#sometimes it hits me how much his death impacted me and i just dont know how to express it

[scwirrel]

Slaps roof on 2021 MCYT fanart: this bad boy can fit so much nostalgia in it

[jorenilee]

I made a mile long twt thread about okuyasu that I'll just paste here too because I have many thoughts about him <333 anyways heres my messy rambles about this specific line because AUUGH

do u ever think about this one line and how perfectly it encapsulates his entire character and how it fits into diu. Like first Okuyasu is NOT a traditionally kind person, he's no saint, he's quick to violence and anger and frustration, he's close-minded and is very clear about his lack of regard for others.

But coupling that with this line from Keicho (sometimes it's translated as "only when I hit him does he listen to me) and its like damn. Their entire lives have been shaped by violence, the only way they've made ANY progress is through death and hurt.

Keicho's power in the family comes from discipline, violence over his father and violence caused by the arrow. The one thing standing between him and a "normal" life is the literal death of his father. It doesn't matter how many lives he ruins in the process, all that matters is getting that second chance. His life has been on an uncontrollable downward spiral, but with the arrow and his own family at his heel, he has power. He can make decisions. He can unshackle himself from the past 10 years and finally start his life.

And of course Okuyasu would absorb all this, because Keicho was all he had, and his own father always responded to that violence. And if you follow the interpretation that the brothers gained their stands from the arrow, that's another instance of them gaining power through suffering. Becoming "better".

And it's so interesting that keicho treats his father and Okuyasu as deadweights "holding him back" when in reality, it was Keicho that was sinking down into tar, refusing to get out because a happier life could be just on the other side.

Okuyasu wanted to save his father the moment that possibility was established, but Keicho held onto the arrow, his sinking fate, his suffering, until the very end. He believed he crossed his moral event horizon and he was destined on this set path. No matter how much power he could scrounge for himself, death ruled his entire life, whether that of his father or the lives of the arrow's victims.

And all this makes Okuyasu's relationships with Josuke and Koichi so much better because. Okuyasu did NOT care for their safety. He was, at least on the surface, on board with Koichi or even Josuke dying. Maybe not all that passionate, but he's seen death, probably participated in it, and believes that it's the Number 1 Nijimura Way. So then Josuke healing him is completely antithetical to his entire damn life.

He was ready to die, ready to "learn his lesson", ready to be discarded because he failed, just like how all those people died to the arrow because they failed to handle a stand. But Josuke's very lukewarm "i jus dont want ppl dying??" belief is so groundbreaking because death was so necessary for any and all progress.

Okuyasu's own stand is inherently destructive and erases things permanently. Maybe a deep-seated desire to actually make lasting impacts on his surroundings erupting as a power beyond death. To cause total oblivion. I know we all love to think that Keicho didn't want to force Okuyasu to kill his own father, but Keicho wanted a normal death. Because at least a normal death can happen to a normal family. And completely erasing someone's atoms isn't a mortal death.

Then here comes Josuke's healing schtick which WORKS, and Josuke is fully prepared to sacrifice an arm and leg just to save Koichi. In like 15 minutes, one guy completely overwrote the past 15 years of Okuyasus life. He helps Josuke heal koichi (extra layer of fucked because all those arrow victims never HAD to die), gets called a great guy, and starts his character arc of. Making decisions in the absence of violence. Choosing to heal and rebuild instead of destroying and moving onto the next victim. Of continuing the cycle of beating life lessons into people's heads.

And Koichi, dude he choked out with a gate, becomes his close friend too. Koichi who gets repeatedly harassed thru diu but still has it in him to forgive and befriend others. He's far from naive, gets fed up with shit, but he's another opposite to Okuyasu. His stand evolves through pain, maybe, but it's from a desire to protect himself or others. There's a chance Koichi was never supposed to survive, but he did (part 4's theme about fate is a different story oooboy) and his active ability to see the best in people compliments Josuke's more aloof demeanor and Okuyasu's short temper. Koichi is like. The embodiment of growth in that way.

and ik its eoh dialogue but this interaction was always neat to me because of how it highlighted Okuyasu's disinterest in improvement, at least when it comes to character. For him, as long as someone "gets" the lesson at a surface level or is good enough at it, there's no reason to dive deeper. To fully wrap your head around it and Feel it. Its the same utility-first philosophy Keicho held, the same idea that all that matters is the end goal, not the means or the people along the way. + how Okuyasu still bickered and talked back to Keicho, but understood well enough that Keicho was the one in control.

"bare minimum" is how okuyasu lived his entire life; his house, how keicho treated him, his response to Josuke and Koichi's kindness, his entire relationship with his father.

He desperately wants, yeah, but its for more material things. Money and power, things either robbed from him or held over his head. And YEAH he's supposed to be hypocritical here, but like. Why does he lose his morals and sense ESPECIALLY when those two things are involved. Why does he "regress" in character growth back to tunnel-visioned violence and discipline about them.

And rahhhhhh is it lackluster writing or is it interesting that Okuyasu's pretty stagnant for the entirety of diu. It's like he's passively absorbing things about befriending former enemies through kindness, inspiring loyalty through passion not pain.

He calls Mikitaka weird and dismisses him (remnants of Keicho's utility stuff?), gets ghost tricked, acts like a big brother a few times. But it's when he meets Keicho face-to-face that it all crashes down around him. The same way Nijimura father had shackled him, Keicho had also been weighing on Okuyasu.

Its like. Keichos death made Okuyasu rebound onto Josuke and get consumed by vengeance against Otoishi, and Okuyasu didn't know how to properly grieve Shigechi either. His entire life, when someone died, violence was the answer. Hide the body, kill the father, don't ever think about what you've done.

But its Keicho, the one that spearheaded the power-and-suffering-over-all thing, who steps in and requests that Okuyasu thinks it over. The Keicho that said he stopped regarding oku as his brother, was willing to kill him to prove a point, who quite possibly shot the arrow at him. Who taught him that only violence yields the answer. Self-inflicted or not.

He says to just think about it. And Okuyasu thinks long enough for Josuke and Hayato to lose their damn minds and for him to actually understand it, fully wrap his mind around it. The fact that he has a "second" life, the life Keicho pursued for so long and died for. And he has it because of the love and compassion from his friends, how they see past the failures and transgressions of others.

How they just dont want people to die. And Okuyasu doesnt have to either. He doesnt have to stay sinking for his brother, doesnt have to lose everything for a mistake, doesnt have to destroy to make a difference. and so he chooses to live. Really, fully live. For himself.

And he comes back, now able to recognize and separate himself from Keicho's teachings. THERES A REASON STRAY HAS BEEN MY PFP FOR FOREVER BECAUSE Okuyasu comes back and saves Stray. The little creature that literally EXPLODED him.

And it means so much that it wasn't a "this creature is good and I will rescue it" moment, because Okuyasu was never a saviour hero-type. He didn't even mean to "save" the cat. He just removed Stray from Kira's grasp, and THEN realized oh I think it's just a little guy. Alright cool I guess the fucker stays with me.

He's growing his own way, beginning his new life by first and foremost helping others. He brings stray home BEFORE it takes a liking to his father. It's just. The first independent, weighted decision he makes is giving a stressed, unfortunate cat a second chance at life. It was struck by an arrow, revived due to forces outside it's comprehension, and was fuelled by instincts to lash out and attack. And because it was destructive and able to follow orders, it was weaponized. Before finally being removed from the situation and calmed down. Sound familiar?

And now Okuyasu has a semblance of a domestic family. The Nijimura family is all about growth from death and it's so interesting. Nijimura father becoming cruelest after his wife's death, him mutating after DIO's death, Keicho believing his life begins after his father's death, Okuyasu's life actually beginning after Keicho's demise, Stray being reborn as a plant (symbol of growth), and Okuyasu reviving too (also due to Keicho's death).

+ shit about nijimura father unable to die and Okuyasu constantly being pulled from death by Josuke ADDING MORE FUNNY LAYERS TO LOOK AT + the name nijimura literally meaning rainbow village. Both the physical irl place and the idea that rainbows = rebirth and hope and new beginnings + stray being reincarnated under one + Okuyasu reviving after the rain passed. Death doesn't rule them, but is also inescapable??? Idk anyways

ALL THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY okuyasu is a flawed character surrounded by violence and bad decisions, he's not a pure soul and does fucked shit and is NOT a 2014 tumblr era cinnamon roll PLEASE. He can be an ass and it makes the hopeful buds of his new life that more beautiful cuz like. Morioh is the best place for him to settle and grow, reteach himself everything because it's a community of equally if not more dubious weirdos.

Oku's far far from perfect, he's still got a lot of anger and shortsightedness but he's with people that love him, willing to help him when he makes mistakes, doesn't hold him back. His relationships with Josuke and Koichi and others aren't like. Super poetic or cosmic or "I will find you in every universe"esque and it suits him. He's just a teen guy who went thru everything and missed out on everything. He's suffered, caused suffering, but he's leaving that cycle.

Judging by the book (semi-canon), it's going as messy as expected, but he loves his friends so so much. He's still putting himself in harm's way and being reckless and an asshole, but he has something more to fight for. And he cares a lot. Is willing to go beyond for it, maybe even improve. And that's enough for him (in the best way).

Idk how to end the thread anyways he's my son my baby perfect angel also he sucks bad BUT HE'S PERFECT ‼️‼️ this is how I feel about him every given day it just depends on the celestial alignment of the planets and stars

[screechingzephyrr]

So i finished watching the first season of CBS Ghosts, so this is the sequel to my first impressions post. My brain is preventing me from coherently creating thoughts but i know if i dont post this now i will never post it ever.

My thoughts in a big unfiltered list (sorry):

--Isaac is still my favourite character and he is going to forever live rent free in my brain. Him constantly gasping dramatically, him saying Hamilton was “fiNEee” with an eyeroll as hes battling with his love for theatre and his hatred for Hamilton. Icon behaviour. And Isaac and Nigel are so sweet and i love them so much. Everytime he pushed Nigel away i was screaming crying throwing up, silly guy behaviour over here.

--Nigels accent made me fucking wheeze as a british person, its so posh its hilarious and i love him for it

-The contrast between The Captain’s repression and Isaac’s acception is really great and i love them both dearly.

--Trevor is better in my brain now, he barely hits on Sam anymore so uncomfortableness has been vanquished and his backstory made me like him more. I like the twist and how he’s different from Julian with the fact that he didnt die in the act. Im separating them more in my head

--Jay is slightly better i guess? yeah thats it. hes allowed to exist, his and sams relationship still dont really have the right vibes for me but idk its probably just me

—Isaacs and Hettys relationship is so adorable like go off besties gossip about men but very specifically nigel

--Okay im going to be honest some of the episodes dragged and werent really enjoyable for me? maybe its because i thought there were thirteen episodes and when i was finishing episodes ten i was like hyped like “ok im nearly finished lets go!!!!” and then i checked and saw there were EIGHTEEN.

--Episodes i liked a lot / loved:

8)DND

9) Alberta’s Fan

15) Thorapy

16)Trevor’s Pants

17)Attic Girl

18)Farnsby & B

(Mostly because they had Isaac +Nigel in some of them. Also you can see the massive gap which is when i began to lose hope in existing)

--Episodes i hated:

13)The Vault

(BURN IT WITH FIRE. Elias’ ghost power made me want to scream and i had to mute it and fastforward it at on point bc my secondhand embarrassment was too strong for me to handle. The only good part of this episode was when Elias went down -into hell im guessing- and the ghosts screamed collectively. That was funny )

--The humour is really different from BBC ghosts. CBS is less subtle and very outright! i did laugh out loud quite a lot (Mostly bc of Isaac tbh. Also “Oskar is squirrel”).

i do think that its more “in the moment” type humour, if that makes any sense? like i laugh in the moment but i cant remember any jokes from it that i would reference in daily life, BUT maybe thats just because im comparing it to bbc ghosts which i had an allconsuming obsession with and can quote whole parts of episodes off the top of my head and which i influenced my parents into watching it too so we both know the jokes. so yk. its probably just me (again lol)

--also, CBS ghosts treats the Ghosts deaths in a very lighthearted way. None are very heartbroken over their deaths and many easily tell the stories of how they died. I do like this but sometimes they try to have some emotional moments?????? i mentioned this before but they literally have no impact

compared with BBC ghosts which treats each Ghosts death with varying degrees of poignancy, its very different and a nice change

— im glad i got to see more of Sasappis and Flower, theyre both icons tbh. im still wondering where Crash is?? Ive seen him maybe three or four times and one of them was in the background?

UHHH so to conclude,,, i think its a mostly entertaining show with interesting characters! Ive been rewatching a few episodes ive really liked. The episodes i didnt like as much would serve as good background noise i think.

[krabs-quill]

hello my love! i would like to send an ask, if you do not mind :]

mcyt’s reacting to you being new on the server? how they would react and how they’d treat cha? :]

have a beautiful day, hope you see this!!

- deacy! <3

new guy ~ dsmp x gn!reader

characters: c!tommy, c!wilbur, c!quackity, c!slimecicle

main characters pronouns: not mentioned

trigger warnings: brief mention of death, mention of bones

authors notes:

OMG DEACY THIS WAS SO DAMN COOL TO WRITE ALSO HIIIII!!! its been a while since ive had to brush up on my characterization skills, but it was super nice to practice, so thank you!! i hope you like it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tommy:

He's not gonna care about you all that much.

When you join, Tommy is either gonna be indifferent about you or think you're a weirdo until you say something he likes

You guys probably walk past each other and he realizes he doesnt recognize you

It's honestly really hit or miss with Tommy!

He's like a visual novel character

If you say specific things he likes, then he’ll like you and say something along the lines of “yeah, me too.” (albeit in a more generic way)

If you say something he doesn't like, then he will make that one scrunched up face of disgust at you and straight up TELL you that you're weird

And while that's all surface-level impressions, depending on what you say you CAN have a much more meaningful impact on Tommy!

You've gotta show him that you're on his side of things- be someone who makes him feel safe!

Christ knows people aren't giving him that a bunch lately.

Wilbur:

This dudes gonna act all silly goofy

Like yasss omg!!! There's someone new on the server?? Time to see if they wanna be my buddy!

Gonna be asking you a lotta questions like who you've met already, where you've visited, what you know n jazz

Gonna be walking around a lot, and if you dont catch up to him then that's your problem! He can't seem to stay in one place for a long time

Actually, he was lying. He's gonna hook his arm around your shoulder and talk to you like that if you can't keep up with him.

He doesnt wanna lose his new pal!!

Speaking of lying, though,

He's gonna be lying. A lot.

Probably gonna say that he and Quackity are besties, or that he doesn't know how explosives work.

But sometimes, he's gonna be straight up honest with you.

If the subject is brought up, then he’ll just casually mention the way he died

Or how limbo was

And then move on like nothing he just said was concerning.

All in all, hes eager as hell to make a friend

So might as well try to be a pal, right?

Quackity:

Gonna have motives RIGHT when he sees your new face

A bit skeptical of you, to be frank.

With the way he speaks to you, you'll be able to notice that he’s tryna test you if you're observant enough

His tone is gonna be slow and casual, kinda muse-typa vibes y'know?

Not completely friendly but not completely businessy and stern

He's gonna be testing the waters to see if you'd be some sort of benefit to Las Nevadas

And if not, maybe one less of a potential obstacle to deal with in the future.

The conversation won't be super intense at first, Quackity will make sure to keep it in the smalltalk stage for a bit

But once he starts hitting you with questions, then that's when the conversation gets more interesting.

Quackity will gladly bring up something minor about himself if he was the person to ask the question that engaged the subject.

But man, does this guy have BOUNDARIES!

Refuses to answer any question you ask about him if it's too personal.

Brushes it off with a “were not quite uh, close enough for you to be asking such personal questions, alright? Tone it down.”

Doesn't seem to recognize the hypocrisy in that, but oh well.

Courtesy, though? 100%

He’ll give you some gear or food if you need it, respectful to an extent.

