#this isn't how lasers work but it is now

[sugoroo]

TRADING CARDS!

summary: in which toji’s in need of some cash, and you’re in need of having your cherry popped! he’ll take your v card if you lend him your credit card. simple, right?

warnings: fem!reader, penetration (p in v), breast play, tummy bulge, squirting, loss of virginity (reader), fingering, oral (f receiving), age gap (reader just finished college), tojis a bit of a perv, 18+ minors dni.

wc: 7.2k

"hey, doll?" toji grunts as he pokes his head into your room, his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he shoots you a slightly apologetic grin. "i'm gonna need ya to cover my half of the rent again this month."

you look up from your phone, your lips pulling down into a small frown at his words. this isn't the first time this has happened, and it certainly won't be the last, either. "seriously, toji?"

toji simply gives you a noncommittal shrug in response, turning the pockets of his sweatpants inside out as if to further prove his point — there wasn't a single cent in sight. "i ain't got nothin', sweets. hardly been able to buy food these last few days."

you roll your eyes, letting out a soft huff at his not-so-subtle attempt to make you feel bad for him (which almost always worked, and he knew it.) "fine. but you better come through next month. i can't keep covering you."

he lets out a sigh of relief, reaching out to ruffle your hair with one his large hands. "yeah yeah, i'll pay up next time. promise." he was lying through his teeth, and you both knew it. but you chose not to comment on it — maybe a small part of you wanted to keep toji as your roommate, even if you had to pay his rent half the time.

toji heads back out into the living room to lazily slump across the couch, leaving you to your own thoughts.

it was really starting to grate on your nerves how much you had to support him. he's a fully grown man, and you're a young girl fresh out of college. and yet, somehow, you ended up being the one paying his bills with the leftover money from your summer job.

and maybe it wouldn't bother you so much, if you weren't so constantly pent up.

college was supposed to be your time to shine, where you'd attend countless parties and have meaningless hookups with guys in bathrooms, just like all the movies you watched when you were younger.

but it wasn't really like that. and as much as you loathe to admit it, you're still a virgin. with only your own feeble fingers to keep you company, you can probably count on one hand the amount of orgasms you've had in your life.

and that's when you have an idea.

it's just like trading cards — toji takes your v card, and in return, you lend him your credit card.

it's shameless, and you might've felt embarrassed with yourself for even coming up with it if you weren't in dire need of releasing some tension.

and if toji's as desperate for money as he makes out like he is, maybe he wouldn't mind agreeing to your little proposition.

the only catch in your genius idea is that you actually have to ask toji about it.

you've been lingering outside his bedroom door for what feels like hours, trying to figure out how to actually phrase your proposal without making a complete fool of yourself.

but just as you timidly raise a fist to knock, the door swings open, and toji walks right into you, causing you to collide face first with his toned chest. you barely register the two strong hands that rest over your shoulders to steady you, your mind suddenly laser focused on the way your cheek is squished between his pecs.

"oops. sorry, doll," toji chuckles heartily, moving one of his hands from your shoulder to gently grasp your hair and pull your now noticeably flushed face away from his chest. "didn't see ya there."

"n-no, it's my fault." you manage to stammer out, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to regain your composure. shit, you hadn't even asked him yet, and you were already a mess.

he raises a thick eyebrow at your skittish demeanour, his hand leaving your hair to teasingly poke at one of your adorably pink cheeks. "aww, what's this? you blushin'?"

you try and shoot him a glare, but it looks more like a pout than anything else as you meekly swat his hand away from your face. "shut up, toji. you're the one who walked right into me."

he lets out a deep, amused chortle at this, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at you with a lazy smirk. "right. and you're the one who was lingering outside my door like a creeper."

you let out an embarrassed huff at his rebuttal, knowing there's no way to deny it now. you take another deep breath, idly wringing your hands as you crane your neck to look up at him. "yeah. about that. i, um, i wanted to ask you something."

toji cocks his head to the side, his expression turning mildly curious. "oh? what could you possibly want to ask this old man, hm?" he grunts, your little nervous fidgets not going unnoticed by him.

"w-well, i, um..." you begin, your features twisting up into a grimace as you struggle to get the words out. damn it, you were already cursing your past self for thinking this was a good idea. "i have a proposition for you."

this seems to pique the dark-haired man's interest, and he straightens his back slightly, reaching up with a large hand to scratch his chin. "what kind of proposition are we talkin', sweets?"

you swallow thickly at the way he puts such emphasis on the word proposition, as if he already knows exactly what you're thinking. but of course he doesn't — how could he?

"the kind of proposition where i lend you my credit card to help with your little... money problem," you begin, fighting to keep your voice as steady as possible. "and in return, you..."

toji's eyebrows raise even higher at your words, and he lets out a grunt of irritation when you trail off at the end of your sentence. "in return i what? use your words, doll."

"and in return, you..." you repeat quietly, your voice becoming consistently quieter until the last few words come out as a mere whisper. "help me lose my virginity."

the silence that follows your words is absolutely deafening, the only noise being the faint sounds of cars passing by the road outside the apartment.

you immediately start thinking of ways to salvage the situation, maybe just laugh it off and say it was a prank or something. it's a flimsy excuse, but it's better than this painful silence.

just as you open your mouth in an attempt to backtrack, toji grasps your chin in one large hand, effectively shutting you up with the movement. "you're a damn virgin?" he rasps out, turning your flushed face from side to side as if examining it would help him find the answer.

"u-uh, yeah," you mutter sheepishly, shrinking in on yourself slightly under the sudden intensity of his gaze. "why do you sound so surprised?"

toji barks out an almost incredulous laugh, as if you were utterly ridiculous for even asking such a thing. "seriously?" he huffs, shaking his head. "you're a fine little thing. figured ya would've had guys linin' up around the block for ya at college."

your eyes widen almost comically at his words, your mouth opening and closing a few times as you try to form a coherent response. you never expected your considerably older, rough around the edges roommate to actually find you attractive. "i-is that a yes, then?"

he scoffs loudly at this, repeating your words back to you in a mocking tone. "how the hell do ya expect me to say no to that?" he mutters, the pad of his thumb skimming across your jaw. "i've done worse deals for a whole lot less."

you let out a long sigh of relief, some of the tension leaving your shoulders at his agreement. the hardest part was out the way — you'd managed to get him on board.

"hey." toji grunts, his hand on your chin squeezing hard enough to get your attention as he angles it higher, tearing you from your thoughts. "look at me when we're talkin', girl."

your eyes widen even further at his sudden commanding tone, your thighs instinctively pressing together slightly beneath your skirt. the reaction doesn't go unnoticed by toji, but he doesn't comment on it, simply filing the information away for later.

"ya sure this is what y'want, sweets?" toji asks, his voice barely above a low mutter as he leans his head down closer to your level, his hot breaths just barely puffing across your face as he seemingly searches for any signs of hesitance. "once it's done there ain't no goin' back."

"i... i know." you gulp, vaguely aware of the way his dark eyes follow the gentle bobbing of your throat. "i wouldn't have asked if i didn't want this."

he hums, appearing satisfied with your answer. his thumb moves from your jaw to the plump skin of your lower lip, pulling it down slightly before letting it snap back into place. "how long do i get ya credit card for?"

"how long?" you repeat, blinking a few times. you hadn't even thought about that. and it was becoming quite hard to focus with the way he was toying with your lip. "um... twenty four hours."

toji grunts in acknowledgement, but his lips start to spread into a mischievous grin, and you can tell he's not going to make this easy for you. "nah. forty eight."

you let out an indignant huff, your eyes narrowing at the audacity of this man. two whole days? he was probably planning on bankrupting you at this rate. "thirty six." you counter.

he lets out a hearty laugh, his chest visibly rumbling with amusement at your haggling. his thumb traces over your lip again, causing you to let out a shuddering breath. "mm. ya got y'erself a deal there, dollface."

"good." you mutter, reaching out a hand towards him in a gesture of sealing the deal. toji takes it, his large hand entirely enveloping yours as he gives it a brisk shake.

before you can even think of saying anything else, toji uses his grip on your hand to tug you closer to his chest, your face almost colliding with his torso again.

"i'm assumin' you've atleast kissed before?" toji muses, this thumb still tracing the contour of your lips as if that would answer his question.

you let out a small, embarrassed laugh, rubbing the back of your neck as you find yourself avoiding his gaze again. "yeah, i have."

toji tuts, yanking your chin back up again, more forcibly this time. "jesus, girl. what did i say about keeping your eyes on me?" he grumbles. "and whatcha laughin' for? i say somethin' funny?"

"sorry." you huff, your lips pushing out into an involuntary pout. "i'm not laughing because of you. it was just a really... bad kiss."

he hums in response, tilting his head to the side as his grin morphs into a small smirk. "damn. a virgin and you've never even had a good kiss. i got my work cut out for me here."

you try and shoot him another glare, a huff of exasperation leaving your lips. "no need to rub it in, toji. i'm paying you for this, remember?"

toji barks out an amused chuckle, shaking his head at your little attempts to try and look stern. cute. "yeah yeah, i know ya are. and don't worry, ya won't regret it."

you're about to open your mouth to retort, but before a single syllable can leave your mouth, toji's lips are on yours. they're rough and slightly chapped as they brush over your own, just the texture you would've expected them to be if you had to guess.

it's not a rough kiss, but it's not exactly gentle either. it's somewhere in the middle, somewhere that makes you think even the way toji kisses is just so... toji.

he pulls away after a few moments, letting out a soft huff of laughter at your dazed expression. "you still in there, sweets?" he hums, flicking his thumb against your forehead.

you can feel the way your cheeks flush darker at his taunting words, silently cursing yourself for getting so worked up over a simple kiss. damn it, it was so obvious just how touch starved you were. how were you going to make it through this?

"i'm still here." you grumble under your breath, causing toji to chuckle even harder. "and if you're just gonna keep laughing at me, maybe i'll go ask someone else to help me."

toji's chuckle turns into a bark of laughter, and his lips curve up into a smug grin as he flicks your forehead again. "no can do. we already shook on it. handshake's sacred, dollface. dontcha know?"

"ugh. you just made that—" you attempt to argue, but he shuts you up by pressing his lips back onto yours again, slightly rougher this time. you let out a sound of surprise against his mouth when his scar brushes against your skin, but slowly, you start to reciprocate the gesture.

he lets out a satisfied hum, starting to take a few steps backwards through the doorway of his room, his lips still moving against yours all the way.

you angle your face up to unknowingly chase after his lips when he pulls away, and you have to swallow down the embarrassing sound that threatens to escape you when you realize what you're doing.

toji snorts, shutting the door behind the two of you with a stupidly self-satisfied smirk stretching across his lips. "that attached to me already, huh? we only just started."

"i'm not attached." you scoff meekly, though your actions severely contradict your words as you lean up on your tiptoes in the search of another kiss.

"mhm. whatever y'say, girl." he mutters amusedly, his hand snaking under your chin again to help you reach his mouth. he meets you halfway, his kisses growing slowly more insistent as his tongue flickers out to swipe over your lower lip.

a soft gasp escapes your lips at the feeling of the warm, wet muscle asking for entrance into your mouth, but you comply, parting your lips to allow the intrusion.

he lets out a satisfied grunt, his tongue darting every which way as it expertly explores the warm cavern of your mouth. you just stand there, completely stock still, for a long few seconds before your own tongue starts to meekly lick against his.

"yeah, there we go," toji mutters into your mouth, his thick tongue easily enveloping yours as he rolls them together. he's so effortless with it, like this is second nature for him — you suppose it probably is. you're not oblivious to the amount of hookups he brings back to the apartment when he thinks you're asleep.

toji pulls back from your mouth with a lewd pop! once he registers that you need some air, observing the way your chest rapidly rises and falls like you can't get enough oxygen with silent amusement.

he's going to have such fun pulling more of these pretty reactions from you.

while you're still desperately trying to catch your breath, he slides both of his rough, calloused palms under the fabric of your shirt, his hands leaving a tingling trail of heat across your skin.

"wait—" you begin to protest, but whatever you were going to say trails off once you feel his fingers brush against the underside of your breasts.

he lets out a grunt of surprise, raising his bushy eyebrows. "no bra, doll?" toji scoffs, shaking his head. "you were ready for this, weren't ya?

your cheeks flood with embarrassment for the nth time this evening, and you feel the sudden urge to just shove his hands away and go back to your room to get yourself off with your feeble fingers. but you don't.

toji lets out yet another snort of laughter at your reaction, rolling his eyes. "i ain't sayin' it's a bad thing, girl," he mumbles, moving his hands to cup each of your breasts in his wide palms. "makes things easier for me. i like it."

you let out a small huff of relief at his sort-of-creepy reassurance, unable to fight the way your body instinctively leans into his touch, pressing your chest into his hands slightly.

he hums, removing his hands only to push your shirt up to get a look at your bare breasts, the fabric bunching up around your collarbone as he leans in closer to inspect your assets.

"toji!" you gasp in complaint, trying to push down the instinct to cover yourself up from your roommate's intense gaze. but when your hands fly up to guard your chest, he instantly grabs your wrists, making you freeze.

"ah ah," he chides with a smug smirk, easily moving both of your wrists into one hand while the other reaches out to fondle your breasts. "no need to be shy. ya got a nice pair of juicy tits right here."

his compliment is so lewd, and even with the way you attempt to wriggle your wrists free from his grip, he effortlessly keeps them trapped with one strong hand.

toji squeezes and kneads the supple flesh of your breasts, laving both with equal attention as he feels up every inch of skin available to him. he can't believe his little roommate has been hiding these pretty tits from him all this time.

when he leans down to pop one into his mouth, you let out a strangled gasp which quickly morphs into an almost pornographic moan when he starts to gently suckle at your highly sensitive nipple.

"shit." you manage to push out, your breaths becoming increasingly more erratic as he starts to flick his rough tongue over your perked bud. you can feel rather than hear the raspy chuckle he lets out at your reaction.

"so damn sensitive," toji rumbles as he pulls back from your breast, which is now shiny and slick with his salvia, before moving to the other. "y'like that, huh?"

it takes you a few moments to form a coherent response, your mind suddenly feeling unable to focus on anything other than the way he's practically making out with your chest. "y-yeah."

toji's smirk widens in a grin at your stammered words, clearly finding enjoyment in the way your body is reacting to his every touch. "bet ya do. poor thing, graduated college and still never been properly touched."

you let out an indignant huff, annoyance momentarily taking over your pleasure. damn it, why did he always have to mock you at any given opportunity? you're starting to wish you never told him about your virginity.

he snorts again at your huff, removing his mouth from your breast with a long, stringy trail of salvia connecting his lips to your chest. "whatcha huffin' for, girl? thought ya wanted this."

you shoot him another one of your trying-to-be-stern-but-really-just-pouting glares. "i do want this. but i also want you to stop laughing at me the entire time."

he rolls his eyes dramatically, acting as if not laughing at your expense was the most difficult thing he'd been asked to do today. "i'm not laughin' at you, dollface. i'm laughin' at those stupid ass college boys who missed out on having you like this."

before you can even begin to process his words, toji crowds you backwards until the backs of your knees hit the edge of his bed, and you instinctively plop down onto the mattress, looking up at him with wide eyes.

he snickers at your shocked expression, moving forward to stand between your legs. from this position, he towers over you even more than usual, and you have to crane your neck practically all the way back to meet his eyes.

"why so surprised, hmm?" toji drawls, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear in an uncharacteristically gentle touch. "y'think i didn't notice how pretty ya were the first damn day ya moved in?"

you open and close your mouth a few times before managing to pull yourself together enough to speak. "honestly? i kinda figured you didn't pay me much attention — considering how many hookups you bring around here."

he hums in response, moving his hand to grasp your chin and force you to maintain eye contact with him. "so you noticed that, huh?" he grunts, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "they're just distractions, really. i've wanted you for a while, but i assumed ya wouldn't be interested in and old man like me."

you can only raise an eyebrow incredulously at his words, as if he'd just said something ridiculous. "toji, you're so dramatic. you're not that old."

he barks out a loud laugh at this, slowly lowering himself to his knees between your legs. the audible sound of his muscles protesting the movement seems to disprove your words, making you wince. "no need to flatter me, sweets. i know 'm old." he mutters, his smirk still firmly in place.

you open your mouth to argue, but quickly forget whatever you were about to say when toji's large palms start to trail up your thighs, stopping just below the edge of your skirt.

"ya got no panties on too?" he asks teasingly, although you can hear the faint sense of actual curiosity in his tone. however, when his fingers graze against the edge of your lace panties, he huffs. "hmph. you disappoint me."

you roll your eyes at his words. you would've gone pantyless too, but unfortunately the prospect of finally losing your virginity made you so wet that you had to wear them to prevent yourself from dripping on the floor of the apartment.

"you've touched yourself before, i take it?" toji grunts as his hand moves to easily cup your clothed pussy in his palm, his smirk becoming a grin again when he feels how damp the material is.

you suck in a sharp breath, your eyes fluttering in pleasure at the feel of someone else's hand except your own touching your most sensitive area. "y-yeah, i have. but it's..."

toji seems to understand why you trailed off, letting out a hum of acknowledgement as his fingers start to rub little circles against your panties. "but your little fingers can't make you cum right, yeah?"

you can only manage a feeble nod, fighting the urge to start grinding yourself into his hand. he chuckles amusedly at your reaction, his fingers just dipping under the edge of your panties but not quite.

if you were one of his usual hookups, he'd probably be balls deep inside you by now. but you're not — you're his pretty little roommate he's had his eye on for a while, and on top of that, you're a virgin.

he's going to take his sweet time with you.

toji spends what feels like an eternity teasing you through your underwear until you're squirming restless on the edge of his bed before he finally, finally makes direct contact with your pussy.

"shit," he grunts as he swipes his finger through your sopping folds, the digit practically slipping across your slick skin. "you're so damn wet, baby. i've hardly even touched you yet."

you can't stop the pathetic whine that escapes your throat, your cheeks flushed a delightful shade of pink and your eyes half-lidded with need as you look down at him. "please, toji."

fucking hell. he actually has to restrain himself from just pouncing on you right there and then when you beg him so sweetly. instead, he lets out a raspy chuckle, his finger moving down to lazily circle your dripping entrance. "please what, girl? use your words."

"please..." you say again, your voice breathless as you wriggle your hips slightly underneath his hand. "touch me properly."

toji snorts at your phrasing, shaking his head. but before another retort can leave his lips, he's rendered speechless for a moment when he slides a finger into your entrance, your gummy walls instantly sucking him in.

"jesus," he mutters hoarsely, yanking your panties to the side with his other hand to get an unobstructed view of the way your little pussy flutters around his finger. "what a pretty fuckin' cunt."

you let out what can only be described as a mewl at his words, and the noise sounds foreign to your own ears. god, what is he doing to you?

he groans low in his throat at the sound you make, moving his finger around inside of you as gently as he can and brushing the thick digit against your spongy walls.

it should be illegal, really, how quickly toji manages to find your sweet spot. he's had a single finger inside your pussy for just under a minute, and the calloused pad of his digit is already grazing your sensitive g spot.

"ah!" you practically sob, your thighs instinctively clenching around his beefy arm. you've never felt such an intense spark of pleasure before — it's obvious you never managed to find that spot before when you attempted to get yourself off.

he grins smugly, brushing his finger over the spot again, almost touching it but not quite enough to properly stimulate you. "that's the spot, ain't it, dollface?" the question is rhetorical. you both know that's the spot.

but before you can start grinding yourself down onto his finger, he abruptly pulls it out, admiring the way the digit is now coated in your shiny slick.

you open your mouth to protest, or beg for more, or something, but all rational thoughts leave your mind when you see toji slip his finger into his mouth, sucking your juices from it with a low grunt.

