#stein didn’t talk much as a little kid

[gx-gameon]

Just as a change in your GX fic, I can see Atem having Jaden take his studies seriously. Not to the point where he's top of the class, but he's above average but has some pretty niche knowledge, like about ancient cultures and can speak/write in what people thought were previously dead languages (Atem would make a living translating ancient languages he's a living Rosetta Stone).

If anything, that one teacher Professor Stein would hate Jaden not because he inspires others to slack off in class, but Jaden's insistence to stay in Slifer Red despite having everything at his fingertips is like a slap in the face for Professor Stein who grew up poor and had to fight for everything he had. Jaden didn't know what that was like and is just slumming it in his eyes.

I love this.

Jaden being a ‘Slacker’ is something I struggle with constantly in this au.

Kaiba had a crazy study regiment and while he didn’t force it on Mokuba and I doubt he would force it on Jaden (or that Yugi would let him) I don’t think he’d be happy with failing grades

Yugi was valedictorian (according to DSOD) I think he struggled early on because of everything going on and his lack of interest in anything outside of games but threw himself into studying after Atem left.

Atem. See everything you stated. Because you’re correct.

I but I’m going to argue that Jaden isn’t a Slacker because he doesn’t want to learn. It’s a mixture of he already knows all the answers, because of his family and connections.

But more importantly his brain was literally fried by his birth parents.

Jaden does really well in one on one lessons. Learning from Atem or Yugi. Studying langue’s with tutors. He does really well when he can take things at his pace and it’s presented in a way that he can understand and learn from.

But his brain was fried. He struggles remembering something (which I have another ask on that I’ll talk about later)

The traditional classroom is hard on him. His brain just can’t catch on without asking at least 10 questions. It’s why he sleeps in class so much. He loses track of where they are and they won’t answer a Slifer’s questions.

However he can’t fail out, so he needs find a new way of figuring out the in formation. Luckily he’s had a decade to learn how he best processes information.

You also have to remember that he was offered to move up to Ra with in the first 10 episodes because of his dueling ability but chose to stay in red with Syrus. So it’s not that his grades are holding him back he is refusing to move up.

So I think Jaden comes up with a study habit/style that benefits him. He’s never going to be top of the class (mainly because he’s got some learning disability’s from his brain being fried and Duel Academy doesn’t seem like it be the best school for helping kids with learning disabilities.) he can’t test well. But he’s passing.

He shows Syrus his way of studying and it makes more sense than what’s happening in class. (Reading the actual text and taking notes) Bastion and Alexis join their little study group. Alexis and Bastion can understand the lectures and combined their lecturer notes with Jaden’s text notes and it makes an all encompassing study guide for the group.

Professor Stein hates Jaden for two reasons. Everyone is now skipping class but they are also passing. This is because Jaden’s way of learning makes way more sense to most of the students. It’s hands on and is more effective than a straight lecture. (He might also be teaching straight from the text and why would you go to a lecture that you could read in a comfortable spot, in bed or sitting outside)

I don’t know Stein maybe look at your teaching style and ask if you reaching all different learning styles? Straight lectures don’t work for most people. But I digress.

But this is a Great War of mine. I don’t want Jaden to be such a slacker because I don’t think Seto, Yugi, or Atem would be happy with him. But I also don’t want to change Jaden to the smartest most hard working kid ever.

And the thing is cannon Jaden is smart. He’s got good strategies and can problem solve. He’s not book smart but he’s not stupid. He’s socially inept from a lack of friends growing up (and likely neglectful parents but don’t worry I’ve fixed that) and he struggles with learning but he I wonder why when his parents fried his brain as a baby.

So I think Jaden does try in his studies and between his duel record and hard work could have been Obelisk by the end of his 1st year. He just refuses to move up. Probably failed a few test on purpose so they couldn’t move him.

Between the class not being set up for students like him and have a good grasp on everything they are teaching because of his family it’s no wonder he skips class.

I do love everything you listed out and I’ll have a lot to think about. This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot but haven’t brought up because I wasn’t sure how to present it yet. Let me know what y’all think we should do with Jaden and his study habits.

[shrinkthisviolet]

8 + Cisco and Morgan for the angsty writing prompts.

Gladly! This takes place during Chapter 8 of i still love you (i promise), with flashbacks to were you lying to me (and the family)?:

Cisco couldn’t stop thinking about what Joe had said.

“Did you know he was friends with Simon Stagg? General Eiling? Do you know how many contacts he has, in very powerful positions?”

He’d known about Eiling, but…not Stagg. And he couldn’t deny that Dr. Wells being so cozy with people like that…it made Cisco nervous. More than he was willing to admit.

But it wasn’t just that. The part that really stuck out to him was…

“Or, actually, let’s start smaller: what about the way he treats his daughter? The way he talks to her sometimes?”

He didn’t want to admit it. He really didn’t. But…it was true, wasn’t it? The way Dr. Wells sometimes spoke to Morgan like she was years younger, a little girl instead of a teenager…sure, teenagers were still kids, and every child was their parents’ baby, but this felt…this felt like more than that.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it when he went back to STAR Labs, as much as he tried to distract himself.

Naturally, given his luck, he walked right into a question of ethics.

“It seems Ronnie’s fight with the Flash has exacerbated the FIRESTORM Matrix—it’s unstable.” Dr. Wells sighed. “Exponentially increasing the rate of fission inside his body.”

“Well, how long does he have?” Caitlin asked, frowning.

“If his temperature keeps rising at the current pace…no more than a couple of hours, I’m afraid.”

“But you can fix it, right?” She insisted. “I mean, you…you can separate them before it’s too late.”

“Caitlin…” he sighed. “Any attempt we make to separate the two of them could be catastrophic…a nuclear explosion.”

“So it’s the same consequence either way?” Morgan spoke up, worried. “Then why shouldn’t we try?”

He frowned. “You would risk the life of our colleague—of your self-proclaimed brother—on the basis of a foolish hope?”

“At least we could say we’ve done something!”

“Yes, I suppose we could,” he agreed sharply. “We could delude ourselves into thinking we know best, that our judgment is sound—we could make a deadly decision that only a miracle could save us from. And I’m afraid we’re fresh out of miracles. So go on, Sentry, self-proclaimed protector of all metahumans, do tell: is this really the path you wish to pursue?”

Cisco froze. That…that was so much worse than anything before.

Before, Dr. Wells had patronized her, talking to her like she was younger.

Now, though? Now…he spoke to her like she was older. Like the world rested on her shoulders, like the onus was all on her—

This isn’t fair, this isn’t—why?! Why are you talking to her like that?!

And then it got worse.

“You want to kill Ronnie?” Caitlin’s expression reflected the horror they all felt—how could he, how could he—Ronnie was their friend, Caitlin’s fiancé—how could Dr. Wells suggest—

“No, I don’t want to kill Ronnie,” Dr. Wells retorted, cold and clinical, as if Ronnie was a specimen rather than a person, “but in this scenario, Ronnie is the host body.”

“If you kill Ronnie, you kill Stein,” Cisco retorted, “that’s two people!”

“I don’t know how else to stop it. And my guess is that if Ronnie and Professor Stein knew the consequences that we were all facing, they would make the same decision. It’s two lives for millions. I know you can all do that math.” His gaze drifted past Morgan and settled on Caitlin.

Cisco was all too glad to leave that room, secure in knowing that Caitlin would chew Dr. Wells out for even thinking of that solution, let alone saying it like that.

And in the meantime…

His gaze drifted to Morgan, who looked terrified, shaking in her shoes.

He couldn’t imagine how horrible that had been for her.

“Did something happen in the past few days?” She spoke up suddenly, turning to him.

“What?” Cisco laughed nervously. “No, nothing, why?”

“You just seem kinda jumpy,” she said gently, her fear seeming to dissipate as she focused on him. “And…look, you don’t have to tell me. I’m just…really worried.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Well, you should worry less about us and more about yourself, Mo.”

She flinched, pulling away from him. “Well, all right, then. Sorry for…just…sorry, I guess.”

Stunned by her reaction, it was a few moments later when he finally called, “Morgan,” and started after her, desperate to explain…but she didn’t seem to hear him, turning the corner without so much as a backwards glance.

Cisco, for his part, scrubbed a hand over his face, tears welling in his eyes.

God, how was he supposed to deal with hero worship chipping away in the worst way possible? How many times had Dr. Wells spoken to Morgan harshly, how much had Cisco missed because he was so desperate for Dr. Wells’s gentle smile, his approval, his praise—so desperate for a father figure who loved him without reservation?

And that was rare for Dr. Wells too—he was reserved with nearly everyone except their little tight-knit Team.

(And Hartley. But Cisco refused to think about Hartley.)

But Morgan…

Cisco knew he could stop at this. He could make excuses for Dr. Wells, could go on justifying him to Joe, could comfort Morgan—he could keep having it all.

…or he could do the right thing and protect Morgan from what appeared more and more to be a clear danger of some kind.

And Cisco…well, he was a hero through and through.

But he also knew he couldn’t do it alone…and that one person, one of the most important in this equation, wasn’t yet on board.

Maybe this would be just the thing to snap Barry Allen out of his ridiculous anger.

prompt list!

Taglist (send an ask or DM to be added or removed):

@arrthurpendragon @ocappreciationtag @raith-way @vexic929 @ironverseocs

@thechaoticfanartist @goldheartedchaoticdisaster @negative-speedforce @starstruckpurpledragon @angst-is-love-angst-is-life

@miss-eli-starfleet

[iamveronica]

i can go for weeks feeling a great deal of affection towards Johnny but then he will say something that irks me and my goodwill goes out the window and i remember people snidely calling him Johnny Marrtyr and “boring guitar nerd” and laugh 

Seymour Stein. Legendary record man. Signed me to Sire Records in 1984

what do you mean “me” what do you mean YOU

Johnny loves calling other people straight and squares but Set the Boy Free post-Smiths was a slog to get through for the most part. congrats on your straight-edge lifestyle, marathon man. genuinely happy for you but wrap it up. out of his post-Smiths work, i mostly just like The The and his solo stuff. not that the whole throwing tomatoes at passersby with Matt Johnson story impressed me either. it just made me go wtf. i was horrified and horribly disappointed by how pedestrian guitar rock The Cribs record was. don’t get me started on Modest Mouse’s singer’s voice. that is to say, i’ve given most of his contributions to music post-Smiths the old college try. ok so you lied to Noel about listening to his tape, ok why. did you not want to hurt his feelings or will you say anything to ingratiate yourself with people? out of Johnny Marr was born the evil that is Oasis, possibly his most unforgivable sin (i am KIDDING btw none of this is serious). the jamming sesh with Paul McCartney that went nowhere. love that for you anyway 

not that Morrissey was much better in roughly the last quarter of Autobiography with the whole rundown of the venues and crowds he played to but he still managed to make me laugh or sit there agape, like his little anecdote of graciously supplying a homeless lady with the entire stock of his hotel room’s mini bar only to be chastised by an unnamed band member with the suggestion that she might be a recovering alcoholic, and Morrissey having nothing to say to that except “Yes, well...” MORRISSEY! or the kidnapping attempt in Mexico that i’m still not sure if i read it in Morrissey’s autobiography or if it was a Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul subplot or both. also:

My nightly walks with Jesse would begin at the tip of Villa Borghese where Via Ulisse Aldrovandi lines up its glossy array of roadside prostitutes – mostly male, hard-bitten heroes fastidiously attired as sons of Eros. Their eyes are darts of desire, standing in the trees beyond, with legs wide apart. Every single night they are there, like a soccer team awaiting the club bus, and we are struck by how none of them are identifiably emasculated; they are just manly sons of mothers in search of others.

his Every single night they are there made me wonder whether it was a safe assumption on his part or his testimony to also being there every single night, gawking. a stunning passage either way 

credit where it’s due, Johnny was very engaging in his descriptions of his child/teenagehood and his road to Morrissey’s doorstep. Set the Boy Free is worth it just for that

i did remember the origin of the Rolling Stones’ Angie tidbit that i mentioned, as it relates to Johnny’s wedding and of COURSE it was Simon Goddard, writing for Pitchfork:

Even his wedding to lifelong girlfriend Angie leaves best man Morrissey on the cutting room floor, similarly robbing the reader of the spooky coincidence that as the newlyweds climbed into a car after the service, the Rolling Stones’ “Angie” magically piped up on the radio. The handsome devil is in such details. Without them, *Set The Boy Free *is the drabbest of plain Janes.

so unkind

but it also reminded me of another IRKSOME thing Johnny did: 

When he dismisses Morrissey’s godhead Oscar Wilde, whose “talent was spoiled by his smug self-regard and pomposity,” the eyebrow needn’t arch very high before registering the inference.

it didn’t make me raise my eyebrow so much as roll my eyes

anyway, i can’t believe it’s 2023 and people are talking about a Smiths reunion again and it’s all down to a few charitable lines Morrissey let slip in the last 24 hours:

If you could go back in time, right back to the 80’s, and start your music journey over again, is there anything you would change or do differently, or are you content and satisfied with your journey and how you have traversed the entertainment world?

I absolutely love it.  I think the songs are magnificent and after all of the prejudicial crap from the press … my soul is still my own.

That’s good to hear.

To have the Smiths as your distant roots gives me pride, and the reasons why we were ridiculed and rejected have now become the precise reasons why so many people love the Smiths in 2023. It’s on the rise!

outside of tumblr, being a Moz fan who likes, nay, loves Johnny, makes me feel like an oddity

anyway 

Do you find this as utterly confusing as the rest of us, that they claim to dislike you, yet can’t quite manage to leave you alone?

It comes across mostly as sexual obsession.

when he’s right, he’s right

[itsallmadonnasfault]

"The series of events that brought Madonna to my hospital bed began months earlier when Mark Kamins started dropping hints," Stein shared with Variety in 2018. "Danceteria was still the number-one downtown club, and Mark was arguably New York’s hottest deejay. Unfortunately, he wasn’t making enough money and knew he had to broaden his professional horizons while he was in such demand. I told him flat out that no big artist would ever risk working with an unproven producer, even if he was New York’s hippest deejay. Like everyone else, he’d have to earn his stripes by finding nobodies and making them sound like stars."

Kamins accepted the challenge: "I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been played this demo yet, so I arranged for my secretary to send the cassette into Lenox Hill Hospital, where I duly slotted it into my Sony Walkman," Stein recalled. "As penicillin dripped into my heart, I lay there and listened to Mark’s first find. I’m sure I was going nuts in that little room, but I immediately felt an excitement. I liked the hook, I liked Madonna’s voice, I liked the feel, and I liked the name Madonna. I liked it all and played it again. I never overanalyze or suck the life out of whatever I instinctively enjoy. I reached over and called up Mark. 'Can I meet you and Madonna?'"

Kamins brought the aspiring singer to Stein's hospital bed, where Madonna turned up the heat: "She was all dolled up in cheap punky gear, the kind of club kid who looked absurdly out of place in a cardiac ward," Stein laughed. "She wasn’t even interested in hearing me explain how much I liked her demo. 'The thing to do now,” she said, 'is sign me to a record deal.' She then opened her arms and laughed. 'Take me, I’m yours!' She was goofing around doing a Lolita routine because I was twice her age. Or maybe I really was smiling back at her like a dirty old man, because she didn’t take long to cut through all the small talk and go straight for the kill. Peering into the back of my head with those Madonna eyes, she said, 'And now, you give me the money.'"

More

[let-me-take-your-soul]

So IDK if you know this, but apparently some researchers speculate that obsessive-compulsive behaviour contributes to the development of BIID (body integrity identity disorder).

If you don't know what that is here's the def-

The extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord.

And a news article talking about a man named Sean O'Conner who describes his experience with it-

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23620-mindscapes-the-man-who-needs-to-paralyse-himself/

So I was thinking, ya know, Obbseessive compulsive behaviour? I think it would be super interesting (If a tad bit quite dark) if you could write about Kid having this and the Spartoi finding out?

(I'll understand if not of course! There isn't much knows about BIID so I get it would be challenging to write with.)

Ooooh, this is really interesting! I've heard about this a little bit before, but I don't know much about it. I wrote a little snippet for this, but didn't go into too much detail since I still don't know a lot. Still, I hope it's enjoyable!

Kid struggling with BIID:

It was common knowledge amongst Kid’s friends now that he struggled with OCD. As a whole, they supported him in any way that they could even if his actions didn’t make sense to them. After a particularly rough sparring match, the group had gone together to get their wounds fixed up with Dr. Stein. It seemed so casual when Kid asked– the group started giggling at first at the outlandish request.

“Since you’ve got all of your equipment out already, would you be willing to perform a double leg amputation for me?”

Even Stein audibly laughed at the question as he answered, “Sure, just make sure you get it in writing from your dad first. I don’t want to face his wrath.”

The group moved on, but Kid seemed to be concerned and disappointed as he looked down at his legs, watching them closely as the group walked towards their usual hangout spot.

“Do you think my father would let me go through with that operation?” he asks his friends.

They each give him a strange look.

“Kid, I think you’re committing to the bit a little too much now,” Soul tells him.

Kid gives his friends a quizzical look.

“There is no bit. I was being dead serious.”

