#now that i think about it it could come across as kind of weird/mean its not supposed to be!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ultralightpoe · 9 months

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The Freak and The Princess -Eddie Munson

Authors Note: I think I wrote this one back when the new season first came out? Cleaning out drafts and for a couple months I was on an Eddie track fr fr

Word Count: 13,441

Warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUT - Eddie and reader are mean to each other for a bit.

(Thank you for the gif @johnclaytonmayer)

Enjoy!

It was amazing to think how much things change.

There had once been a time where you considered Eddie Munson to be your best friend, that and your brother Gareth. There had been a time where you thought Eddie Munson was one of the most perfect people in the world, where you had craved to spend any possible second you could with him.

Now, sitting in the back of his van soaked to the bone as you sob, you find that you’re somehow sitting across a stranger. He watches you closely, eyes stern as he wraps a blanket around you to try and help the shivering.

It was weird to recognize every single detail of him and still feel like you didn’t all at once.

“Do you want to smoke? Will that help?” He asks, already reaching for the lunch box hidden in the back so he could grab one of the joints you had seen him roll earlier in the day.

“I want to go home.” You cry, a shiver going down your spine. “But I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“Okay.” He nods, and you can see him try to come up with a plan. “I can take you to my trailer for a bit, you can shower and sleep some of this off. Okay?”

“Okay.” You nod, hands still shaking. “Thank you….. thank you Eds.”

He stills at the nickname, eyes catching yours for a moment before he is shuffling to get into the driver seat without another word.

You felt silly, calling him his nickname after everything that’s happened, shuffling to lay on your side to help ease some of the pain built up. You hear him shuffle around with the music, debating if he should have it up or down.

“Do you want music, bugs?” He asks, your chest warming at the nickname as you close your eyes, inhaling the scent from his sweater and blanket as you fall asleep.

You had met Eddie your freshman year of highschool, before that he had always been Gareths mysterious friend that you had never seen before.

But now that you went to school with them it seemed that Eddie was everywhere, not that you minded.

You had quickly become a main member of their group, sitting with them at lunch and going to their band practices. You and your brother had always been close, so it wasn’t anything different than how it used to be. You were just hanging out with your brother…… and his extremely hot friend that you sometimes imagined kissing. No biggie.

But being completely honest everything about Eddie to you was a huge biggie.

Like right now, as he glared at you while angrily breaking pretzels with his teeth, and all you could do was smile at him.

“What is wrong with you?” He snaps and you preen under the attention.

“I said what I said.” You simply reply, flipping your hair over your shoulder with confidence.

“How can you hate Texas Chainsaw?! It’s such a classic movie! First of its kind!” He whines, snatching a fry from your plate.

“You say that about every slasher movie, Eds.” You grumble, snatching a pretzel from his bag. “They’re all new and amazing to you.

“Because they are!” He sighs, obviously frustrated that you wouldn’t agree. “You’re just upset that we didn’t watch that new goonies bullshit.”

“What’s going on?” Gareth asks, sitting beside you with his own lunch tray and snatching one of your fries even though he had some of his own.

“We were just talking about movies.” You mumble, a blush rising across your skin. Wednesday nights Gareth had to work at the gas stations over night shift, so you had begun hanging out with Eddie when your brother was busy. That had turned into spending the night at Eddie’s and telling your older brother that you were spending the night at your friend Abigail’s since you knew he would get butt hurt that you hung out with Eddie without him.

“Bugs here thinks Texas chainsaw sucked.” Eddie grunts, throwing a pretzel at you.

“Oh no way! It’s so good!” Your brother gasps as Jeff joins the table and soon Paul joined. Suddenly the table was packed and chaos filled the once normal conversation.

You allowed them all to talk over you, choosing to look around the cafeteria as they do so. Everyone today seemed to be in a flurry of excitement, laughing and dashing across the cafeteria.

You make eye contact with Adam Hanson, one of the schools popular basketball players and he gives you a wide smile, winking as all his friends talk around him.

At first you pass by it, not really thinking he was looking at you until he waves his hand to get your attention again, smiling like a goof as he wiggles his fingers right before he winks again.

A small touch at your wrist pulls you back to the table, where Eddie is peering at you with wide brown eyes as the boys yell at each other about something. His thumb is rubbing your wrist softly as you try and smile.

“You okay?” He asks, looking past you to where Hanson sits before looking back to your eyes.

“I’m fine. Hanson has always been a clown.” You mumble back shrugging.

“Okay well I was asking you if you want to retry.” Eddie mumbles, thumb still rubbing your wrist.

“Retry?”

“Movie night.”

“I’m not watching texas chainsaw again.” You laugh which makes him smile.

“I meant we need to make up for it. Get a movie you might actually like.” He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Gareth works tonight and Wayne is going to be doing an all nighter at work so we can get another movie.”

“That sounds like fun.” You smile at him, watching his shoulders relax a bit.

“What sounds like fun?” Gareth asks turning to you.

“Burning the government down.” You reply, smiling innocently.

“That sounds like fun, count me in.” A new voice emerges from behind you, making the rest of the table blink slowly as you turn to see Adam Hanson standing there smiling wide. “What time should we meet up? I’ll bring the gasoline.”

“I think our rebel van is already full this time. Maybe you can catch the next round.” You smile.

“Burning down more than one government are we?” He laughs with raised eyebrows.

“Mmm. Maybe a monarchy next.” You offer, shrugging a bit as he laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “I like to keep my options open.”

“Can we help you?” Gareth scoffs, glaring at Adam like he was being a huge issue.

“Hey, take it easy. Just trying to join a revolution.” Adam teases, hands held up in a surrender way and winking at you once more before walking off to join his friends at the door while your brother glares at you like you had done something wrong.

“What?”

“That was gross!” He scoffs. “Dude was ogling at my baby sister.”

“No he wasn’t.” You scoff back, blushing a bit as your brother rolls his eyes. Risking a quick look to Eddie, nervous about his reaction, you find him wide eyed looking between your brother and yourself.

“Wasn’t that disgusting, Eddie?” Gareth snaps, pulling the poor dungeon master into it. “The kid barely notices you then you hit puberty and suddenly he’s all over you? Fucking perve.”

“Why are you making such a big deal about this? He was just being nice.”

“You’re a child. And he was not just being nice.” Gareth scoffs again, smacking the back of your head. “It’s called being a pedophile.”

“Doesn’t count. They are both minors.” Jeff reminds through a mouthful of pizza.

“Yeah well it’s still gross.” Gareth snaps.

Now, completely embarrassed by this whole ordeal, you risk one more look at Eddie only to realize that he was avoiding eye contact and pretending to read the textbook in front of him.

“I’m gonna go to my locker.” You mumble, the embarrassment eating you. You grab your stuff quickly, dropping off the tray into the trash before exiting all together.

Eddie’s trailer had once made you nervous, the idea of being where Eddie lived and slept.

But now? You were very used to it, excitement fills you whenever you come over.

Knocking, just as you always do, after parking your bike by the side so it doesn’t get stolen. Soon enough the door was cracking open and Eddie’s face came into view, a smile breaking out on his face when he sees you, opening the door wider to reveal he is only in sweats with his torso of tattoos that has your eyes widening.

“You’re early.” He mumbles out, rubbing his eyes to try and wake up, pulling you in so he can shut the door from the cold. “Jesus. Why is it so chilly?”

Within moments he is pulling you in for a hug, rubbing your back in an attempt to warm you up. You’re body is immediately ablaze, cheeks warm from blushing and skin hot.

“It’s this funny thing called fall.” You joke, hugging him back tightly before he tries to shuffle you both back to his room without breaking it. A giggle escapes you when he trips slightly before you let go so he can walk normally and moves to his room with you close on his heels.

It’s a routine that you both follow easily when you arrive, going to his room to change out of everyday clothes and into something more comfortable.

He lets you wear one of his band tees and sweats, snatching the pillows from his bed as you change, and then he leads you back out to the living room.

“I went ahead and got the goonies for you, because you’re a nerd.” He grunts out, moving to put the tape in. “Why are you so early today?”

“I didn’t go home, I had a meeting after school and came straight here.” You answer, watching his interest peak as he raises an eyebrow.

“What meeting?” You wait for him to sit on the couch, laying down before extending his arms to grab you so that you both could lay down, pressed to each other as you fixed the blanket.

“Cheer. They have an opening so I signed up for the auditions.” You mumble, using his chest as a pillow while he looks down at you.

“You want to cheer?”

“Yeah. I always have. I used to do it all the time, cheer camp and everything but when I first came to Hawkins someone told me I shouldn’t.” You answer, adjusting the blanket so it covered you both as his hands move to play with your hair.

Something about Eddie? He was ALWAYS touching you. Found every excuse in the book to do so. And it annoyed you to no end because he was so casual about it and it always left you flustered and a mess.

“Is that why that kid came up to talk to you today?” He asks, something off about his tone. “Seemed like you knew him.”

“I have math class with him.” You yawn, closing your eyes and keeping your nose pressed into his chest as you fall asleep.

Sometime later he wakes you up, half asleep himself to get you both to his room, falling into the mattress and pulling you in to fall back asleep.

“You’re being so weird today.” Gareth snaps through a mouthful of cereal, leaning against the locker next to yours.

“Shut up.” You mumble out, not daring to look him in the eyes as he draws attention to you both.

“Why me shut up? Dude this isn’t a good idea.”

“Gareth. Take it down a notch.” You warn.

“You want to be on the cheer team? Really?” He scoffs. “That lame group that shares maybe one brain cell between them?”

“With me there might be more” you try to tease, watching him roll his eyes before another figure emerges.

“Dude. Where were you last night? I called like 6 times.” Gareth sighs, and you’re just thankful that the conversation moved on from you for a moment.

“I went to bed. Take it down a notch.” Eddie shrugs, looking at you the same time you looked at him.

Technically he wasn’t lying. He had gone to bed. “What’s the problem?”

“My sister wants to join the world of bimbos and stds.” Gareth snaps, and you feel Eddie move forward to avoid being pushed in the crowded hallway, his chest hitting your shoulder with warmth.

“You want to date Steve Harrington?” He laughs, making you smile back.

“She wants to be a cheer slut.”

“Who does?” This time it’s Paul that asks, with Jeff right on his tail. And once again you’re thrown in the center of their arguing.

“Seriously?” Paul laughs when he is told, blatantly laughing in your face. “That’d be so hilarious!”

“Hey, come on.” Eddie warns.

“I mean she’s….” Paul trails off a bit and you find yourself filling in on the words he didn’t say. You’re what? Lame? Ugly? Unlikable?

“It’s not gonna work.” Gareth shrugs.”I just don’t want you to get hurt buggie.”

“She’s not gonna make it. And even if she does it’s not like she’ll be on long.” Paul giggles to himself. “You’d have to put out to the-“

Eddie and Gareth both punch his shoulders on either side, as hard as they can.

“See you at cheer practice, ……” a soft voice rings out, drawing your attention to Chrissy Cunningham, a girl in your class.

She held a small smile, one that said “I got your back.” And you realized what she must have seen, you surrounded by a bunch of guys making fun of you.

So you give a tiny wave, which makes her smile widen and suddenly you were smiling too, a little happier when she walks off.

Something light fills your chest until you look back to Gareth who glares at you. “You’re not even in yet and you’re already acting like one of them.”

“I don’t get why you’re so mad. Paul, you said last band practice that I annoy you guys.” You remind, snatching one of your books as Eddie stands straight suddenly. “Being a cheerleader means I don’t sit in on practices anymore.”

“Wait; you said that?” Eddie asks, chest still pressed into your shoulder as he holds out his hand to Paul in a shocked way. “Why?”

“Cause she always-“

“Can we get back to the problem at hand? You’re gonna be all cool and popular and lose all your personality.” Gareth snaps. “Just another girl with a pretty smile that the jocks use and abuse.”

“I’d still hang out with you guys?” You laugh, closing your locker. “What are the chances that we all stop being friends? I live with you, remember Gary?”

“Whatever bugs.” He huffs, a small smile playing at his lips.

He waltzes off after that, bowl of cereal in hand as Paul and Jeff follow him to class. Eddie remains, watching you.

“I don’t know why Paul said that but-“

“Eds, it’s fine. He’s a little right at the end of the day. I mean there’s only so much I can talk to you guys about so maybe it’s time I make a couple more friends.” You shrug.

“You can talk to me about anything though.” Not about the huge crush you have, or the way every time he touches you your heart beats fast.

“Not about periods or bra sizes.” You joke, moving to walk away, surprised when he follows you. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the other side of school?”

“You can talk to me about anything.” He states again, this time more serious. “Periods. Bra sizes. Anything and everything. I just want you to know that.”

You smile at him, shrugging and walking away to class.

Two days later you’re rushing home with excited news, a smile splitting across your face as you run to tell everyone.

Tonight was band practice, which meant all the boys would be in the garage so you’d probably tell them first, your new cheer uniform clutched tightly in your hands as you make your way up.

You see Eddie’s van parked in the driveway and excitement fills you at the thought of telling him, so you cut across the lawn, just at the point where they can almost hear you when you hear them talking.

“-I think it’s great that she’s going for the cheer team.” Jeff’s voice rings out, catching your attention “she used to cheer when she was younger right?”

“Yeah. She stopped when she got to high school. I don’t know man, I just think it’s going to ruin her you know?”

“At least she won’t be following us around all the time.” Paul grunts out, and your heart clenches. “She’s always there!”

“That is a good point.” Gareth sighs. “Maybe go and make her own friends.”

“She’s so annoying. Always talking our ear off about everything and always asking us if she can play DND.”

“She doesn’t ask us if she can play. She asks how we play and if she can watch.” Jeff corrects.

“For what though? So she can start coming to those hangouts?! She ruins everything!” Paul snaps and you suddenly feel really stupid.

“I think you’re right.” Eddie laughs, which makes Jeff and Gareth laugh too and you completely shatter there.

What happened to you talking to him about anything?

“I’m just saying man-“

“Yeah yeah, we know what you’re saying Paul.” Eddie interrupts him, still laughing. You can’t hear anymore, you turn to head through the front door rather than the garage, storming up to your room and slamming your door.

Eddie was anxious, had been all day since he found out the cheer tryouts were today.

He didn’t know what he was so worried about in general, and no matter what he tried to talk himself out of he always found something else to worry about.

What if you got in and stopped hanging out with all of them? No more secret movie nights at his trailer or sneaking you into the hideout so you can watch their shows.

No more of you coming to band practices and cheering them on. He wouldn’t get to be near you as much. You wouldn’t sit at the table with them and he wouldn’t get to talk to you everyday.

Or worse, you become one of them and you end up hating him just like they do.

But then he tells himself that neither of those would happen, you would still be their friends and you loved movie night as much as he did. Or.,….. well he hoped you did.

Besides, he would be upset if they turned you down. He knew you would be upset and he just wouldn’t be able to handle how sad you would look.

They would be idiots to turn you away, he’s seen you dance at the hideout….. well more so like he watched you intently like a perv, scared your brother might finally notice just how much Eddie liked you.

That had been his biggest concern as of late, Gareth. Watching your brother freak out everytime someone tried talking to you or everytime Paul hinted about you, well it made him feel like a shit friend.

Not to mention it made him feel bad for you. You just wanted to hang out with your brother and his friends, you didn’t need him being all weird about it.

You especially didn’t need him trailing after you like a lost puppy all the time.

Which was why he was getting so anxious at band practice, listening to Gareth get into it with Paul over you.

“This is such bullshit man, I already got you drooling over my sister at every turn-“

“I do not!” Paul snaps.

“-and not the rest of the school will be too!” Gareth yells, frustrated.

“Just wait until she starts dyeing her hair and sucking faces with all the boys on the team!” Paul gags, which makes Jeff roll his eyes.

“You’re just saying that because you’ve been head over heels in love with her since middle school dumbass. We all see it. And personally I think it’s great that she’s going for the cheer team.” Jeff adds, always the calm one. “she used to cheer when she was younger right?”

“Yeah. She stopped when she got to high school. I don’t know man, I just think it’s going to ruin her you know?” Gareth sighs, and Eddie finally recognizes what the biggest problem here was. He was afraid he wouldn’t have your back anymore.

“At least she won’t be following us around all the time.” Paul grunts out, and Eddie finds himself clenching his fists and trying not to lose his cool. “She’s always there!”

“That is a good point.” Gareth sighs. “Maybe go and make her own friends.”

“She’s so annoying. Always talking our ear off about everything and always asking us if she can play DND.”

“She doesn’t ask us if she can play. She asks how we play and if she can watch.” Jeff corrects which makes Eddie nod. He had countless nights planning the campaigns with you and always offered to teach you, but you never wanted to actually play, instead you gave him ideas on his campaigns.

“For what though? So she can start coming to those hangouts?! She ruins everything!” Paul snaps.

“I think you’re right.” Eddie laughs loudly, turning to Jeff in reference to Paul’s crush on you as they all laugh at Paul, who gets completely red in the face at the way they are all calling him out.

“I’m just saying man-“

“Yeah yeah, we know what you’re saying Paul.” Eddie interrupts him, still laughing even though he feels like pummeling his face in. “You’re madly in love with Gareths little sister and she doesn’t like you back so you have to be angry at her for it.”

“Back off my little sister you freak.” Gareth laughs at paul. “She’s too good for you.”

She’s too good for everyone, Eddie thinks, turning towards the open garage door waiting to see you. “What time was that shit supposed to end anyways?”

“All I know is she said she’d be home for dinner.” Gareth shrugs and Eddie still can’t decide if he wants you to make it on the team or not.

All he hopes for is that they are nice too you.

So he waits, and waits. Even when they are playing their songs he keeps his eyes on the door for you to emerge.

Finally Gareths mom comes out smiling to call them in for dinner.

“What about sis?” Gareth asks as everyone helps his mom set the table.

“She’s upstairs.” This catches Eddie’s attention, heart thundering as he tries to play it cool.

“I didn’t see her come in?” Gareth asks, moving to the stairs in an attempt to call you down but your mom is quick to stop him.

“Don’t. She’s upset and trying to lay down.”

“She’s upset?” Eddie asks, chest aching. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I went to check on her and she was crying. Said she didn’t feel well.” Your mom answers and Eddie’s fist clenched.

They probably made fun of you, they probably made you cry at the try outs. Jeff taps his shoulder, mouthing a ‘chill out.’ That makes Eddie worried.

Did Jeff know he had a crush on you too?

Did Gareth know?

“Eat up boys.” Your mom orders.

The next morning was rocky at best.

You got up and got dressed into your cheer uniform, and then at the last second decided that since you were wearing the uniform why not do your makeup? You wanted to look cute for your first day on the team.

You hadn’t thought about what you overheard until your brother barged in your room, giving you a confused look as you finish up the final touches on your face, suddenly embarrassed as it all comes rushing back.

“You made it?!” He asks, which makes you roll your eyes.

“Yes. Shut up.” You grunt, pushing him out of the way to grab your shoes.

“Mom said you were upset yesterday, so I figured you didn’t make it.” He shrugs, admiring himself in your mirror before throwing your own brush at you.

“I just had a migraine.” You lie, trying to play it off. Don’t cry. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

“Damn. Sorry bugs. I’ll grab time Tylenol before we leave in case it comes back.” And with that he is gone, you hot on his heels to catch up as you dash to pack your lunch.

“Eddie is swinging by to pick us up.” Gareth informs, snatching an apple and the bottle of Tylenol before moving to count the money in his wallet for lunch.

“Why?” The only times eddie took you to school were after your movie nights when you were at his house anyways.

“He offered last night. Let’s go.” Your brother sighs, ushering you to the door.

“We’ll I don’t wanna intrude and I have something after school so I can just ride my bike.” You’re quick, moving away from your brother in attempt to make it look like you forgot something. “Go on without me.”

“Bugs, I’m sure Eddie or Paul will give you a ride after your meeting thing. Let’s gooooo.” He groans, pulling you by your hair and out the door.

When he manages to drag you to the van Eddie leans over to open the door and Gareth waits for you to hop in.

“I should just ride my bike. I’ve got something after school later and you guys won’t want to wait around-“

“We have DnD tonight.” Eddie shrugs. “We’ll be at the school late anyways.”

There was no winning with these two, so you nod and hop in, trying not to take up too much space as Eddie stares at the uniform.

“You got in?”

“Why is everyone so shocked?” You snap, embarrassed and upset. They thought you were annoying and always there and apparently no one believed you would get in the squad.

“It’s just-“

“Is that a donut?” Gareth asks, snatching it from the console.

“I got it for bugs to cheer her up-“ Eddie starts right as Gareth shoves half of it in his mouth. “Nevermind.”

“Can we just go?” You snap, attempting to avoid eye contact with both.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, walking with you on your way to your locker after 3rd period, his eyebrows pinched in worry and his eyes wide.

“I’m fine.” You lie, trying to smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Maybe because I overheard people I thought were my friends making fun of me, or maybe because the guy I’ve been madly in love with since I met him thinks I’m clingy and annoying.

“I just wanted to make sure because-“ he grunts out as Steve Harrington elbows him to get past, accidentally shoving him into you and sending you both into the lockers. “God damnit.”

Eddie is quick to give you space, reaching for the arm that hit the lockers to make sure you’re not hurt as he blinks.

“I’m fine.” You smile, enjoying the feeling of his hand on your skin. “Did you pack lunch today?”

“No. But since I stopped to get you breakfast, sorry about that by the way, I picked something up.” He explains, walking with you and dropping his hand. The way he’s staring at you makes you nervous, In the best way. And you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach as he attempts a smile, until you remember what was said yesterday and those butterflies find themselves in a blender. “Might you be interested in sharing a store made sandwich and sun chips milady?”

