#I guess. in case anyone would find this an enjoyable read- gotta think on the game a ton more but bandwidth mayhaps Ill get there someday | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dapperrokyuu · 5 months

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Alright now that I’ve seen the end Slay the Princess, who’s your favorite princess?

Ill do you even better and give you my top 5/the ones Id love to get if I played the game, just to see their sequences in the end and how itd reflect on that version of the player (literally made a list for fun just before you sent this ask, hehe).

Admittedly, a lot of this is informed by aesthetic and then enjoyment of their routes because I came into (watching Manlybadasshero play) the game after some fandom osmosis–thus, understanding I wouldnt have all my thoughts together within one playthrough. So I cant say Ive devoted my satisfactory amount of attention to speak on the princesses’ narrative presence... But I did rewatch their routes and “Thoughts on this vessel?” sections a bit to formulate a stronger opinion. Here we go...! (Buckle in, fellas, haha ha h a…)

1. Adversary/Eye of the Needle

The Adversary and the Eye of the Needle are very hand in hand imo, and I love the progression into a dragon-like appearance for the latter, especially in combination with the cabin becoming akin to a dragon’s den. This (combination of) routes stands out the most to me (as far as Manly has played) because I personally feel its the one where the princess is the most active and engaged. Whether its being beaten to death or running for one’s life, the route was very exciting for me! And it was intriguing how the princess and player felt the most on equal ground because they are both intent on pursuing some objective. Its just that in this case–and this is how this princess exceeds and is an overwhelming presence compared to the player–the princess is set on a choice they dont care to deny and the player is a creature of the habit called “deliberation,” as narrator aside, in-universe reasons aside, the very structure of Slay the Princess has taught you to constantly pause and consider your choices.

It contributes to the tone of the routes so well! Even if you can sit forever in the Outside World, the game progresses like a split second decision and/or that any time given to you is at the princess’s turbulent discretion. In a game where your choices tend to matter most (which, frankly, they do, its kind of the whole point, but you may not know that your choices are what caused this situation yet, lol), the princess seeming to supercede you and the narrative and the concept of death is!!! Powerful and quite something, lol. And poignant, considering *gestures vaguely but particularly at the Narrator*.

Otherwise, I love how theres apparently many more and amusing divergences in this route (that Manly did not showcase) and the ending is pretty cathartic. And to keep this a bit short, yadda yadda, dragon dens is where they store and protect their treasure and in this case, the treasure is fighting you, yadda yadda, as the vessel of growth, the princess’s embracing of the cycle of violence between you two is her latching onto the only avenue of growth she can perceive (as opposed to escaping–since you didnt offer that option prior–and dying since thats tend to be the stop to the concept of growth), yadda yadda-

2. Spectre

This princess’s voicework is probably my favorite! The whispering under the regular voice acting is just really neat, doing a great job setting a tone of something delicate, chilling, and unnerving. The princess’s design shifts between cute and scary very well too! Her personality is probably my fave overall; while her “thoughts on this vessel?” section highlights her embodying kindness and understanding, they only exist to an extent that is fair. Which is, well. Fair. And I think it extra emphasizes the understanding aspect, with how the princess is aware of her circumstances and the injustices that have occurred yet is willing to let bygones be bygones. Shes coy, sincere, and pragmatically deadly, which is a full spectrum of delight for me!

The moment that really gets me regarding her character is when you say youre gonna leave her. Other decisions lead you to working together or demonstrating you have no intention to with some form of violence–both resulting in the Spectre just responding fairly. But the “leave” option truly shows that the Spectre doesnt/never intends to act out in malice, since Spectre responds out of desperation to avoid perpetual loneliness, pain, and emptiness. Theres an aspect of “fairness” here too (youre abandoning and hurting her more after having murdered her), but the choice comes after a breakdown and deliberation as opposed to an immediate retaliation. Even then, Spectre laments that she didnt want things to be this way but youve made her worse. Other stand out moments are when Spectre goes, “Youre funny when youre confused. But I didnt give you permission to touch me,” and the player’s moment of patheticness, lol.

This route really hints onto the meta aspects of Slay the Princess too, which is neat! The whole “want to end the world” convo, Spectre just wanting to go home, reality being what is in front of us vs. static truth/objectivity, whether destruction being one thing leading into another vs. the same thing reborn, glass on the floor, and the narrator being like Spectre as a memory of a person…I dont have much to say here currently–still need to ponder, itd be a whole other conversation, Im a bit tired, lol–but its tons of food for thought that I enjoy! Yay, Spectre!

3. Prisoner

Fun fact: this is a rewriting of the extreme word vomit that was me lamenting over how I was kind of confused about the Prisoner but chose her for the sake of a 5th (note the placing change) and then discovering the absolute genius she is!!! Basically, my only exposure to the Prisoner I had was Manly’s recent playthrough, which contained (what Ill call) the Chained Together variation and didnt even have her “thoughts on this vessel?” section due to the game going into the final sequence immediately after. The Prisoner’s section in that final sequence befuddled me because I couldnt connect much other than a theme of “inevitable change,” and even when I dug up the Prisoner’s “thoughts on this vessel?” elsewhere, I couldnt put it all together…until I watched (what Ill call) the Head Trophy variation in the middle of my initial writeup.

Regarding what I enjoyed prior to recognizing genius, I really enjoyed how the Prisoner conducted herself–her curtness and resignation was very unique. Her form was created as a result of the player cutting off her arm, instilling a matter of fact-ness to her that allows her to slit the player’s throat later (got this from the Wiki, Manly didnt show this part). Upon waking up once again chained and chained even more, I interpreted the cleverness aspect from the Prisoner’s “thoughts on this vessel?” section as being able to come to terms with her situation, play along, and bid her time in hopes that her patience (that she emphasizes) would eventually reward her. After all, the Prisoner was willing to pretend she and the player met for the first time until the player prompts otherwise, even saying they dropped “playing the game”--very meta of her! Thus, I interpreted the Prisoner as the princess completely embodying/accepting her role in the game; she couldnt leave when she defied her role last time, so she was fine continuing to wait this time. As a character who realized they were a character and systematically changed their behavior to attempt a new avenue of escape, I thought that was the extent of the Prisoner’s cleverness and was satisfied…enough.

AND I WAS WRONG. DELIGHTFULLY WRONG. I assumed the Prisoner was completely fine with her potentially only means of escape becoming not one, since she didnt seem upset or disappointed. Which was frankly incorrect, as her rude curtness is a result of her being miffed with you. Why? Because her cleverness actually alludes to the fact she had a plan for escape the entire time, and you utterly fucked it up! Which, tbf, she shouldve shown more reaction than curiosity to dissuade the player, but I digress- During the Head Trophy variation, you realize that the Prisoner had a plan this entire time to deceive the Narrator and she succeeds so well because she also got me and got the player. How often do I get got? It was amazing! From the stare as the Prisoner takes the knife away from the player, to the smile before That All Happens, to the wink as it occurs and after, it may speak to an underestimation thats set up due to the Prisoner’s appearance and behavior, but reflecting on all the signs that She Planned This dismantles that perception and reaffirms that the Prisoner is a person with depth beyond what you expect from her and those in her role. As I viewed the Prisoner as a caricature of the princess’s role in the first place (the whole point is that the Prisoner is exactly like the princess in appearance except the chained/locked up aspect is exaggerated), this route is so striking for me with its interrogation of victimhood, how victims are treated/viewed, and how that may be unintentionally stripped of their personhood and reduced (into a caricature of solely “a victim”). The Prisoner puts it quite nicely when the player attacks and she “suddenly” has a ton of fight in her, stating, “Im not a damsel to be helplessly murdered!” …Im not sure if I put it into words the best, but I hope this is understandable. To top off the topic of Prisoner’s cleverness, its a neat detail (I dont know if this is intentional) that the Prisoner does the opposite of what her prior princess form did: the player cut her arm to free her last time, she cut herself out this time and the player “died” the last time, she “died” this time. Beyond recognizing there was a Narrator beyond them she should fool, the Prisoner also reasoned that since having the player kill her is likely not favorable, dying by her own hand might just be fine! The Head Trophy variation is just more poignant when you note that her “thoughts on this vessel?” section talks about how the Prisoner protected herself when others could not but for her plan to work, she has to put complete faith in another.

As 1000% better the Head Trophy variation is in the Prisoner’s route, I do have a soft spot for the Chained Together variation since, from both the Prisoner and the Narrator’s perspective, it must be a hilarious emotional rollercoaster. The Prisoner’s plan failed and shes now stuck with the loser who made it so…for potentially forever! The Narrator probably oscillates between an uneasy concession that while both gods are not dead, they are locked up forever and an utter dread that things may fall apart at any time and thus, the world is practically doomed with no way to change that. The Prisoner doesnt have to decapitate herself, which makes her freedom extra cathartic in the relief she likely felt and didnt expect…and also extra sad in how she found it was nothing but cold and is quickly taken away. Theres also something to be said about how the player joins the princess in her perspective by chaining himself up and that they both inform each other’s perspective, leading to their escape together: (1) since the princess isnt starving to death, the player also doesnt, which is a surprise to the Voices and (2) the player showing up again signaled that change is indeed possible to the princess, perhaps causing the ability for the world to erode around them. Maybe the latter is the Voices informing the player, causing the change…? But I like to think its the initial thought since the cabin could and shouldve have eroded prior to the player’s arrival, assuming the Prisoner understands the concept of erosion…which, I assume she does- Anyways, the route is as emotional as it is kind of wacky, which is up my alley!

4. Witch

This princess is the one I enjoy the most aesthetically. Im a sucker for both witches and cats, what can I say? The allusion to the fable The Scorpion and the Frog really tickles me, and ultimately, whatever decisions made in this chapter are some form of hilarious. Whether we’re both dying on the floor with broken backs or handing a blade to someone who immediately stabs you, its great. I do enjoy the progression into the Thorn chapter, especially with the immediate regret from the Witch and the following reconciliation in Thorn’s chapter, but Thorn is not as funny and aesthetically pleasing as Witch princess for me, which is why she is not here, haha.

Her “Thoughts on this vessel?” section adds a lot of depth to her, since the way the Witch presents herself is very superficial and guarded. Particularly the statement about the Witch making for a “righteous” heart, in combination with her ability to just slip out of her chains. She couldve freed herself at any time, but chose to stay and confront you. Which I feel speaks to the bitterness aspect, as the Witch feels its only “right” to pursue an answer to her pain–whether it be the player’s penance or punishment. The game’s thoughts on bitterness are made even more poignant when you realize the Witch’s ends are either death (hers and/or yours) or a transformation into another state.

5. Tower

This route is just incredibly cool in how she takes over the narrator and the little divergences of the narration’s phrasing to be in her perspective in the voiceover. The progression into that route was amusing for me to think about because I think the shift of perspective that transforms the princess boils down to either “the princess had the might of a god to have defeated you,” “your sudden stop during the fight was a blessing from god to the princess,” and/or “your sudden stop was because your recognized the value of the princess’s life as larger than your own (‘larger than life,’ referring to her bigger form as the Tower and godhood itself).” The Tower calling you disappointing is funny, but what also sticks out is how she said she wanted company before turning into the Tower. Even as the Tower with the ability to just free herself, she chose to wait for you because thats what she wanted, and I think that plays on the relational idea of “What is a god without a believer?” since she’s willing to have the player as a priest or pet, lol.

How this route differs from the Adversary route is interesting, as the Tower is indeed also an overwhelming presence whose decisions matter more than yours not because her single minded relentless pursuit of it but because of the power to overwrite yours. Its a twist on the player’s and princess’s roles until now, but instead of making them equal like in the Adversary, the roles were reversed on who decides and who is forcefully changed as a result of that decision. Of course, you cant take the ability to choose from us, as a player completely, but its about the best you can do, I imagine. And not to mention the “defiling” aspect when you slay the Tower, dragging her down from godhood to an equal (humanity?) or perhaps her original state of someone who responds to your decision as usual… I think this route connects deeply to the meta aspect of Slay the Princess, since this state is where the princess is closest to the “concept of change” and the concept of their true self as a god. It makes the “thoughts on this vessel?” section very poignant because change in itself is indeed a constantly dominant, terrifying, and arguably divine force in its inevitability.

Honorable Mention to...the Damsel!

I really like the deconstruction of her concept, but that also means I feel that liking her is completely counterintuitive to that very deconstruction, lol. Her route is very straightforward in what it does, but it kind of has to be. Meaning it does what it set out to do very well.

This took a bit and is so much more than you asked for, so thank you for your patience and acceptance. Im just bonkers and bananas, so if I have it partially done, I might as well go all the way instead of going in depth on only one, lol. It was a fun exercise in pondering deeper about the princesses and dipping my toes in the ~meta~, but I will also readily say that Im not at all nearly deep enough into Slay the Princess as a whole to be confident on my takes, so this may have just been a session of Talking Out Of My Booty. Nonetheless, I hope this was enjoyable and thank you for prompting me to think about it! The order of the princesses changed throughout this answer, and it may be fun to guess what order they were written in, lol. Id love to hear about your fave/faves if youre interested in sharing as well~! And please, have a lovely day too!!! c:

#a wild ask appeared!#thanks and also Im so sorry adnbladkj #but also maybe not and youre welcome??? I dunno boss #a showcase of how theres tons of thoughts up there theyre just in a dam constantly threatening to spill out and it either manages to stay #there forever or is a FLOODDDDD- anyways #slay the princess #I guess. in case anyone would find this an enjoyable read- gotta think on the game a ton more but bandwidth mayhaps Ill get there someday #*shrugs* I still gotta get into my cha*ns*w m*n thoughts... <- so I dont spam/mistag lol

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isthisthingeven0n · 4 years

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volunteering at its finest : s.r

spencer ‘volunteers’ to babysit henry whilst you and the girls have a needed girls night, except the night lasts a lot longer than any of you anticipated (2.2k)

* also i have an etsy shop where i sell some criminal minds tote bags and prints. if you wanna check it out i’ll leave the link here (i’ve also got a labour day sale happening rn til the 8th!) *

“Please do not tell me you’ve forgotten about girls night that I’ve had in my calendar for the last five weeks?” Penelope focuses on JJ through the monitor who slowly lowers her phone before glancing over to you.

“I, I didn’t forget,” JJ starts, causing both you and Emily to hold your laughs as she tries to ease her way out.

“You don’t sound so sure, J.” You comment, quickly feeling a rolled-up newspaper swatting your arm as you head towards the jet.

“It’s not that I forgot, it’s just the first time Will has been away in months and it just slipped my mind.” JJ tries to reason as you board the jet before you sit down opposite her and Emily, awaiting the wrath of Penelope Garcia once you return to base.

“What slipped your mind?” Spencer pitches in as he sits down beside you, a bright smile crossing his lips as you lean against him. “Hey,” He mutters to you, and JJ glances to Emily, still shocked that the pair of you owned up to your feelings six months ago after pining over one another for two years.

Patting Spencer’s arm lightly, you shrug it off. “Just girls night tonight.” You begin to explain, noticing Spencer furrowing his eyebrows together. “What?”

“I thought we were going to watch the Doctor Who marathon tonight?” He questions quietly, watching as a look of guilt consumes your expression.

“That was this today?” You weakly ask back as Spencer simply nods. “Oh, Spence,” You mutter, but Emily kindly butts in to save your ass once again.

“What if you watched it at JJ’s,” Emily begins, and you focus on her with a raised brow. “babysitting Henry?”

JJ scoffs lightly. “Spence, you’ve never babysat on your own before.” She looks over to the Godfather of her son, one of her best friends who could talk his way out of most things, but babysitting is another level.

“What? I could easily do it.” Spencer states proudly, forcing himself to sit taller in his seat as Rossi glances over, lowering the case file from his view. “I’ve watched Home Alone with Y/n, I know exactly what not to do. And I’ve read sixteen books on parenting.” He quickly adds, and Emily quips an eyebrow to you.

“I didn’t know that.” You mutter under your breath, just as JJ laughs playfully at Spencer’s antics.

“Just let the kid babysit, he clearly wants to.” Rossi pitches in, and Spencer smiles brightly at Rossi’s reassurance.

“Think of girls night.” Emily chuckles, and JJ looks over to you with concern before focusing back to Spencer, nodding to the proposition. “It’ll only be a couple of hours.” Emily quickly adds, and Spencer grins brightly.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Spencer nudges your side as JJ shakes her head, wondering what she’s about to let lose.

***

“I still can’t get over the fact Spence offered,” Penelope states as she brings over your drinks to the table, placing them down as you eye Emily who shrugs her shoulders.

“Spencer is a good guy like that,” Emily snickers, and you nudge her playfully before sipping your drink.

As you swallow, you can’t help but cough and widen your eyes to Penelope who happily downs her cocktail. “Shit, Pen, what is in this? Battery acid?” You remark, sniffing it as JJ sips hers, quickly having the same reaction.

“No,” Penelope shakes her head as a scoff leaves her lips. “but it is called ‘Poison Ivy.’”

You raise an eyebrow, clearly intrigued as Emily downs the last of her previous drink, slamming the glass down before heading back to the bar. “Anyone want another one? I saw there’s a deal on certain drinks.” Emily calls out, not giving any of you a chance to answer before she disappears to the bar.

“God, if Spencer was here he’d happily list off some facts about the DC character Poison Ivy.” You sigh, wondering how he’s managing with little Henry.

“I’m sure he’s doing fine, Y/n.” Penelope reaches out, and you nod. “How’re you holding up Jayj?”

Turning your head, you see JJ finishing off the remainder of your drink as she places it next to her empty glass.

“What?” JJ slurs, lifting her head up as her eyes cloud over.

“Yeah, I think JJ has past worried and is in denial.” You mutter to Penelope who wisely nods in agreement.

Emily quickly returns with more drinks which JJ gladly accepts. “So, Y/n,” Emily rests her elbows on the table, focusing directly on you as you swallow the lump in your throat. “when are you going to tell us about the good Doctor huh?” She jokes and you laugh lightly, taking one of the four shots.

Placing the empty shot glass down, you wince as the burn descends down your throat. “Maybe after four more of these,” You cough, and Emily signals to the bartender to bring a few more rounds.

“Come on, we gotta get into the taxi,” Penelope tries her best to take charge as you help JJ to her feet along with Emily who is as much help as Spencer with his gun.

“Pen, can you take Emily? I’ll help JJ.” Despite still being drunk, you can focus on Penelope long enough to see only two of her as she nods and a blur of colour crosses your vision.

JJ’s head hits your shoulder, and you hear her hum. “Y/n?” JJ slurs and you hold her head up as you reach the exit to the bar, seeing the taxi feet away.

“It’s okay, J, the taxi isn’t far.” You rub her arm as she shakes her head and quickly darts out of your arms and hauls her body against a wall as she vomits violently.

“God, least I’m not that bad.” Emily laughs, unaware of who is being sick until JJ lifts herself back up, swaying back into your direction as she wipes her face. “Oh, hey JJ.” Emily waves as JJ groans loudly before climbing into the taxi after you.

“Where to ladies?” The driver speaks up as the doors are finally closed, and Penelope fastens her seatbelt in beside the driver.

You completely zone out as Penelope gives the driver her address, and miss the ringing of your phone. Little do you know, that missed call would become the first of many throughout the rest of the night - not that you’d know until sunrise.

“Thank you, Craig!” Penelope waves the driver off as you laugh hysterically with Emily about something Spencer once did during a date he organised.

“He just, he was so sweet, but got it so wrong,” You wipe your eyes as tears fall whilst Penelope helps JJ up the stairs as you and Emily trail behind. “I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I had no interest in seeing Twilight, only Robert Pattinson.” You sigh, remembering how excited he was to take you to the cinema to see something not only in English but current.

“Spencer means well, I think his big ol’ brain gets in the way sometimes.” Emily comments as you reach Penelope’s apartment, barely having the chance to take it all in before you’re given a wine glass that’s being filled.

“Oh, Pen I can’t.” You whine, feeling a headache already in the works, but Penelope Garcia is not one to take no for an answer- especially on girls night.

“Let me ask you, ladies,” Penelope starts, and now you wish you just kept quiet. “when was our last girls night?”

Penelope watches as you all exchange glances, no one knowing the answer. “Like, a year ago?” Emily guesses, receiving a quick scoff from Penelope.

“Two and a half years ago.” Penelope states. “We’ve had team nights out, but not a girls night.” She adds as Emily collapses onto the sofa whilst maintaining a full glass of wine. “So, I’m making up for lost time,” Penelope lifts her glass up as she looks around at the three of you, just about hanging in there. “to the ladies of the BAU.”

With a cheer, your night carries on with more laughter and embarrassing memories whilst Spencer is having less of an enjoyable evening with his godson.

“Y/n, this is the tenth message I’ve left you after leaving fifteen to JJ, five to Emily and twenty-six to Garcia. You better not have died on me as I’ve rung every hospital in the district and have had Kevin hack Garcia’s phone to find her location.” Spencer sighs as he paces around the living room whilst Henry remains sound asleep in his bed.

Part of Spencer knows he’s being irrational, but it isn’t like you to not even answer a text let alone a phone call. He’s so used to you being on hand whenever- especially with the line of work you both do. So when you don’t answer, he can’t help but allow his mind to spiral into the dark depths of misfortune.

Glancing out of the window, Spencer could tell without looking at a clock it was almost sunrise. Approximately 5:37 in the morning and you along with the others were nowhere to be seen.

With a small sigh, Spencer dials your number once more, only to hear movement outside of JJ’s house and he tenses.

Reaching over into his satchel, Spencer grabs his gun as he hides by the living room door, hearing movement of the front door opening as hushed voices sound throughout the hallway.

“God, he’s going to hate me, isn’t he?” You wince at the thought of Spencer scolding you for not getting back to him after you reviewed the dozens of messages and voicemails when you woke up twenty minutes ago.

JJ wraps her arms around you, bringing you into a hug but also to stabilise herself to stop the room spinning. “Spencer couldn’t possibly hate you, Y/n.” She assures you, seeing Spencer peer his head out from the corner of the living room and lower his gun. “That boy loves you more than you realise.”

Pulling away from JJ’s embrace, you sigh deeply into your hands. “I love him J, I just worry sometimes.” You mutter, unaware of Spencer standing behind you as his heart sinks.

“You should tell him, Y/n.” JJ motions and you tense up, silently swearing before you turn around to face your rather tired looking boyfriend. “I’ll go check on Henry.” JJ mutters, quickly passing you both and heads up the stairs with caution.

“I could never hate you, Y/n.” Spencer starts, “I was just worried about you and your safety.” He explains as he reaches out, resting his hand on your upper arm. “Did you have fun?”

A small laugh leaves your lips as you nod. “Yeah,” You chuckle, focusing on the tired look in his hazel eyes. “I, I love you Spence.” You tell him as you fall into his arms, exhaustion beginning to take over your body as Spencer’s chuckle vibrates against your body.

“I love you too, Y/n. Come on, you need to get some sleep.” Spencer guides you to the living room and you fall down with ease onto the couch. “Did you know the human body requires at least-”

Holding a finger up to Spencer, he pauses. “Spence, as much as I adore you and your facts, they are the last thing I need right now.”

“Alright,” Spencer gives in as he pulls a blanket over you, ignoring the smudged and dried mascara beneath your eyes and the lingering smell of cocktails on your clothing. “I’ll see you in an hour.” He mutters as he wanders out to make some coffee, knowing you’d need it once you woke back up.

“This is hell.” You state as you heavily lean against the railing alongside the girls whilst voices cheer around you, including Spencer. “I blame you, Pen.”

Penelope merely groans as she pushes her sunglasses further up her face.

“A couple of hours! No big deal!” Spencer emphasises as you roll your eyes, burying your face in your hands once again as he carries on cheering for the runners as they pass you all by in a blur. “You weren’t home until sunrise!”

“Why are you yelling.” JJ comments flatly whilst Derek glances over, holding his laugh in as he keeps Jack on his shoulders.

“Make him stop.” Emily adds, and you nudge your boyfriend as he stops waving his flag frantically and focuses on you.

“Next time, I’m either joining you in babysitting or you’re joining girls night.” You tell Spencer who smiles down at you before wrapping an arm around you, holding you close as you weakly smile through the pain of your hangover.

“Deal.” Spencer leans down, kissing you softly before the cheers of your team increase as Hotch reaches the finish line. “Come on, I think breakfast is in order.” Spencer guides you away from the railing as you rely on him heavily as the girls follow behind.

“Girls night happens every two years for a reason, I take it, baby girl?” Derek jokes as Penelope shushes him as you all gather around to celebrate Hotch’s achievement and block out the blur that last night has left on your memories.

“What happens on girls night, stays on girls night.” Penelope simply states, refusing to say anymore as you walk ahead with Spencer, discussing more about his latest read, ‘Parenting 101.’

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a-stitch-in-time-and-space · 3 years

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ok i agree w/ everything you said about those ladies besides, lwaxana gives s*xual pr*dator vibes and that is why i dont like her.