"damn, that's good," he mutters gruffly, almost to himself, as he slides it out of his mouth with a lewd pop! — his eyes then fall back on your glistening pussy, his pupils dilated considerably more than before.

in a matter of moments, toji's slid your ruined panties down your legs, admiring the sticky mess soiled there before shamelessly shoving them in his pocket of his sweatpants.

"hey!—" you huff half-heartedly, but before you can even think of finishing the sentence, toji's chapped lips are placing a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses up your thighs.

"mmph," you moan softly, not bothering to protest as he slides your thighs further apart with his palms, his lips nibbling against the supple skin of your inner thighs, undoubtably leaving small marks that will bloom tomorrow.

"wanna eat you," toji murmurs once he's face to face with your pussy, his hot breaths puffing across your sensitive skin and visibly making your little clit twitch impatiently. "can i eat you, dollface?"

you crease your eyebrows a little in confusion at his request. from what you'd heard from your college friends, guys hated performing oral for girls. but the way toji was staring hungrily at your cunt, his tongue swiping across his dry lips, made you think he would simply laugh at you again if you told him that.

"o-okay," you mutter sheepishly. and the second the agreement leaves your lips, toji's burying his entire face against your heat, groaning into your pussy as he rubs his sharp nose up and down your sopping folds.

when he first slides his rough tongue across your sensitive skin, you swear you go cross-eyed for a full moment before regaining control of yourself. it's like nothing you've ever felt before, wet and warm and so deliciously lewd.

"fuckin' sweeter than candy," toji grunts against your skin, the vibrations causing your body to instinctively attempt to wriggle away. but he's not having it, his beefy arms wrapping around your thighs to keep you in place. "ah ah, no runnin', baby."

while before you might've tried to argue a little in protest, your brain has already turned to mush from just his finger and his tongue, so you can only let out a few unintelligible murmurs.

"yeahhh," he snorts as he continues to sloppily lap at your folds, gathering as much of your syrupy slick on his tastebuds as possible. "don't hear none of that backtalk now."

god, he's so messy with it. you can hardly manage to keep your eyes open to gaze at him, but when you do, it only makes your pleasure heighten to new levels.

you've never seen your roommate so focused on anything before — not even those storage wars shows he likes to shout at on the tv. his eyes are half-lidded, his thick fingers are digging into your thighs so hard you can visibly see the marks forming, and his tongue is ruthless as it delves in and out of your dripping hole.

"t-toji, shit. feels so good," you manage to stammer out, your head thrown back and your hands traveling up to tangle in his messy dark hair without thinking, tugging on it gently.

your action draws a raspy chuckle from low in toji's throat, and his sloppy, shameless tongue seems to speed up even more in response. you vaguely register a glob of saliva landing on your pussy, but just as quick as it falls there, he's already licking it back up. "c'mon, girl, i know you can pull harder than that."

you attempt to tug his dishevelled strands harder, but your hands feel weak, and your thighs are starting to shake slightly around his head. you notice a familiar spring coiling in the depths of your stomach, but it feels more intense than any build-up to an orgasm you've given yourself before.

"t-think i'm close." you gasp out, your mouth hanging open as you try and keep your body from collapsing back against the mattress. he's quick to help, his hands sliding up the back of your skirt to support your back.

toji hums in satisfaction, a shit-eating (or, in this case, a pussy-eating) grin spreading across his lips as he continues to devour you, his tongue repeatedly massaging your g spot.

it feels like he's trying to eat you whole, and it's completely overwhelming in the best way possible.

"yeah?" he mutters against your cunt, wrapping his lips around your puffy, swollen clit and sucking the sensitive bud harshly. "go on then, baby. cum for me."

it feels like a part of you was instinctively waiting for his permission, because the second those words leave his mouth, your entire body starts convulsing in his strong arms, a strangled cry leaving your open mouth as you orgasm.

your earlier suspicion was right, because this is the hardest you've ever cum before in your entire life. (not that there's really much competition). your limbs feel all tingly and airy, and there aren't really many thoughts left in your mind except from toji, toji, toji.

"hmmph," toji grumbles, pulling back from your cunt after he's sure every bit of your sweet release is down his throat. he looks up at you, snickering gruffly at the utterly dumb look across your features.

you look completely fucked out already, and he hasn't even fucked you yet. that's what happens when you make a deal with a virgin, he assumes.

while you attempt to come down from your high, toji shifts slightly, his knees aching slightly from spending so long on the floor. but even worse than that, is the raging erection he has straining against the material of his sweatpants.

it's been there since he started kissing you, and it's only gotten progressively worse as the time stretched on. he's so hard now that it actually hurts, and the small stain of pre-cum darkening the front makes him feel like a damn teenager again.

toji gets to his feet, ignoring the way his stiff muscles protest, and sheds his sweats and his boxers in one swift movement, kicking them somewhere across the room. he makes his way between your legs, spreading them even further apart to make room for his body.

"wait..." you mumble dazedly, your words adorably slurred as you blink lazily up at him, reaching out a hand as if silently asking for something. "don't y'want me to return the favour first?"

he snorts, although it makes something inside him warm the slightest bit at your consideration. "nah, dollface. you're paying me, not the other way 'round, yeah?"

your pouty expression from earlier returns, but before you can argue further, your eyes fall on his cock, which you only just notice is free from his sweatpants. it's bigger than any you've seen videos of online before, with a prominent vein running down the length and pearly rivulets of pre-cum leaking from the pudgy tip.

your mouth falls into a small 'o' shape, a sudden sense of dread filling you at the mere thought of trying to take that inside of you. why did you have to make this deal with someone who has such an unnecessarily large dick?

toji chuckles deeply at your reaction, cocking his head to the side with a smug smirk. "what? don't tell me you're g'nna chicken out on me now, sweets?"

you could just smooth down your skirt, hand him your credit card as payment for what he's done for you already, and walk right out of his room the way you came in.

but you don't. you've come too far already to back out now — you're this close to finally losing your virginity.

"no," you murmur meekly, swallowing thickly and tearing your eyes away from his cock and meeting his eyes again. "i don't wanna stop. it's just... is that thing really gonna fit in me?"

he barks out an amused laugh at this, his rough palms on your thighs squeezing in what's probably his way of giving you a reassuring gesture. "it'll fit, baby. i loosened you up a little already, so that'll help."

"okay," you mutter, your eyes flickering back down as he wraps a large hand around the meaty base of his cock, lining it up with your entrance and rubbing it along your puffy folds, gathering some of your creamy slick on the head. "is it gonna hurt? it's gonna hurt, isn't it?"

toji huffs at your hurried rambling, leaning his head down to shut you up with a quick kiss to your lips. "it'll only hurt at the start," he grunts in as soothing a tone as he can muster, bracing a hand against the headboard above you.

this seems to ease your nerves, if only a little, and you nod in a sign of silent permission. but he doesn't appear satisfied with this, and he grasps your chin with his free hand. "that ain't good enough, dollface. use your words f'me."

"y-you can start now." you murmur in response, your eyes glued to the way the muscles in his arm flex above you as he begins to slowly push himself in.

"fuckin' shit," he groans, the sound more guttural than anything he's let out so far as his cock breaches the first ring of muscle inside of you, his beefy arm visibly shaking as he tries to hold himself back from just plunging all the way in. "so damn tight in here."

your face contorts into a grimace as a rush of pain pangs through your body, your hands clutching at the sheets for purchase. you'd heard about it hurting online, but then again, most people didn't take a cock as big as toji's for their first time.

"sorry, babydoll." he mutters hoarsely, his gruff tone holding an underlying tone of genuine sympathy instead of the amusement he's shown so far — he's clearly aware of the strain he's having on your body.

he gives you a few moments to adjust to the intrusion, gritting his teeth to hold back any sounds that threaten to spill out of his mouth when he feels your cunt clenching and unclenching around him.

"you can keep going now," you manage to say, your eyes screwed shut and your hands fisted in the bedcovers as you try to deal with the pain. "i'm okay."

he grunts in response, the hand that was around your chin moving to grasp one of your balled up hands as he continues to sink himself inside inch by inch. he can feel how hard you squeeze his hand the entire time, probably cutting off the circulation to his arm in the process.

but he couldn't care less about that. not when he so close to finally being balls deep inside of his pretty little roommate.

"biiiig stretch." toji hums, a low, drawn out sound, when he finally feels himself bottom out, your spongy walls contracting and fluttering around him as if they can't decide whether to push the intrusion out or pull it in deeper. "there we go."

you, on the other hand, couldn't manage to string together a single syllable. it feels like toji has buried himself into your guts, like he's physically rearranging your anatomy right before your eyes.

toji lets his own eyes flutter shut for a moment, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallows thickly. he knows you need a while to adjust to taking all of him, but damn if he doesn't want to pound you into the mattress right now.

you let out a strangled groan, wriggling around against the covers as your body stretches to accommodate his sheer size. it feels like he could split you in half without much effort. "p-please... start moving, toji."

"you sure?" he rasps gruffly, his hand gripping the headboard so hard his knuckles have gone completely white. "once i start i prolly won't be able to stop."

"i-i don't care. just..." you begin, unable to even finish the thought when he shifts slightly, unintentionally pushing into you even deeper. "move."

he snorts at your desperation, but the sound turns into something akin to a growl when he pulls out slightly, before shoving himself right back in all the way.

"ah!" you sob pathetically, clinging onto his hand even tighter as he starts to shallowly thrust into you. shit, you're pretty sure you just felt something inside of you snap.

you're officially no longer a virgin.

"yeahhh." toji grunts above you, his lips spreading into a pussydrunk grin as he moves he moves his hips leisurely but expertly. you're starting to understand why his hookups always cry his name so loud through the thin walls separating your rooms.

the initial pain slowly starts to fade, being replaced by an overwhelming sense of pleasure and fullness. you bring your shaky legs up to wrap around his beefy back, your ankles locking against his skin.

"jesus, girl," he groans, his hips subtly stuttering in their pace in response to your actions. "y'er pullin' me in even deeper."

you open your mouth to apologize, or retort, or something, but it comes out as a slurred garble when you feel toji's fat cockhead brush against your cervix.

"uh huhh." he grins smugly, his hand that was interlaced with yours moving down to grip your hip and keep you in place as he quickens his pace slightly. he's being a little gentler than he usually would be just for you, but this is still toji here.

"t-too much!" you cry out, reaching up to grasp onto his bicep above you for some sort of support. your entire body is jolting against the covers in response to his increasingly hard thrusts, your mouth hanging open dumbly.

"nah, dollface," he grunts in protest, his fingers digging into the skin of your hip as if to ground you. "i know y'can take it. doing so damn well f'me."

toji brings his palm up from your hip to slide under your previously bunched up shirt, fondling your breasts and rolling one of your hardened nipples between his fingers.

this makes a loud mewl escape from your throat, your cunt clenching around him in response to the dual sensations. if you thought his tongue made you reach new heights of pleasure, his cock is a completely different beast.

you can already feel something strange stirring in the depths of your stomach. it's not like your previous orgasm, it's unfamiliar — it almost feels like you're about to pee.

"t-toji, feels weird," you slur out, squirming against the covers as you try to hold the rising sensation at bay. "like i'm gonna pee or something. m-maybe y'should pull out."

he barks out a laugh at this, as if he knows something you don't. his hand moves down to pat your stomach, right where the prominent bulge of his cock is moving in and out.

"that means you're gonna squirt, baby." he utters simply, making your eyes widen in surprise. now that's something you've definitely never managed to make yourself do before.

looks like you're gonna be ticking off more than one first from the list today.

"makin' ya squirt for y'er first time," he proclaims cockily, smirking to himself as he effortlessly keeps up the languid rolls of his hips. "i'm damn good, ain't i?"

"i haven't even squirted yet." you grumble, heat flooding to your cheeks in response to his teasing. he's still your annoyingly smug roommate, even when he's fucking you into his mattress.

"key word — yet." toji shrugs in response, his lethal thrusts quickening in pace. his rough palm pushes down right above your bulging tummy, causing you to let out a strangled gasp.

your cunt clenches impossibly tighter around him, your ankles digging into the skin of his back as you feel your second orgasm of the night start to wash over you. "fuck. g-gonna..."

"yeah? c'mon, baby, make a mess all on me." he grunts gruffly, his hand moving down to rub lazy, sloppy circles against your puffy clit, the nub pulsing under his touch.

"tojiiii!" you practically sob, the added stimulation sending you hurling over the edge before you can process it. your vision goes completely white with the intensity of your high, your breaths coming in heavy gasps.

"oh, thattt's it," he hums in satisfaction, lightly patting your pussy as he watches the gushes of clear liquid squirt out, lewdly coating the base of his cock and balls in your essence. "fuckin' good girl."

it only takes him a couple more strokes for toji to know he's close too, and he quickly pulls out, slapping his thick cock against the flushed skin of your tummy and giving it a few final jerks.

as much as he'd love to fill you up, he figures that since you're a virgin, you probably wouldn't be on birth control.

and he's not about take that risk.

toji lets out a low, raspy grunt as he spills his creamy, pearlescent cum all over your stomach, tainting the supple skin with his sticky, oozy mess.

he lazily tugs his boxers and sweatpants back up, wiping some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand before leaning down and giving your cheek a quick, wet kiss.

then he saunters out of the room, leaving you panting and limp on his bed while he rifles through your purse on the living room table.

"i would've done that for free, by the way." toji mutters amusedly as he pulls out your credit card, waving it tauntingly in front of his face with the smuggest grin yet stretching at his lips. "see ya in thirty six hours, dollface."

© 2024 SUGOROO. please don't copy or translate any of my works without my explicit permission. all rights are reserved to me.

i’d like to dedicate my first proper fic to @screampied because her works inspired me to begin writing my own! <3

LIKES AND REBLOGS APPRECIATED!

[dokidokitsuna]

The Diary of Penny Polendina

The other day I was inspired to try working on a different NeverFell Projects installment, one that would probably be a lot shorter and quicker to write, because it's not like I care that deeply about Penny, right??

Well, I was incredibly wrong. ^^; So wrong that I'm actually having trouble with this story now...essentially, Penny goes through a bit of a 'rebellious phase' (gross oversimplification, but that's all you get for now) and there are, surprisingly, a lot of aspects of that character arc that I want to explore. Plus, a pivotal connection with Pyrrha, the climax of which I haven't quite figured out yet...

God only knows if I'll be able to finish, or if I'll just write the first 2/3rds of the story and leave it at that. But I figured I might as well warm up by talking about the designs. ^^

Penny's new look is basically 'Disney's Pinocchio, color picked from Arthur Watts' character design'~

I didn't necessarily want her to look evil, just...bolder. Like she specifically picked 'daring' items that maybe her father or Ironwood's PR team would rather she didn't wear, at least not compared to the more innocent frilly pastels she had on before. Between the chest window, midriff, and short sleeves, she's actually showing a lot more skin than before, despite still being 90% covered up. ^^;

Those multicolored wrist accessories are prototype weapons invented by Dr. Watts, that mix and pressurize Dust from the cartridges to cast "artificial magic". This way I get to do a bit of the 'Winter Maiden Penny' stuff in this Vol. 3-locked AU~

Penny's magic usage is one of the things that stumped me when writing this story...In NeverFell, magic isn't just glowy rainbow lasers or weather powers-- it essentially allows the user access to any conceivable semblance at any time; its potential is limitless. Being a beginner, Penny would probably just come up with one signature 'spell' to use in tandem with her Floating Array...but I can't decide what I want her to do. ^^; I think I'd like for her to do something connected to dance, because I feel like that's something unique to her, the way she dances with her weapons before striking. Nobody ever points out how the "robot" in the cast is the one who chooses to spend energy on unnecessary movements that aren't even used to maneuver around an enemy; they're just cute and fun. ^^ I think that's a great encapsulation of who Penny is~

Redesigning Pyrrha is always super difficult, because her original design is so perfect. But I like this end result a LOT. ^^ I may need to adjust the pant legs a bit, but overall it feels like a very believable alt outfit that keeps the spirit of the character.

Pyrrha is another one of the stumbling blocks in this story, because I'm now forced to create at least one malleable personality trait for her-- i.e. one that isn't intrinsically tied to Jaune and/or the plot. Something that she could actually take into a meaningful relationship with a different character... I had the idea to expand her "I'm sorry!" gag into a real guilt complex, where she has trouble letting go of instances where she's made mistakes or hurt someone. In this case, dismembering Penny 1.0 and essentially ending her life. :T She seeks out 2.0 in a desperate effort to make things right, and ends up helping her with ...things, and growing as people or whatever, and all that other stuff I have yet to write. ^^;

I just realized that Pyrrha could use her polarity semblance to pull Penny towards her in a situation where they need to reach each other...that's so cute. ^^ I gotta remember that~

[artfortytwo]

The IU-3 Billhook is, above all, a really bizarre mech. This was actually one of the first chassis designs produced by the PDR, a few months after they had already been facing down Purview teams, but it ain't your typical line mech. See, the Republic obviously can't outdo the Armory on quality or quantity in a straight up fight, so they got clever with these little bastards when a head on engagement was unavoidable. The first thing you'll notice is the giant tumorous growth of a shell hanging off the back. It's got a few minor hardpoints in it, along with a ton of reactive armor, enough to draw attention and make you assume it's a weakpoint that would cripple the machine if you took it out- but it's actually just an empty, detachable storage unit, only occasionally carrying some non-volatile supplies. The entire damn chassis is built like that, everything put in a weird place and disguised as something it isn't- even the joints have an annoyingly weird placement that makes maintenance a pain, but if that means offsetting the amount of bullets you have to pull out, I guess it's a win. Overall, it's substandard to even some outdated SP1 models, but with how cheap it is to build and how effective the gimmick can be, it sees a lot of use. That's just the thing, though, it's a gimmick. If the enemy knows what horseshit you're trying to pull, all you've done is bring a knife to a gun fight- so, usually, these things are the first units to see combat in any given conflict, and are outfitted for an alpha strike without regard to operating time or endurance. Single-shot weapons with fuck-off payloads, the works. On the high-mobility types that are built for repeated engagements, though, you've got a more standard loadout, and the storage unit gets filled to the brim with gyroscopes and reaction wheels alongside some crazy FCS that lets you get some damn good mileage out of the PD lasers in the antennae when you're up close.

i was having artblock trying to think of an idea and my friend said to me "hey, why don't you make a mech based on, i dunno, a snail?" and i told her "primrose pandora screamermod you are a fucking genius" and then spent 3 days making this thing along with the above flavor text for it. does this count as an oc, who knows but i'm posting it now because jegus dick it took a long ass time

[incorrectbatfam]

It's movie night but they can't use the home cinema, what do they do?

[week 1]

Bruce: Thanks for letting us use your place for movie night while we fix that leak at home.

Dick: No problem. Besides, I have plenty of snacks and the director's cut of Dumbo.

Everyone: *gathers around*

Dick: *puts on the movie*

~ 10 minutes in ~

*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*

Tim: My crime alert's going off.

Harper: Mine too.

Duke: Must be big.

Bruce: Suit up and rendezvous in three.