“Oh how thoughtful-“ you begin, joining him in the lunchroom before you see Paul and Jeff already sitting there, panic rising. “But I realized I forgot my lunch. I’ll go get something.”

“Okay, I can walk up with you-“ Eddie starts, but you stop him.

“I’m fine! I’ll be good.” You mumble out. “Besides, Paul’s already calling you over.”

Eddie gives you a worried look, but nods and heads over to the table anyways, all the boys matching in their hellfire shirts as Paul starts loudly complaining about something.

You realize halfway to the line that your excuse didn’t make sense since you did pack lunch, and you hadn’t grabbed your wallet since this outfit didn’t have pockets so you had no money to buy anything.

And while you stood there, debating what you should do, you see Chrissy walking towards you in her uniform as well.

“Hey!” She smiles, moving in to hug you. “I’m so happy you made it! I was worried when there was only two spots and you were soooo good!”

A small burst of pride settles through you as she compliments you, linking your arms together as she heads to the cheer table. “I was also worried I'd be left alone. But you’re here and we’re gonna be so awesome!”

She leads you to the table, and takes a seat like it was the most natural thing in the world, meanwhile you were panicking. What would the boys think? Would these girls want you to sit with them?

You risk a look over to the hellfire table, seeing all of them staring at you with wide eyes, especially Eddie, who had saved the seat next to himself.

“Girl; come on! We want to do your hair!” Sarah, the captain, giggles and pulls you to sit.

It was for the better, all the boys thought you were annoying anyways. Maybe they would get a break from you.

One lunch wouldn’t hurt and you wouldn’t be so annoying. Right?

“Too cool to eat with us now?” Gareth teases, waiting for you after practice. The sun had gone down in Hawkins, and the sweat from practice clung to you making the night air twice as chilly.

He had a red mark on his cheek, which told you that he probably was being overdramatic during the campaign and smacked himself again.

“No. I…” you start to explain, right as Eddie comes out of the doors and spots you. “I was going to get lunch, but Chrissy pulled me to the table.”

“How was it?” Eddie smiles. “You got to see how the other side lived? Any exciting news to report back?”

“Nothing much,” you smile, walking with them both as they head to Eddie’s car. “I got to know them a little better and they all talked to me about my routine because they like-“

Your brother does an overdramatic yawn, tossing the back door to Eddie’s van open and throwing himself in. “Boring already.”

You roll your eyes, shutting the door on him before moving to hop into the passenger seat. Eddie gets into the driver side, looking to where your brother is already lighting a cigarette.

“So they liked your routine?” He asks, looking at you as he starts the van.

“They did!” You smile, excitement bubbling in you as you move to start talking again.

“Oh my god. No one cares. Are any of them single?” Gareth smiles, and you lean to smack his head before sitting in silence the rest of the ride.

When you get home you’re the first to hop out, turning to grab your bag as Gareth crawls out.

“I can get you guys tomorrow? If you’d like.” Eddie offers, face red for some reason. Gareth narrows his eyes at his friend, while you shrug.

“Actually the girls are gonna come get me early. Thanks though Eds.” You smile, walking away as Gareth says he’ll be ready by 8.

One lunch turned to another, then another. Then that turned to going and getting a milkshake with the girls after practice and rides from them in the mornings.

You went from always being around to never in sight, which absolutely shredded Eddie to pieces.

It’s not like he wasn’t happy for you, you seemed to be always smiling and giggling with them. You went to the mall with them on weekends and always came back ecstatic about everything you got because the girls all said it looked great on you.

You definitely grew into the feminine side, and his heart exploded everytime he did manage to see you….. and he was ashamed to admit his pants always got tighter whenever he saw you in uniform.

You messed around with makeup and you always had a style for you hair.

Eddie loved it for you, he loved that you seemed to go from stunningly beautiful to so stunningly gorgeous any guy at school wanted you. You seemed to enjoy your new look and he was happy for you. He wasn’t happy about the fact that he never saw you anymore.

So, on a Wednesday afternoon, when he was dropping off a new cover for Gareths guitar while his friend was at work he was excited to see your shoes in the doorway.

He waltzed up the stairs and knocked on your door, heart hammering through his ribcage as he heard you jump to answer it.

Then there you were, as beautiful as can be, with nothing on but a tank and shorts. Excitement courses through him, a smile spreading across his face, it has been weeks since he last saw you and now he could ask about movie night.

“Hey I-“ he stopped short when he saw Adam Hanson sitting on your bedroom floor, staring at him like he was crazy. Of course he was staring at him like he was crazy, Adam was probably wondering why the school freak was at your door. “I was just dropping off this new cover for your brother. Make sure he gets it, yeah?”

He practically shoves it into your hands, heart thundering and desperate to get out of here.

“Okay!” You smile at him and he feels his heart clench through his chest. “Actually Adam and I were finishing up homework if you wanted to watch a movie-“

Hanging out with you? Dream come true. Hanging out with you and your boyfriend? Fuck. No. So he finds himself lashing out, a mix of embarrassment and jealousy made for a bad situation. “No thanks. I have better things to do than hang out with Gareths baby sister. Or should I say better girls to do.”

He pairs it with a bullshit wink in adams direction, not daring to look at you as he moves to walk away while you slam the door.

“Does the freak always talk to you like that?” Adam asks, and Eddie can only hear ringing at the blood rushes to his ears. Freak.

He doesn’t bother waiting around, instesd he marches straight out of your house and leaves.

You’re in shock when you close the door, eyes welling with tears.

“Does the freak always talk to you like that?” Adam asks, pulling your attention to him. “Woah, hey don’t cry.”

“He’s not a freak.” You defend, as you had been doing the past two months. “And he’s never….”

What? Talked like that before? You didn’t know that, and you knew he had talked about how annoying you were behind your back? So maybe he’s said more things too.

“Never to my face.” You shrug, wiping away the tears that kept coming.

Adam sighs, moving to hug you and let you cry.

“I’m so telling my boyfriend about this.” He sneers and you laugh lightly.

“I don’t really know what you’re long distance boyfriend will do to help.”

“Send me treats that I can share with you obviously.” Adam laughs. “Hey, I can stay and watch that movie with you-“

“No it’s fine.” You sniffle. “You have a curfew.”

And he soon enough leaves, worried about you but you keep telling him it’s fine, anger coiling in your gut at every pity look your friend gives you.

How dare Eddie. How dare he embarrass you and say that. What had you ever done to him?

Sure you were the annoying little sister but it’s not like he had ever told you to back off or anything. He had always made it seem like he wanted to hang out.

You couldn’t shake the anger as you went to bed, and suddenly you found yourself in a weird spot.

The line that had originally been drawn in the sand, on whether you remained their friend or not, had quickly dispersed after that.

In fact the sand had been kicked through and suddenly, without warning, you and eddie had been thrown to war.

Gone were the cute nicknames of Eds and bugs, now when you addressed each other you referred to him as freak and he referred to you as wannabe.

You let the basketball players push him in the halls and he threw food at you and your friends in the cafeteria.

When the winter formal rolled around Adam took you, and you had been so excited for it until Eddie made some snide comment when you came down the stairs which sent you into a sour mood the rest of the night.

When winter break rolled around Gareth had let them come over nearly everyday for stupid band practice and whenever you came home you made sure to enter through the garage just to piss them off, making sure to unplug the amps each time.

Like today, hands filled with shopping bags as you came home, saying bye to Chrissy as she drove off with a wide smile, and then turning to the garage.

“Hey bugs.” Gareth greets, which you simply glare to, making sure to hit Eddie’s shoulder with your own as you pass which makes his curse out and spill his drink.

“Freaks.” You snap, unplugging their amp and hitting the light switch as you head inside. You hear them all groan, and then you take it one step further and turn off the lights in the garage completely by the power box in the kitchen.

“Damn it!” Gareth snaps when he realizes and you pick up the phone, dialing adams number since you promised to call him earlier.

He picks up right as the boys all dash inside, Gareth glaring as you pretend like you don’t even see them.

“Hey handsome, thought I’d call to check in.” You smile through the phone, hearing him laugh.

“Hello back beautiful.” Adam says, matching your tone. “You bothering the boys again?”

“Oh. My favorite thing to do-“ you giggle, slapping Gareth's shoulder when he reaches to hang up the phone. “Back off.”

“I’m getting mom.” He snaps out while Paul and Jeff disappear to the garage again. He dashes to go find your mom which leaves just Eddie in the kitchen, glaring at you.

“I miss you too.” You coo into the phone, enjoying the way Eddie’s jaw ticks as Adam laughs and plays long, enjoying the game himself.

“What’s your problem lately, brat?” Eddie snaps, his eyes angry and set.

“Hold on baby-“ you say into the phone, covering the mouth piece and giving Eddie your best uncaring face. “Can I help you, freak?”

He reaches forward, cursing under his breath as he reaches around you to hang up the phone.

“What the fuck-“ you start before he is snatching the handle from your hands and slamming it into the receiver, turning to you fully.

“Why are you being this way? What the fuck did we do to you?”

“I’d love to stay and chat, but I have better things to do. Or should I say better men to do.” You smile, moving to stand quickly as his eyes widen. When you move to walk away he goes to grab one of the bags in attempt to keep you in the room, the paper of the bag rips and suddenly everything you bought at that store falls to the kitchen floor.

Your mouth falls open as Eddie’s eyes widen at the sheer amount of lingerie sets that fall out.

Not really lingerie, but close to. All lace panties and bras that Chrissy said would look great on you.

“I’m-“ Eddie begins, moving to help you grab them at the same time you bend to grab them so your heads hit each other.

“Damn it-“ you gasp out, rushing to grab all the underwear as he helps you to try and shove them all in the bag.

“I didn’t realize you were so into Adam.” He sneers.

“Oh shut up.” You sneer back, snatching everything into your hands. “Not everything is about sex-“

“Of course it is”. He laughs bitterly. “You’re their new play toy.”

“I swear to god freak-“

“What you gonna do brat?” He seethes, getting into your personal space.

“Everything okay here?” Gareth asks, making you and Eddie jump back.

“Whatever Gareth.” You push past him, ignoring the excited buzz you feel from Eddie.

“Are….are you guys good?” Gareth asks eddie the next morning, making Eddie turn to glare at him. “Don’t bite my head off, okay? I just….”

Eddie stays silent, starting the car as he watches you waltz across the lawn in the cheer uniform.

“It’s just that she’s been so different lately and for the past couple weeks you have been too. Did you guys break up?”

Eddie, who had started driving, immediately hits the brakes and whips to look at Gareth. “What?”

“Did you and my sister break up?”

“I’m not- what- we never- Gareth-“ Eddie panics, trying to find the right words. “Listen-“

“Dude it’s fine. I always knew okay?”

“Wait wait wait. We never- she and I never-“ what the hell was happening. “Okay let’s back up. You thought we were dating?”

“Oh come on. All your secret sleepovers? You really thought I didn’t know about those? You know how many times I pretended to call her friends house for you guys so mom didn’t catch her? And all the small little touches you always had or the way you looked at her. Not to mention all the paragraphs about you in her diary-“

“We never dated.” Eddie cuts him off. “She didn’t like me like that.”

“No man. She did.” Gareth laughs. “She has always liked you like that.”

He ignores the feeljng bubbling in his chest at the thought, shaking his head. “Why haven’t you tried to kill me if you thought we were dating?”

“What?”

“You’re always freaking out about her and guys, and you always threaten Paul whenever he-“

“Guys are gross and I don’t want them hurting my baby sister. Paul is a lame excuse for a human beings.” Gareth shrugs. “And I always figured if my sister was going to date someone it should be you. You are…..semi decent.”

“We never dated. And she hates me now so I hate her.” Eddie starts driving again, shrugging like it didn’t matter.

“Why does she hate you now?”

“Not a clue.” He had a slight clue after the other night.

“Okay well, do you think you can like… fix whatever it is?” Gareth sighs. “I miss my sister.”

Eddie missed you too.

He didn’t try to talk to you, he had debated it for all of 4 hours before you had to go and ruin it.

Just when he was starting to talk himself into apologizing he turned the corner to find you, giggling and blushing with none other than Steve Harrington.

Upon hearing his footsteps you turn, face falling when you see his glare before that bitch look you’ve perfected the past couple weeks falls in its place, making his heart thump wildly as he walks closer.

“Your brother asked me to apologize.” He bites out, hands catching themselves behind his back as he glares. “Sorry.”

“Wow. What a great apology.” Harrington smiles making you slap his shoulder with wide eyes until he laughs and nods. “I’ll see you later okay?” He smiles, tapping your nose before walking off with a simple “Bye Munson.”

Eddie watches him leave before turning back to you with a raised eyebrow, and suddenly he was desperate to piss you off. Desperate to get under your skin the way you got under his.

“Oh I see. You didn’t get all the panties for one guy, you got them for the whole school.” He smiles, watching your face fall into one of shock. “What’s the deal? Tap you and then get to keep the panties? Having a buy one get one free sale?”

“Calling me a slut?” You seethed .

“If the shoe fits baby.” He coos, smiling from ear to ear as you slam your locker and move forward.

“I hate you!”

“I hate you back!” He snaps back, matching your tone as you get closer and closer until your chest are pressed against each other.

“What did I ever do wrong?” You snap, eyebrows pinching in anger and confusion. “I thought you all liked me and-“

He’s confused now, racking his brain for what you mean before he settles on an answer. “You thought the guys you’ve slept with liked you?”

The second the words come out he hears how bad it sounds, watching as your face falls and he rushes to explain that he was just trying to understand what you meant. But it’s too late and you reach a hand up to twist his nipple.

“OW! Holy Jesus-“ he gasps in pain, moving his body to try and pull away but you follow easily, pushing him into the nearest supply closet you can.

By the time you actually let go he is red in the face, using his hand to rub the sore spot and trying to glare. “Do I wanna know where you -NO OW!”

“Take it back!” You order, already twisting his second nipple which makes him gasp and move to twist your ear.

A gasp of pain slips from you and you let go of him to pull back, both of you glaring at eachother.

He’s panting, and so are you, adrenaline coating your nerves.

“What’s going on lately?” He snaps, still rubbing the sore spot as you glare back.

“You tell me.”

“No you tell me! What did I do? Do I embarrass you? Or maybe I just annoy you-“

“Bold of you to say! All you and your friends can talk about is how much I annoyed you!” You snap back.

“Who said that? Tell me and I-“

“You said it!”

“When would I ever say that?! Is it that night at your house, because sorry if I didn’t want to hang out with you and your boyfriend!” You shove his shoulder lightly and he gasps before doing it back. Acting like literal children.

You keep shoving each other, back and forth over and over until a laugh slowly starts leaching from both of you. And suddenly it was normal again, not that angry yelling that’s been between you guys for months.

“Freak.” You giggle.

“Princess.” He laughs back, but then he is peering at you, hands on his hips as he tries to figure out how to fix this.

But then, without really thinking, you are on him. Your arms wrapping around his neck as you shove your lips to his, his hands immediately flying to your hips as he lets out a surprised grunt while he catches you.

He’s still as a board for the first second, his brain taking a moment to catch up before he is diving into the kiss himself, grip on your hips tightening as he devours you in the kiss.

A small moan slips past his lips into yours, pulling you in as tight as he can, making sure to wrap his arms around your waist to make sure you stay close.

When you manage to pull back you smile, seeing his eyes closed and eyebrows pinched as he takes a breath in. “Gareth was-“

“OH YOU UTTER-“ in an instant his blissful daze is broken as you tear yourself from him, snatching the handle of the closet and storming out leaving him confused and breathless.

His brain registers finally, managing to pull himself together the slightest bit so he can chase after you, reaching for the handle and giving it a pull as he thinks about what he will say.

You just kissed him, you just did what he has been dying to do for years and then you ran.

“What the fuck?” He snaps when the door won’t open by the third pull, the handle stuck. “YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!”

It’s another 30 minutes before someone is there to help him out, the janitor giving him a confused look as Eddie hauls out of there.

Un-freaking-believable.

You kiss that man child, give it your all and the first thing he says once you’re done is your brothers name. What a freaking imbecile. What a dumb ass. What a-

“Hey girl, you okay?” Someone asks, pulling your attention to where Maria is standing, wearing her cutest party outfit with a small smile playing off her lips. “You were mumbling angrily about a man child.”

“I….. ugh.” You groan, dropping the brush as all the girls turn to you with excitement.

“Tell us everything.” Chrissy smiles.

“How did he feel? Were there fireworks?” Maria asks.

“Oh my god, he definitely seems like he knows what he is doing.” Abigail giggles and you watch them all in shock as they stare back.

“What?”

“Your first kiss! How was it?” Chrissy explains, eager to know.

“I….. I didn’t kiss Steve Har-“

“Ew, of course not you have standards.” Maria laughs. “But you’re obviously frustrated about a boy and I’m betting you finally kissed Munson.”

“You….. you guys know I-?” You can’t find the words, embarrassment clawing at you as they all giggle and cheer at having caught you.

“Oh my god, were his lips soft?” Abigail squeals.

“Was he gentle? Or like possessive? I love possessive guys.” Maria groans.

“Did he treat you like heaven? Oh he’s always got this love sick look when you walk by!” Chrissy kicks her feet, all three really excited.

“Yes. Yes and yes. And no, he actually- ugh- he only sees me as Gareths little sister.” You whine, falling into the bed. “I kiss him and for a second it’s just like, amazing, and when we stopped kissing I was expecting this romantic thing. Maybe he would be all like ‘wow’ or tell me I’m beautiful. You know what the first word he said was?”

“What?”

“Gareth.” You explain, and they all gasp like it’s the worst thing in the world. So, ever the amazing friend, you sit up and start telling them everything.

“I kind of like the way your brother protects you,” Maria blushes. “I mean the boys at Hawkins are all so…. “

“Sex crazed?” Abigail finishes the thought.

“Yes. And Gareth has always been respectful to me.” Maria smiles.

“Do you have a crush on my brother?” You giggle, staring at her.

“No!” She blurts, then smiles a bit. “Okay maybe.”

And just like that all 4 of your are laughing and planning for the party.

The party at Jason Carvers house was the last place Eddie Munson wanted to be, truthfully he wasn’t even sure he was allowed. The good news is he hadn’t been kicked out because he was the dealer.

So he pretended like he was there to sell, really he was looking around for you. This was a last minute plan to talk to you, figure out where he had went wrong and try to fix it.

Figure out how to kiss you again but he’d take anything at this point, even a friendship. He’d keep his feelings in check.

30 minutes in to the party and he was beginning to think it was a bust, but then there you were, surrounded by 3 other girls he was sure were on the team, as they all passed by glaring at everyone like they were the queens of the universe.

And they were, all of them beautiful and untouchable. Especially you.

It’s like the earth stopped spinning whenever you walked in the room, Eddie’s lungs expanding as he stared at the way you greeted everyone, or rather everyone lunged to greet you.

Eddie went to greet you, then thought vetter of it and moved to the back of the room and started to talk to the kid that had money waiting for him.

He keeps along the sidelines of the party, letting you do your thing as he tries to come up with what to say.

Remember when you rocked my world less than 7 hours ago? Yeah that was amazing and I miss you.

“You okay there bud?” Someone asks, pulling his attention to where Maria, co captain of the cheer team, is smiling at him over her cup.

“Yeah, just came in for a refill.” He nods to the keg, an obvious lie since he would never drink that piss water.

“Right. Okay.” She smiles, and he moves to grab a cup and fill it up so it looks like the truth. “It’s cute, the way they all crowd around her.”

He, without needing to ask, looks for you immediately . Spotting you by the pool surrounded by a bunch of guys, all desperate to talk to you.

“Yeah I guess.” He shrugs, spine tense and doing his best not to clench the cup in his fist.

“Well the guys surrounding her aren't what’s cute. It’s the way she keeps looking for you.” Maria giggles, obviously too drunk to keep her eyes open. “Look, right there.”

Sure enough he sees you look around, bored of the conversation at hand as one of the guys snakes his arm around your waist.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, feet already moving as Maria giggles out while he dashed outside right at the moment the tool throws you both in the booth as you scream.

His breath stops and he waits a moment for you to emerge, your eyes immediately meeting as you struggle to get to the edge of the pool, the strap of the dress you wore broken.

The girls are all there to help you as the tool, Tommy something, reaches to pull you back in. Eddie makes quick work of pushing him in with his foot, and snatching you from the water while doing his best to make sure you’re not too exposed.

“You okay?” He whispers, hand sliding up your body to cover your breast as you try to fix the strap quickly.

“Y-yeah.” You sniffle, obviously holding back tears. “I’m fine.”

The girls, your friends, are all yelling at Tommy and the other cheerleaders soon join and start throwing stuff at him in the water, Harrington pushing him back in whenever he tries to crawl out.

“He was just being silly.” You try to ease yourself, struggling with the strap of the dress. “I don’t know why I’m upset.”

“You were just thrown into water. It’s okay to be upset.” He smiles, shrugging off his jacket and moving to place it around you so you’re covered. “You wanna leave?”

“Yes please.” You nod, and he gets to moving, pulling you with him as your 3 friends all wave and smile like they know something, cooing out a “bye eddie.” At the same time.

He gives them a tight wave, helping you out since you seemed to have lost a heel in the pool.

“Is this even considered a dress?” He scoffs, leading you to his van.

“It’s very popular in france.” You answer, letting him pull you down the street where his van is hidden, helping you into the back of it.

By the time he pulls into the trailer park he can’t hear you, which means you're definitely passed out back there, and he feels guilty over every pothole and bump he hits before he is pulling into his regular parking spot.

