#which ened with me deciding on a style because the others did something else | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ghetto-omega · 6 days

Text

‎‧‎❀‎✿❀Omegaverse Culture Overview❀✿❀

𑁍 warning.. I am.. African American... Never been outside the US, so I can really only speak on the culture around me. If people wanna weigh in on culture from other places please do. Actually, I'm begging, I'm rolling over, I'm listening please please please please please please please please please please volunteer your own headcanons. 𑁍

This will be a short overview of a lot of things, so it's just gonna be a lot of thoughts and not a lot of depth. However I am planning on actually making an indepth post about each one of these topics.

With that being said...

‎‧₊˚✿Food✿˚₊‧

𑁍just general food headcanons𑁍

The omega stereotype is craving carbs and sweet foods, specifically because of what they're like after heats. Most energy during heat is depleted, so in order to get their stamina back they have to eat all of carb heavy foods

The alpha stereotype is craving tough or crunchy foods, because of their ruts. With biting instincts ramped up they tend to want things that are harder to chew through. It's like the equivalent of putting a live cricket in a spider enclosure because they want the stimulation from hunting their food

Carb and protein filled foods tend to be stocked in most houses. Especially filling carbs. Families are typically very large, with multiple generations all living within walking distance or in the same house. Keeping dense foods stocked is important to keep everyone fed

Pups in particular tend to have slightly stricter diets because their stomach isn't built for handing some foods until at least their preteen years

‎‧₊˚✿Names✿˚₊‧

𑁍naming your children, as well as derogatory names𑁍

I think that people would tend to name their kids after items that smell good, their favorite foods, other family members, plants, and religion

I also think they'd be a fan of situational names as well as generational names

For example, have three kids, one being named Sunday (situational, born on a Sunday), Suzie (maybe a pack members or a family members name), and Sumiya but her nickname is sushi, and all of the names starting with "su" makes the names generational.

You could even expand on that and have all the packs kids names be something like suki, sumirah, summer, summo, ect. Giving you a quite literal generation of names. (<- my family did this ! All the girls names end in "ah" and all the boys end in "en or on")

I can also see a kid being named something like Foxglove, Cedar, Jasmine, or even something like Honey or Teatree, because that's what the parent's mate smells like

I think calling an omega a "slick dripper" or a "slick house" is uhm... Not exactly a slur but it's not something you should say.

I think that married betas and omegas are told they are "Collared". It's typically derogatory, but there are exceptions. I think the alpha equivalent would be "Bitched", which is basically always derogatory

I think some people call betas "baren" or "scentless". Once again, not a slur, but definitely something close to it lol

‎‧₊˚✿Housing✿˚₊‧

𑁍pack houses and their differences𑁍

There's two different notable styles of home. There's a regular house, and a pack house

Pack houses don't have too much of a difference, but they are larger and tend to follow similar layouts. With one floor being taken up with giant meeting rooms and similarly size kitchens, as well as at least one bathroom with either a huge tub or multiple small ones. The upstairs floor(s) tend to house all the bedrooms and a few smaller on suite bathrooms

Some pack houses are essentially just mini mansions, completely with a few different wings of the house all marked by a different meeting room

And the term "meeting room" is also a difference. They're essentially just big living rooms. Why is there a different name, isn't that a bit pretentious? You ask. Bc some guy who thought he was better than everyone else coined the term pack house and decided there needed to be a difference, for some reason

‎‧₊˚✿Families/Packs✿˚₊‧

‎𑁍general pack headcanons𑁍

Big families !!! Huge families even !! Families that take up entire neighborhoods or culdesacs !!

Conversations between kids where they ask how many mom's someone has is common !! Kids ask their parents why their friend gets to have 5 dads but they only get to have 2 !!

Not everyone's parents are romantic !! Some are just part of the same pack !!

In my personal au I use prime omegas and prime alphas, but they're just titles for the leaders of the pack. Even then, modernly they aren't doing much leading. It's more event planning, pupsitting, tie breaking lol, things like that

Your primes do not have to be mates or anything. It's just about who's the most reliable and level headed. Oftentimes, anybody who stays home for most or all of the day falls to this roll by default

‎‧₊˚✿Clothing✿˚₊‧

𑁍a few clothing headcanons𑁍

Collars aren't typically worn outside casually. Typically they have a cause. Whether it's newly weds, protests, covering scent glands, or some secret 4th thing, they typically have a purpose.

Honestly this whole section would need to be it's own post for me to do it justice tbh

Clothes that "trap scent" are pretty commonly worn. They're made of a light but thick fabric that cinches or cuffs around the scent glands and they often comes in matching sets. This is especially common in omega targeted gym wear, but there are sets made for everyone

Nuns also typically wear this type of garment

‎‧₊˚✿Other✿˚₊‧

𑁍miscellaneous headcanons𑁍

Gift giving is very important. Specifically, giving food is very important (I am biased, I am a very food orientated and motivated person). Giving someone food they don't like by accident is alright, but if you know they don't like it, and give it to them? Disrespectful.

So I'm semi familiar with the Christian Bible, I grew up going to church (<- religious trauma haver). You know how a lot of people draw Jesus as white even though he very much wasn't ?? Yeah I think people claim Jesus was an alpha, but he was a beta and there's overwhelming evidence in the Bible to show he was beta and people just ?? Ignore that bc they want to lol

Some people are born with animal features, some aren't. The place you were born in + your parents (and maybe a little plot relevant magic lol) determines what type of features you get. People who live in deserts or next to mountains are often born with horns or scales, while tropical and temperate climates tend to be born with more feathers and furry features

Heat blockers/suppressants as well as rut blockers/suppressants can only be prescribed by doctors. Giving them out or selling them can land you in prison post haste, but they're also so hard to get your hands on that the market of people buying them counterfeit grows everyday, despite the complications and risks

Blockers and suppressants can lead to fertility issues as well as immune issues, particularly in omegas, but don't count out anyone with ruts either, it's just less common. Lots of people on blockers are immunocompromised

Scent/pheromone blockers on the other hand, are much easier to come by, especially because they sell patches right over the counter. Though, if you wanted a much more discreet pill you would need to get those prescribed as well. It is particularly hard for omegas to get them prescribed, as usual

And that's it for now U⁠^⁠ｪ⁠^⁠U

This post is basically just a giant reminder for me to write about these topics in depth. Just a whole lotta surface level thoughts. I also didn't cover weddings, holidays, mating rituals, social climate, etc. so I'll have to do separate posts on those

This took a bit longer than I wanted bc I am uhm. Suicidal lol. And then there's the drake v Kendrick beef and I've been fixated on it. Like I fr don't even like K dot that much I've just always hated Drake fuck that nga !!!

If you see a spelling mistake... No you didn't...

17 notes · View notes

gashface · 11 months

Text

HEY GUYS!!! ,

This weeks prompt, was set out to learn more about your models, and delve a bit into their lives! <;3 These stories should be an important moment in their life, or just a memory that shaped them.

WARNING: This weeks prompt has a couple trigger warnings, which will be listed above the edit, so keep this in mind and proceed with caution <3

With this in mind, onto the results! This week I was looking for edits that embrace your models story again, but from an earlier time in their lives. The main focus was on storytelling this week, and the edits reflecting this story. Whether this be directly, or in an abstract manner.

Charline Morel by @cyazurai

“Quand il me prend dans ses bras…” Fifteen-year-old Charline could hear her own voice singing, and she knew she was, but there was no heart in it. She hated singing. Well, perhaps she didn’t hate it, but through the circumstances she had grown to despise it. “.. qu'il me parle tout bas…” A tear streaked down her left cheek and she avoided her mother’s disapproving gaze. Beside her, her little sister Delphine enthusiastically played her violin to accompany her as they entertained their parents’ guests. “... le vois la vie en rose.” Another tear, this time on the right. This was not a sad song. This was a happy, romantic song. She should be putting her all into it, but all she could feel was the walls closing in. She was surrounded by people she could no longer see - they were just becoming only silhouetted blurs, judging her and family. They must be perfect. This happens every year. It was her parents’ New Years Eve party, and every year it was her and her sister’s obligation to make sure not to disappoint the hundreds of prestigious guests their parents invited. They had to be perfect or else. She hated this. She hated it. She didn’t want to be forced to sing just for a little bit of positive attention. Why did she have to do this? Why did Delphine have to be perfect at the violin just so that their parents might agree to let them go out for ice cream (when it wasn’t even a guarantee)? It was unfair. It was at this moment that Charlie realized she didn’t want to do this anymore, and so as the tears streamed down her cheeks, she decided to pour her heart into it one last time - because next year, she was going to be her parents’ performing monkey over her dead body.

POINTS

ORIGINALITY: 8/10

STORY: 10/10

EXECUTION: 9/10

STYLE: 9/10

Parker Winston by @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy

TW!: Suicide, self harm, mental health

Hi! My name's Parker, and I've tried to commit suicide multiple times. I know you're thinking that's a morbid and socially awkward way to introduce myself, but hey, it's a big part of my story and who I am. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot more to a person than just their mental health, but a lot of the time, these things tend not to get discussed, period. Let alone when we are trying to get to know somebody, so for today, I hope we can put that stigma aside, and I can tell you a little about my journey.

I have ADHD, and depression is something I have lived with as far back as I can remember. By the time I was twenty, I had tried to kill myself three times, I had a family that didn't talk to me, I'd cut my arms up so much my forearms were more scar than skin, my heart was crushed by someone I thought was the love of my life, and I was hooked on anything I could get my grubby little hands on.

I think about that shit a lot, the things I did, and the decisions I made. I think about the person I was and the person I am today.

They're wildly different people, but now that I'm able to see it from another side, I realize one can't exist without the other. I would've never learned the things I did, and I couldn't have grown from it. It was hell, and I had to claw those life lessons from my struggle like a damn wolverine, but hey, I survived! Despite my best efforts... Yeah, I know that's not funny, but if you don't laugh sometimes, you'll cry, and I'm sick of crying about it.

I hated who I was, and I had a hard time coping with everything I did, not just the suicide attempts but everything. Though I finally realized I couldn't change the past, but I could change the future.

I could get help, and I could make sure none of that ever happened again. I can't change the past, and it aches to know that somewhere in space and time, that kid is still struggling, and I wish I could talk to him... I don't know what I'd say to him because I know he wouldn't listen and probably just lift my wallet. But I still want to hug him, tell him that really it's all going to be okay, that he needs to let go of a lot of shit and learn to love himself, then I'd tell him to get rid of that asshole's shitty T-shirt.

The pain you feel, it's not for nothing, but it's also not forever. You'll learn from this, and in a way you least expect it, it will come full circle. Ease up on the drugs, stop cutting, and get yourself some help. I know you don't think you deserve it, but you do! And believe it or not, one day you're going to have a lot of people that want and need you around. This shit doesn't get any easier, but it does get better. You just need to let it.

So tell that jackass his band ain't shit, tell your parents they're full of shit, and tell your siblings you love them even though they all suck, hang onto your friends, don't be so scared, let yourself feel, and listen to yourself once in a while! You know yourself better than you think, and you know what you need, and guess what! The answer isn't always coke! I can't help that kid anymore, but I can help the one's reading this, and if in this moment you feel hopeless, do me, a stranger on the internet, a favor. Take a deep breath, know that it gets better, and reach out to somebody! You deserve help, you deserve love, and you deserve to be alive! With love, - Parker W.

POINTS

ORIGINALITY: 9/10

STORY: 10/10

EXECUTION: 7/10

STYLE: 7/10

Ember Arendse by @wolfrynn313

Ember: "When I saw this week's prompt,I knew that I had to recreate a childhood photo of me at the keyboard with my Mum/Mom. I've always been creatively inclined and so have both of my parents and brothers; I thought it important to focus on the crystallization of my musical inclination and creativity, hence the feature of ice freezing in place. I realized who I was pretty early on and remain to be proud of the person that I grew into."

POINTS

ORIGINALITY: 8/10

STORY: 8/10

EXECUTION: 8/10

STYLE: 8/10

Dillion Carter by @mewo-ita

Idea: Cherished memory of being with family at a rollerskating rink’s 80s night.

“Figured I should say something myself this time. My comfort place for the past decade whenever I feel overwhelmed to do anything has been this rink.

I discovered it the first three months after being adopted. I barely talked to anyone an’ just prepared to go back to the orphanage. That never stopped my new family tryin’ though and one day, we put on retro clothes and drove down to this place. It was 80s night, like it is now, and my sisters who I brought today helped me skate.

“Beat it” was playing in the background and I ‘member it being the first time I smiled in years. I was wearing a tomodachi my ma brought me and had no clue what soul or funk was, but I loved it. Did a lot for my confidence and ability to be around strangers— I don’t think I’d even consider being a model if not for that experience. I’d say it affected my fashion sense too, in a good way; makes me more open to change and bold colors.

Sure my folks will be able to find me here from now on; they didn’t know where I went off to before. S’not too bad.”

POINTS

ORIGINALITY: 9/10

STORY: 10/10

EXECUTION: 9/10

STYLE: 9/10

HOLY MOLY GOOD WORK GUYS!

I just want to say, thank you for all the effort you put into every weeks prompt. Your dedication is amazing x it makes hosting this so much fun

The next prompts will be released 8pm aest 25th of June.

Thanks guys x

- Buddy

Prompt Hint:

#SHINE #week5 #week 5 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims4

15 notes · View notes

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 7 months

Text

Round-up of new stand-up I’ve seen/heard in the last week:

Hari Kondabolu – Waiting for 2042 (2013), New Material Night Volume 1 (2013), Mainstream American Comic (2016), New Material Night Volume 2 (2012-2018)

This completed my Hari Kondabolu collection, which I should have done ages ago. I really liked him from The Bugle, so a while ago I watched the things by him that I could find for free (his Problem with Apu documentary, his 2017 Netflix special, his 2023 special that he put on YouTube). He also had all this other stuff on Bandcamp, which is great and I absolutely believe in buying things on Bandcamp if they’re available there because it’s the best way for the biggest proportion of your money to go to the artist. However, I’ve had lots of stuff in my Bandcamp cart this year and I’ve been spreading out my purchases, and hadn’t gotten to Hari Kondabolu. I’d love to say I finally decided to pay for his stuff there, but actually, my mother found an iTunes gift card in her basement and gave it to me because I’m the only person she knows who still uses iTunes to organize my music. So I bought it there, which is less good for the artist than Bandcamp and it supports Apple and everything, but it also benefits him way more than it would if I streamed it on Spotify, so it’s not that bad.

