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#and if not I have a character idea in like 2 seconds after.
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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 重啟之極海聽雷/Reunion: The Sound of the Providence/The Lost Tomb Reboot/this thing has too many names
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Reunion (I'm just going to call it that) is a 2020 action drama about the most specialest little babygirl in the tomb-raiding world, his two husbands, and the cadre of assorted weirdos they pick up as they try to follow a set of directions left by a dead (?) man in the thunder.
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Imagine if someone showed you the Mandalorian, and you were like, gee, that was a neat little sci-fi one-shot! because you'd never heard of Star Wars. That was basically my experience watching this show, having no idea that the Lost Tomb franchise (DMBJ) was even a thing. Turns out that not only is there a whole big continuity out there with these characters, but that Reunion takes place a few years after the main story's resolution. Don't worry, though -- Reunion doesn't spoil you for that resolution. It doesn't spoil you for much, period. Look, DMBJ has a weird relationship to endings, okay?
I have written a more thorough where-to-start guide for DMBJ as a whole, so if you want to consider other entry points, well, that information is there for your consideration. Yet it is my opinion that this is the best entry into the overall franchise, and a fun thing to watch just in general, and I'm here to make my case for both of those.
The rest of this rec will assume that you have no familiarity with the DMBJ series. That's okay; you don't need any. All you need is to trust my five reasons you should watch this.
1. Old Man Yaoi
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As you begin this show, you are introduced to the Iron Triangle. That's them in the picture up there. Left to right, you have: Xiao Ge, magically tattooed immortal hottie who just got back from ten years in [scene missing]; Wu Xie, our protagonist, who's just a little guy and it's his birthday; and Wang Pangzi, the literal best.
(And yes, Wu Xie is in his 30s and Pangzi is in his 40s, which is not technically old man anything, but ... look, if you watch, you'll see why I think I'm justified in calling it that.)
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They are extremely married. They are a disaster trio of disasters so disastrous that no one else should ever be subjected to their chaos. They're going to make sure lots of people are, though, don't you worry about it. Sometimes those people even deserve it.
However, because the show (tragically!!) decides that Xiao Ge has somewhere else to be like 95% of the runtime, most of the relationship you get to see is between Wu Xie and Pangzi.
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I'm saying this now as an old gay nerd who just this year celebrated her 15th wedding anniversary: I have never, never felt so represented in media as I have watching Wu Xie and Pangzi interact. There's a little wake-up song they sing together near the end of the show, and it just ... it packs so much character development into thirty seconds. These boys have been living adjacent lives for so long that they've made up their own little shared songs about the mundanities of daily living. That is just what happens when you marry your best friend and then decide to get old and weird together. Ask me how I know.
Look, if you want to know whether this show is for you or not, watch to the end of the first episode, to the part where Pangzi flips over the table. If your heart is filled with joy (as it should be), keep going.
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Love makes a tomb-raiding syndicate family.
2. A fun-filled action-packed romp of nonsense!
If you're familiar with Hellblazer canon, this will make sense to you: Reunion is Dangerous Habits. If you're not familiar with Hellblazer canon, try it like this: Reunion is a terrible place to start because it plays on your extant affection for a character who gains a terrible status effect almost immediately. It's a also great place to start because it throws you right in the action with measurably high stakes and gives you a reason to build that affection very quickly.
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I'm also going to warn you right off the bat: The plot of this show got cut to ribbons by censors.
See, the DMBJ books, being books, are allowed to get away with supernatural shit! So you've got zombies and ghosts and curses and monsters and immortality and all your other standard ooky spooky semi-urban fantasy trappings. But the DMBJ adaptations, being live-action, are heavily regulated in their content. This is why, in the early Reunion episodes, our heroes are menaced by human-looking creatures that are actually ancient mannequins made of leather that are piloted, mecha-style, by evil clams. Because evil clams are more scientific than zombies. I guess.
So yeah, the plot of this book already had to get mangled into a more "science"-compliant shape even before it made it to filming. The real problem is that a whole lot more of it got cut after it was all filmed and put together. I have read an explanation of what the actual storyline was supposed to be, and yeah, if you know what you’re looking at, you can see (and hear) the scars where major elements got hacked out with a weed whacker.
Therefore: You cannot expect this plot to make sense.
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But that's okay! You're not here for the plot to make sense! You're here to watch some characters you love run around through ridiculous and sometimes beautiful labyrinths, trying to solve puzzles you're never given enough information to understand, all in search of the resolution to a mystery that had half its guts torn out before you got to see it -- and you are here to love it. If you have ever laughed and cheered your way through a Mission: Impossible film without pausing to care too much about the plot holes it’s dodging left and right, you are in the correct frame of mind to appreciate this. Just believe that whatever engaging nonsense the show tells you is correct for the time being and go with it.
You cannot watch DMBJ and care about the laws of physics. You simply cannot.
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Do not, however, let me give you the impression that the shoddy plotting is accompanied by equally shoddy performances. A major part of this show’s incredible watchability comes from how the cast is shockingly good. There are some serious heavy hitters among the actors. A major part of why this Wu Xie and Pangzi are my favorite together is the incredible chops both Zhu Yilong and Chen Minghao have, to say nothing of their real-life affection for one another. (See that scar on Wu Xie's neck? That scar is there because Zhu Yilong commits to the bit.) Effortlessly charming Mao Xiaotong turns potentially irritating wunderkind Bai Haotian into a perfect precious weirdo baby. Wu Erbai's entire second-season character arc could have been unintentionally comedic, but veteran of queer cinema Hu Jun sells even the undignified moments as relentlessly tragic. And of course Baron Chen absolutely kills it with...
3. This giant fucking loser
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This is Hei Xiazi. That's not his name, but it's close enough. Allow me to do a dramatic reenactment of my watching his first scene:
[camera pans over to him]
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me: Ugh, I recognize this kind of wannabe badass character design. I hate his type. He's self-important, hyper-masculine, and just a big jerk, and the show thinks he's soooo cool. Barf.
[thirty seconds later]
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me: Oh no. I was so wrong. I love him forever now.
This is because he is (as indicated above) a giant fucking loser. Yes, he's a good fighter who knows lots of things. He's also a wet potato chip of a man. Sure, he can get you into a headlock, but he can also annoy you into submission, and that's honestly more fun for him. My wife has used the phrase “Vash the Stampede-coded” to describe him. My wife is not wrong.
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And the kind of ridiculous thing is, being such a loser is what wraps back around to making him cool again. He's a loser because he just doesn't fucking care. His masculinity is the opposite of fragile. You tell him to wear a dress and makeup, he'll do it -- and sure, he'll complain, but only because he enjoys complaining. He has no dignity. He’s tits-out. He's gender. He's the worst and also the best.
Hei Xiazi is a major character in the other installations, to the point where he and his boyfriend (more on him later) even have their own movie. But of course, I did not know this on my first watch, so I kept expecting the show to explain his whole deal. It does not, but you don't really need it to. He sees better in the dark. He doesn't age. He's a thug for hire. There, that's all the bio you need.
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One of the things that makes him great is that he is the least sexually threatening person ever. Across all the properties he's in, he spends a fair amount of time with women -- sometimes in very close quarters -- and they are perfectly safe around him. I actually wrote a whole post about it once upon a time (warning for tiny spoilers for a series that isn't this one) wherein I claim that not only Xiazi but Reunion in general is the television equivalent of the shirt that says I RESPECT WOMEN SO MUCH I DON'T HAVE SEX WITH THEM.
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That said, this loser does get a sort-of romance plot here -- and honestly, I find it very cute! It's not even the only instance in this series of a bisexual guy in a long-term same-sex relationship getting a girlfriend, and I like that other one too! Look, the handle of my DMBJ sideblog is @katamaricule because I joked that Wu Xie treats polyamory like a katamari, and if you don't move fast enough, you're going to be rolled right up into his gay little cuddle puddle.
This is not a show for exclusive ships; this is a show for inclusive ships. The Jiumen Association is a polycule. You don't even have to know what the Jiumen Association is to know it's true.
4. The power of friendship
This show has a lot of characters.
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I'd say the supporting cast is divided into three categories: characters who have been in previous installments, characters who have not been in previous installments, and characters who probably should have been in previous installments (or at least mentioned) but who were only created for Reunion so we have to pretend like we've known about them all along.
There is no way to tell which is which -- which is part of my argument that this series makes a good entry point to the franchise.
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Take Huo Daofu. Huo Daofu is a brilliant doctor masquerading as a donut stand operator who treats Wu Xie with all the cold disdain of a man confronting the person who left him at the altar years ago. On the one hand, yes! We do know Huo Daofu from a previous series, and we've known he's both a doctor and a bitch. On the other hand, oh, we have no idea why he's like this about Wu Xie, and we probably never will. The show just treats it like it's for an excellent reason, and you know what, from what you know about Wu Xie, it probably is.
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Consider also Jiang Zisuan. One of the show's principal antagonists, Jiang Zisuan turns out to be the brother of ... well, let's just say it's someone whose having a brother really should have come up before this. It has not come up. (And that's even before we get into the issue of his surname.) His stated identity as that person's brother is so bizarre that my favorite interpretation is that he isn't actually that person's brother -- all the flashbacks we see are just his delusions about a relationship he's completely invented. But there's no way you'd know how fucking weird this is on your first run.
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Then there's our friendly little support himbo, Kanjian, who shows up to all occasions with two tickets to the gun show and not a thought in that beautiful head. (His name just means "vest," which is par for the course when it comes to the author's naming conventions.) He was a lot more menacing in the last series (where they kept putting sleeves on him, geez), where most of what we learned about him is that you can loan him out to other tomb-raiding families. Now he's a golden retriever with great aim and a slingshot. It's an upgrade.
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The trick is, you cannot be surprised when someone shows up and the show treats them like you should know who they are, even when there's no possible way you could know who they are. I mean, for heaven's sake, Liu Sang arrives in the middle of an obvious beef with Pangzi, the origins of which are never satisfactorily explained, while also having a giant do-I-want-to-fuck-him-or-do-I-want-to-be-him crush on Xiao Ge, which is also never satisfactorily explained. Whatever, you just roll with it. He's got good hearing, a bad attitude, and questionable taste in idols. Now you're good to go.
(I should throw in a special note here that Liu Sang is many, many people's little meow meow, and not undeservedly. For a fuller explanation of why that is, please consult this other post I made.)
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Part of the fun of this big cast is the adorable interactions you get. All the characters have appropriately big personalities, and the show loves letting people you wouldn’t expect bounce off one another. It’s not your typical action-hero show where nothing happens without the protagonist in the room. There are lots of exciting combinations and tons of charming dynamics! Unlikely friendships form all over the place! Enemies become allies! Allies become friends! Friends become friends with other friends! Some friends become enemies again! You'll need a scoreboard to keep up!
This is not to say the show treats all its characters perfectly or equally -- one of the precious few main female characters doesn't even get a real name, for heaven's sake, and the less said about the brownface racism, the better. It is, at its heart, a dude show for dudes made in China, with all the troubling decision-making that implies. Where it does deserve credit, though, is in understanding that its supporting characters are actual people with personalities apart from their function in Wu Xie's narrative. Sometimes the show just asks "what if [random character A] and [random character B] had to interact?" and has fun considering the answer! Which is almost always a delight to watch, and sometimes even breaks your heart.
5. Amazing rewatch value!
And by this I mean the experience of watching this show is remarkably different once you have any understanding of the rest of the DMBJ universe.
For instance, there's a point where two characters are scuba-diving past some submerged coffins, and one character tells the other whose coffins they are. Working only on information Reunion has given you, you're like, oh, that's where they buried the guy who built this creepy place, that's a little weird. Once you recognize that name from other series, though, your reaction is far more, excuse me, they did WHAT to WHOSE corpses?
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Or another point where a character you've already met is on a train, and there's a handsome gentleman who just happens to be riding with her. He hands her his business card! Aw, that's sweet, he seems like a nice guy! Well, no, Xie Yuchen is not nice, but he is one of our allies, and he's Hei Xiazi's boyfriend, and a lot of what he's doing hits real different when you have a fuller grasp on why he's doing it and for whom. (Honestly, a major reason to watch Reunion first is so you're not fully and appropriately upset by how your black/pink gays merely have one teeny tiny scene together.)
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From the way the series treats the persistent absence of Wu Sanxing, Wu Xie's third uncle, I absolutely, 100% assumed that he was a completely new character to this installment of the series, an extremely long-lost relative that we've somehow conveniently managed to never talk about before now. So imagine my gobsmacked surprise when I went to watch a different series, set much earlier in the timeline, where the opening scene prominently features Wu Sanxing as an actual character in the present-day narrative! ...Well, sorta. Look, there's a lot of fuckery with his identity in earlier parts of the story, and fortunately you need to know none of it to understand Reunion. But when you do, it suddenly makes a lot more sense why Wu Xie talks about someone who was a major part of Wu Xie's adult life like he died when Wu Xie was nine.
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AND THE FLASHBACK SCENE WHERE A-NING GETS KILLED BY THE SNAKE, AND YOU'RE LIKE, OKAY, AND THEN YOU WATCH ULTIMATE NOTE AND IT WASN'T LIKE THAT AT ALL look, I know there are kinda reasons for this, different production companies and all, but seriously, what the fuck
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All of which to say is that the experience of watching Reunion the first time is, hey, this self-contained romp is a lot of fun! The experience of rewatching it after watching any of the other DMBJ installments is a transcendently wonderful head-clutching avalanche of one moment of recognition right after another.
And here's the thing: You will watch more. Reunion is a gateway drug. If you are interested enough to make it through all 62 episodes, you're going to be interested in watching more. Which is great. The English-speaking fandom needs more people. Come down into the tombs. It's great down here. We've got snakes and arguably unintentional homoeroticism. Join us. Join usssssssss
Are you ready for an aventure?
There are a couple different ways to watch the first half, but there's (weirdly) only one way to watch the second, so for both of them, I'm going to send you straight to iQiyi: Season 1 (32 episodes) and Season 2 (30 episodes).