Wayne’s car is gone so he assumes his uncle is already at work, hopping out of the van and going along the back to open the door you’re closest to. The blanket had moved around a bit, exposing your legs to him and the smallest sight of your panties that has him feeling guilty and quickly readjusting the blanket as he rubs circles on your back to wake you up.

“Let’s go princess.” He hums, helping you crawl out and get into the house.

“It smells like….”

“Sorry.” He blushes, embarrassed. “I didn’t really clean like I normally did whenever you came over.”

“It’s fine. I was gonna say it smells like you.” You mumble, waiting for his cue to go further into the trailer. It was odd for him, watching you wait, and he’s suddenly reminded about all the time you’ve been separated. This wasn’t a regular movie night, you hadn’t had one of those in months. You probably didn’t feel comfortable being here.

“I c-can go turn on the shower so it’s hot for you. Give you a moment to relax.” He offers, smiling when you nod before moving to the bathroom to start the shower. He knocks on Wayne’s bedroom door just in case before waltzing into the bathroom and starting the water, making sure the shampoo and body wash are both ready for you and setting up a towel for you to use.

When the bathroom starts steaming he moves to go get you, jumping a little when he runs into you at the door.

“Sorry!” He blurts, trying to step out of your way. You shrug, moving past him and into the bathroom, not waiting for him to leave before you shuck his sweater off and move to take the dress off.

“Help…” you mumble, struggling to roll the fabric off since it was soaking wet and unable to reach the zipper.

So he moves forward, ready to help you, until you stop him. “Shut the door Eds, you’re letting all the warm air out.”

He rushes to shut the door for you, tripping over his feet and accidently falling into the door which makes it slam shut and you gasp out. “Are you okay?”

“Yep. Yeah. Fine.” He mumbles, standing straight and trying to play it off like it was smooth. “Y-you still want help?”

“Yes.” You nod, watching him closely to make sure he is okay before turning back around and fixing your hair so he can see the zipper.

With shaky hands he slides it down, enjoying the way your skin shivers at the feel of his fingers down your back, before he helps you slide the fabric off your hips for it to land on the floor.

Your skin is cold from the fabric, and it reminds him of coming in after a snowball fight and having to fight to get the jeans off leaving him in the damp but not yet wet skin.

Without meaning to his eyes trail across your exposed back, heart stopping when he realizes you had forgone a bra and only had a pair of panties on.

“I….” He tries to find words, watching you turn your head to peer at him over your shoulder. “I’ll go.”

“You’re gonna leave me to shower in silence?” You scoff, slipping the panties off, obviously unaware of the torture you are inflicting when you toss them with the dress and move to step into the shower.

Your legs are shaky, and he’s panicked. You might slip so he moves to help you step into the tub, his hand wrapped around your elbow gently as he makes sure to keep his eyes on your face.

“Stay and talk to me?” You ask, and he’s sure you’re just messing with him. Torturing him as payback as you close the curtain and step into the water.

He sits on the toilet, using the towel he had gotten you as a cover on his lap just in case you peaked your head out, he didn’t need you seeing his massive boner like the freak he was.

“Why were you at the party?” You ask after a moment. “You hate Jason Carver.”

“I needed to sell.” He answers a little too quickly.

“Did I ruin your sell’s since you had to help me leave?” You ask, guilt in your voice. “I’m sorry I-“

“I made enough.” He interrupts you, struggling to breathe in the shirt with the steam. “Why were you at the party? You used to hate Jason Carver too.”

“I still do. Ugh he’s the worst and he’s always following Chrissy around like a little puppy. And he’s so mean to everyone.”

“He’s friends with Adam isn't he?” He finds himself asking, and never in his wildest dreams did he ever think he would be gossiping about the jocks. Especially with you.

“Not really, Jason said some really messed up things when Adam told everyone he’s gay.” You explain and Eddie snaps his head towards the direction of the curtain.

“He’s gay?!”

“You can’t tell anyone okay? It’s a secret and he wants to come out himself.” You answer back, and Eddie finds himself standing up.

You must see his figure get up through the curtain, because you open the curtain and peak your upper body out. “You’re not leaving are you?”

“N-no. I’m just shocked. I thought you and Adam were…”

“Absolutely not. Mom would never allow Adam in my room if he we were.” You laugh.

“So that night you invited me for the movie, you weren’t dating him?” He was stupid, so entirely stupid.

“No? Why would I invite your for a movie in front of my boyfriend?” You laugh, and he can’t seem to process anything. Stepping forward so he was within arms length of you.

“So you weren’t inviting me to hang out with you and your boyfriend. You were actually wanting to hang out with me?”

“Yes?” You roll your eyes. “And I know it’s lame. I’m just Gareths little sister and all that-“

You disappear from his view once more, pulling both the curtains into the middle to close off the shower again as you keep going. “But I actually thought you liked hanging out with me. You know? And maybe if I gave you guys space I wouldn’t be the annoying little sister all the time but then that day rolled around and you…. It was silly. I shouldn’t have asked you-“

A small shriek falls from your lips as he whips the right curtain open, glaring at you.

“What the fuck do you mean give us space? Who said what?” He’s angry now, jaw set as he glared. “What’s all this about being annoying and suddenly giving us space. Is that why you don’t sit with us?”

“Yes! You guys just think I’m Gareths annoying little sister!” You snap, and Eddie realizes that you’re completely naked right now, so he quickly shuts his eyes with a groan and pulls the curtain back sharply, keeping it clenched in his fist as he tries to relax.

“We don’t think that.” He snaps, eyes still squeezed shut. Truth was he always tried not to think of you as Gareths little sister, with the amount of times he’s imagined you-

You snap the other curtain to the side, letting some of the water hit his jeans and making his snap his eyes open right as you push your face close to his. “I heard you guys!”

“You heard us? When was this, Princess? Cause I’ve never-“

“The day of my tryouts! I came home and you guys were talking about how annoying I was and-“ he realizes then what you had heard, his eyes widening as he stares at you before he leans forward to catch his lips onto yours, a small gasp falling from you as he lets go of the shower curtain to wrap around you. Only problem was he was leaning into you and you didn’t have a proper stance so you slipped, and he fell forward into the tub, cursing out to try and catch you both as you accidently bit down on his lip.

He keeps one arm around your shoulders, his other catching the tub floor just in time as his body lands on yours.

The water is hitting his back, soaking his clothes as his boner pressed into your naked form, blood leaking from his lip where you bit.

“Are you okay-“ he begins to panic, but you’re already pushing up to pull him into another kiss, moaning at the taste of iron as your hands slide up his hips until they manage to crawl beneath his shirt and feel at his back, trying to inch the shirt off.

He pulls back to lean up, whipping the shirt off and flinging it out of the tub, panting as you try to move so the water doesn’t hit you in the face while he moves to help you.

“It was Paul that day.” He explains. “I don’t know what you think you heard but it was only Paul saying that. Jeff was making fun of him because the tool has a massive crush on you and- shit I’m no better am I? I’ve been dreaming about you every fucking night since I met you.”

And once again, like two magnets, you find yourself kissing him again and he is obsessed with his. Obsessed with your taste and the way your body melds into his own as you press your chest into his. When you reach for his belt buckle he moves a hand down to stop you, shaking his head through the kiss and moving to stand with you.

You follow, clumsy and confused, especially when his hands slide to your hips to turn you around so your back is to his chest.

“What are you-“ your question is met with his hand sliding across your stomach and further down until his fingers find purchase in your folds, a soft moan slipping past your lips that has his blood thrumming.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, feeling the water hit both you as you nod quickly, his name slipping past your lips. “I need to hear it, please.”

“Yes!” You snap, your hand moving to push his wrist to apply pressure. “Eds please!”

So he lets himself, pressing his thumb into your clit as he leans to kiss at your neck, his lip stinging against your skin as you mean out when he moves to slowly press a finger into you.

“You’re not just the annoying little sister.” He whispers into your skin, fully pushing his finger in and wiggling it until he was ready for another, pulling it out to press both in. “I’ve never seen you like that.”

“Eds.” You gasp out, keeping one hand on his arm as the other flies to his hair, clenching and pulling it into your fists.

“If anything princess, I’ve tried talking myself into believing it.” He grunts out, pushing his fingers in quicker than last time. “But you’re not. You’re my girl. Right?”

“Yes.” You blurt quickly, tugging at his hair and tilting your head to try and kiss him. He doesn’t let you, keeping his own lips pressed into your neck.

“You’re my girl?” He asks again, voice deeper as his fingers speed up, his thumb circling your clit. The feeling of your body pressed to his, the way your hips rotate ever so slightly to try and match his movements and accidently rub your ass against his crotch.

His jeans are now soaked, even if they weren’t from the water he is sure he’d have a wet patch from all the pre cum leaking out as he grunts out at the friction.

“Yes. Always.” You answer, gasping at the pleasure.

“Promise?” He grunts, nipping a bit as you try once more to kiss him.

“Eds please!” You cry, hips moving faster as you chase your high on his fingers.

“Promise me princess.” He growls and your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows pinching together as your face contorts into one of pure pleasure. You barely manage to yell out a quick “swear it.” as you shake against him, making a smile spread across his lips.

“Atta girl.” He coos, finally allowing you to tug him into a kiss, biting down on your lip as you kiss him like your life depended on it. “You wanna go to bed?”

“Yes please.” You sniffle, swiping the bangs from his forehead as he leans to turn off the water; keeping a hand on you at all times while he manages to get you both out of the shower.

Wrapping a towel around you and snatching both your clothes quickly before leading you to his room.

The second he shuts the door behind him he sees you drop the towel and crawl across the bed to fall into the pillows, not even giving him a moment to grab you a shirt.

“Wait. Lemme grab you-“ he starts, struggling to shuck off the soaked jeans and boxers before you are moving to help, helping him step out of them and dragging your hands up his thighs until they reach his hips and you’re pulling him into the bed with you.

“I thought you wanted to sleep?” He chuckles, pressing a kiss to your collarbone as you both crawl up the bed.

You fall into the pillows, hair splayed out as you smile at him, wrapping your legs around his hips while he covers you both with his comforter, trying to warm up.

“I said go to bed. Not to sleep.” You mumble with a small attitude, canting your hips up into his own which makes him moan loudly. “This is bed, isn’t it?”

“Oh, smarty pants are we?” He laughs, pressing a kiss to your temple as he melts into you. His forearms slid under the pillow as he let his body weight lay against yours, kissing you ever so slowly as you tried to wiggle around and make it work. He lifts his hips for a moment to help you out, and once you’re settled he presses into you, beginning to grind himself against your folds as you hug each other close.

“Jesus Christ.” He gasps, eyes squeezed shut as he presses his forehead to your own.

“Who knew the satanist was so religious ?” You tease, pushing your hips forward trying to gain more friction.

“Gotta be right now. It’s not everyday a freak like me has a cheerleader in his bed.” He smiles, kissing the corner of your lips softly.

“I mean it could be.” You offer, making him freeze for a moment. “Or maybe in the drama room. I’ve had tons of ideas about the locker room too.”

“Princess-“ he grunts, reaching a hand to cover your lips. “Please. You’re ruining me.”

You lick his lips and laugh when he pulls away to reach for his nightstands, moving your hips against his and kissing at his chest as he searches, getting more and more frustrated.

“Come on- shit baby- I- please- I gotta find a condom just give me a moment please.” He gasps out, and you smile at him.

“Forget it. I want you. Come on.” You coo and watch him physically shutter, hips pressing into yours tightly as his hands roll into fists and his eyes shut tightly.

“Eds?”

“Stop. Give me - fuck- a moment princess.” He grunts, shaking a bit. “I’m gonna bust before I even start.”

So, being the brat you are, you push your hips up until he is entering you, moaning a bit as he gasps loudly.

“No no no no.” He gasps out, which makes you freeze.

“Is it wrong? I’m sorry?” You panic, moving to pull your hips back quickly which makes his hand snap out to stop you.

“It’s not wrong. I just- I refuse to cum.” He blurts, keeping you in the spot with a tight hold. “I can’t cum so soon.”

“You can.” You whisper, kissing at his neck and nipping at the skin here and there. “I wanna feel it.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you too.” You giggle. “And I need you to move.”

He takes a deep breath in, giving himself one more moment to try not to cum and then begins moving his hips. Slowly at first, moaning softly as you wrap around him perfectly, moving himself so he was laying on top of you and hugging your body to his before he begins a brutal pace of snapping his hips into yours.

You stay close, both hugging each other as he moves, the bed thumping against the wall with each thrust.

Your moans quiet the closer you get to finishing, turning into strangled grunts and mewls as both of you focus in. The sounds of skin slapping just adding to the pleasure of it all as you come undone around him, making him gasp out as he lets go, filling you easily.

“Oh my god.” He breathes out, shoving his nose into your neck as you try to breathe.

“There’s that religion again.” You tease, eyes closing as your body finally relaxes. You don’t hear his response, numbing out a bit, snuggling close until his warmth is ripped from you and you have no choice but to open your eyes.

“No no. You’re not sleeping yet.” He grunts, slapping your thigh lightly before helping you shuffle. “I’ll help you to the bathroom.”

So he puts on a pair of boxers, putting you in one of his band tees and helping you shuffle to the bathroom to pee, and grab a warm washcloth so he can clean you up while kissing all over your face and whispering sweet nothings in your ear.

“My good girl.” He murmurs, leaving a kiss on your ear before leading you back to the room and shoving the towels and dirty clothes in his hamper with the washcloth.

You tuck yourself into his bed, waiting for him before you close your eyes and get comfortable.

“Freak.” You whisper out, face pressed into his chest.

“Wannabe.” He murmurs back, playing with your hair as you finally fall asleep.

You’re woken up by the shrill ringing in Eddie’s trailer, snapping awake as he lunges up and blinks.

The ringing stops after a minute, and then Wayne’s voice breaks out calling for Eddie.

“The phone!” He calls, making Eddie roll over you to pick up the phone.

You giggle when his body collapses on top of you as he answers, catching the smile he sends your way.

“It’s Eddie.” He grunts, eyebrows shooting up when the person on the other side yells.

“You know where my sister is?! She was supposed to be home last night and-“

“She’s here, calm down. She slept in the couch.”

‘Liar’ you mouth as he rolls his eyes, pinching your side.

“Okay. I’m coming to get her.” You hear Gareth snap before Eddie shakes his head.

“No. I’ll drop her off when she wakes up. I’ll be by for band practice anyways.”

You hear Gareth mumble something out before the receiver clicks and Eddie hangs up on his end.

“How’d he know to call here?” You ask, reaching a hand up to play with his hair.

“He thought we were dating already.”

“Oh?” You laugh before he bites on your collarbone. “Freak.”

“Wannabe.” He grunts out, and before you know it you both are stripping once more, being quiet since Wayne is in the other room.

The cafeteria is a mess Monday morning, everyone yelling as some music plays over the speakers to get everyone excited for the game later.

You took a moment to look across the room, not really being able to see much due to how crowded it was, but you made it to the cheer table, saying hi to the girls as they all giggled over the mark on your neck.

“You wanna go sit over there?” You ask your three closest friends, wiggling your eyebrows.

“You’re out of uniform aren’t you?” Jason asks, eyes narrowing at your shirt. Today you had chosen to wear a hellfire shirt over your cheer uniform.

“Technically not.” Steve adds from the next table over, glaring at Jason.

“What happened to your face?” You ask, eyes wide at how bad he looked.

“Byers.” Steve grunts, and you laugh before the girls get up to follow you to the table.

All four of you, (Chrissy, Maria and Abigail) walk up slowly, making all the guys stop and look up.

“Can we sit?” You ask, watching Eddie’s face burst into an excited grin as Gareth quickly snatches a chair for Maria. Abigail and Chrissy take the last two open spots and there was no more room.

“I can grab a chair-“ Eddie starts, already standing to grab one before you shake your head, moving to sit on his lap.

“I’m good here.” You smile, making him smile back and kiss your shoulder through the shirt.

“Are you coming to DnD?” Paul asks as Gareth pretends to gag at you and Eddie.

“No, we have a game tonight that I have to cheer at. But I figured I can wear this until then.” You shrug.

“Where’s yours Eddie?” Paul asks, glaring at the dungeon master.

Eddie raises a brow, and the entire table seems to freeze as they slowly realize that Paul hasn’t figured it out yet, even with you in Eddie’s lap.

“What?” He asks, looking around.

“This is mine.” Eddie mumbles, pinching some of the fabric of your shirt between his fingers.

“You’re wearing his shirt? Gareth, you’re gonna allow that?!”

Another moment of silence passes before the entire table is laughing in his face, Eddie pressing his nose into your back with his hands on your hips as he cackles.

“What’s so funny?! Gareth said none of us could date his sister!”

“No, I said you couldn’t date my sister, nerd bomber.” Gareth laughs.

“What does it matter?” Eddie laughs. “I thought she was Sooooo annoying!”

He imitates Pauls voice for the last part which sends the table into another fit of laughter.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend in canada?” Chrissy asks, turning to you. “That was him right, the one dating the model in canada?”

“W-we broke up. I dumped her.” Paul corrects which makes the girls laugh harder. “You guys suck.”

“And you swallow!” You snatch one of Eddie’s pretzels to throw it at his forehead, hitting him perfectly as he glares.

“Not funny.” He mumbles, and the table absolutely loses it.

You’re surprised when you see Eddie leaning against the bleachers that night, now in his hellfire shirt and leather jacket as you get ready to perform with the girls.

When he spots you looking he sends a wink, crossing his arms as he watches the routine. When you’re done you dash over as the game starts, giving him a quick kiss.

“Aren’t you supposed to be-?”

“I had a couple minutes. Thought I’d come see what all the excitement was about.” He smiles, surveying the game going on from your spot in the corner.

“What do you think?”

“Well seems pretty boring to watch Harrington and Carver fumble around, but there was this really smoking cheerleader.” He chuckles making you roll your eyes.

“Freak.”

“Wannabe.”

“Brute.”

“Brat.”

“Airhead.”

“Princess.” He smiles, kissing you one more time. “You wanna come watch the campaign?”

“I have to dance at halftime and cheer them on. You’ll tell me about it later though?” You ask, giving him your best doe eyes.

“You got it.” He smiles, bringing your hand up to kiss your knuckles before shaking it so the Pom Pom shakes. “Decide on what movie for tonight?”

“I might be willing to give Texas Chainsaw one more shot.” You smile. “I think you deserve it.”

You already know he won’t make it 10 minutes into the movie without jumping your bones anyways.

“I was thinking breakfast club.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I might actually want to watch the movie.” You tease before Chrissy calls you.

Giving him one more kiss before dashing to cheer with the girls, Eddie watches you for a moment before leaving to go play DND.

The second you both are done you meet by the drama room doors so that you can go to his place for movie night, a new routine you had built up.

Weekends were for your friends; these nights were for just you two.

TAGLIST :: (Lmk if you want removed or added for more Eddie fics.)

@h-ness1944

#eddie #munson #eddie munson stranger things #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanart #eddie stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fan #stranger things fanart #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stranger thiings

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xueyidweams · 5 months

Text

rambling again (gn reader, nsfw under the cut)

at the start of your relationship with him, sex was kind of… one sided? he made sure you were satisfied, let you do whatever you want even though you could see discomfort behind his eyes (when you could catch it you obviously did not go through with whatever u were about to). it felt.. weird. he was good, he’s really good at sex its just, it doesn’t look like he’s really, actually enjoying it for himself as well as you.

you decide to talk about it while you guys are sprawling on the bed in the morning, his usual silk pyjamas hugging the right places and his shawl makes him look like a cozy cat. seeing him this relaxed bubbled up the questions in your mind you have been meaning to ask but he’d been too busy. so you decide it is time, now.

“Hey, love. i hope this doesnt come across wrong but… do you really feel good when we have sex? or do you feel like its something you have to perform to keep me satisfied?”

and Aeons, you saw him freeze. he looked at you as he laughed in his usual demeanor and yet there was a tinge of awkwardness, you’re his lover of course you can tell. “What… made you say that?” you shook your head and reassured him that it wasnt his ‘performance’ in bed that was bad in an attempt to ease him into the topic. you simply wanted him to enjoy himself too, let you be the one giving for once. for him to sit back, relax and enjoy.

he sighs wistfully and his eyes look spaced out and yet he’s talking to you, “it’s not that i.. don’t enjoy it, i love embracing you in every way its just…” he looks into your eyes as his fingers go to his nails and scratch a bit, “im not used to.. feeling a lot of pleasure out of it, i guess.” he sees your brows crease in concern and he shakes his head, don’t look at him like that don’t look at him like you care about this more than he thinks you do don’t do that— “no, no, don’t be concerned. i’m fine, i really am.”

you get closer as you hold the hand that was on his neck, bringing it to your face. “then let me be the one to give tonight, i want you to just lay there and enjoy it, please? or right now! if you feel like it, of course.” his heart sinks and flutters off of his chest at the same time, he did want it— but that doesn’t mean he deserves it.

he looks into your eager eyes, you’re looking at him like a puppy that wants a treat. its cute, you’re always like this. like a dog that doesn’t care how many times it gets kicked or beaten, it’ll still choose kindness, it will still choose to love, it will not snarl its teeth, it will lick the hand that hurt it, you’re loyal and loving—sometimes to a fault and yet he cant help himself.. how can he say no to you when he can practically see your tail swaying back and forth?

