, and all of them think that she is in love with them and at the end they start fighting ... and ask reader which one would she choose finally and she chooses ruce ...

I Don’t Know What I’d Do Without You (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Self conscious reader, teasing Request: Can you do a female reader, where she feels as if she isn’t worthy enough to be in the avengers, she feels as if she’s the odd one out. Nat overhears her talking to her friend on the phone about thinking about leaving and she gets the others to convince her she is worthy?

Auntie June Came Early (Male Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warning: Period time~ Request: … reader is in her days and Nat and Wanda are away, and the male avengers got nuts because they think she might be in a lot of pain and overprotect her and dont let her do anything, not even move, and she complain about the pain just once and they all freak out and she thinks is hilarious! ...

Helping (Avengers X Teen!Reader) Warnings: Bulimia, throwing up, bullying, self conscious reader. Request: ... reader is Tony’s daughter (although all of them are protective of her) and she has bulimia and she gets caught purging by one of the team members.

Hello, I’m Pansexual (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Mention of homophobia, anxiety. Request: ... reader’s part of the avengers and has powers, but is pan and struggling w how to come out to the team bc she’s scared they’ll kick her off?

Surprise! (Avengers X Reader) Warnings: Sad emotions Request: … reader thinks everyone forgot their birthday but they were just planning a surprise party for them? …

If You Get Killed, Walk It Off. (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Grieving, supposed death, explosion, blood, death Request: … reader is in a mission with the avengers and then there is an explossion and the reader was in that building and everybody thinks that she died, and start to cry and remember how they love her, and finally she was ok, and goes with them and ask what happen? …

Help (Avengers X Reader) SERIOUS TRIGGER WARNING: SELF- HARM MENTIONS Request: ... a super angsty self-harm one with avengers.

Where Do Babies Come From? (Avengers X Child!Reader) Warnings: Mild swearing, sex ed talk Request: … reader is the little protect one sister of the avengers (like 12 years old) and she goes around the tower asking the avengers how babies are made. (she doesnt have a mom, so she doesnt know anything) and Tony freaks out because doesnt want her to grow up! …

Phantom (Avengers X Fem!Reader)     |     Part 2 Request: ... reader’s super badass the team rarely sees her shes like a ninja and according to clint who ever sees her outside missions will have a lucky day (lmao) and like when the teams having movie night shes just like standing behind them in the shadows ...

No Spoilers (Avengers X Reader)     |     Part 2     |     Part 3 Warnings: Spoilers of AOU SET BEFORE AOU Request: ... reader from our universe gets dropped into the avengers.

One Last Goodbye (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Death, mourning. Request: … reader died during a mission. Fury give Tony a USB key and told him to watch the video with the rest of the avengers. on the video the reader is talking about how much she loved them and tells each avenger little facts that she loved about them and she thanks them for being her family. …

Birthday Girl (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Request: ... it’s the female readers birthday. She works with the Avengers but aside from that she doesn’t have any friends. She is having a bad birthday, the avengers don’t know. They find out it’s her birthday and surprise her, making it better. …

Welcome to the Family (Avengers X Elf!Reader) Warnings: Mentions of neglect Request: ... reader is half human, half light elf but you were taken from Alfheim and abandoned on earth when the dark elves attacked. (From Thor) The avengers find you and take you in. Thor offers to bring you home but you’ve gotten attached to the human world and decides to stay. You’ve especially gotten attached to Tony cause he treated you like a daughter since you were very young and petite. Smaller then normal elves

Not Your Fault (Avengers X Fem!Teen!Reader) Warnings: Mention of extreme injury, disability, guilt. Request: ... reader is Tony’s teen daughter and she is really good friends with everyone in Team Cap but then during the airport fight she gets hurt and is unable to walk again ... and then when she sees Team Cap again they feel really guilty specially because one of them caused the injury and Natasha feels angry at herself because she was supposed to be her mother figure and look out for her ...

Fitting In (Avengers X Adopted!Reader) Request: ... Tony, being known for his impulsive choices adopts a 14 yr old girl. She’s got the innocent girl next door look but she’s a complete devil. Nat loves her, Clint is afraid of her and Loki, Bucky and Sam are her partners in crime for evil pranks. All is well until she pulls a prank on Bruce and he hulks out. But even Hulk falls under her innocent spell and can’t seem to do anything to her.

Hair Pulling (Avengers X Reader) Warnings: Hair pulling, pulling hair out Request: ... One of the Avengers finds out that the reader has trichotillomania and try’s to help them to stop?

Headaches (Avengers X Reader) Warnings: Spoilers of AoU, Illness, swearing, mention of getting high and drunk Request: The reader is sick all of the time and the avengers are concerned about them, so they have to try and convince the avengers that they’re okay in the long run ...

Killer Cupcakes (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Serious illness, near death Request: ... reader is like really sick/hurt and tries to hide it from the other avengers, but they find out and freak bc she almost died ...

The Ultimate Sacrifice (Avengers X Male!Reader) Warnings: Death of character, description of death, mourning Request: ... they’re trapped in a capsized (upside down) cruise ship and the reader ... sacrifices himself to save the group, based on the song My Immortal by Evanescence ...

Animals (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Swearing Request: ... reader is sort of spiritually connected with animals or has some sort of connection with animals where they just adore her ... and the avengers ... keep finding random animals around the tower and Tony keeps telling her off for it; secretly everyone finds it amusing and the reader knows this.

I Need My Family (Avengers X Reader) Warnings: Mention of harrassment, assault and swearing Request: ... reader is part time university student - part time Avenger ... and reader somehow gets into some trouble that involves the police, and they try to keep it secret from the others, but Steve finds out and tells Wanda, then they tell the others ...

Other Me (Bucky X Fem!Reader)     |     *PREQUEL* [Part 2]     |     Part 3 *Sequel Warnings: Needles, stabbing, blood, death Request: … reader joined the avengers before Bucky. He sees her as sweet, shy and innocent but during missions she’s a complete psycho? After missions its like nothing happened. So he asks Steve about it and he says she’s like that cause before missions they take her off her meds that keep her in check. If she doesn’t have them she’s kinda over the top angry.

Hidden Art (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Request: ... reader is a shy recruit at the Avengers and she doesn’t really talk to anyone and didn’t let anyone in her room, and one day someone walked to her room and found out that she was very good at art ...

Joining The Team Pt 1 (Avengers X Reader)     |     Part 2     |     Part 3     |     Part 4     |     Part 5 ~Finale Warnings: Blood, Violence, torture Request: ... Avengers x reader fic, really angsty ...

Compromised (Neal Caffrey X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Nat kills someone, violence Request: ... Neal Caffrey (reader’s boyfriend) finds out she’s an Avenger, and the Avengers find out she has a boyfriend? Mozzie is protective of Neal and Nat and Bucky are protective of reader and try to scare Neal into backing off?

I’ll Kill Him (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: Mentions of Domestic abuse. Request: Reader is the Avenger’s assistant and like a little sister to them, and one day she doesn’t come into work and Bucky goes to her house to make sure she’s OK and finds out she’s in an abusive relationship and helps her.

Where’s Nat? (Avengers X Teen!Reader) Warnings: Blood. Looooots of blood. Request: teen reader has period and goes to avengers for help but Nat isn’t home – Tony is her uncle!

Not alone (Avengers X Reader) SERIOUS WARNING: SELF HARM MENTIONS. Other warnings: Getting shot. Request: Avengers see Reader’s self harm scars and confront her

Overprotective much? (Avengers X Fem!Reader) Warnings: One swear word, threatening, flirting, drinking and attempted murder by an overprotective brother. Request: ... reader is Tony´s sister and she is really beautiful (thats why Tony won´t introduce her) and the avengers are surprised and start bothering Tony and he gots really jealous and protective ...

[meadow-roses]

aske time :) for the writing asks: A1, A2, A10, A12, A14, your choice of anything in B, C8 ( :^) ), C11, D6

A1: Introduce the characters from one of your current WIPs in one or two sentences each. 

Okay let's gooo,,, I'll do The Keepers cause I haven't talked about that one as much. These aren't gonna be the best descriptions but whatever 

Ketsler: Quirky, fun-loving, everyone's weird grandpa, but also the most powerful person to have ever lived. He's old- so very, very old- and he's seen so much over all the centuries he has been protecting the worlds from Chaos, but he still makes an effort to slow down and appreciate the little things around him, because he knows better than most how fleeting life is.

Skylar: Skylar is from a world where faerie circles are real and witches turn people into frogs and trolls live in great, big castles and are slain by talking cats, a world where there's too much adventure to stay in one place, too many people to meet, and too many monsters to slay to stop running. He may be only a human (ooo mystery!!) but he is proficient in Wind magic and carries around a good bit of rune stones he and his pet dragon have found along his adventures. 

Felix: Felix is just a normal human from a small town after the earth becomes united under one world power. He wasn't born with superpowers like most soldiers are, but he was still skilled enough to join a special force working behind enemy lines when the rebellion made its move to free the planet from the tyranny that built this dystopian reality. 

Betty: A very sweet young lady, she's from a planet that was colonized by humans centuries ago. She may seem naive, but Betty can read anyone like a book and uses her gift to help those who are lost find themselves again. 

There's more characters but I'll just stick with those main ones cause I really struggle with descriptions xD

A2: Who's your favorite character to write and why?

Probably Joden? I haven't written most of my characters, but I looove writing his dialogue. He also makes me think so I can keep him clever lol

A10: What’s your character development process like? (As in how you develop them, not necessarily their development in-story)

I roleplay them! The more developed they are, the more I've acted as them. It really gets me inside their head to try and think like how they think, and that results in me being more equipped to "discover" why they are like that. 

A12: What kind of internal conflict does your character go through (want versus need, personality complexes or strong personality flaws/”fatal flaw” kinda thing)? How does this affect them?

It really varies depending on the character? For example Joden has this need to always have a plan, always be in control, and a breaking moment for him comes in when he finally just,,, doesn't know what to do. He's in over his head and the only thing he can do is trust Jacer to do what he can- knowing Jacer doesn't have things under control. 

So that's an example of a flaw that the character gets to overcome, but there also characters whose flaws are part of who they are. Skylar wouldn't be Skylar if he weren't stubborn. Ketsler wouldn't be Ketsler if he weren't arrogant. They never grow out of these flaws, they just learn to control them. Or I guess not be controlled by the flaw. 

This is actually something I think I struggle with for my characters, giving them those visable flaws. I see other people's characters that start out "bad" and grow into heroes, but it kinda seems like all my characters start out as heroes. 😅 I mean, they have flaws, but in comparison to other people's characters they feel really bland in that aspect. Idk

A14: Ramble about your characters. Anything special you like about them? Random little details you’ve added that you enjoy? 

Uh,,, I don't even know where to start I just love all of them for so many various reasons. Joden is just a clever little genius but he still can be so naive. He just has simple pleasures and it's not hard to make him laugh or smile and practically impossible to discourage him. He starts off just,,, wanting his old life back and then he sees what the world is like outside his little bubble and the bubble pops. He sees the atrocities for what they are and to be able to settle down again, he has to fix it. He can't just smile and do as he's told, he can't let the bad guys win. It I just his mother and wife and son he's fighting for, it's the entire wood and the idea of being actually, truly, free.

Jacer is so savvy, he knows what to do and what to say to get into and out of any situation, but at the same time he's just clueless when it comes to genuine connection. He's a princeling who's really never had a friend and now he's saving the world with Joden who only knows how to make genuine connections. Why does he have to keep hugging me??  

And Twylla who's ready to fight anything so she can get her clever idiot husband back? 

Adric who's just doing his best to be a good leader but everything keeps going wrong. He wasn't born to be a king, he wasn't born to lead an army, he always had his big brother to help him do these things and he's gone- he's gone and he's not coming back he messed up again so bad and yet here he is with everyone looking to him for answers and he doesn't know what to tell them. But he's got his friends, and he's got a good heart, and he genuinely cares and they're going to figure it out.

Skylar just keeps running forward and he never looks back at the past he just jumps from one adventure to another stopping the monsters and saving the day. He's got Gigi what more does he need? 

Felix is just,,, he's just such a nice guy. Over and over he stepped into the gap because someone's gotta fly that fighter, someone's got to fire that gun, someone's got to stabilize the bomb, someone's going to lose their life to ensure the victory, why shouldn't it be him? But he never actually dies, somehow he always survives and lives to fight the next day, and the next day and the next day, and then they win the war- the world is free. And even though he's been through so much he still hasn't lost that kindness, that love for all life that makes him himself. He still falls in love and starts a family and has his own beloved children… and even when he loses them he still doesn't become cynical. He still stands in the gap and is the one to fire the gun, to hold the hand of the one who's mourning, to scoop up the orphan child and carry them home. He fights, so others don't have to. Father to the fatherless and hero for all. Also he puts up with Skylar's time traveling craziness lol

And Ketsler? Unlike everyone else he never chose to be a hero. What are you supposed to do when you're a four year old boy and everyone tells you you're the hero they've been waiting for, praying for, you have to save them. It wasn't at all his choice to be born with the power of the universe running through his veins. To hold the Inness in his hands and bend reality to his will. But he didn't run away. He never hid from his destiny. He took the world onto his shoulders and never set it down. Only once- and he's never going to do it again. Never going to ask someone to fill in his role for him, it is his burden to bear… Except not anymore. Despite being multi-millenniums old, all that time didn't dull his appreciation for the little things. A baby's smile, sunshine through the leaves, the change of the seasons. The union of two souls in marriage, or the colors of the sunset streaking a foreign sky. He still sees these things, loves these things, fights for these things. Cause it's the little things he's fighting for, not just the big things. The precious moments and precious lives that make up the worlds. One of his apprentices asked him once, he'd been fighting for so long, when was it going to end? It's not his job to strike the final blow, to end the suffering and bloodshed, just to help. He saves the world, so that he can save it again. 

I have… several more characters I'd love to ramble about but that answer's gotten pretty long so I'll cut it off there. XD

B3: Do you have any plot twists? No need to describe them, just think about what kind of reaction you want from your readers. 

