#ANYWAYS this was supposed to be funny and about how i love chomps but i got distracted drawing the gang all cute and sleepy on the couch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

casliveblog · 2 years

Text

Custom Toonami Block Week 109 Rundown

Kaguya-sama: Love is War: I’m still not entirely sure how to feel about this show, like comedy-wise it’s really funny but it’s supposed to have a romantic core and I kind of hate the relationship at the center, like these are still awful people and I’m not entirely convinced they even like each other and don’t just think they should be together because it’s an achievement neither of them have scored yet, like they seem like the kind of couple that would fight all the time because they like the high of fighting more than actually being affectionate and that’s just kind of dysfunctional for lack of a better word. Anyway for the actual plot we have a smartphone debate where Miyuki plasters an embarrassing picture of himself all over the internet to avoid the awkward question of asking a coworker for contact info… like how does the student council even function if they aren’t able to contact each other outside of school? This council is even worse than Milly Ashford’s and she sent a bunch of half-naked girls to capture a cat. Then the episode briefly becomes Team Aqua vs Team Magma in land vs sea which gets called off because Chika is a big titty goth gf and I’m fine with that, Chika’s still kind of the only one I actually like. And last but not least Miyuki fucking tells a guy to assault a girl to get her to like him, like I don’t know when becoming a pickup artist is the better alternative to being focused on your work and not dating but the whole kabedon fetish kinda has unfortunate implications sometimes, I know in Japan all the girls are like ‘omg it’s so romantic’ but if you did that in the States you would get maced.

Inuyasha: We finally meet Bankotsu and boy does his back hurt from fucking carrying the Band of Seven arc. He’s just such an affable yet evil motherfucker, like if Kenpachi Zaraki was on anger management meds. This episode mostly has him getting revenge on the people who killed him originally alone and fucks up normal humans for a while which isn’t all that impressive since normal humans are basically wet paper in this world but Bankotsu still makes it effective with just how relaxed he is while doing it. He also genuinely cares for the rest of the band and it’s around the time he comes in that you see how this random mismatch of monsters came together as a group which is kind of neat, there’s a lot of bad guy bands I could never see really working together but Bankotsu really ties the band of seven together. For now he still has the same power scaling issue as the rest of them since Inuyasha has a mountain-shattering Kamehameha sword but at least the guy can give him a good mirror match and even toys around with Koga for a while as Inuyasha and company are experimenting how close they can get to Mt. Hakurei without Miroku’s horny thoughts causing him to burst into flames. But still we get a good amount of cool fights from him and then he and Inuyasha finally meet and are ready to fight at the end of the episode, great introduction.

Yu Yu Hakusho: It’s the conclusion of Kurama vs Karasu and Yoko Kurama is basically Gaara but with plants at the moment since they respond to movement and surround him, Karasu gets dunked on by them and they start eating him but his mask falls off and he’s able to turn himself into a bomb and it turns out the plants didn’t eat much of him at all for sitting on him and chomping for like three whole minutes. He does the self-bomb thing again and blows out the walls on the stadium and knocks the Yoko right out of Kurama even though he’s supposed to have like ten more minutes for his transformation. Non-Yoko Kurama can’t even do a rose whip and has to throw hands with the dude who is literally made of bombs. He manages to do the ‘haha, death seed in your heart’ thing except Karasu’s like ‘this is shonen you can’t just do the same thing twice dude’ and pulls it out and makes Kurama swiss cheese with bombs everywhere. Turns out the death seed was a double feint and was just to make a wound near his heart so he could do a death summon of a blood-seeking plant which sounds basically like an instant win but I guess it’s blind as fuck because it doesn’t work unless you have an open wound very close to the opponent’s heart… my god Kurama’s moveset is just hyper-specific instant win plants. Kurama uses his life energy to sacrifice himself to summon the blood plant which gives Karasu the succ and he dies but Kurama lives anyway because his Yoko potion actually just has his base form part of Yoko’s energy for his fuel reserves each time and makes the transformation shorter. I always liked that reveal but I have no clue how the fuck it works like if Kurama still had more energy how did he not know? Like he couldn’t do the rose whip but could do the whole sacrifice thing without actually dying, I like to think he had enough in the tank to cover part of the plant and it still took a little of his lifespan off just not the whole life, and I also like to think he could’ve done the rose whip and it only exploded because he was actually STRONGER than he thought he was and was channeling too much energy into the rose based off his new base level after the potion and that’s why it exploded but that’s just fanwank on my end and you’re probably not supposed to think about it that much which I’ve noticed for a good handful of these Dark Tournament fights that either only would’ve worked under these exact scenarios or just don’t make much sense.

Fate/Apocrypha: We start to get introduced to all the Black Servants and Masters, Fran’s Master is a nerdy simp, Chiron’s Master is a dainty wheelchair lady who says she’s ready to kill her brother if she gotta, Siegfired’s Master is just an asshole and Astolfo’s Master is a horny freak… which yeah, I mean it’s Astolfo so who wouldn’t be a horny freak. Also Dracula is there, not sure whose Servant he is but he’s there being all Emperor Palpatine and talking about eating babies and shit so that’ll probably be relevant. Also Mordred’s all ‘don’t call me a girl my dick’s bigger than yours’ and they meet up with Not!Shiro and Semiramis and Semi is just radiating Sus Energy like a motherfucker so they ditch her but she’s like “Hey we have a problem if Servants just start going off on their own” and five minutes later Shakespeare walks in and is like “Hey Spartacus just went off on his own” so yeah the Red Servants are kinda dumbasses. Lion dude and Mordred fight down the first wave of enemy mooks sent to test them and Not!Shiro tells Karna to go kill Jeanne which I think she’s used to priests trying to kill her so I dunno how well that’ll work.

Nisemonogatari: So this episode is basically three skits jumping around to the various girls in Kiyomi’s life (gonna go by his first name now since his sisters are more prominent). First stop is Nadeko’s place like we teased last episode and she is just fucking chucking as many hentai clichés at him as she can to hope he gets the message, like at some point it stops being weird fanservice and just becomes a joke about how obvious/awkward she’s being and how much he just doesn’t get it. After she’s done throwing herself at a brick wall they talk about how his sisters are trying to track down people throwing around curses like the snake curse and how Kiyomi’s little sisters are basically the power rangers and think there’s some kind of curse ring going around doing magical shit even though Nadeko’s the only one that got cursed because she fucked up the antidote real bad. He has to ditch her before things get very illegal and runs into his sister Karen who is basically Rock Lee if he was a preteen girl and she tells him it’ll all be over soon and not to worry, which doesn’t sound ominous at all. Last but certainly not least is the triumphant return of Best Girl Suruga as Kiyomi goes to help her clean her room but also she’s naked cause she’s like ‘well fuck it’s my room I’mma be naked’ and her grandma sees her naked and she’s like ‘well living’s been nice, guess I’ll just die’ and Kiyomi being the little shit he is wants to see best girl all depressed except she didn’t put clothes on because, you know, depressed, who wants to be depressed and clothed? But eventually she puts clothes on and Kiyomi tries to cheer her up by teasing her about being vanilla and Suruga’s like “Fuck you I’m not vanilla, I’m kinky as fuck, I’ll kink you right here right now motherfucker’ and it’s why she’s best girl.

Speed Grapher: This episode goes over Kagura’s situation leading up to the events of the last episode, it seems as if she lives in a trance, working as the Goddess for Suitengu’s club without any memories of it except nightmares of kissing the most gross old guys that would pay millions of dollars to kiss a half-naked girl in feathers and either die or get superpowers from it. Her mother is very abusive, fucking around with her stuff and gaslighting her about what she’s done as well as starving her because she’s all ‘how dare my daughter be a teenager while I’m getting older” which you, know, logic. Also Suitengu’s boning the mom and gives her a good elevator grope to start her day off. Kagura’s teacher is all ‘man I don’t care how rich and powerful your mom is I’m not gonna let her abuse you’ only for Kagura to come home and find her mom eating said teacher out in bed before her mom tells the teacher she can have as much money as she can carry home as long as she doesn’t put her clothes back on which leads to Kagura watching the woman who swore to protect her jog down the street naked with arms full of money. We also get a little glimpse at Suitengu who murders a dude because his kid stole $100 worth of the club money the dude had and he gives the kid the Itachi Uchiha speech of ‘yeah you prolly wanna kill me, so beat me at my own game’ but in his case his game is money instead of ninja eye magic. There’s something weirdly honest about how this anime deifies money like obviously having money doesn’t make you literally invincible, no one’s immune to just getting shanked but the insulation enough money can have does basically protect people from harm or meaningful criticism and it’s kind of neat seeing the power system of an anime just being rich assholes just like it is in the real world. Suitengu and Kagura talk for a bit and he thinks money is the only way to buy freedom even temporarily while obviously Kagura’s family’s money is what’s enslaving her. Also Kagura’s piano teacher is going all Yoshikage Kira and chopping off people’s arms, like idk if Kagura’s supposed to know her teacher is a handophile but she does mention the smell of hands rotting in the next room is distracting her and his house is decorated with statues of hands so he’s not exactly hiding it very well. Eventually Suitengu gives her her code word or whatever and she goes into her goddess trance thing to be part of the club where she ends up kissing Saiga from the first episode, hoping he can free her from this combination of parental abuse and economic hypnotism. Honestly this anime is kind of fucking ridiculous and everyone’s rich and horny and I kinda love it, it’s so fucking bizarre in a weirdly grounded way.

Durararax2: This episode jumps around a lot and it’s a bit hard to track but I’ll try to remember all the big stuff. So Mikado’s back in town and is leader of the Yellow Scarves again for like the third time and tries to get Kadota’s group to jump ship from the Dollars to take the fuel out of Mikado’s evil plan to… beat up assholes, I still am not quite sure what’s so evil about it but I’m sure we’ll get there. Haruna’s father realizes she’s run away from home to join Izaya and is looking around for Dollars info and the Awakusu enforcer is having Izaya look into Mikado because he’s supposedly dating Anri and he doesn’t want her mixed up with anyone in a gang. Now Izaya already knows Mikado won’t quit the gang he formed and is now being Shark Batman for but says within a few days everyone will know all about Mikado so his evil plan must be coming soon. Aoba and Izumii meet up and apparently Izumii is a Dollar now too now that he’s out of prison for Aoba letting him take the fall for the whole Blue Squares plot against Saki. Aoba gives the whole spheal about needing Mikado to enhance the Blue Squares and why they wear sharks and stuff and someone (probably Izumii) runs over Kadota which pisses everyone off. Mikado is cautious about things but also is glad Kadota’s in the hospital presumably because he’ll be out of the way of whatever the big evil plan is coming up soon.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Kaguya-sama: Love is War #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate/Apocrypha #Nisemonogatari #Speed Grapher #Durarara!!

1 note · View note

aslitheryprinx · 3 years

Note

What if in nom therapy au, as a prank, Tommy took a shrinking potion (and set up the ender pearl stasis) and snuck onto Wilburs plate? Would Wilbur even notice Tommy, or just swallow him before he realized there was something wrong?

We can say Tommy made sure Wilbur was eating something soft that didnt need much chewing if we dont want to bother considering Wilbur accidentally chewing on Tommy without being gentle.

Ooooh I love this idea! Honestly, I could see both Tommy and Wilbur trying to pull this on someone when they're tiny. I'll focus on Tommy, though.

It would definitely be a bit complicated to pull something like this off. It wouldn't work at Nom Therapy, of course, since you always expect a tiny in your food. At some point when they're hanging out, however, that might work.

Of course, Tommy will probably need some outside help to really get this prank to work.

______

Surprise!

______

Tommy felt giddy as he crept through Phil's backyard. He and Tubbo had been planning this prank for weeks. Phil was in on it too, of course, since it was his house they'd be sneaking around in.

The cover story was that he was at home being force to work on an assignment he'd put off. It was believable enough... he just didn't tell Phil that he actually was postponing working on homework for this.

According to Phil's mission report- also known as a text- Wilbur had laughed at his plight, not suspicious at all. Bitch. That was just one more reason to pull this prank perfectly. That, and he still needed revenge for the sauce incident.

First, he had to get inside.

Just like they planned, Tubbo was waiting by a window near the back of Phil's house, under the guise of using the restroom. He slid it open, and Tommy climbed through as quietly as he could. Tubbo had a maniacal grin on his face that Tommy matched, barely holding back his laugh.

He could hear the muffled sounds of Wilbur and Phil chatting a few rooms away. He dug the tiny pearl stasis chamber out of his pocket and handed it to Tubbo. His friend had brought the shrinking potion- apparently Eret made really good quality ones. Tommy took the small vial, and dumped it in his mouth.

The citrus flavor was a little more bitter than the kind they had at Nom Therapy, and Tommy grimaced a little. When the pins and needles started, however, it was much less intense. Huh. Guess whoever made NT's sacrificed a little bit of the smoothness for taste.

He hadn't even shrunk all the way down yet when Tubbo crouched down and scooped him up with a gentle motion. Even when rushed, he never moved quickly enough to disorient Tommy. Tubbo always handled shrunken people so expertly; it was easy to tell how used to it he was.

Once the potion had stopped and Tommy recovered from the effects, Tubbo held out the stasis chamber. He chucked the pearl inside, and Tubbo slid into a spare room, setting it on a dresser. Then he carefully slid Tommy into his pocket and walked back to the kitchen.

Tommy couldn't see where everyone was, so he had to use his other senses to guess. He could hear Wilbur a little clearer than Phil, who's voice was drowned out a little by the sounds in the kitchen. He assumed Phil was making dinner now. He mourned the loss of a chance to eat Phil's cooking, but he'd eaten before he came. Ah least he hadn't missed out on a Niki meal.

It felt like Tubbo was climbing up to sit, so he'd probably taken a seat at the bar. Wilbur's voice had gotten a lot louder; he was likely on the seat next to Tubbo.

Tommy played with the remote in his pocket while he waited. The stasis chamber he'd bought didn't have the automatic timer like the ones at Nom Therapy. A feature that fancy was a little out of his price range. It could still be activated by remote, or even just manually. It was probably better this way anyways, now Tommy could stay in Wilbur's stomach as long as he wanted.

This plan had been made very carefully. It wasn't like he could sneak around Wilbur's house while he was tic tac sized, so Tubbo was a necessary part in his plan. And Tubbo and Wilbur didn't hang out by themselves very often, so Phil got roped into the prank as well.

That turned out to be a good thing; with Phil's help, they could plan what food Tommy would actually be sneaking into. There was a reason noms were usually done in controlled environments. There was always the chance that since Wilbur might not notice him in the bite of food, he would just crunch down on the food... and Tommy.

Of course, Tommy would respawn, but that wasn't a fun process. An accident like that would probably traumatize both of them for a while.

But Tommy had been eaten by Wilbur dozens of times. It was a strange knowledge, but he knew how the man ate. He knew exactly the food that was unlikely to get him chomped. Wilbur had a strange habit of barely chewing spaghetti. Very often, he would simply slurp the noodles down whole. Tommy, who was often on those noodles or wrapped up in them, teased him about it. It was one of the few dishes where Wilbur didn't nibble on him for a while before swallowing. It was the perfect meal to hide in.

He wondered what was taking so long. It was hard to follow a conversation from inside a pocket, and he was getting bored. There wasn't much to do besides play with the remote. He'd started tossing it up, catching it with one hand.

Suddenly, his world shifted as Tubbo stood up. He fell against the lip of the pocket, fumbling the remote. It slipped out of his hands, and fell what seemed like hundreds of feet down to the floor.

Well fuck. Tommy sat back, embarrassed. Tubbo kept walking, so he probably hadn't noticed the remote. That meant he'd have to wait for one of his friends to manually activate the stasis chamber. He just knew he was going to be teased relentlessly for this.

He hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on; he'd heard something about Tubbo helping with the plates maybe? So it came as a surprise when Tubbo's hand suddenly came in the pocket. His fingers wrapped around Tommy, gently plucking him out.

He was deposited on the edge of a plate that was piled high with steaming spaghetti. He grinned at his friend before wiggling into the mass of noodles. He felt slight movement as his plate was carried over to Wilbur.

Now came the fun part. His goal was to go unnoticed as long as possible, preferably until he was actually in Wilbur's mouth.

It was hard to move around with the spaghetti curled all around him, but he managed to keep ducking back into cover whenever Wilbur scooped up a bite. During one twirl of his fork, Tommy took the opportunity. He grabbed onto the noodles, getting a couple more wrapped around him. He was on the bottom of the fork, so Wilbur didn't see him as he was raised to his friend's mouth.

Wilbur's mouth closed around him, and he pulled the noodles off the fork, Tommy with them. Like he expected, Wilbur didn't even chew, simply slurping the noodles down in one go.

Wilbur made a choked sound as he swallowed, and Tommy burst into laughter as he slipped into Wilbur's stomach. Their prank had gone perfectly, and he could hear Wilbur's confusion from outside.

_____

Wilbur liked spaghetti. Wilbur also liked surprises.

He wasn't expecting a surprise to be in his spaghetti. Of course, surprises were never expected but they were usually in the realm of possibility.

As Wilbur swallowed another bite of Phil's spaghetti, he felt something warm and squirming go down his throat. He nearly choked on the bite, shocked at the unexpected tiny. He managed to get the bite down, and he saw Tubbo and Phil looking at him with barely concealed amusement.

"I think I just swallowed someone," he said bemused.

Tubbo burst into laughter. He just stared at the teen for a moment, before he heard a faint laughter from his stomach. A very familiar laugh.

"Tommy?" He asked incredulously. This time even Phil laughed.

"You were all in on this?" He accused. Then his attention turned to the teen that was settling comfortably in his stomach.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

"Get pranked bitch!" Tommy shouted, Wilbur listening carefully to hear the muffled sound. "This is payback for that time with the sauce!"

Wilbur heaved an exasperated sigh. He a glare to Tubbo and Phil who were still giggling.

"Your face was so fucking funny!" Tubbo laughed.

"Wilbur! Ask if he got a picture!" Tommy yelled.

Wilbur repeated the question with a roll of his eyes. Tubbo grinned wickedly and held up his phone.

"Better, I got a video."

They continued to tease him through the rest of dinner. Tommy was a little quieter than normal, but Wilbur assumed it was because it would be hard to hear him with multiple people talking.

Once things calmed down, Tommy spoke up. He sounded a little nervous, and Wilbur frowned in concern.

"Um, hey big man. I uh... sort of dropped the remote for the stasis chamber before you ate me."

"You dropped the remote?" Wilbur repeated, worry in his voice. "Wh- do- do you need me to get you out?"

"Nonono!" Tommy protested. "I'm fine right now. I just... need one of you to get me out eventually."

Wilbur realized his friend was more embarrassed than anything. He laughed, poking gently at his stomach. He felt Tommy give a small kick back.

"Aww, and what if I want to keep you here for a while Tommy?" He teased. "It sounds to me like you're stuck with me for a while."

"Willll," his trapped friend whined. Wilbur imagined his face was bright red by now. He continued teasing Tommy, making sure the teen never sounded like he actually didn't want to be there anymore. Tommy remained comfortably nestled against his stomach, and Wilbur could hear the humor in his voice. A while later, once the teasing had died down, Tommy spoke up again, voice almost too quiet to hear.

"Hey, Wil, you won't actually make me stay here the whole time, right?" He sounded just a little vulnerable, and Wilbur put a hand on the outside of his stomach. He gently rubbed and felt the miniscule weight of Tommy leaning into the contact.

"Of course not, Toms," he reassured his friend. "If you really want to be let out, I'll let you out. Promise."

He couldn't hear a response from Tommy, but the small weight in his stomach curled even further into him. Wilbur smiled.

It was supposed to be a prank, but he'd enjoyed his surprise.

Nom Therapy Part 1

#mcyt g/t #mcyt giant/tiny #nom therapy au #vore tw #tw vore #aslitheryanswers #dsmp g/t #giant/tiny #tiny!tommy #giant!wilbur

122 notes · View notes

milkytheholy1 · 3 years

Text

What’s up, Doc?