“Okay. whatever you want, love.” You smile and he swears it melts off every worry he has, yeah. yeah maybe this was okay.

he groans as you have his dick so deep he can feel his tip hitting the back of your throat. it makes him twitch and whine, your fingers are holding his thighs apart, gently as if to say ‘you can make me stop at any time.’ right now though, he feels those vile thoughts in his head subside as your hands stroke his skin, your mouth and tongue working desperately for him.. you’re working for him.

his hand slowly grabs your hair and tugs, and the choked whine you let out with the added stimuli of your teeth grazing him just a bit makes him cum down your throat, whimpering your name when you don’t let go of his dick, making him pump his entire load down your throat and fuck it makes him throb.

you let go of his dick with a pop, licking your lips and smiling at him and fuck you look like such a dumb dog, he wants to eat you so violently it makes his dick stiffen again. so embarrassing, he’s acting like a virgin and he feels like it. the way you look up at him as your fingers curl around the base of his dick and your tongue goes lower, poking into his hole. he nods and whimpers a ‘yes’ as you get to work. your fingers jerking him off as your tongue that’s stained with his filth is practically fucking his hole.

he whines your name so loud, he didn’t know he could make his voice go that high. he looks down at you and the power he feels is indescribable, you look so desperate and for what? his cum? that’s so pathetic, right? and yet he feels himself tighten, the knot in his stomach getting tighter and tighter in an embarrassingly fast pace as he feels you hooking your arms under his knees and bend his legs so that you can eat him out better. he has to bite his own finger to keep himself from whining like that again.

it’s pathetic, it’s desperate, it feels so good, you feel so good, you feel so warm, you feel so safe, he feels like he shouldn’t be the one receiving all of this but you decide that he does deserve it. and he’s never one to turn down his lovers’ requests.

#i feelinsnae #hsr smut #honkai star rail #aventurine #aventurine x reader #aventurine x male reader #hsr aventurine #hsr x reader #hsr x male reader #aventurine x you

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starryeyedjanai · 3 months

Text

counting the days till i'm coming home

lake monster steve fic steddie | Explicit | part 1 of 4 | read on ao3

The first time Eddie stumbles across the monster in Lover’s Lake is right after he fails senior year for the second time.

He doesn't know it’s the monster everyone talks about at first—because no one has ever really seen it.

People only talk about how there’s something in the lake, something that sometimes pulls people under, something that’s been there since before Eddie was even born.

He’s sitting at the edge of the lake—just watching it ripple, thinking about how he’s probably going to be stuck here, in Hawkins, for the rest of his life—when he sees something moving out of the corner of his eye.

His head snaps over to look—because for as long as he’s been coming out here to Rick’s, he’s never seen anyone in the lake.

But there’s someone in there now.

This guy, he’s almost ethereal looking—smooth tan skin, hair slicked back from the water.

“What are you doing in there?” he asks before he can stop himself.

The boy looks up at him, his eyes lighting up. He swims over to Eddie—he’s fast, probably faster than anyone on the swim team even.

“Hi,” he says after he stops a handful of feet in front of Eddie.

“Hi,” Eddie says, almost breathless.

He’s even more gorgeous up close, with his full mouth and doe eyes and moles dotting his face and neck and shoulders.

“What are you doing in there?” he asks again.

“What do you mean?” the boy asks.

“People say there’s a monster in the lake. You should be careful.”

A smile tugs at the boy’s mouth as he says, “People say a lot of things. But nothing’s ever happened to me when I swim here.”

Eddie nods. People say all kinds of shit, so he isn't surprised that the monster in Lover’s Lake is probably just a myth that got repeated too many times.

“I’m Eddie,” he says, wondering where this guy came from. He doesn't recognize him from school—he’d remember a face like that—so he must be visiting relatives or something over the summer.

“I’m Steve,” he says, drifting a little closer. “You should come in the water sometime. It’s nice.”

Eddie smiles. “Maybe sometime. Not exactly dressed for it right now though,” he says, a little ruefully, looking down at his jeans.

He kind of wishes he had the confidence to strip down to his briefs and dive into the water, feel its cool touch on his overly warm skin. He’s been sitting out here a while now—and now that he thinks about it, he doesn't remember hearing a splash when Steve got into the water. He must have really been distracted by his thoughts.

Steve shrugs and wades back further into the lake. “I’m here all the time, so if you ever decide to come in, I’ll find you.”

Those words haunt Eddie after he leaves the lake, after watching Steve disappear under the surface and not seeing where he popped back up.

He sees Steve in his dreams that night, whispering the words I’ll find you over and over as he reaches out as if to touch Eddie, but the touch never lands on him. He spends the entire dream craving that touch, wanting it, but never getting it—just listening to him tell him he’ll find him.

He wakes up in a daze, thoughts only on the boy in the lake—his voice, his hair, the way his skin looked in the sunlight.

He slips a hand in his boxers and he isn't surprised to feel how wet he is. The dream was confusing and weird, but craving someone’s touch isn't new.

There have only ever been a handful of guys here in Hawkins that he’s been attracted to, but he’s always only ever crushed on them from afar. There’s no way he’d risk the wrath of some backwater jock by hitting on him.

There’s something alluring about Steve though, even though from what little Eddie’s seen of him probably suggests that he’s also a jock. But he’s not from here. There’s something about that that makes it less scary, thinking about approaching him, asking him if he wants to fool around.

Worst thing that could happen is that he gets the shit kicked out of him and can't go to Lover’s Lake for the rest of the summer. But Steve will be gone back to wherever he came from come September. A guy like him has probably got plans for college already neatly lined up, swimming scholarship or whatever sport he plays that makes him almost inhumanly fast in the water.

So he thinks about it as he touches himself. Thinks about going back to the lake and finding him there, waiting for Eddie.

I knew you’d come back, he’d say when Eddie dove into the lake.

Eddie imagines being brave enough to wade close enough to feel the heat of Steve's skin.

He’d say something like I came back for you or something equally as cheesy.

Eddie fucks two fingers into his cunt, the palm of his hand grinding against his dick as he thinks about Steve reaching out just like in his dream, but this time actually touching him.

He thinks he’d probably gasp at the first touch of Steve's fingers grazing his skin, touching his tits, thumbing at his nipples.

His breathing picks up as he thinks about Steve's hand slipping between his thighs, touching him like he’s touching himself now.

Maybe he’d spin him around and let him feel the expanse of his chest pressed against his back as he touches Eddie’s dick with deft fingers.

He’d press them tight together so Eddie could feel how hard he is for him, just for him.

Maybe he’d take him like that, right there in the lake for anyone walking by to see. He’d press inside him, stretching him out on his cock until Eddie's eye crossed from the pressure building inside him.

Maybe he’d turn Eddie's chin with his free hand and kiss him, slow and deep as he fucks into him from behind.

Eddie comes with his fist pressed against his mouth to keep the noises from spilling out as he clenches around his fingers, riding it out.

He sinks boneless into his sheets, still thinking about warm brown eyes and big hands all over his body.

chapter 2

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #transmasc eddie munson #steddie fic #janai.doc #my monsterfucker may fic finally surfacing mid-june

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chaoticace2005 · 7 months

Text

Random short of Alastor’s shadow being done with his shit and becoming friends with our favorite losers. ( @xxqueenofdragonsxx @downthegenderriver )

Shadowstor was tired.

So tired.

Contrary to popular belief shadows COULD get tired. And Shadowstor was aware of that early on.

Okay… to be fair most shadows probably can’t get tired. Because most shadows can’t feel.

But Shadowstor was an exception. Because the very reason for it’s exhaustion is the same reason it can think to begin with.

Alastor.

Not the Radio Demon. Because Alastor himself isn’t the Radio Demon, no. Shadowstor helped with that. Helped more than it gets credit for (which is virtually none because of how Alastor likes to posture himself.)

And that’s fine, really. Shadowstor is a shadow for fucks sake. It isn’t made for being directly in the spotlight. Alastor is and Shadowstor fades into the background, being obscured with the focus on it’s counterpart.

The thing that does get Shadowstor exhausted though is the fact that Alastor has the tendency of being an impulsive idiot.

Now, don’t get Shadowstor wrong, Alastor is definitely a large part of why the Radio Demon has a reputation as an unhinged, powerful, scary individual. Shadowstor helped with the powers though, but really it thinks its greatest contribution was the fact that this means the Radio Demon now has some semblance of impulse control.

Alastor may not listen to anyone. But it’s usually kind of hard not to hear out a literal manifestation and source of your powers.

Usually. Because Alastor will still start a fight with pretty much anyone. He’ll go on the air and mock Vox for his crush. He’ll say ducks are an overrated animal right in front of Lucifer. He’ll 1v1 the literally first man. He’ll call Susan’s blouse tacky.

And all Shadowstor can usually do is sit back and watch. Because it’s bound to help Alastor. Bound to be part of the Radio Demon. But that doesn’t stop it from being exhausted every single time Al does start something.

One thing though about being tied to Alastor is you get to know others who are tied to Alastor. Others who are equally exhausted by Alastor.

Husk.

The Bar Cat was one being Shadowstor could relate to on a deep level. Because Shadowstor has to put up with the ineptness of Alastor. But Husk has to put up with the ineptness of Alastor and everyone else.

It’s because of this when Alastor is sleeping (which, despite Angel Dust’s verbal doubts on the matter does happen, Alastor isn’t an all powerful being, despite how much he pretends to be,) Shadowstor sometimes will go out, going downstairs to the bar that is usually only occupied by the Cat-Demon waiting from his not-boyfriend to come home.

(Sexual and romantic feelings are so weird. Relationships are so weird and Shadowstor is glad it doesn’t have to deal with that.)

After a particularly tiring day of Alastor trying to break into the Vees tower and destroy Vox’s body pillow of him, Shadowstor was exhausted. It had pretty much given up on trying where Vox was involved, because Alastor seemed to get particular joy out of taunting the TV, but it still felt like it had to try. At this point it was a matter of principle. It had fought with Alastor on this for years and it was not stopping to just let him win.

“Oh, my dear, you worry too much.” He said to Shadowstor before merging with it into the shadows and traveling across the city.

Fifteen minutes later Shadowstor had to rush them out if there because Vox had installed a shark filled moat around his office. Which Shadowstor had seen but Alastor walked right into. Because apparently “radio demon” powers extend to wresting sharks in the water (it does NOT.)

So now Alastor was asleep after pretending he had totally-not-been chewed up by some demon-sharks. And Shadowstor went downstairs to the bar.

“You too, huh?” Husk said to it, seeming to notice right when the shadow crossed with threshold. Working with the Radio Demon for years would get a person skilled at picking up changes in shadows quickly.

Shadowstor just nodded and slumped against the wall, putting its hands to its head.

The winged cat nodded in agreement, “I’ll drink to that.” He said as he took a half-full whiskey bottle and chugged it.

Shadowstor wished it could drink.

“What was it this time? Lucifer’s ducks again?”

The shadow shook its head and flat, vertically-aligned hand on top of it, making the sign for “shark.”

“Oh. Vox. Do I even want to know?”

Shadowstor shook its head again because no, Husk really didn’t. It doesn’t even want to start to think about the Alastor-Body-Pillow. Or the Alastor shrine. Or the Alastor fanfiction it found (which Vox should be lucky that Alastor didn’t find that because otherwise there’d be another broken TV screen in this hotel.)

Right then a beaten up pink spider burst through the hotel doors, going right to a stool in the bar and crashing onto it.

“Tough night?” Husk asked, already handing his not-boyfriend a drink that had been prepared even before Shadowstor arrived.

“You know it. Fuckin’ Val.”

Husk made a sound to show he was listening.

“Apparently Vox was pissed today. So that meant Val was pissed today.”

Oh… oops?

Okay, to be fair, if Vox is pissed at Alastor that isn’t really Shadowstor’s fault. It tried to stop him.

The shadow made a face palm again at its counterpart’s need to harass every single person he came into contact with.

“Wha- Smiles?”

Alastor’s here?! Wait… no he isn’t. Cause Shadowstor is here. And Shadowstor would know if Al woke up.

Oh… the spider demon is staring right at it.

Shadowstor shook its head, a bit annoyed at the idea of being confused with that impulsive buffoon.

“Huh? Husk, what—“

“That’s Alastor’s shadow.”

Shadowstor waved.

“Alastor’s what?”

“Shadow? You know? The thing that goes around with him. Helps with his powers. I’m sure he’s manifested it in front of you before.”

“Oh… yeah. So it’s just… here? Where’s Al?”

Shadowstor made the sign for sleeping.

“Sleeping.” Husk translated.

“What? How?!”

“His shadow can leave when Alastor isn’t conscious or controlling it.”

“No. I mean how did you get that from that?!” Angel says as he motions back over to Shadowstor which… rude.

“I know sign language.”

“You know WHAT?!”

“Sign language.”

“Jesus Whiskers, how many languages do you know?”

“Well there’s Russian, Spanish—“

“Wait. No. Back to the point. Alastor’s shadow just comes down here sometimes and talk to you?”

“…yeah?”

“About what?”

Shadowstor just makes one sign with as much as exhaustion as it can.

“Alastor.”

“Al— wait,” Angel laughs, “even Smiles’ shadow has a problem with him?!”

Shadowstor starts signing to explain the exact issue it faces with Alastor, Husk working to translate while Angel just nods in response.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe a fucking shadow has some oftha same shitty boss troubles as me.”

Shadowstor gives a shake and growl at that. Because Alastor isn’t it’s boss. It can see Husk about to translate before Angel cuts in.

“Oh… not your boss.”

Shadowstor nods.

“…so you’re like… you’re own person?”

Shadowstor shrugs because who knows. It wasn’t sentient before Alastor but it sure as hell is now.

“… you got a name?”

And Shadowstor pauses because no. It’s just Alastor’s shadow. For as long as it’s been around it’s never had a name. Alastor never deemed that necessary.

“Husk? Does it?” Angel asks when Shadowstor won’t answer which- hey it’s still right here. It can talk for itself. Or respond anyways.

“I don’t… think so?”

Angel turns back to Shadowstor.

“Do ya want one? Like… if you’re separate from Alastor shouldn’t you have a name that isn’t just ‘his shadow.’”

The shadow thinks for a second before slowly nodding, intrigued by this novel idea.

“What about… Tom?”

Tom?

“Tom?” Husk asks.

“Fuck. Fine, what about… Dusk? Cause y’a know shadows and darkness and stuff…”

Dusk… Dusk… it likes that.

Dusk nods and it can see the spider demon smile.

“Sweet. Nice ta meetya Duskie- oh wait. Duskie… Husky! Aw ya rhyme!”

Dusk can see Husk roll his eyes, and that just makes it even more comfortable in its decision.

—Later—

“So, you’re only able to really move around at night? When Al is asleep?”

Dusk nods.

“…Husk, what do you think Lucifer and Vox would say about moving our ‘Fuck Alastor’ meetings to nighttime?”

Oh. Oh Dusk likes this one.

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blue-slxt · 1 year

Text

Settling In

*Request*

🔞Minors Do Not Interact🔞

A/N: Okay so I'm reposting this because I found out that the person who requested it was a minor and I don't play that shit on my blog. I am only for adults. So if you liked the old post, that one is gone now. All characters are aged up.

Pairing: Ao'nung x Fem!Sully!Reader

Warnings: Teasing, Smut, P in V, Rut Cycle, Breeding Kink, Choking, Creampie, Binding, Marking, Scenting, Blood, Belly Bulge, I think that's everything.

Word Count: 3.2k

Summary: Ao'nung has teased you relentlessly since your family came here. What happens when you stumble across him in the midst of his rut?

This felt like some kind of living nightmare. You and your family having to flee your home in the forest and come to the sea. Uprooting your entire lives, leaving everything you knew, forgetting who you were, and coming to start from scratch. The Metkayina way of life was beautiful and their village is wonderful in its own way, but it still doesn’t feel like home. Not even close. The one good thing that’s come out of this whole thing was meeting Tsireya. She’s been a welcome comfort for you and your siblings while you adjust to your new lives here.

She’s warm and bright and patient. It makes you wonder how someone so radiant could ever be related to someone like Ao’nung. Just the taste of his name in your mouth was enough to make you scrunch your face in annoyance. He was always just a pain to everyone, but a lot of times it felt like he put extra effort into tormenting you as Neteyam’s 5-fingered twin. The way your dad explained it, apparently twins are a human thing that can happen sometimes. The na’vi aren’t really familiar with the concept since it doesn’t occur naturally for them, but here you stood. The exception to the rule. And Ao’nung never let you hear the end of it.

Over the months, you learned to ignore him and tune out his endless teasing. Occasionally, when he would get tired of being ignored, he knew which buttons to press to get a response from you. Today was one of those days.

You sat out on the beach with Tsireya and Tuk and your mood sours when you notice Ao’nung walking your way. “Tuk, how about you go feed some of the ilu with Tsireya?” you suggested to her. You can tell what kind of mood he’s in from the mischievous glint in his eye. Her face lit up with pure joy.

“Can we?” she says to Tsireya.

“Of course. Come with me.” She holds her hand out for Tuk to take and you watch as she happily trails behind her into the water. The sight is enough to momentarily warm your heart before you have to harden yourself to deal with Ao’nung.

“Oh, am I not invited to join the party?” he drips sarcasm.

“I don’t need her getting caught up in your bullshit.”

He shrugs his shoulders and holds up his hands, “I wouldn’t mess with her. As far as I can see, she’s the only one of you that seems like a true na’vi.” You set your jaw and take a deep breath trying to center yourself.

“I mean the whole lot of you came out weird. Especially you. She wasn’t born with a weird extra finger or a spare copy. That child is more na’vi than you will ever be.”

He hit that button. You snap and hiss at him in warning. He’s unphased staring back at you with an amused smirk. He found it adorable to watch you get so worked up. And he loved being the one to get you worked up. “Fuck off” you snap at him before walking the other way towards the water with Tsireya and Tuk. Ao’nung turns on his heels and walks away feeling satisfied.

“I swear, Tsireya, I cannot understand for the life of me how you can be related to that!” you gesture back towards the shore at Ao’nung’s retreating figure.

“I know my brother can be a lot. He only teases because he thinks you are pretty.”

You roll your eyes, “That has to be the dumbest thing ever.” She giggles a little, “I never said he was smart, but it is the truth. Why do you think he’s always going out of his way to find you all the time?”

Tuk looks up at you, “Is Ao’nung going to be your boyfriend?”

You fake gag at her question, “Absolutely not Tuk Tuk. Now, show me how well you feed the ilu.”

…

Later on at dinner with the village, you sit with your family while they all talk amongst themselves. You’re not really paying attention to the conversation since you’re still a little agitated. Your eyes scan over all the people surrounding you and how happy they all look and wonder if eventually you’ll find that same kind of happiness. Or at least something close to it.

Rolling over the people, your eyes are met with a pair staring back. Ao’nung watches you from the other side of the bonfire. His face is serious and his breathing is heavy enough for you to see the dramatic rise and fall of his shoulders from here. What’s his problem? If anybody should be staring someone down, it was you. A nudge to your arm brings your attention back to your family. Neteyam is next to you giving you a questioning look. “It’s nothing ‘Teyam.”

“I think you forget, we have known each other since before we were brought into this world. I know you well enough to know that it is not nothing.” It was true. Neteyam knew you better than anyone. Whether that was because of him being your twin or because he took his role as the oldest so seriously, who knows. Most of the time, you’re actually pretty grateful that Neteyam could understand you so easily.

“Tsireya said something earlier and it messed with my head.”

“What did she say?” he scoots closer to you so that your conversation can be kept between you two instead of the whole family.

“She said…she said that Ao’nung thinks I’m pretty or something and that’s why he’s always teasing.” “Well duh. As much as I hate to say it, it is pretty obvious that he has a thing for you. And you’re not so innocent in all of this either.”

“’Teyam!” you are taken back by such an offensive suggestion. First Tsireya and now your own brother?

“You might not notice, but I do. Yes, he’s always picking at you, but you love this little game that you two play. It’s nauseating.” His tone is teasing, but he means it.

Ridiculous. How could you ever want someone like that? Your head turns to look back over at him, but he’s gone. You look around between the seemingly endless sea of people and can’t find a single sign of him. That’s weird, but you’re glad that maybe now you could continue on with your meal without eyes burning into the side of your face.

…

Looking around your marui, the rest of your family is peacefully sleeping. You had no idea how they did it. You couldn’t stop your mind from constantly analyzing all the ways that this place was so different from home and that thought literally kept you up at night. It had become something of a routine for you to sneak out on nights like this after everyone else was asleep. You’d tiptoe out of the pod and wander out into the forest by the beach.

It was nice here. It was the one thing here that reminded you of home. The plants and fruits were different, but the atmosphere was similar enough to give you some comfort. In particular, there was one large tree that you would visit most nights. You’d climb and sit on one of the giant outstretched branches and just listen to the sounds of the night.

This is everything right here. This is what helps you feel like you can finally breathe. At least, until you hear a scream in the distance. Immediately, your instincts put you on high alert. You stand from your spot on the branch with your knife in hand and look around as far out as you can see. A faint orange glow catches your eye from the mouth of a cave not far from you. That’s odd. Who else would be out here at this time? And why do they sound like they’re in pain?

You know that it’s probably not the smart thing to go investigate, but you’d also never forgive yourself if someone got hurt and you could’ve prevented it. You climb down and make your way through the forest towards the light you saw.

The closer you get, the more you can start to smell something in the air. It reminds you of fresh rain on tree bark. It’s almost sweet. You follow the scent to the opening of the cave, “Hello? Do you need help in there?” Your voice echoes around the inside of the cave and you’re only met with groans of pain for a response. “I’m coming in!” You grip the handle of your knife a little tighter before taking a step in. The glow grows brighter and finally a small fire comes into your vision.