“Huh?? Since when have you wanted to end up with no legs? What are you talking about, Kid?” Liz asks.

“Maybe it’s because of the major differences in how I look in contrast to my father… I don’t know, but I feel that it’s a thought I’ve always had. Some days that thought is stronger and some days I can easily push it out of my mind, but it feels wrong walking like I’m human,” he tries to explain. “Does that make any sense?”

“Not in the slightest, dude. Like, do we need to intervene in any way?” Black*Star asks.

“Well… I think I’ve read something about this sort of thing. It sounds like you’re experiencing something like Body Integrity Identity Disorder,” Maka chimes in. “I’m not a doctor, so I don’t want to try to diagnose you with anything. At the very least, those are some pretty intense thoughts, so I’d encourage talking to someone who does know more about it.”

“Yeah, probably not Stein though. You might just encourage him to make a major surgery for the hell of it,” Soul says.4

Kid hums gently in response.

“Yes, I suppose that’s fair. I can understand why it could be seen as a very dangerous thought. I promise that I won’t do anything to put myself into harm's way while I get my mind sorted out a bit more.”

“Okay, just remember that Patty and I are here for you if you need us, okay? We’re your weapons after all,” Liz tells him, Patty nods vigorously next to her sister, most of the conversation having gone over her head a little.

“Same goes for all of us. We aren’t your weapon partners, but we’re all a team. So if that impulse gets too strong and you feel that you might try to cause harm to yourself, don’t hesitate to reach out!” Tsubaki tells him.

“Exactly! And honestly, above all else, if you have to get surgery… for anything really… maybe don’t ask Stein for it,” Maka says.

The group breaks into laughter. They felt that they may never fully understand Kid’s mind, but all of them had accepted that and overall wanted to find the best ways they could to help whenever it was needed.

[taiblogcomics]

Mettle of Honour

Hey there, technical difficulties. Well. Hoo boy. This one's probably been a long time coming.

So, like. We've been reviewing mostly fun things the last few months. A while now, even. We've had it good too long. Now it's time to review something I actually hate. And I do mean hate. I will probably get actually angry at parts of this review. For the next while. Because it's finally time. It's been a while. In fact, it's been almost ten years by now. But we're finally gonna review all 18 issues of Avengers Arena.

Yeah, you remember this shit? This stupid-ass, edgelord series? When the ol' execs at Marvel got together and said "Hey, you guys seen that new Hunger Games thing that came out last year? (Because it's 2013.) Let's get some of our C-lister teens and do that!" And oh boy, if you remember my review of Heroes in Crisis, you can guess how much I love the idea of killing off C-listers, especially teens. Especially when you get actual characters I care about involved. Because this shit's not even an isolated series! No, this goddamn piece of trash is a follow-up.

Yeah, this little feculant little pile of dreck was actually a sequel to another series that I actually liked and recommend: Avengers Academy. The premise here was, basically not every teen hero can be Miles Morales (who was not mainstream yet) or Kamala Khan (who did not exist yet). But you get what I mean. Here's your washout teen heroes, your problem kids. The ones voted "Most likely to someday become a supervillain" in the hero yearbook. So we're gonna send them to remedial superhero school and teach them to be better--or at least have an eye on them for early warning signs.

Fantastic. That's a great idea for a series! And I actually did love it, it was a terrific premise. You got Reptil, that kid who turns into dinosaurs they made up to promote that Superhero Squad show, as your token "actually a good kid". Mettle, a surfer boy who turned into a cross between Colossus and the Red Skull. There's Hazmat, the radioactive girl. And a few others that aren't going to be relevant to this series! Put them in a school, have some of our equally problemic superheroes (such as Speedball, finally restored from that stupid-ass decision to turn him into Penance) on hand to teach 'em, and build some character dramas out of that.

And they did, and it was great! Which leads us to here. I guess we can finally talk about this thing, starting with the cover:

Haha, do you get it? It's like Battle Royale, that other popular movie about teens murdering each other. Do you get it?? Isn't that cool and edgy?? Ugh. I guess it'll sell to whoever you're trying to reach with this garbage. I will say, though, I do kind of like the seal making up the logo, at least. The tilted As going around in a ring? That's at least neat visual design. That's about all the credit I'm going to give here.

While we're here, though, since I don't have much else to say about the cover, let's get this out of the way instead: the author. Now, I'm not gonna mock the guy too heavily. I understand editorial mandates, and as far as I know, the guy was only hired to write this series, he didn't come up with it himself. And I won't pick on him too much for that. But oh boy, here's the expected joke: It's really not a good look for your teen murder comic when the author is literally named "Hopeless", is it~? That really puts you in the right level of expectation from the outset~

Anyways, I might as well keep putting off reviewing this and introduce our cast! I mean, you'll get to know them while the series is going, there's character focus and stuff. But as far as I know, there's no quick sitdown "who's who" of our characters, so I might as well give you a reference guide.

Reptil, Hazmat, and Mettle - I intro'd them above, but they're the ones we're inheriting from Avengers Academy.

Nico Minoru and Chase Stein - Oh no, they dragged poor Runaways into this dreck, too, didn't they? Chase is a dopey tech guy, and Nico is a goth magic user.

Juston and his Sentinel - From the series Sentinel. Juston's just a kid, but he's clever enough to make an old mutant-killing Sentinel into the Iron Giant.

X-23 - The opposite sex clone of Wolverine from a variety of X-Men works. Kind of telegraphed to be the main survivor, considering she was already lined up for another series after this.

Darkhawk - Classic '90s character with his own eponymous series. Transforms with a magic amulet.

Cammi - An obscure teen with a space gun from a Guardians of the Galaxy series. And, like, this was before that movie came out, so I mean really obscure.

Red Raven - Possibly even more obscure, a legacy hero to another character from the '40s. One of the bird people of Aerie, she actually debuted in the same comic that introduced Squirrel Girl. No wonder we haven't heard of her~

Deathlocket - Invented for this book, she's a teen girl version of Deathlok, and therefore has cyborg powers

The Braddock Academy kids - Also all invented for this book, they attend Captain Britain's eponymous academy. Intended to be the breakout stars and get their own spinoff, it ends up that all of them suck and I hate them. Probably so did everyone else, since they never got that spinoff. You've got Apex, Nara, Kid Briton, Cullen Bloodstone, and Anachronism. Five doofuses we don't actually care if they survive because they were invented for the story, and thus kind of defeats putting them in a death game. And speaking of that death game...

So we open with Hazmat running through the woods, her helmet cracked and radioactive gas(?) leaking out. She's also monologuing about how much she loves complaining and being a hater, and as someone who is reading this comic, I can relate. That's the whole reason I'm here! That's not why Hazmat's running, though. X-23's after her. Yeah, that should get anyone to run. Even blasting X-23 with enough radiation to roast her face off doesn't slow her down. As X-23 pounces on her, Hazmat also muses that she's ready to die. Once again, right on the reader's pulse here.

We dip back to the initial incident. One of the main things with Mettle and Hazmat is that they ended up in a relationship because they're immune to each other's powers. Mettle's metal skin protects him from Hazmat's radioactive nature. They can interact and provide for each other things and sensations they can't otherwise feel! So, yeah, in short they're looking for a place to, shall we say, get their groove on. And just as they're settling in for an intimate moment, there's a flash and suddenly they're somewhere else.

All the teens are hanging in a magic floaty ring over a burning field, and we get our villain of the piece. I think this one of the big missteps of the series, beyond just making it in the first place. So the foe here is X-Men's recurring loser Arcade. And you can tell an "edgy" series when they take a long-existing character that's generally perceived as a loser and ramping them up to uber-god levels. And that's what they've done here. Arcade's no longer just an ineffective goon who builds deathtraps that don't work. He's got long hair now.

This whole scene is here essentially to jerk Arcade off for the audience. It really screams "Look at our villain, he's so cool and completely untouchable!" That's basically what this is, too. Arcade appears, announces his plan to set up a fancy fight of 16 teens killing each other, and even references that he got the idea from a couple books he read while in the slammer. You know, coz if we're lazily gonna steal a plot concept and everybody knows it, why even bother to hide it~? Once he's done gloating, he releases them, and a fight breaks out.

This is where the real villain shilling starts, because continual loser baseline human Arcade continually dodges around and tanks hits from the various teen heroes. Like, the same blast that cooked the skin off X-23 a few pages ago? Doesn't even singe his tacky white tux. So yeah, the only way we can make our villain threatening is by turning on the god-mode cheats. Great way to start. He knocks the kids around for a while, then gets bored and decides to start the game. He'll start them with a choice.

THe guy with the axe, Anachronism, he rightly points out that just because Arcade's gathered them up and beaten them up doesn't mean a bunch of heroes are gonna start murdering on his say-so. And Arcade launches into a tiresome little spiel about the human condition, and basically that some folks probably are killers deep down if you push them the right way, and he's betting at least a couple are on his sick little island right now. So that's his deal. Someone's gonna die right here, and if no one's willing to do it, he'll do it himself. He doesn't really care, he just wants to get off on seeing teenagers die.

And there isn't really any debate. Nobody starts whispering among each other. Instead, Hazmat just steps up to the plate and blasts the asshole with more radiation, telling him to shut up, no one's interested in playing his game. As I said, Hazmat's really echoing the reader here. But as cathartic as it is, Arcade just shrugs it off again and decides that since Hazmat is clearly struggling with the rules, she's the one who's gonna die. But before he can kill her, her boyfriend Mettle steps in and instead offers himself as sacrifice.

And so Arcade murders him.

And not simply, either. Like, he could just put a magic bullet in him. But instead, he makes this poor boy, this mutated surfer from Hawaii who was victimised by his own power and then also Norman Osborn, he makes him violently explode. Thankfully, they do it in silhouette, but it is still needlessly gory. Also, black dude dies first, if you want another reason to feel shitty about this.

Mettle was an extremely likeable character back in the Avengers Academy series, so I am just absolutely disgusted to see his character arc stop here. And you could argue this is still a heroic death, but no. There's nothing noble about volunteering to be a psychopath's victim, even to save the girl you love. What a shitty thing to do. And to make it even more shitty, that's how the book ends: with Arcade going "Welcome to Murderworld" while Hazmat is actually covered in her boyfriend's viscera.

Like, fuck this comic. Fuck this whole series. Do I really need to go into depth here? This is actually where I stopped reading when this first came out, actually. Like, I gave it a look, and the first impression totally soured me. So we’re gonna find out all these bad things together! Don’t worry, I’m in a good place personally to be doing this right now. I strongly encourage you to read something better instead of this, however. Like the ingredients list on a bag of chips, or the TV guide listings. Virtually anything would be a better read than this~

[writing-lootcrate]

Swimming Lessons

Word Count: 1,607

Fandom: Soul Eater

Character: Kisa Stein

Prompt: Stein signs Kisa up for swimming lessons

“Kisa, I have some news for you that I think you’ll be interested in.”

Kisa looked up from the book she held in her hands, brunette brow raised curiously at her father’s statement. Today had been a fairly quiet day for the younger Stein since her father had been out and about for most of it, leaving her in the lab alone with nothing but the book in her hand to occupy her. She would have been angry with him for interrupting just when the plot had begun to get interesting if she weren’t curious about what news he was planning to share with her.

“Is it about that endangered fox you dissected last week?” She couldn’t help but ask about it, knowing damn well that said fox was something that was probably incredibly rare and her father had sliced it open like it were nothing. “Is PETA trying to sue you or something? I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, this has nothing to do with the fox, Kisa.” Stein frowned at this, rolling his eyes at the thought. “Don’t even get me started about PETA since they kill more pets yearly than I’ve ever managed to lay a finger on within the span of my life.”

“Ah, I didn’t know PETA was such a shitty and hypocritical organization.” Kisa looked genuinely surprised by this, her hand moving over to the little table at her bedside as she grabbed a glass of water and took a sip from it.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Stein moved a hand to reach into the pocket of his lab coat to retrieve something, soon pulling out a colorful piece of paper that he looked over once before glancing back up to his daughter. “I wasn’t sure whether or not you would be interested, but Spirit said that I should surprise you with it. They’re some kind of swimming team or something of the sort—”

Kisa choked on the water in her mouth at the mention of swimming, the water rocketing out of her mouth and spraying Stein in the stomach thanks to the considerable height difference between the two. He couldn’t help but stare down at the wet spot on his shirt with a frown, slowly glancing back to Kisa with his expression conveying how unamused he was. “Don’t get too overexcited.”

“What the hell did you do that for?!” Kisa was hacking and coughing at this point, trying to regain her breath from her near-death experience. “Swim team?! Of all things?!”

“Oh dear, am I not fathering right?”

Kisa looked up at her father in abject horror at the thought of joining the swim team and judging from the sound of it he had already signed her up before coming home. Her heart raced at the thought of being made to swim with a team, much less being made to swim in general. It wouldn’t be so bad if she had talked things through with her dad before he had decided to sign her up for some kind of extracurricular activity. She didn’t mind having something other than school for her to do, she just needed literally anything else. 

Kisa doesn’t know how to swim.

Every time that Kisa had been made to try and swim in the past, she would always end up sinking beneath the surface after a solid minute or so of wild flailing to try and keep her body afloat. To be fair, a lot of this took place in a time when Kisa was a mere child who didn’t really know any better, though remembering the feeling of suffocation as water filled her lungs and her eyes burning as she tried to see through the endless pools of water that surrounded her on all sides was enough to make her, for the most part, hydrophobic.

“I-I mean, no, it’s fine, I just… Is this the only thing that was available? Wasn’t there something like, I don’t know, softball? Hockey? Literally anything else other than the swim team?”

“This was the only thing that was left on the bulletin board; Spirit saw that I was looking and helped talk me through it saying that extracurricular activities are good for kids your age.” Stein’s expression remained as stoic as usual, the light catching the frames of his glasses and hiding his eyes from his daughter who was very displeased with the news. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be, you know; at least give it a chance and try it out and if you still don’t like it, I won’t make you go back again.”

After a moment or so of thought, Kisa let out a pent-up sigh of frustration as she slowly nodded her head to show that she agreed with what he had planned for her. Arguing with him about it wouldn’t get her anywhere so she might as well go along with it and see what ends up happening, right?

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

The day that Kisa was dreading had finally reared its ugly head as she stood at the edge of the pool in the one-piece bathing suit for the swim team members, hoping that the slight shaking of her body from the fear of drowning would be mistaken for chills from the cooler temperature after having been made to change. The rest of her team was currently grouped together on the other side of the pool and chatting amongst themselves happily, not even sparing Kisa so much as a glance as they were far too distracted trying to befriend one another. It worked out for Kisa though, since it meant that she had a little bit of time to try and psych herself up before facing one of her biggest fears.

Kisa took a deep breath as she eyed the water from the side, slowly easing herself to the ground and sitting at the edge of the pool with her knees tucked up to her chest, leaning forward ever so slightly just to take a peek at the water without having the nerves to actually make contact with it. What really didn’t help is that she was fairly certain that Stein was still somewhere nearby, and the feeling of him somehow seeing this side of her only made things worse for her in her mind.

Having not been paying attention thanks to the pounding of her heart ringing in her ears, Kisa had lost track of the other swim team members completely as she stared at her reflection in the water, taking note that she would probably have to remove her glasses when the time came which only sent another pang of fear coursing through her as she realized that she wouldn’t even be able to properly see.

Just as she had taken a deep breath and closed her eyes as if she had come to accept the circumstances, a shove from behind sent her into a panic as her eyes opened just in time to see the water of the pool getting closer to her face, her body tumbling into the cold liquid with a splash. With her entire body submerged underneath its depths, she wasn’t able to properly hear the giggles of her fellow swim team members who were none the wiser, under the assumption that they had pulled off a simple little prank that wouldn’t amount to much of anything.

She panicked.

Every calming thought that she’d gone over to try and keep herself mentally afloat had gone out the window the moment the shock of what had happened as well as the sudden cold rush from the water hit her and reality set in. Almost as if by pure instinct, she opened her mouth to take a deep breath only for water to start rushing in to take its place. The combination of water surrounding her on all sides and losing her glasses made everything incredibly blurry, and she was certain that she had no clue which way was up and that this is where she would drown.

Kisa could feel a wave of movement from her right as if someone else had suffered the same fate as she, her limbs struggling but failing to raise her closer to the water’s surface as her lungs slowly but surely started to fail her. The feeling of someone grabbing her arm nearly sent her into an even worse frenzy until her body started to move, the figure struggling but succeeding in pulling her to safety.

The moment that her head broke the tension of the water and fresh air was dangled right in front of her, Kisa took the opportunity to cough and hack up the water that had forcefully entered her lungs, taking deep breaths as her hands gently flailed about to find the edge of the pool, clinging to it for dear life once her savior led her towards it as she struggled to breathe.

“Are you okay?”

Kisa nearly didn’t hear the person speaking to her as fear drowned out most of what was happening around her until they placed a hand on her shoulder and forced her to turn towards them slightly, the person easing one hand away from the pool’s edge (with difficulty thanks to her iron grip on it) to give her glasses back and help her see. She could only really manage a shake of her head in a small and frantic ‘no’, pulling herself closer to the wall of the pool than before as she shakily placed her glasses back over her eyes, looking around her desperately with difficulty as the water on her glasses blurred her vision and made it harder to spot a ladder or stairs to get out.