Oh I was just talking to August about this the other day. XD There is one plot twist in the Keeper's story I'm reeaaally looking forward to hehe I want to make people confused and then really mad when the whole thing is stretched out. >:) 

C8: Does magic exist in your world? Who can use it? How does it work?

It really depends on which WIP, but in general I like to keep magic restricted with rules. Joden's story and the Keeper's story are in the same universe (along with ThRoG) and follows that magic system. It's too complicated to go in depth here, but "magic" exists in another plane of existence, and things in the material world have varying levels of connection with it. It's kinda the energy that holds all worlds together and sustains life. The magic realm- the Inness is not a place where physical matter should exist, only spirits can walk there. 

Wizards are creatures that stand with one foot in the physical realm and the other in the Inness. Tevlar is destroying the world basically by turning it inside out- pulling the Inness out.

C11: Have you developed historical figures? How do you develop them? How in-depth do you go?

Oh yes. I am a complete history nerd so if any world EXISTS it has history, and history only happens because people. 

Sometimes it's a thought through process of "somebody needs to go here" and sometimes it's an npc from a time travel rp that took on more importance than I originally intended. 

It really varies how in depth it will go? Sometimes it's just a name to fill a spot and other times it's like, man I could write a whole book about this guy!

One historical figure would be Ares of the Pegasus. He was a powerful warrior that won a bunch of wars and united the different pegasus clans under his leadership and became the first king. He's really famous and people like naming their kids after him in a kinda superstitious hope they'll grow into attributes of his character. Ares is the male form of the name, Aris is for girls. It's like, the most common Pegasian name. XD

D6: Are there any writing styles that inspire you?

Probably the first writing style I wanted to emulate was Tolkien's, but I also really liked Andrew Peterson's? Tolkien is so dramatic, and Peterson isn't heavy on location descriptions, so I'm kinda aiming for in between I guess. 

[dramaticnerdwithanxiety11]

, LITERALLY WHO LOOKS AT NICK FUCKING RUSSEL AND GOES “mm yes, take my autism”

THIS IS AN ISSUE

WHY AM I LIKE THIS

whatever its too late now! you get to hear me talk about it to avoid writing it!!

So, i’ll be explaining the show for you newbs who dont watch power rangers like a smart person (as in the not watching it is smart). 

Power Rangers Mystic Force is, obviously, power rangers. It’s got the standard team of five with superpowers and weird biker-looking uniforms. 

If im honest, PRMF is literally just power rangers but with like fantasy magic.

It follows Nick Russell, the new guy in town. He’s a biker and he’s got this tragic bs backstory about how his parents abandoned him (update: they work overseas, they adopted him and like do not vibe with him)  and he travels, living with  family members and how he never sticks around long enough to make friends. We know he’s staying with his sister, and about nothing else. ~ Nick Russell is actually really important, of course, he is the Red Ranger and if we didn’t have the leader be angsty what kind of Power Rangers would we be, am I right? (i dunno i havent watched other power rangers in like ten years) ~

But we’ll come back to that. ~

There’s also Charlie “Chip” Thorn, a hyperactive hyperimaginative redhead with a love for fantasy and superheroes. He’s eager to join the team and loves the idea of quests and fighting villains and shit. He’s the Yellow Ranger, with Lightning Powers. ~

Vida Rocca, the ‘bad girl’. She has this one strip of her short hair that she dyes and may I just say when I finished the show a third time I couldnt not think ‘yO HER HAIR CHANGES TO SHOW HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT THE RANGERS’ but lets be honest thats probably bs lol. Anyways, she’s a DJ and she loves music, she’s the Pink Ranger (who hates pink for most of the show) with Wind Powers. ~

Madison Rocca, the ‘good girl’. She’s Vida’s sister, and she like following the rules and she enjoys recording her friends to make little videos for them to look back on when theyre older. She’s hesitant and cautious, but will do a lot to make sure her sister is safe. She’s the Blue Ranger, with the power of Water. ~

Xander Bly, he’s cocky and thinks hes all that, and flirts with women like every chance he gets. He thinks he’s super handsome and amazing and probably has a superiority complex for one reason or another. He’s the green ranger, with Nature Powers. ~

Not rangers include: ~

Koragg, one of the big bads who (SPOILERS) later turns out to be Nick’s father and Udonna’s long lost husband. Early on in the show he can telepathically communicate with Nick, which gives Nick these really really bad headaches, great for angst, it’s used as a bit of a plot device through a lot of the show and ngl I love it cause angst. ~

Uhh forgot her name but there’s the Vampire Queen who has bat wings on her hips and is in a full leather body suit. She’s kinda boring. ~

I forgot her name as well but the Vampire Queens daughter, who later goes on to save her mother because she realizes that the Rangers are the good guys and she’s on the wrong team.  ~

Udonna, the kinda ex White Ranger and a very powerful sorceress, as well as the Ranger’s trainer and Claire’s aunt. ~

Claire, (SPOILERS) who turns out to be the Daughter of Udonna’s sister, who was more powerful than her and sacrificed her life to seal the gate to what is essentially hell. She’s comedically bad at magic early in the show, and acts a lot like a comedic relief. ~

The Master, aka The Big Bad that the evil guys are trying to let free. Koragg before he became Koragg was trying to kill him and succeeded in trapping him further than all the others. He’s some weird tentical creepy muscles-showing no skinned weird i dunno i think i repressed this cause i forgot what he looks like lol.

Alright, so those are the characters. Now let me explain the plot.

Nick rides into town on his bike and is usually found set up outside the record shop that the rest of the Rangers (yet to be) work at. Btw, theyre all teenagers, but I think this takes place in summer cause we never see them go to school. 

Anyways, this old man calls for somebody to help him, and says that his brother and him were walking through the woods and somebody grabbed him, and he needed somebody to go looking for his brother. Nick, not being apart of the town to know they have rumours about dying in the forest, offers to help.

Xander tells him the woods are haunted, he ignores the man saying the man needs help so who gives a shit about some rumours, and then Vida is like “i’ll help too,” and Chip joins in cause he thinks its gonna be some awesome quest. They make it out to the forest, and Maddie and Xander join them, (”Xander I told you if you ever took my car I’d rearrange your limbs!” -Vida, episode one).

The man is like super ominous and her vanishes once they get into the forest, this creepy witch lady saves them from some bad guys attempting to attack them, and then throws brooms at them that they fly off on. 

Time skip not actually in the show but im losing steam so we’re moving on. Eventually, they make it to RootCore, aka the base of operations, and meet Udonna and Claire. Udonna is this super powerful sorceress and the White Ranger, and she trains them. Claire is her apprentice who is comedically bad at magic.

She hands out wands to them, they go to leave, get into a fight, all of them but Nick believe in and use magic, Nick leaves the forest, Udonna fights Koragg and loses her staff aka her White Ranger magic, and the Rangers are left in charge of saving everybody. In the end, Nick goes to leave and ends up showing up anyways to save the rangers from Koragg and embraces the magic, becoming the Red Ranger.

That’s the gist of the first episode, and the rest is kinda just “fight the bad guys, discover random secrets that make a surprising amount of sense for a show like this, fail a couple times, do some weird shit then end on a happy note”

WHICH BTW THE ENDING? FUCKIN WEIRD

The fantasy creatures integrate with Humans, Vida dyes all her hair bright pink, Nick fucking leaves town and this is the weird part. Because for one, Nick wanted to stay with his friends it was obvious, but for two; the way he left was w e i r d . He, Udonna and not-evil-Koragg who I forgot the name of, leave together.

The end scene is Nick riding up to the edge of the rode on his Motorcycle, then it slowly pans out to show Udonna and Nek (im just calling him Nek as in not evil koragg now) on bikes as well?? one of them asks if hes ready to go and they ~ride off into the sunset~

For one: THESE ARE AGE OLD SORCERERS WHO HAVE VERY LITTLE IDEA ABOUT HUMAN TECH?? HOW DO THEY KNOW HOW TO RIDE??

For two: dID THEY JUST HAVE THESE BIKES RIDING AROUND?? AND THE HELMETS?? DID THEY SHELL OUT A BUNCH OF MONEY FOR THIS?? LITERALLY WHAT???

anyways, great show! youve gotta watch it on some.. less than legal sites but shh its okay shhhh. It used to be on Netflix but like yaknow, its gone now. Either way, it’s a great show in my opinion! Like I mean it’s bad cause Power Rangers, so to most who are looking to critique there’s probably shit acting, and there’s a lot of not needed grunting in battle, the effects are shitty and the costumes are kinda depressing, but it’s still enjoyable! 

Random Facts-- ~

Vida hates Pink, despite being the pink ranger. ~

Chip, Vida, and Maddie have been friends since either kindergarten or elementary school, i dunno about Xander. ~

They all work at a Record Shop/Music Shop together, and their boss is an idiot but kinda entertaining. ~

Vida turns into a vampire for about two episodes, and Chip is the one to figure it out. ~

Maddie gets turned to stone because Nick essentially calls her useless and shy, and so she went out to prove otherwise, and got caught up in an attack. ~

Chip opens a weird black bottle he found after a battle and some weird thing comes out and attacks him, he spends the B Plot of that episode quite literally dying with his soul being eaten and climbing a mountain to get the cure. ~

Koragg has a really dumb moral code about how he only fights with Honor and refuses to kill the rangers most of the time because its “not honorable” for some reason or another. ~

There’s an episode where Xander gets this really really ugly and big zit right on the tip of his nose, and he uses this perfection potion Claire made for plants. He proceeds to turn into a literal tree and be depressed. ~

There’s a Troblin, the child of a Troll and a Goblin, named Phineas who’s very entertaining and I like this. By the end of the show, he ends up dating the daughter of the Vampire Queen which when you think too hard about makes no sense. ~

Nick turns into Koragg at one point late in the series. I completely fucking forgot how, but he does lol.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Meant to Be

Characters: Spencer Reid x Maximoff!Reader, Wanda Maximoff, minor characters

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: fluff, minor angst

Summary: As a Maximoff, all you ever wanted to do was stay close to your family and protect them, but you were sent away to a summer camp for years. While there, you met a friend who you learned to love. However, your parents died, and you and your siblings underwent experiments that turned you into supers. You have a duty to protect innocent people from bad guys, but you never forgot about the boy from the camp... until he gets caught in your life.

summer camp @crossoverbingo

trust and vows @trope-bingo

superheroes/superpowers @foundfamilybingo​

crossover @marvelfluffbingo​

betrayal @cmbingo​

Author’s Note: If you have any requests, please send them in! this is unbeta’d and every mistake is all on me.

It sucks being the younger sibling of three because you don’t really get a say when they tell you to do something. With your parents being the hard workers they are, they don’t really have time to take care of you as much as they did with your older siblings. You were a mistake, or at least, that’s what your older brother liked to call you. Your older sister was always on your side, and you know you can count on her to always have your back.

It just sucks that you’re sent to a summer camp without them because they had more important things to do than to come with you. It’s not like your parents would say anything about it. The worst part is that the summer camp is in America--far away from your home. You live in Sokovia, which doesn’t really make much sense since the two countries are well over thousands of miles apart.

You’re all alone, and you have no one else to turn to. This camp houses a bunch of kids your age, so in theory, you should have no problem making friends. However, none of them are your friends. You don’t have much back home, and the ones you do are older than you. Your siblings want you to make friends your own age, and if you can do that here, then you know you can have friends from all over the world to visit.

It just sucks you’re the only different one here. Everyone else is from America, so they are easily able to adapt to their surroundings. All you know is poor houses and hard-working parents. This is far nicer than everything you’ve ever been to, so why aren’t your brother and sister here with you? They suffered the most, so they should know what life is like outside your small country.

Kids from all over the States gather with their friends, gossip, and laugh together. The camp counselors have already checked you in, so they aren’t going to waste any more time trying to figure out where you belong since there are so many kids still left to be checked in. They won’t miss you when you’re gone, so you head off toward the back where there are fewer kids around.

There are some on the jungle gym and swings, but you bypass them to where a gazebo sits big and tall. There is no one around the area, so you think this is the perfect area to lay back and watch as the world passes you by. All you need to do is get through this summer so you never have to go back again. You’ll just tell your siblings that you had a terrible time and you cried every night because there were all these bullies. All you have to do is turn on the charm, and they are putty in your hands.

Without all the kids screaming and having fun, this place can be really beautiful. There is nothing a kid can do over here, so you determine that this is the spot you’ll be every day until you get to go home. Upon walking closer to the gazebo, you noticed a very small child reading to himself with a chessboard displayed out in front of him.

He’s so engrossed in the book about biochemistry that he doesn’t notice you right away. He wears glasses that are twice the size of his head, and the clothes he’s wearing are professional in away. He’s definitely not like the other kids, and you feel attracted to him. You’re only thirteen, but you know this guy is someone worth getting to know.

“Hello,” you state as you get closer to him.

He jumps in surprise that someone--a girl--is talking to him.

“Hello,” he says and goes back to reading his book.

“My name is Y/N Maximoff. What’s your name?”

“Spencer Reid.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Wouldn’t you rather be hanging out with your friends?” he asks, sliding his glasses further up his nose.

“I don’t have friends. I’m a long way from home right now,” you sigh.

He doesn’t give you verbal permission to sit with him, but he does scoot over on the very big sofas. You smile kindly and take a seat before noticing the other books around him.

“Where are you from? You have an accent.”

“I do. I’m from Sokovia in Eastern Europe. Everywhere I go, I’m just the weird kid with accent.”

“Wow, you really are a long way from home. That’s precisely five thousand, three hundred and nine miles which is equivalent to eight thousand, five hundred and forty-five kilometers away.”

“How did you know that?” you chuckle.

“I have an IQ of 187 and can read 20,000 words per minute. I am studying to take the finals I need to take in order to get my undergraduate degree.”

“Wow, you’re really smart. You like to play chess?” you ask, pointing to the board.

“I do. Do you?”

“I’ve never played before. Can you teach me?”

“Sure,” he smiles, closing his textbook to take a break from studying.