And just so you’re ready when Reunion is done, here’s how you find the rest of the DMBJ series, in the absolutely non-chronological order in which I, personally, think you should watch them:
The Lost Tomb 2 (AsianCrush, YouTube)
Ultimate Note (iQiyi)
The Mystic Nine (iQiyi, Viki)
Sand Sea/Tomb of the Sea (Viki, WeTV, YouTube, also YouTube)
Also, there's a lot of movies and side series and other pieces that are worth seeing, and even a couple of full series I've left off the list, and you can just slot them in wherever. And maybe we'll get Tibetan Sea Flower someday? Look, hope springs eternal.
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They're so perfect. Perfect triangle. Perfect boys.
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bcdrawsandwrites · 3 days
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[ID: A Team Fortress 2 fic banner featuring a silhouette of Pyro using the stock flamethrower and setting things on fire. Pyro is light gray with darker outlines, with its class symbol and canister markings in orange, and its lenses yellow-white. They are on a dark gray background with faint gray text behind them reading numbers from 999,996 to 999,999. The title is in the top right in yellow-white text on a darker background reading, "CHAPTER ONE: PYROMANCY." /end ID]
Flickering
Fandom: Team Fortress 2 Rating: K+ Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship Characters: Spy, Pyro, Engineer, Heavy, Sniper Warnings: General references to trauma, TF2-typical violence Fic Description: After the events of the comics, the mercs try to go back to how things were, but it’s never that easy.
Spy can see his teammates going through their own struggles… but something seems to be very, very wrong with Pyro in particular.
And since no one else seems to be doing anything about this, Spy makes it his mission to get to the bottom of what is troubling Pyro. For no particular reason. Beta Readers: @mechmolar, @gonturan0, @junuve Notes: I have no idea what was supposed to happen in the final comic, so for the sake of my sanity I'm going to have the mercs go back to business as usual, somehow.
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Chapter 1: Pyromancy Summary: In which Spy takes on a new mission.
---
After everything was said and done, the scars they endured were more than physical.
Sniper had been the first to admit it, quietly mentioning during the chaos between rounds the fact that he sometimes still felt the pain of bullets long-gone, and not the ones they endured from their usual matches.
(The matches had resumed, even after the death of all three Mann brothers. It was a touch of normalcy that they all needed.)
Heavy made frequent trips to Medic's office, not for any treatment, but just in case there was still some Australium left in that brute's veins and he came after them again.
Spy, meanwhile, had escaped unscathed and had absolutely nothing to hide from anyone.
But as for the others, this was, of course, all very normal. They'd all been through a lot of strange events—or stranger than usual—and a bit of lingering trauma was to be expected. Nothing to be concerned over.
Except for one thing.
Spy had noticed it during a match. An enemy merc had been preparing to sneak up on Pyro, who was removing a sapper from a sentry. But the second they got too close, Pyro swung around with its homewrecker, striking the merc again and again until they despawned. On the surface it had seemed little different from how Pyro usually handled things. Even so, something about the incident felt... off to Spy.
So he decided to keep an eye on things. During matches, whenever he could, he would take a moment to observe Pyro. He observed it charging into battle, firing its flare gun with impressive precision. Efficient, and yet...
Another moment he caught was when it had a brush with an enemy spy. The spy had just attempted to backstab Pyro when it swung around, striking with its ax and slashing, again and again. When the bloody remains disappeared, Pyro stared blankly at the red stain they’d left behind for a few uncomfortable moments before moving on.
At this point, Spy wasn't even sure what he was looking for, or why he cared, beyond the fact that it was his part of his job to study people's behavior should he need to imitate it later. No one else had taken notice of any of this—or if they had, they said nothing of it. If he just dropped the matter, likely no one would care, and they could continue to move past the mess from the past six months.
...But a little poking around wouldn't hurt. It wasn't like the Administrator was sending him off on any high-profile missions right now.
Engineer's workshop was meticulously organized, and a place Spy did not typically set foot in, for good reason. Instinctively he cloaked the second he heard the beep. The sentry's gun was trained on him anyway, but, recognizing a friendly merc, did not shoot.
"I'd say it's funny seein' you here, if I could see you," Engineer said, following his sentry's eyeless gaze.
With a snort, Spy de-cloaked.
Engineer's gaze darkened as he rested the Gunslinger over the top of the machine. "You ain't here to practice with those sappers of yours, are ya?"
"What? No. I have no need for that."
"Huh." Withdrawing his prosthesis, he relaxed slightly. "What can I do ya for?"
"I seek... information." Spy strode closer, idly lighting a cigarette. "You often work with Pyro, no?"
Engineer shrugged. "Well, sure. Don't need to explain to you how we collaborate on the battlefield. Sometimes collaborate here in the workshop, too. That fella's got a knack for makin' new flamethrowers, and it'll sometimes ask for my input." He tilted his head. "Why? You lookin' to partner with it for something?"
"Ugh, no." Spy shuddered. "No. I was wondering if you had... noticed its behavior on the battlefield as of late."
At that, Engineer leaned forward, rubbing a finger against his chin. "Lately? Mumbles's been doing pretty well on the battlefield. Better than I can remember, even." Shrugging, he sat back. "Guess it's been missin' the usual matches, pointless as they are, same as the rest of us."
Exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose, Spy looked the Engineer in the goggles. "And outside of battle?"
"Dunno. Haven't seen it much."
"Do you find this... concerning?"
"Nope." Engineer looked away. "I know I was pretty much out of the fray for all of that, but it sounds like all y'all had it pretty rough. Don't blame anyone for wantin' to take a bit of time to themselves. I'm sure it'll come around."
"Perhaps." Sighing, Spy turned, heading back toward the door. "I'll leave you to... whatever sort of contraptions you have here."
"What are you worried about?"
Spy stopped in the doorway. "What?"
"You ain't the type to come in to ask about someone for no reason."
Spy glared over his shoulder. "I worry about nothing."
"All right," Engineer replied, and resumed tinkering with the sentry. When the fellow merc said nothing more, Spy went on his way.
No, he was not worried. But as his mind wandered back to their short time imprisoned in Gray Mann's base, he was wondering. And there was someone else who might be able to satisfy his curiosity.
Medic's lab, in contrast to Engineer's space, was cluttered and chaotic, not helped by the doves nesting and perching wherever they could find space, nor the young baboon scampering around the floor. The sight of Heavy sitting on a chair made Spy pause, wondering if he was interrupting something, only to realize that the Heavy was only reading a book. He did not look up when Spy entered. The baboon, meanwhile, scampered up to Medic (who was studying something at his desk) and tugged on the hem of his coat.
"Ah, Aristotle. Did you find it?" Medic asked, bending down to accept a small red vial from the baboon's paw. "Let's see..." Adjusting his glasses, he peered at the vial's label, only to frown and toss the vial aside, where it shattered on the floor. "Aristotle! I told you I needed an O-positive blood sample, not another B-positive!"
The monkey, evidently named Aristotle, gave a sad chirp.
"Now, now, try again," he said, and shoo'd the monkey off. "Unless you want this experiment to fail, anyway." He watched the monkey scurry back across the room and run past Spy, and did a double-take. "Ah, Spy! I didn't hear you come in."
"I should hope not, or else I'd be doing my job poorly." He sidestepped the broken glass as he approached.
"Are you recovering well from your emergency blood transfusion?" Medic asked, flipping through some papers at his desk.
"Actually, I had a question about that."
The Medic's face lit up. "Ah! You're in luck!" Setting the papers down, he gestured excitedly toward a series of vials lined up in front of him. "I'm currently working on a method of separating different blood types that may have gotten—hmm—mixed together, by some means, and I needed a human test subject to—"
"No."
Medic's expression immediately soured. "Oh." He turned away, flipping through the papers again. "Well what do you want? I'm very busy."
"You also performed an emergency transfusion on the Pyro, did you not?"
"Oh, yes!" Medic smiled as he held up a paper; Spy was able to spot the Pyro's class symbol on it. "Yes, it's always fascinating working with that one."
Spy didn't have to ask what was fascinating about the only non-human mercenary on their team. "Did you notice anything... unusual when you performed the operation?"
At that, Medic scratched his head. "Well now... I was quite busy at the time, trying to prevent everyone, including you, from dying from blood loss, you know. I didn't have time to focus on the details."
"But you did open Pyro's suit to slice it open and fill its chest cavity with blood."
"Yes, yes. Your point?"
"And you didn't see anything strange when you did this?"
Medic clicked his tongue. "I told you, I had no time to focus on the details!" Sighing, he turned back to his desk. "Besides, it's hard to notice anything past all that soot."
Spy paused. "Soot?"
"Yes, it gets everywhere," Medic replied, as though that had answered the question. "Anyway, why do you ask?"
Tempted as he was to ask about what on earth lied beneath that suit, he held himself back, and very nearly shot back a "classified" at the doctor. However, something else struck him, and he hummed. "You worked with those other mercenaries for a time. Were you familiar with their pyro?"
"Oh, Beatrice?" Medic chuckled. "Yes, she was an interesting one. Quite sadistic, I would say. But what does this have to do with—?"
"She interrogated our Pyro for an extended period of time, and I am wondering if this may account for its strange behavior."
"Strange behavior?" Medic echoed, then laughed, the noise grating on Spy's ears. "No, our pyromaniac is just as crazy as it ever was, in case you haven't noticed! Perhaps you could do with a head examination." In one swift motion he retrieved a clipboard. "I could put you in for next Tuesday—"
"No, thank you." And with that, Spy strode out of the lab, nearly stepping on Aristotle's tail on the way out.
As he crossed the base, he tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it as he passed.
This was ridiculous. Was it not obvious to anyone else? Or was he really just looking for something that wasn't there?
He found himself glaring out a window, staring out at the desert. It was growing dark, now, and he had no reason to be hanging around here—several of the other mercs had already gone home, or to whatever hole they slept in.
The hair stood on the back of Spy's neck, and he whipped around to see someone staring at him from the other end of the hall. He shuddered. "Don't do that."
"Am I not allowed to look at people without a scope up to my eye?" Sniper asked, approaching Spy. He held a cup of coffee in his hand that fogged up his glasses as he brought it to his mouth. Nonetheless, he joined Spy in looking out the window. "You're here late."
"As are you." Spy glared out into the darkening twilight. "Don't you have a van to sleep in?"
"Don't much feel like sleeping," Sniper answered, taking another swig of coffee.
"Then go somewhere else to produce your jarate."
The Sniper only heaved a sigh. "Went to the phone again."
"Yes, very exciting." Spy continued to glare out the window before it struck him what the man was talking about. His annoyance quickly melted. "...Oh." He hesitated for a moment before glancing at Sniper. "My apologies."
"Been a minute since I've done that," he said, and shook his head.
The two stood in awkward silence for a moment.
"...Since you're here," Spy said, "perhaps you could help me with something."
With a lifeless shrug, Sniper did not look away from the window. "Shoot."
"Tempting as it would be to kill you right now, I must decline," Spy said, eliciting a chuckle from the other merc. "Have you paid any attention to Pyro on the battlefield?"
"Some. It watches my back sometimes. Why?"
"Have you noticed anything... strange about it?"
"Hmmm." Sniper turned to face him, and Spy nearly got his hopes up. "Why, have you?"
Spy grit his teeth. "At this point, I'm starting to wonder. Its behavior seems unusual to me for some reason, but no one else in this stupid base seems to think so."
"Everyone's been actin' different, mate. Including you."
Something snapped, and Spy pounded a fist against the windowsill. "Can you answer the question or not?"
Sniper was silent for a moment before he tipped his head back, draining the rest of his coffee. "If somethin's up with Pyro, it hasn't said anything to me about it."
"You—!" Spy sputtered, but Sniper was already leaving. He glared after him, fuming, before spinning around and storming toward the base's entrance.
But as he neared the door, he froze.
It hasn't said anything to me about it.
That was it.
The next day, during their match, Spy kept a closer eye on Pyro than before.
The merc was charging through the map, blasting its flamethrower at anyone and everyone who came near it. If a fellow merc was ever on fire, it quickly put them out before going straight back to setting everything else on fire.
Months ago, when committing such atrocities, it would typically be giggling and laughing and whooping in glee as it stormed through the burning destruction.
Now, it was dead silent, its movements sharp and hurried as it set every enemy in sight ablaze.
Spy, who was cloaked, nearly gave himself away, laughing as his suspicions were confirmed. Yes, something was for sure wrong with Pyro, and he was not going crazy. Satisfied, he resumed his role in the match as normal, decloaking and backstabbing a soldier that the Pyro had missed.
But as the match came to an end and the team returned to their base, it dawned on him: Yes, he'd confirmed that something was wrong with Pyro.
But he still didn't know why.
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ceasarslegion · 2 days
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wait, now im really interested in the silica gel drama. how did hlrp sex ed lead to eating a gel packet?
This is going to require a novel's length of context.
To begin, I want to underline that this is not meant to be a callout post, and I will not be providing any identifying traits that could be used to single this person out. The most you will get out of that are she/her pronouns, and her age at the time this happened, which was years ago, and I will not specify what year. I genuinely do hope she got the help she needed after this, because LORD knows she needs it and didn't find it at home. This is also not meant to be a character assassination, nor should anybody who reads this post consider it to be a takedown of any sort, and if you try to find this person through me or any of our mutual friends, you will not be met with kind words. The only thing this is meant to be is a wild-ass story of some of the most off the wall experiences I personally had with this person from my specific side of the story, with a few no-username screenshots attached to prove I am not bullshitting you.
With that in mind, let's get started. This is going to be very long, so I'm throwing in a read more
Back when I was in uni, I joined a growing group of Half Life roleplay blogs. The whole idea of our group was that we each chose a character, canon or OC, and we would blog as if the pre-Black Mesa incident moment in the timeline was a workplace comedy a la The Office or Superstore. I played Barney, because I was already working night shift security at this point and thought it would be funny. Plus, it gave me something to do that wasn't staring at CCTV feeds all night tossing a ball against the wall. We played off of each other very well, yes-anding our way through funny little situations and plotlines we put together. At one point we had roleplayed enough that one of the scientist rpers created a discord server for us to talk as the actual people we are instead of through characters.
