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canmom · 1 month

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Ping-Pong The Animation: eps 1-3

So Masaaki Yuasa [AN12, AN28, AN150] can do no wrong, right? OK, well, I'll admit Ride Your Wave was kinda mid, and Devilman Crybaby goes hard as hell at the beginning and end but sorta treads water in the middle, but... generally speaking! No-one does it like Yuasa.

For reasons I don't really remember, I didn't get very far watching Ping-Pong The Animation some years ago. It should be entirely my shit: Yuasa pulling in a gang of wildly creative animators to put their unique spin on something. However, the first episode didn't entirely hook me, and I never got round to trying the second before something else punted 'watching Ping Pong' out of my brain. ADHD, y'know.

This is a shame because even the very next episode seriously goes, as does the one after that. But also this anime isn't entirely what I was expecting (crazy sakugafest full of Yuasa weirdness). Not to say it doesn't do a lot of really unique stuff with its cinematography and animation, but these first episodes at least are more about like... dissociation! ennui!

But more on that in a mo. First I wanna continue the thread of 'how do you animate sports'.

So, ping-pong, or table tennis. Not a sport I know much about, I'll be honest. (To be fair I don't know a lot about sports in general outside of some very specific niches. The sports I've pursued so far are rather eclectic: swimming, fencing, tai chi chuan, and roller derby; I never got particularly far in any and it's been years since I've done them.)

I'll inevitably be drawing a lot of comparisons to The First Slam Dunk, the other sports anime I've watched recently. I do think it's a productive comparison though! Both of them bring something of the visual language of manga into their presentation in unique ways. I have not yet read the Ping Pong manga, but it's by Taiyō Matsumoto, otherwise known for scifi manga like Tekkonkinkreet (god tier movie, still need to read the manga) and Number Five. So that's a pretty impressive track record!

If you go take a look at some scans of Ping Pong, what will immediately jump out is the shaky, rough line style and unusual camera angles and compositions.

The stylisation is also very different from a lot of manga. Noses are fully drawn, eyes are realistically small, and in contrast, lips and mouths tend to get the emphasis - as well as hands.

Knowing this makes a lot of the creative choices in the anime make sense! It also adopts a shaky lineart style, and makes use of heavy line weights and spotting blacks to add definition. It also has a lot of crazy closeups and layouts, and it loves a visual metaphor. But most of all, the most striking element of this anime is how often it loves to split the picture up into little panels...

...which [eli]'s subs do a really good job of typesetting, incidentally, moving the dialogue to fit naturally into the split composition. And while this shot with 7 smaller shots is perhaps on the extreme end, splits of three or more are pretty frequent. It's a really interesting way to evoke the effect of seeing a whole page of manga

So, as you proooobably know, ping-pong is a game of bouncing balls off a little table and directing them into places the opponent will find it hard to hit them back. From watching this anime I picked up that there are a number of styles of holding the racket (e.g. 'penhold grip' and 'shakehand') and approaches to hitting the ball (e.g. 'chopping'). A lot of this pretty much went over my head, but honestly it didn't matter, since the narrative significance was pretty much always evident.

Compared to basketball, though, ping-pong is a pretty tricky sport to make visually interesting! Sure, you have the players running to and fro, and that can lead to some interesting poses, but how do you get the drama and tension into this?

Ping-pong additionally is all 2D, it doesn't have the sort of resources that Toei could throw at making the best looking 3DCG basketball game ever. It is limited to a TV-feasible drawing count. So it has to make use of clever limited-animation tricks to get the most impact out of fewest drawings.

Let's take an example sequence from episode 3. A minor character is about to get his ass kicked by Tsukimoto. Tsukimoto is something of a pingpong prodigy, and yet he is very emotionally closed-off and even standoffish; he doesn't particularly seem to like the game very much, and doesn't particularly feel inclined to flex on other players and get into the status games. But other players, like Wenge, have heard about him and want to see what he's got.

First we have the setup. Other characters are observing and discussing the game. Since ping-pong tends to involve very rapid exchanges, it can follow the classic shōnen model where there's a lot of talking, flashy fight sequence, more talking...

The cut happens in two steps, maintaining the vertical dividing line. This approach to cutting is used a lot in Ping-Pong, and it's quite a creative way to keep visual interest when it's using a lot of largely static shots. The panel on the right is more animated than the panel on the left, a naturalistic depiction of bouncing the ball off the table.

Things start moving faster here. A rapid pan on the image on the left disguises the fact that this anticipation pose is actually not moving at all. This then goes into a rapid, explosive moment as this guy serves.

The final pose is held for a couple of seconds while the voiceover line discussing his intended move finishes. This sort of elasticity of time is a very Osamu Dezaki type of move - it's something that Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata actually really disliked.

A sound effect hits as Tsukimoto appears on the right in silhouette, anticipating his reaction, and setting up the next shot which leaves the split picture and hides the background for just a moment, as if to put us in Tsukimoto's shoes: he only sees the ball.

Tsukimoto follows through and holds this pose - the ball is the only thing moving here. The ball moves mainly on 2s while Tsukimoto moves on 3s and 2s, and he and the ball move on alternating frames. He holds the pose as the ball zips off to the right (bouncing off the corner of the table), with a speed lines-like effect. At the end of the shot, the ball freezes in the air for the moment while the sound echoes.

The actual table-tennis round lasts just seconds, and the drawing count involved is pretty minimal, but it does a lot with those drawings.

We go back to voiceovers and reactions in the next few shots, returning to the split video as Tsukimoto's opponent thinks about how he'd really rather be at the beach...

Often, these comic-like compositions will change one panel at a time, and while one panel is animated another panel will be still, naturally moving your eyes across the screen. It is an approach similar to some experiments I've seen in 'animated comics' viewed in a web browser, where the panels do not appear all at once, but enter with some animation.

So this is the sort of animation technique that Ping Pong uses. It's effective! Elsewhere the cuts are used in a less direct, continuity-editing way and more in a juxtaposition/montage way. For example, Wenge's desire to return to China is symbolised by match cutting/fading to shots of an aeroplane.

And there is a recurring image, which I'm sure will be expanded on, of Tsukimoto hiding in a cupboard and wishing for a tokusatsu hero to come save him from his isolation. As Tsukimoto's feelings about himself change, the toku hero is replaced by a robot. At this points it starts to feel like an outright Ikuhara anime.

There is occasionally a little bit of CG, mainly when Tsukimoto uses a different type of racket surface, and the way the ball and racket make contact is the crucial thing that the shot is trying to convey...

It gets the job done, but I'm glad they stuck with 2D for most of it.

So I went in the first time expecting like, crazy elaborate sakuga - and to be fair, the OP, animated by none other than Shinya Ohira, delivers on that front - but if anything what I've seen so far in Ping-Pong is actually a triumph of storyboarding and limited animation techniques. I think back then I didn't have the eyes to appreciate it in the same way.

OK, that's the film nerd stuff, but what about the story? Ping Pong follows two school friends, Makoto Tsukimoto aka "Smile" (right), and Yutaka Hoshino aka "Peco" (left). Smile is defined by a flat affect and a standoffish persona. He's just going through the motions. He's very good at ping-pong, but to him it's just a way to pass time, and he's scornful about the idea of caring all that much about it. Much like Shinji with his casette player, Tsukimoto is pretty much always staring at a handheld games console rather than make eye contact with anyone.

Peco on the other hand is the more childish one - playful, kinda arrogant, very much an 'emotions on his sleeve' kinda guy. He sulks when he loses and gloats when he wins, and is constantly seen with bubblegum or other kinds of candy. He provides a lot of our commentary when he chats with the other players.

日本語上手 readers probably noticed the tsuki (moon) vs hoshi (star) symbolism thing they've got going on here!

High-school table tennis in this story seems to be a rather 'tough love' kinda world. Most of these players tend to look down on those who can't meet their level. Going easy on someone is seen as weakness, or cultivating bad habits, by almost everyone. Tsukimoto doesn't play at his full potential because he isn't as invested in winning as all these weirdos, but it seems that might be starting to change...

The coach is interesting. He's an old man and fairly disdainful of the club at large, and prone to speaking English randomly with a heavy accent. But he gets excited at the prospect of getting Tsukimoto to unleash his full potential, in terms that are repeatedly metaphorically compared to romance/marriage.

And when Tsukimoto gets sick of it, he challenges him to a game, with the stakes as...

Cue Makima/Beatrice images here I guess.

Tsukimoto de facto wins when the coach collapses, but this episode marks a change of heart. He starts to think of himself as a robot - the affect of a robot replacing the affect of the toku hero in his fantasy. And in this way he does what people seem to want and plays ping pong with mechanical precision, expressed once again in visual metaphor (shot here from a cool transformation sequence)...

What if I just dissociate harder? This is gonna end well.

So it really is one of those kind of like 'ennui of being a teenager' kind of stories - c.f. say FLCL. 'Boy with complicated emotional landscape' is Yuasa bread and butter, but the particular variant here seems a little unusual for him - they tend to be a little more earnest. I'm curious to see how Tsukimoto develops.

I am definitely enjoying the arrogant Chinese player Kong Wenge. Dude's got a lot of screen presence, and while I'm sure he'll get shown up sooner or later, he makes for a very fun antagonist of sorts.

In comparison to Slam Dunk... one thing that's significantly different about table tennis is that it's an individual rather than a team sport, which means it's harder to have an ensemble cast all contributing to the protagonists' eventual victory - instead it's about a lot of individual arcs interweaving with each other, individual duels. Besides that, it does seem like it will be following a similar arc of a character in an emotional hole (grief for Ryota, depression for Tsukimoto) finding new meaning and purpose through sports - though I can't be sure how things are gonna go for Tsukimoto here!

The tone however is quite different. Even when it's silly, I feel like Slam Dunk is a very sincere story. There's little detachment or irony, or false consciousness - with perhaps the major exception of Ryota's mother, who lets her own grief and trauma get in the way of understanding her son. But ultimately 'why would you care this much about basketball' is not a question that anyone would ask in Slam Dunk. Even the judo guy in the manga who's trying to recruit Sakuragi is just as hot-blooded about his own sport of choice.

There's a difference in like, general affect about the players as well, which has something to do with the sport itself. Yeah, Sakuragi's superpower is his 'genius' ability to predict rebounds, and there is plenty of strategising in Slam Dunk - but basketball is still a sport that very much emphasises physical power, and as much as Slam Dunk will work hard to sell you on a clever trick pass, the visuals are also emphasising the speed that players are dashing, the height they're jumping, their physique. Table tennis by contrast seems to be a sport that's more about prediction and mind games.

That said it is equally just like Matsumoto's style being different from Inoue's. Now I know it's by the guy who wrote Tekkonkinkreet, a lot about this series falls into place! There's a sense of tension here, of being fundamentally at odds with the world. The autismfeels. This is reflected also in the drawings - the characters don't entirely seem comfortable in their embodiment.

So if that's what I'm getting from just three eps, I'm very excited to see what the remaining 8 have to offer. This series is probably too long to cram into Animation Night format, but we'll see...

#anime #manga #ping pong the animation #masaaki yuasa #animation

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zimthandmade · 4 months

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Hi! First of all, I'm a huge fan!! I love your Death Note drawings, your style is incredible and I love how you portray the characters.

Soo I was wondering, in your version of MellodraMattic, how did the confession go or how was their first date like??

Thank you so much for the sweet words!! 🖤🖤🖤

I feel like even when writing fluffy scenarios, it reads as dry as a crime scene report and I feel the need to apologise. I'd much rather draw everything out as I see it play out in my head but there's just no time :'( But here’s one way I can see a “confession” happening.

Okay, so, the situation. L.A., early 2008, they’re both 18 and have been crushing on eachother for quite a while but neither of them made a move yet and the tension between them is suffocating. Matt didn’t say anything because of his low self-esteem, he’s rather suffering in silence than make a fool out of himself and potentially ruining this friendship. Mello is not displaying any signs he’s into guys and in Matts mind, even if he did, he’d probably be the last person Mello would be crushing on. Mello didn’t make a move yet because he’s afraid he’s putting both of them in danger, due to mafia relations. He’s afraid this could make him seem weak, ruin his reputaion or worst case get them both killed etc etc you get the picture, since the gang he’s in is either openly homophobic or just has a really clear picture of masculinity Mello already has trouble fitting in. There’s just a lot of stuff coming together. They’re both so trapped in their own minds that I can barely see them having a sober first move at all.

After living together for 4 years since running away, they’re now living in seperate flats for a couple of months due to convenience reasons, doesn’t matter. Matt isn’t taking living alone well and drowns in isolation. Mello is over for a visit and goes “Bro, you need to get some fresh air. Dress up, we’re going out.” and takes him to some nearby club. It's crowded in there, the bass is so heavy that it basically replaces your heartbeat. Matt finds it really uncomfortable, his social anxiety kicks in hard. They immediately start drinking which loosens things up a bit. Maybe Mello is trying to goad Matt into mingling with people a bit. Maybe something like a test of courage or a dare? "See that one at the back? If you manage to dance with her, I'll buy you another drink." "Pff, child's play. And who are you taking? I'm not doing this alone." "I'll find someone. Now go!"

And they both have a bitter feeling about the whole thing because they're both thinking, "Why am I even doing this? I want YOU to dance with me," and Mello could bite his own ass for sending Matt straight into some girl's arms. He can only swallow his jealousy because he's had alcohol. He has no trouble chatting up some girl and getting her to dance with him. I headcanon Mello inheriting the rizz of his dad. He CAN be charming if he wants to. On the dance floor in the crowd, Mello and Matt's eyes keep meeting over the shoulder of their partner. The looks are INTENSE - full of longing, jealousy, sometimes just grinning at each other. I imagine them touching their partner the way they would like to touch each other - pressing against them, hand on the back of the head, tenderly even. Unusually sensual for someone you've just chatted up in a club. At some point, Mello sits with the girl at the bar and lets her talk his ears off about some nonsense while he keeps scanning the crowd for Matt. He sees him stumble out of the crowd to the bar - alone - and keeps looking past the girl over to Matt, not listening to her at all, just saying "Mhm, oh really?" from time to time. Until at some point the girl turns around, completely annoyed at where Mello is looking all the time. She’s so pissed, rightly so, and just says “… you know, just go dance with your buddy over there if you’re so into him” “… you know what— I’mma do that, actually” and he walks away, leaving the girl sitting there. This one sentence somehow got to Mello, like "Yeah... actually, she's right. I'm just putting on an act here. I'm into Matt, so why not show him? Why am I doing this to myself? I’m a hypocrite if I keep this up any longer."

And Mello comes stumbling towards Matt grinning. “You done already?” “Yeah, she uhh left - I guess I owe you one now huh” “Screw that, come dance with me” “-for real??” “Why not?” and he drags Matt along and it's so fucking crowded in there that they almost feel invisible between all those people. There's this weird anonymity in the room. And they’re dancing so awkwardly adorable together. Maybe Mello goes “What did you do to the poor girl to make her leave you?” “I uhhh might’ve grabbed her butt and she might’ve slapped me for it haha” “Rude haha - you can grab my butt if you want, I won’t slap you” ”Oh be careful what you say, I might actually do that” “Go right ahead, dude”

Matt grabs him hard, he tries to play it as a joke. The alcohol made him so cocky that he'd rather take the chances of being smacked again than let the opportunity pass. Mello doesn't smack him though, they're both just grinning at each other and Matt keeps his hands on Mello's ass, Mello has his arms over Matt's shoulders. They are SO CLOSE, almost nose to nose and they look at each other as they sway, clinging to each other, hearts beating out of their chests. Matt has to stop himself from just leaning forward and risking everything by planting a kiss on Mello. He can't assess the situation AT ALL and he's weighing things up. He just stares at Mello, feels his heart pounding in his ears, everything is so overwhelming, he can smell Mello in front of him and it feels like time slowed down and he’s so anxious he's afraid he's going to throw up any second. But all of this happens in a matter of minutes, seconds, there's hardly any time to think about anything. Instead of just going for it, Matt goes “…what’s with you tonight why are you letting me do this” “I’m trying to make a move on you Mattie, isn’t that obvious haha” “ohhh of course, of course, suuure you are” “…don’t believe me?” “nah… maybe if you kissed me i would-” “ha, no problem-” and Mello kisses Matt on the lips. Matts brain shortwires, there’s no holding back anymore. Matt pulls Mello as close as he can, kissing him back, wrapping his arms around him like he’s afraid he’s gonna be dragged away any second. Mello is pleasantly surprised by the sudden increase of passion Matt is showing towards him. They’re straight up making out in a tight embrace on the dancefloor, there are little to no fucks left to give if anybody sees what they’re doing. Until Mello breaks the kiss and goes “come on let’s get outta here” and they stumble their way outside, arm in arm or even holding hands and Matt’s head is all ??????????????????? but he is so happy?????? this is all new emotional information and he’s not able to process any of it at an appropriate speed. They both feel downright high after that initial kiss. I think they’re both not their first kiss (they both probably kissed strangers in clubs but it was all pretty bland) but the first kiss that had intense emotions attached to it; the first kiss that mattered. And it felt amazing, it changed things. As they walk out, a blast of cold air sobers them up a bit and they look at each other, laughing like they have a new inside joke and they both think to themselves "did that really just happen?" and they both look at their hand in each other's hand and Matt goes “So uhh, — you coming over to my plac-” “Yes” “Haha okay cool” “but uhh— we probably shouldn’t be walking like this” Mello strokes the back of Matt's hand with his thumb and lets go of his hand. “They could see us, y’know” “Yeah”

On the way home (it's a few minutes' walk) they walk silently side by side, red-faced and smiling. Matt keeps looking over at Mello, in disbelief of what the hell is happening. Matt blurts out a "You have no idea how long I wanted to do that" “No joke?” “Mhm” “Why didn’t you just do it then?” “The thought of you reciprocating never crossed my mind and I didn’t want you to judge me” “But I hit on you so hard these last weeks, did you never notice anything?” “I thought you were mocking me, so I played everything for laughs” “Oh man, Matt...” “Yeah” ”…” ”I mean I’m still not entirely sure if you’re not playing a stupid little scheme with me but-” ”I’m not. Matt, I’m not.” ”…okay” ”Sorry for making it seem like I was messing with you” they’re smiling at eachother and walk in silence for a while ”So uhh what are we gonna do at my place?” ”HUH, well uhh —” Mello puts his arm around Matts shoulders, it’s looking more brotherly, but he whispers a ”whatever you feel like” in Matts ear, trying to seem as cool as possible, holding back a grin but failing miserably. It’s kind of an all-or-nothing situation.

