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sammysdewysensitiveeyes · 11 months

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I read the original X-Men 1-66, and I have thoughts. Long, meandering thoughts.

I have to admit, I was actually relieved when I realized that the original run was just issues 1-66, and everything else up to the introduction of the Giant Size X-Men crew was reprints.

Honestly, it was a slog. Old comics can be fun, but it’s hard to get into the right mindset for them, and they are very dialogue heavy. And that’s coming from someone who actually wishes we had more dialogue in current X-Comics, or at least more thought balloons. Like we’ve gone from too much dialogue, including a lot of characters narrating their actions, to a more “natural” dialogue that also can lead to some characters getting very little to say and no real development if a writer doesn’t balance the book well.

Stan Lee’s writing definitely has a unique style to it, and I can see why he was popular. But I can also see why Claremont’s work really revolutionized the book and more or less “saved” the X-Men from cancellation and obscurity. Stan (and the writers who came after him) tended to write more in the style of individual sci-fi adventures, where there are interesting ideas and concepts and weird gadgets in every issue, but character development and emotions tend to take a backseat. And when the soap opera elements are included, they tend to be written in a somewhat clumsy way, like Scott’s constant “Oh, how I love Jean, but I dare not date her when my uncontrollable optic blasts make me a danger to everyone around me!” or the Juggernaut being Xavier’s step-brother. Meanwhile, Claremont’s story-telling was more sci-fi/superhero soap opera, with the character interactions and drama being an integral part of every issue.

I will say, the early issues still did a lot to establish the personalities of the characters. We get Beast the wordy intellectual, although that development takes a few issues (his first appearance, he just seems like a big lug, like the Thing), Bobby the youngest and class clown, Scott the serious brooding leader, Warren the rich boy who is initially a rival for Jean. Jean sometimes feels like the token girl, and often winds up playing the peacemaker, but in her very first appearance she proves that she won’t take any crap from the guys. The characters tend to separate into little groups, with Bobby and Hank hanging out at an exaggerated parody beatnik coffee house listening to bad poetry and Scott/Warren/Jean usually off in their own little dating rivalry love triangle thing.

I think the main thing early X-Men had going for it was ideas and characters. This run gave us the 05, Xavier, Magneto, Juggernaut, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Banshee, and near the end, Havok ad Polaris. But the execution wasn’t always great, and I’d argue that all those characters were better developed later, by other writers.

It’s very interesting looking at which characters stuck and which didn’t. In the early issues it was a new villain almost every issue, and Vanisher and Blob were treated as threats on the same level as Magneto. Some characters who are treated as a really BIG DEAL like Lucifer and Mutant Master basically vanish from the books after their defeat, and are largely forgotten.

Roy Thomas takes over after Stan Lee, and does some things I like, like resolving the Scott/Jean/Warren love triangle by having Warren give up and reconnect with Candy Southern. Some storylines are set up in advance, like Jean’s college “friend” Ted Roberts spends a lot of time talking about his older brother, and right as I’m wondering why the fuck we should care about that, Ted’s brother Ralph Roberts becomes the villain Cobalt Man. Mimic joins the team for about two issues, and I love the drama.

On the flip side, there were a lot of really bad one-off villains after Stan Lee left. Cobalt Man is basically Ralph Roberts in an Ironman suit, becoming drunk with power after hitting his head. (The concussion is blamed for his personality change, but it seems like Cobalt Man becomes a recurring villain, so maybe Ralph is just kind of a shitty dude.) There are characters like The Locust, a scientist who can make insects huge, and Frankenstein who is actually an alien robot. The X-Men also fight a few FF villains, like Mole Man and Blastaar, who just randomly shows up one issue then gets banished back to the Negative Zone. There’s a Beast flashback story with a villain called the Conquistador and it’s so fucking stupid. Scott and Jean fight robots from under the Earth.

I thought the Factor Three storyline was decent, at least it was ongoing drama instead of a one-off fight. The idea to assemble a bunch of old X-Men villains, and then to have them all turn on the leader, Mutant Master, when they realize that he’s actually trying to destroy all life on Earth, mutant and human alike, is interesting! But Banshee was probably the only interesting character with any staying power that came out of that. The Ogre disappeared out of the comics pretty quickly, and only resurfaced (and got any kind of character development) in Thunderbolts. Mutant Master wass revealed to be an alien from Sirius and died, and was ultimately kind of a dud. Changeling might have been an interesting recurring character, especially since he is the one who realizes that Mutant Master is not being honest with the group, but of course he has his redemptive death in Xavier’s place.

Overall, it’s been interesting to read the comics, not just for the history of the characters, but to see the history of comics, and how story-telling and art styles have changed over the decades. The early Kirby stuff is great, of course, but his work, and the artists that came afterwards tend to be just square panels, arranged in a very set, predictable way. When I finally got to later issues, with artists like Steranko for a couple of issues, and Neal Adams, it was like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly the art was breaking the formula, and doing genuinely interesting things, re-arranging the panels in new ways, letting the art break out of the panel, using different angles. It’s all stuff that is pretty standard now, but I’m sure it was revolutionary at the time, it feels very different from everything that came before. Neal Adams in particular uses creative panel arrangements and has great detail on character faces.

Random thoughts, and panels out of context:

Psychic powers were much more vaguely defined back then. Xavier could mentally scan and even effect machinery, or scan a room to determine what happened the the recent past. Also Magneto could astral project himself in early issues, but Marvel just kinda forgot about that.

Whatever happened to Bobby and Hank’s “girlfriends,” Vera and Zelda? They ducked out of dates so often for X-Men business, they deserved to get dumped, but Vera and Zelda just kind of disappeared around the time Lorna showed up as Bobby’s new “love interest.”

I miss the Hank/Bobby friendship. Beast has gone so far dark in the comics, you’d think Bobby would have something to say about that.

I’ve said it before, but writers and adapters that keep wanting to make Wanda and Pietro dark or loyal Brotherhood members or anti-heroes because “they started out as bad guys” need to actually read the old issues. It is blatantly obvious from their very first appearance that they are only with the Brotherhood reluctatantly, and that they will eventually change their minds and leave Magneto – which they do.

I got used to thinking of Scott and Jean as this epic romance, but they honestly spend most of this first run silently pining for each other. Jean is all “If only he felt the same for me that I do for him, but I can’t possibly hope for that, he must focus on leading the X-Men,” and Scott is all “If only I could love Jean as a normal person, but my powers are too dangerous!” It goes on like this for dozens of issues. I don’t even know if we got a real love confession at any point, there’s just one later issue that reveals that they are finally dating. (Maybe it happened in the Avengers crossover issue?)

(Neal Adams again, I love his art, it feels so different from the earlier stuff)

The X-Men were kind of jerks to Blob in his first appearance. Like they are immediately kind of pushy and rude, and Xavier can't even fathom that Blob might say "No" to joining them.

Xavier also did a lot of indiscriminate mind-wiping back then. Blob forgets knowing the X-Men's identities, Vanisher forgets his powers and his own identity, and it's all treated as perfectly reasonable, not Xavier abusing his powers.

Lorna shows up, gets kidnapped and has her mutant powers activated, then is told she’s Magneto’s daughter and is like, “Well, I have no reason to question that, and also this means I have to support him even though he’s evil.” Bobby brings the news that she’s not really Magneto’s daughter, but of course Marvel will say “Never mind, she actually is!” decades later. Also, it turns out the Magneto in this story was a robot the whole time.

So many stories start off in the Danger Room, or have the characters get into random fights just for the sake of an action sequence.

The whole Xavier is in love with Jean thing thankfully only gets mentioned a couple of times, then quickly dropped.

Havok is introduced as “Cyclop’s kid brother whom Cyclops has mysteriously never mentioned or spoken about.” He takes Scott's "I'm cursed with dangerous powers!" thing, but dialed up to eleven, with uncontrollable energy blasts from his hands. Also, Alex is introduced at his college graduation, which would seem to make him at least 21, unless he got a 2 year degree. Which would make Scott at least in his early 20’s, where he would stay for the next several decades. Did Scott ever go to college? Does he have the equivalent of a degree studying under Xavier? What about Hank, the smart guy?

Speaking of college, whatever happened to Jean’s college story? We don’t see her graduate, Ted Roberts (and the suggestion that he might know Jean’s secret identity) gets dropped like a hot rock. At one point the X-Men have been ordered to break the team up after Xavier’s death, and Jean is working as a model, so either she graduated or dropped out.

Bobby and Scott really clash over Polaris when she is first introduced, and maybe this is where the weird animosity between Iceman and Cyclops comes from in the animated series. It’s especially odd since Cyclops tends to butt heads more with Warren in the early comics, while Bobby just gets scolded for joking around too much.

So many issues start with the X-Men training, or having a random fight just for the sake of an action sequence.

The X-Guys all get backstories that are different shades of fucked up. Scott runs away from the orphanage when his powers start to emerge, then has another mutant who used radiation to turn his hands into diamond try to use Scott to commit crimes. (The diamond hand mutant turns his entire body to diamond then explodes.) Warren tried to become a crime-fighter called “The Avenging Angel” before Xavier found him. Beast was actually well-accepted and popular but had a really dumb villain kidnap his parents to try to force him to commit crimes. Oh, and Iceman almost got fucking lynched by townspeople when he used his ice powers to protect a girl. Jean didn’t get a backstory.

So many of the guys, even Xavier in his backstory, were both good students AND star athletes, like it was necessary for a character to be good at both. I guess the days of jock vs. nerd would come later.

One time they are all ice-skating and Bobby gets attacked at the pond by the Super Adaptoid, and everyone is like, “Bobby, are you sure you’re not imagining things,” as if they don’t get attacked by something weird every other day.

Bobby: "You guys, I got attacked by a robot!"

Everyone else: "Well, Scott didn't see it, so we see no need to investigate this!"

Erik the Red, or that time that Scott went undercover wearing a bondage outfit:

The older stories also had more narration that broke the fourth wall, spoke directly to the reader and would make these winking jokes to fans. Like the early stories were very aware that this is all fantasy, as opposed to later stories becoming more immersive. Like this kinda racist story about a guy who calls himself El Tigre who becomes the avatar of a Mayan god:

Stan Lee like, "How does this work scientifically? Eh, a wizard did it."

A lot of the early stories dealing with other cultures were not great. Like the Pharaoh/Living Monolith, an Egpytian mutant/archeologist who dresses up like an ancient Pharaoh and makes his followers do the same. Sunfire's first appearance has him wanting revenge for WWII, but at least he is treated as a sympathetic character. Cyclops uses the term "camel-jockeys" at one point, and we'll all just try to forget about that.

Also, a lot of the early stories had parent's exposure to radiation as the reason for mutant children, as opposed to the later "We are mankind's next step in evolution" theme.

Where do comic book villains get so many followers willing to dress up in goofy costumes and kill people on their commands? Pharaoh has his followers, the Conquistador had guys in goofy helmets. None of them seem like great bosses, I'd understand if they offered a really solid dental plan or something. Maybe people in the Marvel and DC universes are just waiting for any excuse to go apeshit.

After the Sentinels kidnap a bunch of mutants, I love this one panel with poor Banshee, Wanda and Pietro stuck with all the asshole mutants:

I hope Blob and Unus ran off to go rob some banks and party together. Interesting that Jean name-drops both Magneto and Changeling as mutants who weren't caught by the Sentinels. Jean, he's dead. You know he's dead. But of course you can't say that. It was a different writer who brings back Xavier via retconned-heroically-dead-Changeling a few issues later, but I wonder if the plans were already in place, and that's why Changeling was noticeably absent.

And of course Xavier not being a very good teacher/mentor:

"Scott and Jean are in trouble! Eh, it's probably fine, I have to continue these super-important experiments. I'll just send the others."

I still can't get over Xavier basically locking himself in the basement while the X-Men thought he was dead. Later stories justify that he was in a psychically-shielded room so that the aliens couldn't probe his mind and know his plan, but still. It was so cruel and the dude got very lucky that the former terrorist he put in charge of his students decided to stay good instead of changing his mind at any point.

Xavier also at one point pretends to lose his mental powers to "test" his students and force them to fight on their own. Damn, dude. Magneto's no better, and in many ways worse, but damn.

Anyway, these are goofy comics that are kind of fun, but the best days of the X-Men would come later.

#long post

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princess-of-the-corner · 1 year

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Oh, what are your headcanons/ideas for Caballeron?

Okay so it was like. A lot? A chunk of them were written before 'Daring Done?' I think but I kinda rolled with changing that episode to fit.

ANYWAY

So!

Caballeron and Daring first met in the archaeology department at college(both of them have a doctorate in the field). She was a year older and the two weren't really close but they were aware of each other's existence.

While Daring went straight into adventuring, Caballeron tried more usual archaeology and ended up as a professor himself.

However...

Archaeology is a bit unpopular and underfunded due to certain things. Namely that just. A chunk of history has been rewritten. Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony got the /best/ treatment of being just legend. Discord, Chrysalis and the Changelings, Sombra and the entire Crystal Empire, plus a lot of other stuff I'm adding to the Lore like other Immortals? All erased. No one's heard of any of it.

The Royal Family is aware, Celestia having lived through all that and her nieces and nephews learning family secrets. But at this point there's been so much rewritten and at the time Celestia thought it was better for the Kingdom if left forgotten, but now it's gone too far to turn back.

Except archaeologists dig that up. Because ancient artifacts would show that those things existed or mentioned them. But it goes so against the history and trying to say "hey this ancient carving indicates that there were several Immortals" when everyone /knows/ there's only Celestia and surely Celestia would've said something if she had a bunch of siblings, right?

haha....

So yeah very few Ponies have a genuine interest in archaeology and those that do usually become a bit disillusioned after a while.

This is what happened with Caballeron. He would find something on a dig, and then get it ignored. So why not do something with it and make some money for himself?

But he's not entirely disillusioned which is why he still teaches. But still.

Caballeron also doesn't.... He doesn't quite realize that some of the stuff he's selling are powerful and dangerous artifacts. Again, the Ponies have far too much faith in Celestia being able to keep track of and lock up any doomsday device. And he leaves after he gets paid for getting the thing, so he never sticks around to see Daring deal with the aftermath.

He does run into Daring again and while he offers to partner up, she thinks he's a villain and is also determined to work alone so she turns him down. They do keep up the Rivalmance though whenever they meet.

Caballeron finds out about Daring's books. A few of his students ask him about it since the character in the books match him directly. He's amused by Daring including him, even as a villain, but assumes that a majority of it is a work of fiction and Daring just used him for a few scenes. So he's like 'yeah I know the author and she put me in the book don't worry there's no doomsday artifacts haha'.

Eventually he gets roped into the rest of one of Daring's adventures and has a whole crisis of finding out the rest of the books are full real and also that he kinda had a hand in near world-destruction a few times. Daring's like 'My dude.... really??' but that does make a lot of his actions over the years make sense.

That shit kinda realigns your moral compass so he's not down for stealing in favor of random shady motherfuckers. But he does do regular stuff like Daring does now and if they happen to run into each other they actually mostly joke on the rivalry and work together more. The rivalry more comes into play at the end of 'who manages to run off with the treasure first?'.

Okay stepping away from direct archaeology for a moment:

At some point I decided that Caballeron and Filthy Rich were cousins. They're pretty close actually. Not as much as when they were kids because life got in the way, but he'll still pop around for birthdays and Hearth's Warming.

He is absolutely the 'fun uncle' to Diamond. Nice gifts and teaching the kid some badass skills behind her mom's back.

Speaking of. Caballeron definitely does not like Spoiled. He's never around often to really put his hoof on why she bothers him, plus she's nice because he brings great gifts at Hearth's Warming. But he is not surprised when Rich gets full custody in the divorce.

Since he's been to Ponyville, he's met Pinkie. And Pinkie is down to make friends with everyone so while he thinks she's a bit weird, he rolls with it. I think he's probably met AJ and Rarity in town before, but not in any capacity where they would recognize each other.

Caballeron was surprised to see her during the adventure in 'Daring Don't', but didn't really think much of it because. Well. It's. It's Pinkie. You don't question Pinkie.

This does lead to a bit of fun at some point when he's in town and Rainbow just sees him and fuckin tackles his ass.

Rainbow: "What the hell are you doing here???"

Caballeron: "Well happy Hearth's Warming to you too but what the fuck?"

Man is not the most observant when it comes to Ponies. So he totally never connected 'the rainbow-maned mare that helped Daring those few times' to 'Rainbow Dash the Wonderbolt and Element of Loyalty'. So that throws him for a fuckin loop.