Great idea at the time. None of us saw the "Pandora's box" label on the tin before we opened it. Would I still join it if I knew what was about to transpire? Yes, because I met my boyfriend and many genuinely lovely friends through it. Would I hesitate for a second first, though, as the events that are about to transpire flashed before my eyes? Oh, abso-fucking-lutely.
We started off as many fandom servers do: chill for the most part, very loud minority of a few assholes who ruined it for the rest of us, but unlike most fandom servers, we actually won and it ended in them getting banned and the server itself surviving to this day. But the other two lunatics are not who you came here for. You want the christian lunatic.
Let's give her a nickname to make this easier. I have the Sylveon build a bear on my PC desk. Let's call her Syl.
Syl was not there for Half Life, she was there for Portal. She LOVED Portal, Half Life was just part of the same universe for her. Portal wasn't just a game for her, it was her entire personality. Which I didn't see much of an issue with at the time, because she said she was 15. Whatever, I thought; she'll learn to control her emotional attachment to things as she gets older. Syl also said that she was christian. I am a flaming atheist who doesn't even believe in the concept of a soul in comparison and I am NOT the biggest fan of christianity as an institution to put it mildly, but I'm not gonna like, be a dick to you for your personal religion if you are not a dick about my beliefs, so I didn't think much of it at the time.
It quickly became apparent that Syl looked up to me more than any of the other adults in the group the more I would talk about my life growing up as a third culture kid and moving out on my own at 19, working 2 jobs and going to a good university. She would ask me a lot about growing up and uni and moving out and yes, sex ed, and it became even more apparent that she didn't get any actual guidance from her parents or pastors or ANYBODY beyond bible studies and homeschooling, so I kinda stumbled into a mentorship role in her life. I wasn't cold, but I was aware of the age and maturity difference between us and established the appropriate boundaries with her and made it very clear that I am an internet friend, not an irl friend or an educator, but if no one else was going to give her information that wasn't actively harmful then fuck, I guess SOMEONE had to do it. I could not in good conscience watch some kid go through life with harmful inaccuracies about the world and basic human biology when I could have done something about it, y'know?
And the more things I taught her about the real world and how things actually work rather than how her republican bible-thumping rural town said they did, the more I realized she was born into a full-blown cult under the guise of a christian congregation. Oh goody, I had my work cut out for me. I will not get into the details of how messed up this group was because it will be a dead giveaway of where she lives and potentially who she is, but let's just say that one time I said that I appreciated the gesture of praying for me during a stressful week I was having but it didn't really do anything for my mental health because I was an atheist, and she sent me a bunch of bible verses begging me to start believing and said "I just don't want you to go to hell because you're so nice :((" EXCUSE ME??? Another time she said that death was only sad for non-christians because their loved ones were in hell and that proper christians deaths were a good thing because they were in heaven now. Hi, that's the most insensitive death cult shit I've ever heard in my goddamn life.
Okay, set up is done. All of these details will tie in like the world's worst reboot of Pulp Fiction, I prommy.
After a good long while learning about the world from me (which like... a uni kid working night shift security is not exactly an academic source but we take what we can get) and exposure to viewpoints outside of her in-group, Syl began that very painful journey of realizing that what the cult taught you was a lie. Except that she just wasn't grasping that unlearning things was an active process. She started to flip to the opposite side very quickly, but kept all the fundamental brainwashing of the cult that raised her. The concepts were all the same, just slapped a different label on them. This created a noticeable pull between two sides of the same personality: the cult personality, and the person beyond the cult who wanted to break free. Mix that with how fucking 15 years old every 15 year old is, and you have a LETHAL concoction just waiting to blow up at the first sign of a spark.
Remember how I said that Portal was her whole personality? Syl decided that she wanted to be a scientist, and go into an ivy league program like I was in (I was in a SOCIAL science, but sure). Problem was, she didn't have the grades or the ambition, really. I had told her that I still got into an ivy league when I failed math in high school, and she seemed to completely miss the part where I said that I also joined every extra-curricular, then worked for 2 gap years for recognized institutions, and wrote an essay about why my math grade is not relevant to my program. I did it with one bad grade, so she was justified in basically just slacking off and then excusing it with "but its haaarrrdd" when we'd tell her she needs to put the fucking work in NOW if that's what she wants to do.
It quickly derailed from here. Not only was she going to be a scientist, she was going to be like Cave Johnson. And she was going to... replace her body with robot parts so she could be like glados. I don't... think she actually knew what science is, because she would just publically fantasize about running unethical experiments on people in the name of "science," and talk about how one day she wants to basically establish aperture labs for real. All of us who were there kind of agree that we don't think she was joking based on what we knew about her and the cadence of her tone. Here's something she said at the time to give you an idea of what direction she was nosediving in:
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This was after a session with her therapist where said therapist said that she definitely has some kind of personality disorder, after which she was weirdly proud of having one and treated it like a badge of honour.
Syl then made a separate group chat for all the best friends she made on the server. There was her, me, @false-pyre, and @imtheaura. She titled it "My Family," despite the fact that we were all adults and she was 15 and she only knew us over a discord half life server where one person in it stepped up to somewhat equip her for real life outside of a cult. Regardless though that GC was more the vibe of a group of friends sharing memes and chatting about the day than the wider server was at the time. The others began to also take on a sort of mentorship role towards her as well, because that's kind of inevitable when you get someone talking about teenager problems in a room full of adults who all made the same mistakes before in their own lives. Well, minus the cult.
And remember how I said that she didn't unlearn any of the cult shit? Well, there was a lot of proselytizing. She decided she wasn't christian for a spell, but still wanted us and everyone to know that jesus was the lord and savior and we had to accept him or we'd burn in hell. Usually said after we'd make some joke about satan being daddy or declaring ourselves god instead, because that is just the type of humor the others and i have with each other. She took it so personally whenever one of us would go "oh my god" "you called?" it was fucking annoying. I lost count of the amount of lectures she gave us, all of which I'd shut down and tell her to get a grip about because I have a big stupid mouth.
The others and I also like to talk about evolution, and speculate about where we're going from here. My fucking god, did she not like that. She bit our heads off about how evolution isn't real and god made everyone as we are and there's no scientific evidence or whatever the hell. Like yeah good luck getting into STEM with that mindset. Whenever we pointed out that she was objectively wrong about that, she'd have a big stupid meltdown about how much we're slandering god and how jesus died for us and we're spitting in his face or whatever. He should spit in MY face inste-*GUNSHOT*
Eventually, we were making some actual progress with her. She was still one fry short of a happy meal and going off about how much she wanted to put living subjects in test tubes in between knocking on our doors and reciting Hello from the Book of Mormon musical, but we were getting somewhere. And then she went back to in person school, and her favourite teacher got fired.
The schoolboard did not say why she got fired, but we all had our suspicions that it was because she openly supported queer rights in a cult town. She was coincidentally retired shortly after making a declaration that queer people are still welcome in god's kingdom. This teacher was the first in person adult Syl had for guidance, so that incident shook her to her core, and she fell right back into the extremism. Hook, line, and sinker, even more extreme than before.
She was WEIRD that week, man. Suddenly everything was about how great god was, how amazing jesus was. Suddenly she understood why her cult member parents "just wanted to protect her" from gay characters on disney+ originals. Suddenly no one could say "jesus christ lol" around her or she'd have a fit. I said "I hate cycle counts lmao i wanna kms" because my then-job (I had graduated at this point) made me do inventory management spontaneously and wouldn't let me go home until I had counted every product in the store, and she bit my head off accusing me of turning suicide into a joke.
It was that incident that made us tell her to knock it off already, that we understood it was a hard week for her and she was in a period of grief, but that is no excuse for how she had been acting towards everyone around her that wasnt christian, and that she was actively relapsing. I'll let the exchange speak for itself:
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So uh. After years of helping Syl through this she goes and pulls this bullshit. And then has the fucking AUDACITY to act like nothing ever happened in the wider server. I am genuinely gobsmacked by the balls on her to act like it was all sunshine and rainbows in the wider server after sending this and immediately leaving the same GC SHE made and titled "My Family" just because we told her to stop acting like a goddamn Jonestown citizen after all the work we'd put in to get her out of that mentality at this point.
So I dragged her up in front of everyone and essentially said "no, nuh uh, you don't get to say that shit to the people who have lost sleep and asked for nothing in return trying to help you escape a cult over the last 2 years and then act like we're all buddy buddy to everybody else. You don't get to be that arrogant and self-righteous without any consequences. I don't give a fuck how young you are, you DON'T treat the people who have helped you this much like that, you selfish little shit. How dare you treat us like this after all we've done for you over the years."
Unfortunately, no one involved had surviving screenshots of this, but they can back me up on it if they so choose. And oh boy, DID she face the consequences of her own actions. The whole server basically turned their heads and went "what the FUCK is wrong with you, Syl??" and asked her to at least like, apologize. She proceeded to double down with the added audacity of "you guys taught me how to establish healthy boundaries, that's all I'm doing right now :(( oh woe is me :(((" like WOW, okay. Someone's really going for the persecution complex.
Here's her last goodbye to us all before the mass block fest occured:
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Oh, boohoo. You're so hard done by. You spat in the faces of everyone who stayed up all night multiple times helping you through crises and spent the last 2 years teaching you about how the world really worked and then they asked you to apologize after you tried to escape accountability. You truly are god's strongest soldier, the most persecuted minority in the world. Let me play you an ode to how righteous and holy you are and how this was the most important hill to sacrifice all your outsider friendships on on the world's smallest violin.
Syl then went on to post on her roleplay blog that she "was banned because I spoke up for what was right, and they didn't like that" before deleting it. Truly no one has suffered as much as you.
Anyway, the day after that went down, I called in from work, bought this book, and read the whole thing purely out of spite:
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It was greatly therapeutic. After that incident, I vowed to never sanitize my own atheistic beliefs for the benefit of others again. If they don't like them, they don't have to talk to me. But I am not changing them for other people or keeping them quiet just to spare your feelings anymore, I have as much a right to my beliefs as anyone else does, including the world's most persecuted minority here.
And well, the silica gel incident?
There was one incident, during the height of Syl's "I am the irl cave johnson and only want to get into STEM to conduct unethical experiments on people. follow jesus" era, the rest of us were joking about how silica gel packets are the ultimate forbidden snack, and said "haha would eating it make you see shrimp colours" knowing full well it can kill you.
Syl proceeded to actually eat a silica gel packet and then send in "it has a sandy texture and tastes bad" prompting the rest of us to go "WE WERE FUCKING JOKING FIND YOUR POISON CONTROL HOTLINE RIGHT NOW"
And because i didnt get this done until now, I'll tag everyone who said they wanted to read this or expressed interest: @captainjonnitkessler @formydarlingtoread @cra-zwizard @chasingnightrainbows
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tohwitchesduels · 2 days
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GO WITCHES DUELS!
Lore: It's been a minute since the Collector visited Boiling Isles (a few months after defeating Belos), however now they're back and willing to play a new game with the Demon Realm. After some talk with King, they both decided to host a tournament known as WITCHES BATTLES/BATTLE WITCHES (the name is still to be chosen). The 16 most powerful teen witches in Boiling Isles will participate (willingly) in a tournament to decide who is the most powerful teen witch in the Boiling Isles!
Information about the tournament: The tournament will feature 16 characters of my choosing competing with one another based on their strength and skill. This by no means is a popularity contest, so I don't care if you know or like the characters featured in battles, as ultimately the battle shall decide who would win a witches duel. The tournament rather than a simple bracket will also feature side battles that would decide the position in the rankings, so get ready as there will be a lot of duels.
The first round is composed of 8 1v1 witches duels between characters that were paired randomly (except for one case but I will explain it later once I introduce the bracket). After this, the winning eight will catch a break so all the losers can face each other in a grand battle royale against one another to decide their positions in the tournament (occasionally if some people tie they will also get their own battle). Once the battles of losers are over we shall advance to the second round which shall decide who gets to semi-finals. The elite 4 themselves will catch a break as I will feature a minor bracket featuring the losers of the second round. The winner of this bracket might have a chance to battle the elite 4 once the semi-finals are sealed, in which there will be 5 battles: 2 official semi-final battles; 2 winner vs losers battles; the battle between the losers of the semi-finals. Then a champion of the second round bracket can yet challenge the elite 4, which can change their placement in the ranking and finally, there will be the last battle between the champions of the semi-finals.
The Format will naturally be polls, however, under each poll, there will be an explanation of what participants can and can't do during the duel: what spells they know and can use depending on the battle format; whether or not they can utilise specific tools like palismen for example; what is their mindset going into the battle. Now keep in mind those are not Death Matches, so no need for calculations on how much raw power the characters have and only a brief summary of what they can and can't do, and the battles are decided in imaginary scenarios by either stadium out or losing consciousness (under the Collector's supervision no one shall die).
There will be no "See results" options as I don't want them to mess up the voting so you will have to make some tough choices, but that's why I feature explanations so you can have a better idea of how strong featured characters are, even if you don't know them or their capabilities. I also would appreciate it if you could provide your own propaganda and agendas regarding what characters are capable of.
If there is a situation in which participants tie, they will either be featured in a battle royale in which the person with the least votes shall be out, or they get their match-ups switched if there are more ties (though only even numbers of battles). There are no repetition if matches unless there were issues with voting or the post. However all battles are final and characters won't meet twice unless it's a battle royale.
Who will not participate in the tournament:
All adult characters are off-limits for this tournament as they shall have their own league. This is strictly a teen championship. I decided to do such separation as adult characters just outclass the teen characters, meaning hardly it would be a fair match for young rising stars.
