#apparently i had a strong desire for both sides of this ship to get WRECKED this week lol
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Hello! first of all I'm obsessed with your blog for real! I love your writings <3 I want to order a peppermint mocha with lee chuuya and ler dazai. They were having a snowball fight but Dazai was losing so he decided to use a little bit of cheating but it turns into a tickle fight which is Dazai is winning this time because he's going for chuuya's worst spot,make him scream with laughter and give up!! Thank youuuuu<3
❄️ Peppermint Mocha Special Order ❄️
~~~
“YOHOHOHOHOHOU FUHUHUHUHUHUCKING CHEHEHEHEHEHEATER!!”
“I’m not cheating. This is strategy~”
Chuuya screeched with hysterical laughter, arms flailing, trying to grab onto anything he could to get this all to stop – Dazai’s coat, his wrists, his stupid face – anything! But all he could manage to do was lay there in the freezing snow and laugh himself hoarse, unable to roll away and escape this torture thanks to Dazai’s ingenious positioning.
The brunette curled his fingers into the redhead’s inner thighs, pressing in with just the right amount of vibration, and Chuuya nearly wheezed as another round of laughter overtook him. He grasped a handful of snow and tried to shove it in the detective’s face, but all that did was make Dazai’s playful gaze turn playfully wicked.
“Still trying to win the snowball fight, eh, chibi?”
“I HAHAHAHAHAHAHATE YOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOU!!”
“Why don’t you give up? Then this will all be over, and I’ll be the winner, just as I should be.”
Despite his growing desperation to get out of this ridiculous position, Chuuya screamed, “LIKE HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHELL!!”
Dazai chuckled, and the sound only made the redhead panic even more. The next thing he knew there was pressure on his knees pinning his legs to the snow as well, and Dazai was leaning forward to kiss him, but he was still fucking tickling that goddamn spot—
Chuuya tried to wrench his mouth away so he could breathe, gasp for air, laugh his lungs out, but Dazai followed him relentlessly, never allowing him more than a split second between kisses that eventually descended to his neck just above his scarf.
“Give up, chibi?” Dazai teased into his ear before biting it playfully.
Chuuya was more than ready to give up – the tickling was driving him onto a whole other plane of existence, and he felt like if he didn’t get it to stop he was going to expire right here and now.
“STOP STOP FUHUHUHUHUHUCKING STOP DAHAHAHAHAHAHAZAI!!” Chuuya screamed, the desperation in his voice clear even to him, not that he cared about that right now. “I CAHAHAHAHAHAN’T ANYMORE, PLEHEHEHEHEHEASE STOP!!”
Mercifully, Dazai did in fact stop, immediately shifting his weight so he wasn’t pinning Chuuya but rather straddling him lightly, and he allowed the redhead a few moments to catch his breath and gain his bearings before leaning down to kiss him again and murmur, “I win~”
And Chuuya – thoroughly wiped out and beyond the capacity to fight back, his nerves still singing from the ticklish assault – managed only two words in response:
“Fuck. You.”
#fanfiction#tickle drabble#coffee shots#peppermint mocha event#bungo stray dogs#bsd#chuuya nakahara#dazai osamu#soukoku#tickling#ticklish#tickle#apparently i had a strong desire for both sides of this ship to get WRECKED this week lol#it looks so good on both of them <3#plus i keep getting similar prompts so i'm trying to get creative 😅
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Mr Parker
(Part 1.)
Tony Stark was incompetent and completely reliant on his assistant, whom he had never really taken the time out of his stagnant day to meet and acquaint with. In his genius philosophical mind, he wondered why on Earth he should offer his extravagant, engaging friendship to someone who worked for him and was therefore owned by him? Why should he even bother to learn their names?
So, it definitely wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t know the name of his assistant and all he did know was that he was the best at what he did, which was constantly dealing with things that the billionaire had forgotten to organise or just didn’t want to organise in general. The only thing he knew about his assistant was that his second name was Parker.
Music filled the room and blasted into Tony’s ears as he calloused hands tinkered with a car engine that he had been pouring over for the last hour while the heavy, gruff sound of AC/DC pooled in his ears like an ocean. A few beeps from the access code to his lab sent a ripple to the pool of his music, snapping him away from his haze of invention.
“Mr Stark, your meant to be half way across the world by now. Your flight was an hour and a half ago. You’re meant to be on that flight right now, yet your down here tampering with a car, when are you-”
“Don’t turn down my music again, i like it loud.” Tony chimed in a distinctive harsh tone in his voice while he settled the engine on the table that was compiled with his tools.
“Well, you shouldn’t be here anyway Mr Stark.”
“Yeah, but seeing as it is my plan,” Tony pointed out while sitting on the huge, new wheels on the car so he was looking up at his assistant and he went into shock at how beautiful this boy was, “I-i thought it would happen when i wanted it too.”
“Ok, i won’t push it more, and Jackson called he has another buyer so do you want it yes or no?”
“Well, is it overpriced?”
“Incredibly so.”
“I need it.”
The silence that followed was awkward and it made even Tony Stark edgy. Mr Parker just stood there, and he was definitely quite feminine the playboy in Stark noted and his brown chocolate eyes lingered on the partly open blouse and straight skirt.
“Buy it, store it.” he coughs nervously, standing up and brushing his way past the assistant whose smell filled his nostrils; his scent was sweet and definitely alluring.
“Ok, the MIT co-”
“Is in June. Please don’t harangue me about this now-”
“Well they’re haranguing me about it so i’m gonna say yes.”
“Yeah well it’s not even clo-”
“I need you to sign this for me before you get on the plane.”
“Why are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m not i just have somewhere to be too you know.”
“You never have plans.”
“I’m allowed to have plans on my birthday.”