I can see that reading for sure and all things are subjective. I do strongly disagree, but hey, fandom is a space for that! Super chill.

to go a little more into this though, since it's not really so much about what any of us feel, but more about how we engage with female characters (and I'll use your example of why you don't like her - not to drag you, your dislike is totally fair, she's fictional, she won't mind, but just because it's a single line that kinda puts her in a box. And not a very nice box to be in, that's for sure...)

a little tw for mild references to some of the shadier writings of star trek vis a vis sexual assault and otherwise sexist and/or strange relationship dynamics

okay so you know how Riker has like. two? episodes that're suuuper shady in terms of his treatment of women and the rest of the time it's pretty chill. and he's one of my favourite characters, but I have gotta skip those episodes, because whatever they were trying to do, they Did Not Succeed - and there's a reading of him that incorporates those elements and if you do you've gotta contend with the character being quite probably someone who's assaulted women.

or how Worf at times espouses sexist shit that makes me roll my eyes outta my head and you're either gonna say "I don't fucking like this character" (and again, totally fair, I've seen people who don't Vibe) or you've gotta find a way to make this work for you if you want to explore that character - or both of those things, you can dislike a character and want to write about them

Or some of the weird shit the writers have Geordi do (which, Geordi is my favourite character in TNG, but sometimes ya gotta breathe and go "the writers are fucking dumb, the writers are fucking dumb")

or - the spiritual successor of Geordi, Julian Bashir (my favourite character from DS9 - clearly I have a Type). You've gotta go: This is stupid writing. I can make it work with my own read of the character, but first and foremost The Writing Is Dumb!

Or hell, Q - since we're talking about Lwaxana and I assume her interactions with Picard and Odo, let's not forget to mention Q, both in TNG and on VOY with Janeway - some of the more urgh-inducing scenes between Q and Janeway are, I think, meant to be charming and funny? And I'm a massive QCard shipper here, okay, I actually vibe so hard with him as an alien who doesn't get shit about boundaries (this mostly with Picard, with Janeway I have gone: "Hm. This doesn't feel good" a fair few times).

or how the writers of DS9 had Garak be in a very uncomfortable relationship with Ziyal, who was a teenager, then not a teenager within much too short a span of episodes (and actress changes)

or Quark. Remember the episode in which Quark tries to get Kira's likeness so he can put it in a sex-fantasy roleplay that she did not consent to? or how there are two cold opens where his female employees are told they have to sleep with him to keep their jobs

or like... Neelix (okay, I am not a fan of Neelix anyway, but for people who are fans, there are times when you've gotta wonder what in the heck the writers are thinking - not the character, the writers)

what I'm trying to say with the post I wrote is that this same graciousness isn't offered to female characters - especially female characters of colour, but in the case of Lwaxana

she's older, she's an ongoing female guest star, she's very (sometimes uncomfortably) sexual towards especially Picard and for a short while Odo, before they become really good friends.

she's also in-text several times in positions in which men are trying to control her (the episode where she gets kidnapped, the episode in which the guy who's married her is a misogynist) and she uses or tries to use her "wiles" to escape these situations.

She's really more of a faded beauty who's putting a pressure onto her daughter (in a rare interesting, complex, fraught mother-daughter dynamic that I loooove) and refuses to let go of the past, because (and here we get into my read, but mildly supported by canon) it's the only way she seems to have learned how to be loved and have relevance. She's terrified of letting that go, because where does she go next, without everything that's defined her? which is why her final episode with Odo is actually so powerful to me.

Picard is never threatened by her in-text. He's not massively fond of her (at first, she grows on him... like a mold), he would prefer to avoid her, but he's not in a powerless situation here. She undoubtedly makes him uncomfortable at times in a way that - like some of the above examples have made me go "mmmmokay" but certainly not the worst example of this in the writing.

With Odo I also don't like how some of her interactions with him go in the first episode they're in together. But once they're friends and you see how easily she accepts him ("I can swim" is always going to be one of my favourite little chuckle lines) that no longer applies. He clearly likes her and enjoys her company. There's something incredibly lifelong platonic partners in their easiness with each other.

You can argue in both cases (and argue well) that there are scenes that are kinda sus. But there are lots of scenes that offer you depth of character. She's not one-note. She's got off moments.

Some of these guys (and others - I haven't watched as much TOS and Voyager so I don't want to misrepresent anyone, but I feel sure that Tom Paris has made me squint once or twice + I've not seen Enterprise yet) have whole episodes that make me shudder.

It's really - within this fandom for sure - open how we interpret characters and I'm not saying anyone needs to read Lwaxana like this or change their minds and like her.

The point of the post is not to say you have to like any of these characters. Or even to say you have to engage with them regardless of how you vibe or don't vibe with them. It's just... I have listened to several up-until-then-enjoyable deeply analytical podcasts where at some point one of the (guys... always guys... I'm guessing white) makes a sneering comment completely dismissing their value within the series.

My point is that Lwaxana (since we're on her) has value as a character within the Trek universe. She added something important. She's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a big series, we're not all guaranteed to like everyone.

and in the original post I used "shrill" and "cringy" on purpose, because those are descriptors I've heard. And they are absolutely rooted in misogynist dismissals of female characters no matter what shape they take (Keiko, Lwaxana, Michael, and Ezri are radically different from each other and yet all easily brushed aside regardless of screentime, personality, show, age, role/job).

I'm not making points about having to engage with or like characters. I'm just saying we need to be aware of how easily we specifically look down our noses at female characters (and specifically female characters of colour - apologies, this was just because we were talking about Lwaxana, but some of the shit I've heard about especially Michael and Keiko have made me want to bang my head against a wall... or other peoples heads against walls... you know, for a nice change)

so how much sympathy or analysis of behaviour is afforded to female characters vs their male peers. What judgements are we making and how do they compare to our readings of their male counterparts?

sidenote: I hate using male and female about star trek, my brain is just like "why anyone gender? why do this? you're in space? there are aliens? y'all can't chill with the binary for two fucking seconds?"

different post

#lwaxana troi #tng #ds9 #voy #st: tng #st: ds9 #st: voy #star trek disc horse #I don't want to make statements on TOS or Disco guys - I HAVE seen them I just don't rememberrrr too much #i have entirely avoided any and all opinions by white cis dudes on adira and gray btw because I have F E A R #they're not female characters tho but like... tangentially I'm thinking hooboy about them as well #anon just wanna reiterate I'm not telling you to change your opinion or feelings about her

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fanmoose12 · 3 years

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Hello again It is me the worried anon about their fanfic. Actually, I am so grateful for your feedback, I thought about sharing more with you? If this annoys you, tell me in your next reply, I will stop immediately and I will fully understand it. I hope you are ok with my being my exclusive reader if that is not too weird? Here I go with another part: I don’t know exactly why I am writing what I have already experienced years ago; is it my habit to organize my thoughts whenever I feel lost? Is it the need to remind myself how I became who I am now? May be all of them together? Where should I start? I guess I will record the beginning of all this. At the age of 6, I started talking about people I never met, I said names I never heard and called people in my sleep while crying and screaming whom I never knew. My parents thought that I was another scared child of whatever scares children at this age and ignored my actions. I grew older and the dreams became more violent, the faces became more recognizable, the names started to ring bells that only I could hear and it became even harder to pretend that I don’t experience all that.

My parents decided to consult a psychologist who silently listened to my story of how I was seeing grown up people fighting scary huge creatures; they were eaten, tortured and killed brutally even when they fought back. I described this hellish world as well as I could only to be diagnosed with hallucinations and early signs of schizophrenia. That’s when I learned the first lesson but not the last lesson in my life. Never share what you saw with anyone but yourself.

Ever since I was young, despite all the nightmares, I have always found my peace wherever there were books, plants or both, and I was such a friendly dork who longed for friends but never had one. I met some children and made some fleeting memories but once I started getting used to them, they would never show interest in my friendship again, well, I can’t blame them now if all my drawings were huge ugly smiling creatures eating little screaming humans, can I? My parents had enough of my madness and I was sent to a mental institution where I was under observation for months without being given real medication due to how young I was. Luckily, the doctors noticed that I was younger than the usual age when schizophrenic patients show any reliable signs ; My parents never visited me though, they called once a week but never cared to show up even on my birthday in September I received a short call to remind me that I became 10 years old and that they love me and that’s it. I stayed there for six month which I spent reading, digging in the small garden of the institution, getting scolded by the nurses, reading and digging again and the life went on. The doctor who was responsible for my case was fascinated by my behavior, he made sure to test my mental state and abilities quite often and I remember his kind and impressed smile after every test, it filled me with joy and pride even if didn’t say it often and that’s when I started to understand that I was exceptionally smart. He kept testing me whenever he had a chance using games, questions, tests and after each session, I got a new book. He became my one and only friend in a place where I was the youngest resident they ever had. He kept trying to ask me about my dreams but I learned my lesson by then and so I denied everything I said earlier with the most innocent and clueless smile I could give. He could never succeed and always smiled accepted my lies with a kind yet disappointed smile.

I spent my days there doing the same things on daily bases or at least that’s how it looked like… Alone in my room, I learned even more from my nightmares. There was a beautiful blond girl called Nanaba, a very tall blond man called Mike, another tall blond man called Erwin and another man called moblit but the most interesting of all was a short, grumpy yet very strong man called Levi. My 10 years old self memorized the names and faces but didn’t have enough memories to know who they were back then until this fateful night when the fire broke out in the floor where I stayed. I still shudder whenever I remember this moment.

Fire scares every living being no matter how fearless they are, we all can agree on this fact but in my case, I was beyond terrified. I was literally burning…alive.

It was as if I was teleported to a different world. I was flying up in the air. The scary giant creatures were there but with a major difference. They were radiating heat and flames, it was impossible to avoid them if you were close enough and yet, I was so close to them that I felt the heat on my skin without touching them. I managed to kill one Then another Then another I was a lot older than myself then, I was stressed, worried and in pain. I kept on slicing the back of their nicks though. After the fourth one, the fire caught my clothes. The last one in the first row who was about to destroy a weird looking plane forced me to ignore the flames that started to burn the ends of strange clothes. I had to kill him or everything will be lost…. The fifth went down. He didn’t fall alone this time; I started to feel the burning sensation climbing my body, getting more and more painful with each passing moment, I screamed when I could not take the pain anymore, I didn’t know for how long I kept falling or screaming. Everything ended as it started, suddenly. I opened my eyes to find myself in another room. No burns, No fire, No scary huge creatures. Dr Ethan, the friendly doctor who kept my stay in the institution as enjoyable as possible was looking at me with an obvious relief on his face: Hana? How are you feeling now? Can you see me and hear me? I looked at my left hand that was wrapped carefully: I am fine Dr, my hand! The fire…What happened?

He kept the same kind smile: it is ok now Hana…You are safe now…your hand was burned when you tried to push the door to escape; only your palm but it wasn’t too serious. I tried to push the door? What door? When?

I asked: I don’t remember that? Where are my parents? Can I call them? My young self could not think of anyone but them at that moment even if they didn’t. I hoped that would be enough for them to take me home. Dr Ethan remained silent for a few seconds then said: Hana…you fainted because of the smoke you inhaled…you have been very brave trying to open the window and even push the door to save yourself…you are impressive as usual but you need to rest now. I remember how angry and scared I was: Dr Ethan I want mommy! I want to tell them that I was going to die! I remember that it was the first time in those six months to cry like the real child I was; I was terrified, confused, tired and scared.

He tried to maintain the same smile: Hana, it is too late at night now…you should sleep and we will call them the first thing in the morning, I promise.

I couldn’t say anything…I nodded quietly so that I can be alone, I didn’t want anyone around me, I only wanted my parents. After he left the room, I kept sobbing silently all night until I learned another harsh lesson in the morning. That's another part of it, I hope my asks don't annoy you, Remember you can always be as honest as you want, I really appreciate your feedback as much as I love your work.

omg don't feel sorry or worried that you annoy me! your work is really good and i'm so honored that you decided to share it with me🥺

and i've gotta say i'm so interested in what happens next! that doctor, he is up to something, right? oh, and that fire! i wonder what was the cause of it? will hange find the others? and what lesson she learned? i'm so, so hooked!

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

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October 23: Spooky Writing Thoughts

Did some cleaning today--not a ton of cleaning and not as much cleaning as I need to do, but more than I’ve done in... weeks. Including laundry, so now I don’t have to wash clothes on Halloween, which would have been very unfortunate.

I also did some outlining for the Troped idea I had on Friday, but I’m still on the fence about actually writing it. I’d have to write the whole thing tomorrow and like... it’s possible I could do that. But it’s also possible that I’ll only get part of it done and miss the deadline and in that case, I would have been better off spending the day writing ficlets. I don’t know. I have written a Troped fic super fast before, and it was Exiles, which I ended up really liking in retrospect. There might be something to writing this fic, keeping it short and weird, and then if it ends up being bad, just kind of shrugging and saying oh well, that’s better than not even trying. Like sometimes you just gotta have that attitude toward stuff.

So, I don’t know. The very closeness of the deadline might make it easier to just say fuck it and write, or I might find that the idea doesn’t inspire me as much as I thought it would when I actually get into it. I have sort of an idea for the start, but when I think about producing the WHOLE THING... I dunno, writing is just so exhausting. I do want to do it justice.

Anyway, I ended up with this idea when I was brainstorming concepts for a spooky ficlet series, which... if I don’t ALSO write it tomorrow, I don’t know when I will. Thursday? Again, cutting it very close. Not that I really think anyone’s gonna spend their Halloween reading my fic lol so, yeah. Doesn’t really matter. We’ll see what I feel like doing.

I brainstormed 25 concepts total, and the two years I did ficlet series, I did 5 each year, so there definitely are a lot of possibilities here. One of the ideas has morphed into my Troped idea. Of the rest, some are actual plot ideas that relate to the canon universe in some way; others are just broad spooky concepts or moods I’d love to work with. A couple are in the same ‘verse as other fics of mine. As with Troped, I’m somewhere between exited and exhausted when I look at the list.

The whole point of writing spooky things, and of course of writing more generally, is to enjoy getting myself in a certain mood and immersing myself in it--it’s meant to be enjoyable. So I guess the point is that some or all of this is still worth doing if I think it’ll be fun, even if I release like 10 things on Halloween day and no one reads them, but if it’s not fun, I shouldn’t stress.

#the year 2021 #2021: writing thoughts

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k7l4d4 · 3 years

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Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 4 Part 1

Hello all, once again, k7l4d4 is here with another piece of Midnight Striga! Everybody clap your hands!!

“Ugh! I can’t believe you’re going to be working for Bump!” Eda groans, irritably sorting through the Lacrimas she had accumulated over the years. She placed her palm against the wall, turning a tired eye onto Luz. “Seriously, what could’ve possibly made you think working at a site of,” She shudders, “Institutional learning, could be a good idea? I mean, you live with a criminal.” She finishes, pointing her thumb at herself.

Luz snorted, looking up in thought. “Hey, it’s better than the education I got.”

Eda cocked her hips, a considering look on her face. “Oh? How so.”

“Well, my first teacher was very much a believer of the “trial by fire” method of teaching,” Luz mused nostalgically. “One of his favorite ways of seeing if I actually understood a lesson was to put me in a situation where I’d have to prove it.” She gave a sigh of content. “Ah, those were the days, when my biggest worries were if I would be chucked off a roof to see if my reinforcement was functioning.”

Eda and King froze from their work, looking shocked. Clearing her throat, Eda spoke up. “Uh, you maybe want to clarify that a little? Because it sounds like your ‘teacher,’” She gave air-quotes around the word, ”was basically just torturing you.”

“Yeah!” King shouted. “Nobody harms my followers without my permission!”

Luz laughed. “Nah, he wasn’t that bad.” She paused for a moment. “Okay, he could be that bad. But he was mostly a pretty great guy all around. He only really did that sort of thing with practical stuff, and he usually scaled it to wherever I was supposed to be at in my training, so even if I screwed up, I wouldn’t be too badly hurt.”

Eda gave a disbelieving look. “Uh huh, right.” Knowing she wasn’t gonna get anywhere with this, Eda sighed, deciding to change the topic. “Well, speaking of teaching, just what are you gonna be teaching those kids, anyway?”

King through in his own two-cents. “The King of Demons demands to know as well!”

“Well, I’m not technically going to be a teacher, more of a Counselor honestly.” Luz mused. “But I will be helping kids find more flexible ways of thinking and doing in regards to their magic, particularly those who have hit some kind of block. And, if anyone’s interested,” She patted the stack of texts next to her. “I’ve got some Human Style Magic they can take a peak at.” She finished, giving Eda a cheeky wink.

Eda blinked, before bursting into laughter. “Ohohohoho my Titan Kid! You are planning on using your job to subvert the Coven System!?” Eda incredulously asked, feeling genuinely impressed at the gall of the girl before her.

Luz impishly shrugged. “Hmm… maybe I am, Maybe I ain’t. It’s not like I’m gonna say anything.” She leaned forward, fluttering her eyes. “And besides, who would possibly believe a weak, magicless Human was working to subvert the borderline indoctrinative methods of the ruler’s system of power?”

The three paused, before bursting into laughter. Luz, powerless? The idea was hilariously inaccurate. True, Luz may not be the toughest on the Isles, but she was canny, experienced, and had access to abilities never seen before.

“Still,” Luz said, stretching herself out as she pulled to her feet. “I really do gotta figure out how I’m actually gonna teach these kids magic, you know?” Luz took a thinking pose, hands clasped under her chin, before snapping her fingers. “Hey, King.” She called out.

“Weh? What do you need?” King asked, perplexed as to why he was being singled out. “If this is about the snacks missing from the cabinets, it wasn’t me!”

Luz coughed, trying to not laugh at his slight panic. “Nah, that’s not it.” She reassured the small demon. “I’m trying to see if I can make this work. I’ve got to figure out how to teach people on the Isles magic like I use, but to do that, I’ll need a test subject.” She leaned forward, sporting a devious grin. “And you’re it.”

“Me?” King asked, pointing to himself. His eyes widened as realization struck. “You mean you’re gonna teach me magic!?” He demanded in an excited tone.

“Bingo!” Luz cheered.

Eda gave a thoughtful look. “And just how exactly are you going to teach King magic?” Her words caused King to slump over in dejection.

“She’s right. I don’t even have a bile sack.” King muttered, despondent.

“Upupup! None of that.” Luz said sternly. She gave a King a smirk. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. And hey, the worst I can do is fail, right?” She peered down at King, who visibly perked up at her words.

“Yeah… yeah!” King cheered, feeling reinvigorated. “Whether you succeed or fail, I will still be the King of Demons!”

“That’s the spirit!” Luz said, ruffling his head, much to King’s slight annoyance (and some enjoyment). Raising back her hand, she allowed a potent glow to suffuse it, before staring intently at King. “I got to ask, are you okay with this? I know I said I’d use you as a Test Case, but you can back out.”

“Ha!” King barked, head tilted back imperiously. “The mighty King of Demons is prepared for anything! Go ahead, I can take it!”

“Okay,” Luz said, sounding slightly unsure. “But remember, you asked for this.”

“Asked for wha-?” King asked, or rather, started to ask, only to be cut off… by the brutal Karate Chop Luz had delivered to his skull. The glow infused into her hand swiftly transferred down the point of impact, now flowing into and throughout King’s body. It would’ve been glorious… if it wasn’t so painful!

“YYYEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!” King absolutely howled in pain, clutching his pounding skull in response to the intense ache surging through it. Eda could only stare in shock as Luz looked on in worry as King frantically rolled across the floor, trying to calm the raging pain in his cranium. “WHAT IN THE TITAN’S NAME DID YOU DO!?!?”

Luz chuckled sheepishly. “Sorry, I basically just shoved raw magic into your body so you could learn to manipulate it.” She awkwardly rubbed the back of her head. “That was what my teacher used to call “the quick and dirty method.” I was basically trying to jump start the usual process most humans use to learn magic; most humans, when they try to learn magic, find magical energy and allow themselves to grow attuned to it, and let it infuse their bodies, allowing them to gradually grow more and more comfortable with manipulating it, and storing it.” With her little explanation done, she bent down level with King, a concerned look in her eyes. “Sorry King, I just don’t have the time to teach these kids the usual way, so I needed to find out if this method would work. Sorry I used you to test it out. Are you okay?”

Grumbling, King rubbed at his head, sighing as the ache finally subsided. “Yeah, I’m okay. It was still painful though.”

Eda snorted, nonplussed at what had just happened. “I’ll bet.” Moving quickly, she joined the small huddle, giving King an appraising look. “So, do you think it worked?” She asked, looking at Luz.

Luz shrugged. “I really couldn’t say. Can you feel anything, King?” She asked.

King held up a finger, focusing. “I think I can feel something.” He said, honing in as best he could on the sensation; it was bizarre, to say the least, as it felt like energy was pouring through him, circulating through his body, before pooling and condensing in his chest. Was this anything like Eda felt when she used magic? “Yeah, I think I can feel it!” He cheered lightly, before gaining a confused look. “But… Now what do I do with it?”

Eda gave a slight shrug. “The heck if I know. I’m just as you are when it comes to Magic like this. You got any ideas, kid?” Eda turned, looking towards Luz, who seemed to be pondering the situation.

“I think I’ve got something that can get King started.” Luz mused confidently. Walking over to her assorted texts, Luz rummaged for a moment, before pulling out the book she was looking for. “Here it is!”

Walking back, she presented it to King. As he grasped it, he read the title out loud. “Here Me Roar: A Comprehensive Guide to Sound Magic?” He glanced up at a preening Luz. “Not that I don’t appreciate this and all, but where’d you get it?” Luz suddenly became very still.

“Uh, you know, I just picked it up on my travels! Yup, that’s totally what happened!!” Luz shakily laughed, glancing back and forth. King and Eda shared dubious looks.

“Yeah.” Eda drawled. She clapped her hands together firmly. “So! Now that we’ve gotten this all out of the way, I’ve got to take care of the barrier before the rain hits.”

“Barrier?” Luz wondered. “Why do we need a barrier? It’s just rain- the rain’s weird here, isn’t it?” She started to ask, before facepalming in realization.

“I guess it’d be weird by human standards.” Eda admitted. “But yeah, the weather around here is more like plagues.” She started counting off her fingers. “Shale hail, Gore-Nados, Painbows,” (“Those are rainbows that turn you inside out when you look at them!” King added)

“And, of course, Boiling Rain.” Eda finished. She opened the door, showing the encroaching clouds in the distance, and the frantic panic of everything under the falling water.

“Huh, you learn something new every day.” Luz muttered, watching Eda get to work putting up the barrier. She gave the barrier a critical look as it went up; by the standards of the Isles, it was most likely a pretty advanced one, for its job anyway, but Luz thought she saw some flaws in it that could be patched up later, at least once the rain passed.

Sighing, Luz plopped herself down on the couch, flipping through the encyclopedia of demons King regularly poured over; she wasn’t sure how much of this book was accurate, and several of these demons just flat out sounded ridiculous. “Smoochie Pie?” Seriously? But still, some of them gave her a vibe that had her hackles up, just in case they actually were real. Like this Snaggleback thing; a prowling beast that stalks through the otherwise lethal rain and preys on anyone who’s stuck in it or whose shelter is isolated? Yeah, if she saw the thing, she was squashing it, no way was she going to let something that deadly run around.

Tearing herself from her potentially murderous thoughts, Luz glanced at King, his eyes devouring the text in front of him. She smirked. She just had a feeling that sound magic would be a good fit for him, with how much he wanted to be heard and respected. It made sense, a magic that would let himself always be heard, she just hoped he would be able to learn it.

Boscha’s fist crashed against the tree. With a huff, she pulled back, flexing her hand, staring at the scar that decorated it.

“Miss Boscha, due to the extenuating circumstances, you will not be officially punished for your recent conduct.” Bump said gravely.

“Thank you, sir.” Boscha stated as politely as she could.

“However.” Bump started, causing Boscha to become alert. “Due to the condition of your magical abilities, as well as your reported history of abusing your status as a top Grudgby player, whereas the services of our new Counselor are nominally voluntary for others, for you they will be mandatory. If you allow yourself to lose control again, or have another incident of abusing your influence within the school, there will be steeper consequences. Am I understood?”

Boscha nodded, feeling hollow. “Perfectly, sir.”

With a snort at the memory, Boscha went back to punching the tree, taking careful note of the dents and breakage in the wood in response to her attacks. As she picked up the pacing of her blows, Boscha carefully measured how much damage she was doing and, when it looked like it would fall, Boscha jumped clear, letting the tree collapse before her.

She sighed. “First test down.”

With a deep breath, she walked up to a nearby boulder, and without preamble, slammed her skull against it as hard as she could. As she reeled back in pain, she carefully started feeling the sight of impact, noting that nothing felt broken, and nothing was out of place.

“Second test down.”

Turning her gaze to a nearby stake set into the ground, she kicked it loose. As the stake popped free, the rope affixed to it slipped off, whipping away into the brush. A whistling sound built up behind her. Whirling, she reached out, snagging the spear before it could impale her. As she took a closer look at her handiwork, she revised her opinion. She had snagged it before it could strike her. The spear was blunt, literally just a piece of wood she crudely shaped together.

“Third test down.” She breathed out. “Now, just have to test that.”

With a trepidation that was painfully unfamiliar to the girl well-known for her brashness, she carefully traced out a circle in the air, glowing a painfully deep red. She held her breath, waiting to see. As the circle slowly started to glow, Boscha allowed a small grin to build on her face. Maybe, this time it wouldn’t…

The circle flickered. Boscha’s eyes widened. With an almost panicked shout, Boscha ran for cover, the spell detonating behind her. With a groan, Boscha slammed into the ground, a wave of heat passing overhead.

She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “And, once again, I failed.” Grumbling, she slowly stretched herself out, surveying the clearing she had recently made her new training grounds; secluded in the woods, within walking distance of Bonesburough, albeit one that meant putting in some time, and surrounded by trees and boulders to practice on. “Ugh!” She groaned, cracking her back. With a huff, she slung the pack she brought with her, complete with water and snacks to stay hydrated and energized, she got ready to leave. “Another day, another failure.” She bitterly remarked.