Anyway. This was overall really good, and made me think it should have come higher on the list. The is a weird thing for me to have started noticing, but I think Hari Kondabolu is one of the comedians who’s closest to making the type of jokes I’d like to make, in my own illustrious comedy career (a career that so far consists of four six-minute open spots, three of which have gone relatively well and one that was a disaster, and I’m booked for my fifth spot this Monday, so obviously I’m ready to compare myself to Hari Kondabolu). That’s a thing I’ve started noticing, as I’ve started trying to write stuff myself at the same time as listening to this stuff.

Weirdly, I think the only other person who’s made me think “this is the approach to comedy that I’d like to take” as much as Hari Kondabolu does is Pierre Novellie, and those two comedians are quite different from each other, so I’m not quite sure what makes me think that about both of them. They have no similarities in topic or even style, but there might be something in common in the mechanics of the jokes, if you take them apart to see how they were made. I love how well they all fit together. It’s fortunate that Hari Kondabolu’s topics are about what it’s like to be an Indian-American man living in New York City, so even if I want to do what he does, I couldn’t steal his actual jokes, even subconsciously. Pierre Novellie, meanwhile, talks about what it’s like to be a pedant with what was once called Asperger’s Syndrome who used to be really into reading fantasy novels, so… I’ll just have to use willpower to avoid repeating those ones.

Anyway. The point is that I love the way Hari Kondabolu writes. He’s not writing Edinburgh-style themed comedy hours or anything, but he’s still got a lot of structure for an American, I think. I love that he released the two new material albums; they feel genuinely, to use to term that I feel slightly cliché for using, raw. There’s one bit where he makes a joke about his girlfriend and then gets upset when he realizes she’s in the audience because he’d thought she’d be somewhere else that night, which of course gets bigger laughs than his actual jokes, and I might assume that was staged, except that it did significantly derail the conclusion to which he’d been methodically building for some time. You’d think if he'd planned it, he’d have planned it better than that. So I’m pretty sure he really was just recording a night no matter how chaotic it turned.

The first new material album is all from one night in 2013. A bit of that material ended up on his 2016 album – little enough so it doesn’t feel like you’re paying for the same stuff twice by buying both, but enough so it’s interesting to hear how it developed within a few years. His second new material album is his favourite jokes of all the stuff he recorded at this comedy club in Seattle where he worked stuff out between 2012 and 2018. Obviously that one’s less coherent, as it wasn’t all part of the same night. But there was some quite good jokes in there.

I love how carefully planned a lot of his jokes seem. Also, when listening to them in chronological order, you can see how he gets more confident in it. He tries for more ambitious structure, lets himself go longer in between punchlines for the sake of a bigger payoff. On his episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, which I think is one of the best I’ve heard, he talks about how he learned that you can do this from Stewart Lee, and got better at slowing down and planning out his sets after getting into Stewart Lee’s stuff. A statement that sounds trite if made in a British accent, as British comedians trying to imitate Stewart Lee are a dime a dozen. But Americans could maybe use a few more people trying to imitate Stewart Lee, and it works really well for Hari Kondabolu.

He does not actually sound like Stewart Lee in any way, I wouldn’t recognize the influence if I hadn’t heard him talk about it in an interview, but now that I have, I can see how he drew his jokes out more and more as the years went on. Also, the breadth of subjects of his references are almost Lee-esque, though Hari Kondabolu has a fair bit more pop culture in there alongside the more obscure stuff.

Anyway, I’ve gotten unnecessarily technical about this, so I think I should also mention that the shows made me laugh. Content-wise, it’s about what I’d expect from Hari Kondabolu. Mainly political stuff, about race in America and racism in America and gentrification in New York. The occasionally story about his life. A breadth of references from highbrow to lowbrow, humour often coming from the oddness of combining the two. Occasionally making the structure of a joke part of what’s funny, which I always enjoy.

More references than I’d have liked to Tumblr, not because I find them offensive or anything (they were all jokes about how he doesn’t want to get shamed on Tumblr for the way you could take something he’s said out of context and wildly misinterpret it to be politically incorrect, which is fair enough because Tumblr has absolutely been known to do that, though I’d say these days you’re less likely to see that sort of thing here than on Twitter or elsewhere), I just don’t like famous comedians knowing Tumblr exists. It’s okay though, because all his mentions of Tumblr are from pre-2015. Everyone knows Tumblr used to exist, they all just think it died in 2015, and I would like them all to continue to believe that. And by “them”, I mean all celebrities, and also everyone else besides the small number of fucking nerds who hang out here. Like I’ve said before, I don’t know how people do Twitter. Make posts about James Acaster or whatever while knowing James Acaster might actually see it (terrible example because he famously quit Twitter, but imagine I’d said anyone else instead).

Dan Rath – Cockroach Party (2022)

I listened to this one because this Taskmaster season has kicked my level of Sam Campbell fandom up a couple of notches, to the point where I’m willing to check someone out based on having read that they may be vaguely similar to Sam Campbell. I read that about this guy, also saw he was recommended by Daniel Kitson this year, and that was enough for me to find his special that’s on the ABC Comedy Podcasts thing (which people should check out if they’re interested in Australian comedy, there are a few good ones in there, my favourite by far being the Alice Fraser one).

I see where the comparison comes from. He’s a bit Campbell-esque in that he throws joke after joke at you in fairly quick succession, they seem unconnected and largely are but then there will be underlying connections and sometimes he’ll stay on a subject for a while, and despite this he’s not a one-liner comic. Not a long storyteller, not a Milton Jones-like one-liner guy, just a whole bunch of observations in a row, some grounded and some more surreal. Sam Campbell and Dan Rath both do that, though based on this one special, I’d say Dan Rath goes quite a bit darker. Seems less big on props and things, but bigger on jokes about death.

I’d also compare him to Sam Campbell in that it’s kind of a fun game to try to work out where he is at a given moment, in the space between reality and a character. A few times he went on a rant for a quite a while, and I assumed we’d left reality behind ages ago, but then he’d connect a few things and say something that sounded sincere and I’d think I could maybe see the little bit of his “real” personality on which he based this. It seems like keeping you guessing is part of the fun.

He had some really good jokes, and at times they change direction so fast that it’s hard to get complacent about expecting them, which means he can make me laugh on an impressive number of new instances in a fairly short time. I enjoyed it. I recommend it to anyone who likes… whatever that sort of thing is.

Greg Larsen – We All Have Bloody Thoughts (2023)

I went into this one thinking it would be similar to the above, as I had once seen someone mention that Greg Larsen is another Australian comedian who’s a bit like Sam Campbell and Dan Rath. And he made a couple of mentions in this show of how he has done stuff like that before, so maybe this one was a departure for him. Because it was different from what I expected – more storytelling-based stand-up, more of the conventional themed hour. But fortunately, I very much like a good storytelling-based themed stand-up hour, and this was a good one of those.

It was really well put together, I thought. A bunch of funny stories in a row, getting increasingly serious in their topic (but not in the way he told them) as they went along. I said recently that all the comedians are scrambling for a USP that hasn’t been used before, and I think he’s got one. I haven’t heard a hundred other comedians tell stories about their days as a goth metalhead teenager. I haven’t heard a hundred other comedians before tell stories about – I don’t want to spoil too much about a show that’s touring now, but he’s got a sexual orientation that you don’t hear about much.

And the topic that he picked to tie it all together was one I was surprised to realize I don’t think I’ve heard done much, as it’s such a common part of life. Maybe I have heard it done, but not from this perspective. I’ve heard comedians tell stories about how it sucks to work in customer service. Haven’t heard many tell those stories while pointing out something deeper behind them, how capitalism interacts with mental health and physical health and fucks everything up, how a shit low-paying job makes people quite justified if they want to engage in a bit of class warfare. He brought in all that stuff, adding layers to what could otherwise be really run-of-the-mill “working a service job sucks” stories, and the result is something with depth and everything, but it’s also really funny.

Then he builds on that, in ways I guess I won’t detail because I’m trying to have a vague policy of not getting to spoiler-y about still-touring shows, but it gets deeper and better as it goes along, it gets personal and also gets political and also ties the personal and political together, and I’ve said before that any show that does all three of those things and does them well will become a favourite of mine. I liked this one a lot.

Natalie Palamides – Nate: A One Man Show (2020)

Fucking hell. I went into this one with no expectations – I’d just heard she was a very good American comedian, so I thought I’d try it without looking her up. I… I should maybe have looked her up. It was very good, certainly. But I should maybe have gone in prepared for what I was going to get. I’d expected conventional stand-up, and then she rode in on a motorcycle in drag, so I thought, okay, it’s character comedy and there are props. That’s fine. I’ve gotten into Zoe Coombs Marr recently, I can enjoy a female comedian doing stand-up while dressed as a male caricature with a physical injury and a lot going on on stage.

It turned out to be quite a bit more intense than a Zoe Coombs Marr show. And quite a bit more theatrical. I looked it up afterward and learned that it’s won a bunch of awards for theatre and stuff, I think it’s a lot closer to physical theatre than to regular stand-up. Is this what people mean when they say “clowning”? I’m never sure what people mean, this might be some of it. It also got fairly x-rated, and pointing that out makes me feel about 100 years old, because obviously cool people who actually go see theatre like this are used to that and would barely notice. But I am not one of those people. I wasn’t offended by it or anything, I was just surprised and distracted by the novelty of it, because I am cultural philistine and/or 100-year-old who is not used to seeing people remove their clothing and wave around facsimiles of genitals on stage.

It also got intense in terms of tackling some stuff about the intricacies of sexual assault in a pretty full-on way, which I think was good as a bit of art, but did make me sort of wish I’d done enough research to read the trigger warning. That wouldn’t have made me avoid it, would just have made me expect it a bit.

Having said all of that, I think this was really good. The character was very funny, The acting was very funny. The themes were good. The points were made, probably, somewhere in all the waving around of things on stage. At one point she brought out a mat and wrestled on audience member, so that’s fun. The interactive elements looked like lots of fun. The costumes were good.

I definitely recommend this one to people who like whatever this is. Which I believe is feminist physical theatre/drag/interactive performance art. But also comedy. Comedy can be anything. Comedy can be melting ice cubes, or so I've heard. Comedy can definitely be wrestling an audience member while wearing fake chest hair and a moustache, if someone wants it to be.

0 notes

werewolfin · 1 year

Text

I posted 19,867 times in 2022

That's 3,755 more posts than 2021!

11 posts created (0%)

19,856 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@silly-bean

@maandarinee

@loonylunalovegood97

@teawithmochi

@gentrychild

I tagged 3,703 of my posts in 2022

#long post is long - 1,873 posts

#video - 1,535 posts

#fic rec - 135 posts

#quizzy - 129 posts

#lmao - 109 posts

#fic idea - 105 posts

#reference - 98 posts

#music - 45 posts

#audio - 39 posts

#lmfao - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#some people are unhinged as in 'the door doesnt have hinges yet' but others are 'the hinges have torn out the wall and the nails stab me'

My Top Posts in 2022:

Something is wrong on mobile. Tags seem to... just look at them! Typing here is fine, it's just tags, but still. As far as I can tell, it's interpreting it as a-ab-abc-abcd without dashes.

0 notes - Posted April 17, 2022

crash

0 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

dreams are something your subconscious tries to tell you

it was basically a time loop where i try to figure out how this guy kept getting murdered at a massive house party but it’s not the girlfriend, best friend (who i was playing as), or even the loner trying to get with the gf. he’s just dead every single time. probably getting murked by several people; i’m pretty sure i killed him once on accident and didnt even bother hiding the body, since it was a party and people would think he was just black out drunk. tried to hide his body on the roof later on though, which just made him get spotted quicker lol.

the party was in the mountains but we were apparently right next to both the ocean and farmland, because at one point the girlfriend sprouted a wing sephiroth style and flew away out to sea. i got the impression she gave up on trying to find out how her bf died in several timelines and didn’t want to get fingered as the culprit in lieu of even any circumstantial evidence, so she sacrificed her ability to swim or land in exchange for flight and left.

i think loner guy got abducted by cannibals in the last one, because it became like texas chainsaw massacre AND the hills have eyes in that there’s a massive inbred family network out there in them there hills that just take people if they want more kids, food, or hunting for sport. There was also a cameo of michael myers because he was apparently just slaughtering them en masse and them trying to put him down but he just did not notice it at all. purely coincidental on his part that he was taking down whole cells.

0 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

dreams are something your subconscious tries to tell you

had a dream i was a dude and i got dressed in pumps and a playboy bunny outfit except the bottom wasn’t a leotard it was a microskirt, so technically i’m flashing cheek with each step.

apparently i did this as a reward or something for my dream state boyfriend, like, straight up in public i am wearing this for him. because of the whole flashing thing being, you know, a thing with this outfit, i decide to squat instead of take a seat, which is something else i feel dream bf would appreciate.

he does not lol.

rather than have sex in ‘real life’ he wants to have sex in minecraft, something i do not have, with mods i also do not have. the force of my disappointment turns me into a lady again.

seeing as i’m lucid dreaming and it isn’t going anywhere fun, i decide to launch off the cliff that’s usually at the back of buildings in my dreams and just start hang gliding or w/e only to get waylaid by the fucking party going on out on the courts. i’m still in the bunnygirl outfit.

i woke up mildly aggravated that i read my dream bf so wrong, which is funny because in actual real life i had never and will never actually date this guy. this is what happens when you see a sick af cosplay and find an anime character with the same specific name the same day lmao

0 notes - Posted January 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i switch to firefox and it fucking breaks not even a day later -.-

extensions no longer loading properly, tumblr just giving me a blank page...

anyone know how to figure out wtf is happening

1 note - Posted September 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#long post is long

1 note · View note

bxtchforstyles · 3 years

Text

Terrible Twos

Harry Styles x Melody Styles

(part of the styles fam series)

In which the third youngest child, Lila, is going through the ‘terrible twos’ stage.