Request: Hey! I have an idea for a gender neutral rottmnt one shot, and this one gives you a lot of freedom, here's the prompt: *

*laughs* "Its not funny! I'm supposed to be mad at you!" *

Because this always happens to me lol Yn has a crush on Mikey or Leo, if you please, also I dont know if its dumb but you dont have to do it :) but if you do, please take your time I really love your stories ❤

A/N: Howdy, sorry it took me so long to get to your request, I've been busy with Apocalyptic love. Anywho, I've been watching a lot of Looney Tunes recently and couldn't help but mention it...or base a fic around it....but I just wanna point out how much Rise Leo reminds me of Bugs Bunny. I also may have made a small adjustment to the prompt just so it fit the story a little better. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

TMNT masterlist

Ultimate masterlist

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

It was driving you crazy. He was driving you crazy. All week Leo had been quoting Bugs Bunny to you, his favourite lines being: "what's up, Doc?" and "ain't I a stinker."

It drove you mad, not because he was quoting said rabbit but because he was doing it at times which often led to a fight, whether that be with his brothers or the criminals of New York. It had all started after you watched The Looney Tune show with Mikey in the lair, you had claimed that you had grown up with the brand and thought the brothers would like it. You said that Donnie would like the smart humour, Raph would like the cartoon violence, Mikey would like the slapstick humour and Leo...

Well, you weren't entirely certain what specific thing he would enjoy, possibly the characters? It didn't really matter anyway, Leo was sat in his room sulking because you begged him to watch it and when he said 'no' Mikey took his place. Of course, you would love Leo unconditionally and no one had your heart quite like he did, but it was fun to hang out with his brothers once in a while.

You cheered away at the screen with Mikey laughing beside you, content in the child-like laughter that echoed around the lair. You had moved on from The Looney Tune Show, considering it had a limited run, and opted to show Mikey some of your favourite skits from the brand. You were both currently watching the duck hunting sketch, Elmar and Daffy are in an all-out war while Bugs watches from the side with a smirk. Leo had grumbled at the sound of your laughter from his room, folded in on himself as he mumbled away "I should be making (Y/N) laugh like that, not some dumb rabbit."

He grew annoyed that a cartoon could make you happier than he could, instead of voicing his concern, he decided to do his research. Leo spent a full hour searching up things about the bunny boy, in a sense, wanting to know what made him tick and why you liked the character so much. Thus, this led to the constant quoting of the character whenever you were with each other. After a few days, Leo saw that his plan wasn't working, the quotes just weren't enough. He grew so far as to start chomping down on a carrot whenever he could, embodying the spirit of Bugs.

You applauded him you really do, but you wanted your boyfriend back, not a turtle mimicking a rabbit. You were stood in the kitchen just browsing through the Hamato fridge for anything to cook, the rumbling of your stomach making it very apparent how hungry you were. With your head in the fridge, you couldn't necessarily see what was happening behind you, but you didn't need to. You could feel his presence from a mile away, the slight clang of his hand banging onto the fridge as he leant against it. Pulling away from the racks of refrigerated delights, you met his eyes.

"What's up, Doc?" he mused, his teeth gazing the carrot. It amused you more when Raph revealed to you how much Leo despised eating carrots, used to have toddler tantrums all the time when Splinter said he needed to eat them; held a grudge against them because he couldn't see in the dark. You held back a smirk, taking in his cocky form, Leo's palm was laying flat against the fridge, feet crossed over one another and he continued to timidly bite the carrot.

You were meant to be mad at him, wanting to tell him to quit this act and just be himself again, but you couldn't. The way he presented himself made you want to cry with laughter, it warmed your heart in a way to see him try so hard to please you. "As much as I'm enjoying this, I would like my boyfriend back, please," you begged with a grin.

“I bet you say that to all the wabbits.” He tried his hardest to keep the accent, but even Leo couldn't control the grin breaking out across his face. You pulled your face into a frown, brows furrowed as he continued to nibble the carrot. His face contorted when he bit too much, trying his best not to gag at the taste. You couldn't keep the laughter from tumbling out of you, clutching the depths of your stomach as you rolled laughing, "Stop being funny! I'm supposed to be mad at you!" you cried.

Seeing you in tears finally made Leo break, his laugher soon indistinguishable from your own. Throwing the carrot in the trash, he stuck his head under the tap and guzzled as much water as he could, turning back to face you, he shook his tongue like a dog "You don't know how hard it was to eat that monstrosity." he joked. You stepped closer to the red-eared slider, wrapping your arms around his neck, "My poor wittle turtle," you cooed.

Leo's face bloomed a bright shade of pink, wrapping his arms around your waist, he brought his cheek against your head. "So you don't want to date Bugs Bunny?" he asked, his tone full of insecurities. You pulled back from him with force, staring at him in the eyes with a bemused look, "What? No, ew, of course not! He's just a character I like, dummy." Leo's mouth formed an 'O' as realisation kicked in, he began to nervously chuckle.

"Besides, you're waaaay funnier, Doc." you teased, trailing a finger up his plastron. You smacked your lips against his, Leo huffed at the impact but happily obliged. Pulling away, he smirked at you, eyes half-lidded, "Gee, ain't I a stinker?" he mused back, tugging on your hand as he led you to his room.

143 notes · View notes

thr-333 · 4 years

Text

Just Another Class Trip :) Part 2

Marinette sacrifices Adrien and then steals his alter ego.

First<>Next

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

With the help of the staff Marinette is directed to the room she will be sharing with Chloe and Kagami. It was meant to be two to a room, but yada yada Lila yada yada medical condition yada yada tears= Lila gets her own room.

“Marinette,” Kagami spots her first, rising from the couch.

“Mari!” Chloe vaults over the couch and hug tackles her, Marinette barely moves an inch, “You should have heard all the shit Lila was saying on the way here, you’d think it be enough she got the class to leave you behind!”

“Perhaps it’s best if you do not,” Kagami pulls Chloe off her, “You didn’t answer your phone,”

“Flat,”

“Bags?”

“Stolen,”

“Lila?”

“Probably,”

“Well lucky for you housekeeping dropped this by earlier,” Chloe hands her a box, inside filled with essential items, tooth brush, hair brush, even a pair of pyjamas, along with a note

‘Courtesy of the Waynes, for Miss Marinette Dupain-Cheng’

“Must be a generic package,” She had shrugged off the bellhops earlier saying her bags were lost.

“Well since you don’t have to unpack, help me with this,” Chloe leads her over to their kitchen that might actually be bigger than her houses.

On the counter beauty products are lined up along with random ingredients.

“We’re making face masks!”

“Correction, Chloe is making face masks,” Kagami scolds, “I argued that sleep would be more effective,”

“And yet you didn’t go to sleep,” Chloe teases, mashing up avocado.

“Well not without you,” Kagami smirks, making Chloe blush, but it’s not like her to back down.

“Awe, you’d wait for me~” Chloe relishes in the blush dusting Kagami's cheeks.

Marinette dry heaves, wondering how long they were going to keep pretending to flirt like this, each too stubborn to back down. They have been doing this more and more recently, great that they were more comfortable around each other but…

“How about we go to bed,” Marinette disturbs their challenging stares.

“Not without Kagami,”

“I already used that one,”

“I never said we’d use the bed for sleeping~”

“Hey!” Her exclamation doesn't get them to drop their staring contest, “Do either of you know what room Adrien is in?”

“End of the hall,” They both answer, not looking at her.

“Great,” Marinette hastily grabs her bag and the box, she could get ready in Adrien's room, away from the weirdness.

She practically runs down the hall, ignoring her Kwami’s snickering.

“Mari!” Adrien throws the door open for her, “Did everything go ok, you didn’t answer your phone, you look upset,”

“Sorted everything out with security no problems, Phones dead, Bag stolen,” She plops down on the couch next to Nino, “Chlo and Kags are driving me crazy,”

“How long have you been back?” She looks down at her watch.

“Three minutes,”

“Are they doing that thing again?” Adrien, Kwami bless him hands her a mug of coffee.

“Yep,” She takes a sip from the mug, she retracts that blessing “Betrayal! This isn’t coffee!”

“It’s hot chocolate,” Adrien is in the kitchen fixing another mug, “You need to go to bed, and coffee will keep you up,”

No she needed to go on patrol, and a coffee is vital to her surviving it.

“What’s up with Chloe and Kagami?” Nino takes off his headphones.

“They started teasing each other by jokingly flirting but their both too stubborn to back down," Marinette sighs, downing half the mug of hot chocolate so she can get herself a damn coffee, "So they get uncomfortable then we get uncomfortable and its overall very uncomfortable,”

“I think it’s kind of funny,” Adrien sits down next to her, mug in hand.

“It would be if they both weren’t horrible at flirting,” She steals the mug away from him taking a sip.

That is not coffee, that is sugar disguised as a liquid

“That’s the funny part,” Adrien smiles as she hands back the mug,

“Touche Agreste, Touche,”

“If you wanted you could sleep in my room,” Nino offers, oh so innocently.

“Thank’s Nino, but I would rather Alya not kill me,”

“Nah dude, I was going to stay with Alya anyway Madame Bustier wont mind,” Yeah their teacher really should learn not to trust teenagers, "So you can have my room,”

“Nino you are a godsent,”

Nino cleans up his few thrown about items and bids them adieu. Marinette was glad they could still talk, maybe they were even still friends. When you have the devil in one ear and her loyal sidekick in the other it is actually kind of impressive they still have a friendly relationship.

“So how’s your day been?” Marinette gathers up the strength to start a conversation after making her own coffee, and her mouth was only very burnt from chugging a hot drink.

“Good, Chloe took us to a supermarket, I brought a bunch of american snacks!”

Indeed he had, Marinette watches in mild horror as he plops bags full of junk food in front of her.

“I didn’t realise we were feeding an army,” Adrien starts rooting through the bags, “If a super villain comes after you because you brought all their favourite snacks in Gotham I’m not protecting you,”

“I’d just share with them,” Adrien hums, chomping down on a chocolate bar.

“... Yeah that could work,” Dear Kwami I have to protect this sunshine child, “Maybe,”

“Oi, don’t eat too much, I don't want to have to re tailor your outfit for the runway,” She teases, regretting it immediately as Adrien's shoulders sag.

“Sorry,”

“Adri I’m kidding,” She places a hand on his shoulder smiling gently, “I already made the measurements a bit bigger so you’re good.

“Have I ever told you you’re the best?”

“Not enough you haven't,” Marinette huffs in mock offence, “Now eat,”

She shoves the chocolate bag in his face, getting it all over his cheek. They both start laughing as Adrien tries to get his revenge. They end up falling off the couch, Marinette on top of him. Adrien is blushing a bright red, Marinette just grins and shoves the chocolate in his face before getting up.

She could almost laugh at how her younger self would react to that. It wasn't as if she didn’t like Adrien, well maybe not in that way anymore, she honestly hadn't put that much thought into it lately. Things just got busy she supposed, Akumas got harder, then she became the guardian, she started her fashion career. Actually her fashion career might be at fault.

Gabriel had started lending Adrien to model for her more and more. The man stepping further and further back from the fashion world, or the world in general, over the years for whatever the reason. At first she had been a blushing mess around Adrien, not directing him properly and making her work suffer for it. Overtime she had learnt how to handle it, getting less flustered every time they worked together. Now that she thought about it, when she had revealed her identity as MDC Adrien didn’t seem surprised; maybe her work attitude had bled into her regular life well before then.

Marinette is washing the chocolate off when a knock sounds at the door. Neither feel like walking to it so shout out ‘come in’. That turned out to be a mistake as Lila bursts into the room. How were they supposed to know Lila would actually knock?!

“Marinette you slut!” Lila all but screeches.

“Lila, you don’t have an audience and neither of us believe you,” Marinette comes out of the bathroom, already bored of the conversation she really needed to go, Lila and Marinette both.

“Well just wait, tomorrow the whole class is going to know what you did,” Lila gets up in her face, so close she can smell her perfume.

No not Lila's perfume her perfume.

“Right, sorry to say but there’s worse rumours than sleeping with a supermodel,” Marinette tries to edge her way around Lila, good excuse as any to dip out for patrol.

“Not if I say you forced him,” Lila looks way to self satisfied for what she is implying

I think the fuck not

“Nah,” Adrien shrugs, getting Lila’s ire turned on him, a noble sacrifice indeed.

“Nah?” Lila looks livid, “What do you mean Nah !”

“I’d just say I wanted to,” Adrien stays calm with Lila's face inches from him, Marinette gives him the thumbs up as she edges closer to the door, Adrien nods back.

She loved this version of the high road

“After all Marinette's super pretty and talented,” Adrien gushes, Marinette grins at the face Lila must be making, “Honestly your lie is so unbelievable, why would she ever go for someone like me?”

Marinette closes the door on Lila’s cursing response, saying a quick word of praise for Adrien's bravery and sacrifice.

At least he gets to see Lila’s reaction when she realises I’m gone

Marinette uses a back door of the hotel to get to the street, not wanting the staff to stop her and warn about the dangers. She skips along looking for a good place to change. The city was actually kind of beautiful at night, she feels drawn to it in a strange way.

“Marinette!” Tikki looks out from her scarf, “You forgot the Miracle box,”

“Shoot!” She looks back to the hotel, a few blocks away from it by now, “It’ll be fine Tikki I leave it at home all the time,”

“You’re not at home right now,” Tikki looks worried, those are her friends after all, “It’s a guardians duty-”

Marinette tries not to groan, she really does.

“I know Tikki, I know,” She looks over the buildings surrounding her, feeling a deep itch to see Gotham from the rooftops “But can’t I just be myself for once, not the guardian?”

“You are the guardian,” Tikki insists, before sighing, “Which means you can make your own decisions regarding the miracle box,”

“Thank you Tikki,” She hugs the little Kwami, “I promise to be back super quick, I just have to stop one bad guy, an eye witness account of Starling so I don’t just appear randomly, I won’t even need to go on patrol again after this,”

“Alright Marinette, I trust you,” Tikki nuzzles her cheek, easing Marinette's conscience.

With that she ducks out of sight to get changed. Her costume is pretty simple really. All she had to do was pull her infinity scarf up, discrete holes allowing her to see. She turns her skirt inside out to a black side, with white, purple, and blue detailing to stick to her Starling namesake. The skirt pulls over her shoulders, a zip down the middle allowing her more movement, and a zip to form a secret hood.

Ready to go she climbs up to the roof, super strength and speed making roof hopping easier. She supposed if someone looked too hard they would be able to piece together pieces of her costume but her ‘cape’ hides the detailing of her shirt. Besides if she has her way she won’t have to use this identity ever again, but she rarely has her way.

About ten minutes into her search through Gotham she spots a broken window. Not notable except that the lights are on. She lowers herself onto the fire escape and sure enough someone is being held at gunpoint.

“Excuse me,” Both people jump, spinning to look at Starling casual sitting on the broken glass on the window sill, “You seem to have a very rude house guest on your hands,”

“Who the hell are you!?” The burglar turns their gun on her.

“Just a stray passing through,” She gives a bright smile, and a very Chat like bow, “Starling at your service… milady,”

If I’m going Chat I might as go full Chat Noir, hope he doesn't file a lawsuit against me

“Ummm,” The woman looks very confused, but not as confused as the burglar.

“Would you like me to remove him from your home?”

“Ah… yes?”

With another smile Starling makes her move. In the split second it takes the burglar to register her offer she's standing in front of him. The gun moves a second too late as she ceases his arm, her strength being as good as handcuffs. She hits a pressure point her Aunt taught her to make him drop the gun, kicking it away. Pinning the man's arm behind his back she spins him around, zip tying his hands.

“What the fuck!!”

“That’s no kind of language,” Starling reprimands, pushing him towards the window, “Now apologise,”

“What?! No way fuck you!” Starling grins, hooking a bungee cord to his shirt.

“Alright then, bye!” She pushes him out the window.

His screaming doesn't stop even when she watches as he bounces back up, dangling out the window. She grins.

Ladybug would never get away with that

Tying the other end of the cord to a post, she double checks to make sure everything is secure before turning back to the victim.

“So sorry about the rude intrusion milady,” She bows again, in jest, “Have you contacted the police?”

“Yeah… what are you?”

“A Starling bird,” Starling spins, showing off her cape, the patterning placed to resemble wings, “I though the name would be a dead give away,”

“Yeah, but what are you? A Bat? Vigilante?”

“Vigilante yes, Bat not so much,” Starling can see as she looks more cautious after that, “Just happened to be passing through Gotham when I saw you in need of assistance,”

“Right... ok then...” She sits down, letting herself slump over the couch, “Ugh, this has been a terrible day,”

“How so?” Starling eyes up the kitchen, “Besides from mister bungee jump out there,”

“I was almost out of work this afternoon when a new rumour about the Wayne's blew up,” Starling nods along, turning the oven on and picking out ingredients.

“I work in the PR department at Wayne tower, do you have any idea how hard that is?!” Starling shakes her head finding a bowl but no measuring cups, she could just estimate.

“They have new bruises everyday,” Starling does look up to that, very concerned, “Don’t worry it’s not abuse or anything, they really are just dumbasses,”

Starling snickers a little bit at that, pouring in ingredients like second nature.

“I once asked mister Drake why he had a giant bruise on his forehead, he told me he passed out at his desk and just slammed into it!” Starling does laugh at that one, “Like?! How am I supposed to tell people that without sullying the Wayne name?”

“I think its funny,” She did clearly not agree, Starling changes the subject as she starts mixing “What was the problem today?”

“Nothin much really someone took pictures of mister Drake talking and giving a ride to some girl with black hair and blue eyes, and now everyone thinks she’s a Wayne,”

“That’s all it takes?” She starts placing the cookie dough on the baking tray, “Maybe I should apply?”

“Nah, you’d sooner be Batman's kid than Bruce Wayne's,” She cracks the first smile Starling has seen so far, “He’s got the same amount of kids, if not more,”

“Maybe they should share custody?” Starling puts the cookies in the oven, “Double the number each,”

“Yeah, how about no?” She smiles more, which is good, “I can’t imagine having to explain away the bruises the Bat kids get,”

Starling smiles, the sound of sirens now drawing close.

“I guess that's my cue to leave Milady,” Starling jumps up onto the window sill, the burglar still shouting below, “Take the cookies out in fifteen minutes,”

“Hey,” Starling looks back, “Thank you,”

“No problem,” Starling sends a dazzling smile, “Good night, Milady,”

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

Taglist (guess I’m doing these now, please let me know if theres any issues):

@smolplantmum @flufflepuffle296 @dawnwave16 @caffeinetheory @g-arya @Maribat-2k20 @ladybug-182 @Actual-disaster-human @fusser90 @messrs-weasley @soap-lady @paintedhope7 @zeneralla @mochegato @random-nerd-3 @clumsy-owl-4178 @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @too0bsessedformyowngood @certifiedbidisaster @Purplegeekypanda

877 notes · View notes

cinnaminsvga · 4 years

Text

Taming of the Bridezilla | Seokjin

→ summary: Picture this: You had been (not-so) cordially invited to the wedding of your least favorite cousin—a woman who had been hellbent on making your childhood a living hell. Now older and wiser, you would think that you would put aside your differences and attend your cousin’s special day without any hard feelings, right? You wouldn’t seek revenge, now would you?

→ genre: fake dating!au, i2l, humor/crack, fluff → warnings: seokjin and oc paradoxically have big yet small brains, fake proposals, not-so fake mutual pining, thinly veiled baby-making jokes, terrible family members, ass slapping (no worries it’s consensual) → words: 6.3K → a/n: first of all, no this is not a horror fic; i just thought the title was funny. unless you consider the stupidity of the characters to be mildly horrifying, then sure you can count this as a horror fic. this insanely ridiculous fic was commissioned by @breadoffoxy!! anyone who loves chaotic jin is an angel in my book. yes, this comm is a bit longer than expected but what can i say... i love me some jin. anyway i hope you guys enjoy!

“You got the ring, right?”

Seokjin pats his left breast pocket and gives you a quick smirk. The bump where the ring should be is fortuitously hidden by his large and garish boutonniere, looking to all the world like he had pinned a whole head of cabbage to his suit. Even then, he still somehow manages to make it work. “Of course I did. This entire plan would be useless if I didn’t have it,” he says.

“What flavor did you get? I quite like the watermelon one,” you muse, smacking your lips in anticipation. “Though it’s hard to remember since I haven’t had a ring pop in years.”