Only characters with importance and established capabilities shall participate so no background characters that have only 5 seconds of screen time
Vee shall not participate in the tournament. Vee is in this awkward position where she either gets so stomped she shouldn't have considered participating in the first place or is just too OP to give anyone else a chance. As a Basilisk Vee only possesses two abilities: magic absorption and shape-shifting. Because of the nature of magic absorption which can render the opponent powerless if used correctly, Vee simply has an unfair advantage towards most of the competitors. However, Vee herself possesses next to no experience when it comes to battling. Vee doesn't utilise her shape-shifting powers creatively and only limits herself to taking forms of other people which is effectively useless as she does not gain their powers (and even if she did it's either unfair since she will transform into someone who naturally counters her opponent; it would be near impossible to see which form could she actually take at this point, and technically speaking it would be another character battling and not Vee herself) but such deception is effectively useless in 1v1 duels. Vee's absorption powers are also pretty slow and can be easily interrupted as Helos demonstrated (and are not as final as the Greater's Basilisk) and as I said, Vee has no experience in battles so she can't really fight with her personality, nor doesn't know any spells to use to help her.
Masha shall not participate as they have yet to discover magic. So Veesha is only cheering on others
The Collector shall not participate since he's OP, so he rather organizes the entire tournament and arranges the game specifically so no one could get hurt while the kids go all out.
King shall not participate as much as Vee, he's either too strong or too weak to participate. King is not yet fully realized Titan so he does not possess the prowess that Titans possess, only being capable of basic light spells (weaker than average ones), squeak of rage, and barrier (which while strong, can also be easily countered). King instead becomes the announcer and the host of the tournament, along with the Collector.
Hooty shall not participate as he is both too strong and too memorable to give it a fair fight (as Hooty isn't OP, but he might as well end up as such due to the voting). He also becomes the host and announcer of the tournament, but rather the adult league.
Adult league: The characters of the past like previous Grimwalkers, Caleb and Evelyn, etc. shall not participate since we literally don't know how strong and capable they actually are.
Adult league: Camila shall not participate as she barely has any battling experience. She's the best mom and she is willing to throw hands, but she simply lacks experience with magic and her battling style can be easily countered. There's also memeable potential of her swiping everyone with La Chancla, which is hilarious, but not realistic. It would be satisfying to see her try to hit Odalia with a sandal, but Odalia can unleash the phantom that would steal such a sandal and then straight-up knockout Camila if we're being serious and no fun regarding this (but in our hearts Camila is the true winner we all know that)
Adult league: Dell Clawthorne shall not participate as he never used any magic within the show and now he's disabled.
Teen League: As the name suggests, only teenagers will participate, toddlers will not
Adult league: Only a few established Covenheads will participate since the others don't have fully-realised potential
Adult league: Titan Trappers shall not appear as they barely have any champion showcasing the true extent of their magical skill.
Adult league: Jacob Hopkins shall not appear as he lost to Camila who herself can't participate for not having enough skill (I did consider Camila to participate but I ultimately decided that she won't)
Invitations - to those who showed interest in the tournament or TOH in general, but no pressure or need for you to participate in the voting. Just wanted to invite you and ensure there will be some audience to the tournament. Oh, and I also don't mind if you use more than one account to vote as long as those are established blogs and not some spam blogs (like try to not rigg the game too much):
@lilcactusboi @wren-writes-things @the-god-of-chaos-himself @violet-prism-creatively @watery-melon-baller
@thescarletdaffodil @akmonasyrk @lapluieellepleut @damianwaynelives @crushpunchh
@impact801 @evermorecatra @rosetyler42 @memory-overload @cwolfnerakagnome
@branmuffins22 @zyrafowe-sny @metalinjector95 @michaela-artist @goingtohellwithyou
@iheartleopards @thatwierdquietkidthatdraws @sophiesophsofia @tbonner2 @amity297
@itslilacmoon @lucascii @fabseg-reader
Anyone can vote in this tournament of course, but I'm not sure if everyone will see it so I hope at least you can spread the popularity of the tournament or decide on your own who wins and who loses
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bards-anonymous · 1 year
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Me, when my friend pitches a campaign idea and I have a character that would fit super well in their world:
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daydreamerdrew · 1 year
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Whiz Comics (1940) #47
#two important things here#first is Billy’s backstory being presented as him growing up in an orphanage#the original backstory from Whiz Comics issue 2 had him homeless after being kicked out by an abusive uncle that stole his inheritance#but the idea of him being raised in an orphanage isn’t new to here#in Mary’s first appearance in Captain Marvel Adventures issue 18 we see that she traded places with the dead baby of a wealthy woman#after their caretaker learned that Billy and Mary’s parents had died with the reasoning that at least she would get a good upbringing#while Billy would be sent to an orphanage#but the backstory that Billy was raised by an abusive uncle that kicked him out when his inheritance came in wasn’t dropped#later in Captain Marvel Adventures issue 88 there was a story that elaborated on what Billy’s life was like with his uncle#I just think this all is interesting#the second important thing is that Billy doesn’t know his birthday but says he can’t be more than 14 years old here#in the character writing guildlines for Fawcett characters from 1942 it’s said that Billy’s age shouldn’t ever be stated#so that readers can imagine him how they want#but for the purposes of the writers they imagined him as having been 12 when his stories started and about 14 by then#and so should be written with the reactions and characteristics of a 14 year old#meaning that they’d imagined that he’d aged 2 years in 2 years time#this issue was published in 1943#and I imagine at that point they realized that didn’t want him to grow up anymore#fawcett comics#billy batson#sterling morris#my posts#comic panels
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bitchthefuck1 · 1 year
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How long does a show have to be bad before y'all stop saying we "just need to give it time" and accept that it sucks? Serious question
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mxdotpng · 2 years
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genuinely if i ever said this on twitter my acct would get reported for bullying but the apostle's story line is not as good as everyone says im sorry. its not. Its Not.
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alastor-simp · 4 months
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Alastor x Reader - Sleeping On His Lap
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Here is my attempt at a Alastor x reader fanfiction. Took me awhile to kinda get into his character so please don't be mad if Alastor seems a bit off. Enjoy!
Sigh, it was another eventful day at the Happy Hotel, or Hazbin Hotel as it was now called as a certain deer demon decided to change the name. You had spent all day doing certain tasks around the hotel such as helping Charlie create posters for the hotel, clean the rooms with Nifty, break up the brawl between Vaggie and Angel Dust as he had pissed her off one too many times and organize the bar for Husk as he was passed out drunk. You could have refused to do these things, but you enjoyed helping people, so it made it all worth it.
You had started working at the hotel after you had saw Charlie singing on the 666 news about the hotel and redeeming demons, only for her idea to be made a laughing stock upon everyone who watched the broadcast. You actually had mixed feelings about the whole redeeming thing, seeing as you weren't sure if someone like you could be sent to heaven, despite not being a very big criminal during your time when you were alive, but apparently doing a little shoplifting is enough to send you a one way ticket to hell. Charlie's words did inspire you a little bit, so even if you felt that you couldn't be redeemed, others probably had a better chance, so you decided to head to the hotel and ask for a job after the broadcast was cut off from the brawl with Charlie and Katie Killjoy. You were hired in a split second and immediately pulled into a bear hug by Charlie, and then introduced you to the others.
Back to the present, you began to feel extremely exhausted from moving around everywhere, so you headed over to one of the rooms with the long couches so you could take a rest. Heading into one of the rooms, you peeped around and saw that no one was there, which made it better as you really needed some peace and quiet. Heaving a deep sigh, you sat down on the couch, turning and falling back, as you laid your body down, with your head facing the front of the couch. "What a long day", thinking to yourself as your eyes slowly began to close and you were lulled into a deep sleep.
**2 Hours Later**
As you were sleeping, you felt the sensation of someone petting your head, the soothing feeling had awoken you a bit, but you quickly fell back asleep at the warm touch. You could feel that you were holding something in your dreams, and you assumed it was one of the pillows on the couch, so you brought it closer to your face and nuzzled it. "Mm, smells nice ", as the scent from the pillow was making you more relaxed, as it reminded you of a being in the middle of a deep forest. After sleeping for 30 more minutes, you slowly began to open your eyes, and try to make out what was in front of you. Expecting to see a pillow, you saw red stripes in front of you, "Huh?" As you were still trying to make out what was in front of you, a loud voice interrupted your thoughts: "Ah, awake now are we?", said a static voice above you. Eyes opening wide, you looked up from your position and saw Alastor staring down at you with his trademark smile. Slowly, you began to piece together that you were laying on his lap, and nuzzled into his chest as you were sleeping. "AHHHH", jumping up from your position, you rolled off his lap, and your body fell to the ground as you stared at Alastor in shock, as he continued to look at you with his glowing eyes, amused at your reaction. "Um, h-how long was I sleeping on your lap?", you softly asked, as your face was red, but your eyes were showing fear, as you remembered that Alastor did not like to be touch, and you happened to hug him in your sleep. "HAHA, For quite a while, darling. It was a very busy day, I assume?", Alastor said as he placed his arm on the armrest of the couch, and his hand against his cheek, smiling even wider.
Nodding your head, you slowly got up from your position, and started apologizing to Alastor, eyes aiming towards the ground and fingers twiddling together. Alastor raised an eyebrow and wondered why you were apologizing, to which you answered that you had hugged him in your sleep, and that he made it very aware that he did not enjoy physical contact from someone unless he initiated it, feeling extremely bad if you made him uncomfortable. Listening to you, Alastor's smile relaxed to a small grin as he looked at you with gentle eyes. He did admit that he was not use to being touch by others, and was quite surprised from the sleep hug, but he didn't detest it as much coming from you, which boggled his mind completely. It must be due to your kind and innocent nature that made him react different around you, as he was used to more of the common riff raff being terrified of him or trying to battle in a turf war, but how you were with him, made his black heart melt.
Feeling that Alastor was upset as he didn't respond to your apology, you quickly excused yourself and began to head over to the door to leave. A loud SNAP was heard and before you knew it, you had been teleported back on to the couch, this time being seated on Alastors lap. "A-Al, what are you doing?!", your face began to become as red as his hair, while your eyes stared at Alastor in shock. Smiling at you, Alastor moved his hand to your chin and tilted your face up: "There is no need to apologize, darling. If I had been upset about you hugging me, you possibly w̩͉͍̱̍̂̉̊o̫̼̐̎̋͜u͚͌l̳̓d̠͉̗͋̔͞'̼̳̣̼͊̏̾̾t͜͝ ͕̱͐͠ḇ̅e̙͗ ͍͓͔̱͍͛̔͌͘͞a̝̜̘̎́͒ḽ͒í̱̙̈́v̧̌e̠͠ ̢̹̜́́̈̀ͅr̲͇̳̅̽͌i̩͈̒̅ĝ̲̦̎ẖ̛̳̲͙̀͌̽͘ͅt͉̅ ͖̞͍̞́̋͛͛ň͚̫̦́͂̿͟o̱͌w̡̕" he said, as his eyes flashed for a second into radio dials. "However! I am not opposed to be touched by you. So no need to apologize, my dear.", Alastor said as he continued to smile at you widely, but his glowing eyes were looking at you softly, letting you know that he was not angry with you. Feeling shy, you turned your head away from Alastor, muttering a soft okay, as your heart was beating rapidly. "Smile my dear!" Alastor said as he moved his hand from your chin to your cheek, to have you look at him again. Baring through the embarrassing situation, you gave Al a small smile, which pleased him. "You always over do it, darling. While Charlie and I appreciate your efforts at helping the hotel, it does no good to work yourself to the point of fatigue. If you are ever feeling exhausted and need a break, don't be hesitant to come find me, as my radio tower is open to you. Understand, my dear?" said Alastor, as he leaned closer towards you, making you flustered again.
Nodding your head was enough to let Alastor knew you understood as he chuckled, while sliding you off his lap, and as he stood up from the couch. "Now then, we should probably head back to the lobby before the others get worried about our lack of presence.", He said, as he straighten his coat out, while turning towards you, extending his hand out for you to take it. "Yeah we should", as you grabbed his hand, and made your way with him back to the lobby. You were still trying to process what just happened between you and Alastor, but you feel like you both have become much closer then before, and you didn't mind it one bit.
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povlnfour · 1 month
Text
ੈ✩‧₊˚ CRASH LANDING (LN4)
pairing: lando norris x f!reader
summary: lando accidentally hits a stranger with his car — the internet can’t stop referring to it as a meet cute. (un)fortunately for lando, mclaren agree.
genre: comedy, fluffy
authors note: a continuation of the ending to beached! you don’t need to have read that to understand this, however it will give some insight to the mclaren matchmaker jokes <3 also in light of that, this is set a few races in the future! *oscarsgf user refers to the character in beached!
*faceclaim: keeahwah on ig (but please imagine her as you see fit!)
landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
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tmz posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
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landonorris posted tweets ੈ✩‧₊˚
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lando’s texts with y/n ੈ✩‧₊˚
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landonorris just posted ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by carlossainz55 and 203,488 others
landonorris practicing safe driving
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user you are so unserious sir
user SOOOO IS THAT THE GIRL HE HIT BC
user no clue but she’s CUTE
oscarpiastri @/fia look here
landonorris i will literally remind your girlfriend of your murder attempts when you first met
user it’s giving meet cute
user i’d read a fic on it
yourusername you literally drove off BEFORE I WAS EVEN IN THE CAR
landonorris IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I WAS DISTRACTED
user ASSUMING THIS IS HER???
user @/user CLICKING ON HER ACCOUNT IT DEFINITELY IS
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by bestfriend, landonorris and 3,907 others
yourusername monaco recap🇲🇨 successfully didn’t get hit by too many cars!