You were already on edge, but the next thing you saw was what fully threw you off balance. It was Ao’nung. He was sweating so much you thought he might dehydrate himself, his hands were bound behind his back, and he was writhing around in pain. “Ao’nung?” His eyes snap to you and he looks completely different. Instead of his usual sea blue color, his eyes looked a deep purple.

“What are you doing here?” he’s out of breath trying to get the words out.

“I heard you yelling from almost a mile away, I thought somebody needed help. Believe me, I wouldn’t have wasted my time if I knew it was just you.” You cross your arms and shift your weight to one foot and his eyes watch the swing of your hips intently. He sucks in a sharp breath and doubles over. Your eyebrows knit together trying to understand what’s happening. “What is your deal?” You catch sight of a bulge poking through his loincloth and finally the last piece slots into place. “Oh shit…it’s your rut.”

He just nods his head since his mouth is too busy salivating.

Now it makes sense. The weird way he was behaving during dinner, the sweet smell in the air, and the hungry look on his face.

“Well, shouldn’t you be at home? I mean why the hell are you all the way out here like this?”

He shakes his head. “Too much…Need to stay away…”

Your chest tightens with a pang of sympathy for him. You’ve gone through many heat cycles without relief and it is excruciating. The suffering is unmatched. There’s only one thing that truly takes the pain away.

“This is crazy. I’m cutting you out of these.” You start to move towards him, but he tries to shuffle away from you.

“I don’t think you get it. If you cut me out of these binds, I won’t be able to stop myself. So don’t do it unless you’re ready to deal with what comes after.”

“I’m a big girl, Ao’nung. You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” you roll your eyes at him and move towards him again. “I mean it. This is the last warning I’ll be able to give you.” His tone is serious and his eyes are focused. But you don’t falter. You swallow down your nerves and continue forward. “Just shut up and let me do this, okay? Before I change my mind.” You crouch in front of him and reach around to his wrists. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even helping you. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass since I got here. But luckily for you, I’m feeling generous.”

You saw away at his bindings and your chest presses into his face. He inhales your scent and his hips twitch searching for something to grind against.

Before you cut all the way through, you pull back and look him in the face. His face tries to chase after your chest, but his restraints keep him in place. “This is the one and only time I’m helping your ass. Got it?” He can’t even bring his eyes up to yours when he nods his head. You tsk at yourself for getting mixed up in this mess, but there’s no turning back after your knife cuts through his ties.

His arms immediately fold around your waist and pull you into his lap so that you’re straddling him. He buries his face deeper into your chest breathing you in. “Chill the fuck out. Your scent is going to get all over me.” You try to crane your neck back, but a strong hand grips your throat and pulls you back forward.

“That’s kind of the fucking point.” His voice is a dark growl against your skin. His tongue drags a long stripe from the middle of your chest up to your collarbone and even further up to your ear. Your breath grows shaky. “You talk so much shit, but look at how your body reacts to me.”

“Shut up.” Your voice comes out more desperate than you mean for it to. He was right and you hated that fact most of all.

He’s growing impatient when his hands hold your hips and start grinding you into him. You let his hands guide you to where it feels best for him. His bulge presses against your clit with every drag.

He kisses and sucks on your neck and you just know he’s going to leave a mark. “Don’t…everybody will know…”

He only chuckles at your pathetic plea, “Everybody will know when you’re walking around carrying my baby.” He pushes his hips up against you and he can feel how you’re soaking through your own loincloth and his too. The waiting finally gets to be more than he can bear and he pulls his tewng to the side to finally free his impossibly hard dick. You feel yourself desperately clench around nothing. He pulls yours to the side and he lines himself up with your begging hole. You take a big breath to brace yourself, but you were not prepared for him to slam you down onto him in one swift motion and you scream out in surprise.

“Fuuuck…” he groans out feeling the way your walls frantically squeeze around him. You’re given no time to adjust before he’s lifting your hips up and down on his own.

It’s too much. It’s like he’s tickling the bottom of your ribs. When you finally take a real breath, all that comes out is a filthy moan. Looking down, you can see the imprint of his tip poking through your skin right at your navel. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

“Haah…fuck…Ao’nung…”

Ao’nung needs more. More friction, more of your sweet noises, more everything. That’s all his mind can think of right now. Just how much he needs you right now. He lays you down on the floor of the cave to give himself better access to pound into you.

His eyes are burning into your face and the eye contact is too much for you. It’s too embarrassing. You turn your head to find something else to look at, but he won’t have that. His fingers grip your jaw and turn your face back towards him. “Look at me. Take it.” He emphasizes his point by tightening his hold on your throat. Between his merciless thrusting, the intense eye contact, and his fingers around your throat, you can feel your orgasm quickly approaching. It makes you feel lightheaded and even as your vision starts to blur, you never move your eyes from his face.

Just before your consciousness slips away, he releases his hold on your neck and moves his hands down to massage your breasts. He nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck and bathes you in his scent to mark you even further. His teeth sink into your skin deep enough to draw blood. He goes mad at the taste of your blood spilling onto his tongue.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to fuck this perfect little body. Just watch you take it over and over. Fuck, I want to give you a baby.”

Was this just his rut talking? Or did he actually mean it? You couldn’t be sure anymore.

His pace gets faster and his groans get louder. “Fuck, I’m gonna fill this little pussy up.” His grip on your body is so tight, the veins in his arm are bulging out.

“Ah! Ao’nung! Yes!” your head falls back and your legs shake as you fall into your release. The way you clamp down around his dick pushes him over the edge and thick ropes of white spill over into your womb. It feels like fire in your veins, but it’s addicting.

Ao’nung keeps thrusting into you languidly trying to ensure he fucks as much cum back into you as he can.

He collapses on top of your heaving chest with closed eyes and you stare down at his face to try and check his condition. When he looks back at you, you breathe a sigh of relief seeing his normal blue shade. Never did you think you’d actually be happy to see Ao’nung in any circumstance.

“You okay?” you ask cautiously. He nods still catching his breath. “Great…You wanna get out of me now?”

“Oh, right.” He lifts himself up and pulls out of you and a primal part of his brain is pleased to see that none of his seed spilled out of you.

You stand to fix your clothing and hair. “So, you can go home now, right?”

He scoffs a bit more to himself than at you, “My ruts last 3 days. I am fine for now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last for. I have to stay here until I’m out of it.”

All the nerves in your body come alive with…something you can’t readily identify right now. “Oh…I see…”

“So you’ll know where to find me if you’re ever feeling generous again.” He winks at you and you know that your face is flushed.

“You wish, fish boy.” And with that, you turn and leave back to your home. Thankfully, it’s still hours away from sunrise so everyone is still asleep. You stealthily slip back into your marui, but of course one person’s ears perk up.

“What are you doing?” Neteyam whispers to you. Shit.

“Nothing.”

“Why do you smell like that?” he asks. Shit shit shit.

“Don’t worry about it, ‘Teyam. Just go back to sleep.” You lay down and hope that will be the end of it. Neteyam knows better, but he’s far too tired to go back and forth with you about it right now in the middle of the night.

You finally get the best night of sleep you’ve had since coming here.

…

The next morning, you all have the day off of training so you get to hang around at home instead. You sit on the edge with your feet hanging over into the water. Jake comes and sits next to you, “You okay, baby girl?”

You smile softly to yourself at the nickname. You loved it, but you also felt like you were getting a bit old for it. “I’m okay, dad. I’m just still getting used to it here.” He nods in understanding. “But I think I’m starting to settle in.”

#avatar #avatar the way of water #avatar fic #awow #avatar smut #aonung x fem!reader #aoung x reader #aonung imagine #aoung smut #aonung #ao'nung fic #aged up ao'nung #ao'nung #awow smut

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dxckgrxsonx · 2 years

Note

dickpic!reader trying to tease jay by giving him her panties but it backfires badly when later he sends her a video of him with his hand, that’s holding the panties, wrapped around his cock and he fucks himself w them 🫡

phew!! almost 2k words. think this might be my fave part so far.

You flinch awake in complete darkness.

Soft, imploring fingers trail from your ankle up to the sensitive skin across the back of your knee. Panic flares so cold it burns all the way to the very top of your head and you kick out, strong but clumsy, foot catching someone warm and firm in the stomach.

There’s a soft ‘oof’ and the hand disappears. You find yourself up on your knees in the space of a few seconds, fists raised, heart threatening to pound straight out of your chest. Fight or flight hooks into all the nerves along your shaking spine and there’s half a second where you don’t even know where you are.

Until someone says your name.

It feels like taking a deep breath first thing in the morning when the air is so cold and crisp it burns your lungs. Feels like dumping freezing water over your head in the middle of a summer heatwave, body caught halfway between complete shock and endless relief.

“So this was my surprise, huh?” Jason says mildly, and the tension shoving open your ribs exhales. “Not what I was expecting but m’not complaining.”

Wearing his black tactical pants and long sleeved undershirt, Jason unclips his weapons holsters and drops them on the bed. Inelegantly falling backwards against the headboard you cross your legs and reach out, fingers curiously grabbing at one of his guns.

The weapon is cold and heavy in your hands. You find the safety close to the trigger and make a conscious effort to stay away from it. Part of you wonders how Jason can find comfort in the weapon, holding it now, you feel almost dangerous.

But a quieter, more thoughtful part of you thinks that being dangerous might be the point. After all, there’s a certain sense of control that comes from being armed, it kind of feels like protection in a weird, twisted way. People generally think twice before going to hurt the person with the gun.

And you know in the meat of your heart that Jason Todd has been hurt enough.

“I ought to shoot you for waking me up like that.” You threaten, gun pointed firmly away from Jason. “Scared the hell out of me.”

“You’re in my bed.” He deadpans, unbuckling his belt. “What did you expect?”

Placing the gun beside its holster you grab a handful of jelly beans from where you left them on the bedside table and switch on the lamp. “Is it too much to ask to be woken up normally? You know, you could have said my name or even turned on the light.”

Offering a shrug in response he grins and takes off his pants.

Raising an interested eyebrow you tip some jelly beans in your mouth and chew, “You want some?”

Pulling yourself to your knees again you shuffle to the end of the bed as Jason steps out of his tactical pants and meets you partway. Opening his mouth expectantly you roll your eyes and tip the rest of your handful into his greedy mouth.

Chewing thoughtfully he gives you a brief once over, “Are you wearing my shirt?”

“It’s comfy and I didn’t bring any sleepover pyjamas.” You defend. Pressing a warm hand to your whole face Jason smiles mischievously and shoves you backwards. Falling flat out across the sheets you try to kick him in the chest but fail, “It’s your own fault for leaving it in plain sight. I’m totally blameless in this scenario.”

“You’re nothing but a common criminal.” Jason grumbles, moving to grab a new shirt to sleep in. “First my jelly beans, and now my shirt.”

“Hey! Your hiding places suck. Have you suddenly forgotten that I know you? Like really know you. You mean the world to me, so of course I make sure to pay attention to what you’re doing.” Shuffling to one side of the bed you kick back the covers and settle underneath. “Don’t think that I don’t know about the stash hidden in my apartment too by the way.”

Jason’s face does something odd then.

It’s less like surprise and more like outright horror. You find yourself on high alert, wanting desperately to soothe it, you haven't seen him look at you like that before, like you’ve just single handedly sent him scrambling for solid ground.

For a second, you wish you never told him you knew.

“You found that?” He says, and there’s something vulnerable in his voice.

You hum in confirmation, “Came across it when I was clearing out my old clothes from the wardrobe.” You remember the surprise of finding it, all that food, and then the sharp bite of confusion that followed. “It’s still there, I haven’t touched it, figured it was something important.”

“You can get rid of it.” Jason chokes, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know it’s stupid and I’m sorry for hiding things in your apartment.”

“It’s not stupid.” You say quickly, jumping out from under the covers to reach for him, fingers grabbing at his waist, his shoulder. “Jay, if it means something to you then it’s not stupid. Not to me. M’not going to get rid of it unless you want me to, okay? You spend so much time at my place, I’m surprised that’s all you’ve stashed there.”

The faintest smile brushes his mouth and your fingers itch to chase the soft, plump curve of his lips. The urge feels more dangerous than holding a weapon, it feels more selfish, feels almost heavier. Walking your hand along the top of his shoulder you brush a stray strand of hair out of his eyes.

Jason says your name so softly, with so much meaning, and you shiver. His hand comes up to press over your own and your chest cracks wide open, everything important and critical about you exposed.

“Let's get some sleep, yeah?”

The mention of sleep makes you yawn and Jason smirks before shoving his finger in your wide open mouth.

You wake with his breath on the back of your neck.

There’s a slow realisation of the position you’re in. Jason plastered to your back, hand anchored around your waist. He’s warm and safe and you shuffle backwards even further into his hold, content to spend as much time as possible in his embrace.

When he wakes, you know that things will go back to normal. Both of you stuck between friends and something more.

Loving him is a lonely thing.

Under the early light of dawn you drag the very tips of your fingers over his forearm. There’s a faint twitch of muscles and you feel Jason sigh before he snuggles against you, leg nudging yours under the covers.

“Jay.” You whisper. “I need to get up, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

Slotting his leg between your own Jason grumbles and tightens his grip, “No.” He whines, sleep clinging thick to his voice. “Call in sick. Wanna cuddle with you.”

Tracing the veins from his wrist to the crook of his elbow you laugh lightly, squinting against the sunlight shining through the window, “Maybe next time?” You offer gently, peeling his arm from your waist.

“Promise?” He sighs, rolling over onto his back.

Sliding out of his bed you beeline for the bathroom and give him no response, not trusting yourself to say the right thing. If he asked, you’d promise him just about anything. If only to see the soft, touched smile on his face. If only for the chance to kiss him.

Before leaving though, you stop by his bedside and make sure the sheets are draped loosely around his shoulders; you know how much he hates feeling trapped, confined to one single space.

And if you drop a kiss to his forehead, that’s between you and the dawn.

Checking your phone as soon as you get home you almost catch fire.

The sudden heat reminds you of solar flares, bright and shining. A burst of plasma and energy powerful enough to knock your whole life straight out of orbit. He has a habit of doing that to you. Knocking you so far of course it feels like burning yourself alive.

Jay: I think you left these at mine this morning Jay: sent a photo

Opening the image you ache between your legs.

Jason has a pair of your underwear wrapped around his fist, and he’s holding his cock, precum leaking from the fat head all over the soft fabric. It’s the pair you were wearing yesterday and you know that they’re not exactly clean.

You: you’re killing me You: i’m dying You: they’re not clean, i wore them yesterday

His reply comes a few moments later and you struggle to keep some semblance of composure.

Jay: i know Jay: sent a video

Pressing play you sit down on the sofa and make sure the volume is turned up. The video focuses immediately on Jason’s thick cock. Your underwear is wrapped around the base and you watch as his fingers twist into the fabric before he drags it up to the wet tip, jerking himself off with it.

His breath stutters when his hips thrust upwards, shoving his cock through the cotton until he twitches. The fabric steadily gets stickier and stickier as he leaks everywhere, his fist tightening until he moans.

The camera shakes when Jason shudders and you sink your teeth into your bottom lip. He groans softly when your underwear rubs over the tip and you gasp at the wrecked sound of his voice, desperate to hear what other pretty noises he can make.

All the muscles in his stomach tighten and you’re mesmerised by the catch and release of them. Even more by the faint trail of hair dusting his navel. The edge of the camera barely catches his thighs but you see them shaking, see him struggling to control the urge to really fuck your underwear.

He fails miserably and you shake when he moans, long and low.

Grinding himself up into his fist he gasps and chokes out your name. Seconds later his body locks up and you almost whimper when Jason’s pretty cock starts twitching, covering your underwear with his come. His release is thick and white and your pussy aches, clit straining for even one touch, for even a slight bit of attention.

Jason says your name again and this time it’s different. It’s softer, you almost don’t think he meant for you to hear it.

But you did hear it and you go back, listen to it again because it’s breathy. Because if you close your eyes you can hear a touch of his Gotham accent. Because for a moment you could really believe that you’re there with him.

You: great You: imma go rub one out

Jay: aw for me? Jay: how cute

You: yeah for you You: want me to send you something?

Jay: please please please

You: okay

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x reader smut #jason todd x you #jason todd x you smut #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fanfiction #red hood x reader #red hood x reader smut #ella writes #asks #answered #birthofvcnus

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johnwickb1tsch · 10 months

Text

Constantine x Reader x Wick Imagine

🗡️Ahhhhhhhgrgh OK SO you used to date John Constantine, but he pushed you away and broke your heart when you accidentally said the L word. You move to New York, and now you're with John Wick, who is ever so good to you, but you don't ask what he gets up to in the wee hours of the night or why he comes home with bruised knuckles. It's old hat to you, considering who you used to date. Constantine happens to know, however, that Wick is a demon half breed, and its driving him insane thinking about you with him. He found out from one of his less than savory contacts, and its been eating at him ever since.

He confronts you in Central park, where you like to go on your lunch breaks to read. "Nice, y/n. I turn my back for two seconds and you're fucking a demon." "First of all, fuck off, Constantine. Second, what the fuck are you talking about? Third, what the fuck are you doing in New York?” “Your little boyfriend’s boss Tarasov is cooking up something wicked. Something that’s going to harvest a LOT of souls for his master.” That would be Lucifer Himself, of course. You roll your eyes, even if in the very back back room of your head, you wonder if he’s telling the truth. Could John Wick be a demon? The sex was amazing, but that didn't necessarily mean he was the Devil's minion? You had noticed though, out the corner of your eye, that sometimes his pupils seemed to have a fiery glow. And sometimes, when he came home all sweaty and hadn't showered yet, you'd get a weird whiff of sulfur. You'd always shrugged it off, but... “Sure he is.” Seeing Constantine hurts like a knife between the ribs. You'd loved him so much, and he was such an asshole to you. The fact that he’s come all this way trying to warn you should not inspire this kind of warmth in your heart. “Just stay away from me, Constantine.”

😈Of course, he doesn’t. He never told you, but you're the only woman he's ever truly loved. You’re out with John Wick when Constantine strikes, trying to deport your [apparently?] demon boyfriend. Wick gets the drop on him though, and he’s about to finish the job before he hears you scream. He sees your face and knows it will hurt you irreparably if he kills Constantine. So he lets him go, throwing him across the darkened street into a building. You leave with Wick, and he takes you home. You have so many questions, but he refuses to answer them. He kisses you goodnight before he has to go out again, a sorrow in those soulful puppy dog eyes that breaks your heart. How is it possible that he’s a demon? He’s so good to you.

♥Little do you know, John Wick never really had a choice. He was damned for something he didn't really have control over, and working for the Devil is way better than seething in the Pit. He's good at what he does, but his heart's never really been in it. You're the best thing that's ever happened to him.

😇👹You were never really down with all this angels and demons shit. Constantine kept you insulated from it, and to be honest you're not really even a believer. It’s kind of why these guys are attracted to you, tbh. Being around you is like a little break from their lives. You’re a good person for the most part. You go about your day and do your best not to be a total piece of shit, and usually that works out, but you don’t get caught up in the whole Heaven! and Hell! thing. Though one time when you confessed to Constantine that you don’t believe in God, he’d bitterly said, “That doesn’t mean He doesn’t believe in you, the asshole.” For someone supposedly on God's side, Constantine never seemed to like Him much.

🔥You follow Wick one night, desperate to know if Constantine was right. You get caught, because you are just human, and Tarasov decides you’ll make a perfect little sacrifice for the profane ritual they’re setting up. Constantine, of course, was following you. Before the knife can fall MAYEM ensues. SO MANY Demons get their asses deported, but you almost die anyway. In the end, Wick pulls a Selfless Act saving you, and he gets turned into a halfbreed angel instead.

😡Constantine is so fucking pissed off about this.

🤷‍♀️You love them both and have no idea how you’re going to choose.

#john wick #constantine #keanu reeves #constantine x you #john wick x you #constantine x reader #john wick x reader #john constantine #john wick imagine #constantine imagine #keanu reeves x you #keanu reeves x reader #keanu x you #julia imagines

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deerspherestudios · 9 months

Note

Hello! Played through Day 1+2 today and it was quite the treat! Going through all choice options makes me realize how weird Mychael is??? He is so sweet and considerate yet also seems full of contempt and rejection kinda? I like it and makes me wonder if he has some kind of internal battle in his head for years now. Just prattling here but the way the food is drawn makes it look so yummy! Mychael's dilated cat eyes are freaky and so are his lies, the chicken's are too cute😭, I really think Myc is gonna go full crazy out of desperation to keep us with him no matter what. Its chef kiss.

Also, if possible, could you show us the "affection line" and where Mychael would be at it on Day 2? The last scene he went up like a rocket.

And out of curiousity, will there be "bad ends" or "game overs" during the days before the game ends? It's alright if you don't want/cannot answer anything right now. Thank you!

Eeeee I'm soso happy he comes across that way!!! Without rambling too much I definitely wanted him to come across as sweet but distant. As the game progresses he opens up to you more and more enough to tell you what's on his mind. This means so much to me really <3

The current affection chart is here! And I've also answered an ask about bad endings here!

#mushroom oasis vn #mychael ask #bts #cheea chatter #jar of fireflies

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anonymous-eggy · 10 months

Text

Quest with an artist Mc

bc i cant stop thinking ab himb....

i wrote this very impulsively so. yeah. theres a bit of horny towards the end, but theres also fluffy sweet things

• he learns of you being an artist when you find the time to create bloomic fanart.

• and you got endless showers of praise from him on how good it was (especially if the fanart included Xander)

• he just thinks its so neat. his artistic expression of choice is poetry, so he's not much of an artist when it comes to drawing.