Seokjin laughs loudly, startling a group of aunties gossiping in the corner. They all shoot glares at him, though the effect has lost its novelty as they’ve already been glaring at you from the moment you arrived. You suppose that they have a good reason to, considering that you both arrived at the reception an entire 30 minutes late. You can imagine them cursing you under their breath, saying something like, “You’ve brought dishonor to us all!” or whatever it is that aunties like to say these days.

“I could have gotten you all the flavors available at the convenience store if you wanted, but then we’d be 40 minutes late instead,” Seokjin sighs, pretending to be anguished at the thought.

You snort in the most unladylike manner that you can, grinning wildly when you hear one of the aunties gasp in horrified disbelief. From the way they’re reacting, you might have thought that you just flashed them your Borat-inspired neon green thong.

“I do love a man who can treat me well,” you giggle, earning a soft pinch from him.

“Oh, hush. I know you love it. You nearly burst into tears the other day when I bought you a McFlurry because your broke ass was a dollar short,” Seokjin teases. You squawk indignantly, unable to come up with a retort.

“Whatever! Just because you’re a trust fund baby doesn’t mean you get to bully my impoverished state. Just you fucking wait ‘til I get hit by a wealthy 77 year old’s BMW and then I’ll be made for life,” you huff, your illusion of annoyance quickly shattered by the large, dumb grin on your face. “Hey, would you still love me if I broke all my limbs but had a massive bank account?”

“I’d rather buy you McDonald’s for the rest of your life than see you in pain,” he answers simply, patting you gently on the head. “Though I suppose helping you inject thousands of calories into your bloodstream would also cause you pain later on in life, but hey, at least you’d go down doing what you love.”

“Oh, yes. Keep talking dirty to me. I love it when you talk about the ways you’d kill me by association.” You laugh, casually looping your arms together as you walk past the slowly growing crowd of aunties and entering the reception hall to find your seats. Almost everyone is already in their seats, with a few guests milling about and greeting one another with tight-lipped smiles and hollow laughter. The sight brings goosebumps up your arm, bringing back terrible memories of having to make niceties with these people despite knowing that they despised you and your less affluent family.

Remember, you’re only here as a representative for your parents, you tell yourself. You’d rather bear the brunt of the thinly-veiled insults than to have your parents have to experience this hell. Besides, you have big plans for today, and they would only be brought to an end if your mother ever found out what you wanted to do in the first place.

“As they say… We’re here for a good time, not a long time, which I suppose is our philosophy for tonight as well,” he quips back. He taps you lightly on the hand, wrenching your gaze away from the magnificent chocolate fountain on the dessert table and back to his somewhat less magnificent face. A straight-up lie, but it is the only defense mechanism you have in your arsenal that can keep you from staring at how gorgeous he looks in his suit and tie like a braindead idiot. Denial, after all, hasn’t failed you during the last five years that you’ve been in love with your own best friend.

“What is it?” you ask, curious when he furtively points out one of your cousins near the front of the hall. “That’s Namjoon. Do you know him?”

“Know is a strong word,” Seokjin hums, winking at your cousin when he happens to turn towards the two of you. Namjoon’s eyes light up when he sees him, but his excitement immediately vanishes when he notices who Seokjin has beside him on his right arm. You could see the mental cogs going on inside Namjoon’s head as he stares at the two of you, but you don’t get to see him reach a conclusion before Seokjin is pulling you away, walking in the opposite direction.

“Seokjin? What was that all about?” you ask, though you have to admit you’re kind of afraid to know the answer to your own question. As much as everything about tonight’s scheme had been your idea, you can’t help but think that Seokjin’s intense enthusiasm to help you isn’t merely out of his own desire to help you as a friend, but rather due to his innate calling to cause chaos wherever he goes.

“I have a secret bonus surprise for the bride and groom once we get kicked out from this joint after we do our thing,” he says. “And, dare I say, it’ll be quite a treat for all the guests here.” The smirk on his lips is downright heinous, only exacerbating the frantic racing of your heart. There must be something wrong with you, not with how badly you want to do unspeakable atrocities to him and his evil-looking ass. Or perhaps he was simply put down on Earth to test your slowly fraying sanity.

He snaps you out of your dumbfounded, horny stupor when he continues, “If everything goes according to plan, then we’ll truly end this night with a bang, no pun intended.”

“What was even the pun there?” You raise a brow, slightly disconcerted by the way Seokjin was struggling to keep his laughter (at his own joke) at bay. “You know what? Don’t even answer. I guess I’ll just have to find out later tonight.”

After some pointless meandering while the two of you locate your seats, you are finally able to locate your table, unsurprisingly situated near the farthest corner of the hall where no one would have to see you. You’re honestly more surprised that your newly-wedded cousin had even remembered to give you a seat, though you suppose that it must have been at the behest of your uncle. While your devil of a cousin has always been rude and cruel to you, you have to admit that at least her father knew some manners, though that only begs the question as to what happened to his daughter along the way. Genetics and expensive etiquette classes can only help so much, you suppose.

“Thank you again for doing this with me. You really didn’t need to,” you say when you take a seat, nearly elbowing him in the process. Your chairs are wedged right beside the emergency exit and a grotesque ice sculpture of the bride and groom, forcing the two of you to sit so close that you could feel Seokjin breathe directly into your ear. If you shifted just slightly to the right, you’d basically be sitting on his lap (which is a prospect that intrigues you greatly, but you refrain from voicing it in fear of creeping him out… for now).

“How could I ever resist the offer to ruin your cousin’s wedding? This has been on my bucket list for years,” he winks cheekily at you. “Besides, you’re my dearest friend, Y/N. You could ask me to fight a bear naked, and I’d gladly let it eat my dick in one chomp!”

“I wouldn’t let a bear eat your dick,” you say kindly, patting him gently on the back. “You can’t afford to lose an inch when you only have two to offer.”

Before you could laugh hysterically at Seokjin’s howls of betrayal, your attention is pulled away when the soft violin music stops playing abruptly. From far away, it’s hard to tell what’s going on until you notice a bright light reflecting off of the sea of attendees, the balding head of the reception’s host bobbing up and down as he makes his way to the front of the hall.

“Attention esteemed guests! We will now begin serving dinner shortly. Please remain in your seats as our waiters attend to you.” The host speaks into a crackly microphone just as a few scraggly-looking underpaid teenagers in black dress shirts come out with the first course of the night.

Seokjin cranes his neck, trying to see what the food is. “What the hell is that? Why does it look like green shit in a bowl?” he murmurs, loud enough so that only you can hear. “I didn’t know your cousin was a Dr. Seuss fan. Are we being served green eggs and ham?” Before you can guess, you watch as his nose crinkles in disgust, a vile stench making its way to your area even though none of the waiters were even close to your table. “Oh my goodness, is that stench what we’re supposed to eat?”

“Smells like a barnyard,” you comment, though you aren’t as surprised as he is by the revolting smell. “Well, my cousin always did like making atrocious vegan recipes on her shitty WordPress blog, so I wouldn’t put it past her if she made up the menu for her own wedding.”

“She’s a vegan and a bully? What are the odds,” he says drily, cringing when he watches one of the guests begin to dry heave the moment a spoonful of the green stuff enters their mouth. “Christ. I didn’t know I was signing up for a life or death mission.”

“At this rate, I don’t think we’re getting served until the end of the night anyway,” you say, observing as the understaffed employees tried their best to get to every table while insufferable aunts did their worst to hinder their progress by nagging and complaining. Why were they so adamant about eating the food anyway? Were they itching to get diarrhea on a Saturday night? You do admit that it would probably be better, so then at least you’d have an excuse to leave earlier. “Though I suppose... Do you think eating the mystery goo while it’s cold would be better or worse?”

“It’s okay, I’ll treat you to McDonald’s when we finish up here,” he says, smiling sweetly at you. Never in your life has the mention of greasy fries and chicken nuggies made your heart race faster than it did at that moment, but then again, it could also be your high-blood pressure kicking up. Either way, you can’t ignore the way your face heats up at his offer, now more excited than ever for the reception to be over.

You and Seokjin chat as you wait for everyone around you to finish eating, not even bothered when the waiters forget to bring your food. You’re in the middle of debating the pros and cons of cock and ball torture when large dark shadows loom over both your heads, much like a solar eclipse. A cold shiver runs up your spine when you look up to find the reptilian faces of your aunts, the fumes of their designer perfume creating a cloud so noxious that you could feel your lungs shrivel into prunes.

“Hello, Y/N. It’s nice to see you after such a long time,” your Aunt Sohee greets, her tone indicating that there was nothing pleasant about seeing you at all. Your aunt, who had gotten so much botox done that she was reminiscent of a plastic balloon ready to pop, has her entourage of fellow aunties behind her, all of whom looked ridiculous in their fake designer dresses. You swear you can see that one of them had forgotten to snip off the Made in China tag before wearing it to the wedding.

“Aunt Sohee, you’re looking… young,” you say after a moment, deciding to settle on lying for now. Even though your main plan for this evening is to create chaos at your cousin’s wedding, your one condition is that you wouldn’t cause a scene with your aunts. While you are hardly in the running for favorite niece, there is still a 1% chance that you could get some inheritance from them once they hit the grave, so you’ll have to grit your teeth and bear the incoming barrage of personal questions coming your way lest you lose out in the long run.

“Why, thank you. I can’t say the same for you,” she huffs, shamelessly grabbing my cheeks and squishing them like stress balls. She peers sourly at your disfigured face, trying to squint judgmentally at you but failing due to her horrendous plastic surgery. “How old are you? Why do you have so many wrinkles?”

You feel your eyebrow twitch involuntarily, unable to respond even if you wanted due to the gorilla-hold she has on your face. You side-eye Seokjin, who is looking back at you with a blank and calm expression. You had already told him beforehand that you wouldn’t be arguing with your aunts, but that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be an asshole.

Being an asshole, after all, is Seokjin’s favorite pastime.

“Hello, Aunties. My name is Kim Seokjin, and I’m Y/N’s long-term boyfriend. She’s told me many good things about you,” he says with a polite smile, his hamster cheeks puffing up in that adorably boyish way. The surrounding aunties all begin to coo at his handsome face (unfair!), but they’re quickly silenced by a sharp glare from your Aunt Sohee. She appraises him, giving him a once over with a pursed lip.

“Long-term boyfriend, huh? Are you sure you aren’t paying her or something? Y/N hasn’t had a boyfriend in years. Her cousins have told me that she’s been too busy with other… extracurricular activities to bother sticking around,” your aunt says snidely, her sneer deepening. She lets go of your face, crossing her arms when she spies the expensive watch on his wrist. “Ah, I see that you’re well-off. I just can’t possibly see why else you’d be staying with her if not for other reasons.”

You can feel your blood pressure rising, the veins on your forehead undoubtedly bulging as you try to suppress your rage. Screw your cousin for spreading a rumor that you’re a whore! It’s as if you were the one sucking guys off in the locker rooms when the two of you were in the second year of high school and not her. You haven’t even had your first proper kiss, for heaven’s sake!

Instead of getting angry, Seokjin’s expression hardly changes at all. His serene smile is still plastered on his face, but only you can tell that he’s even remotely bothered by their rude remarks. You can feel the air around him turn frosty, but your oblivious aunties are still too busy tittering amongst themselves, exchanging insults at your expense.

“Oh, are we that obvious?” Seokjin tilts his head, feigning innocence. Your head jerks towards him, your eyes bugging out of their sockets. What the fuck? “You are so right, Auntie Sohee. I’m sure Y/N must have informed you about our predicament. You see, we’ve—”

“Your predicament?” Aunt Sohee scoffs, interrupting Seokjin mid-speech. “I can’t believe the nerve of this girl, bringing her little boy-toy to the holy matrimony of her cousin—”

“—been trying to produce an heir to the Kim Line for months now,” Seokjin sighs heavily, looking off into the distance with glazed, dreamy eyes. You nearly cough out a lung at his sudden proclamation, about to interject and ask him what on earth he was talking about. Your words die on your tongue, however, when he grips your hand tightly underneath the table. He taps three times on the back of your hand: an old sign that you both made back in high school whenever he was busy bullshitting his way out of trouble.

Luckily, none of your aunts notice your blunder, all of them too occupied trying to wrap their heads around what Seokjin had said. Multiple mouths drop open in surprise and disbelief, including your Aunt Sohee. Her penciled eyebrows arch comically high, her smoothened forehead wrinkling infinitesimally (a feat in itself, for you were sure she had long since lost any ability to move the skin on her face.)

“I beg your pardon?” she whispers, staring daggers at Seokjin.

Then beg, you think to yourself. Judging by the way the corners of Seokjin’s lips lift slightly, you have a strong feeling that he was thinking the same thing to himself. Instead, he says, “Yes, Aunt Sohee. You see, I come from a long line of businessmen. Ever heard of Kim Enterprises.”

Her face turns pale. “You mean… the Kim Enterprises? The one that owns—”

“South Korea’s largest chain of department stores? I’m flattered that you’re familiar,” he winks. He leans forward, gesturing for your aunts to come closer, like he’s imparting state secrets to them. “My older brother, who has been married for quite some time, has chosen to remain childless at the behest of his wife. For that reason, my father put me up to the task of producing an heir for the company.”

“An heir?” your aunt repeats, dumbfounded.

Seokjin nods, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s quite unfortunate, but it’s a responsibility I’m willing to take. My family is notorious for planning our lives, even for the next 50 years, so I am forever grateful to have Y/N who is willing to bring me multiple potential heirs to my family.”

“Multiple heirs?” Your aunts shriek in unison, causing a few nearby guests to look over at your table in curiosity. You wave at them awkwardly in apology, hoping to get them to ignore the absolute clusterfuck happening right in front of you.

You feel Seokjin kick you gently in the shin, urging you to say something as well. You clear your throat, channeling all the pent-up Seokjin energy that you had indirectly absorbed over the years of being his friend. “That’s right… My Jinnie has always been so lonely, living in his gigantic mansion with his piles of money. He may have never felt the loving touch of his father, but I’m certain that we’ll be great parents to our children. Why, we’re almost like a pair of rabbits when it comes to—”

Aunt Sohee clears her throat abruptly, a deep flush coloring her cheeks as she glares daggers at you. She looks absolutely peeved, and it takes all your mental fortitude to restrain yourself from jumping up in triumph. Take that, wench!

“I have to admit that this is somewhat… unexpected,” your aunt says carefully, pointing a tight smile at Seokjin. He beams back, positively delighted.

“Y/N is quite the catch. I’m grateful to have her in my life,” he says, his tone growing soft by the end. He looks at you then, and you find a mysterious emotion floating in his eyes that you can’t quite name. When you blink and try to get a closer look, his careful façade is back in place.

Eventually, your aunts lose interest in you once they realize they can no longer bully you, not when you had an incredibly rich boyfriend to back you up. “Must be nice being a rich boy, huh?” you snicker, teasing the blushing boy beside you. Thanks to his hair growing longer than usual, the tips of his ears are miraculously hidden away. When you brush his hair back, they are as red as a baboon’s ass.

“Oh, shut up. You know I hate flaunting my dad’s money,” he whines, pouting cutely. He fingers the watch on his wrist, staring at it uncomfortably. “This isn’t even my watch. I had to borrow one from my brother.”

“Well, you did it for me, so I suppose it’s not all bad,” you laugh, pinching his cheek lightly. “Plus, it was funny watching my aunts shut up for once. They’re just mad that you’re richer than the groom.”

“Really? What does he do?”

“He’s an entrepreneur.” You snort, emphasizing the word with air quotations. “Honestly, he just calls himself that while he waits for his self-made business to pop off or whatever. No such luck so far, if what I heard was right.”

“Lucky for you, you’re stuck with my devastatingly handsome face and stinkin’ rich bank account,” he jokes, contorting his face into a funny expression until you’re left snorting at his antics. Little does he know, you still would’ve l***d him even if he wasn’t any of those things, but that’d be too cringey to say. What are you, some sort of romantic lead protagonist?

It takes a little bit over an hour for dessert to start getting served, by which point the bride and groom decide to make their rounds to greet the guests. “Don’t you think this is the perfect time to put our plan into motion? The dance floor is open and we should be able to make it to the center without anyone noticing,” he whispers, his breath tickling your neck.

“Yeah, let’s go,” you say, but just as you’re about to get up from your seat, a flurry of white blocks your path in an instant. You startle slightly, falling back to your chair and hitting Seokjin in the chest with a soft grunt. “Shit, sorry about that Seokjin—”

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my dear cousin,” a voice cuts you off, the disdain in their voice dripping like acid down your ear canals. Your blood freezes instinctively, years of past trauma crashing down on you as your childhood bully stands just inches away from you, her blood-red lips stretched into a broad smirk.

“Kairi,” you greet.

“Y/N,” she responds.

“Seokjin!” Seokjin adds helpfully.

Your cousin turns to him slowly. “Quite right,” she hisses, eyebrows pinched together in thinly-veiled annoyance. “I’ve heard through some whispers that my baby cousin finally managed to snag a rich kid for a boyfriend and I just couldn’t help but let my curiosity drag me over here.” She looks you up and down, snorting at what she sees. “You would think that having a chaebol as a boyfriend would mean you could at least afford a proper dress.”

You glance down at your dress: a hand-me-down from your mother because you couldn’t be bothered to buy a new one, not when you’d rather choke on Satan’s hot fiery balls for all eternity than spend any amount of money just to attend your cousin’s wedding. Despite this, you can’t help your cheeks from heating in embarrassment, an automatic response after years of bullying and torment from that spoiled bitch.

When you don’t reply, Kairi’s smirk widens. “Oh? Cat got your tongue? Sugar daddy couldn’t even be bothered to buy you a dress? While you’re at it, maybe you should ask for a new car too. I’m surprised you even made it here alive in that old metal deathtrap of yours. You’re lucky you were just late to the reception instead of dead on the street.”

You can sense Seokjin staring at you from your right. Your fists are clenched tightly on your skirt, your nails nearly tearing the fabric in your searing rage. Slowly, carefully, Seokjin slips his hands underneath yours—he pries your death grip open until he can lace his fingers in between yours. At once, your anger melts at his tender gesture, your focus pulled away from your cousin and back to him. He thumbs the back of your hand, as if assuring you that he’d handle this himself.

He smiles at Kairi, not a single ounce of kindness in his eyes. “Yes, indeed. It is my mistake entirely for not ordering a dress much sooner. Y/N is so incredibly humble; she’d rather wear a vintage outfit than wear one of those paper-thin dresses from YesStyle that you and your bridesmaids seem to favor,” he sighs, pretending to be pained.

“Paper-thin? YESSTYLE?” Kairi screeches, her voice breaking the sound barrier. You watch in fascination as her skin turns an unflattering ruddy shade.

Unperturbed by her murderous aura, Seokjin prattles on. “Quite right,” he mocks her with her own words, smirking ever so slightly. “Though, I must apologize for being late to the reception. That was my fault as well. My father had a general meeting this morning for all the employees at the company, as he had wanted to announce that I would be the Vice President starting next Monday. We tried to leave sooner, but everyone had been too busy congratulating us,” he apologizes, though not apologetic in the slightest.

Your cousin could cosplay as a walking crack pipe with how much steam was puffing out of her ears. She’s livid, so much so that her fury was preventing her from formulating any sort of comeback. “You—how dare you—I swear on my—” she stutters incomprehensibly, her vulture-like nails tearing her dainty paper-thin skirt into shreds.

Just as she looks about ready to blow, her father comes around to your table. He places a hand delicately on his daughter’s shoulder, immediately understanding the situation when he sees you. “Kairi, I think it’s time for you to greet the rest of the guests. Uncle Iverson said he has a gift for you that simply cannot wait,” he says, doing his best to appease you. He gives you a genuinely regretful look; you shake your head, waving off his concern.

“It was nice seeing you, Kairi. I hope you and your husband will have a wonderful year together,” you say. You gasp exaggeratedly, holding a hand to your heart. “Oh, sorry. I meant to say I hope you have wonderful years together. Pardon my mistake.”

Before the scant amount of brain cells in your cousin’s brain could process your words, her father pulls her away, dragging her to the next table over. Once they’re out of earshot, you heave a sigh of relief. Beside you, Seokjin lets out a laugh that he had been undoubtedly holding in the past few minutes, sounding like a fish gasping for air with how much he is shaking with mirth.