Dick: *sighs and pauses the movie*

Dick: Can't get one night in this damn city.

———————

[week 2]

Tim: Steph, why are we at a karaoke lounge?

Steph: I know the owner's cousin's hairdresser's dog walker's sister's girlfriend and I convinced them to let us use the party room. Don't worry, it's just like a TV screen.

Steph: *puts on Pitch Perfect*

Steph: Ooh, I love this part.

Steph: *grabs a mic and starts singing*

Everyone:

Damian: *stuffs napkins in his ears*

———————

[week 3]

Jason: Since we decided on Pride and Prejudice, I thought I could play it at my safehouse.

Dick: Sweet, thanks!

Jason: *unlocks the door*

Dick: *tries to step in*

Jason: *stops him*

Jason: I said I could play it. I never said you could come in. I don't want your you-ness all over my new stuff.

Bruce: Jason, be reasonable.

Harper: Yeah, you got this junk off the side of the road.

Jason: My junk, my rules.

Tim: Then what are we supposed to do?

Jason: Fire escape's around the back. You'll get a decent glance.

~ 20 minutes later ~

Dick: *leans his head in to hear better*

Jason: My air, my rules.

Jason: *closes the window*

———————

[week 4]

Bruce: Cass, it's your turn. Got the movie?

Cass: *nods and plays Rambo on her computer*

Barbara: Uh, why isn't there any sound?

Cass: Volume button broke. Just read lips.

Jason: Kinda hard to do that with the brightness at zero. Did that stop working too?

Duke: Looks fine to me.

Jason: Shut up, Flashlight.

———————

[week 5]

Tim: I brought my entire Star Wars collection.

Bruce, dodging a space laser: Not the time.

Tim: Okay.

Bruce: *punches an alien robot*

Tim: How about now?

———————

[week 6]

Barbara: Sorry I got a cold, but at least we can still have movie night on Zoom. I torrented a copy of The Matrix.

Barbara: *shares her screen*

*movie plays*

Barbara: *leaves herself unmuted*

Barbara: *starts crinkling Sun Chips*

———————

[week 7]

Everyone: *crowd around Damian's phone watching My Neighbor Totoro*

Bette: Why is your phone so small?

Damian: I have tiny hands.

———————

[week 8]

Harper: Because we're watching Cars this week, I thought I could put together an all-immersive experience.

Bruce: BY LOCKING US IN A RUNAWAY SEMI-TRUCK?!?

———————

[week 9]

Duke: I called this company and since we're heroes, they're letting us use their electronic billboard for this week's movie at a huge discount. Kill Bill should be coming on right about...

*movie starts playing*

Jason: Not bad, Narrows.

*billboard switches to an ad*

———————

[week 10]

Carrie: Since Steamboat Willie is now public domain, I thought we could do something different tonight.

Carrie: *pulls out a flipbook*

———————

[week 11]

Everyone: *watching Love, Simon in a dark living room*

*lights flick on*

Apollo and Midnighter: *standing there in date night outfits*

Steph: Um, Cullen, who are these guys?

Cullen: *laughs nervously*

Cullen: Everyone, meet Apollo and Midnighter. They're kinda-sorta my gay uncles and we're kinda-sorta in their apartment and I kinda-sorta didn't expect them to come back early.

Midnighter: Remind me why we gave you a spare key?

———————

[week 12]

Kate: *sets up a projector and plays Glass Onion*

Bruce: Kate, this is a crime scene.

Kate: The fun part's already done, let Gordon do cleanup this time.

———————

[week 13]

Alfred: Back in my day, we did not rely on scrupulous use of technology. Which is why I propose watching a classic Sherlock Holmes tale on a classic instrument.

Alfred: *pulls out a zoetrope*

Steph: Anyone know what that is?

Dick: Not a clue.

———————

[week 14]

Luke: Nothing like a good ol' drive-in movie. Great idea, Helena.

Helena: I know, and the Godfather is perfect for this.

*Batmobile crashes through the screen*

Steph: Sorry we're late.

Duke: I'm still figuring out the PRINDL.

———————

[week 15]

*TV playing the Aristocats*

Bruce, trying to flirt: I like what you've done with the curtains.

Selina: Thanks, but it was Snowball's after-dinner surprise.

*TV blinks off*

Tim: Hey, what gives?

Selina: *takes a chewed-up cord out of a cat's mouth*

Selina, sighing: This is why I married rich.

———————

[week 16]

Luke: May I present the ultimate Snakes On A Plane drone show!

*phone rings*

Luke: Hello? ... Yes, this is he. ... Mhm. ... Yep. ... Okay.

Luke: Never mind, the FAA says I can't.

———————

[week 17]

Everyone: *watching Legally Blonde at Bette's place*

*dogs barking*

*sirens*

*loud music*

*car honk*

*neighbors shouting*

Bette: Sorry, we have thin walls.

Bruce, shrugging: Eh, still not as bad as HOA.

———————

[week 18]

Damian: Where is movie night this time, Father?

Barbara: My money's on another crime scene.

Bruce: Actually, I rented out the theater just for us and they're playing a special edition of The Mark of Zorro. Everyone got their snacks?

Duke: Popcorn, check.

Cass: Licorice, check.

Steph: M&Ms are obviously the right answer by the way.

Dick: I got a slushee.

Jason: I got the slushee machine.

Bruce: Alright then, take your seats. The movie's about to begin.

*movie plays*

*Rogues break in, make a mess, and leave*

Bruce:

Bruce:

Bruce: I miss my parents.

[inbabylontheywept]

can we get more security clearance stories? they are amazing

Yeah, sure. Remember how getting contractors in to perform regular to the maintenance is basically impossible? One of the issues that we have is that the roof is kind of fucked. Like, in the newer sections, it's fine, and in the older sections, it leaks and we just have big barrels to catch the rainwater, and in the oldest sections there are actual holes. Which is crazy, because the oldest sections are where a lot of the tests happen. Those are almost always the most important parts of the facility. And the holes have been a problem for a while, but it is only "recently" (the last ten years) (yes, that is recent in government time) that the holes got big enough to fit birds.

So we have been getting birds into our secret facility.

This causes several issues.

The first issue is that, surprisingly, the people here are gentle, and they don't like seeing birds die. Some of the old hands are pretty jaded about it, and they have tennis rackets that they used to use for uh... bird removal. But the newer batch threw a fit when they suggested that, so now we have to make a big ordeal out of getting the birds out of the building. And if I sound bitter about it, I'm not - I am one of the people that said absolutely no bird smashing. But it is much easier to catch a bird than it is to just smack it out of the air.

(Another layer of difficulty is the whole "working in a labyrinth" thing. The birds have a lot of places to run.)

The second issue is that sometimes we can't get the birds out, and they die in weird places. This isn't just sad - it makes the test areas smell bad for weeks afterwards, and a lot of us spend the majority of our working hours in those locations. So it's sad and gross and stinky.

And the third issue, which is actually kind of the worst, is that government knows about the "perimeter leaks" (IE, large holes in the ceiling) and instead of fixing the holes, they put extra security measures in place. You know, in case spies climb in through the holes. Which means that, unfortunately, instead of getting the holes fixed, we got a state of the art alarm system, complete with motion detection lasers.

So the birds get in, and we actually can't leave until they get out, because they will, and have, and frequently do, trip the alarms. And when the alarms trip, people get called in to check the site and confirm for the 10,000th time that no, it's not Russians: It's birds.

It's always birds.

(Some of the techs actually kind of enjoy those calls during the weekends, because it means free overtime where there's literally nothing asked of them. Getting the "bird alarm" call is just 4 hours of OT where you check the test cell and confirm, no spies, just birds, then sit there and play checkers or read or whatever until the airforce base calls back and says that it seems safe enough for you to go home.)

(Engineers like those calls less, because we don't get time and a half, and we also don't need the cash quite as much as the techs do.)

Anyway, the crazy scenario is when it's like, 30 minutes to quitting, and a bird gets in. Because now we can't leave until we get the bird out. And the scene that happens is actually quite pretty.

So, the first thing that will happen is that there will be yelling downstairs. The downstairs people are always irate about birds getting in close to quitting. The anger is directed vaguely at the bird, and vaguely at the government, and more specifically at whatever absolute fuckhead bought us an alarm system instead of fixing our roof.

The majority of the crowd of grousing engineers and techs will then move into the upper offices. A couple will break off to grab the floodlight and shine it down the stairs, a few more will prop the doors open, and someone will venture back into the basement to turn off the light.

Click, the light goes off, it's dark, there's this big, warm, yellow pool of light just dripping down the stairs like a river of melted butter, and there's a crowd of tennish people + whoever is poking their heads out of the office to watch. No one will be breathing at all... and then, 9 times out of 10, a little bird will flit out of the basement, up the stairs, towards the light, and trigger the apocalypse.

Everyone chases the bird.

The goal at first is not to catch the bird. That's very difficult, and none of us have very good hand eye coordination. The goal is to thunder along and keep the bird from sitting down and having a breather.

We are there to exhaust the bird.

It is just accepted that this thundering herd will go wherever the bird goes. If your office door is open, and the bird flies in, it doesn't matter what reports you're filling out, or what phone call you're on - you are expected to deal with the panting and scrambling and general primal chaos of the hunting party until the bird goes somewhere else. Eventually, the bird will slow down enough that someone can catch it. This is a semi-coveted position, because, yes, you do get to hold a bird in your hand. And holding a bird is a wonderful thing. They are so soft, and so small, and you feel so careful with the poor thing. But also, it will bite you. Always. And the birds out here bite like needle nose pliers. It hurts so bad. I have been the guy holding the bird before, and it's this kind of beautiful scene again - to be standing there, hands cupped gently around this thing that is chewing the fuck out of the squishy webbing between my thumb and my palm. Tears streaming down my cheeks, surrounded by my little hunting party, that is telling me how much further until the nearest exit, opening all the doors for me. Hushed in the silence as they acknowledge my sacrifice. Inspecting the chomps afterwards and giving their opinion on how long it will be until it stops hurting.

I'm getting a little lost in the sauce here and don't really know how to end this. It's a really good job. Wouldn't be half as fun if it was run in a sane and competent manner.

I'll make this into a post at some point.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

the way Pearl instantly slammed down her "check out Marina she's so ***ing AWESOME" line so fast and it's the smoothest verse she spits in the rap battle-

she was SO READY to gush about Marina she was SO THERE for the chance and when it came she didn't even have to THINK

her going from casual barely-worth-my-time roasts and boasts (talking over Frye's turn like she isn't even there) to 'did you just call marina an imaginary friend?? YO ARE YOU CRAZY SHES AMAZING'

and THEN instead of getting defensive or pissed at Frye's 'oh so she's your groupie' jab she just turns hype man literally goes AS IF! LISTEN TO THIS! before bowing out so Marina can freeze Shiver solid by cheerfully taking every passive aggressive compliment from Shiver with a smile, a hearts eyes emoji, and an uno reverse card

Shiver: "Your voice is so haunting (possibly in a bad way) must be nice for your fans (implying it isn't so nice for anyone else)"

Marina, mimicking Shiver's singing: "You're far too kind! (i see you insulting me on the sly) Love your vibe! (that's very cute~) I can learn so much from your style! (i'll give you a taste of your own medicine if you want me to~)"

Shiver: "You remind me of my neighbor's daughter- (grow up) what do they say? Octo see octo do? (stop copying me)"

Marina: "Glad you approve- (im rubber you're glue) your praise has left me moved (not saying what KIND of moved tho). Thanks to your notes (you decide if i mean your feedback or your actual ability to hit musical notes) I'll find my own groove! (you're not actually worth copying for real~)"

Shiver: "Oh, look at the time. Isn't it getting late? (if you keep acting like a kid im going to treat you like one)"

Marina: "Not at all! I could go on like this all night long. (what do you mean? im having so much fun right now!) (oh but is this hard for you? ...do YOU need a break...?)"

and then Pearl barges in with a HOW'S THAT? YOU HAD ENOUGH YET??????

like kudos to Shiver and Frye for laying out some slick jabs, but they were working as two solo acts and didn't have a power couple combo move to counter Pearlina's with m(_ _)m ....they spent the whole time on offensive defense, trying to inflict some deep lyrical cuts while Pearl and Marina were happily tossing out hooks and reeling in fresh lines as they floated high up above on their dumb little rainbow cloud together

legit Pearl's only real reaction to Frye is her going <3 <3 <3 at Marina, and Marina not even treating Shiver as someone she needs to fight with while Shiver repeatedly tries poking at her, which Pearl sees and just effing LOVES ....amazing.......

no matter who you think rapped better, it's pretty clear which pair had the most fun and got the most kicks out of this (the wives)

WHICH IS EVEN FUNNIER BC IT'S HONEST TO COD JUST FRYE BURSTING INTO OFF THE HOOK'S GREEN ROOM AND YELLING AT THEM FOR DARING TO HAVE A CONCERT IN HER TOWN ONLY TO GET SMACKED IN THE FACE BY A RAINBOW LASER BEAM OF GAY MUSIC I LOVE IT XD

[reiderwriter]

This request is inspired by the season 1 finale when Elle and Morgan are on that tropical vacation:) could you do something where the team is somewhere like that for a case and after it’s closed they decide to stay another night and go to a club and the reader gets Spencer to dance with her and at first he’s really awkward but then they really get into it (can end however you want:))

A/N: I took this idea and RAN. When I tell you I was sitting furiously the entire way through this, I mean it 😭 thank you so much for requesting! 🥰

Warnings: smut, 18+ minors dni, semi-public sex, Munch!Spencer, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex, cum play, alcohol consumption, slight masturbation (m).

The sun was bright and hot in Jamaica. You'd landed a week ago for a case which had now wrapped and were enjoying the cool breeze from the sea and the hospitality of Derek Morgan’s hotel-resort-owning friend. 

Travelling internationally was always a little bit tougher than working on the domestic cases, but the international team was spread thin, and somehow, no case had landed on your desk until this one did. Graciously, the FBI had let you have another 24 hours before your return. 

You'd spent the day stretching out in the sun, an incredibly large beach umbrella set up beside you housing Spencer Reid who had let you know early into the trip that he burned easily. 

“All I'm saying is, I've read enough papers on skin cancer to know the sun is a deadly laser.” 

“A twenty minute game of beach volleyball isn't going to kill you, kid. Come on, these ladies are waiting, and I will leave your ass here.” 

“Stop bothering him, Derek,” you defended Spencer, partly because Derek was casting a shadow across you and cutting off your sun, and partly because you didn't want to acknowledge the pit of jealousy bubbling up in your body when the women threw themselves at Spencer. “Besides, do you really want Spencer on your team for a physical sport?” 

“Y/N has a point, listen to Y/N,” Spencer whined, nodding profusely at your words. 

Derek held his hands up in defeat and walked away, wondering how long it would take the two of you to sort whatever attachment issues you had out. 

When the sun had eventually retreated, and you'd pulled the beach dress you'd bought earlier that day back on, Spencer was still at your side. 

“You know, I think you caught some sun, Spencer,” you giggled, running a hand across his now permanently rosy cheeks and feeling their warmth. “Your cheeks are so red. It's like a grandma just pinched them and held on.” 

“I told you I could look at the sun and burn, and we've been out here all day,” he grumbled, pouting slightly. 

You beamed up at him, though. You hadn't forced Spencer out. In fact, you'd been fully prepared for him to stay inside all day reading. But when he asked you your plans at breakfast, he'd asked to join you, and you hadn't protested in the slightest. 

Walking slowly back to the main part of your resort, you softly hummed the music that travelled from the outdoor beach bar. The music had been constant throughout the day, and you swayed your hips in time to the music as you walked. 

“Y/N…” Spencer started, a few paces behind you. You turned to look at him. His usual wardrobe wasn't exactly the most beach friendly attire, so you'd hunted down a pair of board shorts and a short sleeve button down when you'd bought your dress that morning. You thought they'd hang awkwardly off him, but he filled them out surprisingly well. As he spoke, though, you found yourself unconsciously moving forward to straighten a wrinkle in his shirt.

 “I think Rossi, Hotch, and Prentiss mentioned they were going to get drinks in the bar this evening. Do you want to go, too?” 

Your hand stilled on his chest, and you looked up at him. It was golden hour, and the sun had halo'd him perfectly in its dying rays, showing off its beauty one last time. 

You had to recapture the breath you'd hiccuped out when he'd held your gaze, willing your heartbeat to stay somewhat normal. 

“Oh, great! That sounds like fun, I was just thinking about how I wanted to dance.”

“I know,” he whispered softly as you turned away cheerfully. You almost didn't hear it, and though you desperately wanted to turn around and ask him why, you continued ahead toward the twinkling lights of the bar. 

Three hours later, you were in your cups. You'd worked hard on your case throughout the week, and now it was time for distraction. 

Besides, you knew that sun and alcohol weren't always the best pairing, so you'd stayed hydrated on the beach. Now the sun had gracefully set, you were happy to enjoy a glass or two of your liquid joy. 

Pulling Spencer Reid onto the dance floor in front of all your coworkers was just another symptom of your piña colada buzz, and he followed you with a small hesitation and a small laugh of protest. 

“Y/N, I can't dance.” 

“Shhhhhh, you don't have to dance, you just have to sway. Just sway.” 

“By my definition, swaying is dancing.” 

You rolled your eyes at him but pulled his hands around your waist always. Your coordination faltered, though, and you landed awkwardly high on your body. Without a care in the world for the trail of fire you were igniting down your back, you slid his hands lower, until his hands were sat nearer to your ass than your hips, and you stepped in. 

With his arms in position, you threw your own around his neck, and absent mindedly began playing with the curls at the base of his neck. 

“Now sway, Spencer.” 

His eyes locked with yours, and he obliged. Your chest had pressed up against his after all, your bodies practically flush, and now that you were moving in time to the music, it was inevitable that he should, too. 

Time travelled quickly as you stood in the glow of each other, laughing and joking about each clumsy step, each bump from other dancers. Your coworkers had each come up to wave a quick goodbye through the night, but you were still there. Still swaying. 

You were sure that his hands had travelled the length of your body, the heat that burned you from inside out having filled your body a millenia ago. 

He'd spun you out a couple times, and you'd giggled in delight at the motion, letting your dress raise and spin in the breeze, and returning to a closer position than before, more intimate somehow each time. 

The two of you were so lost in each other that by the time the DJ was shutting his system down, you hadn't even realised the music had stopped. You were now simply swaying along to the sound of the waves crashing in and out. 

“Y/N,” he finally whispered into your ear as the sun again began to show its head. “Y/N, the sun is coming up.” 

“I know. I think…. I think I don't want to let you go just yet, though.” You kept moving together in that silence for a few more minutes, but now your eyes were locked. 

It wasn't a surprise when his lips touched your own. After all, you'd seen them coming. But the jolt of electricity it sent up your spine stole your breath anyway. 

You opened your mouth to take in some air, and he saw that as welcoming. His tongue tangled with yours as his hand lifted to tip your head back, his back already bent slightly to accommodate your height difference. 

His guiding hand wasn't enough, though, he was still not close enough. 

You subtly lifted your leg and his hand instantly dropped to your thighs, hauling you up into his arms as you wrapped your legs around his waist. 

“Our flight is in six hours,” you panted as his lips left yours, suddenly sober again. “We should get some rest.” 

He nodded in agreement, but he was already walking back to your rooms. You each had your own, but he hadn't relinquished his hold on you yet, and you knew he wasn't going to. 