Might even show you around Las Nevadas! A tour, of sorts!

He wants to get on your good side, but not without careful observing and testing to see if you're even WORTH your good side, of course

Charlie:

OH MY GOSH HE WANTS TO HAVE A NEW BESTIE!!!

And since you're new and you seem like not a terrible person, why not try to talk to you?

SUUPER friendly! You offer him a handshake but he doesn't know what you're trying to do

Once you explain that it's a salutation, he shakes your hand vigorously like a little kid shaking the hand of their idol.

Super buddy-buddy, and he already knows your name and some place you've settled down in for a while.

Talks to you a lot, he doesn't really understand social cues super well so he talks and talks and talks even if you're tired of him.

Eager to drag you around and show you Las Nevadas since that's where his favorite person, Quackity, is!

Will tell you about all 206 of his bones in his body and if you bring up parts of his rib cage poking out of his slimy exterior, he WILL be getting defensive

But despite his bones not being his, he's got a big heart!!!

Which also does not belong to him!!!

But my gosh will he think you're super cool and interesting despite only just meeting you.

At times, you'll be teaching Charlie little things like what rain is, or what a cow is.

And he will be very invested!

Definitely will be rambling to Quackity about the stuff you told him about.

And in return, he will be telling you about a nice damp hole he recently found.

Charlies only here to make friends, and boy is that what he's gonna do.

[cafedanslanuit]

levi with a super bratty reader that drives him insane, never listens, is constantly defying his commands... they get snowed into a camp together while on a scouting mission... which leads to some hatefucking mayb... 🤧 ps allie dont forget to take care of yourself babes iluvvvm

i adore your requests mwah pls also take care please we cant keep having these all nighters and then sleep all afternoon fkjdshfks

------

tw: female reader, dom themes, brat taming, impact play (with a belt), degradation, overstimulation

Never before Levi had been su infuriated by someone. Not even by Eren and his stubborness or Mikasa and her death glares. It had to be you and your eye rolls, the way you talked back whenever he gave you an order and sometimes even went behind his back. He has talked to Erwin about it and while he promised to talk with you, he asked him to consider your choices had saved the lives of many soldiers and that you were really talented.

Levi didn’t give a shit.

And now, besides being stuck in a snow storm and having to wait it out, he had found you had been neglecting your cleaning duties, leading him to pull you from your hair to the space destined to be his office for the time being.

“Why the fuck weren’t you cleaning, brat?” he spat, pushing you against the wall. Far for flinching, you looked at him menancingly.

“It’s already clean. Not my fault you’re a freak who obsessed over the small details. It doesn’t smell like piss anymore, it’s enough.”

“I don’t care about what you think, if I give an order you do it. That’s it,” he said.

“Oh, please, Levi,” you rolled your eyes. “Why are you so insufferable? Go get laid or something, seems like you need it.”

Before you could say anything else, he had his hand around your throat holding you against the wall.

“Whoa, it’s really been that long since you fucked, huh?” you chuckled. “Don’t worry, Captain,” you mocked him. “If it comes to it, I volunteer to suck your dick. You seem like someone who comes quick so it shouldn’t take a lot of my time.”

“Don’t you get tired of talking so much shit?” he hissed.

“I really don’t,” you smiled.

“If I wanted to fuck someone I wouldn’t fuck a spoiled brat who only knows how to bring problems to the corps.”

“Oh, that was rough,” you said, pretending to be upset. “Why are you being so mean to be, Captain, when I can be so good to you?”

You smirked as you pressed your thigh against his crotch, feeling him tense at your moves.

“Want to take your anger out?” you joked, licking your front teeth. “I bet it’s--”

Your sentence was cut short by Levi’s lips pressing against yours. Your body reacted immediately, drawn to the warmth and strenght in the man’s touch. His hand was still grabbing your hair, keeping you still as you shared a rough kiss. You rolled your body against his, his erection poking on your thigh. His tongue invaded your mouth and soon enough, you were tearing each other’s clothes letting them fall to the floor while your hands roamed around each other’s bodies, quiet moans and sighs escaping from both your mouths.

When you were just in your panties, Levi pulled you to the other side of the room, bending you over the desk. He put a hand over your head, leaning over until his lips were grazing your ear.

“I still need to teach you a lesson,” he muttered. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“What do you mean, less--”

A hard hit on your ass cuy your sentence short. Without having to look back, you could just tell what he had just hit you with. Of course he had chosen his belt. At least he wasn’t using the buckle.

“Lets see how much until you learn,” Levi said. You hated how you pressed your legs together in anticipation.

Another hit. You felt your skin burning but didn’t move as Levi continued with a third one. Even if you could feel yourself getting wet already, you were determined not to let him know how much you were enjoying this. You let him hit you more times and bit your lip, trying your best to conceal your moans.

You had lost count of all the impacts on your ass when you felt his fingers easily sliding across your folds.

“You may be silent, but you’re creaming like a whore,” you heard him say and felt your legs trembling for a second. “Oh, was it always like that? You like to be reminded what a dirty slut you are?” he asked in a mocking tone.

The next hit was much harder than the previous one, finally making you whimper.

“There it is,” Levi said, a dark chuckle escaping his lips. His left hand went back to your folds, two of his fingers sliding inside you and fucking you slowly. The belt collided against your ass again and you clenched around his fingers.

“Can’t believe how much you’re enjoying this,” he huffed, still fucking you with his fingers. "You're such a needy white."

Another hit, a moan and Levi's fingers curling inside you. It doesn't take long for him to find your sweet spot and once he does, he makes sure to run his fingers against it.

Your hips buck against his fingers, but everything he thinks you're doing it too much, you get hit with his belt again. The sole sound of it impacting your skin makes you quiver. You come hard around his fingers while you try to muffle your moans with your hand. Your legs are trembling when he pulls his fingers away and leaves the belt on the desk next to you. Just as you were about to stand up, you feel Levi's cock teasing your entrance.

"I— I'm too sensitive," you stutter.

"Well you do seem to be the type that comes too fast," he shot back, using your own words. "Just tell me to stop" he says. His tip is already stretching your entrance but doesn't move even an inch, waiting your response. You know you're sensitive but fuck if you don't want Levi's cock inside of you. You swallow.

"Fuck me," you sigh and Levi is immediately pushing inside you, stretching you open. You weren't expecting him to be so thick and now you can't do anything but moan as he fills you up.

Levi starts fucking you from behind, his hands grabbing youe hips so tight you know you're going to end with bruises. You listen to him grunt everytime he bottoms out, filling you up completely. His rhythm increases and you are already whimpering again, the closeness of your last orgasm making you want to come again.

Levi seems to notice it too.

"Touch yourself," he orders, but you don't make a move. He waits a couple of seconds before he’s spanking you hard, making you clench around his cock. "I said touch yourself."

Your hand travels to your clit and it only takes a few gently strokes for you to come around Levi. He curses under his breath as you squeeze him jus right, but never breaks his rhythm.

"Keep touching yourself," he commands and you whine.

"Please. Please, I already came two times, I—"

"I think three is enough for you to learn your lesson," he said, squeezing the plus on your ass, spreaing yourself further as he keeps fucking you. “I know you have it in you,” he smirks.

You grab the edge of the desk, looking for support as your mind . Every trace of defiance is gone by this moment, you feel like nothing but a mess of limbs that wants to be used by the same man you had been challenging these past few years.

It was over. You had lost.

“I said fucking touch yourself,” he reminds you, slapping your ass forcefully. You hate the way you start circling your clit again, overstimulation making the pain and pleasure mix together dangerously.

Levi slides out almost completely to ram into you again, making your eyes water. You let out a mix of moans mixed with incoherent curses, your legs shaking as you feel your third orgasm drawing near.

“Fuck, I can’t-- I can’t,” you pant.

“If you can be a fucking pain in the ass every day, you can do this,” Levi said, grabbing a fistful of your hair and pushing your head further on the desk.

It takes Levi slapping your ass again to reach your high. It’s almost as hard as the first one and you whimper as he fucks into you more rapidly. He comes inside you with a hiss, his cock twitching as he releases his load. The moment he pulls away, you feel both your releases dripping down your inner thighs.

There’s silence for the next few moment while you try to regain your breath. Your limbs feel too heavy when you try to stand up, legs wobbly as you walk to the nearest chair and take a seat. You let your head fall, your hands on your knees as you try to form coherent thoughts.

Suddenly, you feel someone yanking your hair, making you look up. You notice Levi has already dressed himself again, the only clue of your previous activity in the way his hair looks a little more messier than usual.

"Hope you learnt your lesson, brat," he whispers before letting go of your hair and walking out of the room.

[dourpeep]

im gonna try and send the whole thing but make the text small !! i hope this works (｡･･｡)

—

being a traveler , you’ve had your fair share of injuries. some worse than others. some … you weren’t quite sure how you healed from them.

some injuries were sourced from carelessness , ignorance , or pride. you did take more care to not get injured after falling in love with kazuha , though. he means the world to you , you can’t imagine leaving him alone in it. you knew he had his worries about you , and as much as he wishes he could follow you into battle .. sometimes you just traveled where he could not follow. he was a wanted man , after all. but you always returned home. always on time , or earlier. you were never late so .. why were you late ?

kazuha paced back and forth, nibbling at his fingernails in his worry. you were supposed to be home from this commission hours ago .. where had you gone ?

his pacing is interrupted by a deckhand knocking on the door of your shared quarters , the place you two had been calling home for a while.

“ kazuha , you have a letter. it’s important. “

he doesn’t say anything other than a quiet thanks as he unfolds the delicate paper , reading the words scribbled down. you can almost see the moment his spine stiffens and his blood feels like ice in his veins. kazuha is out of that door and jumping off the boat in a second , using his anemo vision to aid him in his sprint towards a certain inn.

he’ll be damned if he cares about getting caught. you have docked in liyue anyway , the chances were slim. all he cared about was reaching you in time.

the letter had been delivered to inform your fellow crew of your condition. you’d taken a hit from the blunt side of a mitachurl’s axe. it broke several bones on impact , but your arm had shielded most of the damage away from your ribs. you’d be extremely lucky if your arm healed back completely , though.

you’d been ushered to one of the upper floors of the Wangshu Inn by several adventurers who had found you on their way home , laying unconscious. your arm was obviously broken , making even the seasoned adventurers wince at the sight of it. verr goldet had convinced the green-haired adeptus living at the inn to deliver the letter , your condition was critical and your companions and loved ones needed to be notified of your whereabouts. after running the errand , however , he went back to his anti-social tendencies and disappeared against the mortal eye. he had no reason to be physically present with you .. but maybe he could watch over nearby and make sure you were breathing. just got verr goldet , of course…

you can hear kazuha’s voice pierce the thick fog of your unconsciousness.

“ where are they ?! [ name ] , i- i got a letter they were here and hurt , where are they ?! “ he calls , voice hoarse and you can almost hear the way his heart shatters in it. you don’t have the strength to open your eyes , but you can hear his light footsteps approaching the cot you’re resting on as the door opens.

kazuha falls to his knees beside you, grabbing your unwrapped hand with his and holding it close to him, mumbling incoherent prayers to some god that you’re okay. you peek at him through your eyelashes , moving your hand to pet his hair.

“kazu , you worry too much.” you speak.

a held breath leaves his body , and you can see his shoulders relax. unshed tears shine against his eyes , a shaky laugh leaving him.

“you worried me sick. what happened ? are you hurt ?”

you laugh. a weak sound leaving your beaten body, your hand once resting on kazuha’s hair moving to your shattered arm. “ … yeah.”

kazuha’s eyebrows furrow , and he stands to get a better view of your other arm. With how heavily it was bandaged , and the makeshift splint peeking through the layers of fabric and gauze , it wasn’t hard to figure out just how bad the injuries were. You had other bandages and bandaids scattered around your body , a few small ones on your face. kazu wordlessly presses soft kisses to each of the wounds on your upper body, scooping you into his arms. he’s mindful of your injury , keeping any and all pressure off of your arm.

..

oh how you wished you were in his arms again. the blue sky above you seemed to dull as you laugh. laugh at the gods for cursing you this way. left to bleed out on an expedition in jueyun karst. your previous break had left you with permanent injury in your arm , and though you could move it just fine , the range in which you could was not as good as it used to be. meaning , your entire side was exposed to enemy attack.

you knew how kazuha beat himself up that time. when you first broke your arm , he didn’t leave you alone until you had completely healed. apologies spewed from his mouth for the first few days. he was sorry he wasn’t there to protect you. how long it took him to get to you. sorry for not being the one to find you.

knowing that , you almost hoped he didn’t find you. it would shatter him more than you just not returning home. ah .. home. it was such a warm place. you and kazuha shared many memories there. you grew closer there.

you let your eyes close , the blood loss making your eyelids feel like lead and your limbs feel like ice. maybe it wasn’t your delirious state that made the sky seem dull , as soft raindrops patter against your face , making your spilled blood travel with the water. does death feel warm , you wonder ? as warm as kazuha’s hands around you ? what you’d give to feel his arms around you one last time.

you’re too far gone to realize a warmth does embrace you until you’re physically shaken into conscious. your eyes flutter , and reveal a certain ronin dressed in red clothing. tears stream freely down his cheeks , his words nothing more than gibberish to you. you smile to yourself , cursing the gods once more to give the love of your life the pain of watching you die.

the downpour grows heavier , drenching both you and kazuha as it washes away every feeling from your body. with the little strength you have left , you lift a shaker hand and hold kazuha’s face. a smear of your own blood is left from where you rub your thumb on his cheek , trying to reassure him with what you have.

“kazuha , I love you. don’t you ever forget that.” you murmur , and one of his own hands goes to cover the one holding his face.

“dont talk like that. I’m going to save you , I won’t let you die here.” he speaks , but deep down you both know there’s no saving you. the edges of your vision go blurry as you lose strength to hold your own hand up , and kazuha does it for you.

“swear to me. swear that you won’t forget how much i love you.” you whisper , and you can feel yourself letting your eyes close. if you have any hope of living , you know you need to keep them open. kazuha does too as he ushers you to look at him , to reopen your eyes , to say something. anything.

he can feel his own will draining from his limbs as he hugs your dying body close to his. you’re cold , colder than any cryo beast he’s ever fought. colder than the rain falling down on your bodies. you’re already gone , he realizes. pulling your body into his lap, he wraps an article of his clothing around you as he leans against a rock. letting the rain soak through his hair and into his clothes , he holds you close to him.

“i swear it.”

—

-kreide 🪶

(':

I am gross sobbing-

[hamphobicbasil]

Could u elaborate about the dsmp story being bad? Not a rabid/brain dead fan, just genuinely curious and I enjoy reading people's rants lolol

oh you dont know the floodgates you just opened

a few things:

1. despite not liking the creators of the dsmp anymore, I don't actually hate most of them. [the ones that are particularly unsavory fall outside of this of course] so all that I'm saying i truly mean in a critical sense towards the story, its also just all purely my opinion as someone who enjoys fictional and fantasy stories and who like criticizing works to see what it does well and what it doesn't do well

2. for clarification I'm going to use the c![name] to indicate when I'm talking about the characters. Don't get me wrong, I think its annoying too but its the only way I'm gonna be able to write this thing without getting something across the wrong way yknow?

3. I stopped watching the streams after November 16th, [save for one Techno one but I closed out after a particularly bad story beat lol] and so all information coming afterward is all second hand from either me seeing people on twt talk abt it or people dming me. All i really know is up to dream's imprisonment and some stuff past that.

4. This is mostly aimed towards the "main" story, so stuff abt the badlands, eggpire, and whatnot are briefly mentioned.

anyways uh, i'll try to be brief but also include enough information to get why i feel the way i do on some stuff across

A. Performances Alright obviously these people are all streamers, so obviously they might not be the best actors, and hell no one is even asking that of them. However, when you're telling a story that's based on the audio with the visuals kinda coming to a second, it's gotta be pretty strong. I will say, some of the best actors in my opinion are Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. I would include Ranboo but I never watched any of his story bits or story streams so I can't say much. Wilbur and Tommy are excellent in selling their character's emotions and feelings, when I watch the stream I don't feel like I'm watching an rp but an actual thought-out story yknow? And one of my favorite Tubbo examples was in the Hog Hunt video whenever Techno attacked him, he sounded genuinely afraid and I believed everything his character was feeling.