• he can draw some basic flowers, but thats where his talents end.

• no matter your usual art media, buy gold (body safe) paint and paint his scars. kind of like how you paint the cracks of repaired pottery and such? except make it a vulnerable bonding experience.

• he has many scars all around his body from past accidents and gang related violence.

• i feel like he gets really insecure about them sometimes and worries theyll make you think too much about his past

• but seeing you turn them into something golden and beautiful with such ease and affection... gives him a new appreciation for those parts of him.

• he loves it even more when you connect nearby scars like intricate rivers of gold flowing across his body.

• make sure you fill the comfortable silence with lovely soft words of affirmation and kisses every now and then for the best results.

• absolutely call him your golden boy.

• the only issue is that he feels really bad for having to eventually wash them off.

• so take pictures and send them to him for just you two to hold onto ;)

• despite feeling bad about washing them off, he always feels so much better about his scars and body.

• and let him know this is exactly how you see his scars <3

• i feel like during times when you're not able to paint on him because of a late shift or something, he just looks back at the pictures and replays the soft memories for comfort.

• this is more towards the beginning of your relationship with him, when his insecurities about his past bothering you were the worst

• moving on from that, he is the perfect man to reference.

• he would find it so very funny if you ever complained about parts of him that are hard to draw.

• i could imagine just sitting there watching him work out and just... drawing the way his muscles flex and the way his body bends... dear lord those thighs...

• when you first did this, he immediately noticed. he didnt quite have the courage to ask if you were drawing him (after all, forms of art are very personal things)

• but when he sees you're staring at the sketchbook page more than him, he decides to take a break and ask you.

• not because he's getting jealous of the notebook. hes not a jealous person. the curiosity just takes over because the stares mean you're stuck on smthn or you're finished.

• and boy is he beyond flattered. flustered even.

• he's never really... thought much about himself. physically and mentally. so the fact that he's worth being sketched touches his very soul.

• if you're the type of artist who loves gushing over defined shapes and begin to ramble about the shapes that you love about him, his cheeks will be red and he will patiently listen to every word you have to say.

• as weird as it is to listen to someone describe his physical features with such passion, there's something special about the way you talk about it.

• especially if you suddenly realize what you're saying and get flustered.

• he likes feeling like art when its you. he loves the way you map out his body and turn the shapes of him into strokes of graphite poetry.

• .... he wouldnt mind if you drew him suggestively as well... so long as its for your eyes and his eyes only...

• of course there would be teasing about just how much you seem to adore his body, but never in a way that deters you from sketching him more.

• which, knowing Quest, his teasing quickly veers into horny territory. at the very least deep kisses.

• he says he just want to "give you more inspiration" and that "its his job as your muse"

• he definitely develops a fixation on your hands specifically. the way your hands trace his body delicately as if trying to memorize every line of him while making out with him on his lap.

• it absolutely drives him insane.

• the way his large hands encircle your wrist while his fingers press on your palms in bed. or when his fingers tangle with yours. and he can see you looking at it. memorizing every moment of it. of him. of the emotions tied to the image.

• that part he loves the most about your art. the pure emotion of it captured so perfectly

• oh yeah it definitely awakens something in him. especially if he finds you sketching those the next day peacfully at your desk.

• honestly i think you being an artist just changes the way he sees things. in the best of ways.

• he also finds himself massaging your hands absent mindedly while cuddling. and softly kissing them... they work so hard and he wants to take care of them for you.

• he is just so very happy to be your favorite muse.

~sigh. time to make a Blooming Panic section on my masterlist...

#i have big quest brainrot #he's so pretty and lovely #bloomic #blooming panic #blooming panic quest #bp quest #blooming panic headcanon #bloomic headcanon #quest

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rayshippouuchiha · 5 months

Note

Hi! I feel bad for having messaged twice in kinda quick succession, but I have a Bleach AU idea and don’t really have anyone to tell about it, but i hope you’d like to hear about it!

So I’ve only recently been trying to finish reading Bleach (I’ve read earlier chapters multiple times, but never managed to read past the Xcution arc). I’ve still got about 100 odd chapters to go, but I’m in the thousand year war arc finally, (and I’ve read the last few chapters, so I know how it ends, just not all of the details in between).

Anyway, I’ve recently read the bit where Kyoraku (is that his name? Shunsui, the head captain guy) actually goes to the land of the living and visits Ichigo’s friends to warn them that depending on how powerful he is once he’s sorted his issues with his Zanpakuto, he might not be able to come back home and it’s just GOT ME THINKING, because so far it’s not been mentioned again, and it isn’t in the last few chapters either, I don’t think. BUT!! What if it is that Ichigo is so powerful now that going back to the human world on a permanent basis would completely mess with the human world, so he’s forced to stay in the soul society.

So much potential for angst, with him missing his sisters and friends (and Kisuke), BUT also so much potential for absolute highjinks in the SS.

I think this could potentially be a little similar to your Turn Back the Clock AU, but I’m just imagining all of the remaining captains/lieutenants all absolutely beside themselves trying to convince Ichigo to join their teams, Shunsui is already eyeing him up for a captain position in the near future, Kenpachi (who’s still a little lost without his little sidekick (whose name I’ve forgotten, god I feel so bad because I love her)) just itching to get Ichigo to join his squad so that he can have daily fights without the trouble of having to go looking for the guy. Shinji (who without a shadow of a doubt has a soft spot for Ichigo, no matter how much he might enjoy irritating him) who wants to have him in his squad as some kind of “visords-stick-together” kinda deal (and because he knows it’d piss all the others off). Rukia laying claim because HELLO, she’s the one that stabbed him and gave him the powers in the first place, she calls dibs! Hell, I think even Byakuya would want him in his squad, because as much as he might deny it if asked, he’s actually rather fond of the guy, so long as he learns to call him Captain rather than his first name.

And as things are want to do in the SS, where the more power the shinigami, the more insane they seem to be, things get a little out of hand. During one heated discussion, where they’re all giving their updates on how well each of them think they’re doing in convincing Ichigo to join them, someone (I’m thinking a shit-stirrer like Yumichika maybe) gives the idea that hey, this competition seems almost as if you’re trying to court the guy! And so it turns into this weird ass Shinigami-courting situation, with a “whoever manages to (woo) CONVINCE Ichigo to join their squad is OBVIOUSLY the one that Ichigo likes best, so that means that he’s OBVIOUSLY also open to (after)life long commitment in the form of marriage to whichever captain wins” kinda thing going on.

Cue Ichigo not getting a single moments peace, when all he really wants is to be left alone to just PROCESS the fact that he 1) has had to leave everyone and everything he’s ever known in the human world to live with these absolutely crazy people, and 2) just fought in a very big battle and helped kill a thousands-year old crazy Quincy guy.

He’s more than happy spending his time helping clean up and rebuild the SS for now, and he’s happy to worry about what comes next once the SS is back on its feet. (And he’s more than a little oblivious to the weird fighting/flirting/coercing that seems to happen whenever he comes across any familiar face whenever he’s out and about).

It all comes to a head when his friends from home come for a visit to the soul society with those handy dandy tokens that Shunsui gave them, and instantly see what’s happening and have to sit Ichigo down and explain to him that he may or may not (but definitely does) have twenty or so extremely powerful shinigami captains and lieutenants all after his ass(ets), which, know that Ichigo thinks about it, definitely explains a few things that’ve been happening to him lately.

And shortly after his friends go back home, all three realms feel a shift in reiatsu and hear a distant screech from Kisuke, who’s suddenly realised that hey, maybe the human world sucks actually and he should relocate back to the soul society for no reason in particular! None at all! Definitely not jealousy because that would be ridiculous.

If I had the time or energy (and a better track record of finishing fics that I start 😬) I’d love to write this, but I fear it’ll be stuck in my notes forever, lol, so thought I’d share!

No I love this so much!! Especially if it's endgame UraIchi and like all this courting, all this drama, all the shenanigans from all these different high-powered shinigami all trying to get Ichigo's attention and Kisuke just rocks up and gets him within a solid 10 minutes and 5 of those were spent with Ichigo purposefully ignoring him while Kisuke apologized for some dumb petty shit he did before Ichigo ended up in SS

#RayRambles #Bleach #prompt #UraIchi

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nostalgebraist · 4 months

Note

I think your post about AI Doom doesn't really acknowledge the fact that, generally speaking, people enjoy being alive for its own sake and prefer it to being dead. Unless I'm misinterpreting, the conclusion of the post is essentially saying that not wanting people to be killed is "out of step with human values" which is obviously not true. Most people do not want to be killed. Killing people is bad. It would not be OK for AI to kill everyone even if it made something else afterwards.

(Pt 2) this all seems extremely obvious to me but I could not come up with an interpretation of that post which isn’t just broadly in favour of people being killed, which seems sort of like. The most evil thing anyone could ever possibly believe. So I am hoping that I misinterpreted

You're not alone, this aspect of yesterday's post was confusing to a lot of people.

FWIW I'm mostly tapped out on discussing the subject matter of that post for the moment, but this does deserves some kind of further explanation, so here goes.

----

First, to address something you didn't mention, but which was broadly confusing:

I am not saying: "when the doomers say AI will kill us all, they don't mean the natural reading of that phrase, they don't mean it will literally kill all the individual humans, they mean some weird other thing instead."

No, they really do just mean it will kill everyone. Sorry that wasn't clear.

----

What I did mean, when I talked about doomers vs. average Joe here, is that the idea of human extinction hits different if you're an anti-deathist transhumanist, versus if you aren't one.

If you're an anti-deathist, what's bad about extinction is, in part, the same thing that's bad about ordinary death. The anti-deathist looks around them and sees, in some sense, a slow-motion and staggered extinction already happening.

Even without extinction, we are all gonna die. Our great-great-great-great-great-grandparents' generation did not die out in an extinction event, but all the same, they are in fact extinct. Dead. 100% fatality rate, for those guys.

Sure, it was spread out over time, and "natural," but -- the anti-deathist argues, quite reasonably -- why should any of that matter to them, the dead ones? Those distinctions don't change any of what it is that's intuitively bad about dying in the first place.

The horror you express at "people being killed"? For the anti-deathist, that horror gets generalized to include the case of people being killed "by death," as it were. By just, dying, of old age or whatever, rather than by the hand of some other creature.

----

Now sure, even for the anti-deathist, there are important ways that extinction is worse than business as usual. Most obviously, extinction not only stops all the lives of people around now, but prevents the lives of any future people from getting created later on. (Plus of course, all else being equal, death sooner is worse than death later.)

If you're not an anti-deathist, though -- and most people aren't -- these special factors that make extinction worse (for the anti-deathist) are in fact your only objections to extinction.

That is not to say that they aren't extremely strong objections. Of course normal people do not want human extinction!

But for the normal person, there is this hard line between "extinction" and "business as usual." For such a person, there is a horror in the former that just isn't there in the latter, even though (as the anti-deathist likes to point out) business as usual still means a 100% fatality rate, on a long enough timeline.

For the anti-deathist, there is not this hard line. Extinction is bad. Getting killed by a person or a machine is bad. Dying of natural causes is bad. And a lot of the badness -- though by no means all of it -- comes from what is shared across all these cases, not what is special to each case alone.

----

OK, now let's talk more directly about your question.

Unless I'm misinterpreting, the conclusion of the post is essentially saying that not wanting people to be killed is "out of step with human values" which is obviously not true.

I mean, yeah, that's obviously not true.

But there are things sort of superficially similar to it that might be true.

And when something is true, but on the surface sounds bizarre and backwards and staggeringly wrong, I often like to play around with the way it sounds -- to just have a bit of fun with the way I can say things that seem so outrageous, and yet might not actually be wrong. Or even really outrageous, when properly understood.

And maybe I get carried with this, sometimes, at the expense of clarity. Sorry about that. (But also, it's my blog, where I write the kind of stuff I like writing. And I do like writing in this way. Them's the breaks.)

Anyway.

If we want to understand ordinary human values, then we need to cope with the "average Joe's" simultaneous belief in the following two things:

I really do not want to die. As a particular case, I really really do not want to die right now, today. But also, come to think of it, dying tomorrow would be super bad too. And you know what, the day after tomorrow? Same deal. And I guess I could go on like this.

I do not, at all, actively want to "live forever." In fact I kind of don't want this. If you directly ask me, I'll say the idea is sort of creepy and weird and bad. Or, even if I don't think that, I don't find the idea motivating at all. It might be acceptable, if it were forced on me, but none of my actions are driven by a desire to make it more likely.

(I am hand-waving away the concept of the afterlife here, which is involved in the typical Joe's actual beliefs in a way that annoyingly complicates the analysis while being tangential to my point. Let's say we're talking about the average atheist/agnostic but non-transhumanist Joe. I think the point can be generalized further, but I'm trying and failing to be brief here, so you'll just have to trust me.)

Now, together, these two beliefs are nearly a paradox.

Maybe they are just a paradox. Maybe you can't, really, think both of these at the same time without, on some level, kidding yourself. This is what the anti-deathist alleges, about the average Joe.

Maybe you agree. If so: congratulations, you're an anti-deathist too. Which is a perfectly valid point of view. Despite all I said in my post, I have quite a lot of sympathy for it, myself.

But the average Joe is really not an anti-deathist. This is just a fact about the world. Average Joe really does think both of the 2 things, at once. Maybe he does so inconsistently, or wrongly. Still, he does.

I think you essentially have two choices here. You can take the road less traveled, fully bite the "death is bad" bullet, and be an anti-deathist. Or, you can do what most do, and be like average Joe.

But if you are doing what average Joe does, and you go on to say things like...

being in favour of people being killed [is the] most evil thing anyone could ever possibly believe

...then you have some explaining to do. You have to spell out what it is this means, if it doesn't just mean full anti-deathism. Which is kinda what it sounds like.

A lot of things "kinda sound like" full anti-deathism. That view is very amenable to being phrased in terms that make it sound utterly obvious.

But we can't let this lull us into thinking that -- because anti-deathism sounds obvious, and average Joe often believes things that sound obvious -- that average Joe believes in anti-deathism. Somehow, despite all that obviousness, he just doesn't.

Somehow, despite all that obviousness, anti-deathism is a fringe position. And if we're not on the fringe, then we have to spell out just what it is that we believe instead.

Now OK, let's be real. You didn't say "being in favour of death" was the evil thing. What you wrote was "people being killed," not "people dying."

And that's what makes the distinction to you, right? I imagine? That it's bad news when some entity actively kills a person, that goes beyond the badness of death per se?

----

That does sound pretty intuitive! But what exactly is it that makes killing worse, here?

I didn't answer that question, in my post. I answered a bunch of other questions, instead. There are still more questions, which no one has asked me, but which I kind of feel I ought to answer, when talking about this topic. Nonetheless, I have to stop myself at some point, or I'll never do anything else. Hence these kinds of glaring lacunae.

I won't answer it here, either, in full. I have some other things to do today, and this is no longer just explicating what I meant earlier, this is new stuff. I'll just make some gestures, now, towards the kind of answer that would make sense of how I treated the topic in my earlier post.

----

So, there are some pretty obvious answers to "why is killing especially bad?"

Say, that it reflects poorly on the killer: an AI that would kill us all is probably an AI that's just plain bad morally.

Or, that we have a norm against it. It's a part of our ethics, the stuff we agree on as part of the social contract.

But you know what we don't have a norm against? If we're average Joe, and not on the fringe?

Killing chickens.

Or torturing chickens, and then killing them. Or breeding lots of them, specifically to be tortured, and then killed.

Sorry for the sudden swerve into vegan talking points! But this is kind of a big deal.

I've heard this cited, multiple times, by doomer types as a motivating case for being worried about how superintelligent AIs might treat us.

Just look at how we treat creatures that can very evidently feel pain -- but just happen to be different from us, not constituted the way we are, and in particular much less smart than we are!

And I, personally, find this argument pretty motivating. This is one of those arguments where even I have to hand it to the doomers.

But once we've allowed this much, we are in danger of conceding some really wild shit, if we don't tread carefully. Maybe we even should concede the wild shit, in the last analysis. Still, we should tread carefully.

Say you take the chicken argument seriously.

You've conceded that human values contain some really fucked-up things about how to treat other, dumber, "more primitive" beings. Beings of the kind that prevailed before the new, "super"-intelligent, sparkly, world-dominating species stepped onto the scene and changed everything.

You've conceded that humans are basically misaligned AIs, of the evil killeveryone Torment Nexus sort.

Remember, that was the whole substance of the argument: to make such awful AIs seem more plausible, by pointing out that such a thing already exists. Namely, us.

But now, what standing do we have to object to the AIs, without it rebounding back on us? Must we oppose ourselves just as fervently as we oppose the evil AIs, for the same reason?

"An AI that kills all humans" sounds pretty bad. Sounds like an evil thing, that we would not want to exist. But by the same token, we're evil, and we shouldn't exist.

(We might have wiped out chickens, if they weren't so tasty. There are plenty of non-tasty things which we did, in fact, wipe out. I and the doomers focus on chickens and the like, here, because what we did them is arguably even worse.)

Would we really accept an AI that's only "aligned with human values," and treats us about as well as we treat other beings when we are placed in an analogous scenario? Or do we hold AI to a higher standard -- one we can't possibly apply to ourselves, for that way lies madness?

Well, I don't know. These are tough questions.

But I would like to leave open some room to imagine, at least, that the advent of humanity was not (or not only) a catastrophe. That it was not, in fact, "the most evil thing possible."

Despite all the evil that we do, I'd like to imagine that.

And I'd like to imagine that, if there is such a thing as "human values," it contains this affirmation of the value of the advent of humanity.

And the value of things like the advent of humanity.

And the golden rule, and the rule of law. Which means, among other things: not holding you to a higher standard than I hold myself.

Even though the apparent implications of this are pretty nasty.

Philosophy is like that. Often you are between a rock and a hard place. Saying "that's a rock, don't you know that rocks cannot be walked through??" in an alarmed tone does not really get at the heart of the dilemma, or point the way to a solution.

----

All else being equal, of course, I would prefer not to be killed.

So would the chickens, I imagine.

We must not pretend there are easy answers, when there aren't.

#ai tag

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ashintheairlikesnow · 10 days

Text

Perdition

CW: None, really, other than someone eating pizza... badly. Oh, and some brief references to the FLDS cult.

“All right,” Vanessa said, leaning over her drink and giving Anaya a fixed stare across the table. “Explain.”

Down the hall, the shower ran. Eden looked back over his shoulder, thinking about how he’d had to show the kid how to turn the knob from cold to hot, and the boy’s absolute shock when he’d felt hot water hit his palms, stinging the scrape there.

The kid hadn’t even flinched fully back, just turned to Eden with those strange golden eyes so wide.

It comes out hot?

Eden had been thinking, ever since, about how it would feel to only have experienced cold showers your entire life. Assuming there had even been showers. He was starting to think maybe Misae had been hosed down in the yard.

Like a dog covered in mud.

Like a wolf.

He rubbed at his temples, a headache threatening. His brain kept trying to cycle back to the sight of the skinny young reddish-brown wolf racing through their camp, the bloodied wound in its back leg - and then shifting to Misae, naked with his leg bleeding, curled up under their car trying to hide from the man hunting him.

He couldn’t reconcile the two creatures as the same, in two different shapes. Anaya, apparently, could just believe in werewolves in a flash, a split-second reorienting of their entire conception of reality not even bothering her at all.

It wasn’t so easy for him.

“What do you mean?” Naya asked, her eyes on the window behind Vanessa. "Explain what?" The little black cat from earlier had shown back up and was sitting just outside the window, watching them, blinking yellow eyes in slow, wordless communication.

Vanessa had said it wasn’t her cat. It supposedly belonged to an elderly neighbor. Eden wasn’t so sure the cat agreed with that assertion.

“I’m not trying to be rude,” Vanessa said, sipping the apple cider-whiskey-and-lemon-fizzy-water concoction she’d made and offered to them both. Anaya had taken her up on it, but Eden had begged for something as simple as a beer.

He’d ended up with something ostentatiously draped in chocolate and peanut butter that was pretending to be a stout, but fuck it - it was still beer. Beer that tastes like a peanut butter cup, sure, but beer.

“No, I know, I know you’re not, it’s just-... it’s kind of a weird subject for him-”

“Is he a Lost Boy?” Vanessa’s tone was flat now.

Eden and Anaya shared a look. Eden raised his eyebrows. Anaya shrugged, then turned back to Vanessa. “I don’t know what that means, Ness. I know Lost Boys is a Peter Pan thing, but-”

“Man.” Vanessa laughed, open and easy. “You never watched any of those documentaries I told you to watch, did you?”

Anaya flushed.

Eden snorted. “Well, if you told her to watch them, I guarantee she didn’t. Number one way to keep Naya from doing something is to tell her she has to do it.”

“Hey!” Anaya swatted at his arm, and he grinned at her, batting his eyelashes until she broke back down into giggles. “That’s not fair. You do it, too.”

“I know I do, but we’re not talking about me, are we?” He held up his beer as if making a toast. “Talkin’ about you, baby.”

“I hate you,” Anaya said, and leaned over to steal a kiss.

“Gross,” Vanessa said, sounding utterly unbothered. “This is why I don’t have roommates, you know. So nobody has to see kissing.”

“You never kiss anybody here?” Anaya blinked, looking around. “But your house is so cute!”

“Number one - thank you, I worked really hard on the piece of crap falling down shack I bought six years ago, so I appreciate that. Number two… No. This house is my sanctuary, baby girl, nobody ever crosses this doorway who might think they have a claim on it if they do. And number three… Lost Boys are named after the Peter Pan story, yeah, but it’s… okay. Uh. How do I start… So you remember I grew up in Cedar City, in Utah?”