Good, you thought, because logic be damned but you weren't planning on letting him. 

He carried you like that all the way to his door, as you pressed chaste kisses across his face, head, ears, hair, anywhere you could reach on his body. Places you appreciated because they were beautiful and lovely. 

You longed to kiss everywhere else, too. 

“Y/N, we're here.” He said, meeting your eyes once more. There was an unspoken question there. An invitation to leave if you didn't want this. 

Your answer was a hand in his hair and hips pressed back against his. It was all he needed as he blindly pushed into the room. 

You thought he'd throw you down on the bed, but he was much too gentle for that. 

Instead, he sat himself down, taking care to make sure you were comfortable even as his tongue twisted and writhed against your own. 

With this new position, you could try to relieve some of the tension that had been burning in your body since you'd first pulled his hands to you. Your hips moved in slow circles, pressing down into the now obvious bulge in his pants, picking up speed with each caress of his hand. 

He'd pushed under the hem of your dress, his hands on your bare thighs gripping you tightly as you used his body to get off. 

You both moaned and whined through each wet kiss, the gentleness of your earlier encounters chaste in comparison with the animalistic need pulsing through yourself. 

You nearly growled when he lifted your hips again, but you let him continue his motions as he lay back, guiding your hips higher and higher until you straddled his face. 

“Shit, Spencer-” You lost the words as his fingers pulled the two ties holding your bikini bottoms in place, effectively discarding them and leaving you bare. You gasped as you held yourself above him, but he was strong and insistent.

Wrapping one hand around each of your splayed thighs, he pulled your core to his mouth and began to pleasure you. Your hands jolted to the headboard so you could steady yourself. 

Your dress still remained, spread across the bed and obscuring his face from view as he flicked his tongue against your clit, like a flower decorating the Emerald green sheets of the bed. 

“Spencer, fuck,” his hold on your thighs loosened now that he knee you weren't going anywhere, one hand sliding down to his own neglected cock. 

The looser grip meant you could move, just slightly, and so you began to ride his face. 

You moved your hips back and forth as he flattened out his tongue, and you heard the music that had carried you into the night start up again. 

Your moans were melodic, a tribute to your lust for him, an offering made to show him how truly desired he was. 

You came with a shudder, the full weight of your body falling down onto his tongue, but he didn't stop. 

His tongue started moving again now your hips had twitched to a stop, prolonging your orgasm by an eternity. 

You finally rose up on your knees when you felt a second orgasm begin to build, craving something different this time. 

He didn't come out from under your dress so much as rip the thing off of both of you. 

You'd already rid yourself of your bikini top earlier in the dar, so you sat bare above him as he pulled you again into his lap, his cock now free from his pants. 

Your lips came together again as you hovered over him, his length running through your folds, readying himself for the sweet moment he'd finally be inside you. 

“You taste sweet,” he said before you sucked on his tongue, desperate to taste your joint lust. 

The music played once again as he pulled your hips lower down and sheathed himself inside you, but louder, a crescendo of perfectly resonant notes sounding one after the other. 

You were too lost in it to be any help to him, and he kissed away your fatigue as he lowered you to the bed, gently placing your head on the pillow and smoothing the hair out of your face before pulling out until only the tip of his cock was inside you and again pushing in. 

His rhythm was steady, pulsing through your entire body. You felt the pleasure of his body inside you everywhere as his lips returned to your ear. 

You thought he would talk and say something again, but his teeth found you instead, his to gue licking the spot where your neck met your lobe before he gently nipped the side of your ear. 

He couldn't talk, but he didn't hold back any moans. 

Your whimpers, his groans, the steady rhythm of your hips meeting and pulling apart, the sound of your arousal slick between your legs, all joined together in a symphony of love as your hearts sang to one another. 

“Y/N,” he finally moaned, and hearing your name on his lips like a prayer was enough to send you over the edge. 

“Spencer! I'm cumming again, Spencer. Please don't stop-” You begged even as your body tensed up beneath him. 

He continued that rhythm, not letting your music end until it was absolutely necessary. 

But as the sun shone through the curtains again, you knew you were reaching the end of this song. 

“Where should-” he couldn't form the full question, elbows holding his weight off of you as he held back the full force of his orgasm. 

“P-Pull out,’ you whispered, and he did. 

It took him only a few strokes to find completion on your stomach. He sat back on his knees, mindful not to press his weight back down upon you. You wrapped your legs around his waist and grabbed at him anyway, needing to feel his lips on yours one more time. 

You wondered if your entire life would now be the moments in between his kisses. 

“Y/N, our flight is in 5 hours.” 

“We can sleep on the jet. We can't do this on the jet,” you said pulling his head back down for a kiss as you heard the music start up once again. 

[inbrightshadows]

*sticks one arm out from under my rock, slips this into the tag, and retreats back under my rock* Inspired by the cass apocalyptic series by somerandomdudelmao It's a very very cool rottmnt fancomic and you should give it a read 👉👈🥺 (Not canon but you might recognize some parts/dialogue from the comic) [warning for implied/referenced past infant death but no actual infant death (the boy is fine dw), infected wounds, amputation, and a dog like creature biting someone]

The first time Casey Jr almost dies he's about three months old, by their best guess, and he's only been Casey Jr for a week.

Cassandra and Raph go out on a supply run, which is normal. They come back with a baby in a box, which is not.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there's no such thing as government or paperwork in the apocalypse. So there's nothing stopping Cassandra from saying “I found him in an alley so he's my son now, his name is Cassandra Jr.” And that's that.

Thankfully, this isn't the resistance's first baby so there's plenty of formula and hand me downs to supply Cassandra in her sudden status as a Mom. And everything else the family quickly supplies.

Donnie is very uninterested in babysitting the oozy crotch goblin but Casey Jr's crib still has the genius built logo and built in laser security system to prove he cares in his own way.

Mikey breaks into his carefully rationed paint supply to paint a small mural above the crib and takes every chance to babysit he can.

And Raph? Well Raph dives headfirst into the roll of co-parent slash halway blockade.

Then there's Leo.

In his own words, he has a whole resistance to babysit. And besides that there’s not much he can really do other than what he’s already doing.

Fight the krang, stop the war, give little Casey Jr a better world to grow up in. And also avoid everyone’s efforts to get him to hold the baby.

He is not cut out for tasks that require a delicate touch but it seems like he’s the only one who understands that. He’s a gigantic mutant ninja turtle who, unlike his brothers, has never had any kind of hobby that requires any kind of delicacy. So he hangs back, he keeps an eye out for things that will be useful to the Caseys while he’s out on the surface, and he waves away attempts to hand Jr to him.

And then Casey Jr gets sick.

It should be fine. Should be normal. Babies are delicate little things, getting sick is a thing they do. Except there’s not much the way of medicine in the apocalypse. And babies are delicate.

It starts as a low grade fever. By the end of the day it’s a raging bonfire. They have a lot of things but medicine is in short supply. Nothing they have is working. It’s just Casey Jr, sobbing his heart out on Raph’s shoulder while Cassandra hovers and Raph tries to soothe all three of them.

There’s nothing Leo can do to help. They don’t have the medicine they need to treat the fever. At least not something safe to use on a baby. Raph is the one who remembers how Dad used to use lukewarm baths to break their fevers when they were little and he was still too scared to try human medicine on them. It helps enough that they can get some formula into the kid. But it’s not fixing things.

Two days pass and the fever refuses to break. The baths are becoming less and less helpful. After the third refused feeding attempt that afternoon Donnie slams down a map of ‘areas most likely to contain useful information or materials for treating a sick baby.’

Leo and Mikey gear up and head out leaving Donnie to monitor things back at base while April takes charge of running everything else so that Raph is free to help Cassandra take care of Jr.

It’s bad luck, really, that a pack of krang dogs find their camp on the first night. It should be fine. They should be able to handle it.

But bad luck is bad luck.

Leo sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He moves to dodge and the ground underneath him decides now is a perfect time to give way.

“LEO!” Mikey yells as Leo tumbles away into the dark.

Leo grunts, biting back a scream as the Krang dog’s teeth sink into his arm. They tumble into the dark together, bouncing down the stacks of rubble. It’s dead by the time he lands but the damage is done.  

The good news is that the fall kept the dog from getting a good grip on him.  

The bad news is that even if the bite won’t infect him with Krang regular infections are different story. Krang zombies have foul mouths.

Mikey can’t find out it managed to bite Leo. If he does he’ll want to go back and get Leo treatment before they look for the medicine.

And right now every second could mean the difference between getting medicine to Casey Jr in time or adding to their graveyard.

So Leo makes sure that by the time Mikey makes it down to him his first aid kit is a good bit lighter and any sign of the bite is hidden beneath his normal arm wraps.

When Mikey finds him Leo smiles and doesn’t hesitate to wrap both arms around his little brother.

“Are you okay- did it bite you?” Mikey asks, darting around him to hunt down every last scrape.

“Nah, just a couple of scratches,” Leo lies. “Let me heal them-” “No, we’ve got a ways to go, I won't risk you wearing yourself out too soon.” “Leo!” “I already used my first aid supplies on them! It’d be a waste if you healed me now!” Mikey glares at him but huffs and nods. “Fine! But if they start to feel bad-” “I’ll tell you, don’t worry,” Leo lies again.

Day two is a bust. There's useful supplies in the area Donnie marked out for them to search, sure, but nothing that will help  Casey Jr. Or the sensation of a burn throbbing its way up Leo's hidden bite wound.

Leo and Mikey mark out where the useful things are and keep going. Someone can go back for them when they're less pressed for time.

That night Leo waits for Mikey to fall asleep before he checks the bite. It's bad.

The moment the bandages come off he's gagging at the putrid stink of infection. It's hard to see it in the dark but then again he's not sure he really wants a better look. It wouldn't change his mind anyway.

He can make out the dark veins of infection spreading. If he wasn't green it'd certainly be a violent red.

He cleans it, spreads a thin layer of disinfectant cream that will do about as much good as throwing a cup of water at a bonfire, and re-bandages it.

His usual arm wraps go up over top of it, hopefully Mikey won't notice he's done them a bit higher than normal.

All the evidence goes into the fire. By the time Mikey's turn to take watch comes all that's left is ash.

On day three Leo wakes up feeling like someone dropped a building on him. He makes the mistake of groaning about it.

“Leo? Are you okay?” Mikey asks. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just, uh, I think I’m inheriting Dad’s back problems! That or the Krang made the ground harder.” Mikey snickers. “I mean, they would, but I’m also pretty sure you just called yourself old.” “I did not!” Leo drags himself upright and makes a show of cracking his back. It obliges with a satisfyingly loud pop that makes Mikey giggle harder. “I think your spine disagrees with you too.” “Shut up!” “Awwww are you feeling cranky, old man?” 

Leo is too exhausted to feel properly offended or even think of forming a comeback but he plays it up for his little brother anyway.

Anything to keep him from worrying. Or forcing them to turn back. It’s fine. This shouldn’t take too much longer anyway.

It’s midday by the time they reach the second site. Just from a glance it’s obvious this is a more promising site. There are actual chunks of buildings scattered around and there’s enough of a shattered sign left lying around to tell them that whatever kind of care this place used to give it was geared specifically towards children.

There’s plenty to find digging through the rubble. Well. Plenty for Mikey to find. Leo is mostly trying not to let on how dizzy he is.

To both of their frustration, they run out of daylight before they find anything. Leo can feel his body screaming at him to lay down and rest. Just a little longer, he tells his body. They’re going to find the medicine. He can feel it. Leo just needs to make it at least that long.

The fourth day dawns. Mikey shakes him awake as soon as there’s enough light ot see by. Leo bites back a moan as he claws his way upright. Leo thought his arm hurt before but now it feels like someone is pouring lava down it.

He notes with a calmness that boarders on absurdity that he can’t feel his fingers.

Something must show on his face- or maybe he just looks at least halfway as awful as he feels- because Mikey frowns at him when he wakes up.

“I’m worried,” Leo blurts out. “If this takes much longer then- I don’t think- he’s already been sick for so long.” “We’ll find it. Today, I’m sure. I’ve got a good feeling.” Leo tries to smile for him and hopes the shaky thing he offers up is enough. Well. At least one of them is feeling good.

Leo is lucky. He’s always been lucky. Luck runs out eventually, it always does. But not today. Maybe it helps that Leo isn’t hoping for something for nothing. Because on day four they strike gold.

Mikey is a short bit away, digging through the rubble with his power, hunting for anything with even the chance of helping. Leo is doubled over just out of his site, trying to stifle his stomach’s efforts to rebel against him.

Don’t hurl, he tells himself, if you hurl there’s no way Mikey won’t realize something is wrong.

He forces his eyes open, hoping that focusing on something will help. And then Leo’s eyes fall on a shattered glass cabinet, several packs of some something promisingly adorned in cartoon human children. He reaches in, flips it, and feels a wash of relief when he realizes it’s exactly what they’re looking for.

“Mikey- Mikey look-” everything fuzzes, tumbles. There’s something under him. He blinks back blurs of color, tries to resolve them into something coherent. Mikey’s face hovers over him, mouth moving. He looks upset. “What's the matter?” he tries to ask. “Leo! Leo, are you sick? What hurts?” “Arm,” Leo answers without thinking.

Oh shit. Oh shit he’s not supposed to let Mikey know. But it’s a little late for that. At least the panic clears his head a little. Mikey makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat as he uncovers the bite.

“Leo.” “Yeah, I know. Sorry… sorry for lying.” He watches Mikey’s lip wobble until Mikey catches it in his teeth. “Leo this is bad! We- I don’t know if we have the supplies to treat this!” Leo hums. Now that the panic is fading it’s getting so much harder to think. He lifts his good hand before he can forget and flops it over towards Mikey. “S’okay. We can go back now.” Mikey takes the box of medicine with shaky fingers. “Leo,” he croaks.

Mikey is talking. Something… probably important? He looks scared but they’re not under attack. He’s pretty sure they’re not. Leo tries to focus on him anyway but it’s so hard. He’s so tired.

He’s been tired but there was no resting, not properly, not until they got what they needed. They do now so it’s fine, he can rest his eyes a bit.

Good. Seeing is hard too. Just blurs and colors.

He feels Mikey’s hand on his face, his voice in his ears. He tries to pay attention but he’s slipping, sliding away.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, but he’s out before he can think of what, specifically, he’s sorry for.

Leo doesn’t remember the trip back, just the thud of Mikey landing. Someone screaming. A hand squeezing his. Small. Thin fingers. Lots of them.

“April?” he might mumble. He thinks. “Shhh, rest big guy,” Probably-April says. “Donnie has it. He’s gonna fix it.” Oh. That’s good. He lets himself sink, lets her hold him together while he waits for Donnie to do what Donnie does best.

A light in his face. “Am I dying?” he says. Thinks? Someone hisses. Angry sound. Who does that again? “Not if I have anything to say about it. And I have a lot to say about it.” Oh. Donnie is here. That’s good. Didn’t someone say he was coming? “Now go to sleep, you don’t want to be awake for this part.” Leo doesn’t get a chance to answer, he’s already sinking again.

Leo blinks up at the ceiling of Donnie’s lab. He spends a good while just staring at it, trying to get his brain to work. His arm throbs. “Ow.”

Some several things crash and shatter and then Donnie''s face hovers into view. “How do you feel- nauseous? any pain, aches, fever? Chills?” “Uh, my arm hurts a little?”

“Which one? The one that got bit by one of the most disease ridden things in the apocalypse and then went four days without medical care or the other one?” “Hey I did some medical care!” “You did FIRST AID. You know, the thing you do to help someone before you get them ACTUAL MEDICAL CARE.”

Leo winces. There’s no arguing about that one. “Ok well, I was hoping we’d find the medicine and get back before it got too bad.” “Well. You didn’t.” “Yeah, I guess. How long was I out?” he asks. He tries to lift his arm but he can’t feel it move. He frowns. “It… barely hurts anymore. Uh. Donnie? I can’t- Um. Donnie. I can’t feel my arm.”

Donnie’s face twitches. Leo tries to turn his head to look at his arm. Donnie’s hand darts out out to stop him. Leo looks at Donnie again. Donnie looks away, grimacing and refusing to make eye contact.

“Donnie-” “Don’t look yet.” Leo tries to move his arm again but there’s still no response. No it’s not just that there isn’t a response. He can't even feel the weight of it.

He can feel his shoulder. He can feel a ring of throbbing pain a few inches above his elbow. And then it’s just… light? Like there’s nothing but air- oh. Oh. Okay then. There’s where his luck ran out. “...Huh. That’s. Hm. Let me see?” “Leo-” “Donnie. Let me see.” Reluctantly, Donnie eases back.

For a second Leo doesn’t do anything. He closes his eyes and breathes. He turns his head. He opens his eyes.

It’s gone.

Everything past his first crescent marking is gone.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep, measured, breath. Okay, he thinks. Okay. He’s a medic. He knew this was a possibility.  Donnie starts eyeing him nervously.

“Did he make it?” Leo asks at last. “...Yeah he made it,” Donnie says quietly. Leo feels like he's fully breathing out for the first time since Cassandra burst into the infirmary with a sick baby in her arms. "Good. That's good." Donnie puts his hand over the end of Leo's nub, covering the scar. He stares at the floor and says nothing. Silence reigns. Leo stares up at the ceiling, letting it settle around them.

Until the door slams open and the rest of his family tumble through the door, both Caseys included.

The last knot of tension loosens from him at the sight of Casey Jr, happily wiggling in his mom’s arms as he flails his arms at Raph.

He tears his eyes away as his family gathers around him, worried and loud, and Leo only knows one way to calm them down.

“So. I’m guessing I'm the opposite of... All Right now, huh?” Cassandra covers Casey Jr's ears. Donnie leans away, inhaling sharply. “Why are you like this?“ he asks. “Because it's all I've got... Left” Raph groans, hiding his face in his hands. “Already?” “Put him back under,” April says, deadpan. “Boooo,” Mikey says, and Leo pretends he doesn’t sound two steps away from tears.   “I hate you so much,” Donnie lies, a few screens manifesting around him. He taps away with the hand that isn't still covering the scar on what remains of Leo's arm while Leo laughs at his own terrible jokes.

“You no longer have a choice about getting a prosthetic. Mikey tried to say I had to ask before implanting experimental technology in your body but you know what? I’m making an executive decision. I can’t live with the puns.”

Leo starts laughing harder, so hard that it circles right back around to sobbing. He’s buried in a pile before the first sob can even fully leave him. Donnie’s eyes stay on the screen even as he shifts his hand to Leo’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’ll fix it. Don’t worry.”

Leo spends a lot of time sleeping but he’s never alone when he wakes up.

There’s Raph, showing off the balls he’s threading onto his mask tails so Casey Jr can climb them while Cassandra sits nearby, once more restitching her perpetually tearing sleeves on her shirts.

He wakes to Mikey making little fish or birds dance in the air while Casey Jr sits in his lap and reaches for them.

Or there’s April pouring over battle plans with a mug in one hand and the other wrapped around Casey Jr.

Point is there’s a lot of Casey Jr. So Leo really should be prepared to wake up with a tiny weight on his chest, healthy and safe and sound. And still so very tiny. His breath hitches, he doesn’t dare move.

“Bemused scoff.”

Leo carefully turns his head toward where Donnie is busily typing away at something.