Kisa started making her way to the nearest ladder with the help of the wall as the person who had pulled her out of the water was telling off those who had pushed her in, but it fell on deaf ears as Kisa’s main focus was getting the hell out of there. As soon as her hands made contact with the cold metal of the ladder she used what remaining strength she had to pull herself up and out of the pool, walking as fast as she possibly could with her head down towards the direction of the locker room to grab her stuff and leave.

It took longer than she would have liked to change back into her regular clothes thanks to the shakiness of her hands, but once she was back in her own clothes and had wiped her glasses free of water, Kisa sat on the bench closest to her and took a moment to finally breathe, her body going slack as she allowed herself to relax before she left.

The sound of the door to the locker room opening made her turn her head away immediately, not wanting to see any of the people who may have been involved in pushing her in out of embarrassment, though a familiar voice called out to her and made her turn her head slightly, but not fully, in their direction.

“Hey! You’re Kisa, right? I wanted to come in and check on you…”

Kisa immediately recognized the voice as the one that had come from the person who had essentially saved her life mere moments ago, taking in the girl’s taupe-colored hair held up in pigtails and her pale green eyes, currently looking at her in genuine concern after the recent fiasco.

“Y-Yeah, I’m Kisa…”

She mentally cursed at herself at the sound of her voice quivering in response, settling for looking down at her hands as she clenched and unclenched them as a distraction. The sound of footsteps coming closer had her eyes slowly drift to the floor at the girl’s feet for a moment, quickly moving back to her hands at the sound of the girl sitting down beside her.

“I…” Kisa’s voice seemed to be failing her as she struggled to find the words she wanted to say, cheeks reddening in embarrassment as she turned away from the kind girl, finding a rather interesting crack in the wall to stare at. “I don’t know how to swim.” 

She didn’t give the girl the chance to respond as she finally let go of the irritation and fear that was weighing on her that day, finally risking a look to the other and nearly stopping at the sight of her listening patiently. “I didn’t even want to do this in the first place, but my dad signed me up for it without asking me, and now I’m stuck here because he told me I should at least ‘give it a try’, but I didn’t have the guts to tell him that I don’t even fucking know how to swim in the first place, and because of that I nearly drowned before practice had even started—”

Kisa went on to vent to the girl for a moment or so longer, only stopping when she realized that she didn’t really ask to listen in on her problems, her posture slackening as she sighed in irritation at the entire thing. This whole ordeal could have been avoided if she would have just spoken up to her father about the situation, but instead her own stubbornness and fear had nearly cost her life to drown away.

“Thank you for saving me.”

The girl gave her a gentle pat on the back in response to this along with a “no problem!’ as the two settled into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, the quiet only being broken once the girl spoke up.

“To be honest, I didn’t really want to do this either; actually, my father was the one who signed me up for this as well, but of course, he went and did it without asking me.” She huffed in annoyance at her own misfortune, crossing her arms over her chest. “That idiot has no clue what kind of things that I’m into, but he’s too persistent to just leave me alone.”

She sighed after speaking and took a moment to shake her head, looking over at Kisa and offering her hand to the other as she went to stand, offering Kisa a smile. “Since neither of us really want to be here, let’s just leave and do something else; I’ve got things to do anyway and I’m sure that you don’t really want to be here any longer either, right?”

Kisa hesitated a moment as she stared at the girl’s hand, feeling a smile start to tug at her lips as she placed her hand in the other’s own, bringing herself to her feet as she nodded in agreement. There was no way in hell that she was going to stay here and make a fool of herself all over again. As soon as Kisa had agreed to her plan, the girl offered a smile as she turned to one of the lockers and grabbed her clothes to change, and once the two were ready they made their way out of the locker room and head towards the exit.

“So, Kisa is your name, right? I’m Maka, a meister at the DWMA; it sucks that we met this way, but maybe this was fate or something?” Maka put her hand out for Kisa to shake once again, a smile passing between the two as they were about to go their separate ways. Kisa returned the handshake with a small nod of agreement and the two parted, though just as Kisa turned to leave and begin her trip towards home, Maka spoke up once again.

“Hey… If you aren’t busy or anything, would you like to join me? I’m meeting up with some friends in a little bit and I don’t think they’d mind if you tagged along.”

Kisa turned around with her eyes widening a little in surprise, not quite expecting someone to have wanted to befriend her so soon after coming here, her stomach trying not to do somersaults at the revelation. After a second though, she realized that Maka was looking at her expectantly waiting for a response, and her brain fried, her words coming out in stutters and utter nonsense. 

“W-Well, I don’t really want to intrude or anything on your gathering and all, so—”

Sensing her hesitation, Maka took her hand and began to pull Kisa after her with a gentle laugh. “Nonsense! C’mon, they’re waiting for us at the basketball court; I’m sure they’ll like you and see how nice you are! Plus, there’s a bench there where you can sit out and take a break if you aren’t really feeling up to it, though I can’t guarantee that Blackstar won’t talk your ear off about joining for a game, but even then—”

Finally gaining control of her footing, Kisa walked alongside Maka hand in hand as she listened to her ramble about her friends and what they were like, doing her best to follow along in her mind what to expect from who before she got there. She was both absolutely terrified of the idea of meeting all of these people as well as excited, though she’d never mention the latter aloud even if her life depended on it. Despite having nearly drowned in the pool less than an hour prior, things seemed to be working in her favor as she smiled at Maka nervously as the two made their way to the basketball court where even more new people await.

[crowsyart]

Some baby spiritstein and spirits pelt pattern(he has a cross mark on his back) of course he’s a lot redder but yeah

Stein is also trans because. I’m projecting

[slugbugmug]

Totally Platonic Kissing Practice Chapter 2

Chapter 1 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Rating: Explicit (probably closer to a high M, but I wanted to be safe)

Summary: A concussed Maka asks Soul to read to her and it unexpectedly leads to a very ill-advised agreement between them.

Soul teaches Maka how to kiss. Completely platonically, of course.

AO3 tags (for whole fic): Kissing, Making Out, Practice Kissing, Ill advised agreements, they are dorks, Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, Library makeouts. Lots of kissing, just so much making out, Concussions, but really just for plot reasons to keep maka bored, Tickle Fights, Tickling, Kissing Lessons, Dry Humping, Coming In Pants, well that escalated

Chapter Summary: More kisses. That it, that's basically the whole story.

Read on AO3

Chapter 2

Soul went to work the next day, so Maka, still not allowed to do anything that would strain her brain, was home alone. She pouted as he left, annoyed at her one source of acceptable entertainment was gone. Concussions were the worst. They also seemed to be one of the few ailments that both Dr. Stein and Nygus never joked around about. She tried to brush them off at first, but when she mentioned she had briefly blacked out after her head hit the stone wall, she had been subjected to a lecture on head injuries and how they can cause long term effects if left untreated. After the third story about a meister who lost their ability to match wavelengths with anyone after a head injury, she got the picture and agreed to take it seriously.

Soul had stayed home with her the first couple of days, but Kid called him in to do some work that morning, so she was bored and alone. Between missions, Soul had plenty of Death Scythe duties, mostly involving helping Kid out with logistics. Kid didn’t wield him (he still couldn’t bear to wield a single weapon, and was far too attached to the Thompson) but Soul still worked directly for him when he was needed.

Maka usually had her own things to distract her when they weren't on missions. She was doing post grad studies researching soul perception with Dr. Stein and taking some online classes from a more traditional college, as well as working part time in the DWMA library. But Stein specifically told her if she did any work for him he would cut off her ears and sew them back on upside down, and the head librarian was far too afraid of him to give her any shifts.

All she had left was INFO153: Introduction to Databases and there was only so much of that she could handle in a day, even without the concussion.

Maka sighed and closed her laptop when she realized she hadn’t been paying attention to a single thing the instructor had been saying for the entire video. She was wasting her precious screen time being distracted.

She was distracted because she couldn’t stop thinking about kissing.

Ever since the kissing practice she had done with Soul the previous day, it had been pretty much the only thing on her mind.

They didn’t talk about it after she woke up from her nap, or this morning before he went to work, but it seemed like everything was normal between them. It seemed like they had a friendship that could handle a little bit of platonic kissing, which was pretty awesome. She always knew they had the best partnership and the best friendship, and this was just more proof.

Because kissing was great.  

Suddenly, she understood what everyone always made such a big fuss about. She had always been so baffled and annoyed that Soul had dated Jenny for even a week, when it was so obvious she was terrible for him. He had only gone on that initial date with her because she said she would leave him alone if he did and he had texted Maka the whole time complaining. When he came home with a dazed look on his face and said he had a lunch date with her the next day, Maka had been so confused. That confusion turned to disgust when she saw them making out on the DWMA roof a couple of days later, and the reason he agreed to date her became crystal clear. It didn’t last long, because not even Soul could keep up a relationship based solely on horniness. But she understood where he was coming from a bit more. If kissing Jenny had been even a fraction as great as kissing Soul had been for Maka, then she understood it a bit, even if she didn’t approve.

Because kissing Soul had been pretty damn great. She kept thinking about his lips every time she saw him, how soft they had felt on hers, how warm his mouth was.

She sighed. Hopefully he would be down to practice some more.

By the time Soul came home, she was so bored and antsy that she could barely wait until he had taken off his shoes and sat down next to her on the couch before making her suggestion.

“I was thinking maybe we could try doing the thing we tried the other day again.”

Soul’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “The thing we did the – Oh! That.” He blushed. “Now?”

“Why not? I still can’t read that much so I’m bored and I know you were going to suggest we order in, so it’s not like we have to worry about making dinner.”  Maka was eager now. This time she was more prepared than last time and wasn’t going to get so overwhelmed. And maybe this time they could use tongues. She was very interested in the tongues.

Soul was frowning, looking unsure. “I don’t know…”

Maka frowned back, looking up at him. “Please? I really liked the last time and I want to learn more.”

He sighed and transformed his hesitant expression into his cocky smirk as he leaned against the back of the couch. “I guess if you insist .”

“Great!” She scooted forwards until their knees were touching. “So, I thought about it and I think last time was good but shouldn’t there be more touching? Also, tongues, I’m curious about tongues.”

Soul raised his eyebrows. “You’re curious about tongues?”

Maka nodded. “It seems like logically it would be gross but people seem really like it.”

He chuckled. “You nerd.” He pulled her a little closer, wrapping an arm around her waist. She felt her heat jump at his touch. He had touched her so many times, why was this time making her feel so nervous? “Let me know if you don’t like anything or want me to back off.”

She nodded and he leaned down to gently press his lips to hers.

She deepened the kiss almost immediately, bringing a hand up to his shoulder to gently hold him still, letting him know she doesn’t want him to pull away. They kissed like that for a few minutes, lips moving against each other and getting them acclimated to intimacy, and then Maka felt the kiss deepen further and something brush against her teeth.

His tongue.

She immediately opened her mouth to let it inside. Kissing with tongue was strange, but definitely not unpleasant. She pressed her tongue forward, letting it slide against his. It felt good and she found herself wanting to get even closer. The hand on his shoulder moved to the back of his head, tangling into his hair. She felt his arm around her waist tighten and pull her closer.

Eventually they had to breathe and separated, both breathing heavily. She let out a breathy laugh, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart.

“Tongues live up to your expectations?” Soul asked with a hesitant smile. His smile and voice were hesitant but he was looking at her with an intense look in his eyes, one she hadn’t ever seen on him before.

“Definitely.” She pulled him back towards her into another kiss before she had time to think too hard about how that look made her feel.

Kissing practice quickly became their new favorite hobby over the next week. Sometimes it was just a few small kisses, other times they made out on the couch for an hour. Maka still couldn’t spend as much time reading as she wanted to, so she put all her curiosity into exploring Soul’s mouth.

After a week of staying home, she was finally allowed to take a shift at the library at the reception desk. She jumped at the opportunity, eager for anything to get her out of the apartment, but she had forgotten how boring working the reception desk could be. The library was empty today, with all the librarians working on an issue down in the archives that she wasn’t allowed to help with and no upcoming tests to drive students to the stacks.

Maka sighed, rubbing her temples. She had been working on her online course for a while now and she was feeling a headache coming on.

She should see what Soul was doing. He might be free to keep her company and save her from her boredom. And if they ended up doing other activities, so be it.

You free? Come and keep me company.

This was a pretty normal ask between them. Since graduating, their daily schedules were no longer practically the same any more and so they tended to hang out during the work day when they got the chance.

be there in 5

Maka smiled down at her phone. She was excited, which was how she knew she shouldn’t even bother pretending they were going to do anything except make out. If she was being honest, she had plans . The previous night had been interesting, as she had ended up sitting in Soul’s lap as they kissed, and it was a position she wanted to explore more.

He showed up a couple of minutes later and she was chewing her lip in anticipation, her stomach feeling fluttery and weird.

“Hey,” Soul greeted, leaning against her desk. “You texted at the perfect time. I got cornered by Sid and he was definitely working up to ask me to do something I probably didn’t want to do, so you were the perfect excuse.”

Maka chuckled. “Pretty sure keeping me company is probably less important than whatever Sid was going to have you do.”

“Excuse me?” Soul put a hand dramatically over his heart. “My injured meister told me to come to her in the middle of the workday. I assume she would only do that if it was urgent and life threatening. How could I not rush over to her?”

She smacked him lightly on the arm. “Are you just using my head injury as an excuse to get out of extra work?”

He grinned widely and Maka’s heart felt strange. “Definitely.”

Maka rolled her eyes.

“So, you just bored, or did you need me for something?” Soul asked, sitting on the desk. She had long since stopped trying to get him to stop doing things like that.

Maka glanced around quickly, making sure they were still the only people in the library. “I was thinking maybe we could practice a little.” She smiled, biting her lip in a way she noticed seemed to make him react interestingly lately.

Soul blushed. “Here?”

She gestured to the empty stacks. “I mean, no one else is here.”

“Yeah, but they could come in.”

“We could do it in the back room. There’s a bell if anyone needs me.” Maka was eager now. There was something about making out in a public place that got her heart racing

Soul was frowning, looking unsure. “I don’t know…”

Maka grinned back. “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

He sighed and transformed his hesitant expression into his cocky smirk as he hopped down from the desk. “I guess if you insist .”

She smiled and grabbed his hand, leading him into the back room.

Maka was going to be the death of him. That was becoming increasingly clear. He always assumed it was going to be due to her getting them into some stupidly reckless situation during a mission, but it seems likely that she was going to give him a heart attack for entirely different reasons.

As she pulled him into the backroom of the library, he contemplated the past week. He still wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t a dream. If he was honest, making out with Maka had been a common theme in his dreams for a few years now, so he was still a bit confused about the fact it was now a regular part of his day. He had even wondered if it was an unforeseen consequence of her concussion and if he should tell Stein about it. But his desire to not talk to Stein about making out with Maka as well as the fact that she had passed all of Stein’s tests and didn’t have any other signs of personality change, made him file that idea way as unlikely .

His stupid, squishy feelings just needed to stay in check and everything would be perfect.

The back room of the library was simple, with desks and various stacks of books that weren't in circulation for whatever reason. None of them were the more valuable or dangerous books that the library held. Those were kept in secure storage when they weren’t in the restricted section.

Maka stopped suddenly, her hand still holding on to his.

“What’s wrong?” Soul asked, noticing her hesitation.

Maka hummed thoughtfully. “Trying to figure out how to position us. We normally are on the couch.” She gestured to the small room, with only office chairs for seating. “Maybe you could sit in one of the chairs and I could sit on your lap? As long as the chair didn’t move around too much, that could work.”

Soul smiled at her adorable overthinking and dutifully sat in the nearest chair. She sat sideways on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He felt his heart beat a little faster as he felt her so close to him. It was a little… but it should be fine, she was sitting more on his thighs than directly on his lap.

“You comfy?” He asked with a grin that he hoped didn’t betray his nerves. The arms of the chair made her have to twist her torso in order to face him. He put his hands on her hips to steady her.

“So comfy.” She giggled and pressed her lips against his.

He responded quickly, opening his mouth to let her in a way that had become so blissfully familiar over the past few days. She made a little happy hum against his mouth that he felt low in his stomach.

Fuck , he loved kissing her so fucking much. He was pretty sure that she could make him do anything she wanted to with the promise of a kiss at the end.

Too soon, she pulled away, and he had to stop himself from leaning forward, trying to follow her lips as they moved away, like the needy little bastard he was.

“Sorry,” She said and he felt a ball of worry tighten in his chest. Did she not want to do this anymore? “This position is kind of uncomfortable.”

“Maybe… Maybe if you put your legs here.” He gestured to the open areas in the arms of the chair. “And you can sit on me like- like this.” He blushed, gesturing that she straddle his lap.

“O-oh. That could work.” Was he just imagining her blush?

With his help, she got into position and settled back on his thighs.

Soul looked down at the girl in his lap. Oh, this may have been a mistake. Before he had any more time to consider how having Maka straddling him made feel, she covered his mouth with her own and continued where she left off.