However, unfortunately, not everyone is gonna be that good. And I'm gonna say it; Dream and Techno have to be the worst out of the entire cast. I understand Techno's whole character is this monotoned badass, however, when really emotional moments hit I feel like he never lets that fall, and a lot of intense moments just ring hollow. And I'm sorry but Dream's attempts at being intimidating leave me laughing whenever I watch them. It feels like he watched that one scene from The Marriage with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and said "Oh this is what good acting looks like! Just yelling." His whole "I don't give a FUCK about Spirit!" speech isn't as great as people keep making it out to be. And whenever he tries to act coy when being a villain it feels like a guy reading the script for the first time, a bit like he's trying too hard. I have more problems with his character but his portrayal certainly doesn't help.

Everyone else is fine, and I don't feel strongly either way about a lot of them.

B. The "Lore" Okay first off, I can't be the only one who thinks it's silly that people are calling the dsmp's story "lore" when it's not, it's the fucking story. Lore indicates backstory to either the world or the characters, which a lot of the streams don't really pertain to. This is a really petty section but god it's a weird pet peeve of mine.

Other than the misusage of "lore" vs "story", the actual lore and world-building of the world are so lackluster that new elements can be introduced whenever and it often feels cluttered or not well thought out at all. And here's the thing, I feel like if the writers sat down just for a few minutes to establish world rules and general history, a lot of this could be solved! but so much is made up on the spot that it starts to feel like they're grabbing at straws to keep people invested, trying to reach that next high and intense story beat without actually earning it.

C. The Egg / Eggpire This is a pretty minor note since I was only invested in the Egg storyline for a little bit, but god it's so underused that it's almost embarrassing. Bad has provided this super interesting antagonistic force that's infecting the SMP, can control people, and who one of our main character is immune to, and it's just never used or even talked about again? Now I understand if he wanted to keep it to a side storyline only, however, to introduce this borderline eldritch creature and force within the world and then never have it dealt with is so weird.

D. The Writing Oh boy this is. kinda a big one. Now I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty obvious I have a bias for the Wilbur writing over the current team [that consisting of Dream, Quackity, and Tommy mostly]. I don't this his writing is perfect by any means, the characters constantly bringing up traitors got obnoxious after a while, and writing Hamilton but in Minecraft really isn't the modern Shakespeare or anything. However, I think his exploration of characters and plot progression was a lot more thought out and well planned, like he actually had two brain cells behind the story yknow? The current team I think fails to be as emotional or even impactful, things happened too fast and my god was everything drowned in angst for so long.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta have your characters face hardships to make them reach their goal believable, but some of the shit they put the characters through just felt like too much. From c!Tubbo's constant comparison to c!Schlatt [who btw, fucking ordered his death and kept him from his friends in a nation he felt trapped in] and on a side note, i kinda really fucking dislike the "c!Schlatt dad!!" au's or the au's where c!Tubbo inherits some of Schlatt's features, it would be like c!Tommy getting a c!Dream mask after his exile, it's feels so weird yet people eat that shit up for some reason.

But god, did c!Tommy get the brunt of it all and in retrospect after his final death, it kinda feels really fucking gross. Now obviously, I'm not trusting any of these people to write decent mental health representation, but c!Tommy's PTSD and how it was explored was just degrading. [Specifically the scene in that one Techno stream where he saw the final control room from the first war, and had a flashback / panic attack where he started calling out for c!Dream. I understand this is an actual thing people with PTSD will experience, but it felt so fucking stereotypical it got on my nerves. I actually had to close out of the stream because it made me feel sick, fiction shouldn't leave you feeling that way.] And don't get me started on how they basically reused the formula from the previous arc. [Problem introduced -> Tensions rise as things start to fall apart -> Big confrontation -> Exile -> Return from Exile -> Blowing up L'Manberg, again.]

And speaking of characters-

E. Character Arcs, or the lack of them In my genuine opinion, some of these characters' arcs are so disappointing. Especially c!Tommy's. I'm not one to believe that he was a "selfish" character or anything, however, his goals were simply set on his discs and maybe c!Tubbo, he didn't have much outside that. However, L'Manberg gave him something to care about, he gave up his discs for it and he fought for it tooth and nail, I think it taught him to open up to others and trust more. It was a great character arc for him to have, seeing him still fight even after his first exile alongside c!Wilbur, to return safely to the nation that he and his found family had built.

But then his second exile happened, and I feel like all of that was undone.

c!Tommy's exile genuinely pisses me off for so many reasons. It's not that characters can't have their low points after reaching a major change or feeling like they've "completed" their arcs or anything, but it's more of the fact that it seems like he's never going to heal that feels like a spit in the face, especially to people who might have had setbacks like that before. Progress isn't linear, sometimes things happen and you get knocked back down, it can take a while to get back up, but I don't think c!Tommy's character is ever going to be allowed to get back up. From c!Dream, who pretty much was a constant abuser in his life, killing him then reviving him, and his still fractured relationship with c!Tubbo, which by the way I have a had time believing they would still be friends after all that happened, it feels like he can never get a win and it's generally kinda a shit way to treat your characters who have been abused. Of course, not all abused characters are going to get happy endings, I'm not trying to dictate that they all should, but c!Tommy deserves one and the fact that it's so obscure feels shitty.

Side note: we still don't have a canon reason to give a shit abt the discs. Like I'm sorry but without some sorta connection to the MacGuffin why should we give a shit about him getting them other than "he wants them lol". Like hell, I would even accept the classic "they were the last gifts from his parents" or something, but we still don't have a reason.

c!Tubbo also lacks a fulfilling arc as well, from someone who started out as a yes man, he has progressed a bit into having his own interests first, but besides that sometimes his character makes me so. depressed. He's easily one of the most pushed around and hated characters within the story, all for being a kid who didn't know what to do and he's in the same vein as c!Tommy; these kids can't get a break. Also, his anti-violence beliefs morphing into the "lets kill c!Techno lol!" bit was so out of place and without proper build-up it was like. what. And now he's building nukes?? god c!Tubbo makes me so sad because he's kicked around constantly and never given a chance to grow.

Another small note, I also don't really enjoy c!Techno at all. Besides the previously stated reasons of lack of emotions when they're really needed, I find his character to be weirdly pretentious. He talks as if he's constantly been betrayed and hurt but I personally, don't see it? Like, I think one of the main examples was the Pogtopia vs. Manberg war, yknow he wanted to end the government but they just reinstated it after they won = c!Techno upset. But this doesn't make sense to me because why did he think otherwise? The entire time c!Tommy had talked about taking back their nation and starting again, so the fact that c!Techno suddenly thought there would be a sudden change is, to put it bluntly, kinda fucking stupid. I don't want to say that he "plays the victim" or anything because that feels a bit harsh, but his character feels so far up his own ass that I can't enjoy him.

I have a major grip with c!Dream as well, but that's getting it's own fucking section.

F. L'Manberg This is a quick note before we get into the, forgive me for this, endgame, of this entire rant, since the next two sections are tied together. But god, L'Manberg makes me upset because it feels like they gave up on it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is supposed to be c!Wilbur's "unfinished symphony", the thing that destroyed a once charismatic and widely loved man, his attempt at power that utterly ruined him. But the fact that it just got blown up in the end after everything and left to rot felt like such a waste of time. From the first war, to Pogtopia, to even c!Tommy's exile, it all felt fucking worthless in the end, and the story is actively closer to how it was when it started now more than ever. I wished it was actually allowed to exist and continue to be a peaceful place in what is a chaotic world, but no it was just snuffed out because why dedicate to this concept of finding others you can band together with and feel safe. fuck that noise apparently?

G. The Villains Now villain-wise, I'm only talking about c!Dream [during the first war], c!Schlatt, and c!Wilbur. And believe it or not, this is actually mostly positive.

Now I'm not gonna lie, c!Dream as a staring antagonist wasn't bad actually, he posed a genuine and threatening opposition to L'Manberg, even if we didn't know his real intentions or motivations as to why he was against it. He's lucky in this sense because he didn't have to be good, he had to be passable. If anything, he felt more like an anti-hero than a tyrant or traditional villain, and my god do I wish he kept this theme going forward.

Now quick disclaimer, I don't like JSchlatt as much as the next guy, he's an adult man who should know better than to joke about some sensitive topics and act the way that he does. But the one thing I'll ever give him is that damn, was he a good actor for his character.

Now here's the thing, c!Schlatt wasn't particularly deep at all. He had no real motivations behind his exile of c!Wilbur and c!Tommy other than getting competition out of the way, had no reason to act the way that he did and yknow? that's fine. The reason why he worked was from his performance alone, he was actually intimidating. When he came onto the stream and was doing his typical bad guy stuff, it was actually intense to see what he would do. Whenever he would almost catch c!Tommy back in Manberg, whenever he would begin to pressure c!Tubbo, it put you on the edge of your seat and it felt like everything would change at the drop of a pen. He's a villain to be a villain, and this works out because he's just charismatic and well put together enough to make it interesting, even without the backstory or motives.

c!Wilbur however, is much more tragic, and the best villain of the story. He essentially was the "mentor turned evil" trope and it felt terrible watching him descend into madness, unable to trust barely anyone except for c!Techno and c!Tommy. Hell, in the end I think he still cared about them both, despite losing everything. Sure, he blew up L'Manberg, but there was still a smidge of the old c!Wilbur in there made everything he did feel melancholic. His death at the hands of his father after achieving his final wish was chilling, and something I still think about.

Until yknow, Ghostbur came back way too soon to let people feel his loss as a character within that world. And then he got revived, pretty much-undoing everything that moment meant for his character lol.

And then there's the worst one:

H. Dream. I'm going to be completely honest, c!Dream is one of the main reasons why I dislike the current dsmp stuff so much. Outside of his actions as a person, the way Dream decided to write his character as this overpowered madman of the dsmp really just. destroyed any intrigue that he could've had. Perhaps this is from my growing dislike towards him, manifesting into a bias towards his character, but god I cannot fathom why people try to insist he's interesting when he has as much depth as a fucking puddle.

And here's the thing, I'm not even entirely against c!Dream being a villain, hell I think he would've been great as an anti-hero if anything. Make him sympathetic but not through c!George to get your precious "DNF" points or anything, but show him actually caring about the people within the dsmp, including c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. This would make his rival status with them just a bit more complicated, sure they're enemies, however, he doesn't want to hurt or kill them, and there's still a level of friendship there that keeps them bonded when things get super bad. This could've been super interesting to see, the first villain of the story receiving a sorta redemption arc then descending into madness as he started to fixate on being a god. This is all how I feel personally, but god do I feel like it would've been better than his current character, and hell would've worked with how he was during the Pogtopia arc, before the war that is. I'm not trying to tell Dream how to write his own character, but there are so many other ways he could've done the madman seeking to become god rather then. whatever the hell we got.

Because instead, we got this power-mad asshole who does things... because he can? And that's one of my major issues: he tries to surround his character in mystery to make him "intriguing" but it's kinda like c!Techno, it comes off as pretentious. Not only that, but you cannot keep waving around this mystery of a backstory without ever actually revealing it. I know the story isn't over, but c!Dream is effectively at his lowest point, now would be the time to reveal his backstory. But no just keep it in the dark and keep everyone guessing, that's totally fun and not at all tiring and annoying. (sarcasm, if anyone needs it)

And back to his performance, he doesn't sell this aloof, cynical and strategic warrior that has perfected the blade or some shit, he comes off as some angry guy yelling on reddit. which i don't need to tell you, isn't intimidating. It feels like he's trying to have c!Schlatt's intimidation combined with c!Wilbur's depth, but instead he's like a little brother who's trying to hard to mimic his older brother and is kinda embarrassing himself.

but other then that i dont feel too strongly abt the dsmp lol

but seriously, these are the main complaints I have abt the story tbh, I could probably talk about more but I wont because man. this is probably gonna get me in trouble if any of the hyper-dsmp fans actually read it.

[shoezuki]

I'm going to sound like an ass but I'm so happy c!Tommy died, like I ate some leftover chicken in celebration. With Tommy dead, people will be forced to see that the smp doesn't revolves around him, that he's just a character like everyone else and that without him the story still continues.

I hope that cc!Tommy takes a breaks for a while, or at the very least if he's going to do ghostinnit pulls a Wilbur and appear only on other people's streams. It would make the people who only watch Tommy's pov have to watch different people for lore, it might get the fandom to stop treating Tommy like he's the main character, which would be great cause there are no main characters just preferred perspectives.

Also he ruined the little progress Dream had made (I was so excited for that goddamnit) and killed a cat, mean little shit. Also it might wake up people to the fact that Tommy did cause a lot of conflict, but I sadly doubt it.

The only bad I see from this is the fandom;

1. glossing over the cat and just how fucked up that was of Tommy. Trauma or the cycle of abuse are not even close to exsuces, he fucken keep hitting it then killed it just be a dick. Hold him fully accountable and don't downplay this, this was straight up evil of him, arguably he worse thing he has done as of yet.

2. The new wave of Philza stuff with people talking about how much he's going to regret not fathering Tommy dispite him not being his son

3. Even more Technoblade hate that's somehow worse because of his favor he owes to Dream. Like I just saw a post on how Philza should be killed in front of him then excused by "peer pressure" (Techno was surrounded and had no support, stalled for as long as possible, it's not like he wanted to so it) so he'd "understand" pain and loss, blocked them on sight, but still holy shit.

⸺ Rat ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

lkahf;lkhaf yea like i Feel you im Nearly in the same boat but like. kinda?

the entire ‘getting locked in prison’ type arc or whatever was Weird to me n considering that tommy said Before he was gon tap out and back down a bit. like the disc war finale felt FINALE n like? i thought that was fine and dandy. a win for the lads then tommy can jus chill and Not have such a pivotal/main character type role. 

n i was SO GLAD for that. him buildin a hotel w sam and being hunted down by niki and jack and poking at the egg a bit n all that wasnt like. he wasnt the Pivotal point in those as much. considering he’d had a Huge impact in other ppls stories he couldnt jus Disappear. 

i did NOT understand why him being locked in prison was like. a thing. i didnt get it narratively. like idk what to have expected i thought itd jus be like. more downtime for tommy then Bam angst angst big lore oh no INTENSE. 

him dying is like. especially at dream’s hand. i feel its a double edged sword. like you say i REALLY HOPE itll mean things wont circle around him. more notice and attention can be given to the egg arc. and ESPECIALLY w how jack has been going on w today’s events like holyfuck man’s really goin OFF. tommy dying was narratively the best outcome him like jack manifold stans r losin their minds on my dash today

but ALSO. the reactions instilled within the fandom have really shown a like. exactly what i figured. like him Dying is now gonna cloud so many other characters n perceptions a those characters. we see it w phil n techno like mans wasnt even on dsmp he was on his hardcore world n had ppl all in his chat bout how his ‘son’ is dead lkshglsdhg

and this weird. like. i dont know if martyrdom is the right term for it? but like i LITERALLY hadnt seen Any mentions of tommy killing the cat. and that is Very fucked up. like IF tommy hadnt done that then to me it seemed dream had killed tommy Suddenly with no reasoning. and as fucked as it was to kill tommy, WITH the context of him killing dream’s cat like.... it makes so much more sense. like still fucked he died, but in this sense his death was direct and instant retribution for his own actions. 

and why the FUCK r ppl so nasty w techno????? mans not done shit??? he aint streamed or done Lore in a while now Especially not in reference to tommy??? like oh my GOD keep his name out ur mouth. 

like. as we seen everywhere too. they probably gon revive him in some way sometime. n considering how Talked Up that is its seems itll be regarded as the ‘main plot’ or some shit. largely overshadow other things. i want tommy to Not be revived. if he comes back like ghostbur, cool. mans chillin. but he should be dead for at Least a bit for the smoke to settle n so other ppl and plots can Work their way Out.