“You know you can’t avoid holding him forever. Even I've held him." Leo gives Donnie the flattest look he can manage. Sure. Donnie has held Casey Jr. Once in a blue moon when there was literally no one else to do it (and Leo's hands were firmly tucked under his arms.) For about sixty seconds total. "...I've held him more than you have.”

Leo grimaces. “Look, I wasn’t cut out for holding delicate stuff when I had two arms. It’s an even worse idea now that I’m twice as likely to drop him.”

“Invalid excuse. I’m already working on a solution to your arm situation.” Donnie waves his hands and his ninpo sparks, building a blue print of an arm and some other thing hovering in the air between them.

“These are the schematics for a bio-mechanical arm and a socket implant to allow it to safely interface with your nero-” Leo’s brain glazes over the rest of Donnie’s explanation.

“...So you want to turn me into a kick ass cyborg?” he asks as soon as Donnie is done. “Did you listen to none of what I just said?” “C’mon, Don, I’ve got you for all the nerd stuff.” “Exasperated sigh, yes I’m turning you into a kick ass cyborg.” “Sweet,” Leo says, yawning. Donnie huffs. “Go back to sleep, Nardo.” “Can’t, baby could fall,” Leo mumbles. “I won’t let him fall. Just rest.” And Leo trusts his brother. So he does.

It takes a frustratingly long time for Leo to recover enough for the surgery to implant the port for the arm in his stump. It’s more low profile than he expected, hardly noticeable at all unless you’re looking head on at it.

Then there’s a whole other saga of learning how to use the arm Donnie has built him. It’s clunkier than Donnie’s preferred standards but it works almost as seamless as his real one. He gets good with it and he gets good with it fast because with the Krang you either do it fast or you don’t do it all.

The unintended and unwanted side effect of this is that now his family are no longer accepting “I’m not good enough with my arm I might drop him” as a valid excuse to not hold Casey Jr.

And they are very, very, intent on getting him to hold Casey Jr.

Look. Leo is thanking sweet pizza supreme in the sky and every one of the Hamato ancestors, Casey Jr bounces back from being sick like it never happened.

He bounces and wiggles, he babbles and giggles, as though less than a week or so ago he wasn’t so sick that Leo and his family (literally) risked life and limb to get him medicine. And Leo is thrilled. Really.

It’s just that he wishes his family would stop encouraging Casey Jr’s newest favorite game- trying to grab Leo. Because apparently one of any baby’s favorite thing is whatever they can’t have.

“Here! Hold him!” Mikey holds Casey out so that he faces Leo. Casey Jr, who seems to have a sixth sense for when someone is playing the 'try to get Casey close enough to touch Leo' game,  is thrilled. His tiny arms wave at Leo, itty-bitty fingers clenching like they’re ready to latch on the second they’re close enough to touch him.

“W-wait, I can’t!” Leo protests for the thousandth time. But Mikey isn’t taking no for an answer this time. A nudge of mystic power keeps Leo from fleeing. All Leo can do is tuck his dangerous un-baby proofed metal arm away from tender baby skin and wave his flesh hand pleadingly.

“C’mon Leo… you have to hold him eventually.”  Mikey cajoles, gently waggling Casey Jr.

“Not happening, no way.” Leo leans back as far as Mikey’s powers will let him.

“Yes way,” Mikey says, holding Casey closer and closer. Casey is giggling furiously, tiny arms flying at top speed.

“Do you even see how tiny he is?” Leo points at the baby, just in case Mikey needs a reminder. “I could break him with one finger!” There’s a tiny nudge to said finger. Leo looks down. Casey Jr is copying him, nudging Leo’s much larger finger with his own.

Mikey gets a look on his face. A terrible, evil, look.

“One finger? Like thiiiiis one?” Mikey grins as he lifts his middle fingers away from Casey Jr’s body. Leo freezes. “Mikey. Mikey no.”

“Whats that? Oh nooooo.... I can’t hear you over the sound of my grip slipping!” Mikey sing-songs. “Don’t you dare!” Leo stares at him, horrified and frozen. He won’t. Surely he won’t. Cassandra would murder him. Raph would double murder him. He wouldn't. Right? Right??? “Oh no! I hope someone catches the poor delicate baby!” And then Mikey drops Casey Jr.

Leo shrieks. He forgets that Mikey is literally magic and does not need his hands to hold a building, much less a baby.

“Mikey what the fuck!” Leo squawks, hands flying forward and closing around the tiny delicate bundle that is- … not falling towards the ground at all actually.

The gears turn, the realization that he's been tricked sets in. Leo glares at Mikey. Mikey grins, unrepentant, and waves his faintly glowing hands, a glow also present around a perfectly safe Casey Jr. The glow vanishes and Leo feels the surprisingly greater weight of the baby properly in his hands for the first time.

“Ahhhh Mikey- Mikey take him back!” Mikey stubbornly keeps his hands in the air and backs away, still grinning. “You’re fine, you’ve got this.” “I don’t have this!” in spite of saying this Leo is already tucking Casey closer to him. “It’s fiiinnne, you're doing fine! Look, he’s having a great time!”

Tiny clumsy fingers hit his jaw, drawing his eyes down. Casey Jr has one hand buried in Leo’s scarf. The other is pressed to the highest part of Leo’s face it can reach. As he looks down they stretch up, reaching for the vibrant red markings on his face.

“Ah- what- what does he want?” “Awww he likes your stripes, hold him higher!”

Hesitantly, Leo shifts the baby a little higher in his arms and Casey’s little fingers smack against his markings, clenching against them as best the pudgy little things can. Leo chuckles. “What? You want those? Hate to break it to you bud but they’re kind of attached to me.” Big dark eyes lock onto his. Casey Jr babbles. His little fingers flex against Leo’s face again.

Someone makes a noise like a slowly deflating balloon. Leo looks up to find Raph has found them. He’s standing in the doorway, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Please tell me Donnie has a good angle on this,” he says, voice wobbling. Raph’s com clicks on and switches itself to speaker mode. “Sending you the best shots as I speak,” says Donnie’s voice. “I hate all of you,” Leo lies. Mikey snickers at him, Raph is too busy cooing to reply. And then Casey Jr realizes Raph is there and decides he’s done being held by Leo. He leans his entire body toward Raph and puts all of his tiny baby might into wiggling free of Leo's grip.

“Oh fuck-” “Don’t cuss in front of the baby!” “Raph. Raph.” “You’re doing fine, relax-”  “He’s gonna fall! I’m gonna drop him- Raph!” Raph easily scoops Casey Jr up, saving Leo from the terrifying force of a wiggly baby.

Casey Jr giggles and grabs for Raph’s mask tails while Leo dramatically flops to the floor. Mikey continues to snicker at Leo’s expense, floating over to pat his head.

“I can’t believe you pretended to drop him just to trick me into holding him,” Leo groans. “You what?” Raph’s head snaps over to them. Mikey freezes. “I had mystic hands on him the whole time!” “Baby holding is a two hand activity!” “You literally hold him with one hand!” “Raph’s hand is big enough to count as two!” “Oh that is so not fair!” “... Leo watch the little man for a minute.” Raph sets Casey Jr down by Leo’s head. Leo makes an inarticulate sound of horror but before he can protest Raph is already bolting for Mikey.

Mikey flees with a yelp.    Leo looks at Casey Jr. Casey Jr looks at him. “So, you come here often?” Casey Jr stuffs his fist in his mouth and makes a garbled noise around it, almost recognizable as a very turtle like chirp. Leo checks that his brothers are out of ear shot and then chirps back. Casey Jr’s eyes widen and sparkle. He takes his damp hand out of his mouth and smacks Leo in the face with it. Leo grimaces. “Thanks.” In the distance, Mikey screams as Raph catches him but it's just as quickly followed by laughter.

Casey Junior grows up in between loss and stolen joy and forgotten childhood memories. He gets old enough to ask questions. Inevitably, the day comes when he asks “Sensei, how did you lose your arm?”

And Leo lies.

Or, well… He doesn’t lie so much as he just… leaves out some details. Details Casey Jr does not and will not ever know if Leo gets his way.

“Ah, you know… Krang dog got a lucky bite in. By the time I got back to base it was the arm or me and Donnie chose me.” He says it with a light little shrug, like it’s no big deal.  

Because for Leo, it’s not a big deal. Between losing an arm and losing family he’d chose the arm over and over again.

[rockrosethistle]

Workin Boys was literally the only thing that saved Hidgens from being flanderized beyond recognition

(Spoilers for Workin' Boys)

So what I think a lot of people don't give much thought to is how much Professor Hidgens as a character has evolved since tgwdlm, essentially becoming a parody of himself.

Think of Hidgens as a character. What are his defining traits?

Did you think about how he is a doomsday prepper who has been stockpiling supplies for 20 years? Because that's how he's introduced in Guy.

Did you try think about how he has a weird relationship with his Alexa? Or did we forget about that?

In fact, for the majority of TGWDLM, Hidgens' main character trait is that he says weird shit with a Doc Brown voice.

The whole concept of Workin Boys isn't even introduced until the last half hour of the show. That's where he reveals his real motivation: to live out the musical he wrote as a young man.

Actually, no, that's not right. Because his motivation was world peace, and Workin Boy's was just a convenient means to that end.

I won't disregard the fact that Hidgens clearly has an emotional connection to the show, but in Guy, it serves as a punchline rather than a driving force.

So now we have this lovely, morally-grey, multi-layered character that we can work with.

By the time we get to Time Bastard, the fandom is expecting a show stopping number reference, so of course we get that.

But at this point, Hidge is still that multi-layered character. Sure, showstopping number gets a callback, but we also get a callback to his strange relationship with robots. They make up an equal part of him as a character.

By the time we get to Honey Queen, we have lost several aspects of Hidgens altogether. He is no longer a doomsday-believing recluse. He is now active in the community and his only motivation is to get his show funded. He brings it up at every chance he gets, and his loyalties lie with whoever is more likely to make Workin Boys happen.

So how the hell do we come back from this?

Well, at first it seems like we're not going to. Workin' Boys (the short film) comes out, and it looks like we're leaning even harder into this aspect of his personality than before. But then we get hit with something we're not expecting: Hidge gets the Ted Spankoffski treatment.

I'm referring to Ted's backstory in Time Bastard, where we learn that all of his actions actually stem from a single, traumatic moment, which in his eyes forced him to alter his behaviour, so as to not go through the same trauma again.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

The backstory we get from Hidgens certainly puts things in perspective. No, it's not enough to explain why his behaviour has been so laser-focused on this one show, but it's a start.

Then comes the part that changes everything.

It's left up to interpretation whether these ghosts Hidge is seeing are actually there, or just hallucinations, but that doesn't really matter.

Hidgens had been through a horrible experience, so traumatizing that he is still literally being haunted by it decades later. For one reason or another, he believes that the only way he can relieve himself of these ghosts is by bringing honor to the loved ones he's lost and telling their stories.

This reveal recontextualizes everything we know about Hidgens as a character. Suddenly, this isn't a story about some guy who just really wants to put on his musical, this is a story about guilt. Of course it would be the driving factor in his life. Look at him apologizing to his boys. He feels like he is slandering their memories with everything that goes wrong for the show.

This is supported even more with the ending.

Henry Hidgens dies with a smile on his face, believing he's finally achieved his goal: to tell the real story of what happened that night.

It finally makes sense as to why we've lost those parts of him--we've retconned the character by revealing that all that simplification of his goals and traits wasn't flanderization at all, but a steady downward spiral of grief over his loved ones. It wasn't Hidgens getting a little too into being a playwrite, it was him descending into madness caused by the inability to please the part of himself (or the literal ghosts, if that's how you interpret it) that believes he's not doing enough.

And if not for Workin' Boys, he would have remained that one-dimensional character.

[astroboots]

EVERY YOU EVERY ME #15 - FINALE

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: All things end.

Word count: 3,400

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous]

Traveling through Strange’s inter-dimensional portal is a different experience from going through one of Miguel’s. It’s less of a laser light show and more of a psychedelic drug trip.

Shapes and patterns warps in front of you, and the strength of gravity seems to press in against you from all sides as you fall upwards through an endless space.

You lose track of time. You don’t know how long you’ve been in here. It could be hours or seconds, but you can't tell the difference. Then it stops.

There is a gentle light ahead of you, and as you pass through it, the soft warmth of it trickles away. Then you find yourself standing in a familiar vast and empty space once again.

Staring into the far distance, the only thing you see is the blank whiteness ahead of you, just as jarring and endless as last time.

You clutch onto the pink-gemmed amulet hanging from your neck, gifted to you by Strange. A magical artifact that’s meant to help you keep your physical form in this space so you don’t fade away like you did last time.

Everything is static here, stale. There’s no air flow, no sense of temperature. The environment is neither hot nor cold against your skin, but somehow you feel an ever-present chill seeping into your bones.

Taking a deep breath, you start to walk forward.

You're shivering with each step you take. There's no sound under your step. No shadows cast under the soles of your feet.

"Boss lady,” Lyla pipes up, her hologram avatar hovering over your shoulders. “I really don't like this. Let's go back home, Beyoncé is holding a concert in Amsterdam! I got us front row seat tickets."

It's a valiant attempt, Miguel really did a great job coding her, but you’re not going back without him. Ignoring Lyla, you continue on your path.

There’s no sign of Miguel anywhere. It's all infinite whiteness as far as the eye can see, with no signs of an end.

The last two times you were here, you didn’t have a chance to gain an understanding of how big this space is. For all you know it could be as vast and endless as the universe itself. What if you’re stuck wandering in this place for an eternity and still never find Miguel?

You walk on, eyes roaming the space, and a dull ache starts to form behind them from staring at the glaring brightness.

There! Off to your left, you finally spot… something.

Your heart leaps in your chest as you clock a disruption in the blank whiteness. A tiny disruption. Or maybe it’s just far away? The emptiness of this place is hell on your depth perception. You veer in that direction, squinting as you approach, until you’re finally close enough to make out what it is.

In the middle of the vast nothingness, there is a tiny ball of crumpled up yellowish paper floating at knee height.

Huh?

Isn't this a complete void where nothing exists or can exist? Why is there trash here?

You squat down hunching over your knees until the little paper ball is eye level and inspect it closer.

The color and thickness of the paper is familiar. It looks like a post-it note that’s been folded in half, tiny, uneven triangles sticking out at each of the four corners.

How weird.

Crumpled as it is, you can see now that the crooked folds and creases aren't all random. Looking closely, there seems to have been a failed attempt of trying to fold them in a sequence but lacking the proper hand to eye dexterity to do it properly.

Wait, is this…? It must be.

You recognize it now. It’s one of your unfortunate attempts at an origami frog from when you were killing time with Miguel at your work. But what is it doing here of all places?

Tentatively reaching out, you poke at the piece of paper. To your surprise there’s resistance.

That's... odd.

There's nothing else here. Nothing holding it.

Just the failed paper frog suspended in thin air.

You try again, grabbing a corner of the paper this time, but the results are the same. It stubbornly refuses to move. When you tug, it jerks back, away from you.

Squinting your eyes, you lean closer and carefully observe the space in front of you.

Now when you’re paying close attention, you can just about make out a vague, almost invisible outline.

It’s barely there, and you can only tell because the blank whiteness in front of you seems to warp slightly with the smallest tremor of a movement.

Whatever this is, it really doesn’t want you to take your piece of trash back from it.

You frown in annoyance. This doesn't make sense. Why would your poor deformed paper frog even be here? The only people who even had anything to do with the stupid thing are you and–

"Miguel?"

The movement stills at your voice.

When you don't look away, it seems spooked by your gaze, shirking at the attention. The thing shifts in its shape, shrinking down like it's trying to make itself smaller.

You try to move closer, and the obscure translucent form moves away from you, gliding seamlessly into the empty space.

Without a shape it takes you a few moments before you register its movement and what it's trying to do. It's moving fast, as if it's trying to flee from you.

Because it is. Shit!

You run after it, guided by the vague hazy contour against the nothingness that surrounds you. Even without legs, this shapeless thing is moving fast.

"Stop!" you shout, "Stop, stop, please stop! It's me!"

You leap forward, grabbing at the empty outline in front of you, and to your surprise find purchase on the nothingness under your grip.

"Miguel, stop running!" you shout.

It does. He does.

There is something there now, a semi-invisible mass, slightly more opaque than it was a second ago.

You open your mouth to speak, but you don't know what to say. Don't even know for certain that this is Miguel or not.

But you hope it is. Have to believe it is. You’re too desperate to overthink it, and you spout the first thing that comes into your head.

"Come back, Miguel. Come back, and I'll take you back to that cheap Chinese diner you liked so much. We can get all the food you want, all of it deep fried! I'll even share the egg tarts this time."

You think you see something shift before you. It could just be your imagination, but the tiniest speck of color seems to emerge from within the translucent mass.

Somehow, whatever you’re doing must be working, and you quickly try to think of what else you can say that will tempt him to come back.

Food. Maybe more about food will work? It worked for you, after all.

"The Reese buttercups in our other apartment are all expired, but I think they'd still be okay to eat, and– and– And I'll make you cookies if you come back! Blue spiderman ones that match your suit."

The speck of color pops, fading into thin air, your fingers sinking further into the nothingness of his form, and a spike of panic stabs through your chest.

Why isn’t it working!? Was it not the food that made him react after all? You don’t know what else to try.

That first time you were here, Miguel was able to bring you back to yourself with the intimate details he knew from the other lifetime you two had shared. Maybe you can do the same.

"Your name is Miguel O'hara," you start, "and- and-" And then you have to stop, not sure of what else to say. "And your eyes are red... for some reason. And you have fangs! Fangs that can deliver some kind of fucking paralysis venom, which is completely ridiculous by the way!"

Nothing happens. There’s no change save for that the form underneath you squirms and tries to get away from your grip.

"And... and..."

Shit. This is getting you nowhere.

Unlike Miguel, you haven't had the front seat experience of living a lifetime together with him. There's only so much you know about him. Because that man is more secretive than a CIA agent.

You bite down on your lip in frustration.

"Goddamnit, Miguel! I barely know anything about you because you never tell me shit!"

The shape underneath you stops wiggling underneath you.

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes as you gather yourself, then you reopen them again, staring up at the upper part of the half-invisible shape like he's standing in front of you.

There's no point in trying to beat Miguel at a game of knowledge. You will never win. You never got to learn or memorize every personal and intimate detail about the man and his life. But there's one thing that you know beyond any doubt.

"I miss you," you tell him.

Strokes of soft colors streaks through the translucent mass at your words. A gentle blossoming spreads and you can see the opaque material reform inch by inch, until it vaguely resembles the silhouette of a body.

"I can’t even eat without you around, which has never happened to me before. I’ve been able to eat through food poisoning. But now the cupcakes from Gladis remind me of you and how you're not here, and they taste like cardboard."

He feels firmer somehow, more solid, and there’s even the faintest trace of warmth under your fingertips. Hope flutters in your chest at the change, and you tighten your grip on him.

“I miss you. More than I ever thought it could be possible to miss someone."

You can faintly make out limbs and shoulders, and the outline of a head.

"I miss falling asleep next to you. It's too quiet without your snoring, and the bed is too big without you there."

The body grows taller, and you can see the familiar tan of his skin now, the line of his jaw and the sharp angle of his nose re-materializing before your eyes.

"I miss watching you eat three dozen tacos in one sitting, scaring the tables around us. I miss having you with me and getting to talk to you, or even just sitting next to you doing nothing.”

You lean up towards him, raised on the tip of your toes, until you're up against him. “I just want you to be here with me. Please come back," you whisper into him.