But hey Daring says he's cool now and Dash has befriended worse so she's like 'okay it's chill."

He actually shows up at a great time because Twilight is actually kinda looking for an archaeologist pony to help her deal with everything in the old castle in Everfree.

She offers that and he's a little sus about it because that place is definitely full of historical things most ponies love to dismiss in his line of work. But that is exactly why Twilight wants to dig through the place. She confirms his suspicions about things being hidden purposely, and the Major Events happening have made even common ponies notice that fact. So they're gonna catalogue everything.

Caballeron actually loves the castle and its' traps. He makes part of the deal with Twilight be that he can bring his students there to practice dodging more dangerous ones in other places, because as of right now he just has a very home-alone-esque setup obstacle course but this is fantastic!

Also that one kid Petunia Paleo ends up his TA when she's older.

#mlp rewrites

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beels-burger-babe · 3 years

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All is Fair in Dice and War

***Soooo, @bagelsinatoaster I love this request. However, you didn't specify which board game and as I am a huge nerd I decided to take some creative liberties and combine this with another idea I've been meaning to write which is: MC introducing the demon bros to Dungeons and Dragons. I certainly had fun with this and I hope you like it!*** Summary: Leviathan's world is flipped upside down when MC tells him there is a game that basically allows him to be the Lord of Shadows in real life!! He demands that his brothers join him as MC introduces them all to the chaotic shit show that is Dungeons & Dragons. For once, it was a peaceful day in the House of Lamentation. Lucifer was lounging in the living room with a cursed record playing softly in the background. For once, Satan had willingly joined him and was sitting by the fireplace, thumbing through a book on the human world. Belphie had been passed out on the couch when he arrived and was still laying there with an impressive puddle of drool collecting near his mouth. Even Asmodeus and Beel had joined in, with Asmodeus gently humming to himself as he painted his nails and Beelzebub happily munching on a snack as he enjoyed the sight of his family getting along. Yes. It was perfectly quiet and peaceful, and Lucifer didn't even have any traces of his regular migraine. But of course, nothing good lasts forever. Everyone jumped as the door slammed open and a wide-eyed Leviathan dragged you into the room. The two you very closely followed by Mammon loudly complaining. "Oi! You're gonna hurt them! Cut it out, Levi!" Lucifer sighed and closed his eyes, momentarily mourning the peace that he had just barely begun to enjoy, and closed his book. "Leviathan, let MC go. What are you freaking out about this time?" Lucifer regretted asking the moment the words left his mouth. Levi looked at it with the expression he only ever got when his limited edition Ruri-Chan merch arrived; his eyes were wide and glittering with excitement while his face bore a grin so large that Lucifer was surprised it didn't rip his skin. The third-born was practically vibrating as he let go of your wrist and pushed you forward. "Tell them! Tell them about the game!"

You laughed at Levi's excitement and casually rubbed your wrist. "I was just telling Leviathan about a game that we play in the human world called Dungeons and Dragons-" "You get to make a fantasy world that everyone plays in, and everyone makes characters. You can be a wizard and cast spells against a huge monster! Or a war hero fighter that has been betrayed by his brother! Or a noble knight who is looking for his lost kingdom! And the best part is that it's real!" Levi interrupted, nearly jumping in place as stars danced in his eyes. You put your hands out towards him to try and calm him a bit. "Well, not entirely real. It is played in person, but it's a role play tabletop game, meaning it mostly relies on the players' imagination. That is unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on 3D maps and figurines of your characters." Levi's eyes grew even wider, if possible, as he started shaking his hands up and down. "I CAN HAVE A FIGURINE OF A CHARACTER THAT I MADE?! GAAAAAAAAAHH!" A pillow flew across the room and hit Levi square in the face as a now awake Belphegor glared at him. "Will. You. Shut. Up?" the Avatar of Sloth hissed as a dark dangerous aura grew around him. Beel gently patted his twin's head in hopes of calming him. Leviathan pouted as he noticed no one else seemed to be getting excited about it. "C-Come on guys! This isn't even a video game! It's a thing that we can all do together and personalize it to be something that everyone will like. It'll be fun! Right MC?" You nodded as you gently tossed Belphie's pillow back over to him. "Yeah. I love D&D. I played it all the time in the human world. There's action, suspense, and even romance if you really wanted it," a couple of the brothers perked up at that. "I could put together a one-shot for you guys to try it out if you'd like? I'll help you make your characters, and we can all get together for an evening and play it sometime in a couple weeks." The room went quiet as everyone thought it over. Most of them had no interest in the game itself, but if it was organized by you... "I'm in," Beel decided with a nod. "I think it will be fun. All of us trying something new; it could be neat." Satan casually flipped a page in his book, "The creative aspect of it is definitely appealing. We'd be the masters of our own fate, and that most certainly piques my interest." Asmodeus smirked as he put the cap on his nail polish. "And you said it could be whatever we want? My, one might say that this game could help our wildest fantasies come true~" he made sure to wink at you as he giggled. Belphie, who had only just got back his pillow, scrunched up his face in disgust and launched it at Asmo. "Don't make this weird Asmo," he looked over at you and shrugged, "So long as you do all the work in putting together the character thing, sure. Why not?" Mammon looked over at you from the corner of his eye. "Ya mean to tell me, that you can make it so I'm some awesome, rich, and powerful prince?" Asmo scoffed as he pushed the pillow off his lap. "Please Mammon, even the world of make-believe has its limitations." Mammon blushed as he growled at his brother. You just chuckled and teasingly elbowed his side. "Don't listen to him, Mammon. There is a set amount of how much money you start out with depending on your class and background, but I'm sure we can find something that will make you happy." The second-born blushed even more as he grumbled quietly under his breath. Lucifer tilted his head in thought. "I suppose that if everyone else is playing, naturally I must as well," he stood and began to make his way to his office. "I look forward to seeing what you come up with MC." The next two weeks were spent planning and carefully figuring out the details of the one-shot and the characters that everyone was going to play. Levi was, of course, the first one who came to you to build his character. The two of you spent hours going through the Player's Handbook and sourcebooks to find the perfect build to recreate the Lord of Shadows. In the end, you put

together a human fighter that you gave a couple magic items to make Levi's vision really come to life. It seemed basic, but for the Lord of Shadows, it was perfect. The moment the two of you finished, Levi dove to his computer and ordered a custom-made mini that looked exactly like his character. Satan was genuinely interested in the game, especially after he learned about all the lore and rules behind the different classes and races. You had just been chilling in your room one day when the door burst open. Satan stood there with wide eyes holding a copy of Volo's Guide to Monsters. "MC, why didn't you tell me there are cat people?!" You chuckled, knowing exactly where this was going. "They're called tabaxi, but yeah, they're basically cat people. Would you like to play as one?" He scoffed and snapped the book shut. "Is that even a question? Of course, I'm playing as one." After some discussion and bouncing back and forth between classes a couple of times, Satan settled on a tabaxi druid; that way he not only looked like a cat, but he could speak to them as well. After a few days of you spending time with his brothers focusing on getting their characters ready, Mammon came to you wanting the coolest, most epic character ever. At first, it was clear that he wasn't fully invested in the process, but as he saw the customizable options and all the cool stuff that his character could have, you got his attention. You ended up designing a golden teifling rogue (you tried to tell Mammon that teifling usually wasn't yellow, but he gave you such a sad look that you couldn't say no) that was decked out with piercings and gems all over its horns and tail. He tried to act like he wasn't that excited about it, but one day during class you caught him doodling what looked like a stick figure version of the character on his sheet with a big smile on his face. Asmodeus came in shortly after Mammon finished,

insisting on having the most charming and beautiful character there was. You tapped your chin at the request. "I mean, stereotypically bards are extremely charming and...well seductive...almost too seductive. But that's only thei-" Asmo had hearts in his eyes before you could even finish. "That's what I want to be!" You sighed and made a mental note not to include any dragons in the session as you marked Asmo down to be an elven bard and helped him create his character sheet. You hadn't heard anything from Lucifer for nearly that entire first week, until one day as you were lounging in the living room, he walked in holding a stack of resource books. "Ah, MC. I've been looking for you. I wanted to inform you that I will be playing a half-elf multiclassing as a paladin and hex-blade warlock." You blinked at him as he put all the books down in front of you. "O-Oh. Would you like help putting together your character sheet?" He just grinned and began to make his way out of the room once more. "I've already done it. I must admit that this was quite a bit more interesting than I thought it would be," and with that he was gone, leaving you to try and figure out what had just happened. With only a few days left until the one-shot, you had to go find the twins and get them to make their characters. Beel apologized like crazy for you having to track him in down in order to get his character made. The poor guy was in the middle of peak Fangol season and had completely forgotten. Once the two of you sat down in the kitchen with an empty character sheet in one hand and snacks in the other, Beel gave you his full attention. He put a lot of thought in his character and wanted to make it really good since he appreciated that you were doing something that they could all do as a family. He bashfully decided to play a halfling. Not only did the little creatures share his love for food, but he thought it would be neat to try being small for once. His class was also a surprise. After carefully flipping through all of the class options, he had eventually settled on a cleric. "They're the healers, right? This way I can help the others if someone gets hurt." You gave him a huge hug then and there. Belphegore, on the other hand, was not so easy to work with. "Belphie, come on. Just flip through the book and choose something!" He groaned into his pillow and rolled onto his side to glare at you. "I told you I would play if you did all the work for me. Me flipping through a book is work. It's not happening." After an entire hour of trying to get him to cooperate, you gave up. In retaliation you made his character a goblin barbarian, just to drive in the fact of how much of a brat he was acting like.

Finally, the day came for you all to play the one-shot, and much like you expected, it was complete and utter chaos. You had tried to maintain some structure and keep everyone on track, but it was hopeless. Levi and Satan were taking the game seriously and, Diavolo bless them, were the only reason their party was making any progress. Mammon was trying to pick-pocket every non-player character that they met while Asmo distracted them by flirting. This worked great for them until Mammon got caught and would've died from the resulting injuries if it wasn't for Beel. Speaking of Beel, the poor fella was trying his best to do well in the game but kept getting confused by all the rules and different stats and modifiers. Belphegor spent most of his time, trying to explain it to his twin, but in the end, Beel accidentally ate his dice and Belphie passed out on his shoulder. And then there was Lucifer. He had been mostly quiet the entire game. Surprisingly, he let Levi and Satan take the charge in any investigations and puzzle-based interactions, but he did so with a smirk. You had a funny feeling in your stomach that he was up to something, and you were right. It was the final boss. Satan and Levi were on the edge of their seats, having worked so hard to get the party to this point. You smiled, knowing that one of the best parts of D&D was finally taking down the big bad. In this case, you had prepared a beholder for them to fight. It would be no easy task. The fight should have required them to work together in an epic battle of wits, magic and melee attacks. Only, when everyone rolled initiative, Lucifer went first. The eldest smiled as his eyes sparked menacingly. "For my bonus action, I'd like to use my hex blade's curse on it, which allows me to add my plus four proficiency bonus to all damage, and makes any rolls of nineteen or twenty critical hits. I will then use my long sword with divine smite at third level to attack him and attack him again using my extra attack," barely giving you time to process what he said, Lucifer rolled his dice twice. "And that would be a nineteen and a natural twenty, meaning they're both criticals due to the curse. That should hit, yes?" "Wha-" You could only watch as Lucifer, now with twice the amount of damage due to his critical rolls pulled out a disgusting number of dice and rolled them all. And of course, with his luck, they all rolled high. "So that's 90 points of damage plus the extra damage from the curse and the bonus from my duelist ability per attack, brings this 102 points," he smugly perched his chin on top of his hands as the table gaped at him. You gulped and looked down at the beholder's character sheet, "Y-You just took o-over half of his hit points in one round..." His grin widened at the information, "What, like it's hard?" You never got the chance to finish the game, as Satan burst into his demon form and pounced on Lucifer, the eldest laughing like a mad man, while Levi tore up his character sheet in a fit of jealous rage. Levi never asked to play with everyone again after that. ***This was just so self-indulgent and I just- I loved it. It combined two of my favourite things and I have never been happier. This was more crack than fluff, but either way, it was fun and I hope you nerds out there enjoyed it 🥰 Thanks again for the request @bagelsinatoaster!*** Taglist: @mimik248 @roseytoesy @ester-is-here

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2goth2moth · 3 years

Note

Any sort of smut with a naga or feral mothman like creature please and thank you

Anon, you said "naga" and my lil scaly heart got so happy. I have no idea if this is even remotely in the realm of what you were looking for, but I just couldn't shake the idea of a human prince with a harem full of monsters. I hope you enjoy!

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The Prince's Favour (M!Naga x M!Reader, NSFW)

For reference: Enéas is a Brazilian rainbow boa. I was 100% going to have a blowjob scene in this but rainbow boas have backwards hooked teeth (think fishhooks) that are designed to not let things back out, and having that near your dick sounds like a very bad time.

Word count: 3514

Includes: Power dynamics (prince x concubine), non-human genitalia, rough sex, double penetration, a little bit of crying

Being the youngest prince in a kingdom with a still-living king could be overwhelmingly boring. Matters of state were passed to your parents and eldest sister, matters of security to your next oldest sibling, infrastructure and agriculture to the next oldest, twin brothers. Your bloodline was long and vital, which was very good for the kingdom’s longevity. It was not so good for keeping you occupied. Your role, as well as your youngest sister’s, ended up being almost completely performative, with official duties being limited to keeping up a royal education and looking pretty beside your family during public appearances. The whole arrangement left you with a lot of free time to eat and draw and lounge about.

And have sex.

It was normal for royalty to have lovers or harems, if they wanted to and their spouses were okay with it. You yourself had several lovers, all of whom you enjoyed and cared about deeply. One of whom was currently lounging invitingly on your bed as you did your best to capture his likeness in paint.

“Enéas, beloved, can you hold still for me?”

The naga groaned, the muscular coils of his body shifting slightly as he did. “I’ve been sitting for hours now. When you called me, I didn’t think it would be for this.”

“Ten minutes, then we can do something else. I swear.”

The look that he shot you was long-suffering, but he settled back into the purposefully relaxed position you had directed him into earlier after taking a sip from the goblet beside him.The whole thing was mostly an act. You had been summoning him to your chambers to sit for this painting on a regular basis for the past month, and no matter where the sessions ended (often with you wrapped firmly in his powerful body), you never put on any airs about what those first few hours would entail.

Golden sunlight shone through gauzy curtains and spilled onto Enéas’ skin, setting the scales ablaze. The round black marks that lay over red scales the colour of baked clay were already beautiful, but under the sun’s rays he was cast in a rainbow sheen, every scale shimmering like an oil slick. The creamy scales of his underbelly flowed from his face all the way down, flashing like pale moonlight between his darker coils. Naga rarely wore clothing, they had no real need to, but Enéas had certainly developed a taste for finery during his time in the palace. Fine, sheer cotton, dyed snowy white and rich yellow, draped around him like woven light, held in place by gold clasps. Cuffs set with precious stones circled on his wrists and biceps, and a beautiful metal collar engraved with intricate patterns lay flat against his throat.

“You’re staring, little prince.”

The rasping taunt broke you out of your stupor, and you realized that your eyes had been locked on him, paintbrush unmoving on your canvas. You finished the stroke you had started with a careful flick. Stepping back a little, you surveyed what you had done so far. The hours spent on the portrait had been worth it, and even though it wasn’t done, you could stand to be finished for the day.

“I was distracted,” you said. “You were distracting me.”

A cheeky grin split Enéas’s face. It was hard-edged and full of sharp, hooked teeth, stretching far past what it would have on a human face, but managed to be as lovely and charming as it was frightening. “I have no idea what you mean. I was only sitting here, just like you asked me to.”

“Sitting there in a very distracting way.” You wiped your hands on the sturdy apron you wore before untying it and discarding it messily to the side. “We’re done for today, you can relax now.”

“Finally.” He stretched his arms above his head and groaned loudly before flopping back and letting his eyes close. The movement sent his whole body rippling in the sunlight, and the sight made your mouth go dry.

You strode towards the bed, closing the distance quickly to sit beside Enéas on your plush bedspread. He didn’t even open his eyes when the mattress dipped under your weight. With a feather-light touch, you traced the features of his face with a thumb. The transition from red to white around what would be a hairline was first, the gradient of the small scales dipping low on his forehead and contouring under his eye sockets, the way it pulled back on his temples. The flat bridge of his nose, his sharp jaw, the mouth stretching almost the entire way along the hollows of his cheeks. He just barely leaned into every touch, doing a very good job of pretending like he didn’t care about you sitting next to him and touching him like he was something precious. Each one of his breaths fanned upwards, over your face, and it smelled like the sweet lime cordial he drank moments before.

