#this got long but what the hell my blog my opinions anyway whats almost surprising to me is how not memeifyable (?) this ep was | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

purrincess-chat · 3 years

Text

Cat’s Definitive Ranking of Every ML Episode as of 4/22/21

Are you guys ready for this? I did the thing. You’re all welcome. Don’t ever ask me for anything again. You can watch me get progressively more unhinged in real time.

Now, just to preface this, I did not give this too much thought. Most of these are just my gut feelings. I went through every episode and just made some snap judgments based off the lasting impressions I’ve been left with. These are my opinions. If you don’t like them, tough. And also I don’t care. Go spend 4 hours making your own damn ranking. And shut the hell up. Anyway, this is probably the longest post I’ve ever made, so I’m gonna put it all under a read more. Click on it if you have an hour to read it. Okay, here we go!

1. Origins II- Good starting point for our heroes. Good establishment of canon ships and character dynamics. Umbrella scene literally stole my wallet. Cannot emphasis enough that I am whipped for the umbrella scene. I wrote a whole ass AU just to say how whipped I am for the umbrella scene. In the Rain will play at my wedding. Jk. Weddings are for suckers. But dammit if I don’t want these kids to get married. 10/10

2. Origins I- Good introduction to lore. Good introduction to characters. Good establishment of status quoyo. Just good. 10/10

3. Simon Says- Listen, I am nothing if not a shipper at heart. This episode just sparks joy. And the whole series almost ended when Gabriel almost jumped off the roof. I was really rooting for this one. This was the episode where I saw Ladrien and went yes, ma’am, I’ll have one of those. 10/10

4. Evillustrator- Are you all surprised? Cat, the MC-skeptic ranked the pivotal MC episode so highly? Well, let me tell you all a thing, I started this fandom out a MC shipper because of this episode. Their first interaction is gold. I don’t deny that. I enjoy it. This is the MC dynamic I fell in love with. Yall toxic shippers ruined MC for me when you opened your mouths and spat in the face of Ladrien and baselessly declared MC the sin-ship. We all know it’s Ladrien. Stop kidding yourselves. Boy in leather catsuit? Please. Basic ass vanilla bitches. I’m getting off-topic. Solid episode 10/10. We love to see it.

5. Stormy Weather- Baby’s first Miraculous episode. It holds a special place in my heart. It’s a solid episode. Good establishment of what the show is. Fun villain. Good times. Fond memories. 10/10

6. Riposte- Listen, I know I’m an Adrinette stan, but hear me out: Ladrien. It’s just so good. And Kagami was compelling in this episode. It was just really solid. It’s my favorite s2 episode. If you ask me if I want to rewatch Riposte, the answer is always yes. 10/10. We stan.

7. Gorizilla- Okay, so this episode has some solid Adrinette in it, but the real reason it ranks so high is that fucking Ladrien trust fall. I stare at that scene for hours, you guys. HOURS. It is absolutely just *chefs kiss*. Sometimes when I need a pick-me-up, I just go watch gifs of that catch on loop. 10/10. Beautiful. Radiant. Carefree.

8. Gang of Secrets- I have been keeping most of my opinions to myself about s4 (mostly because I’ve backed way the hell out of this fandom), but GoS was pretty solid. Gotta say, it’s the first episode in a long time with this show that made me actually excited to see what happens next. Most other episodes I was like, okay, that was cute. The show is still meh overall. But GoS really got me like oh shit, is ML good again? 10/10 for making me feel things again.

9. Oblivio- Told you guys this one was probably rated higher than I thought. Oblivio is just really fun. There is good Adrinette. That “No wonder I fell in love with you” paired with the softest of Adrien smiles just sends me. And the kisses. The unquestionable trust. These two kids literally woke up together alone in an elevator with no memories and said welp, you’re my boyfriend/girlfriend obviously, I don’t make the rules. Honestly, how anyone could argue that these two dorks aren’t made for each other after that episode is beyond me. 9/10

10. Backwarder- Okay, I know I am weird and alone for this one, but I really liked this episode. It got a lot of shit for the constipation capsule thing at the end, but like who cares? We finally got some more backstory on Fu. He got a love-interest who is dope as hell. This episode is my favorite lucky charm use ever. Like that queen DID that. I like Backwarder, guys! Fuck off. 9/10.

11. Kwamibuster- We all know I am a Marinette-stan by this point, but our girl was SHINING this episode. This bitch said gimme all them and let me go whoop this bitch’s ass, and she DID. Hawkmoth could never. Multimouse is a gift, and Marinette is a boss ass queen. 9/10

12. Chat Blanc- Listen, this episode was very good. I enjoy the idea of my children being happy in another timeline somewhere very much. We got all 4 sides of the square in an episode. It’s just really solid. I know this is the fandom’s favorite, and everyone is gonna shit their pants because it didn’t make my top 10, but this is my list. So, I put it at number 12. It’s good. I like it. It just didn’t steal my wallet like other episodes did. Put the pitchforks down. It’s gonna be okay, you can still love it more than me. 8/10

13. New York Special- I know everyone felt some type of way about this special, but I wasn’t mad at it. My perception of it might be clouded because I watched it in Disney World where I was chilling and having a great time, but like this special really did somethings for me. The Adrinette was top tier. Tippy top tier. Even though they hurt us in the end, I am okay with it because it just means the children will grow and come out stronger. I don’t care if it’s not technically canon. Ask me if I give a fuck. I don’t. I had fun here. 8/10. Solid.

14. The Collector- This one might shock a lot of you, but let me paint you a scene. It’s the first episode of s2. We have just come off a 2 year hiatus. The fandom is thriving. We’re hungry for canon content. We have hopes and dreams and expectations. Everyone is going wild with theories. This episode confirmed something that was long since obvious (in my opinion) and ended the stupid arguments people had been having. It made Gabriel actually seem semi-competent. We got our first taste of how Chat/Adrien will react to his dad being Hawkmoth. We got a peek at their life. Adrien’s isolation and sadness. They were so close to figuring it out. The battle was epic. Like Collector really had them on the ropes there for a second. It’s a solid episode, yall. I’m not wrong. Hate me all you want, but this episode brought it. 8/10

15. Despair Bear- Is this episode up this high because of the Adrinette slow dance scene? YOU BET YOUR ASS IT IS. Okay, but fr though, shipping aside, this episode gave us hope that Chloe was actually gonna redeem herself. I mean, she didn’t but, we didn’t know that at the time. Seeing her run around trying to be nice was fun. And then she actually did something good, and we had a moment of okay, she’s capable. We’ll get there. We didn’t. But what a ride this episode was for making us think she would. 8/10

16. Startrain- Cat, you’re just ranking all the Adrinette episodes highest. And? What of it? Are you surprised? You clicked a blog that has simping for Adrinette in the description, and you’re surprised all my favorite episodes have Adrinette? I’m not wrong, you’re just an idiot. The Adrinette nap cuddles aside though, this was a pretty good episode. If you don’t think too hard about the whole space thing, we got a look at Max’s life, his mom is a driven, smart lady doing her best. Adrien rebels against papa for once. Alya stops a Lila scheme. Chloe gets to play the hero. Alya and Nino actually investigate like the heroes they are. Gabriel gets to realize what a dumbass bitch he is. I mean. Guys. Startrain is solid. 7.5/10

17. Sapotis- This one shot up in rank for me after GoS, but tbh it’s always been a solid episode. Alyanette sleepover? Check. Alya becoming a superhero? Check. It’s a fun episode. And looking back, it’s nicely called back to later in GoS. We love it. 7.5/10

18. Sandboy- Idk why I enjoy this episode as much as I do, but I do. Sandboy is a cute bean. I love his aesthetic. We also get hilarious looks at everyone’s nightmares. “Plagg, who turned you into a sock?” cracks me up cause like Adrien, bby, no XD And Chat Noir’s nightmare. I think it would have been interesting though if since Sandboy dusted the Agreste mansion, if we got a peek at Hawkmoth’s nightmares. It would have been a nice hint of plot to go along with Master Fu’s nightmare. Also Plagg giving the akuma the slip like the clever boy we know he is deep down? 7.5/10

19. Furious Fu- If you guys haven’t realized by now that I love Fu, idk what you’re doing. Pay attention. I know that some people don’t like him, but I’m just gonna say it, you’re wrong. Fu took care of the Miracle Box for over 100 years, and this episode kind of gives some insight to what the Order was like. Very strict. Lots of rules. And ya know what, Fu said fuck the police, I’m gonna befriend these little magical demigods, and fuck off! Like what an absolute legend. I was really happy to see him living his best life, and that he and Marianne got married because it’s what he deserves. We love to see it. 7.5/10

20. Gamer- People like to shit on Marinette in this episode, but like honestly, if I were in her shoes, I’d have probably done the same thing if I had the skill. Ain’t nothing wrong with a girl trying to spend time with the boy she likes. And Tom and Sabine being absolute shipping trash. I love them. And the awkward Adrinette. The introduction of the lucky charm that Adrien STILL carries. Wholesome. This was a good episode for their friendship, and we love to see it. 7.5/10

21. Christmaster- Okay, I know a lot of people hated this episode when it aired, but I thought it was really funny? Everyone skidding around in the ice rink was hilarious. If you don’t take this episode seriously, it’s really fun. Chris is pretty cute, and damn right Ladybug is the best kid in the world. Idk. This episode is fun. I’m not mad at it. Sue me. 7.5/10

22. Weredad- What? Another MC-heavy episode in Cat’s top 30? Listen, I don’t hate canon MC. The fans just annoy me. This episode was funny. The secondhand embarrassment and cringe was real. Plagg taunting Adrien because he knows the secret was great. Marinette being a self-saving queen was great. It’s a good episode. I like MC, you guys. I do. I swear! 7.5/10

23. Miraculer- This episode was interesting to me, and I think it’s still a good development episode. For one, Sabrina finally got her own akuma episode named after her. Secondly, because it’s a big step for Chloe, just not in the way we expected. It totally makes sense that Chloe can’t have her Miraculous back because literally everyone knows her identity. Can’t argue that logic. And she is the first person to ever refuse to become akumatized, so like mad respect. I know a lot of people had high hopes for redeemed Chloe (myself included), but I think watching a character fall from revering someone to hating them is also an interesting path. The friends to enemies arc as it were. Idk. I liked this episode. It was an opportunity for Chloe to grow, even if she didn’t in the end, but we’ll talk about that later. 7.5/10

24. Lady Wifi- I like Alya. I feel like I don’t say that much, and people make some assumptions because of MDCSP, but MDCSP is just a concept I wanted to explore. It doesn’t really reflect how I feel about any one character. Except maybe Lila. And Gabe. But every other spite fic I’ve written branching from Chameleon, the class has been fine. Alya has been fine. So, let it be known that I like Alya. Lady Wifi was a fun episode. Putting aside the fact that she thought Chloe was Ladybug for no reason, I like her akuma. I like the interactions we get with LadyNoir in this episode. After GoS, this episode gets a bit funnier. It’s solid. 7/10

25. Dark Cupid- I don’t have much to say about this one. LadyNoir. That’s it. That’s the tweet. Send it. 7/10

26. Volpina- So many things about this episode. It introduced a new antagonist who we didn’t exactly 100% know was going to be an antagonist at the time. This episode sparked a lot of fun fan theories for a while. Who was Lila? How was she going to shake things up? Not to mention this episode gave us a taste of plot and lore, and set up Marinette meeting Master Fu officially. Lots of intrigue sparked from this episode. And that LadyNoir door scene? OOOOOO 7/10

27. Hearthunter- One word: Adrigaminette. This episode was so cute for them! I loved seeing them all goofing and running around together. Adrien and Kagami being absolutely in love with Marinette when her hair is down. They both love her, I don’t make the rules. Not to mention, Marinette takes a big step by letting her friends be happy without her. Kagami not wanting to hurt Marinette. The drama!! Gabriel being a messy ass bitch to his friends. It loses points for the abomination of an akuma, but overall, I wasn’t too mad at it. Yet. 7/10

28. Glaciator- More MC in Cat’s top 30? It’s more likely than you think. Listen. Listen… Listen. MC is fine. This episode was the closest thing to fanfiction that we got. The balcony scene was really sweet. I was drinking the irony. We got introduced to Andre the icecream fraud. Andre the please just give me the flavor I asked for man. I could have done without Chat pouting, but the LadyNoir in the end was pretty good. I wish they’d done more with Ladybug’s feelings for Chat. Had her question herself a bit more after this one, but overall, it’s cute. 7/10

29. Zombizou- A lot of people started hating Mlle. Bustier after this episode, and like I can kind of see it, if I squint, but I did not draw that same conclusion from this episode. Mlle. Bustier just wants good things for all of her students. They’re 14 ffs, she just wants to be a good influence on all of her students and wants them all to be successful. But go off, I guess? Plus, this episode was basically just a spoof on zombie apocalypse movies. We got so many things. Julerose, Myvan, DJWifi. Chloe actually showing some depth and emotion. LadyNoir. We won this episode, babes. Sorry you didn’t get the memo. 7/10

30. Timetagger- Okay. This is the last episode in the ones that I’d venture to call “good.” Number 30. I enjoyed Timetagger. I know people have feelings about timey-wimey bullshit, and like I’m not gonna lie and say I’m thrilled with it either (I mean, I changed the rabbit’s power in MDCSP) but that being said, Timetagger was so sassy. Bunnix was cool as hell. We get to see that LB and CN are still doing the thing in the future. So many questions sparked from this episode. It was fun. Idk. I liked it. That’s all I got. 7/10

31. Malediktator- Okay, from this point on, less comments because this is the section that are more or less just meh to me. Like they’re fine. This episode was fine. Chloe was fine. Chat playing with the laser was cute. 6.5/10

32. Mayura- Adrien’s speech at the end. Nuff said 6.5/10

33. Ikari Gozen- Ryuko/Ryuuko. Gals being pals. 6.5/10

34. Reflekdoll- I talked about this earlier, but I don’t hate this episode. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be. Sue me. 6.5/10

35. Anansi- Nino is the goodest boy. Also I need more of the gang taking Adrien on adventures via Facetime. Stat. 6.5/10

36. Shanghai- This one is new, and tbh I still haven’t watched it with subs, but I had a good time. Fei was cute. The boy squad was cute. Adrien bonding with Great Uncle Cheng was cute. Hawkmoth getting literally dunked on was *chefs kiss* 6.5/10

37. Gigantitan- I love overly supportive, ride-or-die girl squad. 6.5/10

38. Party Crasher- Idk why this episode was funny to me. Kim is the purest bean. We don’t deserve him. 6.5/10

39. Desperada- This episode was an emotional roller coaster, and even though we all collectively hate Aspik’s stupid egghead, we love the Ladrien this episode provided us. 6/10

40. Oni-chan- Listen, I loved seeing Lila get a tiny bit of karma even if she made it up in the end. I loved Chat going off on her. I loved seeing her get outsmarted in the end. 6/10

41. Frightningale- My good lesbian Clara Nightingale. We stan. 6/10

42. Style Queen- I like Audrey in a “she’s the worst person I’ve ever met, I want to travel the world with her” kind of way. She’s funny to me. Idk. I love her firing everyone. She’s the one I love to hate. She’s the worst, but we love her for it. Plus this episode gave us Plagg’s adorable little Cataclysm that destroyed half the city. 6/10

43. Gamer 2.0- Chat confidently strutting in heels made this episode worth it. And we get to see the beginning of Marinette being overwhelmed. Plus it was the return of gamer!nette. 6/10

44. Troublemaker- I don’t hate this episode as much as the next person either. It was fine. Jagged is a manchild, but we love him for it. He’s a Marinette stan which like mood. The Adrinette at the end was cute. I wasn’t mad at it. Idk. It’s fine. 6/10

45. Reflekta- Where are all my Juleka stans at? I loved the LadyNoir banter in this ep. V. cute. 6/10

46. Dark Owl- This episode was fun. And it really shows their level of trust. Plus Plagg and Tikki interacted. 6/10

47. Timebreaker- Have I ever mentioned that I like Alix? I like Alix. 6/10

48. Silencer- I don’t hate this episode as much as you’d expect me to, and that is 100% because of the LadyNoir. 5.5/10

49. Prime Queen- Chat purrs. 5.5/10

50. Syren- I think the fish power-up is adorable. Ondine is a gem. Kim is a pure bean, but we been knew. 5.5/10

51. Befana- I like Gina, but this episode fell flat for me. Almost as flat as the animation. 5.5/10

52. Reverser- Another episode that everyone hates that I am actually fine with. This episode made me like Nathaniel more. Probably because I was previously indifferent toward him. Marc is cute too. 5.5/10

53. Mr. Pigeon- Marinette is one clever girl. And the Adrinette hand-touch. 5.5/10

54. Felix- Felix is a gremlin of chaos. A true chaotic neutral. He gives his uncle the finger, and I think that’s beautiful. 5.5/10

55.�� Truth- Bet you expected this episode to be higher. While I did enjoy watching toxic people’s world crumble, this episode still gets a meh from me dog. 5/10

56. Lies- The Adrigami was cute, and I respect Kagami as a character. The akuma could have been better tho. 5/10

57. Princess Fragrance- Not much to say here. 5/10

58. Copycat- 5/10

59. Bubbler- 5/10

60. Mime- 5/10

61. Animan- 5/10

62. Robostus- 5/10

63. Ladybug- This episode ranks this low purely because I don’t care about GabeNath, and I hate that Lila won something in the end. But Adrien saying I won’t hesitate, bitch! At the end was nice to see. 5/10

64. Catalyst- I know I ranked Mayura way higher, but Catalyst fell flat for me. Like it was fine. Wasn’t as into it though. 4.5/10

65. Puppeteer- One of my favorite lucky charm uses. 4.5/10

66. Pixelator- My favorite Cataclysm. 4.5/10

67. Horrificator- That almost-Adrinette kiss tho 4.5/10

68. Pharaoh- 4.5/10

69. Kung Food- 4.5/10

70. Rogercop- 4/10

71. Guitar Villain- 4/10

72. Dark Blade- 4/10

73. Bakerix- 4/10

74. Antibug- And now onto the bottom 10. To start us off, I will just say: UGH, this episode annoyed me. First of all, Sabrina didn’t even get her own episode. Chloe was a piece of shit. Idk why they made Ladybug the one in the wrong when Chloe was being obnoxious. Ugh. 3/10

75. Captain Hardrock- I’m gonna be honest. My apathy for this episode has grown into loathing. Toxic stans are 100% to blame. Birthday ruining, bitches. This is the reason I threw a breakup bash after Truth. Yall deserved it. 3/10

76. Christmas Special- I didn’t hate this episode as much as everyone, but it still wasn’t great. 2.5/10

77. Stormy Weather 2.0- This episode was really dumb. It didn’t need to exist. 2.0/10

78. Queen Wasp- Why did we give Chloe a Miraculous after this episode? 2/10

79. Animaestro- Did we really need a self-insert? Did we really? 2/10

80. Puppeteer 2.0- Listen, this episode would have made more sense in s1 or at the very latest early s2. Adrien gave a whole ass speech on how great Marinette is, then he turns around and is like idk if she likes me… Clean it up. 2/10

81. Miracle Queen- I could talk at length about how much I hate the ending of this episode and what they did with Chloe and Master Fu, but we’re just going to remain calm and give it a solid 1.5/10

82. Frozer- This episode made no goddamn sense. I call bullshit on so many things. Just ugh. 1/10

83. Chameleon- Surprisingly, even though this episode sparked many, many spite fics out of me, it’s not my least favorite because at least Ladybug semi-redeemed this episode. Still really dumb and ooc tho. 1/10

84. Feast- Okay, okay, okay, here we are. Bottom of the barrel. Cat’s most hated episode, and you wanna know why? You want to know why this episode fills me with the rage? Because we spent two fucking seasons building up all this mystery and lore and intrigue surrounding Fu’s big mistake, and they dropped the fucking ball! They did my mans so dirty! They could have really deepened his character, deepened the Order, deepened anything other than whatever fucking affair Gabriel and Nathalie have going on, but NO. They made it some stupid, bland-ass thing that got resolved magically in the end, then just ignored it for the rest of the season. I will never not be salty about how they did my boy Fu in this show. I’m happy he found his peace, but fuck if I’m not livid about how they did it. Whatever. Chat being done with Ladybug’s shit when they’re about to get eaten was funny I guess. .5/10

#cat speaks #cat spoils #episode ranking #long post #i'm tired now #i go to bed

57 notes · View notes

ponyguru · 3 years

Text

Tonight I watched all of He-Man: Revelations and most of Centaurworld (I watched the first three episodes like, a week ago?) and I have ... opinions. (And it’s 4:37am, might as well share them while they’re fresh!)

(Warning, this got very long and ranty, sorry for stretching out your dashboards if that’s even still a thing anymore?)

He-Man was entertaining, but it did feel like (as someone with like, less than a passing knowledge of the characters) someone’s super-angsty fanfiction more than like ... a continuing series. They killed off multiple well-known, beloved characters, to drive home the point of how SERIOUS and how HARDCORE this series is, and instead it felt like being a little kid in the 80s watching Optimus Prime get murdered to sell more toys. Like, WHY DID THEY DIE? Oh right, to show the viewer how SERIOUS the bad guys are! And to give the other characters things to angst over, to show you they’re no longer just shallow 80s muscle man stereotypes to sell toys! But then you gotta wonder, where will they go from here? Who’s even left to continue the storyline? Is it still He-Man if half the supporting cast is dead?

Like I said, I’m not a He-Man fan by trade, but aside from the pointless murder, it did seem like it delved into the backstories that a lot of people have probably wanted since the 80s, and it made some very interesting points. So, hey, maybe it’ll be beloved by its fans! And it was very entertaining, especially as someone who wasn’t a childhood fan so I didn’t have a lot of nostalgia that I had to watch die. It doesn’t end on a happy note, there’s definitely the ‘what if the villains WON’ theme going, so maybe my opinion will be less dour when the next part comes out. (I did like that it focused more on the female characters, which was a very unexpected change, and in that aspect I felt it was very well written; that could explain why I’ve heard other screechingly negative feedback elsewhere online, heh. He-Man fans probably don’t appreciate the heavy preference paid to Teela.)

Centaurworld was ... well, I watched the first episode with my mother, which was a Huge Fucking Mistake. I heard that it was a thrilling combination of something akin to Adventure Time and a more serious cartoon like Avatar, and instead I got 10 minutes of that, and then 16 minutes of continuous ass, fart, and poop jokes, combined with a couple of great tunes and a lot of tuneless recitative style “songs”.

If you follow this blog, you probably know toys; you know the Poopsie Surprise toys? The ones which were so obsessed with uncomfortably sexualized poop/fart/barf references that entire scholarly articles were written about the sexualization of children with scatology-themed toys? Yeah, that’s what Centaurworld felt like, almost the whole time. Like just ... an uncomfortable amount of poop/butt/fart “jokes”, to the point where it felt like it had to be one of the writer’s fetishes. Like, it was clearly not funny, and the main character is clearly uncomfortable with it ... and it just keeps going.

I say jokes in scare quotes because jokes are supposed to be funny, and a lot of Centaurworld just wasn’t funny. You could tell it was meant to have jokes, but it was very much dated early-2000s type humor, I want to guess? The kind where it’s not so much ‘setup-punchline’ but the more ‘awkward reference awkward reference awkward reference drawn out wooooord’ type of “jokes”. And most of those “jokes” were just - you guessed it - drawn out references to butts, or farts, or some combination of the two. I felt like an aged boomer watching it. I like to think I’m hip and with the times, but it felt like it should be aimed at a middle schooler - but like, an oversexualized middle schooler? It was uncomfortable to say the least. (One character talks to his farts, claims they talk back to him, and he addresses them as ‘Daddy,’ while another character expresses how uncomfortable that is, and implies he has “issues” to unpack. Because that’s hilarious, I guess?)

Centaurworld did, beneath the heavy layer of scatology, have an intriguing storyline. A warhorse from a LOTR-style world is thrown into a wacky Adventure Time-type land made up of silly centaurs, and has to try and find her way back home. It was thrilling at times, if you could slog through everything else that beleaguered it. There were some really good jokes! But I couldn’t quite muster up a laugh, because I was still wondering when the next butt reference would sneak in. After ten terrible jokes, the one good joke couldn’t manage to lift me from the depth of despair I’d sunken into. It really only felt like the show got ‘tolerable’ around episode 7 (out of ten!!!!), which was an episode heavily focused on cats. (Which, again; wasn’t the internet very much about LOLCats in the early 2000s?)

If six episodes of a ten-episode series is nigh-intolerable, is it a successful show? Should you bother watching something that is 60%+ garbage? (And DON’T FUCKING WORRY, the poop/butt/fart jokes continued UNTIL THE FUCKING FINAL EPISODE.)

I suspect that, if there was a “goal” for all of the fetish stuff (beyond fetish stuff for fetish sake), it would be to illustrate to the viewer how uncomfortable the main character feels in this strange new land, and for us to share in her discomfort. Which, fine, sure! Secondhand embarrassment is definitely a trope. But the sheer uncomfortable volume of the poop/butt/fart jokes clearly went way beyond mere discomfort, and veered into ‘why is this coming up so much, is someone getting off on this?’ territory, at least for me. A couple butt jokes an episode, fine, okay. Entire five minute bits devoted to farts and butts? Entire songs about butts? I start questioning why it’s such a beloved subject for you to write about.

Plus, and I may be reading into this too much, but several of the only Black-coded characters felt racist. I’m talking neck-snapping, tribal body paint type racism, although only one got the exaggerated “soul” type music to sing, which I guess is a relative win? (Waterbaby and Judge Jacket, if you’re wondering who I’m referencing. One of them is a literal hippo centaur, giving us shades of Madagascar.) It wasn’t obvious, but combined with everything else, it felt ... bad. (There are multiple other nonwhite voice actors who aren’t stereotypes, so maybe it was just a bad case of ‘trying to represent different culture while being clueless white people’, who knows?) There was also some classic fatphobia, with one of the villains being shown as a fat neckbeard collector/nerd. Wasn’t that relevant in - wait for it - the early 2000s? They redeem themselves very slightly by having maybe two other characters who are visibly fat, but one of them is also viewed as an antagonist.