Well shit. Tony may have forgotten that too. His eyes go wide and he head gives a small wilt down as if in abashment of not remembering. His assistant caught on and gave a small, seemingly forlorn nod.
“It’s your birthday?” The billionaire whispers even if he already had the answered lodged in his brain, infecting him with shame and sorrow of forgetting.
“Yes.”
“I knew that…already?” He breathes as if to save himself from the train wreck of his derailing thoughts of what he could quickly buy or have ordered for the brunette assistant.
“Yeah isn’t that strange, it’s the same day as last year.”
“Yeah well get yourself something nice from me.” Tony stresses as if desperate to make it seem like he was a good enough man to have remembered.
“I already did,” The boy nods softly and looks at his clipboard, “need anything else Mr Stark?”
“What’s your name?” The question sounded appalling considering the fact that the assistant had been working at Stark Industries and for Tony himself for 5 years now to make ends meat.
“Peter Parker.”
Peter. God, Tony was staring at him in complete awe. God he looked divine with a jawline as sharp as glass, honey doe eyes that shimmered with a light, rosy red lips, feather-like hair that hung softly over his pale forehead. Peter was definitely a sight for sore eyes, and Tony couldn’t help but drink him in hungrily.
“Well Peter, happy birthday from me.”
“Thank you Mr Stark.” Peter’s eyes flicked up to Tony’s and creating a grapple with the other. Tony gives a smile that can only be defined by the one thing the billionaire had been sprinting from his entire life to keep his playboy status updated. Love.
**
Peter Parker set the phone down with a tremor as he breathed out unsteadily. He gnawed on his lip while his head drooped low, his eyes cast down to his lap while he trembled.
“And now for breaking news, billionaire, genius, philanthropist and playboy Tony Stark has been kidnapped in Afghanistan and is being held-”
Peter promptly switched off the television, he could no longer bare to hear the reports of his beloved boss’ kidnapping. Peter’s throat was clogged with sobs that desperately wanted to break free, but his soul grew a backbone as he looked over at Dum-E, who was whirring and bleeping in a state of hysteria about his creator and daddy.
“It’s ok Dum-E…he’ll be ok…” Peter swallows as if he were trying to swallow a watermelon, his eyes were pools of unshed tears that were taunting him and threatening to spill. He needed to be strong for Jarvis, for Dum-E, for Happy. For Tony.
Peter was in dismay. Constant questions. Constant queries. He was so sick of all of the questions that were posed to him about Tony’s disappearance and how life at Stark industries would continue on without their leader, their figure head was gone and they wanted answers. Peter, no matter how smart or intelligent, impertinent or brisk, didn’t have anything that he could sweetly whisper to them in comfort for he himself needed comfort.
He couldn’t sleep, his insomnia killing him and working him down and reducing him to a walking zombie that was impetuous for sleep and closure for his boss. Tony was all he had. He was devoted to Tony and gave him his all if anything needed doing he was there, whether it be bills or a months worth of shopping then he would be there.
Peter’s high heels clicked down the hallway while clutching his clipboard to his chest softly, he was antsy and was unsure why. It was a mundane day just like all the others after Tony’s unfortunate kidnapping and held at ransom state, so why was he feeling so on edge about going to work that day?
“Peter! Peter, they’ve found him! He’s on his way home!”
Peter must have been hallucinating, he had to be. It was almost too good to be true and his clipboard bounced off the floor, his cream-complexioned hand clenching his white cotton blouse as he nodded.
“Get the car ready Happy, we’re going to get him.”
Tony Stark breathlessly stood near the huge metallic doors of the aircraft that was transporting him home, and he let out a soft sigh as Rhodes placed a hand on his tender shoulder. He had a permanent memorandum of his time spent as a captive. A relic. A burden. The arc reactor. It gleamed through any shirt that he wore with a harsh intensity and it make Tony sick to his stomach to even look at it. The doors dropped heavily open and the light creeped in and illuminated the entire inside of the plane in which the two stood and it was definitely a welcome site for Tony’s eye sore. But, so was Peter.
Peter’s hair was being whipped to the side of his porcelain face as he stood stationary and for once in his 5 years of service to Tony, who was currently limping out of the plane and over to the brunette assistant, who walked forward too like a magnetic attraction to each other with a force of love, he was not gripping a clipboard. They both stopped about a feet away from each other and gazed.
“Mr Stark, good to have you back…”
“Good to be back…”
The chemistry between the two was apparent. They were attracted and there was nothing either of them could do to prevent it anymore. They didn’t have a desire to halt the rapidly burning flame of attraction either.
**
“Ow, be gentle!”
Peter’s heels beat against the unforgiving marble floors and he stops by the glass door of the natural habitat of one Tony Stark. His nimble fingers graze the access code numbers that are burned into his brain and a simple workout for his fingers and he was not at all taken aback when the door swung open. However, he was left in wonderment as he heard small yelps and pained groans. Peter just hoped he hadn’t caught his boss doing that again.
“Be gentle, it’s my first time de-sui-” A clipboard clatters noisily to the floor, laying there as Peter’s mouth soon joined it on the ground with a gasp and squinting eyes.
Red. Gold. Armour. Iron Man.
Tony looks over his metal clad shoulder and gives him a tiny upward quirk of his lips. He knows how bad this looks. Numerous bullet holes all around his makeshift heart that he quite literally wears on his chest and he was the Iron Man.
“Are those bullet holes?”
“Yeah, and let’s face it this is not the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”
Peter gives a tiny head jerk in the form of a timid nod. Tony de-suits and clambers heavily down from the stand and over to Peter, his heart drumming and beating out of his scarred and destructed chest as he stares at those bewitching honey eyes that stare back.