“Nope.”

“We talked about our childhoods like six times, Naya.”

Anaya winced. “Sorry. My memory is swiss cheese on a good day-”

Vanessa waved her hand. “Honestly, that’s fine. I’m just as bad, I can’t judge. So, not super far from Cedar City, you run into these… people. I was raised Mormon, not that it stuck-” She lifted up the cocktail she’d made for herself and shook it until the ice clinked against the side of the glass. “As you can see. My mom is still absolutely convinced I’m coming back to it, but that’s just Mom being her usual optimistic self. Anyway, not relevant. There’s this offshoot group near us, and they call themselves FLDS, but they’re about as Mormon as a sack of hammers. They’re pretty much flat out a weird sex cult run by old men who choose dozens of women to marry. That’s the Cliff’s Notes, it’s actually much grosser than that. But, uh, when there’s a dozen men that marry a dozen women each…”

Eden wrinkled his nose. “There can’t possibly be enough women to make that work.”

“There aren’t. Nice catch. Or, rather, there’s too many men. So they kick the teenage boys out. They come up with some kind of story, some excuse for it. One boy I met watched a VHS tape of Fern Gully in secret but made the mistake of telling his brother, who told on him. One was overheard telling a girl he thought she was pretty when she was already set to marry somebody’s grandpa. Another said all they told him was that he seemed kind of lazy at the worksite last Thursday. One poor kid just had the absolute freaking audacity to not even notice the girls at all, they decided that meant he was looking at the boys instead. Doesn’t matter. They kick them out, dump them on a road with a backpack - if they're lucky they get a backpack - and tell the boys good riddance, don’t come back. They don't have any documentation, they don't have any idea how to live in the modern world. Most of them have never even handled money themselves. Sometimes you’ll hear them called the Sons of Perdition? Ringing any bells?”

Anaya frowned, looking at Eden. He shrugged back at her. “Sounds sort of familiar,” Anaya said slowly. “Like maybe I saw something on the news.”

The shower turned off. All three of them went briefly quiet, as they heard the bathroom door open and close, followed by the guest bedroom door doing the same.

“You might have. There was a big case about it years ago, that's what the show I wanted you to watch was about. In any case, I’m telling you all of this because I thought maybe you’d picked up a Lost Boy. Sometimes, with the Lost Boys, their moms have kids who already left, or a sister or something, and they can give the boy a phone number to call. Mostly, though, they’re on their own. My mom helps them, she drives the roads some days looking for the boys and takes them to a shelter in Cedar City. When I visit back home we do it together. So, yeah. I thought maybe that’s where he could be from.”

“I… don’t think that’s it.” Eden looked down at his beer. “We found him in the woods, like… deep into the woods, and he was coming from somewhere even deeper. Actually, he found us, I guess. We saw him hiding under my car from somebody who was after him. And it didn’t seem like the plan was to bring him back alive.”

“Hence the being shot,” Vanessa said, thinking out loud.

Eden nodded. “Hence being shot.” Honestly, he liked her - she was sharp and soft at the same time. He could see why Anaya had been so sure she’d let them stay, that she’d help them out.

“Well, my first guess was wrong, then, I suppose. But there’s all kinds of survivalists hiding out in the woods. Usually just a family by themselves, or maybe a couple related families who put together a little compound. Most of them keep to themselves and tip really well when they show up in the local diners, keep some of the farm supply stores more or less in business, but sometimes you get some that are alone in the woods long enough to get…” She trailed off. "Weird."

Anaya sipped her own drink - just the cider. She’d told Eden she was worried that if she drank alcohol she’d just flat out fall asleep at the table. They were both running on nerves and caffeine by now. "Weird?” She prodded, gently.

“Odd,” Vanessa said, finally. “Paranoid. Hostile. They’re the kind of guys that think we’re all microchipped by the government, or that vaccines make you pick up cell signals. Things like that. People who sit around alone too long get really weird. Or maybe they were already weird and that’s why they went out into the woods. I mean, as long as they tip twenty percent on a decent meal, they can live however they want in my book, but not if they're trying to cover up abuse, or something. If that’s where this kid comes from, well. There might not be anybody he can easily go to, relatives-wise."

Eden thought of Misae's scars. "... I think abuse was pretty much a given. You don't shoot at someone who's running from you if you're a good place to grow up."

"Yeah. Poor kid." The timer over the oven beeped, and Vanessa pushed herself to her feet. “Just a second. Hey, Strange Boy Misae!” Vanessa’s voice shifted into an effortless projection that found its way through every corner of the little bungalow of a home. “Pizza’s ready! Come eat!”

She swept herself into the kitchen, leaving Eden and Anaya briefly alone. Eden held his beer in his right hand and let his left drift, until it found Anaya’s fingertips. She smiled without looking at him and grabbed on tight.

“This was a good place to pick,” Eden admitted, reluctantly. “To find a place we can crash. You did good, baby."

“Told you so,” Anaya sing-songed, voice low and loving. “I’m always right, even when I’m not.”

“Aaaaand this moment right here is why I never admit it when you are right,” Eden said, voice dry. "Because you do that every single time." They clinked beer bottle and glass together, and kissed again. Anaya half-laughed into the kiss, making it awkward and bad and the best kiss, all at the same time.

He heard the softest scrape behind him and pulled back to see Misae hovering in the doorway, wearing Anaya’s star-sky pajama pants pulled as tight at the waist as they could go and a shirt of hers that didn’t quite meet the waistline, showing a flash of pale, scarred stomach. His hair was mussed and stuck up and out every which way. His eyes danced around the room and he moved in a way Eden could only call slinking, sticking to the wall as he eased himself slowly into the room. He limped, still, but not nearly so badly as he should have.

He shouldn’t have been able to move at all, not really, not without crutches or help.

Well, maybe teenagers who turn into wolves heal fast, Eden’s brain supplied with hysterical false calm. Didn’t he say he heals fast?

Misae’s eyes moved constantly, the whites showing around the iris as he took everything in. He crossed his arms in front of himself. Outside, the sun was getting low in the sky, sending blazing golden yellows and oranges that cast Misae in a light like reflected flames. It made his gold eyes seem to glow.

“Hey,” Eden said, his voice gentling immediately. “Feeling better? Was it a good shower?” He patted the seat next to him when the boy didn’t move.

Misae looked down at the chair, back to Eden, and then towards the kitchen. Vanessa bustled around in there.

Something fell in a crash of ceramic and Misae’s lips pulled back in a heartbeat, baring teeth that weren’t as flat in the canines as they should have been, snarling even as he hunched into himself further, self-protective, and pushed himself back against the wall. Eden could damn near see his ears suddenly tipped in fur, elongating, pushed back against his head. Was he getting shorter?

“Everything’s fine!” Vanessa called out before anyone could ask. “Just a second! Everything’s totally good!”

Misae’s teeth were sharp enough to crunch bone now. Eden couldn’t deny it - he was watching the boy begin to turn. He wasn’t getting shorter, he was shifting from bipedal to something that had to stand on all fours. Eden swallowed, hard, his heart beating so fast it made him vaguely breathless.

"Holy shit," Anaya breathed, next to him. Her grip on Eden's hand went tight enough to hurt, squeezing his bones together. He wondered, in a kind of wild irrational flight of fancy, if Misae's bones hurt right now, changing shape in everything from fingers to spine. "Misae, honey-... sweetie-"

“Come sit,” Eden said, keeping his voice low. “Everything’s okay, Misae. She’s a good person, she won’t hurt you. I promise. Even if she tries, we'll keep you safe, I swear. Just sit down next to me, okay?”

Misae blinked, and the sense of something not-quite-human was gone in a heartbeat. No monster here, it was only a frightened teenage boy who limped carefully to the chair next to Eden.

Eden decided not to think about what he’d seen any longer. Not even a little bit. Not even for a second. He locked that up in a box inside his head marked LATER. Or maybe NEVER.

Misae sat down like he’d never been in a chair before, lowering himself carefully as if he thought it might bite him. He sighed in something like contentment when he finally settled. “This good?” He asked, chin down but looking up through his eyelashes.

“It’s perfect. So was the shower good?” Eden asked again, just for something to say. In the window, the black cat kept watching them, eyes locked on Misae now.

Misae nodded, but he didn’t speak anymore. He… really wasn’t a talker. Most of the time, it felt like talking to a statue, a robot.

Like talking to a dog.

Maybe he never talked because nobody had ever cared to listen.

He shook that thought away just the same as he’d shaken off the last one. He’d admitted to himself, deep down, that this kid wasn’t completely human and he'd clearly come from somewhere awful, but he needed at least one good night of sleep to be able to fully grasp it.

Or maybe he never would.

“We’re going to just chill out for a couple days,” Anaya said, leaning forward so she could talk directly to Misae around the obstruction that was Eden. “Just rest, and figure out what to do next, okay? So no worries about having to be on the move again right away. So just… think about where a safe place might be for you to go, okay? Maybe some people that could take care of you?”

Misae looked at her, tipping his head to one side, eyebrows furrowing slightly. The silence drew out. Just as Anaya looked away, Misae murmured something too low to be understood.

She blinked. “What was that?”

“... I don’t know any other place,” Misae admitted, voice rough, just above a whisper. Something like a growl or a whine just at the edge. “Don’t know any other people. I only knew one place, and it isn’t safe. All my people are dead. I told you.”

Eden needed another beer.

Desperately.

Vanessa returned, smiling brightly as she held a couple plates heaped with slices of pizza, breadsticks, and tomato sauce to dip it in. “I made two pizzas. Who wants sausage and pepperoni, and who wants barbecue chicken? Oh, hey, you’re here. That shower did some good, you look like a totally different person now!”

Misae’s eyes flicked to Eden’s and then away. “Thank you," He muttered, leaning away as if wanting to hide from the attention.

Vanessa showed Misae the plates. “Dinner is served. So pick your poison, kiddo.”

Misae’s eyes widened in alarm, and he turned to look at Eden. The sound he made this time was definitely, fully, entirely a canine whine. Eden could very nearly understand him.

Don’t make me eat this.

"I've been good," Misae whispered, begged really, eyes beseeching. "Don't make me eat the poison meat. Please, Eden."

Vanessa blinked, pulling the plates back towards herself a little. “Uh… what?”

Eden cleared his throat. “It’s a joke,” He reassured Misae, reaching out to touch his shoulder, feeling the boy lean into the touch with something like ferocity, nearly pushing Eden off balance. He gave the boy’s shoulder a squeeze and felt him shaking under his palm. Somehow he ended up with an arm around those bony, thin shoulders, pulling him close and speaking against his hair. Some of it tickled Eden's nose. “She was joking. It’s not actually poisoned. Take the sausage one, you’ll like that. I'll eat it, too, okay? So you can see it's good to eat, and nobody's going to get hurt."

“It’s not poisoned,” Anaya agreed quickly. “It's totally, completely safe. We promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

"Not helping when you say the D-I-E word, Naya," Eden murmured. Misae nosed into the crook of his neck, whining again. His stomach growled along with it, the sound as loud as a whalesong in the small dining room. Eden's own stomach growled as if in response.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” Vanessa said, sounding stricken. “Oh, gosh. I really didn’t think when I said that, huh? That you wouldn't know it was a joke. I'm so so sorry. Totally normal pizza, one hundred percent not even a little bit poisoned. Just regular food for regular humans. Look, watch." Vanessa picked up a slice and took a bite herself, chewing ostentatiously. "See? Safe!"

Eden very nearly burst out laughing. Not from humor, not really, but just from a kind of exhausted hilarity he couldn't quite control.

Whatever Misae was, regular human sure wasn’t it. And his reaction to the poison joke made something in Eden hurt, absolutely certain this kid had seen some other people - or wolves - poisoned with their food before, maybe even seen them die from it.

Maybe the slaughter of his family wasn't the first time he'd had to see the ones he loved be killed right in front of him. Maybe it had been the last, instead.

Every detail made him want even more to know where this kid came from, and simultaneously want with equal desperation to never, ever know.

Misae slowly nodded, watching as the plate was set down in front of him. He didn’t move to eat, though, his eyes on Eden and Anaya as each politely asked for the type of pizza they wanted - Eden taking sausage and Anaya barbecue chicken with a side of ranch dressing, because she was occasionally an abomination. Eden loved her anyway.

It was a little harder to love her when she dipped pizza in ranch, but he did his best.

It wasn’t until Eden picked his pizza up and took a bite that Misae’s hands moved, slowly, to echo Eden’s movements. Eyes on him all the time. “Hot,” He commented, pulling his fingers back from even the slightest touch. His nose crinkled a little, which had to be maybe the weirdest, cutest expression Eden had ever seen someone make. “Hurts.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa agreed, settling back into her own seat. She slid a freshly opened beer across the table at Eden, who mouthed thank you and batted his eyelashes, watching her smile brighten in return. “Just came out of the oven. You really timed your shower perfectly. You can use a fork if you want, I promise I won’t judge.” She winked.

Misae blinked back at her, then moved one hand hesitantly to touch the silver fork at the right of the plate. He held it like a toddler who’d never seen one before, more or less just closing his fingers in a fist around it, stabbing ineffectually at the sausage until some stuck.

Anaya, Eden, and Vanessa all watched as he took a piece of sausage with a bit of steaming cheese clinging to it to his mouth, stuck it awkwardly inside, and then hissed as the heat burned his tongue. Then his eyes went wide and he chewed frantically before swallowing and all but throwing his fork at the next bite.

Misae next jammed his fork hard enough to get a huge chunk of cheese, sausage, and even a little crust to lift up this time. The plate rattled beneath his graceless enthusiasm.

He shoved the whole thing into his mouth until his cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s, chewing with effort and seeming to swallow the whole bite nearly whole.

After that, he gave up on the fork, dropping it with a clatter. He used his hands instead, gathering the remaining pizza together in a sort of lump and eating it until red sauce smeared a circle around his mouth. He made soft grunting noises as he ate, maybe sounds of contentment, curled around the plate as if protecting it from anyone else trying to grab a bite or take it from him.

Eden was the first one to find words. “He’s, uh… he’s new to pizza.”

“I’ll say,” Vanessa said, slightly faint. “This is the single most disgusting thing I have ever seen, and I cannot possibly look away.” She set her own slice of pizza slowly back down on the plate and took a drink without ever taking her eyes off of Misae’s feasting.

None of them did.

Misae finished every bite on his plate before the other three had even managed to finish a single slice - not that any of them even bothered to try now, too engrossed in the sight of a teenager eating pizza the way he might have torn into an animal carcass if he were in a nature documentary.

Misae picked up his plate and licked the bits of sauce clinging to the ceramic away. Only when he set it back down, so well cleaned it seemed like it had never had food on it at all, did he seem to realize the others weren’t eating. He swallowed, eyes dancing nervously from Vanessa to Anaya to Eden and back.

Eden picked up his slice of pizza and set it on Misae’s plate. “Here you go,” He said, voice gentle. His stomach turned over, appetite gone after the spectacle. “Go ahead and have mine, too.”

Misae licked his lips, looking uncertainly down, then nodded and tore into that piece, too.

As he did to Anaya’s barbecue chicken slice.

And Vanessa’s.

Then he drank the side of ranch straight out of the little bowl, and licked that clean, too.

Eden might never have an appetite again.

“I didn’t know anyone could eat this much pizza at once,” Anaya whispered, sounding less grossed out than just deeply, deeply impressed.

“I think he’s officially eaten a whole pizza by himself,” Vanessa half-whispered, eyes wide.

She set a breadstick down on Misae’s plate and watched him eat that, too, in three quick bites, barely chewing. “Where the hell is he going to put it all? He weighs like ninety pounds soaking wet.”

Eden closed his eyes. His headache was getting worse. He needed to sleep more than he needed literally anything else on earth. Too bad he only really slept well in the woods. Well, maybe he was so far past tired by now he could sleep anywhere at all?

“Wolves,” Eden said in a tight voice, “Can eat like twenty percent of their own body weight in a single meal. I saw that on something David Attenborough narrated once.”

“Wolves?” Vanessa asked.

The light outside was starting to dim. It’d be another night of a huge harvest moon, Eden thought. Not yet, but soon enough. He’d go outside and look at it for a while, if he could keep himself awake long enough.

Misae stared back at them, curling into himself again. He flushed, but it just blended with the red sauce around his mouth. It really did look like blood, even starting to darken as it dried.

He followed Eden’s gaze to the window, looking out at the oncoming night.

Then back at them.

“Thanks for the food,” He said, without looking up. His voice was thick. He stood so fast he knocked his chair over and then half-limped, half-ran back down the hall. The door to the guest bedroom slammed shut behind him.

Eden exhaled, slowly. “Well…”

“That,” Anaya said, shaking her head, “Was definitely something I have never seen before. And that I hope to never see again.”

“Yeah. Uh.” Vanessa stood. “I’m going to… get us all the rest of the pizzas, I guess. Assuming I can stand to even look at it now.”

Eden hummed assent and took a drink, letting the blend of bitterness, chocolate, and subtle sweet peanut butter sit on his tongue while he stared outside.

What were they going to find in the bedroom when they went back in?

A scared teenager with a stomach ache?

A wolf with bared teeth?

Or, somehow - impossibly - a creature who was both?

When he looked to the window, the black cat was still there. Still watching them, as the moon began to rise. It blinked, slowly, and Eden drained the rest of his beer.

It was going to be a long night.

@finder-of-rings @burtlederp @deluxewhump @scoundrelwithboba @shrimpwritings

@yassifiedinformation @wildfaewhump @whatwhump @honeycollectswhump @tundra-tiger

@dont-look-me-in-the-eye @there-will-always-be-blood @fangedcinnamonroll @pigeonwhumps

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cha-melodius · 5 months

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HAPPY 100 FICS / 1000 KUDOS DARLING

Could I please get Firstprince at some sort of pet store?

💜💜💜💜

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRICKET!!!! This is the fill for your fandom fest request of firstprince at a pet store. Thank you for being such an excellent doc gremlin and wonderful friend, I hope this fic brightens your day!!)

The Hazards of Unsolicited Toy Advice

(T, 2.2k, read it below or on AO3)

There’s a staggeringly gorgeous man loitering by a display of chew toys.

The sight of him momentarily brings Henry to a complete halt, which confuses David. He reaches the end of his lead and looks back at Henry with his head tilted, clearly wondering what could have interrupted their usual pilgrimage to the elaborate collection of bones, pigs’ ears, and various treats that make this store worth going out of their way to visit. Unfortunately for David, Henry needs a moment. He knows he’s being kind of weird, but surely he can be forgiven. It’s not every day one comes across the personification of pure sunlight in a pet store.

The man doesn’t seem to notice Henry’s watching, thankfully. His full lips pout thoughtfully as he pokes idly at a few toys, picking them up and putting them down again without much intention. A few dark curls fall forward over his forehead as he props one hand on his devastatingly narrow waist, perfectly emphasized by the way his tailored button-down is tucked into navy chinos that hug a truly perfect arse.

David chuffs softly, pulling Henry out of his reverie. Right. The beautiful man looks like he could use some decision-making assistance, perhaps. Henry will take whatever tiny opening he can get.

“If you need some advice on toys, I have some experience,” Henry said, only realizing the way it sounds once the words are out of his mouth.

Unfortunately, the beautiful man does not miss the innuendo. He looks up at Henry, warm brown eyes fringed by the longest eyelashes Henry’s ever seen flashing with mirth as his face breaks into a grin and, oh, if Henry was in trouble before, it was nothing on this. The man’s entire face lights up, nearly blinding in its brilliance, and Henry’s stomach swoops.

“Do you, now?” the man returns as his lips settle into a smirk. He looks Henry up and down, and Henry doesn’t think he’s imagining the interest in his expression.

Henry’s cheeks are heating, but he holds the man’s gaze. “Yes. David is a bit of a connoisseur.”

The man’s eyebrows shoot upward. “David? Is that your…”

“My dog, of course,” Henry says, gesturing toward where David is sitting obediently at his feet. “He’s got quite the collection.”

“Dog named David, ok,” the man mutters, laughing a little to himself. “Does he have a favorite?”

Henry reaches out and plucks a rubber toy shaped like a duck and hands it to the man. “This one is probably his first choice.” At his feet, David makes a noise of interest, and Henry glances down at him. “You have this one at home, Davey.”

The man turns the toy over in his hands, but before he can say anything an employee walks up and hands him a plain brown paper bag with the top stapled shut and some numbers written on the side.

“Anything else, sir?” she asks.

“No, that’s it. Thanks,” the man says, then looks at Henry and lifts up the duck. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Yes, well, if you need any further toy suggestions, we’re here regularly,” Henry manages to say, and it sounds like just as much of a come-on as he means it to.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the man replies, smirking, then heads off to the front of the store.

~~~~~

Henry runs into the beautiful man again a couple weeks later, standing in the same place as last time. He’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans today with his curls combed and tamed, and is no less stunning for it (though Henry’s always been partial to curls). Today, Henry is slightly more prepared; he’s thought about—ok, fantasized about—running into the man again. This time he’s getting a name, at the very least.

“So, was it a success?” he asks as he walks up to the man. Warmth blooms in his chest at the look of recognition that takes over the man’s face, though it’s quickly followed by a furrowed brow.

“What?”

“The toy. Did your dog like it?”

“Oh. Yeah, definitely,” the man says, bobbing his head a little. “Any other suggestions?”

Henry lets his gaze skim over the toys until he sees the plush strawberry David’s been favoring lately and picks it up, but the man shakes his head apologetically. “No soft toys.”

“A penchant for shredding them apart?” Henry guesses.

“Hard to keep clean,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Always an important consideration for any toy,” Henry agrees sagely, only for the man to raise his eyebrows again. It seems to happen with alarming regularity. As does the way Henry’s cheeks heat. He clears his throat and picks up a rubber toy with numerous large holes punched through it. “What about something like this? You can put treats in these for a bit of a challenge.”

The man looks at the toy consideringly before taking it from Henry. “That one could work.”

“I’m Henry, by the way.”

The man opens his mouth, only to be interrupted by another employee with a brown paper bag. After accepting it, he looks back at Henry. “Well, thanks again, Henry,” he says with a little wave, leaving Henry decidedly unsatisfied with the outcome of this encounter.