Anyway, I was disappointed enough with the show to feel like I should say something, so - there it is. Centaurworld did have some good moments, some lovely songs, and there was some really heartwarming and tender character development that I liked, sandwiched between huge swaths of discomfort. There might be a season 2 (there shouldn’t be, LOL) and hell, I will probably suffer through it because I want to see what happens to them. But I can’t recommend that anyone else do the same, in all good conscience. It’s not good. It’s just not. But if you have 5 hours to kill, there’s worse stuff out there?

If you want to watch one episode to see the best of the series, I recommend episode seven, “Johnny Teatime's Be Best Competition: A Quest for the Sash.” It’s themed after the CATS musical, and the extended number at the end gave me shades of MLP or Fashion Star Fillies. (I found an official clip of the song posted here.) There’s also other lovely songs in the series, but you’d have to suffer through entire bad episodes to see them. The lovely “You’re Okay” shows up in the very first episode, so if you’re curious give that a watch... just be aware it never gets better, only worse.

This series genuinely upset me, because I wanted it to be something much better, and there were glimpses of it; you just had to try and close your eyes to the obsession with butts and farting to see pieces of what it might have been.

One notable fact that I thought was kind of like ‘wow, oof’ was that Meghan McCarthy, of MLP:FiM fame, was a story editor for Centaurworld. And considering how MLP went downhill in later seasons, I gotta say I’m wondering if there’s a commonality there. Maybe her fetish is bad writing? There’s worse fetishes to have, AS CENTAURWORLD CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES.

#ponyguru chat #in which I ramble #in which it's 4am and I ramble lmao #OH GOD I HAVE A 4AM RAMBLE TAG OKAY TIME FOR SLEEP TTYL ALL #long post #VERY long post

13 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Ducktales: Woo-oo! Review! or From the Top

Hello all you happy people! And to those of you just joining this blog, welcome I review ducks, other animated shows and comics... and today’s review is special for me. For a number of reasons. For starters it’s a reminder how far i’ve come. See I always wanted to be a reviewer, ever since high school when a friend showed me a certain online reviewer whose now dead to me, and opened me up to a world of much better reviewers who i’m still fans of to this day, and ones who came after them , and after that and so on and so on. I so badly wanted a community to belong to I struggled to be a youtube reviewer but frankly lacked the talent or self confidence back then to try, so my attempts over the decade were a series of stops and starts. Of me starting to find my niche writing only to stop because I hated myself so much, and still struggle with that, i’d tell myself I could never do it, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t funny enough and no one cared. I kept shutting myself down AGAIN AND AGAIN, for far too long.

But that all changed a year ago next month: I’d long been a fan of the Ducktales Reboot. I was caustiously optimistic when it was announced. The optimism came from a deep abiding love of scrooge as a character despite not having dove into his comics that deep, I didn’t have an easy way at the time, thanks to life and times and what comics I had read, and was excited to see a fresh reboot closer to the comics with my eternal boy Donald Duck back in the main character. The caution.. came from the fact that at the time we’d gotten a string of bad to medicore reboots: Teen Titans GO, Powerpuff Girl, and Ben 10 which started pretty meh but has turned into alirght from some of the later episodes I saw. I wanted to be hyped to all hell but I had no proof this wasn’t going to be another dumbed down reboot. Then comic con came, the first teaser poster dropped, and my skepticism died.

It was perfect: a barksian art style with it’s own twists! Donald full on display! And best of all the triplets FINALLY had not only unique outfits but personalities! I’ve long went on in my reviews about how much that annoyed me and while it worked for the barks comics ever since then it’s just felt like a waste to have three characters there.. and not even the SLIGHTEST difference.

My anticipation only grew with the full trailer, the promo posters as more and more info showed how good this series would be, how unique it’d be, and how much tw as taking what made the comics great, giving us a better distalation of that while still being very much it’s own beast. And once this episode dropped.. that faith was unfounded. Woo-oo! is without hyperbole, one of the best pilots i’ve seen, one that introduced the entire main cast perfectly, gets the series tone and mission statment out just right and in general set the stage for one of the best shows of the 2010′s (and 2020′s, even if it only lasted a year and some change). Wheras Teen Titans GO actively tried to take a dump on it’s source material, they thankfully have stopped that but it dosent’ make those early years any less grating, Ducktales was a breath of fresh air that honored the past while making i’ts own future. I tried talking about it but it was all in other failed attempts at reviewing: solo podcasts, my breif second video review career.. stuff no one rightly cared about and I just couldn’t get the hang of.

So this is where we loop back to last year: I decided to finally try and cover it one more time, not realizing this would be my last chance as it came out anyway, and since I was doing text reviews but my output had slid in the new year, I decided to review Season 3 as it came out. If it bottomed out I could always stop.... and I just never did. I kept going, eventually finding new fans, a patreon (The other one’s an old friend of mine), and not only got paid doing what I love.. but found some peace. I reviewed other shows as they came out, covered things i’d wanted to cover for years like life and times, scott pilgrim and x-men,. I covered other shows as they came out, found people willing to talk over my opinions and found my niche at long last.

So that’s why the long speech folks: After almost a year of reviewing i’m properly covering the start of something that made me happier than I had been in a long time and gave me hope during one of the worst periods of ALL our lives. Something i’ve wanted to cover since I finally got started last year, and something truly amazing. So i’d be honored if you’d join me under the cut as I talk about the genesis of one of the best series Disney has ever put out.

Behind the Scenes Stuff: Most details I could find were sparse. it took going back to the first month the show came out and looking at a LOT of unrelated questions to finally find out Frank and Matt outright pitched the show. This dosen’t suprise me as both are huge ducktales fans with Matt having drawn his own duck comics as a kid and Frank taking it an extra mile having sang the theme song in his first grade talent show, worked it into his vows and got his first daughter’s first word to be “Woo-oo”. It’s very clear this show as a labor of love for them something they dreamed of Disney made possible.

Otherwise I don’t have much on the genisis of the show: It was in the earliest ideas going to be a revivial but Frank and Matt both decided against it , deciding it’d be unfair to expect kids from 30 years after the original to know the source material, and instead just starting it over outright, which was the right call especailly with Alan Young’s passing.

Design wise I found quite a bit of concept art thanks to one website, and it’s incredibly intresting. This is why i’ve really gotten into art books: I like seeing this early stuff what characters used to be, figuring out or outright hearing from the creators mouths why they changed it that sort of thing.

Starting off we have some early designs for Donald, with him wearing the sailor suit as a kid but his Quackshot outfit as an adult, something I honestly wish they’d kept but get why they changed it: The iconic sailor suit both helps contrast him with della and fits his reluctance to adventure in season 1 more. I still wish that they worked the Quackshot outfit in somewhere, but they worked in so damn much, it’s hard to complain> Though I probably will make a list of “things I wished they’d worked” in at some point and i’d be lying inf I siad my mind wasn’t currently turning the gears to figure out how to work this into a fanfic. Oohhh maybe as Dewey’s outfit as an adult but blue, obviously.

Next we have Donald settled more into his final apperance as well as the boy’s first outfits. As you can tell from both of these the show originally went more with the classic art style before getting the one we’re familiar with now, one I love by the way and was made to combine a classic cartoon style with the visual of the comics. Donald originally had his classic outfit before they transitioned to the more barks style one, a good call.

The interesting bit though is obviously the boys original outfits which i’m honestly bummed didn’t make it for Huey and Louie, not so much Dewey minus the visor. I do get the changes though: The hoodie Dewey had fit WAY beter on Louie, and the lumberjack shirt didn’t quite fit the nerdier huey. Still look nice. Dewey’s is okay, but only the visor is something I really gregret them removing same with louie’s fedora. It would’ve been neat ot keep the hat thing, but have each hat be unique. Likely they simplified things to make animation easier and simply removed the hats for some reason, but it’s nice ot see these more detailed original drafts and it is VERY interesting to find that differentiating the triplets was something planned from the earliest concept art. Though given Matt and Frank said in interviews they wanted a more natural family feel, it’s not a huge surprise.

Scrooge like everyone BUT the boys thus far, naturally also had his original outfit at first, but like he ended up doing in the series rotated a bit, if not as much in the final product. We also see a protoype for his final design, the old coat but with a jacket over it in the last image. I also notice Donald seemed a lot more like his old comics self in the concept art with quackshot!donald.

Like everyone else, Webby and Launchapd were originally their 87 deisgns, though Launchpad’s slightly diffrent jacket and green scarf were changed from the start. Webby is the closest to her 87 design, and as shown in the previous Lena concept art from my “Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime” double feature, she still had her new personality. More on that in a bit.

Finally we have Flintheart, whose design is a bit diffrent from 87: He was a chub from day one it appears, though they’d exagerate it, and his beard was a bit longer at first like his other incarnations.

Beakly is largely unchanged form 87, only given a coat, which would gradually be mofidied, much liekt he boys into her current outfit.

As you can tell Beakly, Webby and Launchpad were all there from day one as they wanted them from the original ducktales just updated.

Production wise they wanted to go handrawn, chose the style they did to have something close to the comics that felt classicly aniamteda t the same time, I feel they succeeded and wanted a show that felt like the original. I do think this show has it’s own feel but it does feel ducktales. I badly hope for an artbook at some point though as this show probably hada LOT more intresting concept art. Seriously Disney I will PAY YOU to look at your neat art. Please.

So they created a fully formed world and put the characters in it, wanting it to feel like the world had existed before and had throughly been explored and letting our young heroes be the watson to Donald and Scrooge’s holmes.

Finally Della was indeed part of the initial pitch and a core idea from day one as every family has secrets and Della felt like one that had been lurking around the fringes of the story for 80 years. The rest of the production stuff i’ll weave in as we go but first one last stop, the STELLAR voice cast, none of whom outsideo f Tony i’ve talked about before sooooo...

The All Star Cast

The casting was outstanding here, with Matt admitting the cast brought a LOT to the characters, especially Ben Schwartz whose taken on Dewey was so unique and intresting they actually rewrote some of his dialouge for the pilot to fit this version better. This is far and away one of the best casts in western animation, most coming from comedy backgrounds and one or two coming from a voice acting background, but all bringing their absolute best. And since our main 8 are all in the pilot let’s run them down along with Keith Ferguson shall we?

Playing everyone’s faviorite billionare scotsman and one of the very few to ever do so, we have David Fucking Tennant. David was their “First and only choice” and for good reason: David is a talented actor with a MASSIVE amount of stage, tv and audio drama credits. His biggest and best known role is playing the 10th Doctor on Doctor Who, which while not my faviorite (That’d be matt smith, as he’s both the one I came in on and hte one who got me hooked) he’s still VERY close second and damn talented and I need to watch more of his tenure. Outside of that just to condense it to his ongoing roles on stuff and bigger roles: Filmwise he’s had starring roles in the Fright Night remake, You, Me and Him, Fish Without Bicycles and Bad Samartains, and is set to do a voice for the upcoming Loud House Movie, which excites me to no end.

TV wise where most of his roles have been he got his first big starring role on the Telly with the BBC Mini series Taking Over the Asylum in the late 90′s. He’d go on to make a career out of doing mini’s for a while, also taking part in He Knew He Was Right, The Quatermass Experiment Remake, Casanova, Secret Smile.. and Blackpool. I saved Blackpool for last before we move into the Who era as if you’ve never heard of it.. it’s REALY fucking weird. It’s a jukebox musical about a man who wants to make Blackpool, a real city, into the new vegas and Tennat plays a cop investigating a case around the guy and also trying to get with his wife because they used to date and because our lead is philandering jackass. That’s already kinda nuts.. but then you get to the fact the songs are sung OVER the original songs instead of making a new version of them. It’s surreal to be sure but if you can find it it’s worth it for the handful of good numbers and how weird it looks and you can find clips of the songs on youtube if your intrested. Here’s a starter.

youtube

Your also welcome. He’d go on to play Detective Alec Hardy in Broadchurch to critical aclaim as well as be a part of it’s short lived american remake, would play the Fugitoid in tmnt 2007, Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, one of his few post who roles i’ve seen or heard besides Scrooge and easily some of his best work he NAILS that purple bastard perfectly, would make his own show Staged about a fictional version of himself putting on a Stage play that’s still ongoing, and is currently , along with Ducktales as it wraps up, the voice of Lord Commander on Final Space, with the character returning this season judging by the trailers to fan delight and terror. He’s a VERY talented actor and voice actor and I do hope he goes on to do more and more voice work in years to come as, with his background in radio, he was born for it.

He was also born for this roll, playing Scrooge perfectly and easily matching Alan Young in quality, not a small feat and i’ts VERY obvious why he was their one and only choice.

Next up is another legend, Tony Anselmo who we’ve talked about before when I covered legend of the Three Cablleros: He’s been Donald’s voice since shortly before Ducktales, hasn’t done much else but given he’s THE voice for the character and this show let him show off one hell of a range with teh voice, he dosen’t really need other credits. The man is a treasure and I fear loosing him one day and fear for whoever replaces him as they have a LOT to live up to.

Getting into the triplets, we’re going by age so starting off we have Huey, voiced by Danny Pudi. Like most of this cast aside from Toks Ogladyve and Beck Bennet (Who I probably HAD seen on SNL but didn’t really know or look out for him on there till after Ducktales), I not only knew Danny but was a huge fan of his going in. This is due to his breakout role on the glorious sitcom Community, which sadly only had a handful of i’ts cast show up on this show. I mean you got Lin Manuel Miranda I’m sure Donald Glover would’ve said yes too. He grew up with Ducktales. Regardless his role as meta guy Abed was easily the best of the cast on that show, with Glover as troy a very close second and the two working at their best as a duo. Outside of that he’s had a few roles being a regular on Powerless, which I forgot existed and currently on Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. And given his performance as huey was one of the best parts of this show he REALLY, REALLY SHOULD. Please Danny. He’s also a loving husband, father and surprisingly a marathon runner. Never would’ve guessed.

Next up is SNL Alumn of 9 years, Bobby Monynihan. Bobby is naturally best known for that, my faviorite role of his being Ass Dan. That’s right bitch you know he’s going to live fore..

ASS DAN 1981-2021

He’ll be back. Outside of SNL he’s done a bunch of minor roles. He’s currently on the tragically mediocre sitcom Mr. Mayor, and voiced Panda on We Bare Bears. Hopefully he keeps up the good work as he deserves better than he’s gotten and Ducktales proves it.

Finally for the triplets we have a rising star in voice acting, Ben Schrwartz. At the time Ducktales launched, I was a fan of his from his roll on parks and Rec as Jen Ralphio, aka older scummier Dewey.

youtube

Outside of his historic recurring role here he played a main role on House of Lies, a show I need to go back to, and has done other live action rolls but has REALLY hit his stride in voice acting. He started with voicing Randy Cunningham in Randy Cunningham 9th grade ninja and since then has hit the ground running: He was Rutabega on Bojack, Josh on Bob’s Burgers, and went on to complete the trifecta of blue nostalgic characters after voicing dewey by voicing Leo in Rise of the TMNT (and having one of the most unique and intresting versions of the character to play) and reprised the roll for the upcoming film. And of course he hit it HUGE by playing Sonic in the suprsingly fantastic Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and will do so again for the sequel and might even take up the roll for the games now Roger Craig Smith has retired. We shall see. Point is this guy’s at the top of his game and Dewey is part of that. Like with his brothers I can’t picture anyone else playing him.

Rounding out the kids is Webby, played by the wonderous Kate Micucci. Kate is a lovely talented woman who mostly showed up in smaller parts, was part of the musical duo garfunkel and oates which even got their own tv show, and is currently a fairly prolific voice actor with this being her best known roll. I also had a bit of a crush on her once can you tell? Regardless besides absolutely nailing it as Webby she’s voiced Julie Kane in the crimnally short and even more crimnally not on Disney+ Motorcity, “Irma” in the 2012 TMNT cartoon, and the fact that “Irma” is in quotes should tell you how big a waste I felt it was having her NOT actually be Irma, despite Kate’s massive talent, the fact that Irma hadn’t been in anything since the 87 cartoon, and the fact that for added “Fuck you audience points” her krang form was voiced by Gilbert Godfried, who I love but whose casting feels like they wanted to make the twist as grating as possible. Good job there.

Anyways her second biggest voice gig was as Sadie on Steven Universe, which took WAY too long to show off her absolutely tremendous singing voice. She started voicing Velma Dinkley in the mid-2010′s and has since, voiced Milo’s sister Sarah on Milo Murphy’s Law, Dr. Fox on Unikitty, and most recently voiced a sentient present on close enough who did this.

So yeah quite the career and like Ben she probably has a long and storied career in Voice Acting ahead.

Next up is Beck Bennet as everyone’s friend Launchpad where he excels. He’s best known as a castmember on SNL outside of this, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. The only other time i’ve caught him is in the same season of Close Enough as Luc, aka dude-bro satan. But like eveyrone else here who hasn’t done a lot of voice work so far or has been more selective I defintely hope he keeps going with it as he’s amazing. He and Ben will be co-starring on MODOK in May so i’m excited for that.

Last up for the main cast is Beakly, voiced by Toks Olagundoye, who I hadn’t heard of before this show and hasn’t done a lot outside of the two season sitcom the neighbors, the aliens one not the really terrible looking one, and a stint on Castle, but like everyone here deserves much more and if Beakly is any indication, really should stick with voice acting.

Last up is Keith Ferguson as only he could as FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, whose a staple in the voice acting community ever since 2000, and has had a TON of roles some of which I was unaware with him. Given Frank worked with him on Wonder Over Yonder, where he voiced Lord Hater to perfection, the two clearly have a close working relationship. He also has a close working relationship with Wonder creator Craig McCracken and has worked on all of his post-powerpuff girls show, voicing Bloo as his first major role, something I never would’ve guessed, and currently voicing Papa G on Kid Cosmic.

Outside of Craig and Frank, he played both Karate Kid and Nemisis Kid on Legion of Super Heroes (Which really needs to come to HBO Max), Deputy Durland on Gravity Falls, and Thunderbolt Ross on Avengers Earth’s Mighteist Heroes. He’s damn good and deserves the world for Glomgold alone and i’m glad Craig rung him up again as so far through my watch of Kid Cosmic he’s great.

So with our cast in place, our past in place and you all likely ready to get on with it already let’s dive into the episode:

THE EPISODE: Part one Woo-Ooo!

We begin with a shot of a seagull flying overseagulls, a nice way to establish how this world works and how it bends expectations. They’d have to wait till season 3 to get a duck next to ducks but given that gag is one of the best of the series, it was worth it.

Inside a house boat we meet Donald, Huey and Louie and get a sense of their personalities: Donald is panicked trying to get to a job interview and insists the boys wear life vests, showing his overprotectiveness and responsibility exclusive to this version. Louie stresses that Donald wear a suit instead of his normal clothes to properly impress the interviewer, showing his skill at people reading and manipulation, and Huey is making a nice, if messy, breakfast with a heartwarming message showing his heart and dedication. After finding out said Babysitter was sent to the wrong address, the boys TRY to hustle him out to stay alone.. only for Dewey to blow the scheme by starting the boat too early, letting Donald know he’s been had. Huey’s attempt to lie about it is of course the classic “Who’s Dewey?” Dewey’s caught wiring the boat and Donald throws them in the car, with Donald livid and the boys upset as their chafing at his constant overprotectiveness.

Both sides aren’t wrong. tThe boys DID do something reckless, putting an old woman in the desert and risking their home just to go on a joyride. What they did was wrong.. but the boys AREN’T wrong for getting annoyed that he won’t let them DO anything and overly hovering over them when they CAN handle themselves as we’ll see. WE now know why: he lost their mother and his sister to her and scrooge’s recklesness. While he got therapy for his anger it’s clear he never properly got help about Della, and thus overcompensates by trying to keep what he has left of her alive. He means well.. but to them it comes off as him being manically overprotective with no good reason. They get into trouble because it’s the only way to DO anything away from him. He’s trying so hard not to loose them he almost has by the time hte series starts, and it’s telling that when they get context in Last Crash, they appricate him more from then on. They do love him, but their frustration is understandable even if what their doing is pretty damn stupid. But their also 10 and Donald’s the grown adult in therapy who should’ve dealt with this or tried to at least by now.

So with no other options Donald sets a course for McDuck manor which excites the boys who have heard of Scrooge McDuck and his exploits, each rattling off something they heard him do that fits their personality (Dewey picks him fighting a stone monster, Huey picks him uncovering a hoax and Louie picks his swimming in money. ) As Donald tries to get them to simmer down, they wonder what he’s up to

He’s up toooo.. depression. He’s in a room with his board, watching them with utter hate and sadness as they talk about cutting the invention and aviation departments. This scene plays ENTIRELY differently after the final two episodes of the season. Before it still plays well as Scrooge clearly resenting being stuck in a boring board meeting, having lost everything that made him him and just having lost his passion for life. Now? It plays as a man utterly disdainful of the men who made him give up on his daughter. While as far as he knows they did it to save his employees from his company collapsing, we know better now... and seriously where IS the rest of the board they just vanished after the Season 3 premiere.

I don’t mind only one being fleshed out, unlike the triplets we only NEED the one I mind that they just never explained it and still haven’t. Hopefully the finale will.

But back on the plot, it now plays as Scooge just full of hatred for them, knowing they had to do what they did, even if they weren’t emebzlling but still hating them and himself. He’s likely not even paying attention anymore because he just dosen’t CARE: he has all the money int he world.. and it couldn’t bring him his daughter back. As he sadly puts the coins he was fiddling with back and says see you tommorow he can’t even close the vault without a struggle. As we’ll see later the strength never left, it’s not like he stopped execrising.. but he has nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to care about. He could adventure agian so far.. but without Della or Donald, as we’d learn two seasons later the reason he enjoyed it again... what’s the point? He has nothing left except his money.

This is also a nice parallel to the final Chapter of LIfe and Times. I always felt the first half of woo-ooo was a spiritual adaptation of chapter 12 of that: Scrooge meets the boys for the first time and with their help, and Donalds in the story< Webby and Launchpad here, he regains his passion and more importantly his family after driving them away> The how is very different: he did in life and times due to sinking to his lowest point morally, then cruelly dismissing his family when they tried to welcome him home and bury the hatchet despite what he’d done. Here.. he made a HORRIBLE mistake, one that wasn’t entirely on him but still cost him everything and spent the decade instead of stewing or making more money trying desperately to undo it. The end result is the same, a dried out husk of a man with nothing left to loose and no will to gain anything.

This husk has launchpad though whose introduced as his driver and while good with subs and planes.. isn’t great on the road. After that though Donald pulls up hoping to drop the kids off before Scrooge arrives. Naturally this being a cartoon and Donald having tempted fate with that Scrooge shows up telling him to jettison that Jallopy at once. And finding out who it is, apart from asking how Donald is and Donald doing the same, dosen’t sway him. The boys however freak out after finding out Scrooge is Donald’s and there uncle, with my faivriote bit of that being Dewey exiting the car via a window and rolling across the roof back in. Amazing bit of animation. Wish I had a gif of that.

Donald makes the situation plane and angry and asks “Can you do that without LOOSING THEM”. And scrooge is so painfully disarmed by his reminder of his past mistakes and the fact his surrogate son still resents him, that he agrees before realizing “Shit I have to watch children now don’t I” as Donald drives off. As you probably guessed, this is another scene that plays differently in hindsight, if not by much: It still plays as two men too stubborn and bitter to reconcile.. but now we know the why behind both their rages it feels even sadder. They both lost the person they cared about most but as it sadly happens in real life both have dug in their heels to reconcile, both feeling their right when neither completely is. While Donald was right to be upset at scrooge and della for what happened, and is mostly taking it out on scrooge because he’s the one left... he’s held onto his anger for 10 years instead of going to help when he’s unemployed, living in a dilapidated houseboat and trying ot raise three children alone and could’ve used what help scrooge would give. Scrooge is right to be upset that Donald is just selectively ignoring everything he’s done to save Della, but is too stubborn and prideful to apologize for what he DID do wrong and feels that’s enough to make up for it when , while it is enough that donald should forgive him, still dosen’t mean he dosen’t have a lot to apologize for. Both are just too angry and too much alike, as much as it woudln’t seem so, to settle with each other and see too much of what they lost.

So the kids follow Scrooge.. who forgets to open the door, and Beakly lets them in. It’s a nice subtle bit. After some silence, Bentina TRIES to get her old friend and now employer to talk to them, but he naturally refuses and they do the talking, asking tons of questions.. and Dewey ends the conversation by accidently pressing the “imply he USED to be something rather than is something right now “ button

So Scrooge throws them in the twins old room, and Beakly gives them some marbles. You will give them b ack they will be counted. But another subtle touch I missed the first time is there... her sad look. She clearly doesn’t want to do this, but she has to play this carefully or else he might get mad and fire her on the spur of the moment. He’d obviously hire her back, where else is he going to get an ex spy who will both clean for him AND be his bodyguard and security. It’s a very small pool. Mostly because Beakly probably killed most of the other people who’d of fit that description during her spy days.

Scrooge meanwhile is still rattled by Dewey’s statment, wondering if he really is a “used to be” instead of a “never left”. The fire is starting to spark again.. he just needs more kindling. And more kin.

Meanwhile Louie and Huey marvel at Dewey’s “Brilliant’ breakout plan: hit the door knob with the sack of marbles til lit breaks. To be fair, they’ve known dewey as long as they’ve been alive and even by season 3 after he’s taken several levels in badass and cunning.. he still crashed a plane because his brother well-meaningly called him basic, and thought being nearly sacrificed the most times was an accomplishment. This is the best he could do and you all know it. It also works, so they can’t fault him for that... though he’s quickly kidnapped as are they. They wake up after the commerical break in a room with pure darkness, hung from the celing with a mystery person asking who they are and who they work for before Louie calls out for “uncle scrooge”... so she claps the lights back on and..