She buried her fingers in his hair as she deepened the kiss, her tongue sliding against his. Suddenly her hands tightened, tugging lightly, and he groaned, pleasure shooting directly to his groin.

He did a quick body inventory to make sure that she couldn’t feel his excitement. She was close, closer than she had been in any of their other makeouts, but she was still far enough back on his thighs that she probably couldn’t feel it.

“You okay?” Maka murmured against his lips.

“Definitely. Definitely okay.” He pushed his lips forward in a small quick peck and she giggled before returning to the kiss.

She seemed to realize he liked having his hair tugged, because her hands were completely tangled in his hair now, tugging lightly, running her nails against his scalp. His hands tightened on her waist, clinging to that strip of bare skin where her shirt rode up. He wanted to let them wander, under the shirt, down over her ass, pull her close and grind up against her. He restrained himself, contenting himself with running his hands back and forth on that small strip of skin, savoring the warmth of her skin.

When they separated to breathe, he took the opportunity to press open mouthed kisses along the side of her neck. She gasped and squirmed in his lap, scooting forward. Her crotch ( hot, so hot, even through all the layers between them ) rubbed against his clothed erection and he tore his mouth away with a strangled moan. The chair rolled slightly from the suddenness of his movement.

“Soul? What’s wrong?” Maka asked, breathlessly, moving quickly back to her previous position and letting go of his hair.

Soul closed his eyes, trying to calm his body enough to answer. “Sorry. I was just surprised. Sorry about… that.” He gestured vaguely downwards.

Maka’s eyes darted downward quickly before returning to his face. “Oh, uh, was that your…? I wasn’t sure…”

Soul felt like his face was on fire. “Uh, yeah. It was.”

Maka hummed thoughtfully. “It… it’s okay. It’s… interesting. Informative.”

He chuckled, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze. She was chewing on her lip (red and swollen already from all the kissing) and staring at him intently.

Informative. Because this was a learning experience. Right.

“It’s physical. Kissing feels nice.” He explained, downplaying the fact that he was pretty sure part of the intensity was because he was kissing her .

“Right.” She nodded. “I get it.”

“Oh.” He hesitated. “So…?”

She laughed. “Shut up and keep kissing me, you idiot.”

He obliged. Her hands resumed their place in his hair and she slid forward to come in contact with his crotch. He tried his best not to buck up against her, but when she started a slow, subtle grind against him, he couldn’t help himself but match her movements.

Fuck that felt good. He melted into the kiss, his hands daring to move to low, low on her lower back, just above the curve of her ass.

“Hello? Is anyone here – oh!” A voice broke through the horny haze over his mind like a scythe through a pre-kishin.

Maka tried to leap out of his lap, but her legs got caught on the chair arms. He tried to help her but ended up pitching forward out of the chair and knocking them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The chair fell forward on top of him, hitting him painfully on the back.

“Oh god, are you guys okay?” The voice of the interrupter was closer now and he was too mortified to look at them. Getting caught making out in the backroom of the library was one thing, but falling out of the chair in such a magnificent mess was just too embarrassing. He silently begged the universe to send a tiny meteor to hit him directly in the head and end his suffering.

“Oh, hi Tsugumi!” Maka extracted herself and brushed herself off as she stood, trying to act like nothing unusual happened.

Tsugumi. That underclassman weapon with the two meisters who idolized Maka. Why couldn’t it have been some visitor from somewhere far away who didn’t know them and was immediately leaving Death City never to return?

Sighing, he stood up and straightened the chair. At least his boner was definitely gone.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt! I just had a question about where to find a book? And no one came when I rang the bell…” Glancing over at Tsugumi, he could see she was blushing and flustered. He looked back down at his feet.

Maka groaned. “Sorry. I didn’t hear the bell.”

Tsugumi giggled. “I mean, you seemed… pretty distracted. ”

Soul could tell Maka was blushing, her face all red and adorable as she tried to find the words to explain herself. “I’m so sorry for that.”

“It’s fine! I get it.” She giggled again and Soul wanted to sink into the floor. “I mean, I didn’t know you two were dating, but I guess I should have realized it with how close you’ve always been.”

Maka laughed dismissively. “We’re not dating.”

Soul tried not to let the firmness in her voice hurt him. He knew they weren’t dating. That this thing they had going on was just for fun and practice. But part of him was hurt in the way she was so dismissive of the possibility. The idea of them dating wasn’t that ridiculous.

Tsugumi didn’t sound convinced. “If you say so.”  

“Why don’t I help you find that book?” Maka asked, blatantly changing the subject.

Soul hesitated. “I’m just gonna… go then.” He really didn’t want to be there any more.

Maka looked back at him and smiled so sweetly. “See you at home.”

Soul left the library with a soft smile on his face. Maka could always make him feel warm.

[lemons3ason]

Soul Eater Omegaverse

How the alpha boys would react to you disappearing/ignoring them after a fight!

-Soul Eater Evans-

He didn’t mean to let it slip out, he didn’t mean to say that your compulsive reactions made you weak and would get you killed just like your mother but he did and now he hadn’t seen you after making you whimper for the first time. He got a well deserved slap in the face for saying what he said and just stood there like an idiot as you ran away. He hadn’t seen you since then and his inner Alpha roared at him for making his sweet beautiful omega cry, today marked the eleventh day since he had seen you and he was suffering withdraw. Maka had washed his clothes removing your sweet syrupy scent from them and it was driving him crazy.

“Soul you’re growling again.”, Maka warned continuing to read her book.

The bone haired scythe groaned in annoyance slamming his head against the wood of the desk as a defeated sigh escaped his throat. You hadn’t answered any of his calls or messages, you hadn’t been to class, hell you weren’t even home when he tried to go see you. As lunch time came around the halls were suddenly flooded by gossiping students, Soul immediately caught a whiff of your sweet scent. It was weak but without a doubt it was his (Y/n), his pupils dilated in joy to the thought of seeing you but even as he pushed through the crowd of students he soon realized just how grave his mistake was. You were covered in cuts and dried blood but the look on your face made it obvious that you were suffering an omegan depression.

“W-what happened? What happened to (Y/n)?!”, He growled lunging at your weapon partner who protected you until another member of your pack slammed their elbow into the middle of his back momentarily immobilizing him.

“An Alpha that causes an omega to go into depression isn’t a proper Alpha at all. If you want to talk to her you’ll wait your turn like the rest of us until Stein checks her injuries.”, Your Alpha friend, Serenity, growled ushering (Y/n) and her partner to the nurses office.

Soul remained silent yet persistent the rest of the day, he wouldn’t leave the door of the nurses office even as your pack mates threatened him and waited patiently for them to allow him in. Your partner was the only one to fill him in on what had happened to you, after the fight you had gone into a depression and you wanted to prove that your impulsiveness wouldn’t get you killed but with your mind not at 100% during the fight you were almost easily defeated if it hadn’t been for soul resonance.

“So she was pretty close to getting to see her mom again. She would’ve liked that but we’re to stubborn to let her go just yet.”, He sighed leaning against the wall next to Soul.

“She wanted to prove herself to me...Death why am I such an idiot. She’s already better then me why did I have to go saying something so stupid when I didn’t really mean it!”, Soul growled to himself slamming his fist into the wall out of frustration.

“Rio, it’s time for us to go. Stein’s kicking us out.”, Serenity sighed emerging with the other six members of your pack, “I hope she breaks things off with you you were never a proper alpha for her to begin with.”

As soon as your pack mates were gone Soul rushed into the office to see your body balled up on one of the infirmary beds. Soul sighed as Stein scooted past him on his chair and took a seat next to your exposed hand. He softly traced his fingertips to your knuckles to see if you’d react but you didn’t, he took your hand in his and softly kissed your knuckles as he began to speak to you.

“(Y-y/n)...Hey shortcake...what happened? Why’d you go and disappear on me? I’ve missed you, you know that? Come on (Y/n), talk to me please.”, Soul whimpered rubbing your wrist against his cheek in an attempt to scent you.

You gently pulled your hand away and hid it under the sheets with the rest of your body before your shaky soft voice emerged from the sheets, “I’m weak just like you said.”, that’s what drew the line for him. Soul’s inner alpha was furious with him, his urge to comfort you and apologize took over. He was aggressive yet careful as he pulled the sheets off of you and revealing your pale form and although you wanted to hide Soul wouldn’t let you. He spooned you immediately kissing away at your forehead as he smothered you in his sweet strawberry like scent. Even if you wanted to escape you were basically engulfed by your alpha. You tried to pull out of his grip but you were to weak and he wouldn’t let you. He lifted up your face so you could see him and kissed your lips sweetly as his hands wandered over your frame. He would appease your omega no matter how he had to do it wether through physical touch, word, or actions he would apologize to you and gain back your trust that he lost for saying something so careless and stupid.

“Soul.”, you whimpered shuddering as his hands rubbed your thighs.

“(Y/n),my mega, my mate, my absolute love of my life I’m sorry, I know what I said can’t be taken back but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I made you this upset. I’m not letting you go or leaving until you accept my apology or at least tell me what I can do to redeem myself. I’m sorry I’m such a terrible alpha, I miss you so much it hurts to be away from you any longer.”, Soul cried, he never cried in front of you, wet hot tears spilled from his eyes as he rubbed his forehead atop yours. You didn’t respond you just held him, you held his face in your hands and softly kissed his desperate lips in an attempt to please his alpha but it wasn’t enough. You both just needed each other and for now that was enough until you got better. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Black ⭐️ Star

It wasn’t rare for you both to argue, you were both just naturally competitive and that’s what he loved about you. He was competitive because he wanted to prove that even he could defeat a god. (Y/n) was competitive because she hated Omegan stereotypes and wanted to prove that she was a capable fighter to everyone, so why did this argument over another alpha complimenting your strength end so horribly. Black Star had hit a breaking point due to several recent defeats and seeing another Alpha make you smile destroyed what little restraint and patience he had left. He tried attacking the other Alpha but you stopped him...you stopped him and Omega, that was all it took to send him into a fury. Things were said that shouldn’t have been said but worst of all he had used your second gender status against you. After screaming at you he seemed to settle down but the guilt from his words flooded him immediately and you left before he could find the right words to apologize.

“(Y/n) your scent is weak on my scarf can you please scent it, I’ll scent your sweat-“

“Leave me alone. An omega beneath you shouldn’t even be in your presence remember?”, you responded coldly making Black Star stop in his tracks.

After the fight you chose to ignore him, if he didn’t need you then why would you need him? Your pack mates provided you enough attention to stay positive and happy as an omega so you didn’t need him but Death did he need you. He knew he was annoying you he could tell by the sour tone your scent took when you noticed him but he wanted to apologize for being a dumbass. If this kept up then you’d move on and another alpha would scoop you up and steal you away or worse mark you and leave him alone forever.

“(Y/n)...(y/n) I’m sorry I-I didn’t mean to-I...It’s just that I-“, he tried to find the right words but your weapon partner had pulled you away from him and rushed to the women’s bathroom to hide.

This silent treatment was driving Black Star insane, he hadn’t seen you in two weeks already and it was driving him mad. He would cry himself to sleep every night as your scent slowly faded from his belongings. Black Star couldn’t handle this anymore you were so much more stronger if this wasn’t torture for you like it was for him. During dinner his emotions seemed to finally escape him.

“Black Star we’re going on a mission with Kid and Maka try to get some sleep so-“

“Tsubaki I don’t want to fight anymore.”, Black Star admitted as tears spilled from his eyes.

Tsubaki’s heart stopped to the very sight of her miester breaking down, separations between alpha and omega pairs always affected the individual parties differently but she didn’t know it would have this much of an effect on her poor miester. She was fed up seeing you both in so much pain, you were stupid for being so stubborn and hiding away from him, and he was stupid for starting the fight and crying over it instead of pushing to apologize properly! The raven haired teen sighed and stood to her feet and quietly left without another word. Black Star just cried over his food before returning to his ridiculously cluttered room. Losing you had made him lose all drive to do anything, what was he to do now that you seemed to be leaving him. He sat in his bed wrapped up in his blankets while staring up at the ceiling replaying the argument in his head again and again...why did he have to be such an idiot?

He heard a soft knock at his door and thought it was Tsubaki so he ignored it, but then he heard another knock and this time a voice, “H-hey Star...you there?”, your voice sounded from the other side of his door but he just though it was his imagination.

“Alpha I’m here.”, you called again the scent of cinnamon rolls poured into his room from his door and he quickly realized that you were there.

You could hear thumping and stomping from behind the door and stepped back as the door swung open revealing your exhausted mate. Tsubaki had dragged you to the house after finding you crying over Black Star in your room and yelled at you to stop being thick headed and stubborn since you were both suffering. You opened your mouth to say something but the moment his hands cupped your cheeks, his lips met yours, and his addicting scent of pine tree and fresh rain flooded your scenes you knew he truly meant that he was sorry. He slowly pushed you back into the wall pressing his body close to yours as he kissed you silly. Finally being able to enjoy your scent and touch you brought a new batch of tears to his eyes and he kissed you like it would be his last.

“B-black mmm Black Star...mmmn~ Black Star listen to me.”, you panted between kisses trying to get his attention.

He was afraid you would tell him something he didn’t want to hear so he didn’t want you to talk. ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘Please don’t leave me’ and ‘I love you’ spilled from his lips between each kiss as he desperately tried to apologize to you.

He opened his mouth to say something new but it was the same thought on both of your minds, “I’ve missed you.”, you both sighed.

Black Star’s heart was beating like a drum against your chest as he pressed himself closer to you. You had both finally made up and he refused to make the same mistake again because being separated from you was a worse torture then death itself.

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

Death the Kid

Just for a moment you were reminded that you weren’t good enough for Kid...your insecurities had resurfaced the moment you saw him smiling and dancing with that other omegan girl during the ball. Even when you tried to talk to him about it the other party guests wouldn’t give you two time alone but the final straw was when Kid himself said, “(Y/n) you’re such a needy omega can’t you see I’m busy.”, he’s said it to you many times before as a joke but today you knew he truly meant it by how cruel and rude he was.

“Oh and who might you be little dear? Do you know young master Death?”, one of the guests asked you.

You simply smiled and shook you head much to Kid’s surprise, “My apologize I’m simply another desperate omega making a fool of herself.”, you hummed dipping into a small curtsy before disappearing from sight.

You had made your nest at the Gallows Manor so Kid expected to see you there after the Ball since you seemed upset but you were no where in sight. He called for you through every room in the huge mansion but not once did he get a response or a clue to where you could’ve been. It worried him sure but it was just a party that couldn’t have upset you that bad right? He went to sleep without you that night your side littered in fluffy toys and pillows in hopes that he’d find you buried in a fort of them the next morning but still there was nothing.

“Liz, Patty, has (Y/n) contacted either of you? She didn’t come home last night.”, Kid explained a worried expression etching itself over his face as he started to panic.

“Nope she didn’t call me.”, Patty answered.

“I don’t have anything.”, Liz replied.

“Well without a doubt she’ll be at school. Sebastian is in rut right now so I know her team hasn’t been dispatched on any missions.”, he huffed summoning Beelzebub to get to school earlier in hopes of finding you.

He asked all of his friends and yours to try and find you but still there was no sight of you. Until he discovered that Crona and Team Cerberus had been dispatched on a mission together. He couldn’t believe it, you never once left without asking him to scent your belongings or without a warning so why did you do it now?

“Kid?”, a voice called drawing his attention.

The young reaper’s heart dropped seeing your weapon partner right before him, why was Sebastian here when you were out on a mission? You had no weapon for this A-rank mission this had to be a joke!

“W-why aren’t you with (Y/n)?”, he stuttered reaching for your partner’s collar as his anger boiled, “Why are you here while she’s out there?”

“Because I was in Rut I couldn’t go with her. At least I couldn’t until she snapped me out of it.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean ‘she’ knocked you out of rut?!”, Kid growled.

Kid’s rage was settled the moment he caught a whiff of your scent, Kid was hypersensitive to any change in scents and the burning scent of rubber that was lightly hunted with your usual calm honey apple scent was utterly heartbreaking.

“W-what is this?”, he stuttered shaking as he removed the jacket from his face.

“She came to me crying last night...saying something along the lines of ‘He looked happier with her’ and ‘I was right I’m not good enough for him’ and my favorite bit ‘Who wants to be with an needy omega that has no self confidence?’ Kid I don’t know what you did but for (Y/n)’s sadness to be able to knock me out of rut and trigger my instincts to protect her then whatever you did to her last night might’ve been enough to trigger her into depression. You’re an asshole to not have noticed that (Y/n) never thought of herself as good enough to be your partner.”, Sebastian growled putting his jacket back on.

Kid’s body was shaking, not from anger but from guilt and worry. He didn’t bother staying much longer and ran to the entrance of the school. Once again he summoned Beelzebub and raced to Spain to stop you from getting hurt, he didn’t know! He didn’t once think you would think so poorly of yourself he loved you dearly so he never believed that his love was never enough for you to see what he see in you. You wouldn’t answer his calls so he didn’t bother calling but he knew Crona would! As soon as they did he begged them to put you on the phone or at least get close to you so he could explain himself. He cried his heart out into his phone but still you wouldn’t respond. Crona had to turn down the volume on their end just to keep from drawing attention from the other train passengers but you barely seemed to respond to anything Kid said.