He doesn’t know why, but he feels attracted to you in a way he’s never felt for anyone else. Everyone he goes to school with is so much older than he is, so he doesn’t have time to focus on building relationships. Now that his mom forced him to go to something like this, he is able to make friends with kids his own age. They may not be on the same level of intellect as he is, but at least they are the same age.

There’s something about Spencer that keeps you wanting to go back for more. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have time for petty drama or care for people who don’t care for him. Back home, all you ever see is people fighting for materialistic things because most people in your village are very poor. Spencer lets you have anything you want--not that you ask for much anyway.

Your original plan was to tell your siblings that you never wanted to go back, but that all changed when you met Spencer. You went back the next summer and the summer after that and the summer after that. Spencer became the person your sister and brother hoped you’d find. He only ever wanted to be with you and no one else, and you felt the same way. You don’t know what love is at your age, but you know what like is--what you feel for Spencer is definitely a lot more than like.

Then one summer, you just stopped coming. Your parents died at the hands of a Stark, and your siblings and you volunteered to be experimented on by Struker and his HYDRA army. They used the Infinity Stone inside Loki’s scepter to give you and your siblings your powers. You didn't know it at the time, but Strucker is the bad guy and Tony ended up being the good guy.

Though, going through all that pain and experimenting, there was one person that never left your mind: Spencer. You like to think what he accomplished after that last summer. Where is he? What is he doing now? Does he have a family of his own? Is he happy? Those are just some of the questions you ask yourself before you go to sleep every night in hopes you might get to find out someday.

The experiments that you and your siblings went through brought you back to the United States, but only after years. Your brother is gone now--killed in action. It’s just you and Wanda, and you have to stick together if you want to come out of this thing alive. There is no one else you can count on except for her--wherever she goes, you go.

After the battle of Sokovia, Tony took you, Wanda, Vision, and Sam in to train to become Avengers. Well, Steve and Natasha did. Tony took off to be with his girlfriend Pepper, but you knew you were in good hands with the assassin and the super-soldier. You two fought like hell to prove to them you were worthy of being part of their team, and it’s finally time that they let you in. They see you as one of their own, and that’s all you ever wanted.

Your powers are very similar, if not exactly like Wanda’s. She’s a completely different person than you are, but the Infinity Stone saw it as one and the same. That’s why your powers are just like hers compared to your brother’s. Having two of the same kind of witch is beneficial to the team since it’s such a good asset to control minds and have powers that move and destroy things.

You’re going to need two sets of the same powers for this one because the world is in danger yet again. There is some kind of attack on the President, so that’s where you and your team are fighting the evil ones. These bad people think if they can wipe out all the important rulers, then their team can strike every country and infiltrate their government to make the entire world bow down at their feet.

They have large guns and big weapons, but you have your powers which are more than enough.

“Take the west and I’ll cover the east. We’ll meet back with Steve and Natasha,” Wanda orders.

“You got it,” you state.

Your blue magic shoots out of your hand, causing you to shoot into the sky. While she is red, you are blue--opposite ends of the spectrum but equally as likable. You land in the middle of an intersection, but there are no cars coming. Everyone is out of them, running and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off.

More and more bad people in uniforms file through, shooting at anything that moves. Your magic encompasses one of them, and you slam him into the other, creating a domino effect.

“Go! Get out of here!” you yell and rush to evacuate the remaining civilians.

Cut off one head, two more grow back. Twice as many soldiers come rushing in, and you have to fend them off so they don’t hurt anyone else. Whatever you can find to do maximum damage, you use your magic to use the objects as weapons. Tables, shards of glass, cars, mailboxes, and everything else to slam into each and every one of the men.

You think you got them all, but then you notice a civilian by one of the skyscrapers, scared out of his mind. The terrorist has both the ground and the sky covered, and they aren’t afraid of doing maximum damage to anyone on the ground. You don’t know how they managed it, but the skyscraper by the stranger is collapsing. Without even thinking, you shoot your hands out in front of you, and your magic holds up the falling debris. It’s a lot of power for one person to hold, but you can’t let him die because of a mistake you made.

“Go! Get out of here!” you strain to yell.

The force of the building is enough to make you fall to your knees, but when you look back at the man, your heart and world stop.

“Spencer?” you gasp.

“Y/N?” he exclaims.

The building is getting heavier, and you know you won’t be able to hold it up for much longer.

“Go! Run!” you yell. He doesn’t waste any more time and just escapes. Just like that, he’s gone again. “Wanda!! Tony! I need some help over here! Unless you want me to crumble under this fucking building!”

“Language!” Steve says over the comm, and you just roll your eyes.

Your older sister and mentor come rushing in to help with you, and once you are safe to step back without the fear of dying, you look around for Spencer. He’s gone, again, and you have no way of finding him this time. You can’t dwell on this for long because there are still bad guys that need to be killed and people that need saving.

If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.

Tony was able to find Spencer so easily that a baby could have done it. He stayed after the fight which should have told you he was willing to give you another chance, but he could be waiting to tell you to fuck off or something along the lines. You didn't do anything wrong, but you can’t help but feel like you did.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Wanda asks outside of the cafe Spencer requested to meet with you in.

“Yeah, he was my only friend at summer camp. We clicked and connected, and I just left him without even a goodbye.”

“Our parents died,” she sighs.

“Yeah, and I had every opportunity to tell him what was going on, but I didn’t. He deserves to know why. I won’t be long,” you say.

With one pat on the shoulder, you quickly head inside the cafe. Spencer is sitting by the window on the far corner, and he looks up when he hears you coming over.

“Hi, Spencer. Long time no see,” you chuckle dryly.

“What happened to the accent? It’s gone away.”

“I guess that’s what I get for spending so much time in America,” you chuckle and take a seat across from him. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“I had to see you. I had to know that what I saw wasn’t in my head,” he sighs.

“I bet you have a ton of questions, but the one thing you need to know is that I didn’t leave you on purpose. I wanted to come back to you. You were always more than a friend to me, and I know you know that.”

“Then why didn’t you? I tried calling and messaging you, but you never responded back.”

“My parents died, and it was just me and my two siblings. I couldn’t leave them knowing what happened. They volunteered themselves and me for experiments with HYDRA and an Infinity Stone. It’s why I have these powers. I couldn’t go back to you the first time because I had obligations, and I couldn’t return without the fear of something bad happening to you. I was too afraid of messaging you because I know what you would have said, and I couldn’t bear to let you down or to betray your trust.”

“You didn’t let me down or betray me,” he says and grabs your hands from across the table. “I was just worried that my best friend had died.”

“In a way I did, I guess.”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

“It wasn’t all bad. I’ve made a new family, but I realize that it’s incomplete without you in it. I don’t know what you’ve been up to or if you’ve made a family on your own, but I’m staying in town for a while and I hope you’ll let me take you out?”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he smiles widely.

“You’ve gotten very handsome since the last time I saw you,” you compliment, your cheeks heating up just a bit.

“And you’ve gotten even more beautiful.”

If he lets you, then you’ll be adding him to your new found family. If he lets you, then you’re never going to let him go. If he lets you, then you’ll love him for everything he’s worth.

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[kendrixtermina]

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons. 

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent. 

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy. 

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war,  but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all. 

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all. 

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time. 

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier. 

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity. 

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own. 

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me.  She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info.  At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.- 

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries. 

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path  (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration. 

[current-mcr-news]

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material. 

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father. 

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated. 

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff. 

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel,  he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it. 

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work  that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine.  Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too. 

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized.  Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening. 

[mobius-prime]

233. Sonic the Hedgehog #165

Look! Look! It's that eye thing again! Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante, stop this madness!

Leak

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

This issue is honestly a fantastic one. There's so many great character interactions that as a writer myself, I live for. We begin by learning that Rouge arrived at Knothole about an hour ago, and in light of her most recent actions in the town, she's been taken into custody, with Knuckles, Julie-Su, and Vector in charge of her interrogation. Vector takes to his role with gusto, clicking on a lightbulb above her head and generally trying to play bad cop, but Rouge seems mostly amused by the proceedings, taking a particular interest in Knuckles and speaking to him directly. She arrived via warp ring, and seeing as that's technology unique to Angel Island (…dunno when that was ever established, but okay), they're very interested to know where she acquired it. When she acts flippant, Vector threatens to just throw her in jail, and when she protests that she's innocent of any wrongdoing Vector reveals that mere minutes after she arrived, the other members of the Chaotix went to Fiona for dirt on her. Fiona was shy and reluctant about sharing any information, obviously embarrassed of her shady past, but with Sonic's encouragement she opened up, explaining just how skilled Rouge is as an operative, as well as how she's not above getting her hands dirty to accomplish her objectives.

Irritated at being called out, Rouge agrees to explain what happened in between her last visit and now. She was uncertain about allying with Finitevus, but stuck with him for the first part of his plan, which involved breaking Eggman's most recent prisoners out of the Egg Grapes. Many of them were already dead, but Finitevus managed to save the Destructix, and took them to the same base where Shadow met Isaac. This is where we learn that Isaac was heavily malfunctioning all along, as the ancient, pre-Xorda Robotnik in cryostasis has apparently been dead for a long time, though Isaac still thinks he's alive and giving him orders. Finitevus planned to use the large store of nuclear missiles in the base for some unknown purpose, and when Rouge found out, her moral side kicked in and she destroyed them, which naturally pissed Finitevus off. She stole a warp ring to escape, and now here she is, looking for protection from Knothole - though she adds that she was likely followed. Sure enough, while Sonic and Fiona are walking out of their own interrogation room, they spot Tails looking incredibly nervous next to a tree. When they approach, Sleuth Dawg steps out from behind the tree, holding a gun to Tails' head.

Of course he's back! Scourge and Sonic immediately take off running, leaving Fiona behind to try to talk down Sleuth, who says he's here for the "traitor." Fiona calls him a hypocrite given his betrayal of the Freedom Fighters in the past, but Sleuth slyly insinuates that it's ironic for Fiona herself to be calling anyone else a traitor. Well that's suspicious… While they fight, Sonic asks Scourge why he's here, and of course first on his list of reasons is revenge. However, apparently that's not all.

Things are getting a little spicy, aren't they? They end up back near the others, and Fiona tells them to stop fighting as she's negotiated a deal - the crooks will give Tails back and leave if Rouge returns the stolen warp ring. Sonic immediately zips away and comes back with it, and satisfied, Sleuth and Scourge leave, with the latter giving Fiona a wink as he disappears through the ring.

You know what, Sonic? I don't think it is. Something is definitely fishy here. With the crisis averted, Rouge is free to go, but Julie-Su has one last word for her. I'm gonna let these last two pages speak for themselves, because this is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned great character interaction.

Damn, even Kenders wasn't edgy enough for the almost-swear. I love this, though. Granted, I'm not actually much of a fan of the interpretation that Rouge is into Knuckles, but I can see her as the type to want to steal something - or in this case, someone - just to prove she can. Certainly, this version of Rouge is a little more ruthless and less morally-centered compared to her counterpart in the games, particularly with how she's characterized in Heroes and beyond. As for Julie-Su, her explanation of her relationship with Knuckles right here is why I think the Soultouch was never a necessary thing to begin with. It's such a weird thing to include - I mean, most of the time in fiction when there's some kind of deus ex machina plot device that mandates that two characters fall in love with each other, the characters really don't feel like they have any real chemistry to begin with, hence the necessity of such a plot device. It's a forced love story, if you will. But Knuckles and Julie-Su? They already had that chemistry, from the beginning. They're alike in many ways, including their rough upbringings and their hot tempers, and those things they have in common often bring them together, as they understand each other more than others can. There was simply no need for a magical soulmate-bond-thingy to explain their falling for each other - Julie-Su's little speech up there is proof enough of that.

Call of Duty

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

Speaking of Knuckles and Echidna Matters, later that day Rotor calls Knuckles to his lab, baffled at getting a call from Locke despite the call not having any signal he can recognize. Knuckles is unfazed, knowing that his father is using the mystical energies of the Master Emerald to contact him, and steps up. Locke doesn't waste time, ordering him to come back to the island immediately. Knuckles refuses, continuing to insist as before that the only way to properly protect Angel Island is to defeat Eggman first, but Locke informs him that things haven't been going very smoothly on the island since Echidnaopolis was retaken.

Well, that's interesting. Another new villain, perhaps? Knuckles is surprised that his father hasn't figured out who the new guy is yet, but Locke says he's been too busy looking for the missing members of the Brotherhood. Knuckles asks if he's bothering to look for Charmy's family as hard as he is his own, but Locke evades the question, instead insisting that he needs Knuckles to come back to help him look. Knuckles, quite angry by now, repeats that he won't, and when Locke tries to go all "What did you just say to me, young man?" on him, Knuckles calls back to the very training Locke gave him as a child that taught him to always go for the source of a problem, and again reiterates that he plans to stay in Knothole to help fight Eggman.

SMASH! Knuckles punches the screen, instantly shattering it and ending the connection, and stands there panting furiously, unable to believe that his father would even think of threatening to let his family be hurt. He collects himself after a moment and curtly apologizes for breaking Rotor's equipment and begins to leave, though everyone is mostly just concerned for his wellbeing. Tails tries to follow him, and tells him that he thinks he's doing the right thing, that he's essentially graduated from protecting one island to protecting the whole planet. Knuckles is still upset though, and leaves to go talk to Julie-Su to clear his head, though he quietly promises to himself that he will return someday, when all this is over.

Now, I absolutely love this. Because under Ian's writership, Locke is no longer treated as this wholly sympathetic, infallible being. Locke and Knuckles got along while Knuckles was still content to merely go along with his father's various plans, but now that he's starting to assert himself and go in a different direction than Locke intends, their relationship is starting to show its cracks. As we've seen before, Locke is someone who really doesn't hesitate to go all in on his plans, even if doing so will end up hurting someone. He created his own son to be a superpowered mutant, just because of a premonition he had. I mentioned before how Locke would have been so much more interesting as the well-intentioned extremist type of antagonist, rather than as the bland "father knows best" character he was under Penders, and I think Ian has finally started to steer the character in that direction. Unfortunately by now it's a little too late to make him truly interesting and complex, but Ian still does an admirable job with what he's been handed to work with.