“Fuck, that was hilarious. Did you see how angry she got? Beautiful,” he says, wiping away a stray tear. “Love that for us!”

“Damn. I knew you were good at bullshitting, but even your acting skills almost convinced me,” you whistle lowly, impressed. “You sure you’re not a con-artist in disguise?”

“All good businessmen are con-artists, my young padawan,” he snickers, winking at you. He shrugs. “You get used to dealing with assholes like her when you attend enough rich people parties. Besides, all good lies are rooted in the truth, after all. That’s what my father taught me when I was seven.”

“You must have been a terrible child, then.” You laugh, before realizing what he had just said. “Wait. Rooted in the truth? What does that mean?”

“Oh. Well,” he clears his throat, giggling nervously. He rubs his neck, embarrassed. “I am the vice president of dad’s company now. I just lied about the meeting being this morning. He announced it a day ago or something. Not that it’s a big deal or anything…”

You gawk at him, speechless. Not for the first time in your life, you are once again stunned by the absurdity of the man before you. How did men like him exist outside of cheesy k-dramas? He’s handsome, rich, funny, AND well-mannered? It’s almost like some love-crazed author had penned him into existence for their entertainment.

Seokjin breaks you from your reverie, tapping you thrice on your shoulder. “Shall we go? The dance floor is still empty. It’s now or never.”

You nod excitedly, standing up to head towards the center of the hall. This time, there is no one stopping you as the two of you make your way towards your destination. The lights near the dancefloor are still dimly lit, as most of the lighting is currently focused on the guests as the bride and groom make their rounds to greet everyone. Even if Seokjin got onto his knees right now, only a few people nearby would notice, so you’d have to do something to catch people’s attention.

“This is going to be moderately to highly embarrassing for a few moments, but I think that’s the atmosphere we’re going for, isn’t it?” Seokjin whispers, his mouth embarrassingly close to yours as he holds you gently by the waist. There isn’t a need for him to stand so close to you, but you have to admit his presence is mostly calming—minus the fact that he’s been your crush for five years and he’s going to be fulfilling one of your deepest fantasies in front of your entire extended family. No biggie.

“I suppose so. What are you gonna do to get their attention?” you ask, palms beginning to sweat. Despite this, Seokjin still takes your hands into his own, a small smile on his lips.

“Just watch,” he whispers, before slowly getting down on one knee.

Ba-dump. Here we fucking go.

“My dearest Y/N… The apple of my eye, the straw to my berry, the con to my dom,” Seokjin says, projecting his voice so that it can be heard even above the music. One of the violin players is even startled long enough to stop playing, further causing more heads to turn in their direction. You hear a gasp coming from your left, but you force yourself not to look. Instead, you stare right back into Seokjin’s sweet brown eyes, your heart beating a mile a minute.

This isn’t real… This is just a prank, bro. Get over yourself, you hiss internally, but your heart refuses to listen.

“You’ve been in my life for almost half a decade, and not a day goes by wherein I don’t wonder what it would be like to live the rest of my days with you. In many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am if it hadn’t been for your presence in my life,” he says. If you look deeper into his eyes, you can almost trick yourself into thinking that they looked wetter than they had just a moment ago.

“Y/N, you are the person I’ve loved for years now. I used to think you didn’t like me as much as I liked you, so I was always scared to pop the question. I had many opportunities to ask, but I suppose tonight just felt like the right moment. I was afraid that if I didn’t do it now, I might never get the chance to ask again, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you slip away out of cowardice.”

For some reason, his words seem almost too real, like he was speaking the truth. You have never doubted his acting skills, but would you be willing to wonder if there was even a small possibility that there was some truth to his tale? You swallow thickly, the need to ask just dangling on the tip of your tongue.

He rifles through his jacket pocket, procuring a small velvet box. He thumbs it almost reverently, his hands shaking slightly, but you can blame that on the nerves from hundreds of people watching you. He takes a deep breath, opening the box with a soft click. “My dearest Y/N… Would you give me the honor of spending the rest of my days with you?”

You feel your breath get knocked out of you in an instant, the genuine adoration in his eyes too much for you to handle. You stammer slightly, too busy staring at him to properly register the loud claps, screams, and hollers all around you. “I… Seokjin… This is…”

“MAKE THEM STOP! SOMEONE KICK THEM OUT RIGHT NOW!” You dimly hear your cousin screaming obscenities somewhere, but you are still too caught up in the moment to care. The world only consists of you and Seokjin—nothing else matters right now.

When you look down at the box in his hands, fully expecting to see a comically large ring pop nestled in its cushions, but instead you find—

You gasp, nearly doubling over in surprise. “Oh my god, Seokjin. Is that a real fucking diamond ring?!”

He shrugs, smiling wryly. “Only the best rocks for the girl who rocks my socks off every night,” he jokes, but his nervousness is palpable. He’s sweating, a drop trailing down the side of his face despite the strong air conditioning.

Oh shit. It hits you right then that his proposal is real. The damned idiot is fucking proposing to you in front of your most hated family members, and he’s proposing to you for real.

“Kim Seokjin, please fucking explain yourself—”

But before he can have the chance to open his mouth, you feel rough hands grab you by the shoulders, pulling you away from him. “I’m sorry I have to do this, ma’am. Bride’s orders,” one of the waiters says, awkwardly escorting you to the exit. When you turn back, you see another waiter pulling Seokjin away as well, the box with the ring still clutched tightly in his hand.

The two waiters deposit you outside the hall, bowing stiffly before heading back into the room. You’re still breathing heavily, the adrenaline coursing through your veins. Seokjin isn’t any better, bent over with his hands on his knees. From your vantage point, you can see how red his entire neck is, his blush reaching even past the collar of his shirt.

“Seokjin…” you trail off, unable to say another word. You’re completely flabbergasted, elated, annoyed, and mostly just mind-fucked because when on earth did Kim Seokjin ever have a crush on you?!

“I’m sorry. That must have been quite a shock,” he coughs out a laugh. He rubs his face, embarrassment rolling off of him in waves. “I just… It was sort of a last-minute decision I made. I’ve been into you for years now, and I know I’m kinda putting you on the spot by proposing like that, but I knew if I didn’t do anything soon, you might just slip away before I can say anything.”

“Wait. So are you really… proposing to me?” You squeak out the last bit, your face mirroring his reddened state.

“No!” He shouts suddenly, before covering his mouth with his palm. “S-sorry, what I mean to say is, it wasn’t really a marriage proposal. It was more like… just a general proposal? I do want to live with you forever, but I know that thought must be daunting and—oh god, I don’t even know if you like me like that, so this must be incredibly weird and out of line. Please excuse me while I shove a cactus up my ass—”

“Seokjin,” you interrupt, silencing his rambling. He clamps his mouth shut. “Are you… asking me out?”

He nods his head. “Yeah…”

“And what you said is true? You actually like me?”

“No, you don’t understand. I love you,” he says, before getting shy again. He looks down at the ring box. “Fuck. This isn’t a real engagement ring, by the way. It’s more like a promise ring, so you don’t have to feel bad for rejecting me.”

“Oh my god, I’m in love with an idiot,” you groan, pulling him into a hug. You nestle into his chest, giggling hysterically into his shirt. “I fucking hate you.”

“Wait, I’m getting mixed signals over here,” Seokjin says, gasping when he feels how tightly you embrace him. He doesn’t complain, however. He returns the gesture in kind, nuzzling deep into your neck. “So, does that mean the feeling is mutual?”

“Yes, you idiot. Now give me my ring.”

“My pleasure, princess.” He laughs, drawing away slightly so that he can slip the ring on your finger. The diamond shines brightly under the fluorescent lights, but nothing brings you more joy than having the boy you love in your arms.

As the two of you are sharing a sweet moment, it takes a second for you to realize that the commotion from inside the venue still hasn’t stopped. When you crane your heads, you spot one of the doors had been left ajar, allowing you to slip your heads through the crack just in time to see Seokjin’s beautiful bare ass being projected onto a large screen.

The musical notes of Rick Astley’s most popular song play loudly on the speakers, drowning out the sounds of the bride screaming bloody murder as the IT people tried their best to sort out the mess. The Seokjin on the screen slaps his ass in time with the tune, his glorious moon-shaped globes shaking mesmerizingly for all to see.

When you look to Seokjin for an explanation, he merely shrugs his shoulders. “They really should do background checks on the people they hire for these things. Taking that one video editing course in university really does pay off, huh?”

“Sure does,” you grin, linking your arms together. “Now let’s get some fucking McDonalds.”

And so, you lived happily ever after—the end.

665 notes · View notes

whirlybirbs · 3 years

Note

ok i have been reading oya'karir and all i can think about is how condor must be ? famous? like within the rebel ranks? do people know who she is? has she ever met leia? this is so cooL?

✶ ——— WAR HEROES AND DRUNKS ; d.d.

summary: you join din on a bounty. turns out it’s an old friend. din learns more about your reputation during the war. an oya’karir drabble.

pairing: din djarin x sniper!reader, established here

tags: drabble of oya’karir, mutual pining, fluff, din being a good guy

a/n: gif courtesy of @coulter from this lovely gif set! it’s funny anon asked about this because i’d already been working on condor’s backstory a bit more. her and cassian...... (eye emoji) anyways please enjoy this good ol’ fluff between din and his lil’ sniper.

“Where are we headed?”

Your strides match Din’s. His voice is measured.

“Arbra.”

You’ve been to Arbra. Once. On leave.

Once the base at Golrath fell, Arbra became the new home of the Rebel Alliance. Intelligence tended to operate out of this planet during the war, hidden away in the Bon'nyuw-Luq sector. Haven base earned the apt nickname Hole in the Ground from the poor souls stationed there — and though the caverns in which the base had operated out of are now defunct, there’s still a steady presence of war-time veterans who’ve come to call this place home.

The locals, Hoojibs, joined the New Republic after the war — land treaties left them their native subterranean land in trade for a bustling economy top-side within the restriction. The New Republic ensured that city zoning would only occur within a 10,000 square mile radius of the defunct base.

Thus, Haven City was born.

“Arbra,” you repeat.

You can’t help but stiffen — and when the Mandalorian beside you ambles up to the cockpit, you pray that you don’t know the poor bastard whose chain code Din had gotten from Karga. You swing yourself around and up the ladder.

But, things are never that easy, are they?

Your boots meet the cockpit floor as Din settles into the pilot’s chair — and sure enough, once he connects the bounty puck to the navicomputer, a familiar face blossoms to life in grainy, blue holo-light.

“...Son of a bitch.”

Prat Glaxson’s visage stares back at you.

Din, owlishly, turns his head round to eye your reaction.

Immediately, his voice crackles alive.

“You know him.”

Not a question. Din knows you well enough to peg your expression as anxious.

Of course you know him — and it was only a matter of time before the Guild knew him, too. The lieutenant had always had a rough go of it with the gambling. The drinking had started, too, around the end of the war. But, Hoth had struck that feeling in every soldier who’d been there. Glaxson was, on all accounts, a good man. He’d made some bad choices.

Bet against the wrong men.

“He was a Lieutenant,” you say carefully, “Served opposite my regiment.”

Your heart clenches for a moment. You find your fingers twiddling absent-mindedly at the thought of your regiment. Of your Captain.

There’s not a day that goes by that you don’t miss Cassian Andor.

You suppose Glaxson most likely felt the same. He’d nearly lost his entire platoon back on Hoth. Can’t blame him, really, for the self-destructive patterns. You’d been the same way back on Yavin, before meeting Din Djarin. Loneliness and isolation were your drink of choice is all.

Din is quiet for a moment. Then, his gloved hand reaches for the engine start and he flips it off. The whole of the Razor Crest goes eerily quiet. He stays still, listening. Then, Din speaks.

“We don’t have to go after him.”

“No.”

Your bark is sharp. Your hand settles on Din’s wrist.

“If we don’t,” you sigh, leaning back in your seat, “Someone else will. And maybe he won’t come so easy.”

Din’s helmet lingers on you; he’s silent. It’s weighted. Measured carefully as dark eyes scale your face behind his visor. There’s sadness there, tightening your brow. There’s always a sadness in your eyes, though a little less recently. But, Din knows you well enough to see that the idea of seeing old faces is enough to make you feel... off.

But, he nods. He starts up the Razor Crest, and he punches in the coordinates for Arbra.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Maker, Din never knew you as one to hide behind him.

You were strong and steadfast with intelligence as sharp as the crack of a whip. When he’d first met you, you’d nearly killed him. You held that worn out and modded up DH-447 to the temple of his helmet as it hissed and popped with earnest; and then you’d done it two more times.

Then, there was your reputation.

They’d come to call you Condor for a reason and it was clear that the callsign carried more weight than he was previously aware. He knew that you’d been a prolific sniper during the height of the Galactic Civil War, that your kill count was well into the hundreds. You were a haunt to the Empire, but a hero to the Rebellion.

Now, on Arbra, Din is beginning to understand.

The marketplace is busy despite the hour — as the two of you wind through the stalls, Din can catch you ducking your head every now and again. Eye the ground. Fingers wound tight around the strap of your DH-447. Your headscarf hides all but your eyes.

Din is used to the attention that wearing his armor brings.

However, he’s rarely used to being looked over — and it’s clear that the people of this place have more interest vested in you than him, a rarity alone.

The puck on his hip pings.

You grit your jaw and pretend to be interested in the various salted nerf jerky on display before you as you speak.

“He’s bound to be in the cantina,” you mutter, nudging your head towards the large building down the street, set off to the side with a steady stream of patrons coming and going at the evening hour. The sun has started to set, and the lights in the homes along the city’s walk have begun to glow.

He offers a nod. He leads the way.

It’s half-way to the cantina when he hears it. It’s your callsign — whispered on the tongues of a human woman and Twi’lek male. He can see their heads turn, focused on you, and before he can step in...

“Is it you?”

Your head snaps to the voice. Your eyes are wide.

It’s like you’ve seen a ghost; and it’s like the couple has seen a hero. Immediately, Din is tense — it’s a habit, now. He tends to feed off your energy at times like this. You’re a devilish pair and you work well together. Din accounts his ability to read the tensing of your shoulders as a part of the moving equation.

“Condor,” says the man, “You’re the Condor, aren’t you?”

Suddenly, there are more eyes. Passer-bys. The callsign is a rising whisper. Like the tide, you can feel the attention swelling.

You shift in your boots. You grip your blaster’s strap tight. Your other hand rises, fingertips swaying as you wave your hand and shake your head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t —”

“It is!” calls a man in a faded bomber jacket who ambles forward — his own medallions and ribbons stuck to his chest in pride, “I’d know that DH-447 anywhere, I reckon! I saw you back during the Battle of Hoth — didn’t miss a single shot! An angel!”

Suddenly, there’s a clamor and a cluster and you’re being shoved into the welcoming hand-shakes of veterans and on-lookers and fans, Din realizes. You have fans — people who are chomping at the bit to simply catch a glimpse of you; the faces around you are suddenly so warm, so welcoming and...

... Maker, there’s a man trying to coax you into taking a picture.

That’s when the armored Mandalorian steps in.

You’re uncomfortable.

“We’re here for Lieutenant Glaxson,” barks Din, looming so suddenly over the crowd that had gathered; you settle in his presence, exhaling visibly when the attention flicks from you to the puck glowing in the Mando’s hand, “We’re here so he’ll come easy. We don’t want trouble.”

“She’s a bounty hunter now?” comes a quiet voice.

Your jaw tenses.

Such is the truth — what was left of the Empire would always be on your tail; always willing to pour in what was left of Imperial gubernatorial earnings into a bounty. Revenge was a fickle thing. And still, many a man sought it.

Being by Din’s side gave you an edge. Karga knew — and he’d been paid off by the Covert to keep you off the menu. He’d taken the payment from Din and not asked a single question.

“Is he in the cantina?” you ask tepidly, eyes wandering the faces of the gathered souls.

Some of them are familiar. Faces you’ve seen in passing. Some you’ve no doubt stood shoulder to shoulder with on this very street all those years ago on leave.

Your voice always leaves Din feeling a bit light-headed. There was something to it — your mother-tongue, Mando’a, paints every word all sorts of beautiful. He envies it. He wishes those words rolled just as easily off his tongue.

“Always is, I’m afraid,” says the man in the jacket. His regalia tinkers as he leans on his good leg. His voice sounds sad, “He’s a good man...”

Din nods, beginning to move towards the building.

But, you linger.

You extend your hand, touching his shoulder with a gloved hand. Your bare fingertips grip the familiar shoulder of his uniform’s coat.

“I know.”

You catch up to Din; the tinkering of his armor calms the sudden burst of anxiety that feels like it might eat through your lungs. They burn. You chew your lip.

“Vor’e,” you mutter, nudging his elbow with yours. Thanks.

Din’s head turns as he walks; you can imagine his brows lifting beneath the helm, his lips tilting as he speaks. His tone is enough of an indicator that he’s amused. A handsome look, no doubt, considering that it has you a bit enamored already.

“For what?”

“I thought they’d eat me alive.”

“You never told me you had adoring fans,” the Mandalorian says slowly, words clipped with an edge of good-humor, “I was under the impression it was the opposite.”

You scoff. “Shut up, di’kut.”

“Come on,” he says, the threat of laugh biting at his tone, “You’ve got autographs to sign.”

That earns him an elbow to the ribs. He expels air at the playful jab, chuckle coming out more like a hiss of static than anything. You’re quick to move ahead, leading the way into the cantina.

As soon as you’re through the doors, your headscarf is pulled down. Again, Din ignores the affection that the sight of you brings — all wild hair and striking eyes.

It doesn’t take you long to find Prat Glaxson.

He looks older than he is, only a decade or so Din’s senior. It’s clear the war has aged the man, and alcohol has done a fair share of damage as well.

Poor bastard can barely see straight.

He’s in the back of the Cantina — slumped over a table with a datapad in front of him. He’d fallen asleep watching the races on Canto Bight. You amble over with a sudden motherly charm; your sigh makes Din perk up.

“C’mon, Glax,�� you mutter, kicking his boot, “Wake up.”

He waves his hand. He drunkenly stumbles through a sentence.

“Lea’ me ‘lone.”

“Glax,” comes your voice, a bit louder now as you lean over the table. Your palm is planted beside the empty pint by his head, the other hand patting the drunkard down for a blaster. You come up dry, “It’s me.”

“... Who?”

You say your name, then, and it’s like Glaxson has seen the light.

“... God’s above,” he musters as he raises his head and Din can see that the grown man’s eyes have gone all bleary. Glaxon’s voice wavers like he might weep when he looks up at you, “It’s you.”

He reaches for your hand. You meet him halfway. You squeeze.

“It’s me.”

“Su cuy'gar,” comes the rough and mispronounced sentence from Glaxson’s mouth, “You... You taught me that.”

“Su cuy’gar,” you breathe back, nodding; your words are like velvet. It’s clear that Glaxson is enamored with your sudden appearance, and Din watches with a sharpening sense of cautiousness.

“You’ve grown more beautiful, my little bird,” the drunk nearly wails, “You ‘ave. I am happy t’ see you. Cassian would be glad t’ know yer alive.”

Cassian...? Din has never heard that name before.

It’s clear the utterance of it has you feigning indifference.

“Glax,” you say slowly, “I’m here because you owe some bad people money. There’s a warrant out for you — me and my friend here are going to get you some help.”

Glax leans. His eyes fall upon Din.

“Y’ found one a’ yer kin, then, my little bird?” he says, nodding, “M’ glad.”

There’s a pause. Then, Glaxson reaches for the last of his remaining drink, downs it, and ambles to his feet.

“Suppose this ‘as been a long time comin’,” he says, “But m’ glad it’s you, kid.”

You exhale long and hard. Glaxson rises and you nod. There’s turmoil in your posture; and you carry it with you back through Haven City as Glaxson sways beside you. No need for stasis cuffs. Din simply watches — he can see the exhaustion of war in both of your faces as you pass idle chat. You ask about his kids, he asks about where you’ve been the last four years.

“Lots of people want me dead, Glax. That hasn’t changed.”

The Lieutenant laughs at that.

“Always were trouble, little bird.”

Din’s heart clenches when you smile, scoffing at the remark.

This isn’t right. None of this is — and suddenly, Din can feel his moral compass pulling wildly in his chest. He ignores the idea that it’s for you, just like everything is nowadays.