Then he's there. Right in front of you, large and firm and warm as he towers above you, forehead pressed against yours, in your arms.

He’s here. Miguel is here.

His hair is a soft tousled mess. Eyes warm and hazy as he slowly blinks them open like he's just woken up from a hibernation while he gazes down on your face in an intimate silence.

It doesn’t last for very long. His gaze sharpens, blinking in rapid succession as confusion bleeds into his face. You can see the exact moment that consciousness and awareness fully return to him. Because he steps back from you, red eyes burning with an angry determination.

"What are you doing here?" he snarls at you.

Because of course he does. Of course anger is his first reaction at seeing you here.

"You can't be here," he says.

You don't even get a word in before Miguel reaches for your wrist.

"Lyla!" he barks out, and there’s a ping on your arm in response.

"Lyla, stand down," you command, smacking your palm over the face of the dial before the hologram can pop up. You already know that the next words out of his mouth will be a command to whisk you away again if you let him speak.

His lips twist into a frustrated snarl. Eyes glowing with that red fury that you recognize by now as the beginnings of an anger tantrum.

“Why don't you get it? I need to do this," he seethes, gesturing at the void, "I have to disappear. For your sake! It's my fault. I'm the reason you keep dying. I’m killing you!”

“That’s not true! You saved me! You caught me when I fell off the Chrysler building—twice!—and–”

“That doesn’t matter!” he snarls, rounding on you, “Don’t you understand!? You’re still going to die! If I'm with you, you die.”

There’s a moment of resounding silence, and you watch as the anger bleeds away from Miguel’s face, leaving something else in its place.

Something like grief.

“I can’t– I can’t do that again,” he says quietly, and he looks so sad that it damn near breaks your heart.

“Miguel…”

You don’t know what to say in the face of such raw and obvious grief. Until… suddenly, you do.

“Whether you're here or not, I could still die, Miguel."

Your words seem to hit him like a blow, and he flinches back, his eyes going round and liquid, open mouth quivering for a moment before it pulls right into a hard downturned line.

"Even if you were gone, there still wouldn’t be any guarantees," you say.

You brush your hand alongside his, trying to hold his hand in yours but he draws it away.

"You could save me by erasing yourself from existence and tomorrow a bus driver that isn't paying attention might hit me and I'd die anyhow," you continue, and he flinches visibly. "You can't control these things, and I would rather be with you and take the chance and be happy until it happens."

His hand balls up in agitation at his side. "I– I just don't want you to die again," he says, helplessness bleeding through every syllable of his words.

Your heart aches at his obvious pain. All you want, all you've ever wanted is to make that pain a little bit smaller. You step forward closing the distance between you, and he doesn't back away or move from you this time.

“Everybody dies. Regardless of what happens here I will too someday. But you’ve given me extra time. You did that. You saved me, again and again. And I’m so happy that you did. That I got to have that time with you. To share donuts with you in bed, or fold post-its frogs in the office."

His eyes close tightly, and he gives a slight shake of his head, grief and denial warring in his features. “None of that matters if you don’t survive,” he says quietly.

“You say it doesn’t matter, but it does, Miguel. Those moments matter to me. And even if we die here in this stupid video game loading screen, or if we make it out of here, but something else gets me, it will still matter to me.”

There's no telling if your grand speech is actually getting through to him because he's still not looking at you or meeting your eyes. You grab at his shoulder for his attention. It's all you can do to not shake him and rattle him until he accepts what you are trying to tell him.

"I want to be with you, and even if you can’t save me in the end, that's okay. I just want to be with you for as long as I can. However long or short of a time that is, I won’t have any regrets as long as I get to spend it with you. I told you, didn’t I? Every me in every universe would say the same, given a choice."

He doesn’t respond this time and part of you feels like you’re talking to a besieged wall. Reaching up, you cup his cheeks in your hands and pull his face down to meet your eyes.

“How many other universes are out there where those versions of us never get to know each other at all? …Thousands? …Millions? We’re the lucky ones, Miguel. We got to meet, and we have a chance against all odds. So what if it means we have to jump through a few hoops and universes to be together?”

His eyes open fully at your words, and lock on your face. You think you can see the cracks in his defenses. His hands unfurl and twitch at his sides as if he’s fighting himself to reach for you.

"I love you,” you tell him, and his lips part with a slight tremble.

You’re running out of things to say that can convince him now. The only thing that’s left is for Miguel to make the choice.

Your hand slides down from his face, and he looks distraught at the loss of contact as you take one small step back and away from him.

"Let's try to be happy this time," you tell him.

Reaching out your hand towards him, you try your best to smile through your nervousness, hoping that he is going to say yes to you this time despite his trademark stubbornness that you’ve come to love and hate sometimes.

Miguel looks at your hand, hesitation carved into every shade of red in those eyes. His hand flexes by his side, but doesn’t move.

He’s still unsure, and hope falls flat in your chest at the thought that he might very well make the choice to stay and destroy himself despite how much you don’t want him to.

But then he nods, and your heart begins to sing.

Tentative as it may be, his arm still reaches out towards you, fingers seeking out yours and he takes your hand.

"Yeah," he answers quietly. “Let’s be happy.”

Your smile grows wider, eyes watery as your vision blur around the edges when you look up at him. Happiness blossoming in your chest until it feels so full you think your ribs might burst from it.

You squeeze down on his larger hands in yours, to reassure yourself that he is really here, with you. And he is.

"Lyla," you say, and your watch pings at your command, before Lyla’s face lights up the space above.

"Good to have you back with us, boss," she says with a salute in Miguel’s direction. “Where to now?” 

“Lyla,” he acknowledges with a faint smile and a nod, but he doesn’t look away from your face. "Do the thing. Take us home. Home-home."

Warm amber light rises up to surround you both, and Miguel pulls you into his chest. A kaleidoscope of colors explodes before your eyes, swirling around the two of you as he holds you in his arms.

You can't stop smiling at him, grinning like an idiot, as you tilt up to press your forehead to his.

Reality reforms around you, specks of navy-blue filling the large and vast sky. You're standing on the rooftop of a tall building surrounded by the skyline of brightly lit skyscrapers, a labyrinth of levitating bridges and streets laid out beneath. Floating vehicles buzz and soar through the sky like flamboyant dragonflies. Below your feet there is an ocean of dotted neon lights and colorful hologram billboards filling every inch and corner of the city below.

This must be Miguel's home dimension. What did he call it?  Earth-3000-something? Nueva York, he said, and it certainly looks new—bright and fantastical, like nothing you’ve ever known before—but you only have eyes for the man in front of you.

Miguel pulls back slightly, squeezing down on your hand.

"So what do we do now? As long as I exist, the universe will still be out to get you," he says.

Despite the bleakness of the picture he’s painting, his eyes are soft and there’s something that sounds like hope in his tone.

You smile at him, eyes narrowing against the bright neon lights of the tall towering buildings around you.

"We live,” you answer, “Together. As long as we can. I hear you're some kind of genius scientist or something. I'm sure we'll think of something fun to do in the infinite multiverse."

“What do you want to do first?” he asks.

“Sleep.”

He's smiling at you, the corners of his fangs peeking out against his lower lip, eyes squinting in a way that makes him look almost boyish.

The sight of it makes your cheeks warm pleasantly and affection blossoms endlessly in your chest for him.

This isn’t the end, but if it were, it feels like it's a good one this time. Miguel walks out towards the ledge of the building, turning back to reach out his hand to you.

"Let’s go, Cielito."

[Nueva York, Earth 928-C]

The end.

Credit and Dedication: One final time, this is dedicated to @thirstworldproblemss who is my muse, my partner-in-writing-&-brainstorming, who makes writing so much more fun everyday.

And then of course. To everyone of you. We are finally here. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I want to thank everyone who has followed along in this story this entire time. Writing Every You Every Me has been one of the most joyous writing experiences I've had. That is largely because of you guys! Thank you for every heartfelt feedback you guys have left here, thank you for coming into my asks, thank you for clicking that little heart on the bottom letting me know you've read it and for the lurkers who has followed along all the while, thank you for taking the time to read this story of mine! Having this audience has made me grow so much as a writer. Having your company while I wrote this has brought me so much joy. Reading everyone's reactions and theories has been a privilege that not a lot of writers get in the process of writing a multi-chaptered story. Thank you so so much.

I don’t have a tag list but please follow me on astroboots-writes and turn on notifications to be notified when I post something new!

[once-in-a-blood-moon]

solomon is of course very proud of mc's improvement with magic but that eventually means one day they'll be stronger than him and he can no longer use his own magic to mess with them.

solomon: oh no mc!! :((( looks like we're trapped! and the spell says the only way out is through a ton of kisses shared by two people trapped ins-

mc: *uses their own magic to brute force their way through* i did it :D

solomon:

solomon: you did it :'D

Ooh, love this!! Poor Solly :( Okay so, what if MC catches onto Solomon's schemes and either a. messes with him instead, or b. sets situations up in his favor?

Solomon: Whoops, my spell backfired and now we're trapped inside this box! Together!! How will we ever get out of this one?

MC: ...

Solomon: *snaps his fingers* I remember reading that to break the spell, you need to kiss your one true love... and since we're the only ones in here~

MC: Then I guess that means we're stuck in here forever, since Lucifer isn't in here for me to kiss...

Solomon: D:

MC: *laughing* Kidding! Don't worry, I got this. *uses their magic to destroy the box without even breaking a sweat*

MC: *gives Solomon a little kiss after they're done* You're such a good sport.

Solomon: *grumbling with a blush* I'm really not...

----

Solomon: *sighing dejectedly that none of his schemes work on them anymore*

MC: *quietly casts a spell on him without him noticing so that there's a little dot of light on his face* Oh no, Sol! You have something on your face! Don't worry, a simple kiss should do the trick!

Solomon: Wha- Ah!!

Solomon: *gets attacked with kisses as each time they plant a kiss where the light had been, it moves around to different spots on his face like a cat laser toy*

Solomon: *in between giggles* You're too much, my adorable apprentice.

MC: *in between kisses* Learned from the best, my magnificent master.

Solomon: *caught off guard, blushing* Magnificent? :'D

[crepes-suzette-373]

All the Vinsmoke quadruplets are "defective" AU

I told myself I really should stop obsessing over the Vinsmokes for a second, but my botched (and probably bootleg) Niji figurine gave me wild ideas, and I just can't stop myself.

AU where Sanji's brothers are also "defective", but not to the point of being completely normal like Sanji. It's just that every now and then their augmentations "turn off" (and their eyebrows flip too), and would turn (sort of?) normal. No exoskeleton, no electricity, no lasers. Basically the opposite of Sanji randomly activating his exoskeleton in canon.

Was just gonna make Niji at first because of my figurine, but then I thought "what if all three of them are like that though". I know this isn't how it works, like, Sanji doesn't randomly get his Osoba Mask hair every time his brow flips, but I just like there being a visible on/off indicator aside from the brows.

I'll draw their Sanji interactions later hahah, I need to think about it first.

At least for this universe, I imagine Ichiji and Niji wear goggles and sunglasses to control or shield against their own lasers and electricity abilities (like Cyclops in X-Men), so in off mode they don't wear it.

Yonji is the opposite. He wears the sunglasses more often in off mode to distract people from noticing the flipped brows. People actually probably don't care, but he does it just in case (and he looks like a surfer dude).

[gwynndolin]

i can’t actually remember if all of the bow and arrow based minigames in oot and mm were all this difficult or if the fact that the joystick on this modern recreation n64 controller is like, ill suited for that. even the smallest stick movements feel like they translate to a huge first person movement. I’m not certain exactly how the control stick works in this modern one, but i assume its all potentiometers like most controllers are. Interestingly enough, it almost looks like it has a similar kind of mechanism to how the 3DS joystick looks, where its kind of on a linear slide.

Anyway, the old original N64 controllers used two encoder wheels and a laser (or probably just a small light) and a light sensing diode which would be intermittently shrouded by little interruptions on the decoder wheel which would give varying levels of current and a bunch of calculations happen which tell the controller where the joystick is, which is actually kinda great when compared to the current controller standard of graphite pads which are the typical point of failure and cause of stick drift, either from wear or dust (and dust from wear) causing the contacts to shit out.

At the bottom of the assembly there you can see the decoder wheels controlling the X and Y inputs, attached to a cradle assembly that the joystick is pushed through and locked into. Most everything that isn't contained in that bowl that the joystick sits in is shrouded, so there's not really a chance to even get small particulates into the decoder wheel. In fact the only reason n64 joysticks tend to fail is from them getting super loose around the little ball around the bottom

This part makes action with two little plastic nubs with the gate that also acts as the shroud which assists with centering the joystick and returning it to a neutral position with assistance from a spring assembly underneath the shroud.

The problem I had with my old controller is that it had been used so much that the little slits in the ball had all ballooned out from the use and friction over the years which meant it wasn't a tight fit anymore and made it so the stick would just kinda flop around instead of returning to neutral. The other problem they had (which mine also did) was that the bowl that was at the very bottom of the assembly was not lubricated, or at the very least, wasn't lubricated enough and evaporated over the years, leading to the bottom part of the joystick to scrape the bottom of the bowl and essentially sand it down.

This is almost all plastic from the inside of the bowl being scraped by the joystick (tho im sure its a little skin and whatever else too) and this would also cause a lot of problems, like the joystick sitting lower in the bowl than it was supposed to. That in combination with the centering pegs(?) not making tight action with the stick makes it wiggle around and essentially useless.

Aside from how like, stupid the solid plastic joystick was (my thumb has been getting sore after like a single solid hour or two of play), and the wear points being super obvious, i think the decoder wheel assembly is pretty cool and reminds me of how now we're getting people making control sticks with hall effect sensors which do not have a point of contact to measure input (as opposed to the gearing on the decoder wheels and joystick assembly themself, which theoretically is a wear point but is very uncommon)

[cha-melodius]

Can I request firstprince alternative first meeting in Rio for your fandom fest? Thanks! ❤️💙

(Yes, I'm still working on these! I'm guessing this isn't exactly what you had in mind when you sent in this prompt, but it fit in very well with the Olympics, and it IS a (very) alternative first meeting lol. I hope you enjoy!)

Tonight, You're Gold

(M, 6k, read it below or on AO3)

Henry wasn’t expecting the Rio Olympics to be particularly eventful, all things considered. These weren’t his first games, after all, and if he’s honest with himself, he’s not a favourite in the men’s Laser sailing fleet this year. Coming back from a knee injury has been hard, and he’s proud of what he’s achieved this season. If he can make it into the medal race, he’ll be ecstatic. Mostly, he’s been enjoying the experience. Enjoying watching the different sports. Enjoying the city of Rio. Enjoying the other athletes.

As one does.

Normally, he wouldn’t have gone out tonight, but Pez had cajoled him into it, saying even if he wasn’t going to find a hookup he could at least take his mind off his impending first-round race rather than stewing alone in his room. Henry had to admit he had a point. That was before this, though.

One minute Henry’s listening to a ridiculously gorgeous American beach volleyball player with big brown eyes and eyelashes that would be a handicap in many sports complain about how his room was the victim of catastrophic flooding thanks to a burst pipe, and the next, all of his common sense simply deserts him.

“…and Liam ended up finding a place with this diver named Spencer, but I got fucked over because the only extra bed right now is with Hunter,” the American, whose name is Alex, is saying. He pushes a mess of gorgeous dark curls back from his face, only for several of them to flop back and curve just under his ears, framing a jaw that could cut glass. “Who— I mean, you don’t know him, and you should be thankful for that because he’s insufferable. But the real problem is that he snores like a chainsaw, so how the fuck am I supposed to get a decent night’s sleep?”

“You could stay with me,” Henry says before he can properly think it through. Across from him, Alex raises his eyebrows. Christ. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Only, my roommate’s already done competing, and he’s moved out. So I have an extra bed.”

Alex laughs, his curls bouncing as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure I’m allowed to just move into Team Great Britain territory.”

Henry shrugs and takes a sip of his mocktail—he’s not dumb enough to drink with a race tomorrow, even if he is dumb enough to make this suggestion. “Given the revolving doors on some of these rooms, I don’t think you’ll draw much attention.”

Henry should know, after all. He’s had more than a few overnight visitors since Basil finished on the second day of the games. It’s been incredibly convenient having a room to himself—Fabrizio the Italian gymnast had been a highlight, to say nothing of half the Dutch rowing team—and now he’s about to give that up for a mouthy American that he’s pretty sure is straight. Because he’s a bloody idiot, apparently.

“I mean, people would probably assume…” Alex trails off, the darkening of his cheeks obvious even in the low light.

“That we’re fucking?” Henry finishes bluntly, and Alex chokes on his drink. Definitely straight, then. Pity. “It's true, they might. I understand if those kinds of rumours are not something you’re willing to risk.”

For some reason, that makes Alex look slightly stricken. “No, I mean, I don’t care if a bunch of random athletes think I’m queer. That’s not, like, a problem.”

“So it’s just me that’s objectionable, then,” Henry quips.

Alex is stunning when he laughs. It’s becoming a whole problem. “Have you seen yourself?” he scoffs. “Fuck, man. I should be so lucky.”

Henry only narrowly resists suggesting that he could be. Even if he thought Alex would be interested, he’s offering a place to stay. Not a quick shag.

“I should… probably get to bed. Races start early tomorrow,” Henry says, offering a little smile. “The offer stands, if you decide you need a break from the chainsaw.”

Alex draws his full lower lip through his teeth, which is supremely distracting. “Fuck. We do have a match tomorrow. And it’s against the Italians who are fucking good this year.” He squints sceptically at Henry. “Are you sure you don’t mind? You just met me. For all you know, I could fuck up your sleep.”

It’s insane to say he almost wouldn’t mind, so he doesn’t. He thinks it, though. “I doubt you’ll be worse than my roommate at the London games. And if you are, I’ll just kick you out.”

He says the last bit with a teasing smirk, which makes Alex laugh again, and Henry knows already he has no hope of surviving this man. Perfect. Just what he needs while he’s competing on the world’s biggest stage.

~~~~~

Alex is a wonderful roommate, as it turns out, which is lovely but also terrible. He’s considerate about noise and the odd hours they all have to keep between training sessions and competitions. He’s a chaotic whirlwind, but he’s also incredibly organised—“My brain is enough of a mess,” he’d told Henry on the second day—and always knows where everything is at any given time. He always makes sure there’s hot water in the kettle for Henry’s tea whenever he makes himself yet another no-doubt-coach-unapproved coffee. He’s an excellent conversation partner whenever their schedules line up, but he seems to intuitively know when Henry needs some time to himself. Today, he woke up before Henry’s third day of opening series races to hype him up, even though he had no reason to be up that early.

That’s not even considering what he looks like when he comes out of the shower with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping from his curls onto some of the most well-sculpted shoulders Henry’s ever seen.

Henry is well and truly fucked.

“Hey, do people watch you guys compete?” Alex asks as Henry goes through his pre-race morning routine. “Do you have spectators?”

Henry hums, sipping his tea. “Not really. Most of the courses are barely visible from shore. They’ll put us reasonably close in for the medal race, but it’s still not much to see.”

“That’s the 15th, right?” Alex says, looking to Henry for confirmation even though he’s clearly already pulled the schedule up on his phone. “Maybe I could swing that. Our game should be late. You know, assuming we make the quarterfinals.”

Henry doesn’t quite know what to say to that. No one comes to see him compete, primarily for the aforementioned reasons of it not being the most scintillating or comprehensible sport to watch in person. Bea, at least, watches the televised races where the cameras, graphics, and commentators make it much easier to follow and texts him about a hundred times saying things like I can’t believe that asshole crossed in front of you and that Australian fucker stole your wind, which make him laugh as he reads through them once he’s back on shore.

“You don’t have to do that,” Henry demurs. “It’s really not worth it. Plus, I might not even make the medal race.”

“You will,” Alex says confidently, even though he knows next to nothing about sailing or Henry’s capabilities. Henry’s done pretty well in his first four races, but there are still six to go. “And anyway, it’s not really about watching the race. You guys deserve to have people to support and cheer for you too.”

Henry’s throat is tight. “Right, well, one step at a time,” he mumbles. Best to change the subject. “Tell me about your match today?”

Alex smiles like he knows what Henry is doing, but he lets it go, and Henry spends the rest of the time before has to depart for the race listening to Alex go on about digs and float serves and line shots. It’s a surprisingly effective way of soothing pre-race jitters and getting out of his own head, even if it’s one he knows he shouldn’t get used to.