“(Y/n) you’re perfect! You’re perfect because you’re imperfect, you to good to be mine but I can’t dare think of a day going by without you by my side. You’re always there for me when I’m upset, you’ve always been by my side to make me smile or kiss me good morning! (Y/n) I’m sorry I know I was acting out of line yesterday night but if I had known that you weren’t being needy and that you just felt self conscious then I would’ve listened! I would’ve scooped you up and taken you home and laid with you in bed reminding you why you’re so beautiful and perfect for me! I would’ve talked about the future that I want with you as my mate and my wife, you didn’t have to run away from me!”, Kid cried feeling overwhelmed by just how much space separated you from him.

He had to stop, he had to catch his breath, he felt his lungs burning from screaming and from hyperventilating but he had to keep going.

“(Y/n) please just don’t do this. This isn’t going to be an easy mission and you don’t have a weapon please don’t do this.”, he whimpered into the phone hopping that his begging would be enough to stop you.

“I don’t want to see you.”, he couldn’t even register your voice or the fact that you hung up after that. His body was frozen like stone from just the sickened tone of your voice.

He screwed up...he royally screwed up. As if he couldn’t push his powers more then he already had he pushed past his limit, he had to get to Spain and fast! He still had 3800 miles to reach you and he wasn’t going to let you go through with this even if you were mad at him. Even as tears poured from his lifeless golden hue he wouldn’t let his heart forget this pain even after he got you to forgive him. He reached Spain by nightfall and searched for your soul wavelength until he found it in the city of Pamplona, but the mission had already begun he saw the bull like kishin egg charging at your teammates and searched only for you. Until the creature was shot dead by a Barrett M-82 rifle, much to his surprise you were the miester wielding the weapon. You released your temporary weapon partner so they could collect the soul and collapsed to the floor of the rooftop as your fever finally set in.

“(Y/n)!”, Kid screamed drawing everyone’s attention as he raced to your side, he pulled your body close to his and frowned feeling your intense fever from your skin.

“An omegan depression.”, he frowned growling to himself as he held you closer. Your pack mates arrived to get you but the murderous glow in Kid’s eyes kept everyone at bay.

No one would touch you until he pulled you out of depression and no one would see you until he apologized and was forgiven by you.

[shroomcult]

@soulxmakaweek

Day 4: Apologize

I fell way behind with Soma week because I got slammed with work and this monster of a fic took me too long to write.

Summary: 

Maka comes to realize that Soul had never felt fully comfortable around Crona, and in ignoring this entirely - she unknowingly hurt her closest friend.

Special thanks to Tori @chichirichick (she betas all of my dumpster fires, bless her) for proofreading this mess of emotions and also to Zi @azroazizah for coming up with the concept for this fic. 

**Disclaimer** This story is not about putting blame on Crona, but instead about acknowledging the fact that Soul went through trauma due to their actions and it was never taken into consideration by Maka before inviting them into their friend group. I'm not saying Crona didn't deserve support, but it's also completely valid for Soul - a victim of Crona - to not feel entirely safe around them regardless of their tragic background and circumstances. If Crona is a big comfort character for you and you feel you would likely be upset by this concept, then I recommend not reading it altogether. We all interpret things different and we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I'm not going to get in arguments with people over this.

It’d been a while since the Spartoi team was all together again.

After the fall of Asura, they really had no purpose to join forces as a team. No big baddie to unite them in ass-kickery. 

The skies were blue again. There were still Kishin eggs to take down, and a shaky new diplomatic relationship with the witches to maintain as well. 

Things were more or less … normal. Boring, even.

The only big difference Blackstar could discern was that nobody seemed to have time to just hang out and be friends anymore.

Kid was over his head with his new responsibilities, and while he was doing an admirable job filling his father’s shoes; there was a steep learning curve and his perfectionist tendencies only made it more challenging to overcome. He upheld a calm and collected demeanor in the public’s eyes, but Liz and Patty spent most of their time holding him together behind the scenes. 

Soul and Maka were a different situation entirely.

It was odd enough to adjust to the recent change in the nature of their relationship. They claimed to be the same as they’ve always been - just Soul & Maka. Only, they grew much closer after the hardships they had endured both in the book of Eibon and on the moon.

They had been close to begin with, but this was a different kind of close. Stolen glances, hands reaching for each other when they thought nobody was looking. Blushing for almost no damn reason. 

Something was going on between them - he could be sure of that.

More recently, however, Maka had been particularly obsessive about solving the dilemma of Crona’s entrapment on the moon. She was driving herself to a slow-burning insanity, considering every moment that she hadn’t rescued them yet to be a personal failure.

She’d been spending much of her time in the restricted section of the library, consuming every piece of relevant research for hours on end. Soul often stayed up there with her doing the same, or at the very least keeping her silent company when he was too burnt out to read anymore.

He’d also spent much of his extra time with Stein, training to perfect his sound-wave abilities into his own form of wavelength attack.

He’d been giving his all ever since making deathscythe status to hone his strength and better serve Maka. He’d even been able to hold his own for a surprising amount of time in the sparring ring against Blackstar, and that was a feat in and of itself.

All of the focus on Crona’s rescue had appeared to be wearing on him, though. 

Soul may have accepted Crona into his friend group for Maka’s sake, even empathized with them - but he had never fully trusted the demon sword meister. Although Soul was outwardly friendly towards them, Blackstar noticed the way his friend had watched them like a hawk before they turned back to Medusa. He was always ready for a scenario like that because he had never felt entirely safe around them to begin with.

Not that Maka had bothered to even take Soul’s feelings into consideration before forgiving Crona on his behalf.

She couldn’t have possibly been that dense. She had to have been actively ignoring the signs of Soul’s discomfort because she couldn’t handle acknowledging them.

And now she was doing the same thing all over again even with Crona as far away as the moon. It was obvious that Soul was doing what he always did - shoving his own feelings aside in favor of Maka’s. The loyal mutt of a boy valued her wellbeing far above his own, that was for certain.

He just seemed so exhausted of it all now. Searching tirelessly with Maka for a solution that may not even exist took up much of his time and energy.  

He never had the time to shoot hoops or play video games like he used to, and Blackstar was far above begging for his attention. He stopped even bothering to ask him.

Just for one night though, by some divine luck - everybody was willing to clear their schedule to have a late night dinner at the most beloved and heart-attack inducing burger joint in town. 

Every member of Spartoi was crammed into the largest booth in the restaurant and their chatter was loud enough to fill the whole section. 

There were multiple conversations happening at a time, but Blackstar was zeroing in on Soul who had his chin resting on his palm and that stupid, dopey look he got on his face when he was proud of Maka. Yuck. Keep it in your pants, loverboy.

Maka was next to Soul, his arm stretched out behind her on the booth, while Ox engaged her in a fiery debate over god knows what across the table from her. Judging by the redness in baldy’s face - Maka was on the winning side. He really couldn’t understand Soul’s hard-on for a bossy know-it-all personality, but whatever floats his boat he supposed.  

He decided he’d seen enough of that look on his best friend’s face and crumpled up a straw wrapper, dipping it in his soda and sticking it at the end of his straw.

He blew on the other end, sending the sticky wad of paper flying across the table. The projectile hit its target directly on the cheek.

“Fuck’s sake dude, how old are you?” he grumbled, reaching over the table to grab a handful of napkins to clean his face off with.

Maka snatched some of his napkins for herself, rubbing it vigorously into the flecks of cola that stained her uniform. “You got my shirt all wet, idiot.”

Blackstar simply threw his head back to cackle obnoxiously. “I just thought I should break up your lame little debate team fight before Ox over here pops a blood vessel. You know he can’t handle losing well.”

“I wasn’t losing!” Ox hissed under his breath.

Maka only met her opponent’s glare with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, Maka! What had you stopped to talk with Professor Stein about earlier today?” Tsubaki cut in, obviously attempting to diffuse another argument between the two competitive brainiacs.

Maka’s expression relaxed into something a little more neutral, seemingly caught off guard by the question. Debate-mode successfully disarmed.

“Oh. Well… I just had some questions about my black blood research for him.” 

Blackstar didn’t miss the way Soul tensed up beside her at the mention of black blood. His face was void of any distinct emotion, but something was off in his body language. The way his shoulders squared as if he were instinctively bristling.

Anyone with a shred of social awareness could have deduced that black blood, Medusa, and Crona were not Soul’s favorite topics. It wasn’t unusual for him to shut down and discontinue any contributions to a conversation when any of these things were brought up. 

Unfortunately for Soul, all of those subjects were constantly on Maka’s mind since she began her obsessive pursuit for a solution to Crona’s ordeal.

“Oh? And what did he have to say?” Tsubaki pressed, completely oblivious to the tense situation she was potentially triggering.

“As you’re already aware, there’s not really any official research on the black blood that exists. We’ve been digging through countless books - gathering as much information about madness and Kishins as we can, but it can only get us so far. It would be so much more useful if we could get our hands on a physical sample of the substance itself.”

Soul’s eyes widened in concern, but only for a second before he slipped his usual poker face back on. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously despite the veneer of calm he displayed.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning to look at Soul, “I was going to talk to you about this later, but maybe some of the black blood still remains in your system? I know we believed it was all gone, but surely there’s some residual amount of it lingering behind? Something we could maybe isolate, extract and create a concentrate of? Stein said it was unlikely, but technically possible. We have to try for Crona, right, Soul?”

He was no longer wearing his mask of apathy. Unmistakeable, visible discomfort was etched into his facial features and he was clenching his hands, knuckles whitening from the pressure. Everyone at the table was hushed and the tension was palpable.

“He doesn’t have to try anything,” Kid’s voice cut sharply through the silence, golden eyes flashing sternly at her.

A soft gasp escaped her and her eyebrows shot up, clearly taken-aback by the sudden burst of hostility from her boss and close friend. Her eyes darkened seconds later, determination setting in.

 “I think that’s his decision to make, and I’d like to hear what he has to say,” she turned her attention back to Soul, hope still shining in her eyes.

He fidgeted with his necktie, loosening it and clearing his throat. “Yeah, s’fine. Whatever you need, I guess.”

Maka’s face lit up into a bright smile that turned Blackstar’s stomach and she pulled Soul into a brief hug. “I knew we could count on you, Soul! You’re the best partner ever.”

“Whatever, it’s no problem. Just try not to drain me of all my blood, alright?” he chuckled weakly, avoiding her eyes in favor of staring a hole in the middle of the table.

She gave an easygoing laugh in response, and went back to conversing with Tsubaki as if she hadn’t just pressured her partner into volunteering himself as a guinea pig for the sake of someone who had literally sliced him open from shoulder to hip and infected him with black blood to begin with.

Is she fucking serious?

Blackstar was practically vibrating with fury from the interaction he’d just watched, and Tsubaki’s normally soothing hand on his shoulder did little to calm him down. When he glanced at Kid, he instantly knew the death god had shared his frustration with Maka’s obliviousness. 

It wasn’t long before Soul abruptly stood from his place at the end of the booth, pulling a twenty out of his wallet and placing it on the table in front of him.

“Soul? What are you doing? The food hasn’t even gotten here yet,” Maka blinked at him in confusion.

“I’m not feelin’ too great - gonna head out, sorry guys. Could you just bring my food back in a to-go box?” he said with an apologetic quirk of his lips. He squeezed her shoulder gently before turning on his heels and making his way out of the diner in long strides.

Why does she look so shocked? Does she really not understand that she’s been hurting him?

After that, the night passed by in a haze for Blackstar. He hardly spoke for the rest of the meal due to the fact that he was using all of his mental capacity to keep his impulse to stand up and loudly call his friend out in front of everybody in check. 

The only thing truly stopping him was the knowledge that Soul would likely be embarrassed and more than a little pissed off if he’d made a big scene over something that he wasn’t even willing to talk about.  

So he waited - held his tongue until he could lash out in private.

As everyone was saying their goodbyes, Blackstar watched her rise from her seat gathering her to-go boxes carefully and giving him a nod of acknowledgement before she headed out.

His eyes bore into the back of her head as she left, and Tsubaki’s hand clamped gently on him for the second time that night. Her eyes were crinkled with a gentle concern.

“I think you should leave this between them. If Soul wanted all of this out in the open, he would have had that conversation with her himself.”

A heavy sigh settled in his chest, “You know how he is. He’s the suffer in silence type and he always does her bidding. If nobody says anything, then nothing’ll change. I just want to talk to her - not like I’m gonna beat her ass or anything … unless she gives me a reason to.” 

“Blackstar,” she chided, fully aware that he would make good on that threat.

“I know, I know. I won’t be long, see ya at home,” he said, throwing up placating hands before stuffing them in his pockets and striding in the direction Maka had gone. 

            _______________________________________________

Maka set her walk home at a leisurely pace, dragging her feet slightly as she watched the sunset bleed into the sky above.

It wasn’t that she was trying to prolong seeing Soul, or that she wasn’t worried about the way he’d acted back in the diner - like something was eating at him. 

She was pretty positive that he wasn’t physically ill, which only left the option of it being an emotional issue. 

And getting Soul to talk about emotional issues was like trying to pull teeth from a temperamental bear. 

She had to figure out a way to go about this delicately, and she had to figure it out soon because their apartment block was fast approaching.

She stopped in her tracks when she felt the presence of a familiar soul behind her. His steps had been so quiet, she wouldn’t have even been aware he was stalking her from behind if it weren’t for her exceptional soul perception abilities.

“I know you’re following me, Blackstar.”

In moments, he was stepping out in front of her. “Wasn’t trying to hide. I need to talk to you,” his voice was uncharacteristically stern.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew Blackstar had some kind of problem with her since dinner. He was deathly quiet and glowering at her for most of the night; very unusual behavior from someone who never shuts up or hesitates to start a fight. 

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said, already preparing to defend herself against whatever absurd argument he wanted to pull her into.

“The whole situation with Crona - have you ever once thought about how Soul feels about it?”

Whatever she had been expecting to come out of his mouth - that wasn’t it.

“What? I mean, I know how Soul feels. He wants Crona to be safe, just like I do. What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m not talking about what he thinks about Crona being stuck in the deathdamned moon, Maka! I mean have you ever thought about how he felt when you forced Crona into his life to begin with? After being sliced open?” 

Maka’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth opened and closed a few times, baffled by the question. 

“Soul understands why I welcomed Crona as a friend. He trusts me,” she answered, hoping her voice conveyed the confidence that she couldn’t find in this moment.

This entire conversation was throwing her off.

“Yeah, okay. He accepted your decision because he trusts you, or loves you or whatever the fuck. We all know that - but that doesn’t mean he was comfortable with it. It doesn’t mean he felt safe. He just stuffed his own feelings down, because he knew it made it easier for you.”

Her throat tightened as her own conflicting emotions overcame her. He had no idea what he was talking about. Soul was fine. He’s always been fine. 

“Did he say that to you? That he didn’t feel safe?” she choked out. 

“Soul? You think he tells people things? About his feelings?” he snorted. “No, he doesn’t have to tell me shit. It’s clear on his face every time you mention Crona, or Medusa, or that fucking blood.”

“Maybe you’re just making assumptions about how he feels!” she shouted back, gripping handfuls of the front of his shirt.

He leaned in, completely unfazed by the rage burning in her eyes. “You ever noticed how when Crona was around, he was always watching them out of the corner of his eye - twitching every time they made some sudden move. You ever noticed how quiet and withdrawn he’d get around them? Or any time they were brought up? You didn’t - because you didn’t want to.” 

“Shut up! Y-you’re making something out of nothing. Are you trying to tell me that I should just give up and forget about Crona? That they don’t deserve to have a friend?” 

Some of his aggression was fizzling out as he released a heavy sigh, placing his hands calmly over hers, still clenching in his shirt. “I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t have helped Crona, or that you shouldn’t keep trying to help them now. I’m only telling you that even if Soul has forgiven and moved on - he’s still a victim of Crona’s actions. He suffered trauma from that, even if he’s too fucking stubborn to admit it. Just acknowledge that maybe he needs a break from thinking about them - all of that shit that happened - every now and then. Get your head out of Crona’s ass long enough to check if he’s okay too.”

She stumbled over wordless sounds as her hands went limp and released their vice-grip on his clothing. She was trying desperately to think of a way to refute the awful things he was saying, but Blackstar wouldn’t give her the chance. 

“If you gave him even half the thought you gave to Crona - maybe you would have noticed it like everybody else has. I just want you to think about it for a bit, that’s all,” his voice softened towards the end, shoulders sagging slightly as he turned away, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his confrontation.

The heat of tears prickled behind her eyelids and she clenched her fists tightly to her sides. 

She wanted so badly to swing around and scream at Blackstar’s retreating figure that he was wrong, that he had no idea what he was talking about and of course she thinks about her weapon.

But the longer she allowed his harsh words to sink in; the more she could feel the sting of truth settling into her heart.

Had she really been so blind? 

             _______________________________________________

Soul had been laying on his back in bed, hands resting on his stomach and eyes pointed at the ceiling, unmoving for some time. He wasn’t entirely sure how many hours, but he knew his playlist had ended long ago - no music played from the earbuds that were still jammed in his ears.