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user AS IF LANDO HIT THE HOTTEST PERSON IVE EVER SEEN
user nah this is actually a full meet cute i’m sorry this is the shit you see in romcoms
bestfriend still can’t believe you didn’t take compensation but accepted a lunch date instead
yourusername can you blame me
user @/yourusername oh girl no one can you are so real for that
friend1 wait till everyone finds out you’re only there for another 4 days
user WHAT. i can’t have them separated already😶
user parasocial relationship with lando ended y/n is my new idol now
twitter reacts ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚
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[captions:
photo 1: lando paid for me to get my nails done !!!
photo 2: :D
photo 3: ur all romanticizing my life rn but this is my view in a fancy ass restaurant]
texts with your best friend ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by landonorris and 11,276 others
yourusername final days in heaven. i’ll miss so much about this place
👤 tagged bestfriend, landonorris
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user wait she doesn’t live in monaco?? she’s leaving??? just after i’ve gotten attached to her and lando???
bestfriend please come back to visit asap i cannot go too long without my y/n cuddles
landonorris seconded
user um lando sir,,, seconded the whole thing? cuddles included?
user this cannot be the end of the meet cute i refuse to
landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarpiastri and 286,425 others
landonorris safe to say i’ve had a pretty good break between races
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user a whole post dedicated to her with THAT caption? oh yep they’re whipped
user please tell me y’all are going to stay in contact?
user my heart is shattering already
mclaren 🧡
user MCLAREN PLEASE YOU’VE DONE IT ONCE BEFORE
texts with lando ੈ✩‧₊˚
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mclaren interview ੈ✩‧₊˚
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[transcript:
o: safe to say you’ve had a pretty interesting break before this race
l: hey let me remind you what happened for you over winter break!
o: okay but i didn’t literally hit my girlfriend with my car!
l: oh so you finally asked her out officially?
o: stop deflecting!
l: okay okay! yeah safe to say i had a nice time. always need a bit of a change in life!
o: so how are things going now?
l: (awkwardly) well you know how it’s… yeah
o: ah i get it. quite literally been there done that got the t shirt. but hey you did say all that when i got my big moment about mclaren—
l: no no no don’t give them any ideas! they’re listening!]
mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by 203,467 people
mclaren the boys are back! don’t forget to check out the new interview on our channel where lando and oscar talk all things hopes for the second half of the season, workouts and… girls?
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user mclaren. mclaren look at me. you know what you have to do
mclaren 👀
user when oscar asked him about y/n… i wanted to cry he looked so sad are things over between them?
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you’re such a gossip
oscarpiastri you love me for it
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you know what i’m thinking?
oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf plotting?
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri plotting!
user what on earth is going on…
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarsgf and 29,481 others
yourusername lately :)
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user you are so ! gorgeous !
user i can see why lando is obsessed
user speaking of… where is our favorite brit in the likes☹️
oscarsgf pretty girl!!!
yourusername oh?!? thank u cutie!!!
user ^ oh their plotting is in progress???
mclaren you’d look good in orange👀🧡
landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
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an email from mclaren ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚
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mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by 287,456 people
mclaren it’s race day🫡
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user WHO IS THE GIRL
user IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS
user PLEASE TELL ME THATS Y/N
user LOOK AT HER STORIES ITS DEFINITELY HER
user SOMEONE WHO IS THERE KEEP US UPDATED PLEASE
user just posted a thread ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 106,544 others
yourusername i don’t know guys, do you think he’s cute?
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user OH MY GOD FINALLY
landonorris i will hit you with my car again
yourusername is that a challenge mr. norris?
landonorris @/yourusername oh you better run fast
yourusername @/landonorris well duh cause you don’t know how to do the speed limit
user i love them. i love them so much.
oscarsgf omg can we force the boys to do mclaren double dates
landonorris leave this comment section now
yourusername @/landonorris too late we’re already texting
landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourusername, mclaren and 300,091 others
landonorris we are successful victims of mclarens matchmaking services
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user THEYVE DONE IT AGAINNN
user new fav couple fr
oscarpiastri oh how quickly you all forget me
user @/oscarpiastri WE COULD NEVER
user clearly i need to work for mclaren to get a cute gf
oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf is the second photo giving you flashbacks as well
oscarsgf they’re stealing our thing
yourusername thank you for posting the nice park date photo of me
landonorris well in all the others you’re mid cartwheel
mclaren glad to be of service🧡 anyone else? @/patriciooward how are you doing?
landonorris i’m gonna stop you right there
———————
a/n: WELL. hello friends. i said i wasn’t gonna post a one shot for a while, then this happened. i just hope its up to standard! i’m a little rusty in my writing considering everything!
in regards to new works, gonna be working on getting my wips out soon, and maybe popping some new smaus out at the same time as they’re easy and quick-ish for me to work on considering everything going on! do forgive me if i do some random family orientated stuff — pregnancy hormones are giving me baby fever for everything (is it still baby fever if you’re having a baby?)
let me know your thoughts in the comments/reblogs/asks — i’ve missed talking to you all sm! i have anon emojis available if people wanna chat too🤍
for the first time in a very long time,,, love, giselle xx
taglist (found here): @idkiwantchocolatee @vellicora @alessioayla @bborra @crimeshowjunkie @minkyungseokie @paolexsstuff @celestialpato @champagnelovers101 @loxbbg @hobiismyhopeu @tsukishitm-a @moonypixel @champagneproblems17 @ironmaiden1313 @lqvesoph @sunflower-golden-vol6 @six-call @skatingiswalkingincursive @peqch-pie @m0cha-bunny @woozarts @he6rtshaker @iluvvmeeee @goldenalbon @izzy-marvel @lucyysthings @lichterfee @tallrock35 @treehouse-house @iloveyou3000morgan @scopeiguess @amaranthineghost @gwginnyweasley @hetfieldd @sweetbabygirlsworld @wittywhispers @dark-night-sky-99 @namgification @casperlikej @marshmummy @geniusalpaca
tags for this post: @the-untamed-soul @itsprashimusic @purplephantomwolf @jasminesacademia
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tizeline · 4 months
Text
Some snippets into Donnie's relationship to his brothers in the Separated AU
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So after having figured out that Donnie is in fact their Long Lost Brother, the Drax Trio obviously want him back, and while Donnie is initially excited to find out that he has a bunch of siblings, he's less excited to find out that they're a bit, uh, evil. And they keep insulting April!! How dare they!!! Not to mention, he already has a dad, he doesn't need a new one! So no, Donnie isn't planning on just leaving his current family behind for this new one, and his brothers react to this in various different ways.
As much as Mikey wants Donnie back, Dr. Feelings understands that this is quite the adjustment for Donnie and that he may need some time to come to terms with the fact that he actually belongs with them and not with the humans. Mikey doesn't wanna force his brother to reunite with them, so instead he tries to convince Donnie to come home willingly through various ways. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but AU Mikey is essentially trying to give Donnie a redemption arc like Canon Mikey did with Draxum
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Raph, however, sees Donnie and immedietly goes full Protective Big Brother Mode. He thinks the best course of action is to "forcefully rescue" (kidnap) him and and then convince him to stay and be apart of their family. He's can't help catastrophizing about all the way his baby brother is definitely being mistreated by Lou Jitsu and April and all the other evil humans oh NO they have to SAVE HIM!! The only reason he doesn't is because no one else in the Draxum family thinks it's a good idea
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And then Leo. I'll go more into detail about Leo's character in this AU at a later dat cuz hhhhhhh but basically, he's still dealing with pretty intense Middle Child Syndrome and the LAST thing he need is another middle child joining the family! Why are all his family members so obsessed with getting Donnie back anyway? He's already clearly chosen the human side so why waste their time on him! .....Now that's not entirely the whole truth, he's kinda ecstatic when he first meets Donnie, except Donnie doesn't seem to care about them any, which... ouch.
Another way to describe their dynamic would be similar to their canon dynamic, a lot of friendly bickering.... except they don't really know each other and are also enemies here so like.... UNfriendly bickering.... which is just bickering lol. They fight a lot, is what I'm getting at.
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Anyway you know the family dinner scene with Draxum in season 2 of the show? Yeah, Mikey tries that tactic here too. Like I said, Mikey wants to be patient with Donnie, but he does eventually get a bit tired of Donnie acting so hostile all the time so he starts organizing hangouts for the four of them (attendence is mandatory!)
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And poor Donnie, this whole situation is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for him, as you might imagine. Reuniting with your secret lost family is fun for all of five seconds before you find out that they're actually kinda messed up uh oh. A big reason why Donnie acts so hostile towards his brothers is because it's easier for him to just dismiss them as mere enemies that he feels no attatchment to. He's basically being made to pick between this new family and his old one is Not Fun.
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hisui-dreamer · 1 year
Text
he lives in you
Characters: Leona, Floyd, Jamil, Lilia
Synopsis: You shared a night of passion with your lover before you left for the other side of the mirror, but fate's cruel hands strike once again as you realise you have to raise his child alone in your original world. Thankfully, your child is incredibly drawn to magic, and they opened a portal...?
Tags: slight angst, fluffy end because im a sap, fem reader, reader gives birth to a child, reunions, bot proofread
Word count: 2.4k+
Notes: uh i was practicing Japanese and researching Japanese names before writing this, so all my name ideas ended up in japanese? if it makes you uncomfortable, you can imagine that reader is japanese hehe
right in time for mother's day, so here's to a celebration of the motherly figures in our lives, blood related or not, for being there for us<3
Part 2✧Part 3✧Part 4✧Masterlist
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A few months passed as you settled back into your routine at home. Eventually, with the noticeable changes in your body, it dawned on you that you were with child—his child, your lover from the other side of the mirror whom you could no longer reach.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turn into months. You had adapted to the trials and tribulations of parenthood. Juggling the responsibilities of work, childcare, and household chores was no easy feat, but you found solace in the small moments of your child's growth and development.
Your child was a true joy to behold, a mirror image of their father in many ways, and you often see the ghost of your past lover in them. Having inherited his magic, your child experimented with their powers, leaving you to support them with what limited knowledge of magic that remained from your NRC days.
On one such experiment, your environment started to shift as a wave of magical energy engulfed you. When you opened your eyes again, he was there, right in front of you—
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Hina (日来) with 日 meaning "sun, day" and 来 meaning "coming, future"
Leona reminded you of a shining sun that radiated warmth and light in your life, of how the it would surely shine again no matter how dark the night seemed, and so you named your daughter after that image
your daughter has the clearest emerald eyes and flowing dark brown locks that you often braided in a similar style to her father's
she's very energetic, always curious and asking questions, eager to learn more about the world around her
she's an obedient child, although she's eager to seek your affection and may whine a bit when things don't go her way
if there was one thing that was similar to the Leona you knew, it's that she's extremely clingy and constantly seeks physical affection, hugging your legs and asking for you to carry them any chance she has
and also the fact that she enjoyed her naps a bit too much
her lion ears are a bit of an issue in our world, but you often hide them with hoods, clever hair styling, or simply saying it's a costume
when you told her about the brilliant man her father is, she grew really excited about the possibility of meeting him, and started playing around with magic more to be like the intelligent mage he is
and then it happened, just an ordinary afternoon practicing magic had the two of you transported back to twisted wonderland, face to face to Leona
somehow, he had grown even more handsome in the years you hadn't seen him, but instead of his lazy smile, he looked confident and powerful, like the leader he was always meant to be
A sudden gust of magic swept through the air behind him as he raised his staff in response, only to immediately drop it in shock as your figure came into sight, and beside you, a small child that he had never seen before.
"Herbivore..." he whispered.
Without a second thought, Leona rushed towards you, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He felt a lump forming in his throat as he reached out to embrace you tightly.
"This better not be a dream," he murmured into the crook of your neck as he inhaled your scent. "It's really you."
after a tearful reunion and introduction, Leona quickly excuses himself from his duties with a quick meeting with Falena, and helps you and Hina settle into the palace
since you left, Leona's been working hard to do what he can do as per your promise with him
he's now in charge of foreign affairs and on better terms with his brother after much needed communication
he showers you in affection, he's even clingier than before that it almost starts a rivalry with your daughter
he puts in a lot of effort to spend time with Hina, learning her likes and dislikes and bonding over magic
uncle jack and ruggie are always fun to be around and play with her
though it wasn't his fault, leona feels guilty you had to bare the responsibility on your own for so long, and he puts in a lot of effort to make amends for any mistakes work to build a strong relationship with you two
he has a family now, and you're damn sure he'll protect it with his life
Leona looked down at Hina, feeling a sense of pride and wonder at the little girl standing before him. "Hey there," he said, his voice gentle. "Nice to meet ya, kiddo."
Hina stared at him, her eyes searching his face. "Are you my dad?" she asked, her voice small and uncertain.
Leona's heart ached at the question, knowing that he had missed so much of her life. "Yeah, I'm your dad," he said, reaching out to take her hand.
Hina looked at him for a moment before a smile spread across her face. "Can you show me magic?" she asked, her eyes lighting up with excitement.
Leona felt a sense of joy at her words, feeling a connection with her that he had never felt before. "Of course I can," he said, standing up and taking her hand. "What do you wanna see?"
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Sakura (桜) meaning "cherry blossoms"
your daughter has sleek teal hair that reminds you of the sea, a single strand of dark hair, and mismatched eyes in the same manner as Floyd
Floyd had lovingly given you the nickname "Shrimpy", and it only felt right for your daughter to be named Sakura, after the tiny sakura-shrimp
she's incredibly mischievous and there's not a moment of silence with her, she's spontaneous and playful and you've got your hands full
though she is very considerate of you and will listen to your words, she's uncontrollable when she's bored and in need of a spark of interest
she's also a squeezer, much like her father, and hugs you every time she sees you or anyone she likes, and you're thankful her strength hasn't developed too much yet
she enjoys biting you, albeit gently, and you find your arms littered with bite marks, but it's her unique way of showing affection
her eel form won't show unless she's been in the water for too long (thankfully), and she enjoys squeezing you in her eel form even more
ever so curious, she's asked about her father many times, and you've told her how carefree and easygoing her father is, and that he'd love her the moment she saw her
which leads you to her magic actually teleporting you to him, her spontaneous idea having manifested itself, and you found in a dimly lit room similar to the Mostro Lounge
Floyd looked matured, his hair sleeked back and his features sharpened, though his wry smile that you loved had stayed the same
Floyd's eyes widened with shock and disbelief, and his steps quickened as he rushes towards you, his long arms outstretched in a gesture of longing. As he got closer, he noticed the beautiful and curious-looking child standing close to you.
"Shrimpy?" he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "No way... It's really you!"