Warning: none

Word count: 1.4k+

gif not mine.

“Maybe three kids were too many.”

Harry laughed at that, making a sour expression towards his wife, making her laugh along with him.”Yeh know, I don’t think it was only my decision.”

“And you know that I was only kidding, I love all of our children.” His wife responded.

Her husband’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist, “It just gets a little much sometimes, doesn’t it?”

That made Melody sigh, leaning back into Harry’s embrace. “I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t love my kids, because I do love them all very deeply, it’s just that-” He cut her off.

“I know, Mel.”

After a few minutes of the silence that took over the couple as they stood in their bathroom connecting to their bedroom, they finally heard the shrill cries of children coming from the bedroom down the hall.

The two of them shared glances, attempting to decide who would be the brave one to fend for their children.

It usually didn’t seem like that big of a deal when someone said they had three kids, because that’s pretty average, and that’s what Harry and Y/N thought when they had their third child. But now that they have three, they were officially outnumbered, making their job ten times harder.

“Don't worry,” Harry presses a soft kiss to his wife's temple. “I got it.”

She let out a sigh of relief, thanking him for he made his way out of their bedroom and into the hallway of their three children's rooms.

The crying wasn't loud, but it was definitely there, a faint noise coming from their youngest daughter.

The pink room was clean, no toys or books on the floor, which was odd to Harry.

Melody must have cleaned her room while trying to get her to nap earlier this morning. She had tendencies of doing that, she couldn't just sit in the rocking chair and wait for Lila to fall asleep, she had to be doing something proactively.

“What’s the matter doll?” He looks down at his daughter, who was standing up on her crib mattress, clinging tightly to the railing.

Her eyes were glossy as she let out small whimpers towards her father. She looked so helpless, and she was. Being only two years old, and having her father wrapped around her small finger.

“Daddy,” The sobs were continuous at that point, making it clear that the little girl just wanted her father.

“Okay, okay.” Harry sighs, reaching down to grab Lila from her underarms, pulling her up and into his chest.

She settled there for a moment, before starting to get fussy again. This shocked Harry because usually all Lila needed when she first woke up were some quick hugs from her parents, she was never grumpy like she was acting today.

“Li, what’s wrong baby?” She was still tossing and turning in his grasp, seeming to try to escape.

Her crying was only getting louder, “Down, daddy! Down!”

A light frown appeared on Harry’s face as he began to wonder why his usually very sweet and cuddly child was acting so out of character.

“Hey, hey.” He tried grabbing her attention, “Before I put you down, just tell me what’s wrong poppet.”

That's when the unimaginable happened, well, to Harry at least.

Lila hit him.

repeatedly, Lila smacked her small fists against his hard chest. Of course, it didn't really hurt him physically, but it definitely hurt his feelings.

“Lila,” He gasped dramatically in shock, “why are you hitting me?”

Obviously she wasn’t going to answer, partly because she didn’t quite know how to form full sentences yet, but also because she was too busy throwing a screaming tantrum. Thankfully, the other kids in the house were already awake, or else she probably would have woken the entire house.

That’s when Melody decided to enter the room before the situation got out of hand. She looked at Harry sympathetically before looking over at her wailing daughter.

Her arms were flailing Towards Melody as she tried to get out of Harry’s grasp, and into her mothers. “Mama! Mama!”

“Okay, okay. I see you, baby.” Melody took the toddler in her arms, cradling her head to her chest trying to calm her down from all the crying she had been doing.

“Man, she is awfully grumpy, aren’t you Lila?” Melody could see the look of pure disappointment that laced Harry’s face as she tried to lighten the mood. She couldn’t tell if Harry was upset or angry, but that really didn’t matter to her because she knew her husband all too well.

“She doesn’t hate you, so don’t you start thinking for a second that she does.” Harry looked up, having a miserable look on his face and light tears starting to well in his eyes. “She’s a baby, who she wants at a certain moment is going to fluctuate, that doesn’t mean she likes me better than you.”

Harry’s arms crossed over his chest, “She doesn’t right now, obviously.”

“And every other time when I come to get her, she’s begging for you!” Melody tries to prove a point, but to no avail. “She loves you Harry, she’s just a grumpy two year old, that doesn’t mean she hates you. She is just starting to randomly decide who she likes and doesn’t like.”

“I know.” He finally gives in.

*******

Lila had completely ignored her father for the rest of the day, and it was really starting to hurt his feelings, even though he didn’t want to show it.

“Lila, baby, it’s time for your bath!” Melody shouted through the living room, smiling as she looked at her baby who was laying on the carpet in front of the TV

Lila was in desperate need of a bath at this point in the night, she had red sauce stains all over her body from the spaghetti Harry had cooked for dinner, and also had frosting littering the area around her most from one of the treats Y/N had given the kids after dinner. ( A rare occurrence in the Styles household.)

“Mommy, do I get to take a bath?” Kennedy, the second youngest of the three children asked from where she was sitting on the couch. Boy did that little girl love bath time.

“Yes, Kenny, after the baby. Okay?” The little girl smiled, nodding in response to her mother.

“Okay, Ly, let's get you cleaned up.” Melody picked up Lila, beginning to carry her towards the large bathroom that was connected to her and Harry’s bedroom.

That’s when Lila began to throw her second tantrum of the day, kicking and hitting Melody as she tried to get out of her grasp.

Melody handled it very swiftly though, quickly stripping Lila from her onsie and her diaper before placing her in the empty bathtub. Usually, Lila loved to take baths, just like the other two kids, so Melody thought this would calm her down.

It did not though, only ensuing the screaming from the toddler.

“What in the world…” Melody sighed to herself quietly before sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking down at her daughter.

“What’s wrong, Lila?” Melody had a feeling she wasn’t going to get a response as the crying got louder. “I thought you loved baths, honey. What happened? Are you hurt?”

Melody was very confused at her usually well behaved toddlers unusual outbursts. She had never acted with such outrageous behavior before, and her mother could only hope this was not turning into a new pattern.

“What is going on in here?” Harry spoke loudly moments later as Melody heard him enter their bedroom.

“We’re in here!” Melody called back as she felt her daughters forehead, wondering if she had some type of fever.

“Lila! Why are you crying baby?” Harry yelled over the screaming toddler as he walked into the en suite bathroom.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her, she’s been fussy all day and I was just trying to give her a bath when she just started screaming, I think she might be sick or something.” Melody rambled, but Harry cut her off by placing his hand on the side of her cheek, smoothing the hair out of her face.

All of the sudden, the cry stopped for a moment, just long enough for the little girl to catch her breath. “Dada,” She sobbed again, holding her arms up towards her father.

“What the hell…” Harry mumbled quietly before looking down and reaching for his daughter, “What happened to being mummy’s girl for the day? Huh?”

Melody could only laugh out of exhaustion as Lila leaned her head upon her father’s chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt roughly.

“I hate to break it to you babe, but…” Harry trailed off dramatically.

“I think we have finally reached the terrible two stage, yet again.”

#styles fam series #harry styles #harry styles blog #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #harry styles x ofc #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #solo harry #dad!harry #daddy!harry

252 notes · View notes

cheri-translates · 3 years

Text

[CN] Shaw’s S2 R&S - A Gentleman’s Promise

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers from an R&S (君子一诺) which has not been released in EN! 🍒

Features S2 Shaw

In terms of sequencing, this is Shaw’s fourth S2 R&S!

[ Chapter One ]

The first time Teacher Zeng met Shaw was three or four years ago.

Back then, he was just a little over thirty, and was still at an age of surging vigour. Based on the results of his online searches, Teacher Zeng carried a bag, bringing along some tools, and came to this mine shaft alone.

Lifting a torchlight with a weak light, he carefully observed the surroundings, trying to search for the stone tablet with the symbol “8″. Despite walking quite far in, he had not been able to glean anything. It was most likely another instance of “mistaken information”.

But he had to admit - this mine shaft was built too loosely. As a graduate in archaeological studies with practical experience, Teacher Zeng guessed that there was sandy soil underneath. For safety reasons, he decided to leave this place first.

That was when the accident suddenly happened.

Teacher Zeng happened to walk into an exceptionally narrow space. Perhaps the mine shaft was too dark and there wasn’t any space for his feet. Just as he planned to turn around, Teacher Zeng felt the ground beneath his feet soften. Knowing that he had unfortunately stepped onto soil which was too loose, Teacher Zeng reacted quickly, attempting to lunge forward. However, the sinking sandy soil was even faster than his thoughts. He was about to fall -

Before he faced imminent peril, he felt an external force grabbing him suddenly!

In the next second, the sandy soil filled the air, collapsing from above. How could a person’s strength withstand the speed of the collapsing soil? Almost immediately, Teacher Zeng attempted to free himself from the other party’s grip, not wanting to become another person’s liability.

As though sensing Teacher Zeng’s intentions, the other party shouted in a muffled voice, “Hey, grab tight!”

All of a sudden, lightning as bright as daytime appeared out of thin air. In the next second, a loud crackling sound of electrical currents seemed to gather into a ball. Along with a few "boom” sounds, the sandy soil and the wall of the mine were instantly exploded open by lightning.

Taking in light and air once again, Teacher Zeng was still badly shaken up. He subconsciously looked at his “saviour”, who appeared to be a young man of around eighteen or nineteen years of age. His head of bluish purple hair was very striking despite the sand and soil that had fallen on it. And in his palm, there seemed to be some electrical currents releasing buzzing sounds.

Even though he’s an ordinary person, Teacher Zeng had seen enough over the years to guess that this young person was likely an Evolver with an ability related to thunder and lightning.

While a sizeable number of ordinary people had issues against Evolvers, Mr Zeng naturally felt very grateful that his life was saved. He panted loudly, thanking him repeatedly. “Little Bro, I’m truly grateful to you.”

“That’s enough. It wasn’t as exaggerated as you said.”

“But you should consider yourself lucky. Leaving someone in danger isn't my style.” The young man arched his brows while speaking, his tone sounding very flamboyant. He looked Teacher Zeng up and down, his gaze sweeping past his weak handheld torchlight and shovel. While brushing his hair lightly, he casually asked, “You brought quite a number of tools. What are you doing here?”

At the same time, Teacher Zeng also noticed the other party’s protective equipment used in archaeology.

That mine shaft was definitely not a normal site for exploration. But according to Teacher Zeng’s knowledge, there were quite a number of people like him who were searching for the “historical ruins” represented by that special stone tablet. He might have the same goal.

Probably because the earlier rescue left a favourable impression on Teacher Zeng, he deliberated for a moment before testing the waters. “I heard there might be an unusual stone tablet in the vicinity. I came to have a look since I was curious. What about you?”

Hearing this, the man’s brows arched high. He patted the sandy soil off his body, standing up in an agile manner. Only then did Teacher Zeng notice that he was really tall.

Carrying a black bag, his lips hooked into a smile. “It’s good to be curious. Looks like we’re kindred spirits.”

Watching the man’s back as he left with large strides, Teacher Zeng couldn’t help but surmise where exactly he came from, and how he dared to take action alone at such a young age. However, when he thought about the other party’s skills, Teacher Zeng tossed aside the thoughts in his head: He should be concerned about himself first.

With this thought in mind, Teacher Zheng opened the notebook he brought along with him. Out of habit, he hastily made a brief record before preparing to leave.

It’s a pity that this was yet another futile exploration.

[ Chapter Two ]

The next time he met Shaw, several years had gone by.

A few years isn’t exactly long, but it was enough to gradually morph Teacher Zeng’s perseverance in the face of returning empty-handed again and again, into a state of giving up on exploration and finding historical ruins.

That morning, Teacher Zeng reached his work department: the Ancient Literature Society of Loveland City. After conducting the routine selection of a theme, he suddenly received a call from the front counter, telling him that someone was looking for him.

Right after stepping out of the elevator, he instantly noticed the especially striking head of bluish purple hair next to the pillar. Teacher Zeng subconsciously furrowed his brows, feeling as though he had seen such a conspicuous hair colour somewhere. Just then, the other party turned his face leisurely, meeting Teacher Zeng’s line of sight.

The young man narrowed his eyes slightly, giving him a contemplative glance from top to bottom, and an almost indiscernible interest appeared in his eyes. On the other hand, Teacher Zeng remained stunned in place, the memories from relatively far away stirring in his mind.

“You’re that...”

Before Teacher Zeng finished speaking, the young man arched his left slit eyebrow. “...it’s really you.” He swept a glance at the surroundings. “This place isn't convenient. Let’s chat somewhere else?”

The desolate flower nursery at a corner.

“The last time we met was an accident, and we didn't get to introduce ourselves.” The 10am sunlight filtered downwards through the clouds, providing a contrast to the glistening colours in the young man’s eyes. “I’m Shaw. The reason why I looked for you today...”

“The reason why you looked for me today couldn’t be because of what happened a few years ago, right?”

Not expecting Teacher Zeng to be so direct, the corners of Shaw’s lips curled upwards. “Since you’ve already asked, I’ll get straight to the point.” While speaking, he retrieved a slightly yellowed old photograph, holding it before Teacher Zeng.

Once he saw the photo, Teacher Zeng lifted his head in surprise. “Why do you have this photograph?”

There were two people in this old photograph. One of them was an obviously younger version of Teacher Zeng, and the other was, astonishingly, Shaw’s mentor.

[Note] Shaw’s mentor is introduced in his 2020 birthday R&S!

Shaw raised the old photograph. “That old man standing next to you left this to me, and said I could look for a helper based on this photo if I ever needed it. I found it a while ago, and realised the person the old man let me look for was actually a ‘familiar person’.”

Teacher Zeng was stunned. So he’s...

Even though Shaw didn’t make it clear, Teacher Zeng already had an answer in his heart.

Shaw rolled his shoulders casually, then continued. “The old man said that you’re really skilful when it comes to online searches and exploration.”

“I’m not that good, maybe just a little faster in searching than ordinary people.” Suddenly hearing Shaw bringing up his mentor, nostalgia flashed across Teacher Zeng’s eyes. “Come to think of it, I just graduated back then, and many things were based on trial and error. Being guided by your mentor for a while was truly a huge fortune.”

“That old man...” Shaw couldn’t help but laugh, but he quickly returned to the earlier topic. “You should also know that we aren’t the only ones searching for the ruins.”