He couldn’t explain the heaviness in his heart. The anxiety that often set in whenever Maka mentioned Crona or the black blood. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it? There was no point in allowing himself to wallow in all the negative emotions that punched him in the gut at the mention of their name. It was selfish to feel those things - it was his job to give Maka his full support. His own feelings were irrelevant.

It was just harder on this particular night. Sure, she droned on about those sore subjects often. Their research revolved around it anyways. He’d just hoped that it could have been different just for one night.

He’d secretly been ecstatic when Maka begrudgingly agreed to shelve her research just long enough to get a late dinner with all of their friends. A break had been long overdue. 

Things had been different between them, after all. They’d been sharing a bed, and they’d even shared a few kisses in the small, rare moments that they’d spent alone together - focused only on each other. They were chaste kisses, but he’d greedily take whatever he could get. 

As she became more frantic about her lack of results in helping Crona, he may as well have not even existed to her. 

He’d just needed that one dinner to pretend things were normal, to pretend as though he was on a date with her and she was willing to spend time with him and think about literally anything aside from her latest fixations. Instead, she’d asked him to play part in some unsound experiment - to prod for things that he hadn’t wanted to find again. It had only been made more uncomfortable by the scrutinizing presence of all of their friends. 

He’d felt used.

Soul perked up at the familiar sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut. He was immediately ashamed of the pavlovian response he had to the sound of his meister returning - the little flip in his heart that made him feel like a stupid dog wagging its tail at the sound of its master.

Just keep to yourself. She doesn’t need to interact with you in this useless state of self pity. You don’t deserve her comfort.

Self-loathing curled in his gut and he kept his eyes stubbornly trained on a water stain in the ceiling.

Suddenly, light flooded into his dark room as his door was hesitantly opened. He reflexively brought himself to sit up on his elbows only to meet a teary-eyed Maka.

All self-indulgent angsty thoughts instantly evaporated from his head, and he was ripping his earbuds out and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to get up.

She made purposeful steps across his room, throwing her arms around his neck and forcing him back onto the bed with the motion.

“I’m so sorry, Soul,” she warbled mournfully into his sweater. 

“Huh? Sorry ‘bout what? What’s going on, Maka?” he tried to nudge her into looking up at him, but she adamantly refused.

She took a few shallow breaths before rubbing her wet cheek against the quickly-dampening fabric and looking up at him with dewy eyes.

“I haven’t been a good friend to you - have I? 

Was that a trick question?

“I-I don’t get what we’re talkin’ about here,” he stuttered uselessly, attempting to compensate for his lack of eloquence by brushing his fingers comfortingly through her soft hair.

“I never asked if you felt okay with Crona being around you. I never asked you if you forgave them at all - I just brought them into your space, your home. I just wanted them to have a chance at a normal life so badly - I ignored your pain, and I’m so sorry,” she rushed her confession out like it had been a breath she was holding in.

He had to fight the urge to bark out a laugh. It wasn’t that he found anything that she said humorous - it was just so strange that she was addressing this out of the blue. She’d seemed completely unaware as usual back at the diner, where had this even come from?

He was so lost in thought, he’d almost forgotten to respond and instantly regretted the prolonged silence he’d left her in. “Maka, it’s fine,” he insisted, “I get why you forgave Crona. I admire you for it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you were okay. I should have at least checked on you, or asked you about how you felt - or literally anything,’ she mumbled numbly from his chest.

“Hey. Look at me,” he said, lifting her cheek from its resting place against his sweater, “Sure, I didn’t feel the most comfortable around Crona. I think it was pretty awkward for both of us to be near each other. That doesn’t mean I dislike them, or didn’t want you to be their friend. You can’t beat yourself up over something I hadn’t bothered to tell you.”

His words hadn’t brought the comfort that he’d hoped they would, and her brows remained stubbornly crinkled. “If it had been me - if I was the one who’d been cut by that sword, would you still say that you don’t dislike them? That you’re okay with us being friends?”

It was a question that he instantly knew the answer to, but he was reluctant to say it out loud. He finally caved, bringing his eyes back to hers, “No. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them if it was you.”

She closed her eyes tightly, nodding her head in grim acceptance of that truth. She had likely known that would be his answer already, but hearing it must have been difficult.

“But I love that about you. You have so much compassion. I only care for the few people that I’ve decided I love - I don’t have room in my heart for others like you do. I’d like to be more like you,” he whispered reverently, taking her cheeks in both of his hands and briskly wiping away all of the moisture he could reach with his thumbs.

“I should’ve had more compassion for you,” she lamented softly under her breath, eyes downcast.

“You’re not a fuckin’ mind reader, Maks. It was my choice not to bring anything up.”

She nodded slowly, but the way her grip tightened on him only confirmed his suspicion that she wasn’t going to forgive herself for it.

Minutes passed before a word was spoken, but Soul eventually cleared his throat. “You know, I don’t expect you to ever stop being friends with Crona, or to give up on rescuing them. I don’t want that. I don’t mind helping you like you’d asked earlier tonight, too. If that’s what you need from me, then I’m here.”

She brought herself to her elbows on top of him to get a better view of his face.

“I know. I’m not going to give up on them. But It matters to me that you’re happy too, and if that means you need a break from all that, then I want you to know that it’s okay to ask for that.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a hushed tone, distracting himself with a piece of her hair twirled between his fingers.

“And I don’t want to use your blood for research. It was wrong of me to even think of asking you that. We’ll find another way,” she assured him, voice tightening with emotion, “I definitely got carried away with all of this. It wasn’t healthy, and I really am sorry I’ve pushed you away in the process. We can’t solve this thing if we don’t have time to properly take care of ourselves. You’ve been working so hard with me, and I think we need more actual quality time together.”

“Yeah, I could get on board with that. I kinda walked out on dinner tonight, so how about we do something - just you and me tomorrow? Movies sound good?”

“Movies sounds great,” she hummed in agreement, hands idly playing with his hair.

As much as he would have preferred for her to continue her ministrations, he stopped her movements to grasp her hand, bringing it to his chest to rest above where she knew his scar was. He pressed down on her hand lightly.

“I’m glad it happened. I’m glad they gutted me, ‘cause I hadn’t understood what you meant to me till that moment,” he muttered, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head.

She only exhaled shakily, hand tightening against the evidence of his devotion.

“I just hate that it took a lecture from Blackstar of all people for me to realize that I’d been hurting you.”

His eyes widened a little at that new piece of information. Blackstar was the one that brought all of this on her mind? He could’ve sworn it would have been Kid if anyone. He couldn’t help but feel a little touched that Blackstar had been so concerned about him, but he was also somewhat irritated that his friend had distressed Maka as much as he had.

“Blackstar, huh? Remind me to have a conversation with him about mindin’ his own business,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“No, don’t. I’m glad that he said what he did - I needed to hear it,” she urged him.

“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to make my girlfriend cry from guilt over bein’ friends with someone,” he muttered, but his face immediately burned a bright red as soon as he’d caught what he’d called her.

She was a similar shade, holding her breath as well as his gaze with a tortuously difficult to decipher expression on her face.

“That is, uh- I mean… fuck.”  

Very articulate. Great job, Soul.

He hadn’t needed to agonize over whether or not he’d just fucked everything between them for long because her face soon melted into a warm, genuine smile.

“Girlfriend, huh?” she said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye.

“I’d like that. If that’s w-what you want,” he wanted to kick himself for the voice crack he just experienced. Not cool in the slightest. 

At least she got a good giggle out of it. The melodic sound squeezed something in his chest and he swallowed nervously as a response.

She brushed back his bangs, leaning in to place a soft kiss to his forehead. She peppered a trail of kisses down his cheek until she reached his lips. 

This kiss was far from chaste. She cradled his cheek and jaw as she slanted her mouth sweetly over his, pressing fervently, constantly moving against him and eliciting a breathy moan from him that he would never admit to making. 

When she tried to separate, he followed her, bumping noses for a moment and giving the corner of her mouth a few more enthusiastic pecks before backing up and allowing her room to look at his face. 

“Girlfriend sounds nice, actually,” she smiled broadly, letting her fingers brush against the back of his neck.

“Glad that’s settled, then,” he laughed easily, not even bothering to feel any embarrassment over the flush of his skin or the lightness of his breath.

He crushed her to his chest, and they stayed like that for a while, just listening to the other’s loudly beating hearts until they were lulled to sleep. 

He’d have to thank Blackstar with a game of basketball later.

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

TsuStar Week Day 6: Communication

Here’s my submission for Day 6! It follows them as they grow up from kids to young adults, so it’s a bit of a combination of Day 6 and Day 7 (growth). @tsustarweek

I reworked it from notes for a fic i never wrote, so there are some gaps but I'm happy enough to post it in this format

Black Star Age 12 // Tsubaki Age 15 (pre-show)

Tsubaki and Black Star admire each other

Living together and soul resonance lead to a higher intimacy

13 // 16 and 14 // 17 (in show)

After Masamune they move from friends to good friends

Even better at soul resonance (until Black Star's arc)

Tsubaki realizes she like-likes Black Star but has no intention of acting on it

Black Star begins the emotional shut down period of puberty

Dreams where Tsubaki leaves Black Star for Mifune drive him further away from Tsubaki

When Black Star masters enchanted sword he regains his confidence and Tsubaki feels closer to him

15 // 18 (post-show)

They finally start getting souls

Tsubaki continuously gets roped into being Liz's wingman and hates it but Black Star ignores her complaining

Black Star enters successive growth spurt period of puberty and is always cranky and having to constantly relearn his body (center of balance, height, loss of muscle mass and the inability to gain it back, constantly hungry)

Tsubaki moves on from her crush on Black Star…

Black Star begins to notice that Tsubaki is beautiful

People begin flirting with Tsubaki in front of Black Star and Black Star always interrupts by insulting the flirter. He does not know why. When Tsubaki snaps at Black Star he says it’s because they need to focus on fighting but Tsubaki thinks he’s upset that the attention wasn’t on him for two minutes

Their performance and teamwork begins to suffer from Black Star's emotional and intimacy retreats

16 // 19

Tsubaki begins dating…

Black Star and Tsubaki work hard on rebuilding their former connection strength but don’t make much progress. Failing makes Black Star mad which in turn reverses what little work they've done. It’s frustrating both of them.

Tsubaki asks Stein for help but he says its puberty and therefore all up to Black Star (he says all things considered Black Star is handling it pretty well. Soul got the acne package and the blow it’s made to his self-esteem has massively impacted his work)

Black Star's voice settles. He's so happy the embarrassing cracking is over

Black Star finds Tsubaki's dates annoying and again doesn’t know why

Tsubaki's boyfriend of like 1 month dumps her and Black Star just awkwardly pats her back while she cries. He knows he should be upset on her behalf but he's actually a little relieved despite the fact he's only met the guy twice and Tsubaki didn’t talk about him much

Black Star's height begins to level out and he starts regaining muscle mass

By the end of the year Tsubaki notices Black Star is now hot…

17 // 20

Black Star is finally tall enough for Tsubaki to "borrow" his sweatshirts/t-shirts. He gets this really warm satisfied feeling every time he sees her wearing them and doesn’t get why Soul complains when Maka takes Soul's clothes (Soul used to complain, then Soul kinda liked it when it was his jackets, and now he hates it again because he can never find his stuff. Kid complains too but more over the fact the sisters can afford to buy their own). Tsubaki takes them more for the smell then the fit, and she only takes 1 at a time, unlike Maka who raids Soul's closet daily

Black Star gets good at fighting again and it gives him a confidence boost

Black Star is still emotionally blocked but he's becoming easy to read again and therefore Tsubaki can fill in the gaps and their work finally begins to improve

Black Star starts being more touchy. He might not be emotionally intimate but he will cuddle put his arm around Tsubaki when they're on the couch

The girls start a game where they kiss Soul on the cheek anytime he does something remotely nice solely because he hates it, and then they make fun of him for being grumpy. Black Star is a bit jealous, of both Soul getting attention and Soul getting kisses from Tsubaki (he's the type of guy who'd do stupid things to get a kiss and here's Soul getting them for passing the salt), but the funniness overrides it

Soul starts putting things up high he doesn't want Maka to use or eat. Black Star decides to take this technique and use it to annoy Tsubaki by putting things she frequently uses just out of reach. Tsubaki is not amused. Its actually a pain when she's trying to cook. Black Star always busts out laughing when she starts jumping

Black Star starts to find annoyed Tsubaki very cute and proceeds to come up with more shenanigans to see her face turn red. She doesn’t understand how Black Star got so infuriating over night

He also loves it when she wears shorts but she almost never does. One day he steals all her pants and she thinks its just another one of his mediocre pranks. He managed to keep them from her for 4 days. Those were a great 4 days for Black Star (shorts and angry Tsubaki. The best of both worlds. One morning she was wearing a oversized shirt, unfortunately not his, which covered her shorts and made it look like she wasn’t wearing any. Black Star almost got whiplash from doing a double take)

Black Star has taken to working out shirtless. Him coming back from a run all sweaty without a shirt on tests her willpower. She suspects he does it on purpose (he doesn’t) to mess with her since according to Book of Eibon she’s the most lustful. Which is true, but she has this thing called willpower and thinking before you act, which drives Liz up the wall.

Black Star now flirts with girls (it never works since all he does is talk about himself) but still interrupts Tsubaki’s flirting, and when she confronts him he won’t give her a good answer so she chalks it up to Black Star wanting attention. At this point Black Star knows it’s because he's possessive of her.

For Liz's 21st birthday she wants them all to be there but none of them can get into the bars so she throws a party at the manor and her of-age friends bring some booze. Black Star is chilling in a circle when Patty goes "oh yay Tsubaki is finally talking with a guy the same age as her" and Black Star's jealous interrupting is only stopped because he's challenged to a drinking game and therefore required to participate distracted. He catches them making out later and is somehow stopped by Liz who's worked too hard and waited too long for Tsubaki to get with someone just for Black Star to ruin it. Black Star gets in a fight with someone else soon after, and after being split up Tsubaki decides to take Black Star home. He pretends to be a bit more drunk than he is so she'll put his arm over her shoulder, and he can have a excuse to hold her close (and they look like a couple). He's so wrapped up in how she looks and smells and feels that he doesn’t even realize they've made it home until she puts the key in the lock. When she drops him off in his room (water and aspirin already set out because she’s great like that and thinks ahead) he thinks about how he wants to keep smelling her hair and hug her and stare into her eyes a little and maybe kiss- oh. That’s why he's upset. He likes her. He wants to be the person she makes out with at parties. He doesn’t know what to do with this information. He then decides he has to tell her right now. He gets up and rushes toward the door only to trip on all the clothes he leaves out on the floor. Tsubaki is in the kitchen when she hears the thump. She decides he'll be fine and goes back to what she was doing when she hears his door crack and he hobbles out of his room. "Tsubaki! Tsubaki I have to talk to you!" "Okay... what is it Black Star?" "I’m pretty sure I've got the hots for you" "You're 'pretty sure'? You've been spying on me for 5 years I think you can bump that up to 'positively sure'" "no not like that, well yes like that, but I’m trying to say I think I’m in love with you" "Black Star that’s really sweat but you're drunk right now, I think you're just happy I got you home" "no, no, I’ve gotta be in love with you" "Black Star-" "I can’t stop thinking about how your hair smells or your smile or how you scrunch your nose up when you read or how you always wear my shirt when it laundry day and how you always yell at me when its laundry day and how you always look super focused when you make soup and how you really can’t dance and how I used to hate being shorter than you but I now really like when you wear heels because it makes us the same height which means I can look you in the eyes and you have such pretty eyes- yes that’s the smile I was talking about! And how I should be the one you makeout with at parties not random guys who don’t actually know how great you are and-" "Black Star" "Yes" "I agree I’m pretty sure you're in love with me" "See!" "And I think you're gonna have to lean down" "why- woah!" Tsubaki drags him down by the shirt, "So I can kiss you goodnight" and then puts her arms around his neck and kisses him. He slides his hands around her waist and up her back. "Now go to bed" "Wha- why?" "Because its 1 am and you should go to bed" "You should come to bed with me" "Goodnight Black Star" "I don’t want to go to bed" "You can’t get a good morning kiss if you don’t go to bed and wake up" "Why don’t we just kiss until its morning?" "Because you taste and smell like booze." She kisses his cheek and walks away "Goodnight Black Star"

Black Star always wakes up at 6am and while waiting for Tsubaki to wake up attempts to make pancakes and burns them all. He's on the couch when she comes out and in the process of explaining the pancake adventure she circles the couch shoves his shoulders so he laying down on the couch, she sits down on the edge of said couch, grabs the back of his head and starts makeing out with him.

Black Star formally asks Tsubaki out in the most over the top way a week later. Everyone in the vicinity is embarrassed. She says yes.

[kyodzuken]

domestic headcanons - death the kid

aka; you move in with kid and he’s kinda ooc but also cute so let me have my fun.

- moving in with kid was literally one of the most stressful and yet rewarding parts of your life. lots of boxes falling down the stairs as you and death the kid run hastily to try and salvage your belongings, only to slip on the hardwood floors and fall on your ass.