It’s when the three of you arrive at the Razor Crest that Din finally speaks up.

“Wait.”

Your expression is laden with confusion, step lingering as you go to hike it up the ramp into the Razor Crest. Instead, you waver, hooked on Din’s call — and you can feel Glaxson’s eyes flick between the both of you.

“What is it?”

Suddenly, Mando is squaring up with Glaxson.

“Your bounty,” he says slowly, “Is 100,000 credits.”

Glaxson winces. He drops his head. He nods.

However, Din keeps speaking. “Lucky for you, Condor and I here happen to come into some credits recently —”

Your brows furrow immediately, confusion about to spit straight off your tongue — but Din is raising a finger in your face; and you spare him a flustered look.

“We’re clearing the debt,” the Mandalorian rumbles, “No more gambling. Or the next headhunter that comes for you may not be so kind. Got it?”

“Din —”

“Say your goodbyes, Condor.”

And up he goes, into the cockpit.

Your mouth is hung open, eyes wild. Beside you, Glaxson seems just as stupefied. But, so if the way with Din Djarin. You swear the man was going to be the death of you — if not from dragging you along on lethal bounties then from sheer surprise.

“... Nice chap.”

“Peachy.”

And the two of you laugh.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

The goodbye was aching and long; riddled with promises of visits and changed ways. With a long hug, you’d pulled from the Lieutenant and ascended up the ramp. Within minutes you were exiting Arbra’s atmosphere.

You lean against the back of Din’s piloting chair.

Your voice is light.

"That was nice of you, Din’ika.”

Din scoffs. His hands move to prime the hyperdrive, punch the coordinates in for Navarro, and set the autopiloting system. When he doesn’t reply, you take it upon yourself to push the chair and spin it ‘round your way.

Din complies, helmet tilting.

Your face is soft. Kind. Gentle. Beautiful. Your voice is tender.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Would have been wrong to take him in,” Din says, voice sounding far off to even his own ears as your fingers find the dip of his chest plate. Your hand rests there for a moment, gaze lingering on his helmet, “To those people, you’re a hero.”

“Glaxson is a drunk with a gambling problem,” you shush, “We knew that during the war, folks know that now — and I am not a hero.”

Din gives you a look. A micro-tilt of his visor. You roll your eyes. Your hand slips to your hip.

"Shut up.”

Another scoff. This time, Din stands. He towers over you, trapped between your arm and his pilot's chair. Gently, he lowers his head to plonk gently against your forehead. It’s slow and calculated. Not too hard. The tender gesture of affection makes you smile. Din keeps his helmet there for a moment.

If you squint, you swear you can almost make out the curve of a smile beneath the tinted visor shield.

“Any idea where we can get a hundred thousand credits?”

And you laugh.

#oya'karir #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x you #mandalorian imagine #star wars imagine

254 notes · View notes

masjestickingdom · 4 years

Text

With the Purple, Soft Hair

Pairing: NCT Jaehyun x reader

Genre: Slight angst, fluff, one shot

Summary: A year of solid friendship and no advancements were made--until one night, you start to see your special friend in a different light.

Note: School has been killing me, but here’s a story I just had to post. Hope you enjoy it!

____________________________________________________________________________

There he was, the man of your dreams. Oh, how lucky you were because, of course, he had his arms around another girl, namely your close friend. His soft chocolate orbs stared deeply into your friend’s hazel ones, whispering silent messages of love and appreciation. He towered over your short friend, a feature that made her even more irresistibly cute. Worst of all, he had no idea of your existence.

“Still haven’t talked to him?” a voice spoke behind you, pulling you away from your quiet manner. “I’m telling you, if you don’t make a move now, he’ll never know you.”

The empty seat across from you was soon occupied by your project partner-turned-friend, Jaehyun, blocking your view of the lovely couple at the other picnic table.

“It’s too late,” you muttered under your breath before you took a gigantic bite out of your meatball sub.

Your deeply purple-haired friend looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the giggling lovebirds.

“So Mark’s going out with one of your friends and he’s also my friend, but he still doesn’t know your name?” he said, averting his eyes to your lousy state. “That’s pathetic, you know?”

You continued eating, unfazed by the usual bluntness you had gotten used to. He scoffed at your messy style of eating as you dropped a few pickles here and there onto the torn plastic wrap.

“This whole picnic idea is pathetic,” you mumbled through your half-full mouth. “You were all like, ‘Hey, it’s a nice day today. Let’s go eat lunch out there!’ but this is just plain cruelty.”

Jaehyun sent a short-lived apologetic smile your way and stole the lost pickles, which you didn’t really like in your food anyway.

How you and Jaehyun became friends was a wonder. You two were simply partners for a business project, but somewhere along the way, he started growing more sarcastic. He also grew fond of teasing you whenever he could, which was a 180-degree different side of him when he had first introduced himself to you with his killer soft smile and dimples that would make any girl swoon. You had to admit, you had a crush on him at first, but his increasingly frequent sarcastic remarks turned you off. By the time your project ended, you and Jaehyun were practically inseparable; you went to festivals together and watched newly released movies at the comfort of your aunt’s house, which she let you live in since she was primarily living in the countryside, not in the city.

Jaehyun was your wingman and you were his wingwoman: whenever either one of you wanted to catch another person’s attention, you would use each other and send ridiculous hand signals. Oftentimes, you would pretend that he was a social media influencer and asked for his autograph. It was a silly act, you both admitted, but it worked in the shallow society you lived in. But Mark Lee was a different case. He wasn’t one of those guys you were infatuated by momentarily. No, he was the man you loved for three months and counting.

“How am I supposed to get over him?” you sighed after chomping down your sub, something Jaehyun never failed to be amazed at.

With his eyebrows raised, he instinctively wiped the sauce staining your chin with a napkin and asked, “What do you mean ‘get over him’? Why do you have to get over him?”

In a matter-of-a-fact tone, you replied, “Even if they break up, I can’t have him. It’s the rule.”

“Well it’s a stupid rule.”

It was a stupid rule, indeed, but you knew that if any one of your friends dated your past exes, you would go livid. If only you had no moral consciousness...

There went another round of a laughing fit behind Jaehyun. You couldn’t care less about what the two were laughing about; you just wanted to be the one laughing with the black-haired prince, the one with the luscious hair that stopped at the rims of his round glasses.

“I wish I could touch his hair,” you murmured, enviously watching your friend brush her fingers through his soft locks of hair.

“You can touch mine,” Jaehyun offered, tilting his head towards you. “I conditioned it yesterday.”

Your nose scrunched up in apparent disgust. “Your hair was touched by so many girls that I don’t want to.”

“Hey, we both had our fair share of people touching our hair,” Jaehyun said defensively as he backed his head. “Besides, I bet my hair is the softest hair out of anyone in our department.”

“No wonder all the girls keep touching your hair,” you said quietly before tackling your other bitter-tasting sub. “That girl Diane kept raving about it to her friends, and we all know that Diane has the softest hair.”

“Excuse me, my hair is way softer than hers,” Jaehyun said with his eyebrows furrowed and mouth frowning. “Besides, that’s just a rumor. Anyone’s hair is better than hers. Even your hair is softer than hers.”

Pushing your soda further away from you to make space for your elbows, you waved off his last statement. “Speaking of Diane, what happened to her? I thought you guys were gonna push through.”

“There was nothing to ‘push through’. I just wasn’t interested.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’ve been saying that for months.”

And he batted his eyes innocently. “Well no one has caught my eye for months.”

“You're telling me that you, Jung Jaehyun, master of getting girls, have finally stepped down your reign?”

Your unfamiliar friend simply shrugged. “I guess I want something serious.”

“Not with your tendency to quickly dismiss girls you won’t.”

Then he looked at you dead in the eye. “I’m looking for the right person.”

“And who would the ‘right person’ be like?”

The romantic spring wind softly blew past you, making you shudder, with your bare arms exposed. Jaehyun fixed his gaze on the sky, the wind brushing his hair in all the right places, and then on you. You stared at him in return, anticipating a serious answer.

“Someone with nice hair.”

There was no smiling, no laughing, no nothing. He was serious. But you didn’t even have the time to react to the honest comment because your eyes busily widened when they caught your friend’s who waved at you excitedly. At your troubled expression, Jaehyun turned around and sent a small wave towards the couple.

“Great, now they’re coming over,” you grumbled, watching the couple take their time approaching you and Jaehyun. “We could be talking about something funny or intellectual, but, no, we’re talking about stupid hair.”

“Okay, we both know that you’re not funny,” Jaehyun said openly.

You had the urge to slap him with the pickles you had, but the growing feeling of anxiety and nervousness overtook all of your thoughts. They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming. A warm pair of hands wrapped around yours, causing you to avert your pathetic gaze at your half-eaten sub to the brown eyes of your sarcastic-turned-caring friend.

“Calm down, won’t you? You won’t make a fool of yourself,” he said, trying to comfort you. “You’ve already done that today when you started snoring in class.”

That was deserving of a glare and the following: “You suck at this.” But before you could say anything else, a chirpy voice chimed, “Hey, guys!” And the butterflies broke loose. When your friend officially introduced you to Mark and vice versa, the rhythm of your heart grew faster and faster, but all you could do was muster a small, weak smile to the man who secretly made you smile to yourself in the back of your business classes whenever he would say something with a simple smile or made Jaehyun or another one of his friends laugh at one of his lame jokes. Your heart was fluttering, and there was nothing you could do but smile.

“Is something wrong?” your friend asked, concerned for you and your pale face.

“She’s just having a bad time digesting her food,” Jaehyun lied, rubbing the back of your hands with his thumbs.

You silently sent a glare his way.

“Yes, that’s the only explanation there is,” you said through your teeth and pulled your hands away from his.

“Oh, for a moment I thought you two were going out with the whole hand situation,” your friend said, laughing. “Well that’s too bad because Mark and I were wondering if you guys wanted to go eat at a new 60s-themed restaurant around the corner.”

Your stomach felt queasy as if it was tied up in knots. Even though you kept your gaze strictly on your friend, you couldn’t help but use your peripheral vision to take a sneak peek at the wonderful human being standing next to her. At that point, Mark had taken off his glasses and left them hanging on the collar of his green hoodie. You couldn’t believe how lucky your friend was to snatch away the younger boy you had your eyes on for way longer. If you could only go back in time...

“We’ll go.”

Those were the two words that got you to look at Jaehyun like he was crazy, earning you a not-so-innocent smile from him, and got the two of you sitting across the real couple at a nicely cushioned booth in a fast food diner on a Thursday night.

You were fiddling with the material of your shirt, not having once looked at Mark’s direction since the moment he stepped into the restaurant. There was no way you could look at him at all his glory when your friend was sitting right across from you, talking endlessly about some class you could care less about.

“And the professor actually made that a freebie since he totally..."

The rhythm of your heart slowly steadied, but your hands still felt clammy. Do I look okay? Do I seem boring? Do I look like I’m someone fun to talk to? No, you hadn’t even opened your mouth. You had been on double dates before with Jaehyun, of course with your date being someone else, and they were usually a blast. But with your longest crush sitting diagonally from you, casually munching on his fries, you were about to faint.

“Seriously, Margaret literally shot her bubble tea out of her nose..."

Is there something on my face? Did I not powder enough? Did I come too bare-faced? Do I at least look presentable enough? A strong but delicate pair of warm hands slipped into yours, stopping your train of thought. You cast your eyes upon your trustworthy friend and were immediately calmed down. He leaned near your face and whispered, “Don’t worry. You look beautiful tonight”, sending shivers down your spine. When he pulled away, he kept his eyes on you with the most caring, affectionate look he had ever had and caressed the back of your hands ever so gently, sending another wave of the tingling sensation.

The evening moonlight shone through the life-sized window and illuminated his perfectly proportioned face. A rush of warmth spread throughout your cold body, your heart slowly picking up its pace again. What was this surfacing feeling, this exciting and pleasant fondness? You were entranced by not only his beauty but also by his soft, passionate gaze. You couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at you that way, or the time he had ever looked at you with such warmth. He sent you a smile that matched his eyes before prying his eyes off of you, effectively beginning your silent desperate plea to have him have his eyes only on you but also effectively having the comfort and homeliness in your heart linger.

“Okay, I know your lover boy is next to you, but we’re right here.” Pulling you out of your trance, your friend sweetly smiled at your lost expression when your eyes landed on her. “I asked if you wanted an ice cream brownie sundae.”

With the image of Jaehyun still marked in your head, you mindlessly nodded. A light chuckle left the lips from an unexpected person. For the first time that night, you had your eyes on Mark.

“When did you guys first meet?” the younger boy asked with curiosity settling in his eyes.

The question had you startled. You hadn’t prepared for a question like that. Did you need to come up with some fake romantic story or not? You had no idea.

“Our professor had partnered us up,” Jaehyun spoke. “And she had my attention with her adorably weird mushroom t-shirt.” You heard your friend sigh in awe of the recount while you listened attentively. “After time had gone by, the feelings were platonic, but after going out with other girls and having her help me with them, I realized that no one knew me better or got my heart beating faster than she.”

Every single word had you anticipate the next. Every word that spilled out of his mouth sounded too good to be true, but they all sounded sincere. And the chance to meet the eyes of your steadfast friend came again. You heard your own heart beating. There it was, that longing gaze that drilled into your soul.

“But I didn’t think she had interest in me.”

His eyes darted back and forth, searching for a response--any response. You wanted to believe that he was speaking the truth, if those words were, in fact, his own feelings, because if he wasn’t, what you said next would have been very foolish of you.

“I did.”

The moonlight shone even more brightly and you didn’t have to look at Jaehyun to see it. The night whisked away with tales and laughter, your friend doing most of the talking. By the time everyone was ready to leave and Jaehyun and your friend were using the restroom, a newfound feeling of content sank in. Your new black-haired friend quietly drummed his fingers on the surface of the smooth marble counter, lightly bobbing his head to The Beach Boys playing in the stereo system. You admired his wonderful features and was reminded of his amazing personality. How someone could be as perfect as him yet still be a complete dork was unknown to you. And so were the feelings of strong yearning. They vanished into the starry night.

“‘Help Me, Rhonda’ is pretty good, isn’t it?”

At the sound of your voice, the younger boy casted his gaze upon you. A delighted smile appeared on his face as he said, “Now that would be an understatement.”

You laughed softly and joined him with his head-bobbing session, adding your feet by rhythmically tapping every second. When the other two came out, casually disrupting your quiet groove, you and Jaehyun naturally parted ways with the real couple. As the two of you headed for the beach to catch the last day of a firework event, the breeze carried on the tranquility of the night. Each step you took was light--you weren’t even reading into Jaehyun’s actions that night. You were simply content. Watching the brightly-colored fireworks crisply crackle, your hand bumping into Jaehyun’s every so now and then, you wished that feeling would last forever. When you pointed at your favorite pattern of fireworks and laid your arm to your side, instead of your knuckles bouncing off of Jaehyun’s, it was enveloped by the warmth of his hand. His eyes weren’t watching the fireworks anymore: they were concentrated on the serene waves of the glossy ocean. You stared at his impenetrable gaze.

“Did you,” he began to say, “did you really mean what you said back there? That you had an interest in me?”

He kept his gaze steadily on the waves. It was as if he didn’t want to see your reaction, yet was waiting for an answer. You squeezed his hand lightly.

“I did.”

The sound of the fireworks faded, taken over by the calm, chilly breeze. Jaehyun’s tender eyes met yours. Instead of being overwhelmed by the affectionate gaze, you returned it and with a smile. So there you two stood, staring at each other wordlessly with such attraction no one could deny. You watched Jaehyun’s eyes flicker down to your lips before retreating back to your eyes. Little by little, he inched closer to your face, no longer holding your gaze, but staring at your lips. And little by little, your heart picked up the pace, but you knew you had to break the elephant in the room, so you pressed your forehead against his and gave yourself a moment to say, “Jaehyun, we’re friends.”

And with your foreheads being the barriers to any other sort of skinship, he let out in a low, hushed voice, “Is that all we can ever be?”

He took your hands in his and swung them in small circles. Once the last bit of the fireworks ended, you called out his name so softly that it came out as a whisper, and you saw the sincerity and quiet desperation that filled his eyes. You slowly freed your fingers and let them under the purple strands of Jaehyun’s hair, smoothly combing through them. Then you let your hands linger onto his face, tracing his masculine features.

“You’re right,” you breathed out at last, locking your eyes with the patient man. “Your hair is the softest.”

The both of you broke into goofy grins, not long before you closed the gap of the space that was left in between.

...

The increasing chatter as you stepped out of your philosophy class and into the large hallway was fitting for the new semester, with the incoming freshmen buzzing with excitement and nervousness. It was at that moment when a pair of relatively large hands slipped into yours. You didn’t even have to spare a glance to see who it was--the sides of your lips instantly tugged upwards.

“Ready for that date?” a now tinted purple-haired guy announced.

A smirk found its way to your lips as you said, “Let’s go kick some ass.”

You and your four-month old boyfriend were on the way to a double date with Mark and your friend at the annual carnival downtown. The adorable couple laughed, had their hands all over each other, and whispered to each other, but your eyes were only glued to the man you loved, the man with the soft, fainted purple hair.

146 notes · View notes

weltonreject · 4 years

Text

if someday the moon calls you

|| inspired by this post: years after leaving las vegas, theo’s only companion is the moon. he speaks to it as if it was Boris, his lost badr al-dine || ao3

It wasn’t a ritual, Theo told himself, so it wasn’t weird. It wasn’t obsessive or anything perverse like that. Theo just didn’t have anyone else to talk to on the long days that outlasted Theo’s patience, then left him in an anxious solitude while Hobie turned in early-- and Kitsey was out with her roommate. Instead of picking up the phone and attempting to reconcile the reality that there was no number for Theo to punch in, he just opened his bedroom window and sat along the ledge.

He lit a cigarette and kicked off his shoes, opening a beer for himself and then another for the other side of the window. For the other side of the conversation.

“Hey, Boris.” Theo said, cupping his lighter’s flame. “Work sucked today. Not as bad as last week but still fucking terrible-- I’ve got this fucking asshole after me over a goddamn armoire. Listen man, it’s not my fault you fucking spent your retirement on a place to put your moth-eaten suit jackets. That’s on you.”

Theo coughed on his first inhale, laughing for himself. For them both.

“I’m sure it’ll all blow over soon. It’s a hassle more than anything. It’s so hard to get anything done when he’s always calling me in the shop-- Oh! Speaking of the shop-- you’ll get a kick out of this, Boris.”

The moon was full that night. All the stars accounted for, present and listening.

“This Polish couple came in today looking at some chairs. Kind of sweet, right? Old and married for probably their entire lives.” Theo wasn’t sure when he found such a thing endearing. When he was talking to anyone else, the thought terrified him. “And they’re speaking to each other in Polish, of course. And fuck if I remember anything you taught me now. I missed all of their sentences and what they were actually looking for-- they never told me! It’s not entirely my fault as a shit salesman-- but I did catch what this lady called her husband. It was, uh, it was that cookie thing you kept telling me about when we were cross faded and 'stuck' in your blankets for six hours... Fuck, uh, chrusciki. Is that how you say it?”

Theo paused, trying to remember the woman’s voice. It only came back to him as a very energetic and hungry teenage boy.

Theo took a long swig of his beer, not fully exhaling his cigarette drag. His chest itched, but he kept swallowing and pretending it was simply heartburn.

“And, well, semi-related to that: I had lunch with Kitsey today.” Theo paused again, biting the inside of his cheek. “The engagement party is next week. Yeah... can’t believe it either. I don’t remember asking her-- still not sure I did.”

Theo laughed and wished someone else would too. It was a joke. The world could laugh-- it was funny. Only Theo could tangle himself up so badly even he forgot where the lie started.

“I miss you a lot lately."

That part had gotten both easier and more difficult to say as the months wore on. Easy because it was the only bit of truth left in Theo's life, but impossible to stomach on the days Theo knew admitting it meant nothing except squeezing an already bleeding wound.

"I mean, I miss you all the time but it’s weird, getting married that is. It isn’t until I see Kitsey getting all her girlfriends together for drinks and game nights and shopping days that I... I start to realize that I’m lonely. That what I feel every day is just... loneliness. That it’s disappointment. That I just... really miss you, Boris.”