Well close. But it is Webby, who cuts them down, fangirls over meeting the nephews and asks who the evil triplet is. They all point to Louie who shrugs it off. I mean it was funny enough the first time but at this point I know he’s running several fradulent charites, almost all scamming his uncle. He’s earned that title. Webby puts them on the big board and then when asked they find out she’s Webby, her granny Beakly is housekeeper. She then asks the big questons “Are we friends now?” “If we say yes will you let us live?” “Ha good one new best friend”

She then explains she dosen’t get to leave or anything even eat a hamburger. The boys are moved by this and Louie asks what she does for fun. She leads them to the vents and while Huey and Louie are a bit relcutant, Dewey naturally goes first pointing out it’s better than the marble room. They agree and are on their way.

Okay unpinning that pin, the crew conciously updated Webby and Beakly as neither really had a lot of purpose in the original. It was also to conciously add more actiony females to the main family lineup, as both creators, both being fathers, preferred someone their daughters could look up to and would enjoy watching. Not someone perfect but someone intresting instead of someone who often got Kidnapped and whose main charactrisitcs were “Sweet and GIRL STEROTYPE” So cleverly they KEPT her being girly, having a skirt, liking ponies. .but also gave her all the training and skill of one Cassandra Cain, a sheltered background and an adorable personality that kept the sweetness but added her probably having killed a man at some point. It worked as Webby is one of the best parts of the show.

Likewise Beakly was upgraded from fuddy duddy housekeeper, to badass former secret agent whose also a housekeeper, and bodyguard and confidant to scrooge. Demonstrated by her talk with him as he tries to put on his diving suit and go after the jewel of atlantis, having spotted the signs to go after it in the paper.. and wanting to prove a child wrong. Beakly points out the flaws in this, and tries to get him to connect to his family. Having lost hers, it’s easy to see why.. though the how’s a mystery.. for now i’m guess. We’ll see in the finale. But she’s Scrooge’s concisence and the one who can easiest reign him in, to the point two episodes directly have our heroes have to NOT call her or else the plot was end, but have that worked into the plot so it works. She’s the calm in his storm and hte one person he needs more than anyone else even if he dosen’t always realize it. He calls family “nothing but trouble” just as Dewey passes overhead.

So naturally as Webby shows off Scrooge’s old treasures in a mysterious room, while the other Siblings are rightfully impressed, Dewey dismisses it as “fake” because he’s being a little shit, and they agree after seeing Donald, not knowing his reputation. The cutaway to him struggling with a stapler does not help> it’s only when Webby accidnetly uneleashes Captain Peghook, a vengeful ghost after scrooge, who gets his hand on a ghostly sword do they realize this time the monsters are real. Huey also accidently wakes up Manny, the headless manhorse!

Things somehow get WORSE as Scrooge finds them.. but is in no state to argue and as our heroes duck and Huey tries to divise a plan.. Scrooge get’s his spark back once agian.. it’s starting to become an ember now... and he charges in despite Dewey’s cries of “No come back your old!”. It then gets VERY badass Scrooge: Oi! Beastie! What's it gonna take to shuffle you off to the afterlife? Captain Peg-Hook: The head of Scrooge McDuck! Scrooge: [cracks his neck, flips his cane around to wield like a sword] Would you settle for his hat?

Now that is how you show how badass Scrooge is in a few lines and gestures. HE proceeds to take both out, as they’ve now teamed up, easily, tricking peghook into cutting off the head of a statue of him in the area, throwinng it at him and finsihing the ghosts buisnesss (”I should’ve been more specifiiiicccccc”) and then giving Manny the head, earning him a loyal employee for life. So our days saved, the kids have faith.. and Scrooge is still pissed. He also reveals this isn’t a treasure room but the garage in what’s easily the best gag of the first half, possibly the whole special but one iconic moment is very close in that one. Webby concedes what about the stack of old magazines or the hose or.. okay he’s probably right. He berates them only for the kids to fire back, pointing out he threw them in a room, they just wanted to spend time with him... but it’s only Dewey throwing his words back in his face that pisses him off. Scrooge bellows at them to get out, clearly having internalized everything with donald into rage and trying to justify pushing eveyrone away instead of working at it... but this dosen’t have time to actually work, nor would Beakly actually throw three children out on the curb, as he hits a mystic gong.. the third time it’s been hit. And after realizing it’s already been hit twice Scrooge is faced with Pixu, the gold hutning dragon! And guess who has a giant bin of it wanting to snack on? Scrooge naturally climbs on the thing and the kids naturally want to follow, with Webby getting her first development by proudly announcing “I’m going to eat a hamburger” then explains the metaphor. They just need a pilto.. and as Launchpad has been saying but I forgot to add in “I’m a pilot”

So we get a GORGEOUS bit of Scrooge riding the dragon over the city, getting banged up as he does before finally being thrown off.. only for the kids to catch him with the planes help and try and come up with a plan. Scrooge overcomes his anger at them not staying put, especailly since Webby brings up the right weakness: as a wise man once said...

So they need some.. like say the Medusa Gauntlet Scrooge had in the garage.. that Louie naturally stole. Huey and Webby eyeroll him but they have what they need.. and Huey brought the hose and quickly comes up with a plan, tying scrooge in, and swinging him to Pixu. The kids hold on tight, Dewey calls his family awesome and our heroes win the day as Scrooge turns the dragon to stone, slips and falls.. and then GRACEFULLY dives into hte bin, showing off his diving skills and his badassery. The day is saved, the gauntlet and the dragon go in the bin for safe keeping and Scrooge calls the kids trouble.. and chuckles fondly. “Curse me kilts how i’ve missed trouble”

He’s impressed: Huey’s quick thinking, Louie’s pickpocketing, Dewey’s drive, and Webby’s magical knowledge all saved them. For once. .he’s happy again. And for the second time in life it took his family to remind him why he does this and show him the true fun of adventure: Getting to share it with those he love. And he finally has people to love again. He has family back, kids who look up to him and want to learn from him again, a REASON to adventure. Money and treasure and eveyrthig couldn’t bring della back.. but he at least sees now that whiel they certianly couldn’t.. they can bring him closely with what he has left. She’s gone, for now.. but she left behind three great kids who could use a mentor and Beakly brought him a fourth. And he just found out he has a pilot. The ember.. is now a raging flame. Scrooge is back. Because i’ts not the money or the glory.. it’s the thrill of it, the discovery.. and the family that makes adventuring worth while and he’s learned that lesson again. So he calls Beakly to clear his schedule.. forgetting she you know PUT A FUCKING PIN INTHE WALL the last time he asked her to play scretary and the onlyr eason she dind’t drive over the choke him to death, is that she’s probably happy he’s back on track.

Back at the interview Donald is stapled to the wall and gets the job.. not as an accountant mind but his employer needs a sailor.. and his employer is FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Oh boy.

Part 2: Escape To/From Atlantis First the last bit of background I saved: Originally, Fenton and Gyro were supposed to show up here, starting a gag of Fenton showing up but not being named until “Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!”, setting up the sub. But the crew decided this took too much away from the focus on the duck family. The not naming him gag was also dropped, and I have two reasons why: Their given reason, which is it’d take up too much time and a logistical reason: While they gave a heartfelt pitch to Lin-Manuel Miranda, as frank wanted a strong Latino superhero to combat the lack of them on film, Frank and Matt probably thought they woudln’t get such a huge name or at least prepared for it.. and were delightfully suprised when Lin happily and tearfully agreed. So they likely scrapped it so they could properly promote the biggest name in their voice cast. Honestly it was for the best and they still go to do the idea with Drake in “The Duck Knight Returns!”, where it worked much better than it probably would have with Fenton.

We open with the Glomgold Industries Employee Training Video! Encourging IP Theft, making things cheaper and general scumbaggery, and claming your the world’s most beloved scottish billionare. IN short the perfect introduction to everyone’s favorite insane, fake-scottish, scheming, egotistical , short sighted billionaire. As i’ve made transparent before, I fucking love the reboot version of Glomgold and he’s easily one of my favorite parts of the reboot. They clearly needded to find a new place for Glomgold in the grand scheme of things as the show was more about globetrotting adventure and family and less about getting contracts or bets about whose bigger money and more about family. While they DID do a classic bet storyline with season 2, it’s clear the old glomgold was just a bit too stiff to properly fit into this new zanier and deeper universe.

So they instead remolded him as a half insane, knockoff scrooge, someone who PURPOSFULLY modeled himself after the guy to try and one up him, and instead of being a fairly low pitched schemer, was a bombastic idiot whose schemes were half baked, whose name was on everything he made, and whose only thing bigger than scrooge was his glorious ego. In short he was perfect for this series and perfect to show up way more often as a bumbling thorn in Scrooge’s side.. but one who COULD be effective in the right circumstances, as to not make him completely pointless. Keith was likewise the only person I could see in the roll now as with Hater he had a history of playing bombastic, egosticial morons, and made Glomgold into the enjoyable ball of ego, bombs, sharks and shouting we know and love. Some people didn’t take to this version after a while... I’m not one of those. I loved him here, I love him now, and he’s every bit as good in season 3 as he was at the start. He’s also wearing a kilt mcduck A KILT. A bit that’st STILL funny four years and 70 some episodes later.

So we meet Gabby McStabberson and the Smashnikovs as they and Donald file in, though Donald is busy wrapping up a call with Scrooge, who assures them he has a low key day planned.. while in the sub getting ready to go to atlantis. And nearly drowning when Dewey tells Launchpad to dive while he and Scrooge are still up top. Cue credits.

So on the sub we get our setup for the two main plots for the episode: While the main thrust of everything is Scrooge taking them to Atlantis, each leads to a diffrent plot. Louie talks to Donald and lies entirely about their day, worrying Webby.. who then reveals she just didn’t tell Beakly she took off or where she was going and encourages her to call and lie. To save time, i’m going to cover this subplot now minus the conclusion as it’s pretty simple and this review is already a day behind. Louie wants her to lie so she dosen’t worry, which is oddly sweet.. still a bit greasy, but it’s clear he means well and it shows in his own way the boy cares about Donald: Sure he’ll lie to the guy, and set up a fradulent charity to scam him.. but he also knows not to worry his dad-uncle and kows Donald is better off thinking their safe than knowing the truth. Granted it also prevents consequences for Louie.. but he’s not playing here here. He gets nothing out of Beakly not knowing the truth or helping some girl he just met, he’s just being NICE in his own twisty way. It’s a nice show of his depths: While louie will lie, cheat and steal Eddie Gurrero style, he does have a caring side underneath hit. He can read people well and while he primarily uses it to manipulate people, we’ll see time and time again that he can use it for good too and to help those he cares about. He’s nothing but supportive the whole plot, and even when he says “you can’t back that up” it’s more worrying about her and having a bit of crack than actually being a dick.

So Webby tries lying, but is about as good as Huey is at it, saying “I’m at a friends house nothing, then makes up a clearly fake name, then says their only talking in swedish for a grandpa. Launchpad DOES help, but only by accident and snake venom. We’ll get to that. As I said this wasn’t the most complex plot.

The main plot is our focus episode for dewey. In theory each of the kids was supposed to have one in the first five episodes: Dewey here, Webby in Daytrip of Doom, Louie in Great Dime Chase and Huey in Impossible Summit of Mt. Nevverest!. Given the last one was horribly delayed, he instead got Terror of the Terra Firmians, which in hindsight wasn’t the best spotlight episode for him. But it’s a good system; Introduce them all in the first half of the pilot then slowly focus on each one. So now Idoloizing Scrooge, Dewey is desperate to be his sidekick and be seen as an equal and is in deep denial as scrooge instead has them all buckle up for a 17 hour ride and when Dewey questions the route, which skips the direct path.. but is clearly marked with monsters, Scrooge just snaps at him and shuts him down and disapoints the boy who only wants to prove himself to Scrooge.

Naturally though, telling someone with that kind of need for attention and validation to wait goes poorly as he redirects the map while Launchapd is distracted.. and we find out WHY the trip is 17 hours as the direct route nearly gets them killed by mer-ducks, krakens and some sort of storm elemental. Dewey is bummed it didn’t work and annoyed to realize he’s just lumping them all together like Huey pointed out earlier. Huey is also delightful here, having brought travel bingo and sea shanties, clearly used to trips with his other uncle. And adorably taking after him.

But Dewey’s deversion has done more than make him even MORE determined to prove himself to Scrooge whose just trying to NOT loose the son of the daughter he lost...

The Merducks have taken up residence in the bathroom, so they have to make a pitstop. Scrooge, CLEARLY forgetting how to take a trip with children, wasn’t prepared for this but they find a frieghter and make a stop. Naturally it’s GLOMGOLD’S freighter, where his sub took off from, and he and his minons including Donald find Scrooge using the bathroom.. and the boys to Donald’s rage. Unfortunately saying ‘I’ll kill him” to a raging sociopath who takes that as a sign to kill ALL of them, isn’t a smart move.

So while Donald tries to plan to keep his family alive, said family arrives in Atlantis with a great bit of Scrooge trying to give a big speech only for them to see it first and ooh and ah. They touch down in the city.. which is flip turned upside down. Scrooge notes hti is odd but is able to read the hieroglypchs even upside downa nd notes there’s tones of deadly traps and that they shoudl stay back and..

Huey: Dewey ran in as soon as you said traps.

So while Scrooge tries to prevent dewey loosing his head, Donald prevents launchpad loosing his and makes up an excuse about “if their dead now we can’t tourture them later” to cover his ass. Glomgold is impressed. Dewey is Dewcipointed that the traps are upside down, though he does trigger some snakes that get launchpad. He’s fine just delirious. And possibly slowly dying but the fact he’s lived this long is a miracle. Maybe that’s why he’s missing for most of season 3 part 2, the snake venom caught up to him and drake and fenton need to find the cure. Anyways the rest of the party stays behind while Scrooge chases after Dewey, who naturally runs ahead AGAIN.

Donald ducks out to use the bathroom, as Dewey tries the old dance through the laser grid routine.. but forgets the part where your supposed to actually avoid it, leaving it to an unseen Donald to stop the fire traps from barbqueing his boy. IT’s a really awesome sequence that shows off Donald’s still got it even if he dosen’t want it. Scrooge naturally works smarter not harder and simply ziplines above like a badass and berates Dewey when he tells him he took “The easy way”

“Why would you want to take the hard way?” The argument that’s been brewing all episode bubbles up and once again both sides have a point: Scrooge rightfully points out Dewey’s being reckless, has no experince and needs to listen to Scrooge and learn something. Dewey claps back that Scrooge isn’t TEACHING them, just teling them to get behind him while he does things instead of trying to actively mentor them. He outright told them he was going to teach them so while Dewey’s been a wee bit overbearing, he’s right in being disappointed that Scrooge instead just wants them to be safe. I see it as his subconscious acting up: He wants and needs the kids along and is right ot keep them safe.. but is too scared to properly mentor them after what happened to Della and is just trying not to loose anybody. His methods have been right, to keep them safe.. he’s just been so determined to save them, he can’t properly TEACH them so he won’t have to forever or explain WHY. And given the First Adventure shows that while protective he did eventually let Della and Donald pull their weight.. but here he lost so much between adventures.. he just can’e bear loosing them. Dewey also rightfully points out he just lumps them together which in any other version wouldn’t be an issue, until the reboot I had no idea which one was which here? They have distinct outfits and personalities and you had 17 hours to actually get to know them. Probably less given the shortcut but still, several hours at a minimum. It’s things like this that make the series work: while there’s plenty of internal conflicts, at their best their nuanced ones, where if one character is clearly in the wrong they have a reason, and if both are right both are also a bit wrong, versus the original where it’d be scrooge or the boys grabbing the asshole ball at times (Not always mind you but when they did it was insufferable.

However they don’t have time to argue as the bridge goes out and Glomgold finds donald.. and another way around as a result and gets to the treasure first. Scrooge notices they have donald but once again Dewey charges in

“Unhand my uncle” “No” “Okay wasn’t prepared for that”

Naturally both sides are a bit livid, Donald for dragging his boys into danger after being part of the reason his sister is on the moon right now, and Scrooge for working with one of his greatest eneimies.. though Scrooge has less ground to stand on because as Donald points out “I can’t keep track of ALL of your sworn enemies” I mean he has lived like .. 200 years. That’s a long enemies list and Glomgold, while the most persistent, isn’t exactly the most dangerous they probably encountered. Given the guy’s an artist with Bombs and Sharks that does say a lot about how badass Scrooge is.. and how incompitent glomgold usually is. He’s just having an on day today I guess.

Glomgold naturally holds Donald hostage, takes what is suppsidley the jewel and leaves them to drown to death, hitting a wall to let it start leaking. HIs minons run into the rest of the heroes and a fight breaks out while naturally Donald, after even more naturally getting his ass stuck in a hole, literally, rails out at Scrooge for doing this telling him “I knew I couldn’t trust you and” “This is the spear of selene all over again”

Scrooge’s only response is “I was not responsible for the Spear of Selene!”

Dude you still paid for the rocket. While Della shoulders most of the blame, SHE choose to take an untested rocket, SHE choose not to come back during the turbulence YOU still built it and hid it from donald and didn’t make sure she couldn’t just take off in it. Your both to blame. And as I mentioned earlier to the least extent but still an extent, so was Donald telling his grown, adult sister whose as stubborn as she is what she could and couldn’t do. He had the right idea and was the only person trying to be an adult here in this situation.. but he still took the wrong approach with stopping her. Still he got far more ground to stand on than Scrooge, who also took his nephews out. Dewey stops both by pointing out that while yes Scrooge took them on an adventure he’s been doing NTOHING but keeping him safe and most of it was his fault which disarms donald a bit. Though Dewey is quickly distracted.. but for once by an obersvation: the gem glowing above thaem that glowed when they entered... and since the city got flipped turned upside down.. THAT’S the real jewel. Dewey asks Donald ot let it flood so they can get it and begs his uncle to trust him despite his doubts which he does. They get it and everyone’s okay and even more when they reunite with the others they find they’ve handily beaten them. To me this is where donalds walls go down a bit: he realizes he’s been smothering the kids, and that while he may hate his uncle for good reason... he’s not going to make the same mistake with them and while he lied.. Don probably realized if Scrooge had been honest Donald would never have let them go. He can trust him.. and he can trust his kids will be alright without him.

So Glomgold naturally leaves his minions to die, but our heroes manage to make it to the sub, and Gabby asks if they can bum a ride. Not wanting to do any murders they agree. On the surface Glomgold is showing off his jewel, only for Scrooge to upstage him second’s later with the real jewel, and point out his is “nice but defintly cursed”... and right on cue Glomgold gets dragged off with an octopus and let’s off his first “Curse you mcduck!”. Scrooge offers clean water and power thorugh it, for a price because of course he does, and has offically made his grand comeback.

We get back to Webby’s subplot, as she’s confronted by Beakly.. who naturally being a former spy easily figured it out immieditely but is only upset her grandaughter lied to her. And even at that she dosen’t raise her voice or anything about the matter, knowing it’d only make her feel worse and getting that her grandaughter needs to see the world and that much like donald, she walled her up to prevent loosing what little she had left. And since being with Scrooge is safe as with her, she can go with him anytime just tell her first kay? They hug. Awwww.

Donald likewise apologizes, admitting that whatever has passed, he misjudged his uncle here and while not forgiving him yet, is at least willing to let him back into his life and into the boys.. on holidays and stuff at least. But fate forces his hand.. or rather his 10 year old nephew-son having left the engine on and neither having turned it off, meaning his boat goes boom and is in no liveable condition. But Scrooge has the space in his heart and mansion for them.

So as we close the kids help move the artifacts all around the house instead of just the garage while Launchapd drops the boat. While clearing out Dewey notices the painting from earlier.. and finds part of it was flipped over...

“Mom?!”

Now keep in mind, while nowadays Della’s inclusion in the show is one of the most famous and treasured parts of the show.. back then this was a fucking shock. Disney never really cared about the boys mother and outside of one comics story never really went into what happened. So the fact she was not only an actual important part of the plot but we’d find out was a HUGE wham moment and left my jaw dropped after seeing the episode. Like I would with the finales I had read no spoilers and had no idea this was coming but damn was it a huge and welcome suprise and how far they’d take it and how much they’d flesh her out was an even bigger one. Easily one of the best big reveals i’ve ever seen. The only better one I can think of from this series itself... is the end of season 2. But that’s for another time.

Final Thoughts on Woo-Ooo!:

This two parter/hour long special.. is still one of the episodes best and easily one of the best pilots. It does slow down a bit in pacing in the second half, but otherwise is just an immaculate , beautiful pilot movie that introduces and fleshes out all 8 main characters, maybe Launchpad the least but enough to still work, gives us some big mysteries to work out, and even throws in Glomgold’s first apperance. It sets the tone, reverent and adventuerous but also with it’s own weird and wacky sense of humor and world building, and universe perfectly. I .. don’t have much else to say really it’s just THAT good and really worth checking out. If you somehow haven’t seen it go watch it and if you haven’t seen it in a while might be worth a rewatch before the finale. The absolutely perfect start to an amazing ride.

Next on the Della Arc: Dewey and Webby try to figure out where Della is while Louie learns a valuable life lesson and pisses off a killer robot along the way.

Next on the Blog: Amphibia Season 2 is back!

Until then if you liked this review follow for more and if you could please support me on patreon. Even a buck a month helps and juicy stretch goals give you na incentive to contirbute. We’re 5 bucks away from 20 dollars a month which means a review of super ducktales and a Darkwing Duck review EVERY. MONTH. So contribute now! Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure.

#ducktales #wooooo #woo-ooo #scrooge mcduck #webby vanderquack #donald duck #dewey duck #louie duck #huey duck #bentina beakley #launchpad mcquack #flintheart glomgold #della duck #disney channel #disney xd #disney plus #ducks

21 notes · View notes

chirp-featherfowl · 3 years

Text

summertime is not a good friend.

- Tommy is 12 when he's assigned as a right hand man to a war general. Far too young, the world thinks. Far too immature, the world says. It is a war for peace, but not one a child should not carry the burden of. It is a war for hope, for prosperity, for freedom, but not one a child should be the right hand man of. The child that is the subject of discussion does not understand, nor does he disagree with his placement. It is not for a long, long, time that he realizes. - In a few months time, the ages of the rest have been revealed. A friend that is 13. An enemy that is 19. An outsider that is 19. A son that is 15. A girl that is 18. The words pass through the minds of the watchers, only fueling them to have the world they carefully spectate fall in shambles. Some say it's sadistic, that it's cruel, but no one listens. Not even they can stop themselves from seeing what comes next. - [Discussion Board Opened!] all hail sir billiam 23 min. ago lmao these losers saying its "problematic". get off of ur skyblock island sweetie, they're fictional <3 -- 18 replies Skye [on hiatus!] 23 min. ago Um they're not fictional? These are reall people - Hati 20 min. ago Lmao yes they are. They might as well be seeing as they shouldve known what they were signing up for -- 4 replies ami | MOD | 18 min. ago hello! please get off this discussion board and delete this post. we do not condone discourse here, try and find another site! thank you. - all hail sir billiam 18 min. ago um no thanks. the mods here r shit anyways, go get the owner if u wanna talk to me -- 8 replies - Tommy is 13 when he learns that his suffering is being watched and condoned by millions of other people. He is angry, and rightfully so. It just so happens that his anger has fallen on deaf ears, though, as his brother, his dear brother, is trapped in delusions of his own creation. It is too late for his brother, and it is too late for himself. - puddle ;; shay @soggy_mem0ry Stop stanning problematic world groups and go back to playing on fucking mineplex or something. This site disgusts me 456 Retweets 34 Quote Tweets 6,282 Likes

el \ DON'T PRIV QRT @el_i god the discourse on here is horrible. i'm not going to be on this site for a while. i don't like what it's becoming. 293 Retweets 2 Quote Tweets 1,497 Likes - It has been over six months since Tommy has been without trust. He cares for his brother, he does his best for him, and he knows he loves him back, despite the situation they're in. Tommy has done his best to bring his brother back to the way he was once before, and even though they both know it won't last long, they both put on a facade for each other. - A young boy, the age of 16, watches as another boy, only three years younger than him, loses almost all his hope. This young boy does not matter to the state of this world, and he never will, but it is the impact that makes it so important. The boy sits near a tree on his island, giving up hope himself. - A girl slaughters her way to victory in small matches in her area, knowing much due to her ability to find sufficient role models. Sufficient role models that happen to be revenge-filled adults that seem to not know they're torturing children, but it doesn't matter to her. It doesn't matter to anyone, in fact. No one cares when the world hinges on the fate of 14 year-olds who shouldn't know how to handle a crossbow, but so do nonetheless. - frog-enthusiast - Follow man. i never thought i'd be making this post, seeing as i'm one of the more popular members of the dsmpblr community, but i'm done. i won't deactivate this blog so other people can still see it, but i probably won't be posting ever again. fuck everyone who condones this shit. - Tommy is 14 when he begins to finally lose his hope. He hasn't yet, despite what everyone else thinks. He is still holding onto it, not for long, but he hasn't let go. But the world seems keen on having him release his grip, and he does, eventually. That day is not today, though, and Tommy Simons still lives. He lives in a, sadly, different and changed mindset, but is still the same Tommy Simons. He cannot say the same for his brother. - THEORIES ABOUT THE DSMP Kadoodles 696K views - 3 days ago MCC 9 Interview - Tapl's thoughts on DSMP, HBomb94 talking about L'cast, and more! MCC Highlights 3.2M views - 5 months ago Tommy confronts Wilbur about Manberg Obli Intel 52K views - 1 day ago - TAPL: Well, I'm not surprised you've asked me this. More that I was the first one to be asked, I guess? TAPL: If I'm being honest, I don't really want to talk about it. What does on in that world is none of my business. Though, that's not the answer you want, is it, huh? TAPL: I don't like it. It gives off such a bad energy, if that's the way you want to put it. I just... don't think it should exist, really? It shouldn't be shown off. - Tommy is 15 when he finally, finally, crumbles. Where he, the final judge, the youngest, is corrupted, is taken down to be who he finally is. Prey. - Various teenagers from all across the world watch as friend gets separated from friend, and foe takes over foe. It's no surprise to the people who chose this demise, but it still is a burden to carry. To be known as one of the people that sentenced a child to an early grave is something not a lot of people personally like. They keep on watching, though. Nothing will stop them. (But it is not as if people try.) The world might crumble there, and they will watch. The world might disappear there, and they will watch. - Replies jumpy-the-alien - frog-enthusiast I'm sad to see you go, but I totally get where you're coming from! I really hope you come back, I love your art, but don't feel pressured. vlaired-spear fuck off with the "fuck everyone" thing. you watched this shit too. you can't put down other people while still doing the same thing. flameo-hotman @vlaired-spear holy shit this is why i hate this website. suck a dick flowgastrell @vlaired-spear I know right! Its not like the ccs will see this anyway flameo-hotman @flowgastrell yeah, maybe not in a discord server, but there's still a high chance when you post it on the fucking internet - TAPL: I know I'm probably going to lose a lot of people saying this, but you asked for my opinion, and here it is. I don't want to lie about it. Especially not when fucking children are at risk. - Tommy remains 15 for a very long time. It is not of his own volition. He is bored, and time passes slowly. Not until his friend arrives, that is. His friend with the mask, his friend with the lies. His friend that's not his friend. But Tommy doesn't know that. - [Discussion Board Opened!] all hail sir billiam 45 min. ago it will be a long day in hell when i give up dsmp content lmaoooo got banned from that other board the other day mods were toxic as shit might report it idk -- 4 replies Gertrude Supremacy 44 min. ago :O Oh no what happened - all hail sir billiam 44 min. ago just the antis being toxic again lol -- 2 replies - Tommy remains 15 when he his abused by the one he thinks is a friend. He remains 15 during the explosions, the traps, the hitting, the fighting, the party, the- The things a 15-year-old should not have to deal with. He stops saying sorry for being too weak-willed. He starts saying sorry for being too disobedient. He does both, and gets punished "suitably" for both. It is a game, and he does not know the rules. to be continued!! may make a follow up post explaining the au

22 notes · View notes

lxveshotaro · 4 years

Text

Switch - Na Jaemin

Warnings: Sub!Jaemin, Dom!Reader, Pegging, Fingering, Use of Toys

Plot: Jaemin is your boyfriend, you love him so much but there is one thing you’re unsatisfied with. You’re a switch, he knows this. Despite him knowing this though, you haven’t gotten the chance to dom him. He’s a stubborn person so you just continued to bug him about it until he finally gave in.