Floyd pulled you close, holding you tightly as if he never wanted to let go. "I missed ya so much, I wish I hadn't let ya go," he said, his voice choked with emotion as tears threatened to spill. "You're not allowed to leave again, okay?"
Floyd is so ecstatic he can't stand still, once he's calmed down a bit, be immediately carries Sakura and drags you to Jade and Azul
Azul and Jade are pleasantly surprised at your return, and it's a warm welcome back
the two of them are glad Floyd won't be moping any time soon
the trio have now expanded into a franchise and divulged into many businesses, though Floyd largely acts as Azul's right-hand man
Now that you're back, he refuses to be apart from you, always holding onto you tightly and afraid you might disappear just like how suddenly you appeared
he does get mood swings where he's upset or angry, not at you though, just at how unfair things were and how he couldn't be there for you
he's a good eel who does everything to make sure you and Sakura are happy and comfortable, often cooking meals for you two
he's so curious about Sakura and enjoys playing with her and lifting her high up in the air
don't worry, he's extremely careful, this precious gem is why you got back to him!
Jade is the best uncle and Sakura wants to marry him??? (honestly same)
poor Azul is getting pranked by the daughter- father duo, though Sakura does comfort him afterwards with squeezes and kissss
Floyd looked down at Sakura, and he saw her staring back at him with wide, curious eyes in the opposite colours of his eyes. Though she resembled him physically, there was an air about her that was so distinctly his Shrimpy.
"Heya," Floyd said, trying to sound friendly. "I'm your dad."
Sakura giggled and reached out to him, her tiny hands grasping at his hands. Floyd froze, not sure what to do, letting her yand his hand forward. But then, she opened her mouth and bit down on finger.
"Hey!" Floyd cried, pulling back in surprise.
Sakura just laughed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Floyd couldn't help but laugh too, despite the pain in his finger.
"Yer a feisty one, aren't ya, Sakura-shrimpy?" he teased, grinning down at her as he ruffled her hair. "You know," he whispered, "you can't just go around biting people like that. But I like your style."
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Isami (功己) 功 meaning "achievement, credit, honour, merits" and 己 meaning "self, serpent, snake."
your son has smooth ebony locks and sharp grey eyes that make him look slightly intimidating
Jamil had shown you how much he valued his achievements over his social status, so you chose a name the could embody him
he's a quiet child who's always attentive and careful
he's rather shy in front of other people, but when it's you he'll soak up all of your affection and stare at you with longing eyes seeking praise
he's a cute helper at home too! he always volunteers to help you with chores and cook in the kitchen, though you're careful he's not close to anything sharp or dangerous
he does have an inherent fear of bugs, something he's inherited from Jamil, but thankfully you've taught him to be less destructive than his father
do expect screams and for him to be crying as a little fly chases him around though
he's incredibly smart and talented at magic, easily grasping the concepts of magic you can only teach him theoretically
when you told him about his father, you've told him about the diligent man that his father is, and how would let his guard down around those he treasured
he had listened quietly without much of a change in his expression, but you could tell there was a bubbling excitement building up in his eyes
and no long after that, he managed to teleport the two of you to a warm, airy room of marble walls
Jamil's features had sharpened, he seemed more openly confident and comfortable with himself
Jamil's heart skipped a beat as he saw you. It had been five years since he bid your farewell at the mirror chamber and lost you forever. And yet here you were standing here in front of him with a child in tow, a child who resembled him so much.
"It can't be..." he murmurs.
Without hesitation, Jamil dropped all the papers and rushed towards you, his heart pounding furiously. His eyes locked with yours, and in that moment, time seemed to stand still. He could see the love and longing still shining in your eyes, and he knew deep down that he had never stopped loving you.
Jamil couldn't stop the tears that began streaming down his face. "I've missed you so much," he said, his voice raspy. "Letting you go is the worst decision I've ever made." He reached out and pulling you into a tight embrace, his arms shaking with emotions.
he's a bit overwhelmed but still so thankful you're back in his life
Kalim barges in at this time and exclaims in surprise at your return and ??? OMG JAMIL YOU HAVE A SON?!!
Jamil has half a mind to dissuade him from holding a banquet immediately to welcome you back, and instead take things slow to not overwhelm you or Isami
asks Kalim for some privacy and the second he's away, he melts into your embrace
he hasn't felt so at ease in so long
if he wakes up in the morning and you're not right there beside him, he's panicking and searching all over the place for some confirmation you're still here
he's very curious about Isami and asks him all sorts of questions to piece together his development and personality
they definitely have a rivalry over who's braver over bugs but it just ends up with the two hugging you for safety
he's a bit awkward with how careful he is with his emotions, so it takes Isami some time to fully trust him
but trust me, Jamil will go above and beyond for his family and there's no way Isami will have to endure what Jamil did in his childhood
Jamil's eyes widened in surprise and wonder. He couldn't believe that they had created a life together. He knelt down to the Isami' eye level and looked into his eyes. "Hello there," he said, his voice gentle and warm. "What's your name?"
Isami starred back at him, his eyes wide with distrust and caution before he buried his face in your legs. Jamil chuckled softly. "It's okay," he comforted. "You don't have to be shy around me. I'm your dad."
Isami looked up at him again, this time with a mix of curiosity and wonder. "Daddy?" they said, testing the word out.
Jamil smiled warmly as nodded, his heart swelling with love and joy. "Yes, daddy," he parroted. "And I promise I'm never going to leave you or your mommy again."
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Yuri (百合) meaning "lily"
Lilia's name always reminded you for lily flowers, and what better name for your daughter to embody him?
your daughter has straight raven hair with some of the hair flipping upwards resembling two horns, angular fae ears, and bright crimson eyes
she's always up for pranks and mischief, it's rare to see her without a smile
she loves exploring places, if you keep your eyes off her for one second, she's letting her curiosity take her to whatever she wants
if you're serious and stern though, she will listen to you, she wouldn't dare make her mother upset!
she's friendly with everyone and isn't shy to say hi to neighbors or absolute strangers
she's not overly affectionate, but she definitely enjoys hugs and kisses from you
she has an odd habit of taking stray animals back home in an attempt to adopt them, so you have little adventures with her trying to find an owner
do not let her in the kitchen
she has surely inherited her father's cooking abilities, somehow, she can render even a piece of toast beyond human consumption
magic comes as second nature to her, and she's always standing on ceilings
gosh her eyes absolutely sparkled when you told her about the teasing and mischievous fae that is her father
and soon, the portal opened and you found yourself in a gothic castle lit up by green candles
He's a lot taller, his hair longer and reaching his waist, and more enchanting than ever
Lilia stood in shock as your family figure come into sight. In all his years of living, he had never been so utterly stunned. After all these years, you had finally returned to him.
"Beastie..." Lilia gasped, his voice catching in his throat.
With a surge of energy, Lilia broke free from the trance-like state and hurried towards you, his hair streaming behind him like a dark flag as he enveloped you tightly in his embrace. "After all these years, you've truly come back to me?"
Carefully, Lilia held you at arm's length, studying your matured features, etching them into his memory like a cherished work of art. His eyes traced the lines and contours of your face, memorizing every detail that time had etched upon you.
"My, how you've grown," Lilia murmured, a mix of pride and wistfulness coloring his words. "The years have shaped you into a remarkable individual."
it's family reunion time!!!
he immediately drags you to the throne room where malleus, silver and sebek are
malleus is now king with two incredibly reliable bodyguards, and Lilia's his most trusted advisor
malleus is so glad his dear human friend is back, silver is satisfied that his father will have someone to be with, and sebek is screaming about Yuri, though she enjoys his loudness
for a while, Lilia is extremely affectionate, trying to make up for all the years that had gone by
when you're sleeping together at night, he hugs you tightly and it's difficult to leave his embrace
he definitely tries to cook for you two, going on and on about how the two of you need to stay healthy and need lots of nutrients
you always volunteer your portion for Yuri, and she'll gladly eat whatever her father has cooked for her
silver is an older brother often on babysitting duty, and Yuri loves watching him spar with sebek and also wants to learn
Sebek is quite fond of Yuri, and he sees his half-fae self in her
Lilia is always trying to fun with Yuri, bouncing her high up in the air and teaching her to hang upside down and swing around
plans so many family vacations, he can't wait to be exploring places with his two darlings
"Is she... ours?" Lilia asked. At your nod, he reached out to caress Yuri's cheek, his touch gentle as if he were touching fragile porcelain.
"Well, I'll be damned," Lilia chuckled, his voice cracking with emotion. "I never thought I'd be a father again. But I'm glad to meet you, little one. What's your name?"
Yuri giggled and and beamed at his touch. "My name's Yuri," she said, her voice sweet as honey.
"Yuri," Lilia repeated, his heart swelling with emotion. "What a beautiful name for my beautiful girl," he reached up to fondle her hair. "You know, Yuri," Lilia said, his voice growing serious. "I may not have been there for you when you were born, but I promise I'll always be here for you from now on. No matter what happens, I'm your father, and I'll always love you darling."
Part 2✧Part 3✧Part 4✧Masterlist
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if you liked this post, don't forget to reblog!
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allfearstofallto · 2 months
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Okay okay last one, I swear!! I just have so many ideas! But three more for the yandere historical au and I'm finished, pinky promise!!
[Part 1] [Part 2]
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Master Duelist! Xiao who has never lost a fight. Always challenged, but never the one to initiate, he was one of the reasons your family has such high honor. Even though many lords of higher status have offered to buy him for a pretty penny, he stays loyal to your family. Specifically to you. His opponents who see you in the crowd during their duel, know to just give up, he fights harder when you're watching. Every favor, embroidered handkerchiefs, that you'd given him, hang like trophies in his room. But upon learning that you're to be wed soon, he stands and challenges your fiance to a duel for your hand, one that he knows he'll win.
Butler! Thoma who has been in your family for years. Taken in by your parents and raised to be your right hand, the two of you grew up to be close friends, rather than typical master and servant. Despite this, he still finds ways to scold you, while also telling you how much of a gracious lady you've grown into. Maybe your closeness with him is why you decide to tell him of a rendezvous you're planning to have with a commoner boy that you've grown to like. Only, suddenly your home is more guarded than usual and your parents seem even more strict with you than before, almost like they know something you never told them.
Former King! Zhongli who steps down from his post shortly after his son becomes of age. While he no longer has his title, he's still heavily respected and praised by all. He saw you at a ball and formally invited you to the royal palalce. Your family excitedly rushes you into a carriage, thinking the invite is for meeting with the newly crowned King instead. Only, when you get there, Zhongli is truly the only one waiting for you. He sits you down next to him and compliments you almost incessantly, ending the conversation by asking you if you think he's too old to be considering a second marriage.
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Forgive me if these are bad!! This is my first time writing for any of these characters and I wanted to try!!
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thot4ellie · 2 months
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oh sweetheart
pairing: boxer! ellie williams x f reader au
word count: 1.9k
rating: 18+
warnings: boxer!ellie, drinking, smoking, cursing, creepy guy but ellie comes to ur defense!! ellie has lots of tattoos, fighting, threats, idk if im missing anything (no character description or anything specific)
summary: you didn't expect to meet her on this night out.
authors notes: hi friends! this is my first time writing and posting on here hopefully you enjoy, please reblog, like or follow! lets be mutuals :) anyways feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated! ellie williams has me on my hands and knees!!! i hope you enjoy! i like the idea of making this a series if it works out and ppl like it, so pls let m know!! thank you :)
PART 1 | part 2
series masterlist <3
from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸
READ: this account stands with palestine, and so— i require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.
DO NOT BUY THE REMASTER, TLOU2, TLOU1, OR ANY GAME FROM NAUGHTY DOG! neil druckmann (the creator) is a zionist. PLEASE READ THIS. AND REBLOG THIS.
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loud. everything is loud. the smell of sweat and blood stains the air around you. the sounds of people cheering and shouting towards the center of the large room. the lights are buzzing above you as you are walking into the entrance of the shitty run down gym your brother, jesse, and his girlfriend, dina, ended up dragging you to tonight.
you didn't mind coming along with him but this wasn't what you expected to be doing tonight. after a long shitty week of unpacking your new apartment, you kinda just wanted to end up a hole in the wall bar and drink your stress away but he had other plans. which including watching grown men beat the shit of each other for their cut at the end of the night.
it was intimidating, walking through the crowds of people you didn't know until you finally make it to where his friends were waiting for you guys. they were sitting at a table with a clear shot of the fight which was surprising since the whole place seemed to have more people in it then it could fit. you make your way awkwardly to the empty seats saying a gentle "hello guys" to your brothers friends who you didn't knowl. you sat next to dina as jesse made his way to the bar with your drink orders.
after you graduated highschool, you moved to new york and spend 4 years there working in a small cafe you lived above but now at the start of the summer, still not sure what you should be doing with your life. now you're 22 and you've moved to the city of jackson to be closer to your older brother and his girlfriend. you were excited to start fresh in a place where no one knew you yet, you were ready to leave your old life and those toxic things in the past. but you wondered if it was even possible.
you spend the next hour talking with dina and catching up on the things that have happened since you moved, "have you started looking for jobs yet?" she asked as you both sipped on the second drink of the night that jesse went and brought back a bit ago. you've only met a couple times in person since they started dating about 2 years ago but you loved her, she was making this night a lot better. "not much luck yet, i don't know what to do, luckily i have some time to figure something out." you responded. she went to say something but then the loud speakers around the room started blaring music and the countdown to the match that was about to start.
jesse tapped dinas shoulder to go watch with the rest of them. dinas eyes met yours and asked, "are you coming up?" you started getting nervous as the people started getting louder and crowding towards the center ring and told her that you'll stay here and watch. they both nodded and said they'd be back when it was over.
you took this opportunity to finally go get some fresh air since the crowd isn't all over anymore and it was a straight shot to the door you came in, you walked over to the side of the building, definitely feeling the drinks you had, you let your back rest against the concrete wall, finally cooling you down on this hot summer night. there's people standing outside talking but they payed no attention to you. you stayed against the wall as you pull out the cigarette pack from the pocket of your thin dark green jacket and the lighter out of your back pocket in your jean shorts. you cursed yourself for not buying more but its a bad habit and you know it. you pulled one out and put it in your lips as you brought the lighter up and took a drag, finally letting the anxiety go as you stared off into the sky.