As she trudged along, Boscha’s ears picked up an all-too-familiar rumbling. She paled. Looking back in trepidation, her fears were validated; Boiling Rain Clouds were building overhead, and had already encircled Bonesburough.

“Dammit!” With a curse, Boscha took off running. She absolutely could not be caught in the rain. Her family had shown her pictures of those that had, and she certainly did not want that happening to her. As the sound of rain falling crept in closer, Boscha forced herself to move faster. Her legs burned. Her lungs screamed. “I can’t die here, not yet!”

With a growl, Boscha leapt through the trees, dodging the rain as best she could as the storm picked up speed. Suddenly, she slipped flying forward as she lost her footing. As she slammed into the ground, she caught sight of an odd-looking house situated behind a glowing barrier in the clearing ahead of her. She genuinely didn’t know if she could make it in time.

“I’m not giving up.” She muttered. With a force of effort, she hauled herself to her feet, taking off, only for a crash of thunder to draw her attention. Looking back, Boscha’s eyes widened in horror as the rain finally caught up to her in full, clouds encircling her. “NO!”

King was really enjoying the book Luz had gifted him, a worthy tribute to her ruler! While the book was pretty wordy, it had lots of cool illustrations on how to practice sound magic, specifically sound magic based on the user’s voice. While he wasn’t sure if he should attempt it quite yet, the knowledge locked away in this tome would become the stepping stone he needed to regain his power and glory!! King was interrupted from his musings by the frantic pounding at the front door. Who was crazy enough to be out in a Boiling Rainstorm?!?

He glanced around, hoping to find someone who could get the door. Luz had retreated into the other rooms, muttering something about a “teaching plan” or whatever. Eda was just groaning away on the couch. Realizing that no one else was gonna, and that Hooty was probably just chatting away with whoever it was, King, groaning all the while made his way to the door.

As he slammed the door open, cutting off Hooty’s chatter with a squawk of protest, King blinked up at the sight of the three-eyed girl who had humiliated him before.

The girl cleared her throat. “Well, this is awkward.”

#the owl house #fairy tail #owl house au #fairy tail au #owl house crossover #fairy tail crossover #king the owl house #eda clawthorne #luz noceda #boscha the owl house

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imagining-imagines · 4 years

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For the Better - Part 1[Peter Parker x Stark!Reader]

Requested by @daneel-the-sister-of-castiel

Word count: 6000+

"Moving?" you asked, appalled. You were sitting on your father's workbench as he worked in chaos around you.

"That's what I said," he confirmed, sifting through his hologram junk. "Avengers tower isn't exactly a beacon of hope anymore, but don't worry I've got a place for you I know you'll love because it was designed by yours truly." he said making sure to point to himself so you wouldn't mistake who he was talking about ."But in the meantime you're going somewhere else so we can get it all spruced up for you." He frowned at his work then looked over to you. Will ya' get off the diagram I'm using to put this together." You slid off the table in annoyance.

"But Avengers Tower isn't for me so why don't I just stay in one of your resorts like the last time you had to go away for work?" You reasoned. He pulled up a large screen where you were sitting that stood in between you two.

"Because, last time we left you alone, you reprogrammed Butterfinger to play checkers with you, and now look at him." You looked over at the robot which was still moving it's arm as if it was playing the game.

"I thought you didn't like Butterfinger," you mumbled.

"Yeah he's a real pain. Which, I guess, is what makes you two such good friends," he said. With a few quick swipes you lowered the screen in between both of you.

"This isn't your idea," you guessed.

He pulled the screen back up. "No, it was your mother's," he confirmed.

As if on queue Pepper walked in. You made your way over to her. "Mom, I can stay in one of the Stark resorts, right? I won't reprogram Butterfinger again," you promised.

Pepper scoffed, and looked over at Tony. "You're worried about that piece of junk?" she said in disbelief. "I've already made up my mind, Y/N. You need to have some friends your own age who aren't robots, and you staying cooped up in a resort home isn't going to help you," she said. "Now let your dad work, and go pack your things."

You looked over at your dad, but he was too buried in his work to look back. You didn't notice at first, but it looked like he was designing a suit. A suit you actually recognized. You had found something similar to it when you were digging through his files. You wanted to ask him about it, but then he would know you were looking at his old work...again. So you left him to work on it, and went to your room to start packing.

You didn't know what you should pack so you filled your suit case up with bare necessities. You were looking around to see if there was anything else you would need when your mom walked in to see how it was going. Before she could say anything you spoke up.

"Yes I have all my outfits, though I don't know how long I'm staying. I have my toiletries, my electronics, and anything miscellaneous I could think of." You started zipping up your suitcase.

"Y/N, you're staying for the whole semester," she said. You froze.

"Semester?" you repeated. Surely she wasn't talking about a school semester. After a few years of high school your dad decided that you were ahead and had taken out of school so he could teach you what he knew about robotics. You never missed going there, and your dad letting you in his lab to work had brought the two of you closer together.

Pepper rolled her eyes. "He didn't tell you did he?" she questioned. "Y/N, you're going to school in Queens."

"School?" you asked. "In Queens?"

Pepper crossed her arms. "Did he tell you anything?" You unzipped your suitcase and flung it open.

"Apparently not!" you yelled over your shoulder as you dug in your closet for another suitcase. Without another word Pepper went downstairs, to talk to Tony no doubt. You put the other suitcase on your bed and ran your hand through your hair. This was going to be a long day.

The car ride to Queens wasn't enjoyable at all. It was mostly your dad explaining where you would be, and how you could contact him.

"I know you don't wanna go to school, kid," he was saying. "And we both know you don't need it after inheriting my genius. But your mother wanted it, and there is nothing on this earth that scares me more than your mother when she's angry."

"You could at least tell me why Midtown High," you said.

"Why Midtown High?" he said. "Why? Because it was the first one I saw that had a robotics lab, your welcome, and I'm busy and didn't have time to find another." You could tell that he was dodging the question.

"Is it because of that suit you were making?" you questioned. Before he could give his answer you continued. "Because I saw that you were remaking an old design, and it looked too small to be yours."

"Have you been digging through my stuff again?" he accused. "You've gotta stop doing that. Y/N, you're going to this school because your mother and I picked it out. End of discussion." You slumped in your chair and looked out the window until the half hour it took for you to get to Queens was up.

You stood at the entrance of Midtown High School. Your dad rolled down the window to the car and tossed you a key.

"You trash the house, and you can stay here for the summer cleaning it up," he called to you.

You rolled your eyes. "Love you too," you said.

He revved the engine. "Can't wait to hear about your first day!" He rolled up the window and started to drive off.

"The day's almost over!" you shouted as he drove away. You looked around the school grounds. Kids were already looking at you like you were fresh meat. You sighed and hauled your bags inside. You had already sent most of them in another vehicle to where you would be staying, but you still had a decent number of them on your person.

There were kids roaming the halls and the sounds of lockers opening and closing rang through your ears. You tried to push your way through the human traffic, but you found it difficult with all the bags you were carrying. You were told there was a storage area where you could keep your bags until school was out, but you were having trouble finding it through the crowd. A locker slammed right in front of your face dragging your attention away from the signs you were reading.

"I am so sorry," the owner of the locker said. "I had no idea you were there."

"It's fine," you assured him. "I didn't see you there either." But you definitely saw him there now. He had dark brown hair that matched his eyes, and he had a sweet smile that made him immediately likable.

"I'm Peter," he said. A heavier set kid standing next to Peter (who you assumed to be his friend) pointedly cleared his throat. "Oh, and this is Ned."

"Hi," he said as he stretched his hand out to you. You adjusted the bag you were holding so you could shake his hand.

"I'm Y/N," you introduced yourself. "I'm just visiting for the semester."

"Do you need to drop those off?" Peter asked referring to the bags you were holding. "Because, you already passed the storage area." You turned around expecting to see it right behind you.

"You just need to take a left down that hallway," he continued. "I can--" Ned cleared his throat again. "I mean we can take you. You know if you want."

You nodded gratefully "Yes, please that would be great." Peter grabbed the handle of the suitcase next to your feet.

"Great just, uh, follow us." He nodded awkwardly to the other bag at your feet.

"Oh," you heard Ned whisper as he grabbed it and followed Peter. You smiled and followed the two. You dropped all your luggage off and the worker handed you your schedule.

"That's not a lot of luggage for a semester," Ned commented. You shrugged.

"Well, I already sent most of it home. I mean who knows," you said with a small smile. "I might need to stay the summer too."

"That's cool," he replied. "Well technically it's the opposite of cool. 'Cause you know, it's summer. I mean I could've said 'That's hot', but it's just an expression so it doesn't really matter."

"Right, it doesn't matter. We got it, Ned." Peter interrupted. Ned smiled, proud he could successfully explain that to you. "Do you know where you're going next?" he asked you.

You looked down at the schedule in your hand. "History," you answered. "I missed the whole day." Secretly you were relieved. You didn't even need to be here, it was just to keep you busy for a few months.

"Well if you haven't missed chemistry, you haven't missed anything yet," Ned remarked.

"I did miss chemistry," you said.

"I know. It's just one time, Peter was trying to perfect a recipe he had been working on, and he almost blew his eyebrows off."

Peter laughed nervously. "Yeah, well I didn't. I had everything completely under control."

"He set off the fire alarm and 4 sprinklers," Ned finished.

"Ok, well that was a long time ago," Peter half whispered.

Ned look at him confusedly. "That was last week." The bell rang right after Ned had finished.

"We're gonna be late for class if we don't get going," Peter squeaked.

Ned nodded. "Right let's get going." He started leading you down the hallways which were easier to navigate with the students in their correct rooms.

You wanted to talked to Peter as you walked, but you felt flustered. Every thing you thought of sounded stupid or awkward, but there was one sure fire thing you could say.

"Thanks," you said. "To you and Ned for helping me with my bags."

"Oh, yeah, you're welcome," Peter responded. "The signs were probably really confusing. They've been backwards for a year."

You furrowed your brow. "That does explain a lot."

There was a moment of silence before Peter spoke up again. "So, are you from Queens?" he asked.

"No, I'm actually from Manhattan," you said, relieved he had broken the silence.

Peter perked up a bit. "Oh, I--well, I know...someone from Manhattan," he stuttered.

"Oh, anyone I'd know?" you asked jokingly.

Peter fidgeted his hands and looked at the ground. "No, probably, definitely not. He's just a guy...who works on cars." He looked up when he realized you were outside of History. "We can talk after class."

"Yeah Peter and I were going to hang out at his place later tonight," Ned chimed in. "I don't know if you like Legos, but I got an awesome new set to build."

You look apologetically at them. "I'm sorry, I can't. I have to unpack."

Peter opened the door. "Maybe some other time then," he said.

"Yeah," you said. "Another time." With that you sat down at your desk, which was behind Peter, and tried to listen to the lecture. It was difficult to do when Peter kept looking at the clock or fidgeting in his desk. He obviously wanted school to end, but you couldn't imagine him wanting that more than you. But, you must have imagined wrong, because Peter lept from his desk and hurried out the door at the first sound of the bell.

"He's in a hurry to be somewhere," you commented as you shouldered your backpack.

"Peter's always running off to go do something," Ned explained.

You looked at the door as the rest of the students left for the day. "I better go too," you said. "I haven't even seen where I'm staying."

"Wow, ok, that's weird," he said. "See you tomorrow."

"Yep," you sighed. "And the day after that, and the day after that." You followed the stream of students out the door. "Unfortunately, I'm not going anywhere."

They say that you haven't had the New York experience until you've ridden the subway. You wouldn't be surprised if you were the first to prove that theory wrong. When you boarded the train the first thing that hit you was the smell. You might as well have been standing in between two sweaty middle aged men with bad taste in cologne. And while standing was on your mind you also noticed there was no decent place to sit down. Unless, of course, you wanted to sit on a seat with a mysterious wet spot. But when you grabbed onto the sweaty railing, you noticed the worst thing might have been the people. There were people yelling, snoring, whining, and, your personal favorite, singing horrible karaoke to songs you used to love.

Overall the best part about the subway was when you could finally get off. You gathered your bags (which didn't help your subway experience) and quickly exited the train. Now all you had to do was walk to your home, and you could finally start some work.

When you walked in the door, you ditched your bags and shoes in the middle of the floor. The rest of your luggage was tucked neatly against the wall with a note from your dad. You left it all where it was, dug your laptop out of your carry-on, and landed on the couch. You opened up your laptop only to realize you weren't connected to the internet, and didn't know the password. You tapped your fingers on the keys for a second considering if you needed the internet for what you wanted to do.

You sighed, got up from the couch, and walked over to the note on your suitcases. You unfolded it hoping he left, at least, the wi-fi password in it, but there was only one sentence scribbled out in pencil,

Don't forget about your homework - Dad

You pursed your lips and stared at the scratchy handwriting. Of course. After a solid minute of staring that the note you decided you could work off of wi-fi for the night. You opened the files you downloaded from your dad's work folder and starting looking for the one you wanted. That suit he was designing had been in your mind all day, and you were going to figure out what it was for. You hoped it was for you, but you knew better than to assume what your dad had in mind as it was always starkly different than what you thought.

It took long time, sorting through everything, but you did come across a few things you found interesting; including an old file stating that Tony's original name for Friday was Emily. Finally you found one labeled "Spiderling MK 1" and tried to open it up, but it blocked you out saying you needed to connect to a network. You closed the laptop in frustration. You glanced over at your phone and considered calling your dad, but you quickly decided you would rather die. Instead you unpacked some of your things, grudgingly did your homework, and went to bed. Tomorrow you would open that file and find out what he was hiding.

A loud and grating beeping woke you from your sleep. You covered your ears and tried to sit up which was hard to accomplish doing both at once. Eventually you resorted to rolling out onto the floor still covered in your blankets.

"Shut up!" you yelled to nothing. And just like that the alarm stopped. You uncovered your ears and looked around room.

"Goodmorning." The voice scared you half to death and you bolted to your feet. "It's good to see that you're awake." You breathed a sigh of relief when you realized it was just Friday.

"I don't know how I couldn't be," you grumbled in a tired voice. "Don't ever wake me up like that again."

"I'm sorry," the computer said. "Mr. Stark informed me that you would want this alarm."

"Of course he did," you said as you got dressed. "Just change it to something calmer please."

"Right away," Friday replied. After you sorted out the alarm problem you went downstairs and packed your laptop into your backpack. "I have an incoming call from Tony Stark. Would you like me to answer it on speaker?" You grabbed a quick breakfast from the kitchen and headed for the door.

"No," you said. "Send him to voicemail with a message: I've got a train to catch." With that you locked up the house and headed for the subway.

When you got to school you basically just went through the motions. You jotted down a few notes, here and there but nothing was eventful. The only that caught your attention was Peter and Ned whispering all the time. You were in the middle of chemistry when Ned moved his chair over to Peter's and started talking in a hushed voice. You knew it shouldn't be bothered by it, but you hated it when people kept secrets from you. Admittedly you tried to eavesdrop a few times, but every time you would get close enough to hear they stopped talking. You swore it was like Peter had a sixth sense or something.

Annoyed that you couldn't figure out what they were talking about, you stayed in the locker room during PE and opened your laptop. If you couldn't figure their secret out you'd figure out your dad's. You connected to the school wi-fi and tried to open the file. No luck. You tried again, but this time a warning message popped up saying you couldn't open the file on a public network service. You closed the laptop in frustration and started to head out of the locker room. A bunch of girls swarmed through the door so you waited for them to pass.

"Did you hear what that dork kid said?" one of the girls said to you as she walked by.

You played along, wanting the gossip almost as much as she wanted to tell it. "I didn't," you said with exaggerated interest.

"He was pretending that Peter knows Spider-man," she laughed.

"Spider-man?" you genuinely asked. Did this have something to do with the Spiderling File?

"I know right?," she continued. "If I had to guess that one of the students secretly knew Spider-man he would be my last choice." She walked away leaving you with a lot of questions. You were starting to think that Tony chose this school for a reason. Not that you had ever really believed otherwise. You grabbed your laptop and backpack and left to find Peter.

When the school bell rang you just barely had enough time to get to Peter before he left the school grounds.

"Oh, hey, Y/N," he said as he realized you were trying to get his attention.

"Hey," you said. Before you asked him about Spider-man, you had to figure out who Spider-man was. "Is it okay if I come over to your place for a little bit? The wi-fi has been shut off at my house, and I can't do my project."

Peter glanced at Ned with a panicked look, and Ned reflected it back at him. "Uh, like today?" he asked.

"Yeah, if I can," you said.

Ned started tapping Peter's arm. "Well, actually we've got a thing..to do. It's boys--men only," he explained.

"What?" Peter asked.

"Because we're men," Ned looked wide-eyed at Peter.

"I wont be any trouble," you promised. "Honest, I just need a place to sit and work on my laptop."

They looked at each other making strange facial expressions and hand motions until Peter turned to you. "You can come over," he decided. "But, uh, like Ned said, we are going to be busy."

You smiled. Finally you were going to figure it all out. "Thanks, Peter."

"Yeah, sure thing," he whispered with a smile. On the way to Peter's home you noticed they were both fidgeting and whispering. They were definitely hiding something, but you were too caught up in your thoughts to care. You wanted to find out who or what Spider-man was. You made small talk on the way, and soon enough you were at Peter's apartment.

"May!" Peter called when he opened the door. A tall, thin woman walked into the living room while drying her hands on a towel.

"Hey, Peter," she said. Her eyes met yours. "Who's this?"

Peter looked confused. "It's Ned." You looked at the carpet, trying to hide the smile on your face.

May bit her lip trying to keep back a smile of her own. "So, you think I might be talking about the strange girl I've never seen before or--"

"Oh yeah, obviously, sorry," Peter said and pointed to you. "This is Y/N. She's here to work on her project."

"Hi," you said with a small wave.

May nodded slowly. "Alright," she said. "I'll be in the kitchen."

Peter turned to you. "Ned and I will be in my room," he said. "You can sit anywhere you want, but if you need to talk to us just... make sure you knock."

"Okay?" you said. With that Ned and Peter rushed off. You raised a brow and chuckled softly. After taking your laptop out of your bag and sat down on their couch, and tried to connect to the internet. Of course, a password was needed. "Miss Parker," you called. "What's the password to your network?"

Her head popped into the living room. "Oh, that's always too long for me to remember. Peter!" she yelled down the hall. You heard Peter answer from his room.

"What's the wi-fi password?" May asked.

Peter's door opened and he stuck his head out. "May, how many times; It's Emily." Emily? The name rattled around in your head as you tried to recall where you had heard that recently.

"Oh right, it's 'Enter Magic Internet Link Yottabyte'," she said and returned to the kitchen. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard. It was from your dad's files. That's where you had heard about Emily.

"You got that?" You heard May's voice echo from the kitchen, but you weren't sure you completely got it. Surely that couldn't be a coincidence. The acronyms were slightly different, but it was still uncanny.

"Yeah, I got it," you said as you typed in the password. You would look into that later, but you had been waiting all day to find our about the Spiderling/Spider-man.

It took hours for you to get by all the protocols that your dad had put in place. And while the computer was running decryptions you couldn't help but think about what Peter was doing. You heard practically nothing from him and Ned the whole time. Once in a while, they would leave the room for a snack, but that's all you saw them. And yet even that short time seeing Peter made you blush. You couldn't explain why you would get so nervous when you saw him. You were pretty sure you hadn't decided that you liked him, but then again, maybe it wasn't your choice.

The computer alerting you it was done, brought your attention back to the task at hand. You searched in the files for Spider-man and got plenty more results than when you had searched for Spiderling. They were all mostly suits or ways to upgrade the suits. Nothing all that telling; however when you searched the web, you found a video of the hero wearing the exact same suit that Tony designed. You also learned that he had an encounter with bank robbers just last night in Queens. You took a second to piece together the information.

A new hero appeared after the Avengers split, and your dad has been helping him by giving him a suit upgrade. He was working in Queens and the next day Peter claims he knows him? You smiled knowing what was up. Somehow Peter knew Spider-man and you were going to find out how.

You got off the couch and headed for Peter's room. Disregarding their no knocking rule, you swung the door open, and you almost couldn't believe what was in front of you. There was Ned, sitting on Peter's bed wearing Tony Stark's own Spider-man mask. Peter stood petrified next to him and they both looked at you, horrified.

"It's not what it looks like!" Peter squeaked. He looked at Ned desperately.

Ned slipped the mask off his head and nodded quickly. "He's right. This is just a misunderstanding."

"Big misunderstanding," Peter confirmed. Ned was Spider-man? That couldn't have been right. He was a completely different build from the Spider-man in the video you saw. Without another word you closed their door and went to find May. Surely she would know something about this. Peter ran out of his room and stepped in front of you. "Wait, it's just a costume."

You nodded sarcastically. "Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense," you said. "You were trying to keep me out of your room, because you didn't want me to know you had a costume." You raised your brow as you waited for him to respond.

"Yes?" Peter said. Ned walked out of the room with the mask in hand. "Dude!" Peter yelled as he snatched it from Ned, and threw it back into his room. "Can we talk in my room?" You looked him in the eyes, and saw that he was legitimately worried. You slowly walked back into his room, and they followed shutting the door behind them.

"It's fine, Peter." Ned said. "We should tell her the truth."

Peter shook his head and kept mouthing "no" to his friend.

"Yes," Ned turned to you. "It's a souvenir from the Stark Internship." Did you hear him right? The "Stark internship"? You bit your tongue as you held back a laugh.

"Yes!" Peter said picking up his act. "You know, everyone who was part of the Stark Internship they, uh, they all got a fake Spider-man mask. T-thats how I got it."

"The Stark Internship." you repeated. They both nodded. "Ok, here's the problem. I know you're lying; and I don't care that you're Spider-man, Ned, I just care that the secret of Spider-man is in the hand of the two worst liars in the world."

"Ned's not Spider-man. I was just letting him try on the mask," Peter explained.

"So, you're Spider-man," you said to Peter.

"No, I got that from the Stark Internship--"

"No, you didn't, Peter."

"I did. I swear." he said in all seriousness.

Ok, now this was just getting sad. You figured you should tell him the truth before he got too desperate to make you believe him. "Peter, there's no such thing as the Stark Internship."

"There is! I applied to it--"

"There's no such thing as the Stark Internship--"

"How do you know? Have you--"

"Because I'm Tony Stark's daughter!" Everyone went silent.

Peter stared at you with wide eyes. "You're Y/N Stark..."

"Yeah, and you're Spider-man." you answered.

"Mr. Stark told you?" he asked.

You laughed. "No, you're just really obvious. Plus, your wi-fi password is my dad's original name for his computer system."

"Mr. Stark set that up for us so the internet was more secure," Peter said.

You looked over at Ned who had been quiet for a while. "How did you find out?"

"I saw him crawling on the ceiling," Ned said with a smile.

Your attention whipped back to Peter. "You can crawl on the ceiling?" you asked excitedly.

"Shhh!" Peter looked at the door anxiously. "Listen I know you think it's really obvious that I'm Spider-man, but my aunt doesn't know so please don't tell her." You couldn't imagine May not knowing, but you promised not to tell and Peter sighed in relief.

Ned looked at you jokingly. "I wouldn't get too excited; I was asking him earlier today, and he can't do anything cool, like spit venom or lay eggs."

Peter opened his mouth to defend himself, but his faced dropped before he could get a word out. "The tracker!" he whispered.

"What tracker?" you queried.

"I put a tracker on this guy who's selling dangerous weapons," Peter explained.

"We've tracked him as far as Maryland, but we can't get there," Ned added. He turned to Peter. "Sorry, Peter."

"No, there's gotta be a way to get there in time," Peter said as he paced the room.

"I have lots of contacts, if you can pack up and leave," you offered.

"Awesome," Ned whispered, but Peter shook his head.

"No, May would never let me go...unless..." Peter looked over at the wall where a poster for the school's decathlon hung. "Maryland isn't too far from DC."

The next day you, Ned, and Peter stood outside a decathlon bus that was headed for DC. You were surprised they let you there at all since you hadn't been studying with them, but they tested you, you answered correctly so there you were. Of course you were only a backup, but it didn't matter. You just needed a ride.

You all boarded the bus and found seats as far back as they would allow. Now it was just a waiting game. They set up a review for everyone to do, but you and Peter were mostly talking to each other.

"You know," Peter was saying. "The Decathlon is actually pretty fun when you're not using it to track down bad guys." "Are you kidding?" You laughed. "I can do school anytime, but I never get to do anything like this."

Peter turned in his seat toward you. "But you're Y/N Stark. I mean you probably know the rest of Avengers or something."

You sighed. "Yeah, but knowing the Avengers and working with them are two different things," you said as you brushed your hair behind your ear. "The most action I've seen is my dad testing his suits. It's embarrassing."

"No, no, even that's cool!" Peter assured you. "I mean I'm just a neighborhood Spider-man, you know? Well I did steal Captain America's shield once; that was pretty awesome, but I mostly stay in Queens."

"Still bigger than a basement," you mumbled. "It's cool that you look after your town though. The Avengers are so caught up with the big threats, they forget about the little things."

"Yeah, I mean the only other person, besides you and Ned, who knows about the guys we're tracking is Mr. Stark," Peter said.

"If my dad knows about this, and finds out that I'm headed straight for it, I'm in big trouble," You said almost to yourself. Your thoughts were interrupted when Peter's phone rang.

"I gotta take this," he said and excused himself further back in the bus.