A/N: I used to be scared to write dom reader stuff because I was scared of people knowing about this side of me but eh I don’t care anymore lol. I’m not that great of a writer but I write a loooot which is why I made this blog. I believe this was my first time writing something like this and the more I read it, the more I hate it so I’m just gonna post it while I still have courage- ANYWAYS, I hope you like it!!

"Jaemin. Listen, try it just this once please? Fine if you hate it. I just wanna see. Pleasee.." Your boyfriend sighed out of frustration, mainly because you were bugging him so much but also because he was slowly giving in. He ran his hand through his hair, "No. No. I won't do it Y/N I'm sorry." You'd been asking Jaemin to be submissive for a really long time. You're a switch and you've been really wanting Jaemin under you.

"Despite me being a switch I've been subbing for you since we started officially dating 6 months ago, is that really fair?" Jaemin had his hands on his hips, he crossed them and quickly returned them back to his hips. To say that he was conflicted was an understatement. "Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll do it, but-" Not even realizing you cut Jaemin off you immediately started celebrating your victory. "BUT! As soon, AS SOON as I don't like something in stopping it, got it?" Now's your chance to get smart with Jaemin, power has never felt so good. "I should be the one asking questions right?" He rolled his eyes in response, irritability already washed over him. You started zoning out as you thought about what you were gonna do to him.

"Okay well?" Jaemin retorted with a sassy movement. You smiled at him, "You're my sub now. Whatever I say goes." He shook his head and scoffed in disbelief. Walking over to your "treasure box" you started going through it. "Hmm, what's something I've always wanted to try on you." Jaemin's eyes widened, "You're gonna use toys on me?!? Hell no, nope nope nope." His hands once again fell back down to his hips as he came over to study the contents of the box. "How do I know what you like and don't like if you won't let me do anything to you? I'm not gonna kill you, I'll be careful."

He threw himself onto the bed and started to whine, he let out a mix of a groan and a cry. "Hm, you’re getting whiney already huh Jaemin? Don’t be such a baby." Your mind was set on a cock ring, and a small dildo. Of course you weren't gonna bring out anything too crazy since nothing (that you know of) has gone in Jaemin's back door. Hiding the things behind your back you stood up and kicked the box back into the closet. "Okay Jaemin. From now on we are switching roles."

"Sit up." He ignored you with his eyebrows furrowed. "Sit. Up." Your voice was harsh this time but it got him to listen. You placed the toys on the ground in front of the bed and you patted the spot you wanted Jaemin to sit at. "On your knees baby." He obeyed and then waited, a sigh occasionally left his lips. You just stood there looking at your boyfriend. On the outside you were calm but on the inside you were freaking out. "Ya Y/N, hurry this up." His voice immediately caught your attention and caused your eyes to lock with his. "Don't talk to me like that Na Jaemin." His eyes widened and he blinked several times.

"Take your clothes off." You started to do the same, Jaemin undressed slowly as he watched you very attentively. Since you weren't entirely prepared you took off everything and went to your closet, at the very back you had a set of lingerie that you'd been waiting to wear for this occasion. Jaemin was practically drooling as he watched you change. He was starting to get hard so he grabbed his cock and pumped it in his hand to encourage it some more.

"No, Jaemin. You can't touch yourself." He looked shocked, "What do you mean I can't touch myself what kind of bull-" You interrupted him like you did earlier, "You do this to me don't you? Why are you asking so many questions baby?Just listen and do what I say." After releasing his cock his hand kept hovering that area, he scratched his thigh so much from the anxious feeling in his stomach that his leg turned red.

You grabbed the ring and Jaemin's cock, he jumped because of how harshly you grabbed it. When you looked at his face you giggled at his expression, he was irritated but you didn't care one bit. "Alright baby, look at your new friend." He was avoiding eye contact with you so he was looking out the window. As soon as he looked down he wanted to look away again. "Y/N do I really-" You sighed. "Shut up." He was confused by the way you kept randomly switching moods. For the first time in a while Jaemin looked you in the eye. Having him look up at you while on his knees was such a sight.

You cupped his face in your hands and started to kiss all over his face. Once you landed on his lips he almost immediately tried to put his tongue in your mouth. To stop him you caught his tongue in between your teeth. He moaned, mostly out of shock and a sting of pain. "Don't try anything without permission." You looked him in the eyes again and resumed kissing him. Your hand travelled down to his half hard dick. It was twitching when you went to grab it, it was almost as if Jaemin was trying not to get hard. It got completely hard as soon as you slipped your tongue in his mouth. He loves to taste your tongue so this wasn't a surprise.

Pre cum leaked from his hard member, you rubbed the cum all over his cock. His breath started to pick up as you stroked him faster, Jaemin always held back moans so you were determined to make him moan loudly today. You ran your finger over his slit once, twice, and then again. He broke the kiss and caught his lip in between his teeth, fighting back a moan, one more time and he actually moaned. "Don’t be so shy baby." He covered his face as it turned red. You pulled his hands away from his face and lifted his head towards you. "Don't hold back anything today okay?" He nodded as if he were possessed, you smiled at that.

"Are you ready to try this?" He only whined as he felt his orgasm leaving him. A light blush still covered his ears and a bit on his cheeks. You shook the dildo in your hand which made Jaemin make a twisted expression. Becoming irritated again Jaemin sighed for the 5000th time. "Yeah whatever Y/N I just want to get it over with already." You rolled your eyes at his bratty attitude. "Do you want to lay on your back or go on your hands and knees?" He shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know! You're the one making me do this, why don't you know?!"0.

"Okay fine, I won’t ask your opinion on anything else. Lay on your back and spread your legs. I want to see your face." He deflated when he realized he should have chosen himself. You gave him pillows to angle his hips on. He quickly covered his face with a pillow. You giggled at how shy he was being, "Baby, I know you're embarrassed but let me see your face. Please? I'm trying to be nice here." He lifted the pillow and made eye contact with you through his open legs. His eyes locked to the ceiling right after, it was as if there was a movie playing up there.

You had grabbed the lube and toy from off of the ground and they were sitting on the bed next to you. To start you spread Jaemin's butt cheeks a little, a shiver was sent down his spine. You pushed his leg up a bit more to get a better look. You took a lubed up finger and lightly pressed it on his anus. He clenched it super hard as he sat up on his elbows. "Y/N I really can't do this. Seriously." You patted his knee and smiled at him softly, "Just relax sweetheart." His face bunched together at the name you called him but he laid back down and took a deep breath.

You tried again, you got more lube, lifted his leg and gently pressed against his butthole. He's definitely more relaxed this time. The tip of your finger slid in a bit, Jaemin gasped. His eyes were tightly shut as you pushed your finger in and out. "Do you feel alright baby boy?" His dick twitched when you called him that and he hoped you didn't notice. Not sure how to answer Jaemin let out an unsure sound. With that you continued and added another finger. Your second finger slipped in with the other. Jaemin grabbed hold of the sheets immediately, a strangled sounding moan escaping his lips.

The two fingers pumped in and out of Jaemin's entrance, soft quiet moans passed his lips. His back started to arch and his face filled with bliss you wanted to give him his orgasm, but not with your fingers. You removed your fingers he opened his eyes with his eyebrows bunched, "Y/N..." You lifted the dildo and showed it to him once more, "I'm sorry Nana but I really wanted to use this on you." His frown grew longer but he understood anyways.

"Can you get on your hands and knees for me this time?" He nodded and did what you asked, you tapped his back a few times to get it to arch a bit. Not gonna lie it was a bit hard, he hasn't been in this position before so his back was a bit stiff. "Here." You handed him the pillows again so he could have some leverage.

You massaged his entrance again and lubed up the dildo. It was slightly smaller than his own package so it was a similar feeling when you rubbed the lube on it. Placing it at his entrance you made sure he was comfortable before pushing it in. It slid in a bit easier than you thought it would but it was a completely different feeling. A new kind of pain overwhelmed Jaemin's body. He moaned as you pulled the dildo in and out of him.

"Touch yourself Jaemin." His hand quickly went down to his crotch and he started stroaking himself. A loud moan left his mouth when you suddenly pushed the dildo all the way in. "Ah, I think I found your prostate." He ignored you as he continued to rub himself. You continued your previous actions except faster and harder. Jaemin's forehead started to sweat. He lowered his head and muffled his moans, they were loud enough for you to still hear. He might not have even noticed he was doing that since he was so caught up in relieving his throbbing cock. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" His words came out fast as he let out a long high pitched moan. You continued to fuck him as his orgasm went down.

His breaths were heavy as you massaged his bottom half. Jaemin's body went limp on top of the pillows. "My throat hurts." His voice came out raspy which shocked you, "I guess you strained your vocal cords for me huh? Maybe we'll do this again?" He tried to pretend he didn't enjoy it by shaking his head, "That wasn't good." You laughed as you ran to the kitchen to get him water. Then you crawled into the bed next to him and hugged his exhausted body. Soft kisses were placed on his forehead despite it being sweaty. You played in his hair and wiped his forehead for him. "You're so cute when you're being bratty and submissive." He simply shook his head, nonetheless he snuggled into you some more.

#nct dream smut #nct smut #nct jaemin smut #sub nct #sub nct dream #sub jaemin #sub!idol #sub!kpop #jaemin smut #omg i hate this lmao #i suck at naming stuff

463 notes · View notes

orbitariums · 4 years

Text

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟒)

part three

note - i wanna thank everyone for reading once again! i'm currently in the process of writing imagines, those will be posted throughout the week, i don't want to clog up my blog bc i want y'all to see this chapter!

this one switches pov a lil more frequently, so bear with me <3 also not as smutty as other chapters, this is more of an emotionally-charged chapter!!! still a teensy bit smutty thooo. i want to make it clear that while this fic is definitely rooted in smut & sex & sex work, it is not porn without plot & will not ONLY be smut as i put effort and time into plot development / character development! i'm sure y'all know that tho. there will be conflict, there will be plot!!! i feel like that's clear already but there's discourse on smut happening rn and i wanna voice myself! omg anyways luv y'all enjoy the reaaad <3

new taglist!

playlist

word count - 8.3k

warnings - age gap, sex work, smut, vibrator, ANGSTYYY like hella dramatic, dirty talk

That slight shift that you and Steve both felt, that happiness that you realized came from talking to one another, only lasted so long... for you. You could hardly sit in your feelings about your situation with Steve before another thing that occupied all your time came crashing down upon you. Except this time, the thing brought you no such happiness or curiosity.

You had spent almost your entire senior year working on a special lab project about drought tolerant plants in Southern California where you lived and went to school, and your professor was making completing your project incredibly hard for you. And you felt incredibly stressed out about the entire situation - not only was the project necessary to graduate, but it was your heart and soul for the past year. Now, your professor was basically saying it was "ineligible."

"Ineligible?" Aaliyah repeated after you, after you told her what your professor had said.

"Whatever the hell that means," you huffed as you power walked down the street, hand in hand with Aaliyah, your free hand holding a coffee.

"That's so fucking annoying, holy shit," Aaliyah pressed a hand to her forehead. "He had the whole year to talk to you about changing your topic and...”

"And he never did," you sighed, frowning. You settled down onto a bench where the two of you sat next to each other, staring out into the busy streets and sipping your iced coffees.

California was a beautiful place, and you were a native, you'd lived there all your life. You knew the ins and outs of your city, knew Southern California like it was your backbone. And you loved it here - loved the sun, the beaches, the way the people were either shady in the best way or incredibly friendly. You'd never really known any other place like you knew this place. You were just glad that if you had to be stressed, you could do so in California.

Aaliyah pouted, feeling for you. She placed her hand on your knee to be comforting,

"Babe..."

"It's okay," you sighed. You sucked it up, like always, because you had learned how to fend for yourself ever since you realized that depending on others could only lead to downfall. You would figure this out the same way you figured everything else out... on your own. You figured out your house on your own, your job, your finances.

"Is it, though?" Aaliyah pursed her lips and squinted at you. Despite how much you tried to fend for yourself, Aaliyah was always there for you. She was one of your biggest supporters.

"I'll just keep visiting during his office hours and work this out."

Aaliyah rolled her eyes,

"Men are so annoying, girl. You know what, he probably wants to fuck you. With your fine ass. That's why he's doing all this."

You chuckled, shaking your head and covering your mouth, trilling back in response,

"Okay girl, don't get too ahead of yourself."

"I'm serious! Men are evil. Oh, except your fave."

You made a face, nearly choking on your iced coffee. This was news to you,

"Who are we talking about?"

"You know," Aaliyah sang slightly, nudging you and leaning against your shoulder. "Mr. Won't Show His Face."

You scoffed, rolling your eyes, but bit down on your straw with a knowing smile, eyes peeking out over the top of your shades. If you were being honest, this idea of Steve, whoever he really was, had been a fun thing to entertain during this period of stress. You'd been talking and engaging with him for two and a half weeks now, and the connection you two had was undeniable.

But you knew better - maybe he wasn't just another customer, because you could really talk to him and felt like he was real - then again, he was strictly a customer. You liked him, a lot, but you couldn't like him any more than you already did. That would be dangerous and silly, and create unrealistic expectations. It wasn't like you could go on dates or anything.

Still, talking to him (and performing for him) did help to distract you from your stress, at least for a small amount of time. Steve was becoming less shy, less inhibited. He cracked jokes and was starting to keep up with your innate sense of sexuality, starting to navigate you, find you the way a bee might find its nectar, hidden deep inside the curvatures of a flower.

If you were a flower, you'd probably be a sunflower - bright, yellow, almost always in a positive mood, or at least trying to keep yourself in a positive mood. More than that though, sunflowers were tall and looming - you felt like that represented your put togetherness and how hard you worked, how smart you were. Only sometimes it was hard to keep yourself up and tall, but you always did it, time and time again.

But when it came to Aaliyah's comments about Steve, she mostly just made you laugh.

"Haven't seen him yet, have you?" Aaliyah asked, raising her brows expectantly.

"No. And I'm fine with that. He's simply another very loyal customer who I happen to like."

"Hm," Aaliyah hummed, and you could tell her mind was up to something - some very wishful, and mischievous thinking.

"What are you up to?" you narrowed your eyes at her and glared at her, and she just shook her head with a lazy smile,

"Nothing. Just thinking that maybe it would be cool if he really was this really hot guy that you actually knew and he wasn't creepy and y'all... you know... started dating. Just to get your mind off a lot of crap. I know, I know, strictly against the rules, blah blah blah. No feelings for customers, it's basic shit. But in a perfect world..."

"I know," you sighed without thinking, sipping at your drink.

"You know?" Aaliyah questioned, surprised.

You shrugged,

"So I've thought about it. Except, you know, in a perfect world, I'd meet a guy like Steve in like, a farmer's market or something. Not on my shady ass cam shows."

Aaliyah snorted laughing, and at the sound of her laughter, you joined in.

You continued,

"I mean, not Steve exactly, because that would be weird. I just mean, a guy like Steve."

"You mean a guy who makes you feel the same way he makes you feel," Aaliyah corrected you, and you glared at her again, pushing her gently.

"Don't push it," you teased, but you meant it - you might have liked Steve, but that was all there was to it - you liked him, he was a distraction. And maybe even that was too much.

✺ ✺ ✺

As for Steve, he thoroughly enjoyed his time with you. He thought constantly about how you made him feel, how much he looked forward to talking to you. How everyday, his worry about your situation becoming more serious dissipated slowly. He could feel himself easing into you, everything that made up this character you created called Moonrose. Conversation seemed casual, like you knew each other in real life, it felt easy, and there was no pressure.

As for your connection, he had finally acknowledged that it was real, and more than either of you had wanted to realize at first. But now, there was no shame, no worry in acknowledging what the two of you had, because you were both smart enough to keep it at this level. It was like a shallow pool. There would be no drowning.

He mostly talked to Bucky about you when it came to the emotional aspect of it. He still feared that if he talked to Tony, it might come across as an issue, and might put a pause on what he had with you. But everyone noticed how different Steve was acting. Even without the phase he had gone through where he was sexually frustrated and angry, he still acted different.

Lighter on his feet, more smiley. And he was always on top of his work. You weren't distracting him from his duty, so that made the fact that he knew you had a unique connection with him more bearable. Because of you, he was learning to worry less. To have a little more fun.

It was a bright day that week, the sun filtering in through the large windows of the meeting room where everyone was gathered. Steve was engaging in some mindless conversation with Sam and Bucky in which they were debating whether or not pineapple belonged on pizza.

"No. I'm not sure why everyone keeps trying to put all these twists on pizza. It's pizza," Bucky scoffed, Sam rolling his eyes as a result.

"You're just closed off. With your old ass," Sam retorted, and Steve made a face. Sam raised his hands up in surrender. "You know what I mean. What about you Steve?"

Honestly, Steve had never even tried pineapple on pizza and he didn't understand why there was such a big fuss about the banal question.

"I don't really have an opinion," he shrugged, not expecting Sam and Bucky to start clamoring over him and trying to force him to pick a side.

Before he even got to grasp the situation, he felt Natasha patting his shoulder,

"Hey, mind if I use your laptop? Mine's gone haywire, don't really feel like messing with it right now."

"Yeah," Steve agreed without a second thought, setting his laptop on the table and letting Natasha handle it- she was better with tech stuff than he ever was.

Natasha would use his laptop to showcase some data and start off their morning. It seemed innocent enough —a simple, barely impacting sacrifice. But Steve clearly hadn't thought everything through, because the moment Natasha logged in and hooked up Steve's computer to the holographic projector, more than just data appeared on the screen.

In fact, a whole array of women, all of them engaging in various sexual acts or preparing themselves to, showed up on the screen. And at the top, where the browser was, were the words "girlsonfilm.com."

Steve hadn't noticed all the clamor, too busy thinking (thoughts of you and thoughts of work), until Bucky called it to his attention.

"Steve," he nudged him frantically, his voice a loud whisper.

When Steve looked up at the screen, his face couldn't have gone any redder. He hadn't thought about this at all, and he had clearly forgotten to close out his browser. His heart sunk all the way to his stomach - because it wasn't just Natasha seeing this, it was everybody. And that included Tony, who was glaring pointedly at Steve from the head of the table. Meanwhile, all the others were too busy heckling Natasha and making brash comments about what was appearing onscreen. To Steve's relief, your face didn't show up, but this just might have been worse than only your screen appearing.

"Woah, Nat, I didn't know you got down like that!" Sam hooted, cupping his mouth with his hands.

Natasha, though she was in shock as well, rolled her eyes,

"This is Steve's laptop."

Now a hush, then another clamor of confusion and heckling, all directed towards Steve. He couldn't recoil any more, feeling the pangs of embarrassment as his eyes flashed between every one of his teammates. He felt as if there were an asteroid approaching fast, and he was right where it would land, too slow to move out of its way.

"Steve, what do you know about 'girls on film'?" Sam nearly cackled, reading the name of the site.

Steve sighed deeply, locking eyes with Natasha as he mouthed "turn it off" to her.

"I am, I am," she ensured him, quickly disconnecting the laptop from the projection, unplugging completely.

A beat passed, everyone staring expectantly at Steve, who was staring down at the table, trying to process his own thoughts. Like for starters, why didn't he log out the last time, and why didn't he remember to log out? And then his mind went to deeper places. He hadn't been intentionally secretive with his actions, but he had been intentionally private. It had to do with his own growth, he was learning how to navigate a world that was new to him and somehow helping him at once. He didn't want to have to share this with everyone, it was nice having this to himself, he had no intentions of revealing what he had been doing in his past time that made him so happy.

One of the reasons he didn't want everyone to know about his situation was because he didn't want to have to be concerned with what everyone else might think. Because to begin with, being on a site for cam shows wasn't exactly everyone's idea of what Captain America might be up to these days.

It was a matter of his image, what values he was supposed to hold. This didn't exactly match, and Steve had just gotten over the idea that he was a bad, sneaky person because of what he chose to indulge in. At least here he knew it was ethical and not causing harm to you as a human being.

He also didn't want to have to deal with the insufferable questioning and teasing his team would put him through, or the judgment he thought they might put him through. He felt embarrassed, exposed, and like he had been ill prepared for a situation like this. He was just grateful they hadn't seen more, because that would've been a disaster. What they had seen was only at the surface level of what he'd been doing.

But his thinking was interrupted by Tony's voice, which broke through all the silence, and made Steve realize again the eyes that were on him.

"Well, jig's up," Tony sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Care to explain?"

Steve locked eyes with Tony, as if hopeful that he wouldn't have to, but he knew it was best for him to just spit it out. Tony shrugged apologetically, and Steve took in a deep sigh, looking around at everyone at the table.

"What was that?" Scott whimpered, probably the most distraught by what they had all seen.

Steve nodded solemnly and began to explain himself. He would tell the truth, but that didn't mean he had to tell them everything. You would be left out of this, if anything. He'd just explain to them that sometimes, duty calls - and sometimes, it's not at all work-related.

✺ ✺ ✺

It was just hours before your cam show when another disaster struck, the first one being the fact that your professor was giving you shit about your project. You were in the bathroom, getting ready for your show, fixing your hair up and doing your makeup, laying out an outfit, doing all the things you did to feel pretty before a show.

Your phone lay beside you on the bathroom table, pinging with messages every now and then. You ignored it, leaning closer into the mirror to get a look at your lipstick, dabbing your fingers into the pigment on your lips.

You smiled, feeling that gratifying sense of achievement. Despite what was going on with your professor, you felt like you were doing well in life. You usually had a positive mindset, enjoyed your work although you sometimes felt as if you were buried deep in all your occupations: student, office worker, cam girl, designer, young woman. Your life was never dull, and you wouldn't trade it for anything. Talking to Steve helped too, but it was more than that.

But that sense of satisfaction all seemed to dissolve when you looked down at your phone, and saw a text from an unsaved number, glaring bright on your glowing lock screen of you hiking with Aaliyah. Still, you recognized it immediately.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

I miss you. Text me back.

✺ ✺ ✺

Steve wasn't exactly keen on joining your live show today, but he did so anyway, because he still had time to himself despite the spiral of events that had happened earlier. There was nothing else to do, and he didn't want to miss out on you after attending almost all of your shows for the past almost three weeks. Didn't want to just leave unexpectedly.

It felt strange that he felt this tug of commitment, but he brushed it off. He was just fulfilling his needs, which should even be expected of him. He was stressed again, after being caught up like he was. And maybe that was all the more reason not to watch your show tonight, but he wouldn't devoid himself of the simple pleasures of life. He'd learned that lesson a while ago, from a special someone called Moonrose.

After everything transpired, he explained himself calmly to his team, slowly to ensure that they'd understand that this wasn't the beginning of a deviant phase, that he wasn't throwing away his work responsibilities to lurk on the NSFW side of the internet. Not that they ever thought that to begin with, they never questioned his abilities or his authority for a minute, not even in the midst of what they'd seen that had shocked them.

This was the product of Steve's own insecurities and his admittedly silly fear that he was somehow letting his team down. He told them that he was on the site, as recommended by Tony, to relieve some "frustration" that he felt he didn't have the time or the means to release in real life. He said that while it had helped him do that, he wasn't throwing away his responsibilities, nor was he dependent on the site or the things on it, or the people on it for that matter.

He knew that if they knew about you, all those private sessions, all those conversations you'd had, the connection you had built between the two of you, it might be a different story. But because they didn't, they appreciated his honesty. They were confused, it didn't seem like the kind of thing Steve would be into, and he ensured them that it was a shock to him as well.

But they didn't mind on the whole, it was just a shock to everyone at first. They didn't think it called for a meeting, thought it was almost humorous how serious Steve was being about such a trivial situation. Wanda had joked about how we've all been there, Thor denied ever having to do such a thing because: "I have all the romantic partners anyone could ask for. I could introduce you Steve, but these Asgardian women are fiery, far beyond anything I believe you could handle." In the end, Steve was relieved, felt like it didn't have the disastrous outcome he'd been expected.