The walls shake and tremble as Tony’s music shook them to their very core while he tinkered with an iron man suit and trying to fix the waist of his armour in which he resides. He snapped out of his train of thought by heels tapping behind him and over to his tool engulfed workshops.
“Hey, you busy? I got an errand for you Pete.” Tony grumbles as he set the spanner down and he looked over at the brunette boy who was staring back at him with a hint of inquisitive flashes in his honey eyes.
“Take this to my office, look for the recent shippings of my weapons. You’ll probably find it in the smallest file, if not that means they’ve ghosted it which means you need to look for the lowest numerical value.” Tony walks over to his small tracker and presses a few buttons on it and he peered at the screen.
“And if i do get you this information, what will you do with it?”
“Same drill, they’ve been dealing under the table and i’m gonna stop them, Peter, find my weapons and destroy them.”
Peter gives a tiny, exasperated breathy laugh and he nods softly while a coy smile plays on his lips.
“Tony, you know i would help you with anything. But, i cannot help you if you’re going to start all of this again.”
“There is nothing except this. There is the next mission, and nothing else.”
That cut Peter deep, his heart dying to clutch onto the other half as a crack of heartbreak threatened to rip it apart. Tony was all he had, he didn’t have his parents, didn’t have his uncle and aunt, didn’t have any friends to talk to. There was Tony, and nothing else.
“Is that so? Well then i quit.”
The only thing that snapped Tony’s haze of disbelief was the clatter of Peter’s work badge and heels began to fade away and to the door, and Tony couldn’t let the man he loved leave his life forever.
“You’ve stood by my side all these years while i reap the benefits of destruction and now that i want to protect the people that i put in harm’s way, you’re gonna walk out?”
Peter twirled and looked at him right in the eye as he quivered, catching his wobbling bottom lip between his teeth to not show foreboding.
“You’re gonna kill yourself Tony, and i’m not gonna be apart of it.” ‘I care for you too much, love you too much’ Peter wanted to add, but restrained himself.
“I shouldn’t be alive. Unless it was for a reason,” Tony slumped in his chair as if he was losing his backbone and he was; He was losing Peter who was the one thing that he couldn’t live without, “I’m not crazy Peter…I just finally know what i have to do…And i know in my heart that it’s right.”
Peter seems to stall. His white as a sheet hand slowly stepped back from the door handle while he nodded softly. The straight skirt that he was wearing was restricting his movements as he sauntered over to Tony who was pouring over a piece of his tech while he tried not to look at the love of his life.
“You’re all i have too you know…” Peter whispers softly, anxious about Tony’s reaction but his fears were eased, put to bed and tucked in tightly with a kiss on the head when Tony smiled and gave him a small nod.
“I know…”
**
“Ok, just read from the card. Tony, i spent my night on that speech.” Peter demands as he straightens Tony’s crumpled tie that was loosely hanging from his neck, disregarded by the billionaire.
“Ok, ok, i got it cutie.”
The flirting between the two had now started, and it usually left Peter red, flushed and throbbing in his pants whereas it left Tony smug and pleased.
“Now get up there, Tony.”
Tony walked up to the podium and stared down at everyone that was underneath him, like vultures picking the scraps of any juice of meaty words that Tony would say.
“The truth is…I am Iron Man.”
#i am back#tony stark x peter parker#tony x peter#tony stark#peter parker#ironspider#starker#first fic in a while#iron man 1#part 1#au#ton#it's awful#don't @ me#i know it's not the best
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A novelization of Loki and Thor’s ship journeys in Thor: The Dark World
Credit to Marvel for the characters, the plot, and the dialogue that is from the movie. @thorandlokibrothersforeternity
...I find my way into the dark ship, walking past Jane to where Thor is hopefully slapping assorted devices that may or may not be connected with awakening the vessel. “I thought you knew how to fly this thing.” I take up my old battle position, behind him and on his right.
He slaps away at his environs. “I said, how hard could it be?”
You idiot. Odin’s Einherjar are baying for our blood outside, battling Volstagg, and you haven’t an inkling how to awaken this, let alone fly it! “Well, whatever you’re doing brother, I suggest you do it faster.”
“Shut up, Loki.”
“You must have missed something.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m pressing every button on this thing.” He’s certainly trying.
It is a complex machine, I have to admit it. “No, don’t hit it. Just press it gently,” I say patiently.
He starts pummeling it with both great fists as if it were his partner in a fight, protesting, “I am pressing it gently, it’s not working!” All the light vanishes, and then blue charts and controls light the walls around us and he laughs triumphantly. Up in the air we go—does he know how to steer it? Around and around we spin, destroying columns, blue images of flying debris appearing on the walls. He does not know how to steer it.
I sigh. “I think you missed a column!”
“Shut up!” he bellows, sounding as if the need to attempt to steer is the only thing keeping him from using me to attack a wall again.
We blast out of the room by passing through the wall, and then flip sideways and under an arch of a viaduct. My stomach has taken up residence in my chest, my heart seems to be lost in some unknown location, and I’m discovering previously nonexistent stars. “Look, why don’t you let me take over, I’m clearly the better pilot.”
He’s enjoying this. “Is that right? Well out of the two of us, which one can actually fly?”
Light cannons fire bright blasts at us, but we keep flying. He chortles, apparently delighted by his father trying to kill him. Or perhaps by setting an Asgardian record for incompetence in pilots. I hear a soft noise and look back to see Jane in a small heap on the floor. He’s far too busy flying badly to notice, of course. “Oh dear, is she dead?”
“Jane!” he calls out.
She raises her hand and says weakly, “I’m okay.”
The fact that we’re being fired at distracts me from this impressive lie. Red light blazes over us as a missile strikes the front of the ship, and I duck with a startled exclamation. I didn’t really expect Odin to be so eager to kill Thor.