[imyourliquor-youremypoison]

A Girl’s Best Friend (Peter Parker x OC) - Part 10

Synopsis: Diamonds are man’s best friend- or dogs are girls’ best friends, wait… how does the saying go again?

Warnings: Family issues; Peter has a crush and it’s complicated; mention of assault; good dogs; College AU; aged up! characters; TONY STARK IS ALIVE AND WE ALL LIVE IN A HAPPY PLACE CALLED DENIAL

A/N: This is a BIG STEP for Peter and Em, but ooooh boy you guys are in for a long ride. I just finished writing chapter 18 and let me tell you, this slow burn is getting out of hand. Leave feedback for quicker updates!

Word count: 3.2k

Part 9 <<< >>> Part 11

MASTERLIST

                Last time he had such a bad case of nerves, he was on another planet, fighting for humanity and the fate of all living things. Well, that and the time he overslept and nearly missed the final exam of this first semester, almost not passing.

                What was it with this girl that made him want to do good all the time? The crushing need to impress her made him lose his cool and overdo everything. He had caught himself considering truly unreasonable plans for tonight’s date as she hadn’t told him she wanted to do anything specific. It ranged from a classic dinner at a high-end restaurant to a full-blown private helicopter tour of the city (made possible by one supportive Tony Stark who was definitely trying to hitch Peter up).

                He came twenty minutes early for no other reason than he was pumped to see her, and he was making Tessa nervous with his constant pacing around his room. It didn’t matter, he didn’t mind waiting for her, besides, she was freakishly punctual. One second she was nowhere in sight, the next she stood next to him.

                A bit like right now.

“You look a bit lost, have you never been to Central Park at all?” she chuckled from behind him, making Peter spin on his heels to face her.

                He opened his mouth to answer, but he got distracted as soon as he saw her. It happened more often than he would care to admit, but luckily for him, he pulled himself together quickly.

“I was looking for you, but I never see you coming,” he told her. “You’re very sneaky for someone who wears heels all the time.”

                As if to illustrate what he said, Emmeline clicked her heels together, Dorothy style.

“Is it too late to become a ninja or a spy?” she wondered out loud, already reaching for his arm, gesturing him to go ahead and lead the way.

“A ninja with a master’s in biophysics then. I don’t know, you’d have to ask the guidance counselor what kind of degree you need for that. Do you think it pays well?”

                She tilted her head a little, eyes drifting upwards: a sure sign that she was actually, seriously thinking about the answer.

“I don’t know. But if being sneaky was my superpower, I suppose I could send my resume to the Avengers, what do you think? We’d work at the same place then. I’m sure it pays well there at least.”

                Peter’s tense laugh didn’t fool her, but she didn’t call him out on it. Mentioning his Stark internship unfailingly turned him into a blubbering mess. It reached the point where she considered he might not actually have an internship there; maybe he was Tony Stark’s secret love child? This theory would have worked if he didn’t confide in her that his parents had both died when he was still a kid.

“You would get so sick of me if you saw me all day long,” Peter finally told her, having recovered his good mood.

                They were walking down 5th avenue, linked at the arm, walking slightly closer than they normally would, and Emmeline never really looked away from Peter, despite wearing heels and having to navigate between people. Once again, it made him wonder if she wasn’t secretly a classically trained dancer to whom grace was second nature and who could read his own movements to follow his steps.

                This girl truly prompted the most ridiculous wonderings, but it was what made it all so thrilling, so very enticing. She let him closer than anyone else in years, yet he still felt he discovered a new Emmeline every day. And despite all of the mystery surrounding her, he thought he really did know her, who she was deep down – a brilliant, lively young woman who was frustrated not to be able to shine as bright as she wanted to.

                Behind every sentence, every glance, he saw the looming shadow of the pressure she endured from her family, it weighted her down like a chain around the ankle. If they were in a movie, he would ask her to elope with him, start a new life elsewhere.

                A small, timid part of him wanted that too, but it was a parasite thought. Being Spider-Man fulfilled him in a way nothing else could, and it was a pleasure as much as a duty and a responsibility to save people. The part of him that wished for someone else to have gained those powers was immature and impulsive.

“Is it a challenge?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

                Peter had already forgotten what he had said, but it came back when she gave him a pointed look.

“Uh, it was not, but feel free to take it as such,” he replied before making a fool of himself and staying silent as she watched on. “Sorry, I’m a bit distracted, I can’t get over the fact you agreed to go out.”

                There, better. Not the smoothest approach, but honesty was always preferable to whatever he had been doing up until now. She probably thinks I’m a dimwit at this point.

                Emmeline seemed a bit taken aback by his last comment; her smile was replaced by a thin line, lips pinched together.

“Why?”

                He could tell she wasn’t playing oblivious and was genuinely surprised that he would think she would refuse.

Hadn’t she been flirting enough with him? Last time she ate lunch with Peter and Ned, the latter had given her a thumbs up when she put a hand a Peter’s arm to get his attention and show him something.

“I just- I thought- Maybe-“ Great. Back to stuttering and blushing. If she hadn’t been holding his arm, he might have fled.

“Let me make this easy for you,” she cut him off before he could further embarrass himself. Emmeline had magical timing. “Whatever nonsense you were about to say, forget it. I like you a lot, and that’s why I’m here. If you hadn’t asked me to go out, I would have asked you, sooner than later.”

“Well that’s hard to believe. But it does help to hear it,” Peter said, unable to hold back the goofy smile on his face, nor the stuttering of his heart and the heat in his cheeks. “It’s a relief actually, I was on the verge of a breakdown when I didn’t get an answer after I sent that risky text. Ned can tell you.”

“I don’t need to ask Ned, I know it’s true, you’re the most anxious person I know, and I know me.”

“What?” Peter’s voice came out as more of a squeal than a question. “You’re not anxious, you’re the most confident person I know!”

“More like I’m the best actress you know then, I have to dye my hair because it started growing white in same places in high school, around the time I had to start thinking about my future.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Peter said, shaking his head. “How can-“ he paused. “I can’t imagine you as a teenager, I don’t have enough imagination to picture you as anything else than the woman I see right now.”

                Emmeline’s heart did a summersault in her chest, but she tried to not let it show that his words affected her so much. She tightened her grip on his arm and stepped even closer when someone bumped into her shoulder.

“I’ll show you a picture if you prove yourself worthy,” she vowed, her free hand placed over her heart. “I burned all but one, for old time’s sake, and it’s horrendous, but I trust you will not run away after seeing me with bangs and braces.”

“Bangs and braces?” Peter winced, hissing under his breath and pretending to shake off her hand. “The date was nice, I’m gonna go now…”

“Hey!” Emmeline called after him when he tried to power-walk away from her, grabbing him by the shirt to make him stay. “You’re not getting out of this, Parker! I came here for a proper date and I shall have it!”

                Peter quit his teasing and returned next to her, assuring her that he was kidding and would make tonight worth her while. Emmeline slipped her hand into his instead of holding his arm. His smile disappeared a little and he gulped down. Hopefully his hands wouldn’t become too clammy.

“Now tell me where we’re going,” she demanded. “Are we still going for coffee?”

“We’re going to this rooftop bar I know. Local bands come and play there, and it has a nice view of the city at night. They serve food too, and I intend to take full advantage of you once you start getting cold and need someone to keep you warm,” Peter shamelessly admitted, having finally recovered some of his self-confidence.

                Part of him wondered if he would ever stop being nervous around her, but she had a way of making his worries disappear and putting him at ease. He couldn’t fathom what it was about her, but he was under a spell.

“Who says I won’t take advantage of you and say I’m cold just to snuggle?” She smirked when Peter scoffed a little, rolling his eyes. “Two of us can play this game.”

“You know, come to think of it, you’d do great at Stark Tower, you’d fit in beautifully,” he changed the subject, feeling like the previous one was too much of a slippery slope.

                She answered him with the brightest of smiles, strands of her black hair falling out of her bun as she laughed and shook her head slightly.

“And to what do I owe the change of mind?”

“You speak a little bit like him.” Peter looked at his feet than up again. Tony. “You’re both blunt to the point of rashness, not to mention that you both talk like nothing’s out of your reach.”

                Emmeline made a funny face that was somewhere between amusement and shame. She knew she tended to consider her own circumstances as a given for everyone, forgetting that some people’s perspectives were limited by money, connections, opportunities.

“I’m working on getting rid of that ugly trait of personality,” she promised. “Though you probably didn’t mean it as a reproach,” she added quickly when Peter opened his mouth to protest. “You speak very highly of him.”

“I’m actually contractually obligated to, so…”

                The flicker of doubt in Emmeline’s eyes told him that she believed him, if only for a split second, and it sent him in a fit of laughter.

“Don’t make fun of me!” she chastised him. “It’s not that far-fetched when you consider who he is.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it…”

*

“Alright,” Ned said, slamming a hand on the table he was sitting at to get Peter’s attention. “Enough is enough.”

                He startled and his elbow slipped off the table, which then caused his desk chair to roll away and Peter fell heavily on the ground, with about as much grace as a beached whale.

                He gave frantic looks about him, finally remembering where he was. Peter shook his head and scrambled back to his feet to save what was left of his dignity if he ever possessed any.

“Earth to Peter Parker,” Ned teased him. “This is ridiculous, you know? Just spit it out so we can actually start to study for our exams.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter shrugged and placed his hands on his hips, somehow achieving the least convincing acting of his life.

“Are you kidding me? I can see you vibrating from where I’m sitting,” Ned accused, throwing him his eraser from across their desks. They sat at the library, on desks facing each other. It was nice to be able to talk here now that it was completely empty. “Tell me how your date went. Give me all the juicy details!”

“It went… it went well.” Peter shrugged again and he cursed himself for doing it. This habit of Emmeline’s really rubbed off on him, and Ned hadn’t missed it.

“Is that all? You’ve been daydreaming for over an hour because your date went well?”

“What else do you want to hear? It’s the truth!” Peter sighed.

                He would usually have told Ned right away, but not this time. It felt… a little wrong. Whatever relationship he had with Emmeline, it was too fragile to be exposed to the world just yet, therefore he kept their moments together to himself, like treasured secrets.

“I don’t know, that you had fun, that you took her somewhere classy, that she was so impressed that she invited you to her penthouse and you took the lord’s name in vain all night long?”

“You’ve been watching too much Netflix again, that’s not real life, that’s a TV show. I don’t know what more to tell you other than it went well!” Okay, maybe that was a lie, but he didn’t feel like sharing. 

                Ned dropped the smile and squinted his eyes at Peter, who braced himself for the worst.

“Did your shoot your web too soon?” Ned asked in all seriousness, leaning back in his chair and interlacing his fingers on his stomach. “Happens to all of us.”

                Peter furrowed his brows, then stared at his best friend with a questioning frown, then made a face of disgust and incomprehension.

“No, oh, my God, no!” he denied, sitting back on his chair and rolling towards the desk again. He put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his open palms. “We just went on a date, nothing more.”

“Oh.” There was a pause that lasted too long for Peter’s taste. “Is that the problem then? Didn’t get the booty?” Now he was using his sympathetic voice. Peter glared at him from between his fingers.

“It’s not about that,” he groaned, finally looking us.

“You can’t even say it,” Ned told him with a self-satisfied smirk. “Just say it, man. It’ll free you.”

“No.”

“Why can’t you say it? It’s simple really, it’s S-E-X. Repeat after me: s-“

“Yes, okay, okay, sex! I’m not doing this just for sex, Ned! And you know that; you know I’ve been waiting for a good occasion to talk to her since day one,” Peter finally shouted in the middle of the library, before remembering it was a public space and lowering his voice, praying that no one had heard that. “I like her. A lot.”

                He half expected Ned to make fun of him for his outburst and the inevitable blush that came with it, but his friend became serious.

“Does she like you back?”

                The pen right in front of him became the most fascinating object all of a sudden, and his eyes were glued to it, noticing for the first time that it was a Metropolitan Museum pencil – he must have snatched it during a school trip one day, he couldn’t remember. Crazy that he still had it.

                Peter didn’t like to speculate on such changing things as were feelings, and he particularly disliked thinking about the possibility of them not being reciprocated. He had been wrong before, and maybe that was why Ned pushed his buttons like that: to make sure he wasn’t running after a mirage once again. Even Spider-Man wasn’t immune to heartbreak.

                Emmeline Gerard was a great many things: she was fluky, secretive, opinionated, strong-willed, demanding, brilliant, lively, dazzling, and so very elusive. It would be wrong to assume he knew how she felt. But still, he could hold on to hope. He could hold onto the memory of her lingering gaze, of the tips of her fingers brushing against his hand, of the way she bid him goodnight.

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” Peter simply said, not telling Ned about the kiss she placed on his cheek when they parted, and whose memory had rendered him completely unable to think about anything else.

*

“You should have seen this, Bella,” Emmeline groaned, throwing herself on the couch next to her dog. Bella raised her head to check on her and pawed her a little. “It was so cringy. I’m still cringing about the cringe of it all. When was the last time I felt so shy and awkward during a date?”

                Bella placed her head back onto the couch and seemed highly disinterested from the conversation but Emmeline continued nonetheless.

“Have I ever been on a proper date? I can’t even remember. I feel so stupid for letting it get to my head, I acted like a total fool. But then again, so did he.” The sheer thought of that evening brought color to her cheeks, which she promptly covered with her hands, even though there was no one around. “All the cringe,” she muttered to herself, rolling to the side and hiding her face into a cushion.

It had been two days since their date. Emmeline hadn’t had a minute to herself between their assignment and the whole getting ready for her father’s annual speech on Christmas Eve. Her mother had sent several outfit options for her to choose from, right down to the shoes and accessories.

Emmeline had thrown them all on her balcony out of rage. Two hours later, when she had calmed down, she went out to grab them again and take a look at what her dear mother thought appropriate to wear for a public speech that would be broadcasted live on television.

There was too much cream and pearl color for her taste. All of these dresses made her look like a conservative babysitter; no heel exceeded two inches; no neckline was below the collarbone; no hemline higher than her knees.