But he could feel his guard slowly coming back up. That was a close call, and it was a little too close for comfort. He didn't want to disregard you, but he couldn't afford to sink further in, and get his team involved. He just didn't want to face the consequences he could imagine if they knew how much he decided to stick with you, how much you talked, how it was teetering off the range of normal customer to cam girl interaction.

It wasn't like he was careless when it came to his interactions with you, but he also didn't want his team to know about his business when it came to you. He didn't want them thinking he was engaging too much, didn't want it to get to the point where he was worrying again or felt like he needed to deny himself such wonderful feelings.

All these things were on his mind while he waited for your live show to start. When it did, and he saw your face, he felt a little bit alleviated. Just for now, he could have this fantasy to himself. If they knew about the site, so be it. At least he had you to himself.

"Hey guys," you mustered a smile, waving to the camera.

Unbeknownst to your viewers, you had spent the past few hours off camera panicking, on the verge of tears, calling Aaliyah frantically so she could help calm you down. That text from that mysterious unknown number had been from your ex's number. The same ex who made you fall into dependency patterns that you worked so hard to get out of, the one who made you feel like you had to work for his love. Like it wasn't something you deserved, just like anyone else.

You had worked so hard to finally wring out all the effects of him, all the bad habits you had fallen into because of him. That was part of the reason why you worked so hard. Not because you were actively avoiding him specifically, but because you were actively bettering yourself. You weren't looking for a relationship. But you knew that if you were in one now, the same things would never happen to you.

When you got that text, it triggered a flood of memories. Feelings you had to work to suppress and actually get over for months so you wouldn't fall back into the same desperate, needy patterns when it came to your relationships with people. All over a simple text from someone you hadn't heard from in almost a year. It hurt you how easy it was to get you to crack, even if you didn't spill out all the way. But on top of the added stress because of school, you were damn close.

You would do the show tonight, anyway. It helped you to escape, although Moonrose was a part of you, it didn't one hundred translate into real life. So in a way, this helped you escape real life. Just for a while. Just like Steve.

You grinned when you saw concerned comments from your watchers:

johnGuy182

Are you okay, moonrose? You seem a little sad.

zenongirl

Girl r u ok? i missed seeing your face!!!

"Guys, I'm okay," you grinned. And you actually felt better seeing comments from your supporters. It reminded you to cheer up - they were looking for a good show, not a sob story. You leaned back, revealing your stomach in the sheer, sparkly fringed bra you chose to wear (another piece you had designed by yourself). "It's been a looong day."

Steve watched silently, observing your behavior. He didn't notice drastic changes, but you did appear less chipper. Then again, he brushed it off. He didn't expect you to be smiley all the time, you were human too, and this was your work.

"But I'm okay," you reassured, giving that signature grin, genuine and charming and alluring. You were trying to gently distract yourself, get into your act. "I hope you're all just as lovely as I am. I have a special game for you today."

You directed your viewers to your spinning wheel, which you had been working on crafting that week for a game. You grinned as you spinned it. Each act on the wheel cost a certain amount of tokens, and by the end of the game you would garner a bunch of funds. The show went by relatively quickly as you played the game, eventually ending up completely naked.

As ordered by the spinning wheel, you were to use a vibrator. You held it against your clit at the highest setting as you watched the numbers of viewers and the tokens jump up, Steve watching as he stroked himself leisurely. Your legs shook as you restrained yourself from your orgasm so as to increase the length of your showtime, garner more coins to encourage you to come.

"Mm," you moaned, massaging the vibrator against your clit, getting wetter and slicker by the minute, sliding the toy between your folds. You laughed, breathless. "Fuck, this thing is so powerful. Someone make me come, please make me come. Just a few more tokens for me to come for you."

Steve was hesitant, but he decided to go ahead and give you the amount of tokens you needed. And when you heard the chime of the tokens being added to your account, and saw the name it was attached to, it was like a blast of euphoria. When your legs started to shake, when you started to moan and your stomach started to rise up and down, it was genuine. It was like you were back in a private room with him, although you weren't.

Your orgasm was blood-curdling in the best way, and you felt like you were releasing part of the stress of the past day, the past week. It didn't get any realer than this, once again you felt like he was really there to satisfy you.

"Oh!" you exclaimed, your mouth dropping open and your blood flowing, moaning. "Yes, Steve, I'm coming for you. Thank you for making me come, Steve!"

Steve had been stroking himself along with you as he watched, and only let himself come now that you had come, his cheeks heating up as he heard you moan his name, something he hadn't been expected. Something about you saying his name like that where everyone could hear, even though he enjoyed the intimacy of private rooms, felt victorious. It felt lewd, salacious, but he couldn't help but enjoy that aspect of it. He moaned through grit teeth while he came, stroking himself to completion.

You came down, thanking everyone for attending and ending the show. But it wasn't long after that you had requested Steve for a private chat. He accepted, because he had gotten used to you doing this a little more frequently. It didn't scare him any more, he just thought of it as making conversation, taking advantage of this connection you had with each other. So when you requested, who was he to say no.

When the chat log opened, you put on your best happy face for Steve, trying to conceal how fatigued this week, today in particular, had made you. But your tired, bleak voice gave it all away, buried deep beneath your smile,

"Hey, Steve."

Steve was surprised at the sound of your voice. Again, while he understood that you wouldn't be a happy go lucky fairy like personality all the time, he wasn't expecting this. You were smiling, but the weariness in your eyes was hard to miss. And your voice, which usually told light hearted tales, sounded worn down as if from tragedy. He was concerned, his eyebrows furrowed gently,

"Hi. How are you?"

"I'm good!" you exclaimed, trying your hardest to really sound "good."

But you were just tired. Tired and sad, and scared - scared of what the future had to hold. You were already dealing with school stress, and the text from your ex-boyfriend was like a bad omen, an anxiety-provoking assurance that things actually would not get better and they would in fact get progressively worse. You weren't even sure why you thought you should be talking to Steve if you were tired and just wanted to sleep off the weight of the week. It would be a weekend tomorrow, and one of your very rare days off.

Maybe you figured that you wanted to talk to him despite your fatigue, because conversation with Steve was a nice distraction. You had let yourself forget that this was still your job, and that you were too tired for anything sexual — you knew he liked talking to you, but you hadn't put into consideration the fact that he might request a sexual act from you. You would be burnt out if he did. The fact that you didn't think about that should've been telling, but your brain was too scattered to think straight.

Anyway, Steve called your bluff, and laughed quietly, his voice inquiring and pressing,

"How are you really?"

That was all it took to get a deep sigh to come from out of you, all it took to allow yourself to show your true feelings, at least the surface of them, what you felt comfortable showing a customer. You felt a sense of relief and gratefulness for Steve, like he was letting you breathe. And if anything, he especially wasn't enlisted to listen to your problems. But he wanted to, and for that you felt foolishly grateful.

Steve noted the deep sigh that came from out of you, and he frowned slightly. He could tell you had been holding this in for a while, and some part of him felt remorse for the fact that even though you clearly weren't in the right mindset, you went on and did your show anyway. He felt some guilt for being a part of the reason why you did your show.

You answered, allowing your voice to be as honest as possible.

"Honestly?" you chuckled a little, albeit bitterly. "I don't know if you really want to hear me rant to you."

Steve shook his head.

"Don't be silly," he grinned. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to."

You felt a warm rush in your chest from the reassurance, and the corner of your lip quirked up in a small smile, before you decided to dive in. You'd spare the emotional details, spare your private life. But it would be nice to talk to someone, just about the general things, right?

"Well, it's been a pretty stressful week, honestly. I mean, school's been the main source of my stress. My professor's such an asshole, he's basically been telling me my entire senior project, which I need to complete to graduate, needs to be redone? And I can't even fathom how I would have enough time to do that with like, two and a half months left of my senior year. I mean, he said I can keep most details, but I'd have to rework it, whatever that means."

You kept your emotions at bay, sighing in annoyance just at the story you told, because it really was irritating you. But then you felt deeper things, even more went into why you really were upset.

Steve nodded, just listening. He was prepared to offer advice, but in your situation, he thought that maybe just letting you rant would be best.

"That's gotta be annoying," he shook his head understandingly. "Whatever your project is, I'm sure it's wonderful. He shouldn't be forcing you to rework it or make any last minute changes."

"I know!" you nearly jumped up, feeling amped up now. "And it's just so fucking annoying because I work so hard and I'm really passionate about this project and it just feels like..."

It felt like you were about to overflow, like a pot of water that had been left on for too long. You were ranting almost uncontrollably now, maybe because of the fact that it was more than this that was tugging at you. Because you'd been carrying the weight of your life on your shoulders all the time, like Atlas carrying the sky, and it felt like that weight was finally starting to mean something.

Steve could see you were unraveling and he let you, he let you take the time you needed to feel everything you had been holding. If your connection was strong, it was at its strongest here. Sure, you and Steve chatted about a little bit of everything, even had deeper conversations here and there as the weeks went by. But you had yet to genuinely complain to him, because every time you spoke with him, you were happy go lucky Moonrose, with nothing to complain about to begin with. But now, you needed a release by any means, and you were just glad Steve was there for you, even if he wasn't really there. How unlike you to unfold in front of strangers.

Your breath stuttered as you took in a deep breath in a failed attempt to calm down, only further driving yourself into your rambling. You felt yourself tear up, your voice becoming watery as you continued,

"It just feels like all my work is turning to shit, and it's so fucking frustrating because I work so hard all the time, I do so much and I manage so much all the time."

The "hard work" you were talking about wasn't just school and work-related, it pertained to your journey, and how hard you had worked to be a better person. To support yourself. The emotions pent up inside of you, they were more than just being upset over a school project. The idea of someone toxic trying to re-enter your life, someone who had forced you to rework the entirety of your life, made you feel like you were on the verge of crashing. You knew better, but you didn't want to return to those dark days, where the light at the end of the winding tunnel that was your relationship seemed so far away. It was why you were so weary of relationships today. It was crazy how one person could change your life so easily.

Now you were crying, before you even noticed that you were crying. Tears just seemed to leak out of your eyes, sloshing wet and sudden against your cheeks and underneath your lashes. You wiped them away quickly with the back of your hand, frazzled at the fact that you were crying in front of a customer right now. Steve said he'd listen to you, he didn't say he'd watch you cry and be your therapist. You instantly regretted it, although you couldn't stop yourself, tears threatening to emerge again. If you were cracked before, you were spilling now.

Steve was surprised too, at the fact that you were crying. You appeared so put together to him, it was almost something he didn't expect from you. He was in shock at first, so much so that professionalism was not on his mind - it was an afterthought. Right now, instead of wondering if this was appropriate, he was occupied with you.

"I'm sorry," you murmured, but you still hadn't stopped, tears falling out as you blinked. Composure was nothing now, you were sobbing, your shoulders slumped and your head hung as you sniffled. Still you enforced control, wiping away every tear that fell with the back of your hand. "I'm really sorry, I don't mean to cry to you over this, that's so-"

Steve cut you off, shaking his head slowly,

"It's okay to cry, doll. We all have those days. I know better than anyone that we all have those days."

You mustered a smile, feeling cared for, feeling accounted for by someone who wasn't even obligated to have to see you like this. Still you shook your head, sniffling,

"I know. But it's-it's stupid, I shouldn't be crying in front of you."

"I'm not judging you," Steve said, so nonchalantly and firmly, so genuine that it almost scared you.

You blinked. He should've cared, and he should've judged you. To cry in front of Steve, a customer, was to imply he had some duty to comfort you when he probably just wanted a show. You knew that you didn't have to do anything you didn't want to, but even you had rules when it came to what your customers got to see, and to you, that meant they didn't have to deal with your blues.

"Really?"

"Really," he reassured you with a nod.

Was Steve scared that by giving you this reassurance, this entire situation could become deeper than either of you could handle? Yes. But did he let himself shut down because of those pervasive thoughts that he might get himself into trouble? No. He didn't see you as a liability right now. Right now, even though the situation was certainly questionable (and this was something he had no doubt about. When emotions get into the mix, things could get tricky- he knew this), he saw you as someone who desperately needed someone to talk to. Maybe it wasn't smart of you to make him that someone, but regardless, he was, and who was Steve Rogers not to listen to a person in need?

You blinked away the last of your tears and swallowed hard. You were making this choice consciously, to tell Steve what had really gotten you to your breaking point. And maybe telling him meant you had trust in him, maybe too much trust for someone who, while great, was still a customer. But you felt like there was nothing you could lose from telling him. Maybe you'd even feel better after the fact.

You looked down, picking at the body glitter on your arm that you had applied before the show. Your voice was considerably quieter now perhaps because you were looking back on the moment with a clear mind for the first time since it happened. You hadn't been thinking straight ever since you received the text just hours ago. Now your brain was a little quieter with the help of your tears and Steve's reassurance.

"I think that the stress of this school project is making me resent how hard I work for everything, just to be met with this kind of result, you know? And it's even worse when... things seem to be going backwards. You know, like when you make so much progress, moving on from things that don't serve you, and you've finally done it and you get to flourish in it and then, it just gets taken away from you. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but that's just how this feels."

Steve nodded, his jaw ticking as he let your words settle in. Somehow, although your situation was so different from his, he felt like your words perfectly described how he felt with the world sometimes. It was even part of the reason he'd held off on talking to you like this, held off on getting too involved. He too had made so much progress in this world, which took so much getting adjusted to in a way that absolutely nobody else could relate to.

It was a world that he didn't even know, a world that he had never been properly introduced to. He'd had to fend for himself. He did his healing on his own, just like you had. And yet sometimes it felt like he had no control, like the universe was going the opposite way of all his plans. Then he felt stupid for even having plans to begin with, because in life, making plans was like comedy for the gods.

There was a weird feeling in his chest and stomach, like he'd been stabbed with a gutting realization, and the knife was just turning inside of him, churning his insides. He began to feel a sense of unease, because this deep conversation was beginning to feel incredibly personal. Even though you were talking about your own situation, he couldn't help but think about how much he resonated, and the fact that he felt like he could relate to you on such a deep level scared him. This was more than the conversations you'd had before, more than the simple similarities you and Steve shared. This felt like a conversation that might be too telling for his good and your own.

He swallowed his words as he listened to you continue. You chose your words carefully, but you had shed yourself of your inhibitions when it came to being truthful.

"Earlier... I heard from someone I hadn't heard from in a long time. And it kind of pushed me over the edge," out of your mouth stumbled a laugh. You were calmer now, and looked up at the camera, Steve swallowing hard when you did so. It was all so real, just like it was when you touched yourself and moaned Steve's name. "I think it just made me feel all those things I just explained. Because I feel like I worked so hard to rid myself of this person and them trying to come back just feels like all the things I worked so hard on are going to unravel. Even though I know they aren't, it feels like a setback. And that was like, the icing on the cake to this already terrible day, I guess."

You let out a breathy laugh and smiled gently, shaking your head slowly.

"I normally wouldn't be telling this to a customer. But here we are. Again, I'm sorry... I feel like I shouldn't have said anything? Should I... have said anything?"

In the brief silence that followed your question, both you and Steve were thinking the same thing - were you going to regret this? Intimacy both physically and emotionally was good when you capped it at what you both knew to be appropriate. When it came to the physical aspects, you each let your fantasies unwind.

And on the emotional aspect, though you had both grown closer and more open, some things just didn't get touched upon. But now you had just cried over the screen, and spoke from the depths of your heart. It was scary to open up in such an uncertain situation where your own privacy was an aspect that got involved. There was no doubt that it was too much. It was just a question of whether the result would be negative.

Steve sighed deeply, a crease forming in his forehead as he furrowed his brows together, folding his arms over his chest.

"I don't know..." he trailed off, took a breath, a leap, his body practically lurching forward. "But... it can't be a bad thing that you feel comfortable talking to me about this, can it?"

And there it was, that glint of hope he was trying his hardest to conceal. That feeling he got when he got off that call with you, the one where you both started giving into those unspoken thoughts. That this couldn't be so bad, that you could enjoy each other's company without worrying.

You smiled gently,

"I guess. It does feel weird though, it's not something I normally do. It feels like something I shouldn't be doing."

You could hear Steve breathing in deeply, and for a moment, you imagined what he might look like, envisioning the outline of a troubled face, eyebrows knit together. You snapped back to reality and made a face, confused by your abrupt thoughts. You had long gotten over the very brief desire to see Steve's face- why was it coming back again?

"I'll be honest, same here," Steve agreed with your sentiments.

"Do you always feel like you have to restrain what you say when you talk to people? Or is it just with me?" you added that last part in a quiet voice, biting your lip.

Steve chuckled briefly,

"Are you asking me if I have trust issues? Because I'd tell you, but I'd have to trust you to do that."

You shook your head and laughed at Steve's stupid joke, and shrugged.

"I could say the same thing, I think. This person I heard from earlier is... I developed those trust issues because of them. Or, my already existent trust issues became worse. But what's funny about it is that this person was once someone that I loved," even as the words were coming out you questioned why you were letting them, why you were allowing yourself to be so truthful in a situation like this at a time when you were so vulnerable.

Steve didn't reply, again feeling that sick feeling in his stomach that stemmed from his fear. The fear that this conversation were too serious, fear surrounding the fact that he was able to relate so much to such a personal situation of yours.

You spoke again, daring to ask the question that felt like a final blow to Steve's stomach,

"Have you ever been in love, Steve?"

Now Steve knew he was in uncharted territory. Not because he feared you might try to exploit him, but because he was so struck by the fact that he had allowed himself to feel so safe with you and get so close to you. He was surprised at himself for letting you feel safe enough to have these kinds of conversations with him. It all felt like a mistake now. He wanted a way out, any way out. He knew if he even attempted to answer that question, he would be making a big mistake. He had shared some of his most intimate moments with you, but always keeping in mind a very sharp line he didn't want to be crossed.

And in his mind, he thought of the one love he'd had, the one love that hadn't been fulfilled because of the situation he had been thrown into, one he had never signed up for. He thought of how the things he cared most for in life had been discarded, how, like you, he felt like it had gone to shit. How sometimes, though he tried his best to be grateful and had taken that journey of self-healing just like you, it all felt like some sick joke.

Could he even call it love? He wasn't sure. And he wasn't going to answer. He wasn't going to answer at all, because he wouldn't be talking to you again. There would be no chance for this dilemma to resurface, not with you, not on this site. He made the decision with haste and a heavy heart - he was done here.

The discomfort was well evident in his voice, answering loud and clear, though his voice was morose and a bit closed off. You sensed the shift immediately.

"I... I can't talk about that right now. Listen, I have to go."

You felt a pang in your chest at the sudden switch in his demeanor, straightening up and trying not to frown. All this time you had been letting the words spill out, telling yourself not to worry so much, reassuring yourself it was okay to make your feelings known. Now it felt like you should've never said anything at all. You started to stammer.

"Oh, I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, I was just... I feel like I got a little overwhelmed." You laughed nervously. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Steve felt his throat ran dry as he blinked, feeling emotions come up to surface that he wasn't quite familiar with. Maybe he was grieving in advance, regretting the decision he was making to no longer speak with you, regretting the fact that he was letting fear get in the way of what he wanted so badly to be a good thing.

"No, I'm sorry. I feel like I let things go too far," Steve apologized, but the apology felt more like an insult.

Was he implying that whatever this was, you couldn't handle it, and that it was his fault for somehow leading you on? You had both made the connection with each other, it was an equal effort. And why was he acting like the two of you communicating at all was somehow below him, somehow a risk? If anything, you were the one risking it just by talking to him the way you did. You were opening up to him.

You almost felt betrayed - you had convinced yourself that he wouldn't want to listen to your problems and you told yourself it wasn't his responsibility to listen. And then he listened anyway, told you that he wanted to hear it, and you cried to him. You felt like you had made so many unusual accommodations just for him to scare off like this. He was just another person you had expressed your feelings to, only to regret it in the end.

"Too far?" you questioned, furrowing your brows.

Steve swallowed. In your voice he could hear a hint of frustration, but even worse- hurt. It pained him more than he cared for you to know.

"I don't think we should talk anymore," he said instead.

"What?" you were taken by surprise. "Steve, I'm... I'm not understanding. I... I don't usually open up to people like this, I mean, I thought maybe it was fine here, because I feel like I know you. But you're still a stranger. I understand you're a customer but I thought we were talking, I thought we broke through that wall-"

"We did. And we shouldn't have," Steve said, his voice so calm and firm that it was almost cold.

By now you were just staring into the computer camera, as if you were looking at him and waiting for him to come to his senses. But as you did that, you slowly came to your own. Because you weren't looking at him. You were looking at a black screen with his voice behind it. You realized you hadn't known Steve, not enough to talk about these things. And just like him, you too were full of regret. You kept all those walls up for the sake of customer relations, only to put them down and be met with this disastrous result.

Steve almost couldn't bare to look at your face anymore. You were confused, hurt. He could tell you regretted the fact that you had opened up. He was hurt too, but he wouldn't show it, or let it overcome him to the point where your methods of communication with each other became something neither of you could control. Still, yes, he was hurt.

But he had been through plenty of hardships in life. What was one more, even if it shouldn't have come to this point anyway?

"I'm sorry, Moonrose. We can't. Goodbye."

Chat over.

#steve rogers #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers reader insert #reader insert #smut #captain america civil war #captain america x reader #captain america imagine #captain america smut #captain america #girls on film #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel smut #marvel reader insert #steve rogers series #captain america series

274 notes · View notes

thatblondeperson · 4 years

Note

So I learnt from that Tim Drake Guy's tumblr that Steph is a bully and abusive with Tim is that true. I ask since I know you seem to agree with a lot of the thoughts expressed on that blog. Can you help me find some examples of Tim/Steph comics. I was going to get YJ but the same tumblr blog says it's bad

So I want to preface with some very solid advice I've learned from being in fandom. It's really hard to learn anything from any blog because so much of it is opinion based, that the line between headcanon and canon gets far too muddied too often, and there's also always going to be biases that come from very personal spaces. It's important to take everything that every blog says ESPECIALLY in the DC fandom, with a very large grain of salt because half the fandom really doesn't actually seem to source their information with anything other than out of context panels, shitposts, or their own perfect ideals of what they want to gleam from the pages of each comic. It's all interpretive, and I'm sure that sounds a little bit petty, but I'm adding myself in here too because I have my own opinions separate from others, despite my firm ideology in staying as close to canon as I possibly can.

As far as that blog, I actually strayed away from them because I no longer agreed with a lot of what was being said. It got to the point where it was getting very unnecessarily negative all the time, and I want no part in this ship war that drives practically every bit of drama in the Tim fandom. I think that there is a lot of merit to some of the opinions on that blog, and they're clearly an expert on Tim in many ways. I knew them personally, so I can attest to that. But I think they also read only what they WANT to read on every page, and I think that makes for a lot of gaps where misinformation can leak in. That got filled with a lot of straight up wrong assessments of Stephanie Brown, and unfortunately that blog was already prime traffic for antis to spew unnecessary hate, so once the blog itself got on board, I tapped out.

No, Stephanie is not an abuser or a bully. I think tumblr throws around the word abuse far too casually. At most, Steph teases Tim, but never to a malicious or purposefully hurtful extent. She pokes at him, just like you would with a best friend. He barely even protests. A simple "Steph..." every now and again, but he even teases her back often and jokes with her. She's not an abuser, in fact, she herself is a victim of severe abuse in her childhood. Her flirting at the beginning of her and Tim's relationship is a bit intense, but she's 15, and doesn't know how to catch his attention. Her boyfriend was clearly way older than her and did not treat her well, her father abused her mother, and she was sexually harassed by her father's friends. She's never seen a healthy relationship to know how to act. Once they get together, she mellows out and is actually very compassionate and kind with Tim, and especially supportive.

A lot of haters throw around all this terrible stuff she did.

They say she stole Robin from Tim. He stepped away from the mantle, and she thought she caught him cheating, and Bruce opened up the opportunity for her.

They highlight a time when she almost blew Tim up. Bruce told her to do something drastic to force Tim to be a better Robin. Should she have thought it through? Yes. But she was young, and still desperate to prove herself.

Steph is a loose canon throughout a lot of her appearances. She doesn't always think before she acts, and that is one of her major flaws. She gets into trouble often, and that causes a lot of tension between her and Tim, often from him becoming overprotective of her.

Steph starts out fairly cynical in the beginning and softens up over time. After the explosion stunt with Tim, she does get her act together and she goes through a fantastic character arc where she really improves upon herself. She becomes a beacon of hope, but she really already was one. She's always been a source of light for Tim. She's a constant tether for him throughout their relationship, and she constantly bringing him back to reality. I think their dynamic is really great, and it does hurt me a lot how often she gets dragged through the mud now. It's tumblr, what can you do?

It's also interesting to me how often Steph is called out for being the unhealthy one, and they never talk about how Tim was the shitty boyfriend way more often:

Kept his identity from her but didn't respect keeping hers private

Kissed her when he was dating someone else at the time (he's actually kinda known for subtle two-timing, but this is hardly brought up by fans)

Essentially stalked her for a while

Often told her she needed to stop being Spoiler (overprotective nature yes...but still)

Interesting how the relationship is only toxic because of Steph. Hell she even gets shit for getting upset that Greta straight up tried to kill her in Young Justice, because they think it was selfish of her that she was desperate to learn Robin's identity. Yeah sorry...murder vs wanting to know your crushes name? Which is worse?

I'm also not going to sit here and demand that everyone love Steph. It's ok that people don't like her, I could give 2 shits, but if they're gonna spew hate, I'd prefer it be rooted in truth. Some of what I see written about her is just so so wrong...there's a trend in anti culture to even write her as Tim's rapist which YIKES. That's so beyond a healthy amount of dislike for a character.

Anyway, comic recs!!!

Detective Comics 647-648. (First appearance of Steph/Spoiler with classic "love at first brick" moment.)