I’m gonna spare you the smut here, just know they had a good time that night haha

I guess the gist is, they need to be catapulted way out of their comfort zone to get closer. And they're just horny, inexperienced adolescents in love, so they are awkward by default. They have no idea what they're doing in those regards.

#ask #death note #mello #matt #dn au 2.1 #headcanon #mihael keehl #mail jeevas #wammys boys #wammys house #wammy boys #wammy kids #wammy's house #mellodramattic #mello x matt #matt x mello #m2

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frozenpeazz · 1 year

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NIGHTMARES

Pairing- Daniel Larusso x f!reader

Warning- angst? Not sure, crying, panic attack, fluff, mentions of bullying and injuries

Y/n was staying over at her boyfriend Daniels tonight, and its a good thing she was or who else would've been there to calm him from his nightmare about Johnny Lawrence and his gang.

It was about 2am, you and Daniel were sound asleep in his bed somehow facing away from eachother despite falling asleep in each others arms. You were peacefully dreaming about whatever you want. However, Daniel on the other hand. He was not peacefully dreaming the poor boy. He was having a nightmare about getting beat up by Johnny and his gang again except 10x worse and he had to watch them beat you up to. His body began to sweat as he tries to wake up. Suddenly Danny wakes up and bolts to sit up right. Body shaking, muscles tense and his breathe quickening to the point where he is getting little to no oxygen into his lungs. He tries to call your name but he cant. He's to weak. Tears begin to prick his eyes as he musters the strength to push you hoping you wake up.

You grumble. "Mm.. Danny go back to bed.." you tried closing your half awake eyes but they instantly open back up at the sound of your boyfriends sob. You sit up and whip round to face Daniel.

"Danny!" You panic as you stare at your boyfriend crying, shaking and barely breathing he cant even make eye contact with you. Your on the spot and you try to think of something to calm him down. When suddenly it hits you.

"Daniel.. Daniel look at me." His eyes flicker up to meet yours. You reach out and gently take his hand.

"Danny. I want you to breathe with me ok? Just copy my breathing. In.... And out." You repeat this process whilst drawing shapes in his hand softly with your fingers. As he begins to slowly regain his breathe, its not quite normal yet but getting closer you ask him a question.

"Danny, can i hug you?" You didn't want to launch yourself onto him and startle him. He nods slightly still not able to fully speak. You climb into his lap and wrap your arms around his neck your hand making its way to his hair as you begin to play with it. "Its okay Danny.. im here. I'm never going to leave. Okay? I love you so much Danny, you know that hm?"

"I-i love you t-to.." he whispers out as his arms wrap around your stomach hugging you tightly. You feel his breathe return to normal and his tears soak through your top. You use your nails to draw shapes on his back as his body begins to relax.

"You want to talk about it?" You ask gently separating you two slightly and tilting his chin up to look at you.

"I-its dum'.." he looks embarrassed as he averts his gaze from your captivating eyes.

"Oh Danny.. its not dumb. Not if your this worried by it. You dont got to tell me but just know, im all ears. I'll never judge you my pretty boy." You wipe the tears off his cheeks as you kiss his head gently.

"i had a-a nightmare. About.." he stops.

"Take you time Danny." You didn't want him to feel like he was obliged to tell you if he didn't want to.

"J-johnny an' the boys. They was beating me up, but it hurt more than usual.. a-an' they made me watch you g-get beat.. i felt so useless. I couldn't p-protect you.."

"Oh baby boy.. your not useless. Your the most kind, loving, thoughtful and good looking guy in the whole~ universe. That stupid prick Johnny is just jealous of you. Your looks, your personality you in general. And dont you worry your pretty little head about protecting me, i got myself covered." You kiss away the tears from his cheeks and he smiles at you.

"Why'd you pick me over Johnny anyway?.."

"Simple, your kind, you think before you act, your not stuck up, your not obsessed with your ex, you don't hurt people for fun and! You just look wayyy hotter!" You giggle slightly as his cheeks light up at your compliments. "You calmed down now pretty boy?" You tease. He nods, his cheeks getting brighter at the nickname.

"Thanks for helping me pretty girl."

"Anything for you." You smile as you lay with your boyfriend on top of you as your eyelids begin to get heavy again. ".. love you Danny."

"I love you to Y/n, my gorgeous girl." You smile before falling asleep.

#daniellarusso #daniel larusso x reader #daniel larusso #karatekid1984

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heartfullofleeches · 1 year

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after mr devil's merry chrimas

i raise yall bandit gang's "merry crimes", with sheriff reader as their unwilling santa

"Get back here!"

Frigid laughter soars through the empty streets as you chase the lone bandit through the streets. Your lungs burn, vision blurred from the cold; your energy sapped from single handedly pursing the criminals suspect in a long string of crimes throughout the day. Fatigue on the verge of catching up to you, you push past it and continue your pursuit - fueled by rage and the exhaustion itself. One of the few times you get time off, and today of all days was when your troublesome admirers decided to pull out all the stops. Once you caught this last crook - you're sure to give them all hell.

The bandit snickers as they speed ahead.

"Come on now, Sheriff. I know you can do better than that! If you catch me soon, I might even kiss ya."

The taunt has your blood pressure sky rocketing. You bolt around the corner to catch up to the bandit, your feet sliding on the frozen streets. They pause hearing your exclamation of surpise, sprinting off when you fix yourself off and continue the chase. Your surroundings become increasingly familiar the further you go, but you're too trained on them to notice. It's not till they barrel straight through the jail doors that you catch on.

"You bold little shit." Your steps slow as you climb the steps of the building. You open the door, easing it to a close behind you to avoid drawing attention. The room is silent and lights turned; the creaks of your shoes against the floorboards the only sound. You specifically remembered leaving them on after giving the new deputy a few words of advice. Did they get cold feet already? Eyes adjusting to the fuzzy shapes of the shadows along the wall, you make out a distinct shape in the middle of the room.

"Is... that a tree?"

"Now."

Laughter comes from behind you, the heavy bang of a lock against the wooden doors ringing in your ears. In the brief moment between your last seconds of freedom and imprisonment, two figures creep behind you. One holding you still, while the other wrapped you in festive string. Blinded by the dark and the element of surpise, you're left helpless as you're forced into a chair and wheeled across the floor. The lights flicker on as a foot halts your flight; the final member of the group joining the fray as the bandits gather around you.

"Happy holidays, Sheriff."

"Oh god-" Your jaw clenches; unsure whether to fall onto the floor or yell obscenities at the mischievous, yet lovestruck gang. As you had pieced out, a tree stood in the center of the room; branches crooked from being forced through the jail's unfit opening. The various stolen goods you had yet to return hide beneath it. A closet door rattles with each shuttering bang against it; muffled sobs washed away by the commotion around you. Finding your worse, you utter.

"Is... is that the damn tree from the hospital?"

The leader of the bunch removes their boot from the wheel of your chair. "Well, not like they were using it."

You struggle against your binds. "Alright, you had your fun. Let me out of here."

"Aw Sheriff, Sheriff-" They coo. "You wound us. Here we were planning this whole party for you, and you want to leave so soon. We got all these nice gifts for you too. You haven't even tried Hex's eggnog yet. Made it special for ya and its damn good."

"They're stolen."

They chuckle. "Stolen- that words overused nowadays. We're just giving this junk a new, better home. One that actually deserves it. You've given the entire world so many wonderful gifts so it's time it gives back, and we're going make sure that happens after we get the last one of ours."

The bandit drops a red hat over the one you already wore; brushing its tip out of your face as they crouch in front of you. The color drains from your seeing the little plant taped to it.

"Lookin' good there, Santa. Looks like I'll go first." The bandit plants a small kiss to your cheek, grinning against your skin.

#Sheriff reader #yandere oc #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere scenarios #yandere headcanons #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere insert #yandere blurb #yandere drabble #Yandere bandit #yandere x darling #yandere x y/n #Yandere bandits

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phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing · 4 months

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I have a question. After finishing chapter 42 act2, Vita is clearly a very flirtatious and teasing person but it's hard to tell who she really cares about, or whom she can take advantage of. Do you have any way to know?

Thanks to the monologue in the chapter 40 secret cutscenes I think it's pretty easy but I'll go over things in order. Let's go back in time for a bit shall we?

Vita riles people up often, she's been doing it ever since Salt Snow Holy City (though she was acting innocent so it was less overt). As early as chapter 37, she hints in the narration that she compliments Seele to see her cute reactions.

using old screenshots sorry

So teasing people seems to be something Vita deliberately likes to do... or has recourse to in order to lower people's guards, as the narration notes that Vita's joking around defused the tension of the battle.

Seele senses in that same chapter that Vita is hiding deep sadness; this is one of the first clues we get of Vita's true feelings. It is established that her happy personality is at least partly a mask to hide her negative emotions, though she doesn't refrain from showing grief for Grandpa Kaye. It is also noted that sad Vita was quiet. So a subdued Vita is likely to be a more sincere Vita.

This is supported by chapter 40. In the secret cutscenes, Vita elaborates on which parts of her personality is deliberate:

Due to the nature of my work, the second I open my eyes, I have to be an outgoing, friendly girl who’s equally shrewd and oblivious. As for why I need to act like that, who knows? Everyone just can’t resist that type of woman… Or, perhaps that kind of woman is disarming? Being amiable means that we can get along well without any pressure, and the hint of shrewdness gives me a nice veil of mystery. As for being oblivious… Being oblivious makes a flawless person more adorable. Do you understand?

Because of her job, she has learned to repress her negative emotions in order to get closer to and manipulate others and plays up her happy mask. So by opposition, when she's subdued or moody, she's probably not acting.

Important to note that this is Vita's monologue; she isn't necessarily saying the whole truth, either. She never admits to being lonely despite Hua picking up on it right after this scene. She does, however, tells Seele that she genuinely enjoyed her time in Salt Snow with everyone in chapter 38:

Is she lying, or saying the truth? I think she's saying the truth. When fighting Senti, she becomes subdued when she says this:

She even draws a line between her previous actions and her work persona, implying that she was largely genuine in her feelings, if not her backstory.

Additionally, when gauging why Vita says something, you have to keep track of what she isn't saying, what she is trying to hide. During the early Salt Snow parts of the story, she is hiding that she is their enemy, so you can put a lot of doubt on her sincerity... but she has no reason to hide her emotions by the time she's fighting Senti, since she's already been found out.

Further proof is that when she's confronted by the two Seeles they have this conversation, and Vita is subdued there too:

Her feelings towards the Salt Snow gang were genuine. Only in her business mode does she get seriously mean with everyone, taunting everybody... except Seele for some reason. She KEEPS complimenting Seele even past the point where Seele is no longer flustered by it. Favoritism? This is just before the boss fight:

VELIONA had to call Vita out on the compliments. VELIONA. Seele's number 1 simp!

The one time Vita does say something approaching mean to Seele is in chapter 38, during the brief lull time before they execute their plan. Though she hasn't yet realized Vita is an enemy, this is also when Seele realizes that Vita is playing up her naive and optimist behavior.

So what's the "mean" teasing that Vita says?

Yeah. She's... still paying her compliments, they're just slightly backhanded.

Also I just checked and Vita taunts Seele in an exclusively playful way during the boss fight. She really is never actually mean to her even though she didn't hesitate before calling Senti stupid........

After the boss fight, when "Fate" has finally been broken, when she no longer has a reason to hide, when no Sa is watching over her shoulder, she says this:

Seele has already picked up on WHY Vita acts like that! She calls her out!

But Vita placates her and explains the truth and we know at that point that she's being genuine since she is free and over the moon about it, plus her previous subdued words.

So Seele believes her, though she is STILL wary (Griseo would be proud), and asks Vita whether she'll interfere with her reviving everyone and going home...

We know Vita's serious self is real, BECAUSE Seele expects the mask, and doesn't find it. Vita genuinely cares here.

Now compare and contrast with any interaction Vita has taunting Griseo, well... it's a lot more mean-spirited, haha. She's trying to get Griseo angry, and she knows Griseo dislikes her. Hua understands and gets along with Vita a little better (she does get a number of compliments, and Vita notes both Hua and Seele are altruistic people, she even asks Hua for advice on handling immortality), but they're not exactly close. Hua compared her to Senti fhdjsgfs

Finally and most importantly, Vita in Phosphorus is playing around with everyone because she's hiding her real goal: take over Sa's power once and for all... becoming a god. Get rid of the threat looming over her, gain true freedom.

At the end of act 2 she's bullying Moriarty, and they don't like each other, but she does ultimately respect him. She also does something similar with Sa, looking down on her and mocking her but taking her warning seriously, and speaking a sad eulogy once she's finally dead.

So TLDR: Vita generally acts friendly, but she is deliberately mean-spirited when she's trying to misdirect or hiding her emotions, especially negative ones: with the little Vitas it's especially noticeable (for example she outright makes fun of Green for being attached to Orange, which prompts Green to tell her to stop).

When she is teasing someone she has a genuine soft spot for, she seems to skip being outright mean in favor of compliments or teasing cute reactions out of them.

When she is trying to distract someone or get their guard down, she'll deliberately say outrageous things, lie, tease and flirt to make them angry and flustered (Griseo). Note that she's even lying about not feeling guilt

When she's in a bad mood, she'll be passive aggressive (this will be very obvious with Misteln in ch42 act 3).

Hope that helped! I'm hungry now that took me like two hours.

#honkai impact #hi3 #asks #vita

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allykakamatsu · 5 months

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Part 2 of my brain being unhinged.

As I said last time, this is the basic lore run down for my KH X GI au because I have a problem.

Basics: Like I said last time, the basic run down is that Sora ended up in Teyvat instead of Quadratum, so now Riku and Kairi are going there to try find him, however the power that sent them there also dragged a good few of the others along for the ride. What I didn't mention last time is that Teyvat is like Quadratum in the sense that is very difficult to get into, so as an 'entry fee' to get in they're not allowed to leave until 'peace has been restored', aka until the plot is over.

Visions: The interesting part, I know the whole group is Descenders and realistically couldn't get a Vision, but it's my au so I'm gonna twist the rules and say for a reason the gang isn't aware of they can get them. Everyone can still use their regular powers though, and a good few characters won't even have a Vision by the time the main team catches up with them. Because of this, Vision's don't have to match the characters associated element and are instead given based on a trait they show when they unlock their ambition, for example Elrena is going to have an Anemo Vision alongside her usual lightning powers. I'm mostly basing my decisions off of this post as it gives a good case for a unifying trait of all the elements.

Keyblades: Every nation is going to be treated as it's own world basically, so after completing the Archon Quest every Keyblade wielder who was present get's a new Keyblade to play around with. Part of this was for rule of cool, the other was because drawing Destiny's Embrace made it very clear I had to get people more options so I don't have to murder my hand drawing some of these things. Also, not gonna say who or when yet, but certain Genshin characters are gonna get Keyblades as well, some intentionally, a lot by accident-

Princesses of Heart: Like I said, every nation is gonna be treated like it's own world, so every nation is gonna have one of Teyvat's Seven Princesses of Heart, though in this case Princess is more of a gender neutral term as a girl, guy or anything in between can be one of the Princesses.

Is the main plot gonna have any changes: Not gonna spoil what specifically is gonna change, but the KH gang being in the plot is gonna spawn a lot of changes, some out of necessity so the KH crew don't steamroll the plot, other things I changed because I think they would be neat, and some changes were purely because the plot desperately needed some ironing out in areas (spoilers but not really, Inazuma is gonna be changed the most-)

Characters: Gonna have some character focused posts later but for now I’ll just go over the basics of where everyone starts out.

Riku and Kairi start in Mondstat, with Ienzo also being along for the ride.

Naminé is assisting Albedo up in Dragonspine

Lea/Axel is working for Beidou so she can get him and Roxas to Inazuma, meanwhile Roxas is more or less just Vibing with the Liyue kids.

Isa is working for Yae at the Shrine to help him and Xion, meanwhile Xion herself is pretending to just be a helpful random girl but is actually with the resistance.

Repliku is vibing in the Saberuz theatre with Nilou cause he as nothing else to do, and Vanitas is making questionable life choices yet again (he’ll get better I swear-)

Sora um… he’s complicated, but let’s just say he isn’t tied to any one nation and he’s having a not great time-

Laurium and Elrena are both members of Spina di Rosula, however the former is also the part time tea party planner to Furina and the latter spends her free time helping the twins with their act.

There’s still more but I wanna leave them a surprise so I’ll get back to them later.

That's about everything I can thing of for now, I'll be posting more art and tidbit's about this au soon, so hope you all enjoy, and here's some concept art just so this post doesn't look too boring.

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silviakundera · 3 months

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Empresses in the Palace ep 13

I really like bestie Meizhuang's practicality and no-nonsense style. Too bad she's definitely gonna die (since her name isn't Zhen Huan). Honestly, she and ZH should be the perfect team: ZH is the right amount of paranoid and distrusting, bestie is more pessimistic and calculating. But I think the flaw is, they're too permissive of each other. I mean, they give advice but aren't adamant and demanding about it. If you're really gonna say you're sisters, BE BOSSY ABOUT IT. smh

Tapping in Ling Rong was smart. I never agreed with them not keeping her close.

Poor Fourth Prince. It's both a terrible idea to get associated with a kid the emperor hates... and I wish Zhen Huan could afford to openly care about him. Seems like a good kid.

ZH loosening up when she thinks no one is watching and being playful with her maid is THE SADDEST THING because you are struck that this is the real her. And she has to hide this person at all times and walk a tightrope in the proper concubine act. Even with Meizhuang she is all politeness, isn't so free & easy.

Meet cute with the real Prince Guo. Except this is a horror story, so no such thing. "You must not tell this to anyone. Otherwise, I'll have no burial ground for my body."