Your thumb continued its path around his face until it caught on the center on his bottom lip. One of his eyes drifted open, pupil an inky slit on yellow-green sclera, and he parted his lips just enough for his long, forked tongue to flicker out. It wound around the digit, brushing against your knuckles and the sensitive skin between your fingers. Cold spit cooled even further on your skin as Enéas licked over your hand. In a single swift movement he dipped his head forward to take your thumb fully in his mouth. You froze. His lips tightened around it and he sucked, tongue still working you over. You could feel your cock start to fill and you pressed in and down, putting the slightest amount of pressure on the floor of Enéas’ mouth. A low, raspy moan rumbled through him, eyes fluttering closed and back arching prettily.

Putting more pressure on his mouth, you hooked your thumb behind the bone of his lower jaw and forced it down, exposing hooked teeth and making his tongue loll. “Get me ready, beloved, and be thorough.” You leaned down to press a sweet kiss to the edge of his scaly jaw. “I want both of them today.”

Enéas’s eyes snapped open. His pupils were blown wide in excitement and arousal, and he flickered his tongue out over your skin again before pulling you down next to him with firm hands. Those same hands didn’t hesitate to begin roaming over your body, making quick work of the fastenings keeping your tunic and trousers closed before pulling his own scant clothing off.

“It would be my pleasure, Your Highness,” he said. The sound was already breathless, and sounded so beautiful that it hurt.

He stripped you of your clothing with an impossible combination of speed and reverence, each touch against your skin burning with affection. Pushing you fully onto your back, he slithered around you, smooth scales dragging against your increasingly bare skin until you lay cradled in his strong coils. A heavy tail coaxed your legs apart as large hands began mapping a path down your body. They skimmed over your throat and chest, pausing to tease each of your nipples to full hardness, and drifted lower, caressing your waist and stomach, scratching soft patterns onto your hips and buttocks, before landing on your thighs. His cool, clever mouth soon followed. A sloppy, open-mouthed kiss landed above your pulse, then the base of your neck, trailing cold saliva over your shoulders and down your breastbone. You moaned quietly, unbidden, and your back arched up off the bed, eyes fluttering closed. Your world narrowed to sensation: the chill on your skin, the plush mattress underneath you, the smooth rasp of scales around you. Enéas’ hands lovingly massaging your thighs.

Your eyes shot open with a gasp when you felt his mouth close around one of your nipples. You could feel his smile against your skin as he suckled on the hardened nub. A little jolt went through you as those wicked teeth grazed over the delicate skin, your cock twitching where it now lay fully erect on your belly. One of his hands wandered up to play with the flushed head, dipping into the pre-cum pooling under it before raising his hand and licking his fingers clean.

Gripping his chin, you dragged his face up to meet yours. “I believe I told you to prepare me, Enéas.” The way you said his name managed to land somewhere between sweetly teasing and bitterly displeased. “We may be lovers, but I am still a prince. This may have been my mistake, though, maybe I wasn’t clear enough for you.” You pulled him up further, tucking your mouth beside his ear so that you could whisper directly to him. “Prepare me, my love, and do it nice and thorough. After you’re done, you will fuck me, with both cocks, until I can’t speak or until you fill me with your cum. Whichever comes later. Am I understood?”

Enéas smiled, pupils completely dilated, and dipped his head down to kiss you. It was salty and bitter from your pre-cum, with the barest hint of the lime cordial underneath. “As you wish, my prince.”

He sat back and lowered himself so that he was lying on his front between your legs. The coil of his body that had been pressing one of your legs open dug in harder, pulling your thigh even further out, and he threw your other leg over his shoulder to get better access between your cheeks. His big hands dug in and pulled them apart, exposing your tight hole to the air of the room. He breathed over it, pressing wet, biting kisses onto the supple flesh of your ass before slipping his tongue out and running it all the way from your hole to your balls. The long, slender fork in the muscle wrapped around you, almost delicately, spreading cold saliva over your balls and the base of your shaft. The chill was a brief shock against your skin that sent sparks zipping through you, making you drop your head back onto the mattress and forcing your breaths out in stuttering pants.

Enéas continued alternating between licking at your rim, just barely breaching the ring of muscle with the tips of his tongue, and suckling gently at your sac, each motion drawing desperate little noises out of you. It felt wonderful, but it was nowhere near enough. Somewhere in your mind you had a brief argument with yourself about whether it would be worth it to abandon all semblance of power and control that you had in order to grind your hips back on his face. On one hand, you were royalty, even splayed naked on your bed, and you liked to hold onto that for as long as you could. On the other, the feeling of his cool scales and wet, fluttering tongue was very rapidly driving that particular thing down your list of concerns.

All of that was wiped from your mind when you felt the blunt tip of one of Enéas’ fingers, slicked with oil from a vial he must have hidden somewhere on him when he started moving. It circled your hole slowly, deliberately, pressing just inside every so often, coaxing the muscle to loosen with practiced care. You wanted to squirm, to tense up under the teasing touches, but you forced yourself to breathe through it and relax as much as possible. This earned you a raspy noise of approval and a kiss to your sensitive inner thigh from your naga lover.

Seconds later, it also earned you one of his gloriously thick fingers carefully worked all the way inside you. Your back curved off the bed, a quiet moan spilling from your lips. He pumped it in and out a few times, just starting to open you up enough for him to continue. As soon as you relaxed, unconscious fists unclenching from the bedspread, a second finger, thick and wet with oil, joined the first. He twisted the two about inside you. Each motion dragged the subtle ridges of his scales along your inner walls, and when he crooked his knuckles deep inside you, you arched up with a breathless moan.

“Ohhhh, fuck.”

Enéas’ head emerged from between your legs, and he smirked at you as he began scissoring his fingers, stretching your rim, brushing up against the spot of blinding pleasure on every thrust. “Well, Your Royal Highness? Am I pleasing you now?”

“You would be pleasing me more if you got on with it,” you snarked at him. He grinned back at you, the tremor in your voice and the way that your whole body had begun quivering betrayed your pleasure too much for him to ever believe that you were honestly upset.

“As my prince wishes.”

He raised himself so that he was braced overtop of you, and he rubbed the head of his upper dick over your entrance. You hadn’t even noticed him teasing his cocks erect and out of the slit that usually kept them hidden, but it wouldn’t surprise you if that was what he had been doing with his other hand while prepping you. A sweet kiss to the corner of your mouth was the only warning you got before he pushed into you with near-maddening gentleness. His cocks were more slender than the average human’s, but they were longer, and were covered with nubby barbs of flexible cartilage that caught deliciously inside you whenever he pulled back. He started rocking his hips into yours, getting deeper and deeper with each stroke, dick not close to filling you up but the barbs stimulating you plenty all on their own. You moaned slightly each time he drew back, cock leaking even more pre-cum between your bodies. Waiting until he was fully seated inside you, body flush against your ass, he began gently massaging your hole, the muscle already stretched tight around him. He moved his fingers in sync with his shallow thrusts, slowly but surely opening your hole enough for him to slip his second cock inside.

You were moaning even more loudly now, shuddering noises of pleasure leaving your lips every time Enéas fucked into you or pressed in on your entrance. His finger disappeared from your skin briefly after a particularly rough thrust left you panting and teary-eyed. You whined at the loss, wriggling further back on his dick. Another rough drive of his hips sent your back arching painfully, mouth dropping open as his index finger slipped into you alongside his shaft.

“Nngg, ah-- fuck, so-oo good,” you mewled.

Enéas started fucking into you with even more ferocity, making your whole body move every single time his hips slammed into your ass. Your cock slapped up onto your stomach with an obscenely wet sound, and left wet smears of clear fluid on your skin each time it hit you. The sounds coming out of you were starting to sound desperate, morphing from regular moans of pleasure to pitiful little whimpers and gasps. You were so overwhelmed by the way that his cock reached so deep inside you and caught so gloriously coming back out that you didn’t even notice a second fingertip tease your rim. You didn’t notice it until the smoothly scaled digit thrust into you alongside his first one. The feeling of it, the stretch of your rim definitely painful now, ripped a shattered cry from you.

Your whole body was tensed up, chest heaving with panting breaths. “Oh shit. Enéas, I’m going to…”

The hand he had been using to hold himself above you darted downwards and locked in a tight ring around the base of your steadily leaking cock. The crescendo quickly building in the pit of your stomach was stopped in its tracks, and you wailed at the blocking of your orgasm. Enéas smirked wickedly at you before lowering his mouth to graze lightly over one of your nipples.

“Patience, little prince,” he chided, “Just hold on a little longer, and you can cum on both of my cocks.”

Each word he spoke was punctuated by him driving his barbed shaft into you and scissoring his fingers wider and wider. Somewhere in the haze of your almost-climax he had stuck a third finger into your hole, and all of them were now stretching you out as far as you could go. His big arms wrapped around your back and he aggressively hoisted you upwards, forcing you to wrap your legs around his body. He slipped his fingers out of you, and almost immediately his lower cock replaced it. The shaft was thicker, the head a little more bulbous, and it filled you up so wonderfully next to his other one. Once he was fully seated, he went still to let you get used to the intense stretch inside of you. You tried to wriggle about in his arm to get him even deeper inside of you, but he used both arms to grip you tight to his body, keeping you still. That mouth of his kept lovingly licking over your chest, going slack to let saliva leak out over his lips and onto your skin.

With a firm grip on your hips and an almost painful amount of care, Enéas lifted you up until only the heads of his dicks remained inside of you. Realizing what he was about to do, you stopped writhing in his grasp, relaxing as much as the position allowed. He hissed a thanks into the thin skin above your breastbone. A slight shift of his weight so that all of his coils lay firmly beneath him, and he lowered you almost all the way down onto him. He pressed sweet kisses to the base of your sternum, then each of your nipples, then to the side of your throat. Settling his face into the warm crook of your neck, he began to raise and lower your along his shafts, using your body to fuck himself to completion.

This new position made his cocks reach impossibly deeper inside of you, spines rubbing against that sweet spot with each stroke. You dropped your head forward against Enéas’ shoulder, moaning loudly. With his previous fierce grip on your tortured cock gone, you felt your orgasm begin to build again. Clear pre-cum dripped out of your slick head and smeared between your bodies. He kept bouncing you on him, breath coming out ragged against your neck as he chased after his own climax.

“Holy shit-- that’s so good…”

Your mouth hung open as heat bubbled up in your gut. You tried to warn Enéas again, but all that came out was a strangled gasp of his name before you were cumming between your bodies with a cry. His sharp mouth curved into a grin pressed into the skin of your shoulder as you went boneless in his arms. He kept driving your body down onto himself mercilessly, paying no mind to your limp form. Your eyes filled with tears and drool leaked from your slackened jaw as you were driven to complete overstimulation from him using your body.

“Mmmmhh-hngg....AH!” You moaned desperately, squirming in his arms, trying to get away from the feeling of his cocks inside you that was quickly starting to get painful. Your hole was fluttering erratically around him, and the grip that Enéas had on your hips stuttered, betraying how close he was.

“My prince, I’m…” he managed to grunt out before he pulled you all the way onto his cocks and came inside of you, clutching your body close to his.

His twin dicks twitched against your sensitive walls as thick white cum spilled inside of you. You wailed at the sensation, your own spent cock trying fruitlessly to twitch erect again. Enéas held you against him for several minutes, catching his breath, before he carefully lifted you off of him and laid you down on the now-soiled sheets. The spines on his shafts caught on your puffy rim as he pulled out, making you wince. Your belly was still sticky from your own orgasm, and gobs of Enéas’s cum leaked from your hole, making you feel even filthier. You were completely and utterly fucked-out and content as you lay there in a warm stupor. Cold lips kissed away tears that you hadn’t noticed had fallen, and a hand rubbed comforting circles into the back of your neck. He shifted his body to wrap around you in heavy coils that felt safe and warm, despite his cold blood. You stayed there, cradled against his familiar body, being covered in soft kisses and soothing caresses, until the shaky aftershocks of both of your climaxes dissipated. Once they had, you curled onto your side so that you could nuzzle your face into his scaly neck,

“So?” Enéas whispered into your ear, peppering the side of your face with affectionate pecks. “Did I please you, my prince?”

“Mmm,” you hummed, nibbling on his jaw slightly. “You absolutely did, beloved.”

#monster fucker #monster lover #exophilia #terato #monster x human #naga #tw crying #smut #nsft #minors do not interact #terfs dont fucking touch #seriously if i see a fucking terf i'll fight you #bigots dni

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itsclydebitches · 2 years

Note

To expand on the Ironwood thing, I’m pretty sure there were citizens of Mantle IN ATLAS ALREADY. I think they mention the evacuation was almost done in the show. Don’t quote me on that, I think it was before they told Ironwood in the Schnee Manor.

There were absolutely citizens there already. Yeah, that's a common point fans will bring up if someone tries to paint the situation as Ironwood abandoning Mantle because he considers Atlas to be superior and, therefore, the only city worth saving. Though classism and racism were definitely a part of the Atlas arc (with iffy results), they didn't factor into Ironwood's decision to leave. Only the time limit, Salem's power, the ability to float Atlas (which Mantle doesn't share), and the "many vs. the few" mentality drove his decision. Ironwood never wanted to abandon anyone, but faced with what he saw as certain doom, he was willing to leave a portion of the population behind in order to save the majority. This majority included the city of Atlas, the whole world in a hypothetical sense — if Salem gets the Relics/a Maiden they're all doomed anyway — and yes, an unknown portion of Mantle's population. Based on what we heard in "Gravity" the evacuation wasn't almost complete back then, but it was definitely underway:

Weiss: Why would the general call us back without giving a reason?

Ren: Especially with evacuations still going on in Mantle.

***

Blake: But we're nowhere near finished evacuating everyone! You'd be leaving Mantle to die.

So Mantle citizens were evacuated from "As Above, So Below" (episode 9) when the team first went there to help, through sometime after "Gravity" (episode 11) when Ironwood leaves the RWBY vs. Ace Ops fight to cease evacuations. Idk how long that time frame is and, frankly, it might be hard to figure out given that at the end of the Volume some fans were working to figure out how much time had passed based on dialogue vs. sunsets and sunrises and it... wasn't matching up well. Regardless, even if we could say precisely how long had passed, we still don't know the speed of the evacuation and how many made it. What does "nowhere near finished" actually mean? Do we trust Blake's assessment here? We just don't know, but we do know many did make it. To me, that's as important as remembering that many were going to be left behind.

This was always a trolley problem where either option ultimately sucked. Ironwood chose pragmatism and put his efforts towards saving who he thought he feasibly could, from both Mantle and Atlas, making a morally horrific compromise in order to do that. The fandom has largely ignored those aspects in order to paint it as a simplistic, "Ironwood ran away to save the rich, racist elite because he's just awful" reading, even though there's nothing to support that in the show. (Well, outside of systematic problems like the rich city inevitably being the one that receives the magical object that would someday lead to their home being the lifeboat... but that's a level of commentary RWBY isn't even aware of, let alone weaving into its narrative.) These takes don't just break down because Mantle citizens were already on Atlas, but because Atlas citizens were in Mantle too. This isn't a situation where the two cities are forcibly divided, each staying on their respective sides. They're the same Kingdom, interconnected, and the idea that all the rich were on Atlas when Salem attacked and all the poor on Mantle is absurd. RWBY does little to flesh the Kingdom out, but we have at least two concrete examples to point to. In her flashback, Cinder is a literal slave staying in the opulent Atlas hotel. At the start of Volume 7, Pietro is the head Atlas scientist running a shop down in Mantle. Everyone is already mixed up with Ironwood trying to bring as many people up to the city as possible, regardless of where they to live, or who else was already in the city. Evacuations stopped because Salem herself announced that she'd arrived to kill them all and no one could come up with a plan other than running.

"Simply accept the futility of your situation and this can all be over."

Ironwood accepted that he couldn't beat Salem now, so he took steps to try and ensure that the world had a chance to beat her later. That included keeping the war resources out of her hands and saving as many people from his Kingdom as he could without endangering the whole, regardless of where they came from. The classism and racism, though it easily could have been a factor in this decision, weren't. Or if they were, they existed entirely off screen like the semblance that had, supposedly, wrested control of Ironwood's willpower.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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chainofclovers · 3 years

Text

Ted Lasso 2x9 thoughts

It’s no secret that I absolutely adore Coach Beard; he’s one of my favorite characters on the show, and he’s so well-written and well-acted that somehow I tend to be both perfectly satisfied with the details we see and truly curious to understand more about the way he thinks, what’s really happening re: his professional and personal devotion to Ted, where he comes from and where he’s going. I don’t need to know his name beyond the name he wants to be called, but I want to know why we don’t have any other names for him. And I don’t need him to be a bigger focal point of every episode, but I very much needed this episode’s world-exploding reminder that every single character on this show has a rich inner life, full of joys and troubles.