[fadistans]

My problem with the In The Heights Movie.

Don't get me wrong, I adore the movie so much but here are my complaints. Also spoilers for the movie and the musical!!

:readmore:

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

They changed the lesson of the story from, ‘as long as there is someone to tell your story, you and your experiences will not be forgotten, your legacy will be carried on’, to, ‘everyone has a dream that they work hard to achieve, and sometimes that dream can change’. And this just doesn't work super well for the movie because there’s still leftover unfinished remnants of that original take-away. They got rid of some songs and added new story lines and new scenes but it feels incomplete because the existing plots are cut too short and the new ones feel underdeveloped.

The flow of the story is way different. The musical brings you on this rollercoaster of emotions, having most things take place in a span of only a few days, bringing you on this ride of seeing the characters being brought up and brought back down and brought back up even higher only to crash even harder. However, the movie moves scenes around and adds new ones, and the emotional impacts you feel dont hit as hard in certain parts.

Abuela Claudia’s death is supposed to be this big important thing, the reason everyone realises how important the barrio is. She’s the reason why Usnavi wants to leave the barrio and go back to the carribean, and she’s also the reason he stays and realises that he has to carry on Abuela Claudia’s legacy of keeping the stories of the barrio’s past, present and future. Abuela Claudia is the reason why Nina realises that she has to go back to Stanford and represent the latino community, show them that they’re just as important, and follow Abuela Claudia’s feelings of showing their dignity and importance. In the musical, Usnavi and Nina parallel Abuela Claudia’s story, and her death makes them realise that they can carry on their story, have the life that she didn't have. Usnavi becomes the new storyteller, and Nina realises that feeling like belonging does not depend on where you're from, but how you treat your surroundings. We see these parallels in the cut songs, Hundreds of Stories for Usnavi’s parallel, and Everything I Know and Enough for Nina. When you cut these important songs, the stories of these characters feel incomplete.

In the Movie, they change Usnavi’s choice to stay from knowing he has to be the storyteller of the block after seeing the Abuela Claudia mural, to ohh Vanessa hot I want her to have my babies + wow my dream can be here instead of Puerto Rico because i have a beach painted on my wall! They change Nina’s choice to go back to Stanford from realising she can live the life Abuela Claudia always wanted her to have, to inherit those dreams of a better life and finally take advantage of her opportunities to make them come true, to a commentary of undocumented folks, which is really interesting but it takes away so much of Abuela Claudia’s impact. Both of those plot lines can co-exist together but they just got rid of Abuela Claudia’s impact.

The movie took so much from Abuela Claudia’s character, and took so many songs of hers and songs mourning her. It felt like they really only left her as an afterthought. She dies and they feel sad for one song and then they're happy again in Carnaval Del Barrio which just... is not supposed to be there. They take her big moment where she’s revealed to have the winning lottery ticket and her big revelation to Usnavi, entrusting the money to him before she dies, to ‘oh Abuela’s dead im leaving now oh my god she won the ticket haha God ur so funny i gotta rush to the ticket office b4 I leave oh wait vanessa haha hi vanessa ur hot’. They took all her screen time (and the Rosario’s too) to give Vanessa a story that falls flat. I really like how they gave Sonny more character though because it really helps to flesh out why he does what he does and just bring his character to a higher level. It also helps bring In The Heights, a musical made in the 2000s, into the 2020s.

TLDR; they cut a few character’s stories to build new ones that feel incomplete. If the existing stories are cut from, and the new stories just aren't built enough, then it just leads to the movie having holes in the story, and it just doesn't feel complete.

[timogsilangan]

house of the dead remake thoughts

THEY DIDNT FIX ANY OF THE TYPOS FROM THE SWITCH VERSION LMFAOO like obviously that wasnt make or break for me but MAN LOL it was an Experience seeing “anty-aliasing” and “happend” like come on man did you guys not have the budget to turn on spell checker in google docs

sound design and foley is absolutely delicious. its got proper effects for each environment (reverb for large areas, there was some gunshot echo even) and u can FEEL the impact of each bullet. i noticed it had proper ricochet foley for every material too (it sounds different if u hit metal vs rock etc) even the footsteps have proper foley for whatever ur stepping on and ofc the gore sound effects were fuckign great they sound really juicy

gun gameplay is fucking fantastic with a mouse n keyboard i dont have a switch coz im fucking poor but it seems like such a better experience than the dogshit gyro controls everyone was struggling with on the switch version. outside of an actual lightgun a mouse is the best option to play games like this so who fucking knows why they released it on the switch before the pc. THE AUTO RELOAD FEATURE IS ALSO SUCH A LIFESAVER

THE GORE. i loveeee taking chunks out of these fucking things just blowing their heads off seeing their entrails spill when you blast their torso watching their fucking arms fall off n whatever its fucking great. i love that you can keep unloading your mag into them even after they fall down its so fun

new ost is obviously nothing compared to the original but ofc i dont blame the music team for this they tried their best to capture the spirit of the original even with the legal hurdles they had. im gonna install one of the mods to replace it with the original soundtrack and see how it changes the experience

THE LIGHTING IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE SWITCH VERSION. its way more atmospheric and honestly captures the kinda gothic feel a lot? the lighting on both hangedman fights is especially delicious

the issue from the switch version where the textures were garbage and everything looked like it was covered in petroleum jelly is mostly fixed i believe? i cld see the fabric texture on rogans jacket really nicely after magicians fight

MAGICIANS FIGHT TAKES TOO FUCKING LONG. I HAVE BORDERLINE CARPAL TUNNEL AFTER FINISHING THAT SHIT. hes way easier to hit than in the first 2 games but i feel like that takes away the fun of it :( the death animation on him is fucking great tho it really looks like the fire inside of him is like bursting out that shit was so much better than what they did in all the other games

a lot of enemies in general take way more bullets to kill than their counterparts from the original game which is kinda bullshiet. and sometimes they keep attacking you even when their head is blown off like. ok thanks. that sucked

the animation on the enemies was pretty great for the most part but man. i miss chariots waggle dance. that was where the challenge of hitting his weakspot came from plus it was motion captured instead of animated by hand in the original! but i do like that they had the hermit fucking fall on its back and its legs curled up like a real spider that was hilarious. but the animation on the scientists that u have to rescue SUUUUCKS its so. stilted like babys first blender animation

THE CUTSCENES WITH ROGAN WERE SO FUCKING GOOD. it actually made me think Ok yea this guys cool and kindof a badass im pretty sure the animation budget went to him instead of the rescue npcs 💀

overall i enjoyed it who is fucking surprised of course id love it. chariot my boy in my heart forever

[dehydratedpercy]

Prompt: " Please.....dont make me hurt you"

For dark Frank maybe👀 but you Can also choose someone else

A Way To Hurt (2.5k)

Read on Ao3 | Based on this post

Summary: Hazel still has Frank's firewood, though they're enemies now. Even though she knows she could kill him, she can't bring herself to betray his trust-- that is, until he shows up one night intent on getting his lifeline back, no matter the cost.

TW: Home invasion, dark themes

Hazel had just finished getting ready for bed when she heard the noise. It came from the other room, so she picked up her spatha, hoping beyond hope that it was just the old house settling.

Sometimes, it was just the old house settling. She kept her spatha by her side at all times though, because she knew one day, it wouldn’t just be the house. And she refused to be unarmed when that day finally came.

Now, she had her sword, which gave her comfort even if she wasn’t wearing armor. Her sweats were oversized, her mouth still tasting like toothpaste. Her eyes had been drooping, almost falling asleep standing up.

She wasn’t falling asleep now.

She stepped into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. For a moment, there was nothing. Then Frank materialized, landing with barely a step. It was almost as if he'd taken off Annabeth's invisibility cap, but Hazel knew the truth; that he'd simply been in the form of a bug, and had shifted back to his human form. It was a trick he’d started learning when he was still at camp, but clearly he’d perfected it since then.

Hazel let her spatha hang by her side, not raising it quite yet. Frank wouldn’t have shown himself if he was just going to attack her, which meant he must’ve wanted to talk.

This’ll be good, she thought, crossing her arms.

“Hazel,” Frank said, sounding on edge. He looked worse than the last time she saw him, like he hadn’t been sleeping. Despite that, his posture was straight, like he hadn’t been able to forget his Roman training, his hands in his pockets casually, like he hadn’t just broken in. “You look-- good. You look good.”

It came out as a stumbled complement, but it hit Hazel like an insult. They’d broken up directly before he’d left camp, but before that they’d been dating for nearly three years. He’d never gotten less awkward. At one point, it had been endearing-- but too much had changed for it to feel like anything but an insult now. Especially since she knew why he was here.

“That attack on Camp Half-Blood. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Frank shrugged non-committally. “I wasn’t there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You just helped organize it.”

“Sounds like something I’d do, doesn’t it?” He said, neither agreeing or disagreeing. “Hazel--”

“And the attack on the questers? The bear--”

He huffed. “Might have just been a freak accident. Wild animals attack sometimes, Hazel.”

“Stop saying my name,” she snapped. “It’s not yours to say anymore. And that warship that was destroyed? The defenses that were destroyed? The supplies that were booby-trapped?”

Frank took a step forward, eyes darkening. He didn’t like being pushed, but Hazel didn’t care. He deserved to feel the impact of the crimes he committed-- crimes against demigods, crimes against his family. Hazel wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

They’d initially broken up when Frank started getting too radical, claiming that they were doing something wrong by taking in and training new demigods. He said they’d be better off left alone, where they wouldn’t be able to get too powerful, and thus wouldn’t attract as many monsters. Some would die, sure-- but he thought back to his mortal days with a fondness he didn’t hold for either camp. He thought it would’ve been better not to know.

He was wrong. But that didn’t stop him. He left camp, found beings willing to support his cause, and started a gradual campaign to dissolve both camps-- make them so unsafe demigods started fleeing, trying their luck in the mortal world.

Hazel and her friends had volunteered to be the ones to take him in-- or, if that didn’t work, bring him down. This house had been their mission headquarters. It was supposed to be secure. Then again, nothing seemed to be secure these days: there was nowhere Frank had been unable to go. He could turn into a bug and fly under doors, turn into a bear and attack innocents, turn into an elephant and take down buildings. His shifting was instantaneous, making him impossible to fight: he changed form before you could land a swing.

“You act like I’m a bad guy,” Frank said, voice low and dangerous. “Like I’m not doing all of this to help people. The generation after us will thank me when they are able to live among mortals again--”

“The ones who don’t die, maybe!” Hazel said, voice raising. “And fuck the next generation, what about the ones who are alive now? The demigods who have already started exploring their powers, who can’t stay in the mortal world without detection. What about them?”

“They’re a lost cause,” Frank said, sounding deeply saddened by this. “And I am too. I know my scent is as powerful as yours or Jason’s; this fucking curse has seen to that.”

“A blessing,” Hazel corrected, feeling the familiarity of their old argument like a frequently dislocated joint. “Shapeshifting is a blessing, a gift more demigods would die for--”

“I’m barely even human anymore!” Frank yelled. Hazel stepped back in horror as he shifted rapidly, going from human to bear to hawk to wolf to human again. It happened so quickly it just looked like a flicker, and then he was human again, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. “Hazel, I wouldn’t wish this curse on anyone. And even if I was just a normal demigod, going to camp was the biggest mistake of my life. If I had never done that, my scent would have never gotten this strong. My family mansion would still be around, my grandmother would still be--” he swallowed with difficulty. “My grandmother would still be alive. Camp Jupiter took everything from me. And I can’t get it back, but maybe-- I could make it better for future demigods. That’s all I can hope for.”

“At the expense of demigods now,” Hazel whispered. “Frank, without the camps… so many people will die. Demigods need a safe place to train.”

Frank’s expression closed off, and Hazel knew he was done arguing with her. Early on, he’d hoped to get her to see his side, but he’d quickly seen that that would never happen.

“Fine,” he said, voice like a knife. “Then just give me what I came here for, and I’ll be on my way.”

Hazel felt her face heat up. Her hand twitched, wanting to move to touch the side of her thigh where his piece of firewood sat. All this time, and he’d never gotten it back. At first, Hazel thought it was a hopeful sign, since it meant he must still trust it in her care, but as his actions grew more and more violent, she knew it was only a matter of time.

She had used to keep it in a jacket pocket, but she wasn’t so naive anymore. Currently, the wood was duct-taped to the side of her thigh, so it never left her side. No one knew; her friends didn’t even know she had it. She’d considered telling them, but she just couldn’t betray Frank’s trust like that. She’d considered burning it-- especially after hearing about the deaths-- but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. How could she betray someone who had trusted her with everything? How could she hurt anyone like that?

Hazel had known, in her heart, that one day he’d show up, looking for the piece of timber. She had hoped it wouldn’t happen, but she’d known. She wasn’t as naive as people liked to think.

“I’m not giving you anything,” she said, raising her spatha. “For all you know, I don’t even have it anymore. I may have put it in a safe across the country, and you’ll never find it.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Come on Hazel. Don’t make me ask again.”

“I told you not to say my name.”

“Hazel,” Frank snapped. “You’re acting like a child. I’m trying to make the world a better place, and it’s bad enough you of all people are trying to stop me. But that timber doesn’t belong to you. Give it here.”

“Do you remember who my father is?” Hazel challenged, baring her teeth. “I could kill you with the snap of my fingers. I’d be more afraid, if I were you.”

"You have my firewood, you could've killed me long ago," Frank argued. "You haven't. You're not going to try now."

Hazel felt her eyes blaze with determination. "You don't know that."

He started moving forward, and Hazel was reminded briefly how much bigger than her he was. "I do. Because I know you, and I know you'd never do anything to hurt a friend."

"Unlike some people," Hazel snarled.

Frank ignored the jab, still moving forward. “Hazel, I’m begging you, just hand it over. I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

He got too close, and Hazel slashed with her sword. In an instant, he was gone, and then he was behind her, grabbing her around the waist. She screamed as he grabbed her hoodie pocket, feeling for the timber. She tried to elbow him in the face but he was gone again, and then she tripped over something and was on the ground. She swiped at him again but he was relentless, disappearing and reappearing again, attacking her like a wolf tearing at scaps. She couldn’t strike her, no matter how hard she tried.

Suddenly, she felt his hand on her thigh, and in a panic she kicked him away. He responded slower this time, barely turning into a bird in time to stop himself from slamming full force into the opposite wall. He dropped back to human form, panting, but his gaze was vicious. He’d found what he was looking for.

“You used to be a gentleman,” Hazel said bitterly as she stumbled to her feet, backing up. He had never so blatantly ignored her consent like that before, touching her like she was a means to an end instead of a person.

“I’m not going to be a gentleman when you have my lifeline tucked against your skin,” Frank said cruelly.

Hazel saw his muscles tense and just had enough time to say “No--” when he lunged, turning into a hawk. She slashed with her sword, but then he was a coyote, hitting her with so much force she fell again. There was a ripping noise, but she didn’t have time to react because then he was on top of her in human form again. They wrestled for a moment, but Hazel had never excelled in hand-to-hand combat, and he was twice her size with the upper hand. He threw her spatha to the side, then pinned her beneath him.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, then there was a hand over her mouth. She lurched, screaming into it as he ripped the duct-taped timber off her leg, taking some of her hair with it.

As a wolf, he must’ve bitten off a hunk of her sweatpants, and now he had the timber back in his hand.

He looked at it in awe, as if he wasn’t didn’t even see her as a threat anymore.

She gritted her teeth and summoned her sword. It flew so fast it knocked Frank in the back of the head, and then she was able to throw him off her body, slashing at the same time. He turned into a hawk but wasn’t quick enough, and she sliced off part of his wing. He fell, rolling away in human form, and when he came to a stop Hazel saw the huge gash down his arm. He reached up to touch it, and it was then that Hazel realized he didn’t have the wood.