I love the old consort. She just straight up leaves the party all, 'I've seen enough drama in my day. Too tired for all this bullshit.'

If she can see it clearly, why can't the emperor? tbh I think he can too. It just doesnt threaten or affect him so he doesn't care.

Hell workplace dinner where everyone is drinking bored, so they've ganged on someone for entertainment. Everyone is salivating at the spectacle of the protagonist embarassing themselves. So of COURSE protagonist will shock everyone with their Secret Special Skills™. It's a very cliche trope but I think most viewers would have to admit that WE LOVE IT. We all eat this shit up with a spoon.

Ep 14

IM SCREAMING. Hua Fei, I pledge fealty. Marry me. "Consort Fleur, what is the matter with you?" Wavering, coughing, making indigestion faces: "I have no greviance over anything. I lost my composure because I was overcome with emotions watching Lady Sourire's performance." The emperor keeps being like, oh REALLY babe but you're basic. When did you start liking poetry? and babygirl puts her whole pussy into it. 👏👏 Girlboss gaslight gatekeep.

ZH really out here eager to co-parent with Meizhuang and ready to rush back from kissing the emperor's ass. I know she legit was into him (why??) at the start but I feel like reality has set in and she's just playing the part now. She's drawing her and Meizhuang's names together with a heart in her Lisa Frank notebook and planning how to spend their golden years together after they pop out a couple kids.

Hua Fei, the light of my life, breaks down the politics of it all. She's very savvy and will be a near impossible opponent to defeat - unless, of course, you have the protagonist halo. or if bro starts losing battles.

Empress pops in to remind us that being the CFO also sucks. Endless, tireless smiling and benevolence. You can't even throw a coquettish tantrum or two for the luz.

The ghost of the empresses's sister that the emperor loved most lingers yet again. Did the empress kill her sister? The thunder & lightening say yes.

The mess with Ling Rong's dad and the pull of Hua Fei's brother great examples of how the harem struggles aren't really about 'a bunch of sad women fighting over a man'. Being in the harem is entering a circle of power and influence. Yes, the concubines aren't supposed to 'discuss state affairs' but that's a rule made to be circumvented. Pleasing the emperor can make him reward your noble family and factions of the harem are connections within powerful noble families. Because Ling Rong is there, even though the emperor doesn't remember her name she has strings to pull. Whether it works out this time for her, it's a recourse she wouldn't have otherwise. And Meizhuang is able to go straight to the emperor's residence and get an update on the situation and counsel from the head eunuch. They have influence and control beyond what other citizens have.

[of course, we can't forget the prize for this hunger games is the biggest of them all -- NO, not some royal dick, but having your kid be the next emperor. Putting your family in the history books forever as part of the dynasty. Potentially changing history.]

[that's why I don't mentally categorise Story of Yanxi Palace as a harem drama. That's the setting, true, but Yingluo enters of her own will and it's due to her revenge quest. She isn't advocating for or protecting her clan and has zero intent to climb the ladder, but is acting in revenge of her sister, then her sworn sister empress, then her bestie. Then she inadvertently falls in love with her frenemy emperor (of all things!) and wants to accompany him, despite her terror of childbirth. She has no interest in the throne for herself, her clan, or her kids. She's playing the game all the wrong way, because she's not playing it at all - her goals aren't aligned to anyone else's. That is the delight of Yanxi Palace; she's dropped into everyone else's harem drama with a metaphorical sword on her back, the unpredictable engine of chaos in this carefully choreographed dance of waxing and waning power & influence.]

Empress really shows off her skills in this episode. No one actually knows how hard she tried for Ling Rong's dad but she has the position to get away with advocating, without losing much. And she gets their gratitude and steers them towards fighting my gf Hua Fei in her stead. Empress was the biggest winner in this incident.

ZH on her way there, as she expertly manipulates the emperor by commenting on state affairs without actually directly discussing them. She's smart to be hiding the depth of her education and only bringing it out when necessary.

Damn she's really playing the "you're my ✨husband✨" card for all it's worth. And we can see that, for now, it's worth a lot.

The maid making the play for the emperor's interest with the lotus blossoms is the Soon to be Evil half-sister, right?

#cdrama #empresses in the palace

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madaboutmunson · 6 months

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Black Denim Trousers & Motorcycle Boots (Sweet Home Chicago Series - Part 2)

Summary for overview of the whole fic can be found here

For @eddiemonth

Week 2 prompts used: Times Like These - Foo FIghters, Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi, Determined, Adventurous, Soulmates, Monsters, Come As You Are - Nirvana

Warnings: None that I could think of, but let me know if you feel any should be added, and I'll do that straight away :)

Romance/Fluff Word Count : 9.6K

Ao3 Link

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Eddie wakes with a start. An uncomfortable stiffness in his back and a numbness in his arms make themselves known quickly as a coffee mug appears in his view.

“Morning, sweetheart. I wasn’t gonna come in, but you didn’t answer, and I got a little worried,” she sits on the corner of his desk and starts picking up some of the pieces of paper that he can now see are littered all around him, “But when I saw you fast asleep on your desk, I thought I better wake you up. I know you don’t like to be late.” She smiles at him a little knowingly. He knows she can tell. He just hasn’t been brave enough to say it outright yet, and to her credit, she hasn't pushed. But he knows how obvious it is that he loves spending his days at the grocery store. He knows when they are both finally home, and she asks how his day was, he would try in vain to be calm and quiet about it, “Yeah, was good. Got a lot done.” But she’d wait a while to see if any further information would come her way before asking, “Was Steve there today?” that would just start the lengthy gushing about every little thing Steve did that day. It felt fine when he was in the midst of it, but as soon as he paused, he’d feel embarrassed, sometimes guilty. It was customary to be enthusiastic about friends, right? Especially new ones.

Eddie knew that wasn’t why, and he got the sneaking suspicion his mama knew that too. He just wasn’t ready to have that conversation. He hasn’t been prepared to have that conversation since Wayne caught him with the huge A Streetcar Named Desire movie poster that Eddie had broken into the local cinema to retrieve for his own after learning that most movie posters just got plunged into storage, overhearing one of the ushers in the malt shop. He’d enacted the escapade alone for fear his fellow gang members wouldn't buy the fact that he wanted it for Vivienne Leigh, as he’d never mentioned her before. In hindsight, they probably would have just believed him if he’d told them he’d done it because he could because that's what he did back then. He didn’t need a rhyme or reason to rebel; he just did it to feel something he had control over.

And if Eddie hadn’t had Little Richard blasting out of his record player, if Eddie had remembered to just lock his door, or even if Eddie had just been listening the night before when Wayne had said he was going to be back earlier than usual, because a bunch of jobs got cancelled, then maybe, just maybe Wayne wouldn't have walked in on him running his fingers over the man on the poster. Eddie had tried to bolt, but Wayne had grabbed hold of him and sat him down, asked him to explain, and Eddie had lied. He’d told him he just wanted to be like him, that it was no different to the cowboys he used to draw or cut out of the paper and stick to his wall.

Wayne, god love him, hadn’t got mad, just blinked a few times and apologised for grabbing his arm. Asked if he was okay, “You never need to run from me, son. Not for anythin’.” And because he had no reason not to, he took Wayne at his word, but that moment plagued him for longer and much more profoundly than he cared to admit. As if to play into his lie, he decided to embody a version of Brando. The Wild One.

He’d worked hard alongside Wayne until he’d saved up enough for an old beat-up motorcycle that he slaved away to fix up. He practically begged Wayne for a new pair of 501s and scoured the thrift shops for old biker jackets, but ended up finding one when scouring a barn for parts with Wayne one day. It was a little big, but Eddie didn’t mind. Got himself a used pair of black boots, one of his Grandpa’s old belts and a hat, and he looked the part. And whatever Eddie did, his little minions followed.

But that wasn’t enough for Eddie. He didn’t just want to look like Johnny. He wanted to become him.

It was easy to act cool when people were scared of you and your gang, and it was easy to kiss girls and make them cry when you were never into them in the first place. That's the thing about rebelling in a small town. Quickly, you run out of things to fight against, and soon, much to Wayne’s displeasure, Eddie had the town almost bending to his will, sometimes through charm but primarily by fear. Guys wanted to be him, and girls wanted to be with him, and that was great when it was impressing your friends, but it didn’t mean anything to him when he lay in bed at the end of the day. Somewhere along the way, this lonesome cowboy on his steel horse lost his north star. He wasn’t the hero taking on a stuffy old town that kept its youth down. He had become the villain. And as always with these sorts of things, he quite quickly became the scapegoat for anything that went wrong in that place.

As he sits up, a piece of paper joins him on the journey to being upright, and he peels it away from where it is stuck to the side of his face.

He tries to remember what he had been working on last night as his mama sips her coffee, and her vibrant eyes move over each page as she picks them up. Then it hits him, and he frantically tries gathering up the papers around him.

“Eddie! What's gotten into you?” She laughs and holds the paper away from him, “These are really good. Why are you hiding them?”

“Well, uh, well…because they aren't finished. Yeah, they aren't finished,”. He lies quickly, and his mama’s piercing green eyes narrow at him and stare directly into his own.

She hands him back the sketch in her hand, “I just like seeing what you’re working on. It doesn't need to be perfect. I’ll leave you to it.” Eddie’s heart races in his chest as he nervously turns over the piece of paper his mom had been looking at and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it is a drawing of the hero for his book. A knight who had no name or story yet, but one thing was for sure. He was a hero, a real one. One that wouldn’t lose his way. Perfect in poise and noble in deed.

Eddie shuffles through the other pages.

The knight changes from armour and brandishing a sword to being dressed in peasant clothes that hug his sculpted body and holding an apple.

A page or two later, and all the false premise is stripped away.

Soft eyes that, even when narrowed by the sunlight, still look kind. The long lashes splay out elegantly, which he’s taken a little artistic licence with because he still hasn’t gotten over them since the first day he met Steve. His fingers trace along the slight crease at the corner of one of the sketched eyes, and soon he’s moving from beauty mark to freckle and back and down until he meets that handsome jawline, moves through the stubble that frustratingly can’t be felt. Only urging his fingers to tentatively brush over the lips that only ever spill gentle words to him.

“Eddie!” His mom calls out, and he nearly falls out of his chair due to being alarmed out of his daydream. He quickly shuffles all the papers together and shoves them in his drawer. “You want some eggs, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, Mama, that’d be great!” he calls back, breathlessly clutching his chest.

Eddie shakes his head and drops his head into his hands. He felt awful. Steve and his mom hadn’t shown him anything but kindness since he got here, and here he was, having these thoughts about Steve. He imagines how horrified they would be if they found out. These thoughts were wrong. He knew that. He just couldn't seem to keep them under control.

Nothing he had read about this kind of attraction made it seem like an accepted ailment or condition. It was something you had to pray or force out of a person. If Eddie had been sick with anything else, he’d go to a doctor, but wasn’t it still illegal? He guessed it didn’t have to be unlawful for the public to take matters into their own hands. Not that he’d ever acted on any of it. Almost a few times, but nothing more than a lingering touch or something that felt like a kiss was on the horizon, but the sun never rose on those opportunities. Just an expanse of unknowns shrouded in shadow.

But as he sits there, he recalls how his dad spoke about Eddie being made out of pure love. So, no matter what layers he or the world draped him in at his core, that’s what he’d always be. A walking, talking personification of love. If that were true, how could anything he felt be so terrible? It would be fine if it was a girl, right? But the fact remained that the world said it was wrong, whether he understood why it thought that or not.

He knows that’s why his mama uses sweetheart above all other terms of affection for him. He remembers how she would say his smile could light up the darkest room and how his scowls only deprived the world of what it needed most in hard times. It was a dramatic statement, but he clung to it when he struggled with these things, like a scraggly worn scrap of a comfort blanket that reminds him that at his centre, he’s good.

He also knows that’s why Wayne didn't berate his bad behaviour when he confronted him about his slightly more-than-friendships with girls. Wayne explained that if something wasn’t for him, he should leave it alone. Eddie had made his point that he could get all the girls he wanted, but he didn’t have to continue to leave broken hearts in his wake any more. To begin with, he thought it was just that, a confrontation to address another tearful girl that Eddie had led on because she found him flirting with another girl the next day. But throughout the discussion, Wayne gently prised open his rebel armour at its weakest points with careful questions and sympathy.

The way he’d started that conversation stone-faced and defensive and ended up a tearful confessing mess against Wayne’s shoulder never failed to make him get choked up when he recalled it. There was no punishment, no lecture, just flannel-wrapped arms holding him tight. Rough, hard-working hands brushing over his hair and kisses on his head between words of reassurance and relief.

Eddie did tone his behaviour down from then on like the confession had freed him of a constant irritation that had been lingering just out of reach for years, but it was far too late. Hawkins had made up its mind, and that might have been his first forced step towards Chicago.

He could start over here. He could leave that old life behind and learn how to live all over again, even if that included learning to hide some aspects of himself. Maybe his dad was just wrong. Perhaps regardless of his parents, he was resigned to a life alone. Would that really be so bad? If he couldn’t love a girl non-platonically, he could aim for something else, couldn’t he? If he could be successful professionally and keep himself safe? That could be more than enough. He could morph attraction into just an appreciation of beauty. He could do this. He could change his stars.

With a deep breath and a renewed sense of purpose, he pushes down the self-loathing and love worries and starts his day over.

The rest of his morning is terrific. Being up early with his mama means he’s too early for the goons on the stairs. He strolls down by the river until the school kids dwindle and then heads to the grocery store. And just like every morning, rain or shine, the canopy is extended, and his personal table is already set up against the window. Steve’s handsome face greets him within moments, offering him espresso and a heart-stopping smile. He accepts both gladly, and though today seems busier than usual, Steve still takes his smoke breaks with Eddie. Flicks through his notes and drawings, but one element was missing today, and Steve’s adorably creased brow isn’t happy about it.

Steve grips either side of the table and wiggles it. Looks to face the same way as Eddie and looks around confused. Then, finally, he looks above him and back to Eddie, “Everthin’ alright for ya today, Ed?”

“Yeah, just perfect,” Eddie beams back at him. Because it is. Everything is perfect when Steve’s around because he eclipses everything else.

The curious look doesn't leave his face as he leans back in his chair to light a cigarette and leans one elbow on the backrest of it, “You feelin’ ok?”

“Oh yeah, the best,” he replies enthusiastically because that was true, too. When he had Steve’s attention, he felt he must be the most special person on the planet.

“ ‘Den, what's goin’ on here?” he waves the hand holding his smoke over the sketches strewn across the table. Eddie looks down at the table as if to check for anything incriminating, but there isn’t anything.

“You don’t like them?” Eddie asks tentatively.

“Oh, uh, I like ‘em plenty, just, uh,” Steve’s honey-brown eyes scan the table again before flicking back up to Eddie’s, “Well, where is he?”

“Well, he’s right…” Eddie shuffles through the sketches. He finds various fruits and their arrangements, coffee cups, an empty version of the chair opposite him, a few trees and a sunset, “Oh,” he says, looking back up at Steve. The realisation the character he’d been working on, the knight, was nowhere to be seen in word or picture.

“You homesick?” Steve asks compassionately

“No, I don’t think so,” Eddie answers genuinely because whilst he does miss Wayne, he does not miss Hawkins.

Steve hums, looks over the pictures again, “Say, uh, did you try one-a da cannoli we send home for your ma, sometimes?” The change in subject is odd to Eddie, but he’s glad of it.

“God, yeah!” Eddie replies quickly, eyes widening at Steve, “I was trying to describe them to my uncle, but I had no idea how because I’d never eaten anything like ‘em. The best I could come up with was it's like a pie tube, with the creamiest sweet filling and candied peel that cuts right through and balances it just perfectly, but, uh, needless to say, he just laughed at me. But when he visits, I’ll make sure to buy him one. Where do you get those from anyway?” Eddie finally takes a breath after enthusing over the delicious pastries that Steve or his mom occasionally put in with his shopping.

Steve smiles hugely, “I know-a-guy,” he takes another drag on his cigarette, “Anyways, you don’t like dis knight no more? Is dat it?”

Eddie shrugs, “I dunno. I guess, um, he’s just not inspiring me today?” he awkwardly smiles at Steve, whose mouth downturns a little, but he nods.

“Oh, did he do sumthin’ wrong…in da story?” Steve asks as he stubs out his smoke, not looking at Eddie.

“No, it's not like that. It’s kinda like, somedays I get up, and all I can think about is the story and everything the knight is, was and could be, and on those days, I can write about him or draw him for hours. But then, some days, he’s just not there. Or he is, but I just don't wanna write or draw about it, you know? It’s just inspiration. Sometimes, you arrange the oranges in a pyramid and decorate the table, right? With grapes and whatever those things are, and some days, you just put the crates out. A spark of creativity,” Eddie overexplains and feels a little embarrassed, revealing something that must sound utterly ridiculous to Steve, who works hard every day regardless of how he feels. He does it because he has to, for his family.

Steve tilts his head, looking Eddie over, probably trying to figure out why he said such strange things or got so animated about them. A small smile reappears, “Figs,” he says finally.

“Figs?” Eddie asks, one of his hands gripping tightly around the side of the chair seat, fearing he might float away straight up to cloud nine if Steve keeps looking at him like that.

“Yeah, next to the grapes,” he points over to one of the odd-shaped things and looks back at Eddie, “Figs,” He repeats, and picks one up and cleans it on his shirt.

The fruit looks a lot smaller in his hands. As he holds it between them, tearing it open easily, he offers half to Eddie, who shakes his head, “Oh, no thank you. I’m good.” It's a strange thing, purple on the outside and on the inside a halo of yellow around a red fleshy centre.

“I ain’t steered ya wrong so far,” Steve says simply, putting one-half of it midway between them on the table. He smiles at Eddie and turns his attention onto the street, raising the fruit to his mouth.