She threw them out again, to be given to Goodwill. Her parents be damned, she wouldn’t let them dress her up like they did a porcelain doll to appeal to the public eye.

There was something she meant to do but hadn’t worked the courage yet. It would have been much easier to do it before Peter asked her out on a date – however marvelously cringy it had been – but she wasn’t going to back out. She needed the emotional support, she wanted to see the look on her parents’ face, and she wanted to see Peter again.

What was he up to these days? He hadn’t given a single sign of being alive since he left her on her doorstep. She could still see the goofy smile on his face when she had kissed him goodnight, and it made her blush and smile to herself.

“Aaarrgh!” she screamed into her pillow, hiding the embarrassment on her face and startling Bella to the point where she jumped off the couch and walked away from her crazy human.

                It all made her dizzy. It made her a little sick too, a good kind of sick, the kind you get when you’re fifteen and your crush looks at you in the hallway. She had never experienced this firsthand, and it was good and refreshing.  It made her feel younger and sillier than she was, a bit giddy too.

                Peter Parker had her wrapped around his finger, and not only was he oblivious to that, but Emmeline also knew for a fact that he would never use it against her if he ever realized.

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Reblog to save a writer

Taglist: @of-virtuoso @the-freefeather @justanothercynicalgenzkid

[alarawriting]

Inktober #26: Dark

My name’s Mike London, and I hunt vampires, and that’s why I don’t love the darkness anymore.

Yeah, I know, I know. At this point you’re probably thinking “do we really have time to unpack all that?”, but the thing you’re getting hung up on is vampires, because vampires aren’t real. How could creatures who are technically dead survive only on blood, and if they were running around turning people into vampires every time they drank blood, why isn’t the world overrun with vampires? How could anyone function if they burst into flames when exposed to sunlight, why wouldn’t they show up on mirrors, does that mean they don’t show up on cameras, so on and so forth.

Okay, so most of the myths are wrong. You can see a vampire in a mirror… unless the vampire is positioned to see into your eyes, or their reflection. Vampires are stronger than humans but not by much – you know about that hysterical strength “mom lifts car off child” thing humans can do in extreme circumstances? They can do it all the time, because their bodies are constantly resetting to a perfect state based on what they were like at the moment of undeath, plus their self-image, with bodies that are perfectly healed except for anything that’s part of the self-image, like a scar that they’ve grown to identify with or a piercing. They’re faster than most humans, but they still have human muscles, so we’re talking Usain Bolt, not the Flash, or even a cheetah. They do burst into flames when exposed to strong ultraviolet light, a condition I can kind of sympathize with myself. And they aren’t created when a vampire drinks your blood, but when you drink a vampire’s, when your own blood levels are very low. As soon as a person has more vampiric blood than human blood in their system, boom, vampire.

They have only one really magical superpower, aside from the fact that they’re alive when they shouldn’t be, and it explains all the others that humans believe they have. If they can look into your eyes, and hold your gaze, they can control your mind. Make you think they’re invisible, make you think they just exploded into a hundred bats, make you compelled to do what they say.

It doesn’t work on me, because I’m an albino. And that’s why, despite the fact that all I ever wanted was to write programs, I am stuck hunting vampires as a side hustle. I’m still physically weaker and slower than they are, and while I see better in the dark than you do, I don’t see as well as they do. In light without UV components, such as standard indoor lighting, my vision’s more impaired than theirs, and a lot more than yours. But they can’t mesmerize me, and frankly, your average vampire has gotten so used to being able to mesmerize humans, it’s crippling for them to run into a human where it doesn’t work.

You probably haven’t got the vaguest idea why being an albino protects me. Maybe you have some notion that albinos have weird superpowers, since frankly in fiction we almost always do. You probably don’t know exactly how my disabilities work – in movies and TV, albinos never get to play albinos, it’s always white men in makeup.

Albinos have bad vision. Lack of pigment in the retina when we’re developing gives us vision problems that can’t be corrected with glasses. It’s like we have fewer pixels to see the world than you do, so everything’s going to be fuzzy no matter how strong the prescription lenses are. And a side effect of bad vision from birth is something called rhythmatic nystagmus, where our eyes go back and forth like an old DVD using pan-and-scan to show a movie on old-school near-square CRT televisions. (Old technology’s a hobby of mine.) I don’t have any conscious control or even awareness of it; I couldn’t stop my eyes from moving like that if I tried, short of closing them. My brain does post-processing on the moving image to make it look to me like my eyes aren’t moving, combining multiple snapshots from different angles into a single image. It means my ability to see a moving object is crap even if it’s close enough that I should be able to see it otherwise, but in theory it lets me see more detail than I would otherwise.

The thing is, there’s a reason the legends all have the vampires going “Look into my eyes”. They need to be able to make and sustain eye contact, the kind where you stare into each other’s eyes, and they can’t do that with eyes that are moving constantly. It’s not that I can’t see their eyes, because for me things don’t look like they’re going back and forth while my eyes move. It’s that they can’t look into mine.

I found this out the hard way last year. I was working at a big financial company, and I was behind schedule on the software I was building for them, and they had security rules that didn’t allow me to work from home. The boss used to say not to stay after hours, but I figured this was the kind of thing bosses say to make the company sound friendly and accommodating but is actually a control freak thing intended to benefit the morning people, which I have never been one of. I can’t drive – the state won’t give me a license, with my eyes – and I have chronic insomnia and equally chronic problems with waking up in the morning, making it impossible for me to rideshare with any of my co-workers. So I generally have an intermittently employed friend of mine who shares my apartment drive me places, and this means I’m usually late to work. If I can’t stay late and I can’t bring work home, I fall behind on my projects. Also, I do my best work late at night when there are no distractions. So I was in the habit of going to the bathroom with all of my stuff around 5:30 and then coming out at 6 after my boss had left. I could sit on the toilet with my laptop and continue to work, answering emails and setting Outlook to send them at 8 am in the morning the next day to make it look like I work normal hours, and then when I came out I could get back to the serious programming work, because my boss wasn’t a programmer and had no idea how to check the timestamps of my build check-ins.

It turned out it wasn’t corporate bullcrap after all. It was vampires. Vampires would come into the building to hold meetings on some kind of irregular schedule that meant something to them. I’d been working late for almost two weeks when they showed up, mesmerized my housemate and nearly ate both of us, and I had to kill a few of them with the combination of a steak knife from the kitchen and the cheap bamboo chopsticks I have a few hundred of in my drawer because I’m always getting Chinese takeout for lunch. See, you can’t actually stab a chopstick into a vampire’s heart – it’s too fragile – but stabbing with a regular knife only takes them out of commission for the two minutes or so it takes them to heal. But if you then stick a wooden chopstick in the wound, it prevents them from regenerating, and bamboo is apparently wood for vampire-killing purposes.

Also, I had a black light in my laptop bag, suitable for detecting whether my cats have peed on my laptop bag before I take it to work because they’ve done it so many times I’ve gotten desensitized to the smell of cat pee, and while I don’t like looking at UV light – my eyes have zero protection from it, so it’s painful – it’s a lot worse for vampires, whose skin will burn from very tiny amounts of UV exposure and can actually set on fire. And it’s just astonishing how often vampires will stand there trying to mesmerize you while you walk up to them and stab them in the heart, because they just can’t comprehend “human who cannot be mesmerized”.

And now that I know vampires exist and that I’m immune to their most powerful weapon… well, shit. I’m kind of stuck. I don’t actually know any other albinos, or anyone else with rhythmic nystagmus, and for normal people, wearing the kind of dark glasses that make it so the vampires can’t see your eyes will completely prevent you from seeing anything in the kind of darkness vampires like. I’m the only one I know who can do this. And they don’t kill humans constantly – they don’t need to – but they spread disease (they can’t get blood-borne illnesses but they can sure carry them) and they tend to pick on weaker humans to begin with, people who have less resistance to the bad effects of losing a lot of blood, because if chronically ill people seem sick and lethargic everyone assumes it’s their illness and not vampires attacking them. They’re like humanoid rats, in other words. If you had a well-behaved pet one who never harmed humans and only drank from volunteers, that one would be fine. But the rest of them are vermin.

Now, the best time to kill vampires is during the day, when they’re sleeping. Vampires know this. You are not going to find them when they’re sleeping, and if you did, you’d have to fight your way through their security guards, who are human, and do not know they’re protecting vampires, and really don’t deserve to have to deal with people trying to kill them. Also, being security guards, they are better at mayhem than I am; I’m an IT guy. So, lucky me, I have to go after them at night, when they have all the advantages except one: they expect to be able to mesmerize me, and they can’t.

Nighttime used to be my time. No bright sun glaring in my face and giving me a sunburn. Everyone around me having such poor vision from it being dark that my bad eyesight isn’t a disadvantage anymore, and when it’s dark enough, my eyesight gets better than theirs because my eyes collect every single photon that hits them, no filters. I’d walk around at night, or crank up my stereo and write code until 4 am.

But every time it’s dark, now, I know: they’re out there. They’re hunting. Feeding. And if I don’t track them down and get rid of them, people might die.

And that’s why I can’t love the darkness anymore.

[quicksilversquared]

Brought Down by Baguettes

No parent wants to see their child in danger. That's a bit of a problem when said child is the city's favorite superhero and is in danger almost every day.

Still, Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng have never backed down from a parenting challenge, and if protecting Marinette means going toe-to-toe with the Big Bad himself, then they will grab whatever they have on hand to help.

 (links in the reblog)

The day that Hawkmoth was defeated started like pretty much any other summer day. Marinette slept in, ate breakfast, then headed downstairs to help out in the bakery.

Apparently her help was sorely needed. One of the bakery's normal workers was on vacation and her parents and their sole remaining worker were a little slammed.

"I'm going to have to have a talk with my newest weekend hire," Tom said with a sigh as he started unloading loaves of bread into a basket for Marinette to take up front. "He set a tray of baguettes down a week and a half ago and apparently couldn't find them and just didn't ever mention it to me. I found them this morning, all hard as a rock."

"You could probably do some serious damage with them," Marinette said with a giggle, remembering how hard stale bread could get after only a couple of days. After a week? They would probably actually feel like they were carved out of rock. "If you had any burglars break in..."

"They wouldn't see it coming," Tom said with a laugh. "No one sees a loaf of bread swinging at their head and thinks oh, here comes a concussion."

"They wouldn't even duck!" Marinette chimed in. "They would just stand there, then wham! No more! Maybe you should keep them on hand just in case!"

"Ah, I have enough rolling pins on hand if it came to that, I think." Tom finished loading up the basket and handed it to Marinette. "There we go! Bring that up front before your mom runs out, and then we can get started on the petit fours."

"Of course, Papa!"

The bakery was bustling- it was already the lunchtime rush, even though Marinette could have sworn that she hadn't slept in that late. Her mom gave her a relieved look as she replaced the nearly-empty bread basket with the new one, piling the two remaining loaves on top of the new basket. Marinette carried the now-empty basket back to the back and then sat down at the large table to start coating the petit fours with glaze that her father had already prepared. The fondant glaze got ladled over each piece, and Marinette made sure that everything was covered before moving on to the next tray. Her dad was busy at the ovens again, checking on the eclairs that he had baking.

It was easy, quick work, if slightly delicate. That didn't bother Marinette at all- after all, sewing was often delicate, and things like beading were fussy, fiddly work as well. Little fondant flowers formed between her fingers and made their way onto the cakes. She picked up an icing bag and piped the bakery's logo onto a few of the tiny cakes. Little zig-zags formed, followed by swirly patterns and dots. Those finished soon enough, and then Marinette moved on to filling and dipping eclairs. Her dad kept the bread baskets full, working on rolling out croissants and making pain au chocolate for the afternoon crowd. Marinette grabbed a bite to eat after the eclairs were done, and then helped prepare some of the doughs and fondant for the next day.

She was just putting the newly-made fondant into the fridge when her phone buzzed. Marinette washed her hands and pulled her phone out, eyes widening at the alert that had popped up.

There was an akuma near the Grand Paris, a disgruntled cosplayer that had been turned into Spyder-Man and was now sticking people to all sorts of surfaces. It was causing a fair bit of chaos, especially since the Mayor had (naturally) gotten offended at the akuma's behavior and ended up getting suspended way up in the air.

Ladybug needed to get there, and soon.

"Uh, I need to use the bathroom!" Marinette announced, stuffing her phone back in her pocket. "I'll be, uh, right back down!"

"Of course, Marinette," her dad said cheerfully as he started working on the pile of dishes in the sink. "Thanks for all of your help today!"

Marinette nodded and made a break for it. She raced up the stairs to her room and then let Tikki out of her purse. "Tikki! We have to go!"

Tikki zipped up, doing a little spin. "Well, you know the magic words!"

"Right! Tikki, transform me!"

  The next time he headed out front, Tom waited until the line at the counter had temporarily cleared out and then he approached Sabine.

"There's an akuma attack at the Grand Paris," he told her lowly. "Marinette's taken off."

Sabine glanced up. "A dangerous one, or...?"

"It seems to just be standard, but it's so hard to tell. The mayor is making a big deal out of it." Tom grinned at his wife's eye roll. "He's been suspended, like, five floors up."

"No doubt he'll distract the superheroes because he wants to be rescued right away, even if the akuma is his or his daughter's fault." Sabine didn't look happy about that. "They should just leave him there, but I'm sure it's bad publicity to not be the bigger person and help him out."

Tom laughed. "I'm pretty sure we're the ones who always told Marinette to be the bigger person."

"Yes, well, some people never learn unless there are consequences."

Tom headed back to clean up for the day. Bowls and spoons and whisks and cutting boards went into their industrial dishwasher and he got that started while he hand-washed the knives and gave them a quick sharpening-up. Surfaces got wiped down and machines cleaned. By the time Tom was starting to put the dishes away, Marinette still hadn't returned.

Tom checked the news. Ladybug and Chat Noir were still fighting, and they had been joined by Rena Rouge. He frowned at that.

Ladybug and Chat Noir only ever called out the other superheroes if they were having trouble. Rena's presence meant that Spyder-Man was somehow more difficult than other akumas. Then again, there had been a third superhero for Anansi and she had been pretty similar, right?