While he was gone, you thought about what you had said earlier. You were taking a big risk following Peter to DC. Your dad always made sure you were far away from danger, and if he found out that you were waltzing right toward men armed with lethal, alien tech, you might as well kiss Midtown High goodbye. A few days ago you would've been happy about that, but now you weren't so sure. It was laughable how quickly you changed your mind, and for what? Different surroundings, a bit of adventure, or maybe a boy you couldn't stop thinking about who was right there with you from your first day. He couldn't even hear you and you were blushing. You looked out the window hoping to take your mind off your warm cheeks. All you were saying was, maybe going to Midtown High could be for the better.

Peter started walking back to you, while stuffing his phone in his pocket. "That was Happy Hogan," he explained to you and Ned. "There's a tracker in my suit, and who knows what they'll do if they see that I'm in Maryland instead of DC."

You opened your mouth to say something, but your phone rang before you got the chance. You looked at the others worriedly and showed them the caller ID. "Happy Hogan," you said.

"No way," Ned whispered. This time it was your turn to step to the back of the bus.

"Yeah?" you said as casually as you could.

"I just got a notification here that you left New York?" Happy said.

"Yes, it's for the decathlon at school," you started. "But, Happy, why and how are you tracking me?"

You heard him snort out a breath. "Are you kidding? You're swimming in your dad's technology how could I not track you," he replied.

"Ok...but still, tracking me is wrong and just plain--"

"Did you say it was for the decathlon?" Happy interrupted.

You bit your tongue before responding. "Yes."

"Your dad didn't sign you up for that."

"Well, I don't need him to sign me up for everything I'm going to be doing," you said. "Get off my back...and my computer...and my phone." You hung up and hurried back to where you were sitting.

"What's wrong?" Peter asked. You started rummaging through your bags for every piece of online electronic you had with you.

"My dad's tracking me too," you explained. You quickly and thoroughly shut down each device you had found. "I'll just have to be gadget free for a while."

You spent the rest of the bus ride talking, answering review questions, or thinking to yourselves. Despite the feeling that someone was watching your every move, it was actually enjoyable. When you made it to Washington DC, you didn't exactly have time to stretch. The three of you went to Peter and Ned's hotel room and immediately started working on the tracker in Peter's suit.

"I don't know exactly where the tracker would be, but from what I remember it's around here," you said as you circled a part of the suit.

"Right ok, so, how do we open it up?" Peter asked. You all stared at the suit, hoping it would magically open. No such luck.

After half an hour of trying to open the suit without ruining it, you located the wiring, and successfully removed it from the suit. In the process, however, Ned had also found a system called "Training wheels protocol" that was blocking the suits abilities. It took some convincing, but Ned disabled it and soon you were ready to be on your way.

"Ok, I gotta go," Peter said as he zipped his coat up over his suit.

"What do you mean you have to go," you questioned. "We have to go. I'm coming too."

"What? No, you need to stay here," Peter insisted. "Mr. Stark wouldn't want you to come with me."

"'Mr. Stark' wouldn't want you to go at all. There's no reason for me to stay here."

"There's no reason for you to go either. It just puts you in danger."

"I'm sick and tired of everyone trying to keep me out of danger! I want to help!"

"Guys!" Ned interrupted. "We aren't getting anywhere standing around arguing."

"I agree," You said. "Let's go, Peter."

"Y/N," Peter stood in front of you and looked at you pleadingly. "I know what it's like to want to help, but if something happened to you, I couldn't live with that. Not only because Mr. Stark would probably kill me," he added with a chuckle "But also because I don't want anything to happen to my friends. Please stay here with Ned."

After a moment of looking into his eyes you folded. "Fine," you breathed.

Peter sighed in relief. "Thank you! I'll be back soon!" he yelled before jumping out the door. Ned tried to talk to you, but you weren't in the mood. You gathered your things, said goodnight to Ned, and went to your room. Hopefully Peter would still be alive by morning.

***

"I'm so stupid! I should've gone with him!," you grumbled as you and Ned your anxiously waited for the decathlon to start. "Peter should have been here by now."

"I know," Ned agreed. "It would be so not cool if he died last night.

You raised your brow. "No kidding." The decathlon was about to start and one of your teachers tried to get you to replace him. You got out of it by lying that you were sick, but now your stomach was housing a kaleidoscope of butterflies that made it less of a lie. What if something had happened to Peter? For all you knew he could be dead in an alley, and it would be your fault for not going with him.

The decathlon started and ended before you knew it. Ned told you that their team had won, but there was still no sign of Peter. Your whole group was heading towards the Washington Monument to celebrate, and you made your way over to Ned.

"How is Peter going to know where we are?" you whispered.

"Oh," Ned said as he reached in his pocket. "I'll send him a text." You stared at the phone in his hand and then at him.

"You could've called him the whole time?" you said through gritted teeth.

"Oh yeeaah," Ned replied.

You snatched the phone away from him, but right before you could dial anything Peter called.

You answered as quickly as you could. "Peter?" you said.

"Y/N?" Peter sounded out of breath and you heard wind rushing by the phone. "Please give the phone to Ned, it's an emergency!"

"What happened?" you asked worriedly.

"I'll explain everything later, just give the phone to Ned!"

You grudgingly gave the phone to Ned, who was passing by the security search in the monument. You tried to hear what he was saying put you were pushed back as the students formed a single file line. When you made it by security you met up with Ned, but he wasn't on the phone.

"What did he say?" you questioned.

"He was just worried I forgot something at the room," Ned answered.

"He said it was an emergency," you said.

Ned shrugged. "He hung up after the security sweep. Listen I'm sure he's fine. He's at least alive. Let's just enjoy the tour." Ned walked off leaving you anxious and confused.

The same teacher who had tried to make you take Peter's place walked up to you. "Feeling better?"

You angrily grabbed your stuff off the security conveyor. "Hardly." You followed Ned into the elevator with the rest of the students.

The slow incline of the elevator made you more worried the higher you went. You fidgeted and tried to listen to the tour guide, but your mind was somewhere else. You just couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. Unfortunately, you discovered your suspicions were correct when a laser-like light penetrated through Ned's backpack and the elevator ceiling causing severe damage to the shaft. You looked in horror at Ned who immediately dropped his backpack on the ground. After a moment of silence, the tour guide tried to assure you that you would all be fine, but it didn't take a genius to know that wasn't true. The students around you were in panic, and frankly, you were too. Your mind was so focused on Peter that you couldn't think about your situation until it was life or death, and now you were freaking out.

Some security guards had come to get as many people out as possible, but you could feel the elevator shifting every time someone moved. You felt like you couldn't breath, as you watched each student carefully make their way out. The elevator was emptying and your breath slowly came back to you. It was Ned's turn to leave, but before he could even make it through the hatch the elevator plummeted.

Everything that happened was a blur. You remember the the feeling of falling, and the screams of the other students, but you were just petrified. You didn't scream, and you didn't dare move. You shivered thinking about it again. You now stood safely on the ground looking up at the Washington Monument. Peter was there. It only just hit you. The reason everyone had made it out alive was because Peter had caught the falling elevator long enough to get everyone out. You looked around, but you didn't see him anywhere. However, as you were looking for Peter, you did see someone else walking toward you; and as he got closer you realized exactly who it was. Tony Stark: your dad.

To be continued...

#oneshot #one shot #peter parker #peter parker x reader #x reader #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #peter oneshot #peter one shot #peter parker one shot #marvel one shot #marvel oneshot #marvel #marvel cinematic universe oneshot #marvel cinematic universe one shot #peter parker onshot

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transbionic-shieldmaiden · 4 years

Text

a really long post about my stupid HRT adventure

cw medical stuff, tumors.

context: there was a post about getting on HRT that I read but I decided this was too personal to go in a reblog. donut rebagel, but feel free to reply.

ohhhh man, so like obviously i’m glad other people have had a better time than I when it comes to getting on hrt but i really gotta rant about the issues i had, because I had a hell of a time getting it DESPITE NOT ACTUALLY RUNNING INTO GATEKEEPING. so, story time:

this got long, so have a read more.

So I have executive dysfunction, which I cannot recommend. For me at least it comes in a package deal with a bunch of plasticbrains things I’m very much a fan of (stims! hyperfocus! being trans!), but I’d still very much like to not deal with it. And I also have social anxiety. Which overall is not a great combination of issues for dealing with the medical system.

Case in point: figuring out I’m trans was the catalyst for getting me to actually seek therapy (at MIT medical, which -- sidenote -- is free for students and I can’t recommend them highly enough), but what this actually meant was I took basically an entire semester to make the phone call to get an appointment, which was scheduled for a month after the call*. So far so great.

Anyway, as my therapy continued I kept coming in and complaining about dysphoria and being like “man i wish i could start hrt! but i won’t, because that involves talking to strangers :(” and eventually my therapist was like “so like. regular medical, which can prescribe hrt, is literally one floor below us. i can walk you down and schedule an appointment right now.”

and i was like “uhhhh wait i didn’t actually want my problem solved that means i have to talk to strangers!!!” but like obviously this was the social anxiety talking because i did actually want hrt. so my therapist walked me down to medical and i scheduled an appointment with the one Trans Doctor (tee-em) at MIT medical (like seriously this woman is as far as I can tell the PCP for like half of MIT’s trans population, we stan).

so the way this worked out is I needed three appointments: one intake appointment which was largely informational, one appointment with a physical checkup and a blood draw, and finally an appointment once the blood draw results came in. So I went in to the firs appointment, scheduled the second once it was done, and then MIT medical stole my blood.

And when that appointment was done I...didn’t schedule the third.

Cue several months passing due to executive dysfunction and social anxiety.

So I finally get myself together enough to schedule the last appointment, and I go in...and it turns out I have abnormally low testosterone. And I was all ready to be like “Oh no...isn’t that a shame...how terrible...” but the problem is, low testosterone in conjunction with my other blood metrics...was possibly a sign of a brain tumor.

That sounds worse than it actually is -- the brain tumor in question would’ve been benign, so it wouldn’t have been cancer. It does occasionally lead to blindness however, and low testosterone from said tumor would obviously not be very visible once I was taking spironolactone. So we needed to make sure I didn’t have a tumor before we could proceed with HRT. I was sent to take another blood test, optimized for the time of day when testosterone levels peak, and was therefore in the strange situation of being a trans woman hoping for high testosterone levels on a blood test.

Alas, it seems I was truly too trans for my own good, for it turns out the second test was even lower than the first.

This meant I had to go in for another blood test, and I had to get an MRI. And of course remember that every appointment I make here means 3-5 weeks depending on scheduling, all while I’m engaging in the standard MIT pastime of drowning in psets. Which is not fun when you’re depressed from dysphoria, let me tell you.

The MRI rolls around and it’s in this area of the Boston metro area Where The T Dares Not Go. There’s a bus stop near the clinic, but I have only been on an MBTA bus once and I really didn’t want to miss my appointment. So I hop in a lyft and soon it’s time for me to go in the Big Science Tube.

So here’s the thing about the Big Science Tube. It’s loud, it’s cramped, and in my case at least you get pumped with Contrast Juice which like goes in your brain or something? idk i’m not an MRI tech. I actually found it to be a not entirely unpleasant experience, because it sort of feels like you’re in a cryosleep chamber or something and I’m a huge nerd. But it’s also...massively disorienting. You can’t move, your vision is limited to the inside surface of a white cylinder, the whole thing is making Noise and vibrating, there’s the Contrast Juice sloshing in your brain...Oh, and at least in my case they let me listen to satellite radio while i was vibing in the science tube. Thing is, I don’t generally like radio music, since I tend to like individual songs more than genres, so I picked the jazz station. I figured this would ensure fairly enjoyable music the whole time, instead of a weird roller-coaster of songs I like, songs I hate, and songs I haven’t heard (the vast majority).

While I stand by this analysis in general, I do not recommend jazz as the soundtrack to the big science tube.

All this is to say that by the time I got out, I was extremely out of it and loopy. Oh, I also forgot to mention: I did not sleep well the night before. My sleep schedule is a mess at the best of times, and I was very nervous. So I am...completely off the shits by this point, not to mention extremely hungry and thirsty. They tell you to drink a lot to flush the Contrast Juice from your system, so that works out OK. In theory.

I get out, stand by the bus station for a bit, and conclude the bus isn’t coming. I walk across the street to a McDonalds, figuring I could really use some food and liquid. Which was correct.

...Except the bus came and went while I was in there, and looking at the schedule on my phone revealed I’d have to wait another half an hour for another.

This is where I make a terrible mistake. I look at my map, see that Harvard...isn’t too far from where I am, and Harvard has a T station! Perfect! So I, completely loopy from the MRI, still dehydrated because I haven’t gotten nearly enough liquids from McDonalds, decide to WALK TO HARVARD. It was a 30 minute walk, through unfamiliar territory, and I cannot stress this enough: I. Was. Off. The. Shits.

So I walk to Harvard using my phone’s GPS and whatever brain cells were not full of Contrast Juice, somehow managing to navigate through this random neighborhood and over the bridge without getting too lost or getting hit by a car. As I reach Harvard, I realize that this is a bad place for me to be in my current mental state: it’s bustling, full of standard college craziness; i think there was a guy in a chocolate bar costume which I could not process at the time. Oh, and I’ve never been to the Harvard T station so in my condition I struggle to find it. And when I do get there...well, here’s the thing about the Harvard T station: It’s huge. There’s several floors of underground bus terminals and an absolute warren of tunnels. Perfectly navigable, if you’re sober or know the area.

I am of course none of these things.

Still, somehow I find my way to the train, but that wasn’t even the end of my problems! Because, you see, my dorm is twenty minutes from the nearest T stop! So even once I get back to MIT I still have lots of walking to do. I don’t remember how I got back at that point; I think it involved a lot of drinking fountains.

Anyway, I guess this was supposed to be about me getting HRT? So it takes a while for the MRI results to get back, but it turns out I don’t have a tumor. However, in the meantime my parents have been pushing for me to freeze some sperm cells, so that I can have kids someday. Here’s the thing: I do not want kids. I do not expect to ever want kids. And if that changes, I’d be quite happy to adopt kids. But my parents are offering to pay for it, and the risk-averse part of my brain is like “oh...maybe i should do it...just in case???”

It takes me a month to actually call a fertility clinic. In the meantime, I am struggling in my classes; dysphoria is not conducive to educational success. It was not a good time to be me, let’s just put it that way. Finally, I make the call, and uhhhh it turns out sperm freezing is really expensive? And you have to go in for an intake appointment...then do some tests...and then...

So at this point I say, fuck it! And I get on HRT the next week. In total it took me like...a year to get on HRT, depending on how you count it? And all this without anyone actually gatekeeping me on being an Invalid Trans or whatever. But it’s all good, because now I’m far happier and more together than I ever thought I can be. The moral of this story is: HRT good, executive dysfunction bad, and don’t wander through Harvard while completely off the shits from MRI aftereffects.

*this is the one issue with MIT medical; their services are great but also in high demand. the system is a bit better once you actually get into it though.

#genderfeels #trainsbionic-shieldmaiden #plasticbrains #personal #donut rebagel #medical cw #tumors cw #the word of the shieldmaiden

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mystic-kitten-writer · 4 years

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It’s wonderful how you love reading people’s words about almost anything and attend to their words, being able to sense their feelings behind it. And I agree, it’s so lovely when you can sense a person’s joy through their words, as you said! Here I am once again, feeling special, thanks to you 💛 You’re a darling! And I’ll try my best to send long asks whenever possible!! (1/11)

Ahh, it’s going to be a while before I actually feel comfortable doing chart readings! But you know what? I would be happy to read your astrology chart for free, if you want! It would be great practice for me and it would give me a chance to grow my confidence. Though only if you want, let me know! ☺️ I’m so happy to know you’re learning and grasping everything perfectly! The way you believe in me astrology-wise makes my heart all warm 💓 (2/11)

I’m sorry your summer courses got cancelled btw, especially since you were on track to graduate. Hopefully, this gives you time for yourself though. I wish I can say I enjoy being active too, but it’s not something I do often tbh. Though I do love walking, as well as dancing (but it’s been a while). I need to find more activities that can get me moving 😔 Ah I see, what solo activities do you like doing to stay active? (I fall on the introverted side, I tend to favor being alone too) (3/11)

I’m on the same boat as you + your family. I haven’t been outside since mid-March and being at home until now has made me a bit antsy. It probably added to the weird headspace I was in too. Though that’s gone now, I’m feeling much better + less stressed thankfully. The semester is still in session for me, I’ve got about until mid-May until it’s over. Though I’m glad that school will be over before my birthday, so that’s a blessing I’m super thankful for! I can enjoy my day in peace, aha. (4/11)

Manipulation can be associated with a few other signs too actually, but Scorpio is definitely up there in the top three! And it is definitely true that that as you get older, you can either grow more into your sign’s archetype or some traits lessen over time. Rather than it being some traits disappearing, it’s more likely due to other planetary energies in certain signs coming into play and becoming more prominent. (5/11)

There’s also this point in everyone’s chart, the midheaven. It’s been said that whatever sign a person’s midheaven is in, that person shows more of that energy as they get older. Which brings me to how you got the impression that I’m a Libra! My midheaven is in Libra, which is probably why you felt that more than Taurus. It’s fascinating, especially since we’re just interacting through messages. Didn’t know my Libra energy was showing that strongly but it’s nice being aware of that now! (‪6/11‬)

I will definitely let you know if any of my guesses change when I do a rewatch of the whole series! (P.S. did you hear the announcement that A:TLA will be on Netflix ‪on May 15th‬?!) And to make it more fun, I’ll assess the other characters as well and share what signs I believe they could possibly be! I’ll consider it my mini summer project 😋 But oh my gosh, soft Zuko in the comics? 🤧 Maybe I should read the comics too then, since it might give me more material to work with. (‪7/11‬)

Your questions made sense, it’s all good! I think the best thing to refer to and see how Yue’s Venus energy influences Zuko’s Cancer side is that conversation in chapter 22 of Limerence, where Zuko told Yue that if having a family meant having a family with her, then that’s all he could ever want. Of course, he loves her, so there’s no doubt about them having a family together eventually. (‪8/11‬)

Though this is highlighted more with Yue’s Venus + Zuko’s Cancer energy because those energies meshing creates a soft/tender vibe, which makes coming together and creating a family highly ideal. Because Venus carries this loving energy which reinforces Cancer’s love for being domestic. As for the dynamic of Yue’s Libra and Zuko’s Aries, I feel that it’s one of the things that sets the overall tone for their relationship. (‪9/11‬)

With Aries/Libra, it’s kind of a classic case of Venus & Mars, so Yue being the affectionate/gentle one while Zuko being the intense/bold one, that paints the picture of their Aries/Libra dynamic. All that Libra/Scorpio energy in your sister’s family though, wow!! There are some common patterns in astrology that can occur with family, and one of those patterns can manifest as a certain sign or two being strong in the family. I guess that’s completely true for your sister! (‪10/11‬)

I’ll wrap all of this up by saying that chapter 33 of Limerence is completely enthralling! With every single chapter, I’m just in love with your storytelling. You’re such a fantastic writer! And also, it’s very enjoyable talking to you every time! Thank you for showing such warm energy always, it’s refreshing 💜 - 🌻 (‪11/11‬)

AHHHH – my lovely 🌻-anon~! 🥰🥰🥰

How long have you been studying astrology, and how long does it usually take for one to gain the confidence and skills to provide a service? I’m just so curious – but I never had anyone to ask these questions and learn. I’m sorry if these queries sound silly 😅

BUT BABE.

I would love a reading – but I’ll have to give you something. I refuse to not pay or give something back (even if small!). Plus, I need to say thank you for indulging me and letting me bother you non-stop with my questions 😂 But, seriously – you should be confident. You have literally not only captured my interest but a lot of others too!

Honestly, as sucky as it is to not graduate, I’m doing exactly that – taking the time for myself. I’ve been going for walks as of late while listening to some tunes! I live near conservation, so I’m lucky that I have a huge forest with lakes and a beach to unwind. But before I got hurt, I used to do cross-country, high-jump, and shotput (I miss those days 😭).

But, if you enjoy dancing – I encourage Zumba💃

I know it seems random, but it’s something super fun to do by yourself (or with someone else, I usually do it with my mom) and it just gets you moving. I’ve been doing Zumba almost every day because sitting on the couch is starting to get to me. It’s totally random – but it’s a fun way to get active in the comforts of your home, and you got some fun music to listen to. I’m glad to hear you’ve gotten out of that weird headspace though – I relate a lot to you in that aspect. It can take a while to get out of it, but the important part is that you did it! And I wish you the best with school, you’re almost done.

Also, happy Taurus season, babe~! 😘😘

Ouu, so what other signs associate with manipulation? I always hear Scorpio, so you’ve piqued my interest. And, I’m going to be honest, I’m still in shock that you’re a Taurus LOOL. I don’t know why, but the way you write reminds me of some of my friends/family who are Libras. You just have this diplomacy when you write? Do I sound crazy – probably 😂😂. I’ve never heard about the midheaven, but now that you told me that, it does make a lot of sense. Like you know how Zuko screams Mars? You scream Libra for me😋

YES I DID HEAR. Okay, so I’m from Canada, so ATLA is already here for us to watch – but my best friend (he lives in the States) literally called me screaming in excitement. We’re planning binge-watching dates for us to video chat and watch together. So I think I can safely assume you shall be binge-watching ATLA starting May 15 😉😉

Soft Zuko.

I swear, I fangirled soooooooo damn hard.

My heart – gone.

Soul – snatched.

Zuko is just such a cutie, like a teddy bear – with that smile of his and I just ajsdksadjksjdkasdksd My body can’t handle this level of cuteness. Like he has his kick-ass moments, but getting to see that other side of him was beautiful. My favourite moment was he gives Kiyi a piggy-back ride and tucks her into bed. If you end up reading the comics – you gotta let me know. I’m dying to know what you think of it!

It was also neat seeing Katara’s and Aang’s relationship develop in the comics (and Toph). Like the comics captured the essence of an awkward teenage romance (Katara and Aang) blooming into a long-lasting relationship. Like my friends said they cringed so hard during some ‘romantic’ moments between them, and they’re like it made us cringe not because it was bad, but because that was us when we were teenagers with our partners.

Oh wow – thank you for the examples! Honestly, it makes sense now about the domestic aspects with Zuko’s Cancer and Yue’s Venus. I just needed to make sure I was understanding it, I need to know these facts👏👏 But I swear – I feel like their whole relationship is the definition of chaotic neutral 😂😂

Is there a reason why certain signs have a strong presence in certain families (like you mentioned how you have a lot of ‘me’s’ in yours lol). Or is just random?

But I’m glad you enjoyed chapter 33, love! It feels so nice to get back into a writing routine – I was going nuts, not able to write consistently. I need to channel my chaotic energy into my stories LOOL

But I hope you’re taking care of yourself (family and friends included) in these times! It’s nice engaging in these long chats, it makes so happy (can you tell 😂).

I can’t wait till I hear from you again🌻~! 💜💜💜

#ask me anything #anon answered #atla #Avatar The Last Airbender #🌻#🌻 anon #sunflower anon

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cassoliver · 4 years

Text

new york’s very own cassandra “cass” oliver was spotted on broadway street in reebok club c 85 vintage shoes . your resemblance to sydney sweeney is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty-first birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being naive , but also compassionate . i guess being a pisces explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be exposed tan lines , loud laughter , and only ever wearing gold jewelry . ( i slept with one of my co-stars while we were shooting on location, not knowing they had a significant other back home ) & ( cis-female & she / her )

lia takes on a second character TAKE TWO whAT is up you guys , it’s ya girl back at it again with another muse . i randomly got a lot of inspiration for this new girly pop and i feel p good about it ! go ahead and smash that mf like button if you wanna plot ! i can slide into your ims or on discord if that’s more your jam !