She spotted it, laying in the center of the floor, at the same time as he did. They both lunged, Frank’s image flickering through half a dozen transformations before he grabbed onto the timber with his thick human hand. Hazel almost took off his fingers as she swung. Instead of knocking the wood out of his hand, however, she cut it clear in half.

That was good enough for her. She dove, grabbing the wood and rolling.

She landed in a kneeling position, half of the piece of timber in her hands. Frank held the other, teeth gritted. He looked like he planned to launch another attack, but before he could Hazel did what she should’ve done a long time ago: warping the imperial gold of her sword, turning it to its liquid state in mid-air, and using it to coat her piece of wood. She raised it, triumphant, the metal-covered wood levitating an inch above her hand. It glowed inhumanly-- after all, she had her own curses to deal with. Frank wouldn’t dare touch it now.

The house shook. It took Hazel a moment to realize that was her magic, causing the very foundations of the house to tremor. There were shouts from the lower floor, the sound of pounding footsteps.

“Try me again,” she threatened, still levitating her trophy grotesquely. “I will end you.”

Frank looked pissed, but he also must’ve seen how serious she was. He swallowed, stuffing his piece of firewood back in his pocket. “Until we meet again-- Levesque.”

Then he turned into a bat, still able to fly despite his injured wing. The door opened and he swooped out, escaping into the rest of the house and eventually, into the night.

Jason and Percy lurched in, both looking panicked. They didn’t seem to have noticed the bat. When Jason saw Hazel, his eyes widened, and he backed up into Percy, nearly knocking him over. “Hazel-- your eyes--”

Hazel realized her eyes must’ve started glowing gold, like they sometimes did when she was filled with rage. With effort, she willed them to stop, calling on the house to still.

“What happened?” Percy asked as Hazel walked to the window. She watched as a bat darted out the front door, which was still open-- Jason and Percy must’ve just gotten back. She continued watching the bat until it was too far away to see, then sighed. She willed the metal to uncover the piece of tinder, revealing it as a piece of wood again, and holding it up for them to see.

She’d never told anyone Frank’s secret, thinking her loyalty to her promise came before anything else. She didn’t think that anymore, though, and she was done doing Frank favors.

(The wood still had Frank’s blood on it, and it made Hazel’s stomach twist uncomfortably.)

“I have something to tell you guys,” Hazel said, doing an impressive job of keeping her voice from shaking. “A secret I’ve been holding for Frank for-- too long. It may not be enough to destroy him, but at the very least, I know a way where we can hurt him very, very badly.”

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[buckyskorpion]

11 hours - part six

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x Reader

Summary: bucky is the mystery you can’t wait to solve. if you can get out of his bed long enough, that is. a biker au.

Warnings: gang-typical violence, sex scenes, alcohol mentions, probably more to come so stay tuned

A/N: so i was gonna leave this on ANOTHER doozy cliff hanger but i genuinely thought i would get lynched so i decided to just leave it at a baby cliffhanger. a lot happened in this chapter and a lot of seeds have been planted for future chapters..... so lemme know what you think hehe. predictions?? angry letters?? pitchforks??? lemme know!! i wont be taking tags for this so please dont ask.

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masterlist 

“You’re very calm for someone with a gun to their head.”

Honestly, you had been thinking the same thing. Sure, your stomach feels like a snake pit and your hands are sweating and you don’t think you’ve ever been more aware of your own heart beat, but other than that - you don’t understand why you aren’t panicking more. There are three men standing in front of you, one behind, all with guns. They’re wearing matching leather jackets with an octo-head patch on the sleeve, and they all look very scary. Briefly, you wonder if Bucky has a jacket like this, with a patch on to match his family. It’s an irrelevant detail you can’t help but fixate on right now.

Bucky. Hopefully listening on the other end of the phone you have tucked in your back pocket which your kidnappers haven’t been bothered to check yet, thankfully. You flex your wrists against the zip ties holding you to a chair and ask, “Where am I?”

“You should know,” your stalker turned kidnapper says with a condescending sneer. “You followed me here.”

“The Lerna?” you clarify, for the sake of hopefully someone on the other end of your mobile picking it up. You glance around at the old-style bar; chipped wood and beer stains, a rickety pool table one of your stalker’s friends is using as an arm rest. You curl your nose up at it - a little proudly, you note it has nothing on Sam’s bar.

“Do you recognise the place?” your stalker asks. That throws you. You want to ask what he means by that, why you would recognise this gross bar you’ve never stepped foot in, but you clench your teeth and school your face.

Once your dad sat you down in a chair much like this one, in his office at the house you grew up in. You were eleven, maybe, and you didn’t quite understand why he was tying your hands to the back with a necktie but you went along with it. He did this, sometimes - would orchestrate some strange lesson when his nightmares got really bad, his ghosts chasing him inside the house until he saw enemies in lampshades and kitchen cabinets. To keep you safe, he would say, and then he sat opposite you and asked what you would do if anyone ever put you in this position against your will.

“Kroshka, they will use anything against you,” he had said, and you see that now with the way these men are looking at you for any weakness. But you didn’t understand then, you were a kid thinking your dad was spiralling again, so he had cast around until he found a beer bottle on the coffee table. “See, like this. When the label is flat it’s fine, but as soon as one little corner lifts you can’t help it - you have to peel it all the way off. Don’t give them any corners, kroshka.”

You blink, once. The man in front of you scowls when you don’t answer, presses forward into your space in a show of intimidation. You try not to flinch, but that fear you were missing before is starting to set in real fast. What did he mean, do you recognise it? And why the hell are you so prepared for a situation like this, almost as if your dad has been training you for it since you could remember?

“Fine,” your stalker says, his breath fanning over you with how he’s leaning into your space. “Maybe you can answer something else, about your boyfriend.”

“Dunno who you’re talking about,” you say. It’s not a lie - technically, you hadn’t had the ‘boyfriend-girlfriend’ chat with Bucky yet. This man is not appreciative of your loopholes. He grabs your hair and yanks your head back, pressing his glock into your neck. You shiver, both at the pain and the cold of the metal. Through gritted teeth and mild hyperventilation, you say, “As a matter of fact, I dunno who you are either. That’s kinda weird, dontcha think?”

You can practically hear Bucky in your head telling you to shut up, but he’s not here right now. No corners, just like your dad said. Doesn’t mean you can’t try and find some corners of your own.

What you meant as a question to buy some time, with a bit of attitude on the side, sends your stalker reeling back from you. He’s confused, eyebrows drawn down low and his friends behind him look to each other with the same expression. Now, you’re confused as well. Everyone in the room stands (or sits, in your particular predicament) in a pure state of what the fuck is going on. It would be funny, if there wasn’t still a gun to the back of your head.

“You don’t know the patch?” the man asks, gesturing to the sleeve of his jacket. When you don’t respond he continues, slowly, reiterating his question from before but as a statement, “You don’t recognise this place.”

You have zero idea what’s going on, but whatever you’ve said seems have thrown your kidnappers for a bit of a loop, so you decide to roll with it. You say, and hope to god the man standing behind you doesn’t shoot you for it, “I’m starting to think you’ve lost control of this situation, pal.”

From the corner of the room behind you, a familiar husky-toned red head says, “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

Shots ring out, shattering the windows as one by one your stalker’s friends drop like dominos. Someone crouches behind you and cuts you lose with a knife, and you hear it clatter to the floor as they launch over the back of your chair feet first into your stalker. Natasha. The flash of her red hair over your shoulder as she sends him flying is unmistakable. You scramble from the chair, fumbling for the knife she dropped but your hand slides through something thick, wet. The man behind you with the gun lies dead, throat slit, his blood now all over your fingers. It mesmerises you in a sickening way, making your stomach turn and your vision go fuzzy.

You’d never seen a dead body before. Now they are all around you, the bar smelling like blood instead of beer and the sound of bullets pinging off glass the only noise other than Natasha grappling with your stalker. She’s so small compared to him but she has her thighs clenched around his throat and he gasps for breath, clawing at her legs. You watch, stunned, as he gets a grip on her and throws her off, sending her crashing into the wall with a groan.

She hits the floor and you see red - all you can think is that’s Bucky’s family and that man is walking towards her, his gun trained on her body as she tries to pull herself to her feet, so you stop thinking at all. You picture the back of your stalker's neck like the dartboard at Sam’s bar and you throw.  

Bullseye. Just like your dad taught you.

The man drops, knife buried in his neck and haemorrhaging blood. He gurgles this awful, awful sound as he clutches at his throat, trying and failing to push the blood back in. Natasha looks from your still outstretched hand, trembling in place, to meet your gaze. You can’t begin to decipher her expression, nor do you want to. You feel like you’re going to throw up, or choke, or scream, or all three. The man you just stabbed in the neck groans in pain, eyes rolling, coughing blood from his mouth in thick clumps. You can’t feel your hands anymore.

The door bangs open and you flinch, stumbling back until you trip on the chair you had been tied to and fall to the floor in a crumple of limbs. It’s Bucky, eyes wild and larger than life with a rage you’ve never seen before. He has a huge sniper-rifle slung over his back as he strides into the bar, stepping right over the writhing body of your stalker.

“I’ll deal with you in a second, Rumlow,” he practically growls, kicking aside the man’s hand that tries to grab for him. You scramble to your feet, practically tripping over yourself to get to Bucky. Doesn’t it say something about you that you run towards the man responsible for the death all around you?

You crash into Bucky hard, the force of the impact knocking the breath right out of you and once it’s gone you can’t get it back. It feels like his arms encompass the entirety of you as he holds you so tight your feet leave the ground. His chest rumbles with words but you can’t hear him, your ears are ringing and your chest is tight because panic attack, you dumbass. You press your face into Bucky’s neck and hope that’s enough to escape the scene unfolding around you.

“Get her out of here, I’ll deal with this,” you hear Natasha say somewhere behind Bucky but you refuse to lift your head to see.

Bucky attempts to pull away from you to look at Natasha, you can feel him try and twist his head but the inarticulate whine that rips from your throat stills the both of you. It’s mildly embarrassing, the sound you’ve just made, but it’s out there now. Bucky shifts his grip so one big palm rubs soothing strokes up and down your spine and you feel yourself becoming boneless with every pass of his hand.

“I’m not fucking lettin’ him get away with this,” Bucky says, low, threatening - if you were this Rumlow guy bleeding out on the ground, you would be afraid.

“And he won’t,” Natasha says, and then like she has to remind Bucky of his own thoughts, “but you have other priorities right now. Get her out of here.”

You feel Bucky nod, his scratchy chin moving against the top of your head. He kisses your temple and holds the back of your skull with one big palm, pressing your face further into his neck. It means you don’t see the carnage of the bar when he moves to place an arm around your shoulder and steer you out the door, stumbling under his guidance on shaky, cotton-fuzzy legs. He’s hurrying you, but as gently as he can. Once you feel the bright burn of sunlight on your skin you pull back from Bucky’s neck, blinking in the now empty street and Bucky’s piercing gaze as he looks down at you.

“Are you with me?” he asks, his hand dropping from your skull to squeeze the side of your neck. You still feel like you’re sipping each breath through a straw but you nod. You can see in his eyes he needs you to be with him right now, to get out of here, so you try and blink away the fuzzies in the corners of your vision and focus on his face.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and christ, now is not the time for that stinging pressure behind your eyes you hate so much. You hope Bucky understands - sorry for not listening to him, sorry for getting you both into this mess, sorry for not being strong when he needs you to be.

Bucky shakes his head vehemently, tugs you in harsh and strong by the grip he has on your neck to press a bruising kiss to your forehead. Your eyes flutter close at the fierce way he holds you, presses emotion into your skin like the tattoos littering his skin - a brand of your own, in the middle of this eerily empty street with the blood of strange men on both your hands. The thought makes you shake, so you twist your fingers in the hem of Bucky’s t-shirt and breathe him in deep.

“I’m sorry, doll,” he says, then pulls away from you. He grabs one of your hands from out under his shirt and links your fingers, beginning to drag you down the street. Looking back over his shoulder, he says with a grimace, “We gotta go.”

He leads you to his bike, squeezed between a brick wall and a dumpster in a side alley a block away from The Lerna. It roars to life before you’ve properly swung yourself on the back, and you aren’t bothering with helmets this time as Bucky eases the bike out from it’s tight spot with unsettling ease. All you can do is hold on tight and close your eyes as Bucky leads you away, weaving through the city in nonsensical loops before you feel the air open up around you and the familiar sounds of Brooklyn.

Bucky takes you to Steve’s tattoo in Red Hook, the first time you’re been back there since that fateful run-in with Natasha. You’ve checked out completely by the time Bucky parks - he has to lift you off the back of the bike because your legs won’t work, and he all but carries you inside. Steve is quick to rid the shop of the two customers looking at designs out front as Bucky settles you on the couch by the tattoo beds. You sink into the faded red leather without feeling a thing. Distantly, you notice the kid who usually mans the tills looking at you like you’ve grown a second head, and you suppose you deserve that.

“Stevie, I think she’s in shock,” you hear Bucky say, and the childhood nickname makes you smile. You watch Bucky’s face crease up deep concern at the dreamy look on your face, so you suppose you should stop smiling like a crazy person. A giant blonde head swims into your view, just as concerned, and he drapes a blanket around your shoulders.

“Bucky,” you say, your eyebrows drawing down as you fumble for his hand. He squeezes your fingers and mumbles something to Steve who leaves you again, his voice mingling with the kid’s somewhere over Bucky’s shoulder but you can’t focus on that. All you can do is swim in the back of Bucky’s too-deep stare and say, “I killed him.”

“No, no,” he says, shifting closer between your thighs as he kneels on the floor in front of you. This would be funny to you in any other moment, something to tease him for as he takes both your hands in his and squeezes them together, silently imploring you to stay looking at him. He says, “That’s not on you, sweetheart, it ain’t. You didn’t kill him.”

You’re crying now, properly, which you suppose is a good sign because you don’t think people in shock can cry. You watch as something cracks in Bucky’s eyes as he watches you break apart, but you can’t stop now you’ve started. You say, “I did, I killed him. How do you do it? How do you just- I feel like my throat’s gonna close up. How do you live past this?”

Bucky’s face darkens, smoothing out to something stone cold and frightening. You don’t feel scared, though, as he leans into your space so close you almost feel cross-eyed trying to stay glued to the blue of his eyes. He searches your face for something and says, no room for argument, “You did not kill that bastard, you hear me?”

“But-“

“No,” he says, simply, and that’s that. “The only reason you were in that position is because of me, doll, so no. You didn’t kill him. It’s on me, and I live with that so you don’t have to. You got that? You don’t ever have to live with that.”

You don’t know how he makes you feel like he’s physically reached into your chest and pulled out your guilt through your throat, but he does. You can see it clenched tight in his fist, his eyes shuttering down dark as he shoves it between his own teeth to hold. It’s too soon for the feelings clawing at your ribcage but you feel them just the same, that cigarette burn he left on your heart aching so bad you could scream from it. You extract a hand from his to run down his cheek, along his jaw, cupping his face in your palm. He closes his eyes, shudders as though swallowing down the guilt for the both of you.

I love you for that, you think to the soft flutter of his eyelashes against his cheeks. I’ll love you forever for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Natasha returns to the shop, and Sam bundles in not long after that, the four bikers sit around Steve’s prematurely closed tattoo shop and have a family meeting. You can’t help but feel like the kid who’s stayed up past their bedtime to try and hang with the adults, the words flying over their head and sleep pulling at their eyelids but they fight to stay awake anyway. Bucky pulls your head into his lap as he sits on the couch beside you, so you lie there and let him stroke your hair while they discuss what happened over the past two hours.

Two hours, and that’s all it’s taken for your whole world to spin on it’s axis. You’d learnt to throw knives at tree trunks with your dad as a fun, albeit unconventional after-school activity. And now you’ve buried a knife in someone’s neck, you’ve been kidnapped and tied to a chair and watched Bucky gun down men from a rooftop with his sniper rifle. He pulled the trigger with the same fingers he’s carding through your hair now, nails scratching at your scalp in a way that makes your toes tingle. How is that at all ok?