But they should know how to work around those superpowers then, right?

The bakery closed, and Sabine started packing up the leftovers. Most could be bagged up and sold the next day as day-old leftovers at a discount, and then there were a few things left for them to have as a family (plus a few extra cookies for Marinette to give her whatever-it-was that turned her into Ladybug). Tom finished up in the back, making sure that his employee had done the cleaning-up correctly. After the mess with the baguettes, he wanted to be extra careful. Leaving food out was just inviting the mice, after all, and, well, with the daughter of the mayor also having a grudge against their daughter for absolutely no reason at all, it was better to be safe than sorry with keeping the kitchen standards far above what was required.

With the bakery cleaned and locked up for the night, the two of them headed upstairs.

Marinette still wasn't back.

  "How is this guy so difficult?" Ladybug complained as she and her teammates dashed across the rooftops, occasionally stepping on a sticky patch from one of Spyder-man's webs and stumbling as their foot momentarily got stuck. "He's way overpowered, it's ridiculous."

"I bet I know!" Rena Rouge offered. "A lot of fans of superheroes like over-powering them when they do stuff like make headcanons or write fics or whatever. Young ones, mostly, but it's not a strict rule or anything. That's probably translated over to their akumatized form. And Spider-Man has super enhanced senses anyway, so that's not too much of an exaggeration."

They jumped over a rooftop and into a hidden alleyway. Chat Noir turned to Ladybug right away.

"Why don't we go get the other two now? We could have them be a distraction while we go in to get his bracelet. That way, we don't have to escape again to go get them if we need them later on." Chat Noir glanced up anxiously, making sure that Spyder-man hadn't snuck up on them. "I don't want to overreact or anything, but this akuma is already taking a lot of time and I want to wrap it up quickly."

Ladybug nodded, glancing up at the sky. Her parents would have no doubt noticed her absence by now, since she had only said that she was going to the bathroom. "Ending it by brute force? I like it. And I actually grabbed all three when I went- er." She abruptly cut herself off, remembering that Alya was there and she probably shouldn't be mentioning Master Fu. "I have the other two with me. I wasn't sure who I would run into first."

Rena Rouge looked interested, and Ladybug winced, knowing that she had said too much. Her friend didn't need to know that there was someone else who held on to the Miraculous when they weren't active.

"All right, let's get them and then regroup," Chat Noir suggested. "But go fast, since Spyder-man will probably hear us and we don't want Hawkmoth pegging on to Carapace's identity."

Ladybug nodded. "Okay, so we need to distract him. If we're really obvious about heading back to the Grand Paris for Chloe..."

"I can sneak the Turtle to Carapace," Rena Rouge offered. "He wouldn't be expecting that."

Chat Noir looked surprised when Ladybug agreed, popping open one of the hidden compartments on her yo-yo and handing over the Turtle. "Okay. Stick to the ground at first. We'll be as visible as possible to get the akuma's attention. And I'll explain on the way," she added to Chat Noir. "C'mon, let's go."

To her relief, Chat Noir followed her immediately. He looked a bit irked, though, which she had expected.

"Rena Rouge gets to know who Carapace is?" he asked as soon as they had gotten a few blocks over. "Why? I thought there were rules about secret identities! I mean, I know Chloe told the entire city, but..."

"They're dating and I knew there was no way that I was going to get them away from each other on Heroes Day," Ladybug told him as they headed for the Grand Paris. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Spyder-Man swinging after them. "And Rena had already figured Carapace out, I think. There wasn't any time to spare, so I had to just grab both of them at once. I wish I could have at least kept Rena a secret from Carapace," she added, remembering how fast Carapace had fallen to the akumas once Rena Rouge had been affected. "Knowing each other's identities ended up impacting their ability to fight. That was why Carapace ended getting akumatized right after Rena Rouge."

Chat Noir actually cringed at the memory. "Oh, I did wonder. Okay, yeah, secret identities are important. Does Fu know who...?"

"I don't think so. He might suspect, but I haven't told him."

It didn't take long to reach the Grand Paris, especially since they were taking a straight-line path and making no effort to hide. Spyder-Man was clearly following them, so they had no time to spare.

Thankfully, Chloe was already waiting for them on the roof. She looked thrilled when they landed...and less so when she spotted Spyder-Man.

"What do we say?" Chat Noir asked as soon as she opened her mouth. She gave him a deeply disgruntled look.

"May I use the Miraculous please."

Ladybug tried not to laugh at Chloe's utterly flat tone or the amused look on Chat Noir's face. Still, her voice wavered a bit as she opened her yo-yo again and pulled out the Bee Miraculous. "Chloe, will you take on the responsibility of the Bee Miraculous today?"

"Yes!" There was a pause, and then, "Please."

As Chloe transformed, Ladybug leaned over to Chat Noir. "What did you do?"

Her partner only grinned.

"Okay, I'm ready to fight!" Queen Bee announced, flouncing up to them. "Let's go!"

And as Ladybug led her team towards Spyder-Man, with Rena Rouge and Carapace racing toward them from the opposite direction, she had to hope that the addition of the rest of their team would help them win the fight.

  The additional superheroes didn't seem to be doing much to help. As less experienced fighters, they were less practiced at dodging out of the way, and with a web-shooting akuma... well, it wasn't a good combination.

To make matters worse, Hawkmoth had apparently decided that his akuma was strong enough for him to come out in person and jump into the fight. It meant that the superheroes had to divide their attention so that he couldn't attack them from behind.

"They're struggling," Sabine said anxiously as they watched the footage on TV. Their dinner prep sat forgotten, peppers half-chopped and abandoned on the cutting board. "Tom-"

He tried to sooth her, though he couldn't deny that he was nervous as well. That was his little girl, their Marinette, out there facing off against the Biggest Bad in Paris by herself while Chat Noir held off Spyder-Man and their other teammates were all trapped. "They always come out on top. Our girl can handle it."

"But three of the superheroes are already trapped by Spyder-Man!" Sabine gestured to the TV, where a reporter was frantically trying to piece together footage from the ground and a hovering news helicopter to get a good picture of the battle. "He's fast and strong. I wouldn't be worried, except Hawkmoth is there with them. And you saw the footage before-!"

"But what can we do?" Tom asked. He couldn't deny that he wanted to race out and help, unwilling to let Marinette struggle when he was her dad and was meant to be protecting her, but he didn't have superpowers or anything. "I mean, the three that were taken out were the less experienced ones. Maybe Ladybug and Chat Noir will be fine?"

"The other three were keeping Spyder-Man at bay while Ladybug and Chat Noir took on Hawkmoth. They're not going to be able to make any headway with just the two of them fighting." Sabine had straightened, a fierce look on her face. "We can't just stand by and do nothing. We can at least be a distraction."

Tom knew not to argue, not when his wife looked like that. Besides, she was right, and he wanted to help, too. "But how will we possibly get there in time?"

Sabine's lips curled up into a grin. "Oh, I know just who to call."

  Their fight was going absolutely sideways. Rena Rouge, Queen Bee, and Carapace had all been glued down by Spyder-Man's webs, and now Ladybug and Chat Noir had to each take on an opponent on their own. Ladybug was fighting Hawkmoth, doing her best to snag his cane and steal it away. He was quick, though, and so she had to be on her toes at all times.

Seriously, how was he doing so well when he hadn't been to hardly any of the fights? That was truly unfair.

Her yo-yo connected with Hawkmoth's face with a satisfying whack and Ladybug smirked at the look on his face. Her yo-yo spun back and out again, this time snagging his arm. She yanked, feeling hopeful. Maybe if she could throw Hawkmoth off balance enough, she could defeat him for one and for all. It would be hard with Chat Noir distracted, but-

"Ack!"

-and now it was two against one...and not in her favor.

  "You called my mom?"

"She was happy to help!" Sabine insisted, pushing Tom down the stairs in front of her. Outside, there was the sound of motorcycles drawing closer. "And she brought a friend. See, we can each ride with someone!"

"I hate motorcycles," Tom muttered, frowning. Still, he went. His daughter was in danger, and he hated that more than he hated motorcycles.

They ducked into the bakery to stock up. Sabine went for a heavy cast-iron frying pan and a bread paddle, plus a couple knives to cut the trapped superheroes free. Tom grabbed a rolling pin and then, in a panic, pulled the stale baguettes out of the trash and stuffed them in his bag, just in case.

One never knew when old bread would come in handy, after all.

They flew out the door and onto the waiting motorcycles. His mom led the way, leaning forward on her bike and speeding forward as Sabine clung to her back. Tom perched precariously behind his mom's friend on her bike, hoping that they wouldn't fall over.

The motorcycles roared up to the Eiffel Tower in record time, taking advantage of the empty streets. People had opted to stay inside or pull over as the battle raged across Paris, and while it was definitely deeply unsettling, Tom had to be grateful for it.

Well, his mind was grateful. His stomach was less so, but that could be a problem for later.

"Hold on tight!" Gina's friend yelled, and Tom winced as they went speeding up onto the sidewalk. "One delivery, right to the bottom of the Eiffel Tower!"

They wove through the barricades, making a few lingering policemen shout. Tom resisted the urge to scowl at them.

Seriously, Ladybug and Chat Noir had been struggling. Couldn't any of them do what he and Sabine were about to do and try to distract either Hawkmoth or Spyder-Man long enough for the superheroes to defeat the other threat?

"Stairs or elevator?"

"Elevator!"

"You got it!"

Both motorcycles came to a screeching halt. Tom got off gingerly, trying to ignore his protesting stomach.

He always had hated motorcycle rides, and that had been the worst of the lot.

"I can see them!" Sabine yelled, dismounting from her motorcycle in a flash and already pounding on the elevator button. "Quick, Tom, Chat Noir is down!"

"And Ladybug?"

"Cornered!"

The elevator doors opened right away, and they ran in. Much to his surprise, Gina and her friend both drove their motorcycles in as well.

"Don't look so surprised," Gina scolded cheerfully as the doors closed and the elevator headed upwards. "Of course we want to help. Ladybug and Chat Noir saved me once, after all, and made sure that Marinette was safe on her birthday."

"Mom, it's dangerous," Tom protested. It was bad enough that his daughter was fighting a superhero- not that he wasn't proud of her, of course, he was immensely proud but just worried- and he could put himself in harm's way, but his mom?

"Oh, don't worry, Tom," Gina said airily, waving her hand. "We might not be superheroes, but even supervillains are bound to sit up and take notice when they get hit by a motorcycle."

Even a Ladybug's luck ran out sometimes, it seemed. Ladybug let out a frustrated half-scream as she tried to get her hand loose. Both it and one of her feet were stuck, and she couldn't even defend herself. The other four superheroes were much the same, trying to get stuck limbs unstuck. Carapace had had the most luck so far, but his foot was still tangled and his shield was halfway across the platform.

And if he got loose...well, it wouldn't take much for the smirking Spyder-Man to get him re-stuck very, very quickly.

"Trapped at last," Hawkmoth announced smugly, striding towards them. "My lucky day. I get not one, not two, but five Miraculous."

"Shove off," Ladybug snarled, glaring at him. "You won't get away with this." Even as she said it, it felt a little pointless. He had them trapped, completely at his mercy.

Gah, who had ever thought that an upset cosplayer would cause this much trouble?

Hawkmoth snorted. "Big words from a trapped superhero."

Still, Ladybug struggled. She wasn't going to give up, not even if her earrings were ripped from her ears. She had been chosen, and she was not going to let Tikki down. If need be, she would fight as her civilian self, using whatever she could find as a weapon.

The elevator let out a quiet ding and Ladybug's eyes snapped to it even as she kept yanking at her hand. Maybe someone had come to help? If Master Fu had been watching, maybe he had distributed some of the lower-level Miraculous to temporary holders and they were coming to help?

Ladybug watched with bated breath as the doors opened... and two very recognizable figures stepped out.

Her mom and dad. What were they doing here? Ladybug fought harder. She had to protect them! What were they thinking?

Hawkmoth hadn't noticed. He was too busy with his self congratulating speech. Spyder-Man wasn't paying attention either, his attention on the superheroes in case they worked their way loose. "It's been a long time coming and a few mishaps, but now I have you! I will combine the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous and have the power of the gods! And you- without any other Miraculous out, no one can stop me!"

Her parents were charging at Hawkmoth, her mom with a bread paddle and her dad with- was that a loaf of bread?

Why would he bring a loaf of bread to an akuma battle?

Hawkmoth opened his mouth again, no doubt to gloat some more, but he never had the chance. Mrs. Cheng caught the back of his knees with her bread paddle- the bakery's sturdiest paddle, the one that Mr. Dupain had carved himself ages ago and hadn't whittled down quite as much as he should have. Hawkmoth, taken off guard, want down. Before he could recover, Mr. Dupain cracked him over the head with the first loaf of bread.

A stale loaf of bread, Marinette realized. One of the super stale loaves that the newest employee had managed to misplace. It wasn't just a little hard, it was insanely hard.

...she could maybe see where her dad might pick it up as a weapon. Hawkmoth had been forced to the ground, covering his head as her mom and dad rained blows down on him. Spyder-Man made a move to go help Hawkmoth, starting to raise one hand to shoot his webs, but had only made it a step when a loud revving cut through the air. Half a second later, a very familiar motorcycle sped across the deck and rammed into Spyder-Man, sending him flying.

"Oh my god," Rena Rouge whispered, and Ladybug startled and glanced over at her teammates. They were all staring at her family in utter disbelief. "Marinette has the coolest family ever."

Queen Bee sniffed. "And yet I don't see her here- hey!"

"Her parents probably wouldn't let her come," Chat Noir pointed out reasonably, as though he hadn't just kicked Queen Bee, and Ladybug had to roll her eyes at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. "But wow."

Hawkmoth was pushing back now, throwing her parents to the side. Both of her parents landed in a roll and stood back up, ready to charge. Another motorcycle's roar cut through the air, and then Hawkmoth was flattened again.