“The speed of one person is limited, so I’m looking for a ‘helper’. How is it? Are you interested in working together?”

After Shaw finished saying this, Teacher Zeng unexpectedly hesitated, growing quiet.

Along with Teacher Zeng’s silence, Shaw slowly retracted the smile in his eyes.

“Actually, in recent years, I haven’t continued in this matter...” A wave of perplexity appeared in Teacher Zeng’s eyes. “I’ve been disappointed too many times over the years. So many times that I’ve gradually lost my motivation despite being unwilling to.”

Shaw’s tone was very calm. “Anticipating failure is something archaeologists should have gotten used to since a long time ago.”

“You might say that, but what exactly is this so-called “ruins”? Whether or not it truly exists - even this answer is a blank space-”

“It doesn’t count as a blank space.” Shaw interrupted him. “Whether they are those picture scrolls kept by the old man, or the notes he left behind, all the records and markings are traces of the real existence of the ruins. As long as they’re around, it’s worth exploring.”

“The instincts of an archaeologist tells me that the secret hidden within it is definitely related to a certain mysterious civilisation. And we might just be missing that final push.”

Teacher Zeng was left in a daze, and he didn’t speak.

Hearing Shaw bringing up his mentor’s picture scrolls and notes, Teacher Zeng’s own notebook, which already had hairy edges, suddenly flashed in his eyes. Actually, there were many times when he wanted to store the notebook in the bottom of his box. But until now, the notebook remained at the top of his drawer even though he couldn't fathom why.

"Although there are times when I dislike how the old man goes on a wild goose chase,” Despite how Shaw said “dislike”, a small smile appeared in his eyes, “But he said something which was correct. As long as you persevere, there will come a day when the secrets within will be revealed. So, as long as there’s a shred of hope, it doesn’t count as a disappointment.”

After saying this, Shaw kept the photograph, then shrugged when he saw how Teacher Zheng remained stunned in place. “But people who are as stubborn as the old man are truly a rarity of rarities. If it’s too difficult, forget it. I’ve never forced anyone into doing anything.”

“All right, that’s all. I’m off.”

“Wait!”

Teacher Zeng called out to Shaw without realising it. His mouth hung open. For a moment, he had no idea what he wanted to say.

A person’s subconsciousness is always the most honest. It turned out that he had never completely let go of searching for the historical ruins. And what he needed was perhaps a person to give him another push.

With this thought in mind, Teacher Zeng met Shaw’s bright eyes. “If you really need it... I could try helping you out once or twice.”

[ Chapter Three ]

After agreeing to Shaw, Teacher Zheng spent the following week using codes and calculations to search almost every corner of the panoramic maps on the internet. He meticulously searched for new locations of the historical ruins, not expecting the progress to go even more smoothly than expected.

“With such speed, you truly live up to your reputation.”

Teacher Zeng sent the location to Shaw. “I’ve found two likely positions. One of them is this abandoned factory building which seems more plausible.” Shaw stared at it fixedly for a few seconds, then curled a corner of his mouth and said, “Okay, got it.”

Next to the railing on the roof, sunlight seemed to be even brighter than usual. Magnificent solar flares leapt in between Shaw’s bluish purple hair. He straightened up, his confident expression even more dazzling to the eyes than the sunlight in between his hair. Shaw kept his phone away. “Since I don't have anything on tomorrow, I might as well take a look first.”

Hearing Shaw saying this so lightly, Teacher Zeng instinctively wanted to give him a cautionary warning. However, since it was only their third meeting, he didn’t really know how to phrase it.

Tidying the hair on his temples which were blown messy by the breeze, Teacher Zeng finally spoke. “I might be overthinking it, but I feel as though it’s been going too smoothly. In the past, I’ve always had to exert double the time to find hazy markings and traces. In short, be more careful tomorrow.”

Shaw arched his brows. “Got it.” Shaw lowered his head to check the time, then waved his hand. “I have class in the afternoon, so I’m heading off.”

That evening, Teacher Zeng slept without a peace of mind, and he woke up just as the sky started to brighten. Rubbing his bleary eyes, he subconsciously tapped open the address that he had discovered earlier, but realised that the markings he saw earlier had vanished!

Were the markings he saw earlier false information by someone on the internet?

Teacher Zeng was startled awake completely. After checking for the third time, he immediately contacted Shaw, but realised that he couldn’t get through no matter what. Feeling anxious, Teacher Zeng rushed to the abandoned building with his quickest speed.

The moment he entered, he saw countless rusty iron sheets and iron pipes. He keenly detected a strange atmosphere: this place was abnormally quiet.

Just as this thought flashed in his mind, a deafening sound drifted from the building in the next second. Thinking of how he had not contacted Shaw yet, Teacher Zeng trembled with fear, sticking himself against the wall of the staircase, and running up quickly.

[ Chapter Four ]

“BOOM-!”

While Teacher Zeng was rushing up, Shaw was facing an unknown attack.

The attacker was hiding in a dark place, and was probably an Evolver who could control metal. The iron pipes in the surroundings were pulled mid-air in an astonishing angle, sent smashing in Shaw’s direction. The air was very quickly mixed with the muffled echos of metal.

Shaw’s eyes keenly swept towards the dark area. As though accurately predicting the other party’s thoughts, he unfurled his palm in contempt, sending crackling lightning towards the iron pipes which are not too far away. With a muffled thud, the attacker was struck down.

Perhaps the consecutive failures had left the attacker in a complete frenzy. In the next second, a loud sound of metal exploded in the air.

But Shaw’s reaction was even faster.

His fingertips instantly crackled with electricity. With a flick of his wrist and a stretch of his arm, along with a frigidly cold “hmph”, the loud sound of electrical currents followed the expanse of metal pipes, striking the attacker like a sharp blade.

Most likely sustaining heavy damage, the attacker no longer cared about anything else, fleeing by jumping from the window in a flurry.

In a single breath, Teacher Zeng ran to the roof of the building, but only made it in time to see the moment a hazy figure leapt out of the window.

Shaw furrowed his brows, lifting his hand in distaste as he wiped the rust off his face. “Tch, I actually let him get away.” He turned his head and saw Teacher Zeng who had suddenly appeared, then pursed his lips. “What are you doing here?”

Teacher Zeng explained softly. “I just found out that this could be a trap, but I couldn’t contact you, so I rushed here without thinking too much... it’s a good thing you’re skilled.”

Shaw casually tidied his drooping fringe, revealing his eyebrows, which were arched high. After all, they were “co-workers”. Hearing these words blurted out by Teacher Zeng, the initially sharp expression in Shaw’s eyes turned indiscernibly gentler.

While heading down with Shaw, Teacher Zeng released a sigh, then laughed bitterly. “It’s been so many years. From what I know, due to the lack of progress, people who were searching for the historical ruins like me, you, and your mentor, gave up in succession. I just never thought that aside from there being no progress, it actually became even more dangerous...”

“That’s enough. This matter had nothing to do with you. Searching for the ruins isn’t dangerous.” Hearing Teacher Zeng’s self-abasement and guilt, Shaw interrupted him. “In the process of searching, I accidentally made a few enemies. The one from today was probably just targeting me.”

While speaking, they walked out of the abandoned building.

Despite going through this shocking wrestle, it was only daybreak. The rosy dawn served as a foil to the rising sun, elegantly travelling thousands of miles in the sky, the rose red rays of light spilling across the overgrown land, spilling into Shaw’s serious eyes which refused to concede defeat.

“When it comes to things worth persisting in and challenging, I’ve long since mentally prepared myself for protracted warfare.”

Shaw’s lips hooked upwards, an earnest spirit leaping in his eyes. “They will definitely lose.”

Seeing the stubbornness and seriousness hidden in the depths of Shaw’s eyes, Teacher Zeng’s heart suddenly received a jolt.

At first glance, the young man in front of him looked youthful and flamboyant. But his tenacity and dedication far surpassed the imagination of most people, and made Teacher Zeng re-discover the surging emotions he once had in his earlier years.

He’s akin to a giant creature hiding in the deep sea. Once he bit onto a goal, he would never let go.

For some reason, Teacher Zeng found this emotion rather familiar. It’s as though time had flowed backwards to several years ago. Back then, under the guidance and assistance from Shaw’s mentor, he had once seen a similar expression and tone of voice in the other party.

When the faraway memories surged up, Teacher Zeng stopped breathing. What accompanied this was that smiling face reminiscent of a mischievous child, the web pages he found after days and nights of searching, and all the locations he had once explored without a regard for the results...

Emotions he had not felt for a long time suddenly surged in Teacher Zeng’s heart.

[ Chapter Five ]

The weather today is very humid, and there doesn’t seem to be a single gust of wind.

After lunch, Teacher Zeng heads to the grocery store to buy a box of cigarettes. Then, he makes his way to the small flower nursery at the corner. Just as he breathes a few mouthfuls of smoke, the sound of footsteps suddenly drifts from behind him.

Teacher Zeng bites on the cigarette bud and turns around: it’s Shaw.

“Good afternoon.” Shaw has a hand stuffed into his pocket, elongating his words teasingly. “Since you’re smoking to entertain yourself, looks like Teacher Zeng has been pretty bored lately.”

Teacher Zeng chuckles softly. “Why are you here today?”

Shaw purses his mouth. “This might sound baffling. This morning, someone dressed in black suddenly attacked my antique store, wanting to search for some leads...”

Teacher Zeng ponders on this.

Slightly irritated, Shaw kicks a pebble at his feet. “It isn’t that easy to defeat me. We have to find the starting point for the ruins first.”

He lifts his eyes and looks at Teacher Zeng, arching his brows. “If I remember correctly, you mentioned being able to help “once or twice” that day. I’m now asking for that second round of assistance.”

Ever since they parted ways the previous time, Teacher Zeng had been giving it much thought. Perhaps Shaw’s persistence moved him, or Shaw’s mentor made him feel sentimental for the past. Regardless, a certain thought in the depths of his heart is especially clear: Actually, he had never let go of searching for the historical ruins. Since that’s the case, he might as well be involved in it entirely, and it wouldn’t put the years of accumulated knowledge to waste.

Teacher Zeng has a small smile as he speaks leisurely. “Helping out is definitely not a problem. I’ve already been searching for new leads over the past duration. But I’d like to change the conditions.”

Shaw shoots him in glance with deep interest.

Extinguishing the cigarette bud beneath his foot, Teacher Zeng turns his head and says, “If you face more problems, it’d no longer be ‘once or twice’. We’ll work together formally. Can you accept this condition?

Finally, the clouds on the horizon seem to be dispersed by the wind slightly, revealing rays of light.

Shaw arches his brows. “Deal.”

🦈 More S2 content: here

🦈 Support the cafe by dropping by the tip jar!

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc shaw

56 notes · View notes

fangirling-is-my-passion · 4 years

Text

🎃 Halloween Special 🎃 (Draco Malfoy x Reader)

Warnings: none, according to me

Summary: It’s your fifth year at Hogwarts and you decide to change things up a little bit by making a mix between muggle and magical traditions in Halloween.

A/N: Hellooooo, lovelies! I know it's been ages since the last time I posted any of my writings, but I got this idea the other day and I just couldn't let it die in my drafts. It's my first time writing for Draco, so if there's any mistake or stuff way too out of character, please, have mercy on me... 😔🙏 I love you and I really hope you enjoy it! Happy Halloween! :) <3

October was finally coming to its end and Halloween was just around the corner, so everybody's excitement was palpable. The Halloween celebration at Hogwarts was one of the most expected by the students and you were definitely not the exception, nonetheless, after already four years of spending the holiday the wizard style, you were kind of starting to miss the muggle celebrations you were so used to when you were only a child.

You missed the costumes so much. Everything was really cool, but why didn't wizards dress up for Halloween? I mean, can you imagine the possibilities?

And so your idea was born: A Halloween celebration in Hogsmeade with your friends and anybody else who wanted to join, but with costumes, like muggles did. It was going to be a little bit of a mix between the two worlds. And it was going to be fantastic.

"Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys!" you said excitedly on Monday morning, sitting at the Gryffindor table in a rush, "I was thinking, why don't we throw a costume party in Hogsmeade the night of Halloween? It could even be at the Three Broomsticks, if we ask for permission, of course, I gotta check that, but, a costume party! What do you think?"

"You mean like the muggle tradition?" asked Hermione.

"Yes! Exactly! I actually don't quite understand why wizards don't dress up for Halloween, but whatever. I think this would be great!"

"Of course, sounds amazing, (Y/N)! But we gotta plan it very well, so I'll help you with the organisation," said Hermione with a lopsided smile.

"Well, sounds like fun, so count me in," said Ron, "By the way, (Y/N), can you pass me the sausages, please?"

"Sure, there you go..."

"I'm definitely in too. It would be my first time dressing up for Halloween, so I wouldn't miss it for the world," Harry added, "Dudley was the one who went trick-or-treating every year; meanwhile I stayed at home, either inside the cupboard or doing whatever chores my aunt could come up with."

"Blimey, Harry, that sucks..." Ron commented before placing another sausage on his plate, which was already brimming with food. Harry simply shrugged.

"Erm, well, great then! I think..." you paused for a second and then added," Let's tell everybody else!"

"Who are you planning to invite?" Hermione questioned; she was definitely taking this organisation thing very seriously.

"I was thinking of simply spreading the word, so anybody who wants to can join."

"Oh, all right. That sounds fine," she said, although she didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Are you going to invite your boyfriend then?" Ron inquired with a sly look on his face.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend! We're just... acquaintances... who hated each other in the past... but not anymore..."

He referred to no other than Draco Malfoy, the so called Slytherin Prince. At the very beginning of your Hogwarts days, you honestly couldn't stand each other, with all his arrogance and his superiority complex, however, at some point and for some strange and unknown reason to you, he stopped being an utter arsehole, your mutual teasing became more of an inside joke than actual bullying and you kinda started getting along. At least you were able to be in the same room without trying to hex one another.

"Yeaaah, of course, and who also study together in the library..." Ron continued.

"That happened one time!" you exclaimed, a flush creeping across your cheeks, "Or was it twice?"

"Twice" Harry and Ron answered in unison.

"Actually," Hermione interrupted, "it happened three times if we count the one where they had to work on the potions project together."