S T A T S ↴

– * FULL NAME : cassandra rosemary oliver – NICKNAME(S) : cass ( commonly referred as ), cassie – * AGE : twenty-one – * D.O.B : march 16th – * ZODIAC : pisces – * GENDER : cis-female –* ORIENTATION : bisexual biromantic – * HEIGHT : 5′4″ – * NATIONALITY : american – * BIRTHPLACE : asbury park , new jersey – * OCCUPATION : student + actress – * TRAITS : compassionate, creative, intuitive, gentle, empathetic, fun-loving, naive, whimsical, loyal, subservient, overly emotional, pensive, fearful, overly trusting

B I O G R A P H Y ↴

you’d have to be living under a rock to not know jeremy and elizabeth marie oliver . think brad pitt and angelina jolie , will smith and jada pinkett , or whatever other celebrity IT couple you fancy . jeremy is notoriously known for his acting career that took off in the late 80′s . around the same time , elizabeth marie’s acting / modeling career was taking off across the pond . the iconic duo met through work and quickly fell in love . after their over the top wedding ceremonies ( yes plural . they got married once in jeremy’s hometown in new jersey and then again in elizabeth marie’s hometown in england ). shortly after their holy matrimony , they produced three healthy babies : mason , samuel , and cassandra . there were a few years in between the kiddos , but they were all raised in a tight knit family outside of the limelight in asbury park , new jersey . their parents decided to take a break from working in order to raise their kids . i wish i could say that gave the oliver trio a normal childhood . but it’s kind of hard to go to public school and not draw attention to yourself when your parents are household names . it was hard for cassandra to understand that her parents were super famous and for some reason that meant something to people . if you asked her , there was no reason to get all starstruck over her parents . they were just people after all .

so i guess you could say she had a normal childhood . at least , as normal as one could have with their name and photos constantly plastered all over tabloids . cassandra grew up in a happy and loving environment , which is nice . and with her dad working part time as a professor at his alma mater , juilliard , she and her family bounced back and forth between their coastal home in new jersey and their urban townhouse in new york . and she throughly enjoyed experiencing the best of both worlds . both places felt like home to her and she and her brothers made the best memories together . see , her brothers were her best friends growing up . mason and samuel were five (5) and three (3) years older than her , respectively , and she followed them around everywhere they went . the two boys let her reluctantly at first when mom and dad forced them to but over time it became enjoyable to have her be just another member of their friend group . cassandra was well liked and throughly protected by her brothers and their friends . they shielded her away from all things dangerous : from substances to rude people . this led to a pretty sheltered upbringing . she lived in this little bubble where things were all good all the time .

as she got older , she had to learn to fend for herself a bit more . no longer was she under the watchful gaze of her brothers , for they had rushed into graduating high school early so that they could pursue their own acting careers-- following in line with their infamous parents . having the oliver last name gave them an advantage in the film industry and they ran with that opportunity . meanwhile , cassandra stayed back and took her time . acting was always something she was interested in . there’s no way she could be a member of her household and not dabble in the art at least a little bit . but it wasn’t a top priority to her for a long time . she didn’t want to rely on her family name to get her somewhere in the industry . if she was going to do it , she wanted to do it right . she wanted to earn her place just like anybody else . and if it worked out for her then great ! and if it didn’t , well she prepared a back-up plan . she elected to go to NYU for business instead of studying acting or just bypassing college all together . she figured if all else failed , then she’d start her own company and branch out of the creative arts .

and she took her college career very seriously . she’s studious and hard-working , genuinely enjoying learning new things and having a ‘ normal college experience ’. even though people still look at her funny or talk about her behind her back once they figure out why she looks so gosh darn familiar , she’s come to find that college students are much more chill than the kids that used to bombard her with questions about her famous family on the play ground . most days , cassandra gets by feeling like a completely normal girl . no fame or fortune , just a regular schemgular student trying to get by . and she’d probably gotten away with just melting into the background and never breaking out into the limelight if it wasn’t for one little netflix project she agreed on .

it was just supposed to be another passion project . cassandra had done a few small roles in indie movies at that point . just enough to dip her toes into the movie making world but not enough to drag her away from getting a higher education . but when a script for a new netflix original series was slid in her direction by a family friend turned agent-- well , she just couldn’t put it down ! she loved everything about the show and knew she just had to be a part of it . so she gave up one summer of her life to film OUTER BANKS , not at all thinking that it would blow up the way it did a year later when it premiered . and now news is breaking out that the youngest oliver is finally stepping out into the acting scene , which is warranting a lot of media attention towards her . honestly , she feels pretty good about the project itself . she’s very proud of the show and is incredibly grateful that it’s doing as well as it is . but when it comes to all the notoriety she’s getting because of it , well ... she’s still adjusting to being famous in her own right and not just secondhand through her family . she’s a little overwhelmed . she’s a big girl now that has to navigate through this next chapter of her life without anybody holding her hand or shielding her from the highs and lows of being known . whether or not she thrives in the limelight or crumbles under the pressure is to be determined .

P E R S O N A L I T Y & F U N F A C T S ↴

i think it’s really funny to call her the third franco brother ( yes dave and james have a third brother , his name is tom ). bc like her brothers are essentially mega stars w all the movies they’ve been in at this point and she’s sort of the other sibling that everyone forgets about . y’know until recently lol

she is a giant sweetheart !! just v lovey and kind and empathetic ,, has a warmth to her that makes it feel like it’s summertime all the time

v humble bc she does not consider herself famous what so ever . like being second-hand famous from her family and getting a few extra instagram followers bc of her last name is one thing , but with the success of her current show she’s being put on covers of magazines , being interviewed for teen vogue and stuff like that , getting verified on everything , and gaining hundreds of thousands of followers DAILY . it’s crazy to her

naive in the sense that she’s rlly out here thinking that everyone has a heart as big as hers and has only the best intentions when sadly that might not be the case !! so like ,,,, probs gets taken advantage of and doesn’t even realize it . or messes things up bc she thinks she can just continue living a normal average joe life when in reality her whole life has been far from average ,, the whole world’s got their eye on her and everything she says and does publicly can and will be scrutinized and she is just …. not prepared for that

wants to have a good time and do cool art sh*t !! as long as she’s being creative in some aspect , she’s happy . honestly doesn’t take a lot to make her happy

but also when she gets sad oh boy oh boy does she get sad . pretty much down and out and nothing anyone says or does can make her feel better unfortunately . will just self isolate and you just gotta let her ride it out ://

hobbies include painting , reading , collecting plants , and taking photos

has a second instagram account just for her photography ! @casstookthis lol

lives with her “babies” which are like 10 house plants and all of her books

v family oriented ! goes to visit her parents regularly and talks to her brothers basically daily despite living on two different coasts

acting was always something she knew she wanted to do-- and that may or may not have to do w her parents’ influence and the pressure to follow in their foot steps just like her brothers did

as kids , she and her brothers would work together to put on performances in the living room for their parents . they’d make “short films” and upload them to all 6 of their subscribers on youtube

allergic to cats but wants one so bad ,, has never had a pet in her life actually

the little things amuse her . her sense of humor is really quite simple . hit her w some puns and / or a dad joke and you’ll have her rolling

is learning how to speak mandarin and french

always over-prepared , never underprepared ,, needs to feel like she is capable of handling anything or else she panics

cannot tell a lie to save her life , gets nervous and can’t make eye contact

at any given moment , you can tell what she’s thinking and what she’s feeling just from taking one look at her face . sometimes she tries to mask it because she is an actress after all . but it’s not hard to see through the facade that she puts on if you know her well

hopeless romantic af ! romanticizes everything in life ! loves love in all forms , romantic , platonic , self love , whatever ! looks at the world through rose tinted glasses and heart eyes ! probably falls in love with a person , place , or thing at least 5 times a day !

prefers summer and living near a beach / some body of water over living in the middle of the city . so she’ll often visit back home or go stay with her brothers in LA , not just to be closer to family , but to be more in her element

her family has so many houses simply bc their lives are all over the place ???? like they kept her childhood home in new jersey but they also always had a luxury townhouse in new york plus a summer home in the hamptons and a cottage in england and an apartment in los angeles that her brothers currently reside in . she used to just stay in the townhouse while going to school but she recently bought her own apartment bc she wants to be #independent

might catch her as the lead in a new netflix original movie coming soon *wink wink*

is in love with her best friend east harvey and they’re getting married

WANTED CONNECTIONS PAGE HERE

#wealthyhq:intro #this is short right? i tried to keep it short #but anyways plz love my soft girly pop

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poppytheorist · 5 years

Text

Me Laughing

must’ve been one hell of a joke

Preamble

So, I was in the middle of writing a piece on [redacted] when Poppy released a 27-minute video of herself laughing. Naturally, that took priority. Sorry for my absence, this post took some time. And by “some time,” I mean “45 hours.”

This may be the best thing I’ve written, but it’s also the most insane thing I’ve written. In fact, I would label this post as ‘maddening.’ It’s possible you won’t be able to look at Poppy the same way again. I know I don’t. You can’t unread this, readers beware, [other dramatic warnings], etc., etc.

Descend when ready.

…

I thought “Concrete” was pretty #wild, but “Me Laughing” takes the cake. This video is pure lunacy, and I mean that somewhat literally since Poppy does laugh at what appears to be nothing for almost half an hour.

Due to the sheer insanity of “Me Laughing,” I’ve put together a handy little collage to help readers follow along. Behold: my barely passable Paint skills!

the pic for Section 4 basically explains everything

Before we begin, I need to address a few things. There’s at least, like, nine people who read this stuff, and while I can’t say that I envy you, I can say that I appreciate you. Thanks for sticking around.

However, there’s a funny thing that happens when you know you’re writing for an audience. You feel pressured to adapt your style. I feel the need to be a little more careful about some of the things I say, but that’s probably for the best. Hopefully this extra care will result in more coherent posts, but I doubt it.

This post will be long. Partially because “Me Laughing” is long, partially because I’ve padded this out with shaky theory about how the world works. Guess that’s no different than my other posts, but still, feel free to tune that out if you’re just here for the Poppy stuff, though maybe you’ll find some of it interesting.

I tend to write authoritatively, which may be misleading because I’m not always confident about what I’m saying. I simply enjoy taking things to their natural conclusions. Typically, there’s something interesting at the end. Or, at least, a premise insane enough to make writing about it enjoyable. See, for example, my post on “Concrete.” This post won’t be much different, maybe just a little crazier.

Now, I’ve got a funny feeling that some people may think I am “reading too much into this” or that Poppy’s work “isn’t that deep.” Hey, I get it. Those objections are completely understandable. I was once there myself, but now I’ve moved away from thinking that way. I’ll do my best to explain why.

From what I’ve seen, aesthetics (roughly: the study of art) is a total battlefield. Nobody agrees on anything, everybody thinks that only they can ‘properly’ understand art and that everyone else is wrong. There’s people who think beauty is objective, there’s people who think “no, that’s stupid, beauty is obviously subjective,” and there’s even the people who outright deny that aesthetics exists. Recently, we also had the pleasure of witnessing the aesthetics debate become another facet of the everlasting culture war. Think a line from “Play Destroy” sums my thoughts about that up: “oh boy!”

Needless to say, it’s a massive shitshow.

Despite my rather war-torn depiction of modern aesthetics, it might be a good thing that we can never ‘understand’ art. I hear that’s, like, part of the point. If art was ever ‘solved,’ well, we’d be faced with the idea that there is nothing ‘special’ about being human, that we’re just sacks of meat bumbling around with no purpose. Then everybody would, like, die or something. Truth hurts, art heals, let’s stay alive.

Anywho, I mention all this because there’s no rigorous way to determine how ‘deep’ a song (or any piece of art) is. You can’t just take a stick, poke it into some art, and say: “yep, this Poppy song is 75 [metres/fathoms/hands/whatever nonsense unit] deep!” Besides, nobody even agrees what ‘artistic depth’ means, and most attempts to define it flounder. If you listen closely, you can just faintly hear Goodhart laughing.

This is also why people who think they can ‘objectively’ analyze art are dogmatic blowhards. Any amount of rigorous thinking reveals that our standards for what make art ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are entirely baseless. No, seriously, it’s a case of channeling your inner Socrates and repeatedly asking ‘why’ until the other person throws their up their arms, leaves, and stops answering your texts.

We don’t even know what art is, so thinking you can ‘understand’ art and judge its ‘depth’ is pure arrogance. At least, until someone finds a way to math that shit. “Sounds solipsism.” Well, ya gotta start somewhere.

Now, does this mean we should also throw up our arms, say: “screw it” and return to binging Netflix and eating foods that you know aren’t good for you but you eat them anyways because they make you feel good and that’s what you need right now? Well, no, actually.

Even if we aren’t 100% sure what art is, or what we should do with it, there are some theories on art that I would call: “pretty not-terrible.” Some people have spent their entire lives thinking about these things and their insights are fascinating. However, I’m not here to talk theory. If you want to learn more, go pick up a book or something, nerd.

Anyway, one time this German guy said: “without music, life would be a mistake.” He also said that looking at things from multiple perspectives is pretty neat, so that’s what we’re here to do. Turns out art is kinda fun and spending a bit more time thinking about it pays dividends.

See, art just wants to be understood and so does Poppy. I want to give her and Titanic the benefit of the doubt and take them seriously as artists. While I don’t think everything they produce is God’s gift to earth (see: [redacted]), I do enjoy the majority of their work. Plus, the abstract and absurd nature of their content means writing about it is a blast.

Whether I truly believe any of the interpretations I come up with is irrelevant. Hell, I’m not even sure half of what I say even remotely resembles what Poppy and Titanic envisioned. But, that’s not the point. Shallow readings are a dime-a-dozen, see: Genius; I’m here to provide something better. To show that Poppy’s work, or any art, really, can be a whole lot more fun if you spend even just a teensy bit of time analyzing it. Hopefully I can also provide some of the tools to do so.

Enough rambling, let’s get into it.

Intro

At first glance, “Me Laughing” seems like Poppy doing cute ASMR for 27(!!) minutes while simultaneously trolling anyone who expected a video titled “Me Laughing” to be about anything different. Sure, but that reading gets a ‘B’ for ‘Basic.’

Yes, Poppy and Titanic often troll their audience. See: “A live Interview with Poppy.” But the trolling is both part of the delivery of their message and part of the message itself. So while “Me Laughing” looks like a simple ASMR troll video, I’m going to argue that it’s not.

Previously, Poppy released videos like “Delete Your Facebook” and “I’m Poppy.” Fun vids, but they’re made of looped clips. Thirty seconds in and you’ve watched the whole thing. Consider: “Me Laughing” is 27 minutes, but no parts are looped, it’s all original. As always, I’m just here to ask: why?

Since “Me Laughing” is not made up of looped clips, but is instead all original content, there is an inherent progression to the events. Each segment is unique, and when considered sequentially, pieces from each section build on each other to produce an artistic whole.

Yes, that’s a fancy way of saying it has a ‘story.’

Also, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll know that something just feels ‘off.’ If “Me Laughing” was ‘just’ Poppy ASMR, why does she constantly focus on a single point in the distance? What’s with Poppy’s frequent stares into the camera? And why the fuck is she wearing latex?

Clearly, something else is going on.

Detailed Summary

Let’s recall what actually happens in “Me Laughing.” Hopefully this recap will convey a sense of what ‘else’ exactly is going on and make the insane claims later on in the analysis a tad easier to swallow.

“Me Laughing” starts off pretty normally. Sections 1 and 2 are mostly Poppy laughing, as promised. Even in these early sections, however, we can still pick out some peculiar things.

In Section 1, and throughout the video, we see Poppy looking upwards as she laughs, as if she was remembering something funny that happened. Or as if she was thinking about something for a while and suddenly found it hilarious. “Maybe Poppy just looks upward when she laughs.” Doubtful. Try doing it right now. Feels weird, right? Whatever, moving on…

Next oddity: there’s a strange transitioning shot at the start of the video and between Sections 1 and 2 where the camera sweeps over Poppy’s latex-ed body. “Well, maybe Titanic just thought it would be cool to do it like that.” Yes, but why did he think it would be cool? Why that transitioning shot, out of all the possible ones? What purpose does it serve?

Also: Section 1 was a very steady shot, probably filmed using a tripod, or whatever fancy word camera-people use. However, the shot for Section 2 is shaky. Like, weirdly shaky. Maybe even too shaky. And this isn’t the only section filmed this way, half of “Me Laughing” is too. “Well, maybe Titanic can’t hold a camera steady.” No, that doesn’t seem right. We know Titanic can, in fact, hold a camera steady, or, at the very least, he possesses the means to take a steady shot. See: literally all Poppy videos. No, the shaky-cam is intentional. Again, I’m just here to ask: why?

Now, I don’t mean to tip my hand too much here, but to me, the camera’s sway resembles the unsteady gaze of a curious observer. Perhaps one who is timidly stepping around the beheld, drinking in all the angles. Recall my post on “Touch Poppy.” With steady camera shots, it’s easy to forget someone is on the other side, but with unsteady shots, it’s downright impossible to ignore, e.g., “wow, that shaky-cam is really noticeable. What is this, a shitty sequel to the Blair Witch Project?” Perhaps these sections were filmed this way to emphasize the presence of an observer. As for why such a thing would be emphasized—well, we’ll get to that.

Around the 3:30 mark, Poppy shakes her head and clearly utters a, “m-mm,” as in, “nuh-uh, no way.” This gesture is repeated throughout the video. I’ll let you think about that one.

The video continues, and at 3:52 the camera lazily pans down, focusing on Poppy’s body and cutting her head out of the shot for several seconds, similar to the transition shot from Section 1 to 2. Thirty seconds later, the same thing happens. Guess this isn’t just Titanic diversifying the shot composition. It’s also about this point where attempts to pass “Me Laughing” off as anything resembling a ‘normal’ video start to fall apart.

Poppy’s sitting position in Section 3 is both clever and hilarious. It shows her whole get-up, highlighting how absurdly tall her platform shoes are. She also flip-flops her feet back and forth several times as if to further emphasize her mega-shoes. Why would she wear such crazy shoes for a simple video of herself laughing?

That’s not all that’s ‘off’ about Section 3—this is also the first section where Poppy stares at a spot in the distance for a prolonged period of time. In several instances, she quizzically tilts her head to the side, not unlike a faithful dog trying to decipher commands from her master. At 6:23 we also get a clear “huh,” a noise of acknowledgement, of understanding. Further, Section 3 has several stretches of silence where Poppy is no longer laughing. She just sits there while you watch. It’s… unsettling.

Section 4 is shot in a similarly shaky-style to Section 2, but this time with Poppy sitting down. Also, we see instances of Poppy focusing on something off in the distance both when she is laughing and when she is not, as was the case in the previous sections. However, there are some weird things about Section 4 that set it apart from the others and further develop the video.

Around the 8:38 mark, Poppy utters a “mm-mm-mm” sound while shaking her head and staring off into the distance. It’s fairly clear that she is communicating with something off-screen. Perhaps entities that are invisible to us. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these off-screen entities are the things making her laugh.

We will see more evidence of Poppy supposedly communicating with invisible beings later, however, this is bordering on fetishizing Poppy’s lore as opposed to analyzing her artistic message. If you’re half-learned on Poppy lore (which, you better be, considering the fact that you’re reading this), this would be like focusing on the identity of ‘They’ instead of the significance of ‘They.’ Another example would be focusing on the ‘origin’ of Poppy, e.g., is she an android? Who is her creator? Etc., instead of asking why someone would create the artistic work of Poppy in the first place and/or considering the implications of said work.

If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, perhaps you’ve noticed that I try and stay away from acknowledging that Poppy even has lore. I want to take Poppy seriously, not literally. Or, in “pretentious asshole” terms, to consider her work artistically, not canonically. There are many reasons for this and I didn’t just get here randomly overnight, but that’s for another post.

Edgy ranting aside, there’s another part of Section 4 that I’d like to point out. Before this section, there was only a single instance of Poppy looking into the camera (happened in Section 2), but in Section 4, she frequently looks into the lens, acknowledging that an observer is present. She shoots this observer a flurry of dark and mischievous glances. Then she laughs.

Section 5 features more head shaking, distant staring, etc., but it is also a relatively sad section. Poppy laughs very little, and frequently looks down. Yes, a pun. Poppy has been laughing for most of the video, so why, all of a sudden, does she seem so sad?

Section 6 is shot shakily and close-up. I mean, really close-up. Like, right-in-her-face close-up. To the point where the camera is often out of focus. We’re also given a blatantly voyeuristic sweep over Poppy’s chest as the camera shifts position around her. Further, there are several instances where Poppy looks deep into the camera, with what I refer to as a “model pout,” where she slightly parts her lips and opens her eyes wide. Recall my post on “Computer Boy” where I talked about the fan-idol relationship. That lustful look? It’s for you, except everybody knows it’s not.

Quick note: I will elaborate on this when I talk about “You’re Too Close,” but it’s important to stay mindful and know that despite some uncomfortably voyeuristic shots in “Me Laughing,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the video, or anyone who worked on it, is, y’know, perverted or something. Depicting the voyeuristic nature of idolism is how we talk about the voyeuristic nature of idolism, the same way that depicting racism is how we talk about racism.

The problem is that nowadays, we are trained to think quickly, not critically. Your initial response (also called your ‘knee-jerk’ response) to Poppy’s work shouldn’t be your final response to it. It’s important to consider context and think carefully. Ask yourself: why would Poppy choose to show you this? What does she want you to think about? What is she trying to tell you?

Section 7 is where things start to get really fucking weird.

Previously, I said that there was something darker lurking in “Me Laughing,” and Section 7 is where this darkness begins to manifest. The segment starts with Poppy having another one of her imaginary conversations with demons or whatever where she nods her head and gives some “mm-hmms” in agreement. Shortly after, she looks right at the camera and laughs in your face. Not only is her laugh absolutely maniacal, but it seems completely sincere too. This section really relates the feeling that you are not in on the ‘joke’—maybe the joke’s about you.

Section 7 also provides a sense of violent foreboding: a creeping feeling that something is going to happen to you, but you don’t know what that ‘something’ is, and you have absolutely no power to stop it. What really drives this sense of helplessness home is the way the scene is shot. At one point, the camera spends a few seconds just looking at Poppy’s hand. This emphasizes your lack of control. You are completely at the mercy of the camera’s whims. You only see what is shown to you. Then, as the scene closes, the camera is put down in front of Poppy, and, after a few tense seconds, she slowly reorients her body and starts crawling towards you. Luckily, the camera is picked up before she reaches it—you were saved, but what if you hadn’t been?

Oh, right, I forgot to mention: Poppy didn’t laugh much in this section.

Section 8 is a more amped-up version of Section 6. We get Poppy staring deep into the camera for almost the entire scene’s duration. Her lustful gaze relates a feeling of vulnerability, like you are spying on a defenseless little girl, but at the same time, it feels like she is giving you one last dose of what you want before she brutally murders you.

Section 9 is fairly straightforward. We have Poppy staring at a fixed point in the distance as if she is receiving orders from her alien overlord. We also get several rapid glances toward the camera, as if her orders somehow involve you, or as if she and someone else are sharing gossip about you right in front of your face.

…

…And then Section 10 happens.

Poppy says: “goodbye.”

In Section 10 we have a bit of a climax. No, not that kind of climax. Well, unless this essay is really doing it for you.

The first interpretation of Section 10 is fairly basic, Poppy is waving goodbye because you’re about to die. Obviously, whatever scheme she and her invisible monster friends cooked up is going to be carried out, and it’s probably going to result in the destruction of everything, yourself included. This is sad, probably, but she seems to find it highly amusing. Again, I’m not a fan of obsessing over canon or lore, so I’ll tackle this one slightly differently in the analysis, but I do think this reading of “Me Laughing” is at least semi-faithful to Poppy and Titanic’s vision. This interpretation also serves as a very nice teaser for P3. I mean, if “Do you disagree?” has told us anything, P3 will have a lot of destroying.

The next reading of Section 10 involves the objectifying nature of idolism. Yes, the $5 words are starting to come out, brace yourself. Anyway, in this section, Poppy giggles as she waggles her hands around, back and forth then forth and back, as though she is using her hands for the first time. Almost like a shiny, new automaton discovering its motor functions. It’s cute, but silly. And by silly, I mean overly silly. You have to remember that Poppy is played by a woman in her mid-20s. Reminds me of some lines from “Hard Feelings”: “my arms and my legs are so stiff / Is that the way you wanted it?” Or, rather, is this how you want her to act?

At the end of the section, the camera moves right up to Poppy’s face and she looks at you and just… stares.

…

And stares…

…

And stares…

…

She knows.

Finally, we get to Section 11, which would be my main argument against the totally boring ‘Poppy communicating with demons’ reading. Poppy is seated, again, with her arms wrapped around her thighs. Note again the sense of her smallness and vulnerability transmitted by her sitting position. Also note the way the shot is filmed, with the camera looking down on Poppy and frequently swooping in for close passes.

And then, in the last two seconds, something really bizarre happens. For a brief moment, some foreign object enters the shot, just in the very corner. Now, I’m about to make a weird argument, be wary of it. Other than the random piece of equipment entering the shot, “Me Laughing” does not end off on a noteworthy moment. Just Poppy sitting there, looking up at the camera. Plenty of instances of that. The video could have easily been trimmed by 2 seconds and nothing would have changed. We can also (probably) assume that somebody carefully reviewed this video before it was uploaded.

We’re left the possibility that those last two seconds were left in the video for a reason. And that reason is—

Hey, wait a minute, was that a mirror?

Analysis

“Me Laughing” is a really interesting video, and you can have a lot of fun if you spend some time looking into it, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll tackle it from several different angles, watch for the switches.

Quick words of warning here: I’m about to use the words ‘parody,’ ‘satire,’ and ‘sarcasm’ interchangeably, a practice some would refer to as: “really fucking lazy.” Frankly, I don’t give a damn, I’m not a professional, I’m going to type my silly words anyway and you can’t stop me.

As content loses any sense of shame in attempting to draw your attention, nuance withers away and it becomes harder and harder to differentiate parody from parodied. For example, is “Old Town Road” criticizing the state of the music industry or embracing it? Now, I’m positive that Lil Nas X has the self-awareness of my pug when he’s lapping up his own boogers, yet I personally couldn’t write a song that so perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with modern music. So, is “Old Town Road” a parody or not?

This is where someone ripping off Westworld would say: “if you can’t tell, does it matter?” to which I would answer: “yes, yes it does.”

Context may be fleeting, unreliable, and arguably nonexistent, but I still believe it’s possible to differentiate parody from parodied, it just takes a little more effort. See, I think “Me Laughing” is satirical as hell, especially considering its context within Poppy’s body of work and how it compares to mainstream internet content.

First, consider that the frankly-titled video “Me Laughing” was hyped up for three days before it ‘premiered’ on YouTube. Hilarious, but also incisive. Who waits three days to see someone laugh? “Well, I did.” Ah.

The sarcastic nature of the video also shines through in the description, which reads: “A motion picture starring Poppy.” There’s a tired, yet necessary, statement here on the continuing degradation of internet content. What won’t people eat up?