“Beard After Hours” is like a movie, but one that scatters its climaxes and puts off its resolutions...because it’s not a movie. It’s episode nine of a twelve-episode season of TV. When the episode ended, I felt this almost frantic “But he needed to break up with Jane for good before the end of the episode!” feeling. I was so pulled in by the idea of being able to tell an entire story in one night, of going on an odyssey alongside a complicated hero, that watching Beard and Jane find each other in that club felt as intense as the fact that we don’t know if Ted responded to Rebecca’s voicemail and we don’t know what’s going to happen with Rebecca and Sam and we don’t know who isn’t getting married and who is having a funeral in 2x10 (I mean, I have my strong suspicions, but still!) and we don’t know if Richmond will be promoted back to the Premier League. And on and on. I didn’t mind feeling desperate for the story to resolve even though I understood after thinking about it for ten seconds that of course it couldn’t resolve yet. Or ever. Or yet.

I’m a big fan of the TL episode recaps/reviews Linda Holmes writes for NPR, and I have to quote something from this week’s directly because it so perfectly explains my feelings:

The power of the scene where Beard dances in the club isn't that it's a beautiful romantic climax. It's that it's an explanation of why he cannot seem to extricate himself from this bad relationship. What makes the worst relationships so dangerous is that they have elements that feel good that are very hard to get elsewhere. Beard knows that; he tells it to God. What's concerning isn't that Jane makes the world seem more interesting; what's concerning is she's the only thing that does. That doesn't take away from the joy of the dancing; it just tells you that even happiness is complicated.

I love Holmes’ perspective here so much, because it articulates something I was struggling to figure out: how it can feel so legitimate, like such a (temporary but nonetheless powerful) relief, for Beard to find Jane in that club and to have this moment of euphoria as his night nears an end. How it is possible to experience that relief on behalf of a character while fervently wishing it could end differently, because it’s so clear from the abusive text messages and the toxic calls and the manipulative interactions that Jane is terrible to him and they’re terrible for each other. But Beard knows this. He knows it when he hugs Higgins in the parking lot after Higgins is honest with him in a way Ted and Rebecca and Keeley have not learned how to be, and he knows it when part of his prayer includes the clear articulation that Jane isn’t the cure for what “ails me.” He’s inching closer to greater self-knowledge just as Ted is.

And the two big resolutions that really, really needed to happen did. I didn’t know I needed Paul, Baz, and Jeremy to get to wrap up their own night out on the pitch at Nelson Road, but I did. It brought actual tears to my eyes. And the other resolution was Beard showing up with the other coaches’ coffees for their meeting to watch the game film. As interesting as it would have been to see what Ted would have done if Beard hadn’t shown up, I’m so, so glad that he did. He’s got a messed-up face and some truly epic pants on, but otherwise this is just Beard showing up for work, showing up for his friends. It was incredible to realize that Beard and Ted haven’t been exaggerating when they’ve referred to his sex-and-drug proclivities in the past. The night documented in 2x9 might have been particularly scary and violent and euphoric and awful and meaningful, but this type of all-night adventure isn’t a foreign concept for this guy. In all the other episodes of this show, when we see Beard we’re seeing someone who might have been out all night, who might have spent the hours the sun was down desperately pushing himself closer to whatever edges he could find.

I don’t really want to touch upon all the allusions in this episode. They are abundant, they are well-documented, and also I haven’t even seen the movie After Hours. I enjoyed this episode for its allusive qualities and I enjoyed this episode for what it was and I feel like I have to be at peace with the fact that I’m never going to pick up on every single reference on this show and that is okay.

So, yeah, if this entry on my tumblr dot com blog seems remarkably devoid of references and allusions, it’s not because I’m not into it but because I find it too overwhelming to actually write about.

Very into the Misplaced and Discovered box at the Crown and Anchor. (That’s what Mae wrote on the Lost and Found box at the pub, right? Whatever it is, it’s so funny.)

Beard hallucinating Thierry Henry and Gary Lineker was truly upsetting and a great indicator not only of how broken things are between the Richmond coaching staff right now but also how deep Beard’s self-loathing might go. If you’d asked me before Thursday if I thought Beard loathed himself, I would say no. That deepening of knowledge alone makes 2x9 worth it.

James Tartt and his friends in the alley. Such a nightmare. I go back and forth on how much of the night was real, and part of me has decided all of it is, short of the images of Henry and Lineker. (And even that is real to the extent that it was a way of articulating what was in Beard’s head.) But watching Beard in physical danger brought on by the same abuser who had him so upset in the first place. It was a lot.

I’m so excited that Paul and Jeremy and Baz got some spotlight this episode. It was so wonderful to see them out of the pub. I love that they ended up telling the Oxford snots who they really were. They got to see Beard going to bat for them and smoothing over the situation socially, and that actually made it more possible for them to end up being truthful about themselves. Because they have nothing to be ashamed of, and they deserved the magic of that night. (And for it to end on Nelson Road. Every feeling. Oof.)

I feel like I barely have anything to say about the trouser-mending lady or the many places Beard goes or his key-dropping or the nightmarish feeling of wanting to be home and being unable to be home. It all happened and we all watched it and again, it was a lot. But I do feel incredibly moved and fascinated by the fact that Beard very obviously still hasn’t been home when he brings in the coffee. He’s had to sleep at the club for Jane- and key-related reasons in the past, and this time it’s not that he’s slept there but it still feels like a kind of homecoming he was robbed of for the entire night. Ted and Roy and Nate are there. He’s gotten their coffee orders correct. Ted is growing and evolving (he wants to learn from what’s happened, he’s insisting upon it even when the others resist) but he’s done a really perfect (almost romantic in its loveliness) thing by presumably spending his evening following a breakdown of his own speeding up the game film to 10x speed and adding Benny Hill. Ted is not OK and Beard is not OK and Nate is not OK and Roy is pretty OK but could very easily be not OK because he’s just joined a coaching staff with a whole lot of not OK. But they all showed up.

I am very into the realism of the lights being off in the club other than the coaches’ office (@talldecafcappuccino pointed this out!), and the way we’re seeing their desks from a different angle because this episode is unfocused on Ted. It really added to the mindset of being hungover and exhausted and unable to go home or even to know exactly what home should be; even this warm, familiar place feels off even as it’s a relief to be back there.

I am excited to return to our regularly scheduled programming with the full cast of characters, but I really adored this episode for what it taught us about Beard and what it illuminated about the humor, pain, and complexity of each person who inhabits this universe. Beard may not be loud about his long-standing beliefs or about the things he’s learned, but there’s a lot happening in there and I appreciated getting to spend 43 minutes with him and (in the case of the ticket he scrawls on a piece of paper so the pub guys can get into Nelson Road) the moments he sets in motion.

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #ted lasso 2x9 #meta by me #a lesbian watches ted lasso #coach beard

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seokoloqy · 4 years

Text

The Ravenheart Manor

➳ PAIRING(s): ot7 x reader

➳ GENRE: smut, pwp, mythical creature!au

➳ WORD COUNT: 4.1K

➳ WARNINGS: aphrodisiacs, suggestive content, more warnings will be added in each chapter

➳ SUMMARY: you’re the new maid at the Ravenheart Manor. Take your chance with each of its peculiar residents (hey, does that one have a tail?) after accidentally ingesting a powerful aphrodisiac that might just kill you if you don’t give in to your burning desires.

➳ A/N: at the end of the story it will be split off into seven different parts. Each of them dedicated to a different member they don’t have to be read in order and they are not connected. Enjoy your descent into monster fucker hell~

—

Rain pours all around you and it only seems to grow stronger the longer you wait at the looming door. You had rapped your knuckles against the ornate door twice now, but the manor is so large you doubt anyone would have heard unless they were lingering next to the door.

Your fingers begin to feel numb when the howling winds pick up. You raise your hand again to knock with all your strength, hoping someone will answer before you freeze.

Before your hand hits the door for the third time, the doors pull open and you’re greeted by a man in a waistcoat. His dark hair contrasts with his pale skin. He scans you slowly, eyes drifting down your shivering body, pretending not to notice how your clothes stick to your curves. He makes a small sound of approval before meeting your eyes.

To you, he seems normal, but that would be completely incorrect. When you took this job, you knew it’d be at your own risk. It pays so well you don’t even care about the dangers you potentially face.

“You must be the new help,” he says, pulling the door open wider. You get a glimpse of the inside and the grand decor. “Welcome to the Ravenheart Manor. I’m Yoongi, the butler. I’ll be helping you adjust to life here.”

You lift your suitcase and cross the threshold, taking in your surroundings. Yoongi reaches for your suitcase. When your hands touch briefly, you feel colder than before. You would have dropped your entire suitcase if he hadn’t grabbed it.

Yoongi isn’t phased, instead, he moves along, deeper into the heart of the manor. You force yourself to shake it off and follow him. You might as well get used to this. There’s certainly more encounters like this to come.

“I believe you’ve already been informed of this, but the residents here, including myself, aren’t exactly human. I would like to preface that before you meet them.”

“Yes, I’ve been told.”

You only know that they’re each different creatures, but you’re not entirely sure what. You can’t even tell what Yoongi is yet, but judging by his dark aura, he’s nothing to be messed with.

“May I ask what you are?”

He grins as if he were waiting for you to ask, but doesn’t turn around to meet your gaze. “A demon. If you’re not careful I could steal away your soul and your face. So I suggest not messing up.”

Although his tone is playful, you doubt he’s joking.

—

In the dining area, two men lounge in chairs across from each other, neither of them eating. One has his feet up on the white linen; his mud-coated boots stain the fabric. A toothpick rests between his lips and his eyes travel the pages of a worn book. The other nurses a cup of dark liquid that he seems mesmerized in, watching his tired reflection stare back at him. The room smells of coffee and you assume that’s what he’s drinking, despite the clock ticking close to midnight.

The ambient candle lighting is warm, casting a soft glow over the room. With the rain battering against the window it creates a cozy atmosphere, and for a brief moment, it’s almost a place you’d call home.

Yoongi clears his throat and both men call their attention towards you and you’re suddenly reminded of the dangers beneath this roof.

The man with his feet on the table grins, his canines peeking beneath his upper lip, plucking the toothpick from his mouth and shutting his novel with a loud slam that startles the other man out of his daze. “A toy? You love to spoil us, don’t you, Yoongi?”

“She’s not your toy, master Taehyung,” Yoongi says, eyes narrowing slightly at Taehyung’s shoes muddying up the table. “This is ___ and as of today she will be assisting me with chores around the manor.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t play around with her,” Taehyung pouts, “Jungkook, doesn’t she look like fun?”

Jungkook meets your eyes and immediately flushes, turning back to stare into his black coffee. “I don’t know,” he mutters, curling into himself like he wants to disappear.

Taehyung laughs, rich and melodious laughter, throwing his head back against his chair, “don’t mind him. All baku are shy things. It’s cute—don’t you agree, ___?”

At that, Jungkook dips his head lower, dark hair sweeping over his eyes as he tries hiding his embarrassment.

You don’t want to turn Jungkook any more red than he already is. You ignore Taehyung’s question and regard both men with a thin smile and a polite bow. “Hello, I’m eager to begin working here.”

Taehyung swings his boots off the counter—much to Yoongi’s relief—and leans forward with his elbow resting on the table and chin propped in his hands. His tongue wets his lower lip like a starving wolf.

“Will you call me master as well, ___?” Taehyung queries, popping his toothpick back in his mouth with a sly grin.

Your heart hammers at his charming smile.

“If you wish.”

“I’d love nothing more, my dear.”

You take a deep breath through your nose, unsure of your next words.

“Well then, master, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Taehyung’s smile drops and for a second you can see the predatory gaze in his eyes that tells you he craves to pounce on you. Maybe if Yoongi and a Jungkook weren’t in the room, he would. Maybe he’d have you pressed against the wall before you could say anything more and devour you completely. His voice is lower when he speaks again, any trace of his teasing attitude gone. “I think we’ll have a lot of fun together, my dear.”

—

“This room is the bathing area. You’ll be sharing it with the rest of the residents here. There is a scheduled amount of time for you to bathe alone, however. So don’t worry about anyone barging in on you.” Yoongi says, opening the door, releasing a thick cloud of steam. Upon entering, you notice the large bath in the center with two shadowy figures in the fog.

“You get off on making me angry, don’t you?” The hiss comes from the steam. “I said, don’t touch my things!”

“It’s just soap, Hobi. Relax before you pull something.”

Before you can turn away after the fog clears, you’re met with two men at the bath. One is submerged in the water with his arms crossed over the ledge and the other stands over him with a towel wrapped around his waist.

The one not in the bath has a scowl on his face, but more importantly, two leathery white and blue wings protruding from his back and a large sweeping tail matching in color tucked under his towel.

“Touch my things again and I’ll tie you up in the sun till you shrivel,” the one with the tail threatens.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Ahem,” Yoongi clears his throat. “Masters, may I introduce our newest guest?”

You almost gawk at Yoongi for thinking now, when there are two men practically naked and arguing, is an appropriate time to introduce you. But then again, he is a demon. He must not have any qualms over things that you’d normally find inappropriate. He is the embodiment of sin, after all.

The one in the bath is the first to look at you. He gasps, pushing himself up from the water. Instead of seeing him completely naked, his waist blends into iridescent smooth scales. A shimmering tail flicks behind him, splashing water over the edge of the bath.

“I had no idea she’d be so cute! Say, care to join me for a bath, dear?”

Saving you from the embarrassing stutters that would’ve left your mouth, Yoongi interrupts, “there’s no time for that tonight, master Jimin. I’m sure ___ is tired from her trip here and would like to get to bed as soon as this tour is over.”

You hold in your sigh of relief.

Jimin pouts, dropping his arms back into the water with a splash. “Alright. Maybe next time.” The disappointment is marred on his beautiful face.

“Why’d you have to bring a human into the manor, Yoongi?” The second man says.

“I think she is very qualified for the job, master Hoseok.”

“Tch,” Hoseok scoffs. “She won’t last here.”

—

The crackling fireplace warms your rain-soaked body. Worn books line the walls in this next room. Yoongi guides you deeper into the library where there are two men sitting in chairs across from one another, pondering over a chessboard.

“This is very boring, Namjoon,” the blonde one huffs, propping his elbow on the table to cradle his chin. He looks out the looming window at the drops of rain battering against the window with a sigh. “Nothing like celestial games.”

The man opposite him gives a similar sigh as his hand hovers over a pawn, contemplating his next move carefully, “Seokjin, it’s been over a century since you were cast out. When will you stop comparing everything to the celestial realm?”

“When my Father gives me my true wings back.”

“So never,” Namjoon says matter factly, pushing his dark-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. He pulls his hand back and scans over all his pieces on the board with furrowed brows.

“Masters,” Yoongi calls. “Please meet our newest maid.”

Seokjin turns from the window and nearly grimaces at Yoongi, but as his eyes travel to you they light up, absolutely delighted to see you.

“Hello! Come join us!” Seokjin says, “would you like to play for me?”

He’d like to get out of playing chess anyway he can. He’s already halfway across the room to greet you before you can speak.

“Hello, I’m ___,” you greet politely, placing your hand in Seokjin’s outstretched one. He’s warm, unlike Yoongi. You already feel so much more comfortable just being near him. Namjoon said something about heaven and you assume he must have been an angel.

You become frozen when Seokjin brings your knuckles to meet his lips in a tender kiss.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ___.”

“The theatrics are unnecessary.” Namjoon gives a tired sigh from his chair, still intent on the board before finally moving his piece. After he’s satisfied with the move, he rises from the chair and strides across the room with confidence. When he stops, looming before you, he stares down at you with dangerous maroon eyes. “I’m Namjoon, owner of the Ravenheart Manor. I hope you do not disappoint me.”

—

It’s been about a month since you started working at this manor. You’ve gotten to know a little bit more about each of the residents, but only surface-level things.

You know that Namjoon is half vampire, half werewolf but doesn’t care to speak of his werewolf side. He sometimes disappears into the garden in the middle of the night. You can see him strolling around and disappearing behind hedges from your window. You’ve never been down there because Yoongi has you working dusk to dawn scrubbing down the manor or doing laundry until you can hardly move once your head hits the pillow.