"But that does not count! It was a project! We had to!"

"Mmmmm, it counts because you chose to work together" she explained, a sly tone in her voice.

"That was just because he's the only Slytherin I've had an actual, relatively decent interaction with... Seriously, Hermione? That's not even the point here, guys, let's focus. And yes," you said making emphasis en the 'yes', "I am going to invite him, 'cause, why not? He's probably going to instantly reject the idea anyways, you know how he is." You crossed your arms over the table and took a deep breath.

"Wow", said Ron, "I can't believe you actually said all that without pausing to breathe. However," he said emphasising that last word," I'm telling you, (Y/N), you're gonna end up together. But if you're so sure of the contrary, let's make a bet."

"What?"

"Yes, whoever loses will have to do the winner's homework for a week." Ron smirked.

"A week! Are you nuts?" you exclaimed.

"Well, you have nothing to worry about... Unless you do think you're gonna end up being Malfoy's girlfriend..." His smirk widened and your cheeks went a little pinker than they already were.

"All right, fine. It's settled then. I only hope you're ready to do all my homework for a week, Ronald Weasley."

"We'll see about that."

After a busy and tiring week trying to plan an amazing Halloween party at the same time as doing all your class work, Saturday had finally arrived and everybody was filled with excitement. The news of your party had spread like wildfire and soon you and Hermione had to recalculate the supplies you'd need in order to have enough for every single person who wanted to drop by.

Also, you'd indeed told Draco about the party, nonetheless, just as you thought it would be, he didn't seem very excited about the whole idea... Well, yeah, he might have implied that he would never in his right mind attend a muggle celebration like that and that you were nuts to think of the possibility, however!, he didn't really, explicitly say no, so you'd taken his response as a maybe and still hoped he'd go for at least a little while (wait, why were you hoping that? It's not like you cared that much about him attending or not... Right?)

Since you'd been very busy with all the planning, you'd started working on your costume a little bit late, but you were very satisfied with the result: you were going to be Medusa. I mean, she's iconic! Being able to turn people into stone if they look you in the eye? Wicked! (At some point Harry made a joke comparing Medusa to a basilisk, and I mean, sure, but to be honest he really had to work on his humour). You'd even enchanted a diadem with snakes so they moved like they were alive! (Because, come on, you were committed to this holiday, but let's be sensible, you weren't going to wear actual snakes on your hair, there are levels).

The point is that, like everyone else, you were incredibly excited about your party. And also a bit nervous, you didn't want to screw something up, but you also knew not everything could be perfect and what mattered most was that everybody had fun.

"(Y/N)! Are you ready? We gotta get going!" Hermione called from outside the bathroom of your dormitory. You opened the door and stepped out, ready to rock and roll.

"So? How do I look?" you asked, twirling so she could take a look of your whole costume.

"Intimidatingly gorgeous."

"Oww! Thank you! Wait," you said now focusing on Hermione's costume," what are you wearing? No, no, not that, forget that, but why didn't you tell me you were going to be greek goddess, Hermione?"

"For your information, I am Athena," she said and imitated your twirl, "and I wanted it to be a surprise, I kind of got the idea thanks to you, when you told me you were going to be Medusa."

"Well, yeah... It's perfectly okay, but I would've liked to know before! Also, dressing up as specifically Athena is so you, Hermione, and you look gorgeous, seriously, I'm in love with you. Draco Malfoy who?"

"Is that a confession?" questioned Hermione with a sly smile.

"It's a joke" you clarified rolling your eyes but with a lopsided smile on your face.

"Yeah, sure, truly convincing," your friend said with sarcasm "Anyways, we gotta go now, come on!"

And off you went. You met Harry and Ron in the Gryffindor common room (Harry had dressed up as a Gryffindor quidditch player who'd been hit in the head by a bludger, and Ron was simply wearing a Chudley Cannons uniform. Boy, if these guys were obsessed with quidditch...) and the four of you headed happily towards the entrance of the castle, where all the students gathered before going to Hogsmeade. In your way there you were able to see a lot of different costumes from the students who were attending your party and you were deeply amused (and amazed) by they're creativity. Wizards should definitely do this more often.

When you finally arrived to the Three Broomsticks, you found the entire place decorated just as you'd imagined, and Madam Rosmerta (whom you'd previously sent a letter asking for her permission to use the place for your party in exchange of a reasonable amount of money, and she very kindly had agreed and even offered to help you with the organisation and setting the ambience too) was just applying the final touches.

"Oh, hello, dears!" she greeted you with a smile; she really was a very beautiful woman, no wonder why Ron and many other students fancied her, "So? What do you think? Is it like you imagined?"

"It definitely is!" you exclaimed looking around the place in awe, "It's truly fantastic, thank you so, so much! Now all we got to do is wait for everybody else to arrive!"

It didn't take too long before the first group of students entered the place, only a couple of minutes after the time of the appointment, and from then on, people just kept flooding the pub.

"All right, guys!" you shouted over the murmurs of the crowd so everybody could hear you and be quiet while you spoke, "Here's what we've got: You are allowed to order two butterbeers free of charge, however, if you want more you'll have to pay them yourselves. Now, there's relatively decent food on that table," you pointed to the table on the corner at your left side," and in that other table next to the entrance you will find a bunch of various sweets that are definitely unhealthy if eaten in excess, so, please, don't get too excited, people," the multitude before you chuckled and you smiled widely," Also, dear Colin here offered to take pictures of whoever asked him to, so if you want one, just let him now... Ah! And I almost forgot, there will be a costume contest at the end, so be sure to write your name down on the scroll that's on that wall,"you said and pointed to the wall opposite to you," if you want to participate. I think that's all for now, so enjoy the party, and Happy Halloween, everybody!"

The crowd cheered and applauded you before returning to their chatting or heading straight to where the food was. You walked towards the bar to tell something to Madam Rosmerta and soon some upbeat Halloween-themed music started playing. At some point, a few students took a corner of the place as improvised dance floor and, frankly, everything was even better than how you'd pictured it at first. And that was saying something.

"Amazing party, (Y/N)! You should totally do this more often!" cheered Fred and George Weasley about and hour after the beginning of the party. They'd dressed up as some quite creepy zombie conjoint twins and you thought it was brilliant.

"Thank you, guys! I'm glad you're having fun!" you shouted over the music, "By the way, I think your costume is brilliant, suits you perfectly!"

"Thanks! Hope it's enough to win that costume contest of yours, but being honest, there's a lot of competition here," Fred replied.

"Yeah, I mean, just look at your costume! You look fantastic!" George continued.

"Oww, well, luckily for you, I'm going to be a judge, so I'm not participating..."

The conversation went on for a couple more minutes until Lee Jordan called the twins to the dance floor.

Although the party was an absolute hit, you couldn't help but think about a certain someone who wasn't there.

"You look a bit disappointed," said Hermione from behind you, making you jump a bit, "Thinking about somebody who didn't come, perhaps?"

Sometimes it was truly scary how Hermione could know so much.

"What? No! What are you talking about?" you asked trying to brush the topic off.

"Will you please stop trying to deny your feelings, (Y/N)?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, it's pretty obvious that Malfoy isn't indifferent to you and, to be fair, I don't really mind! I mean, he's been a lot less annoying since you two started to get along a little better, so go ahead if you fancy him!"

"But what if I don't want to fancy him, Hermione?" you exclaimed finally giving in, "He was pretty awful to us in our first years and, yes, maybe we get along now, and he's been a lot better but... I just... I don't know! I guess I feel a bit guilty about it... Besides,he can still be considerably rude sometimes towards people and, even if we left that aside, what makes you think that he could possibly fancy me? I mean, come on, he didn't even come! And I don't... I don't want to be all head over heels for him or anything, and that's also the reason why I keep denying it! If I talk about it, it becomes more real, so maybe if I simply ignore it, my feelings will go away soon enough!"

Luckily for you, you were wearing your green Medusa makeup, otherwise Hermione would have been able to see your cheeks turn bright red.

"Okay, I understand that..." she said, "But I think you got something wrong there, (Y/N), he did come..."

"What?!"

"He just arrived, look, there he is! It's like you invoked him" You turned to look were Hermione had her eyes fixed. And, of course, she was right, there he was. Looking quite dreamy, but you shouldn't think about that, should you? "I'd give you my whole pep talk, but there's no time, you've got more important things to take care of right now. Just, I don't know, let it flow, okay?... But go on, then! Go with him!" she hurried you. You did as you were told and walked towards him changing your mood instantly and pretending that the previous conversation with Hermione had never happened. Just act normal, you thought.

"So you came!" you greeted him once you'd reached him.

"I did," Draco asserted, "Medusa, huh?" he said looking at you up and down with a raised eyebrow and... was that the spirit of a smirk? Once more your makeup helped you hide your blushing and you tried to act like there weren't some butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

...Ugh, this was exactly why you didn't want to admit you fancied him in the first place!

"Indeed," you replied smirking, "And a vampire, eh? Pretty simple if I'm honest, but you look good."

"I always look good, (Y/L/N), but if I'm honest," he said imitating your tone, "you look pretty good too."

"I always look good, Malfoy."

You explained him what you'd told the crowd at the beginning of the party and he decided to order a butterbeer. Then the conversation between the two of you simply kept on going without much difficulty; for some strange reason the fact that you had feelings for him and yet apparently not a single thing in common with him didn't affect your communication.

"All right, but this is insane," he said at some point, " how did you manage to pull this off? I mean, it must have cost you quite a fortune..."

"Well, I did get help from my friends with the budget, but, yes, I had to negotiate with my parents and trade my Christmas and birthday presents of the next year for some money to do this right."

"You're bloody insane..."

"I think you made that pretty clear when I first invited you to come, and yet here you are," you said with sufficiency, "so I guess I'm not the only one here who's gone a bit nuts."

He huffed and took another sip of his butterbeer. In that moment, Ginny Weasley, Parvati Patil and Hermione, who were currently dancing among a bunch of other students, called you and gestured at you to go dance with them. You nodded and turned to Draco in order to tell him that he could stay there while you danced for a while, but before you could articulate anything he said:

"No way you're leaving me here, you're the only person I can actually interact with in a mildly pacific way, so I'm sticking with you."

"Okay... But you're gonna have to dance, then."

"And you think am not qualified for the task?" he asked with his usual smirk.

"Are you really always such a showoff?"

"Only when I'm trying to impress somebody," that answer definitely took you by surprise, but you didn't have the chance to say anything, 'cause he added, "Go on, then, they're waiting for you. I'll go right behind."

And so you danced with your friends. And he danced. And you two danced together. And it was pretty unbelievable for everyone, including you, but nobody seemed to mind since they had never seen Draco in such an unproblematic mood.

A couple of hours later, the costume contest finally took place. The prize for the winner was a special package of sweets you'd prepared plus five galleons... Yeaaah, you'd definitely put a lot of effort in the planning of your party, and it had been completely worth it so far.

All the participants formed a line so each one could walk around showing their costume just as if it were a fashion runway. Meanwhile, you were arranging the seats for the judges. And, as a matter of fact, you had one judge missing. Your intention at first had been that there were four judges in the panel, nonetheless, since both Harry and Ron had declined the offer because they wanted to participate, you were only three: Madam Rosmerta, Hermione and yourself. And all the people you trusted also wanted to take part in it, so it seemed that you'd have to settle with only three judges. Unless...

"Hey, Draco!" Wait, since when did you address him by his first name? Oooh, this was getting out of control... You shouldn't have said anything!

"What is it?" he asked from the seat he had taken at some nearby table, just like all the other students who wouldn't take part in the contest, and were happy to simply watch, had done.

"Well, I was wondering..." you began doubtfully, "if you would like to be a judge too?"

"Me? A judge?" He frowned. "Why?"

"Because I wanted there to be four, but I've got one missing. And I think you'd make a fair judge, as long as you keep your good mood and you're not rude to our contestants... So?" you said bitting your lip.

"Erm, all right. Can't promise I won't be tough on them, though" there was that smirk again.

"Oh, shut up," you said playfully," You can be tough, just not rude. There's a difference."

And so the contest began.

An hour flew by and sooner than you'd expected, you found yourself deliberating with your three judges on whose costume was the best. A task which was pretty hard to do. Harder than you'd expected, actually.

At the moment, you had managed to leave only three finalists, each one provided by one of your fellow judges, and you were the one with the final word. The problem was that you couldn't make up your mind.

"I'm telling you!" Hermione insisted, "Harry's costume should win! It's creative and original and very thorough!"

"Granger, you're only saying that because he's your friend," intervened Draco," but come on! That kid with the Dementor costume? He is literally floating! And he's like in second grade or so! I really think he's the one who should win."

"Well, he definitely portrays a dementor better than you did in third year..." the girl countered.

"All right, guys, don't fight, we gotta make a decision quickly and you're getting on my nerves. Yes, both of you..."

"I still say that those Weasley twins are a lot of fun... They should win if you ask me," Madam Rosmerta mentioned, already losing interest in the matter; looking at three teenagers argue over a costume contest wasn't exactly her definition of "fun".

"Yeah, but they're costume is not as complex as Harry's, (Y/N)!" Hermione reiterated.

"But Potter is not floating, now, is he?" Draco retorted.

"Merlin's beard, you guys! Will you both please shut up?" you scolded, "If I'm completely honest, I wouldn't even consider any of them as my first option, I would choose Padma Patil!" you paused for a second thinking what to say next to state your point, "I mean, she dressed up as Celestina Warbeck! Are you joking? That's bloody brilliant if you ask me! And not only that but she brought Lavender, Parvati and that other girl whose name I don't remember at the moment as her Banshees! Come on! Creative, original... Besides, look at her dress! It looks pretty thorough to me! And yeah, she may not be floating," you added turning to Draco," but she's enchanted her necklace to play 'You stole my cauldron but you can't have my heart' to look like she's actually singing!"

There were a couple of seconds of silence, until Draco decided to break it.

"Then why on earth didn't you say that from the very beginning, (Y/L/N)?"

"Because you were so determined to say who you thought should win that I didn't want to cause more trouble with the decision!"

"Well, as a matter of fact, it makes it a lot easier for me," said Madam Rosmerta, "that girl and her friends were my second option. I simply love Celestina Warbeck."