We all know Poppy’s no stranger to sarcasm. See: “Bleach Blonde Baby” or “Poppy loves Politics.” She will often refer to her videos as “high quality internet content,” while uploading videos of herself eating cotton candy or ‘ooo-ing’ at things. With “Me Laughing,” a video where she laughs for 27 minutes, Poppy further questions where the line is regarding what content people will happily consume.

Fun story: I’ve seen people call “Me Laughing” ASMR. In fact, I think I did, at some point. Huh, I should probably change that. This isn’t totally wrong, but know that “Me Laughing” takes so many shots at ASMR you’d think the video shared a set with Sicario. And, if that’s the case, they could have saved some money and just filmed the video in my neighborhood haha… hah… ha… (seriously though I’m in danger)

Considering “Me Laughing” as a genuine ASMR video would obviously be antithetical to Poppy’s entire body of work. Recall lyrics like: “Poppy is an object.” No, “Me Laughing” is much more than simply Poppy recording cute ASMR.

Poppy has been questioning the nature of people’s ASMR obsession since her first YouTube video, “Poppy Eats Cotton Candy,” where she had the mic uncomfortably close to her throat so her little gulps and coos were clearly audible. What leads to people wanting to hear these things?

Zoom out: many of Poppy’s videos are about obsession. Forget that and the point will fly right over your head. Let’s now reframe the question: why would people want to hear such intimate sounds from Poppy? Answer that and “Me Laughing” will make a lot more sense.

What I’m about to say next will be very dense because it will outline the thesis of a large part of Poppy’s work. Sorry, hopefully it’s still readable. I’m still developing my interpretations of her work, and I promise to expand and explain them more in the future.

I’m also sure some fans will want to stab me in the neck with a rusty spoon for this post because it’ll appear like I am directly criticizing them. In reality, I am actually insinuating that Poppy is criticizing them, but nuance is dead, knee-jerk reactions reign supreme. Whatever. If you react that way, it means you’re so eyeballs deep in obsession that you fail to realize why Poppy courts your obsession in the first place. Poppy’s work entices fans to obsess over her, but it also berates those who do so.

Note that this is all as a means of criticizing the status-quo. And guess what: fans are part of the status-quo. It stings when you realize your idol’s criticisms are actually about you, but I’m not convinced Poppy is malicious. She wants you to be a better person.

This is my best estimate of her thesis: the nature of the objectification of celebrities is rooted in a sexual obsession—that is, a desire for their bodies. Pun intended. Objectification stems from fantasizing over what the celebrity shows you, which is almost always physical, or at least results in the fantasy manifesting itself as a physical representation.

In other words: “everybody wants to be Poppy.”

Poppy recognizes the inherently sexual obsession with figures in the ASMR community. She wears latex in “Me Laughing” to draw attention to this. It’s as if she was saying: “this is what you’re here for, right?”

Note that obsession is inherently progressive. It grows and grows, eventually leading to fans voyeuristically observing the objectified person’s intimate bodily functions. This culminates in “Me Laughing.” Poppy knows what you want, but as payment, she’s going to leave a nagging feeling in your brain that somehow you have done something wrong. That you shouldn’t really be watching this video, but she knows you are.

Recall Titanic’s comments about making people slightly uncomfortable. Consuming is harder with a lump in your throat. The key to understanding Poppy’s work is to ask why she wants you to feel uncomfortable. What about your behavior does she want you to realize?

Earlier in the post, I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of the whole ‘Poppy talking to demons about destroying the world’ reading because it comes dangerously close to obsessing over her lore. Lore is like history without the usefulness, so I’m going to ignore it. Regardless, I said I would use that interpretation for something more interesting, so I’d like to ask:

What makes someone want to destroy the world?

Throughout “Me Laughing,” Poppy shoots dark glares at the camera. There’s something sinister in her eyes, something genuinely evil lurking in her gaze. We know she obviously has an immense disdain for the status-quo. What else would lead to lyrics like: “down, let it all burn down / burn it to the ground”?

Preceding any cries of “viva la revolución!” or “apocalypse, now!” is an implicit judgement that what is left of the world is either not able to be saved, or not worth saving. That tearing everything down and beginning anew is preferable to salvaging what remains. To reach such a mindset, one would need to see modern society with such disgust and be so disenchanted with our current world that it no longer appears worth preserving. One would also need to have given up hope on the ability for people to come together and solve their problems. To have lost hope in humanity’s ability to adapt and overcome. To think that perhaps our problems have become too big for us to solve, that perhaps we have finally dug too deep a hole to climb out of.

Again, people don’t reach a hopeless mindset overnight; it takes many steps to descend into the darkness. But, the numpties on r/GetMotivated tell me, “every journey begins with a single step,” so let’s take one together.

In a tweet, I mentioned that “Me Laughing” was also about absurdism. No, that wasn’t a typo for ‘absurdity.’ I may write ridiculously deep-dives into Poppy lyrics and lore, but I try not to waste words.

Anyway, let’s play a game. I call it the “imagine something real quick because I need to prove a point” game.

Imagine being stuck in a system. Yes, it’s cliché to use the word ‘system,’ and any time you do, it carries the connotation that you are some conspiracy nut, e.g., “you can’t trust the system man!” I understand all this, please just bear with me and let me use the word, it’s useful. Anyway, you don’t like the system because a lot of the system is bad and it’s slowly, but surely, getting worse. The cracks are starting to show and the whole thing is poised to come crumbling down. Okay, that’s not good, you want to tell people about this. To warn them. However, in order to obtain a sizable audience for your message, you need to first succeed within the system, and to do that, you need to play by the system’s rules.

Okay, no sweat, you release some pop songs. There’s a couple of them that people really dig. Unfortunately, the songs people like don’t contain much of your message. They have a watered-down version of it at best. That’s a little sad, but oh well, at least you’re getting some sort of message out there. Hey, maybe if you make the music video really weird, people will realize there’s something more going on! Hm, that didn’t seem to work either.

So you release some YouTube videos too. Some of them are pretty biting, especially that one on politics. Should get people thinking, right? Hah, no, wrong. People like them, yes, but not for the reasons you want. They like them because they’re “weird” and “addictive” e.g., “its 3 AM on a school night and I’m still watching Poppy videos why can’t I stop lolol.” Imagining that the videos contain some sort of Illuminati-esque hidden message to decode is preferable to examining the real-world implications of the work. Plus, like, there’s experts for that, right?

Anyway, a couple albums and hundreds of videos later, you have a sizable following, sweet, now you can transition to doing what you’ve always wanted to. Change the persona to something a little truer to yourself. Make your message a little clearer. Finally, you have the power to change the world like you always promised you would.

Uh-oh, Houston, we’ve got a problem. Your audience listened to you for X, but now you’re giving them Y. It’s not a total loss, though. You have a lot of loyal members in your audience, and they like your new stuff too. Doesn’t matter what you make, they’re loyal, they’ll watch/listen/whatever to it. Their dedication has become investment which has become even more dedication. In fact, they’ve been following you since the start, when you were first trying to get big. “Yes, but I was trying to get big because I wanted to spread a message and to do that I had to make compromises to grow an audience so people would liste—“

They also have their own ideas of what you’re saying, plus, like, they make neat art, here, check this out, please give this a listen, look at this, read this, please, please? “Hey, nice article. Wait, the next one is how many words?!” And you keep every piece of fan art because it really does mean a lot to you. “Wow, I appreciate it, that’s beautiful, thank you. Oh, what? There’s even more?” Hey, if you have spare minute, could you give a shout-out to my friend? It’s her birthday. “Sure, hold on…” It’s also my birthday tomorrow, could you give this post a like? “Um, okay, just give me a minut—“ Also, could you answer my DM on Instagram? It’s important. And after that there’s only 100 more to answer! kk thanks! “Wait… one second… whoa!”

Now you’re releasing Z, hopefully that will get your message across…

…

Wait—what was your message again?

…

Oh no.

…

Somewhere along the way, probably between performing [this] and signing [that], the essence of your message was lost. Whatever remains has been drowned out by the noise of the system. If we’re talking decibels, notifications are loud, problems are whispers, and these days everyone’s got ear plugs.

Thinking about problems is hard, thinking about them for too long is sad, being sad is uncomfortable, hey, look, Taylor Swift just dropped a new album, that “Lover” song is dope, let’s look at memes.

So, you want to change the system. But to change the system you need power. To get power, you need an audience. But the only way to get an audience is to make content that gets rewarded by the system. And the content that gets rewarded by the system is that which is easily digestible for a large audience, i.e., devoid of substance. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think “Turn Down for What” resulted in much positive social change. “Well, maybe the system should reward content that is creative, challenging, and conscientious instead!” Ah, yes, I see what you mean. So, you want to change the system…

Pass the mic, Camus, I’ve got a real knee-slapper for ya. Oh, right, guess I’ll just grab it myself.

These days, we’re faced with a new kind of absurdism, one which involves recognizing that societal systems are getting worse and need changing, while simultaneously recognizing that you are chained by said systems, and thus, powerless to change them.

This new absurdism describes the maddening exercise in doublethink where people wrestle with the knowledge that they should be Making The World A Better Place but also the knowledge that they cannot possibly live in a way that satisfies such capitalized phrases. The end result is a mental tearing fueled by impossible societal expectations and the inevitable guilt of failing to live up to them.

After a while, people stop fighting. They give up. They give in. When enough people throw in the towel, all that’s left is to hold on tight and enjoy the ride, e.g., the trajectory is set, all aboard, no, there aren’t enough seat belts for everyone, must have been one of those damn cost-saving initiatives.

“Yeah, that definitely sounds absurd. So… what do we do about it?”

Well, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

#poppy #me laughing

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aredhel85 · 5 years

Text

Compromises

The last two weeks and three days had been like a dream.

(And no - Crowley was certainly not counting days!)

Crowley still couldn’t believe that Aziraphale returned his feelings after 6,000 years of forcing himself to be content with the friendship (or whatever it had been) he had had with the angel, they were finally free to be together.

And they had made the most of that time. They had gone to Azirpahle’s favourite restaurants, spent a lot of time in the park, enjoying the warm and sunny autumn weather, gone to the theatre … Sometimes he had spent the night in Aziraphale’s flat over the book shop, but they hadn’t done anything beyond kissing and just holding each other. They had time after all and there was no reason to rush. Crowley had been perfectly content with sleeping by Azirphale’s side while the angel had been reading one of his books, now and then running gentle fingers through the demon’s hair.

Today they had gone on a short walk in the park, but the weather had changed and it was several degrees colder and rather damp, which made walking more strenuous. Crowley was glad when they had returned to the shop where Aziraphale was busy stopping customers from buying his precious books.

As always, it was pretty amusing to watch, but the pain in his legs and hips didn’t get better and after a while he had left, telling Aziraphale that he had to water his plants before their dinner date tonight. It hadn’t been a real lie, strictly speaking, he had actually watered the plants, but now he was lying on his bed, hoping the pain would lessen before the hour was over and he had to drive back to pick up the angel. Today it would be the sushi place Aziraphale liked so much and Crowley would be damned before he ruined his evening.

But it didn’t get better. Even while lying still, there was this constant dull ache and when he finally got up, he hissed through his teeth and sat back down.

This evening would be everything but enjoyable, he knew that, but he had gone through worse days and wasn’t it worth it if it made Aziraphale happy?

It definitely was, but there was also the promise he had made the day they had confessed their feelings to each other. Aziraphale had asked him to be honest with him, if he didn’t feel well. He had actually been pretty insistent about it, too. And Crowley had promised.

Of course he was a demon and therefore it was in his nature to lie, but it didn’t feel right to lie to the angel, especially so early in their new kind of relationship.

And Crowley really didn’t feel like going out anymore today. It would be so perfect to just curl up on the sofa together with Aziraphale, warm and comfortable, watching a film or two on Netflix before falling asleep.

But he knew that neither films nor sleeping were Aziraphale’s thing.

True, he hadn’t been interested in two of the three theatre plays they had visited in the last two weeks but that was different, wasn’t it? If Aziraphale was happy, he was, too, so he hadn’t been bored at all. Well, almost.

He knew he should just call the angel and cancel the date. It wasn't a big deal. They had spent every day of the last 17 days together; it was normal to do something alone for once. Aziraphale could have Sushi as planned and Crowley would curl up on the sofa alone and watch Netflix until he passed out.

Nothing wrong with that.

Except maybe that the thought of cuddling up with his lover instead of lying there alone for once had already made him feel better.

Sighing, Crowley slowly sat up again, reached for his smartphone on the nightstand and called the angel’s number.

The phone was answered almost immediately. “Hello, dear! Are you coming? I’m almost ready.” The enthusiasm in the angel’s voice almost made Crowley reconsider his decision.

Almost. He still chose to stick to his promise. He wanted to do this right. He knew he didn’t deserve being with someone like Aziraphale and Aziraphale absolutely deserved someone better than him, but still a very selfish part of him couldn’t stand the thought of fucking this up. “Hey, angel. No … actually, I gotta cancel on you.” The disappointed “Oh” made him feel like the most horrible being of the entire creation. “You know, the walk earlier and the weather … I guess I gotta get used to the crappy weather again.” He tried to make his voice sound light. “I don’t really feel like going out tonight. But you have fun without me, that’s fine. I’ll just stay at home and watch some telly. Tomorrow I’ll be better and make it up to you. I promise.” He bit his lip a bit anxiously, already regretting his decision to be honest. Dragging himself through the night would have been easier than disappointing Aziraphale and admitting his weakness. He really, really hated both of that.

But Aziraphale didn’t sound disappointed anymore when he spoke again, just a little worried. “Oh my dear boy, don’t worry about that! Actually, I’d rather spend the evening with you … watching telly … than going out. Or I could pick something up on the way to you and we can still eat together. That is, if you want me to come over. Please tell me if you’d rather have me leave you in peace for today.”

Despite everything, Crowley smiled a little and a suspiciously warm feeling spread in his chest. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to just accept the offer. “You don’t like watching telly,” he pointed out half-heartedly instead.

“True. And you didn’t like ‘Hamlet’. ‘Swan Lake’ probably even less. Yes, I know, you enjoyed the seduction part, that’s not the point. You still came to the theatre with me although you weren’t interested in the plays, don’t think I didn’t notice. Today we can do something you enjoy.” When he didn’t get an answer, Aziraphale continued in a voice even gentler than before. “It’s not just about making me happy, dear. You are as important in this relationship as I am and if you feel like staying at home today, we can absolutely do that. Remember when I told you that I didn’t want you to be alone with this anymore? I meant it.”

It still took Crowley a moment to find his voice again. “Ok then.”

“Splendid. I’ll be over in a jiff and I’ll bring us dinner!” Crowley could practically see Aziraphale beaming on the other end of the line. “And who knows? Maybe I will enjoy watching films with you. To be honest, I never gave it a real try.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

The angel ignored that comment. “Alright, I’ll see you soon, dear!”

---

When Aziraphale hung up, Crowley stiffly walked over to the sofa, not even yelling at the plants on the way, and tried to get comfortable there.

Half an hour later he heard the doorbell. The angel had been fast, considering he had probably taken the bus and gotten something to eat on the way. “It’s open.”

He heard steps coming towards him and when he opened his eyes, Aziraphale just put the bags with the sushi on the table and took off his coat. Smiling, the angel gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Hello, dear. How are you?”

Despite himself, Crowley smiled a little. “Ok, as long as I don’t try to run a marathon.”

“We should avoid that then.” Aziraphale smiled mildly, went to the kitchen and came back with two plates and forks.

“I brought your favourite,” he said while unpacking the sushi and placing it on the plates. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

However, the angel didn’t start eating immediately, which almost certainly meant that something was on his mind.

“What?” Crowley looked at him expectantly. The answer wasn’t at all what he had expected.

“You know … you shouldn’t leave the door open like that. Anyone could come in. The flat is rather fancy, so burglars …”

Crowley couldn’t help but laugh at this, which earned him an irritated glance. “I don’t think that’s funny. You do sleep, so it’s possible you won’t hear it when someone comes in.”

“Nobody will come, angel. Except for you that is. There’s no key to this door. I get in. You get in. That’s it, nobody else. Humans most likely won’t even really notice the flat. It’s a handy little protective mechanism. Similar to the one Adam had on him. And even if someone tries to open the door for some reason, it won’t.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

“That means I can get in any time?”

“You did get in when you watered the plants after the Apocalypse thing.”

“Sure, but I thought you just forgot to lock the door before going to sleep.”

“The door was never closed to you.”

“But you’ve had the flat for decades!”

“Yeah. You knew where it was, didn’t you? Sure, you never paid social visits, but if you had needed to come in for a reason, you could’ve. Even if I wasn’t home.”

“Oh. That’s … really nice of you, dear.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Shut up and eat.”

The angel just smiled and finally started eating his sushi, for once with a fork, and Crowley made a mental note to get some chopsticks, just in case.

As usual, Crowley was finished long before Aziraphale. He was a fast eater, probably the snake in him, and as usual, he just leaned back and watched Aziraphale enjoying his dinner. Watching the angel read or eat or do anything that made him happy, was Crowley’s favourite thing to do, had been for a long time. Watching the way his eyes lit up, the small smile on his lips, was even better than watching the stars and he could do that for hours without getting bored.

When he was finished, Aziraphale put away the plates and sat down on the sofa, smiling as Crowley slowly came closer and finally ended up with his head in his lap. The angel took his hand and stroke it with his thump. “So, dear, what would you like to watch?”

Crowley, who was totally content with just lying there like that, now with Aziraphale running hand finger gently through his hair, didn’t even care about the throbbing in his legs and hips anymore, not really at least. He reached for the remote, switched on the big flat screen tv and clicked on the Netflix logo. “You choose, angel.”

“Oh no, your turn, darling. I chose ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Swan Lake’, tonight we watch what you like.” Again, Aziraphale leaned down and gently kissed the demon’s lips.

“You probably won’t like what I choose.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s enjoyable enough to just be here with you. The film is just a bonus.”

It was strange, Crowley had long accepted that it was this way for him, that it was normal that he was happy as long as Aziraphale was, but it had never occurred to him that it was the same the other way around. “Ok then,” he said quietly and eventually chose ‘Final Destination’ which was, strictly speaking, a horror film, but it was also kind of funny.

And it turned out that Aziraphale was just enough of a bastard to enjoy himself.

When Crowley fell asleep, they had already finished the second part and third was about halfway through. Aziraphale finished watching it, gently running his hand through Crowley’s hair as the demon slept.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #fanfiction #fanfic #my fics #the serpent's fate series #fluff #fluff and a tiny little bit of angst #chronic pain #crowley has chronic pain #aziraphale is there for him though

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dkronpa · 5 years

Text

Chapter 3: Journey to Despair, Grave Secrets, Grave Lies ~Daily Life Part 1~

THE LONG AWAITED CHAPTER 3 BEGINS

My bad for it taking so long I had a bad case of writers block half-way through but I have the whole plot for this chapter totally ironed out now. I’ll write as often as possible and hopefully I won’t leave you guys hanging like that again

Enjoy~

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: Dream Sequence-

It’s cold. Really cold. Winter, I think. No snow but the wind is biting at my skin. I’m staring at a car.

No, I’m staring at what’s under the car. The blood coming from underneath and the hand stretching from underneath. There’s someone crying nearby. Where am I again? What am I doing?

Why didn’t I do anything? Why? Why?

Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy-

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: Ryuu’s Room-

“Ugh!” I jolted up in a cold sweat. What was that? A dream? No…a memory? But surely something like that would be easy to recall, but I don’t remember that kind of event at all…it must have been a dream. “Y-yeah, a dream.”

I let out a shaky sigh and grabbed my E-Handbook. It was close to Monokuma’s morning announcement, so I may as well get ready.

…but should I even bother? After what happened yesterday…we could all be out of the killing game by now if I hadn’t spoken like that. It’s my fault we’re all still in the killing game…Hachi-san killed Irunami-san so we could all escape and I made both of their deaths in vain.

Even so…I should try my best to show face, shouldn’t I? Come on Ryuu. Pull yourself together.

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: Short numbered-

By the time I got to the cafeteria, I expected everybody else to be already eating breakfast though when I entered the room, there were a few people missing from the group. “Huh…? Is this everyone that showed up?” I asked everyone present.

“Shinko and Yokozawa said the same thing, they don’t feel like they can trust anybody here. So, they’ve locked themselves in their rooms and are refusing to leave. They’ll probably leave later to get food; they can’t stay in there forever.” Sly-san answered.

“Hmm? You went to check on them?” Asano-san inquired.

“We need to keep track of the group in this situation. Don’t read into it when it’s nothing deep.” Sly-san said.

“Graves-san isn’t here either…” Ram-san noted.

“I met her in the hallway earlier. She said she was going to keep her distance for a while. Doesn’t know who to trust anymore.” Kurohiko-san answered. This group really broke up after last night. And with those three not present right now…it really feels empty in here than how it used to be…

“Oi, Nagata. Did you sleep alright? You look exhausted.” Okanaya-san looked at me with worry. I instinctively touched the dark circles under my eyes. Ram-san looked over with concern as well.

“It’s nothing. Bad dream is all, woke me up early.” I murmured.

“One bad dream is not such a terrible thing, Nagata-sama. After all, it is better to get your bad dreams out of the way so that your eternal dream will be an enjoyable one.” Ishikawa-san smiled.

“Jesus, do you ever talk about something less terrifying? You realise what situation we’re in, right? We don’t wanna hear you talk about death all the fuckin’ time.” Okanaya-san snarled.

“I was not attempting to make anyone uncomfortable.” Ishikawa-san replied.

“Well you are, so shut up already.”

“Okanaya, that’s enough.” Sly-san said. Okanaya-san grumbled under his breath but dropped it. This group is starting to show cracks. Today it may only be three people that don’t show up, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after that? Will I even live long enough to see the day after tomorrow? What am I supposed to do-

“N-Nagata-kun…” Ram-san put her hand on mine.

“Sorry. I’m fine.” I lied with my best fake smile. I’m not sure if she believed it or not but Ram-san nodded slowly not letting her concern disappear from her expression. I wonder if anyone’s stealing glances at me? Do they hate me?

“Geez, what’s with the tension in here? So gloomy, it’s like you guys lost your chance at something suuuuper important.” Monokuma said, doing his stupid sudden appearance shtick. I’m over it. “…not even a yell from the pansy? Alright then. I was gonna wait until everyone gathered to tell you, but it seems like this is about as good as it’ll get.”

“Let me guess. Another building has opened up?” Sly-san said.

“W…wow, you aren’t just gonna let me have my moment, huh…?” Monokuma looked down with a sad expression. “Yeah…you got a new building. Feel free to explore it at your own discretion. Or don’t. Doubt you’ll find anything useful there anyway.” Monokuma shrugged before disappearing again.

“Eh? Why did he say that? About not finding anything useful there…?” Kurohiko-san asked.

“Probably because we won’t find anything useful.” Sly-san said.

“Or he is using reverse psychology in order to compel us all to investigate the new building. I feel as though that is a much more plausible answer. What shall we do?” Ishikawa-san said.

“It’s probably for the best that we investigate. The more we learn about this place, the better. Shall we all head over?” Kurosaki-san asked.

“Will you be included in that group? If so, I’ll pass.” Sly-san folded his arms and leaned back into his seat.

“I suppose it’s just the rest of us then! Have fun, Herr Knives!” Kurosaki-san smiled and gave Sly-san’s back a firm slap as he walked past him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get so angry that quickly.

“Don’t touch me so damn casually!” Sly-san yelled. There was a moment of shock seeing as he’d never lost his cool before. Though he regained his composure just as quickly as he lost it. “…if you start pushing everybody’s buttons then you’ll just end up dead.”

“O-oi, Sly! No need to say stuff like that! I get your pissed, but…” Okanaya-san said warily. Sly-san crossed his arms and looked around the room.

“If you all want to be around that then be my guest. Just don’t cause any trouble for me.” Sly-san stood up and made his way for the door.

“Sly-sama, please wait-“ Ishikawa-san attempted to call out to him but he was already out the door by the time she found her voice. Even Sly-san is distancing himself from the group. Even though we said we’d all work together at the start of all this!

“Ah…that’s a shame.” Kurosaki-san murmured. “Shall we? We should investigate the building now.” He made his way for the door. There was this lost look in his eyes as if a difficult thought was stuck in his mind.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand what goes on in his head.” I said to nobody in particular. Ram-san gave me a look of concern, though she understood what I mean. I’m sure of it.

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: History has its eyes on you-

I walked to the building next to the Leisure building with Ram-san and Okanaya-san. To say the building exteriors differed would be an understatement. In contrast to the leisure building which appeared more like a fancy gym, this building was designed to appear like a medieval castle with four spires at each corner of the building and iron bars on the windows instead of glass and curtains.

The only part of the building that seemed out of place with the rest of it was the front door. A card reader was attached to the wall next to a glass sliding door that had no handle for us to open it with. “A card reader to get into the building? How come the other buildings don’t have this?” Okanaya-san asked.

“Are you wondering about my design choices?” Monokuma suddenly appeared next to us, me and Ram-san jumping slightly. “It’s a card reader, just use your E-handbook on it already!”

“But why is it only on this building?” Okanaya-san asked again.

“I like to give a unique thing to each of my buildings! The dorms are underground, the leisure building had the massive ventilation system…and this! The history building has a card reader to get in and out of it!”

“History building?” Ram-san repeated.

“Yep yep! This building has got all kinds of good stuff! There’s an archive filled to the brim with cool books to read! There are many exhibits throughout the floors for you to check out too! I’m sure nerds like Nagata will enjoy it!”

“H-hey!” I protested.

“Anyway, you guys get the gist, right? You gotta use your E-handbook to get in and out of the building! So…I’ll see ya later!” And with that, he was gone.