Thor flies through a golden tower, and I look back, needing to verify that we just flew through an entire edifice. He glances at me. “Not a word.”
Oh, lovely. Now the screens behind us are adorned with little warboats chasing us. “Now they’re following us.”
The ship jars all over as their fire strikes us, and I lose my footing and fall, rolling and standing up at Thor’s left, my bound hands making that harder than necessary. “Now they’re firing at us!” I announce, just in case he hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah thank you for the commentary Loki it’s not at all distracting!” he blurts, and flies us toward a high-arched tunnel through a hill of stone, statues flanking the entrance.
Our wing slices through the neck of one of Bor as we enter it. “Well done; you just decapitated your grandfather.” Out into sunlight and over the edge of a bright waterfall, and we’re still being shot at. I hate being shot at. I duck as an especially loud, bright shot flies at us, with another shout of “Ahhr!”
If my revenge on that monster fails because my brother was enough of an idiot to mange to get us shot down by Odin’s guards—“You know, this is wonderful. This is a Tremendous Idea.” He looks at me, probably wondering if I’m sincere, and I am overwhelmed by chagrin and the need to pace. “Let’s steal the biggest, most obvious ship in the universe, and escape in that! Flying around the city, smashing into everything in sight, so everyone can see us, it’s brilliant, Thor! It’s truly brilliant!”
His fist hits me in the chest, and I’m flying out of the side of the ship, air rushing about me and a shout rushing out of me--And Thor, caring as little as he would for any other Jotun monster, heaves me up, holds me by the throat, and does not even look at my face when he tosses me into the abyss—That never happened. I twist in the air, gasping, and see a small boat flying low above the water moments before I land hard in it, crouched, wrenching at my bonds as I try to spread my hands for a better landing. Thor lands on his feet beside me, carrying Jane, as Fandral chuckles. “I see your time in the dungeons has made you no less graceful, Loki!”
I wonder when he’ll notice that we are not friends. We’re flying past a bridge; I look up and before us and see the Dark Elf ship still being fired at by the Asgardian war boats. Thor is gently settling Jane into cushions; she is insensible, long dark lashes on white cheeks. “You lied to me,” I tell him softly. I tilt my head. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Thor says blandly. “Now do as you promised. Take us to your secret pathway.”
I grin as I find the steering gear, a thing like a rapier hilt, my heart still pounding in my throat from the falling and the false memory, the water a blur under us and ahead. I touch the curved metal lightly, the red light of the boat’s power glowing on my hand, and then grip it firmly and fly ahead, faster and faster and low, spray flying up into the back-speeding air as our hull brushes the water, faster and faster even as I curve across the lake. The air whisks past my ears and into my eyes. I could do anything now, dive us into the blue water, flip the boat, turn and speed at our enemies like a blast of magic—ah, we have a twin, firing at us. I swerve, lifting up into the air away from the lake frothing from fired force.
“Fandral,” Thor says, and he replies, “Right,” and leaps overboard with a rope and a declaration of “For Asgard!” to stop the shots that hound us.
Clashing, silence, no sound but the wind and the lake below us, soon striking at dark rocks. Mountains surround us and we pass them—and there’s the mountain I seek, and I fly at its dark side as though I desire nothing more than our wrecking.
“Lo-ki!” Thor admonishes.
I stare at the passage in the mountainside, concentrating, thinking of the wings on my boat, of how narrow the passage was when I climbed through it on foot into a dark realm. “If it were easy…everyone would do it.”
“Are you mad?” Thor demands as the passage comes closer and closer, scarcely a hair wider than our ship, stone surrounded.
“Possibly!” I say joyfully, my breath coming like the wind around us, all my mind bent upon that rocky, sideways mouth—and the sides are around us and we bang and skid against them, sparks and light of the passage’s magic flying around and after and over us until there is nothing but pure white light.
It blazes out behind us as we dart out under a darkly clouded golden sky, sparks falling onto the barren ground or flying up bright against mountains. We strike the ground and I steer us up again, the last sparks dropping, my heart hammering—“Ta-da!”
I hear Thor let out his breath, and with the sound and the sparks my verve vanishes, and every dark Elvish ruin ahead of us might as well be filled with a dark memory or thought that wishes to drag me to its lair. Quietly, I fly towards them, under a dim sun.
I sit down as I steer, suddenly tired, and watch Thor cover Jane with a blanket that shines even in this dull light. He gently strokes her brown hair, with love so visible that I lose any thought of this romance being mere admiration of her beauty.
I sigh, the exhaustion that made me lie in bed for days trying to take me even as I steer. “What I could do with the power, that flow through those veins.”
Thor looks at me, unhappily. “It would…consume you.” He’s worried about her, and well he should be; she’s being assaulted by a stone of power that never should have been in a mortal.
Yet I think he need not fear for her life for many hours yet. Nor should he assume that I would be as weak as a mortal, merely because I am not of Asgardian blood. “She’s holding up all right. For now….”
But what comfort is that? She’s a spring flower, a mortal—she’ll be old in a season, dead before he realizes she’s old. “She’s strong in ways you’ll never even know,” he says.
Mother was strong in every way ever known. I lean toward him. “Say goodbye.”
“Not this day.” Quietly, quickly.
As if such a decision could be made! “This day, the next, a hundred years, it’s nothing!” A thousand years—“It’s a heartbeat.” My tone grows harsh, my meaning shifting against my will. “You’ll never be ready. The only woman whose love you’ve prized will be snatched from you—“
Thor is shaking his head, sad, angry. “And will that satisfy you?”
Satisfy me? He thinks I rejoice in mortality, am glad that we are helpless against fate, hate him so that these are welcome so long as he writhes under them? “Satisfaction’s not in my nature,” I tell him softly.
“Surrender’s not in mine.” It never was. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve had to save your life so many times.