"She was my third option, so I guess I don't mind," Draco stated shrugging and then leaned back on his chair.

You looked at Hermione.

"Well, yeah... She wasn't in my top three, but it's fine for me", she didn't sound entirely convinced, but it was enough.

"Okay, then..." you said finally, a little surprised by the result, yet satisfied," Brilliant! Then we've got our winner!"

The four of you stood up; Hermione, Draco and you walked to the center of the improvised runway while Madam Rosmerta simply returned to the back of the bar, clearly not wanting to take part in the decision-making of some fifteen-year-olds anymore.

"So, before we announce our winner, I wanted to say something," you began, "As you can see, it was quite difficult for us to make a decision, because all of your costumes are amazing. I truly think so! You're so creative and fun, and believe me when I say that if I had a larger budget I'd probably give prizes to all of you," you chuckled softly, " unfortunately, it isn't the case, so we had to choose only one... Are you ready to know who won?"

The multitude shouted a very enthusiastic "Yes" as response.

"All right, then... Padma Patil, congratulations, you and your Banshees are the winners!"

There were cheers, applause and a few disappointed sighs, but everybody seemed to be as satisfied with the decision as you. You gave the four girls their prize and the music started playing once more. However, the party was coming to its end and a lot of people were already saying their goodbyes and leaving. Therefore, before anything else could happen, you grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him all the way to where Colin Creevy was taking a few pictures of some third year students.

"What are you doing?"

"We're gonna take some pictures," you stated, "I've already got a few with Harry, Ron and Hermione, but since you arrived late..."

He didn't even get the chance to protest, because in that moment the third year students left and you dragged him once more to the spot where they'd been posing.

"What the... What am I supposed to do?" he inquired with a slight note of panic in his voice.

"Dunno, just think of cool poses! We've got two shots, so think fast!"

Your first shot was of you two in an average pose, you know, just smiling, you leaning on his shoulder, his arm around your waist and the butterflies in your stomach going a bit crazier about it.

"What now?!"

"I don't know! It's not like I'm used to doing this!" he exclaimed.

"I thought you were Draco bloody Malfoy, aren't you known enough to get a lot of pictures? You should be used to it!"

"I don't get a lot of fun pictures with weird poses!"

"Well, think of something then!" Colin could do nothing but stare in amusement at your absurd argument, trying to suppress his laughter.

"You think of something!" Draco countered.

"Why am I the one who always has to think of everything? Use your brain, mister!"

And you'd barely finished your sentence when, without a warning and almost against any common sense left on both of you, Draco's lips crushed against yours, his hands grabbing the sides of your face eagerly. Only an instant later he pulled away and looked at you, with his usually pale cheeks coloured in a bright shade of pink and his moon-like eyes reflecting the panic of maybe having done something very wrong. However, he quickly intended to hide it:

"Was that a proper use of my brain, miss?

You were flabbergasted. Totally. The whole night had been utter madness for you since this boy arrived... But it wasn't a bad type of madness, you were delighted. You fancied him. And now you knew that it was mutual.

"Well... Sure... but why did you stop?" you murmured, just inches away from his face, and then smiled bitting your lip. You saw his whole face lighten up as he smiled broadly, just before leaning in to kiss you once more, this time more passionately and intensely than before. You could feel the cold touch of his family ring against the soft skin of your cheeks, contrasting with the warmth of his palms.

The camera flashed and that single incredible moment was captured forever in a picture that would last for a long, long time, kept in scrapbooks and family photo albums.

"Oh, crap..." you grumbled after you pulled away the second time.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked, his voice hoarse due to the kiss.

"Now I'm going to have to do Ronald's homework for a week!"

257 notes · View notes

rafblue · 3 years

Text

Chapter Six: Enconcert

Plot: Y/n's sister was always nice, never whined or throwed a tantrum, so when she asked him to help her, he knew it was important. But maybe he shouldn't have accepted because now it seems like he made an enemy of the famous group ATEEZ.

Pairing: San x M!reader

Did you guys get it? The title is a pun between “En concert” (meaning well “in concert”/”having a concert” and encounter ehehe)

Dialogue style code:

Bold: English(i)

Italics: Translation (not actually spoken)

Normal: Korean

***

“We already started to assemble a few things yesterday so a few things done.

-What do you need me to do?

-Well, there is still a lot to do with the decor...”

As Zoe said that, they entered the concert hall, it was a mess, boxes everywhere, Y/n was even sure he saw some kind of corpse? His sister guided him to a tall and very tired-looking man who was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What do you want Park? I’m not in the mood.

-I’m sorry Mr Kim, this is my brother Y/n, he came to replace Mr Lee.

-Ah that lil shit... So you found a replacement, good, good...

-Yes.. Well, I’ll let you in his hands Y/n. I’ve got things to take care of, i’m sorry...”

Her phone was ringing loudly, Y/n nodded as the girl left in a rush, picking up in an annoyed tone. The man turned to Y/n, looked at him from head to toes, toes to head, left to the right, examining every aspect of his being. He then proceeded to smile and stretched out his hand.

“My name is Youngjin Kim, but you can call me Kim or Youngjin-ssi for all I care.

-Yes, Youngjin-ssi”

Younjin laughed.

“No need to be so tense kiddo... So, do you know how to lift boxes?

-Yes sir. But hm..

-Yes?

-Is this person alright?”

Mr Kim looked at where Y/n pointed and squinted before yelling.

“Sungmin you piece of shit! I already told you to not sleep while we were working!”

***

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright Mingi? Maybe we should cancel and you could start with a smaller stage... It’s going to be rlly stressfull...

-San I think you’re the one who’s stressing him out?

-WHAT HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT WOOYOUNG I’M JUST

-Guys it’s fine ; chuckled Mingi ; I promise, I’m rlly excited..”

San didn’t insist, he knew he would just make things worse and started to focus on getting ready... Except there was no makeup artist coming for him, the costumist had already done his touch up so normally someone should come to help him put on makeup. But no one did.

After some wait he decided to speak about it to his leader, but Hongjoong was busy and advised him to talk to their manager. San wasn’t really feeling comfortable with her, he didn’t understood why they needed to change when Mr Kim already did to much for them, but it was not his place to say anything, he just found her manners a bit weird.

“Ms Park?

-Oh San, you scared me ; she laughed a bit ; I already told you to call me Zoe didn’t I?

-Oh yes i’m sorry...

-Ahah only messing with you don’t worry, what’s going on? You don’t seem fine?”

He sighed, rubbed his neck. Maybe he was overeacting and being too entitled? After all it’s only been ten minutes. He knew how much time was precious in this situation though...

“Ah, not really, it’s just.. It seems my makeup artist still isn’t here? Or do we only have seven today? I’m sorry to bother it’s just...

-Oh no no don’t worry, you did right telling me... I’ll try to see what is wrong and send you someone.”

He sighed in relief, good.

***

“Y/n wait!”

Y/n was going to leave when he saw his sister rushing through him, he raised an eyebrow and walk to her.

“What’s going on?

-I still need you

-What happened?

-A makeup artist suddenly disappeared, she isn’t answering my texts and the others are too busy to take care of one of our idol...

-Ok but... I don’t know if I have the skills though?”

She crossed her arm with a look on her face, you know that look when someone isn’t believing you? Yeah that was the one. Reminded Y/n the time where he ate all the chocolate her boyfriend had bought her but then pretended it just melted, ok but this time, Y/n really didn’t know why she was making that face, he only stated the truth, and not chocolate was involved.

“What?

-Oh really? You? Y/n Park don’t have the skills to do a makeup on someone else?

-Well not on a professional level no!

-Y/N YOU LITERALLY WORKED AS A MAKEUP ARTIST FOR THE MANOIR OF PARIS

-YEAH BUT IT WAS ONLY A SUMMER JOB? AT A SMALL HAUNTED HOUSE? NOT A CONCERT THAT WILL BE STREAMED ALL AROUND THE WORLD!!!

-IT IS THE MOST WELL KNOWN HAUNTED HOUSE IN FRANCE, IT’S EVEN RECOGNISED ALL AROUND EUROPE WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, NOW COME HERE AND HELP ME

-WELL OK I GUESS”

He laughed, if Zoe insisted, he could only compell. After fifteen minutes of walking, stairs and walking again, why the hell was this building so big for, they finally arrived in a small room, where height heads turned around just as they were entering.

“Could have told me we were working with ATEEZ ; whispered Y/n

-I didn’t?”

He sweared...

***

San raised his head as he heard the door open, he smiled as he saw Zoe coming back with a young man only to see them whispering some things as his manager looked at the boy mockingly to then talk to the group who was glancing at them since they showed up.

“Hello again everyone, this is Y/n, my brother, he came to replace San’s makeup artist.”

They all greeted him before going back to what they were doing, meaning putting lenses, having to close their eye, pouting etc..., well except San who didn’t have anything to do and to which Zoe and Y/n were coming near.

“Hey San, so as I said before Y/n will replace your makeup artist, will it be fine for you?

-Oh yeah yeah no problem.

-Ok then...”

She smiled and rotated to talk to her brother, telling him what the makeup should look like, what was the concept, blablabla, the boy kept nodding. She left. He turned to glance at San, frowning very hard. Did he do something wrong?

“Hello, as my sister said my name is Y/n, I’ll be your makeup artist, I hope there isn’t any problem?”

San gulped, shook his head and Y/n started to put makeup on him. The vocalist eventually tried to speak a bit with him, only to receive short and rough answer, none were really rude but he clearly wasn’t happy to be here. Honestly if he wasn’t scared to ruin the makeup, and make him even more angry, San would probably cry.

***

Masterlist

#ateez #ateez san #ateez social media au #ateez fanfic #san x y/n #choi san x male reader #san x reader #male y/n #male reader

44 notes · View notes

wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch 5: You Make It Easy

Summary: Steve finally takes Katie out on a date.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: Language! And a whole heap of fluffy fluff fluff.

A/N: Once again, a huge thank you to @angrybirdcr for her lovely little edit.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 4

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

The elation Steve had felt about actually getting a date with Katie soon evaporated the next morning when he realised he hadn’t the first CLUE about where to take her, what to do or what to wear. He wasn’t naïve, he knew dating had changed since his day but the fact he had no reference point to even start from, having never been on a date before, wasn’t helpful either. So he sought some advice

“A nice shirt and jeans.” Peggy smiled at him, the old woman elated he had finally done it. “Nothing too flash, and pick a restaurant. It doesn’t have to be fancy, women are more impressed by a man who’s paying them attention instead of simply paying for the meal.”

“Okay, right.”

“You know her, Steve.” Peggy looked at him. “What type of food does she like?”

“Italian, Chinese, but we do that all the time.” He shrugged, before he stopped, suddenly remembering something she had said to Evans a couple of weeks back in exercise, “You know, come to think of it she has mentioned a new place in town. La Placa I think it’s called.” “See, there you go.” Peggy patted him on his arm before she smiled at the look on the young man’s face “Just be yourself Steve, that’s who she wants. No one else.”

“Thanks Peg.”

“And make sure you kiss her goodnight…” She grinned, a twinkle in her eyes. “Us ladies do like a bit of passion every now and then you know.” He rolled his eyes at her cheekiness, running his hand through his hair which was in desperate need of a cut. He stayed with Peggy whilst he googled the restaurant number, made his reservation and then text Katie to tell her where he had booked.

Can’t wait xxx

He grinned to himself, and then pushed his phone away and turned back to find Peggy watching him, a sly grin on her face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy before.” she remarked, somewhat wistfully

.He smiled “Been a long time since I felt this good.”

“It suits you.” On his way home he swung into the barbers and stepped in. As he sat in the chair the man asked him what he wanted doing, and he was about to say trim when Katie’s voice stirred in his mind.

“Trying to imagine what you’d look like with shorter hair and a beard…” “Shorn back and sides please,” he said as the man asked him what he wanted, “and take it a little shorter on top.”

******

Katie woke suddenly on top of the comforter on her bed, fully clothed. She’d fallen asleep! She sat up, thinking back to the last thing she remembered before her nap, piecing her train of thought together. Ah, yes, Steve had messaged her to tell her he’d booked a table somewhere which had prompted her to start looking for an outfit. She’d realised she had no idea what to wear so had been debating calling Pepper to ask for advice, but had decided it wasn’t a good idea because she didn’t want Tony to know she was dating yet, let alone who.

But there was someone she could call. Desperate times called for desperate measures, right?

Biting her lip she sighed and picked up her phone, scanning through to the person she was looking for and the cavalry arrived an hour and a half later in the shape of a red-haired deadly assassin.

“There has to be something in here that’s first date suitable…” Natasha mumbled, as she continued to search through the various items in Katie’s closet. Half Katie’s clothes adorned the floor of her walk-in-wardrobe and bedroom as they had discarded everything she’d tried so far. “It would help if I knew where you were going.” she sipped her beer thoughtfully.

“La Placa.” Katie told her after a pause, “Tapas place, but if you turn up I swear to God…”

“I got better things to do with my spare time.” “No you don’t. And I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“If you don’t trust me why did you ask for my help?“ Natasha drawled, still rifling through the clothing racks. “Because Pepper is a four hour drive away…”

“Well that’s just rude.” Natasha mumbled and Katie grinned, shaking her head as Nat placed her beer down on the top of a set of drawers and moved to a rail “Ok, try this.”

She pulled out a knee length navy blue Balenciaga dress with a fitted top half, scalloped neck line and three-quarter length lace detailed sleeves. As Katie shrugged it on, Natasha hunted in the shoe rack, pulling out a pair of mid-height nude Kurt Geiger courts with a stiletto heel and matching bag.

“Not bad.” She mumbled as Katie stepped into the heels and gave her a twirl.

“Better than the grey one?” “Definitely.” Natasha nodded approvingly “I think we have a winner!”

Katie gave her a double Hi-Five and Nat picked up her beer as Katie stripped out of the dress and pulled on her T-shirt and shorts, before she glanced around the large bedroom, sighing at the mess.

“Better tidy this up in case things go well.” Nat smirked, before she pondered “Huh, actually, do you reckon Captain America puts out on the first date? Mind you, knowing Roger’s he’s probably a virgin…”

“I’m pretty sure people had casual sex back in the 40s too you know.” Katie rolled her eyes. “He was on the USO tours surrounded by dancing girls, there’s no way he didn’t do the old horizontal tango.”