Robin 57-65 (First date issue which is the cutest thing ever. Robin does a little flip at the end because he's so happy. And the chronology of Steph being pregnant which Tim was supportive of the whole time. Super sweet)

Robin 100-104 (Steph gets sick and Tim brings her soup. Lots of cute domestic moments, and you get more into Steph's past)

Robin 111 (more about Steph's past with Tim being super supportive, also the infamous piano issue which is a personal favorite of mine)

Robin 116 (very cute moments after Tim forgets his bday and everyone, Steph included, surprises him)

Robin 119 (supportive bf Tim, strikes again)

Robin 120 (Steph being an amazing supportive gf)

Batgirl 8 (Steph's run, where she and Tim collide again for the first time in a long time. Awkwardness and tension ensues, Tim tries to make a move)

Red Robin 10 (more crossover, very fun. More awkwardness and tension)

Convergence Batgirl (Not the best run, but a nice bit of closure for the pre flashpoint universe. Very sweet and wholesome.)

There's way more that I could list but I'm awful with issue numbers tbh. I know the stories, but I don't have the catalogue memorized. Better people than me have probably made a masterlist of TimSteph comics lol

I don't think you should let any blog turn you away from any particular series. I think if you wanna try out the new YJ, go for it!! I'm very cynical to anything published post 2011, but YJ is the only thing I've consistently read that's NEW, in years. I find it fun. Is it the best? No, not by miles, and it gets stuck with a lot of nonsensical filler often. But it's still a very cute and fun run.

I hope this ask gave you a lot of good info! I also recommend the very long post that should be just below this that goes into a lot of fandom misconceptions about Stephanie brown with more picture examples to highlight everything. Thanks for the ask, anon! I hope you have a lovely time reading these comics and hopefully many more!!

🖤💜❤😊😊😊❤💜🖤

#TimSteph #stephanie brown #tim drake #robin iii #robin iv #spoiler #batgirl #red robin #dc comics #batfamilly #batfam #personal #ask tbp

164 notes · View notes

obeymeoof · 4 years

Note

Congrats on starting the blog! Do you have any headcanons about cuddling with the bros? If you don’t want to do them all, Belphie and Asmo are my faves :)

Ah thank you so much! And thank you for the ask! Funny thing about this is that I was using the cuddling prompt to practice so I was already halfway done when this came in.

Mammon

Fav Cuddle Position: “The Half Spoon” Prefers to lay his head on you but doesn’t mind to let you lay your head on him

Alternative position is just him starfishin’ on you like the little avatar of greed that he is. He going to take as much as he can get.

He’s definitely a blushy mess the first time you guys cuddle.mammon: “What was that?” mc:“affection.” Mammon:“disgusting…do it again”

Quickly covers up the shyness with arrogance.”You should feel honored that The Great Mammon has allowed you to be this close.

You want him to melt? Pet this boys head.100% guaranteed to work and ensure enjoyable cuddle time.

Lucifer

Fav Cuddle Position: “The Honey Moon Hug” it suits his possessive side. He can pull you close and still see your face while simultaneously intertwining his legs with yours You really feel like you’re his when in this position.

Honestly, hardly ever has time to just sit down and hold you close so this time is precious to him

Contrary to popular belief, I believe Lucifer would be big on cuddling when he can. If anything it would feed his pride more than hurt it. You WANT to be with him like this and if other people see it, he will give them a shit eating victory smirk.

Likes to cuddle in his demon form so that he can also wrap his wings around you like a blanket

Levi

Fav position: anything he can freely move his hands and see his screen.

TSL and chill?

Tub cuddles. Think about it. Laying in his weird tub bed and having to be super close to each other since it was original plan was for it to be used by ONE shut-in otaku. Get all snug and cozy in there. Or as much as you possibly can in a bathtub.

When he isnt absorbed by TSL or a game he’ll be completely focused on how close you are to him.

Blushy Boi uwu

Asmo

Fav Cuddle position:You laying on top of him or vice versa

Loves the feeling of your weight on top of him. Gives him that sense of closeness he longs for.Also loves laying on top of you. Again, he has that closeness but can also make sure you don’t sneak off anywhere if he were to fall asleep.

Very touchy feely. No surprise there. Those hands will roam anywhere and everywhere, even if he’s asleep!

Will tell you how smooth your skin is or how pretty your hair is. tons of compliments and praise. Often ended with a “but im still number one” or something of that narcissistic nature.

“You’re so cute y/n! I could just eat you up!” and will definitely follow up on that if you allow him.

Would prefer to cuddle without the restriction of clothes but will respect you decision not to if you don’t want to.

Beel

Fav Cuddle Position:??? Honestly this big ol’ soft boi does not care. He just likes to be close to his s/o

100% going to be eating wherever you guys decide to settle in at. But I guess being surrounded by all that food could add to the comfy factor of it all.

Hopefully you don’t mind crumbs in the bed because there is almost no chance that the sheets will ever be cleaned of crumbs with how much he eats

So hear me out on this one.The vibrations from Beelzebub’s stomach could possibly give you one hell of a massage if you have your back up against his stomach.

Belphie

Fav Cuddle Position: “The Sweet Heart Cradle” head on ur chest

This boy, as intimidating as he seems to be, loves to be held in your arms. Its warm and welcoming to him. Something he didn’t feel while he was locked up in that attic.

If hes in demon form he will gently but snugly wrap his tail around your leg, wait, or wrist. Is the equivalent to holding hands for him

If you have things you have to do that day, don’t even entertain the idea of a ‘short’ cuddle session. There is no ‘short’ cuddle session in Belphie’s dictionary. Its an all day thing.

If you do it anyways and try to leave, hes pulling you back down. “ You knew the consequences of starting this. Now, come love me”

Impossible to sneak out of his grip even when he’s asleep so make sure your bladder is empty!

Satan

Fav Cuddle Position: “The Spoon” / “Half Spoon” if hes reading

Definitely a big spoon. Loves to hold you close with his arms wrapped around you and his chest flush against your back.

Likes to bury his face in the crook of your neck.

Would be more than willing to read his books to you outloud but will probably be slightly offended if you fall asleep.

Rants about lucifer to you and what to do next in the

This may be my biased opinion(definitely is) but I think he would be one of the best ones to cuddle with simply for that fact that you could watch mystery shows/crime shows with him.You could conspire about who did what and why and then be surprised if you’re wrong or right. Personally, sounds amazing to me.

I went ahead and did all of them since I had half of them done anyways and I’m almost done with my one other ask I got in my inbox. Hope you enjoy them!

2/12/2020

#0beyme #obey me!#obeyme headcanons #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me satan #ModDitz #obey me headcanons

302 notes · View notes

clairecrive · 4 years

Text

“Chaos”- Bane x OC [Requested]

After a long therapeutic writing session, I’m back with some Bane goodies as promised! this was requested a long time ago by a girl on wattpad but idk why I never had enough ideas/inspiration to finish it until a couple of days ago. And so here it is. It’s been a while since I’ve written so I’m hoping this isn’t that shitty lol. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Tag list: @mollybegger-blog, @br0ck-eddie, @of-love-and-of-the-sea, @evelynshelby, @shadow-of-wonder, @deaflikehawkeye, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @fandom--0verdose, @sopxhiea, @fuseburner (let me know if you wanna be added or removed)

Blending in the shadows had always been the accomplishment Ace was the proudest of. Throughout the years, she had mastered it to the point of perfection, so much so that even the man who claimed to own the shadows hadn't been able to spot her. She wasn't there to spy on them so she'd eventually come forward and make her presence known. Only when the time was right though. For now, she had to listen and observe.

When she heard the mercenary give the last instructions to his men and was about to dismiss them, Ace decided it was time to come forward.

"That's an excellent plan indeed, except that it will fail." Emerging from the shadows she walked into the room with confident strides. As soon as they saw her, the men pointed their guns at her. However, she didn't pay them any mind. Ace's eyes and focus were solely on the burly muscular man standing at the centre of the room. He was in control, that much she knew, alas the men wouldn't move a muscle without his permission.

"I didn't ask for your opinion, did I?" Straightening his posture, his hands landing on the straps of his vest, Bane quickly shut the intruder up.

"Nevertheless, I gave it to you. Now, you should be wise and take it because I'm right." Standing in front of him, Ace held her head high for better holding his gaze. From this position, she could see how he was able to instil fear in everyone. However, Ace acted as if the difference in height was nothing more than a fact. Like he was a man and her a woman.

"And why would you know anything about strategies and plans?"

"Does this mean that you don't recognize me then?" Pouting, Ace twirled a strand of her hair between her fingers. To be fair, Ace was pretty known in the underworld. Being the right hand of a mass murderer and a sociopath will do that to you.

"Should I?" Ace knew it was his way of minimizing and mocking her but she only mirrored his smirk. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"Well, no matter. You should know though that I'm pretty good at this stuff. Me and my partner were quite famous."

"I don't entertain myself with gossip." Was his simple answer almost as if he was explaining to a little girl that no, he didn't play with dolls.

"Anyhow, I don't need my reputation to speak for me. Hear me out, let me be a part of your plan and then you'll see why he called me Ace." She proposed feigning confidence. To be fair, she knew that putting herself in the mercenary's dent could be extremely dangerous. Bane had the power to end in her life with just a snap of his fingers. However, Ace was sure of her abilities and she knew that Bane was a good strategist so he'd be able to see that.

"Ace up my sleeve?" He arched his brow at the not so subtle wordplay. What could you expect from a clown, Bane smugly concluded.

"You get the point then, great. I'll admit that I hated the name at the beginning. I'm more than a plan B, even my partner knew that. It was just for show. The only difference between men and women is cultural, after all." This was a fight Ace would always advocate for. Hell, her whole existence and the role she played were a testament to that. Of course, since the very first moment she started, Ace knew that in a predominantly male business she'd have to deal with a lot of sexism and belittling. But she was ready, she'd endured it all and now she'd mastered the art of shutting them up exposing their ignorance.

"Plato." He noted. Would you look at that. The notorious Bane, infamous mercenary and revolutionary, was familiar with the classics to the extent that he could recognize whose quotation it was. Remarkable.

"I'm surprised you know." She had to give him that. One had to give credit where credit is due.

"I know plenty of things." Well, now he was just being cocky. He could afford that, sure, but that didn't make it less annoying.

"Of course you do," she replied with a smug smile, "So what about that plan you were talking about?"

"You realize what you're getting into, don't you?"

"And you'll realize who you're dealing with because apparently, you don't yet."

"Very well." Nodding, he mutedly allowed her to join him. Returning to the map he was previously looking at, he moved so that there was enough space for her to stand next to him.

"Let's hear your idea then," he prompted her and she could feel the challenge in his tone. One she gladly took.

Once she offered him her plan, a better plan, that highlighted the weakness of the previous one, Bane valued his options and at the end, without any reservation, admitted that hers was indeed the most practical and efficient one. They were now all shackled in a van, armed to their necks, ready for the mission. She was sat in the backseat behind Bane who was sat in the passager seat, arm in her hands. They weren't the only one in the car, there were at least other five of Bane's soldiers but the only sound you could hear was the ones coming from the streets. Maybe it was because she was used to working with someone who couldn't shut up to save his life, but the silence was growing to be deafening.

"So, are sitting in front of us because you're big as a mountain or because you're the boss?" Her voice cut through the quiet vehicle. The men around and behind her didn't move a single muscle to show that they had heard her. However, Bane turned around slightly, now the sound of his mask hissing was louder and clearer. If looks could kill, Ace would at least have been cut by his.

"You should stay focused. This mission is extremely important. I won't tolerate any incompetence." He admonished her like a father would a little girl. And while Ace wouldn't mind that comparison in another context, wink wink, she also wouldn't mind if he was a bit looser.

"Please," rolling her eyes she leaned against the back of his seat, her mouth next to his ears since his face was still turned to her, "you really don't know anything about me, do you?" Feigning offence, her dark red painted lips pouted, Ace quickly wondered if he was just messing with her or if he was really clueless. Bane struck her as a quite thorough person, he'd have certainly done a background check on her by now. No matter, she decided, he's going to know soon either way.

"I'll just have to show you how I got my nickname, then," The pout had now shifted to a smirk and she leaned back to her seat. Her attention back out of the window while Bane's eyes lingered on her face a little longer before he turned back, imperceptibly shaking his head. This woman could either turned out to be a blessing or a curse. Now it wasn't the moment for such thoughts though, he had a mission to accomplish.

Since traffic hadn't been that bad, they had gotten to their destination quicker than expected. The van they were in pulled right outside the building they were going to sack, Gotham's bank, while the other vehicles and consequently Bane's men, parked on a secluded street right where the back exit of the building was. Those people were literally never going to see them coming. Before climbing out of the car, they assessed the situation, controlling that the information they got, on which they were basing the success of their plan, was still correct. Ace could only wait 'till Bane had finished his check-ups since she was sitting behind him and it was one of those cars where people in the back had to climb out through the reclined seat in front of them. The men were busy with their tools and electronic devices to notice that a slight change in plans was going to be needed.

Ace watched as a black limo neared the building and eventually stopped in front of it on the other side of the street. Whoever was in the car had to be someone important, not only because of his expensive choice of cars but also because he wasn't travelling alone. When a suited man stepped out of the car, he was immediately followed by a group of bodyguards as he made his way inside. Ace hadn't recognized the man, she hadn't even had the chance to look at his face but she knew that he wasn't supposed to be there. Her and one of Bane's hacker had studied the schedule for every single employee working that day and also the manager's one too. He wasn't scheduled. That also confirmed her theory of him being someone somewhat important along with wealthy since everybody knew that there was at least a one-month waiting list to be received by the bank's manager. And here he was instead, this mystery man who had put a glitch in their operation, that calmly strolled over the security checks like he owned the very ground he was walking on. Ace hated men like that. Here was another thing she had in common with Bane.

"He shouldn't be here." Bane's voice met her ears. Without turning to him, her eyes still in front of her trying to assess the number of the armed men, Ace simply nodded to let him know that she'd heard him.

"We'll have to use a different approach." She pointed out as the layout of a new plan was slowly forming in her mind.

"We should wait for other of my men to join us. We're not prepared to face such a number." Bane huffed, annoyed for the delay that this hitch was going to cause.

"Nonsense," Ace disagreed facing him, "I have an idea." A smug smirk formed on her face as she explained what her plan entailed. She was just going to need two men with her while Bane and every other man were to enter from the back. This was they were going to sneak up on those snob men up there and get what they came here for.

"Have you failed to see the van parked right there, which holds at least ten fully armed men? How are you going to hold them off with just two men? I was not aware you were suicidal." The patronizing tone in his voice was evident but Ace tried to ignore it. He doesn't know what you're capable of, she told herself. Not yet, she concluded.

"That's because I'm not. This is the second time you underestimate me, Bane. However, I won't take it personally since you've yet to see me in action. I assure you I'm more than capable of what I'm telling you." Her face now void of any smugness, her eyes solemn as she spoke, Bane wondered if she was too full of herself.

"What is the other name others call you?" He asked, knowing it had everything to do with her choice now that he saw her infamous smirk making a comeback.

"I'm the Lady of Chaos, oh great Bane. Whenever I go, that's what I bring and that's what I leave as a trail," sure of herself, Ace elaborated and in front of her confident façade, Bane could do nothing other than believing her.

"For your sake, I hope you deserve that title," he observed before he signalled to his men that it was time to move. While they silently climb out to make it to the back entrance unseen, Ace and the two men Bane chose, walked to the bank's entrance. To avoid drawing unwanted attention to them, she tried to make small talk with them. Attempted to tell a lame joke either, just to sell the idea that they were a group of friends and not some mercenaries on a mission. Despite the sketchiness of their clothes, they somehow managed to walk in without catching the eye of the mystery man's security.

As soon as they stepped in, the two security officers gestured for them to walk through the metal detector. That won't sit well with the two gun Ace was wearing but that won't be a problem. Not a second after the loud alarm of the detector was heard, Ace drew the gun shooting some warning bullets in the air before pointing to the officers that had stepped near her. Just like the two men behind her did. Understanding that they were greatly outnumbered, the officers hold their hands up letting their arms go.

"Now now gentlemen, would one of you be so kind as to show me your office?" Taking the piss out for men was Ace's favourite thing. She nodded the men to walk in front of her while the two mercenaries guarded the entry door.

She didn't have to walk long since their office was near the security check. Both men walked in and waited for Ace to instruct them what to do. She saw them glance at each other causing her to roll her eyes, she knew what was going through their heads.

"What a big of a fool do I have to be to have wondered away alone with two strong me like yourself, you must be wondering. Am I right?" She waited a bit before speaking again. Not that she was waiting for them to answer, merely for the theatrical effect. "But of course, because after all women are not that strong, are they?" Lowering her guns, she walked in front of them.

"I have taken upon me to prove everyone who would think that wrong," she foretold hinting at what she was going to do. But of course, they were too idiot to take the hint and so the same ease one would steal candy from a baby, Ace knocked them out with her guns. With the right amount of strength, one hit was all it took.

Chuckling while admiring her work, she felt oddly reworded. Men, she thought shaking her head. Taking her eyes away from their bodies, she looked around the room to look for what she needed.

"Ah," reaching for it she pushed the button that would ensure their plan could be carried out with any more surprises. The front doors of the bank automatically locked while a bulletproof gate quickly lowered, keeping out the inconvenience that was those armed men. Hearing the noise, Bane knew it was his signal to proceed. And so he did, swiftly and quickly making his way inside the building and the floor where he knew his target was.

In the meantime Ace that was soon joined by Bane's men, was making sure that all the people on the floor understood perfectly what they had to do and what will happen to them if they didn't obey. Once she was certain the situation was under control, she strolled to the floor where Bane was. He had been there for almost 15 minutes now, he should be about to finish by now. The two men that she had left behind knew that they had to join them in about five minutes so that they could leave unnoticed through the back entrance.

She reached the highest floor and was pleased to see that bane's men had subdued the guards and the bodyguards of the mystery man who had got caught in this. Smirking she saluted him as if to say "well done". It wasn't hard to spot the room where Bane was. Yes, it was the only room on the floor, right at the end of the hallway. But the screams coming out of it were a dead giveaway too. The mystery man was putting up a fight and causing problems, hence the screams.

Stepping in the room and assessing the situation, Ace could see that Bane was having no problem at all in dealing with the manager. The smug look he sent her way, confirmed that thought letting her know that he was almost done. So she turned to cause of such ruckus and noise.

"What's got your panties in a twist dear?" Using a patronizing tone, she crunched to be at his eye level.

"Of course he has a whore at a hand. What is your problem, lady? Don't you see he's a fucking beast?" Struggling in the mercenaries' grip, the man barked outraged. Ace couldn't stop herself from laughing in his face. Men.

"Haven't you heard? Behind a beast, there's a prince." Roughly patting his face, Ace readied to deliver the last blow. She had nothing against this young man. Well, apart from the fact that she hated everything he stood for and the city herself. Now, however, things had gotten personal. She hated misogynistic men, and even more misogynistic slurs.

She smiled sweetly at him, the gestured in sharp contrast of the movement of her hand. But that's what she wanted. Messing with his head so that he wouldn't be able to see her blow coming. And, as a matter of fact, he didn't. And that alone gave Ace immense satisfaction. Even more than seeing the red print of her hand on his cheek.

"Oh, and another thing," she feigned to have just remembered something, "don't ever refer to women you don't like as whores, okay? For future references." She added smiling with her lips in a thin line. "Good boy," stretching her legs she lifted from her position and moved aside knowing that now it was Bane's turn to deal with him.

Since he wasn't supposed to be here, Ace didn't know if he had been one of Bane's targets or if he had just become one. No matter, she knew that Bane would either let him leave to tell the tale and warn others or if he'd just kill him to avoid any further inconvenience. As the masked man walked toward them with long calculated strides, Ace knew. The man wasn't going to get the chance to put her advice into practice. And it seemed that the man understood that too and showed that he hadn't understood his lesson since he started begging her, thinking her as the weak one.

"Don't you have a heart?" The man pleaded to try to appeal to her humanity but it only made her laugh.

"Isn't it funny that people always assume that you're heartless?" She pondered out loud looking at Bane, "instead of facing the fact that maybe it's this wicked world we live in that made us who we are." Finishing her thought, she bent down so that her mouth was close to the man's ear.

"I wasn't born without a heart nor with all these scars, neither of us were." She whispered like it was a secret but really, was it so hard to understand? Quickly glancing around her shoulder, she made sure that Bane knew her next move. He slightly nodded. She had his approval.

"We are a product of the circumstances of our lives, Bane." Finishing the man off, she stood up rubbing the dirt off her hands and turned to the masked man. "We're not so different, you and I."

"While I'm not sure about the accuracy of that statement, I wouldn't mind having an ace up my sleeves." The wrinkles around his eyes became more evident as he recalled the wordplay she had used during their first meeting. But that wasn't his style. "Or you could be my Lady of Chaos, my Persephone." He added displaying once again his knowledge of the classics, unaware that it was the perfect way to appeal to her. After that and after seeing the way he worked, the way he had treated her, with respect, like they were equals, she didn't need any further convincing. She was sold. Taking the hand he was offering her, she sealed the deal. He could be the Hades to her Persephone. Both roles unexpectedly fitted them perfectly. Content for the successful outcome of the mission and the allegiance that had just been sealed, they both walked out without rush knowing that they were in control. Useless were the police sirens that were approaching. They didn't stand a chance against them. And while they didn't know it yet, as Bane and Ace glanced at each other once they were sat in the car, she knew that everyone was going to know it pretty soon. Very soon.

A/N: for anyone who doesn't know the name Persephone means "the one who brings chaos", so I thought it was extremely fitting Ace.

#bane #bane dcu #bane imagine #bane x oc #bane fic #bane one shot #the dark knight rises #TDKR #tom hardy bane #tom hardy imagines #bane fanfiction #i missed writing for him

83 notes · View notes

purge-that-urge-rhackathon · 4 years

Text

Rebound

This is the first part of a commission :D

Rhys gets dumped, Jack goes on a 'treat Rhys nice' spree out of pure spite, and eventually catches some serious feels himself.

Subsequent parts on my ao3 here. My masterlist archive of bullshit i write can be found linked at the top of the blog or here.

Jack had stopped reading the report on his desk some time ago, his attention focused on his personal assistant as the younger man somberly frowned to himself.

Rhys made a little noise Jack wasn’t entirely sure was voluntary, the sound a little too close to a sob instead of a sigh. It had been several days of this, now, slowly escalating to the point that Jack was actively invested in the unhappy looks on his PA’s face. He couldn’t leave it alone any longer.

“Hey. Rhysie. What gives?”

Rhys looked up sharply, a slightly-caught look on his face. “Huh?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. You’ve been mopey all day. Don’t think I didn’t notice, buttercup.” Technically not a lie. But Jack didn’t volunteer that he’d noticed days prior. “What’s the matter? You get dumped or something?” he teased with a smirk.

The expression on Rhys’ face went stricken, and Jack frowned. No, that couldn’t actually be it. Rhys was, like, in love with that guy. Never shut up about him or whatever hot dates he had lined up or outings planned. The way the PA doted and bragged to Jack about how well things were going sometimes even made the older man jealous.

No one put that much effort into dating him, after all. It was usually the other way around, in Jack’s opinion.

Rhys had an anniversary coming up in two days that he’d asked him the day off for, too. Maybe his dinner reservation was cancelled or something. A total bummer, but nothing Jack couldn’t help with if it took that look off the younger man’s face. Being Handsome Jack’s personal assistant had to come with some perks.

“Rhysie, baby, it can’t be that bad. Come on, tell ol’ Jack what’s wrong.”

“That’s exactly it, actually,” Rhys didn’t deny. He knew he’d been feeling pathetic but if Jack noticed then it really said something. “I got dumped. Go ahead and laugh.”

Jack was going to do anything but. “What?? Who’s laughing? That guy dumped you?” Who the hell would dump his PA? Jack was offended on his behalf. “After all those cute little lunches and shit you showed me you made for that loser?"

He’d believe the other way around; Rhys was gorgeous after all. But as far as Jack knew, the younger man had seemed pretty happy with the nameless jerkwad that kicked him to the curb. That Rhys had been moping for days bothered Jack significantly.

“What a butthead,” Jack stated simply.

Rhys slightly snorted a little at that description of-- well, was he even an ex-boyfriend now? The way he’d been dumped, Rhys got the impression that he was the only one who had thought they were a committed item. “I don’t… I don’t super wanna talk about it…”

“No? You sure, buttercup? I can always put out a hit on him.”

Rhys snorted again, but the smile he gave as he shook his head was watery. “Please don’t do that, Jack. It’s not-- It’s not his fault or anything. I just… misunderstood what we had.”

Jack wrinkled his nose at that, but didn’t comment as it was clear that the younger man was taking it particularly hard. Sounded like the guy was a grade-A jerkwad in Jack’s opinion. He certainly didn’t deserve Rhys. If the younger man was half as good a boyfriend as he was a personal assistant, then the guy was an idiot and a jerkwad.

Rhys busied himself in tidying up his desk a little self-consciously as Jack watched him with a considering frown. “...You sure I can’t have the guy whacked for you, pumpkin? Volunteer him for R&D’s bio-division? Target-practice?”

Rhys snorted and ignored Jack, though a wan smile took his face.

It was better than tears, at least.

Two days later, Jack sat at his desk in the early-morning hours with glasses on and a screwdriver in hand. His coffeemaker lay in pieces strewn across the desk before him. And Jack was super wishing for a cup of something strong right now indeed.

He held a curly, spring-looking thing in his hand, squinting at it in scrutiny. He wasn’t sure the machine needed it, and wasn’t entirely certain it belonged to it, anyways.

Maybe he should’ve cleared his desk from the odds and ends he’d been tinkering with early that morning, but then he’d desperately needed a cup of coffee, and the damn light kept blinking but no caffeine was forthcoming. Which left him with only one option.

His favorite place in the hub wasn’t even open yet, and even under threat from Handsome Jack himself, it would take so long to get the employees to the store and the roaster going, let alone bring it up to him. Jack could be patient, but he wasn’t that patient.

So… he was fixing the machine.

He lost himself to testing connecting wires to the heating element, pleased that everything seemed to be conducting correctly, and he set it aside into the ‘okay’ pile of stuff he’d checked. The curly-spring sat next to it in the ‘maybe’ pile, and everything else strewn across his desk was being categorized under ‘guess we’ll find out’.

Jack was looking into the dispenser-module when the doors to the office whooshed open. He looked up with startled puzzlement as Rhys strode through, cups of coffee in both hands and bag slung over his shoulder.