I smile and look at him askance, whispering, “The son of Odin….”
“No, not just of Odin. You think you alone were loved of Mother?” He looks up at me with moist eyes as I tense. “You had her tricks, but I had her trust!”
“Trust?” I say quietly, taking a step closer to him. “Was that her last expression?” He looks so appalled that her last expression having perhaps been a scream of pain comes into my mind, and I demand, “Trust? When you let her die?”
He moves toward me, my feelings on his face. “What help were you, in your cell?”
So you acknowledge that she would never have died had I been free to die for her? “Who put me there?” I ask him softly, and then I roar the question: “Who put me there?”
“You know **** well!” he shouts, slamming me back against the side of the ship, his hand at my throat. “You know **** well who!”
He’ll cast me away if I don’t break free. I try, but he slams me back again, his fist rising, just like Father’s before him—and lowering, unlike his father’s before him. He grits his teeth. “She wouldn’t want us to fight.”
I lower the hands I automatically raised to protect myself, the part of my anger that is for Thor leaving me. At least for now. “Well, she wouldn’t exactly be surprised,” I say softly, memories of her admonishments on our quarrels bringing both a smile and tears. Weariness makes me lean against the side of the boat.
Thor silently laughs, smiling, the memories of when we were quarrelsome friends and brothers in his face. “I wish I could trust you.” He stares at me for a long moment, and cannot do it.
My bound wrists ache so much that I grip one with the other hand, trying to ease it, as Thor turns and walks away from me. He shouldn’t trust me. But even I trust what rules me now. I straighten and step after him, against the wind, and whisper, “Trust my rage.”
For forever, long enough for me to master my emotions, his unanswering red-caped back is all the reply I get, but then his wide shoulders relax very slightly. “I have a plan,” he says briefly, and turns back toward me. “Can you make them think you’ve cut off my hand?”
“I can,” I say as I return to steering (not that it takes much, to fly in a straight line), scarcely needing to consider his question. That would be a simple enough illusion; simple, too, to make it look as if my magic cauterized the wound, so that I need not conjure up streams of blood.
“Good,” Thor says. “I need you to do that, after pretending to attack me. Somewhere where Malekith can see. Say that you are going to give the Aether to Malekith, and present Jane to him.”
I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to lower my brows again. “And?”
“He’ll draw the Aether from her, you’ll restore my hand, and I’ll obliterate it with Mjolnir. I’ll kill Malekith, and Kurse.” He expels the latter’s name with all the hatred that we share for it. “You’ll handle any Elves they have with them.”
“Without a dagger? I hope you’ll at least remove the fetters, brother.”
Thor sighs. “I have your dagger. The one you stabbed me with in Midgard.”
“I’ll use it with more…conviction than I did that day,” I tell him quietly, and he takes a step closer to me, questions in his eyes. I turn away to steer us around yet another dark vessel, grounded in Bor’s battle here, and he does not ask them.
No signs of Malekith’s ship yet on the horizon. It’s hard to see far in much a dark realm.
“She did not suffer long,” Thor says quietly. “Kurse—“ His voice breaks. “Kurse stabbed her in the back with his sword. Her heart. I was there the moment after, and she was dead already. She never cried out—“ Silence. My hands are trembling on the steering, all of it too clear, too visible, more vivid to see than the desolation about us, now empty even of grounded ships—the sharp sword, Mother falling, crumpling, pain on her face and then nothing—she’ll have sailed to Valhalla now, in flames and honor, gone forever. The dark light blurs.
“It was only a moment after,” Thor says hoarsely, behind me, and I turn to see him standing with his head bent, gripping Mjolnir so his knuckles are white.
We won’t crash if I cease steering here. I walk toward him and hesitate, and then put my hand on his shoulder—hands, rather, an awkward, fettered attempt to comfort him. He looks up, surprised, tears on his face, and I prepare myself to become undesirably close to the wall of the boat again, leaning away slightly as his fist comes toward me—but it opens, and grips my shoulder in return.
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The Female Gaze
I think, in the end, it was about the women, not the gay. I think the groundbreaking new thing BBC Sherlock wanted to do was to strengthen and re-evaluate the role of women in Sherlock Holmes adaptions. But that went horribly wrong.
Mofftiss always said they wanted to right something with their adaption that everybody else did get wrong. Well, what could that have been, as Holmes has even been portrayed as a mice? We all hoped for Johnlock… as this has been a reading of the canon especially appreciated by female/queer fans, because it takes into account a somewhat different interpretation from the cis white het male reading. Sherlock Holmes is somewhat ideal as a character to captify female readers - as he retorts to thinking and talking and not to violence in the first place to solve a problem, which are classic female strategies. Holmes mostly employs his brain and not his fists - which sets him apart from most male action / crime solving heros in a way women can relate to (but remember Gatiss’s poem, advocating a more physical Holmes? Making him into a cis white male het hero…?)
But as S4 clearly showed us that Johnlock wasn’t the goal - what else could have been the new, groundbreaking thing everybody had gotten wrong before?
Especially around TAB, but also before, Mofftiss talked excessively about the role of women in Sherlock Holmes adaptions; that the Zeitgeist when the stories had been written didn’t allow for many strong female characters. TAB was sold as a story about strong women and their empowerment - which sparked anger, because the women were portrayed as murderous furies. I’ll return to this later. The point here is that there were even panels at Sherlocked in 2016 harping on “Women in Sherlock”, emphasising their importance.
So, I think what Mofftiss felt necessary for a modern adaptation was to strengthen the role of female characters. Only, the brave thing then would have been to make Holmes and Watson both female. Which Mofftiss didn’t.
This got very long and is therefore continued under the cut.