Until this moment, Eddie didn't really know why the story of Adam and Eve didn't sit right with him. Sure, he hadn’t read it in-depth, just vaguely remembered it. Sure, it was a story to explain creation because, at the time, they probably had no other reasons as to why humans were on this planet. But the thing that always bugged him was that they apparently used fig leaves to cover themselves up when their innocence was lost after Eve took a bite of an apple, so surely the nearest tree would have been an apple tree. But as Steve's full lips push against the skin of the fruit he’s flipped inside out, a droplet of juice spills out of the corner of his mouth and races towards his elegant jawline. Eddie realises that maybe something had been lost in translation, and perhaps Eve had bitten into a fig, just like this, because nothing so far in his existence has been this tempting or felt so forbidden, as he watches Steve bite into the fruit to consume it. Desperate for the knowledge of how it might feel to have his lips right where the fig is. He realises he’s staring at his mouth, but as he flicks his eyes up, Steve doesn't appear to have noticed, thankfully. To prevent himself from openly drooling, he picks up the fruit and copies how Steve ate his half, even looking out onto the street to avert his eyes. Though he’s absolutely sure he doesn’t look anywhere near as good as Steve looked doing it. Due to concentrating heavily on trying to compose himself, the sweetness and flavour take him completely by surprise. He makes an involuntary, pleased noise and eats the whole thing.

“Told ya,” A voice softly says in his ear, and he jolts with surprise, only to find Steve leaning across the table into his space. They laugh at Eddie’s over-the-top reaction, “You know it’s said figs are food of da gods. Maybe you’ll feel like writin’ again soon enough, huh?”

Eddie can only smile as his stomach somersaulting like a circus act prevents him from forming a coherent response. Because all his brain wants him to do right now has very little to do with writing or drawing.

His pulse is almost rumbling in his ears, at least that's what he thinks it is initially, until the noise becomes clearer, and the butterflies in Eddie’s stomach vanish and are replaced with a plummeting feeling when he recognises the noise.

Motorcycles.

Eddie thinks his past has caught up with him. He knew someone would come looking for him eventually, for a fire he didn't even start. He frantically goes to gather his things, but Steve’s hand is on his shoulder, and Eddie can’t look. Was this what this was? Had he befriended Eddie to keep him in place for that motorcycle gang?

“Hey, easy, buddy. Dese are just my friends. They ain’t bad,” Steve smiles reassuringly, “Dere hygiene and sense-a humor maybe.” Steve’s hand on his shoulder radiates a soothing warmth, almost like a sedative spreading through him from the point of contact, “No more espresso for yous today, huh?” Steve laughs light and melodic, and Eddie finally smiles back.

“Sorry,” Eddie says awkwardly.

“ ‘S ok, buddy. I get it. Remember, you’re safe here, yeah? I-we won’t let anything happen to ya. Promise,” Steve says with such an earnest expression that Eddie can only believe him. He turns his attention to the bikes pulling up, and stands to greet them.

The four guys are dressed in Eddie’s old day-to-day uniform. Leather motorcycle jackets, black boots, jeans. An odd bunch, he thinks. The first guy, who looks like the leader, has the most confident strut, pulls up first and is walking ahead of the rest, his hair in a jelly roll style. To Eddie's surprise, just to his left is an African-American guy with a dimple on his upper cheek as he laughs at one of the others stumbling with their kickstand. His hair was in a pompadour style, cut in that style rather than straightened and styled. Next is a tallish, thin guy with small features. His sandy blond hair is cut in a similar style to Steve’s but a little longer and unruly, and last of all, a Latino-looking guy with the longest braided hair Eddie thinks he’s ever seen on anyone.

The one at the front runs up to tackle Steve, and then all except the sandy blond pile in also, and all four of them end up falling into one of the displays, as Steve laughs along with them, grabbing the little one in a headlock.

“Shit, Steve, not my hair!” he yells.

“Aw, come on, Gaz, doesn’t matter how good your hair looks, you’re always gonna have dat little chipmunk face of yours,” Steve laughs but lets him go.

Eddie feels someone looking at him and turns to find the slender guy staring at him. As Eddie averts his eyes, he notices his name painted in beautiful cursive on his jacket. Jonny. There was a time when Eddie would have stared right back at him, but not this new Eddie. Not his second-chance version of himself.

Steve eventually prises himself from the others and walks over to shake Jonny’s hand, “Good to see ya, Jon,” he says, but the only reply he gets is a silent nod before walking around the table to stand next to Eddie.

“Alright, ya bunch of assholes, calm down. Dis is Ed. He’s new round here,” Steve looks and smiles at him, and Eddie returns it and gives a weak wave to the others.

“Hi,” is all he can think to say before turning back to the street, “Nice wheels,” he says.

“Thanks, man,” says the one with the long braid, who picks up an apple from the stall and bites into it.

The little one steps forward and thrusts a hand out to Eddie, “I’m Gareth, that’s Jeff, Argyle and Jon, but most people know us by Hellfire. The Hellfire Motorcycle Club.” he says proudly, turning to show the painting on the back of his jacket of some kind of devil with a long forked tongue, surrounded by flames. Eddie nods at each of them in turn.

“So where you from then?” Jonny asks.

“Indiana,” Eddie answers with a smile.

“And you came to the windy city because….” Argyle asks, taking another bite out of his apple.

“I, uh,” Eddie glances at Steve, who gives him the slightest nod and smile, “I wanted to write,”

“What, you can’t write back home?” Jeff laughs, “What happened? They take away all the stationery in Indiana?”

Eddie laughs, “Uh, no. I mean, I want to be a writer, and I thought coming here would be more inspiring, you know?”

“How much does that pay then? Writin’?” Gareth says, curious as he picks up one of Eddie's drawings off the table, pulls an impressed face at it, and shrugs, passing it to Jeff.

“Oh, I dunno, honestly,”

“Doesn’t sound very secure,” Jeff frowns and passes the drawing to Argyle.

“What if you don't make it as a writer? You got a backup?” Argyle asks.

“I honestly haven't thought-”

“Got your own place?” Jeff asks quickly

“No, I live with my-”

“Hmmm, yeah, haven't thought about it, got it,” Johnny says, “You from a big family? You Italian?”

“No, and No, but-”

There is a collective groan from the motorcycle club.

“So whatcha sayin’ is you ain't gotta job or income or your own place, and you ain't even Italian?” Gareth laughs.

“Is that- Is that bad?” Eddie looks instinctively at Steve for reassurance due to the barrage of questions he is facing.

“But what are your views on fruit on pizza?” Argyle asks

“I don’t really eat a lot of-”

“You got a ride?” Eddie snaps his head to Gareth again and shakes his head.

“A girl?” Jeff asks as Eddie's head whips around to him, and he indicates negatively again.

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, you shitbirds. That’s enough,” Steve shouts, and they fall to silence as he turns to Eddie, “ ‘Scuse us for a sec, Ed” he says apologetically, and the gang follow him inside.

Eddie decides to give them a wide berth and looks at something comforting. The motorcycles themselves. God, that was an absolute embarrassment. He could have been much cooler about it, especially with Steve there. Oh well. Eddie looks over briefly and can see them in the window in an intense discussion.

Gareth has a virtually brand new Honda Dream C71, two of them have different year versions of the BSA Bantam, and last of all, someone has his old bike, a 1950 Thunderbird. This one wasn’t customised to look like the one out of the movie like he’d done with his own, but there had been, what looked like, some abandoned attempts. He reaches out, runs his fingers along the gleaming paintwork, and quickly retracts them, remembering how touchy he’d been if anyone even looked at his bike for too long. Whoever this one belonged to took excellent care of it.

The bell ringing over the door gets him to his feet before anyone can startle him. Steve waves him over, “Ed, come ‘ere, da guys have somethin’ to say,” Eddie swallows nervously but tries to put on a slight air of confidence and smiles at them all.

Gareth tilts his head at Eddie, “So, we’s just wanted t’ say, we didn’t mean to make yous feel uncomfortable, OK? You’re just new, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. No issues here,” he puts up his hands and takes a breath, “I was just looking at your bikes. They’re real neat.” He offers the verbal olive branch of changing the subject.

“You like motorcycles?” Steve asks a little oddly. He sort of sounds a little disappointed.

Eddie lies quickly, “I mean, my friend back home used to let me ride on the back of his sometimes. So I think they’re neat, is all.” Eddie cringes at his overuse of the word neat, like some little kid.

“He did?” Steve almost sounds slightly annoyed, but Eddie can’t determine why. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say.

“And this friend of yours,” Gareth says, tearing his eyes from Steve to land on Eddie, “You still talk to him?”

Shit, what if they think he was involved in some rival gang or something, “No, we lost touch a little while before I decided I wanted to move here.” Eddie, desperate to ease the tension he seems to have created, smiles around the group, “Just different life paths, you know. It goes that way sometimes.” Steve returns his smile, and Eddie's heart almost packs its bags to move into Steve’s hands immediately.

“Also, sorry ‘bout that comment earlier regarding’ your job. Guys like us are happy with our feet on the ground, you know, and I forget sometimes the world needs people to shoot for the moon,” Gareth offers him a shrug of a smile, and he does seem genuine in his apology, but the way Steve nods at his friend, makes him think that maybe Steve had jumped to his defence in the store, and Eddie tries desperately not to grin wildly at that thought.

Steve's eyes cast up for a moment in thought and then move towards the ground before he checks his watch, “I’m sure I could borrow some wheels if you ever miss it,” Steve shrugs, lighting a cigarette, and all four heads of his friends snap to his words, “Ain’t dat right Jonny boy?”

“Yeah, course, Steve, she’s yours anyway,” Johnny quietly agrees.

“No, no. None a dat. It’d just be for today or whateva,” Steve smiles at Johnny and then Eddie, “Unless you got plans?”

“No, not at all. That’d be great. I’ll leave a note for Ma-my mom and be right back.” Eddie says excitedly and packs up his things.

“Hey Arg, can I ask you somethin’?” He hears Steve ask, and the five of them disappear into the store as he walks back to his apartment.

Thankfully, the coast looks clear, so he heads inside, leaves a cute note for his mama, and is about to leave again when he pauses and goes to the bathroom cabinet. Score! There was some cologne in here. As he picks it up, a piece of note paper falls out. He picks it up to put it back and notices it’s yellowing. His curiosity gets the better of him, so he opens it.

For my soulmate:

The most beautiful star in the world

Take me in your arms

Lead me in my dreams again

I'll sell my soul for it.

What is it worth?

Only you know

Eddie quickly folds it back up, feeling a little embarrassed. It was probably something private of his mama’s.

He adds a few extra pins to his hat to keep it from flying clean off and grabs a warmer jacket.

As he leaves the building, a set of familiar voices make him sigh in exasperation.

“This ain’t Hellfire’s place, Jonny. So why don’t you just go back to riding Steve’s coattails, huh?” Billy snides.

“I don’t know how many times we gotta tell you three morons to leave people alone around here. And for your information, this building is the concern of Hellfire now. So what you wanna do is turn around and go and crawl back into the dumpster the three of you ghouls crawled out of,” Jon fires back, and inside, Eddie has to cover his mouth to stifle his laughter.

“Oh yeah, and what if we don’t care about Hellfire’s new rules from its new asshole of a leader?” Tommy seethes.

“Well, how can I put this? If you don’t, the matter is gonna get escalated, and then it’s gonna be out of our hands. So I suggest you just run along now, so no one has to get hurt,” Jon says calmly.

“Oh, I see how it is. You're recruiting this new guy, are ya?” Jason asks spitefully, but Jon just laughs in response.

“Well, you should know, he’s a fucking creep. Was sitting here drawing pictures of Nance and the two Harrington girls,” Billy offers, and Eddie feels sick to his stomach.

“Oh, was he?�� Jon says, sounding almost intrigued.

“Sure was, bold as anything, ogling them,” Billy continues, and Eddie can almost see the sly grin on his face. He should just step out there before this gets worse.

“Thing is William. I actually have conversations with my girlfriend and actually have friends. So when Nancy told me about your performance here, she said Rob and Max told her he’d ended up at the store. I called Steve. And guess what, guys,” he says with sarcastic surprise, “He was just drawing the surroundings and saw them first. I’ve seen it, it’s terrific actually. Steve’s Ma has it hung up already, and most importantly, Nancy and the girls never had a problem with him. They, as per usual, just wanted to get away from you,” Eddie hears the venom in Jon’s voice and the rustle of his leather jacket, and he knows that shift in stance, so he steps outside to interrupt.

“Oh, hey, Jonny,” he smiles at Jon, which seems to defuse the situation. He turns to the others with a smile, nods, and walks down the stairs, “Gentlemen.”

As he and Jonny reach the bottom of the stairs, Billy calls out, “Nice to see you still resting on Steve’s hand-me-downs, Jon. First a jacket, then a bike, and then his girl. What next?” Billy and his goons laugh together.

And something about the judgement entirely rubs Eddie the wrong way, and he turns on his heel to face the three of them to say something. But then there is a hand on his shoulder, and Jonny calmly smiles, “Ooooh William, time to get some new material, maybe? You’ve been tellin’ the same joke for years now, and no one with more than one brain cell of their own has ever laughed at it. Come on, Ed. Let’s go,” he says, and they walk back to the store.

Once they are far enough away, Eddie dares ask, “You ok?”

“Yeah, don’t sweat those guys. They bark a lot, but only one has got any bite,” Jon stops before they get to the store, “Just try your best to ignore them, ok? Steve’s Ma don’t like ‘em anyway, and if you end up in a tussle with them, so will Steve, and then well…things will get escalated,” Jon looks at him seriously, “Steve’s a good guy. We don’t want him getting into any trouble, capiche?”

Eddie looks puzzled at him.

“Understand?” Jon tries again, and Eddie nods, “Also, what he said was true. Steve did give me his jacket and old motorcycle, but Nancy, that’s different. They were together but not, you know?” Jon says, and Eddie nods like he understands, but he doesn’t at all, not that it matters. “Anyway, you been enjoying your days at Heartbreak Hotel?” Jonny chuckles, and Eddie screws up his face in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t noticed?” Jon starts but reads the puzzled look on Eddie’s face quickly enough, “The constant stream of pretty girls that keep coming to the store for Steve but just end up leaving with groceries they probably didn’t need?” he laughs.

Eddie shakes his head, “I noticed it was busier today, but I was drawing, so I didn’t register who or anything.”

“Huh,” Jon half-smiles at him and looks him over, “Didn’t look up from your drawings all day?”

“Oh sure, when Steve was on his break,” Eddie says, understanding what he means now.

“But the rest of the time, not one single girl caught your eye?” Jon questions and Eddie begins to see how weird this might seem.

He fakes a laugh, “I just mean, I didn’t really engage with anyone else other than a glance. Number one, I didn’t really come here to date. It's not like I have much luck in that department, anyway. Chances are, if I make the whole writer thing, I stand a better chance, right? If I got tied down now, I’d have to get a job that paid me actual money for bills and dates instead of living off savings. My writing wouldn’t get a look in. And number two, drawing and looking at people only leads to trouble, or at least that’s what I’ve learned the last few weeks,” he pauses, “I’d really like to get the chance to apologise and explain to Nancy, Rob and Max sometime. Just so they know I’m not a creep.”

Jon puts his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulls him into his side, “You know Ed, I get the feeling you’re gonna get that chance,” Eddie is a bit weirded out by the physicality, but he doesn’t mind it. Jon lights up something that smells familiar to Eddie, but it’s not a cigarette, “If it’s any consolation, what I said was true. The girls didn’t move because of you. Nancy is pretty observant, so if she had felt threatened by you looking at them, she would have moved them all on someplace else.” He adds as they walk to the outside of the store.

The bell above the door rings as they step in front of it, and Steve skips a step or two on his way out and looks between him and Jonny, “You sure made friends fast,” Steve says with a huff of a laugh.

“He’s just a likeable guy, Steve,” Johnny says, giving Eddie a pat on the back.

“He is, ain’t he?” Steve says kindly, half-smiles and then quickly looks at the bike, “Ready, Ed?”

“Yeah, yeah. Absolutely,” Eddie claps his hands together and is glad for this moment of waiting for Steve to get situated on the bike first because Steve looks gorgeous. That is just the facts. He’s beautiful and kind, and that is more than enough. But he’s looking exceedingly handsome right now. He’s traded his regular footwear for some engineer-type boots, and his hair is combed back into a place a little more, but the jacket is really causing Eddie a problem. It was style-wise just an ordinary leather biker jacket. Except this one was a mid-brown colour that seemed to make the colour of his eyes even more entrancing somehow. Like they were no longer merely functional parts of a human being but impossible, magical orbs that might turn him completely to stone if he looked directly into them. The leather is well-worn but not damaged, just lots of lines of use. The stitching is elegant, and he’s flicked his collar up against the cold. As he sits on the bike, he fusses with it.

“Guess I’m not as small as I used to be,” he huffs out a small self-deprecating laugh, and Eddie doesn't miss that divine blush that just hits his cheeks. There is no way Steve should feel any less than the most stunning thing on the planet. Not on his watch.

“I couldn’t even tell. Looks like a perfect fit to me. It’s real nice,” Eddie says as he swings his leg over the bike to sit behind Steve, and this already feels like a mistake. Being this close. If the visuals were not enough to send him off into orbit, the smell of leather and Steve’s cologne was a heady love potion on their own.

Steve looks over his shoulder, “Thanks. Uh, you haven't even asked where we are goin’.”

“You haven’t steered me wrong this far,” Eddie says, trying not to grin back wildly, placing his hands on his own legs. He sits back to create a suitable distance between them, but there are some things he can’t prevent, like the way his knees have to sit on either side of Steve’s hips. It makes him violently jealous of maybe all the past girls who had sat in this seat before him but were able to wrap their arms around him. Rest their heads against his back, maybe even hear his heart beat fiercely for them as they ride off into a perfect sunset.

The journey itself is pleasant. Eddie sees parts of the city he hasn't seen before whizz past him, and due to the steady speed Steve is going, he can fully enjoy the wind occasionally rushing against him as he lets go and doesn't fight the bike with his body in the turns. He thinks about all the times he’d ride at night just to feel the wind rushing through his longer hair under the moon's light.

They stop near a park and dismount. Eddie looks around the vast park in wonderment. Sure, Hawkins had the woods, the lake and the quarry, but this place was so curated.