The moon seemed perfectly aligned with the window pane. Theo shifted the other, full beer bottle to fit more evenly in the moonbeam over them.

“I hope you’re doing okay, Boris. Last time we talked, I guessed you were back in Europe-- Spain, I think I said, right? Well, I hope Barcelona was fun. That you didn’t do anything too stupid, had some really good food, and didn’t wind up in a prison where you don’t know the language.”

Theo smiled, imagining Boris-- in his fuzzy, undefined Adult Way Theo always conjured up-- wandering around during Golden Hour and waving to every person passing by. He always had a persimmon in his hand for some reason, chomping and chewing behind his smile. Theo had no idea how to correctly prepare a persimmon, but he always imagined that it was knowledge New Boris would have and use daily. Something he’d immediately share upon their reunion.

“I’m sure you had a great time, as always. Can’t wait to hear all about it. Next week you’re going to, uh,” Theo paused. “New Zealand, right? Yeah. Have fun going back Under! I’d ask you to keep a journal or something but. We both know your handwriting is illegible; you’d end up reading it to me anyway.”

Giving Boris a continuing life was comforting-- something to picture when he tried to sleep at night, Kitsey’s arm resting over his chest and trying to still his heart-- but part of Theo knew it was too polished. Theo wasn’t giving Boris the proper life, wasn’t accounting for everything he could be doing out... wherever he was. Theo never considered that talking to the moon was the equivalent of talking to a dead man.

And he never would.

“When you’re finished in New Zealand, if you want to be still for a little, um, I always have room here.” Theo inhaled sharply through his nose-- nearly sniffling. “Popper would love to see you... Me too. Maybe you could talk me out of this mess. Fuck, if Platt or Kitsey or even Ms. Barbour met you they might just call the whole thing off. Name you as my best man and watch them all start freaking out.”

Theo couldn’t laugh. He was too close to crying.

“The wedding’s going to be open bar. You should come. It’s next year, early spring. I already saved you, you know, saved you a seat at one of the tables. Tried to get you as close to the bar as possible-- without being too obvious of course. I know you like to have a little discretion and class. I plan on having neither of those things, let me tell you. God, Kitsey is going to hate me for it but: What can I do? I’m getting married.”

To a woman hung at the edge of Theo’s tongue, being pulled back in as he took another drag from his cigarette. He could hear Boris placating his cyclical panic in the rustling of the trees and quiet breeze: Is not big deal, Potter. Are two boys, yes but-- Potter, would you shut up! Is not bad thing. Keep to self and I keep to mine. All fine. No girlfriends, very normal-- yes?

Even in having a girlfriend, Theo still hadn’t found that particular normal. He only felt it loitering behind him.

“I wonder if you meant all that back then.” Theo put his half-empty beer in front of Boris’s, as if the bottles could stare at each other. “You never let me feel used, you know that? Sure, we were doing weird shit together, but it always had a rationale. It was fine because we didn’t have any girls around, we were happy drunk, I’d had a bad day and you knew how much I liked sleeping close to you-- it was always explainable... It was always okay. I mean, it wasn’t. We were fooling around which, obviously, is the wrong idea about us both but--”

The wind stopped and the night hushed for Theo. It leaned back and let the moon lean in to listen more closely. He looked up to meet its gaze.

“Why is it when I don’t need an excuse or explanation to be with someone that I feel the most used?” The answer was obvious in the silence-- the absence of the answer. “What am I supposed to do, Boris? I don’t think I ever planned this far.”

Everything was just a plan of waiting; waiting until Boris turned up in New York so the rest of Theo’s life could pick up where it had splintered. But the waiting turned into irreversible actions when Theo was at his most destructive.

“This is what I get, right? Running away to be a New Yorker again when I so obviously was a far better Vegas burnout. I mean, I learned from the best after all.”

God, Theo hoped Boris was as far away from that desert as possible. Had a house and a steady income and someone who listened to all his ranting and raving-- and sometimes even put up with it.

Although, sometimes, the thought of Boris being with anyone else made Theo sick. He at least knew his on-coming marriage was a sham. Boris didn’t know how to love people dishonestly; if Boris was with anyone, it was because he had opened his heart and life to them. Just the way he had to Theo-- before he turned around and shut Boris out.

Theo picked up his beer again, nearly finishing the rest of it in one gulp. If Theo had planned better-- at least in this area of his life-- it would’ve been something stronger. He wouldn’t have been speaking in complete sentences anymore. His slurred incoherence would’ve lent itself to a near-livable dream where Theo was no longer talking to himself; he could’ve been staring at the moon and pretending it wasn’t just another light over a bustling city, but instead the same one that hovered over the blankets of sands that tried to soak Theo up when he was too young to know that heat wasn’t always warmth.

“I think I’m going to turn in soon, Boris, I... I think I need to lay down.” The window was going to remain open, beer still on the ledge. “As always I really... really wish you were here.”

Theo placed his feet back on the floor.

“Please be alive. And please come back to me. Soon as you can, okay?”

The muted brightness of the moon remained unwavering, and low, distant rumbling held off on any clouds. The sky was clear, the stillness breathing through the silent pause.

“Okay. Good night, Boris.” Theo stubbed his cigarette out at the feet of the full beer bottle. The condensation surrounding it caused the cigarette butt to hiss as it extinguished. “Stay safe.”

Well, and of course:

“I love you.”

#the goldfinch fic #boreo #boreo fic #my fics #oh this one was fun to write #short but really fun to just play around with the idea #i really like some of these lines i'm really happy with it #i hope y'all like it ty ily #OH WAIT WHAT IF THIS WAS A DIARY SERIES??????? hold on #like theo never writes the journal or the novel just.... talks to the moon every day #flash inspo series

90 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 4 years

Photo

The River of the Giant Alligator

A bunch of Italians pretending they’re not Italian in a movie about a guy who chose the wrong place to build a hotel… it’s like Avalanche by way of Devil Fish, with an alligator. And racism. You can’t have a 70’s Italian jungle movie without the racism, and this one layers it on real thick. I think The River of the Giant Alligator has its MST3K bases covered.

Rich Asshole Joshua has opened Paradise House, a resort in the middle of the ‘virgin jungle’. He proudly tells visitors that not only has he left the surrounding ecosystem undamaged, but he’s helping the local people by giving them jobs and improving their standard of living. Naturally it’s not as simple as that. Trouble begins when Sheena, the model they brought for their advertising photographs (just for a dash of Killer Fish), vanishes overnight. Photographer Daniel and hotel manager Ally go to the locals looking for her, and are told that the River God has awakened and intends to drive the white people away by assuming the form of a giant crocodile and eating them all. Considering how mind-bogglingly stupid the tourists in this movie are, that should take all of twenty minutes.

The locals, who call themselves the Kuma, have a name for their River God but it’s pronounced five different ways and I won’t guess how to spell it. Because of the deep breathing sounds that presage its first appearance, I shall call the creature Darth Gator.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. The whole movie is dubbed and the voice actors are bad. The Darth Gator prop is completely immobile but they mostly keep it in the dark or in really tight shots so we don’t notice… it’s only the occasional ill-advised wide shot where it’s obviously fake enough to be funny. There’s a spiky fence that exists mostly so that people can get impaled on it and a cloying little kid for no reason whatsoever. The ‘wildlife’ is a stock footage smorgasbord that includes orangutans and hippos on the same river. The worst effect in the film is a terrible miniature shot of the hotel on fire, which would have looked just fine if the people involved hadn’t forgotten that flames don’t scale.

So all that sucks, but is fairly harmless. Now let’s talk about the racism.

We’ll start with the movie’s treatment of its two ‘love stories’, and I use the floating commas because neither of them quite qualifies. Daniel and Ally are the main ‘couple’ of the movie. The camera lingers on each of them to show that he thinks she’s beautiful and she thinks he’s rugged, and they spend the whole movie hanging out on balconies and boats together and discussing whether the resort is good or bad for the local people… but they never get so much as a kiss. This is kind of nice, actually, because there’s very little time to stop and make out when you’re being chased by a large carnivorous reptile. It does, however, make for a hell of a contrast between them and the other ‘couple’ we see.

This is the model, Sheena, and her Kuma boyfriend. I am unclear on where this movie is set (the closest we get to a clue is Ally referring to the area as ‘the Orient’, which could honestly mean anything) but it’s perfectly clear that the reason they hired a black woman for their publicity photos is to make the place look ‘exotic’. There’s a weird moment when Joshua attempts to flirt with Sheena by telling her, “it occurs to me that Eve herself may have been black”, which… yes, that is how human evolution worked, what about it? All that aside, at the end of the day, Sheena runs off for a romantic evening with one of the tribesmen. We never see her talk to this guy or have any clue what made her pick him over any of the others. They just go fuck on a beach and then get eaten by an alligator.

So… we have blonde, blue-eyed white people having a perfectly chaste, wait-for-marriage love affair in which they actually get to know each other… and black people who run off with a stranger and screw out in the open like animals. Holy shit. I want to say I hope this wasn’t something the film-makers actively thought about, but it might be worse if they didn’t. Naturally, this is also a version of the ‘people who have premarital sex must die’ trope from slasher movies, and the movie makes doubly sure we know this is Bad Behaviour by having Ally remark that the Kuma are forbidden from visiting ‘the Island of Love’ on the full moon.

The deaths of Sheena and Nameless Kuma Guy also begin a pattern that lasts almost the entire movie. Even though we’re told, repeatedly, that Darth Gator wants to drive the white people out of his jungle, for the vast majority of the running time it’s the brown people who are getting chomped. We’re told that twelve white missionaries came here years ago and Darth Gator ate all but one of them, who then became a crazy jungle man (not gonna lie, Father Jonathan was my favourite character and I wish we’d seen more of him). We see Sheena, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s brother get eaten alive. Furthermore, most of the white deaths in the movie are at the hands of the Kuma, who run in and kill the tourists with spears and fire arrows in the belief that they’re doing their god’s bidding, and much of this happens offscreen. Those hit by the arrows quickly fall into the water and vanish from sight. The only time the camera lingers on a white person dying is Joshua, who I guess they think deserved it. The impression one gets is that white death is a horror better implied than shown, while brown death is a spectacle. Again… holy shit.

The River of the Giant Alligator can’t seem to decide what we’re supposed to think about the Kuma people. Early in the film they’re portrayed as victims. These foreigners have invaded their land and built this giant hotel, and claimed to be helping them by giving them ‘work’. Ally notes that they’ll be able to live longer, healthier lives, but Daniel wonders if it’s worth it when they’ve basically become Joshua’s slaves. The movie leaves this question hanging there without exploring it any further. When Daniel and Ally come looking for information about the alligator attacks, the Kuma direct them to Father Jonathan, knowing they’re more likely to believe a white man, even one who’s obviously not quite all there. The movie really wants to be about the exploitation of indigenous peoples, treated as decorations and curiosities by white tourists.

The problem is, it wants to eat that cake, too. By the end of the story, the Kuma have devolved into stock savages. They attack the hotel and kill everybody, and kidnap Ally so they can tie her to a horizontal King Kong contraption as a sacrifice. The ending just makes it all the more confusing, as they turn up to discover that their god has been blown to bloody chunks after biting into a van full of explosives, and they cheer and they just leave. Is it really that easy to kill a god? Won’t a dead god demand vengeance anyway? Does this mean they actually like the white people after all, and were only angry because Darth Gator was eating them?

The ending also muddles the movie’s other point, about the nature of eco-tourism. One of the selling points of Paradise House is that it’s in the middle of virgin jungle. Joshua brags about how he’s left the surrounding ecosystem untouched – but then we cut straight to trees being cleared using dynamite, and later we see live piglets being thrown into the river to keep the crocodiles hanging around so people can gawk at them. You can’t build a hotel in the middle of a place and then call it ‘virgin jungle’. You’re the one who violated it!

The script is a little unclear on whether Darth Gator is a natural or supernatural threat. Ally and Daniel insist that it’s no mere alligator (I don’t think this movie knows the difference between crocodiles and alligators any better than I do) and Father Jonathan seems to believe it’s the Devil Himself, but it certainly dies like a flesh-and-blood creature. Whatever its nature, it’s clear enough that Darth Gator represents the jungle striking back at these intruders to drive them out. The Kuma literally say as much. So what are we to take from the fact that it dies at the end? Have we won the right to destroy the forest by killing its guardian? I don’t believe the people who make these movies think this stuff through.

I can tell that we’re supposed to hate the tourists, and we do, although not always for the reasons the movie wants us to. Minnow, the red-haired little girl who ‘only likes to play with boys’, tries so hard to be Adorable that you want to punt her across the room. Her mother leaves her to wander around the hotel alone, because Mummy’s got a smarmy mustached boyfriend to bang (even this relationship gets more attention than Sheena and Unnamed Kuma Guy, by the way… we are told that Mummy and Mustache have met before, and are here mostly to see each other rather than the jungle). Other notable annoyances include a lady who seems perfectly sane until she starts talking about the aliens, and a guy who loves to complain about Youth These Days and will seize any opportunity to do so.

I kinda wanna gripe about these obnoxious characters, but I don’t feel like I can. You may recall that I spent a month stuck on a cruise ship earlier this year. I can tell you definitively that these people do exist, and I hate them even more in real life.

Man, this could have been a fun monster movie. I’ve seen movies about man-eating crocodiles (or alligators… does it honestly matter that much?) that I really enjoyed. Primeval wasn’t even that bad – it was about how humans are more monstrous than anything nature can produce. Lake Placid had that immortal bit where Betty White says if I had a dick, this is where I’d tell you to suck it. The River of the Great Alligator is just boring bullshit and things that seem kinda racist on the surface but then you think about them a little longer and realize they’re incredibly racist. I went into this one hoping to like it, but it absolutely pissed on the last shreds of my optimism... like a lot of other things in 2020.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the river of the great alligator #the great alligator #fuck this movie #fuck it so much #70s

25 notes · View notes

homespork-review · 3 years

Text

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck #Homespork

6 notes · View notes

thorne93 · 4 years

Text

Unforeseen Chasm (Part 71 - FINAL)

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together.

Word Count:2358

Warnings: epilogue of sorts, happy endings for all parties, super-powered children, fluffy ending

Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my novels). It’s a collaboration with the amazing @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo. It started as a funny “What if…?” and it evolved and got huge. This took two years to write. We are both proud and happy and we hope you enjoy it. It follows from Thor 1 to Endgame in the MCU. Some of the timelines may be off in order to fit certain people, and some characters may show up earlier or in different ways than they have in the movie. But for the most part, it follows the MCU. It also has a bit of crossover with some other Marvel characters throughout the story.

Side Note: We really hope you enjoyed the ride. We know this fic was long, and at times you may have been chomping at the bit to get to the next big adventurous part, but we feel like each part shows more of each persons character. Thank you for sticking with it, and we hope its everything you wanted in a story and more.

Masterlist for Unforeseen Chasm

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

Life moved forward, rather than lateral.

Steve returned the stones on time to their original timelines. He apparently spent a life with Peggy in one of them, but returned still fresh and young as always. He’d done this all before your wedding in fact.

Tony, Shannon, and Bruce stayed in their cabin that they’d built during the snap. It was a beautiful piece of property, with everything they’d wanted in a home, and had no desire to leave. All three of them could work from home, build their family, and they did so.

Tony said he retired from the hero game. Of course, if The Avengers or anyone needed him, he’d be there in a heartbeat, but for the most part, he was going to let the next generation take them on.

Shannon for the most part was a stay at home mom but if she was needed during an emergency or crisis she was the first one to get called to help. She also balanced a way to be with her kids while they attended Charles Xavier school by becoming a trainer for those who had powers similar to her vast collection of powers.

Bruce still did his research, driving into the city when need be, but Tony’s technology made it virtually needless to go in. He’d found a way to be able to marry Shannon but was still waiting for the right moment to ask her. He’d already spoken with Tony and was given the okay for it.

All four of their children were doing exceptionally well. Peter was top of his class at his graduation, valedictorian. Morgan was on the honor roll and even had a few of her own inventions that were up for funding. She was just as smart as her parents already. Natalia and Mason-Alexander (the twins) were turning three and showing signs that just like their parents they too had powers of their own completely different from their mother and unique to them.

When you and Loki returned to New Asgard from your honeymoon, your whole lives lay ahead of you. You had your physics that you could return to, perhaps starting a lab here, or maybe going back to New York. Loki could have stayed working with Strange at the sanctum, each of them protecting the time stone and other priceless relics. But neither of you had really thought about your future or work or anything. You’d been so busy living in the moment, in the now, you haven't given your future any thought, really.

Thor came to give you your wedding present.

“Welcome back,” Thor said happily as he and Valkyrie approached you from atop one of the roads back into town. The sea was on your right, down a steep grade, the mist washing up around your face.

“Thank you, it’s good to be back,” you replied as you held Loki’s hand.

“I’m glad to hear you say that, because I wanted to go ahead and give you your wedding present.”

You and Loki exchanged a look of anticipation.

“What would you say to being Asgard’s new King and queen?” he asked with a plucked up smile.

Your jaw nearly hit the floor.

“What? But--but, Valkyrie has been handling it. She’s been in charge, and you’re rightful heir. With Loki’s past and my--”

“Well, first of all,” Valkyrie started with a smile, “I’ve been in charge because I have to be, not because I want to be.”

“And it’s time for me to stop being who I think I’m supposed to be, and be who I’m meant to be,” Thor agreed. “I’ve already spoken with Valkyrie--”

“And we think it’s best if I step down, and restart the Valkyrie program. I could be the leader for your army.”

“I don’t know what to say,” you gasped. “I feel like we’re...stealing this from you. You deserve to be ruler,” you said with urgency.

“No, I think you two do,” she said with sincerity. “Loki risked his life for Asgard when Hela came. He saved its people, and you saved the universe, risking your life.”

“We will do this,” Loki suddenly said in a cool voice, his face looking defiant. “Only if,” he continued, before suddenly flashing a warm smile, “you agree to be our political advisor as well. We will need someone with experience to help us.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” she said with a dazzling smile.

After that day, it felt clear and right that being home with your Asgardian people was the best choice. Guiding them felt right, helping them make a better community felt good. You and Loki took the rank extremely seriously. It wasn’t just a role of royalty being handed down, but a way to honor his loving mother and your parents, and a way to give back to the people. Everyone was happy when you and Loki were crowned, and supported Thor in his endeavors as well. Valkyrie did her best and helped all the time to discuss and guide the issues of the community.

While being King and Queen was a full time responsibility, you felt you still had other debts to pay.

The Avengers training picked back up, but it got a few more recruits. Loki, you, Peter, and a few others had signed up for proper training. Once a good foundation was set for how you and Loki were running things in New Asgard, you would return to New York to begin your formal training. The agreement was that if New Asgard was in dire need, you’d return to it, but everything ran pretty much hands off in the community now.

On your first day, Pietro, Wanda, Sam, Bucky, Loki, Peter, Shannon, Carol, Scott, Hope, and Rhodey were all there.

Steve stood before you all, giving a quick speech about why you were here, what it meant to be an Avenger, and that being one didn’t mean you always saved the day. In the training room hung two portraits of Natasha and Vision, honoring their sacrifice for the fight to win back the universe.

Tony stood in the background, behind Steve. You wondered why he was here, but of course, his wife and son were there so naturally he wanted to be there to share the first day.

“With that being said,” Steve informed, a look of mischief crossed his face, “I’d like to give the first task to Bucky.”

Bucky frowned but walked forward anyway. All of you were equally confused.

“I’d like you to hold this shield, let me know how it feels,” Steve told Bucky with a bit of a grin.

“Feels heavy, and like it belongs to you,” he responded with a bit of shyness.

“Well, it doesn’t, it belongs to you now,” he said. With that, he turned to everyone. “In fact, this whole program belongs to all of you now. I’m retiring, and I think I'm leaving it in perfectly capable hands. Sam and Bucky will take over as the leaders of the operation, with Shannon overseeing it all. Recruits, it’s your job to follow their every instruction, it may not only save your life one day, but the universe too.” He shot you a tiny smile and nod, to which you returned. “As you know, Tony is retired, Clint has retired, Thor is out exploring the universe, and now with me, it’ll all be on all of you. I wish each of you luck. And as I once said to a very dear friend, no matter what. I promise you, if you need us, if you need me, I'll be there. Avengers, it’s time to assemble.”