“We’ve started a turf war with Hydra, now,” Sam is saying, sitting backwards on a chair facing Bucky and spreading his hands out in a placating gesture as Bucky bristles. “It was unavoidable, alright, I’m just saying.”

“Not necessarily,” Natasha says. “Rumlow has had a vendetta against Bucky for years. He could’ve been acting alone.”

“It is strange we haven’t heard anything from Pierce,” Steve says thoughtfully. He is pressing an icepack to Natasha’s back, already bruising from where this Rumlow guy threw her into the wall. She’s lifting up her t-shirt and you can see a glimpse of a back piece standing out stark against her pale skin. Giant, feathered wings and a talon, a mosaic piece of what looks like a large hawk spanning the length of her spine.

“When Pierce finds out it was us that shot up his bar, though,” Sam says, making meaningful eyebrow movements to the group. They all nod thoughtfully and fall into silence.

None of these names make much sense to you - Hydra, Pierce, even Rumlow who you’ve gathered by now was your stalker. Was, because he’s dead now, and the thought turns your mouth dry and rusted. You shift in discomfort, drawing Bucky’s attention down to you as he gives you a concerned once over. He had done a thorough analysis for any injuries, even after you’d assured him you were fine, but you can tell he’s still unconvinced.

Unfortunately for you, all your wounds appear to be mental. They’re getting deeper by the second.

“I keep thinking,” you say to Bucky, “why was he so surprised I didn’t know where I was? Or who they were?”

“Hydra is our biggest rival,” Bucky says, and huffs a laugh at your crinkly brow so he clarifies, “They’re another gang, one we’ve had a lot of run-ins with. Rumlow especially. He wasn’t our biggest fan.”

“So he expected you to have told me about him, and Hydra,” you say, the name unfamiliar on your tongue. He nods, and you have to ask, “Why didn’t you?”

Bucky frowns at that. “I already told you - the more you know, the more dangerous it is.”

“And I already told you, no secrets,” you say, frowning just as deep. A beat passes and Bucky doesn’t budge, just glares down at you like he can physically bore his opinion into your brain and make it yours. Exasperated, you say, “Bucky, it didn’t matter anyway - the danger found me. Telling me things like that isn’t going to make a difference.”

“It would’ve if you’d listened to me and not done the stupid thing,” Bucky says, raising his eyebrows. He may have a point, but you aren’t going to back down that easily. Bucky knows you, he knows if you see a loose thread you’re going to pull it. The fact he thought you’d listen to him tell you what to do at all is laughable.

“This gang is your life,” you say, and you don’t bother to hide your frustration now, “They’re your family. I’m no safer not knowing what’s going on - I got stalked and kidnapped regardless. Clearly, it’s dangerous no matter what, so just tell me, Bucky. Whatever it is.”

Bucky stares at you for a long time. Steve, Natasha, Sam - they cease to exist in this room with you. Those first few weeks, when you refused to stay the night in Bucky’s bed and would only see him to fuck - you used to be scared of looking into those eyes for too long, for fear of getting lost. Now you dive head first, a part of you hoping you do get lost so you never have to find your way back out again.

Eventually, Bucky clenches his jaw tight and says, “You’re right.”

You blink, surprised. You hear Sam whisper to Steve, “did you record that?”, and honestly, you wanna ask the same thing. Except the way Bucky is look at you- dread curls thick and choking in your gut. You look up at Bucky and he seem so far away, out of reach even though you feel him all around you. He continues stroking your hair but it’s absentminded, his mind far away too.

You are drawn back to the tattoo shop by Sam saying, “I gotta say, Barnes, your girl is smart as hell. Keeping your phone on you and out-smarting Rumlow in a hostage situation? Pretty badass.”

Bucky smiles briefly down at you, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. You turn to Sam and say, “I got the impression out-smarting Rumlow isn’t really that hard.”

Everyone laughs at that, even Bucky, and it clears away some of the dread eating away at your stomach. But it’s still there, acidic and bubbling no matter what you do to smother it.

Eventually, they grow tired of talking in circles about Rumlow and Hydra and the possibility of the feds showing up (Bucky assures everyone the cops will find no rifling on the bullets and won’t be able to pin them to the crime scene, but Sam mutters heard that before and an argument erupts about some debacle in Bucharest so you tune out). Bucky takes you back to his apartment, tucked securely in his leather jacket in the best kind of shock blanket you could ever ask for.

For the first time, you noticed the tiny embroidered star on the sleeve of his jacket. You wonder if all Bucky’s friends have the same star on their jackets, because they’re not just friends, they’re a gang. One you feel suddenly, irrevocably intertwined with since they’re the only reason you aren’t sitting in a jail cell for murdering someone.

You feel jittery as you walk into Bucky’s apartment, almost nervous. It looks the same as this morning, the coffee cups you used for Steve and Bucky still in the sink and hoodie of his you’d worn last night draped over a chair. But everything is different, now. It’s all changed, there’s weird new shadows over everything long after Bucky turns on the light. You linger in the doorway to Bucky’s bedroom while he rummages around for sweats and jumpers, laying out a pair for you before he begins changing himself. He shucks off his t-shirt and you see his tattoo sleeve, the mottled scars hiding underneath, and your heart flies out of your throat before you can stop it.

“So do you guys have a fun, spooky name like Hydra or what?” you ask, closing your eyes with a grimace as soon as you ask the question. What are you, twelve? Bucky doesn’t answer and you’re too afraid to open your eyes too see the look on his face.

You’re startled when you feel him kiss your cheek, sensing his large frame towering over you and blocking out some of the soft bedroom light. You open your eyes to find him smiling down at you, laughing at you with his eyes as he says, “Not so spooky. Steve named us, he called us the Howling Commandos. The HC, for short.”

You crinkle your nose up at him and he flicks the tip with his ringed fingers. You say, “That’s very old-fashioned.”

“Nat teases him for it all the time,” he says, “She calls us her barbershop quartet.”

You smile, imagining Bucky in suspenders playing the accordion, and say, “Now that I like.”

The longer Bucky looks at you the more sober he becomes, mouth becoming pinched and jaw muscle ticking. He holds you soft by the biceps and walks you back until you hit the wall, still gentle, but bracketing you in now so all you can see is the weight of whatever complicated thing is running across Bucky’s face.

“You scared the fucking shit out of me today,” he says. He shifts, grips your jaw tight so his rings dig into your skin with none of the gentleness of before - he means this. “Never do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, twisting in his tight grip to press a kiss to his fingertips. He softens, allows you to pull him in flush against you by his waist, his bare skin so warm under your hands. “And, thank you. I don’t- I guess I’ve never had someone come save me before, I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t thank me,” Bucky says, shaking his head. He kisses you, a rough press of chapped lips against yours and is gone again before you can react. Says, “I’m sorry, too.”

“Come back,” you say with a pout, and you have just enough time to see Bucky smirk down at you before he’s kissing you again. It’s just as fierce, almost painful, but the rough slide of it distracts from the burn in your chest and your racing thoughts like razorblades. You lick into his mouth, chasing away the ghosts nipping at your heels, and he presses you back into the wall with a thunk hard enough to leave a bruise on your tailbone tomorrow. You don’t care. It feels good to hurt in a way that’s physical.

The ease with which Bucky picks you up makes your head spin. It’s all you can do but pepper kisses along his stubbled jaw as he carries you to the bed, lips suddenly ripped from his skin as he dumps you on the covers. He is quick to follow, squashing you down with his tongue in your mouth before you can take another breath. This, you know. All the messy feelings and heartache and fearfearfear that beats in time with your heart, that maybe you’ll lose him or he’ll lose you and you came so close today, is unfamiliar to the both of you. But arching your back off the bed so he can take your shirt off, scrubbing your fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck as he peppers kisses across your tits with a trail of goosebumps left behind - this is how you know Bucky best.

He makes quick work of your clothes and you fumble with his jeans, laughing into his mouth as he bats your hand away to do it for you. Bucky bites your bottom lip in playful admonishment and you chase his mouth as he tries to pull away. He places one big palm on your clavicle and pushes down, holding you against the bed. He shakes his head at you with a smile.

“Stay,” he says like he would to a dog, grinning wide as you glare at him. But you do as you’re told as he leans over you to grab a condom with his left arm. Maybe you bend the rules a little to trail kisses up the bits of his outstretched forearm you can reach. Over a shadowy skull, the stem of a rose, what looks like military windings near the crook of his elbow and tiny handwritten letters that spell S N S. Sam Nat Steve, because Bucky might be a tough guy to most but he’s a giant sap deep down.

Bucky shudders at your touch, and it makes you wonder if the scarring under his tattoos is extra sensitive. Or maybe he is just sensitive to anyone touching him in such a vulnerable place. You flick your eyes up to watch him watch you, lip drawn between his teeth and a dent between his eyebrows you ache to soothe if he wasn’t still holding you down. You don’t stop, even though he looks physically pained with every brush of your lips against his skin. You trace the edges of another small wolf with your tongue, like the ones on his chestpiece, and watch as his eyes flutter closed when you get close to the paper-thin skin of his inner wrist.

That hits Bucky’s limit. Suddenly his hand on your chest slides up to your neck and he’s leaning over you, left arm braced by your head and his mouth swallowing yours. You groan against his lips at the rough drag of his hands down your sides, gripping your waist tight enough to bruise. He makes your brain go fuzzy, the only coherent thoughts being Bucky and touch me more. He seems to understand. His fingers find your clit, smoothing slow circles which spark embers in the pit of your stomach. Bucky’s mouth falls open as yours does, as if to breath in the whine he draws from you.

“Fuck, you always sound so good,” Bucky groans. He buries his face into the side of your neck, taking advantage of your thigh trapped between his legs to rut against you while he continues playing with your clit. Every time Bucky gets filthy with you it’s like the first time, shocking and almost embarrassing in the sexiest way possible. Heat floods your cheeks and makes you lightheaded, unable to stop the moan he draws from you. You’re rewarded by Bucky’s teeth in your neck, the sensitive spot just over your pulse point, and if you’re being honest you could come just from this.

Bucky’s cock growing harder against your thigh, as his hips shift in rhythm with the circles he draws on your clit, becomes too difficult to ignore. To gain his attention you twist and nip at the closest piece of skin you can find, Bucky’s ear, and he engulfs you in a kiss which steals the breath right out of you. You buck your hips, hoping to nonverbally convey the demand get in me right now, and Bucky doesn't need any more hints than that.

He fumbles with the condom for a second and you take the time to sit up on your elbows and look at him. Bucky is so beautiful, drawn in harsh lines and stark contrasts. Tan skin turned paler against the opaque black of his tattoos, colour swirling in-between and it should be jarring, but you think he just looks like art. Bitten red lips, startling blue eyes pinning you to the mattress as he catches you staring - such bright, primary colours because he is a statement piece, and one you could look at forever.

Bucky grins almost bashfully as you stare at him, leaning back over you to kiss you soft and sweet in a sharp juxtaposition to the rough tumble which got you here. Again, he sends your head spinning when the tender kiss is punctuated by the unexpected push of Bucky’s cock in your cunt. He bottoms out before you can blink, throwing your head back out of the kiss with an untamed groan - both pleasure and pain, in the good way. Bucky drags his teeth from your lips down your chin and neck, biting a mark into your collarbone to set the tone for the bruising pace he creates as he pounds into you.

He doesn’t do anything in halves, you think. You gaze up at him with an almost dopey smile while Bucky fucks the literal breath out of you. You lift your hips to meet him as he bottoms out with every thrust, watching in awe as his face creases up in ecstasy - it’s you who brings him there. He palms your tits like he can’t help himself, loses control in your pussy because you make him feel that good, and the thought makes you giddy. Drunk, almost, as you drag your nails down his chest and nearly come once again just from the moan you draw out of this brilliant, dangerous, gorgeous man.

“You take it so well, baby, fuck,” Bucky pants, eyebrows creasing as the pleasure gets almost painful in its build. You know the feeling. Bucky’s mouth is always your undoing, rolling your eyes back into your head and the sounds you’re making turning positively feral. He kisses you again, more a slam of mouths than anything finessed, and says, “Never gonna get over this, never gonna get over how good you feel.”

“Bucky, you gotta-“

“I gotta what, huh?” Bucky grins at the pleasure-addled panic he brings you too, not wanting to come too fast but also needing to let go before you actually explode. He knows exactly what he’s doing, balancing on one hand to thumb harshly at your clit as he says, “You want me to stop? I don’t think so, sweetheart, I think you wanna come on my cock just like this, wanna hear me tell you how good you are, how sweet you are for me all laid out like this-“

Everything whites out as you come, hard, all your muscles spasming like crazy with the orgasm that rips through you. Bucky’s voice is drowned out, but it doesn’t matter what he’s saying anymore, he’s made you feel like you’ll never catch your breath again. Bucky thunks his forehead against yours, collapsing on top of you as the fluttering clench of your cunt around his cock becomes too much. His thrusts turn sloppy, his breath hot and ragged across your face as you press lazy, barely-there kisses to his cheeks - all you can muster in your fucked-out haze.

Bucky comes with his eyes closed, eyelashes tangling with yours, and you cling to him with all four limbs as he shakes through his orgasm. The release was so needed for the both of you, the events of the last twenty-four hours frying your nerves to the point where it was either fight, cry, or fuck. It feels so good to have Bucky on top of you, inside you, all around you in every single sense and it warms your heart in a way you didn’t know was possible until now. Until Bucky.

Maybe that’s the afterglow talking, and you should stop. But you can’t help but press another kiss to Bucky’s cheek, and another, over his nose and across his still-closed eyelids until you reach his mouth and he can kiss you back just as soft. You hope he gets it. You hope he feels it too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You go to see your dad, eventually. The chaos of yesterday kept you attached to Bucky’s hip - you showered together in the morning, and he allowed you to pretend it was just the water and not tears soaking your face. But he made you cuddle with him on the couch and fed you an omelette like you were incapable of feeding yourself, and maybe you were, because the reality of what happened in that shitty Manhattan bar was starting to eat away at your executive functions. It took all of your strength to convince Bucky you would be ok and that you’d come back to him as soon as you were done, but it was time to pull on a thread you’ve been ignoring for far too long.

It turns out, that paranoid over-questioning part of your brain doesn’t turn off even during a traumatic event. Your dad lets you in without a word, tugging you into a side hug as you both walk to the kitchen to make tea.

The house you grew up in has taken on a different light since the Lerna. The kitchen chairs aren’t the same, reminding you too much of ziptied wrists and a gun in your face. Why can you superimpose the memory of Rumlow holding you hostage to one you have of being eleven and tied to a chair by your father? You shouldn’t be able to do that.

He nudges your hip, jerking you out of your staring contest with the dining chairs, and offers you a mug of tea. You both sit at the table, either end, the fruit bowl a mediator between you. He looks tired, old, like he always has somehow in your memories from childhood. He’s still your dad, the same man who always been there because he’s all you’ve ever had. He loves you, you know does. Ya lyublyu tebya, luna. But he has always been the first to say your paranoid streak runs a mile deep, and once you find a thread-

Well. Everyone knows how that ends.

“Do you want to talk about it?” your dad asks, and it’s like he knows you aren’t here to ask for boy advice or moan about a case or your skyrocketing rent.

There’s a lot you want to talk about. Why did I learn to throw knives instead of joining the soccer team, like normal kids? Why did I learn how to survive an interrogation instead of going to sleepovers, like normal kids? Why did you train me to question everyone and everything in this world, but I’ve always blindly believed you? Like a normal kid would, you suppose, the only normal you’ve ever really gotten. Always believing your dad is the superhero of six-year-old dreams, someone who would never keep you in the dark.

“No,” you say, taking a sip of tea. It burns your tongue to numbness, but you can’t bring yourself to care. We had the secret language for only us - why did I never think you might have secrets from me as well? You grimace into your tea and say, “Not right now, I’m sorry.”