"excuse me miss, you shouldn't be out here alone, a beautiful girl like you," a man with a rough voice said but you didn't move to look, suddenly wishing you never left your apartment to begin with, "hello i'm talking to you, its not nice to ignore people, ya know," he slurred his words as he spoke. you turned your head as you went to tell him to leave you alone but instead, he was standing in front of you before you knew it you dropped your smoke and now he's practically cornered you.
he was so close you could smell the alcohol on his breathe as he spoke again, "now are you gonna talk to-" you leaned away from him as he was interrupted by the sound of a door opening a few feet away, he looked towards it but then turned back to you just as quick, almost touching you as he went to speak again but he was beat to it.
"get off her." you didn't even realize the door had opened until you heard her.
the man looked back towards the door to the figure in the light, he squinted and when he got a good look, he suddenly backed off and put his hands up. "hey hey i wasn't doing nothin- it was nothing!" he shouted back to whoever was next to the still open door, light shining into the alley.
the door slams and the light fades as the figure walks closer towards you and your eyes meet the deep green eyes of the person who just saved you as she turned to the man who was just cornering you against the wall.
"it doesn't look like nothing, i mean, really? you're fucking joking right?" she questioned him as she looked him right in the eyes.
"i said it was nothing- she was flirting with me and-" he was cut off as she laughed loudly. "yeah you're full of shit, get the fuck out of here and don't let me see you again or you'll regret it." she said as she stepped closer towards him, almost at the same height, he looked scared of her. "okay, okay- fuck 'm leaving!" he slurred one last time as he turned around and headed the opposite way of the run down gym.
you stood there as the interaction happened, not sure what to do or say yet, you were silent as he walked off, and those green eyes met yours again and you saw her lips moving as she was speaking but you caught nothing she said. "hey, you okay there?" she asked you as she went to stand in front of you, looking you up and down, checking if you're psychically okay while she gave you a second to process before she asked you again.
"hey sweetheart, you okay?" she asked and grabbed your arm, not in a way that the man would have but like she was actually making sure you were okay, and this time you finally heard her.
"h- yes im okay, just- fuck- yes thank you." you said finally getting a good look at her now that she's up close and touching you. her eyes were greener than you thought, her short auburn hair with some pulled back into a bun, the big moth tattoo wrapped around her right forearm that was still holding onto yours, other tattoos littered her arms and some poking out under her t-shirt she was wearing. she was so close to you and it sent butterflies through your body. now is not the time, you thought to yourself.
"are you sure- 'm sorry that happened, fuck him." she said roughly, not towards you but him.
"its okay, thank- thank you for helping me" you said gently to the girl who was still looking into your eyes. you had been so focused on hers that you didn't even see the tiny scars, small healing cuts and the bruises that were fading until you looked over her face again.
"yeah of course, are you here alone?" she asked you curiously still holding on to you, you weren't even phased by it. you told her you were here with your brother and she nodded her head towards the door, "lets get you back to him before anything else happens sweetheart" she said as she guided you to the door, hand on your back, as you swallowed and went first.
suddenly all the sounds that you had not realized you had been blocking begin again, smells of the sweaty bodies surround you again and you felt too hot, either because of her or the summer heat trapped in here. once you made it inside, she moved her hand off the small of your back and told her to go find your brother and to get home safe. when she walked away, you realized you didn't even know her name.
you saw dina, sitting along with a few of jesses friends and made your way over to her. the match must've ended while you were outside. you walked through the gym to sit back down, moving carefully to avoid touching anyone. once you made it to the table, dina wondered where you had ran off too. "oh just went out to get some fresh air," you said back to her smiling, not wanting her to worry. she told you jesse went to get more drinks and after the encounter outside, you needed it.
jesse came back a few moments later, holding a round of shots for you three. "here you ladies go," he spoke with a happy look on his face. you smiled slightly back and took the glass as dina laughed at him. you took the shot, trying to forget what happened outside with the man but not what happened with her. you wondered if you would see her again. is she here to watch? could she work at the bar? is she here with friends too? your thoughts were interrupted by an announcement over the speaks that the final match was gonna start soon.
dina and jesse were telling you, "its the last one tonight and the last ones are always the best so lets go!" you would rather sit and order another drink, but what if something else happened cause you were alone? so reluctantly you got up with them and got closer to the middle ring, you heard the loud speakers announcing the boxers as they entered the ring. you weren't even paying attention, nothing could stop your mind racing with thoughts about the girl outside.
you shake yourself out of the trance when dina reaches over to you to touch your hands that were shaking but you didn't even realize, you look to her and give her smile that she returns, then she looks back to the ring and you turn your head to follow her eyes to the center. and your breathe caught.
thats her.
thats the girl who saved you outside.
the girl with her hands wrapped in tape and the mouthguard in.
the girl who wondered if she'd ever see you again either, not that you knew that, but she hoped it wasn't the last time.
you wondered what she thought as you both stared back at each other. you heard the coach start the countdown. you just watched her.
...5
...4
...3
...2
as the buzzer started, she smiled directly at you then turned to throw the first punch.
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Maybe I should have problems, but I love. With a happy ending. After all, I love your writing! ❤️ I wanted to ask about Lando. Where the character has a girls' night out and ends up getting drunk, When Lando goes to pick her up she simply says "please don't touch me, I have a boyfriend". Lando ends up trying to convince her that she is his girlfriend, but she simply punches him back and tells him to stay away, but in the end she recognizes him and feels really bad about it, a night of care when they get home maybe?
I'm from Brazil, sorry for the bad English ❤️ I would be very happy if you wrote about this, but if you are not enthusiastic about the idea you can discard it, I appreciate your comfort. 💕
Keep Your Hands To Yourself - LN
I love this idea. I have done a like post-girls night out fic before but she wasn't so drunk she doesn't recognise him, she kind of just lets Lando take care of her. But this sounds a little funny, I hope I do it justice.
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Lando being home means his girlfriend is home too and while her boyfriend is sitting doing a stream with Max, she is out on the town with the girls.
Usually y/n is the mother of the group, pretty responsible and takes care of herself and everyone else. So Lando trusts her to be safe on a night out without him there needing protect her.
However when his phone rings with her name popping up, Lando is confused and almost worried.
"Lando? Lando?" A voice that is definitely not his girlfriend's calls out, but it is the voice of one of her friends.
"Hey, what's up? Is everything ok?" Lando asks while hearing his girlfriend's voice which is very much loud in the background making him laugh. "Is that y/n?"
"Lando, you have to come get her. She got kicked out the club for throwing up. She's going ballistic and she won't listen to anyone." Y/f/n states sounding nearly desperate. "Please, come get her. None of us have seen her like this and we don't know what to do."
"Fucking hell, she sounds feral mate." Max chuckles before they hear her voice.
"I'm not drunk! I'm trying to get a fucking McDonalds, stop getting in my way!"
"Alright, I have you location. I'll come and get her. Do you guys need a ride?" Lando asks making the young woman sigh in very obvious relief.
"No, we're not done for the night but she's too far gone and we can't get into anywhere else with her like this."
"Yeah, yeah. That's fine." Lando nods standing up with a smile as he pats Max's shoulder. "I gotta go mate, y/n is going feral."
"Let me know how that goes. I can't imagine y/n being that drunk...she's always so chill."
"Yeah, wish me luck."
-
Getting the location, it's not hard to miss where his girlfriend is since there's a crowd of young women around her as she sits on top of a wall.
"Alright, I'm here. Hey, princess." Lando smiles parting the crowd who practically vanish in seconds. Presumably happy to hand over the drunk woman and get on with their night, they trust Lando to take care of her and get her home safely.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Now sober, y/n is a sweet, softly spoken girl who he's rarely heard swear.
"Very funny, y/n. Come on home time." Lando laughs moving towards her, his hands moving to takes hers so he can pull her up.
But when her own hand comes up and he finds himself with a burning cheek. Out of sheer shock, her grabs her hand pushing it down, mainly to make sure she's not going to follow up with a backhand.
"Don't touch me. Who the fuck do you think you are? Coming over here, trying to grab at me. My boyfriend would run you over with his car."
Lando's seriousness over her reaction is replaced with trying to hold a laugh in from her saying he'd run someone over with his car.
"Baby...I am your boyfriend." Lando states making rage burn behind her eyes. "I'm Lando Norris, I'm your boyfriend. You're my girlfriend. We met 7 months, 3 weeks and 2 days ago. You'd never forgive me if I forgot that but you let me get away with not knowing hours, minutes and seconds."
That's a real conversation they had, as a joke she said she allow him to not have to know hours minutes and seconds but months, weeks and days were mandatory. It was a joke, but Lando has been keeping count.
"Can I please take you home? You're never this drunk." Lando pleads and thankfully everything simmers away from behind her eyes for a moment as recognition lights up behind her drunk gaze.
Tears well in y/n's eyes as he hand raises again and she gently rubs his cheek which is still burning hot from the slap.
"I hit you."
"It's ok."
"No. No. It's not." Y/n hiccups making him sigh. A new level of drunk unlocked with her but at least she knows who he is now. "I'm so sorry."
"Baby, it's ok." Though it did sting.
"No, I hit you so hard." Y/n hiccups very much upset.
"How about we get you some McDonalds and then we can get you home and you'll be ok?" Lando offers making her somewhat whine but she nods sighing as he holds out his hands to help her up and thankfully this time he doesn't get slapped the fuck out of.
Her hands are in his and she is pulled up onto wobbly legs before she swallows thickly and she does have to dodge Lando trying to kiss her.
"No. I vomited in the bushes, you don't want to kiss me right now." Y/n states making Lando grimace but nod at her.
They get to his car quick enough where Lando fusses over her, making sure her seatbelt is clipped in and secure and putting her bag gently in the footwell before taking her shoes off too.
"Comfortable?" He asks making her nod a little but the guilty expression is still very prominent on her face. "Baby, I'm completely fine. Just lets me know that you won't stand for anyone else touching you and you can defend yourself when you need to."
"There's a mark."
"Stop, baby. I'm ok, I just wanted to get you home. It's alright." Lando continues to assure her before smiling lightly. "I love you and we're going to go get you some food then get you home, clean you up because you're a bit mucky and then we're going to sleep. Both of us. Does that sound ok?"
They get her what she thinks is an excessive amount of McDonalds but she does eat more than half of it, much to Lando's amusement and then when they get back to the house. Lando decides to carry her out of the car to the indoors.
"Ok, are you still hungry?" Lando asks since she's still holding the McDonald's.
"No. I'm full." Y/n murmurs certainly sobered up a little from her earlier state thanks to the food.
"You're full?" Lando questions making her nod a little before she's placed down on her feet and he places the bag of food on the counter. "Alright, clean up time."
He gets her make up off first, something he's beginning to be a pro at doing correctly because he likes to do it when she's not been on a night out too. Following up with brushing her teeth twice, just wanting to make sure that the food and residue vomit is all washed from her mouth.
"In the shower." Lando instructs after turning on the water and making sure it's just below the temperature that he dupes "the bowls of hell" since his girlfriend does like to boil herself alive in the shower and step out looking like a lobster.
"Thank you."
Y/n gives herself an aggressive scrub up and down while Lando smiles just watching her. He might be trying to take care of her and make sure she's all safe and sound in her room, but there's no denying he enjoys seeing his girlfriend naked in nearly any certain circumstance.
"Towel, please baby." Y/n murmurs making him smile and stand up unfolding the towel that he's been waiting with and wraps around her. Finally getting a kiss that he feels almost having been deprived off before now since he didn't get a kiss after she'd brushed her teeth.
Eventually she's dried off, Lando does blow-dry her hair for her before they finally climb into bed and he sighs as she curls up against him. No surprise that y/n is quick to fall asleep. Completely exhausted and her sleep very nicely aided by the alcohol still very much present in her system.
No doubt he'll be helping nurse her through a hangover tomorrow, but for now he just enjoys her cuddliness and quiet.
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eyebagshawty · 4 months
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Hello! May I request Lae’zel, Karlach, and whoever else you want to write being washed by the reader. I find the idea of bathing and taking care of someone to be really sweet.
Headcanons + Blurbs for Being Taken Care of/Washed by Tav
A/N: Hello! Sorry for just getting around to requests and other things now, the end of the semester got pretty crazy (at least I passed everything !) and now I’m finally able to focus and get out of this rut. Thank you for your patience and I hope you like it!
Characters: Lae’zel, Karlach, Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Astarion, Halsin
Part 2
Lae’zel
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• When you first offer to wash up with Lae’zel she’s mostly confused and kind of annoyed - there’s already a tadpole in her head, and that’s enough lack of privacy.
• “Chk. At my crèche these things are normal. However, you istiks insist on attaching emotional meaning to such things… no.”
• However the more she thinks about it… you two have shared a bed more than once. She respects you more than the others; when she tells you to speak she also makes sure you know she will listen. She supposes that maybe connection wouldn’t be so bad with you of all people.
• She just walks up to your tent, grabs your hand, and says “Fine.”
You meet her at the waterfront and- is she nervous? Her gaze wavers between you and the night sky, feet firmly planted into the ground and arms across her armored chest. You get most of your armor off, but that last clasp just has to give you trouble. “Lae’zel, could you help me out with this?” It’s silent for a tension filled moment, and you’re about to ask again.
“Chk.” She walks over and with ease undoes the clasp. She’s back to feet firmly planted and arms crossed, only looking at the sky. You unfurl your hair from its practical braid and keep your eyes on her. “I wish I could show you the Tears.” Your eyes widen when you think about the first night she invited you to her bunk, how hard getting used to this unusual plane must be for her. You place your hand on her shoulder and she tenses, but relaxes after she’s brought back to the moment.