Seokjin is a fallen angel who was cast out centuries ago, but can’t seem to stop reminiscing about his time there. You enjoy being around him the most. He always puts you at ease and is the only one who occasionally helps you with chores. He’ll help you sweep the floors and tell stories of Heaven that always captivate you.

Yoongi is a demon who seems to take a great amount of joy in bossing you around on your hands and knees. Every morning, just before the sun is over the horizon, he’s hovering over you with endless amounts of chores to do and a new list of your flaws and how you can do better.

Hoseok is a dragon and it seems like he just doesn’t like you at all. The subtle glare he gives you whenever you walk into a room makes you want to exit immediately. He likes to keep to himself in his room most of the day and away from the other residents. No one gets to go into his room at all because he locks the door. You’re not sure what he’s hiding in there.

Jimin is a siren who endlessly flirts with you about getting into the bath with him. You’ve heard the stories of sirens seducing their prey just to drown and eat them so you avoid being near the baths whenever he’s in, but it seems like he’s always in the bath. Sometimes you catch yourself being tempted by his sweet voice whenever he offers.

Taehyung is a kumiho that loves to tease and pull you onto his lap while he reads a book just to watch you grow flustered. You always find yourself thrown onto his lap whenever he’s nearby. He loves having you curled against him, one arm securely around your waist and the other with a book open on your lap.

Jungkook is a baku. He’s easily flustered by you, turning red easily whenever you’re around. He’s so quiet; sometimes you don’t even notice his presence in a room until someone acknowledges him.

You sigh as you pour a glass of blood for Namjoon in his usual tall glass. You spent the whole day dusting the library and pulling yourself from Taehyung’s affectionate grasp most of the time.

“Uh-”

Another voice entering the kitchen disrupts your futile attempts at relaxing. Caught off guard, you accidentally let out a yelp, nearly tipping out the entire pitcher of blood. Consequently, your help causes the intruder to jump as well.

“Sorry!” He says.

You turn around to find Jungkook shrinking away under the door frame and not some hungry monster you didn’t know inhabited the manor.

“What are you doing here?” you breathe a sigh of relief. Out of all the residents in this house, Jungkook is the least of your worries. Actually, you doubt he’s even capable of hurting anything with how timid he is.

“Do you need more coffee?” You gesture towards the empty mug clutched in his hand.

He nods, extending his cup towards you. His arm strains to hand the cup to you from the distance he’s put between you two.

By now, you’re not surprised he’s here asking for more caffeine at night. His unusual sleeping schedule (not that he ever sleeps), along with a filled cup of black coffee always clinging to his side, keeps him up all through the night. You’ve never questioned his obsession with coffee and the habit of staying up. You don’t know much about baku, but there probably is a good explanation for it.

“Um,” he mumbles, scratching the back of his neck, “You seem… stressed?”

“A little,” you admit, moving to take the coffee pitcher off the heat.

“Oh,” he trails off, not knowing what else to say. You can see the cogs turning in his head as he attempts to think of something to say or do. “Maybe something to drink will help?”

You laugh, “I don’t think coffee is going to help me relax, especially at night.”

Jungkook flushes, averting his gaze towards the cupboards. “Th-That’s not what I meant.”

He shuffles over to the cupboard and opens a panel to reveal where the liquor is kept. He grabs one of the bottles off the top shelf—an opaque rose-colored glass with a wide rounded bottom and long neck.

“Here. Jimin always drinks this whenever he’s stressed and brags about how it can make anyone feel good,” he extends the bottle towards you, “maybe this’ll help.”

You haven’t had a good drink since coming to the manor. Even with Yoongi’s voice in the back of your head nagging about how a good maid wouldn’t drink on the job and how he’d be disappointed by your actions, you find yourself reaching for the bottle.

You take the bottle from Jungkook, who surprisingly doesn’t flinch when you accidentally brush fingertips, but you can see the familiar pink flush across his cheeks.

“One or two drinks won’t hurt.”

—

You drank a few shots of the oddly sweet liquor before dinner could begin. It filled you with a pleasant warmth that ran through your entire body. True to Jungkook’s word, it did help you relax—maybe a little too much.

Now you’re sitting at the dinner table surrounded by all seven of the residents. Yoongi is hovering behind Jungkook, refilling another cup of coffee, still working to serve his masters. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him eat.

Tonight is a mandatory dinner where you all sit down and have dinner at one table. Usually, the residents have separate meals at separate times in their own rooms or wherever they can find prey—willing, submissive volunteers, as Jimin likes to call them—but Namjoon made it a rule to have dinner together at least once a week to help you find normalcy and feel more comfortable living with a group of supernatural creatures.

You absentmindedly poke at your meal while your stomach churns. You’re not in pain—far from it actually. The all too familiar heat between your legs has you slowly sliding your legs together underneath the table to ease the tension. The throbbing is subtle but it’s there, rendering you unable to focus on anything else but that need.

“Not hungry?” Namjoon asks you, dabbing blood off the corner of his lip with a white cloth.

You glance toward the head of the table where Namjoon sits back in his chair watching with sapphire eyes as your hand swirls around a spoon. You tense under his gaze, which is entirely devoid of emotions when it travels back to your face.

The month that you’ve been in this manor you’ve picked up on some things about its peculiar residents.

This always seemed to be Namjoon’s demeanor—composed and seemingly one step ahead of everyone else. Namjoon is always eerily calm even when he should be livid. It only makes him more intimidating to you.

You’ve always wondered what goes on in his head. Maintaining a mansion full of different mythical creatures must be tough on him, and if it is, he doesn’t let it show.

In the corner of your eye, you see Yoongi cradling the pitcher of coffee behind Jungkook. His silent stare is a warning. ‘Don’t let the masters know you’re struggling. Maintain your composure or be punished.’

Working closely with Yoongi has taught you a few things about him too. He hates upsetting his masters and if you mess a single thing up, one of two things can happen. He’ll begin to lecture you about not being an adequate maid or he’ll stay silent and watch you until you crumble and apologize.

His silence is what you’re most afraid of. You’ve never seen what he looks like as a demon; but when he’s upset with you, a cloud of thick dark smoke rises from his body. If you ever do get to see his real demon form, you’re positive punishment would be laid out for you.

And that’s how he looks at you now—silently.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you lie. Even without Yoongi’s warning eyes, you wouldn’t want them to know about the embarrassing need between your legs anyway. Though you’re sure Jimin or Taehyung wouldn’t mind jumping at the chance to help you. They’re always eager to touch you and keep you close to their sides. Their hands roaming your body doesn’t seem like such a bad idea right now though.

All chatter halts as all the men turn their curious eyes towards you, all of a sudden very interested in your loss of appetite. Seokjin even soothingly rubs your back with one hand and you can’t help but melt at his touch. It’s not uncommon for the former angel to give you a hug or a head pat when you’re feeling down, but this time his hands on you feel different.

It’s like his hand sends tingles throughout your body, more importantly between your legs, as it rubs warm and soothing circles on your back. His hands between your legs are all you can think of—the heavenly angel, sinning between your thighs. His lips, his tongue on you, licking up your arousal like it’s the sweetest ambrosia.

“If you’re not feeling well you should rest,” Seokjin says, moving his hand to your forehead to check your temperature.

Once his hand makes contact with your bare skin, you bite your lip at how warm his hand feels against you and you just want more of his touch. You want to feel all of him against you.

He flinches back once he touches your skin and his face scrunches up in worry. “Oh my, you’re burning up.”

“You’ve been working her too hard, Yoongi,” Taehyung says. He’s sitting on you’re right and leans in closer to inspect your heated face. His hand subtly slides onto your thigh and you immediately move your hand over his to make sure he doesn’t move it. He looks shocked by your unusually bold move. Normally, you play coy and pretend that you don’t like his sly advances and push him away.

“I only give her as much as she can handle, master.”

You let out an accidental whimper. Why did that sound so much more sexual than it was? The idea of Yoongi’s punishments has a different ring to you now. If you were to disobey Yoongi would he bend you over his lap and make you beg for forgiveness?

Your grip tightens around Taehyung’s hand.

The rest of the table looks at you wide-eyed, a few gaping, mainly Jungkook who looks ready to disappear into his chair.

“What the hell was that?” Hoseok blurts, averting his gaze from your heated one.

“You sound like me after a sip of my aphrodisiac,” Jimin giggles to which Jungkook pales.

“W-What?” he stutters, a panicked expression settling on his face.

Namjoon puts down his glass, licking the drop of blood on the corner of his lip.

Jungkook shifts uncomfortably, an action not unnoticed by Namjoon’s sharp eye.

“Speak,“ Namjoon says, shooting a sharp glare towards Jungkook, causing him to press himself further into his chair. "If you know what’s the matter, then speak, Jungkook.”

At the sound of his name, Jungkook almost yelps, anxious to admit his mistake. He ducks his head down and fiddles with his hands in his lap.

"I-I think I accidentally let her drink some of Jimin’s aphrodisiac,” he mutters underneath his breath, voice trailing off near the end. The atmosphere surrounding the table goes silent for a moment. Namjoon simply stares at Jungkook with silent anger. Jungkook avoids eye contact with the entire table, especially you.

“You!” Jimin laughs aloud, interrupting the silence, and points his finger towards Jungkook, hardly getting a word past his laughter. “You gave her my aphrodisiac?! What were you trying to do, Jungkook? Get her into bed with you?”

“No! No, I swear!” Jungkook cries, sounding more and more helpless and meak, “I-I didn’t mean to! I was only trying to help! S-She said she was stressed!”

Namjoon puts his elbows on the table and rubs his temples. A groan escapes him. “How much did you drink, ___?”

You don’t trust your voice to speak without sounding breathless and needy. “A little,” you respond weakly.

“And how much is a little?” he repeats this time the question is aimed towards Jungkook.

“One…eh, m-maybe four shots?”

Yoongi looks disappointed in you, but you don’t really seem to mind. Your thoughts are still on the kinds of punishment Yoongi’s hands could give you. “What am I going to do with you?” He tsks.

“Don’t worry; the potion should wear off in a couple of hours or so. If you need any help with those urges feel free to knock on my door.” Jimin winks from across the table. Given your state, you wouldn’t mind taking him up on that offer. You’ve often walked by and heard the sounds his ‘guests’ make in his bedroom all night long. His very skilled hands stroking your body, the sweet lull of a siren’s song singing in your ears as he-

“The aphrodisiac potion may wear off in a couple of hours for us but the same can’t be said for humans. ___ should be monitored in case this potion turns out to have more negative consequences than expected.” He turns toward you. “To make you more comfortable I’ll let you choose who you’d like to watch over you.”

WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHOOSE?

Seokjin - angel | coming soon

Namjoon - werewolf/vampire hybrid | coming soon

Yoongi - demon

Hoseok - dragon | coming soon

Jimin - siren | coming soon

Taehyung - kumiho | coming soon

Jungkook - baku | coming soon

#bts #bts smut #jungkook smut #taehyung smut #jimin smut #yoongi smut #hoseok smut #namjoon smut #seokjin smut #bts fanfiction

1K notes · View notes

lesbianrobin · 3 years

Note

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity.

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax.

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind.

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective.

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow?

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally.

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.”

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway.

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season.

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still.

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered.

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

#asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things #if u actually read all this i love u and im sorry #these r just my opinions!! and im sure i misremembered some shit my brain is swiss cheese #i did my best tho

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paunchsalazar · 3 years

Note

hey!! i loved your hoo playlist! can you explain more or less where which book begins and ends? or just your thought process behind picking the songs?

omg hi!! this is going to be really long I’m so sorry... I vaguely broke them up by book and sorta character/event/theme, it’s not super strict or anything but that was the logic!

I kinda imagine it playing out like a movie or tv series.. and so some of these kinda play over a scene or transition to the credits in my head? some more than others! otherwise it’s like punny titles or just songs that remind of plot points!

Lost Hero

- Goodbye Stranger - for Jason, since he has no idea what’s going on lol

- Teenage Dream - for the three of them, but mostly Piper!

You think I'm pretty without any makeup on You think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong

- Parachute - kinda Jason and Piper, I think as she realizes their relationship isn’t quite what it seems? (and just playing with his flying lol!)

- Metal Guru - Leo!

- Pretty Girl - Piper, I was imagining this when she clashes with Drew/learns about the Aphrodite cabin

And I could be a pretty girl Shut up when you want me to And I could be a pretty girl Won't ever make you blue And I could be a pretty girl I'll lose myself in you

- The Sky’s The Limit - when the three of them take off on Festus

- Snowqueen Of Texas - this was for Khione lol

I'm on my knees, your majesty; Snowqueen, save a cold kiss for me I'm on my knees your majesty

- Sweet Talkin’ Woman - this is book-wide but it’s for Piper’s charmspeak!

- Are You Gonna Be My Girl - is sorta general but I was imagining it when Jason and Piper kinda decide to be together/give it another go

- It’s Not Unusual - I think this was sorta the entire book/wider series but I just think it’s cute and fun and a Guardians of the Galaxy type end credits song? And just them accepting their very bizarre situation

Son of Neptune + Mark of Athena

I put these together because there wasn’t really a set bookend in my head!

- Hello Stranger - finally reuniting with Percy! (and I wanted the Percy and Jason songs to mirror each other)

Hello stranger (Ooh) It seems so good to see you back again How long has it been? (Ooh it seems like a mighty long time)

- Diamonds - Hazel

- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart - Frank trusting Hazel with the wood, also Percy + Annabeth, everyone really

Don't go breaking my heart You take the weight off of me Oh, honey when you knock on my door Ooh, I gave you my key

- Beautiful Soul - I literally don’t know why I added this I just wanted an excuse to add a Jesse McCartney song (which feels so tonally correct to me?) but also I think it’s Frank liking Hazel in spite of her big secret and Percy loving Annabeth

- Pocketful of Rainbows - encountering Iris!

I don't worry Whenever skies are gray above Got a pocketful of rainbows Got a heart full of love

- Am I The Same Girl - Annabeth’s POV upon reunion!

Why don´t you stop And look me over Am I the same girl you used to know?

Why don´t you stop And think it over Am I the same girl who knew your soul?

- Bizarre Love Triangle - Frank, Hazel, and Leo

- Treasure - Hazel again + the literal treasure?

Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl you should be smiling (you should be smiling) A girl like you should never look so blue (blue) You're everything I see in my dreams I wouldn't say that to you if it wasn't true

- The Sweet Escape - off on the Argo II

- Okay Okay - to Italy! and I just think Italian disco is so fun

- On An Evening in Roma - walking around Rome, seeing all its history

Though there's grinning and mandolining in sunny Italy The beginning has just begun when the sun goes down So please meet me in the plaza near your casa I am only one and that is one too few On an evening in Roma Don't know what the country's coming to But in Rome do as the Romans do Will you on an evening in Roma

- Stuck on the puzzle - Annabeth + the Mark of Athena

- Coca Cola - I was imagining the pirates+sacrifice to Dionysus/ his appearance

- Edge of Seventeen - I think Annabeth remarks to herself something like am I really going to die at 17? so this is for her and all the kids just on the cusp of being 17

And the days go by, like a strand in the wind In the web that is my own, I begin again Said to my friend, baby (everything stopped) Nothin' else mattered

- Landslide - when everything goes wrong and they start falling to Tartarus

Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changin' 'Cause I've built my life around you But time makes you bolder Even children get older And I'm getting older too

House of Hades + Blood of Olympus

these are more thematic I think? but a few moments in particular

- Head Over Heels - falling down...

I made a fire, and watching it burn Thought of your future With one foot in the past, now just how long will it last?

Something happens and I'm head over heels I never find out until I'm head over heels Something happens and I'm head over heels Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart Don't, don't, don't throw it away

- You and Me - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus

If the stars don't shine If the moon won't rise If I never see the setting sun again You won't hear me cry as I testify Please believe me boy you know I would I lie As long as there is you and me

- Don’t Worry Baby - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, on the shore of the river

Well it's been building up inside of me For oh I don't know how long I don't know why But I keep thinking Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes And makes me realize And she says "don't worry, baby"

- It’s Only A Paper Moon - the mist and Hazel starting to understand it

You smile, the bubble has a rainbow in it Say, it's only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me

- Money, Money, Money - Hazel + Pluto

Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world

- Magic - the whole story, but particularly with the presence of Hecate

- Summer Wind - Jason harnessing the winds!

The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea It lingered there, to touch your hair and walk with me All summer long we sang a song and then we strolled that golden sand Two sweethearts and the summer wind

- Mala Femmina - the return of Khione

- Would You? - Leo and Calypso

Well, you know she took my hand And we walked away And I can't understand why she would stay Would you like to fall in love with me?