“Tayny budut presledovat tebya vechno, malysh,” he says. Secrets will haunt you forever, little one.

You don’t dare look up from your tea as you say, “Ya dumayu, ty by znal vse ob etom.” I guess you’d know all about that.

He gives you leftover curry in a carry bag when you leave. Kisses you on the cheek and lets you go, but you can feel him watching you the entire time it takes you to walk down the street and out of sight. As soon as you round the corner you retch into the nearest bush, a well-manicured rose which you silently apologise to as it gets covered in your bile.

This guilt isn’t something Bucky can save you from - it feels like it’s eating you alive. You had never, ever thought you would get to the point where you’d be leaving a bug stuck to the underside of your dad’s kitchen table, but you suppose you never thought you’d be stalked and kidnapped either. You wipe the your mouth with the back of your hand as your stomach finishes emptying itself of tea and betrayal, and try to tell yourself you won’t find anything, you're just being paranoid. But you know you will.

Maybe you always have, and that’s why you’ve been too scared to pull on the thread you’ve known has been dangling in the back of your mind since you were a kid. Just one secret you wanted to leave, one dark corner you didn’t want to shine a light into. That’s never been in your nature. You spit the foul, acidic taste from your mouth onto a poor, innocent rose bud and think with just as much bitterness as the bile coating your throat, that’s not who my dad raised me to be.

Part 7

[popculturebuffet]

Final Space: And Into The Fire Review or Now with 110% More Homoerotic Telepathy

Welcome  new and old to my first Final Space review! If you’ve never seen the blog before, and given this is the first “new” series i’ve covered as it come out in some time that’s probably quite a few of you, welcome. I’m Jake, I do recaps and reviews of various animated shows and comics, mostly just stuff I want to do, often on comission (5 dollars an episode if theres any episode of the first two seasons of this show or any episode of any other show you’d like tos ee me cover), or for my patreon patreon.com/popculturebuffet. And it is my utmost honor to add this show to my rotating roster of shows I cover as they come out. 

I friggin love Final Space. I was intrigued by it back when TBS released the animatics alongside Close Enough (Wth the two shows ironically finally together on HBO max as of earlier this month), for their doomed block. I heard a lot of good things about season 1.. and let it get away from me, not watching it till Season 2. But both seasons had more than enough to pull me in with intriguging characters, even greater jokes and a truly unique idea for a premise involving giant monsters, an edltrich god and lots of cookies. 

So while it took an extra year given Covid, I’m super friggin pumped to get into season 3 at long last after the hell of a cliffhanger, especially since ironically last night I saw Steven Yeun’s oscar nominated performance in “Minari”. Now i get to watch him play a cat teenager again too.. and in a few days Mark friggin Grayson. It’s a good week to be a fan of his is what i’m saying and a good week in general. 

Previously on Final Space Yo!: Since it’s been a year and while the series provides  a recap , I’m going to be doing these anyway so:

Our heroes finally got all 5 dimensional keys and freed Bolo, and in the process also freed Avacato from Invictus, the horrifying entity controlling final space. Meanwhile Tribore got Sheryl to stop being a selfish prick and she joined the team trying to be a better mother from now on. But freeing Bolo came at a high cost as Nightfall sacrified herself as the sixth key (KVN was natrually both Gary and Bolo’s first choice, but was inllegible. ) So we ended the season with our heroes entering Final Space and Gary reuniting with Quinn.... while Invictus loomed. So over a year later we finally get some answers so join me under the cut for spoilers, recaps, and homoerotic text ahoy. 

Something i’m doing since both the roster keeps changing.. and as I correctly guessed from the trailer, and the general tone of the promos for this season, that everyone won’t be all together all season.. or even in one piece.. i’ll be doing a silver age style roll call to let us know who all we have on the Team Squad for the episode Roll Call: Gary, Quinn, Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, KVN, HUE, AVA, Sheryl, Bolo, and Tribore

So we pick up right where we left off, Gary tearfully reuniting with Quinn, with Quinn wishing he hadn’t come for her, and Gary being Gary naturally having ignored that, and actually been more determined since that made it forbidden which made it extra tempting and him want to extra do it. God I missed this glorious idiot let me tell you. 

So things are quickly interrupted by invictus, who turns out to be a giant flaming head.. thing... and chases them and the crimson light, which has to start speeding with our heroes tethered to the outside, Quinn holding onto Gary. 

So we get one hell of a thrilling chase as the Crimson Light outspeeds the demon head and runs into two titans, but Bolo shows up to take out one, with Mooncake trying his dimension shattering blast thingy on Invictus.. and naturlaly g ven this is the big bad we need to show off how horrying they are, and it does NOTHING. But Gary catches his little buddy so we’re alright. 

Sheryl also shows off her badass bonafieds by LIGHTFOLDING THROUGH A TITAN... granted she still has some parenting skills to learn as “lightfolding while your son is hanging out the back through an edltrich god” really isn’t a motherly thing to do.. but neither is trying to murder your child several times or blaming him for how shitty your life turned out so ANYTHING is a step up for her. 

But.. it’s not enough. While she does manage to kill ONE the Crimson Light is too badly damaged to go on and we get two tragic deaths in one go... The Team Squad is forced to abandon the Crimson Light.. and AVA is too damaged to Upload into HUE. “I’m Sad” “For who?” “For you.. and for us. “ God damn Tom Kenny is amazing. You don’t need me telling you that, but sometimes you need a reminder. 

So our heroes end up on a desolate mystery world, stranded in final space with no ship, no suplies and no hope. The only thing to do now is survivie and hope they can continue the mission at some point. 

ONE MONTH LATER

Things have not gotten any better, as naturally , our heroes have only found weird cartoon eyed worms that regrow their heads when you bite them off. So while this means unlimited food, it’s also disgusting and Garry hates it. “This may be a head but it tastes like a butt”. Quinn and Tribore are with him and Quinn hasn’t been ready to talk about her experiences trapped in this hellscape and still isn’t but being a good dude, Gary dosen’t push her on it. Though the weird red veiny thing on her arm tells me maybe one of you should speed that up before she explodes or gets cronnenburgy. Just saying. I’ll also say i’m not huge on the one month time skip, as while I feel they probably have a reason for being that specific i’ts a bit TOO long and I question why have that long a period of a jump, not the longest but still long enough for things to happen with nothing changingin that time? Still it’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic episode so I can let it go, I just don’t get it. 

What we do get is some Gary Corpses dropping and Invictius puppeting them... i’m with gary that is bowel openingly scary. I also do like how despite the FAR more dire circumstances, they still get in the requisite shenanigans this series requires. I’ts not to the network mandated subplot levels where it distracts, but it’s enough to help ease the terror of the situation and isn’t around for situations like the opening where it really SHOULDN’T be. As the series always has when something big happens, the bollocks goes away. Once we’re in between we can get back to literal pissing contests, KVN leading a crowd to their deaths and HUE in a pimp hat like god intended. 

So yeah our heroes have to outrun the horrible horde of Gary’s, though Little Cato catches on something’s wrong as Tribore makes gary cary him as foreshadowing for later and Sends mooncake down to asssit. Our heroes escape.. but a cave in happens.

After the break, Gary wakes up confused with the party now split in two: Gary, Quinn, KVN, Tribore and HUE on one side and Avacato, Ash, Fox, Little Cato and Sheryl on the other. So Gary does the logical thing... and take his shirt off telling Avacato to feel him. 

I mean I didn’t even ship them before this scene but... Gary claims because of their bond he can telepahtically connect with Avacato. That’s normal Gary shenanigans.. except not only does he shrug off his girlfriend asking why they can’t do that.. but it WORKS. We have a scene of the two telepahtically talking in a wheatfield that is so homerotic I guarantee there only wasn’t the Careless Whisper sax because they couldn’t afford it.. or their saving it for later this season. Look sometimes you don’t ship a ship because you just.. dont’ care that strongly one way or another and sometimes you just need an incredibly gay scene to see the light. Same thing happened with Weblena same thing here. 

Fox also says “that was glorious to watch” same man. That was freaking art. So our heroes split up into three plots. As usual for me

Team Gary: So yeah... Triobore’s pregnant. No way to really softball into that. He’s been pregnant this whole time. So we get a stupid and mildly horrifying gross out sequence with Gary having to look Triobore in teh eyes and Quinn having to “uncork him”. Which is code for ... you know what i’m not going to say it. If you’ve seen the episode you know and if not your better off not visualizing it trust me. Point is this whole sequence is dumb and the worst part of the episode by far. And the series CAN do good gross out. While Olan Rodgers regrets it, the pissing contest was one of the funniest scenes of season 2, and managed to make a gross idea on paper actually pretty damn funny. This.. this is just “Haha males giving birth and tribore’s an asshole”. There’s no joke here just a .. plug. .. gah.. the vomit is rising let me tell you. 

We do get something good out of this nightmare, Tribore’s son who hatches as the army of gary’s dig their way in, Quanstranstro, who rapidly ages into a stylsih spanish speaking adult badass. He is fucking awesome and a great addition to the team and the sheer.. oddity of his birth is wonderful even if the actual birthing was not. Then the climax happens so before that. 

Team Avacato:

Avacato and Co come across a sleeping giant robot cyborg .. thingy. Naturally Fox wakes him up. Little Cato remains not suprised. It occelates between panicking over it’s legs being gone and amenisa and is pretty damn funny. It’s voiced by John Dimagio. But it gets serious as we find out nothing has ever made it out of final space, and things.. change the longer there there. And Quinn’s been there several months if not a year. Whuh oh. This part is much better both due to better jokes and plot advancment.. though again Quanstrano is still fucking amazing. 

Team Bolo: Bolo meanwhile returns and fights a titan, and has mooncake help him rather htan join the others, but looses, hitting the planet with his body.. I mean he might not get back up.. but the impact shatters the caverns and causes an explosion. Everyone but Gary, Quinn, KVN and HUE are MIA, as our remaining party find earth floating overhead. 

TO BE CONTINUED> 

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the season. Like I said the whole birthing sequence can die in a fire and reminds me of the terrible comedy subplots adult swim wanted grafted onto two episodes.. but otherwise it’s a tense stark opener that sets up the bleak tone while still keeping the series rediciulous shenanigans in tact. It’s the perfect welcome back after so long. I mean the gay telepathy alone would make it a winner. 

Next Time on This Blog: We dive into a little history with HIsteria. See you at the next rainbow. 

[curious-menace]

Have I really ever requested one thing of you (the pegging telltale Riddler h/c)? Time to change that; let's see how the Eddies would respond to being told by their partner that they're a "bad boy" and "need to be punishment" (sexually, of course) - Pegging Anon.

I really enjoy these kinds of asks. honestly just give me a blank check for mayhem, unleash me upon the riddlers like a plague of locusts 

nsfw below the cut

Arkham! Riddler

please be careful with this riddler. He has problems reading peoples tone and if he thinks youre angry at him you're liable to send him into a panic.

he really doesn't like dirty talk. dont call him a slut or a whore or anything like that. Not only is it demeaning and humiliating( 2 things this riddler doesnt deal well with) its just a terrible way to get him to do what you want.

again, the idea of punishment in a sexy setting is a turn off for him. He’s afraid of being strangled or choked and he doesn't find being hit sexy.

to put it simply, this riddler reacts better to the carrot than the stick. if you want a good reaction out of him, praise and affection work better. call him a good boy, give him pets and rewards. 

IF you were to coax him into it, safeword, soft restraints and reassuring from you that everything will be ok, he’ll still probably cry. he might enjoy himself but the emotional stress will still leave him in an utter state.

i know some people use BDSM to cope with trauma but maybe dont try this on him. pitch the idea and let him mull it over. dont bring it up more than once or twice and let him decide

he always needs a lot of aftercare. he needs to be constantly reassured, not just after sex, that you love him , that he’s done well. lots of kisses and soft words and let him rest from the heavy stuff for a little while. 

Blacklight riddler

another riddler you need to tread carefully with. he’s a kinky shit but like...a soft kinky shit who bruises easily.

He wont need coaxing. its either a hell yes or a hell no and you shouldn't push that. He likes sex games but he’s got trauma, sometimes something that was fine yesterday is triggering today so please be gentle and respectful with him.

He doesnt mind being called a bad boy, just not too often. mix it up and don't patronise him all the time . you can tell him off without treating him like a kid. 

he likes edging and orgasm denial as a punishment. just dont ruin his orgasm or he wont let you do it again. 

please don't ever hit him during sex. a playful thump on the arm when he’s telling a bad joke is one thing but if you touch him roughly during the act, even if he knows its coming, he finds it triggering. 

He’s pretty exclusively a sub but don't think that means he’s into punishment all the time. mostly he just likes his dominant to take care of him.

BTAS Riddler

i feel like it would throw him for a loop. he’d be confused as all hell, even if you said it in a sexy voice he might not get the message.

 he’d probably scoff at the idea. the notion that he’s anything other than perfect is laughable. he’s certainly not some sort of bad boy. you should sit on his lap and get him on the same page as you. watch his mouth go dry and his eyes go wide as you explain all the things you're going to do to him for being bad. he’ll do his best to stay composed but we both know its you who’d be wearing the pants by the end of the conversation. 

he’d want to be tied up. he’ll be gibbering and rambling the entire time, desperately trying to stay in control of the situation.  He’ll try to do things for you but a gentle reminder that you’re in control and if he doesn't anything he’ll be punished more will have him biting his tongue. 

I think humiliation works best on this one. im imagining something with rope or his suits since he’s so fond of them. maybe try and make him cum while still clothed? maybe some shibari under his suit jacket? i’ll let you decide. 

he doesnt have a safeword bc he thinks its strictly a bdsm thing and refuses to admit he’s into that. he prefers to use the traffic light system. although you probably had to teach him that. before hand he was using some nonsense riddler made system involving humming different songs. ode to joy for fun/keep going and  vivaldi winter for slow down.  you will have to gently explain what a batshit insane idea that was. 

Original Riddler

I imagine he’d be into it, moreso initially than the others. He doesnt have so much emotional baggage and he’s game to try anything once. 

I dont know if he’d find the idea of punishment sexy but he’ll try it for you. he’d probably just prefer you to frame it as impact play or degradation or whatever “just because” you wanna try it. something about it being a meant as a punishment just seems weird to him 

he does like being called names but in a cute playful way. he’s not liable to take offence at anything you say, inside or outside the bedroom but digs at his appearance do sting a little. even if youre “in character” so to speak when you say them. just reassure him after that you dont really think those things.

He’s one of the tallest riddlers and also has zero shame so you’ll need to be inventive when thinking of punishments. tying him up could actually hurt him with his circulation, he runs around in glittery spandex all day anyway so good luck trying to humiliate him. 

Because he is so tall and strong, its hard to hurt him. you could try spanking him, ask him to count out the spanks and listen as his voice gets higher and more unsteady with each one. 

actually in that note and given his penchant for dress up maybe you could try sub/dom roleplay? pretend you're a doctor/nurse or something and you're punishing him for his bad diet? if the punishment thing doesn't work out at least you’ll both get a giggle out of it. 

Telltale Riddler

Oh he is absolutely going to fight you on this one “i think YOU'RE the one who needs punishing , love.” . if you want to punish him you’ll have to fight for that right

he’s never really subbed before he met you. He’s happy to show you how to punish a sub but he really needs practice letting someone else hold the reins.

he pretends he doesn't like dirty talk. if you get him riled up and start whispering filthy things in his ear he’s going to melt a little. 

I cant think of a specific he’d like or something he’d find egregiously offensive, so i think you've got a blank cheque for mayhem here. do what you like and he’ll tell you then and there if he’s into it or not.  

but no blinders or restraints though. he’s claustrophobic after being in that icebox. He IS an escapartist mind you. even if you put him in something he’ll have wiggled out of it before you can blink . he MIGHT tolerate something just there for aesthetics or because the fabric feels nice, like maybe his tie or your hair bow tied loosely around his arms.

in the same vein, he’s sensitive so maybe you could lightly torture him with some sensory stuff. ice cubes or wax play?