As Mofftiss said themselves, instead they played heavily with the longstanding homoeritoc interpretation of the stories (feminising Sherlock and Watson?) - which appealed to gay and female and gay female fans. And, surpirse, surprise, they dig this; not the allegedly new / stronger female characters. But it was just a joke to the writer - whereas they were serious witht heir female characters like Moll yor Mary or Eurus. I think this misunderstanding of what the fans and the writers wanted respectively led to the train wreck of S4 (think about the Mary feature for the cinema screenings, for example, much hated around here!)
There is a great post going around about the male gaze in Sherlock. I’m sure every female person has been subjected to this sort of male gaze. Subjected, not enjoyed it. And that was one mistake. Mofftiss might not have seen what their characters were actually doing, how they were looking at each other - because they are male writers. To them, such a gaze is the normal look on the world. But not for female persons. For them, such a look is sexually charged. Mostly derogatory, or at least predatory. If a man looks at a women like Sherlock looks at John or vice versa, it’s a look of lusting after. Women / female persons see and know that, because we have to identify and interpret this look over and over in out lives to stay save. Men haven’t. For them, such looks might even be nothing special. But it is. This is one example where men and women read their reality differently. Therefore, female fans interpreted these glances in a sexual way, what Mofftiss couldn’t understand. They thought we were hypersexualising their show, because they are not accustomed to interpret such looks as the female fans are.
Therefore, they had no idea why so many (het) female fans read so much Johnlock into their show, as they just wanted to play with it a bit as a homage to Billy Wilder. This bafflement formed an unholy alliance with Mark Gatiss’s hate for fag hags, an ugly word for (het) females fantasising about gay men. He hates and mocks those women since League of Gentlemen days. He never tried to understand why women might have this kink in the first place. Gatiss seems to see those proclivities as perverted as many women see lesbian scenes in het porn. But there’s a difference.
Het porn is mostly made by and for men. The f/f scenes in it are almost always foreplay. Two women get it on, but a soon as a man enters, they go down on him. It feeds the idea that lesbian sex is just something women resort to when no man is around - otherwise they would, of course, go for the ‘real thing’ - an opinion that fuells the idea that lesbians just haven’t met the right man yet etc. In short, this opinion states that lesbian sex is not real sex. This is, of course, a derogatory view.
And totally not the same as (het) women enjoying gay porn! First, gay male porn is taken seriously as a sex act between two men. I’ve never seen it as interpretated as foreplay for f/m action. Never have I seen two guys making out, then a female enters and they are suddenly all over her. Male gay sex actions stays just this: only guys getting it on. And women watching can do this like “Well, two (3, 4, 5 …) dicks are better than one”, but they can also feel save while doing so: No woman will be subjected to anything in male gay porn. There’s no female character to compare oneself to and be found lacking in looks etc. There’s no violence against women in these movies, no abuse, no reducing them to their sexual organs, no exploitation of female sexuality. Women can just sit back and enjoy male gay porn without feeling involved. And some women like it, because, as with the male gaze, male sexual attention towards females can be predatory, violent, looking for a conquest etc. And some (het) women just don’t like that. So they escape to gay porn, where they might even identify with the taking side.
This is not necessarily deranged fetishising of gay m/m sex. Women have a sex drive as well, get over it, Mr Gatiss. Everyone sins differently, so, please, no kinkshaming. It can be a confident expression of female sexual desires. Only, female sexuality somewhat seems to scare men.
Paired with this misreading of women enjoying gay porn as a fag hag fetish was the idea that the female fans who shipped johnlock are mostly teenage girls/virgins - and this seems apparently not the target group those writers want to be admired by. But honestly - can a 14-year old virgin write something like The Cold Song? A Cure For Boredom? PiaLR? That’s not to say that young girls shouldn’t write fanfic - on the contrary, they should, to explore their sexual identity and proclivities in a save space. But I’m quite sure that most of this fandom’s best writers are the other side of 20, 30 and even 40 or 50. Because it needs experience to write really engaging sex scenes. Experiences I hope 14 year old girls simply don’t have yet. So, here’s another misunderstanding / misconception the writers have about this fandom (and they are not very eager to correct it, despite Moffat’s somewhat encouraging words towards fanfic writers. In the end, they can’ tget over themselves, it seems).
But somehow mature, sexually confident, intelligent women seem to frighten Mofftiss, despite their idea of giving women more room in a Sherlock adaptation. Why? Because mature, confident, feminist women KNOW that two men simply can’t strengthen and enhance female characters like they deserve it. Mofftiss knew that they couldn’t live up to feminist expectations, so they dismissed it outright, while even gaslighting female fans by ‘Look, we gave you great female characters, stop complaining!’ (And don’t get involved with this perverse thing called johnlock either).
Look at how Mofftiss have done this:
Molly is a het woman, constantly humiliated by Sherlock, yet still pining for him. She was the first new character invented by Mofftiss for their show. But not as a strong character, only as a female character. Even when she finally emancipates herself, she chooses a boyfriend ridiculously looking like Sherlock. That at least earns her a condescending kiss from the object of her desire. Bah! And when under stress, because Sherlock is shooting up and her engagement is over, she is only allowed to turn to the male form of stress relieve - violence. She slaps Sherlock! Why does she not talk to him, offer help, involve their friends? Because that would be the female approach, but that is unfathomable to the male writers.
Same with Irene (in canon a confident artist who wants to get married, not in the slightest interested in Holmes). In the BBC version, she becomes a lesbian (see above re: the value of lesbian sexuality) = has not yet met the right man (Sherlock). This is awful, becoming straight for Sherlock! I don’t mind the naked scene in her house so much, though. It’s not overtly sexualised, but can be read as self-confident and sexually assured. But I hate the wardrobe scene. Lara Pulver looks great in that green negligee and suspenders - but why was this scene necessary if not to charge the show hetero sexuall?. In the DVD comments, Mofftiss joke around that loads of people (men) suddenly hung around the set while this scene was filmed - to gaze at Lara Pulver in underwear. That is not funny, that is sexism! That is not a joke. She was displayed as a sexual object - not for herself or character growth, but for the pleasure of others. She was reduced to a sexual object for the male gaze, despite her character being a self-professed lesbian. Arghhh!