"Now, Sabine!" Tom called, and they rushed Hawkmoth before he could get up. Tom cracked the supervillain over the head with another baguette with enough force to break it in half and Hawkmoth wavered, still on his knees. Sabine slapped him across the face with the bread paddle and then tossed it to the side, darting in and ripping the butterfly pin off of his chest. His transformation started to unravel and Tom took the opportunity to smash the remaining two loaves of bread over Hawkmoth's head in quick succession, leaving a stunned and crumb-covered Gabriel Agreste in his place.

The superheroes stared. Tom and Sabine blinked at the crumpled figure, stunned.

"Wow, are in-law dinners ever going to be awkward," Rena Rouge commented before Carapace hastily shushed her. Ladybug glanced over to glare at her friend and saw that the two of them were giggling.

Traitors.

"We still have a supervillain to fight!" Gina yelled, and Ladybug glanced over at her grandma, startled. She sat perched on her bike, helmet pulled down as she pointed to Spyder-man, who was getting back up. "Cut the superheroes out! I'll keep him distracted."

"Nana," Ladybug muttered, exasperated, but her grandma was already zipping off, maneuvering her motorcycle expertly to hit the akuma before he could register that she was coming. This time he fell over the edge and she screeched to a neat stop, utterly smug.

"We'll cut you kids out," Mr. Dupain assured them, appearing by Chat Noir's side. A knife came out of his bag next and he cut the spider web, freeing Chat's foot. Mrs. Cheng worked at freeing Ladybug with her own frankly terrifying knife. Ladybug hadn't even known that they had such large knives in the bakery. What did they even use those for? "And, uh- who wants to hold onto the butterfly pin?"

I can," Ladybug offered when it became apparent that Chat Noir wasn't really responding. She frowned at her partner briefly, concerned, but refocused herself. "Here, I can make a little compartment in my yo-yo-"

The slot popped open and Sabine slid the Butterfly in. The yo-yo slid back shut quickly with a click, and Ladybug hopped up, feeling a little shaky. Had that been real, or was she just dreaming? Her parents had taken down Hawkmoth when she and Chat Noir hadn't been able to. That was insane.

"There's still an akuma," her mom reminded her. She glanced at Chat Noir, clearly concerned as well. "Uh, perhaps I should free Carapace next?"

"Good idea!" Ladybug forced herself to focus. They had one last akuma to take down, and then they could get Mr. Agreste taken away and then- well, either call that good for the day or try to push and find Mayura, who oddly enough hadn't come into play at all.

Maybe it was just because things had happened too fast for her to transform and respond. That meant that they couldn't let their guard down at all. She might appear and try to whisk Mr. Agreste away before they could do anything else, or else use her powers to try to break him out of jail once the police had him in custody.

They had to deal with Spyder-Man and fast, and then they would have to do a quick recharge and do their best to find Mayura. Maybe Nooroo would be able to help them. He wouldn't be able to come back out without a new holder, which meant that they needed to find a good fit, someone trustworthy and willing to stand up against evil.

Ladybug glanced back at her parents, who were freeing her teammates as though they saved superheroes every day. They didn't seem at all shaken by their attack, even though they had only been armed with what they could find in the bakery, and they were making sure that all of the superheroes were all right. Her mom was helping Chat Noir to his feet, concerned look on her face as she talked to him.

Somehow, Ladybug had the feeling that she wouldn't have to look too far to find someone that was perfect for Nooroo.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Iruma-kun 13 - 14 | Somali 1 | Magia Record 1 | BnHA 75 | Eizouken 1 | Idolish7 s2 1

New season...incoming!

Iruma-kun 13

How did Iruma even notice that collar? Geesh, that kid is perceptive…

This “spitting blood” joke is getting old already…

*Kiriwo starts his machine* - Why do I get the feeling something bad’s about to happen…?

Could you possibly call this “rank is the most important thing” a study of class consciousness, to throw some of Anime Feminist’s words? Or maybe this is a fantasy version of technology and it’s extolling the virtues of technology advancement?! *eyes sparkle*

Can Iruma join Kiriwo already? Please?!

Aw, dear darling! (<- I’m not sure if I’ve said that a lot in these notes, but I say that when I get the warm fuzzies and wanna protect a character…basically, platonic love, I guess…? Oh, “moe instinct” - that’s the words I’m looking for.) Iruma, go and live your best life, okay?

Thank you, story! Even though I knew it was being foreshadowed so heavily by being the focus of basically 24 minutes of this show’s runtime (= about 1 ep), I thank you from the bottom of my heart that Iruma went to the right Battler.

Wait, so Ameri is actually Iruma’s senpai by one year?! Hmm? I never realised that and I read some spoilers!

I like this new chibi animation style! Yay!

I never noticed this until now, but Kiriwo has one big horn and one little one.

I think the title, aside from the pronunciation of “Thirteen Dinner”, is meant to mean “The Thirteen Counts’ Gathering” (or some other high rank) or something of the sort. Update: So I checked and the character used, kanmuri/kan, is used to mean “crown” or someone who wears a crown, i.e. a peerless person, so it would be appropriate to translate that using the term for a high rank which is presumably going to be stated in the segment itself.

Turns out Babel…is just makaitou (the demon world tower). I don’t think it’s really Babylonian in any strict sense.

Depending on where you live, the 665th floor could count as the 666th or…well, the 665th. I know in Japanese, the word for the floor on the ground is ikkai (first floor)…I’m not going to tell you what I know it as though…that would reveal my location outside cyberspace, no?

According to the katakana, the guy’s name is Beruzebyuto (hence the translation as “Beelzebuth”). Beelzebub is the Lord of the Flies and a quick google tells me Beelzebul (close enough) was apparently an alternate spelling for him (or something like that…?). Patron demon of gluttony.

Astaroth, also a demon (king of rot, I think it was from Blue Exorcist)…interestingly, Beelzebub, Lucifer and Astaroth make up an unholy trio and all of them were referred to by a dude called...Solomon (which does kinda sound like “Sullivan”, if you think about it). There’s the connection between these guys…I like his top, too.

Asmodeus, patron demon of lust. We already knew that demon was represented through Azz-Azz, but now you see a spoiler I’ve been hiding for a while – Azz’s mother.

Amaimon…uh, I don’t remember what kind of demon he is in the demonic canon but I know him from Blue Exorcist.

Behemoth…?

Ooh, Ameri’s father is smokin’ hot! (Dangit, I do not want DILFs…) Azazel, a fallen angel and apparently personification of uncleanliness(…?)

Belial and (Lady) Leviathan, which we already knew existed from initial namedrops.

Who’s Baal? Even I have no idea…Update: Apparently he’s a Middle Eastern equivalent to Zeus, which explains his thunder allegiance.

Paimon kinda looks like Chaika, LOL.

LOL, “lifehack” is certainly the right word for it, Sullivan.

LOL, Belial is so short!

Although it’s kind of awkward to not see Lady Levi take a position of power for herself, it’s nice to see she has spirit!

Aw, this is cute. In much the same way I wanted Iruma to join the magical apparatus Battler, I want Sullivan to be Demon King.

Is Opera perhaps related to Ameri somehow…?

Somali 1

I was hoping to get to Plunderer, but got carried away writing another post and then lost the ability to watch both episode 1 and 2 ahead of schedule. So Somali is the new start of the season, but the last relic of the fact Plunderer was meant to start my season (outside ID: Invaded’s advance premiere) is the visual I have for this season. (Oh yeah, one of the reasons I’m supporting this – aside from it being a mid-ranker on my hype list – is that I heard a French animator, a friend of Thomas Romain, is getting his big start here.)  

“Dad.” – Oh, f***. I have myself an Usagi Drop. I knew I was going to get something of the sort going into this show, but…Usagi Drop’s experiences (or rather, watching the anime knowing the manga has that ending) have left their mark. Not to mention Somali (as this girl will come to be known) has Latina eyes, which annoys me even more since I dropped that on the basis of being scarred by Usagi Drop.

I’m wondering what Crunchyroll was thinking when they decided to coproduce this – sure, it’s probably quite cute and wholesome, but I’m far from the target audience. Did they think, “Is this what Western audiences will like?” Sure, it would hit a niche that likes this surrogate father/daughter stuff, but I don’t think it’s for me (and I’ve been thinking that all through the OP). I’ll give it a bit more to wow me, but it’s doing pretty terrible so far (because note all other anime of this particular reputation I’m more on the “neutral” side than the “like” one). Somali’s voice is probably the biggest factor – it sounds like an adult woman’s voice got pitch-shifted to attempt to be a child, rather than an actual child.

How can this golem talk about sight when he doesn’t even have eyes??? (Kinda like Juzo from NGL.)

Alright, that’s it. I can see when you’re trying to bait me with supposedly “cute” children, show. You’re gone.

Okay, since I have time and the reviews say otherwise, I’m trying again. I don’t expect to be sold to this though…

Was it just me or was there a reduced frame rate when Somali’s cape was the only thing in the frame…?

For some reason the subbers put “Why?” when the word was actually “What?”, which is a bit silly to be honest with you. (Nande?/Doushite? vs. Nani?...it’s kind of similar-sounding, but the sound is distinctly different.)

Still dropping this show. I just have another episode to add to my list now.

Magia Record 1

I heard there’s no Urobutcher this time around, but the first time I encountered the Urobutcher (in ConRevo) he made a particularly weird-feeling (in the context of the show) episode, so…uh…let’s say the Urobutcher is only as good as the material he writes, and leave it at that. Anyways, this topped my list – even before ID: Invaded came to hunt down that top position – so this better be good.

Um, am I just imagining it, or is that Sayaka and Hitomi discussing magical girls (or Madoka?) over the top of Iroha (I know that’s her name already from the synopses floating around the ‘net) and her fellow magical girls fighting?

Letterboxing? Now there’s something I thought I’d never see in Madoka Magica, ever.

One of the books was on organic recipes.

The teacher talks a tad too fast – I can understand what she’s saying, but it’s like she operates on x1.5 speed compared to the x1 speed of everything else…

“Nakama – because we can do it” – I wonder if that will mean something later…? In Madoka Magica, strange details always mean something.

“The only good witch is a dead one!” “Speech is silver, silence is golden.”– The tiny English isn’t particularly subtle, is it?

Uwasa = rumour.

Takarazaki, huh? I’ll make a note of that.

Who’s Ui?

According to the credits, I assume the blue spear girl is Nanami Yachiyo.

This is a respectable re-entry into a universe which I left not too long ago (in 2017). I’m definitely going to be able to stick with it for a season or however long it lasts.

BnHA 75

All this talk about a database…reminds me of the Quirk I designed for the wiki (also called “Database”). I conceived it in 2015, but I don’t remember who was meant to use it before I retrofitted it to fit the BnHA universe. Update: Welp, I found the document. The superpower Database (which was retrofitted to be a Quirk) is for one Itsuki Hatano.

“One blow to the top of the head!”

Iruma-kun 14

(Note: Some notes may be missing because I was busy multitasking while watching this episode.)

Go, Iruma! Live your best life!

Note “speak of the devil” isn’t how it’s said in Japanese. It sounds something like “whisper a rumour and it will come back to you” based on what I heard Kiriwo say (since I heard the word uwasa in there). Update: Apparently the phrase is uwasa wo sureba… (if you spead a rumour…) and then you cut the saying off to finish the rest of the sentence, just like you would in English.

You can’t even see a substantial part of Iruma’s hair when that demon on the phone (<-I know who it is, because I read spoilers, but I’ll keep quiet on that front!) yells for the first time.  

Makura (demon pillow) has that demon pun going on.

Ooh, Kiriwo-senpai is actully kinda sexy with his hair up like that…not that I know the first thing about sex appeal…

So is the ED about the Battler Party, in a sense?

Eizouken 1

I picked this show up because of the rave reviews it was getting.

Very Future Boy Conan, that.

…what? That OP was trippy. Then again, I didn’t mind ConRevo and that was trippy…this negative feeling is probably because I don’t know much about Masaki Yuasa’s quirks, I guess.

Why do people not translate “Eizouken”???? It means “video research club”.

The back is a good spot to sit in a theatre for anime. Why do I know this? I sit in the back of my anime club all the time, that’s why!

“Are those MiBs?” – I laughed pretty hard at that one sentence.

Why does this strawberry milk seem to be a parallel to the milk Asakusa promised Kanamori? (P.S. Asakusa is in Tokyo, IIRC.) Update: Mizusaki means “on top of water” if I understood the kanji right and Kanamori, with the right combo of characters, can mean “forest of gold”...which makes a lot of sense, considering how gold is equated with wealth and currency. Also, here’s proof Asakusa is in Tokyo...not to mention it’s the place from Sarazanmai! Meanwhile, I was thinking there was some sort of anime-related significance to the name, but I was thinking of Asagaya.  Update 2: Mizusaki actually means “water peninsula”. Sorry, wrong saki.

I know there’s a chase scene at the end of this ep, thanks to reading reviews. I want to be wowed by it, which is why I’m (metaphorically) holding my breath.

I like how Asakusa and Mizusaki are bouncing around ideas. That really brings the process to life.

Long skirts and wind but no sexualisation. That’s a good sign!

Whoa, that scene with the comets was AWESOME! I want more!

Idolish7 s2 1

Back with some good boys one season too early…let’s have some fun while these simulcasters can get this stuff fast!

Oh no! (<- self-censored) Nagi’s stupid accent is back! *yells incoherently for a second*

I like the little sound effects that happened whe Nagi’s finger moved around (to suggest “magic”).

I think the joke was something to do with the word gera (?). I don’t quite get it myself.

Misuta- Shimooka, LOL. I love how this s2 isn’t doing any hand-holding, though! I half-expect a flashback to appear and it never does.

Yamato, how are you so-*crying and Yatta! can be heard in the background*Okay, nevvvvvvvvvver mind…

I remember mistakenly saying that Nishiyama was part of Idolish7 (since I looked through some of my old notes lately). Nishiyama is part of ZOOL, so now…I’m not wrong anymore…(That’s not quite relevant to the random announcement of Re:Vale showing up, but it’s on my mind now.)

Hmm…Yamato’s thoughts on Re:Vale…I’ll keep an eye on him.

I think people like Tamaki because he treats them like he would his little sister…a true gentleman. Or maybe that’s all in my head? I haven’t been in the fandom properly, y’know.