He smiled to everyone, nodded once, then turned around. Tony put his hand on Steve’s shoulder as they walked out of the compound.

“Let’s go get lunch,” he said.

“You’re buying,” Steve responded. “I’m retired, gotta watch my budget.”

“Moocher,” Tony replied.

Sam and Bucky stood in front of the group.

“You guys heard him, hop to!” Sam ordered. “Let’s hit the gym everyone!”

With that, the group of you all walked over to the gym, with you and Loki hand in hand.

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

You and Loki were standing in the restored castle you’d found on the island, you on the balcony of the bedroom. Both of you staring out over the sparkling ocean. The two of you were on your scheduled vacation from Avengers training, and Sam and Bucky respected that you did have a small nation to lead.

Life continued on for all of you. When you weren’t training at the compound, you and Loki took trips to the sanctum to have tea with Stephen and Wong. Sometimes, for an extended weekend, you’d visit Clint and his family. Wanda visited you in New Asgard a few times, and the two of you would go out on the town, and sometimes Shannon would come, bringing Morgan with her - it’d turn into a girls day out.

Bucky, Sam, you, and Loki all got rather close as well. You all enjoyed practicing combat and Bucky seemed to really enjoy the knife fighting with Loki - those two gave each other a run for their money. A few times, all of the Avengers shared a movie night, a bowling night, a trivia night. Steve and Bucky beat everyone in history, for the most part.

If you weren’t training or helping out Tony and Bruce at Stark Industries with some of your physics knowledge, then you spent time with Shannon and her family. Tom and Diane adored being grandparents, and you and Loki spoiled the kids. It was absolute heaven. Life had finally become happy. It was far from normal, but it was filled with love and happiness, and that’s all you ever wanted.

“You look radiant, my queen,” he mused from behind you as he wrapped his hands around your waist.

“Thank you,” you said blissfully as you stared out. “Would you have done anything differently?” you asked.

Loki rounded around you and got in front of you, putting his hands on the small bump on your stomach. “Of course not, why would you ask that?”

You shrugged simply. “Sometimes I wonder if, well perhaps if you felt trapped or stuck with me. When I jumped after you all those years ago, we weren’t dating. We hadn’t even shared our first kiss yet. So I wonder if perhaps you chose me by default.”

He gave you a soft smile as he stared at you, his hands going to either side of your face. “Y/N, I had thousands of years before we met again to look for someone else. I had ample opportunity to leave you after our imprisonment. I’ve never wanted anyone but you, that has never changed, and it never will.”

You nodded, understanding him. As long as he knew he did have a choice in this, that was all you wanted.

“I’ve wondered the same thing, though. If your decision to jump was made in haste, and after all that time, you just felt as if I were your best option. As if perhaps, if you didn’t stay with me, jumping, losing your freedom, and everything else that went with it, would’ve been for nothing,” he admitted.

“You did?”

He nodded. “Yes. It ran through my mind a few times that maybe if I didn’t propose on the day I came back if you would’ve weighed your options with Remy some more. So one day, I asked Stephen what all those possibilities looked like. Out of those 14 million outcomes, how many of them you chose me in.”

“And?” you breathed, curious to find out, your heart beating rapidly.

“All of them,” he assured with a twinkle in his eye. “He told me that out of all of the futures, you loved me in every one of them, and chose me time and time again.”

You gave him a warm smile. “I’m not surprised,” you mused. “Maybe we should ask him about the future of this little Asgardian,” you said with a bit of a laugh.

“We don’t need him to tell us that future. I already know we will give them everything we always wanted,” he vowed. “I promise.” He got up and kissed you firmly. “Between the two of us, there’s nothing we can’t conquer. Besides, between us, The Starks, Thor, and the other Avengers, this baby will already have ten times the family we did growing up. This baby will be more loved and spoiled than any in existence.”

“Mm, I like the sound of that,” you hummed happily. “I love you,” you quietly said as you stared at him.

“And I love you, Y/N,” he promised with the warmest grin you’d ever seen.

“We’d better get down there,” he reminded. “Shannon and the rest of them just got here. They’ll be waiting on us.”

In just a few minutes, your world would change again, letting in your loved ones on your happy news.

Shannon, Bruce, and the rest of the Starks came to visit you all. You hadn’t told anyone you were pregnant yet, it was to be a surprise. You couldn’t wait for her reaction though, because Loki was right, you knew as a sister she’d go absolutely off the walls happy for you, but not to mention so would several other people that were now family to you.

What seemed like lifetimes ago, Tony, Bruce, were nearly strangers. You all were friends, but nothing compared to what you’d gone through now. Heck, all of the Avengers. People you regularly spoke to, worked with, and relaxed with were once people you hardly knew. Now you couldn’t imagine your life without them (sadly, some of them you didn’t have to imagine, thanks to the snap). They completed your world, they completed you.

This baby, and you and Loki for that matter, had a home, had people who cared for you and loved you deeply. In fact, you had multiple places to call home: the compound, the Stark Cabin, New Asgard.

And you owed it all to your best friend Shannon, and the love of your life Loki - they were your better halves.

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

Tag List:

@essie1876

@magpiegirl80

@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked

@iamwarrenspeace

@marvel-imagines-yes-please

@superwholocked527

@missinstantgratification

@thejemersoninferno

@rda1989

@munlis

@thefridgeismybestie

@bubblyanarocks3

@igiveupicantthinkofausername

@kaliforniacoastalteens

@feelmyroarrrr

@kaelingoat-blog

@friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo

@damalseer

@heyitscam99

@yknott81

@sorryimacrapwriter

@glitterquadricorn

@xxqueenofisolationxx

@little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama

@bittersweetunicorm

@alyssaj23

@sea040561

@princess76179

@thisismysecrethappyplace

@sarahp879

@malfoysqueen14

@ellallheart

@breezy1415

@marvelmayo

@random-fluffy-pink-unicorn

@cocosierra94

@hardcollectionworldtrash

@capsmuscles

@marvelloushamilton

@paintballkid711

Loki:

@lostinspace33

@ultrarebelheart

@lenawiinchester

@esoltis280

@tngrayson

@wangdeasang

@harrymewmew

@jayfantasyatyourservice

UC:

@lokis-high-priestess

26 notes · View notes

thedeevirus · 4 years

Note

Sugar daddy AU, except the opposite of what people normally do. Edward is the rich, older man and Oswald is the young boyfriend.

Professor Ed Nygma is set up with a ‘sugar baby’ by his Gotham U colleague Professor Kristen Kringle but things don’t go according to plan…

Added to Nygmobblepot Ficlets on AO3

Hope you enjoy! But no prizes for knowing which song they’re playing on the piano LOL

***

‘Eddie?’

‘Huh?’

Ed flicked the whistling kettle off and Kristen obligingly repeated what he had missed.

‘I said, “I’m really sorry the date with Isabella didn’t work out”’.

Ed shrugged offhandedly as he sat beside Kristen on his couch. The weekly ritual of ‘Tuesday Tea Time’ after work at his apartment was somehow cleansing after the uncomfortable atmosphere of the previous evening. It had been the latest in a long line of blind dates Kristen had arranged for him. One of the only aspects of cold comfort was that it had been far from the worst one. Another was that his attempts at romance had, so far, stayed out of the vortex of campus gossip.

‘Me too’, Ed said, offering her a cookie, ‘It was just too weird’.

Kristen dunked the cookie in her tea, shaking her head.

‘Yeah, maybe not the best week for my darling sister to experiment with red hair dye or forget her contact lenses’. She held up the gingerbread man,nodded in approval at the creamy afro she had given it and bit its head off. ‘Unless she did it on purpose to mess with you. Wouldn’t be the first time come to think of it’.

‘Funny, she never mentioned that’.

‘Does she really wear it better? Be honest’.

‘Wait, you’re not a natural redhead?’ Ed said, hand held to his chest, aghast, ‘What other dark secrets are you hiding from me Professor Kringle?’

‘Very funny Professor Nygma’, Kristen said, chomping down hard on the cookie’s disembodied legs.

‘Anyway’, Ed said, ‘How are you doing on the romance front?’

‘Um, good’, Kristen smiled conspiratorially.

Ed raised an eyebrow and Kristen flashed an ‘ok’ sign with her fingers.

‘Very good actually’, she said with a cheeky wink.

‘Intriguing’, Ed smirked, ‘Anyone I know?’

‘Nope but he did have a friend I thought would be perfect for you’.

‘Really? Right now I’d settle for someone to take an extra concert ticket off my hands’.

‘I’m really sure this time! Can feel it in my gut!’

Ed laughed at Kristen’s sudden fervour.

‘Okay, okay!’ he said, resigning himself to yet another of Kristen’s attempts at matchmaking, ‘What are they like?’

‘You’ll see’.

‘Wait what’s that supposed to m-?’

The sound of the doorbell interrupted his sentence.

‘Oh jeepers look at the time!’ Kristen suddenly cried.

‘Kristen?’ Ed asked, instantly realising the doorbell and Kristen hastily grabbing her bag were connected, ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing Eddie! I’m just dandy! Just need to head home and,uh…’

‘Think of an excuse for why you’re suddenly rushing out of my apartment?’ Ed deadpanned.

‘Exactly!’ she said brightly, pulling on her coat, ‘I’ll see you in the cafeteria tomorrow as usual breakfast buddy! Bye!’

She opened the front door and swept into the hallway like a tornado. Ed went to the door and was able to overhear a few seconds of barely audible conversation on the other side before he opened it. A young man dressed in a smart black suit was waiting outside, hand raised as if prepared to knock. To his credit, he recovered well.

‘Hello Mr Nygma’, the young man said, ‘My name is Oswald. I believe you’re expecting me?’

Ed, suddenly confronted with Kristen’s latest machination straight out of the 50’s sitcoms she enjoyed, decided he would also attempt a good recovery.

‘I suppose so’, he smiled and opened the door wide, ‘Please, come in’.

Oswald entered the apartment and Ed closed the door behind him.

‘Can I get you something to drink or…?’ Ed began but trailed off when he turned around.

Oswald was undoing his bow tie and licking his lips.

‘No thank you’, he said breathlessly, ‘B-but I would love something to…eat’.

As Oswald approached, hips swaying suggestively, Ed backed up against the door. Not out of fear but utter disbelief. When his supposedly massive intellect failed to provide him with a counter strategy to Oswald advancing on his position, he simply went to the source.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

Oswald halted, brow furrowed. Ed relaxed, about to proceed with followup enquiries but Oswald’s confusion did not last long.

‘Oh?’ Oswald said, lustful expression slipping effortlessly back onto his face, ‘Would you prefer things this way?’

He took hold of Ed’s limp hands and fixed them to his shirt. He abruptly pulled his arms apart, causing the shirt to tear open. Ed was begrudgingly impressed that not a single button popped off.

‘Heck yes I would’, Ed bluffed, moving his hands to Oswald’s shoulders.

Oswald’s eyes darted to Ed’s hands and now Ed was sure. Oswald’s demeanour was a front. He didn’t want to be here any more than Ed had been expecting him. But then why was he here by Kristen’s invitation?

‘Then…give it to me. R-right now!’

Ed bit back a laugh. What Oswald had intended as an order had come out sounding more like a child throwing a tantrum. It was oddly endearing how hard he was trying to be someone he wasn’t. Ed could sympathise with the smokescreen.

‘Give it to you?’ Ed asked, ‘Is that what you want? Really?’

‘It’s all I want’, Oswald begged, half-hooded eyelids fluttering, ‘Please, please, give it to me. Please. Please’.

Ed held up a hand to silence the increasingly frantic litany of ‘pleases’. It was time to put them both out of their collective misery.

‘You’re not gonna blink are you?’ Ed sighed.

‘Y-you mean close my eyes?’

‘No. Come on, let’s have some tea. And button your shirt’.

‘I am so embarrassed right now’.

Oswald’s head rose from where it had been resting in his hands to nod gratefully for the mug of tea Ed was offering.

‘Nothing to be embarrassed about’, Ed said reassuringly, pouring milk into his own cup, ‘I really was tempted for a minute. It’s, uh, been a while. I just didn’t realise Kristen knew that. Humbling’.

He cleared his throat as he sat down at the kitchen table, across from Oswald.

‘So what stopped you?’ Oswald asked.

‘How uncomfortable you were’.

Oswald rubbed the back of his head, discomfited. Ed offered him one of the gingerbread cookies as consolation. Oswald took it and dunked it head first. Ed wondered if Kirsten chose all of his prospective romantic partners by comparing how they dunked their cookies compared to her.

‘I’m really sorry for wasting your time’, Oswald sighed.

‘Don’t worry, you’re not. We may as well use the time Kristen paid you for. She saw your ad in the library?’

‘The agency’s got them up all over Gotham U’s campus. Prime recruitment ground’.

‘I never noticed’.

‘Think we’ve established you weren’t looking’.

‘Do you always come on that strong to clients?’

‘Actually, it’s, uh, my first day. I work as a waiter and a friend told me being a sugar baby was a good way to make extra cash’.

‘A what?’

‘You heard the first time’, Oswald sighed, eyes closing resignedly.

‘Like a-’ Ed halted for a second until he found an appropriately polite turn of phrase. ’-‘companion’ for hire?’

‘People hire them…us for all kinds of things’, Oswald shrugged, ‘Your friend Ms Kringle called and said to make you ‘feel special’ so I tried my best’.

‘Not into men?’

Oswald’s fingers drummed on the sides of his cup.

‘Not into anything actually. I thought it would be an advantage. That it would make the ‘hard core’ stuff easier but it didn’t. Not that you’re not aesthetically pleasing!’

‘Thanks’, Ed chuckled, waving a hand to show he was not offended.

‘No, thank you’, Oswald said sincerely, ‘I’ll refund this session when I get home. I don’t think I’m cut out for this line of work’.

‘Why?’ Ed said gently, ‘I’m getting exactly what I needed’.

‘But…we’re just talking’.

‘Kirsten’s an excellent lecturer in Library Sciences, an even better friend (albeit an overconfident matchmaker) but she’s always so busy and we don’t have the same hobbies. That’s great, don’t get me wrong, it’s good that people are different but sometimes I would just like to share my more intimate interests with someone’.

‘I thought this was going too well’, Oswald said with mock apprehension, ‘This is when you show me your sex dungeon, isn’t it?’

Ed burst out laughing. Oswald was proving to be full of surprises.

‘Much more mundane than that’, Ed said, ‘Not that you’ll be disappointed at the lack of one. Do you play video games?’

‘Not many’, Oswald admitted, ‘They’re an expensive habit’.

Ed indicated the piano against the far wall and asked, ‘What about music?’

Oswald sat down and pressed a key with one long finger.

‘My mother taught me but I’m a bit out of practice’.

Ed sat beside him, positioned both hands over the keys and began to play one of the tunes scheduled for the concert that weekend. After only a few notes, Oswald nodded in recognition.

‘I actually know this one’.

‘Jump in whenever you like’, Ed invited.

Oswald obliged immediately and Ed’s jaw dropped at the nimble harmony joining his own. He had never played with anyone before and as Oswald began to softly sing along, he thought he could get used to doing it more often.

‘It’s hard to let it go…’

Oswald trailed off as their fingers brushed against each other. Ed swallowed at the way Oswald’s pale cheeks coloured beneath his glass green eyes. Ed slowly stopped playing, letting the song come to an organic end as Oswald clasped both hands in his lap thoughtfully. It was strange. Oswald was a little older than his university students but sometimes he could seem so vulnerable.

‘You’re not that much out of practice’, Ed said.

‘You teach music?’ Oswald asked.

‘Forensic science. Very different ivories’.

He swelled with pride when the joke got a genuine laugh from Oswald. All it usually got was bemused confusion or ‘dadjoke’ groans from his students. It was so nice to see him relaxed. Ed’s eyes drifted to the tickets resting on top of the piano and, emboldened by how well things were going on this ‘not date’, he made the offer.

‘Do you feel like taking in a concert this weekend?’ Ed asked, ‘It’s the Gotham Symphony. On the clock of course’.

‘You mean it?’

‘I insist on it. Meet me here at six and I’ll include dinner before we head out, sound good?’

Oswald sniffed hard.

‘Dinner and a show sounds great Mr Nygma’, he replied.

‘Please, call me Ed’.

‘The customer’s always right, Ed’.

#nygmobblepot #nygmobblepot ficlet #edward nygma #Oswald Cobblepot #sugar daddy au

45 notes · View notes

iheardarumorxxx · 4 years

Text

Midnight Sun, Chapter 9 - Port Angeles

Right. I remember this chapter from Twilight. I also have heard quite a bit about this chapter. This is gonna be a ride.

Eddie starts off this chapter saying that he used to be the ‘responsible’ one. I would like to remind everyone that Edward Anthony Masen Cullen spent a few years eating people he percieved to be horrible criminals because he didn’t like animal blood and was being a whiny baby. But go off, Eddie.

SM is still trying to paint Jessica as a rude bitch and I still don’t buy it. It is extremely clear to anyone with eyeballs that Mike has a thing for Bella, and it is pretty obvious that this date he’s going on with Jessica is because Bella said no. So her thoughts come off as insecure. She’s a teenage girl, so I think insecure is a pretty standard thing. Not always, but SM has painted these kids as the stereotypical teens, so.

Basically, I still don’t buy the attempt to make Jessica seem evil.

Bella has wandered off to go get that book she wanted, and Eddie is simply freaking out because he let his daughter out of his sight for one minute and she wandered off. He’s about half a second away from considering getting a leash to put on her. Seriously, though, that’s how this reads. A parent frantic because they lost their child in a crowded store or park. We all know she’s gonna get a serious scolding for this one. Maybe even grounded.

a volly of snarls erupted from my throat

Okay, we’re still not to the big rant about vampire instincts in this universe, yet, but I want you guys to remember this for later. It absolutely aides in the point I plan to make there. Also a ‘volly’ of snarls. That sounds so forced and I genuinely laughed out loud when I read it. Anyway, Eddie has found Bella and she is with the Evil Bad Guys Who Have Ill Intentions.

I would see how he enjoyed the hunt when he was the pray. I would see what he thought of my style of hunting.

Technically a spoiler because it hasn’t happened yet in this book, but not because we’ve seen it in Twilight. Eddie literally does not do anything to this Lanny guy or his friends. He gets out of the car, makes a mean face at them, and then gets back in the car and drives off. Maybe SM has Eddie go back out and hunt them later after he drops Bella off, but that doesn’t fit in with his squeaky clean good boy persona that Daddy Carlisle puts on him, so I doubt it. The scene as we know it comes off as very ‘man, if my girlfriend wasn’t here I’d kick your ass’. Because Eddie is a lot of bloated, puffed up talk.

When SM uses dialogue tags like ‘ordered’ to describe how Eddie says things, it just really hammers home that point I’ve been making about red flags. Even if it’s practical, like him telling Bella to put on a seat belt, especially since Pires bend the will of cars to their inane and idotic physics.

We went on a tangent about one of Eddie’s kills from his Vampire Batman days, and like honestly? I watch a lot of Criminal Minds. I see a lot of this kind of stuff, and it is absolutely awful that people like that exist in the world. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be stopped. HOWEVER, this idea Eddie has that he was playing a good guy by taking justice into his own hands, I don’t jive with that. Now, I am aware of how faulty the criminal justice system is, especially with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. I’ve lived that, myself. But if Eddie is so comfortable taking another life, no matter how he tries to justify it, he is no better than the people who he’s deciding to kill for their crimes.

a highly justifiable murder

See, this. This is why I don’t buy that SM’s Cullens are the paragons of good that she is constantly trying to say they are. There is no such thing as a justifiable murder, no matter what. Solving heinous acts with heinous acts simply perpetuates a cycle of heinous acts.

I wasn’t giving her a chance to say no.

This is a trend that will continue throughout the entire series. I will point you to all of the times that Edward never gave Bella a choice in a matter, including leaving her in New Moon, and DISMANTLING HER CAR ENGINE IN ECLIPSE SO THAT SHE COULDN’T GO SEE HER FRIEND. That one in particular rubs me the wrong way for reasons, but we won’t do that here. Just know that Edward never actually lets Bella make a choice in this series, and even when he pretends to, he does everything in his power to make the outcome go his way.