Mrs Hudson, on the other hand, is the devoted mother hen - another cliche. Only, in S4, she gets warped - again, like a man would want it, by having her drive an Aston Martin (cars=dicks). But it’s not even hers - she got it from her husband. She didn’t run a cartel, she was just typing… Giving her a fast car is not empowerment! Empowerment would have been to tell her tenants to brew their own tea!
Or look at Sally Donovan - the only WoC on the show apart from Hooper, who’s Asian (why are there no muslim women, disabled women etc on the show btw? Why is the female empowerment almost exclusively done via white women?): She calls Sherlock a freak, has an affair with a married man, who is an idiot, is sexually insulted by Sherlock for that in front of her collegues, and, in the end, is presented as a traitor, engaging in Sherlock’s downfall. Whereas Anderson is kind of redeemed later in MHR and TEH - nothing like this is waiting for Sally.
Or look at all of John’s girlfriends! Presented as jealous of Sherlock, helpless (Sarah), frustrated (Jeanette), some described as ugly (the one with the nose, the one with the spots). All of them are left by John for Sherlock the minute Sherlock asks him - now, imagine being one of those women. Would you like that? John treats those women like shit, not with respect.
I’m not going into the Mary story here, enough has been said about her. But just imagine for a moment being married to a closeted gay/bi man, secretly pining for his best friend… John treated Mary not much differently as Sherlock treated Janine.
Speaking of Janine! She’s befriended by Mary to get to Magnussen, courted by Sherlock for the same purpose, abused by her employer… only to get dropped by her fiance and dragged by the yellow press. The last thing is presented as her revenge - but at what cost? Picturing her as some kind of tabloid whore, as Sherlock says. What kind of treatment for a female character is this? Why again reduce her to a sex object?
Even Lady Smallwood is not allowed to be a strong independent woman - she is shown chatting up Mycroft!
Or Vivian Norbury! The old, lonely cat lady, still clinging to her dead husband.
And Eurus? Both Holmes brothers can channel their intelligence and use it for something good - but not the sister. No, as any female person, she just wants male attention and goes mad because she’s just too smart for her own good… seriously?!
I could go on and on… but I think you get the message. Mofftiss wrote female characters into the show and thought that would be enough to modernise the gender issue in the Holmes’s stories. But Mofftiss are not able to write strong, empowering female characters because they are men. They live in a men’s world (remember Hooper, who had to become a man to be successful?). That means, for example, that they reduce women to their sexuality, and advocate they resolve problems with violence, like the women in TAB. Think about it… why did they not just leave their husbands and settle somewhere in the country, together, supporting themselves with needlework? Well, that doesn’t sound very exciting, does it, but it was the female way back in Victorian times. You could leave your husband and seperate. Or you could poison him - but not shoot or stab him.
There’s a sad truth to poison being a woman’s weapon - because usually, a man is stronger in hands on combat. Therefore, a man who beats his wife to death is usually just sentenced for manslaughter - it happened at the spur of the moment, no killing intended. But a woman who wants to get rid of her abuser has to do this when he sleeps, for example, or via poison or drugs, to be able to overpower him. This is mostly seen as cunning by the courts, which is a feature proving murder. A woman freeing herself from an abuser is seen as guilty of premeditation (= another feature of murder), whereas a man who beats his wife over many years unitl she dies from his abuse is exculpated exactly by this prolonged abuse, because he couldn’t expect the wife to die from his violence - as she lived through it for many years.
Sorry, but this is where the male gaze leads us - to a world made up and after male standards. But applying those standards to women is not empowering - it is still subjecting them to the male prerogative.
And many feminist fans see this (now) and ask why this happened. They criticise the male writers for this. Who kind of pout now, feeling perhaps misunderstood, as they wanted to give us strong female characters in a modern version on Sherlock Holmes and believed they succeeded with Eurus, Molly and Mary, even giving her the last word. And they don’t understand why we we don’t like it. Instead, all we wanted seems to have been gay porn! (Honestly, if we want to see dudes fuck, we know exactly where we can get that, Mofftiss).
They can’t come around to our view of what is and has been going on. They can’t see us the way we are, because they have a totally different perspective and no inclination to change that. They think our criticism is juvenile, that we are ungrateful - as if the very idea of a largely (queer) female fanbase being grateful towards male showrunners isn’t fucked up to the extreme!
As I said at the beginning - if they wanted a Sherlock Holmes adaption that empowers women - make Holmes and Watson female. If you don’t want to go there - leave them as they are, together. No women are needed - especially not like Mofftiss wrote them. Explore Holmes and Watson’s friendship, and see where it takes you… Johnlock didn’t come out of nowhere. Holmes isn’t the typical 19th century male - he’s moody, thin, pale, likes music… all then and now characteristics associated with feminity. Perhaps that’s why he has such a broad, devoted female fanbase? Perhaps it would be empowering to allow us our reading and make it canon?
The first step, if you want to give women an empowering modern Sherlock Holmes adaption, is: Take the female fans seriously!
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So lovely peeps of Whitby and beyond.
I’ve regaled you of the wars and momentous rescues but I stopped before the greatest threat to my existence that came I the 1950s when the government passed a law that made money available for slum clearance.
“That’s good”, I hear you say!
Well, it is if the buildings that you intend to demolish are not representative of the life of the town and they are in real disrepair.