This switch to occasional chibi antics…I’m not sure I like it…

Ohmyglob! Another boy to add to my growing list of husbandos! *points at Yuki* I knew he existed, but I haven’t had a proper chance to have a reaction to him ever since I started really “having a thing” for long-haired guys.

Re:Vale are like a comic act (manzai).

Momo has pink nail polish…I just noticed. Update: It’s probably more red than pink.

“Chan-momo” appears to be a variety of modern slang similar to Pig Latin. Apparently Gen from Dr Stone uses it as well.

Yuki has these cute little diamond earrings and Momo has studs. I’ve also never noticed this until now. (I, myself, can’t wear anything past clip-ons because I have a genetic quirk that makes it annoying to get my ears pierced, called beta thalassemia, so I can only fangirl about other people’s earrings.)

What’s the FSC again…?

Kyu-to aidoru!

I think Momo and Yuki are going to reach out to Mitsuki and Tamaki (respectively) most this season…just a feeling, based on their dispositions. Tamaki and Yuki have similar faces, on top of that, so thank goodness we can tell them apart by hairstyle.

Yuki wears this steel blue shade of nail polish…ooh, also cute.

*Riku goes stiff-faced* - *audibly facepalms at Riku’s reaction*

Momo has a black and green earring set on one ear…huh.

Ooh, very nice. It’s a keeper.

Update: Apparently, you pronounce their name “Re:ba-re”, which is a bit different to what I was expecting (essentially “Re: veil”).

[loki-poki-foki]

Make You Mine ch 3

Loki x reader

Rating: T

Summary: (Y/N) is Odin’s caretaker at shady oaks retirement home. When the place gets closed down, Odin takes in the college drop out and helps her get a jump start in life. One day on one of their walks they stop to sit on a boulder and watch the waves. When Odin’s sons show up and save you from Hela, you were thrown into space and lost on Sakar with the Loki Odinson.

———

“AaAaAaAaHhhHHHhHhHh!”

You felt yourself falling and falling. You just kept going. You braced yourself to fall on the ground but never felt it. So you scrunched yourself into a ball and closed your eyes tight, trying to control your breathing.

You hear someone else screaming too.

You peeled open your eye just a little bit to see a green man falling to the right of you.

“L-Loki!” Both your eyes were open now and you stretched out your arms trying to reach towards your falling companion.

As soon as you spoke those words he looked up back at you. His eyes were just as wide as yours, but his gaze snapped away to look down. You don’t know what he saw but it made him give a concerning look.

You call his name again. This time it came out as more of a sob. You didn’t want to die. Not like this.

He looked back at you and reached his hand out. Green smoke surrounded his hand. His eye Browns knitted together and his teeth clenched.

Then, you stopped.

The air was no longer beating against your back as your body met it.

You looked around yourself and saw you were floating a few inches off the ground. Enormous piles of garbage were stacked up all around you. Most of it is stuff you’ve never seen in your life, others sort of resembled objects you had in your own home.

THUD!

You turned your head to see what made that obnoxious noise, but your body stopped levitating and you landed with a thud, as you let out a squeak in fright.

You gathered yourself and pushed your body up from the dirt to find Loki coming towards you from where you heard something crash.

“Great, you’re alive.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means, I’m surprised you didn’t die from the fall.” God! He doesn’t have to be this big of an ass. He’s a bad guy, you get it. But you thought he would be a bit more...evil and malicious. Not, ‘I’m a grumpy old man!’ type.

You were going to retort but he interrupted you, “Let’s go, it’s best we don’t stay here long. Someone must’ve seen us fall.” And he left without waiting to see if your alright and ready to follow.

“You- i outa- you peice of- AHHHHHH!” Why does he have to be so frustrating. He’s such a child! You grumbled as you followed him, carful not to step on any gross garbage. “Where even are we!”

“No idea.”

———

You were walking for almost five minutes before a group of scavengers started to surround you. One tried to grab your t-shirt and rip it off.

“Hey!” Another one was clawing at your pants. You quickly shook it off and kicked him, not caring if he was alright after. Loki’s bad mood was rubbing off on you.

Loki was doing fine though. The scavengers stopped trying to grab him after a couple got knocked away by his magic.

“Can I gets some help?!” You kicked another one. They’re really short and light, which surprised you a bit.

Loki ignored you and used his hands to shade his eyes as he looked up.

What was he looking at?

You heard the sound of an engine and looked up in the same direction as Loki.

A space ship swooped down and landed with a loud tisssssss.

The hatch opened up and an older lady with tattoos on her face came down. She wore arrmor that covered all the way from her toe to her neck. A ginormous gun hung on her left shoulder as she moved her hand to grab it.

“Alright break it up.” She aimed the gun at me.

My heart dropped as I realized I was going to die. I blocked my face with my hands preparing for the pain.

I heard the gun fire but it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would.

A little chip went right into the side of my neck.

It didn’t hurt but it was so irritating. I tried to scratch it off but pain suddenly shot through my body causing my muscles to tense up. I dropped to the ground and started to spasm.

I cranked my neck and see Loki get hit with one too. He put up a fight but the woman got him on the ground and held him down as she took the gun and set it right on his neck and shot him. He too was quickly shocked as well.

After that. It was all choppy. I don’t remember getting in the ship. But I remember looking over and seeing Loki lying on the ground right across from me, all tied up in chains and still conscious. Then it cut out again.

———

“Hello?”

.....

“Hellooo!”

..

You don’t remember waking up, or ever being asleep. Your vision faded from black to reality. Your eyelids struggled to stay open. Once you were able to think without your eyes closing on you. You look up and see an older man with blue lip makeup on leaning over you.

“Good morning!” He said cheerfully.

You moved to get up but you were stopped. You looked down at the chair you were stittting in to see your legs and arms bound to it.

Air faught to enter your lungs but couldn’t make it in.

You struggled against the restraints but it was no use.

“Woh woh woh! Slow down there, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” The man said in a voice that’s not as calming as he probably wanted it to be.

“Where..” you breathed out one word as you looked around, trying to see anything or anyone you recognized.

“Where are you? Well, you’re on Sakar.”

“No.” Tears formed when you finally were aware that he was nowhere to be seen. “Where is Loki?”

“Who?” The man leaned back and unknowingly allowed you to see his guard.

You looked behind him and saw the woman who took you and Loki. You remembered her showing no mercy as she pinned him to the ground and shoved the gun against his neck. “What did you do!” Loki may be a dick, but he’s all you got right now.

Your line of sight was blocked again by the man. “Sweetheart you’re going to need to slow down-”

“I was with another person, his name is Loki and you took us here!” You cocked your head to the side to look at the woman when you said the last part.

“Ah, yes. The little green fellow. He’s in a cell right now. The shock didn’t knock him out and he was getting a bit annoying.” He replied nonchalantly.

“Grandmaster, I believe she’s still in a state of shock.” The woman spoke as the ‘Grandmaster’ turned to look at her. Her gaze was peircing and cruel. Her lip curled in a snarl.

You couldn’t wipe away the tears that were running down your face. You tried to use your shoulder but you couldn’t reach. “I want to see him!”

The Grandmaster turned to look at you again. He couldn’t contain himself and started laughing at you.

After what felt like 5 minutes he calmed down, “Oh sweetheart, you’re in no position to demand anything,” He said blotting away his tears with a hanky he pulled out of his jacket, “But sense you are now a new part of my collection, I can bend the rules a bit if you behave.”

“Wha..collection?”

“Yes! You are quite the rare find. A being as powerful as you yet not having the access to it.”

“Power? I’m nobody. I don’t have superpowers or-or fighting abilities!” You were so confused. Maybe he mixed you up with Loki and thought you were the powerful trickster god.

“Oh my, it seems you don’t know.” His face actually showed some empathy in his little pout he gave you, but not for long. “Topaz! Unbind this poor child.” He said with a snap of his fingers. The woman who kidnapped you and Loki rolled her eyes and came over to the back of your chair. You heard a beep before your restraints unlocked.

You were stiff and sore. You rubbed your wrist to try and ease the pain.

You looked back up at the Grandmaster. “...I’m free?”

“Oh not really pre say. But you are no longer being restrained for now.” He turned around and ignored you after that, going to find something new to play with.

“...Grandmaster!”

“Hm, what?” He turned around with a bored look on his face.

“What about Loki.”

———

A/N

I’m so tired.

tag list:

@condy-wants-a-cookie @thelostandweeping @lokismercedes @dark-night-sky-99 @greenhands5 @egos-r-life @redryderdesigns @timetraveler1978

[howtohero]

Removing Someone’s Powers

Sometimes you meet a person who has superpowers and you just find yourself thinking “hey, I don’t think that person should have powers.” Maybe they’re a supervillain who keeps using their powers for evil. Maybe they’re a small child who simply should not be able to turn into a ball of fire whenever something doesn’t go their way. Maybe they’re a huge jerk who keeps using their teleportation abilities to prank you which is a huge jerk move. So you decide to just... take their powers away from them. Can we do that? Is that a thing?

Deciding to remove a person’s powers is no simple thing. It presents a complex ethical quandary. Superpowers are an important part of a person, taking them away, especially without their consent, could be like removing an arm or a kidney or something. Now, if you’re the Arm-Hacking Kidney Stealer of Detroit, valiant defend of Montreal (protip: If you’re gonna put a city in your codename, don’t make it the city that you’re from. This way you’ll throw off the bad guys and protect your secret identity.) this is nothing new to you, you’ve already performed the mental gymnastics required to rationalize that to yourself. So go on right ahead. For the rest of you though you’ll need to do some math. How many people are threatened by this person continuing to have their powers? if they’re just pranking you then you need to come up with another solution. But if they’re threatening all of existence then you might be morally obligated to step in. Or maybe you’re not? Maybe you need to continue to search for another solution. 

Another way of looking at this issue is not through the lens that superpowers are a part of a person that they have an unassailable right to, but rather that they’re like dangerous weapons that need to be regulated. Perhaps it would be criminally irresponsible for the authorities to allow a known felon to walk around with acid hands or drill fangs. Maybe it is the duty of those in power to keep the rest of the populace safe from these people. Several governments have commissioned the development of  superpower suppressing or removing technologies or procedures. In rogue states, or countries where the head of state is literally a supervillain, this technology could be used as a powerful weapon to keep the populace in check and to keep superheroes from other countries at bay. This is, obviously, incredibly dangerous, which is why such technology is heavily regulated and closely guarded in countries where it has been developed. But still, is it right to even create such things? Knowing that they will be used to permanently alter a person’s genetic makeup against their will?

Another option you have it to temporarily suppress the person’s powers instead of permanently removing them. We’ve spoken in the past about power-suppressing handcuffs which many law enforcement agencies use to subdue superpowered criminals. Commonly when they’re transferred to a superhuman prison the cells are lined with power suppressing technologies so they can have full use of their hands and whatnot if they need to scratch their nose or furiously bang on the door while demanding release. However, this is not a fool proof solution either. Some people need their powers to be active to live comfortably. If you suppress an immortal person’s powers they may find themselves rapidly aging or dying depending on the nature of their immortality. Certain anthropomorphic animals, such as Super Hamster or alternate dimension visitor, Bunderclap, have been turned into dumb animals as a result of power suppressing. There are people who might find themselves crippled or at the mercy of deadly diseases were it not for their superpowers. I’m pretty sure that if Power Jones, the man with one million powers, was ever placed in an environment where he couldn’t use any of his powers he would definitely die. I’m like eighty percent sure he doesn’t know how to do anything without powers. He might actually technically be dead, being kept alive only by his nigh unlimited powers. 

Certain powers also become more difficult to suppress or contain than others. Superhumans who have weapons as part of their anatomy, such as catapult fingers or literal shoulder blades, can’t just be slapped in cuffs to negate their powers. Other heroes such as Power Pod or Whirlpool, who are made of liquid, or Ghost Guy or Jonathan Lockhorn, who are incorporeal spirits, also cannot simply be placed in cuffs. Ghost Guy actually was placed in power suppressing cuffs for a bit after he was caught infiltrating an Armada facility which led to him actually coming back to life and joining Armada as an agent codenamed Ghost for a bit but those were the ‘90s and things were weird back then. 

Then you have para-folks such a sewer mutants or werewolves whose species have natural abilities that are akin to superpowers. Their powers cannot be removed without forever changing their lives and cutting them off from their families and communities. Not to mention the fact that most para-folk are not even evil or criminals and that developing ways to alter their physiology would no doubt lead to many of them having their lives forever changed by bigots for absolutely no reason.

One of the examples we gave in our intro was superpowered children. Sure, at a glance it might seem smart to prevent a small child from being able to accidentally cause mass destruction. But suppressing their powers might not be the solution. Children’s powers are still developing and stunting this development could harm them in the long run. You’re better off just sending them to one of many superpower or magic schools that have been set up around the world to help children learn how to properly use their powers. (However don’t send them to the superhero school in Albany where Professor Mitch “Dummy Face” Fueller and Professor Leon “Loser Nerd” Von Iguanodon teach.) 

However, there are indeed sometimes when removing a person’s powers is actually the best course of action. People who are experiencing uncontrollable powers (that post did numbers so we’re officially going to start pandering to that crowd all the time) might actually want to have their powers removed. So it’s important that that option is available. There are also powers out there that are dangerous to their users, such as certain forms of super speed that speed up the user’s heart rate to incredibly dangerous speeds. There are also powers that are “evil” such as the power to kill anybody you touch, which a person might understandably want to get rid of. The trick is to know when such drastic measures are appropriate and when you’re better off searching for another solution to the issue at hand. 

At the end of the day, as a superhero, you know more about superpowers than the average person, you have them, you’ve fought people with them, and your adventures have brought you into contact with people and creatures across the galaxy, the multiverse, and even the afterlife who are in possession with fantastic powers. Which means that you have a responsibility to fight for the right of these people to keep their powers. You know how important superpowers are to people who have them, and you may even know firsthand what its like to have lost your powers. So it falls to you to lobby for imprisoned superhumans to keep their powers... unless they’re using them to prank you. Then you do what you need to do.