The CEO checked the time, and then the date to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, brows knit together in confusion as his PA raised a brow of his own at the mess on Jack’s desk.

“Is that… the coffee maker?” he asked, setting Jack’s own overly-sweetened usual on the desk next to what used to be the start-mechanism. “How long have you been here? Did you even go home last night, Jack?”

“Yes I went home,” Jack said honestly, though it had only been for a few hours before some emergency at one of their Eridium mines had called him back. Some time before he seriously needed a caffeine fix.

The CEO took the cup from the desk with serious gratitude, immediately sipping with a sigh of appreciation. He could feel his headache from annoyance already going away. He turned his attention back to Rhys, the younger man picking up the water-spout from the ‘okay’ pile with a frown.

Jack met the look the younger man was giving him, shrugging as he put his attention on the piece in Rhys’ hand. “Yeah, I’m fixing it. It wasn’t working, the light was blinking…”

Rhys looked at him with disbelief. “The ‘add-water’ light? Seriously? For the reservoir in the back?” His expression was half-amusement and half pity, but definitely condescending in a way that only made Jack smirk. Rhys knew he knew better. And it was also a judgment on the almost-correct assumption that Jack had slept in the office again.

It was one of the things Jack liked about Rhys-- he wasn’t so scared of him not to poke fun. He cared if Jack was getting proper sleep or not. And the longer Jack looked at him-- with the knowledge that he’d taken the entire coffee maker apart over an empty reservoir- the bigger that shit-eating grin on the younger man’s face grew.

Jack knew he should’ve just gone back home to sleep for a few hours instead of remaining in the office after the mine was dealt with. He was an engineer, dammit. He’d way over thought the problem. Wasn’t thinking straight at all.

Maybe he got the date wrong, too.

He took another appreciative sip of his coffee, giving Rhys a once-over. “Didn’t I approve your day off, kiddo?”

Rhys’ smile somewhat wilted, turning a bit awkward. “Uh, yeah…”

“Then what’re ya doing here, cupcake? Don’t get me wrong, I really needed this crap,” he said, gesturing with his cup, “like, really-really. If the mess doesn’t tell ya. So what gives?”

“Um… I only asked for the day off because me and-- and--” Rhys looked away in minor humiliation, though he didn’t bother keeping it to himself. Jack already knew, anyways. “I’d thought I was going to be having a romantic anniversary date today,” Rhys laughed as if it didn’t bother him half as much as it clearly did. “Since that’s clearly not happening, I decided to just come in.”

He looked embarrassed, as if it was anything Rhys himself should take responsibility for. Jack really would like to punch the asshole that had dumped Rhys. Right in the nose.

“Hey, his loss, my gain, right?” Jack tried for nonchalance; to bring Rhys’ mood up with usual familiarity. Rhys rolled his eyes, though he’d succeeded in making one side of the younger man’s mouth quirk in a smile.

Rhys went to his desk as routine, setting down his coffee and bag as Jack sat at his own. The CEO frowned at the unnecessary mess. He’d taken it apart pretty quickly, but putting it back together…

“What’s on the roster for today, pumpkin?”

Rhys looked up from where he sat, lowering his coffee cup from his mouth and swallowing the sip he’d taken. “Well,” he began after swallowing, pulling up the older man’s schedule. “Not much. There’s an echo-call with the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve down on Pandora… And a few department walk-throughs, weapons testing if you wanted, but that’s really about it.”

“That’s it?” Jack echoed with surprise. “Rhysie, kitten, if the day was gonna be this uneventful, you should’ve just taken it off. Have a spa-day or something.”

Rhys pouted in his direction for the older man’s lack of tact. “It’s uneventful because I thought I wouldn’t be here to assist you,” he said petulantly. “I cleared your schedule so you could just test prototypes, or something else you’d have fun on your own with that needed to be done.”

Jack’s brows were raised in clear surprise at the thoughtfulness of the younger man, even as Rhys sent him an impressive scowl. Here Rhys had planned to be away celebrating some romantic anniversary, and the PA had still tried to confirm a fun work day for Jack.

He didn’t have to do that. Hell, he could’ve forced the CEO to finally do all those budget-meetings he knew he hated. Or set up various interviews by those requesting an audience with him. He hated those things. After that little creep in genetics or whatever wanted some grant to clone him…

Well, the enthusiasm was nice at least.

“Count on you to be the perfect little PA,” Jack praised with a smirk, “but if I were you, I still would’ve chosen to sleep in. And before you say anything, I did go home last night,” Jack reiterated with an arched brow as he took a big, unapologetic slurp of his coffee.

Rhys snorted and shook his head. He appreciated Jack’s exaggerated mannerisms. It was normal. Jack being Jack. Distracting from the actual humiliation he felt over thinking his ‘boyfriend’ had been…. Well, his boyfriend.

At least he’d been dumped before wishing the other man a happy anniversary. That would’ve been a hundred times worse in Rhys’ opinion. “It’s not like I’m going to any of those reservations I made by myself, Jack. That’s just sad. And I’m pretty sure it would be pathetic to ‘be mopey’ at home all day.” Rhys was paraphrasing Jack’s own words from days previous, but the sentiment was the same.

He didn’t want to be alone with the humiliation he still felt.

Jack’s gaze stayed locked on Rhys’ own until the younger man looked away a bit somberly. He’d maybe thought the conversation was over for the most part, but the gears in Jack’s brain began turning as he considered his jilted PA.

He wanted to do something nice for Rhys. To make him feel better about the asshole that dumped him. It was such a disappointment to have had a day of fun lined up only to try to forget it ever existed. Jack wasn’t exactly familiar with the feeling himself, but he thought he could probably relate. He wanted to try to, anyways. To show Rhys that he was still a hot little leggy commodity; that Jack appreciated him and the things he did for him.

He had a couple ideas about how he could go about that.

And hell, maybe Rhys would enjoy spending some time with him, too, outside the sometimes interesting parameters of the job of being Jack’s right hand man.

“Hey kitten,” Jack spoke before he could stop himself, a smile on his face as his gaze met Rhys’ own. “How about you still have that romantic little day you planned out, hm?”

Rhys’ brows raised into his hair with bewilderment before furrowing with a pout. “I didn't want to spend the day alone,” he repeated previous words. His voice took on a bit of a sour note, not bothering to hide his mood at the perceived slight. “Am I bugging you or something, Jack?”

Jack’s smile turned to a smirk. Whether he was actually mopey or not, Rhys’ sass was still intact. “Damn baby, that asshole did a number on you, huh?” Rhys’ pout deepened into a full-blown frown, but Jack’s smirk turned toothy. “I meant, if there’s nothing important to do today otherwise, let’s just screw around.” The look Rhys leveled at him now made the older man roll his eyes. “Not like that. Geez you’re sensitive today.”

“You’re not funny.”

This was already blowing up in his face before he even got started.

Luckily, Jack knew Rhys’ weakness well-enough: “I have one echo call, and crap that frankly I’d rather save for the next time you try to make me go to a budget meeting,” Jack began quickly, “so why don’t we go get ice cream at that place you’re always telling me about or something instead? Eat out somewhere fancy for lunch, huh?” he proposed. “What other neat shit did you have planned today, pumpkin? You don’t wanna go it alone, I get it-” Jack said pointedly, “-but there’s no reason to miss out on fun because of some dick-bag, right?”

Rhys looked at him with open disbelief. “Really? Are you serious?”

Something about the tone of the younger man’s voice made the CEO feel warm under the biosynthetic skin that was his mask. Jack just grinned what he knew was a charming smile, ignoring the heat in his cheeks at the plaintive look on Rhys’ face. “I sure am, buttercup. Consider it a celebration of dodging a bullet, huh? At least you didn’t waste anymore time with that jerk.” Rhys’ lips twitched at the beginning of what might be a smile. “What’s the first thing you wanna do, huh? ...I can still set it up to have this guy dodge actual bullets, ya know.”

Rhys snorted but shook his head at the suggestion, trying to hold back the smile that wanted to break on his reddening face.

Jack wanted to dedicate a day to him, huh? That would be nice. The older man liked getting his way and always being in charge, but Rhys got the sense he genuinely wanted to do something nice for him.

He might’ve rejected the offer if he thought Jack was doing it out of pity alone, but then he was pretty sure the older man didn’t know what pity was. Jack probably just wanted a reason to further screw around all day and not work, but he sure didn’t need to include Rhys if that was his real goal… even if Rhys had thought he was trying to make him go home at first.

That was pretty damn thoughtful where his boss was considered. Jack generally only knew big gestures, but the offer to do his day with him, like he’d planned before being dumped...

Well hell, Rhys had had a nice couple of things set up before all his feelings were crushed. He’d felt too humiliated over the situation to have even cancelled his reservations and appointments, but he was also slightly depressed over missing out on them. He’d been looking forward to it. The restaurant reservation alone had taken him a month to secure, even with dropping Jack’s name.

It didn’t matter now, though, since Jack himself would be with him. The level of service was certainly going to be better than if he’d been with his not-boyfriend, that was for damn sure.

“Well… the ice cream shop was actually one of the stops in my plans,” Rhys admitted through the smiling blush on his face. He wasn’t sure yet if he wanted to let his hopes get too high, but it might be fun doing most of the same planned activities with Jack. It was better than going alone, at least. They’d probably get better service throughout the day, too.

Jack hopped up from his desk, abandoning the mess that had once been his coffee maker to come and stand before Rhys with a grin. “Cool! Great! Let’s do that then!”

Rhys gave him a look with a sort of lopsided smile. He angled his view around Jack, leaning to pointedly look at the older man’s desk. “What about the coffee maker?”

“Order another one, kiddo. Something fancy and real obvious about where the water is supposed to go. Hell, get an automated one and have the plumbers hook it while we’re gone. Never run out of water again! Ha!”

Rhys snorted at the idea, but he already knew the one he wanted to replace it with. Out with the old, in with the new. The old one had worked fine, but it was outdated and more than ready for a replacement. He counted it lucky that Jack had happened to the coffee maker. Jack could fix it if he put the time in, but it was easier (and more fun) to just buy another.

Little did Rhys know that his life was about to get the coffee maker experience in sum-total.

Both the good, and the bad.

kofi | ao3

#rhack #rhys the company man #handsome jack #rhack fanfic #borderlands fanfic #my fic #poisonjack #theyre gonna catch THE FEELS #they're gonna catch THE FEELS™️ so hard hahaha!!#im extremely exhausted ill let the piece speak for itself xD #might get smutty for the last bit i havent entirely decided... but we all know my number dont we? BAHAHA XD #the second part should be out soon enough but if ya'll wanna subscribe over on ao3 i'll have updated tags later too :)#PURGE OUT! xD

96 notes · View notes

searchingwardrobes · 4 years

Text

The Convenient Groom: 1/?

Okay, I know what ya’ll are all thinking, and I agree: I don’t need another WIP! However, I woke up this morning with this idea, and I just had to write it. What’s more, I was looking for the perfect gift for @spartanguard. You see, I missed her birthday last year. I got on tumblr, saw all these birthday wishes for her, and my heart sank. For some reason, I didn’t have her birthday on my list! I hated it because not only is she one of my favorite writers, but she is also an incredibly kind person who I have come to know as a wonderful fandom friend. So, @spartanguard, I know it isn’t your birthday, but this fic is for you!

This fic has two inspirations: one, the Barenaked Ladies song “Alternative Girlfriend,” but mostly it’s a book I read called The Convenient Groom by Denise Hunter. I normally avoid book aus because it feels way too close to plagiarism, but a Hallmark movie was made from the book and it was a HUGE disappointment. They made it an engagement of convenience instead of a marriage and basically got rid of all the steamy moments. It’s been forever since I read it, anyway, and this first chapter that came to me this morning has vast differences already. Anyhoo, I hope you like it @spartanguard !

Summary: (Is one even necessary? Haha!) Killian Jones just happens to be there when Emma Swan gets the phone call that changes everything: her fiance is leaving her at the altar. The thing is, it also could mean the end of her career. Convenient that Killian has nothing better to do that day. Convenient that he’s secretly in love with her. Not that Emma has to know that.

Rating: M

Words: 2,000 and some change in this chapter

Also on Ao3

Tagging the usuals: @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @distant-rose @welllpthisishappening @optomisticgirl @ohmakemeahercules @teamhook @bethacaciakay @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @delirious-latenight-laughs @resident-of-storybrooke @vvbooklady1256 @thislassishooked @hollyethecurious @nikkiemms @jennjenn615 @stahlop @snidgetsafan @scientificapricot @shireness-says @spartanguard @wellhellotragic @tiganasummertree @branlovestowrite @let-it-raines @carpedzem @profdanglaisstuff

Killian Jones would never forget the first day he met Emma Swan. He’d been focused intently on the rocking chair that the Nolans had ordered for their new baby, and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” was booming throughout his workshop. He always worked to classic rock; it put him in the best creative zone.

Suddenly, the shop was plunged into silence, and he straightened in surprise. Standing there, with the cord to his portable speakers dangling from her hand, was a veritable goddess with anger sparking from her light green eyes. She was dressed in a simple pair of dark wash jeans topped with a cream blouse, yet her trim figure still drew his eyes. He’d never had a thing for blondes, but her golden hair had him re-thinking that. She had caught him so completely off guard, he stood there gaping like a mere boy.

“I’ve got a client upstairs trying to pour her damn heart out, but I can barely hear myself think with this noise rattling the walls.”

Ah, so this was the new tenant in the office upstairs. Killian smirked and sauntered into her personal space. “Well, love, I’ve been told I’m rather good at rattling the walls.”

He hardly knew what had possessed him to say such a thing. Before Milah, he was well known for his charms, but that had been years ago.

The blonde narrowed her eyes at his innuendo, though the blush upon her cheeks sent a far different message. “Not your love, buddy.” She tossed the cords at his chest, and one of them slapped him in the jaw. “Get yourself some damn earbuds.”

She strode towards the door, her high heeled boots tapping loudly on the concrete floor. “It’s Killian Jones, by the way,” he called out after her, “Ms . . . “

“Emma Swan,” she tossed over her shoulder, “and it’s doctor.”

He saw her often after that. It was difficult not to. Storybrooke was a small town, and they shared office space, after all. Their building on Main was also right across the street from Granny’s diner, the only place for a decent cup of coffee and a cheeseburger. Or grilled cheese and onion rings in Swan’s case. They’d crossed paths during their lunch break often enough for him to know her regular order. Yet to say Emma Swan had walls was an understatement, and just casual conversation was a challenge. One he had a rather enjoyable time tackling, honestly.

Yet she never came into his wood shop again. Until one day six months ago, to put in an order. She had stood there in his lobby where he met with clients and rough sketched their custom orders looking uncharacteristically nervous, her hands twisting at her waist. He had noticed the diamond sparkling on her left ring finger early on, and she fiddled with it now. He had never met the man who had given it to her, which he had always thought was odd. Especially considering how passionate Emma was about her career. Even stranger, Mary Margaret had never met him either, and Emma rented the loft from her and David. No one even knew the man’s name. Something was off about that, if you asked Killian. Not that anyone would.

“Can you make a wedding chuppa?” she blurted out.

“Aye,” he said as he leaned against the front counter, “I made one for Marco and Granny when they wed last fall.”

“Good,” Emma breathed out, but then her forehead creased with worry. “Marco’s Jewish, isn’t he? Is it okay to use a chuppa if you aren’t Jewish?”

“Hmmm,” Killian contemplated, rubbing at his chin, “is your fiance Jewish?”

“No,” Emma said with a shake of her head, “but we’re getting married outside, and I wanted some sort of focal point, you know?”

“Well, then,” he told her honestly, “I do think a chuppa has religious significance, so maybe an arbor or archway would be more appropriate? I’ve done those as well . . . “

He had come around the counter then and led her to the sitting area where he brainstormed with clients. He had shown her photos of an arbor he had made for his friends Eric and Ariel’s beach wedding, and several other options online. He found out many things that day: the location of the wedding (the gardens behind the old mansion on the outskirts of town), the flowers (middlemist roses), the color scheme (pale pink and wine red), and the date of the nuptials (late June). Yet he still didn’t know who this mysterious fiance was. Odd.

“He doesn’t like the attention from my career,” Emma had attempted to explain, twisting her engagement ring around her finger, “and I get it. There would be a lot of scrutiny on him and our relationship.”

Killian nodded. Everyone knew about Dr. Swan’s bestseller Seriously, Ladies? which supposedly guided any woman on how to avoid disastrous relationships. Women swore by it, and Emma also had a blog and a podcast. The media was salivating over her upcoming marriage, including the identity of Mr. Right himself.

“And I need your discretion on this,” Emma continued. “The media doesn’t know the wedding date yet, and I -”

Killian placed his hand on hers. “You can trust me, Emma. I won’t tell a soul about this order, much less when or where it will be delivered.”

He had worried that his word wouldn’t be enough, yet Emma had deflated with relief. “Thank you. I know this is a weird situation.”

“You deserve happiness, Swan.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know that? You know nothing about me.”

Killian had shrugged. “You’re somewhat of an open book, love.”

It was true. Despite her confidence, he could recognize another wounded heart when he saw one. Whoever this fiance was, he wasn’t doing a very good job of healing it, either, at least in Killian’s opinion. Otherwise her eyes wouldn’t still hold that haunted look.

The order meant, for both good and bad, that Killian saw Emma Swan more often. It was good in that he got to know her better, saw her smile, heard her laugh. It was bad for one horrible, terrible reason. For him, at least. Six months was long enough for him to fall in love with her - the woman he was making a wedding arbor for.

Killian sighed, his heart twisting painfully, as he covered the gorgeous arbor of carved mahogany with a moving blanket. Today was the day. For him, it felt more like the day of a funeral than a wedding. This man, whoever he was, better love her the way she deserved. It was all he could hope for now.

“Killian, what the hell do you think you’re doing!” He whirled from the arbor to see Emma marching angrily across his workshop. The scowl on her face was identical to the one almost a year ago when he first met her. “Why did you send the moving crew away empty handed? Please tell me you finished it.”

“Of course I finished it, Swan,” he retorted, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. Wasn’t she supposed to be giddy, flushed with eagerness, floating on air? Instead, she looked so stressed he feared she might give herself a heart attack.

“Then why didn’t you send it to the mansion? Are you being difficult on purpose?”

Killian tilted his head and grinned saucily at her. He couldn’t help it, teasing her was just too much fun. “Though getting you riled up is rather fun, I wouldn’t do that to you on your special day. I just didn’t trust anyone but myself to deliver it.”

“Oh,” she said lamely, biting on her lower lip.

“I was just about to load it up, actually. Want to see it?”

“If it’s not too much trouble . . .”

“Of course not.”

He pulled the moving blanket off, revealing the dark wood with intricate carvings of flowers, vines, and swans. Though the occasion it celebrated tore at his heart, he had never put so much work into a piece. He poured the beauty of the woman it represented into every detail. Emma’s eyes lit up as she ran her hands over the woodwork. The caramel stain brought out the natural beauty of the wood, but it would also make the delicate blush of the roses pop once the florist draped the arbor with them.

“It’s beautiful, Killian,” she told him softly, “exactly what I told you I wanted. More, actually.”

“Thank you,” he managed to tell her around the sudden lump in his throat.

The moment was broken by the ringing of Emma’s phone. She fished it out of her jeans pocket and pressed it to her ear. Killian busied himself covering the arbor and preparing it for transport while Emma paced across his workshop.

“Walsh, are you insane?” he heard her snap, “Our wedding is only six hours away!”

Killian tried not to eavesdrop, but as he glanced Emma’s way, he saw her face grow pale.

“Seriously? You’re doing this to me now?” Though her voice was harsh, her body trembled as she sank to an empty crate next to the table saw.

Killian frowned. He didn’t like how this sounded.

“These are all things you could have told me yesterday!” Emma’s voice rose. “Or better yet, last week, last month.”

She glanced over at Killian, and her face turned bright red. She shifted so that her back was to him. She lowered her voice as she spoke into her phone, but Killian still heard her.

“Is there someone else?”

Killian’s jaw clenched as he saw her shoulders fall and then begin to shake. The bastard.

Her voice was broken as she choked out her next words. “Well I hope you’re very happy together.”

She hung up and dropped her cell phone. Killian winced as it hit the cement floor. She covered her face with both hands and wept silently. He crossed the room and gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What am I going to do?” she wept. “Oh, God! What am I going to do?” She turned to Killian, her eyes wide and frantic as she clutched at the front of his shirt. “We invited the media to the wedding! It was the only way to keep them from hounding us during our engagement. Now they’ll get an even better story - relationship guru Dr. Emma Swan gets jilted at the altar. I’m ruined! My career is over!”

She was on her feet, pacing the floor, tugging at the ends of her hair. He wanted to tell her she was overreacting, but he couldn’t lie. In this day and age of cancel culture and internet trolls, she would be ruined.

“You’re going to think I’m an opportunist,” she continued, “but my wedding day was also going to be the kick off for my next book. Tomorrow they’re announcing it’s release.”

“I’m not judging you, Swan,” he assured her. “What’s the new book?”

“Ladies, It’s More Than a Wedding,” Emma said sheepishly, “about how to plan for your marriage and not just the wedding.”

Emma groaned and dropped her head against the nearest wall. Killian was silent for a long moment, rolling an idea around in his head. She might shoot him down, call him crazy, but it was worth a shot.

“No one knows who your fiance is, right?”

She looked at him curiously. “No.”

“So . . . couldn’t anyone stand in for him?”

Emma’s mouth dropped open. “Are you crazy? Once the media knew it was a farce, things would be even worse. I have interviews lined up already. A promotion tour for the book. It’s about more than just the wedding.” She barked out a laugh. “Isn’t that ironic?”

Killian leveled her with a steady gaze. “What if it wasn’t a farce?”

She blinked. “You mean . . . like, actually marry someone else? Today?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Emma let out another sarcastic chuckle. “Who the hell would agree to that?”

Killian wet his lips nervously. “I would.”

Emma shook her head in surprise. “You?”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m here, and I have nothing better to do today.”

“We’re talking about getting married, Killian. You know, commitment? Till death do us part?”

“Well,” Killian said slowly, shoving his hands in his jean pockets, “you need to stay married to promote your book, right? What are we talking? Six months? A year, at most?”

Emma’s brow furrowed as if she were contemplating it. But then she shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this! It would never work! How would it look if I got divorced in a year?”

“Or an annulment. You could blame it on me. I cheated on you or something. Make me out to be the bad guy.” He chuckled sardonically. “You might even get another best seller out of it. Dump His Cheating Ass, Ladies.”

He managed to get a real laugh out of her at that, and he smiled. Her mirth was short-lived, however. “But why would you do that? Tie yourself to me for a year, let your own reputation be damaged? What’s in it for you?”

I’m in love with you.

“I could use your help. With my family. Professional help.”

Emma narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okaaay. How so?”

“My brother and his wife. Their marriage is a little rocky.” LIe. Liam and Elsa were relationship goals if he ever saw it. “I think it’s because her sister Anna and her husband Kristoff had to move in with them.” Another lie. They had moved in, but no two sisters were closer than Anna and Elsa.

“So why don’t they just make an appointment?”

“They, uh, have this thing about therapy. They think it’s a sign of weakness. Or an embarrassment. Anyway, but if you were around, you could casually help them out. I think you and Elsa would hit it off.”

“So you want to marry me in exchange for free counseling for your brother and his wife?”

She sounded skeptical, and naturally so. He tried to play it off. “My brother means everything to me. He’s all the family I have left. Plus, my niece and nephew deserve a steady home life, unlike what we had as kids.”

Emma and Killian just stood there looking intently at one another. He held his breath, fully expecting her to call him crazy and walk out the door. Her gaze darted to the arbor, now ready to be loaded onto the trunk.

“It would be a shame not to use that beautiful piece you made.”

Killian tried to hold back his smile and failed. “Consider it my wedding gift to my bride.”

“Okay, groom,” she told him with her hand outstretched for him to shake, “it’s a deal.”

#cs ff #cs modern au #cs marriage of convenience #the convenient groom #for spartanguard #on her birthday

91 notes · View notes

silverhandstouch · 3 years

Text

!!OPINION!!

Just a heads up, this is my opinion. Don’t have to read if you don’t want to, don’t have to interact if you don’t like it. Live and let live, dudes. I just read something about class action against CDPR because of Cyberpunk 2077? And I don’t understand? I didn’t really follow the trailers and everything pre-release, I only knew it would be released someday and there’d be Keanu Reeves content. I have no idea what promises were made and (seemingly) not kept by CDPR. But it must be big, because nothing I’m seeing concerning gameplay, or bugs on older consoles is (in my eyes) a good reason to bash the game, or cancel CDPR. Every game has difficulties in the beginning, just after release. Hell, Skyrim released in 2011 and still has bugs! I remember it being a big deal back then, it’s still a big deal that Bethesda seems to have made it their mission to release almost done games and just relies on the modding community, but I digress. For a massive game like Cyberpunk 2077 I’m surprised how well it runs on my PS4 (which is like 5+ years old and has been on more than not since!). The game crashes less than Fallout 4 does, The bugs I experienced (like the stats for a weapon showing up even after closing the inventory thing, or the mini map randomly vanishing, or not being able to pick up the phone or change the camera while driving) aren’t a big deal for me. Nothing I couldn’t fix with a quick save and reloading. There were no broken quests (I read the new patch broke a part of the main quest line) and while I don’t agree with the way the whole gender and romance thing got handled, I don’t think CDPR should be cancelled. They’re working on it. Releasing patches and trying to fix mistakes. I’m personally giving them the benefit of the doubt, considering the information and experience I have, and the fact that I have no clue how hard programming must be. (CDPR employees must be working their butts off to get the patches out!) I don’t mean to say they didn’t make mistakes or we should just suck it up, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Mistakes have been made, users are disappointed and that is something CDPR has to deal with. And to me it looks like that’s what they’re doing. I’m enjoying this game very much, what else would you expect from a blog like this. It’s okay if you’re upset, it’s okay if you think the game sucks, but please don’t flood people who enjoy the game with everything that’s wrong with it. Or CDPR. As for the class action thing... it feels a bit premature. I haven’t been a Playstation user for long (ca. 5-6 years) but I haven’t experienced a publisher pulling their game from the PS Store before. They’re acknowledging mistakes, taking the negative press and apologizing. Not saying users shouldn’t make use of their right to sue, but... maybe not yet? Give them some time, maybe? Anyway, let me stop this here, before I ramble too much.