If we use the latter criteria then the last decade would have seen me off. There are no grants for listed buildings, we need someone with cash, love, enthusiasm and with the tradesmen on board with what is meant to be achieved.
Church Street
Let’s go back to the Victorian age gave way to the Edwardians and Adalina Patti wowed the listening masses with,” The Last Rose of Summer” through the trumpet of the gramophone (well the odd few who could afford them) I, along with the beautiful houses on Boulby Bank were in our prime.
There was much in front of us of course, Church Street was flanked with houses and businesses on both sides. There were wonderful communities that thrived and supported each other in close knit units that occupied the houses in ‘yards’ where sometimes even the toilets were communal and I’ll come to that a little later.
The Esk flowed as a tidal river some two hundred yards from my door with cottages, wharves and ship repair yards on the one side complemented with pubs, forges, shops, the odd bakery and lots of cottages stretching up the bank on the other side of the street. All was well, trade and development were brisk and people happy.
As the century progressed there were wars, wrecks (and rescues), flooding, good times and Church Street went from being the beating heart of Whitby to a neglected element as money was spent at the other side of the Esk to cater for visitors on West Cliff and along that side of the river.
As the fight between demand and money tussled with the whims of those making the decisions there was much redevelopment in the area between Church Street and the Esk which resulted in the loss of many of the buildings. The harbour swallowed up the houses and businesses as it edged towards my front door. At one time there were planks to my front that acted as a walkway over the dark water of the dock. At this time there was a high risk of flooding and my occupants would be ready with sandbags and buckets, sometimes sitting through the night ready to pale the seawater back into the dock. It didn’t happen often but I could feel the anxiety as they discussed the line-up of the moon and planets together with the crude sailors’ predictions for the weather. They knew fairly well when the tide would be high but there was less certainty with the wind direction. If the wind was strong and from the North and the tide predicted to be high then the combined pull of the planets and the push from the seaward fetch of the water combined to create major floods along the low-lying streets of Whitby.
If the gods were really angry and storms had been drenching the moors above the town for a few days or a sudden thaw was melting the snow at such a rate that the heather would generously release it together with all of the water that it had sponged and frozen throughout the winter; then the real cataclysmic floods would happen as moon, planets and wind contrived to push the sea up the Esk and the Esk countered by attempting to deliver the contents of the moors to the sea.
There’d be foam and brackish water blowing along the streets and frantic efforts by occupants to dam its path. For many, it would be futile and the following weeks would be filled with mopping, drying, removing sand, replacing wooden floors and, in some cases, looking for the source of the stench which would usually be related to the rotting corpse of some sea or river life that had been deposited under a floor or behind a wall.
When Church Street was re-established, it was made much higher to reduce the likelihood of floods and I now have three steps down to my living room. Traffic returned. In the early part of the century, it was hand-carts, horse-drawn carts, and horse-drawn carriages but they gave way to motorcars, vans, wagons and charabancs with visitors craning their necks to see the jawbones on the cliff and excited children desperate to be the one to get the first glimpse of the sea.
Boulby Bank
Boulby Bank cottages were built at a ninety-degree angle to Church Street and rose at quite a rake up the bank. They were brick built with pantile roofs and were accessed via wooden stairs and verandas. As the Victorian period became the Edwardian years the row was in good condition and the allotments in front of them were either used for food and, where they were overgrown, the children would play hide and seek in the grass and bracken.
In the 1940s and 50s they were neglected and the weather had taken its toll but a more enlightened period may have taken a different approach to what happened in 1958. The wrecking ball was sent swinging against the two-hundred-year-old bricks and within a few days the rubble was ready for carting away.
I managed to escape the swinging ball of destruction by virtue of a water closet. Apparently, one of the criteria for the decision to demolish was whether the building had mains sewage and as I had been a pub, I did meet the criteria and was saved. Many of the cottages had a plank with a hole cut in it.
Under this wonderful toilet seat there would be an oblong tin about the size of a tin bath. It was housed in a small, unheated brick building at the end of the yard and may well have been shared with the other houses. This was clearly the reason for the pot under the bed (sometimes referred to as a guzzunder) after all, who would want to leave the house in the middle of a cold and snowy winter night in a dressing gown with a storm lantern to light the way! Even a gentleman of generous dimensions would find it difficult to find his object of attention in temperatures of minus ten with snow and sleet blowing in under the three-quarter length door. I would add that the more sophisticated of these planks had two holes cut in so that both you and a friend could sit together and chat whilst errr, ‘sitting’, well I think that’s how it’s spelt! At least it would cut down on queuing.
Anyway, I’m still here in 1959.
…and still enjoying life in this picture with the shop next door and Majors Bakery next to that this time in the 1960s.
During that decade and after another change of hands I had a new fireplace fitted with a back boiler and the family now had hot water on tap, so to speak. There was also a lot of activity on my interior walls when plastic and cement were used to try to stem the moisture that was beginning to permeate what had been an internal wall but after the demolition of the forge next door it was left exposed to the elements.
The temporary cement fix had the desired effect but only for a short period of time as the cement stopped my walls from breathing and the plastic hid the smell for many years. There was also a fashion for the use of plywood faced with a fake wooden veneer that gave the impression of stylish and sophisticated wood panelling, all of this combined to hide what was becoming an issue especially after the new apartments were built next door.
During the 1970s more building happened and demolition seemed to abate and I get new neighbours.
To be continued…
Please feel free to share or comment, I love comments.
With love, The Little Yellow Cottage xx
Little Yellow Cottage – Update 17 – Demolition and the Value of the WC So lovely peeps of Whitby and beyond. I’ve regaled you of the wars and momentous rescues but I stopped before the greatest threat to my existence that came I the 1950s when the government passed a law that made money available for slum clearance.
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