“Yeah but…its Rogers.” Nat pressed giving a snort “Imagine if you are the one to pop his cherry.”

Katie groaned, shaking her head. “Shut up Widow.”

She smirked “Okay, so how long have we got?”

Katie glanced at her phone “An hour and twenty. And what do you mean we?” “You asked for my help, right?” Natasha shrugged, “Thought I could do your make-up and hair too…” Katie looked at her for a moment and smiled “Thanks.” She shrugged then drained her beer before turning Katie round and pushing her towards the en-suite “Go shower then we’ll start the transformation.”

An hour later Katie was ready. Her hair was curled in soft waves, and her makeup was done, a bit heavier than normal, but still subtle enough to avoid looking like it had been applied with a trowel.

“Perfect.” Nat gave her an appraising look. “Right, I trust you can get dressed without me?” “I think I’ll manage.” Katie said, standing up as she made her way out of the walk-in wardrobe and followed her into the hall where she picked up her jacket.

“Oh and if you need me to bail you, just give me an SOS call…” Nat made a phone sign with her finger and pinkie by her ear. “I think I’ll be ok.” Katie smiled, “but thank you, for all of this.”

“Have fun…” Nat grinned and then added with a smirk “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t”

“That doesn’t exactly leave a lot…” Katie quipped

“That’s my point.” Natasha intoned as she walked into the hall and pressed the button for the elevator.

“Nat, you won’t tell anyone will you?” Katie asked, “I mean, it isn’t that I don’t trust you, just…” Nat paused turning back to the brunette to find her chewing her lip with nerves. She shook her head “I won’t tell a soul. I know how much you two like each other, you’ve been dancing around it for months, so… just enjoy ok? Have a good time. You both deserve it.” “Thanks Nat” Katie smiled. The two girls shared a quick hug and then Nat left

***** Steve had to admit, he liked his new hair. It was much more like the style people sported now, but in a way it also reminded him of how Bucky had worn his back in the Howlies. He picked a light blue shirt, his dark navy jeans and then pondered before settling on a pair of brown boots that matched his jacket and belt. He was ready with plenty of time and found himself pacing as he thought about how the night could go. There was no doubt it was going to be way different to how he had imagined his first date to be. Back in his day it was movies, dinner and a dance. Now there were no dance halls, and they watched movies all the time. But, as Peggy had advised, for once he was going to “go with the flow” and just see where the night took them both.

Finally, after an agonising fifteen minutes during which he had pretty much paced non-stop and drained a good measure of scotch, even though it did nothing bar give him a comforting burn in his throat on the way down, he headed to the cab that was waiting and they set off to pick up his date.

Jesus Christ she looked amazing. Her hair was cascading in waves over her shoulders, the smoky brown eyeshadow she was wearing made the green in her eyes even more noticeable. And her dress…navy blue, knee length with a detailed neckline and sleeves that finished halfway down her forearms. The top half clung to her body where it flared out slightly from her hips and her heels accentuated her shapely calves to perfection. As Steve looked at her he found himself imagining various crude scenarios where said delectable dress ended up on the floor, but that wasn’t gentlemanly. Nor appropriate.

Katie felt her breath catch when she saw Steve. His light blue shirt was tight enough to accentuate his ridiculously well-built top half, and a brown belt with a gold buckle adorned his toned waist. And he’d had a haircut. Gone were his longer locks and side parting, and in its place was a short back and sides with slightly longer strands on the top, tousled into an exceptionally modern style. He looked incredible.

Steve broke the silence between the two, clearing his throat gently.

“You look beautiful.” He leaned down to give her a peck on the cheek.

“Thank you, you look pretty good yourself, you do something to your hair?” Katie teased.

“Thought it was time for a change.” he shrugged it off casually as his cheeks warmed. “Still getting used to it.” “It looks great.” she assured him.

He beat her to her jacket as she reached up to take it off the peg and held it out so she could shrug her arms into it. Once they were in the elevator, he reached out and took her hand and she laced her fingers into his. He glanced down at her, his eyes meeting hers and she flashed him a smile.

Yeah, he’d lucked out, big time.

******

The restaurant was busy but not packed. They were seated at the back in a little booth in the corner. Steve had never had tapas before, but Peggy had explained it to him before.

“So the idea is we pick, what, three or four dishes?” he asked, looking at Katie

“Yeah, they’re like small portions and you share.” Katie nodded. “Although you eat like a horse so we should probably order more.”

He grinned and looked back at his menu.

“You choose.” he placed the card back down eventually, beaten by the list of items. “I literally have no idea…”

“Alright.” Katie grinned. “But you have to try everything…”

“Deal.”

The waiter returned with their drinks and took their food orders. Katie ordered a large enough selection along with a side order of olives and different breads with dipping oils before flashing the waiter a smile and he scuttled off.

“I think this is normally the part where we ask each other questions,” Steve said as the waiter disappeared. “You know, get to know each other a bit more.”

“Yeah… think that ship already sailed though.”

“True,” Steve nodded bashfully, there wasn’t many things that they didn’t know about each other, although as he watched Katie was biting her lip, almost as if she wanted to say something, but at the same time didn’t.

“What is it?” he asked, reaching out for his drink.

“Something Nat said before…” Katie flushed, caught out. There was no way she was asking that question.

“Why does this worry me slightly?” He paused, beer raised halfway to his lips.

Katie looked at him and shook her head, the flush continuing to rise up her neck “Yeah, I’m not, it’s not first date conversation.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Now I’m extremely worried, and a little intrigued.”

“You really want to know?” Katie cocking her head to one side and when he nodded she shrugged. “Alright, you asked for this…” she straightened up in the seat as he did the same, bracing himself. “Are you a virgin?”

Steve groaned and screwed his eyes shut. “No, I’m not.” He sighed shaking his head before he looked back at her. "After I first got the serum there was suddenly all this attention on me and I didn’t really know any better…” “There was no one before?” she frowned slightly, almost as if she was surprised.

He shook his head again. “Girls weren’t exactly interested in me before hand, Bucky was the one who had the looks and the swag. He had a different girl every weekend. I guess when they finally did start looking at me that way I just, I dunno…” He stopped and took a breath. “God, this makes me sound like a right jerk. There weren’t that many”

Three to be exact. And none of them had been anything to write home about. He got the distinct impression they hadn’t particularly enjoyed themselves either, not past the fact they could boast about having bedded Captain America. Plus, he was infatuated by Peggy at that point as well and found he craved the tenderness that was supposed to be associated with the act, not merely the physical bliss. As corny as it sounded, he genuinely wanted someone to be with him intimately that wanted him, not Captain America.

As he watched, he noticed Katie was watching him intently and he swallowed a little as she simply shrugged. .

“We all have a past Steve.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since I came out of the ice.” He added softly, feeling the need to explain that he wasn’t that type of man.

“I haven’t since Grant.” she eyed him. “One night stands are overrated.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He shrugged, locking eyes with her. “That’s all I ever had.”

Katie studied him for a moment. She had no idea why, but to learn he hadn’t had a girl that way before he became some kind of war time celebrity, and knowing that the ones he had been with were probably chasing nothing but the kudos of being able to say they fucked Captain America, made her kind of sad. No wonder he was always so self-doubting.

She smiled and reached across the table, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Well, personally, I think all those girls that picked Bucky over you were dumbasses. I’ve seen the photos of you before all this happened…” she raised her free hand and held out her index finger, and gestured up and down his torso. “You were sweet”

He chuckled and took a drink of his beer. “You know I heard that a lot…you’re really sweet and all but…“

“Like I said…”she leaned back in her chair slightly, “Dumbasses” Steve was aware that her ankle was brushing against his slightly and he felt the warm flush in his cheek at her forwardness, but soon found it disappeared and was replaced instead with simply enjoying the fact she wanted to be so close to him.

As tactful as ever, Katie swiftly moved the conversation on and it took a natural turn to Tony’s renovation of the tower and then New York in general, how much Brooklyn in particular had changed since Steve had left it behind to go to war.

It was through this conversation Steve discovered that in all the time Katie had spent in New York she had never been to Coney Island.

“Maybe I could take you one day, down to the fair.” He suggested.

“I’d love that.” She smiled and his chest swelled even more.

Their food arrived and they continued to talk. And, considering they had started the date off thinking there wasn’t much more to find out about each other, both of them were surprised to see exactly how much trivial stuff there was to learn about the other. For instance, Steve knew that Katie enjoyed baseball but what he didn’t know was that whilst Tony was a Yankees fan, she actually supported the LA Dodgers, having grown up in Malibu. Suddenly her teasing about the fact they had moved made perfect sense. And in turn, Katie knew that the Dodgers relocating was a bug bear of his but, since he would rather go into the ice all over again than support the Yankees, he had started watching out for the Mets results, but apparently it just wasn’t the same and as such he hadn’t been to an actual game since he came out of the ice. Both of them found out the other preferred dogs to cats, cats making Katie sneeze and their ability to hiss and scratch you with no damned warning whatsoever made Steve not trust them as far as he could throw them.

“I can just read the headlines now!” Katie chuckled after Steve had added that if he wanted to he could probably throw a cat quite far. “Captain America killed my Cat.” Steve let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as he picked up his beer. “Don’t cats always land on their feet?” “I dunno, depends how hard you’re intending on throwing it.” “I’m not intending on throwing any cat anywhere.” Steve shook his head “As much as I don’t like them I couldn’t deliberately harm one.” “Tony did. Well not deliberately, and he didn’t so much harm it as kill it…” “Oh you gotta tell me this story!” Steve grinned, leaning forward, topping up Katie’s wine glass from the bottle that was in the ice bucket in the middle of the table.

Katie grinned, “When we were kids, the first place we lived in was down this huge, posh road with like 3 other houses on and we had this really eccentric neighbour, Mrs Livesy her name was. She had like 18 cats or something ridiculous and one morning, Tony was reversing the car out of the garage and he flattened 2 of them.”

Steve nearly spat his beer back into his glass. “He ran them over?” “Yeah…” Katie said, and by now she was full on laughing “But the best bit is, she comes round asking Dad if he’s seen the cats, dad’s got no idea what’s gone on right as Tony’s moved the cats and bribed me to keep quiet with the biggest ice cream you could imagine, so dad is all like ‘I’ve got no idea Mrs Livesy I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open…” Katie took a deep breath, wiping at her eyes “So then Tony comes back, Dad mentions that Mrs Livesy was looking for 2 of her cats and Tony’s like ‘huh, well you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat’ and me, being the little shit I was at the age of 4 pipes up ‘no that was you this morning, remember?’”

Steve laughed, and watched as she carried on giggling. “He never forgave me for that, Dad made him go round and apologise. And he had to attend a memorial for Mr Whiskers and Bagpuss…”

Eventually after desert and a few more drinks it was time to leave, Katie tried to split the meal bill with Steve but one stern look stopped that in its tracks. This was a date, he was paying. Thankfully she didn’t argue too much. Steve then asked her if she wanted to go for a drink, she gleefully accepted so he took her hand, gently leading her across the road, holding the bar door open for her. They both sat at the bar, Katie turning her seat so she was directly facing him, the pair of them leaning closer to one another as they talked. And the conversation just continued to flow, as did the odd but subtle display of affection, moving their chairs closer together, her hand on his shoulder. Steve was surprised to find how easy the whole thing was. He had no nerves, no awkward moments. The chemistry fizzled and there wasn’t a single moment he was stuck for anything to say. It was for that reason he was disappointed when the bar tender called time and reluctantly stood up as Katie drained the final bit of gin from her glass.

As Steve held out her jacket, his hands gently brushed her shoulders as she shrugged it on, sending a tingle down her spine and the hitch in her breathing didn’t go unnoticed. She turned to face him, all green eyes and pink lips, blinking as her eyes locked onto his and before he could stop them, his hands connected at the base of her spine as she moved closer to him, not moving her gaze from his, hand resting on his chest.

“I’d really like to kiss you again…” Steve said, shyly.

“You know you don’t have to ask.” she replied. Smiling softly he leaned down and connected his lips with hers, the kiss growing slightly deeper until Steve remembered they were in the middle of a public bar. He pulled away gently, resting his forehead against hers briefly, blushing like an absolute moron as a small smile tugged on the corners of his mouth.

“You know, for someone who said they’d never taken a woman on a date before Rogers, you’ve done amazingly well.” she blinked up at him, grinning.

“That’s because you make it easy to be around you.” He shrugged, honestly. He took her hand, curled his fingers round hers and made their way out into the street to hail a cab.

All too soon they pulled up outside her apartment block and both of them found themselves wishing the night would never end. Steve told the driver to wait whilst he hopped out and walked her into the lobby, their hands still twined together. There was a part of him that wanted to follow her in, and a part of her that almost invited him to, but they both wanted to do this right, take their time.

“I think now is the part where I’m supposed to ask you if you had a good time.” Steve turned to face her as they stopped by the elevator door.

“I did.”

“And if you’d go out with me again?” “I already said I would, Coney Island remember?” she replied cheekily, leaning closer to him.

“I meant before that.” He rolled his eyes.

“I’d love too.” She muttered, and then his lips were on hers again and they were kissing, exactly where they had left off in the bar, only this time they were alone. Steve’s hand snaked into her soft hair, angling her head slightly and she parted her lips, their tongues tangling easily as once more the fireworks erupted deep in Steve’s belly.

“Always leave ‘em wanting more Stevie…” Bucky said, nudging him on the arm, winking as they crossed the fairground towards the girls “That’s the trick…”

Steve couldn’t stop himself from smiling he pulled back. Their night was at an end, it was a perfect place to leave it.

“I really did had a great time tonight, thank you.” Katie whispered as he pressed his forehead to hers, giving her lips another quick peck before he stepped back a little and she reached into her bag for her key card, pressing it to the pad by the elevator.

“Me too.” He smiled as the elevator doors opened. She stepped inside, turning to face him and flashed him another grin.

“Night Stevie.”

“Night, Sweetheart.” He replied as the doors shut. With that, he turned round and grinning to himself he walked back to the cab. Date 1 down, and it had been a roaring success.