Okanaya-san sighed and pulled out his E-Handbook. “What a pain in the ass. This is so unnecessary.” He held his E-Handbook up to the card reader. The LED light above the reader went from blue to green and the door slid open.

The three of us walked in to be greeted by the discomforting atmosphere. The hallways were dimly lit by the fires of torches decorating the walls. I know Monokuma likes his themes, but this is way too much.

“Should we look for those exhibits that Monokuma mentioned?” Okanaya-san asked. Ram-san and I silently agreed and began making our way through the hallway of the building. I stuck close to Okanaya-san, as did Ram-san, though she was holding onto his sleeve and looking around nervously at the walls. There were odd red stains here and there decorating the stone…I didn’t want to think about it.

We entered the room at the very end of the hallway to find it decorated with displays of different weapons across the walls and in glass cases. It reminded me of a museum with how it was laid out. The head of Graves-san popped out from behind one of the displays and grinned widely at us.

“Yo, dudes! Can you believe this place?! How cool is all this?!” She cheered brightly. “I dunno how Monokuma managed to do all this. Some of these weapons are can’t get acquired by the public and some I’ve only seen drawings of. I never thought I’d get to see these kinds of old weapons for myself!”

“If that’s all true then I really worry about Monokuma’s sources.” I murmured.

“Ah…like whoever’s running this killing game? Someone rich, for sure. They’d need billions if they wanted to set something like this up. Not to mention actually constructing this area for us to play in…”

“Play?” Okanaya-san repeated.

“Well, duh! You ‘play’ a game, right? Even if it’s a killing game, it’s a game, nonetheless. So, we’re the players and we’re playing…right?” Graves-san spoke so casually about it that it actually threw me off a little. I suppose she’s in the same boat as Sly-san and Kurosaki-san. They all seem to have been through a lot to get to this point, so I shouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t so easily phased by the situation.

“Either way, the real problem is knowing who had the ability to set it up.” I jumped a little when Yokozawa-san spoke. How long had he been there?! He clearly noticed my surprise and formed a look of irritation. “Pay attention to your surroundings. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Oh yeah! I totally forgot I followed you here!” Graves-san said.

“I don’t blame you. I don’t stand out, so it’s not like I’m worth remembering.” Yokozawa-san threw his arms up as if he were joking though I’m pretty sure he was being serious…

“Yokozawa-kun, we heard you weren’t going to be leaving your room anymore. Why are you out here? In fact, we heard you were going to keep your distance from us too, Graves-san!” Ram-san asked.

“It’s a new area. Even if I don’t wanna get involved with all of you, I should still investigate as new areas open up to us. Never know when we might find a hint about our situation. Unfortunately, I got spotted by Graves-san and now I can’t seem to shake her off.”

“Hey now! I know you appreciate the company! It can’t be too fun being alone all the time. Plus I have the same reasons for being here as Junpei, so I thought it made sense to go about with him.” Graves-san said.

“Speak for yourself. I don’t mind being by myself, in this situation, it’ll probably be better for my health if I keep my distance.” Yokozawa-san replied. “You’re all trouble for me…keep out of my way, alright? I don’t wanna end up like the others.” The blogger shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and strolled out of the room.

“Hmm…he’s definitely lonely.” Graves-san nodded slowly.

“You can tell?” Ram-san asked.

Graves-san seem to take her time deciding her reply, “I guess…I used to be pretty lonely.” She muttered.

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: Fields of Knowledge-

We made our way up to the second floor and made our ways to the room marked with a book on the ElectroID maps. It was easy to predict that when we entered that the room in question was going to be a library, tall walls filled to the bring with books almost like an archive that was started as far back as the stone ages.

“Th-this is incredible…! Did Monokuma prepare this for us?” Ram-san asked, taking in the view.

“So many books…I guess we at least have something to occupy our time with. Though I’d rather find a clue to a way out of here.” I said. It was an impressive collection though; I couldn’t deny it.

“These are all most likely history books if this is the history building…even so, I want to have a look around and see if we can find anything useful.” Ram-san said.

“Good idea! Alright, Nagata, you take the centre part, I’ll take the left! Ram, we’ll trust you with the right side of the room!” Okanaya-san ordered out his instructions and without waiting for a response, ran off into the shelves of books.

“At least he’s always prepared to work.” Ram-san said before walking to the other side. I walked down the centre aisle of books. They were categorised by subject. Middle Ages. Roman Empire. Medical Studies. Even some 20th century crime novels. Even if Monokuma placed these here to give us ideas for murder, I still might read them at some point.

As I was nearing the end of the line of bookshelves, I felt myself step on something. Moving my foot out of the way revealed a polaroid photo laying on the middle of the floor.

“Wh…what the heck…?” I murmured as I picked it up. The photo showed Kibe-san, Hachi-san and Irunami-san all sat in a line together holding up peace signs to the camera, a large window with the sun shining in was in the background and in the corner of shot I could make out what seemed to be a classroom desk.

What the hell is this…? Did those three know each other before we came here? No, I’m sure Irunami-san would have mentioned knowing those two before coming here.

“Whoops!” Monokuma suddenly dropped down from atop the shelves. “Can’t believe I left this lying around, silly me!”

“E-eh? This belongs to you?”

“Umm…in a sense! A-anyway, give it back!” Monokuma quickly snatched the photo away. “Memories are important, you know! I wanna keep this one, so stop being so selfish!” Without making any sense, he jumped atop the shelves once more, most likely disappearing as he always does.

What was with that photo? The way Monokuma talked about it…is it a real photo? Not faked? A memory…

“Oi, Nagata!” I snapped back up and saw Okanaya-san waving at me from the end of the line of bookshelves. “What’re you standing around for?! Come on!” Whatever that was…I have a bad feeling about its implications…

-Chapter 3 Daily Life: Report back!-

We all sat down in the cafeteria. Or…all those that were still coming here. “Ah…we’re really short on people now…” Kurohiko-san commented.

“It can’t be helped. Plus without Tomoe-chan, we don’t have anybody here to give us maps to visualise our new locations…it sucks.” Amaterasu-san said.

“If it sucks so much, try to show it, will you?” Kurohiko-san sighed.

“If I may take the lead for our reports, please?” Asano-san waited to hear if there were any objections. “N…no? G-good. Shall we discuss our findings on the history building…? Myself, Kurohiko-kun, and Amaterasu-san all worked together when investigating however we could not find any such clue as to how we can escape.”

“So, the usual.” Okanaya-san sighed.

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t cool stuff to see! On the first floor this had this amazing display of different weapons from across the ages! I’ve never seen anything like it! I love the history of weaponry!” Graves-san said cheerfully.

“E-even though that was all put together so it would be easier for us to kill each other…?” Ram-san said.

“Weapons can still be interesting, even if they aren’t being used.” Graves-san replied.

“It’s definitely less jarring than the torture room on the third floor. Filled with different kinds of instruments of torture. Iron maidens, stretchers, pliers, saws…it’s nasty.” Amaterasu-san said in her usual monotonous voice.

“T-torture stuff…?” Graves-san gasped. “I can’t believe I never went to check it out! I’ll need to rectify this mistake as soon as possible! The stretcher is one of my favourite torture devices, it should have been used in a Saw movie, for sure! I’ll take Junpei to see it!”

“Something tells me Yokozawa-sama would most likely decline that offer.” Ishikawa-san said with a giggle. “It is clear Monokuma-sama is far more direct now about wanting us to kill each other if he’s put all of that together. He also gave us supplies to make murder easier to commit.”

“What do you mean? There’s more?” Kurohiko-san paled a little. “G-geez…isn’t there already enough…”

“A room also on the third floor contains things such as special poisons, common things people are allergic, trip wires, chemicals, and far more.” Ishikawa-san explained. She was silent for a moment before pursing her lips, “I…feel as though we should steer clear of that building at all costs. It is far too dangerous to go near…”

“Oh…? I’m afraid I can’t agree to that. After all, that library is far too important to stay away from.” Kurosaki-san said. He was being unusually quiet this whole time, it was a little unnerving. “That library has a lot of valuable information if you know where to look. I plan on studying the contents there further afterwards…but I feel as though a clue to our situation is hiding in there. Somewhere in those books.”

The photo Monokuma snatched away from me came to mind. I could say something right now, but if I do…would that have good consequences? People might suspect the people in the photo are suspicious. But we all saw their bodies…

Kurosaki-san’s eyes flicked towards me. Does he know what I’m thinking? Do I look suspicious? How does he always seem like he knows what’s going on…?

“Very well, the library may be okay…but perhaps we can board up the other rooms? We should at least take some defensive procedures.” Ishikawa-san said.

“You think Monokuma would allow something like that? Don’t be an idiot. He’d change the rules in a heartbeat so that we aren’t allowed to block the entrances to the rooms in any of the buildings.” Kurosaki-san argued.

“He has a point. Monokuma’s goal is to kill all of us. No way he’d let us block our own access to the weapons.” Amaterasu-san said. Ishikawa-san fiddled with the sleeve of her dress and silently conceded defeat.

“If that’s all, are we done here? I plan on heading back into the library and continuing my studies…” Kurosaki-san stood up and made his way for the door. His hand resting on the door-handle, he looked back at the group, giving me a once over in particular. “We all have things we’re hiding…I wonder who’s hiding the fact that they’re the reason we’re here.” And with that, he left.

“What a prick. It would so much easier if he was one of the ones who died.” Okanaya-san cursed.

“Okanaya-kun, you can’t say something like that!” Ram-san puffed her cheeks out and glared at Okanaya-san. The tour guide took a moment staring at Ram-san’s face before letting out a sigh. Something about that expression seemed to stop him from arguing. “…ah, sorry, I just yelled at you like that!”

“No, it’s fine. You’re right…my bad.”

“…can I ask you guys something?” Kurohiko-san spoke.

“Is something wrong?” Ishikawa-san said.

“…if I’m honest, a lot is wrong. We’re falling apart as a group. Four of us are keeping their distance…Kurosaki-san…he just gives me a bad energy…I don’t know what to think anymore…”

“Kurohiko-kun, that is not the attitude to have.” Asano-san said. “I will concede that our position as a group is less than ideal but if we act like that then our situation will never improve. For now, we should give those people space to collect their thoughts before we try to ask them to re-join us in our routine.”

“…if you say so…” Kurohiko-san nodded.

“You guys are something else.”- Graves-san folded her arms –“I only came here to see what everyone had to report…but now I just don’t understand you all even more. So frustrating…”

“Graves-san?” I said cautiously.

“…oh well. Nothing I can do about it.” She shrugged, making her way for the exit. Guess it was going to take more to get her to come back into the group properly.

“She has a darkness inside her, do you not think? Right now, I would say Graves-sama is our biggest worry.” Ishikawa-san said.

“She’s a secret agent. Other than Sly-chan, Karma-chan is the one who’ll have the easiest time killing someone. Scary.” Amaterasu-san added. Yeah…scary.

-Chapter 3 Daily Life, The Cards in your deck-

The usual. We stood in the gymnasium after Monokuma made his announcement. Even those who were keeping their distance had turned up, though clearly not happy about the situation. Shinko-san was angrily tapping a rhythm with his shoe.

“That motherfucker barely even waits before giving us a motive. I’m sick a’ this shit!” He growled.

“Shinko-sama, do not give into those emotions of yours. Us 12 have been able to resist the past two motives. I am sure we will all be able to do it again. If we have faith in each other and work together, we will prevail.” Ishikawa-san reassured.

“God, that way you talk pisses me off. You can spout the same fuckin’ speech all you want, but if there’s a motive, someone will give into it. It’s just how it goes.” Shinko-san replied. Ishikawa-san pursed her lips and glared at Shinko-san. An unusual thing for Ishikawa-san to do but I suppose Shinko-san and Ishikawa-san have always been like oil and water…

“Yikes! Such a thick juicy tension! Can I get a bite?” Monokuma laughed into his paws. “I’m kidding of course! Tension is way too full of calories for a bear of my size!”

“Can you just quit with the jokes? They don’t even make sense now.” Amaterasu-san said.

“Not my fault you stoic chicks don’t get humour.” Monokuma shrugged. “Anyway, guess what time it is, kids! Motive time! And for todays motive…” Monokuma produced a set of cards. Each with the name of one of us written on the front.

“Ah…didn’t we already do something like this?” Graves-san asked.

“No! This is different! Just take it!” Monokuma handed out the cards to the corresponding student. I opened mine up to find a list of names…a list of familiar names. The names of my parents, my siblings, and one or two of my close friends.

“Oh…? It’s laid out like a polling card.” Ishikawa-san pointed out.

“It sure is! Because this motive is a game of choice! You each have a list of the people who are closest to you on the outside world, your job is tick one of those names as a sacrifice!”

“…sacrifice?” Sly-san’s expression clouded over in an instant. “That better be a joke.”

“Huh? Why would I joke? In 48 hours, you gotta have a name ticked on that card! If you don’t pick somebody…everybody on that card is gonna be sacrificed instead! And, well…you know the method in which you can prevent it from happening, right? It’s pretty obvious how to save everyone on that list.”

“E-everyone…?” I felt my hands begin to tremble. My family…? My friends…? One of them…or all of them…?

“Hey. I said that you better be joking.” Sly-san stepped forward.

“H-hey, Sly-kun…” Yokozawa-san warily.

“What.” Sly-san spun around, glaring at Yokozawa-san who stepped back from Sly-san’s glare. “Monokuma-“ He turned back to find the bear gone. “…dammit.” He clicked his tongue.

“H…how the hell am I supposed to pick…? H-how can I pick…?” Kurohiko-san whimpered.

“If you don’t know who you’re gonna pick, don’t pick. Simple as that.” Graves-san said. “I dunno if I’ll pick. Would I be fair to pick one person over the other…?”

“I can’t allow that…I can’t allow her to get hurt…” Sly-san murmured. “I won’t let her die. I’ll do what it takes…”

“Oh-ho? Herr Knives is getting so riled up! How unlike you!” Kurosaki-san smirked.

“If you’re gonna kill, try and kill me! I’ll give you a real good fight!” Graves-san said.

“D-don’t just say stuff like that, no way Sly-san would kill, r-r-right?!” Kurohiko-san panicked.

“I’ll kill anyone if I need to. I have no issues with killing any of you-“

“Enough!” A hush fell across the room, Asano-san held her arm in the air to grab everyone’s attention. Her arm was trembling a little with everybody’s eyes on her. “…w…we cannot fight like this. It is exactly what Monokuma-kun wants us to do. I’m sure there is a way out of this without killing anyone…we have 48 hours to figure something out so please do not be so irrational…please. I am sorry.”

“Haven’t you learned yet? There isn’t an alternative. Unless someone dies every single person on these lists is in danger.” Shinko-san said.

“I choose to believe otherwise.”

“Then you’re an idiot. Faith like that will get you killed.” Shinko-san shook his head. “…I don’t need this. I’m going back to my room.”

“Shinko-kun, wait!” Ram-san tried but he ignored her call for him and left the gymnasium, Sly-san and Yokozawa-san leaving silently afterwards.

Ram-san forced a small smile, “U-um…maybe we should cool off for the day…h-how about we all go to the pool or have tea-“

“No!” Ishikawa-san suddenly yelled, “I…no! I won’t…” She mumbled to herself before shaking her head and powerwalking of the room.

“E-even Ishikawa-san…I am sorry, I thought maybe I could help…” Asano-san sighed. “It seems my decisions are not helpful-“

“H-hey now, don’t say that. Even if things don’t work out the way you thought they would, doesn’t mean it’s your fault. Those guys are all really scared…I am too, b-but hearing you trying to be optimistic helped me a little…s-so, um…wh-what’s my point again? I can’t even remember…heh…” Kurohiko-san rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Yeah. Good work, Mami-chan.” Amaterasu-san added.

“O-oh…th-thank you, both of you.” She bowed slightly. I noticed in the corner on my eye that Ram-san was staring at Asano-san with awe.

“Asano-san…is really impressive, isn’t she? Even though she was taught to do what others said…she had the courage to speak up like that when someone needed to say something. Hey, Nagata-kun, isn’t Asano-san cool?” She smiled up at me.

“…yeah, she is.” I nodded. I think I wanted to be able to do what Asano-san just did.

#DKronpa #chapters #danganronpa #fanganronpa #fangan ronpa

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watchingninjago-archive · 5 years

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Season 1, Episode 2: Home

I’m updating my format. As I’m watching on Netflix, we’re doing a minute-till-end system, so the number will go lower as I progress through the episode. Also, I’ll prewrite the reaction on Docs then copypaste it to here to make it more coherent.

[22:10] With that said, let’s do this!

[21:10ish] Skipped the recap (don’t need that in my life!) and we open with Wu… doing some housekeeping? I’ll say doing some moving of crap around as we hear the Boys in the background doing some training or something.

[21:04] Whhhy are you so shocked, Wu? You think that they wouldn’t want to train if it meant being the Green Ninja?

[20:25] So our Boys (exlc. Zane) are discussing Zane being Too OP For The Training Area Location. And like… they’re calling him like, weird and stuff? And my self-projecting ass is like… please stop he just wants to train oh my god,

[Around the 20:00 mark] And now we’re going through a montage of Zane being weird and such, and like…. what do I say here? Because he’s honestly my favourite at this point, and that’s in part because I kind of relate to him.

[19:35 to 19:33] “... He’s really smart, it’s just, uh, he’s a little off sometimes.” Oh, jesus christ, did you hear that bang back there? Must’ve been me relating to this guy going up by… who knows what. I was always the “smart kid that just needed to get better with making friends/being social” in primary school, and when I managed to become an AP student in highschool, always being in a class with everyone just as smart as me, the issues with being social caught up to me. And I’ll stop here because I don’t want to be stuck at one spot for too long or drop the Jaime persona, but like… I guess I realised who I’ll be relating to for the rest of the bloody show.

[Didn’t catch when, the whole “Getting mail” bit] OH OW… OW… Poor Zane. I guess the others are just at the monastery for training, but I don’t know if Zane has… anyone outside of here. At least at this point.

[Continuing from above] And… well, if he does, he doesn’t know, does he?

[18:15-18:10ish] God… ouch. Ouch. Zane just walking off like that… :( He definitely knows that he just… doesn’t fit in with the others, doesn’t he?

[18:05] We cut to Cole and his dragon, Rocky, interacting. It’s really neat about how clearly he cares for his dragon! I really like dragons, and it’s like… hell to the yeah, good bonds are had!

[17:57] SHIT FORGOT COLE IS STILL PARTIALLY CONTROLLED BY THOSE SNAKE DUDES

[17:20] Scales is probably the most enjoyable villain because he’s the only one who has done SHIT in the two episodes we’ve seen. Lloyd’s very much a stereotypical asshole child who managed to get control of the General dude, so Scales’ the only one who has vaguely tolerable actions.

[17:11?] “Snakes don’t belong in trees.” Really?

[16:55] Lloyd, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that you’ll become better, but as of right now I have the legal right to strangle you.

[16:30ish] Zane being a good cook is neat! Also, “I didn’t hear anybody complaining about my duck chowder last night.” “That’s because it glued our mouths shut.”

[NOT GETTING THE TIMESTAMP I’VE GOT TO BURN OFF THE SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT FIRST] READ THE TIMESTAMP FELLAS

[16:12, probably] Embarrassment-as-comedy is one of the tropes I really despise. I’m over empathetic, and in this case it’s with as previously stated my (so far) favourite character. It makes me want to stop watching, to be honest, but I know this is just some kids cartoon targeted to 8 year old boys and I really shouldn’t get so worked up about it. I’m the periphery here.

God, it’s hard to continue when the joke’s not even over.

[16:03] I’m forcing myself through it. Anyhow, I just… uhh… words not working. Words are not functional, how do I words, the bloody secondhand embarrassment broke my phrasing, shit,

[15:55] “I guess we don’t share the same sense of humour.” Do I go “mood” or do I go on another ramble?

[15:49] Aw Fuck I’m Geniunely Invested Aw Fuck Aw Jesus-

[15:45] “How could you not find that funn-” (Wu drups one of the dishes on Cole’s head.) I didn’t find the prawn thing funny, but that? I didn’t expect that. It wasn’t what I thought would happen. I didn’t expect Wu to snap like that. That got a chuckle out of me.

[15:40] “Now you are brothers.” Allriiight, FOOD FIGHT FOOD FIGHT FOOD FIGHT FOOD FI

[15:26] Zane… how are you not squicked out by all the food on you. Get it off. Food on you is gross.

[15:15] He’s looking at the stars, he’s looking at the bird, hi bird!

[15:09] And now the bird is copying him and he’s interacting with the bird right back. Birds are good. Birds are lovely. Thank you, writers, for giving me this scene.

[14:54] ah shit… ah fuck… i got invested in Zane… this isn’t what i thought would happen…

[14:46] wait don’t chase after the bird! that’s a really bad idea

[14:37] oh god I swear to god if Lloyd dares opens his mouth as we’re at the treehouse i’ll lose my fucking mind

[14:28] Oh, honestly, don’t play it as if this treehouse is all that sinister!

[14:27] I’m losing my fucking mind. I don’t care for this whiny child! I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again. I get that he’s like, a kid, but it doesn’t mean I can’t get annoyed by all this.

Also, fucking testosterone club in there, Lloyd, huh.

[14:17] Oh! That bird let him know where Lloyd’s based. Good bird. It’ll get an apple slice or something. Maybe a small mouse.

[14:00] “Why did you follow a bird?” Oh god not this awkwardness again

[13:51] But like, seriously, it’s nice to impart the lesson on the target audience that humanity isn’t a hivemind that’ll always Get what you do or say or find funny. People aren’t like that! There’s no such thing as a Normal person. Acting so is a really stupid idea.

[13:45] “Everyone knows cuckoo birds aren’t indigenous to this forest.” Like, that sounds like something I would say. Like it’s been read out of a book and then vaguely quoted afterwards.

[12:50ish] “Travel in the shadows, boys.” In those outfits? Yeah, good luck.

[11:12] Goddammit, the second I forgot the hypnosis thing it comes back to bite the characters, huh?

[10:50] You’re not all that genre-savvy, huh? It’s not going to just… snap, and then Cole’s alright.

[10:23] “Friends don’t hit friends.” (He promptly gets hit in the face.) “Alright, I’m gonna- I’m gonna ignore that.”

[Over a bit] Guys stop discussing YOU’RE GETTING YOUR ASSES KICKED

[Over another bit] Welp! The lightning bolt didn’t do shit.

[9:30] “That is a serious safety hazard!” You MADE that safety hazard. You didn’t earn that quip.

[9:10] Nothin’ like a little old music to snap Cole out of his trance.

[8:46] Oh, would you look at that! It’s conveniently a Serpentine cancelling flute thingy!

[8:31] OH GOD EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE

[7:55ish] Priorities…?

[7:35] Alright, alright, you two, don’t gang up on Zane. He’s not the one who did this.

[7:34] Okay, but seriously. Priorities, dude.

[7:15ish] Alright, gang, what did we learn! We learnt not to blame people for something they literally didn’t do! Zane’s bloody gone to who-knows-where because of you ganging up on him.

[6:30ish] If you ask your disobeying army on why they dare disobey you, they’re just gonna disobey harder, dude.

[6:22] I’m sorry? The Slytherpit?

[5:35] Okaaay, Lloyd… Lloyd’s spotted a scroll conveniently unfrozen and it looks like he’s making a move for it.

[4:51] SCALES JUST KICKED THE GENERAL IN THE FACE WHY AM I INVESTED IN THIS

[4:30ish] What the hell is Fang kwon do?

[4:20] Well, Scales’ won. This can only go so well (possibly sarcasm in that statement I’m not sure yet).

[4:03] Wait, so you’re telling me the chief snake is the only one allowed to have a tail? Hookay, whatever you say, Ninjago writers.

[3:35] Back to our protaginists (excl. Zane and including Wu and Nya) who appear to be camping out at another mountain for now.

[3:24] Oi! Don’t freak out about the food, you’ve got any other options?

[3:20] Yikes, I’d make a third priorities joke but just… yikes.

[3:05] Well, moral of the story boys, no such thing as a Normal Person. What you think is a Normal Person is something that you’ve constructed in your mind that you don’t usually adhere to yourself, and yet act annoyed when someone’s not fitting majorly to that construct. Just because you don’t understand why a person did a thing doesn’t mean they’re some foreign entity to you. And don’t blame the person who didn’t do it. That’s victim blaming, and it’s bad.

[2:53] And on that note, Zane’s back! Hell yeah!

[2:35] Oh, the falcon’s back? What’d it show him?

[2:30] Awww, group hug!

[2:15] Well, don’t hold us in suspense.

[2:00ish] Nice to see that the falcon’s good and all but I swear there is something up with that bird.

[1:53] DRAGON BOAT, DRAGON BOAT HELL YEAH

[1:20ish] “I feel there is more to you than meets the eye.” Having been spoiled on the whole “Zane’s a robot” thing, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And since I don’t want to spoil myself further, I imagine I’m going to be waiting a bloody long while until I know when that will happen. At least for now, it’s good to know Zane feels as though the people around him as his family. It’s nice.

[0:55ish] FOOD FIGHT! Round 2, baby!

[0:41] Goddammit, Lloyd.

[0:39ish] You’re kind of a brat, dude. Though… man, he doesn’t really have a family, does he? That’s gotta suck hard.