“I wish I could see them.” You whisper to her. You ‘help’ her out of her armor (she’s just letting you at this point, she could’ve been out of it in 30 seconds flat) and you both hiss as you enter the cold water. After a soft and asking touch, she allows you to undo her hair and wash it. You gather her hair gently into your hands and have her lean back to the water. As she does, you can see that she clearly hasn’t been this vulnerable in maybe ever. You give a soothing stroke to her scalp and she hums. As you lather the looted soap into her hair and scratch your nails lightly, you hear her sniffle.
“Lae’zel… are you alright?” You stop your ministrations but keep a hand cupped at the back of her neck.
“My-my queen is false. I will never ascend. Tsk’va, I’m an enemy to my kin. I don’t want to be on this plane anymore… I miss the astral. I must fight but I do not know how to keep going.” She quickly wipes her tears and looks at you. “Speak, source of my bruises. I will always listen.”
With her hair looking clean, you slowly move the bar between her shoulder blades and move it in soothing circles. You kiss her temple. “My love, this situation is quite a mess. Tadpoles in our heads, endless injuries, and I cannot imagine what this world must be like for someone who has never been in it. We will get through this. I’m here. I’m yours.” With that she shows an inkling of a smile as she stares into the water in thought. You continue to bathe her with soft kisses in between every swipe of soap along with words of reassurance. You are hers, the source of her bruises.
Karlach
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•Once Karlach is able to touch people again, she is ecstatic to wash up with you. She’s barely been able to keep her hands off of you since, so when you offer she squeals.
• “Of fucking course soldier! Who knows, we might even be able to turn that river into a hot spring.” Her eyebrows waggle and your face goes beet red.
• When you meet her she definitely cannonballs into the water and complains when it’s shallow
• “Aw hells, that’s gonna be a kink to work out in the morning.”
• You guys don’t bathe for a good 15 minutes, she’s just kissing you and rubbing your sides and it’s so SWEET
She breaks away from the kiss and wades further into the water. You grab the soap from the grass and follow after, settling your arms around her neck and wrapping your legs around her waist. Her fingers come up to pinch your nose and she flops backwards into the water, leaving both of you sopping wet when she comes back up. “Gods Karlach you’re gonna kill me,” you sputter as you cough out the bit of water that got in your mouth. She pats your back and lets out a full bellied laugh.
“That’s right soldier get it all out,” she grins. You shoot her a playful glare. When your collective giggles finally die down, you bring the bar of soap up to her hair and begin lathering and spreading it with your fingers. Her eyes close with a serene smile. You make sure to get the area around her horns, and she kisses your cheeks as you take care of them. “You know… after Gortash. After… Avernus. Nobody has taken care of me like this in so long. So fucking long.” She sighs as you bring the bar to her neck and chest, taking away the near pints of blood the party had spilled earlier.
“I’ll make sure it never is that way again. I love you, and no matter what happens you deserve to be free from all of this.” You meet her gaze as the bar moves to her shoulders, and you see fear.
“Tav… my heart.” She lets out a choked sob and a tear streams down her cheek that you immediately wipe away. “I finally have you after so godsdamn long, and I don’t want to lose what’s most important. Not again. I’m just so scared.” She breaks down into tears and her skin heats up warmly under your skin. You crush her into your chest and she buries her face into your neck, where you rub soothing circles into her scalp along with kisses.
“You won’t lose me. Whether it be in Baldurs Gate or Avernus, I’ll be here.” She lifts her head and you kiss her nose, where a little flame sparks and then snuffs out. She lets out a soft chuckle as her mood cools. “I promise to you we’re gonna kill that pathetic little fucker and anyone who helped him.” Her lips meet yours and you kiss back with eager passion. As you pull away you go back to soothingly rubbing the bar across the planes of her back.
“Wait- didn’t you grab this soap off a dead guy?! GROSS soldier!”
Shadowheart
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•She immediately says no
•Not because she doesn’t trust you, she just can’t swim and finds it a bit embarrassing for her powerful presence
•After you finally convince her it’ll only be where she can stand, she agrees.
• “A bottle of wine, my lover, and a nice grassy beach? It’ll do,” she gives a sarcastic but playful smile.
•You two get plastered on Chultan Fireswill before you hop in
After one last swig from the bottle Shadowheart takes your hand and leads you into the water. You stop at around three feet deep and get to your knees. Her braid whips around her shoulder as she serenely begins to scrub away blood with the soap bar. “I love this silver color so much. It illuminates you as some would say,” you utter softly, and she chuckles. She slowly takes her hair out of the braid’s confines and your jaw drops at how long and pretty it is as it flows down her back. You look pointedly to the bar of soap. “May I?”
She squints at you in playful suspicion then smiles. “You may.” You lather the soap into her hair and she lays her head back into your chest as you scratch lovingly at her scalp. She brings her hand up to your cheek behind her and whispers, “The moon looks beautiful tonight.” As soon as the words leave her lips the wound in her hand opens. She hisses and sits back up. As she looks back to you, her gaze looks broken. “After everything I’ve been through with the dark lady, I don’t think this will ever go away.”
You inch your hand closer to hers, placing your pinkies over each other. “It’s horrible… what she did to you.” She grins bitterly but moves to interlace your fingers, rubbing the back of your hand with her thumb.
“I just wish I could remember any of that horrible stuff. I want to be angry. But mostly I’m only numb. She was… she was everything to me. And although it is horrible yes, it’s all so new. Being away from her.”
She nods in confirmation as you move the bar of soap to her chest, the motions soothing her and making her eyes soften as she watches you. “I understand,” you whisper as you lean up to kiss the shell of her pointed ear. That’s all that needs to be said, Shadowheart thinks to herself. You’ve become more than her greatest companion in her eyes, she trusts you’ll be there through thick and thin. “We’ll just have to make new memories,” you smile, and as you finish rubbing the soap across her body you throw it back to the grass, pulling her into a loving kiss as she wraps her arms around your neck.
Wyll
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•When you offer to wash up with Wyll a MASSIVE blush runs across his cheeks
• “Are you sure? ImsurethehornsfreakyououtandtheresbumpsinotherstrangeplacesIdontwantyou-“ he basically starts talking at a mile a minute about how it might be awkward for you
• “Wyll honey, I can just meet you there while you’re already in if that’s more comfortable for you” and you give him a sweet smile and his face goes red AGAIN
By the time you get to the waterfront, you see Wyll propped against a rock, the water resting at waist level with his arms propping him up. You throw him a shy smile. He has a sly grin and nods your way, beckoning you towards him. You twirl your finger and mouth, “Turn around!” He lets out a silent chuckle and turns his head towards the mountains beyond the lake.
You slide out of your evening clothes and grab the soap bar laying on top of your towel. As you wade further into the water you let out a shriek — it wasn’t winter right? Wyll turns around and laughs at the sight; you’re rubbing your arms with chattering teeth. “It is quite frigid tonight, huh? I think I’ve got a cantrip in me for a special someone.”
You look around, bemused, as to how spells could possibly help you out here. Wyll shoots a fireball into the depths of the water, your skin instantly warming up. However, it doesn’t last long as the lake cools back down to freezing. You swim at the speed of light over to Wyll and wrap your arms around his neck. “Sorry, I just need something. By the nine hells you think a blizzard would be rolling through,” you laugh. When you’ve warmed up enough, you take the bar of soap and gingerly begin to wash and lather his hair and horns, kissing the scars across his face.
Wyll looks down at you, surprise slathered across his face as you finish up with his head and move to his broad shoulders, kissing everything infernal you can find. “Tav…you like this?” He brings up a hand to your cheek as you continue your ministrations. You cup water in your hands and gently rinse away the soap on his chest.
“Of course I do, Mizora could make you look fully cambion and I would still have the strongest of feelings for you. You’ll always be my dashing, strong, Blade of Frontiers,” you peck his neck with each last word, and he laughs, kissing your forehead with a soft cherishing smile.
Gale
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• When you offer to Gale, he gives you the most devious look you’ve ever seen
• He hasn’t been around others for so long till now, much less bathing with anyone, and he’s grown pretty strong feelings for you so he love love loves this idea
• “My dear Tav I would love to! You know how I enjoy your body after a battle, all the sweat covering your skin and the flush of your cheeks”
• He’s not your quietest companion so everybody does hear this and everybody does let out an exasperated groan
• Your face flushes even further than when you asked him and you squeak out an okay and run to your tent
When you meet up with Gale at the waterfront, his tunic is already off, showing his surprisingly wonderful muscles. He kisses you upon greeting, and helps you out of your evening clothes with a soft caress here and there on every part of your body. You grab your soap and lead him into the water, the water being just warm enough for your plans.
He gathers you into his lap, his cheeks a light red as he grins up at you. You lather the soap and scrub it into his hair, listening to his groans and praises as you work. You kiss his cheeks as you move to his chest, and he finally opens his eyes again, looking up at you with those big round puppy eyes.
“This is surprisingly wonderful. I remember doing things like this for her, running water through her hair and lathering the finest oils onto her skin, but she never once did anything for me.” You stop your work, looking up to his eyes with an expression of shock and sadness. His eyes bore just as strongly into yours, and his thumbs rub circles into your hips.
“Gale… you are worthy of being loved. What she did to you wasn’t right — it never was, even from the beginning if I’m getting my facts straight. She isolated and took from you. I never want you to feel like that with me.” You kiss his cheeks and his hairline, and his lips follow yours, chasing to press them together.
They finally do, and his kiss is filled with eager passion, pouring every thought he’s had about you into you. When you pull away he lets out a soft whine, bringing his hand to your neck. “I’m in love with you, darling. And I know and trust that you feel the same, any need of the tadpole be damned.” You smile and begin to continue rubbing the soap into his stomach, but he stops you. He brings his lips to yours once more, and he rolls you over onto your back in the water, letting you prove how loved he is.
Astarion
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• His eyes go soft and round when you ask him
• “Really?? Little old me??” Even after the graveyard and all your reassurances, he’s still moving towards actual coupley things
• “You’ve never wanted a luxurious meal and bath together my love?” You take his hand stroke his fingers with care
• If he could blush he would, but he just sputters with the goblet of wine he has
• He collects himself back into charming mode, “Well then, I thought you’d never ask. Come find me when you’re ready.” He kisses your cheeks and literally just walks off into the woods, leaving you standing at the entrance to your shared tent looking absolutely befuddled
When you find him at the hot spring the camp had discovered last night, he’s already in the water with his eyes closed angling his head towards the night sky. His ears twitch as he hears you begin to take off your evening clothes, and his eyes open to look at you with a rakish smile. “Why hello, my treasure. The water feels amazing.” You smile, grab your soap and head in. Immediately you groan with relief, the hot water soothing the aches from your nasty fight with some undead earlier.
Astarion moves closer to you, taking the most warmth he can get. You bring your arms around his neck and just stay there for a minute. He hugs you back, burying his face into the crook in your shoulder. You fingers lightly stroke against his raised scars in a loving motion, and after his breath hitches he melts into your touch, practically purring as you lavish him with affection. When you pull away his loss of heat is devastating. However, he calms down when you begin to wash his hair, scratching at his scalp and running the hot water over his curls.
“I don’t think I’ve ever let anyone touch my hair like this,” he mumbles. You kiss his cheek and move the bar to his chest and shoulders, working out any aches and pains he might have.
“Well, now you have me my love,” you whisper, kissing the tip of his ear.
“I just can’t believe that after everything you want to stay. The sky is beautiful tonight, but it is all I will ever know once this mindflayer business is said and done with.” His words are bitter, almost as if he is angry with himself.
“It is all we will know my love. And I’m actually quite the night owl. As much as I love our ragtag group, I’m quite introverted around most of society. Everything is fine,” you kiss his bite marks, the hollows of his cheeks, and finally his lips. He kisses you back fervently, pouring care he was never able to show for anyone else previously. You pull away and finish gently washing the rest of his body in silence. As you prop your neck to the side for him, he looks at you with an expression akin to great offense.
“Darling! I thought you knew me well enough to know the bath is never over after only soap.” He waves his hand over to the small crate of oils he’d brought to the spring. “Now, I’m feeling lavender tonight. How about you my love?”
You give him a beaming smile, wading out of the spring to retrieve it. “Sounds wonderful, my heart.”
Halsin
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• You don’t even really have to ask him, he’s just joined you most of the time to protect you
• He doesn’t like you venturing out in to the woods by yourself, because Silvanus help him a lot of people are after you guys
• “Of course my heart — Scratch is licking at his paw a bit so I need to inspect that, but I will join you in just a couple of minutes.”
• With an encouraging woof from Scratch, you caress his shoulder and go to collect your things
You’ve stuffed all the stuff needed for the bath into two large bags, your arms making you crouch downward with the weight. As Halsin walks to meet you he sees this, chuckles, and wild shapes into his bear form. He takes the bag handles into his mouth and nudges your leg with his snout. You pet his head and hop onto his back, him letting you ride on it as you both make your way to the water.
On arrival, you hop off and he drops the items into the grass. As his bear form is used most in combat, you grab out a bottle of soap you’d nicked off of that crazy dog handler in Rivington. You drizzle it all over his fur and gather some of the river water into a bucket. You begin scrubbing the soap into his fur, and he lets out cute little groans and growls. When you finish you dump the bucket of water onto him, and he lets out a noise of surprise. He turns back into regular Halsin, his hair soaked down against his head with playful exasperation.
“My heart, you did not need to release the full power of a waterfall onto me I assure you.” You laugh and beckon him into the water. He wades in and smothers you with kisses.
“Halsin please! I need to breathe!” You giggle, pushing at his chest. He finally settles down, pulling you into his lap.
“Thank you for helping me with the shadow curse. Thaniel he… he needed us. He needed you.” He settles into a somber smile, nuzzling his nose against your temple.
You trace your fingers across his chest, leaving kisses that follow. “I knew the lands needed our help, and I’m glad he’s free from the curse. All we have left is this elder brain, and we can go back to the grove and live in peace.”
He tilts your chin up with his hand, and looks tenderly into your eyes. “I would be blessed by Silvanus to spend my thousands of years with you.” He crashes his lips into yours, one of many you’ll share over the passage of time.
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