#CDPR #CD Projekt Red #Cyberpunk 2077 #controversy #opinion #me #mine #my post #cyberpunk2077 opinion

2 notes · View notes

ddaenghoney · 4 years

Text

chapter five

masterlist link in blog description.

As a successful songwriter, you want nothing more than the acknowledgment that the chart-topping musical pieces are your own creations. But contracts, relationships, and the difficulty of facing the stakes involved head on, keep your mouth shut until pressure builds too much.

Pairing(s): Park Jimin x Y/N, Min Yoongi x Y/N

disclaimer: any characters depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Series warning(s)/genre(s): Chapter-based written fic, Slow-burn relationship(s), Fake-dating, Unrequited love, Songwriter/producer!oc, idol!Jimin, idol/songwriter/producer!Yoongi, friends with benefits, drama, romance, smut, angst, fluff (updated as needed)

Chapter warning(s): none.

Word count: 5340

if you enjoy please, please let me know!

The onslaught of work involved in helping a girl group ready themselves for their upcoming comeback left you thankfully busy. Personal preference dictates whether your input in the songs’ meanings is used; some idols prefer to create their own interpretations of the songs so that they’re not completely absent of the creative process, while others let you tell them in detail what the lyrics are intended to mean so that your touch isn’t completely lost. In either scenario, the idols generally think of what is more respectful to you, and the mixed opinions of what that means has been long undefined. At this point, you don’t care either way. The song won’t be remembered as your creation, whether the true meaning is stated or not makes no difference.

In any case, the quartet of girls in this group preferred your meanings. Along with that they’re also grateful for you to help in sound arrangement as well; letting things be put together in your vision. Timing-wise you’re happy to help them out, eager for long hours to be focused on various tasks rather than the instances of running into Jimin around the company.

Before you know it, it’s not as cold throughout the daytime, and Namjoon’s conversations with you commonly track back to his conception of menu items for spring that seems to be moving in fast.

“Y/N,” Your stupor disturbs at Yoongi’s voice. You turn in your chair, finding him peeking from the opening of the company lounge, “My stylist wants you to see her when you can.”

Along with the passing of time, the pictures dropped New Year’s Eve of you and Yoongi died away in the online forums after being publicized for a week on multiple magazine headlines. Despite Yerin stating you both would act as a couple, SoundWave never made an announcement confirming what the pictures seemed to mean to everyone. You were silently grateful of the fact, ignoring it and hoping it would drift into the corner of thought and forgotten entirely. The idea crushed from an email notification on your phone last week sent to both of you stating you needed to go on a date sometime to renew the public’s interest.

“Okay.” You nod your head at Yoongi and he leaves practically the second he hears confirmation. Like Jimin, you haven’t spoken to Yoongi much in the past month and a half. Just as you assumed, his perception of you dropped when he learned of your position in the company. You can’t be bothered to clarify anything with how you’ve felt lately anyways.

Still, his dismissive attitude in that moment causes your eyes to roll, and you spin on the chair back to your open laptop and half-finished, now cold coffee. How in the hell the two of you could manage to interact in a way that resembles a couple is beyond you. Nonetheless, he hasn’t mentioned his desire to rebel and skip out on the date idea, so you can only assume he intends to follow through with the demands.

“I picked out some outerwear from a sponsor on his upcoming album.” Yoongi’s stylist is peppier than either of you about the occasion, and you almost ask her to go on it in your place. She guides you to a near empty rack, only showcases three elegant and expensive coats of vastly different styles. “I wasn’t sure what sort of things you wear usually, so there’s some variety to help you make a comfortable outfit. I’d really appreciate if you’re out seen in one of them though.”

You nod, actually happy that she mentioned taking your preferences into consideration. It seems to be a concept unfamiliar to Yerin. “I wasn’t really going to dress up much. Actually I don’t really know what he and I plan to do for the date. He just said he’ll pick me up at my place at seven.” You shrug, pulling on the sleeve of one of the more eccentric jackets to get a better view of it and the embellishments. Not something you think you could pull off. “Probably stand in a park let people take pictures and go home.” The stylist laughs next to you, pulling another longcoat from the rack and removing the hanger so you could try it on.

“When I saw him earlier, Yoongi was asking me about good locations for a date actually.” She steps from you to look over the coat, analyzing its fit on you. “I like this one, the color is easy to match things with.” You turn towards the mirror, judging the dark blue fabric for yourself.

“He did?” You’re audibly surprised, almost forgetting to pay attention to the clothing.

“Yeah,” She sits back into a chair, letting you move around to test its comfortability. “Well, granted he’s pretty jaded about the whole thing, but I guess he figures he needs to make the best of it?” She shrugs, fingers tapping away at her phone screen. “I guess it could be just to look like you’re both natural.”

That’s true. You shrug off the coat, “I’ll wear this one, if it’s okay.” She grins standing back up and taking the clothing from you, rambling about it looking great and that she’ll put it in a bag so you can take it home, along with some accessories from the same brand that you didn’t have to wear, but it’d be so kind of you to do so. While she moved around you think of how much he intends to present himself as your boyfriend. Frankly, you prefer hand holding to be the maximum public affection. “You worked with Yoongi at the other company, right?”

“Oh yeah,” The stylist steps to you with the large bag in hand, “I’ve been on his styling team for almost two years.”

“So,” You speak slowly, trying to phrase the question best, “If he has a bad opinion of someone, is it likely to change if he gets to know them, or,” You bite your lip, shrugging in defeat, “Is it just something I’ll have to deal with indefinitely?” “He doesn’t like you?” Her head tilts in evident confusion and surprise, “Wouldn’t have guessed. I don’t know though, maybe if it’s a misunderstanding or you both just got off on the wrong foot he may think differently if you clear it up?”

---

If you think about it in the way his stylist explained, obviously clearing up the wrong ideas would be the best solution. In the least it would give the best chance at an amicable work experience from then on, instead of the begrudging interactions that currently occur. Would he listen to your reasoning is the issue.

Your phone buzzes from the coffee table, and the message is what you expect.

Yoongi, 7:14pm: I’m in front of your apartment building.

Y/N, 7:14pm: Heading down then.

You nearly grimace, sliding the luxurious coat over your shoulders. If the entire night is going to consist of monotone conversation or lack thereof while awkwardly clinging to one another like a couple, then you didn’t know how long you could stand it. One date sounds bad enough, but to think there’s an indefinite amount following leaves you sighing as the elevator takes you down.

For some reason you dramatically, in the corner of your mind, anticipate press from the moment you step out of the front door. Like they tail Yoongi for the chance of any abnormal information, or even what brand of cereal he gets at a supermarket. The reality is the low activity of the street in front of your apartment, and the motor of Yoongi’s Audi R8 humming in the midst of it all. The picturesque scene of the beautifully sleek dark gray, shiny finish is what you expect to remember the most tonight.

“So do I get to find out eventually where we’re going?” You ask him after a short greeting mixed with you strapping against the wonderfully pristine leather. Yoongi’s fingertips tap on the steering wheel, a pensive expression making his eyebrows crease,

“Honestly, I couldn’t think of something.”

You nod, pulling out your phone to try and think of your own ideas, “Do you want to eat?”

“Can I ask you something?” He turns towards you slightly, and you realize the car is in park when an arm strays from the wheel to the center armrest. Your body shifts from his as a reaction, apprehensive though unconscious of the fact. Your head tilting yes tells him to go on. “Are you really okay with this all? You accept it?”

“I don’t really have a choice otherwise do I?” Your eyebrows narrow at his assumptions of you. “What do you expect me to say to the CEO? That I refuse to do this all?”

“It’d be a start if you’re also trying, yeah.” The word ‘also’ registers in your head, and you wonder how many times he’s tried to talk his way out of this to Yerin. Or if he had at all. You believe so. From the image portrayed in the public of him, Yoongi nonconforming to the false relationship sounds plausible.

“Maybe you can say something, but I’ll lose my job.” You start scanning through your app of trending eateries in the city. A new place to try so at least something good can come out of the evening.

“She said that?” He’s surprised and you only shrug, still eyeing the device.

“No, but what’s stopping her. I’m not like you where the press is going to question what happened. She has nothing to lose getting rid of me. I don’t contribute like any of you idols, right?” Quiet envelops the end of your small rant, a long breath heaving from your lungs at restarting the frustration you feel. Yoongi notices your fingers stop scrolling along the screen, and your glaring eyes to complete the scowl. There’s more for you to tell, but you’re silent.

“From what I’ve learned, you’re practically the sole reason why the company took off in sales almost four years ago.”

Your head turns towards Yoongi. He lacks an apologetic tone and does not seem particularly impressed either, but something about his eyes gentle, approachable gaze makes you think there’s even an inkling of hope for his opinion of you. Incidentally, no one else has attempted to look up a record of all the hits and award winning tracks you’ve created. To go from nothing to his observative comment, it feels like a step in a different-- new direction.

“Can we go do something, please?” It feels like you shouldn’t dwell on the ideas vaguely present in his words. With the impossibility of change engulfing you in the form of Yerin’s firm words, you didn’t want to think about the world that exists in acknowledging all of your contributions to SoundWave like it feels with the simple sentence of Yoongi’s observations. Because it’s not able to happen. Just the fewest of people know what you do and only three, four now you suppose, have an inkling to acknowledge the fact.

In the drive to a small park a couple of blocks from a restaurant he enjoys, Yoongi and you settle into the quiet of the ride. You can avoid thinking of everything by studying the interior of the car and internally debating on whether you wanted to invest in a driver’s license after all. “Should we go over rules?”

You startle from staring at the digital screen and all of the buttons surrounding it with their countless functions. A nod to cover your daze, then a clearer response that blurts without your mind filtering, “I barely even want to accept holding hands to be honest with you.”

Your hand travels to your mouth at the brash statement, but the nerves clear when Yoongi interrupts your internal monologue of swearing with laughter. Completely amused by your surprised slip of words, and wonders if you had the habit of doing that like you had at Namjoon’s bar cafe.

“Good, we’re on the same page then.” He nods, slowing to a stop at a red light. You stare inquisitively, thinking the avoidance of physical affection to be wonderful considering the situation, and even suitable to the personality you’ve seen of him in the sparing amounts you’ve spoken to him. But unsuitable to the SUGA in papers for over a year. Though he’s never had a public relationship, you only recall an uncaring, do-whatever-I-feel-like persona ever to be depicted.

For the sake of the public’s sight, you both walk through the park, hands clasping together. You both aren’t likely to win any awards for the endeavor, and instead maybe even an ear full from Yerin about a lack of sincerity, but frankly you don’t care. The gentle sway of your arms between one another as you stroll along is enough for you, and endurable when he mentions the pizza at the restaurant to always be hand tossed and have a wonderful soft to crispy ratio.

“What’s your favorite of the songs you’ve made?” The question comes after some languid sips of beer on his end and hard cider on your own. It’s random given the conversation topics from before lead to short replies and silence, whereas the current one is something you think you could talk about for hours if he doesn’t stop you. You hum, slumping back into your seat while Yoongi comfortably drinks more.

“There was this one that I made that was called Puzzles, and it’s about,” You pause, wondering if you’re going to appear like you’re rambling, but Yoongi stares back attentively. “I guess just the idea about pressures holding someone back and how it’s difficult to overcome your own self to try and achieve something you want.” His eyes drift and you take a long sip, assuming you bored him.

“Is that one a group hasn’t used yet?” Yoongi asks after consideration, his lips almost pouting at himself being unable to recall the title ever appearing on the charts. You’re a little stunned by the response, having not expected him to try and remember the song.

“Oh, it was released under the name Meteor Shower.”

“Why?” More confusion in his voice. You refrain a disheartened smile from the truth of it,

“Just what they decided.” Dissatisfaction in your voice registers in Yoongi’s ears. “I don’t really have a say.” You go on, fingers tracing against the condensation of your drink’s glass.

“Jimin,” Your head raises in an instance at the name he says. Yoongi notes the action and falls briefly into silence, then goes on slowly, “He was the one who used that song, right?”

You bite your lip at your impulse, wishing you have better control over your reaction to just his name in the air. You nod at Yoongi’s answer, not minding a lack of follow up questions. When that fact of the song comes back into the light, you remember also how Jimin’s never heard the meanings behind songs that he’s used of yours. Always preferring to create his own interpretation so that he wouldn’t be completely taking from you.

“I hope he’s not mad at you for having to do this whole relationship thing.” Yoongi comments quietly, staring towards the tabletop that awaits a pizza. When he thinks about it, he hasn’t seen Jimin around the company at all to apologize to him about the situation at hand, considering himself to be a part of the cause for the false relationship occurring in the first place.

“He’s not. Don’t worry about it.” You say before inhaling. You take a large gulp of the sour beverage as Yoongi looks at you skeptically. Setting the now empty glass back down, you exhale, avoiding eye contact but smiling emptily, “He and I aren’t anything anymore. Really don’t worry.”

As an opposite reaction, Yoongi’s mouth parts in shock, immediately thinking that what happened outside of Namjoon’s cafe, just a simple offer to wait with you until the taxi arrived, caused not only the mess of a fake relationship, but now dissent between you and Jimin. The waiter settles the pizza on the table, steam flowing from the top, and toppings perfectly cooked just as Yoongi had told you. You ask for the same beer as Yoongi before the waiter quickly disappears to other tables.

“You both what?” You turn towards him, not expecting to be met with his horrified expression, “I’m sorry-- I’ll talk to him for you, if he’s angry-”

“He’s not.” You shake your head, hand raising to stop him from worrying further, and hoping to end the conversation before you’re able to dwell on everything like you’ve agreed with Namjoon not to do. “Really, explaining things would give me a headache-- I’ll probably cry too, so I won’t get into it,” You laugh slightly, somewhat nervous Yoongi thinks. “Point is: it’s not your fault. It’s over-” You nod your head once with your ending remark. The hand you have raised curls into a fist at that statement and Yoongi bites his lip. “This pizza looks delicious and I want to think about that.” You nod further until Yoongi head joins in your forcing agreement, then quickly shovels a large slice onto your plate.

Minutes pass eating pizza, and Yoongi finishing his beer before your second arrives, then him also ordering another as well. And there’s an understandable drop in conversation. A comment on the food being good on your end and Yoongi nodding, happened to be mid-bite when you speak the words so he’s unable to respond. So instead he contemplates how it’s possible that every topic about you that he tries to start ends up with being made to say something that upsets you. He thinks about those silly conversation starter threads and wonders if their dumb questions would’ve been a better way to speak than his purely innocent question of your favorite song you’ve made.

When Yoongi thinks more about what you’ve said, from the time you entered his car until the finishing conversation before the pizza arrives, he feels uncomfortable about the information you have disclosed. Even if Yerin hadn’t verbally threatened your job, just the fact that you felt like it would be gone the second you try to take a stand against the current way things are sounds incredibly bleak. When he considers the other idols in the company that he’s asked about you, it makes sense that you think that though. They’ve only mentioned small things, muttering uncertainties whenever he commented that it didn’t seem right for your songs to be credited to another name.

And with your complacency to the fake relationship, Yoongi wonders exactly how much control Yerin hovers over everyone in the company. Or if it’s just you that’s particularly handled so that you’ve learned to just accept things as they come.

Your plates lie empty on the table, save for the unfinished pizza crust from the last slice you tried to finish. Beside them are the second set of empty beer glasses, where Yoongi’s elbow settles next to his. He leans his cheek on his hand, your arms crossing over your front as you lean back in your seat. Your face feels warm and half of you blames the speed you downed the latter half of your beverage. Yoongi glances arbitrarily beyond you as other patrons enter the restaurant, not particularly focused on them or anything in the place. Just wondering how the hell he was supposed to do this every time Yerin sent a demand to your email accounts.

“Joon’s place isn’t far from here.” Yoongi’s eyes flick back to you as you stare aimlessly at the table. You go on, glancing to him, “Walking distance.”

Yoongi pays despite your protest that you would. All it takes is him simply reaching the cashier first, while you’re still managing to pull your coat back on. Your glare when he meets you has him shrug, taking your hand as he leads you both out despite your pouting expression. “Think of it as an apology.”

Despite your claim of closeness, the walk will take about fifteen minutes you say after already going far enough for it to be a little ridiculous to turn back around and walk an even greater distance to retrieve his car. Yoongi doesn’t change in disposition at the information, just a passive nod and an observation that the weather outside wasn’t that cold anyways.

“Can I say something now?” You ask him walking along the cement beside little shops in the park area that were starting to close for the evening. People roaming up and down around you to their own dining activities or other. The streetlamps buzz awake, luminating the way free of bugs in the wintertime.

“Okay.” Yoongi recalls saying that paraphrased line earlier. Has a hunch this is your time to bring about a conversation that would need to be forced into civility among the general public.

“I don’t like lying to people.” You say into the cool air, and Yoongi refrains from frowning at the randomness of the statement. “When I got into this job, I didn’t think it would lead to much. I thought it’d be insignificant. I didn’t have the foresight and I was stupid for not thinking about the long-term, sure,” You exhale and Yoongi remembers the conversation in the elevator. He bites his lip, realizing how his words never settled on your end. Why would they. “I guess you can think whatever you want about me, but I don’t like what I am in the company either. So don’t act like you’re the only one.”

You find Namjoon behind the counter when you both enter into his establishment. Releasing Yoongi’s hand, you start to shrug off your coat in the warmth of the cafe while Yoongi does the same with his jacket. Namjoon appears surprised to see Yoongi with you, though you told him you had to go on a date with him that evening, he never expected you to bring him to the cafe. You sit on your bar stool while Yoongi takes the one beside it, looking around at the relaxed environment because he hadn’t taken the opportunity the first time he was there.

“How’s the date thing?” Namjoon asks already having the answer from your responsive scowl and Yoongi’s dismissive shrug. Yoongi then pauses in consideration, glancing between the two of you,

“Wait, you told him?”

“He’s my best friend. From college, remember?” You say in return simply, tracing patterns on the counter. “I’m sure you’ve told someone you trust about this mess.” Yoongi’s head tilts in acceptance of that information, then looks to Namjoon as his arms cross over his chest.

“Did you both want something to drink or eat?”

“We just had dinner.” Yoongi tells him while you counter the question with a nod. Namjoon resists a humored smile at the lack of contentment stemming between you both. He knows it’s rude to laugh at all given the parameters of the relationship, but it’s still funny to look at when you’re both on completely different pages.

“I want the dessert drink I had the other day.” You say, “Get Yoongi the same one, I need to pay for something tonight.”

“You don’t.” Yoongi rolls his eyes, pulling out his phone as he feels a text notification. While he replies to it you give Namjoon a look that says you do in fact need to pay. Namjoon nods once in response and walks off to make your drinks, laughing to himself once he’s turned away. “I’m sorry about always saying something insensitive to you, by the way.”

“What do you mean?” You continue tracing patterns on the wood, watching from a distance as Namjoon prepares the drinks as if you’ll ever be able to replicate whatever he does.

“Well I think you’ve ended up mad at something I say every time I’ve spoken to you.” You turn your head resting on your palm to face Yoongi, nearly combatting his thoughts until he continues along quieter, “And it’s usually warranted. Especially what I said to you in the elevator.”

The reflection he’s taken towards his words is clear to you. You’re somewhat upset with yourself at his apologies, because he’s commonly sent them in your direction when he feels like they’re needed. You believe he’s judged what he sees and hears of you, but you’re guilty of the same misinterpretations towards Yoongi.

“I’m just overly sensitive.” You turn the blame towards yourself, and Yoongi shakes his head, stopping you from going further into self-deprecation.

“I was angry in the elevator about this dating thing, and took it out on you because of how confused I was when you told me about your job.” He pauses at the word, eyebrows creasing to quickly add, “Which, yeah, I don’t like it, but I don’t know the story behind it, so,” He shrugs, “Frankly I can’t rationalize it, but I think you really don’t like it too, so I’ll stop being a jerk about it.” You bite your lip, nearly chuckling at an inappropriate time from his apologetic rambling. Humor drifts from your eyes when Yoongi finishes, much softer, more resigned, “And if someone brings up subjects that hurt to talk about, you shouldn’t feel sensitive about it. It’s not your fault that some things are hard to discuss.”

You sense that there are his own memories swimming through the insinuation of the words. Obviously, Yoongi has past events that would give him the same scraping feeling to bring into the surface, so perhaps it is something he’s reminding himself by saying that. Nonetheless, the sentiment is comforting.

“You’re right.” Yoongi glances towards you, biting his inner cheek when your lips cast the smallest of smiles. Grateful, he thinks. But more importantly like the ground beneath you both feels even again.

Namjoon returns settling cups on saucers before you both. Cutely decorated with penguins for the winter season, foam frothing barely over. “This has alcohol in it,” He tells Yoongi while you’re scoffing as you reach for one. “I doubt she ever told you, because she drinks it like water, but just so you know.”

Yoongi nods a little, smiling at the tidbit of information while you mutter something about being a strong drinker and that’s it. “Actually, I forgot. I’m driving aren’t I.”

You and Namjoon both look at Yoongi, whose face appears slightly embarrassed and just as surprised at the fact.

“Joon, this is your chance to drive an Audi.” You tug at Namjoon’s sleeve, watching him recoil away,

“No thanks, driving’s not my thing.” You squint, while Yoongi resigns and sips at the sweet dessert drink that tastes to him something like a hot, spiked, milk tea. “Y/N, I already piss the workers off when we used to go go-karting.” You nod at the memory, smiling softly as you recall them practically ready to yell at him when he somehow managed to drive out of the track.

“I’ll get us a taxi.” Yoongi says, enjoying the drink immensely as he continuously drinks. You open your mouth to protest as Namjoon beats you to it.

“Always a taxi with you two.” You and Yoongi both glare at his words, watching Namjoon’s arms rise in defense, then he side-steps away, “Heard my name getting called from somewhere--” He ignores you shaking your head at his nonsense. “Be back eventually.”

“He’s a dumbass sometimes, sorry.” You finally take the first sip of your drink while Yoongi sets his glass down. Nearly empty, he attempts to savor the rest.

“It’s okay.” He says simply, finger tapping quietly while trying to register the song that plays in the background. You feel like the silence is more bearable, at least amicable. The warm drink in hand is easy to enjoy; a nice difference from when you both scarfed down pizza to avoid further conversation.

“What’s your favorite song that you’ve made?” You finally return the question nearly two hours later. Yoongi smiles at the fact, then sits upright in his seat, considering the different songs and their various importances to him. Yoongi hums to let you know he’s just thinking. You smile towards him, finding his craned neck to look towards the ceiling while he mulls it over slightly endearing.

“Closure-wise So Far Away means the most to me.” He answers, thoughts in his head warm at the mention of the track. You take only a second to recall the one Yoongi refers to, and shift on your seat towards him, nodding,

“I love that song.” You’re reminded of the time you heard it on shuffle in a new release playlist, that particular period of your life having been stressful for various, multiple reasons, but the night it came on you were able to escape and just enjoy the lyrics. “I think it’s still one of the songs that’s always in my ‘most listened to’ playlist from the end of last year.” You go on, not catching Yoongi’s intent gaze and lips tightening to refrain from any type of proud smile. Instead he appears a little shy at your apparent affection towards his song. His hand strays to fidget a small rub on the back of his neck while your sentences conclude and you’re left finally realizing your actions. “Oh, I’m sorry, I went a little on my own tangent there.” Flustered. You take a sip of your drink while Yoongi just shrugs, smiling a little flicker towards the bartop,

“No problem. I’m sure you know there’s no overboard when telling someone how much they like something you’ve made.” He’s in his own thoughts for moments, recollecting scrolling through social feeds for hours after releasing new tracks to see the response. Hearing an audience sing back the lyrics and pull out signs telling him that his work is meaningful, comforting, helpful-- heard. There’s nothing other than appreciation for your words in Yoongi’s head.

Until the silence lingers and his neck turns back towards you. Your thumb traces the outside of the ceramic, eyes in the direction of the foam settled on the drink. A contemplative expression that appears also unfulfilled. Yoongi’s lips part to speak but he says nothing as he realizes that you’ve likely never had a fan or listener to your creations tell you their opinions of the songs. Any feedback from the public is directed to other faces, and you’re never the receiver.

On the ride to your apartment, Yoongi considers your age, and the time you’ve worked with SoundWave. The contract your under, the bits and pieces of the circumstances he has the information of. Refraining from lingering conversations of your situation, and opposed entirely to speaking to Yerin in favor of a change. Yoongi glances at you as you look out at the passing roads under city lights wrapped in January breezes. You’re absent of a fresh appearance like most of the population drifts into at the beginning of a new year. He thinks it’s disheartening, maybe even worrisome that if situations had been different for himself that he could’ve been in the same position that you’re in.

The position.

Yoongi frowns as the cab drives from his apartment, recalling the softness in your eyes and the forced, but amicable smile you gave to him when you exited the taxi at your stop. With his hands tucked deep into his pocket he remains motionless outside the building, chill trying to seep through the layers of his clothing, but he ignores it. Thinking instead of the sympathy that trickled into his chest when he heard the silence following his comment of hearing people say things about songs. The sympathy because he knew you felt the same: you’d enjoy listening to the sort of things fans say about your music. But Yoongi also felt a panging sensation saying you shouldn’t be unable to relate to him. The songs and some production even are entirely yours.

And to Yoongi you’re owed the acknowledgement from the world as such.

if you enjoy please, please let me know! i hope you enjoy the series, i’m working really hard on it! : )

tag list (send an ask to be added): @jaiuneamesolitaiire @tsvkino-usagi

#yoongi imagine #jimin imagine #bts imagine #yoongi fic #jimin fic #bts fic #yoongi #jimin #bts #yoongi fluff #jimin fluff #bts fluff #yoongi angst #jimin angst #bts angst #all #series veil

78 notes · View notes