Steve walks a little ahead of him, does a full turn with his arms outstretched, and shouts, “Welcome to Lincoln Park, Eddie,” he flashes a huge smile as he waits for him to catch up. Eddie can’t even imagine being this proud of Hawkins if their roles had been reversed.

“So, um, what are we doin’ here?” Eddie asks as they stroll along together.

“We’re going to look at what I’ve been told is da most inspirin’ thing in d’ world,” Steve smirks mischievously, and Eddie can’t help but glance over as his heart flutters in his chest at the thought that Steve is such a good person, he’s trying to cure Eddie’s lack of inspiration, “Stars.”

The word jolts Eddie out of his daydream as Steve slows to stop outside a large building, “But it’s nearly two in the afternoon. We can’t see the stars.” Eddie responds, confused.

“Oh yeah, dats right. Well, I guess seein’ as we’re here anyways, I could show you some other weird stuff?” Steve says with a shrug.

“Weird stuff?” Eddie scrunches his nose in bewilderment, but the smile doesn’t leave him.

“Come on, Ed. Live a little. It’s a super scary museum,” Steve jokes, wiggling his fingers at Eddie.

“I’m not scared,” Eddie says, putting his hands on his hips.

“Oh yeah?” Steve smirks.

“Yeah!” Eddie says defiantly and walks past Steve into the massive building alone.

Apparently, it's the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and the science Eddie had stumbled into was zoology. Around him are many wooden glass-fronted cases of various sizes, all showcasing animal life. Some exhibits were tiny things containing bugs, others were great dioramas of an era or a setting, and then there was the set of large bones that towered over the place belonging to a mammoth.

Eddie doesn't think he’s ever seen anything like it in his life. He can only stand there and gawk at everything because he doesn't know where to go first.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Steve says as his arm envelops Eddie’s shoulders, walking him around the virtually empty place.

“Neat is one word for it sure,” Eddie tries to say as calmly as he can, but he hears how soft it emerges from his mouth, not like he could help it when he's pulled into Steve’s side like this.

Steve’s free hand waves out in front of them across the room as the other grips his shoulder, “‘Dis place, Ed, I thought it might help ya out, ya know? If you wanna create a monster, all da references are right here, ain't dey?”

Eddie knows that all that is holding him back from fully embracing Steve and his kindness right there and then is prison, death and losing maybe the best friend he’s ever had. Why did he care so much about Eddie’s dreams? Didn’t he have one of his own?

“Wanna play a game, Ed?” Steve asks, turning his head to him, and Eddie can only reflect the radiant smile being beamed at him. A lowly mortal in the presence of the embodiment of the sun itself.

Steve checks his watch quickly, “Ok, we got ten minutes to run around here, find an animal, pick a part of it, and draw it roughly, or write it down.” he fishes in his leather jacket pocket and pulls out some paper scraps and a pencil each, “Den, we switch animals, got it?”

“Um, why are we only drawing bits of the animals?” Eddie laughs as he takes the items from Steve.

“Creatin’ monsters, o’course!” Steve shouts as someone shushes him, and he gives Eddie’s shoulder a final squeeze before running off towards a deer.

Eddie’s legs feel like they won't budge, or maybe he’s afraid of walking in case they buckle beneath him. He’s sure if he doesn’t soon, he’ll become an exhibit himself.

Lovesick Homosapian 1959 - Donated by S. Harrington.

He walks to the nearest exhibit and starts making a rough sketch of the body of a stag beetle. It's a very minimal sketch because, try as he might to keep focussed on the task at hand, he can’t help but keep looking over at Steve, who is adorably crouched, resting the paper on his thigh to draw. His tongue pressed between his lips, and his brow furrowed in concentration. Steve must sense his stare and turns toward him, “Done already?” he grins and indicates they trade places.

By the end of the ten minutes, they crowd next to one another to pour over the results. They both have some fascinating creatures on their pages, made with elements of beetle, deer, squirrel and flamingo elements.

Eddie went for the body of the beetle, the multiple legs of the deer, the two heads of a flamingo, the arms of a squirrel and the tail.

Steve’s was…well…it was kinda cute, even though it was still weird-looking. The legs of a flamingo, the body of a squirrel, the head of the deer and the wings of the beetle. It’s also quite impressive for someone Eddie has never seen draw. He hadn't even mentioned it. Then Eddie realises he never really asked either.

“Wow, I really like your one,” Eddie enthuses over Steve’s drawing.

“Ya do?” Steve says excitedly, and his face looks almost like he’d been waiting his whole life to hear it, but the expression fades as quickly as it appears. Steve shakes his head and looks down with a laugh, “Ah, ya got me. Good one.”

“I’m not kidding. I do like yours better.” Eddie says, pulling the drawing towards himself from under Steve’s fingers. “Though it doesn’t seem very monstrous. Seems kinda sweet, honestly.” Eddie teases and turns to his friend, whose sweet brown eyes are waiting to cut off his breath, and tries to refashion it into a sigh, which somehow Eddie manages to swallow down, and turns back to Steve’s drawing, rolls it up like a scroll and puts it in his inside breast pocket, “Seems only fair, you already have one of mine.”

Steve doesn't say anything, just keeps that gentle smile on his face as he lightly tugs Eddie’s elbow to follow him, but sadly doesn't keep hold of it.

Steve stops outside a huge, tilted back, painted, partial globe. Protruding from it is a rectangular box with seats in it. At a complete loss, Eddie turns to Steve, who looks at Eddie from the corner of his eye, looking pleased, but says nothing.

An elderly man approaches them, and his face lights up, “Steve?!”

“Da very same,” Steve answers happily.

“I haven't seen you in a while. Everything ok?” He says, coming forward to kiss Steve on each cheek, and his eyes fall on Eddie, “Nice to meet you, welcome to the-”

“No. Don't tell him,” Steve quickly interjects, “It's a surprise. He’s not from here.”

“Oh, ok, no problem.” The man opens the door to the rectangular type box, steps inside and seats himself, and waves them in.

Steve nods towards it and goes in next. Eddie follows him inside. As he sits down next to Steve, he barely has time to enjoy the sensation of brushing arms with him when the whole thing starts whirring and the box they are sitting in starts moving into the orb, and as they do, the globe begins to close over them, until they are plunged into complete darkness.

And that's when Eddie starts to see them, the stars.

The machine whirs, and the sky turns, allowing them to see more constellations. And Eddie is entirely in awe even lets out an audible gasp a few times, causing Steve and the greying gent to snicker. But Eddie couldn’t care less. Here he was basking in a marvel, the ability to see the stars any time of day, irrespective of weather, and this was all happening due to the incredible man shuffled up next to him. A feeling of disappointed acceptance begins to gnaw at him and threatens his unabashed joy. He’d found this amazing person who goes to such lengths to help him with something that most people would find trivial, yet he could never have him as his own.

He’s glad it's dark in here, so Steve can't see the frown that sets onto Eddie’s forehead as he thinks about how furious society makes him, that it asks him to be kind and loving but be tough and never show emotion. Asks him to show love freely, but only in the confines of heterosexuality. Tells him to take his time to appreciate the world around him but forces him to hurry along and keep his head down.

Steve shuffles next to him, breaking him out of his momentary lousy mood, and reminds him that whilst he can’t have everything he wants, he can capture moments like this and keep them for his own forever, and no one could take those away from him.

The machine whirs again, and light fills the space as they exit the contraption, “The Atwood Sphere,” The greying gent says as they leave, looking amused at them before waving them goodbye.

Eddie clears his throat, “That was amazing! Did you come here a lot as a kid?”

“Yeah, and no. My pa used to bring us here after he’d come home after da war. The navy used dat for training navigation, ya know.” Steve replies.

Eddie feels the question on his tongue but is frightened to ask, so he rephrases it, “What an incredible thing to share with your Pa. Bet he knew a lot about the stars and things like that?”

“Oh sure, yeah. Wish I could remember more of da stories he told us dat lived in the night sky.” Steve says a little quieter, “Did your pa do the same?”

Eddie chuckles to lighten the mood a little, “Couldn’t shut up my dad up. He had a story for everything. Especially if it had anything to do with my mama.”

“A romantic, was he?” Steve chuckles, and it's like music to Eddie’s ears.

“That is an understatement. Pa’s crazy about her.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks curiously.

“Oh yeah, think I found a piece of his poetry to her earlier,” Eddie smiles and glances at Steve for his reaction. To see if he frowns or ridicules at the softness of a man towards his wife, but Steve only smiles and nods.

“What was it about?” Steve happily asks.

“Something about a star and a soul,” Eddie tries to remember, and Steve hums as they walk. They enjoy the quiet for a few steps outside the building before he continues, “You ever heard the story about soulmates?”

Steve turns to him and raises an eyebrow, “No.”

“Well, in the legend. Humans originally had four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. They had started to become quite powerful and threatened to rule over the gods, and Zeus didn't much like that at all. The gods were gonna wipe out the humans completely, but they needed the humans to offer tributes, so they had to come up with something else,” Eddie clasps his hands in front of him, “So they decided to split humans in half as a punishment, to remind them of their place, and at the same time would double the tributes offered.”

“But wouldn’t dat make twice as many humans to rise up against them?” Steve asks curiously, and the fact that he’s actually been listening makes Eddie put a little more performance into the story. Jogs a few steps ahead of Steve and animatedly tells the rest while walking backwards.

“Well, it should have, except for one thing. The humans were miserable, and without their other half, they didn't care if they lived or not. Also making their tributes dwindle,” he stops dead in his steps with a finger in the air, and Steve does too with surprise-widened eyes. Seemingly fascinated in the tale, “But Apollo hated seeing them this way, so he sewed them up, leaving them one physical reminder of their true original form. The humans never quite rose up like that again because even though they were healed, they still longed for their other half, not just their body, but the other half of the soul too.” Eddie finishes with a flourish of his hand and a bow. Immediately after which, he regrets it. This was the part of him he’d been trying to keep under wraps. Showing off was his old self, not this one. But he hears the one thing most performers can’t resist. Applause.

Steve is smiling and clapping his hands, and Eddie feels the heat rise to his cheeks as he turns around and falls into step next to Steve, “So yeah, that's the legend about soulmates.”

“I hadn’t heard dat before. Thanks,” Steve says as they approach the gleaming Thunderbird. He turns and looks curiously at Eddie, “Say, you wanna take us home?”

“I, um, I don’t even-” Eddie starts to lie.

“I don’t think dats true at all. I think you can ride, and I think you had a bike like dis one,” Steve says with smug confidence.

“How did-” Eddie tries to ask, a little flabbergasted.

“Well, because I used to talk to your ma a lot when she worked on things at da store and apartment for us,” Steve laughs but doesn't seem mad that Eddie lied, “You ain’t gotta be anyone else but you ‘round me, Ed. We’re good. Everyone’s gotta past.”

Eddie realises that perhaps he isn’t just accepting the version of Eddie from before, but also he was inviting Eddie to accept him too. Clearly, he wasn’t just randomly friends with a motorcycle gang, and he didn’t just magically have a bike lying around to give to Jonny. And with what Jonny had said, there was more than just a bunch of kids watching out for Steve.

“Sure,” Eddie smiles, “Sorry,” he adds an apology, and Steve nods, tossing him the keys, which Eddie fumbles to catch as they almost drop to the floor.

Eddie sits at the front of the bike and barely has a few seconds to enjoy the feeling of the handlebars under his grip because Steve is already clambering on behind him, and he has to brace his legs and lean his own weight against Steves to keep the balance. Not that he minds in any way. It's clear Steve is not accustomed to being the passenger as he struggles to get seated, using Eddie as a supportive climbing frame.

“All set?” Eddie asks as he looks over his shoulder to see a glimpse of Steve, who gives him a thumbs up. But as he turns his glance back to the road ahead, he sees how Steve's thicker thighs are at his sides, and he’s elected to put his hands on his knees and a glimmer of mischief enters Eddie’s mind as he starts up the bike.

He pulls away much too quickly on purpose and feels Steve's large hands grip his waist, “Uh, sorry about that. I’m a bit rusty,” he shouts back as he slows down. Steve’s hands release him but come back to smooth over his jacket where he’d latched on and shuffles forward slightly.

The city looks different as the sun sets on it, bathing it in both the last remnants of its glow and the coolness of approaching dusk. It feels almost like the city is waking up for its second shift as more lights from homes and signs begin to illuminate as they travel. It should be calming, but that is impossible due to the rate at which his heart is racing.

Eddie can barely breathe when he feels Steve’s legs squeeze around him as he moves, and the mix of his body heat and Steve’s almost makes him feel like he might overheat. But rather than panic, he tries to relax into it, as occasionally Steve leans forward gently to point out the turning he needs to take. It makes Eddie wish it wasn’t just a primarily straight road going home because every time they come to a turning, Steve would extend one arm out to indicate, and his other would rest against Eddie somewhere. His hip, his waist or shoulder, and each one comes with surging electricity of magic that pours through the threads of the fabric of his clothes, seeps into his skin and makes his heart and soul spin like characters on a carousel along to the music of Steve’s occasional laugh when Eddie takes a corner too tightly or pulls away from a light quickly.

Sooner than he’d like, they are nearing home, and Steve points towards Eddie’s apartment, “You sure?” Eddie shouts.

“Yeah!” Steve affirms, and Eddie pulls up outside the apartment building.

They stand near the bike for a while, and it feels familiar. And he knows it's not. It could never be, but it looks a lot like all those times he’d dropped girls off at their houses after taking them on a date. Except he’s not in his usual role. Regret swirls as he thinks about all or any of those girls that might have felt like he does right now, as he looks at Steve smiling back at him from the bike.

Almost like he can read his mind, Steve tilts his head curiously. “Can I ask you somethin’ Ed?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Eddie blurts out as he is dragged out of his thoughts.

“Dat story you told me earlier. ‘Bout da soulmates. You didn’t say what happens when dey find each other.” Steve asks, looking at Eddie but toying with one of the zippers on his jacket, “Or don't dey?”

“Oh well, my pa said that there is no escape,” Eddie laughs gently, “They are drawn together over time, and when they finally do meet. They just know. Like their souls do all the understanding for them, so they don't have to work it out. They’ll feel whole and happy. Like the happiest they ever felt, kinda thing.”

“I like dat,” Steve smiles hugely, “See ya tomorrow, Ed,” he says with a two-finger wave and starts up the bike to ride back home.

Eddie watches him ride the short distance away, and suddenly, the chill in the air makes itself known. He huddles his jacket around himself and climbs the stairs to the doors of the building before turning back to watch as his waiting friends swarm Steve outside the store. His laughter on the breeze makes Eddie smile again, and he finally turns to go inside.

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

Some extra bits of info if you are interested:

Notes: The Building they visited was the Chicago Academy of Sciences in Lincoln Park https://naturemuseum.org/explore/history/

The Atwood Sphere was based in this building until 1997 when it was moved to the Adler Planetarium.

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfiction #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #eddie month #eddiemonth #madaboutmunson #eddie month week 1 #madaboutmunsonSHC

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asktheuni-gang · 1 year

Text

Hey guys! Sorry that I haven't posted anything here. All because I some stuff I've been dealing with. Mostly family time during the Christmas and New year holidays. =w=

So yeah. It's now 2023, and it's the time to put some few changes and things to add up. So I'm putting some few more new updates in this content for a big change.^^

Updates:

❀Back stories❀

Yep! I'll be making a comic backstory of all of my characters!^^ It will be released soon once I get started.

❀Family Reveal❀

I will also draw some of the Unikitty! Canon characters' headcanon future looks. And and there will be also my ocs' family as well

❀New Side Characters❀

Yes, there will be also new more Side characters to reveal very soon.

❀The Seven Saviors❀

“What's The Seven Saviors?” you say? Well, before the 2nd Gen, There are once evil that is spreading all over the universe and trying to take over in one dimension to another. So in this AU, Unikitty and the gang travels through every dimension with their new friends. I put a link of the story origin of it somewhere here. More information of this will be explained soon. UwU

┊　　┊　　┊ 　 ┊ 　┊　 ┊　 ┊

┊　　┊　　┊ 　 ☆ 　┊　 ┊　 ┊

┊　　┊　　 ✬ 　　　✬ 　 ┊　 ┊

┊　　★ 　　　　　　　　 ★　 ┊

☆ 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ☆

So yeah. I think that's all the updates coming soon. And yet, I will try my best to make it happen. Hope that I'll have a good year.^^

დ .•*””*• Ah! Almost forgot! •*””*•.დ

This is the new group picture of the whole gang. And ngl. I'm really proud of it.^^✨✨✨

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jillyang · 1 year

Text

Lego Monkie Kid Oc

As much I want to draw my oc but my phone storage was so small ರ╭╮ರ to install ibis paint x so I just used picrew ಠ‿ಠ sheeeeshss ok Le Go!(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧

Name: 刘佳怡 [Liú Jiā yí]

Species: Human

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her/They/Them

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Home: Megapolis

Likes: Noodles, Flowers, Mooncakes, Spider Queen[mother figure], Being alone(not really)

Dislikes: Sleeping(Forced), Waking up, Making things worse, forgot something, LBD(formerly), Being clumsy

Family: Spider Gang

Friends/Allies: Little Girl, Spider Queen, Syntax, Strong Spider, Gold and Silver Brothers, Demon Accountant, school friends

Enemies: None

Status: Alive(but not really active)

Quote: "Now since my Spider family was long gone...what now?"

Liú Jiā yí is a high school teenager and the daughter figure of Spider Queen, when Spider Queen felt uneasy about the little miss [LBD] she told Jiā yí to pack her things and told her to go to the Lantern City 'cause they're having a upcoming festival to have fun and so she can get distracted and can't be involved of what's going to happen.

However even though Jiā yí was having a good time in the Lantern City but that 'good time' was ruined when Macaque has the Bone Spirit's powers and spreading her ice powers in the whole city. Luckily she didn't get stuck or frozen from the ice have no idea about what's going on.

After the Lady Bone Demon was defeated by the heroes, Jiā yí went back to Megapolis, seeing destroyed buildings and the damages, when she saw a big hole she went inside to check it out and saw how ruined it was, panicked washed over her so she was running all around looking and calling for Spider Queen and the others only to got no response yet saw the her mother's spider headdress was broken and that's when she realized she lost them.