Zero year Riddler

i Cannot stress to you enough what a horny fuck this one is. at the mere MENTION of sexy punishment he’s like “oh yes punish me ive been bad “ wiggling his ass in the air like a target. will call you Daddy regardless of your gender because we all know he has  issues. 

He’s 100 percent going to lean into it, goad you and taunt you to punish him more, get angrier or hit him harder. he gets off on the pain, yes but he also just really enjoys being an insufferable shit. 

“EDWARD THIS IS PUNISHMENT YOU ARENT SUPPOSED TO ENJOY IT” - you, probably. 

i dont think the traditional sexy punishment things will work on this one. youre going to have to get creative. like tell him you are in charge of his wardrobe and death traps for the week. 

something that MIGHT work would be forcing him to wear a toy or even just some lingerie under his suit. He’s going to be embarrassed as all hell because this riddler is a big buff cheeto puff who takes his appearance seriously. BUT he cant deny the thrill of maybe the lace poking out over his waist band when he bends or the outline of a bralette being seen under his shirt, isnt a little arousing.

please dont be surprised when he turns around a week later and pulls this exact same shit on you. 

there you go nonnie !  this one was quite a lot of fun! i have a rule of trying not to write more than 6 points for each but it was hard to compress down this time around. so much variety in personality and temperament in the one character there's a lot to write about 

got something you wana talk about? send me an ask or a dm! im always game to talk about our favorite curious menace 💚💜

[genshin-djinn]

genshin impact: how I feel so far

I’ve just finished the prologue! Here are all of my thoughts on Genshin Impact thus far presented in a very confusing and non- linear manner.

My first and most resounding opinion on this game is that it’s amazing. The graphics are insane— the lighting, the weather, clouds passing by. All of the characters have designs so ridiculous it’s hard for me to draw them and it makes me feel like the game is just flaunting the flawless animation of all these characters’ extremely convoluted designs.

places

I love the locations sO mUCH. My favorite places so far are the two major cities— Mondstadt is just so cheery and fits the vibe of the early game (by early game I mean the dvalin quest line). It’s presented as large but in a very linear manner that you learn quite quickly. It has plenty of places to buy stuff from and just genuinely feels like a cheerful, bustling, fantasy city. fantastic and I’m in love. Liyue Harbor is presented in a completely different architectural style and it’s excellent. Mondstadt makes me feel safe, Liyue Harbor makes me feel like I’m in a wild metropolitan center.

And importantly, both of these cities feel genuinely alive. All the romantic hullabaloo in Mondstadt, Yi Zhu trying to cheer up his little sister Yi Xian after their mother’s death, the mysterious locked door in Mondstadt, Anna making wishes to recover from her illness at the well and her brother going there at night to collect all the coins so he can pay for her medication.

Besides the main cities my other favorite location has been Qingce village. The walk over to it is very nice and the town has an incredible vibe with the scale- like terraced fields. And even beyond that, the town is filled with old citizens and children— showing how all of the young adults in the town have left and decided to try to find a new and more exciting life in Liyue Harbor.

I’m having a hard time thinking of something I don’t like about the locations and honestly I’m drawing a blank. I really love all the set design/ map design. I know I will never finish that “collect every geoculus and anemoculus” quest because that’s just not the kind of dedication I have to this game (unless I get really stuck at an adventure level, though.... then things are a wild card.)

adventure ranks

this is my biggest problem with Genshin Impact.

You can’t progress the main quest (which honestly I enjoy more than a lot of the side quest because of my sheer attachment to these characters and their stories, which I’ll talk more about later) until you hit a certain adventure rank. And it’s a real pain getting them. I’m the type of person who gets freaked out when fighting a level 1 ruin guard with a set of level 39 characters and an inventory full of honey chickens. I do sometimes go into this state of bloodlust when fighting hillichurls and I feel like actually seeking out their camps to return them to dust myself but then I find one of them dudes with a shield and remember that my one pyro unit is amber and uhh.... that feeling goes away real fast.

I hope that the game does what they did with adventure ranks 18-20 more often— my next quest in Liyue is locked until rank 23 (I am not looking forward to increasing my world level can I please just play on easy difficulty until forever) but I get this cool new Darknight Hero quest that I’ve been looking forward to to tide me over until I hit level 21 and can go on another bookworm date with Lisa. Yes, spacing out the main quest line is okay, but I really like having a lot of side quests in between as well so I can gain adventure ranks organically rather than specifically hunting for geo/ anemoculi.

characters

I love the characters in this game maybe as much as I love the locations in this game. Maybe more.

My favorite character is Kaeya because I am a sap for antiheroes with attitude problems. More on him later.

I’ve also become very attached to Amber. She’s just such a positive soul and she so genuinely wants to do what’s right and she’s so useful for lighting things on fire which is something I do not have any other character to do (holding out for Xiangling at level 20....). But she’s just not a great character fighting wise. She takes a while to load arrows and they aren’t super useful compared to any of the other seven characters I own. But she can light stuff on fire and I don’t have anyone else to do that so she must remain on my team for the time being.

next up is Lisa. I like Lisa. I know she’s there for the perverts who want to see anime women’s chests but I genuinely do like her. Her personality is, well, very different from all the other characters’ and I kind of like her constant over the top- ness. Her ability is useful but I switched her out for Chongyun in my team and I can’t bring myself to get rid of Aether or Kaeya yet.

I rolled Xingqiu, Beidou, and Noelle but haven’t used them much. All I know about them is “water bookworm young master whos closet good at fighting”, “pirate who stopped me from getting that fecking file folder I was trying to get”, and “maid whose voice I like in the english and Japanese version”. (Side note, I mainly use the Japanese voiceovers because I prefer them. Downside is I sometimes can’t understand a word the characters are saying but it’s worth it for the voice actors)

I also got Chongyun who seems like a nice boy. I rolled him after I started playing with Japanese voiceovers, though, so I don’t understand most of his idle dialogue. All I really know about him is that he’s super positive and he loves ice cream and that’s good enough for me

Next up is my somewhat problematic fave Kaeya. It’s morally bad that you can’t tell whether he’s lying or telling the truth but all it does is make me like him better as a character. I can 100% see why he’s paired up with Jean and Amber as the most visible characters in power in the Knights of Favonius— they all sort of fulfill different roles. I really want to see more of him in the main plot, not when he’s lying about his grandpa hiding pirate treasure. Also we know nothing about his real motivations and actual past besides “diluc’s step brother, maybe like saw diluc kill his dad or like saw diluc upset after his dad was killed wE dOnT kNow”. and I want to know.

Can’t talk about Kaeya without talkin about his bro Diluc. I can’t wait to see him in this next quest line. I really want Diluc on my team. Same with Jean. That is all.

Penultimately I’m gonna talk about my personal favorite god of freedom whose powers just got stolen, maybe god, definite good bard Venti. I really like Venti. He’s got a lot of charm and he just fits perfectly as the easygoing free god of Mondstadt. I started yelling when that signora gal nabbed him. don’t worry venti we will kill her for you

Annnnd finally here’s my opinions on Aether (I chose him to be my protagonist) and Lumine (the Princess, I think). I do kinda enjoy them. They’re a bit of the typical blank protagonist type (can be sassy, can be cruel, can be honest, can be kind) but Lumine’s dark turn is just fascinating and I want to learn more about their relationship and how it’s changed since they were separated. Where even is Lumine? What will Aether do when he learns that his entire purpose in life has been in charge of the ones who’ve been hurting his new friends? It sounds like a fascinating situation.

(also Venti refers to Lumine as Aether’s “imouto”/ little sister— does he call Aether Lumine’s “otouto”/ little brother if you chose Lumine as your protag? which twin is older? is it determined by your choice of protagonist? hmmm)

least favorite things

Besides my problems with adventure rank, I have two other main issues with Genshin Impact.

Firstly, basically all of the female characters are dressed in outfits that seem designed to show as much skin as possible.

annnd secondly it’s extremely difficult to roll five star characters (Jean, Venti, Diluc) without paying money. this is a good way for the company to make cash but it’s also kind of annoying.

wrap- up

Ok! Those are all my main thoughts for now, at the end of the prologue and before chapter 1! I’m off to play the darknight hero quest (probably gonna post some of my mishaps here too). also I want more primogems we should be able to pet dogs npcs excitement bye

[thewritingstar]

desperate hugging with the greens

Um I....Im sorry but this kinda got sad but desperate hugging calls for desperate situations.......enjoy? idk if you can though.....

warnings: character death...sorta 

also they dont have powers

----

Beep Beep Beep

The sound of the heart monitor echoed in her ears as she escorted herself out of the hospital room. It was too white and dim all at the same time as the only color was the fiery red of her older sisters hair.

She wrapped her arms around herself trying to provide any comfort but it didn’t work. She knew Blossom would be okay, she had to be. That was the only option as had left. 

The thought of her standing over a casket as its lowered to the ground haunted her, she wasn’t sure she could take it. The expressionless face as her skin turned grey from the loss of life left a gruesome imagine in her mind as she took a seat on a chair. 

The doctors said she was alright. Besides minor blood loss, she should be okay. She had forgotten what they had said afterwards, she couldn’t think clearly anymore. 

It happens too fast for her to tell. All she remembers was driving and a classic summer pop song filling the cars radio as they sang along. She was the one driving as Blossom was in the passenger seat. Behind them the sunset had begun to fade as the lights of the city came into view. 

It was a sister beach day and she remembers the look on Blossoms face when she told her the news. Tears pinched her skin as she hugged her sister close and even she had shed a few tears. She had been so happy and she was convinced that there was nothing that could ruin their moment. 

The light had turned green and her foot was on the gas. Blossom had said something about a new dress and bow but instead she let out a ear piercing scream. She felt the impact instantly. 

The other car speeding through the red light had hit them from the back seats and the car had spun and she felt her body smash against the steering wheel as the air bags inflated. 

There was so much pain as her head snapped back and when the world stopped spinning she reached over for her sister, shaking her shoulder as she felt blood in too many places. 

“B-blossom.” She screamed out but she wasn’t even sure if she had made a sound as she felt her body being taken out of the car and the world turned blurry and black. 

Her eyes were blank as she stared at the door.

“Buttercup?” The voice brought her out of her trance as she looked up. 

Blossom’s fiancee Brick stood with a bundle of flowers that he had been gripping way to tight and she was engulfed into a hug. “They said she’ll be okay.” She whispered to him but the look in his eyes said otherwise. 

The nurse brought him in and the door shut, the hallway becoming cold. She felt herself being pulled into a familiar pair of arms. The scent of pine provided instant comfort as she wrapped her arms around him. 

“I tried to get here as soon as possible but they only called today.” He kissed her temple but her usual smile wasn’t there. “Do you know how much longer you’ll be here?”

Her voice was horse as his hands came down to rub at her arms. “I should be okay for tomorrow.” She looked at her feet and sniffled. 

He could see the dread over come her body and she didn’t even hear him ask the nurse something as he took her hands and lead her out the back doors. In the back of the hospital was a small garden. A few picnic benches and a hedge maze brought some color to the bleakness of the building. 

She was thankful that her boyfriend could sense she was getting antsy inside. They didn’t say anything as they walk and she was thankful that it was just them as they sat at a picnic table. She wasn’t one to show her emotions easily but the trauma she endured was weighing heavily on her.

Buttercup sat on the top of a picnic table with Butch standing between her legs. She hated the grimy feeling of her hair and desperately wanted to have water run over her soon but right now all she wanted to do was be held by her boyfriend. 

Her eyes were on his chest, not daring to meet his eyes as he continued to brush the side bangs to the side. He was patient and silent, waiting for her to make the move, that’s what she loved so much about him. Nothing was rushed or fast pace, they could go as slow as they needed and savor all the moments.

But sometimes she wished moments would happen fast then be forgotten. 

Her lip was quivering as she rubbed the tips of her fingers together, nervousness setting in and he instantly saw the tears slip gently down. 

“Buttercup.” He whispered and she felt all her strength collapse. 

Her lip quivered before she threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into his chest. His hands wrapped around her body instantly and he kissed her head as she desperately hugged him. 

Her arms tighten, afraid that if she let go, he would be gone. The flashback of the car and all she could see was the heartbreak on his face and the destruction in his eyes. It was becoming all to much. 

“It was all my fault” Her voice was cracked as she sobbed and he dug his fingers through her matted hair.

“Don’t you ever say that. It was not your fault.” He tried to reason with her. She want to believe so badly. She wanted to know for sure but maybe if she had checked, no the light was green. It was green!

“I-I can’t lose her Butch.” 

“You’re not going to.” He pulled away and cupped her face with his hands. His own eyes were filled with tears and her hands rested on his wrists as she stared at him. “Shes going to okay. Okay?” 

Her head slowly shook as she blinked away the tears and his thumbs circled her swelled cheeks. 

“I was so worried.” He whispered as his forehead rested against hers. “When they called, Buttercup I didn’t know what to do. But I had to tell myself you were okay and look you are but, fuck-I’ve never been that scared in my life. Buttercup, I can’t even imagine what i would do without you. I love you so much.” 

“I lost her.” She cried into his chest again. 

“No, Blossom is okay. Shes in good hands-”

Her voice was muffled by his shirt as she whispered. His hands were back rubbing her back and kissing the top of her head. She said it again but he couldn’t make it out. 

“I’m sorry.” She crocked out and this time her face was red and broken. There was desperation written across and he had never seen her look this...lost. 

Her face was puffy and her eyes flickers back and forth to his. Her body was ice cold and he tried to make her understand. 

“Baby its not your fault, the crash wasn’t your fault. Blossom is okay. Love, you are okay.”

“They told me I lost-”

“Lost?” 

“I-” His eyes traveled to where her hands were resting. 

lost?

lost?

oh.

Oh.

OH.

His eyes widened as she couldn’t bare to finish the sentence. He gently took her hands in his. “Hey.” His voice was soft and he picked her head up gently with his hand. “Buttercup.”

“I lost our baby. You didn’t even know.” Tears fell faster and harder and she felt like she couldn’t breath. “I am so sor-”

“Do not apologize.” He begged her. His eyes were wide. “Buttercup I could never blame you for something out of your control.”

She wiped her cheek. “They told me I wouldn’t be able to have kids again.”

He felt his heart shatter. They had talked about kids for so long. The thought of them taking their bundle of joy to their first sports game and teaching them how to read and write. The giggles and laughter they would share as they fell into a domestic bliss that they desperately craved. 

She had found out a week ago. The feeling of pure joy as the two small line appeared was something she couldn’t describe. The newest chapter of her life was about to begin and she was ready. 

And then there was Blossom. Her older sister had wanted a baby but unfortunately couldn’t have one so when she learned she was going to be an auntie, she cried tears of joy. Matching bows and cute little dresses were what she talked about during their beach trip. Their little sister Bubbles was on the phone back home with their father and they were just as excited. 

She could see it now. Getting home and running towards Butch. Throwing herself into his arms and kissing him senseless as she shared the news. She could see his face confused then morphed into pure glee. He would shed a tear and she would laugh and then they would celebrate with cake and a movie. 

The next few months would be her complaining about cravings and him adoring every moment of his girlfriend and quickly propose to prove he was there for her. She could see their life as if it were a movie. 

And now it was over. 

He held her close to his chest. The unbearable weight of the situation riding on them. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was carrying and the blame she was placing but all he knew was that she was safe and still here and thats all he could ask for. 

“I could never love you less.” He reassured her. “I need you to promise me you won’t forget. No matter what we face, we will get through this.” 

He took her hand and placed a soft kiss to it before kissing her cheek. 

“I love you.” He whispered. 

“I love you too.” 

They sat in the garden holding each other as the realization dawned on them. They were full of heartbreak and sorrow.

-----

idk how to end this. so ugh enjoy. maybe ill rewrite this one day. hope this was okay.