~~~~~

Henry’s not sure he’s ever watched a beach volleyball match before, which was clearly a significant oversight on his part. He is sweating and not only because the sun is beating relentlessly down on him as he sits in the stands. It’s certainly not helped by the USA’s uniforms, which feature shorts a full hands-breadth shorter than seemingly any other team’s and vests with deeply scooped arm holes. Alex’s teammate, Liam, is wearing a white ball cap, but Alex has eschewed a hat, instead pushing his curls back from his face with a blue elastic hair band, which is more endearing than it has any right to be.

“Christ, would you look at his arse,” Pez says appreciatively from his position at Henry’s side as Alex leans over with his hands on his knees.

“You say that like I’ve been able to look anywhere else,” Henry returns. There’s no shortage of hot people in minimal amounts of spandex at the games, yet the way those shorts cling to Alex’s arse is somehow more tantalising than all of them. “I’m convinced he was specially sculpted by the gods explicitly to torment me.”

Pez tsks and slants a sideways look at him. “Still haven’t gotten him into your bed, then?”

“I’m not his type, Pez.”

On the court, Alex spikes a ball over the net, scoring a point, then runs over to Liam to celebrate. Which involves smacking each other vigorously on the arse. They’ve been doing it all match. Once, after a particularly exceptional point scored, Alex kissed him enthusiastically on the cheek.

“You’re certain about that?” Pez asks sceptically.

“You know straight men and their homoerotic sports rituals,” Henry sighs.

“Mm,” Pez hums. “I wouldn’t mind testing that hypothesis with his partner. Those arms.”

Henry snorts. “Godspeed, my friend.”

“Never underestimate my charm, Hazza,” Pez chirps, watching as Liam dives for the ball and knocks it back over toward Alex. “They really are very good at this.”

It’s not like Alex has been modest when he’s talked about their performance, but it’s very clear that he’s still managed to undersell it. The US men are practically putting on a clinic, dominating every set of the match. Both Alex and Liam are clearly exceptional players, operating like a well-oiled machine, but Henry admittedly can’t take his eyes off Alex. The way his muscles ripple under bronzed skin as he stretches to make a save. The raw power behind his serves. The brilliance of his smiles when he turns away from the net to celebrate after each point. Of course it wasn’t enough that Alex had to be gorgeous and kind and thoughtful and funny—he had to be absurdly skilled, too, even taking into consideration that everyone here is at the top of their game.

Alex is clearly still hopped up on adrenaline when Henry catches up with him after their decisive win, talking animatedly to one of the other Team USA athletes. Henry does his best to feel nothing about the way Alex lights up when he spots Henry lurking by the sidelines, immediately ditching his conversation partner to jog over to him. He’s glistening and flushed and Henry wants to lick him.

Christ, he needs to get a bloody grip.

“Did you see that save in the second set?” Alex chirps excitedly. “When I did a fucking flip and just caught the ball, and then”—he mimes a jump—“Liam slammed it into the corner?”

“It was hard to miss,” Henry tells him indulgently, biting down on his too-wide smile at Alex’s antics. “You were incredible, Alex.”

“So how’d you like your first beach volleyball game?” Alex asks. “Think you’ll come back?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Henry admits. It’s too honest by half, but entirely worth it for the truly brilliant grin he gets from Alex in return.

~~~~~

The thing about sailing is that there are no crowds you can see, no cheering you can hear. There’s just you and the boat and the wind—and nine other guys trying to cut a tighter path on the course to shave off a few seconds.

The wind is gusty during the medal race, and Henry ends up drenched in spray within the first ten seconds of getting out on the water. He loves these conditions, though, the way they push a sailor to their limits, the way it feels like you could take off in flight at any moment. The boat is responsive under his hands, skipping across the water like a stone, and he finds good angles to the wind that send him rocketing forward right off the starting gun. His luck holds, helped by the French competitor nearly capsizing in a gust and the Italian having to do a penalty turn at the second mark, and in the end he crosses the finish line at the front of the fleet in a cluster so tight it’s impossible to tell the final rankings from the water.

It probably won’t be enough to medal, even if he managed to score in the top three—his previous finishes were just a little too far back in the fleet—but frankly, he can’t find it in himself to care. Because when he finally gets back to shore, there’s an extremely excitable American who practically launches himself into Henry’s tired arms before he can even check the scores.

“Second place, you motherfucker!” Alex yelps in his ear.

Henry blinks, pulling away to look at him properly. “Are you serious?”

“They just announced it,” Alex confirms breathlessly. “What does that mean? Do you get silver?”

“No, the final scores are cumulative. It’ll depends on how the leaders finished, can you look—”

But Alex already has his phone out, looking up the scores as Henry’s coach hurries up to them, his eyes wide.

“Burton and Sheldt were both over the line at the start,” Shaan tells him urgently. “They were disqualified. With your second place, that means—”

“Fucking bronze!” Alex shouts, like he’s just won the medal, and abruptly Henry’s knees don’t feel steady enough to hold him up anymore.

It takes several minutes before Henry’s breathing returns to something like it’s normal rate, and he finds Alex sitting next to him, chewing on his thumbnail as he reads something on his phone. A short ways away, Shaan is taking care of putting away Henry’s boat for him, leaving the two of them in their own little bubble.

“This scoring system is bonkers, I hope you know,” Alex tells him. “I can’t believe it’s cumulative over eleven races.”

“I can’t believe I won a medal,” Henry replies, staring off into the distance. He can see the women’s Radial fleet on the course already, the colourful flag-patterned spinnakers cutting across the horizon. Nothing quite seems real yet.

“Yeah you did,” Alex says, grinning as he bumps his shoulder into Henry’s. “You were right, by the way. I couldn’t see jack shit. But I’m glad I was here.”

Henry’s not going to cry. He’s not. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, focusing on the connection between their shoulders like he can draw strength from it. “I am too, Alex.”

~~~~~

“Shouldn’t you be out getting wasted?” Alex asks when Henry eases the door closed behind him.

Henry really thought Alex would be asleep at this point, given that the semifinal games are tomorrow. Instead, Alex is sitting up in bed with his iPad laying on the mattress in front of him showing a paused beach volleyball game and a notebook next to that. They’d been out with a mixed group of Brits and Americans celebrating Henry’s medal and Alex and Liam’s quarterfinal victory, but Alex had begged off early to come back to their room, leaving Henry in Pez’s clutches with too much champagne flowing.

“Maybe I’m going back out,” Henry says, more defensively than is probably warranted. He is, actually. Just not to party. He walks over to his bed and pulls his medal over his head, laying it carefully on the side table where the bronze glints softly in the low light from Alex’s lamp.

“Hm,” Alex hums doubtfully as he looks Henry up and down. “You’re up to something. I can tell.”

“It’s nothing.” Fuck. He probably should have denied that.

“Henry,” Alex says flatly, giving him a Look. “I’m not gonna judge you.”

Henry sighs and leans against the wall, letting his head thunk backward. That might have been a mistake, because everything is spinning now. “I was going to sneak back to the marina and take my boat out,” he confesses.

The room is silent, and when Henry opens his eyes again, he finds Alex frowning at him. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Best time to see the stars,” Henry says with a weak smile.

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous? And against the rules?”

“Hence the sneaking.”

Alex stares another beat, then he nods, turning off his iPad. “Ok, let’s go.”

“…What?”

“There’s no way I’m letting you go out there by yourself,” Alex says firmly. “What if you slipped and hit your head or something?”

“If we got caught, you could be kicked out of the games,” Henry argues.

“And they could take away your medal,” Alex counters, folding his arms over his chest. “Whatever this is, it must mean a lot to you if you’re risking something like that. So if you’re going, I’m going.”

Christ, but he is stubborn. “My boat isn’t exactly built for two people, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. “We’ll make it work.”

Against the odds and all good sense, they do. Sneaking into the marina is easier than expected, thanks to shockingly lax security, and they find Henry’s boat amongst the other Lasers slumbering by the waterside in their cradles. Henry is well-practised at launching it by himself, so they just have to make sure Alex doesn’t capsize it when he climbs in—a near miss that leaves Alex white-knuckling the edge of the cockpit and Henry trying to hold back his laughter as Alex glares at him. The breeze has slackened now that the sun is down, just strong enough to take them out into the bay, where Henry drops the sail again and they both cram into the tiny cockpit with their knees bent and their legs weaved together.

“So,” Alex says, once they’re settled in and staring up at the stars, “are you gonna tell me what this is really about? Because I’m guessing it’s not just stargazing. Not that they aren’t amazing out here, but still.”

There’s a reason Henry didn’t put up much of a fight about Alex coming along, and it’s not how unspeakably beautiful he is with the pale moonlight in his curls. They might have only met a week ago, but he feels safe with Alex in a way he rarely does around anyone, able to share parts of him that he usually keeps buried. He takes a deep breath, letting every point of connection between them ground him.

“My father taught me how to sail,” Henry finally begins. “When I was small, we used to go out on his boat at night—a much larger one than this, mind you—until you almost couldn’t see the shore, just so we could see the stars better.” He swallows against the lump in his throat. “He died when I was eighteen. All of this—the racing, the Olympics, coming out here after regattas to look at the stars no matter where I am in the world—everything I do. It’s all for him.”

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the soft lap of the water against the hull of the boat, but then Henry feels Alex’s fingers against his, his hand pushing into Henry’s loose grip as he twines their fingers together and squeezes. “He’d be so fucking proud of you, H.”

“I know,” Henry whispers, not trusting his voice.

“Absolutely no pressure, but…” Another squeeze. “Do you want to talk about him?”

For the first time in a long while, Henry does.

~~~~~

“What do you think?” Alex asks as he emerges from the bathroom. He turns in a slow circle, holding his arms out to the side, to show off his outfit—absurdly tiny shorts that are practically painted on and a lacy shirt that he’s seen fit to close with only a single button just above his navel. There’s a gold Olympic rings pendant laying over his collarbones, and his dark curls are shining with whatever product he’s put in them to tame them just so.

Henry narrowly avoids swallowing his tongue. “I think you’ll be very popular,” he manages.

Alex’s nose wrinkles as if that is not entirely the point. He’s been invited to a party at some extremely exclusive club in the city hosted by the Brazilian women’s beach volleyball team, who happen to be two stunningly gorgeous women that seem to particularly enjoy flirting with Alex. Not that Henry can blame them, but that doesn’t make him feel any less grumpy about the whole situation.

“I’m not trying to be popular,” Alex says as he turns again, twisting around to look at his arse in the mirror. He frowns, and mutters, “Only one person’s eye I’m trying to catch.”

Henry isn’t sure if he’s meant to hear that, or respond to it, but he swallows against the disappointment that wells up in his chest. So Alex does have someone in mind. He should have expected it, really—there’s no way someone who looks like Alex could go the whole games and not find company eventually. Not to mention he’s going to be playing in the gold medal match in a day’s time, and is thus guaranteed no lower than a silver medal. There are always plenty of participants at the games who consider bedding an Olympic medalist the next best thing if they’re not going to win one themselves.

“Well,” Henry says, trying to appear as if he’s reading and not surreptitiously ogling his roommate, “whoever it is, they’d have to be an idiot not to notice you.”

“Ok, but I’m asking what you think,” Alex says, a little petulantly.

Henry sighs and closes his book on his thumb. “You look incredible, Alex. Truly.”

That makes Alex beam, and Henry’s stomach flips. Christ, he’s hopeless.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Alex asks, casting his eyes over Henry’s slightly ragged joggers and Team Great Britain hoodie from 2012. “I’m pretty sure they’re not going to let you into the club like that.”

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Alex,” Henry says. “I’m not going to any club.”

“Uh, yeah you are. You’re coming with me,” Alex says, like it’s obvious.

Henry scoffs. “I think my invitation got lost.”

“You’re a medalist,” Alex points out with an unnecessary eye roll. “Medalists have an automatic invite to every party. I thought this wasn’t your first Olympics?”

Henry pointedly looks down at his hoodie then back up again. “I know how these things work, Alex. I’m also certain that none of them are interested in having me there.”

“Well, I want you there, so.” He cocks an eyebrow, like he’s challenging Henry to deny him.

Like he knows Henry won’t.

Henry refuses to bring his medal with him because he’s absolutely not going to risk getting mugged for it, but in the end he doesn’t need the proof; apparently, he’s somehow on the list already along with Alex. And also, perhaps unsurprisingly, Pez, who’s already inside and practically shrieks when he sees Henry.

“Hazza! It’s a miracle!” he shouts as he looks appraisingly at Henry’s sedate trousers and the button-down shirt, which Alex had insisted he leave open down to the middle of his sternum. “I thought we had big plans to sulk in our room tonight.”

Henry glares at him and ignores Alex’s curious gaze. “I wasn’t aware having a quiet night in was a crime.”

“It’s the Olympics, H!” Alex puts in, clapping his shoulder with enough force to make Henry nearly stumble. “You can have all the quiet nights you want after the games.”

“See, this man knows how it’s done,” Pez agrees, then turns his attention to Alex. “I don’t suppose your dashing court partner is going to be here tonight…?”

Alex shrugs. “He said he was coming.”

Pez claps delightedly. “Wonderful!”

Alex says he isn’t drinking tonight, given his ongoing competition, which is understandable. Henry, on the other hand, is fairly certain he’s not going to survive the night watching Alex dance with scantily-clad women without significant assistance. He starts with a gin and tonic, but Pez keeps on appearing in a whirlwind with a myriad of brightly-coloured shots, so it’s not long before he’s very much feeling the loosening effects of the alcohol thrumming through his veins. When Alex reappears some time later with a sheen of sweat on his skin and an ipê-amarelo in his hair, Henry even lets himself be dragged out onto the dance floor, pretending his heart isn’t hammering in his chest when Alex pulls their bodies close with his hands on Henry’s hips.

“Hey, that first party we met,” Alex asks, his voice low and husky in Henry’s ear, just audible over the thumping bass, “were you trying to hit on me?”

Henry can’t help it; he laughs. “Well, yes, at the start,” he admits despite himself, his lips thoroughly loosened by all those shots. “I wanted to talk to you, so I did. I figured out you weren’t interested, but…” He shakes his head. “It didn’t matter. I was happy just getting to know you. Then I heard about your room situation, so it was kind of moot.”

Alex’s hands tighten on his waist. “Right.” There’s an odd note in his voice as he pulls back to stare up at Henry with those big brown eyes, the lights of the club painting multicoloured patterns on his face. “And if I wasn’t not interested…?”

There are far too many negatives in that sentence for Henry to be able to parse in his current state. He blinks at Alex, frowning deeply. He might also be slightly cross-eyed. “What?”

“Fuck, you’re really drunk, aren’t you?” Alex says with a huff of laughter. He pushes a lock of hair back from Henry’s forehead. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Let’s get you back to the room, yeah?”

“Sensible,” Henry says through a yawn, and contentedly leans against Alex’s side as he steers them toward the exit.

~~~~~

The American women take bronze in beach volleyball, and Henry sweats out the rest of the alcohol in his blood as he sits in the unrelenting tropical sun at the match. Next to him, Alex is in high spirits and seemingly all too happy to add to Henry’s torment.

“Did I tell you about the time we protested the beach volleyball uniforms rule at a tournament match?

Henry squints at him behind his sunglasses. He doesn’t remember much about the  previous night, which he suspects is probably for the best. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“You know the women have these rules that they have to wear these skimpy bathing suits while the men get shorts and tank tops, right?” Alex explains. “Well, Liam and I made a deal with the women’s team to trade uniforms.”

It is frankly in Henry’s best interests not to picture such a thing, and he tries valiantly, but Alex already has his phone out and is shoving a photo in his face. In it, Alex and Liam are posing next to each other, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, wearing nothing but huge grins and matching tiny red bikinis. It’s actually absurd how well Alex’s pecs fill out the top, but the bottoms are another matter entirely. A women’s bikini contains decidedly less fabric than a men’s suit would, and the tiny scrap of fabric is stretched to its absolute limits, leaving precisely nothing to the imagination.

“The officials made us go change before we could play the match, of course,” Alex continues, oblivious to Henry’s suffering. “But it was worth it.”

“Quite,” Henry nearly whimpers.

“We still have the suits, actually. Said we’d wear them again at the medal ceremony if we won gold this year. Guess we’ll see tomorrow, huh?”

Henry has to close his eyes and breathe through his nose, and hopes desperately that Alex doesn’t notice.

~~~~~

Somehow, Alex manages to finagle Henry a seat in the front row for the final match. It’s a little awkward, sitting with Alex’s family, all of whom eye Henry with confused suspicion when he tries to explain how a British sailor ended up as a special guest of their son and brother. Apparently, Alex hadn’t bothered telling them about his altered living arrangements, a fact that has his mother—who Henry understands is some sort of American politician—pulling out her phone to have words with the US Olympic Committee and possibly the IOC as well, before her daughter tells her to cut it out and watch the match.

Alex is spectacular, of course, even when the Brazilians give them a run for their money, forcing the match into a nail-biting third set. Henry ends up with each of his hands crushed in the matching grips of Alex’s sister and her girlfriend (also Alex’s best friend), a statistician who has apparently run all the stats on this game and keeps rattling off numbers and percentages that Henry admittedly doesn’t quite follow.

It comes down to the final match point. Liam serves the ball, and they end up in a spectacular volley that seems to go on and on—the Brazilians make an incredible save that keeps it in play, somehow blocking a spike that Alex sends rocketing over the net, and Liam dives to prevent a ball from going out of bounds that Alex already touched. Finally, the Americans set up a shot, winding up like they’re going to drive it to the back of the court, but once the Brazilians have moved backwards to counter it, Alex softens his strike and the ball falls weakly into the Brazilian zone on the other side of the net.

The resulting cheers are deafening as Alex and Liam crash together in an ecstatic hug, knocking Liam’s cap off and nearly sending both of them down into the sand. Then Alex is running full-tilt toward them, barely pausing to accept an American flag from someone in the stands, which he throws over his shoulders like a cape as he gets enveloped in hugs from his family over the railing. It’s incredible, and Henry is so bloody happy for him, and—

And Alex grabs him, Henry assumes to drag him into a hug, but then Alex is pulling back and putting his hands on either side of Henry’s face and kissing him soundly on the mouth. Henry can see at least five cameras out of his peripheral vision, all crowding in to try and get the shot, but his attention is quickly torn away because Alex is kissing him, full and deep and claiming, and Henry can do nothing but cling for dear life as he kisses Alex back.

Alex presses their foreheads together when they finally part and says something, though Henry can’t quite comprehend it over the roar of the crowd. Only later will the words finally resolve themselves in his head, once Alex has been drawn away to be congratulated by others and Henry is still sitting dazed and touching his lips as people ask him questions he doesn’t know the answers to.

“I’m interested, baby.”