Personality:

Jiā yí is overall a crazy cheerful, enthusiastic, and eccentric girl who loves arcade video games[ehem TEKKEN and Pokémon] and hanging out with her mother and friends. She can be overly impulsive as well as rather naive. Despite her kindness, generosity and loyal, Jiā yí is still a sneaky lil brat and seemingly enjoys pranking people with the gold and silver brothers, Yin and Jin.

Like Llong Xiaojioa, Jiā yí is a very affectionate person, loves hugging and making frequent contact with just about anyone she considers to be a friend.

Jiā yí is also very hot tempered, her temper often leads to having a wild tantrum and destroying things everything she can touch and destroy until she gets tired and falls asleep.

Jiā yí isn't quickly trusting, even of someone who isn't her enemy.

Appearance: Jia yi is a junior high teenager with spikey messy brown hair, with black highlights with it.

Designs/Outfits:

Civilian - Jia yi wears a yellow fleece jacket with black pants and black shoes with white in it, this is her outfit when she goes to school.

Lantern City/Main Attire - Jia yi wears a red hoodie, red shorts and red shoes with white colour of the sleeves,laces and also in the shorts and shoes with long black socks.

New year (Revenge of the Spider Queen) - She wears a black cheongsam with grey lining and buttons, black pants, and her socks are white with a black line and black sandals.

WHAT AM I DOING IN MY LIFE?

AND NEXT FEW DAYS I'LL BE BACK IN THE LAND OF DEAD AGAIN 'CAUSE THE ONLY THING I'M REAL HERE BECAUSE OF THE ECLIPSE APPRENTICE!!!

#lego monkie kid #lmk original character #monkie kid oc #lmk ocs #monkie kid #lego monkie kid oc #lmk spider demons #lmk spider queen #lmk mei #lmk syntax #lmk strong spider #lmk little girl #lmk lady bone demon

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fbfh · 1 year

Text

light up the dark [X] - Leo Valdez x reader

wc: 6.3k

genre: domestic fluff, slice of life, smut, character interactoins

pairing: Leo Valdez x goth gf!child of eros!reader

warnings: reader might be starting to warm up a little, Leo being an absolute lovemuffin (he's so sweet), c*lypso mentions, c*lypso shit talking, reader nico goth kid friendship, leo hazel friendship, hazel being adorable, possible soulmate au????? v brief, good old fashioned friend group tea spilling/gossip sesh, penetrative sex, closet hookups, emotional sex, oral (f recieving), leo making everyone's heart do backflips, switch leo, gratuitous use of the words cunt and clit, gratuitous clit play, sex w a side of feelings

summary: after a surprisingly enjoyable movie, many important conversations are had while everyone splits up to do chores in groups. your ability to resist Leo is getting weaker, and he's starting to make you feel things.

song recs: that's amore - dean martin moonstruck soundtrack, canzone per loretta/gioventu mia tu non sei morta - moonstruck soundtrack, dear future husband - meghan trainor, don't know how - ricky montgomery, hangin - bastille, let's generalize about men - crazy ex girlfriend soundtrack, she knows - j. cole, bad ideas - tessa violet, haunted house - florence and the machine, if my heart was a house - owl city, I'll make love to you - boyz II men

a/n: struggled with this bc of a change in my environment that ate up an hour of my writing time!! hate it :) the movie they're watching is moonstruck if you didn't catch that lol.

tags: @yesv01 @magcon7280 @avashaye @perseajohnson @afidiofobia @thatmultifandomloser @yelenabel0vaswife @almostjollypizza @fictionalcomforts @lizziebitch33 @jacksondeeznuts @girlfriendwhoseawitch @urmum-xoxo @Asunnyhunny @dustyinkpages @cowboylikekelsey @legramilis @youkissedareaderinthedark @mrscarolscaramoucheplease @cosmiq-cloud @anything-forourmoony @i-dont-remember-a-lot @chasingpj @1dpjohoohp @mystic-writings @babiesimagines @dreamerball @demirunner @if-only-i-was-fictional

You spend all day waiting for the shoe to drop. You sit through “family meetings” of chore wheel arrangements and board games and movie night schedules with your stomach in knots, waiting to see if Nico told anyone yet, or if he’s going to. One move from him and it could be dramageddon. Dread sits cold and heavy in your stomach, like an unwelcome but familiar old friend. For the whole time everyone’s piled in the living room, dividing up chores and tasks, taking turns picking games and movies, you look at everyone’s faces a little too closely, trying to figure out if anyone knows, if anyone suspects anything yet. It's going to be tough, being in such close quarters like this. You just have to act totally normal, not give them a reason to suspect anything. All these bonding activities and let's split up gang tasks are a minefield, each one laying the potential groundwork for more and more to go wrong.

But as the time draws nearer to actually do all the things you've spent the morning planning out together, you don't find yourself nearly as worried as you thought you would be. After breakfast - which was obviously delicious because Leo made it - you all cram back in the living room to watch a movie. As you curl up in an armchair that's not too close to anyone and the opening credits begin to play, the only thing on edge is the voice in your head insisting that something is going to go wrong if you're not careful.

You glance over at Leo, who's scooching an ottoman over to sit a little closer to you. It's enough to make you smile, but not so much that it feels like someone cornering you or encroaching on your personal space. You both settle in in tandem as the opening shot of the movie glows across the screen. You try not to pay too much attention to that voice, try to focus on the movie. You even manage to ignore the grinding pain between your shoulder blades that feels like something’s going to rip through your flesh for most of the time. You did try looking at your back in the bathroom mirror, but the skin around where it hurt just looked a little irritated. You don't know what this is, but you hope it goes away soon.

The she-devil has been nowhere to be found for all this, the planning and arranging, even now during the movie. You can't say it's an unpleasant surprise, though it still escapes you why anyone would rather sulk then be spending time with a group of people that actually aren't terrible. Granted, Calypso's absence has made it a lot easier to get along with everyone else, keep the conflict to a minimum. Leo did go to check on her once earlier. All you knew was what you heard her berating him about on his way back down, how stupid and pointless she thinks all this is.

You're not the biggest fan of it all yourself, but hearing the way she talked to him led you to adamantly take the opposite stance out of spite. Group bonding is so important. You'd even go as far as to say it's enjoyable. Your favorite fucking thing since Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It's not like you'll get to say it to her face, she only shows up for mealtimes, if that. You could easily bitch slap her for never helping with cooking or cleaning either. The only thing she actually does do is make everyone uncomfortable, talk shit about you, then storm off in a huff and expect everyone to worry about her, but turn down anyone who tries to talk to her. So yeah, it's probably best that you haven't seen much of her.

By the end of the movie - that you actually enjoyed, in spite of the lack of things you usually look for in movies, like blood or the occult - everyone had a great time. You got some laughs, and even a few inside jokes out of it, including the phrase, 'it's like a big snowball' said in a thick new york accent. Percy didn't have to change anything to mimic the line perfectly, which was easily the best part of the whole thing. Once everything is all wrapped up, everyone splits up into teams for chore duty. You and Nico head to the laundry room, Hazel and Leo head to the store for groceries, and everyone else tidies up and starts to get dinner ready. Normally you hate laundry, but you realize this is actually the perfect opportunity to get some more information on children of Eros. You just have to play your cards right, be extra careful with Nico. You can’t charm your way out of this one.

On the way to the grocery store, Hazel is quiet. She’s quiet when Leo plays old Megan Trainor songs, she barely replies when he asks how her craft projects are going, and she barely even bats an eyelash when they drive past someone walking not one, but two dogs. That’s when he knows something is really bothering her. It takes him until they’re half way through their list to figure out what’s going on, and get her to talk to him about it. Once she does open up, it seems obvious. He wonders how he didn’t piece it together before now, but he’s just glad they’re finally talking about it.

“I just…” she starts, hesitating at the awkwardness of the subject. “I think that if you’re- putting out for each other, that that should mean something.”

Leo nods, and she continues, avoiding his eyes.

“That if you like her enough to… you know… roll in the hay,” she mumbles, and Leo bites back a smile at the turn of phrase, “then you should ask her to be your girlfriend.”

Leo lets out a dry laugh.

“Be-fucking-lieve me, I want to.”

She looks at him confused as he tosses bread into their cart. He lets out a sigh, trying to find the words he’s looking for.

“The thing is,” he starts, skimming the aisles for the next thing they’re looking for as they walk, “I think she does like me like that. And I definitely like her like that. I just…” He trails off, feeling her silent question hover between them. If you both like each other, he should just ask you out! He thinks back to you, to how careful he’s been to not push you away or come on too strong.

“I just don’t want to move things too fast and scare her off.”

Hazel nods.

“Like a horse.” She says solemnly. That gets a laugh out of Leo.

“Yeah,” he says, scratching something else off their list as she places it in the cart. “Like a horse. So like you said, us doing the diddly-”

“Rolling in the hay!” She interjects with a humorous frown.

“Whatever.” He says dramatically, getting another giggle out of her. “The point is, it does mean something - at least I think it does, between us - so I don’t want to pile on all this commitment on top of that. At least until I know she’s ready for that.”

He glances over as she listens.

“We’re just doing things backwards, I guess.”

She hums in response. That all makes sense, sure, but there’s something that’s still bothering her.

“Well,” she says, picking out some nice looking fruit from the produce section, “you shouldn’t keep your backwards relationship a secret from your friends.”

She really called him out with that one. After how many unnecessary problems arose between the time they came to camp and actually defeated Gaia, all because of keeping secrets and not sharing things that are (in hindsight) really important, they came to the conclusion that keeping secrets is stupid. They all agreed to be much more open with each other, to tell each other everything and rely on their friends when things were hard. This informal no more secrets pact had only been broken twice. By Leo not telling them what’s going on between him and you, and by everyone else not telling him what they’ve really thought of Calypso all this time. Aside from those, things have never been better between them. Leo lets out a sigh.

"You're right." He concedes, "I promise I'll tell them soon, I just don't want to scare her. I mean…" he sighs with a smile, thinking about how much you've opened up to him already. "She's finally starting to warm up a little, you know?"

Hazel nods. You really do remind her of a horse. You're skittish because you're scared, not because you're actually dangerous. You just need the right person to take care of you, brush you and feed you sugar cubes until you realize they're not all bad. She thinks Leo is probably that right person. She hopes this will be enough of a resolution, but as they walk to the next area of the store, she can feel that antsy feeling beginning to erode at her insides again.

"So when you say soon…" she starts, getting a laugh from Leo, "do you mean like, tomorrow night at dinner soon, or this weekend soon?"

He considers. He's prioritizing how you seem to be doing, the silent cues he's picking up from you over a specific time. He shrugs.

"If the right opportunity strikes, sure, it could be as soon as tomorrow night." He says with a chuckle, half joking. As they scratch the last items off the list and head to the front to check out, they both feel a sense of resolution about the whole situation. Leo concludes the conversation with an emphasis on timing, waiting for you to be ready to take things further without taking on too much. Hazel concludes the conversation with an emphasis on the specific timing of dinner tomorrow night. She feels better knowing that she won't have to keep this secret from the people she loves more than anything for much longer. The only thing she needs to do now, is figure out how to keep it for that long.

While you and Nico start sorting laundry into different piles, you try to figure out where to start, and more importantly, how to bring this up at all in a way that feels natural. You can't charm your way out of this with him, so you need to be a little more strategic. Once you decide where to start, which burning question to ask first, you break the comfortable silence that fills the room.

"So," you start, not looking up from what you're doing, "how did you know that little trick of mine wouldn't work on you?"

He looks over at you with a dry hint of a smile, like he's been expecting this. He lets out a long sigh, and you brace yourself for wherever this is going.

"Every once in a while, my dad - Hades," he clarifies, before continuing "he'll try to have a… father/son heart to heart with me."

You shudder in tandem at how uncomfortable that sounds.

"After a few seconds, he realizes how painstakingly awkward it is, and give me a bunch of random information instead. I used to think it was useless, but…"

He looks over at you, seeming to size you up, aligning what he knows about you with what his dad has told him about children of Eros in an attempt to avoid awkward dad talks.

"I guess not."

You wait in silence for him to continue, but he turns back to sorting laundry. It's quiet for a few moments before you cave, trying not to seem as desperate for more information as you are.

"So…" you start again. You try to seem nonchalant, but all it does is bring a good natured laugh out of Nico. You find yourself laughing along with him, and the realization sets in again that you can't make him perceive you the way you want to like you can with so many other people. It's somehow both alarming, and strangely comforting. Nico sighs before answering.

"Children of Eros can invoke lust, sort of like how some children of Aphrodite can use charmspeak. The thing is, you can't draw on feelings that aren't there. Your powers are only going to work on people in the right age group - within a year or two of your age until you're 18. It's also not going to work on people that aren't attracted to your gender. I have a boyfriend, not a girlfriend, which is why-"

"None of that worked on you." You finish, grateful both for the information and to have someone to talk to about it.

"Yeah." He agrees, as you finish putting the first load of laundry up in the washer as he continues.

"So basically, it's not going to work on someone who's not compatible because of their age or preference," he says, summarizing his knowledge on the topic, "or your soulmate."

Your eyes flare at the addition. Soulmate? The curiosity in your eyes is obvious, so he continues.

"But soulmate connections are pretty rare, so I wouldn't worry about that."

"Oh," you chuckle with a sigh of relief. At least that's one more thing you don't have to worry about. "Thanks."

The rest of your time in the laundry room is quiet, the white noise of the machines adding to the comfortable silence. You don't know if this counts as an actual friendship considering you're both just silently doing laundry in the same room, but you actually don't mind it too much. You're looking forward to the next time you do laundry together.

Everyone else has made their way to the kitchen, starting to get everything ready for dinner and keeping each other company. It’s not long before the conversation turns to tea spilling, as it tends to when close friends are spending time together. It’s not long before the conversation turns to you. Annabeth asks Jason more about when you first met, and Jason is happy to go into detail. He’s mostly just glad he can finally talk to his friends about all this. After a while, they’re caught up on more or less every interaction he’s had with you before they arrived.

“And then you guys showed up the next morning, so that’s basically everything. What do you think?”

Once they’re up to speed, Piper’s the first to speak up.

“I mean,” she starts, brow furrowed, “I’m worried about Leo, for obvious reasons.” Everyone agrees, none of them needing to go into detail about Leo’s taste in women. Historically, it’s been questionable at best, sometimes even bordering on self destructive. In the midst of Calypso inserting herself into their lives, something none of them are a fan of, the last thing any of them want is for Leo to jump from one toxic relationship into another, or worse, backslide to Calypso. Again.

“Yeah, me too-” Jason starts, about to reiterate this point.

“Wait,” Annabeth interjects, brow furrowing, “you said she scared off Calypso? When she first showed up?”

“Yeah.” Jason nods. Annabeth considers for a moment.

“I like her.”

It brings a laugh out of everyone, but none of them disagree. Frank pauses chopping up vegetables for a second.

“Honestly, I’m just worried she’s going to say something mean.”

“To Leo?” Percy asks, getting another coke from the fridge and handing a redbull to Annabeth.

“Yeah,” Frank shrugs, “or to any of us. I mean, we’re already dealing with enough shit right now, you know?”

“Wait, has she actually said anything mean to anyone here? Like, targeted any of us?” Will asks, thinking back. Jason lets out a dry laugh.

“Uh, yeah?” He says, stating the obvious, “She was super mean and terrifying when we first met.” He thinks back to how intimidating you were that first day they found you.

“Wasn’t she, like… scared out of her mind then? Like, she just woke up from a magic coma and probably didn’t even know she was a demigod. Has she done anything mean since then? Like, after that?”

Jason’s brow furrows as he tries to remember.

“...I don’t think so.” He says, and Will chuckles.

“Yeah, she was probably just scared!”

Jason has no idea how he didn’t think of it like that before. He realizes that now, since your life isn’t in mortal danger, you haven’t really been snapping at anyone but Calypso that much. Everyone else seems to come to the same conclusion.

“I mean, she did call Calypso a wilted jagweed the other day.” Frank points out.

“In her defense, Calypso was being a wilted jagweed.” Percy says, nonchalantly.

“I think that’s the nicest thing I could say about her…” Annabeth agrees, drawing a loud laugh through the room. They start remembering your best Calypso roasts and funniest zings over the last few days, and in doing so, they notice a pattern. All of that, every mean but honest thing you’ve said about her, has been in response to something less good natured that Calypso said or did. You haven’t been the one starting shit since day one.

“Okay. If no one else will say it, I will.” Piper says, and everyone braces themselves for some scalding hot tea, “Am I the only one who’s noticed how much shit Calypso talks about her?”

Everyone in the room could not agree more.

“Especially behind her back!” Piper points out incredulously. They’re all reminded of the various mean girls they’ve had to deal with over the years. None of them want to admit it, but ever since Calypso left Ogygia, she’s been steadily getting worse than Regina George. Percy lets out a dry scoff while he stirs the contents of a frying pan, a dish towel casually tossed over his shoulder. It’s something he’s seen his mom do countless times, and it feels weird cooking without one.

“You know, it’d probably be a lot easier to gel as a group like Chiron said if Calypso wasn’t picking fights all the time.”

Annabeth turns to him, agreeing adamantly.

“Yeah! And have you noticed she only shows up to eat?” She scoffs, “Where is she when we’re all cooking and cleaning up?” Facts have truly been spoken, and no one shies away from agreeing with her. At least you’re actually participating. Even when it seems like sometimes you don’t want to, you still make an effort to be there. You still show up where Calypso doesn’t.

“Yeah, literally!” Jason agrees, “She actually helped me and Leo go grocery shopping on our first day here. She made a list and divided it up so it would be easier and everything.”

The silence speaks volumes. There’s more than enough evidence that in spite of your prickly exterior, you’re actually much nicer than Calypso is. Granted, with her track record it’s not hard to be nicer than she is, but they all still appreciate the effort from you. Frank finishes chopping the vegetables as cooking smells waft through the air, a preview of the delicious food to come. He finds himself relating to you. After the blessing he got from his dad, he noticed the instantaneous difference in the way people look at him. He suddenly got so much taller and more buff than he was, and that paired with the Mars energy can make him seem really intimidating. He knows what it’s like to be written off as mean and scary before someone even tries to get to know you, because he’s been through that too.