- he wanted (needed) absolutely everything in your house to be symmetrical, and that was expected, so you left most - if not all - of the decorating to him.

- a lot of compromises,, which eventually turned to kid slowly changing everything into how he liked it

- and you didnt complain, because seeing the soft blush on his face, and a small content smile as he stared at your first house together, that was enough.

- the first week you'd moved in, kid got sick, and you'd spent the entire week locked away in your house, taking care of your boyfriend.

- and the little shit wasn't making it any easier.

- you'd make him soup and he'd refuse to eat it unless you fed it to him

- 'babe! no! i'll get sick!!' you'd whine

- '(y/n), do i look like i care? now c'mere!' he'd state, the temper tantrum breaking through his usually cool and calm tone, as he made grabby hands from the bed, his nose red and his face pouty.

- and even if death the kid was sick, didn't mean he was quiet during your movie marathons - that week settling for twilight as you were sprawled out on the couch, trying your best to avoid the warm embrace of your (sick) boyfriend.

- 'oh my god, did he SERIOUSLY name their kid RENESMEE??'

- 'kid i- bAHAHAHHA'

- his antics were one of the many reasons you fell in love with him, and you genuinely did your best to take care of the reaper boy.

- sometimes when you'd be making some soup or dinner for him, he'd sneak up behind you, before locking his hands around your waist and laying his head on your shoulder, mumbling sweet nothings as he thanked you for taking care of him.

- in the mornings you'd get up to get ready and he'd grab onto your waist and pull you back into bed with him, as you struggled to escape his grasp.

- 'kid, you may be sick but i still have school...'

- '(y/n), in case you forgot, my dad is literally lord death. you can miss a week. and a day. eight days. perfect.'

- you wouldn't even argue with him about it either, because he was just that convincing.

- once y'all had settled in, he made it a mission to cuddle and watch movies every single night.

- 'kid i have homework-'

- '...that doesn't change anything.'

- cuddling with kid is great because he insists that both of you have equal amount of blanket and pillows; for the symmetry, of course.

- he's the type to let you lay on his chest, and he'd play with your hair while you watched so-bad-it's-good romcoms; sprawled out on the couch as he fed himself (and occasionally you) some skittles or popcorn, your eyes too fixated on the tv to notice his fleeting glances at your form.

- sometimes you'd watch a horror movie, just to have the boy jump into your arms during the scary bits.

- 'you can't blame me, (y/n)! pennywise jumped out of NOWHERE! how do you expect me to notice-’

- you two have found yourselves falling asleep on your living room couch one too many times ngl, and you aren't complaining bc falling asleep with kid is when you sleep the best!!

- sometimes you'd forget to fold the toilet paper in a triangle

- you never hear the end of that one

- but you genuinely try your best, and kid sees that, and his heart swells seeing you adjust a painting to be perfecting in line, or see you buy two towels instead of one, so they'd be perfectly symmetrical.

- ngl you've tried dying kid's hair a few times

- '(y/n) i'm literally a shinigami dont you think i've tried already-'

- 'babe, it's a bONDING EXPERIENCE.'

- 'i think we can bond in other ways dont you think-'

- 'no.'

- your parents knew you'd moved houses, and it took you a lil while to tell them it was because you and kid moved in together.

- but he'd met your parents before, and they loved him.

- you were on a call with your parents - facetime to be exact, walking around as you showed them your new house, a collection of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' erupting from your mobile phone.

- that was until kid accidentally (totally not accidentally) entered the room.

- '(y/n)!! what are you cooking for dinner tonight?? also please help me unpack these boxes it's been weeks! oh-OH!'

- and your parents were literally shook

- '(y/n)... is this the roommate you were talking about...'

- you were very scared at first because you thought they'd be mad,

- but no, they literally booked a flight to death city right then and there. like literally on facetime your dad just booked a ticket

- 'mom- dad- no i-'

- yeah,,, needless to say, they're like your number one stans.

- dates are always perfectly planned

- so dinner dates and nights out are not very common.

- kid has to plan everything perfectly; he just loves you so much and would hate for you to experience anything less than perfection, and yet somehow SOMETHING goes wrong.

- like a dog will run past and splash water on your dress

- or he'll get salmonella in the middle of the date from last night's chicken (that HE COOKED LORDD)

- and you'll have to reassure him it's fine and you had a great time, as the boy nearly breaks down in the expensive restaurant he had to pull strings to get into.

- and you wouldn't have it any other way.

- the gang has come uninvited one too many times

- once you two were making out, his hands running through your hair as you shared fleeting kisses in your bedroom, until you heard the (very) familiar

- 'hELLOOO! IT'S ME, BLACK STAR! LITERALLY THE GREATEST AND BIGGEST STAR EVER I-'

- and you emerged from your shared bedroom like-

- 'PLEASE... what do you want'

- and he didn't answer your question, obv

- and your hair was all messy and some not well hidden hickies were on your neck like

- chile erm... what the hell we gon' do now...

- 'yeah sorry guys i was doing something-'

- 'is *he* something?????' soul asked, snickering whilst pointing to a certain monochromed hair boy behind you.

- who was frantically trying to fix his hair.

- you've also kicked them out one too many times.

- grocery shopping dates are always fun and unpredictable, for kid would have a whole list of what to buy and what quantity, and you'd just be running around like a little kid - eyes glistening at the wide array of candy that stocked the shelves

- '(y/n)- no, you can't ride in the cart i- goddammit.'

- mornings are a whole other story though.

- soft kisses shared as you're entangled in his embrace, the sun seeping through your blinds as you play with soft strands of black and white hair, staring at the sleeping boy infront of you.

- moments like those, where you feel as though nothing in the world matters, they're when you truly realise how whipped  you are for kid, especially when he opens his eyes to mumble a soft

- 'good morning, (y/n).'

- before placing a fluttering kiss on your forehead, as he pulled you in closer.

- once you'd come home, exhausted and on the verge of tears.

- you'd gone out on a mission and your partner had gotten incredibly injured - you genuinely weren't sure if they were going to make it, despite the constant reassurance from stein.

- and kid noticed that, his eyes following your hunched over form as you walked into the bedroom exhausted, tears threatening to spill out any second.

- so he dragged you out of the house for a drive

- which was meant to be for maybe an hour,, so you could get your mind off of things

- but you ended up wandering into the city and just driving

- eventually it was six am

- and you just got home, and immediately fell asleep on the couch

- all in all, moving in with death the kid was one of the best decisions of your life.

- mwah i hope u enjoyed xoxo

[wispforever]

if youre still doing the character thing, how about spirit or marie?

I sure am. How about Spirit And Marie? Both wonderful characters. I’ll do Marie first, then Spirit. Thanks for the excuse to infodump, really. You people are too kind.

Marie Mjolnir

My first impression of Marie was the same impression I get of most female characters in anime. It’s either “why do their clothes have to look like that” or “oh god here comes the obligatory sexist heteronormative romance”. For Marie, it was more of the second. They mention in the same episode she’s introduced that Stein is her “first love”, which told me that if she had a large place in the plot, her assigned male counterpart around which to orbit would be him. Though I’ve never read the Soul Eater manga, I believe they do end up getting together there (I could be wrong). Whatever the case, I was relieved that Marie’s and Stein’s relationship (though heavily implied to be romantic, at least on Marie’s side) was left open to interpretation in the anime. I’m just very sick of cool badass female characters like Marie being reduced to the man they pine after. So, I guess my first impression of Marie and my impression of her now are largely the same. While I appreciate the moments we get to see her strengths and ability to operate on her own, I do think that her character really suffers because of the whole sexist “oh gosh all I want is to find a husband and retire” “oh my I have to take care of Stein” like okay, I had enough at the cat girl smothering Soul with her humungo-tits. I had enough at sexualizing underage girls and women in general. I had enough at making sexual harassment a punchline. That being said, when we push all of the shitty writing to the side, I admire Marie for her strength and how she interacts with the children, Crona in particular. Which leads me to my favorite moment(s).

The relationship Crona and Marie have interests me the most, since I’m really drawn to the parallels between Marie and Medusa. As parental figures (and as characters), they’re about as different as you can get. As Crona’s mother, Medusa is obviously abusive. Along with being negligent, she abuses Crona mentally, emotionally, and physically. In general, Medusa is a person who doesn’t appear to value interpersonal relationships, putting it nicely. She instead is more focused on her own interests, often to the detriment of those around her. Crona is Medusa’s only immediate family (besides Arachne who she is estranged from), and so they suffer the most from her refusal to show even a shred of human decency or warmth. They suffer especially because they are her child, meaning they’re stuck with her essentially, and repetivie abuse between family members like a mother and child often becomes complex because of the necessity of having a parental figure in your life to support you as you grow up. Medusa teaches Crona that their boundaries don’t matter and that they are only good as long as they are useful and do as they’re told. This is what makes Marie’s influence on Crona so cool to watch. Marie is caring by nature, loving and nurturing by nature. Her very wavelegnth is healing. She is kind and does what’s right reflexively. Marie is the exact embodiment of what Crona always needed but what, even upon being rescued by the academy, still felt so foreign to them: unconditional love. Crona struggles to understand why the other kids helped them, why Maka felt the inclination to stop their battle and save Crona instead by trying to understand them, why the kids are still so kind to them even after everything. They do not understand that love is not a bargaining chip. It isn’t leverage in an argument. It’s not a tool for emotional manipulation. Love is caring for the people close to you, just because. Love for the sake of love. The other kids and teachers at the academy are the ones who are able to pull Crona out of all Medusa’s lies, and Marie is a Huge part of that. Even though I have greivances with this being the largest part of her character and what that implies for female characters in general, it doesn’t stop being so beautiful to me that she could help Crona heal in this way. Marie = best mom for the win

Most of the story ideas I have for Marie involve her relationship with Crona or Stein. Say, this covers my unpopular opinion too. I don’t like Stein and Marie as a couple, but I really enjoy writing them as friends, because even though I don’t really jive with them being together romantically, I think their dynamic is an interesting one to explore because they Are so different.

Getting into that a little bit more, I’d like to start by saying I don’t care if other people like Stein and Marie being a couple. That’s great doods, keep doing you. The fanart’s adorable, the meta’s fantastic. Whoever you are, SteinMarie shippers, ffs keep kicking ASS. This is just my preference and opinion. Zero shade in this house. That said, because of my frustrations about Marie’s character I discussed in the first paragraph, I don’t like the idea of her and Stein being together romantically. It’s really a classic sexist trope: the troubled man and his sweet nurse. I’m also just fed up in general with the hetero-nonsense, so there. However, they are both wonderful characters that I enjoy very much seperately. Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that I’ve only seen the anime, so I can’t speak for the manga as far as their relationship or Marie’s character in general.

Oh shit I accidentally already talked about this one lmao [see the second paragraph]

One headcanon I like to think about when I’m writing Marie is that she likes women (in addition to men or not) and she struggles with comphet. Just something interesting I like to think about. It’s really fun for me to take characters who have been written as pining or had 10 million failed relationships and be like “say what if they can’t find a husband cuz really what they really need is a wife”. I’ll talk about that more with Spirit inevitably.

Spirit Albarn

My first impression of Spirit, obviously him being a cheater, really came with a lot of distaste. I come from a family that was torn apart by infidelity, among other things, so it really rubs me the wrong way. However, his saving grace for me was that he genuinely loves his daughter. It appears that, whether it’s played for laughs or not, he just can’t find fulfillment in his romantic relationships. The reason is left up to the veiwers. Spirit, ultimately, is not just a shitty person, which is how most cheaters are protrayed in media. “Well, they cheated because they don’t care if they hurt people”, “they cheated because they are shit and that’s it”. That’s a fine explanation if you plan to do nothing with whatever character you’re describing, but Spirit is relatively recurring and is shown to be neither mean-spirited or emotionally unintelligent. It bothers me that his cheating and routine sexist behaviour isn’t taken seriously enough to be a subject that Soul Eater tackles and deals with. But that’s fine. I’ll just do it myself. At any rate, I still feel that same way about Spirit’s character, but I find it intriguing that he seems to genuinely want to become a better father and is actually a pretty good dad when it comes to his interactions with Maka. If Soul Eater had been brave enough to develop him more, maybe delve into the reasoning behind his impulsive romantic affairs, I think Spirit as a character could have been done more justice. It seems to me that he could be suffering from some of that wonderful compulsory heterosexuality that I mentioned before, then becoming confused when the woman he claims to love leaves him feeling empty. Rattling my gay little cage

When I think of my favorite moments with Spirit, I think of his moments with Maka, but I’m gonna hold off on that until I get to favorite relationship(s). In reference to what I talked about in the first paragraph, one moment I find really interesting when I’m thinking about my interpretation of Spirit’s character is the scene where he and Maka are on the roof talking. Maka asks Spirit why he cheated on her mother if he did, in fact, love her. He doesn’t appear to know the answer, and he doesn’t really understand how to effectively communicate that, though he was shitty husband, what he really wants now is to try and be a better dad. We hear his inner monologue, and he says something like “I love you [Maka] and your mama. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. That’s the truth.” Every time he says “its the truth” it sounds more like he’s forcing it. This is actually something that is SO strange to me. Even if I didn’t project a queer narrative on to the characters I love, I would look at this and be like “huh that is a Weird thing to say in that specific way”. Why does he say it like that? Why does he have to say it more than once? He’s only talking to HIMSELF. It isn’t like he’s trying to convince Maka. Why does he have to convince himself?? Could it possibly be because he’s reached a conclusion about his romantic/sexual orientation that he’s been trying to swallow his Entire Life??? makes ya wonder, doesn’t it, queers?

Just like I said when I talked about Stein, most of the stories I have in mind with Spirit center around that sweet gayness. But also, I like to think of ways Spirit could come to terms with his sexuality, how it might have affected him when he was young, his relationship with all these women, with his wife. I love to think about him being a dad at 18 and trying his best, but how much responsibility that must have been. Lots of great ideas when it comes to Spirit.

Um? unpopular opinion would be all the standard like I said with Stein lmao. “Oh no!” scream the heteros, “that they/them on tumblr is making Soul Eater queer we canst not allow that in our church!!!111!” But besides that, maybe even the fact that I think he’s redeemable?? Idk most everyone I’ve met thinks Spirit is funny at least and just calls him a dumbass and a slut (affectionate). Doesn’t mean anybody thinks cheating on your wife 56 times is okay so. I like this fandom, it’s chill here. My favorite is when I see my art tagged like “aw the stupid man and his crazy bf” like YOU ARE RIGHT

My favorite relationship when it comes to Spirit (besides Stein cuz if I start talking about them again I’ll never finish this ask) is the one he has with Maka. If you can call it a relationship lol. I guess I just find Spirit’s approach to Maka as a parent really refreshing. Not that the parents in other shows don’t love their kids or whatever, it’s just that the loving parent always seems to be paired with some other trope that makes their character hard to approach. especially in anime. Like the perfect mother who dies in the first episode, and we spend the rest of the show mourning her. Or the father whose love is somehow everlasting even though he’s never home. It’s really the fact that Spirit is even THERE that I love. He knows what Maka is up to. He talks about her. He’s invested in her life, and he loves her. All he wants is to spend time with her, and though he’s sad when she turns him down, he doesn’t push her. god dammit I just like a dad who actually loves his kids without all the usual strings attached like. oh my kids are a huge pain in my ass, but I love them in spite of it. oh i’m a man so can’t relate to my children in a meaningful way but i try. Get the fuck outta here with that shit. I want all the dads to get so happy when their daughters wanna hang with them that they throw up like Spirit. Give me the guy who loves his daughter so naturally, whose daughter is such a huge part of his life, that it doesn’t even occur to him stop trying even if she literally wants to murder him. That’s Spirit. jfc

To end with a cute little headcanon, I really love to think that when Spirit gets older and starts losing the color in his hair, instead of getting white or grey, his hair turns a pale pink color cuz he’s such an aggressive redhead. Wouldn’t that just be adorable? late 30′s, early 40′s, Spirit starts getting little pink streaks in his hair and then bam. Little pink old man Spirit XD

There ya have it. Thanks for the ask, and feel free to send more.

[ninjettey]

Boys and Aliens ch 2

I'm still new to posting on here. Second chapter is done. I might post it on Wattpad too.

Chapter 2

626 woke to the feeling of being nudged by a foot. He peaked out from under the covers to see Laddie sitting up and rubbing his eyes. 626 crawled out and perched next to the boy. Laddie felt something sit next to him, “626. You’re here.” Laddie shocked 626 when he lunged forward and hugged him. 626 squirmed out of Laddie’s hold and shook out his fur like a dog. The alien was not accustomed to physical touch. Laddie got out of bed and went over to his stash of coloring books, and worked on the page he started the night before. 626 ventured around the main room some more. The sun was starting to set, so the rest will be up soon.

Laddie broke 626 from his venturing, “Is 626 your name?” 626 sits on the floor with Laddie and nods his head. “Do you like it?” Laddie asked. 626 just stares at the boy. Laddie tilts his head and thinks, “I could give a better name.” Laddie sits up and pushes away the picture of Frankenstein he was coloring. The picture gave him an idea, “How about Frank?” 626 shook his head no. “Ok, Stein? No, not that one.” Laddie looks at the last part he colored in, it was the stitches across Frankenstein’s forehead. “What about Stitch?” The alien tilted his head from side to side slowly, then nodded, “Ih.”