#ninjajo #jaime watches ninjago season 1 #ninjago season 1 #home

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gojaimas · 5 years

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More Late Comment Replies

Hey people. I just watched Endgame, and since Thanos memes always remind me of my story because they kept coming up in the comments for some reason, I’ve decided to come back and reply to some more late comments. Here goes.

HorsemanOTA: “looks like you finished this earlier this year but i wish i would have come by it sooner, spent the past almost week binge reading this story and have loved every minute of it, i cant say im not disappointed that all three of them didn't end up in a poli-relationship, i was hoping it would have ended like that. The crutch thing i can understand but i feel like they had bonded way too much for it to end way, it hurt me that that was the out for her to be like i gotta squash it and let it be a pair instead of a trio. Got so invested in your version of Lucy lol. regardless i loved just about all of this fic so thank you for the read, hope this review reaches you well. Later Daze”

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I’m a little let down that I couldn’t have all three of them get together in the end, too. But I couldn’t just snap my fingers and make everything turn out alright in the end. I wanted to stay true to the story I was writing and it just didn’t fit for that to happen at that point.

J Master 87: “Holy shit. That was down right amazing. I absolutely loved this story, the interactions, the twists and turns. It was everything I could have asked for in a Ben 10 fic. Thank you for that”

You’re welcome! I only had a few real ‘twists’ I’d say, but I’m glad I managed to pull them off well enough for some people to enjoy.

Guest: “Lurking in the shadows huh? Batman, is that you? For being the world’s greatest detective you sure gave your identity away pretty easily”

CrimsonBolt1: “This is enjoyable so far. Reminds me of Little Moments in feel. Nice to see them finally starting to be open and honest with each other. I like your Lucy. Much better inclusion than a random OC.”

I didn’t want to make any OCs major characters in the story. Lucy ended up being a good fit for the role I needed. Also, for anyone who hasn’t seen, shadows59 just started a reboot of Little Moments, so go and check that out.

yuyuyre: “Why, this is my first ben10 fanfic and I'm glad. It's beautiful, truely. Thank you for writing this wonderful story.”

Thanks! There are lots more great Ben 10 fanfics out there if you’re interested, so I hope you find some others that you enjoy, too!

Hassan Elgarni1: “Nothing to do, so I re-read. Sigh. And shit, no more good fanfictions for ben10, plus the fandom seems like it's diying. What to do? We're lost without some drama in our life. No! I mean some dramatic stories to read about, and this one seems to always fit.”

Not to plug for it too much, but there’s that Little Moments reboot now...

Guest: “Can we get that Lucy ending or that afterstory as a Christmas present? We got a snow map in PubG, Fortnite season 7, MCU trailers with Avengers: Endgame, Blackout from CoD, GOTY awards, it’s such a shame RDR2 didn’t bag the prize but can’t really say God of War didn’t deserve it so an update would be the icing on the cake, unless you’re pre occupied with unwrapping presents. Also, can we have a Ben 10 battle royale mode too? Thanks”

Sorry I couldn’t get that Ben 10 battle royale out in time for Christmas. Also, I’m not working on a continuation for this story right now. I’m too busy trying to find time to work on my Legend of Zelda story.

Guest: “Me when gojaimas updates: Ayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya”

Guest: “According to the Bible we're all related, so we all share blood so it being forbade by Christianity makes no sense, also great story thanks for making my day less boring”

I don’t really get how I’m still getting comments about this one particular line in that chapter. I never said anything about what should or should not be forbade by Christianity. Lucy was simply trying to figure out Gwen’s reasons for being against incest, and she considered religious beliefs to be a possibility since, regardless of whether or not you think it makes sense, there are Christians out there who are against incest for religious reasons. Neither me, nor Lucy, nor Gwen said that should be the case. I hope that’s clear by now. Anyway, I’m glad I made your day less boring.

dippytrippy122: “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Simply put this was the best romance-based fanfic I have ever read that wasn't just a humorous jab at the genre. You did so with a pairing I disliked due to its incestuous nature and actually made me enjoy it greatly. You also made sure that the ending wasn't perfect and I respect you immensely for that. Thank you for this wonderful story. :)”

Thanks! It’s always great to hear from people who enjoyed the story despite not liking the pairing. I think that means I did an okay job with recognizing the weirdness of it and not shying away from that.

xSean: “THATS WHERE YOU END IT?! Can't deny I'm a little annoyed with that but this fic was still great over all. The character development and interactions were absolutely superb. Wish there was more clueless, fluffy interactions but I guess they gotta grow up and realise what is happening at some point. Again great fic over all, one of the best I have read in a long time. Only the 2nd Ben 10 fic I've read too!”

Thank you! I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it going for another year or two, but I had to let it end before I ruined it, haha. The clueless, fluffy interactions were always a lot of fun, though. I loved that part of their relationship.

Samian: “Read through it in 2 days and some how I'm sad about that, the pace of your story should have made me slow down and push the ending further away. This was exactly the kind of development in their characters that I was looking for with in the Bwen fics. Beautifully done, really good job. That being said though there were some downsides, over the course of the story you took what made ben 10 what it is out of the story, which was a bit sad in my eyes. I do have to admit that you made it work though and I wouldn't change any of it. The ending is a bit of a letdown in the sense that there is a strong sense of anticipation of where it would have gone too. But again you some how made it work. You really did an incredible job.”

Thank you. I’m sorry to everyone who read this story expecting more alien fighting action, but even from my minimalistic description, “A story about how Ben and Gwen's relationship evolves over the next four years following their summer trip,” I think I made it clear that that simply wasn’t what the story was about. I’m happy you managed to enjoy it anyway!

Slayer of The Abyss: “I really liked how you gave the characters depth and Sense of being real people, the only thing that bothers me is how the thought process of different senteint species could be almost exactly the same, which isnt really your fault. But anyway i am looking forawrd to any potential fic you may write in the future”

Yeah, not much I could’ve done about that. If Lucy was too alien, she wouldn’t really have acted the way she did in the episode she appeared in.

MosquitoesLoveMe: “This story is adorable and you're a wizard at writing to make this happen! The fluff I've read till now has been heartwarming, I demand more fluff for the fluff gods!”

I, too, worship the fluff gods.

MosquitoesLoveMe: “Oh Lucy, you're about as subtle as a brick. Which says something about Ben and Gwen I suppose...“

Ben and Gwen: *oblivious to their love* Lucy:

MosquitoesLoveMe: “I am not sure how I feel about this. The lead up, the talk, and the execution was perfect mind you, and Ben's reaction is to be expected from how he's been portrayed. Maybe it's because we've seen Gwen struggle with her feelings and come to terms with them but we haven't had quite as many chapters from Ben's perspective. But because of that it kind of felt off. I didn't expect both of them to have sorted this out at the same time, but it doesn't even seem like Ben entertained that thought, leading to a blank face when confronted. Somehow I didn't expect that, or rather I expected more than that. Either way considering I'm reading this months after it's been completed, I shall have faith that you'll tie it up well, after all I haven't been disappointed thus far!”

It’s been a while, but I think around this point in the story, I was doing a lot less from Ben’s POV because I wanted the reader to be unsure about how Ben would react as much as Gwen was. As for whether or not Ben has entertained the idea, I’ve shown in the past that every time anything even close to resembling the idea pops into his head, he finds some way to dismiss it and bury it deeper because to him, his cousin was completely off-limits. It took Gwen confronting him with the idea directly to finally get him to truly consider it.

MosquitoesLoveMe: “It was a wonderful journey, thanks for writing this story! It was a pretty realistic end to the story and finished on a hopeful note, that leaves me wishing there was a sequel that goes into how Ben and Gwen handle the trials of their relationship and the adults finding out. That also made me really wish for a chapter from the perspective of Ben and Gwen's parents. Keeping with the trend of maintaining a realistic tone, it's hard to believe they did not at least suspect something was up, especially Natalie. It makes me really curious as to what went on in their heads during the last few chapters. Either way, whether or not you get back to this at a future date, I'm happy you wrote this story and glad I got to read it, cheers mate!”

Natalie was definitely getting suspicious. If I ever do continue the story, I probably will go more into what their parents are thinking. But that’ll be on the backburner for now. Thank you so much for reading my story! I’m happy you enjoyed it!

Well, that wasn’t all the comments, but that’s all I have time for right now. I’ll get to the rest eventually. Thanks again for everything! My fans are truly a joy to hear from.

#Comments

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darriness · 5 years

Text

Playing With Lightning (Fic)

Author: darriness

Word Count: 3636

Pairings: Barry Allen/Darren Criss/Mia Swier

Summary: Darren notices something interesting in his coworker

Rating: NC-17

Author’s Note: SO I NEVER INTENDED TO FINISH THIS AND THEN I DID AND HERE IT IS. Written PURELY for my own enjoyment (and whoever else would enjoy reading it). Don’t send me angry asks please. This is just for fun. An idea that popped into my head like two years ago and is now finished (I have never written RPF (well in this case partly RPF) and never will again!). I’m not even posting in on AO3. I just thought...other people might want to read it? Because I enjoyed it) Enjoy!

Playing with Lightening (Fic)

Finding out your costar has super powers is fucking trippy. The first time Darren saw Barry flash somewhere he thought he was high. He then realized he was at work, therefore NOT high, and he had just seen Barry fucking Allen move so fast he almost missed him to the craft services table before moving back to where he needed to be for the next shot.

Darren had looked around to see if anyone else had noticed but everyone else was otherwise occupied. He had then turned back to Barry, who shot him an innocuous smile before turning back to whatever was on his phone.

The second time he sees Barry move faster than anyone has the right to move, it’s at the wrap party and Darren wishes he can blame it on the alcohol but he has only had one drink and he is most certainly NOT drunk as he watches Barry one minute standing talking to a DP and the next, when she turns around to acknowledge someone who has tapped her shoulder, Barry is gone in a flash of red, only to return seconds later before the DP turns back around.

“Did you just see that?” He asks leaning over to Mia who is tapping a quick text on her phone.

“See what?” She asks without REALLY looking up, wrap parties are fun but she’s got work to do.

“Barry, he just…moved really fast.” Darren finishes lamely with a grimace. He hates sounding anything less than intelligent.

“What are you on about?” Mia asks, pocketing her phone with a sigh and resting a hand on Darren’s thigh casually.

“Nothing. It’s stupid.” Darren shrugs, sliding his arm along the back of Mia’s chair and changing the subject to the new bookshelves they’re planning to buy for their front room.

It’s an hour later and this time, it’s Mia who notices the flash. She’s talking to an assistant and she feels a breeze in an otherwise breezeless room. She looks around to see what could have caused it when she notices Barry settling back into place next to the sound system (where he had been a moment before), a crackle of energy following behind him.

“I gotta go.” Mia says, interrupting the assistant and not really caring as she makes her way over to Darren who is fiddling with a piano, “We need to talk.” Is all she says before dragging him from the room amidst his protests.

“Hey, I was just about to play something.” He says as he tries to keep his drink from spilling.

“You are literally ALWAYS about to play something. It can wait.” She says, pushing him against the wall just outside the door holding the party, “I saw it.”

“Saw…what?” He asks confused, “The light?” He tries and is smacked in the arm for his efforts.

“No, you douche, I saw Barry. “Move really fast”.” She says parroting his words from earlier.

His eyes widen and he points at her with enthusiasm, “You did! Fucking right you did! I’m not crazy!”

“You are crazy but when it comes to this at least you’re correct.” He pouts at this but she just grabs his chin and plants a hard kiss on his lips to placate him. It works. It always works.

“So Barry Allen can move faster than the blink of an eye? Do we…tell him we know?” Darren asks. He hadn’t thought much past ‘Holy fuck’.

Mia seems to think for a minute, taping her fingers against where they rest on his chest before a slow smile spreads across her face, “I know exactly what we’re going to do.” She says, stopping her taping and instead trailing her finger slowly along the buttons of his shirt.

He looks down at said finger and then back up at her face, knowing exactly what both her finger and face are saying, “You greedy girl.” He smiles slowly as she bites her lip.

She shrugs as innocently as she can but they both know she’s the naughty one in this relationship. Innocent isn’t something she pulls off very well.

“Can we ask him?” She asks like he really has a say in the matter.

He rolls his eyes to emphasize this point before huffing, “Go. Do your thing.”

“Don’t act like you won’t enjoy it.” She giggles, slapping his chest lightly before trailing her fingers along it to his shoulder as she moves to the door, “Go play something nice on the piano and we’ll meet you there.” She says.

When she’s gone, Darren has to subtly adjust himself before doing what he’s told. He’s amazed after so many years together that a little talk and innocent touching can get him going but he assumes that’s what happens when you just work with another person.

He’s in the middle of playing his own arrangement of Can’t Stop the Feeling when he feels hands he’s very familiar with smooth across his shoulders. He doesn’t stop playing, just leans back slightly into the curve of her body, letting her breasts pillow his head, “Look who I brought.” She says, kissing into his hair.

Darren still doesn’t stop playing as he turns to see Barry Allen standing next to Mia looking only slightly awkward. He’s all wide eyes and sweetness, Darren wonders what Mia said to get to this moment.

“I thought we could all head back to our place. Have a drink or two.” Barry’s nodding before Mia has finished her sentence which leads Darren to believe this isn't news to him.

“Sure.” Darren smiles easily and twenty minutes later they are settling on Darren and Mia’s leather couch, each with a glass of wine.

“You guys have a lovely home.” Barry comments, smoothing his jeans down his thighs as Mia sits next to him and Darren sits in the arm chair next to the couch.

“You’re so sweet.” Mia murmurs almost to herself. She pushes off her sandals and lets her feet curl up under herself, resting her knee touching Barry’s thigh, “So how does it work?” She asks and by the way Barry doesn’t even flinch at the question Darren surmises she already told him they know he can move faster than any human should move.

Barry laughs with a slight cough, “It’s the age old story: get struck by lightning, spend nine months in a coma, wake up and you’re the fastest man alive.” He shrugs at the end.

“And I’m guessing it’s not something you broadcast?” Darren asks curiously.

Barry shakes his head, “Would you?” He asks, “A few people know, but not many.”

“And you’re really okay…testing out what that speed can do?” Mia asks suggestively.

Barry shrugs, “Sure. You guys are…hot.” He finishes with another shrug and a laugh. Darren has known Barry for almost a year and he still can’t get over how adorably goofy this man is.

Mia smiles and suddenly the energy in the room changes. She leans closer to Barry and captures his lips in a kiss that is dirty from the start. Darren watches as she opens her mouth to his and can hear her soft moan when their tongues meet. Darren always finds it fascinating to watch Mia kiss other people. Fascinating and incredibly attractive.

It’s clear from the beginning that Mia is in charge of the kiss but Barry is not entirely passive. He brings his hands up to smooth them down her sides and Darren hears Mia sigh.

Mia pulls away and smirks when Barry tries to follow, “So Mr. Allen, what exactly are you up for?” She whispers.

Barry’s eyes flick to Darren before focussing back on Mia, “Anything.” He’s out of breath from the kiss.

Mia hums, “That’s a lofty word. ‘Anything’ can go a long way with us.”

Barry swallows audibly but it doesn’t appear to be from nerves, “I’m fine with that.”

Mia smiles again and slowly gets up from the couch and moves to Darren who is sitting back with his wine, “I’m going to go into the bedroom and freshen up. Why don’t you test out a few things that fall under the umbrella of ‘anything’ before coming to join me?” She asks before kissing him. She had meant it to be a quick kiss but with the current mood, their quick kiss quickly turns into Mia grabbing a fist full of those curls she loves so much and titling his head back until it’s at the perfect angle. He lets her move him, groaning at the tug on his hair and takes whatever she gives.

She pulls away after a moment and they are both breathing heavily, Darren’s eyes already losing focus, “We are…really good at that.” She whispers so only he’ll hear.

“Hell yes we are.” Darren agrees, kissing her slowly one more time before she straightens. If she doesn’t separate herself from him she may very well forget they have a guest.

“I’ll see you boys in a minute.” she says before moving past the chair and down the hall to their bedroom.

Darren focuses back on Barry who is all but panting on the couch, his eyes blown black and definite interest showing at the front of his jeans, “Wow.” Barry breathes and Darren smirks before getting up and sitting next to his costar.

“Ever kiss a guy before, Barry?” He asks. Barry shakes his head no and Darren shrugs, “It’s not much different than kissing a woman to be honest. More stubble. Harder? I find there’s always more of a push back. But otherwise, very similar.”

“Do you spend a lot of time kissing men?” Barry asks.

Darren laughs, “It seems to be a career move I make more often than not but outside of work? Not really. Mia seems to enjoy it when she watches though and anything I can do to make that girl happy? Well, it’s not a hardship.”

“I could see wanting to make her happy for sure.” Barry agrees, his eyes flicking down the hall Mia had left down.

“Watch yourself, Speedster.” Darren says playfully before leaning in and capturing the other man’s lips in a kiss. He can tell Barry is nervous and not quite sure what to do at the beginning but Darren gives it a moment or two and he can feel the moment Barry realizes this isn’t really much different than kissing a woman. He relaxes and seems to melt back into the couch and actually groans when Darren lets his tongue flick briefly passed his parted lips.

“Now that’s a sound I like to hear.” Mia’s voice has them separating and both turn towards her. Darren’s got a smile on his face and Barry is touching his lips like he’s still trying to figure out what just happened.

“I thought we were coming to join you, my darling.” Darren says letting his eyes trails appreciatively over her body as she stands there in just her panties and bra.

She shrugs and pushes her hair behind her ear, “I got tired of waiting.”

“It’s been three minutes.” Darren comments but gets up anyway and gestures for Barry to do the same.

The trio make their way to Darren and Mia’s bedroom and Mia crawls onto the bed the minute they’re inside, resting back against the pillow. Darren isn’t about to ignore an invitation like that and smoothly shifts on top of her to catch her mouth in a kiss. Her arms comes to rest around his neck and he lets his hands roam while they kiss; tracing a path down her neck, over her breasts and down her stomach. He can feel her stomach muscles clench at the move. He knows for a fact that this turns her on, foreplay with her in her underwear and him fully clothed. She will often refuse to let him get undressed some night until she’s come.

Mia arches her back as Darren lets his hand slide between her legs briefly. She’s wet, she knows it, and she knows he knows it too before he even touches lightly through her panties. Damn him for knowing how to so quickly get her going.

She pulls back from the kiss to pant, “Now Darren, we don’t want to be rude to our guest, do we?” She asks and the two of them turn their heads to find Barry standing at the side of the bed, a hand massaging his obvious hard on, “We did invite him over to have some fun. Be a good boy and let him have a turn.” She says and feels Darren slide to lie next to her but unable to actually stop touching her, lying a hand on her stomach and letting his fingers smooth across her skin. She lets him, knows he rarely stops moving, and gestures for Barry to join her. He does and with only mild encouragement takes over the same spot Darren had just occupied, “Hey.” She says, seeming to realize why he’s hesitating, “You said you were okay with anything? Well so are we. Darren and I love sharing our bed from time to time but we are also a very secure couple. We will tell you if something passes a boundary and we expect you to do the same. But otherwise? Just let go and be.”

Barry lets out a shaky breath where he’s perched on top of her, not letting any of his weight settle and glances over at Darren. At Darren’s nod of confirmation he seems to drop whatever hang ups he had with the shake of the head and he begins kissing Mia with gusto, “That’s a good boy.” Mia murmurs between kisses, “Show me what you got.”

Barry lets his hands travel the same path Darren’s took and Mia notes his hands are smoother than Darren’s. It makes sense, considering the amount of guitar Darren plays. His hands are calloused and warm while Barry’s are smooth and cool to the touch. Darren’s hand is still smoothing over her stomach when Barry’s hand slips into the cup of her bra. She sighs and lets her head fall back. Her breasts and nipples have always been really sensitive, something Darren found out early and exploits often.

“Put your mouth on them.” She gasps when Barry flicks her nipple with his finger.

“Which of us are you talking to?” Darren murmurs into her ear.

“Both. Both is good.” Mia decides because why the hell not?

Both men smirk before Barry moves to settle on her other side. They each take a bra cup and peel it back, letting them rest underneath her breasts before using their hands to massage the flesh they just uncovered. The sensation of two different hands is always strange and yet amazing but Mia loses her breath completely when simultaneously the men bring their mouths to their respective nipples.

“Holy shit.” She gasps. It isn’t often she gets the warm wet cavern of a mouth on both her nipples at the same time. She arches her back as both men start to flick their tongues back and forth across her nipples while simultaneously sucking softly.

“Oh you two are the best boys.” She sighs and that’s when she feels it. A vibration against her left nipple. She thinks at first that Barry is just moaning, she loves that, but soon realizes this is a much more intense feeling and one that last longer than a moan against her flesh, “Oh my god!” She moans fisting a hand into the hair at the back of both of their heads and if she’s not mistaken she can actually FEEL Barry smirk against her breast. His tongue is vibrating. Literally vibrating against her flesh and she screws her eyes shut to try and stave off the orgasm she can feel building just from that.

“Holy fuck I need…I want…You need to…” She aborts each sentence because she isn’t sure WHAT she want or needs at this point. Both men pick their heads up and look at her and she does know ONE thing, that them stopping was not something she wants OR needs, “Did I tell you to stop?”

“Well you were in the middle of telling us a lot of different things there but didn’t finish any of them.” Darren jokes before settling down to whisper in her ear, “You wanna go once to get warmed up?” Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn’t. Some nights the idea of coming more than once is exhausting and she’d rather just wait until the end but on other nights, when she’s REALLY feeling it, coming once at the beginning can be a relief to her over stimulated system. In her current state, that husky whisper is enough to give Mia a full body shiver and she knows her answer for tonight.

“Yes.” She whines, shoving him down and away and she knows she doesn’t need to speak for him to get the idea. She pulls Barry so his face is right above hers and says in the most commanding voice she can muster at the moment, “Do that again.” Before directing his head back to her breasts.

The vibrations start up again almost immediately and Barry’s hand takes over where Darren’s mouth had been as Darren mouths his way down her body before pulling her panties down her legs.

Darren’s ability to get her off with his mouth is both familiar and yet always surprising and it doesn’t take long before she’s arching off the bed, almost crushing his head between her thighs as she moans long and low.

Both boys pull away from her, smiling (Barry’s pleased and Darren’s knowing) and she sighs as she stretches, “Mmmmm, more.” She says, simply.

Darren smiles and moves up her body, kissing her lightly before whispering, “Who do you want where?”

Mia considers her options before peeking at Barry under Darren’s arm, “Does…every part of you vibrate?”

And just like that the decision is made. Barry settles between her legs as Darren kneels next to her head, tangling a hand in her hair as the other man puts on a condom, “You’ve got a real life vibrator.” Darren says with a smirk.

Mia giggles, leaning up to pull the tip of Darren’s cock between her lips for a brief moment, pulling off and licking her lips at the precome she finds there. Darren’s breath stutters out of him and the hand in her hair tightens.

They both look down the bed to watch Barry watching them, pulling almost absent-mindedly at his sheathed erection, “Whenever you’re ready.” Mia says and it seems to snap Barry back to attention. He shakes his head as if to clear it and then shuffles forward, hooking her thigh with one hand and guiding his cock with the other.

She sighs as he enters her, it’s different than Darren but no less pleasing, before reaching behind Darren’s ass and using it to pull him toward her mouth. All three moan as they settle into position and there’s a moment where no one moves. They’re all frozen in a tableaux full of sexual energy before Barry breaks the moment and begins to thrust.

It doesn’t take long before Darren is shallowly thrusting back and forth as well before moaning long and low as Mia squeals around his cock. He knows the squeal comes from Barry beginning to vibrate and the three are caught in a feedback loop of pleasure as they all chase their orgasms.

Mia comes first, moaning around Darren as Barry pushes in at just the right angle to cause her to tense and then relax with a moan. Barry comes second, unable to handle the clenching walls around him, filling the condom with a drawn out moan of his own.

Darren watches this all happen with panting breath. He looks down at Mia’s pink lips around him and asks, “Can I?”

Mia pulls off with a smile and a nod and Darren almost ‘whoops’ with joy as he shuffles down the bed, “Excuse me, my good man.” He says to Barry who, dazed, pulls out and sits heavily on the end of the bed.

Darren quickly takes his place and slides in with a groan, setting a brutal pace as Mia’s feet settle on his ass to encourage him, “That’s it. Come in me.” She says, sluggishly. She’s tired, after having come twice.

Darren lets his head drop to his chest as he comes hard inside her, pulsing with the intensity. Mia groans at the feeling and reaches up to pull him down by his curls to let him rest against her chest.

The room is silent but for their heavy breathing until Barry lets out a breathy, “Wow.”

Darren and Mia chuckle from their position and Barry smiles, “That was awesome.” Mia comments, smiling at Barry over Darren’s shoulder but unwilling to move from her position.

Barry smiles, “Yeah. It was.” He says, before sighing, “I should probably…head out.”

“You don’t have to.” Darren says from where he’s lying against Mia.

Barry smiles, “I appreciate that but I need to get home. Thanks for tonight.”

“Thank YOU.” Mia emphasizes, “Anytime you want to…have some fun.”

Barry nods, “I’ll keep that in mind.” He says with a smile before getting up and grabbing his clothes. He’s quiet on his retreat and before long Mia and Darren are alone.

Mia pets through Darren’s hair as they lay in companionable silence, “Did that really just happen?” She asks.

“Did we really just have sex with the fastest man alive?” Darren mumbles, already mostly asleep, “Yeah, I think we did.”

Mia nods as she considers the ceiling, “Thought so.” She says simply before the pair fall asleep, curled around each other.

#my stuff #my love #miarren #bamiarren #playing with lightning

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