“I feel kind of bad for her…” he muses. Between how much Calypso has been shitting on you, and gods know what you went through before they found you, they all find themselves agreeing with him. It makes sense that you would have a chilly attitude if you’ve been hurt by people in the past. The tides continue to shift in your favor, leaving them feeling a little defensive over you. It sinks in that even though you’re a little rough around the edges, you haven’t done anything to hurt them. You’re trying to get along with them as best as you can, you seem to want peace.

Not only that, but you really do seem to make Leo happy. It’s pretty hard to miss. Even earlier during the movie when he scooched his way over to you, and kept whispering to you about what was going on when you missed something or forgot a character’s name, no one could deny that it was sort of… cute. He gets excited when you walk in the room, his gaze always seems to linger on you. They’ve even seen your gaze flick over to him enough to clearly see you’re not totally uninterested in him. Knowing you, that might just be the tip of the iceberg.

The way you look at each other has Percy and Annabeth, and Jason and Piper sharing meaningful looks. Frank and Will stare into space for a second, thinking about their girlfriend and boyfriend, respectively. Leo seems more confident, more at ease, more himself when you’re around. At the very least, definitely more than he is with Calypso. If it comes down between you and Calypso, which it looks like it is at this point, they all know they’re going to side with you. Because in spite of your thorns and rough edges, you really do know how to make Leo feel good.

“Oh f-fuck!” Leo sighs out in a strangled moan. You're in a cramped closet you slipped into - or more accurately, dragged him into - when he got back from grocery shopping and you finished the laundry. Nico went off to take a nap and Hazel said she has an appointment with her diary and a hot cup of tea, to please not disturb her. You pounced on him like a goddamn animal the second you got the chance. Now you're biting his lips, scratching his back, sucking hickies into his neck. It really didn't take long to rile him up, get him fuck into you wildly, so deep and good that neither of you can get enough. He has a hand clapped over his mouth in a desperate attempt to muffle his moans. It barely stands a chance against the way you grip him, dripping more arousal with every thrust, but at least he's trying. He's lost all sense of time since you first dragged him in here and pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt, connecting him in a deep, open mouthed kiss.

He forgets himself, forgets everything outside that door. The only thing he can think about is you. You, and the way your nails bite blissfully into his skin, your sweet smell invading his senses, making him feel high. He can’t hold on, can’t stop himself from moaning out your name like a prayer, over and over as he climaxes inside you. He throbs and pulses against your cushy walls as the condom bulges inside you, stuffing you full with all his cum. In spite of the thin - but incredibly important - layer of latex between you, the feeling of him filling you up is more than enough to push you over the edge. You clamp down hard around him, clit throbbing, as you climax. You do your best to stay quiet, but there’s not a sigh, not a single pant or heavy breath of yours that escapes him. He commits it all to memory.

He peppers your face with kisses between heavy breaths and murmured praise against your skin as you both come down from your high.

“So good for me, so, so good,” he mutters, breath mixing with yours, “gods, I love you so fucking much…”

You feel your stomach slowly stop twisting, feel that hollow emptiness begin to go away as he kisses you and kisses you. You indulge yourself, letting him keep kissing you while you attempt to get yourselves straightened up. You have hookups and quickies down to a science at this point. You mentally run through your list of things to fix and check, but keep losing your place at how soft his lips and kisses and breaths are against your skin. He sighs again, all blissed out from you, making your head spin for a moment. It’s really, really distracting. Eventually, you try to pull away from him and his soft, addictive lips and touches and longing looks to fix your lipstick.

You open the door, nudging him out before someone starts to wonder where he is.

His gaze, his hand in yours, all of his attention all linger on you. He knows you’ll be a minute or two behind him, and these last few moments in your presence will be enough to sustain him until then. He hates to part from you, every time you’re near him is better than the last, so he takes a leap of faith. He presses the back of your hand to his lips, gazing up at you through his thick eyelashes. From the moment his lips meet your skin until you’re finally out of each other’s sight, you stop breathing. Your stomach flips, feeling less empty than ever. You hoped it was just the way he looked at you, but trying to find your breath in that dark, stuffy closet, it’s also his kiss that lingers.

When he enters the kitchen, he tries his best not to seem like he’s on cloud nine, he really does. But as he walks through the doorway, making conversation and checking on the food, he smells like you. Piper’s the only one to notice. Her eyes flare in realization as she pieces together what seems to her to be completely obvious, and she takes a sip of her drink to disguise the knowing look on her face. She pulls it together, helping with dinner, joking and laughing with everyone, bringing Leo up to speed on all the gossip that wasn’t about his love life. Both parties remain unaware that just moments ago, while you were milking his cock dry in secret, everyone else was talking about you and him and Calypso, and the two exceptions to the no secrets pact remain broken.

Leo sleeps lightly that night, every noise startling him awake, in hopes that it’s you creeping into his doorway like a cute little Nosferatu. He tries to reason with himself, reminding himself that you might not even come at all tonight. It’s not like you’re obligated to or anything. But he knows you will. You always do. He wakes back up suddenly, only realizing he’d drifted off when his eyes open back up. This time, he’s finally met with your familiar silhouette, quietly closing his door as your inability to resist temptation won again. He smiles that sweet smile of his at you, knowing he was right.

You want to see him. You still like him enough to do this, to show up here. All it takes is one look and you know he can tell how weak your attempts to hold onto your chilly persona are becoming. You’re going soft. You walk over to the bed as he sits up, looking at you in that way that makes you wish he wouldn’t. You feel unnerved as you approach, and it fights the conflicting yet simultaneous cravings for him that leave you feeling empty and impatient. The hollow twisting feeling in your chest and stomach always makes you less stoic than you usually are, and you don’t like it. You don’t like that you didn’t feel like this before you met him. He just smirks up at you, eyes all soft and sweet as they trace over your features that look so pretty in the moonlight. He thinks you look even prettier during the day, when he can see you properly instead of sneaking around in the dark like this. His hands are warm and cathartic on your hips as he pulls you into his lap, leaning his whole body in to kiss you.

“It’s just sex.” You insist unprompted. He pauses, lips millimeters from yours.

“I know,” his voice is low, intimate, and he leans closer. You hesitate.

“I’m just using you for your body.” You demand.

“I know…” there’s that signature note of playfulness to his voice, and your words only make him smirk more. He doesn’t seem convinced, because it’s not at all convincing. Not like it was the first time you said it. He learned how to read you like a book in such a short period of time, now he knows you so intimately, and it’s obvious that the words you’re saying aren’t lining up with the way you say them, with everything else you’re telling him. There’s a vulnerability to you, just below the surface. He knows not to press you about it, to let it rise up naturally, but he wants to let you know that he sees it. Just the corner.

Finally his willpower runs out, along with yours, and he kisses you deep and warm. He pulls away for a moment, looking at you like that again, before he leans back in to really kiss you properly this time. You’re relieved every time he kisses you, every time he touches you and looks at you in that way you don’t like and it makes that feeling go away. Sometimes you don’t even know it’s back before he’s dusting off cobwebs and taking sheets off furniture in your haunted house of a heart, turning on lights you didn’t even know were there.

You can feel him getting harder under you. It’s enticing, feeling his cock come to life for you. You savor the feeling of how it teases you, rubbing against your hot, puffy folds and nudging against your clit. You squirm against him, hoping it seems like it’s for his pleasure and not because you really, really want him inside you. You reach into his pants, beginning to wrap your hand around the base of his cock, feeling a vein pulse under your touch. Right when you’re about to do something fun, his hands move to your waist and he flips you over before you can blink. He hovers on top of you, faces so close, lips almost brushing. The air freezes in your lungs.

“Not yet…” he whispers low into your ear, punctuating with a kiss to the tip of your nose. You don’t have time to worry about not letting him see how flustered that made you, how much such simple words and gestures affect you, before he starts to move down. He pushes up your shirt, pressing a few kisses against your soft stomach, sending butterflies erupting through each place his lips make contact. He reaches your waistband, fingertips slipping comfortably below the fabric. He tugs off your panties, nudging your knees further apart, encouraging you to open up your legs for him.

“Good girl, just like that.”

He murmurs the words softly against your mound, before pressing another soft kiss against your skin, this time, directly on your cunt. It’s hot against his mouth, and if the way your breathing hitches at the contact is anything to go by, sensitive. He parts your lips slightly, dipping his fingertips between them to trace your entrance. You feel him smirk at how wet you already are for him. You want to tell him to shut up, to stop smirking like that, but the words don’t reach your mouth. In the moment you think them, he spreads you all the way open, and starts pressing soft kisses to your throbbing clit. The sentiment evaporates, leaving your mouth as a shuddering gasp instead.

He kisses you again, making the slightest contact with his tongue, and you feel the thoughts flying out of your head at the sensation. You forget what you wanted to say anyway. You don’t think things could possibly get better - or maybe get worse? You’re not sure - than they are right now, as he floods you with more pleasure than you knew was possible to achieve from soft, warm kisses. You’re proven wrong by him again, as he fully wraps his lips around your puffy, twitching clit, going to town with his tongue on your sensitive bundle of nerves. The noise you let out is unholy. You clamp a hand over your mouth in a futile attempt to muffle your moans. You feel him smile - not smirk this time, actually smile - and it hits you like a ton of bricks; he’s doing this for your pleasure alone.

This isn’t prep or foreplay, he’s not trying to get you ready for him, all he wants is to make you feel good. The last time you can remember a guy going down on you, it’s been as a way to get you ready for him - or as a way to get something in return. But not Leo. Leo Valdez, sweet Leo who smells masculine and spicy, with his soft lips and soft hands and soft looks, and his warmth… he’s between your legs, placing your hands in his hair, sucking on your clit for your pleasure. ‘And his, apparently,’ you think, feeling the bed start to bounce as he ruts his hips into the mattress, moaning into your cunt.

It makes your head swim, and it’s mere seconds before you’re cumming, rutting up into his mouth and dripping for him. When you come down from your high, you realize he hasn’t stopped. He’s still going, slowly and gently, squeezing your hips tight as he does. He moans into you again, the vibrations of his voice feeling even better than they did before. You’re so sensitive, and he’s so good at this that it doesn’t take you long until your legs are shaking in climax for him again. You lose track of everything except the dizzying feeling of him slowly and lovingly making out with your clit.

You don’t know how many times he’s made you cum - three or four? Maybe five, you’re not sure - until it’s eventually too much. He can feel your pulse racing against his tongue, feel you dripping down his chin, wetter than you’ve ever been as you tug at his hair, trying to get him to detach from your clit and close your shaking legs. He lets go, very, very reluctantly, and looks up at you. You don’t think there’s anything he could say or do to drive you crazier, then he rests his head on the inside of your thigh, blinking up at you through thick, dark eyelashes. A ghost of a smile nudges the corner of his lips as he leans over enough to press a few affectionate kisses to your puffy, sensitive mound, and you’re proven wrong again.

“Just fuck me already…” you plead. Your hands are still in his hair, and you find yourself simultaneously wishing for more of these intimate acts from him, and for him to just use you to get off, like you’re used to people doing. He smirks again, climbing up to hover closely above you. You’re once again face to face, lips millimeters apart.

“Yeah?” He presses kisses across your face, your nose and cheeks that sends a chill down your spine, “You want that?”

You do. You want that so bad. You need to feel him inside you like you need air, or Palaye Royale’s entire discography. You nod frantically, humming in response as you close the gap, tasting yourself on his lips.

“Okay,” he murmurs into your mouth, barely comprehensible from the way your tongue is pushing past his lips. He lines himself up with your entrance, and you wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him inside you as soon as possible. He moans into your mouth at how wet you are, the way your pussy sucks him inside you. He takes his time, fucking you good and deep, his kisses never ceasing. He takes care to grind the base of his cock against your clit, not too much, but just enough so you feel it. You definitely feel it. Every thrust has you whimpering, has your eyes rolling back and moaning into his mouth.

The whole time he has you like this, there’s one phrase that’s on repeat in your mind, and it makes you realize something. He’s not fucking you, he’s making love to you. There’s a huge difference, and it’s something you’ve only known one side of until now. All this swirls around you in an intangible and undeniable amalgamation of feelings that you can’t dismiss as just lust anymore. You know lust and sex better than anyone, and in the back of your mind, you know for sure it’s not just sex. It’s probably too late now, you think, and if you want any chance to get away from this as cleanly and not messy as possible, you need to leave right now. Like, right now.

But you don’t. You let him hold your hand, let his fingers intertwine with yours. You let him kiss you sweetly and gaze into your eyes like that, you let him hit all those spots inside you that he knows make you feel good. You let him make you feel good. You let him make you feel like you’re in a movie. And not some artistic psychological horror flick with an overuse of narration and too much dramatic irony, something sweet. Something romantic. Romcoms have never been your genre, but it feels okay with him. Good. You let him make you feel like a leading lady in a campy, wonderful romcom, like a love interest. You’re sure this will complicate things at some point, but you’re too terrified and dizzy and drunk on him, on how good he feels, to worry about that right now, so you stay where you are. You let him make love to you.

#leo valdez #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez smut #heroes of olympus #heroes of olympus x reader #heroes of olympus smut #light up the dark

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jojotichakorn · 6 months

Note

For the "give me a show and I'll tell you" game: Only Friends (I know it's not finished yet but you know I had to 😌 )

thank you for the ask, dear, i absolutely adore the amount of love and obsession we have for ofts 😌

my favorite female character

i'm actually gonna go ahead and say april. i know we don't see a lot of her and everything we see of her is in relation to chueam, but she is great at all that. she is just an amazing and supportive girlfriend through and through.

my favorite male character

sand and boston are currently fighting over that title. sand is likely winning, but by a very small margin. and like, props to boston, because while i knew that i'd love sand almost the second he showed up, boston went from "you're annoying, but in a compelling and entertaining way, so i'll give you that" to "i stand with my cancelled wife" and that's impressive as hell.

my favorite episode (if its a tv show)

episode 10, actually! it completely knocked it out of the fucking park. i think it could be that my feelings are also heightened by the fact that episodes 10 in the past have given me the "we're coming up to a trainwreck" feeling so many times, while the ofts episode 10 made me even more in love with the series and extremely confident in the last two episodes. but it was also just incredibly good. it fully turned my feelings about boston and bostonnick around, it brought up the final issues with raysand and put them on the path to resolving absolutely everything that needs to be resolved to be happy together, it gave me the cunty bitch that is boeing, it made mew completely unhinged, it made top squirm. everything i could have possibly fucking wished for and even more.

my favorite cast member

this one is hard actually, so i'm going to divide the answer into three. 1) force. obviously. he's been one of my favourite actors since enchante and that has not changed one bit. he is doing an amazing job at playing someone i deeply dislike, truly showing off his range here. 2) first. i've always appreciated his acting, but i've never been able to enjoy it to the full unhinged level, because there was something about each of his previous characters that i did not like. now that he is playing someone i am ready to kill and maim for, i am enjoying his performance tenfold. 3) neo. i've seen him in things before and i have liked his acting, but he truly took it to a new level with boston. he is so unbelievably fucking good at what he does that i recently told one of my friends i think he is the best actor from the 2000s gang and i do absolutely stand by that.

my favorite ship

sandray. no contest there babeyyyyy. just the idea of love not being something that a person "deserves", but something that happens and something that can be fulfilling and beautiful, even when there are hurdles and difficulties? the idea that everyone can find someone who won't even "bear them", but just like them and not really find their complexities and flaws that burdensome? immaculate.

a character I’d die defending

boston and ray, but only in regards to particular clownery. both of these have made mistakes, but people acting like boston is pure evil (while he's just... selfish, and that's literally it) or treating ray like the devil because of his addiction would both cause me to draw my bow.

a character I just can’t sympathize with

i was going to say mew just because i don't like him the most, but since the question is specifically about who i can't sympathize with - it's top. like, he really just fucked around and found out to me. also atom and gap, obviously, but i feel like that goes without saying.

a character I grew to love

boston and nick, in different ways. as i said before, boston used to kind of annoy me but in a way that was entertaining. but then he just moved on from his own mess with such ease that it made megiggle and episode 10 finally solidified both how lonely he actually is (seeing as his whole friend group doesn't actually care about him) and also how he can, in fact, change and realise things about himself and open up in a really meaningful and beautiful way, all of which made him jump to being a fave. as for nick, i've always liked that messy messy bitch, but the things that he took away from the situation with boston, the fact that he realised and acknowledged where he fucked up, the fact that he just genuinely loves boston and sees the best in him but also finally respected boundaries to the full and was planning to leave him alone? the beautiful growth there just made me adore him.

my anti otp

probably raymew? like, truly, no one has ever had a worse idea in their entire life. raymew was bad for everyone who was even a little involved. complete mess. two of the most incompatible people in the world. so much so that, despite the fact that the series wants me to believe they work as friends, i don't even think that's true. i don't like raymew's relationship in any capacity, frankly speaking. i don't think they fit together at all.

send me a name for a drama (or dramaS) and i will answer all these questions

(list of dramas i've seen)

#thank u again for sending it in! this was fun!#archer responds #anon

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yaminerua · 6 months

Text

I'm thinking for much of the rest of smegtober I'll have to switch to drawings because the writing part of my brain is getting fatigued lol but I managed to churn this last one out tonight ahead of the other one I have ready for tomorrow;;

As always, prompts are by @a-literal-toaster-wtf

Today's prompt was Test, which of course immediately calls forth images of Rimmer and his many examination attempts;;

Words: 4137

****

Rimmer had done it again. He had smegging gone and done it again.

Somehow, despite all the meticulous planning and obsessive timetabling, despite having carefully mapped out every hour of every day for the last few months to optimise his revision and maximise his chances of success, here he was again on the last night before the exam feeling no better prepared than he had been before he’d even started.

It always ended up like this. Every time exam season came around he would work tirelessly, relentlessly, trying to find a study pattern that worked, subdividing his free time evenly into rest periods and study periods, allocating every subject and topic its own slot to prioritise information retention. It should have been a flawless method, workshopped to the nth degree, sharpened and improved to perfection after so many attempts and yet even after all this effort, after all this time, the result was always the same; complete and utter humiliating failure.