And now we’re at the restaruant. I’ve heard some stuff about this scene and god, can I not WAIT, but for now, let’s just talk about the one off waitress character. She is clearly only here to be a rival to Bella for this scene. Brief, unimportant, underdeveloped. And honestly? One off characters don’t actually need that development, not really, but what I can’t stand about this one is that she is literally only here, both in this book and in Twilight, so that SM can puff up how clearly Bella is so much better than she is. Because, you see, Eddie doesn’t find the pretty hostess attractive, he only has eyes for Bella. Her entire point is so that Edward can look at Bella, and therefore, the audience as Bella is their SI for this world, and go on about how much better and prettier and more perfect she is than this woman. It’s just gross.

“Do I dazzle you?”

This is still, in my personal opinion, the best and most iconic line in a series full of iconic lines. Eddie the Dazzle Machine. Charming the pants off people when he’s trying to scare the shit out of them. It’s hilarious, and so fuckin’ romance novel cliche, and I love it.

This restaurant is apparently a real place in the real Port Angeles. And from what I understand, at least when the Twilight craze was in full swing back in 2008, they got a lot of extra business and a lot more people ordering the mushroom ravioli. Even put something about Twilight on their menu. Good for them, taking advantage of that free marketing. I have never been to Port Angeles, and am allergic to mushrooms, so I can’t say I’ve experienced the dish, but if any of you have, please let me know if it’s worth the hype.

Its so funny that right now, Eddie is worried about Bella being cold and going into shock, while Bella is over there huffing the fumes off his jacket like it’s a paint can, and he can’t even tell that that’s what she’s doing. The girl is doing everything short of just shoving her whole face in it and inhaling, but he’s too thick to get it.

And here we are folks. The meat and potatoes of this chapter. The big comparison. The reason the cover has a pomegranete on it. Edward Anthony Masen Cullen has the absolute GALL to compare Bella, the boring, walking video game avatar to Persephone. Lets break down Persephone for a second here. There’s a lot to break down, but let’s stick to the basics, for fear that this rant gets wickedly out of hand before I can stop it. Persephone radiates optimism and hope. Persephone is soft, sweet, but has a temper that could kill a man. Persephone is sympathetic. When in the ever loving FUCK has Isabella Swan ever shown any of those characteristics? She is NEVER optimistic about anything. She fucking exists in a constant cloud of negative thought and assuming the worst. She isn’t hopeful about ANYTHING, not even her future with her PRECIOUS Eddie because she’s always questioning his intentions and feelings for her. She is not sympathetic in the slightest, no matter what SM tries to shove down my throat. She treats her friends like shit, she manipulates and lies her way through conversations so she doesn’t have to deal with them, she compares Mike to a FUCKING DOG. Bella is not comparable to Persephone, and it’s fucking beyond ham-fisted, it’s fucking EGREGIOUS to try to make that comparison.

I could see more of an argument for comparing Eddie to Hades, since, ya know, Hades fucking stole Persephone to be his wife and most stories about Hades paint him as kind of a moody, brooding dickbag, but I’m still calling fucking foul on this attempt at comparison, SM. No dice.

Moving on.

Eddie describing Bella’s skin as ‘velvety’ gives me war flashbacks to those grocery store checkout novels with Fabio on the cover that my mom used to read. Eghhh.

So, Bella touches Eddie’s hand and it’s described in a way that gives me very G-rated sex vibes. Which just makes me wanna tell them to get a room because they’re in public right now, and also don’t do that in front of Bella’s salad ravioli.

Eddie is still being super controling and weird about Bella eating, and honestly, I super wish that Bella had had the good sense to get the hell out of there with Jess and Angela. Or that she would have the good sense now to excuse herself, find someone on staff, ask to borrow a phone, and call her dad. Because this guy is literally throwing out every red flag that exists. I know I say this a lot, but if Bella were a normal girl, she would not be charmed by this guy, she would be freaking creeped out and trying to get away from him. He isn’t even subtle about his creep factor or charming enough to play it off.

Edward thinking he has any edge at all is like white bread thinking it’s the right kind of bread for a hamburger.

Anyway, chapter ends with Eddie paying the bill and the pair getting in the car to head home. And the drama chord of the last sentence that’s supposed to play in your head when you read it falls flat. They’re on the way back to Forks and Eddie is chomping at the bit to hear Bella’s latest theory that we know from Twilight isn’t actually a theory so much as she heard a story from Jacob and then did some searching on some shitty Angelfire website. Or Geocities. Either way. And then she just went ahead and had a big old prophetic dream about it.

Next time, we get the awkward car ride home and more. Thanks for hanging around guys. As always, feel free to message me (though, please note to anyone who has sent me anon messages that are rude or angry because I’m making fun of this book, I’m gonna ignore you.), recommend what books I should put on my list for my next recap series, and feel free to buy me a snack using the CashApp tag in my bio.

See you next time, babes.

#sierra recaps stuff #midnight sun #midnight sun spoilers #midnight sun recap #twilight #ms chapter 9

8 notes · View notes

adramaticbeauty · 5 years

Text

You killed me Min. You killed me :') But thank you for my first ever ask girl, even though it was out of pity😂

Enjoy❤

Double Date?

Gruvia/Nalu drabble

Don’t you think Gray and Juvia have been getting a lot...closer lately?" Lucy questioned as she stared at the pair across the guild.

Juvia was blabbering away as Gray tried to look uninterested but nodded, confirming he was.

“It just seems like we haven’t heard from him in a while since he’s always around Juvia now. I wonder why that is.”Lucy hummed.

"I don't know, but whatever it is I'm glad it's keeping ice freak away. He'd stay away if he knew what was good for em'."Nastu grumbled out as he chomped on another chicken bone.

Lucy sighed. He just didn't get it. Lucy suspected the lack of Gray around was because him and Juvia were dating. All the clues pointed to it! After all, Gray and Juvia would always walk out the guild at the same time, and would even go on missions together. Of course he would still talk to her and Natsu, but he seemed different. He seemed...happier.

It was like he was a different person now. Like he would smile a lot more often. A genuine smile. And that might be because of love. What if Juvia and Gray were doing more than going on missions and walking home together? Lucy smiled as a mischievous idea popped in her head.

"Natsu, do you want to help me spy on Juvia and Gray to see if they are dating? Anything… even a kiss on the cheek will confirm my suspicions."

Natsu made a disgusted face as he swallowed his huge bite of chicken.

" Gray dating? No way! He wouldn't. He's too stubborn to ever date Juvia. Besides he's taking so long with Juvia, I wouldn't be surprised if her love faded away by now."Nastu snickered.

Lucy bopped him on the head with the Sorcerers' magazine she was reading earlier.

"You're lucky I didn't leave with how long you took! Everyone suggested I move on with my love for you because you were so oblivious!"

Lucy glared, shaking her head in disappointment.

Natsu growled as he glared back." How was I supposed to know you liked me when you're always hitting me!"Natsu retorted.

Lucy blushed and averted her eyes away from Nastu's gaze. She did always overreact a bit...she would have to get better with that.

" Anyway I think Juvia and Gray are dating, and I'm going to get proof. Are you in?" Lucy asked, still watching Gray and Juvia in the corner of her eye.

"I don't think they are dating. It will just be a waste of time!" Natsu frowned crossing his arm.

"How about...we make a bet on it? I will give you 100 jewels if I'm right, and you give me 100 if I'm right." Lucy suggested, with a smirk on her face.

Natsu thought about it for a second before giving his signature grin.

"You're on!"

Gray closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. He had hardly been listening to Juvia as he racked his brain for a way he could ask her out. Of course Juvia had always been the one to ask to go with him somewhere, but he had always agreed as friends. This time he wanted to ask her out himself. In a...romantic sense. Not as friends.

And he needed her to understand that after everything she had done for him, he would start taking her more seriously,as he promised. It already took him long enough to realize something very important. He loved all of Juvia. From the way she bit her upper lip when she was nervous, or how she cutely puffed out her cheeks when she was slightly annoyed, he finally understood that he really loved this woman.

She was selfless,confident, loving and everything about her was gorgeous. Something he had tried not to notice for a while. He had always turned a blind eye to it. He had constantly fought his feelings for her.

But he had to take this opportunity to claim her before she was taken away forever. He would never forgive himself if that were to happen. Gray had even decided on the place he would ask her to go. The aquarium. He knew Juvia would like it since she adored animals. Plus water. Like, duh.

He had been planning to ask her all day but he didn’t have enough courage. He knew she would say yes but it was...embarrassing. And he couldn't help but think of the worst possible scenario.

“ And then the puppy bit Juvia! But of course she couldn’t get mad because he was just too cute! So when-”

“Hey...uh, Juvia?”

“Huh? Oh,yes Gray~sama?”

Her gleaming sapphire eyes turned to look at him, and Gray felt his throat go dry. The nervousness grew in the pit of his stomach, eating him alive.

” Do you want to...go to the um...I mean-”

“Oh, Gray~sama an aquarium opened near the park! Did you want to go with Juvia?"

Gray’s mouth dropped open, but he quickly closed, determined to keep his cool.

"I mean there’s nothing else to do around here. Sure.”

Gray mentally face-palmed after he heard the words that flew out of his mouth. Why did he always have to make it seem like he was disinterested in everything?

As the pair got up to exit the guild, Lucy was silently following them with her eyes.

”Natsu! They’re leaving!! Let’s go!” Lucy excitedly shook the sleeping dragon slayer.

”Lucy stop- Alright I’m up geez!”

As Juvia and Gray walked down the cobblestone street toward their destination, Lucy and Natsu trailed behind. They occasionally hid behind a tree or bush they came across. She always had to pull Natsu down to hide with her,since he wasn't one for stealth.

Gray and Juvia finally came to the front of the building to pay for their tickets. Gray asked for 2 tickets and as Gray was about to pay, Juvia touched his forearm and gave him her sweetest smile.

" Don't worry Gray~sama. Juvia will pay for herself."

"But Juvia I can-"

"Gray~sama, it's fine."

She then handed the man some jewels she grabbed from her purse and collected her ticket. Gray sighed. The date was already not going the way he thought it would. That's if Juvia even knew it was a date. What if she didn't know it was a date, and thought it was just another friendly outing?

Gray internally moaned. Why did things have to be so hard when it came to Juvia? He had to tell her.

"Hey Juvia-"

" Come on Gray~sama! Juvia wants to see the fish!" She was excitedly jumping up and down, her curls bouncing behind her.

He just sighed and smiled to himself.

Lucy was hiding in a bush as she saw Gray and Juvia walk in the pale white building. Lucy gasped as she patted her pockets in desperation.

"Natsu, I left my money at home! Do you have some to pay for the tickets? I promise I'll pay you back for mine."

Lucy glanced over to Natsu as she seen him glaring through the bushes. He answered without even turning to look at her.

"Hell no. I spent all my jewels on food at the guild. Remember that chicken bone? I had to pay for it somehow."

Lucy groaned in irritation.

"Seriously what are you even good for!"

"Hush Lucy. I'm thinking of a plan to get us into that building."

Then Nastu's eyes lit up as a mischievous grin graced his lips. Lucy flailed her arms in panic.

"No Natsu! Whatever it is, I don't wanna!"Lucy whined in retaliation.

"Too late now." He said, as he slung a squirming Lucy over his shoulder.

"Let's go, Lucy!"

Juvia gasped as she looked around in awe. She ran up to the glass and pressed her small button nose against it, peering into the blue colorful mass of water. She had a glint of wonder in her eyes as if she were a kid.Gray smirked as he observed her. It was funny that Juvia still acted as if she had never seen water or fish before, yet she was a water mage.

"Gray~sama look! Juvia sees a shark!" Juvia pointed excitedly at the glass. Gray squinted through the water, and looked for any signs of movement.

He then spotted the gray blur.

"Oh yeah, that's a mako shark."

Juvia giggled in amusement, a sound that made his stomach fill up with butterflies.

"It's funny, because Juvia never really liked sharks." She whispered more to herself than Gray.

She smiled slightly looking into the crystal blue water.

"Really? I think they are pretty cool." Gray shrugged.

"Of course you do, Gray~sama. They are kinda like you! A bit mean acting, and bites a lot!" Juvia covered her mouth to hold back a giggle.

"Hey! I'm not that mean…sometimes..."Gray struggled retort.

" Of course not Gray~sama. Juvia was only kidding." She smiled and sent him a playful wink.

Gray scoffed with a roll of his eyes but hecouldn't hide the smile creeping on his face. Juvia looked forward, still watching the brownish shark glide through the water.

" Sharks tend to feed on fish that are weak, sick or injured. Even if that is the food chain, Juvia doesn't like it." She glanced down at the floor and smiled to herself.

" It reminds Juvia of her time in the orphanage. When the little boy's used to pick on Juvia for her rain she couldn't control. Or when the headmistress would punish Juvia because she flooded the crops a lot. Juvia was definitely weak back then…" She trailed off.

She still had that slight smile on her face, but her face was twisted in a hint of sadness. Gray could tell this was getting hard for her. He had forgotten about her bad past at the orphanage. How could he have forgotten something so important about Juvia?

"Juvia we can leave if you don't want to stay. I mean I didn't know that-"

"Juvia is really fine! She is over it...she just thinks of it sometimes, that's all." She put on a warm smile, but Gray couldn't help but notice the tears at the corner of her eyes.

The next thing he knew, he was holding Juvia in his arms. Her breathing halted, as her eyes widened.

She felt the warmth of Gray's, muscular, toned arms around her. The way he smelled of rosewood and lemongrass was intoxicating to her. Gray didn't want to let go. His arms around her just felt so...right to him. Her curly, blue hair was as soft to the touch as he always imagined.

He finally snapped back to reality and quickly pulled away. He blushed crimson as he ran his hands through his messy black hair. He couldn't make himself look at her. Not when his heart was going a mile a minute. And certainly not when he could still smell the scent of raindrops and roses. His cheeks burned as she stared up at him with confused eyes.

"Gray~sama…."

" Oh I heard they opened up another exhibit for a stingray. Let's go check that out." Gray mentioned, trying to change the subject. Juvia frowned as she trailed behind him.

"Natsu you better not drop me!!" Lucy cried as Nastu climbed in the open window on the side of the building, with her draped over his back.

"I'm not going to drop you Lucy! Stop whining already-" Natsu was cut off with Lucy squirming in his hold. Natsu's grasp started to slip.

" Lucy you're gonna make both of us fall! You're already heavy enough as it is!"

"That is so rude Natsu!" Lucy whined.

Finally they made it inside the building by sliding through the open window. They seen the backs of Juvia and Gray walking toward another room.

" This has to be a date! Gray wouldn't take just anybody here!" Lucy told Natsu.

" I bet Gray couldn't have thought of such a nice date place anyway." Natsu snickered.

"On our first date you took us to your dirty house to 'hang out'." Lucy said, staring at Natsu with a dead-panned expression.

"Yeah. It was great wasn't it Lucy?" Natsu replied.

Lucy rolled her eyes as she looked back at the pair. Gray's cheeks were really red for some reason. And Juvia had a slight pout adorning her pale pink lips.

"I wonder what's going on…" Lucy thought.

"Ughhhh,I'm bored! When are we gonna stop spying?" Natsu groaned.

"Hush Natsu! They are gonna hear us-"

"Hey, what are you doing here!!? I didn't see you guys pay up front!" They saw a man with the exact same outfit as the ticket collect outside, pointing an accusing finger at them. That must be another worker!

"Well time to go!" Natsu grabbed Lucy's hand. He sprinted towards Gray and Juvia, with a fumbling Lucy behind him.

" Are you guys dating? Hurry up, we are about to get kicked out." Natsu huffed.

Gray felt anger and a furious blush rise on his cheeks. Why would they ask them something so explicit?! Besides he never even told Juvia he had meant for this to be their date!

Juvia had surprised eyes and gaped open mouth.

"Natsu-san…" Juvia managed to croak as she covered her blushing face with her hands.

She waited for Gray to confirm what he always said. That they were just friends. This was normal between them. He was just being nice as usual. But if she went on a rampage like normal and claimed they were dating, it would push Gray away even more. But Gray didn't say a thing.

"Juvia...isn't dating Gray~sama! You're so silly Natsu-san." Juvia said as she plastered on an awkward smile.

Gray's heart dropped. He didn't know why he expected her to say something else. He had never told her this was a date in the first place, so why was he even expecting anything else?

"Yeah. I mean why would you think that? You know me and Juvia have only been friends for awhile Natsu. Stop being an idiot."

Juvia could feel the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Hearing it outloud was even worse than her assuming it.

"You have to pay to get in you know!" The angry ticket collector yelled, storming over to them.

"Let's run!" Natsu yelled behind him, already halfway to the open window.

"Natsu- hey wait!"

Lucy said breathless as she ran behind him.

"Gray~sama, let's go too?" Juvia gave him a playful smile as ran after the escaping Nastu and Lucy.

They finally made it outside and started sprinting away from the building. After a while, they finally stopped to catch their breaths.

All of them panting heavily Lucy looked behind her.

" Wow, that guy seemed really angry. I got scared for a second."

Juvia and Lucy met eyes, and for a second, they just smiled. Then they immediately started giggling. The boys looked at them like they had grown a second head. Then Natsu started to laugh. Gray let out a hearty chuckle as well.

"Juvia...doesn't even know...why she is laughing!!" She giggled.

"Me neither!" Lucy clutched at her stomach as she wiped a stray tear from her eye.

Everyone finally settled down and could stand straight again.

"Oi Lucy! Don't forget you owe me 100 jewels after this!" Natsu smirked.

Lucy sighed. "Darnit…I thought I was spot on with this one…"

" What's wrong Lucy-san?" Juvia tilted her head in confusion. Lucy shook her head, as she let out a slight chuckle.

"Me and Natsu betted earlier on if you and Gray were dating. But since you guys said no I owe him some jewels now…"

"Huh?!" Gray yelled.

Juvia clutched at her cheeks in surprise.

"Why would Lucy-san and Natsu-san think that?!"

"Well it's just…." Lucy thought for a moment, and her eyes lit up in realization.

" Well...it's just Gray has seemed happier lately, you know? Plus he hangs out with you a lot. And he takes you on missions and walks you home. In fact, you guys sorta act like a couple already."Lucy shrugged.

Gray felt his cheeks burn at her statements and he opened his mouth to retort, but came up with nothing. Everything she said had been true, and he had no excuse.

Juvia had been biting her lip as she looked down at the ground. She had to stop her imagination from going wild. She would always love Gray, but she wouldn't get her hopes up and think this was a date, when it was just Gray being a friend as usual.

" Actually it was a date. And you jerks ruined it, you know?" Gray replied.

Juvia's eyes widened as she whipped her head to look at Gray. He wasn't meeting her eyes, but she could tell he was embarrassed. Juvia gasped as her mouth hung open, tears threatening to fall.

"Gray~sama?! Juvia-" ''Well let's go on a double date! Lucy owes me money anyway, so she can pay for both me and her!" Nastu declared, a grin adorning his face.

"You dummy, Natsu! I won the bet! He just said he was dating Juvia!"

Gray finally got the courage to look at Juvia and her crystal blue eyes met his. Her eyes were wide as if she were frozen in shock, and a tear fell down her pale cheeks.

Before he knew, Juvia had her lips pressed against his in a passionate kiss. Gray finally snapped out of his daze and fell into the moment. He somehow had known her lips would be so soft. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him forward. Gray let his hands flow through Juvia's flowing curls. Juvia let out a small moan.

Their lips pressed against each other sweetly, making the taste of each other's lips linger as they parted, both panting softly. Lucy had already covered her red face in her hands while Natsu looked on in astonishment. Gray was frozen in place as Juvia smiled. She then turned to stunned Natsu and a furiously blushing Lucy.

"Where is this double date going to be?"

End-

Oh gosh this was a lot. I hope you enjoyed my trash and thank you for reading❤

Edit:Omg I didn't think I would get so much support😭 Thank you guys! You give me the encouragement to keep writing and I will be forever grateful😍❤

#Gruvia #Nalu #grayx juvia #Drabble #fanfic #I died while writing this #Lucy #Gray #Juvia #natsux lucy #Natsu

166 notes · View notes