Hearing voices of laughter and hollering, Laddie knew the boys were up and heading to the main room. Marko and Paul appeared first, shoving and punching each other while laughing. Then Dwayne followed shortly by David. Laddie got up and went to Dwayne, “Guess what?” “What buddy?” Dwayne picked the boy up. “I gave 626 a new name,” Laddie excitedly exclaimed. “Really?” Paul curiously wondered. Laddie nodded his head, “Uh-huh. His name is Stitch, and he likes it.”

They all turn to Stitch, who is a little uncomfortable with the attention. They watch as Stitch stuffed his feet in his mouth and rolled around the cave like a ball. Stitch bounced a few times over the uneven ground before unrolling to keep from smacking into the giant red toolbox. He could see a bunch of spare parts from their motorcycles and a bare frame. Dwayne and Marko join him since they are the ones that mostly work on the bikes. Marko gestures to the parts, “These are parts from our bikes. We don’t need them. You’re welcome to do what you want with them.” They were mostly curious to see what Stitch could come up with. David got the boys’ attention away from Stitch, “Come on boys, time to feed… Star, you and Laddie stay here.” And with that, the four vampires left to feed off some Surf Nazis.

Star waited for the sounds of the bikes to fade before heading towards the opening of the cave. Laddie stopped her, “Where are you going? You’re supposed to stay here with me.” Star just scoffed, “I’m meeting someone. You’ll be fine. You have Stitch.” Laddie shook his head, “David is going to be so mad.” Star just shrugged her shoulders and continued to climb out of the cave. She was going to meet Michael. She was sure he could help her get away from David and The Lost Boys.

A sound of a tool dropping back into the toolbox had Laddie turning towards Stitch. He gasped at what Stitch had built, “Whoa! You built a bike. Wait, it has three wheels.” Stitch stepped away to look at his creation. He had taken the bare frame, added an additional bar on the back end to support two small wheels from what looks like a go-kart. A decent-sized engine inside the frame with a seat big enough for a grown adult. The handles dropped low enough for Stitch to reach. Stitch had greased and gassed up this beast of a trike. He mounted it and kicked it to life. Satisfied with how it ran, Stitch shocked Laddie by lifting it with one arm and proceeded to carry it outside of the cave and up the cliffside, bypassing the stairs. Laddie followed him out. Stitch had Laddie sit on the seat, then he sat on Laddie’s lap. Stitch started the bike up and off they went.

(Forgive me. I’m not a mechanic so I’m describing what Stitch built as best I can. Looks kinda like this. Google helped.)

The boys were leaning against their bikes just people watching when they heard what sounded like another bike coming closer. Their eyes widen as tourists and locals jump out of the way of what looks like a trike. Once it gets closer they can see it is Stitch and Laddie. Stitch drifts the trike to a halt next to the other bikes. Laddie’s hair is in his face, “Hi guys.” Stitch got up so Laddie could stand, giggling the whole time. The ride was so much fun. Stitch had modified the engine to go faster than it is supposed to and ride over sand with no problem.

Marko and Dwayne are circling the trike, impressed with what he was able to put together from all the parts inside the cave. Marko sat in the seat and it felt comfortable, “This is a sick-ass ride, little dude.” Dwayne nodded his head, “Yeah it is.” Dwayne then looked around for Star, “Where’s Star?” Stitch growled. Laddie patted his head to calm him down, “She left right after you guys. I think that’s why Stitch brought me here. I told her she was supposed to stay with me but she left anyways.” All four vampires growled in anger. David lit another cigarette, “As much as I hate to, we need to go let Max know. See if we can finally get rid of her.”

The group of six walked over to the video store. Opening the door making the dinger go off, Max looks up to see his boys and Laddie walk in. He didn’t notice Stitch at first, not until his Hellhound Thorn growled. “I told you not to come in here. What is that thing?” Thorn kept growling and getting closer to Stitch. The alien growled in response, stood up straighter to look the Hellhound in the eyes. Stitch’s eyes started to glow bright green, making Thorn cower and back away. The boys just smirked and walked out of the video store. They didn’t even bother talking to Max about Star. They were too smug that Stitch scared Thorn.

Stitch did not like Max one bit. Max was very rude to his new friends. David walked past Stitch and bent down to pat his head as he passed. The group went back to their bikes and hung out for a bit longer. Stitch would occasionally say words in his language. Dwayne being the closest to him asked what he was saying. Over the next hour, Stitch tried his best to teach the boys various phrases in his language. They were all laughing at the insults he taught them. The people passing by would just glance at them and walk faster thinking they were being talked about.

David had spotted Star talking to Michael. He was the kid Max had ordered to turn so Max could claim the kid’s mom. He dropped his spent cigarette on the ground and stomped it out. “Come on boys, let’s greet the lovebirds,” David said as he mounted his bike. They all surrounded Michael, even Stitch, and Laddie. Star looked at David scared before turning back to Michael. “You left Laddie alone again Star,” David told her coldly promising punishment once they got back to the cave.

Michael had hung out with the Lost Boys a couple of times already. Ever since the first time, Michael has felt different, more agitated, aggressive, and hungry no matter what he ate or drank. He glared at David, “We were going to get something to eat.” He held his hand out for Star but David cut her off, “Star.” As of giving a silent command, she mounted David’s bike behind him. “Why don’t you come with us? We were just going to get something to eat.” The boys laughed knowing it wasn’t food he was talking about. David could feel Michael’s hunger was getting worse. Time to show this half-vamp what he was. They drove to the cave and dropped off Star, Laddie, and Stitch first. Stitch has not been told they are vampires yet, so they did not want him to see them feed and freak out.

Following behind the guys, Michael was a little on edge. He was turning into something and he didn’t like it. His younger brother Sam told him he was turning into a vampire. Michael didn’t want to believe him but certain things that have happened to make him think Sam is right. Pulling up to a sand dune, the four vampires and half got off their bikes and climbed up a tree to watch a group of drunk Surf Nazis party. The Nazis were oblivious to what awaits them. Michael heard David talking, “Initiation is over Michael. Time to join the club.” Michael looks over the other guys to see their faces have transformed into something demonic.

David and his boys flew at the partiers and tore into them, pun intended. Michael watched as Marko snapped a guy's neck after drinking his blood. Paul ripped some guy’s arms off while his mouth was attached to his neck. Dwayne snapped a guy in half that he drained. It was what David was doing that scared him the most. David had bit the top of a guy’s head and then started to eat the back out of it while slurping up the blood. Michael could feel the urge to join them, and it freaked him out. Michael dropped out of the tree and rolled down the hill as the guys came over the top. They were panting and covered in blood.

“Now you know what we are. What you are. You will never grow old, get sick or die. But you must feed,” David wiped the blood off his cheek and laughed. Michael screamed, “NO!” He mounted his bike and rode off as fast as he could. The boys just continued to laugh at the punk. They knew Michael wasn’t made for the life of a vampire. They returned to the cave shortly thereafter where Stitch gave them all a once-over before laying down at Laddie’s feet.

David and his boys just gave each other a look and thought, ‘Maybe Stitch wouldn’t freak out.’ They decided to tell him the next night what they were. Of course, Stitch will find out before then.

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for being a younger Avenger and mentoring Kamala

Kamala Khan x reader

warnings: avengers game spoilers, guns

a/n: so excited about this one; i made y/n just a bit older (and gn!) so that they’re in their mid-early teens during a-day! hope thats okie doke! reader has electrokinesis. this accidentally got really detailed

prompt: anonymous: “Hey there! Would you mind writing HCs for the Avengers Game about female reader being a young Avenger (around 17) and mentoring Kamala Khan?”

you were just a kid yourself when you joined the avengers

and you were an inspiration to kids around the world

“does SHIELD think nothing of child labor laws?” -bruce

the avengers became your family

and seeing what you could do...they knew you could handle yourself

and then a-day happened

the day started off so perfect

and the kids went ballistic over seeing you

“y/h/n! look, it’s y/h/n!”

“can i get a picture?”

“hi, guys! of course you can!”

but there was one kid who stuck out among the rest

kamala khan

“you’re the one who wrote about the sewers, right? i freaking loved it! may i just say your art is amazing?”

“r-really?”

“oh, yeah! and the part where you had thor spin mjölnir to push water towards the sewer lizards so i could shock them? genius!”

she could not wait to tell abu about what you had just said

you obviously took a selfie with her and handed her a little pin with your own “icon” on it

but your world got turned upside down that day

the battle was one you’d never forget

and the fighting with your own teammates afterwards would haunt you for years to come

“what do you know, y/n?! you’re just a kid!” -tony

“oh yeah? im one of the only functioning members of this team!”

“everybody calm down. y/n makes a good point, but—” -nat

“thank you”

“...but there’s some stuff you should leave up to us. you really shouldn’t have to take on so much responsibility” -nat

“she’s right, y/n. this was our fault” -bruce

“are you kidding me?! i’m just as guilty as the rest of you, i’m an equal member of this team! for years we’ve dealt with this together, taken the blame together! what’s changed?”

“y/n...you saw what we did out there. that changed everything...” -bruce

you technically were an inhuman, just not terrigen-based

didnt matter to AIM, they took dr. pym for god’s sake

so you had to run, you were on your own for a while

a long while

you laid low for five years, most boring five years of your life

at least you still had your life, though. it just wasn’t what it used to be

but you got a message one day

“‘tiny dancer,’ huh? my moneys on either nat or tony. nah, tony would have chosen ‘rocket man.’”

you couldn’t be sure, maybe it was just a random shield agent...maybe hank pym? god, this was crazy

the message brought you to, uh, cap’s memorial statue

and there was a young girl arguing with a couple of boys...an inhuman!

you hopped in and saved her, she seemed scared

“hey, kid, you alright?”

“y/h/n? is it really you?”

she seemed vaguely familiar

“are you tiny dancer?”

“no, i thought you might be? they sent you here, too?”

there wasn’t much time to chat, AIM was onto you

you two unfortunately got split up for a minute, but you were practically raised by the notorious clint barton and natasha romanoff, and various other spies

yes, you planted a tracker on her

and met her at the bus stop!

“you found me?”

“that i did, kamala. see, i do remember you”

“that is so cool! i mean—not almost getting killed, or the guy with the big head...”

“what guy? you need to tell me everything”

the whole busride was a bit overwhelming. kamala explained the resistance clues, her powers, her undying admiration for the avengers, you name it

but it made you feel good to know that there were people out there that didn’t hate you

“so what was it like? being the teenage avenger?”

“uh, it was...it was really cool. i felt like i was one-of-a-kind. but sometimes people didn’t take me seriously, it was kind of aggravating”

“yeah, no one takes me seriously either...”

“you know, depending on how this all goes, i might be able to give you a few pointers”

“really?! that’d be great!”

once you got to utah...you saw the chimera

it brought back some bad memories, kamala could tell

“you okay?”

“me? yeah, im good. just thinking...okay, well, do you have a plan on how to get yourself across all of this?”

“actually, i do!”

it was kind of creepy in there, but when you laid your eyes on caps shield, you kind of broke

“do you hear something, what it that?”

“...hulk. kamala, you need to get out of here, i’ll catch up to you, i swear”

she didn’t leave in time, so she got to see the greener side of bruce. you chased him back and tried to get bruce back

meanwhile, kamala found AIM troops...oops

bruce cooled off and man was he doing rough

“y/n, is that really you?”

“yeah, its me. surprise. how long have you been the big guy?”

“too long...a few years”

“jesus, im sorry. i’ll be right back, though. some kid brought me here, i gotta go get her. you kinda scared her off”

she was passed out when you got to her

but bruce is a doctor, he’d figure it out

“i could give her a little shock to wake her up, you know?”

“oh, i know. just let her rest for a minute. she needs it”

“right...well im gonna take a look around, maybe go see what i left behind. i could power the place up, but we’re missing some parts to actually get this thing running. best i can do is lights and doors”

you turned the little things on and turns out did leave a decent amount of stuff in here

your first pair of pistols that nat gave you, the gigantic stein that thor gifted you for your 13th birthday, gadgets tony needed an “extra boost” for *bzzt*, a note from cap that just said “good luck, y/n, you’re going to do great!” you cant even remember what it was he was referring to. you just missed him

kamala walked in while you were shuffling around and cleaning the place up

“hey, dr. banner wanted me to come get you. is this your room?”

“that it is, and it’s a huge mess. this is literally all my belongings ever”

bruce had his plan and you just went along, helping kamala out as you go

“baby steps, kam, don’t want you to pass out. but don’t worry, happens to the best of us” -you

“really? you pass out too?” -kamala

“oh yeah, for sure. tell her bruce, remember that time we had thor overcharge me to literally make me an EMP? and tony was busy listening to music so he wouldn’t get out of the blast radius and his armor shut down? so he was out of commission and i had just collapsed from it all? good times”

“y/n, we thought you died” -bruce

this hc is so long omg — anyways you guys ended up finding tony and it was sort of entertaining but he kinda punched bruce and then hugged you

“you got so big”

“shut up, tony”

you kinda harbored some bad feelings since none of the avengers did anything to help you once they started rounding up inhumans (but you still missed them)

getting attacked again

“okay, kamala, remember what i said about baby steps. dont overdo it. i trust you with this!”

“thank you, y/n! uh—oh my god!”

aaaanyways you went to the ant hill to see hank and pick up some supplies, boy was it great to see some familiar faces, then back the the chimera you went to fix it all up

“can you hold that right there for me, kamala? thanks. i think that just about does it. now i have a surprise for you...your own room!”

you helped kamala get it nice and tidy while talking about each other’s lives, she really did remind you of yourself when you became an avenger. excited, scared, underestimated, all of that. and she begged you to share some mission stories, so you obviously did

“you know, if you stick around for a while, you’re gonna have some cool stories, too. maybe even a kickass costume.”

“oh! a costume, ive got that sorta covered. check it out. a burkini, muslim women wear it for swimming and stuff. my mom got it for me”

“love it. soon we’ll find you a fitting name and update the suit, but seriously, this was the perfect way to go. you look great”

“you think so? i don’t know if i feel that cool. maybe i should try something else?”

“if that’s how you feel, you don’t have to stick to it. you can experiment all you want! but i really think you did awesome on this. come on, pose with me! and hey, i like your pins.”

at this point, you’d do anything for kamala, she reminded you so much of yourself. you would have killed for a mentor your age back in the day.

natasha was in fact tiny dancer...called it

“oh, god, y/n. you’re all grown up...im sorry we left you alone. but if it makes you feel better, i always kept an eye on you”

“well, i kind of took on a protégé...she’s like your grand-protégé. kam, c’mere”

after thor finally came back, everyone started fighting again and ditched, it felt so familiar. but you couldn’t leave kamala behind, you swore to yourself that you couldn’t do that.

she was so good for this team

MODOK was defeated (by kamala herself) but there was so much left to do, tons of threats to extinguish, training to accomplish

“y/n, tony won’t turn his dad rock off! he overrode the speakers in my room”

“oh, it’s on. get chastity’s fabric dye and bleach pens. we’re gonna start some trouble”

she gave you a high five one time and nearly broke your arm

sending each other tiny hand memes

“hey, ms. m, how’re your parents? doing okay without their favorite super-daughter?”

“my abu doesn’t stop texting me actually, says my family is super proud of me. it’s a nice change of pace”

you take her on covert missions for field training, it was Educational(tm)

*elevator music playing* “so...what do you want for dinner? i was thinking we could ask thor to barbecue”

sleepovers in her room that just turn into her showing you her superhero merch, listening to music, prank lists, sneaking off to the HARM room for hand-to-hand combat training and power experiments, thinking up new costume designs

“tip: you always need backup suits, you never know what you’re gonna run into out there. one time tony pushed me into a tower of paint cans and they spilled all over me. steve yelled at him for two hours afterwards. worst mission ever, except steve said ‘motherfucker’ and i have never recovered from the emotions of that day”

“wow, i wish i could have been there for that”

“don’t worry, kami, you’ll see some crazy ‘team bonding’ along the way”

she geeks out about captain marvel sometimes

“hey, i’ve got a book carol gave to me about ‘teens taking responsibility.’ you wanna read it?”

“is it any good?”

“i don’t know, i only read the first two pages”

you ended up having a true heart-to-heart with her after one mission when she made a mistake that nearly cost you guys the mission. you told her that not every mission is going to go perfect, each avenger had slipped up in the field, and she had just started, shes not going to be perfect

“i am literally always here if you need anything. i know what it feels like to be a teenager among legends, but trust me, you’ve made it this far and you’ve proven how much of a badass you are. i know you can take anything that gets thrown at you”

kamala said she makes vegan nachos and yeah she makes vegan nachos

you guys have to hide from the rest of the team when she makes them bc they eat ALL OF THEM

gaff (the SHEILD vendor) has you test his gear, you recommend gear to kamala

you were so excited to guide kamala on her journey of heroism

taglist: @ravenmoore14 // @purpleskiesstorm //