~~~~~

Alex and Liam do not, in fact, wear bikinis at their medal ceremony. Henry finds out later that the US Olympic committee’s emphatic directive that athletes wear their official Team USA track suit or else was, in the end, enough to spook the two men into behaving.

“That, and I’m pretty sure my mother would murder me,” Alex tells him once Henry manages to steal him away from the numerous well-wishers and endless press after the ceremony.

Henry has no clue where they’re going, having never been in the non-public parts of this stadium, so he lets Alex take over, leading them into the bowels of the training areas and locker rooms. By now it’s nearly three in the morning, and Henry is slightly delirious, though that’s less from the fatigue than the fact that he still hasn’t recovered from Alex kissing him in front of the entire world. They could have gone back to their room in the Village, except that apparently neither of them are willing to wait any longer.

“We should talk,” Henry says when Alex finally pushes him into an empty training room and closes the door behind them with a soft snick.

“Counterpoint,” Alex says, grinning wickedly as he crosses the room. There’s a swagger in his stride that really only comes when there’s a gold medal hanging around a person’s neck and, unfortunately, it’s devastatingly attractive. He backs Henry up against a wall, sliding his hands up Henry’s chest as he leans in so close their noses brush. “This now. Talking later.”

“You make a compelling argument,” Henry breathes.

“I know I do, sweetheart,” Alex says smugly, and Henry has no choice but to kiss the smirk off his face.

This kiss is nothing like the one they shared after the match. Henry takes his time, luxuriating in the slide of their lips and the cut of Alex’s teeth, licking into Alex’s mouth to feel their tongues slip against each other. He gets his hands into Alex’s hair like he’s wanted to since that first night, letting the curls twine around his fingers as he tightens his grip in a way that makes Alex moan into his mouth. Alex’s body is a firm weight against him, nothing but solid, corded muscle clenching under Henry’s palm. His hips rock forward, so subtly that Henry’s not even sure he knows he’s doing it, but the effect is unmistakable all the same.

In one smooth movement, Henry turns them, pressing Alex back against the wall and dropping to his knees, and the sight of the hard length of Alex’s cock straining in his trousers is enough to make Henry’s mouth water. He looks back up to find Alex gaping at him, his chest heaving and his knuckles going pale where his hands are clenched into fists by his side.

Henry licks his lips and slides his palms up Alex’s thighs to the elastic waistband of his trousers. “Can I blow you?”

“Fuck, please,” Alex exhales, a gratifying tremor in his voice.

Grinning, Henry hooks his fingers into the waistband and yanks downward to reveal—

“You’re a bloody demon, you know that?” Henry huffs as Alex’s cock twitches against the skimpy red spandex of the bikini bottoms.

“I said I was gonna wear it on the podium, and I keep my word,” Alex says, grinning, only to swear loudly when Henry leans in and presses his open mouth to the damp spot on the fabric.

Thank god this area is deserted at this time of night because Alex is loud as Henry shows off his not inconsiderable skill. He teases Alex through the bikini until he’s trembling all over, and when Henry finally sucks him down to the root, it takes no more than a few swirls of his tongue before Alex is coming with a shout and a fist tugging on Henry’s hair hard enough that Henry sees stars.

“Gold medal,” Alex breathes, his chest heaving and his thumb pressing at the corner of Henry’s mouth as Henry gentles him through the last aftershocks.

Henry doesn’t have the heart tell him that he’s not the first person to say that at the games. If cock sucking were an Olympic sport, Henry’s medal count would put Michael Phelps to shame. None of that matters now. Alex curls his hands in the front of Henry’s jacket and drags him back up to kiss him deeply, and the way they fit together is simply… perfect.

Alex doesn’t miss a beat in the rhythm of the kiss as his hand slides down to palm Henry’s cock through the front of his trousers, but Henry catches his wrist. “Later, love,” he murmurs against Alex’s lips. “What I want, we need to go back to the room for.”

They have two days before the end of the games, and Henry intends to make the most of it.

[earthstellar]

Brave Bang Bravern!: A Review for Transformers Fans

I've seen so much about this on my dash that I had to give it a try, and I gotta say, as someone who hasn't watched any new anime series since around 2008 at the most recent and I also hate the fucking military, this is a pretty good show.

THERE WILL BE SOME MILD SPOILERS. Nothing major. I'm not gonna spoil anything critical or mention characters that are introduced later etc. At of time of writing, only 6 episodes have been released.

Understanding Genre: The Trailer is A Lie

Now, while there is a trailer here, I want you to largely disregard it.

Why is that? Well, we need to talk about the "big two" robot show genres in Japan, which are as follows:

Real Robot -- This refers to a typically military setting or other serious setting, in which robots are handled as realistically as possible in terms of how they work and how they are applied. There tend to be less individual/sentient robots and more "suit" type mechs right along side human-made, more realistic machinery and mech designs, although that isn't entirely unique to this genre. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/action outside of Japan.

Super Robot (THIS IS THE SHIT TRANSFORMERS FANS GENERALLY WANT) --Essentially borderline seemingly magical robots with their own rules and in universe backstory for how they work, which isn't necessarily tied to realism. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/fantasy or space fantasy outside of Japan, since a lot of these tend to be space robots. They can be "driven" by pilots or just straight up sentient robots who are vibing with some human companions, although it's not exclusively that. It can be both, it can be neither, but no matter what, Super Robot shows are less about strict realism and more about really cool shit with robots that are basically their own people and exist according to their own rules.

Now, the trailer for BBBB (the acronym for the show is based on the Japanese title, which is Bang Brave Bang Bravern) is a COMPLETE FUCKING LIE.

It wants you to think this is going to be some dumbass GI Joe shit.

While there are elements of dumbass GI Joe shit, this is largely just to set up the premise for why shit is happening in the first place, and to help introduce the main threat (alien space creatures with fucking light beam lasers) as well as bring in our main characters under the premise of everyone having to work together to address this alien threat to Earth.

What we care about here amongst Transformers freaks is gay space robots, and this show delivers.

Getting Into Bravern: First Episode, Mild Plot Spoiler Summary

It wants you to think this is a Real Robot show.

The first episode sets things up as though it will be a Real Robot show.

There is a threat to Earth, a mystery space alien mechanical enemy, and nobody knows what the fuck to do. A military exercise between multiple nations using Titanostriders (which look very much like Shiro Masamune Appleseed-style mechs, human made in nature) to practice battle drills who are now instructed to swap over to real ammunition and go to fucking town.

Nobody knows how to do that.

They're skilled with the Titanostriders, sure, but it turns into a shit show. The alien mechanical enemies are using fucking space laser shit, it's a disaster---

--And then Bravern drops in from the fucking sky and it IMMEDIATELY TURNS INTO A SUPER ROBOT SHOW.

There's a "get in the robot, Shiji" moment where one of the Titanostrider operators, Isami Ao, is encouraged by Bravern to get inside of him.

He does. And immediately has no idea what the fuck is going on, Bravern is largely in control, and starts to blast his own theme song inside his cockpit as diegetic music while Isami is generally losing his shit, as one might do.

Humanity's reaction to Bravern is Real Robot genre type, where it is handled seriously by all the characters and organisations involved in universe, however Bravern is very much a Super Robot genre character who brings more of a Super Robot energy to the show at large.

The serious elements are mostly balanced by how fucking silly Bravern is, and there are some excellent moments in this show (currently only 6 episodes have been released) which make it entirely worth a watch.

Fun Things About Bravern Himself

Braven is very, very, very gay for his pilot.

Chances are, you've seen the screenshots of some of these moments on Tumblr already, but the delivery of these lines is magnificent.

Bravern sings his own theme song. It's the voice actor for Bravern doing the vocals, and the song itself is reminiscent of 1970s orchestrated big band energy mecha themes. For Transformers fans, it has a very Transformers Victory theme kind of vibe to it.

You gotta hear it, it fucking rules. The album cover shows Bravern holding a giant microphone.

Bravern is generally light hearted, doing his best to motivate his pilot while not hesitating to enter the action and try to defend humanity.

Now, why does Bravern care about humans so much? We don't know, but we'll talk about some mysteries in a later section below.

He is surprisingly insightful at times, while also fucking around and enjoying himself. (You may have seen screenshots going around Tumblr of Bravern with a loop of hot dogs strung around one of his chevron points on his forehead. This follows a scene in which he wants his pilot to take a break and associate with his peers for once, as a way to relieve stress. So they go to a bar, it turns out reception is positive and someone even brings weenies out for Bravern since he's too big to fit inside, lol.)

Generally, he's a very interesting mech, because we have so little information about him. He's fun, and clearly vibing, but he's also borderline if not outright obsessed with his pilot and has unknown origins, which has lead to some darker interpretations and audience discussion.

A lot of people have compared Bravern's energy to Rodimus, and generally I would agree with that. He has his high-energy silly moments, and his more serious personal moments (primarily with Isami, but also with Smith), and I think these aspects of his character work well to create a fun mech with the potential to be deep in a believable and effective way, with an equal capacity for being a doofus.

Bravern is obviously the number one reason to watch the show for most people, and I would say that if you're purely here for a giant gay space robot, then this is going to be a decent watch.

The Military Sucks: There Are Militaries Involved Yet Somehow This Is Still Watchable

I hate the fucking military, so at least the military here is depicted in an acceptable way (so far, at least). In episode 2, they waterboard Isami to interrogate him for information he doesn't have regarding Bravern, which is a realistically shitty and awful thing for the military to do-- They don't sugarcoat how fucked up the military is. These people very much have the capacity to harm their own staff, and they will do so if it means they might get an edge over the enemy.

At the same time, the actual characters in the military are depicted as primarily doing this shit out of a genuine personal desire to defeat these horrendously destructive space entities, which have attacked at least some of their home towns and home countries, so it's more personal rather than purely being a military directive that people are being forced to follow.

In this way, it's not really realistic, but everyone is on board for their own largely humanitarian aid type of reasons (there is a mission which is basically just locating survivors of an attack and then getting the fuck out) which makes the military context feel less oppressive and shitty.

Part of why this is more OK than other military depictions is because the military forces involved here are international (collaborating to defeat a global threat rather than kill each other's civilians) and because the military is clearly losing this war.

Because it's an international effort, this brings more diversity to the show-- There's a surprising amount of English interspersed between dialogue in Japanese here and there, and the military board consists of representatives from multiple nations, including some Germans who at first believe Bravern is some kind of secret American operation, lmao.

Bravern calls the military out on its shit, and essentially tells the military board to stop with the suspicious infighting bullshit and drop the internal tension because otherwise they'll all die to this mechanical nightmare creature threat.

They actually listen, which means this is an unrealistic portrayal of the military, lmao. I think they struck a good balance so far between showing that the military sucks and has problems, while also making sure that you're not really cheering for any given military force, but rather, you cheer for individual characters who just happen to be stuck doing this military shit as a premise for anything to be going on in the show at all.

So it's not the worst when it comes to the military shit; At least so far, it's watchable, which as someone who passionately hates the fucking military, is surprising to me.

It's less GI Joe and more "we just needed a reason for these characters to be involved in this situation".

Of course, your mileage may vary, but personally I found it easy to tune out or just skip through any military shit that got grating and I didn't miss anything important by doing so. At the very least, you can skip around and ignore a lot of this stuff and get right to the gay robot if that's all you want to do. It becomes clear pretty quickly what's going on if you skip around a bit, so no worries there.

Fun Speculation: What is Bravern?

Only 6 episodes are out at the moment, so there's tons of shit we don't know yet.

Bravern has a notable resemblance to a type of enemy in the show, called a Death-Drive.

Death-Drives are mecha who are distinct from the "minion" type enemies (which almost resemble flying saucers with laser gun arms and light shields), and have their own unique character designs and names.

Why these things are here, how they are here, why they are interested in Earth, and everything else is currently unknown.

Bravern looks like he could possibly be of the same mechanical species, although we don't know if that's true (yet). He has abilities that the other mecha don't seem to have, but how far this goes and what it might mean is not yet clear.

Bravern also seems to have knowledge of human media (he references The Abyss at one point and he likes 3D printing figures of sentai show characters lmao), and was immediately able to speak to the humans using language they would understand, so it's unclear if Bravern may have been studying Earth for some time before his arrival or why.

He is obsessed with his pilot and cares for him so much that he extends some care towards others purely based on their relation to Isami as co-workers; Why? What makes Isami special?

How does Bravern know seemingly every human language? How does his piloting system work? How similar is he to the Death-Drives-- Are organic beings critical to them in some way? If so, why are the other mechs killing so many of us? (These are big questions especially by the end of episode 6, due to some spoilers and a spoiler character who shows up later.)

We know little to nothing about a lot of the key elements of the show, including any motivations for the Death-Drives or what they are, what's up with the fucking UFO looking laser things, etc.

There's more to speculate on, but that would be getting into deeper spoiler territory so I'm gonna hold back on that for now.

Summary: It's Gay and Cool and Has Interesting Ideas

Bravern's not the sole source of gay vibes in this show, but it's fun that he is also a source of gay vibes in this show.

The designs are great, the Titanostriders remind me of Appleseed style mechanical suit designs which is nice, the Death-Drives are super interesting, Bravern is fucking fabulous but he's not too goofy to take seriously, and the military is unfortunately present but it's clear that they suck and are generally losing (and since the conflict is not between different groups of humans but rather is about human collaboration to defeat a non-human shared threat to our entire planet, this goes a long way to make the military shit tolerable).

It pretends to be a Real Robot show but has so much Super Robot show sprinkled in that you might as well consider it a little bit of both which the show balances pretty well.

I haven't watched an anime since around 2008 at the very latest, so I don't know how this might compare to any other robot animes since then and I am certainly not an anime expert by any means LOL, but this has been a fun show to watch so far.

It does have its problems, of course, but if you can get past the setup for the first episode (when it's still pretending to be a Real Robot show), from the moment Bravern arrives towards the end of that first episode, the show gains momentum and starts to get interesting very quickly.

It has some issues. But we're only 6 episodes in, so at the moment, they have plenty of time to potentially address those issues and we'll see where things go.

I'd recommend it if you want to give it a try!

I think there's enough here to appeal to the usual Transformers crowd and you might end up liking it, or at least having fun while watching it in the background.

If you end up wanting to to tap out then no worries-- I think it's worth giving it a shot and if it's not your thing, no problem.

Each episode is around 25 - 30 minutes, so while the first episode might feel like a slog to get through because fuck the military, once Bravern shows up the show actually gets started and I wouldn't blame anyone for just skipping to that point in the first episode and going from there, because there's nothing in that opening that you won't be reminded of or be able to figure out. It mostly just sets up the intro to the human characters and the collaboration training session, introduces the Titanostriders as a thing, and you can always go back and watch that part later if you want to.

All in all, pretty decent! Obviously we're Transformers people so we're here for the robots, and the robots are interesting and fun, and that's all I need to have a good time.

Hopefully this was a useful summary if you're interested or have seen Bravern stuff on your dash! :)

Thanks for reading!

BONUS: I forgot to mention this somehow, but there's a lot of overlap between Transformers and other Brave shows involving actual Transformers re-used in Japan for these shows; There's a good video about it here on YouTube which explains some of this, but if anyone's wondering, yes Bravern has a grounder alt-mode and it's pretty cool. Will we get a transforming Bravern figure??? We can hope!

There's another video here which mentions some of the Transformers elements in other Brave shows/Yuusha, which might be interesting for those of you who are unaware. :)

[deathmetalunicorn1]

💕Hiii beautiful💕

Quiet but smart child where she -unintentionally- gets on everyone's nerves? Like Hades teaching her how to play chess and she easily beats him while still learning the rules, also correcting Jack after he gets one of Shakespeare's poems wrong, pointing out a mistake that Tesla made during his calculations and solving it for him or even correcting Odin when a spell of his isn't working because he misspelled a word so she says which one it is. Just a clueless girl pooping veins in their foreheads with cuteness HAHA

-Your family loved you- they adored you! You were their shining darling little child, but man sometimes they wanted to punt you over the back fence!!

-You were smart- extremely smart, smarter than you should have been at only age six, something that didn’t bother them, as they constantly praised you on your intelligence.

-However, it was that intelligence that was annoying to them at the same time.

-Your family wanted to expose you to as many new things as possible, to make you a well-rounded person, from physical activities like hiking and swimming, to things like painting and music, to science experiments and even doing magic with the few who knew how to use magic.

-Hades’ eyelid was twitching slightly, completely in shock as he was staring down at the chess board- he was teaching you how to play chess, and after a few mock games, mainly to show you how to move certain pieces, you were sitting across from him, holding his king, having beat him in only four moves. HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE?!

-His gaze met your own and he sighed softly, giving you a small smile, “That’s all for today Y/N- time for your magic lesson with Odin.” -You nodded softly, not speaking, which was normal for you, and you slid off the chair and headed towards your next lesson for the day.

-Odin was pleased with your progress on your magic, showing you one of the more advanced spell books for the day as he wanted to challenge you, to see what you could really do.

-When he selected the spell, he chanted the incantation, to show you what the spell should look like, only nothing happened. He tried few more times, getting frustrated as it wasn’t working.

-You looked at the spell book and said the same incantation, with one minor pronunciation and your spell worked, a swirling ball of fire appearing before you.

-Odin’s face dropped, his eye wide as he saw this as the fireball faded and you pointed at the book, “You were saying this word wrong, it’s pronounced with a ‘che’ sound not a ‘ck’ sound.”

-Odin said nothing, as he didn’t trust himself at the moment, opting to just pat your head and shooed you away and you headed off to the next lesson with Nikola. Odin sighed deeply, trying to keep his composure, feeling embarrassed that you corrected him.

-Nikola’s lesson was the shortest, as he was writing an equation down for the two of you to discuss, and like you had laser eyes, you immediately narrowed in on a mistake, “That’s wrong- you didn’t calculate that right.”

-You showed him the calculation and he immediately froze, seeing that it was indeed wrong, which messed up the rest of the massive equation that he now had to correct.

-He held his hands to his face, “Sorry Y/N I don’t feel too good today. Go find Jack.”

-Nikola felt touched that you hugged him around his leg, telling him to get better soon before you wandered off again.

-Nikola knew that you didn’t mean anything cruel by it, you were just stating facts, you really were too smart for your own good.

-Jack was- he felt off. He seemed calm but you couldn’t shake the feeling he was upset, after you corrected him as he was reciting a bonnet from memory, telling him he got a word wrong, as you were following along in a book.

-He thanked you with a warm smile, patting your head, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was mad, something he told you his wasn’t.

-With your lessons done for the day, you went to find Buddha, who promised to take you out for ice cream once your lessons were done with.

-The four men you left devastated in your wake, overcome by your intellect, had to realize that you didn’t realize you were upsetting them, you were just being Y/N- and they had to learn to get over their own egos on what they believe was right when it wasn’t.

-When you arrived back with Buddha with ice cream, in cups, for all of them, thanking them for the lessons, they had to fight hard not to collapse from cuteness- you were just as sweet as you were smart.