~~~~~

“The toy with the holes was a hit.”

Henry turns to see the beautiful man approaching him this time. He’s already got his brown paper bag clutched in one hand this time, and his other stuffed in the pocket of his jeans.

“That’s good to hear,” Henry replies, smiling. At his feet, David starts wagging his tail, apparently having by now decided that the man is a friend. “You’re back again.”

“Turns out you have good taste in toys,” the man says, shrugging a little.

“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” Henry says without really thinking about it, and the eyebrows shoot up again. Henry coughs. “I mean, dog toys.”

He does not mean dog toys.

The man grins wickedly, like he is not fooled. “Well, be that as it may, I thought I might try my luck a third time.”

Henry thinks that it’s about time that he tried his luck, actually. “How about, you tell me your name, and I’ll give you another suggestion,” he counters.

“Oh, I wasn’t aware this toy advice came at a price.”

“Too steep for you?”

“Nah, that’s a bargain, sweetheart,” the man replies. “I’m Alex.”

“Alex,” Henry echoes softly, tasting the name on his tongue, and Alex’s lips part slightly. “And what about your dog?”

It seems to take Alex a moment to parse his question. “Oh, Miss Piggy. She came with the name. I adopted her from a friend of a friend that was trying to get rid of her.”

“That was good of you.”

Alex shrugs. “She’s low maintenance, and it’s kind of nice to talk to someone else in my empty apartment. Not that she talks back.”

Henry tries to suppress the little thrill of hope at the fact that Alex doesn’t live with anyone. “I understand,” he says. “David isn’t much of a conversationalist, but he’s an excellent listener.”

“How long have you had him?”

“Since he was a puppy.”

“So you chose the name David,” Alex says, a touch incredulously.

“I did,” Henry confirms. “It’s after Bowie.”

Alex blinks, like he’s re-evaluating something. “Oh. That’s cool.” He crouches down, which of course makes David start squirming in desire to get to Alex, but he stays sitting next to Henry’s feet. “He’s very well-behaved. Can I pet him?”

“He’d like that.”

Alex reaches a hand out to scratch behind David’s ears, which David immediately presses into, his tail thumping rapidly on the floor. “Who’s a good boy?” Alex coos, and Henry honestly counts himself lucky that Alex’s soft smile is directed at David instead of him; he might not survive it. But then Alex looks up at him in his current position practically kneeling on the floor, and Henry comes very close to shuffling off this mortal coil right then and there anyway.

“So,” Alex says as he stands again, brushing his hands off on his trousers, “what kind of toy advice do I get for my name?”

Henry very nearly suggests some quite different toy advice in response to that question, but manages to bring his brain back online at the last second. “Well,” he says, picking up a tube-shaped rubber toy, “if she liked the treat toy, then this one is a similar idea.” He holds it out to Alex, but he doesn’t let go when Alex grabs the other end. “I have another request.”

The eyebrows go again. “This is an expensive toy.”

Henry shakes his head. “Not a price. But I’d very much like to take you to dinner, if you’d be interested.”

The dimple in Alex’s cheek deepens and he drops his gaze before looking up at Henry through his eyelashes. Christ, but this man is lethal.

“I’m interested.”

~~~~~

Alex tugs Henry in by the front of his jacket as he backs up against the front door to his flat, and Henry wastes no time before sealing their mouths together again. At the end of their first date, Alex had dropped him off outside his building and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Henry’s mouth; it had been utterly lovely, but Henry has to admit he’s very much enjoying this, the conclusion to their second date. Alex’s tongue in his mouth and the cut of his teeth, Alex’s hands grabbing onto his waist, Alex’s thigh pressing in between his.

“You wanna come in, baby?” Alex asks in the gaps between their kisses.

The endearment makes something warm settle in his gut, and he grins against Alex’s lips. “Thought you’d never ask, love.”

They stumble through the door, and despite the fact that Alex has now attached himself to Henry’s throat, Henry finds himself distracted, listening for the tell-tale sound of claws on the hardwood. Nothing comes, though. Perhaps Miss Piggy is a heavy sleeper?

“What’s wrong?” Alex asks, clearly noticing his inattention.

“Sorry,” Henry says, shaking his head. “I was expecting your dog.”

For some reason, that makes Alex look down and bite his lip, and when he finally meets Henry’s eyes again, he looks decidedly sheepish. “I, um. Don’t have a dog.”

Henry blinks at him. Opens and closes his mouth. “You don’t?”

Alex shakes his head. “No.”

“So you let me suggest you dog toys…”

“Because when a ridiculously hot guy wants to talk to you about dog toys, you talk about dog toys,” Alex says, a little helplessly.

It’s honestly hard to be anything but insanely flattered, but he still doesn’t quite understand. “So all of that about adopting Miss Piggy, and the toy reviews… it was all made up?”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t,” Alex says, nonsensically. Then he takes Henry by the hand and leads him into the living room, where there’s a terrarium set up along one wall. Amongst the water dish and a fake-rock hut, Henry spots the duck, and the toy with the holes, and the tube, which has the head and tail of a small brown-and-tan-patterned snake sticking out of one end. “Miss Piggy is a snake,” Alex tells him. “A western hognose, to be specific. Hence the name, I guess. I was in the pet store buying frozen mice for her the times I saw you. I did adopt her from a friend of a friend who didn’t want her anymore, and she does like the toys, as you can see.”

Henry bends down to get a closer look at the snake, who has big eyes and a little turned-up snout. “I never thought a snake could be cute,” he says, unaccountably and unexpectedly charmed by the small creature.

“She’s a drama queen, is what she is,” Alex says. When Henry looks at him questioningly, he explains, “When they feel threatened, they either pretend to be a viper or play dead. Turn over onto their back, tongue hanging out and everything. She hasn’t done that since right after I got her, though. I think she’s happier here.”

Alex gets a kind of soft, fond smile on his face as he talks about the snake, and Henry can’t help but be ridiculously charmed by that, too. He takes a step closer to Alex and slips his arms around his waist, pulling him in and pressing a kiss to his temple, and Alex’s smile widens.

“What was that for?” he asks.

“You care for her,” Henry says simply. “It’s endearing.”

“Of course I do,” Alex replies. “How could you not love that face?”

“Mm,” Henry hums in agreement. “I suppose this means we don’t have to worry about her waking us early in the morning to go outside.”

Alex’s eyes sparkle as he turns in Henry’s arms, looping his own around Henry’s shoulders. “You planning on spending the night, baby? What about David?”

“Is it terribly forward if I said I already arranged to have someone take care of him tonight?” Henry asks, biting his lower lip.

“Not any more than what I was gonna ask you,” Alex says, smirking as his fingers play idly with a flippy piece of Henry’s hair.

“Which is?”

“Well, y’know, I wanted some advice.” He leans in close, until his lips are brushing the angle of Henry’s jaw, and murmurs, “On a different kind of toy.”

Henry doesn’t need to be asked twice.

#rwrb #red white and blue #firstprince #rwrb fic #rwrb fanfic #firstprince fic #firstprince fanfic #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #my fic #chamel's fandom fest

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cellarspider · 6 months

Text

30/30 One last thing.

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We have come to the end of Prometheus. But depending on how you’re feeling about death of the author right now, it’s not. Not quite yet.

Because Ridley Scott had some things to say after Prometheus came out.

Two months after the movie's release, Ridley Scott gave an interview. Its original home has succumbed to link rot, but it’s still available in a couple places, in the Internet Archive and within the corporate acquisition mass that is Fandango, featuring a weird note of brand revisionism in the relabeling of the interviewer’s affiliation.

Now. Let’s begin by saying this: A movie is a movie. The things around a movie are not the movie. This seems obvious, but it’s to say that a single creative work can be viewed entirely free of outside context, and in most cases it’s best to assume that it will. If a director comes out later and tells people what their intent was, then that’s not part of the movie.

…But it can still sit in your brain for years, leaping out to ambush unsuspecting passers-by.

So! This interview. Ohhh, this interview. I’d forgotten most of it, because the final lines of it just knocked the top of my head clean off, so we’ll be discovering bits of this together.

We start from the end of the movie, with the interviewer asking about the openness of the ending to a sequel. Scott, among other things, said:

“I’d love to explore where the hell [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous.”

This came across well in the movie, though it was festooned with the random bit of organic bigotry from Shaw toward David. A short answer won’t capture everything, so I still have no idea if Scott intended for that to be so brayingly insensitive, this is the guy who was fine with Joel Edgerton as Ramses II. In any case, Paradise might be ominous, but Shaw’s not bringing along ideas that will improve it by any means.

This isn’t really the film we eventually got from Alien: Covenant. Is that bad? Honestly, I don’t know that either. Shaw as a character did not have a lot of depth in this movie. Noomi Rapace ended up playing her hurt very well by the end of it, but if that’s your standard of quality in horror acting, then Josh Stewart’s leading role in the grungy Saw-adjacent movie The Collector (2009) will serve you well.

I think they could have built something out of her character, but they didn’t. David is definitely the stand-out character from Prometheus, and they do at least focus on him quite a lot. But I’ve yet to watch Covenant, partly because the structure of it does not interest me. Also, because I’ve heard about what David does when he shows up on the new planet, and bad things happening to crowds are one thing that can make my brain wig out something awful.

Speaking of the Engineers, Scott speaks about their character:

“they’re such aggressive f**kers … and who wouldn’t describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God.”

Again, we find ourselves at the casual gnosticism of the movie, in which the Engineers are kind of the demiurge in this context. Some christian-influenced people assume that if there is a true god, it must be omnibenevolent, and find the violent and threatening behavior depicted in the Old Testament to be at odds with their understanding of divinity. A lack of benevolence is seen as a sign that the figure depicted must be something else, something that may think that it is a god, but it is not truly, regardless of its role as a creator. Hence, the gnostic idea of the demiurge.

But Scott also seems to confirm my suspicion that he’s not aware he’s recreating gnostic cosmogony through Prometheus, because he doesn’t reach for any of the older sources or the language around him. He instead invokes a rather surface reading of Paradise Lost:

“ In a funny kind of way, if you look at the Engineers, they’re tall and elegant … they are dark angels. If you look at [John Milton’s] Paradise Lost, the guys who have the best time in the story are the dark angels, not God. He goes to all the best nightclubs, he’s better looking, and he gets all of the birds. [Laughs]”

Setting aside the fact that Paradise Lost ends with all the fallen angels having a bad time because God’s turned them into snakes, I will give Scott the tiniest bit of credit, there’s a bit of my brain that saw this and thought “this is a strong start”:

Scott eventually continues on the Engineers, and the sacrifice scene at the start:

“That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.”

Scott is misremembering some things here, which is understandable given the off-the-cuff nature of the remark, but it’s still worth correcting. This is a misattribution of Aztec rituals that would involve the sacrifice of a “teixiptla” representative of a god (such as Xipe Totec, Tezcatlipoca, etc). The Inca didn’t carry out this ritual–they did engage in a human sacrifice ritual called qhapaq hucha, but its form and function was not the same. The Classical Maya also engaged in different human sacrifice rituals, but there was also an emphasis on non-fatal self-administered bloodletting–Maya nobility in particular were often depicted shedding their own blood for this purpose.

This also, to my memory, conflates stories of european human sacrifice rituals, where crop failures are sometimes linked to the sacrifice of kings, such as Dómaldr in the Ynglinga saga, and noted in the placement and treatment of certain bog bodies. The Aztecs did sacrifice to the god Tláloc for crop for good harvests, but the rituals involved were quite different.

It should be noted, of course, that Tláloc was later syncretized with the Christian god during the Spanish conquest, likely as a result of conceptually linking Tláloc’s sacrifices to the demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. And, y’know, that conquest was concurrent with the Spanish Inquisition, and the wider religious belief that a heretical witch army was being organized by Satan to stand against God to forestall the Second Coming of Christ, with crop failures being the most feared result of their rituals.

I’ve added all these details not because I want to say Scott is bad for misattributing this stuff, people make mistakes. I have several hours’ access to the internet, Scott did not. However, it is worth noting: How we frame an idea can say a lot about how we conceive of it. Variations on these behaviors are found throughout history, and across cultures. Sacrifices and martyrs are powerful symbols still invoked in western culture today. There’s a potential wandering back and forth between appreciation and exoticization that Scott’s engaging in.

Then Scott says something that made me get up from my chair to find a book to shake at my computer.

“I always think about how often we attribute what has happened to either our invention or memory. A lot of ideas evolve from past histories, but when you look so far back, you wonder, Really? Is there really a connection there?”

Yes.

Yes there is. Ancient peoples weren’t stupid. Ancient peoples didn’t even necessarily have less information to work with than any one modern human, they just had different information that kept them alive and finding solutions to their problems, be it “I need to find food” or “how do I meaningfully participate in my culture’s artistic and governmental traditions, and should they even be followed at all?”

If you want a great and thorough examination of that, check out the book I gesticulated with.

Highly recommended. Graeber was an anthropologist and Wengrow is an archaeologist, and the two of them together are a force to be reckoned with. There are definitely subjects covered in this book that I’ve seen from different angles before, and I feel like their interpretation pulls in more context than I’d gotten previously. Especially pertinent to this, the first part of The Dawn of Everything is spent examining the origins of modern western thought on “primitive” cultures and their character and capacity, and then digging into what evidence we actually have on the subject.

But the movie does not, fundamentally, engage with cultures outside of westernized, christian thinking. Not to any serious extent, anyway. It has a certain worldview, and that’s fine. That can be explored intelligently, although we’ve seen that I think it squanders that chance. It’s fundamentally a christian-centric movie.

And despite Scott’s protestations in the interview that they toned it down, quite a few readers have already guessed how far Scott originally intended to go on that.

“But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it.” Guess what? They crucified him.”

Yes. Jesus of Nazareth was actually Jesus of Space.

This is why the movie says the Engineer corpse died about 2000 years ago. This is why they decided to destroy humanity.

Presumably the original quote on the cross was “Father, forgive them, for they know not that we’ve got deadly black goo.” Engineer 23:34, I guess.

Now that the screams in the audience have hopefully settled down, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.

Alright. So, this is bad. Let’s break down why, beyond the obvious questions about “why does nobody ever draw Jesus as bald, huge, and ripped.”

There’s a fake script circulating that actually has a decent interpretation of this: a human kid got zwooped up to be taught the ways of the Engineers, and sent back as an emissary. Why? Dunno. Also apparently the gospels that mention Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt with the baby Jesus were off the mark by a few lightyears.

This is laughable to christians, because “what if Jesus was an alien” is the sort of thing that twelve year olds come up with. It’s offensive if it’s taken seriously, because it says their literal god was actually a mortal critter from outer space. Ha! Your god is not all-powerful, or all-good. He’s not even All-Might.

But you know what’s almost worse? It implies that, sure, Christianity isn’t the inspired word of a deity. It also implies some level of exclusive factual accuracy to Jesus’ teachings, not shared with other religions. Jesus was a celestial emissary, endowed with the teachings that could save humanity, and his death doomed the Earth to the Last Judgment.

The Torah is insufficient, and all Rabbinic literature was produced following the rejection of the true way to salvation. The enlightenment of the Buddha counted for nothing, the Dao is not the way, Vishnu cannot defend or restore dharma, the Prophet Muhammad is only so valid as his acknowledgment of the Prophet Īsā ibn Maryam.

All other faiths are superfluous under this premise. If people had just listened to Jesus and accepted him as their savior, everything would’ve been fine!

This is the one point of alien contact with western canon in the entire setting, after the deep prehistory of Skye. Every other literate culture that was contacted got the Engineers’ message wrong. Or they didn’t listen. Only christians got it right.

That’s incalculably bad. That’s not even counting the fact that the wall o’ artifacts that Shaw and Holloway presented included a notable oversight: the only two artifacts further from Europe than the Middle East are chronologically impossible, based on the movie’s own timeline. It implies the rest of the world was thrown in as an afterthought.

This whole Jesus thing is a piece, a big, jagged piece of why this movie drives me so far up the wall that I’m now residing on the ceiling. It’s not, as far as I can tell, actively malicious. It’s just dumb. It wasn’t thought through the way it should’ve been. If they wanted to do a movie like this, they should’ve gone all-in. Really dig into the implications of what they’ve done.

And the movie seems wholly ignorant of it. There are basic questions presented to the audience, but there’s no deeper consideration that could make this respectful to anybody.

So, what are we left with?

A mess. A beautiful, stunted, confused mess that was poorly served by its script and lack of conviction.

The movie turned away from asking big questions, and focused instead on traditional horror. A genre that works best with good characterization to drive audience investment, but then it cut out most of the characterization, and what it left was scattershot. It gave us a flashback of Shaw’s childhood before we’d even really met her to understand why it was meaningful for her. The movie then failed to add any emotional weight to her.

The movie failed to give us characters with emotional weight or intelligence. It gave us a single, compelling character in David, driven largely by Michael Fassbender’s delivery and physical performance. It gave us a tactile, carefully constructed setting that was beautiful and often an accomplishment in filmmaking craft, but these spaces remained emotionally empty without a story that gave them meaning. It gave us the potential of something new, and then retreated to imitate the old.

I went into the theater in 2012 looking forward to a good film. I suppose this one has stuck with me more than a good film would have, but its primary value is as a flawed thing to critique, to learn from, and to put tooth marks on when the frustration gets to be too much.

Prometheus got one sort-of sequel in Alien: Covenant (2017), and it seems to have been abandoned. The first trailer for Alien: Romulus just came out the day I’m writing this, and it looks like it’s going to be just a monster movie.

If you want a good, modern Alien, play or watch Alien: Isolation (2014). Apparently its content was recut into a web series in 2019, though I can’t speak to the quality of that. For now, I’m done with the series. I’m not going to be rushing out to see anything new, because I don’t think it’s doing anything new. Prometheus could’ve been a chance to do that, but it failed.

Still. Writing this was fun, I will admit. My weird little obsession with this movie turned into a month and a half of writing and prepping this thing, totaling–Jesus E. Christ, over 82,000 words. I wish it could’ve been about something that hid more intellectual heft or careful thought than Prometheus did, but hey! There’s always next time.

And there will in all likelihood be a next time, as I’ve already started on another document. It won’t be for quite a while, though. This was a lot of fun, but a lot of work as well. I’ll be taking a break, and only releasing more stuff once I have it fully written ahead of time, as opposed to how I handled this one.

Thank you, brave readers, for making it this far.

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_Sundhn%C3%BAkur_eruptions#Eruptions

https://tubitv.com/movies/314320/the-collector

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dettifoss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Magliabechiano

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollund_Man

https://youtu.be/nT2ueyFrVgk

https://www.deviantart.com/pretty--kittie/art/Prometheus-Engineer-407316113

https://nebula.tv/videos/hellofutureme-is-netflixs-avatar-any-good

Overflow Ramble 1

Hey, does anyone else remember Stephen Speilberg’s War of the Worlds (2005)? I saw that in the theater, and I cannot watch that thing again. Yes, I was younger, but the overall content of that movie absolutely shredded my nerves to pieces. Even though I’d grown up knowing the full H G Wells story and reading things like The Tripods book series as a kid, Spielberg managed to make a movie that felt so viscerally unpleasant to me that it gave me nightmares for years.

My main theory is this: You know in movies that the protagonist is almost certainly going to survive what happens, doubly so in War of the Worlds because it was goddamn Tom Cruise. But my brain did not treat Tom Cruise as my viewpoint character. Something in me says “well, I’m not Tom Cruise, I’m one of those other people around him, and they’re all gonna die horribly.”

This tends to happen with me in disaster films and similar stuff like that. I have to be real certain I want to be there if I watch a kaiju movie, for example. I can do Godzilla (2014), but I’m not so sure about Godzilla Minus One (2023). Shin Godzilla (2016) is off the table.

Horror movies have to hit a balance of giving people a rickety feeling of potential safety they want to preserve, rather than letting them feel too safe or too screwed. Too far either way and you lose people, either to apathy or just pure bad vibes. The paradox of enjoyable horror is that it can’t scare you too much.

Overflow Ramble 2

I personally don’t think the tone of Fede Álvarez’s horror fits with what I’m looking for in an Alien movie. The xenomorph life cycle worked best and most subversively when it was deliberately targeted, to take the sexual/reproductive menace usually placed on female characters in horror and forced it onto a male character instead. Álvarez has historically played that trope straight instead. From a horror perspective, that’s boring to me. The xenomorphs also appear to be aggressive monsters here rather than animals, more like Aliens than Alien. Not my favorite interpretation.

And to be honest, when I saw the trailer, my first thought was “Oh, it’s Sevastopol Station.” The setting looks exactly like Alien: Isolation, and there’s not a chance the movie’s going to outshine Isolation. That game’s only narrative sin was a bit of slow pacing toward the ending. Romulus’ trailer makes me think it’s going to go too far in the other direction.

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#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012)#IT IS DONE #I AM FREE

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