- Love is Like a Fire - Leo and also Frank

- Don’t Wanna Fight - Percy and Annabeth

Take from my hand Put in your hands The fruit of all my grief Lying down ain't easy When everyone is pleasing I can't get no relief Living ain't no fun The constant dedication Keeping the water and power on There ain't nobody left Why can't I catch my breath? I'm gonna work myself to death

- Love Really Hurts With You - Leo after leaving Calypso’s island

- What Makes the Sunset - Percy and Annabeth (and by extension Bob and Damasen)

What makes the sunset? What makes the moonrise? What makes the tide remember to hide and why does it soon rise? What makes a star fall? Where does it fall to? Why does its flight make us stop in the night and wish as we all do?

- Dedicated to the One I Love - everybody, but an ode to Bob and Damasen (their goodbye made me cry!)

While I'm far away from you my baby I know it's hard for you my baby Because it's hard for me my baby And the darkest hour is just before dawn

Each night before you go to bed my baby Whisper a little prayer for me my baby And tell all the stars above This is dedicated to the one I love

- Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, I was thinking about this post-curses and them being so done with everything

Good times for a change See, the luck I've had Can make a good man Turn bad

So please, please, please Let me, let me, let me Let me get what I want This time

- Lonely Boy - Nico

- Fantasy - indulging all their visions... the mist, etc.

- Stupid Cupid - Nico and Cupid (of course)

Stupid Cupid you're a real mean guy (stupid Cupid) I'd like to clip your wings so you can't fly (stupid Cupid) I'm in love and it's a crying shame (stupid Cupid) And I know that you're the one to blame (stupid Cupid)

Hey hey, set me free Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

- Suzanne - still Nico, looking over at the couple (sorry... all the mopey songs)

- Dream A Little Dream of Me - dreams... also Percy’s wishes of the future

Stars shining bright above you Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you" Birds singing in the sycamore tree Dream a little dream of me

- Our Day Will Come - I think Annabeth says a line almost like this? somewhere at the end of HOH, I think when they’ve just gotten out of Tartarus and are all sitting together, like haven’t they had enough? won’t their day finally come?

Our day will come If we just wait a while No tears for us Think love and wear a smile Our dreams have magic because We'll always stay In love this way

- Call Me - all of them! also Nico and Reyna, just being there for each other

Tell me and I'll be around Now don't forget me 'cause if you let me I will always stay by you You've got to trust me, that's how it must be

- Nobody - Nico... oh buddy

Venus, planet of love Was destroyed by global warming Did its people want too much too? Did its people want too much?

And I don't want your pity I just want somebody near me Guess I'm a coward I just want to feel alright

- I’m a Believer - Jason and Piper

I thought love was only true in fairy tales Meant for someone else but not for me Love was out to get me That's the way it seemed Disappointment haunted all my dreams Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind

- Summertime - Piper singing and it being the end of summer

- Happy Trails - more singing ( I want to include the songs actually mentioned!)

- The End of the World - the big battle!!

Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world? 'Cause you don't love me any more

- Too Late To Turn Back Now - departing with Festus (I think Leo almost says this too!)

- Here Comes The Sun - day comes, the Athena Parthenos is back

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

- Walking On Sunshine - Will Solace

- Evil Woman - Gaea fight

Evil woman, how you done me wrong But now you're tryin' to wail a different song Ha, ha, funny, how you broke me up You made the wine, now you drink a cup I came runnin' every time you cried Thought I saw love smilin' in your eyes Ha, ha, very nice to know That you ain't got no place left to go

- Seven Wonders - the seven! also traveling the world... making it this far

If I live to see the seven wonders I'll make a path to the rainbow's end I'll never live to match the beauty again The rainbow's edge

- This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) - to me this is just after Annabeth and Percy’s kiss, shots of everyone back to camp, wides of people running around, new cabins under construction, the sun is shining, the camera pulls out

Loving you is some kind of wonderful Because you showed me just how much you care You've given me the thrill of a lifetime And made me believe you've got more thrills to spare, oh!

- Love Makes the World Go Round - like the end credits! last pov with Piper, love makes it all happen

Without love flowers wouldn't grow in the spring And without spring, yeah the birdies just couldnt sing Everybody needs love to watch the twinkling stars above It makes a boy and girl, Say they feel so fine, now

#SORRY I REALLY WASTED A LOT OF TIME ON IT #percy jackson #pjo #hoo #heroes of olympus #piper mclean #annabeth chase #jason grace #leo valdez #hazel levesque #frank zhang #Anonymous

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writing-the-end · 3 years

Text

LoL Chapter 53- Rescue

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Grian is at the mercy of Dolios and his dark magic, but are the hermits there to save him in time? Or has the end come for the healing mage?

[Note: Hey everyone, I’m sorry for the time that was between chapters. A lot of really emotional and personal things happened over the past few months, and it just really pushed me off balance. But I really cant thank Red enough for being at my side the whole time- he’s the real hero in all of this.

Happy Season 8!]

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To be back in the dark, cold bowels of the dungeons, willingly returning to the chamber that Dolios forced them to play his game in, left every hermit with a strange mix of dread and remorse. Almost every hermit, except for the few that weren’t around during the championship, can remember waking up in cells, being dragged from the hard stone floor at knifepoint, and turned into pawns for Dolios to control. Promising he will kill every last one in his game, and making TFC play along.

But they hardly linger in the very chamber where their guildmaster outwitted the Magistrate of Lairyon, rather continuing on their search for a passage to the subchamber. Scar can feel the cavity in the stone beneath their feet, but no staircase seems to lead them down. It wasn’t until Cleo summoned the ghosts of those who died here, their souls lingering, that they are pointed in the right direction. So many souls, having seen so much suffering, not just from Dolios within these walls, though many are from his doing.

A ghost guides the hermits to a circular room, and though their voice has long faded with time, their misty hands point to the center of the room. Mumbo kneels down. “There’s machinery here. If I just…” He places his hands against the smooth stone, and without even having to think, his magic appears. Redstone seeping through the seams of the rock, reconfiguring the mechanics and forcing the spiral staircase to descend.

Everyone, including Mumbo, is surprised by his power. He’s never had such control before in his life. But they don’t linger on this new development. Not when time is running shorter and shorter for Grian. They cause a jam in the thin staircase, twenty something hermits rushing to the subchamber. Unlike the rooms above them, the stone is rough cut, no bricks or stenciling. It looks more like a cave blown open than a carved dungeon.

A heavy weight wraps in on the hermits. They know they’re close as the pressure increases on their bodies. They follow the struggle to breathe, the feeling of carrying stones on their back. They’ve come to know the signs of a dark crystal well- and it leads them right to not one, but three towers of corrupted gems.

They’re massive, protruding from the ground at an angle, black spikes erupting from the earth. The air is heavy with mist, swirling in tendrils, like the very tentacles of Eurynomos, way back in the forest. The mist grasps the open air, siphoning the very life from the stone and oxygen and taking it for itself. Every so often, a pulse of darkness bursts from the corrupted crystals, with such force it causes the entire cavern to shudder, and blows back the hermits’ hair and clothes. They all duck with each explosion, but one person remains standing, reveling in the energy that's breaking free from the crystals.

Dolios’s fingers toy with the mist, grasping the air and feeling the power. With each eruption, the black seal between him and the central crystal glows. For a second, the hermits swear they can see the mist at his back look almost...feather-like.

“Oh my gods… Grian.” Stress’s voice is so small, so quiet, the other hermits almost don’t hear it. But their captured friend’s name on anyone’s lips is enough to catch their attention.

He’s grey, so monochrome that it was almost impossible to pick him out among the black crystals, the grey mist, and the dark magic. Limp body and hands, eyes open but unseeing, Grian is chained to the central crystal. Once blond hair, now an ashen grey, curls and crests over Grian’s face, his chin dropped to his chest. The hermits don’t breathe until they see him do so, but it’s a horribly shallow breath. Another wave of energy rolls through the crystals, and Grian’s body loses more of its color. More of it’s life. At this point, he hardly even reacts to the tearing of his lifeforce, his magic, from his body. Fingers twitch, but even those are beginning to turn flaky, fading away into oblivion. The tips of his once blue cape become little more than mist. Even the energy, the powers of the very atoms are being torn apart. Grian was very near death- or a fate worse.

All for Dolios, and his insatiable need for power. The low thunder of every wave is broken by Dolios’s voice. He flexes his hands, laughing to himself. “Of all the angels I’ve stolen magic from before, it has never been this strong. Even Celia had nothing against you. I feel like I could blow all of Milliara apart with a windstorm this instant! Don’t worry, little bird, your magic is in good hands.”

Iskall and Mumbo both scuffle to their feet, surging forward. Mumbo faster than Iskall. Too fast for TFC to grab him before he’s over the boulder they hid behind. And too fast to stop even his own magic from summoning. But it wasn’t the out of control magic that the hermits have seen before. Like destroying the crystal shard on Eremita, or in the depths of the Hangman’s Playground.

No, even though lightning filled Mumbo’s vision, and magic surged through his veins like energy through a redstone circuit, he had every wit and thought about him. For the first time, he had true, full control. Every iota of power was at his command, like a dragon spreading it’s wings for it’s first flight across the sky.

With a flippant wave of his hand, the twin satellite crystals shatter, red bolts of lightning creasing through the darkness-bound lattice. The air is filled with glittering crystals, mist freed from the quartz and purging it of the darkness. Mumbo turns his power, his attention towards the crystal that Grian’s chained to, and presses his fingers together to destroy the last crystal.

He’s blown off his feet, a burst of wind from nowhere sending him skidding across the floor. When Mumbo gathers his wits and looks up, finally seeing Dolios through his anger, the magistrates is wild with manic delight. “Oh, now that’s real magic. I think this little bird’s powers might become my new favorite.” The other hermits dare to step out, walking through the shattered, transparent remains of the crystals. Dolios is the only color before them, his plush robes and rich colors standing out against the swirling magic. “Ah, the whole parade is here. Come to watch your friend die? Or will you all be joining him as well?”

Dolios turns, resting his gaze on Grian. The hermits watch in horror as their healer looks as if he’s about to blow away in the wind. Like dust in the shape of a human. His eyes are empty, no glimmer of life left. They realize they may be too late.

But that doesn’t stop them from getting their revenge. Mumbo remains focused on the crystal his friend is trapped against, but a sharp shard of gemstone goes flying through the air, cracking Dolios upside the head. Blood pours from the wound, matting the curly brown hair that crowns Dolios. He turns, anger mixing with the mania into a dangerous concoction. But his fury doesn’t get to live long, not when Scar drives a wedge of rock into Dolios’s jaw. This time it’s the magistrate that goes skidding across the rough hewn floor. In his attempt to stand up, Dolios becomes ensnared in just about every medium of magic the hermits can offer. Vines tie him down, radioactive spikes pin his clothes and hair to the floor, a ring of hellfire erupting from the depths of the earth.

Mumbo, however, remains focused on his best friend before him. Summoning all his magic, every ounce of effort he’s ever put forth, he sends a bolt of lightning directly to the core of the crystal that is draining Grian. The lightning strikes true, hardly even raising a hair on what remains of the sky angel, but obliterating the crystal he hangs from. From the inside out, the darkness is banished by red light, like the sun rising red on a bright, beautiful daybreak. Blinding everyone within the cave- except Mumbo. He’s not lost in the light, the power, the magic. He’s a part of it all.

The crystal shatters, and Grian falls. Crumpled to the ground, he looks to be little more than a pile of ash and rags among the sparkling crystal shards. Like the moon adrift in the sea of stars.

When the hermits blink away their momentary blindness, they find Mumbo is already at his friend’s side. With a few teary blinks, the last of the lightning fizzles away, and Mumbo’s voice cracks like the very gems he destroyed. “G-Grian? Grian, wake up.”

But Grian doesn’t move. Mumbo reaches out, grabbing the angel and pulling him to the safety of the hermits. Holding him close as the others surround. Ren reaches out, placing a hand on Grian’s shoulder. He retreats immediately, when Grian’s shoulder seems to fade from existence, flaking to ash and falling apart under Ren’s pressure. “Is he….”

No one dares speak the word. Joe scribbles down a healing poem, but the magic does nothing. Grian doesn’t breathe, his eyes don’t blink. They just stare, empty, at the cavern roof above. And he continues to fade, all color lost, becoming nothing more than dust.

“No, nononononono.” Mumbo’s words stumble and jumble together, and he shakes and jolts Grian as if trying to rise him from a dream. “Grian, don’t leave us! We need you!”

Still nothing.

Mumbo’s shoulders slump. A weight heavier than any dark crystal hangs over the hermits as Grian’s limp form lays in Mumbo’s arms before them. Tears threaten to spill from Mumbo’s eyes. Grian was his first real friend, the one who saved him all those years ago. And he couldn’t return the favor now. It was Grian that offered him kindness, offered him friendship. Grian who gave Mumbo a true family, a real home, who trained with him even when all seemed hopeless, and drank with him when nights were bright. It was because of Grian that Mumbo has a father in TFC, friends all around him. And now?

Now his best friend was dead in his arms. Fading from existence, his magic and life stolen by a monster in magistrate’s clothes. Mumbo tips his head, breath stuttering as tears fall freely. Like a stream after a storm, rivers of salt water across his cheeks, cresting his jaw and running across the valley of his throat. Some droplets are caught in his mustache, others stain the collar of his outfit. All the hermits openly cry, even Doc. Memories flood alongside the tears, bowed heads over their fallen comrade as Mumbo holds his fallen friend tight.

One tear falls straight down, landing with a wet plop on Grian’s eyelid. Water, the lifeblood of Lairyon, slowly drips into Grian’s own vacant eyes. And from the ashen grey, empty gaze, a single vein of blue appears within his iris.

Like a river, the blue flows freely, spilling across Giran’s sky blue eyes. Filling the empty grey valley with fresh blue water. And from the blue, like the sun reflecting off the see, a glimmer appears.

Iskall noticed the color returning first. The pink of Grian’s face, sunlight colored hair beginning to renourish with color. Bringing Grian slowly back from death’s doorstep. He slaps Mumbo on the shoulder, his own breath gasping. Words struggling to break free from the nuclear wizard’s mouth, rather just random noises escaping his lips.

It’s enough to get Mumbo’s attention, as well as every other hermit. Through teary eyes, they see the color spread. The red of Grian’s robes, the blue of his cape. The translucent, flaking form becomes solid and tangible again.

And then Grian breathes. So shallow and soft, it’s almost impossible to see. But to the hermits, it might as well be an earth breaking tremble. Eyes blink, and parted lips move. A whisper of a voice breaks free from death’s grip. “Mumbo? Iskall? Guys?”

Grian can’t sing, but the words from him might as well be a chorus of angels. He was alive. Whether it was pure luck, the gift of life that water carries, or simply the friendship the hermits hold, something brought Grian back from the brink.

Only one thing can break the joy. And that one thing has to open his mouth. From across the room, Dolios writhes in his bonds, snering. “Oh that’s just touching, isn’t it? If I can’t have it all, then I might as well kill every last one of you.”

Doc realizes what’s happening first, but Dolios is just out of reach. A bout of strength that can only be attributed to previously stolen magic, Dolios tears apart the vines and breaks apart the crossed spears of iskallium. He stands, brushing off leaves and radioactive dust from his robes and tugging on his ponytail. When he opens his eyes, a crooked, crazed grin creases the leader’s normally charismatic face. “Do you really think such weak power can hold me down?”

Wels reacts just in time to shield the hermits from the arc of magic that aimed for the group. Dolios doesn’t let up on his barrage, and the magical barrier begins to crack and contort against the dark energy. No hermit can step out from behind the shield without risking certain death.

A wild, cackling laughter echoes off the cavern. “What will you roaches do without your precious angel now? Who will save you now?”

Wels’s barrier breaks. And Dolios attacks.

#hermitcraft #mcyt #hermitcraft au #wizard hermits #wizard au #light of lairyon #lol #mcyt au #wizard grian #wizard mumbo #wizard iskall #wizard scar #wizard Doc #grian #grianmc #mumbo jumbo #iskall85 #gtwscar #docm77

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jadespeedster17 · 3 years

Text

Legit the recent Tales of the SMP gave me Clue Vibes that I just had to write this out. You're welcome. So I decided to take the characters, give them backgrounds and motives for murder. Same campy fun that the Clue Movie has.

Sir Billium Blade the Third: A man of many words that include mostly making fun of commoners and poor people. Having come into his wealth when the Nether Portal closed for a while, his family used the gold they had to become rich rather quickly. He travels in his spare time, never staying in one place for a while. He's made enough enemies on his travels and possibly enough to kill to get rid of another.