Of course, the fact that much of this revision time was usually eaten up by preparing the timetables themselves in the first place was an important part of why he always found himself in this situation but he was loathe to do anything to change the habit, somehow convincing himself that it had only failed because he hadn’t found the perfect routine yet and that once he figured that out and constructed the timetable to end all timetables he would be golden and he could finally kiss the lowly rank of Second Technician goodbye.

The definition of madness, as they say, is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Huffing out a distressed, agitated breath, Rimmer dug the heels of his palms roughly into his eyes, rubbing vigorously until he saw stars. He had no idea what time it was anymore. The concept of time itself seemed to have faded into the background of his mind, locked away in a box he didn’t want to have to open because at this point knowing just how long he had left was likely to do nothing more than send him tipping fully over the edge of anxiety and into a full-blown panic attack and he knew from past experience that if he let that happen his shot at success would be over then and there.

He was virtually running on fumes at this point, the last few nights a desperate haze of stressed, sleep-deprived revising – if staring manically at an open textbook and taking absolutely none of it in for hours could really be called revising – and his eyes were positively burning with the effort it was taking just to keep them open.

His head ached. It was as though his very brain itself had swollen up in his skull, pressing up against the insides and throbbing profusely from the exertion of trying to cram multiple textbooks’ worth of knowledge into it in the space of a few hours. The pressure alone made him thankful for the relative silence of the bunkroom.

Lister was out. Some time ago he had disappeared off with the rest of his brainless gang of hooligan friends to drink himself to unconsciousness and dance until the early hours of the morning with whoever could stand to be around him. With any luck he might hit it off with some desperate tart who would take him off to her quarters and spare Rimmer the trouble of having to put up with a drunken Lister staggering his way back and breaking his concentration.

It was the only silver lining this whole situation had at the moment. With Lister out and suitably occupied for the night Rimmer didn’t have to battle against his textbooks while enduring the torture of listening to Lister utterly murder a halfway decent song with his toneless singing or his even more unbearable guitar playing.

Aside from the background hum of Red Dwarf all around, there wasn’t a single other disruptive sound to complain about – which also meant there wasn’t an adequate distraction to blame his imminent failure on if it came down to it later.

Removing his hands from his face, he blinked the room slowly back into focus and hunched forwards over his textbook again, feeling the tension in his neck and the ache between his shoulder blades from too long spent in this exact position.

He felt as though he had been stuck trying to read the same sentence for hours, as though his brain had stalled and he couldn’t move past it until it started up again. Oh sure, his eyes would skim the letters and recognise the shapes and the words were certainly words he knew individually but as far as the meaning of the sentence as a whole and the information it held were concerned, Rimmer had absolutely no idea what he was reading.

It was as though the part of his brain that registered new information had gone on strike. Nothing was getting through and all that he seemed to be achieving by continuing to try to force it to was making his head and eyes hurt even more.

He needed to rest but there was no time for rest anymore. Frankly he was terrified that if he even so much as allowed himself the briefest moment to nap then he would sleep right through the exam and have to go through this whole nightmare all over again. He wasn’t prepared for that. Revision was key right now and sleep could wait. He would have plenty of time (not to mention peace of mind) to be able to catch up on the rest he’d missed once the exam was over and he’d passed the stupid smegging thing.

Frowning down at the page he blinked furiously, finding it more and more difficult to keep the lettering clear and sharp in his vision. Everything was starting to smudge at the edges, to bleed into the space around it as though there was something in his eye that wasn’t budging no matter how much he tried to blink or rub it away.

He shook his head, leaning further forwards towards the textbook, squinting to see if maybe that would help sharpen things by narrowing his field of view but it was no use.

The harder he stared at it, the more desperately he attempted to take in so much as a single solitary sentence, the more the words on the page swam dizzyingly just to spite him, rippling and distorting before his very eyes until they better resembled a particularly unappetising-looking kind of alphabet soup than anything comprehensible.

He dropped his forehead down to rest between the pages of the textbook, eyelids scrunching shut as he groaned plaintively into the quiet of the room. Why was his brain conspiring against him at this hour? He only had hours left and it was betraying him. Why was he wasting time wrestling with himself like this when he only had a limited window of opportunity to make some good, solid progress before Lister came back and crashed unceremoniously through his focus with all the grace of a hippo let loose on an ice rink? He didn’t have time for this!

Just to drive home exactly how much the universe had it in for Arnold J. Rimmer, the moment that desperate thought had so much as flitted miserably across his mind his ears picked up the tell-tale distant hollers of giddy, raucous laughter emanating from somewhere outside, growing steadily louder with every drunken, staggered step.

Pass by, don’t come in. Pass by, don’t come in… Rimmer thought fervently, repeating it over and over, beseechingly, in his head like some sort of desperate mantra, praying to whatever god might exist out there to take pity on him for just once in his smegging life but as had been well-established by now, if there was a god they certainly didn’t have a heart.

The door to the sleeping quarters slid open with a harsh, piercing hiss and in staggered one extremely wasted David Lister, an open can of Leopard Lager in his hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

With great difficulty he co-ordinated a clumsy wave to the retreating backs of Petersen and the others before he finally turned his attention to Rimmer, who had by this point straightened up stiffly at his desk and was doing his level best to try to pretend that he wasn’t secretly weighing up the pros and cons of throwing Lister out an airlock and blaming it on his own drink-addled mind. Unfortunately he didn’t think the ship’s CCTV would be on his side there so he begrudgingly had to shelf that idea.

As Lister stumbled his way towards him and leaned in far too close over his shoulder, the stench of beery breath and tobacco met his nostrils and he grimaced. “Lister, go away,” he hissed through tightly gritted teeth, every muscle in his body tightly clenched to resist the urge to swat at him and push him back. “I’m trying to revise.”

“Smeg, Rimmer, you’re such a bore!” Lister said, entirely too loud and entirely too close to his ear, his words slurring pathetically together. “You need to live more!”

Rimmer sniffed indignantly and finally deigned to press the back of his hand to Lister’s front and push him firmly away. “I’ll have plenty of time to do that once I’m an officer,” he said matter-of-factly, ignoring how hollow he felt inside as he said it. “For now my priorities lie elsewhere.”

Lister snorted and he took a long swig of his can of lager. “Yeah, bein’ a bore,” he muttered, staggering back over toward his bunk, humming tuneless snippets of Lunar City Seven as he went.

Rimmer could throttle him, honestly, but he bit back the impulse, however inviting it may have been. Instead he remained as he was, staring bitterly, contemptuously down at the infuriating textbook in front of him, taking nothing in while he listened to the rustling and shuffling of Lister moving about behind him, hopefully getting ready for bed.

He heard the discordant squeak of the ladder as Lister clambered his way up it and the tell-tale creak of the top bunk as it took the full weight of Lister’s body on it and he heaved a premature sigh of relief at this inconvenient interruption hopefully being only a brief one.

Before long, just like he hoped, the movement behind him stilled and Lister grew silent – or as silent as he could be given his tendency to snore – and Rimmer finally allowed himself to release some of the tension he had been holding. Maybe the brief distraction might have helped in a way, might have cleared his head enough for him to return his attention back to what was actually important.

He was mindful, agonisingly so, about how very little time he had left now. Since Lister had come back that meant that time had progressed considerably while he hadn’t been paying attention to it and he surely only had a measly handful of hours left at the most to fill his head with enough knowledge to pass. He flexed his fingers nervously, hyper-aware of the sweat beading on his brow as he considered opting for the last resort. It was the only hope he had left.

Glancing shiftily at the door and warily back over his shoulder, he watched Lister’s sleeping form for a good long moment, trying to ascertain for sure whether he was absolutely asleep and unaware of his surroundings. The last thing he needed was Lister of all people waking up and potentially ratting him out. That would be a fate worse than death.

Seeing that, for now, the coast was clear, he swallowed thickly and reached slowly, shakily, into the right hand pocket of his trousers, procuring from it a small, nondescript packet of little white pellets. Learning pills were strictly not allowed on board Red Dwarf. Rimmer knew that well. He had on numerous occasions in the past reprimanded countless other crewmates who he had spotted with the offending little things, scoffing obnoxiously at their pathetic need to rely on something illegal to help them succeed, all the while holding onto them himself instead of turning them in in case of a rainy day. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

He opened the cap quietly and, with a trembling hand, tipped two pills out onto his palm before hurriedly stowing the container away again. He stared down at them apprehensively, heart hammering in his chest and stomach churning at the sickening, depressing realisation that it really had come to this. If he wanted any chance of passing they were his only hope.

With one last quick, anxious glance back at Lister, he popped them in his mouth before he could change his mind and washed them down hastily with what was left of his almost-forgotten glass of water.

He waited a few moments for the panicked surge of nerves to subside, giving the drugs some time to hit his stomach and begin to make their way into his system. He wasn’t entirely sure quite how good an idea it had been to take them on an empty stomach when he was as sleep-deprived and physically exhausted as he was but he had done it now and his fate rested with them.

Lowering his gaze down to the Astro-Navigation textbook again, he sucked in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, trying to channel what little mental energy he was still clinging onto into focusing on the words in front of him, praying that the learning pills would aid him in retaining the information. Even if all they managed to do was hold the knowledge in his head long enough for him to regurgitate it all out during the exam and then forget all of it immediately afterwards that would be fine. He just needed it to last for a few hours.

Evidently he had left resorting to this final option a little too late. They ought to have invented pills that helped him focus as well.

Maybe it was the tiredness, maybe it was the stress, maybe it was a combination of both but it didn’t matter how hard he tried, how much he squinted and strained his eyes to try to make sense of any of the words in front of him. His mind had clearly shuttered itself off and was simply not allowing anything more in. He could stare at this page and all of the words written on it for the rest of the day and it would simply never make it through. He was doomed.

Raking his hands raggedly through his hair, Rimmer let out a low, tortured groan, dropping his head onto the table and clenching his eyes tight shut so he didn’t have to see the textbook anymore, didn’t have to look hopelessly down at the same stupid page he had spent most of the night so far stuck unable to get past. It was going to take a miracle to get anything of use to enter his brain now, even with the aid of learning pills.

He must have looked pathetic, sitting there slumped with his head on the desk and his hands in his hair. He had made an absolute mess of himself by now, his usually neat, severe side parting completely unravelling, the forcibly tamed curls freed from the submission they were usually brushed harshly into. He looked thoroughly dishevelled, as though he had been pulling his hair out all night. In many ways, that probably wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

Breathing out roughly, he let his head roll miserably to the side, sliding his eyes open to gaze dolefully, enviously, over at Lennon and McCartney, Lister’s stupid robotic goldfish that he’d brought back from his last shore leave trip. They were swimming slowly, mesmerisingly, around their bowl in repetitive, mindless little circles without a single care in the world, without a shred of responsibility or expectation or disappointment weighing down on them and as Rimmer watched them absently, dazedly, as though he were hypnotised, he felt something hollow and mournful settle unpleasantly behind his chest.

God, he wished he was a fish…

He remained like that, utterly entranced, his mind far away, for the next four hours and although he wasn’t exactly asleep, when the intercom finally sounded and Holly’s monotonous voice droned out the important morning announcements, it was as though he was dead to the world and he didn’t hear a word of it.

“Will all entrants for the Astro-Navigation exam please make their way to the teaching room. The exam will begin soon.”

On the top bunk, Lister stirred slightly, his face scrunching up as the loud chime of the intercom pierced through the deep veil of drunken sleep he had been nestled in and rudely stabbed his hung-over brain like an arrow.

Peeling a tired eye open, he squinted groggily over at the desk where Rimmer was still sat, hunched over and seemingly asleep. “Rimmer?” he called out, his throat hoarse after the night’s antics. “You awake?”

There came no response, which was an answer in and of itself. Lister groaned, rubbing his eyes vigorously before lifting his head with great difficulty up off the pillow. “Rimmer,” he said again, a little louder this time.

When Rimmer still failed to have any reaction at all, Lister rolled his eyes and with great effort, begrudgingly heaved his heavy aching body up into a sitting position, clutching his head momentarily as it swam dizzyingly from the change in posture. He didn’t want to have to be awake yet and would rather have slept off the rest of his night out until well into the afternoon but he knew that dealing with a hung-over headache from a premature wake-up call would be far more preferable to the absolute monster migraine Rimmer would give him for failing to wake him up in time for his exam.

Stumbling over towards him, Lister reached out to shake him by the shoulder and froze when he realised that Rimmer didn’t seem to be asleep after all. In any case he certainly had his eyes open though whether he was still conscious remained to be seen. For now he was staring unblinkingly over at the fish tank, his expression completely vacant like some kind of lifeless zombie. It was more than just a little bit disconcerting.

“Hey, Rimmer, man,” Lister said uncertainly, waving a hand tentatively in front of Rimmer’s face. “You okay?”

The reaction was almost instant. The moment Lister’s hands came into view, Rimmer’s expression crumpled like a tin can subjected to tremendous pressure, his eyes snapping shut as he brought a hand up to rub at his face. “Ugh,” he groaned, pulling himself stiffly back into an upright sitting position, his neck and shoulders aching.

Lister watched him warily, an eyebrow quirked with mild concern. He’d seen Rimmer work himself up into an exhausted wreck before but never quite like this. “You alright?” he asked again.

“Of course I’m alright, you gimboid!” Rimmer snapped irritably, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose tightly, wincing at the sound of his own voice in his ears. “What do you want?”

Lister’s face creased into a frown and he crossed his arms moodily over his chest. So much for a grateful morning greeting. “Just thought I’d wake you,” he said, glancing at the clock on the sink beside the bunks. “Since it’s exam o’clock now and all.”

Rimmer looked like he had just been force fed a particularly sour and putrid lemon.

“WHAT!?” he cried, horrified, leaping to his feet suddenly and nearly knocking the chair he had been sitting on over in the process. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I wasn’t awake!” Lister said, holding his hands up innocently. “I just woke up meself!”

Rimmer wasn’t paying any attention to him anymore. He was in an absolute panicked frenzy, scrambling for his comb and attempting to carve his forgotten side parting back into existence before gathering up the rest of his things.

Lister watched him, bemused, and had to stop him at one point when he spotted that Rimmer was about to squeeze foot cream onto his toothbrush. Handing him the correct tube, he fixed him with a dubious stare. “You sure you’re alright, man?” he asked. “You were starin’ at me fish all in a trance just there.”

“That was intentional, Lister!” Rimmer stated, but the projected confidence was an unconvincing façade. “I had finished revising everything and was simply taking a break to let the information settle in my brain!”

Lister wasn’t fooled in the slightest. “Uh huh,” he said flatly.

Rimmer clicked his tongue and curled his lip, fixing Lister’s reflection with a contemptuous, dark look. “You wouldn’t understand, Listy,” he sneered, straightening up his tie and giving his hair a final firm comb through. “You’ve never put the slightest bit of effort in in your entire life. As for me, the only way is up! Up, up—”

“Yeah, yeah, Rimmer,” Lister cut him off, waving a hand dismissively before transitioning it into a mocking impersonation of Rimmer’s usual elaborate salute. “Up, up the ziggurat lickety split.” He punctuated that last word with a sharp slap to his forehead. “I know.”

Rimmer shot him a look, cold and hard, and then turned back one last time to check his appearance over in the mirror. The intercom sound rang out hollow and daunting into the bunkroom again and Lister saw Rimmer’s entire body stiffen immediately.

“Last call for the Astro-Navigation exam. Will all entrants please make their way to the teaching room. The exam is about to begin.”

Rimmer swallowed thickly and flexed his fingers and for all the affected confidence and false bravado he put on, Lister could still see the petrified, haunted look behind his eyes that belied his true feelings on the matter.

“Listen, man,” he said gently, sincerely, feeling almost sympathetic towards the man all of a sudden, fighting the urge to reach out and give him an encouraging pat on the arm. “Good luck.”

Rimmer bristled and his expression creased into a forced, stretched smile. “Luck, Lister?” he echoed, rocking anxiously on the balls of his feet. “I don’t need luck. I’ve got everything I need to succeed right up” – he brought a hand up to tap a finger quickly to his temple – “here.”

“Yeah,” came Lister’s doubtful, sarcastic response. “Good luck.”

He raised his eyebrows, fixing Rimmer with a look that said “Trust me, you’re gonna need all the luck you can get.”

Rimmer seemed to pick up on it, the plastered smile on his face faltering slightly as his adam’s apple bobbed nervously in his throat. “Right,” he said stiffly, tensely, hands balled tightly into fists at his sides. “Well, then. Goodbye, Lister.”

There was a maddened look in his eyes, something wild and desperate and beseeching, as though he was almost begging Lister to do something to stop him from walking out there to his inevitable doom even if it meant he had to resort to knocking him unconscious.

He stood there awkwardly, frozen in fear for another uncomfortably long number of seconds, rocking back and forth on his feet before he finally accepted that no miraculous divine intervention was coming and he was going to have to just go for it.

Picking up his pens and popping them neatly in his pocket, he gave Lister one final, incredibly rigid nod of acknowledgement and strode swiftly, almost robotically out of the room with such a grave look of dread on his face he might as well have been on death row.

Lister watched him go with an almost pitying look of gentle compassion pulling on his face. He didn’t like Rimmer – no-one did – but he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit bad for the guy. He had been putting himself through these exams since long before Lister had ever even met him, driven by something he couldn’t relate to, a burning urge to make something of himself no matter how long it took even when it was probably pointless.

Maybe he didn’t deserve the power that advancement up the career ladder would give him, maybe it would turn him into even more of an insufferably unbearable smeghead, but if just so that Lister wouldn’t have to endure another night of Rimmer drowning his sorrows and cursing the universe for being out to get him, he hoped this time that something would go different.

Whatever he had been hoping, whatever he had been expecting, an exam paper scrawled with nothing but ‘I am a fish’ had absolutely not been it.

Oh well. There was always next time.

#smegtober2023 #Red dwarf #After tomorrow I’ll switch to drawing for the rest of the month I think!

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