His houses are filled with many objects he comes across in his travels, many of which some people love to get their hands on. Many that should belong in museums but sit ideal as objects of his wealth. it is also stated that there might be proof that he has ultra motives for his occasional get-together, covering up past murders in his home?

Traits include - Smart, Wealthy, and Charming. Cunning? Devious? and Silver-tongued?

Mister Boo (The Butler): This boy grew up only knowing servitude, his life was to the Blade Family. And still, yet he has to pay off his family's debt to the Blade Family for passage to this part of the world. Basically, an indentured servant. So long as he follows the rules, life isn't so hard, and Sir Billium rarely comes to this mansion. He's a man of few words if he is even allowed the speak. And has enough of a grudge to the Blade Family to kill for a taste of freedom. But, would he even have time to plan for murder with all the things that need to be done?

He knows this house like the back of his hand, all the passages, hidden rooms, and knows how to get from one end to the other without being seen. His main job is to make sure that the house is spotless and always ready for guests, along with serving Sir Billium.

Traits include - Quiet, Reserved, and Shy. Undetectable? Calculative? and Unforgiving?

Lord Sebastian Halo: To this man, fine wine is just one of many luxuries that only the rich can understand. Having gotten his wealth through means of deceit and trickery of those lesser than him, the Halo Family name is one that is both feared and praised. Having made the majority of the magical inventions still used to this day, Sebastian enjoys the high life of his family name through drinking and partying to his heart's content. However, he's also a man who knows all to well the people his family has stepped on to get where they are. And of the secrets that could kill to tear down his family's prestigious name.

The Halo Family is not a clean name, it's one bathed in the crushing of dreams and blood to get at its high standing. One being that Lord Halo, the founder of the family, made deals with darker beings to get the best deals. Also that he sacrificed people to this god for power as well. Proof of this is hard to come by, but it's very true. And one might also question the sanity of this family.

Traits include - Mysterious, Adventurous, and Witty. Ambitious? Delinquent? and Obsessive?

Oliver Arecaeshire Smichalist Cumbucket: Growing up in the land of Britain, a miserable island one might say if they don't live in it, Oliver has seen plenty going on in his small world. From wars, to family functions, and even betrayal. One might dare say he's well adverse in the arts of manipulation and conning. His family wealth comes from the Casino and the business *cough*Monopoly*Cough* they have on the gambling of people. He's lived long and seen many things come and go to have become jaded to life, but still eager to prove his families name to all, even if it is a silly name.

This family, though silly in name, has many secrets to hide. From bribes to the government to keep their hold on the gambling of people. To making sure alcohol was not outlawed so they could continue to drive up sales on the small island. Laugh if you will, but this family holds an iron grip on their area. Though not near as wealthy as the Blade Family, they are still high class. Oliver no doubt is aware of what might happen should his family's secrets get told. And it's has been thought he has killed once before.

Traits include - Discreet, Intrepid, and Eccentric. Liar? Paranoid? and Manipulative?

Lady Lyaria Chu: A beautiful and seductive women in her own prime, and heiress to the Chu name that hails from the west. She is well aware of her statue and well aware of how many suitors would fall at her feet for a taste of such wealth. It might seem odd that she has married three times and each of her husbands have mysteriously vanished. And that each of her husbands leaves everything of their name to her. Having no children, and being only in her late 20's Lady Lyaria has much to look forward to her in her youth and beyond. Her family name goes far back in the western area, having started as simple tailors that now make dresses for the wealthy everywhere.

Lady Lyaria had met Sir Billium when he visited her family's area and got to know him very well. Finding her seductive methods worked little on the cold man. But indeed they struck a chord with each other in their shrewd way of thinking about how the lower class is. It's a wonder to many about her ever-increasing wealth and expansion of her company could be due to the fact she murders her own husbands. But if word of that ever got out, she might have to silence a few people herself.

Traits include - Beautiful, Seductive, and Flirtatious. Ruthless? Greedy? and Narcissist?

James Napity: Coming from a lower wealthy family who only know of the Blade Family due to contracts with them through the Assassins Guild. James fought tooth and nail to make sure he and his family were safe from harm that could come to them. But in the end, it truly was all for not. Peasants revolted, and though James's family had done nothing to these wretched commoners they still sought to burn down his house. His family died as a result, and his wife blamed him for the fire, leaving him. His bitters grew to the lower class after that, the only kind-hearted man grew cold and hateful.

Before this though, he had met Billium as a childhood friend, though they rarely, if ever, got along. James found the other to be rather mean spirited and violent for his taste, but now he can see why. Though his family only has connections to the Assassins Guild as their dirty little secret, they haven't really used this since the time his great great great grandfather was head of the family. Since then, they sought better ways to grow their wealth and look where that got them.

Traits include - Calming, Perspective, and Philosophical. Wrathful? Jealous? and Cold-hearted?

Sir Karl Jacobs: What a strange man, no? His name hasn't ever been heard, yet this streamer is said to be rather wealthy. Not much is known about him which makes him even more enticing to the guests. He seems to just be here at this party for fun and nothing more, getting to know each of the guests. But isn't that just the thing? A strange man shows up from nowhere and seems to suddenly start murders at a party? Who's to say he's not here just to gain wealth through their deaths?

Karl is just a happy go lucky man and portrays as such. But have no idea how even he ended up here and just hoping to understand why he's here. Karl sets about to solve this murder while knowing he's a suspect himself.

Traits include - Funny, Happy-go-lucky, and sweet. Strange? Sly? and Thoughtful?

(Did include Drew as he’s pretty straight forward, unless you guys can think of something.)

#tales of the smp #the masquerade #dream smp #technoblade #sapnap #karl jacobs #niachu #badboyhalo #ranboo #clue au #Tales of the SMP AU #Dream SMP AU

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Ectober Day 7: Hero - But It’s Not Funny

*a sequel to Realities Little Joke For Infinity* Highly recommend reading that first but it’s not exactly necessary.

Tony has a bad habit of adopting strays. Particularly the stupidly heroic kind that were too reckless and too selfless for their own good. So of course he wasn’t going to just ignore the random teen that literally saved the universe only to disappear into the future. Even if said teen was somewhat dead and the only hero left in a world and time that seriously needed more.

Tony grins as he finally gets the connection to work, making his face appear on the strange future teens laptop; or whatever tech people used in whatever time this kid’s in. Going a bit wide-eyed and wheezing when the first thing he sees is Phantom -in alien PJ’s, because of course the first thing he sees on the kid who showed up in a t-shirt and jeans to an active warzone is pjs- shrieking and jumping a foot off the ground while holding a full pot off coffee; which predictably sends the contents of said coffee pot flying into the air and splattering all over the teens face and floor.

Phantom looks to the screen slowly, with steaming coffee dripping off his chin, hair and eyelashes, “seriously?”.

At that Tony can’t help but bend over laughing. Straightening up and looking at the coffee pot, “what were you even doing walking around with a full coffee pot?”.

“Well I was going to drink it. But now it’s as empty as my wallet”, Phantom looks down at the pot and grumbles, “ya know what? Fuck it. I’m still gonna drink it”, then pointing his finger around and telekinetically making all the droplets of coffee on him and the floor float back into the pot.

Tony watches, a little disgusted, as the kid practically takes a full swing of the previously spilled coffee, shrugs, and sits down by his own screen; feet clearly pulled up onto the chair seat as well and coffee pot cradled between his knees and chest. Tony eyeballs the coffee pot, “you’re really going to drink that huh?”.

Phantom shrugs, “I know what’s on my floor”, looks down at the carpet and shrugs again while muttering, “a Zone damned biohazard of blood n’ ‘plasm that’s what. Oh!”, eyes widening a little, “and a sock with a questionable stain”, looking back to the screen, “‘s not like I can get sick anyway. I could drink this shit outta a radioactive waste barrel and be fine. Prob’ taste like shit tho”.

Tony wheezes both amused and pained, “please don’t kid”, that... that would definitely make him gag.

Phantom chuckles, “don’t intend to”.

The two sit in silence for a bit. Tony taking in the teens appearance. There’s hand-shaped bruising coating his neck, one of his fingers is clearly broken, and there’s a pencil-sized hole going clean through the other hands palm. Phantom doesn’t even seem to care about the state of his body, considering how relaxed he seems and the PJ’s. Plus, no way would Tony be carrying anything, including a full pot of coffee, with his hands in the state Phantom’s are.

Phantom yawns, Tony noticing that he’s missing more than a handful of teeth, before Phantom asks, “so...why’s the past tin can face-timing my laptop?”.

Tony puts on a smile, so it was a laptop. Neat. “future or not, I’ve adopted you as one of my brats. I remember you saying there wasn’t superheroes in your age”, waving his hand around, “no older generation to guide the newer. Well you're getting the older generation now”, shrugging and smiling more genuinely, “plus underroos won’t stop talking about you”. Understatement of the century, Peter was thrilled to meet another teen hero, and wouldn’t stop going on about what powers he might have or if he even has anyone to support him. The latter Tony cares about more.

Phantom wheezes, “whom the fuck is ‘underroos’?”, shaking his head, “so ya wanna be my mentor of sorts and help me blast my foes from the past?”.

Tony smirks and nods, this kid’s humour sure was something else, “exactly. And you met before, the kid? Peter?”. Sure it had been a few months but he couldn’t have seriously just forgotten?

Phantom tilts his head, “the red and blue teenager?”.

Tony grins, “you got it, kid”, eyeing the teen's hands again, “your hands gonna be fine?”.

Phantom waves one hand around, chugging more coffee, “eh don’t worry your metal ass about it. I heal like crazy”, stretching his feet out and resting them on the desk, “I’m just putting it off a while on my hands ‘cause the broken ribs and missing bits of spine are kinda more important ya know?”.

Tony rubs his temples, “Jesus Christ”, just how much damage can this teen sustain? That kind of injury should kill a person.

Phantom laughs, probably at Tony’s pained expression, “don’t worry about that either! Not like I can die twice! Haha!”.

Tony looks back to the screen at that, feeling a bit more serious, “yeah, Thanos said something like that. That you were dead but alive. And you confirmed it. What did he even mean?”.

Phantom purses his lips, “well I could explain but that also could mess with the time stream and could result in some weird immoral science crap”. Tony doesn’t get a chance to comment on that as Phantom turns his head to the side and whines exaggeratedly at the thin air, opening his mouth as wide as looks physically possible, maybe even past that, “tiiiiiiime dadddddddyyyyyyy, will this break the time stream? Your problem child has a proooooobleeeeeeem”.

Tony wheezes into his hands, “Christ”, and stares dumbfounded as a giant hourglass with purple sand comes out of nowhere and smacks the teen in the face, making Phantom fall out of the chair with a thud.

Phantom groans and begins laughing, righting himself and spinning the hourglass around, pointing the bottom of it at the screen, it reading ‘you’re fine’. Tony is so not reading into that, kid had someone like Strange in his corner. Phantom sits back down, lifting up the hourglass like it’s a weight, “Kay Kay Kay, so I’m a halfa right? Unique creature, that’s what I am. A fucked up little science project gone wrong, or right. Your choice. My folks screwed up in the lab and boom!”, he sticks his limbs out comically before righting himself and catching the coffee pot he effectively tossed in the air, “a whack-a-mole of electricity and a wormhole decided to stop my tiny little heart. Also restarted it too though! So it’s cool”, tilting his head, “wait... didn’t I already explain this?”.

Tony sighs, “sort of. We were in the middle of a war”.

Phantom quirks an eyebrow, “your point? That was, like, the bloody third one I’ve been in”, rolling his hand around, “first there was the High Ghost King, his fifty-thousand odd skeletons, and objects of near-unlimited power. The alternate future where an evil me single-handedly annihilated humanity, talk about traumatising having to fight yourself literally”, tilting his head, “and no clue if the plant guy with his army of mind-controlled people and plants or the sleep guy with his army of Walkers, counted as ‘wars’. And eh!”, snapping his fingers, “there was that guy I stole the Reality Gauntlet from! He took over the planet and turned people into clowns and shit. So that might be big enough to count as a war, even if it was just him versus me. But then the tornado guy caused storms all over the planet too so would that count then too?”, shrugging, “eh whatever. I’m sticking with three. Pariah would have eventually destroyed the Zone, which woulda ended the universe. Dan was actively on his way to ending all life in the universe, probably all death too. And grape guy, Thanos, was about to annihilate half the life in the universe which honestly would just end all life eventually... maybe”.

Tony stares at the kid before wheezing some more and falling backwards, “Christ”, righting himself and his chair, “there is something seriously wrong with your life. Like, seriously wrong”. Apparently the future was a freaking mess and fixing its crap was all on one random teen's shoulders. All because the kid died, which somehow gave him superpowers, and decided to make something good out of that death. Talk about unfair. And messed up. Really messed up. At least Tony had his team and they had each other, “please tell me you have some kind of support?”.

Phantom grins and nods eagerly, “got my guy in the chair techy, he destroyed a sataliget once! My rich activist goth, she sued one of my enemies into oblivion. And a ghost hunter who only sometimes tries to murder me and got a nanobot supersuit running through her veins; she can lowkey kick my ass if I hold back enough to avoid accidentally killing the living”, wagging his finger at the screen and getting really close, “us dead fucks are borderline indestructible immortals, halfas even more so”, leaning back and shrugging, “can still die, or fade it’s called for the spookies, though. Well, most can anyway. Timedaddy’s straight-up immortal. But if they died then, well, then the universe would literally implode from the time-stream collapsing”, and makes a little explosion sound and motion with his hands. Oh fuck, the kid was really just a damn kid. And from the sounds of it, his entire support was three teenagers. Ah Hell. Oh and some time being, ghost?, that just left him to his own devices.

Tony shakes his head, “you know what? That doesn’t actually make me feel any better”.

Phantom shrugs, drinks, swishes the coffee around, “don’t know what to tell you, man, my entire existence is pretty fucked up. My archenemy is my uncle, wants to adopt me, and gave me his inheritance. My girlfriend has a solid murder boner for me. My parents get giddy at the idea of dissecting me and are actually worse about that the odd time they’ve been successful. The kids’ at school think I’m their personal punching bag. The government would love to shoot me full of missiles and bombs. Pretty sure my sis is just using me for her research paper on ghost psychology or whatever. And my friendships are pretty much based on the three of us just being really weird”.

Tony groans, this kid probably needed more help and support that literally any other teen or hero. “ClockPops is great though. We play chess”,

Tony blinks, mentally pausing, “you... play chess? Seriously?”, this kid seemed to have more issues sitting still than Peter did. Tony finds it hard to believe he can sit through even half a game of chess.

Phantom nods and grins, “yup. Switched the pieces out for shot-glasses once, it was great. One of my teachers is cool too. He crossdressed and pretended to be his own sister to get me to try harder on a test; it worked better than it had any right to”.

Tony blinks and breathes, “your life”, shaking his head because it sounded like the future was just pure insanity, “well now I’m here and while I’m a bit reckless and a recovering alcoholic, I’m not insane”.

Phantom chuckles, “I’ll probably prove to be a bit much for you then. I’d have to be stupid to not think I’m not at least marginally nuts. Nowhere near frootloopy but eh”.

Tony sighs, being self-aware enough -or just not giving enough of a damn- to recognise that was both impressive and depressing. Impressively depressing. “A few of us Avengers are trained doctors and psychologists outside of being experienced heroes. So kid? You’ve got all of us. At least for verbal advice. Strange already went and basically confirmed that paying you a visit wasn’t a smart idea”.

Phantom snorts and rolls his eyes, sipping a bit more before staring down the pot at the small amount left. Speaking into the pot, “oh yeah, I can just imagine all the time problems that could cause. I’m surprised this is okay”.

Tony can’t help chuckling at the slightly silly image, though he’s not sure why the kid doesn’t just drink what’s left, savouring it maybe? “Same. Strange looked at me like he was questioning my sanity. He’s probably going to pester you about the Clock guy you keep mentioning”, grumbling to the side, “I just hope Loki will keep his trickster mitts off you”. Because fuck, they’d probably get on like fire and more fire. Which yeah, slightly horrifying mental image. Probably inevitable though. Loki was already impressed, amused, and interested by Phantom and literally everything the teen did after showing up. Seriously though, who’s first thought when fighting giant spaceships with mouths and other horrifying shit, is to turn it into bouncy balls and worms??? And a smoothie for a reward? For effectively saving the universe? Kid was a trickster, dabbled in death kind of literally, and ‘gave precisely zero fucks’. Loki would have a field day and probably be a horrid influence. Though thinking of it, Phantom might be a bad influence on Loki. Loki generally had reasons for anything beyond mild messing with people. Phantom seemed more likely to just go buck wild purely because he could. Even if he seemingly had a heart of gold and more self-sacrificial bones in his body than actual bones. Seemed like his entire world/time belittled and beat the shit out of him, and yet he gladly got dissected and lost chunks of his freaking spine for them. At least he had the power to back it up.

Tony quirks an eyebrow at mist, or something, leaving the kid’s mouth before Phantom goes wide-eyed and Tony jerks as an actual literal swear-on-every-ironsuit-and-the-entire-tower cartoonish rocket smashes apart what he’s assuming is-was a window; sending glass flying everywhere... and Phantom flying off-screen, the coffee pot going up in the air and sounding like it smashed apart on the ground.

Tony can practically hear the glare in Phantom’s voice, “hey! You spilled my damn coffee!”, while a robot blasts into the room, breaking more glass and bits of wood from the looks of it.

The robot pauses, seems to frown apologetically before shrugging, “apologies whelp, but it is no matter! You won’t need such things after I skin you!“. Tony chokes and gags a little at that. “Also-”, pointing to where Phantom probably is, “-that was practically empty”. Tony then stares as Phantom comes back in screen -looking all black and white- only for the robot to shoot a missile at him immediately, Phantom just sort of shrugs and lets the missile hit him in the face. This kid seriously really didn’t give a damn about his own well being.

And not even seconds later Peter walks in out of the blue, face lighting up as he notices the screen and probably Phantom’s very noticeable self on it, and dashes over. Obviously noticing Phantom’s current situation, “oh Phantom! Kick his butt!”.

Phantom does a silly thumbs up at the screen and immediately gets stabbed in the shoulder. Tony watches in slight disbelief at the kid looking at the knife, saying, “oh! You got a new knife! Shit is the handle engraved?!?”. And the robot actually stops and replies with a wide grin, “it was a valentines gift from Ember! Impressive right?”.

Tony and Peter both blink at the fight effectively stopping as Phantom pulls out the knife and looks it over, seeming impressed, “actually yeah”, pointing almost aggressively at the robot, “you got her something too right? You’re fucking horrible for that man”.

The robot rolls Its eyes, how metal is moving that organically Tony has no clue. “Of course whelp, those drum sticks you can sing into”. Phantom facepalms and Peter actually shakes his head in disappointment. Though Tony agrees, that was awful. But who talks with their enemy -who wants to skin them for peat's sake!- about presents?

Phantom makes a tsk tsk sound, “you dumbass, she got you a sick-ass knife and you got her a knick-knack? Seriously?”, Phantom walks off-screen, the two watching as what they’re assuming is cash flys over to the robot and Phantom returns on screen, “go by some flowers to make up for that crappy present. And for the love of everything, don’t get roses”, waving his hand around, “that’s so cliche. Go with tulips and forget-me-nots”.

The robot inspects the cash before flying off-screen, presumably back out through the window It destroyed, “I will have your pelt next time, whelp!”.

Phantom chuckles, shouting back, “sure you will, Skulkie! Ghost Zones greatest hunter”. Tony and Peter can feel the sarcasm in that. “Also! No you don’t have to ask! An engraved knife would be a wicked Christmas Truce present!”. Tony sighs when a ball or something slams into Phantom’s stomach and sends him flying off-screen.

Peter leaning towards the camera, “woah! You okay?”.

Phantom’s laughter echoes horribly, “right as rain! Mind you, it’s not actually raining”, righting himself and pulling himself up into the previously knocked over chair, “don't mind Skulker, he’s a poacher and I’m rare. Practically one of a kind actually. A poachers dream prize. His girlfriend has a mind-controlling guitar and occasionally attempts at world domination”. A ghost-shaped guitar floats on-screen, Phantom grabbing it, “she gives awesome presents though”, and gives the guitar a good couple strums.

Peter’s eyes go wide, “you can play the guitar?!?”, tilting his head and asking what is in Tony’s opinion a more important question, “wait, your enemies buy you presents?”, tilting his head back, “oh man that’s awesome”. Tony just shakes his head with a smile, teenagers.

Phantom grins and strums some more before the guitar floats off-screen, “all my enemies do”, shrugging, “for the Christmas Truce and my death-day anyway. But that’s normal. A ghost culture thing. Even the prison warden guy, whose got special torture weapons set aside just for little ol’ me, buys me some kind of present. Heck! Even the eyeballs do! And they’ve repeatedly tried to assassinate me”.

Tony blinks, “kid, that makes no sense. But I’m glad they’re at least occasionally nice to you”. Hell knows Phantom needs someone to be nice to him.

Peter tilts his head, “what even is a ‘death-day’? Sounds dark”.

“Oh nothing special, just the day I died. Like a birthday! But for death! A real dead-ringer of a holiday!”, and laughs loudly before rolling his eyes at Tony, waving his hand around, “eh, I’m kinda their king so be kinda a dick move to not give me gifts on literally the two biggest holidays”.

Peter practically shrieks, “WHAT! You’re a king! Oh that is so cool”. Tony blinks, “you did mention something about being the guardian of death and Earth”.

Phantom laughs some more and finger-guns while winking at Peter, “yup! Very important, much power”, and grins stupidly before pointing to the air above his head; a green floating crown bursting to ‘life’ with green mist or something wafting off, followed by a black cape with a flaming white collar and large flaming green skulls pinning it closed with a shadowy chain.

Peter cheers immediately, then adding, “Loki would love this!”. Tony points at him, “no. I want to keep that one as far away as possible for as long as possible”.

Phantom snickers, “I have chronic bad luck, so don’t count on that working out for you. Spidey probably has better tastes than you though, Ironass”.

Tony shakes his head with a smile, “you like making up names for people huh?”.

Phantom grins meanly, “it pisses people off. Which makes them easier to hit”, and holds up a fist, smacking a hand on his bicep.

Tony can’t help but laugh at that, “you got a point kid!”, though that was stupid reckless, and effectively confirmed him being tricky. One of Tony’s tech toys starts beeping so she moves to check it out. Peter taking his place in the chair. Glancing back at Tony before looking back to the screen, “hey I’ve got a question, teen to teen. What’s being a hero to you? Why do you do it? It just... it seems like your only suffering for it. Waaaaay more than normal. And not making stuff much better for it”.

Phantom hums, spinning around in the chair, “a hero's not afraid to give their life, and anything worth doing is worth getting hurt for. I do it so others will not suffer. That is all. It doesn’t matter if things change or not. If there’s still unnecessary violence and pain, then it is still a hero's place to grab their fists around it and pulverise it to Hell and back. So long as cruelty exists I will be there to stand against it. With a smile on my face and a laugh in my heart and Core. Because there is no greater joy, no greater choice, no greater path, than self-sacrifice for the sake of another. Regardless who they are, what they are. Good or bad. Young or old. And whether they support you, or not”, Phantom nods, puts his hands behind his head, cape bunching up, and looks to the side, “and maybe someday things will change. I doubt it, but who knows. But if things do, if that kind of future is on the horizon, then I think I’ll rest. Until then, I’ll be here. Doing what I do and suffering immeasurably for it. Until the world doesn’t need ‘heroes’ anymore. Till it doesn’t need me anymore”, looking back at the screen, Tony having walked back over slowly though the kid doesn’t pay him any mind, “so I guess, being a hero to me is being the embodiment of a brighter future. To absorb the suffering of the world”, sticking a finger up, “like a paper towel!”. Tony chokes at that a little; though the kids' sudden seriousness and introspection was just as startling as last time.

Tony shakes his head, “you make it sound like you’re immortal, kid. Also, that’s what a team’s for, to help share the load. The burden. Sure your ideals are noble and probably needed, but you can’t help anyone if you destroy yourself”.

Phantom smiles but something about it seems almost... sad. “In a way, I am. A ghost can not die and a human can not fade. A ghost ceases to exist when they fade and a human when they die. Yet I can do neither. So that raises the question, what is ‘death’ for a halfa? An idea? An ideal? A reality? Or just pointless conjecture. And besides, for a ghost to fade they must satiate their Obsession. Be satisfied with the fulfilment of their existence”, pointing to his chest, “and my Obsession? Protection. To protect is a physical and mental need for me. And it will never be satisfied till there’s nothing left needing protection. And it is thus that I will always be here”, shrugging and chuckling, “likely anyway”.

Tony blinks, that... that changed a lot actually. It also explained a lot. This wasn’t some kid playing hero, or even an experienced hero just doing what’s right and their job. This wasn’t someone stuck in a bad way and doing what needed to be done purely because no one else could. This wasn’t someone trying to do good to make up for their sorted past. This was someone wise beyond their years, with little to no regard for themselves, and a living -half-living- embodiment of the word ‘hero’. Watching the teen turn his head at someone -likely his mom- shouting that supper was ready. There was a rocket-powered fistfight minutes ago and his parents’ didn’t even check on him. Christ that was depressing. But it also made him want to help this kid out all the more.

Phantom turns back to the screen, “whelp that’s my queue then I guess. And let me guess? This-” gesturing at the screen, “-is gonna become a thing? Which totally cool, little warning next time. And keep this mind, walking the straight and narrow takes more time than I got. I will steal, mildly harm, trick, and lie, as I see fit”.

Tony rolls his eyes, he’d expect no different from a kid basically left up to their own devices, “we’re all guilty of that, kid”. Phantom just laughs as the screen goes dark.

Tony leans back, well fuck, he wasn’t prepared for the kid to have shit that bad. And the King situation definitely threw him through a loop. He’ll have to talk to Thor -not Loki, dear God not Loki- about that. Being a hero and a king.

Regardless, they’re gonna help the weird spooky future kid out. And Peter absolutely liked Phantom, which hopefully wouldn’t be a bad thing. Hopefully. (And it wasn’t, if you ignored Peter carrying out more than a few pranks on Phantom’s behalf).

End.

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kitkat99 · 3 years

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Disney legacy challenge Post Hey everyone I decided to go ahead and upload another challenge that I plan on doing in the future rules today and right now I am doing back stories pictures for snow white's family and her dating relationship stories but I plan on up loading photos of all the house holds involved in this future challenge but I also plan on uploading the actual challenge gameplays videos to my personal youtube channel in the near future. I also will be adding a video of their backstories on my you tube channel as well.

Disney Legacy Challenge rules

All rules apply, except it is okay to pick an aspiration for all sims, as well as a secondary aspirations. Also, if needed, you can add sims that you create to the household. your sims may go on vacation at any time and go to University, unless noted otherwise. Generations are listed below.

Generation 1: Snow White

She was the first princess, so of course she has to be the founder! If you choose, you can create her as a teen and make her evil stepmother, but that’s not necessary. To start, create Snow as an Adult (or Young Adult if you wanted to go to University, but that is not recommended for this generation).

.Find love with someone of high authority and/or wealth

.Must have 7 children (dwarves) with the same baby daddy

.May not marry until the 7th child is a toddler, has learned to walk, talk and use the potty, and has maxed out 1 toddler skill at least, or until that child is a child

.Don’t open the door to strangers or talk to elderly women (this includes the matchmaker from Nightlife and Freetime!)

Generation 2: Cinderella

Although you grew up with six brothers and sisters, you somehow always ended up doing the cooking and cleaning. Your mother says you’re a natural, but is that really what you want to do with your life? This generation starts when Cinderella becomes a teenager.

.Must be a neat sim

.Must clean something every day and cook every meal

.Must reach at least level 8 of the cooking and cleaning skill before you become an adult

.May not marry until your mother dies

.May stop cooking all the meals and cleaning after your mother dies

.Marry, have children

Generation 3: Tiana

What has your family accomplished? Nothing! But you’re here to do something about it. You want to work, and work hard. This generation starts when Tiana becomes a teenager.

.Must be an active sim

.Must have the fortune aspiration

.Must get a teen job

.Must go to University (if you have the expansion pack)

.Father must die before she goes to University or becomes an adult

.Must own a pet (if you have Pets, otherwise just get a fish)

.Must marry a sim with green (hair, eyes, skin, etc.)

.Have children

.Reach the top of career choice and may never retire

Generation 4: Aurora

Because of your mother’s hard work, everything just came to you, except for love. Your father rarely let you in the outside world for fear of something happening to you. This generation starts when Aurora becomes an Adult (may not go to University this generation)

.Must be a lazy sim

.Can only know three people outside her family

.Mother must die before Adulthood

.Must meet future spouse at night while her parents are sleeping

.Have a private wedding

.Only have 2 children (having 3 children by having accidental twins is fine)

Generation 5: Elsa (Requires Apartment Life, if not, see generation 5.5)

Where exactly did your powers come from? How exactly did you get it? Well, let’s just say, a certain friend gave you a curse… but that doesn’t matter. You spent all your time thinking about it, so much time, you became secluded from your entire family. You even missed your own parents’ funeral because you were too scared to show yourself! This generation starts when Elsa is a teenager.

.Must become a witch by the end of her teenage years (can not be cheated, can be good or bad)

.Have parents die as a teenager (can be cheated)

.Never marry, have one child (it was an accident)

Generation 5.5: Anna (If you have Apartment Life, you can do Anna and Elsa together)

After your sister was a child, she secluded herself from you, leaving you lonely and depressed. What did you do to deserve this? And after your parents’ death, she didn’t even show up to the funeral! What exactly is going on? When Anna is a teenager, this generation begins

.Don’t talk to sister until adulthood

.Have parents die as a teenager

.Find love with someone in the criminal career and/or a grouchy sim

.Have lover cheat on her, get engaged with loved

.Find someone new after breaking up with lover

.Marry, have one child

Generation 6: Rapunzel

You were never allowed outside your little house. So, to pass the time, you chose to do a lot of painting. But, why exactly did your mother never trust you out there? This generation begins when Rapunzel becomes a teenager.

.Must be a shy sim

.Must reach at least level 8 of the creativity skill before adulthood

.Must paint for an hour each day

.May only leave the house for school

.If you go to University, you may only talk to boys (if you don’t have University, just move in a handsome adult sim)

.Lover must be in the criminal career

.Lover must quit job before getting married (can get another one if they want)

.Marry, have kids

Generation 7: Belle

You have always found a love for books. It has transported you away to another universe. They taught you not to judge by appearance, but by character and personality. But, your father had different ideas. He set you up with the most handsome men, but none of them fit your standards. This generation begins when Belle becomes an adult.

.Must have Pleasure or Romance aspiration

.Date at least 5 men

.Find the man of your dreams- a werewolf (this may be cheated if necessary). If you don’t have Pets, just make an ugly sim

.Marry, have kids

.Werewolf is cured after marriage (if you don’t have Pets just try to make him less ugly or use hacks and cheats to change his appearance)

Generation 8: Ariel

You loved the water and everything about it. It just transported you away to another dimension, with mermaids and fish that talk to you. You always dreamed about being a mermaid, and you hope to one day make this dream a reality. This generation begins when Ariel becomes a teenager.

.Must be an active sim

.Must own a pool and swim in it for an hour or more each day

.Must marry a beautiful sim with at least two attraction bolts (if you have Nightlife)

.Have kids (no limit)

Generation 9: Jasmine

Living the rich life has its ups and downs. To you, it seems like mostly downs. The only thing you find comfort in is Raja. All your father wants from you is to marry rich, but you’re willing to give it all up just to be normal. This generation starts when Jasmine is a teenager.

.May only leave the house for school

.Must meet future spouse on a community lot dressed as a “poor person”

.Must marry a poor sim

.Lover must have a pet (if you have Pets)

.Go on vacation to all three vacation areas at least once

.Make use of the genie! (May not be cheated, can wish for anything besides hidden Give Me Youth)

.Have 4 children

Generation 10: Merida

You always wanted to know why your mother gave up her riches for a poor boy. Who in their right mind would do that?! Trying to learn more about this and your other “adventures” has landed you in lots of trouble over the years. When Merida becomes an adult, this story beings.

.Must be an active sim

.Lose siblings and mother in an “accident” (may be cheated)

.Resurrect them as zombies (use the resurrect-o-nomitron)

.Never marry or have kids

Generation 10.5: Mulan (for those who want a happier ending)

After your mother married her lover, she realized she wanted her children to live the life she did. She wanted all her children to marry rich, and succeed at life. But you wanted nothing but glory. When Mulan becomes an adult, this generation begins.

.Must be an active sim

.Must be in the military career

.Fall in love with a co-worker once you reach the top of the career

.Marry if you wish, but never have children

.Never retire

#disney #disney legacy challenge #sims 2 challenges #kitkat #Life of Kitkat #legacy challenge

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