**** Chapter 6

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #katie stark #chris evans #chris evans characters #mcu #mcu fanfic

97 notes · View notes

jq37 · 3 years

Text

The Case File – Mice and Murder Ep 4

The Case of the Puzzling Painting

Welcome back to Loam Hall where our Sylvan Sleuths are still hanging out in a room with a dead body. When we left off, Gangie had been snooping into Sly’s conversation about Fletcher Cottonbottom and now, he uses his Criminal Contacts feature to see what he knows, if anything, about a recent return. With a 26 he knows that his family used to be well respected but after the whole business with the insurance fraud and Sly busting it, the family kind of fell out of favor. So Fletcher was in a weird position where he was rich and a part of high society and had enough dirt on everyone to get them to do things for him but couldn’t actually show his face because he was disgraced. Gangie also knows that it’s rumored that Fletcher’s weapons running scheme was actually a front for moving art.

With regard to more recent news about Fletcher, Gangie was never in direct contact with him but he knows that 3-4 years ago, his most trusted henchmen started going missing--people attributed it to some kind of “Cottonbottom Curse” and that rumor is part of why Gangie decided to get out of dodge in the first place.

Buck does an insight check on the rest of the PCs and, with an 18, doesn’t clock anyone there as especially suspicious (Lars isn’t there but like..it’s Lars). Ian tries to give Squire Badger his last rites but ends up pulling the knife out, putting it back in, flapping blood everywhere with his feathers, and sending Constance into a badger rage. Buck tries to help smooth over things, claiming his big screw up was a new style of avant garde church ritual (Ian appreciates the support--who ministers to the ministers, you know?) and in the process sees his knife for the first time. Which, you know. He obviously suspected before but never nice to see.

While this is going on, Daisy sneaks off to try and check on the secret door and everyone sees her do it/eventually follows her but we’ll get back to her once we check in with Lars who is en route to the kitchen. Once in the hallway, they do a perception check and, on a 15, there are 3 doors and Ally gets to pick one. There’s a kitchen where Gilfoyle is talking to a group, a door where someone is crying behind it, and a door where they can hear nothing. Ally, the galaxy brained genius, goes for the quiet door. That’s the money door and with their ears pressed against the door, they can hear Edwina and Carolyn--the two mice maids that overheard Buck’s conversation with the Badger--whispering about what happened there and wondering if they should pay back the money they were paid to by Buck.

Gilfoyle walks out and sees Lars snooping but on a Nat 20 deception check, Lars is able to play dumb and skate by suspiciousness. Also, with a dirty 20 perception check, when the mice maids leave, Lars sees that they’ve been stealing silverware.

OK, back to Daisy who is getting to the séance room as quickly as possible. She has two rounds before people catch up to her so she’s trying to make the most of it by Investigating the painting she noticed was bolted to the wall earlier. She first rolls an 11, getting no new information. This is so frustrating to her. She’s good at this dammit! But being around Sly is rattling her terribly. She has feelings for him--strong ones. But she isn’t herself around him. How can she be with him if he makes her so unlike herself? Her introspection is enough to earn her advantage from Brennan on her second roll and boom! 25! Daisy is back.

With that roll, she notices that the eyes in the painting actually move and can be used as a spying post on the other side. Then Sly runs in and they start bickering immediately. Daisy throws a crystal ball at him and absolutely brains him on a nat 20--the first combat roll of this very RP oriented season.

Buck and Ian are still in the room with the body for the moment and Buck asks Ian about the first few names on the list Gangie gave him. There were a bunch of members of the Burrows family--a working class family that all died of a consumptive illness. And then the Diggories who died in a carriage accident. The connecting thread? All badgers. Buck then zooms away to follow Daisy, Ian follows, and Lars, seeing them as they leave the kitchens, also follows.

So all the PCs are in the séance room now and they kinda have the sense of, “OK y’all, we’re all screwed but we’re al screwed together so we better throw our lot in with each other and start working together so we don’t die because no one else here is on our side.” Buck proposes an alliance and they all agree to share info. Sly asks about Buck’s knife and Buck admits it’s his but says he didn’t do it. Sly believes him--not because he wouldn’t do it but because he has no motive (that he knows about anyway. Buck doesn’t spill about the contract).

Gangie shares the list of names from before with the whole group.It’s like half badgers and then some other critters (full list here). Sly doesn’t share any of his secret info Grant got texted. Daisy and Buck don’t share about the key (though Sly you’ll remember sat her steal it). Buck does however mention his suspicion about the fact that Gilfoyle wasn’t around when Squire Badger gave his speech and Daisy does the same about the fact that he said he would call the cops but the cops haven’t arrived yet. Lar’s remembers that Jez’s husband is gunning for at seat in parliament and wonders if this is related somehow. Daisy mentions the eyes in the painting and everyone is like way to bury the lede dude! Especially when they’ve just all spilled their secrets. Everyone checks on the painting and with a 25 Gangie can intuit that this is probably used to spy on rich people when they’re mid-séance and vulnerable and spilling secrets (which he doesn’t share but Daisy comes to a similar conclusion on her own). Buck on a 23 can smell ledgers (idk how but the DM said so and I’m reporting it) and guesses that that’s where the Squire’s real office is which means that’s probably where the contract he needs to find and destroy is too.

The group makes a list of their loose ends which are what’s on the other side of the painting, what’s up with Fletcher, and the smell of ozone. Plus Ian remembers that the date on the bust in the study is wrong and shares with the class.

Lars tries to get to the other side of the room by ripping the painting off the hinges with a very impressive 26 but there is fully a wall behind it and the noise brings Gilfoyle, Harding, and the Badger kids running. Lars notes that in the stone behind the painting it says “⅓” and then hurriedly puts the painting back. Daisy thinks that might refer to a secret third floor or basement accessible by the elevator (but my first thought was that there were 2 other spying paintings in the house somewhere).

Everyone in the room hears the Gilfoyle and co. coming and try to act natural. There is a group stealth check that they all tank so heavily that all the suspicious staff and kids need to do to suss them out is roll above a 5.

AND THEY ROLL A TWO.

With that, Lucretia appears, totally buys that they’re doing very important spiritual work in there, and in fact guards the door for them. They use the privacy bought by their very vigilant sentry to plan their next steps. Sly, Daisy, and Ian will check out the study while they rest of them check out the elevator. As they exit, Lucretia asks if they got the answers they needed out of the spirits.

Oh yes, says Daisy, echoing Lucretia’s nonsense prediction from last episode. Either something good or bad might happen. Either way, I’m excited!

Case Notes

How baller of a player move is it to say a line so poignant that the DM is forced to let you roll with advantage? I have been on the other side of that as the DM and it’s so great. MAD respect to Rekha for that. AND THEN THE DICE COOPERATED. You simply love to see it.

The other best Rekha line is Daisy to Sly upon being called out about stealing the key in his normal, coy, quippy way: You saw me bitch.

Shout out to Grant also for being constantly on as Sly. The guy is on point always. Impeccable.

I am SO SO SO happy Daisy and Sly are on the same mission team. If I was friends with either of them I’d be like, “This is a toxic relationship, they make you too crazy.” But as an outside viewer I want them to be within crystal ball throwing distance always.

The question I’m sure we’re all asking: Is Brennan enough of a minx to invoke the butler did it trope? I know everyone at the table is thinking it even if none of them have said it outright. I figured the reason the cops haven’t showed up yet was the storm but who knows?

Two pieces of housekeeping, only Buck and Gangie know what the room behind the painting is with their high rolls and, after the bit of passing it back and forth with Buck, Daisy has the key.

I really can’t do the bit about Gangie’s mom justice. I wish there was a comedy Emmy for actual play DnD shows so D20 could get the accolades it deserves just for that bit.

Brennan indicated that the conversation between the mice maids was the most interesting info (Gilfoyle convo to staff was too public to be juicy/they could get the info from one of the many gathered staff people and crying is info on its own--though I am curious about who the crying person was) but I’m wondering what he meant by that. Because the fact that Buck paid them might be interesting if Buck did it. But we know he didn’t. Is it the fact that they were in the room at all? Again, info that the party knows if not Lars specifically. The fact that they were stealing silverware? What’s Brennan’s game here?

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #mice and murder #mice and murder spoilers #the case file

23 notes · View notes

chubbyreaderwriter · 4 years

Text

PJs

Bucky Barnes/The Winter Solider x Chubby/Plus Size Reader

Prompt: Could you write an Bucky imagine where the reader always wears padjamas but they try to dress up to impress him but ends up giving up , and it just being really fluffy 🥺?

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: swearing

Masterlist

You loved wearing pajamas, everyone knew that. If you didn’t need to leave the building then you weren’t going to get dressed, that’s just how you were. Even when you did go outside, your clothes weren’t anything fancy, just loose tops and leggings or joggers. You had never been the type of girl to show off your body in tight clothes and people accepted that. It was just your style but when Bucky was introduced to you, you realised that you might have to change your style just a bit.

You remembered when you first met Bucky, you had been wandering around the Tower after meeting with Natasha when you bumped into Steve. That’s when you noticed someone else by his side, “Sorry Cap, I guess I didn’t see you there, who’s this?” Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, “(Y/N), this is Bucky, my oldest friend in many ways than one. Bucky, this is (Y/N), our resident secretary and self proclaimed couch potato.” You nudged Steve, cursing him in your head for embarrassing you in front of such a handsome guy.

As Steve went to lead Bucky away to meet the others, said man looked you up and down and smiled, “Nice clothes, doll.” You waited until they turned the corner before you looked down at your plain grey shirt and pajama bottoms before letting out a dejected sigh. You were pretty sure that Bucky was mocking you for your clothes so you knew that if you wanted to get anywhere close to him, you were going to have to switch things up.

You didn’t go all out at first, not wanting to raise suspicions too much. The next day, you put on a long sleeved black shirt with a low neckline and a pair of leggings. Tony gave you a weird look when you walked into the kitchen, “Am I dreaming or is (Y/N) wearing clothes on her day off?” This got the attention of Clint and Bucky, who were sitting in the living room. Bucky looked at you for only a couple seconds before going back to watching his tv show. Before Clint could say anything, you walked out of the room, mumbling an excuse of having somewhere to be.

You headed back to your room and groaned in frustration, clearly that wasn’t enough then. You needed to amp it up a bit. You pulled out your phone and started browsing through many different clothing websites, looking for clothes to wear. It took a while to find anything that you would even consider to wear, everything looked too tight, too revealing or too cheap. You dreaded the search for heels, because although they looked nice you knew you’d have a hard time walking in them.

You did your best to avoid everyone until your new clothes got here and then there was the case of what if they didn’t fit? Although it scared you, you had to admit that it was exciting to be able to try them on as if you were giving yourself a little fashion show. Most of them, you thought were okay, nothing special, they didn’t look as good on you as they had on the model, but it was okay. But when you pulled out a dress you bought, you knew it was the one.

The dress was knee length, off the shoulder and came with a built-in push up bra to accentuate your breasts. It was a burgundy colour made out of a soft velvet material that was very nice to touch. You liked it a lot more than you thought you would, it seemed to pull in your waist and make you look curvier rather than chubby. You smiled, damn you looked good. After you were finished checking yourself out in the mirror, you moved onto the shoes.

After a lengthy check, you made sure that they all fit right, but the real challenge was; could you walk in them? You put on a plain white pair and slowly stood up, it was a five inch heel which may be easy for others but you had never walked in heels in your life. You took a deep breath before stepping forward, only to yelp as you wobbled. You stumbled over to the desk in your room, preparing to use that as some kind of railing, walking back and forth until you felt you could walk without help. You lost track of time and before you knew it, you had been walking around in your room for just under four hours.

You quickly hid all of your new clothes before heading to the kitchen to grab something to eat before going back to bed, you had to wake up early if you were going to make an effort. Bucky had been on a mission over the past couple of days but was supposed to be coming back tomorrow, which was when you planned to impress him. You had trouble sleeping at first, going over all the possible scenarios that could happen when you see him. But eventually, your brain calmed down and you were able to drift off to sleep.

You groaned as you smacked your hand against your bedside table, trying to reach your phone to turn off your alarm. Six in the morning? It should be illegal to wake up so early. You sighed as you sat up and for a few minutes, you stayed sitting there, contemplating giving up on the whole idea and going back to sleep. You shook your head and got up, heading to your en suite bathroom to take a shower.

As the water hit your skin, you started to wake up some more and get both excited and nervous to meet Bucky again. While the two of you hadn’t talked much in the few weeks that he had been part of the Avengers, you felt a connection to him. Perhaps it was just a crush, but you still liked him all the same. You stepped out of the shower and dried yourself off before getting dressed for the day. You brushed your hair and styled it how you liked before you slowly put on the dress and heels.

Now that you had to leave your room, you felt more nervous and insecure than ever. No one had seen you like this before, what if they didn’t like it? What if they laughed at you? You wouldn’t know what to do if that happened. Taking a deep breath, you muttered to yourself, “Good god, get a grip girl, it’s not that big of a deal. Come on, you can do this, just walk out of there and pretend you don’t care about their opinion.”

You put a fake smile on your face as you stepped out of your room and started slowly walking down the hallway to get to the kitchen to get something for breakfast. The heels were already uncomfortable on your feet, how do women do this everyday for hours on end? You heard voices coming from the kitchen and you forced yourself to keep walking, not letting your nerves get to you. You turned the corner and saw Steve, Natasha, Sam and Bucky standing there. Your heels clicking on the floor caught their attention and they all turned to look at you.

Sam whistled, “Goddamn girl, where have you been hiding that?” Natasha smirked as she looked you up and down, “Very nice, I love the dress. It looks good on you.” You blushed from them both and you looked towards Steve and Bucky. Steve was red in the face and you saw him glancing at your very prominent breasts before looking away, “You look swell.” He was stuttering over his words and Natasha scoffed out a laugh. You turned your attention to Bucky but he just looked at you, forced a smile and then left the room. You had to bite your lip to stop yourself from crying as all your confidence was drained from you in a matter of seconds.

Natasha looked between you and Bucky’s retreating form, putting the pieces together and gave you a pitying look. You let out a shuddering breath, “Uh, you know what? I just forgot something in my room, i think-” You had slowly backed out of the kitchen and once you turned the corner to be out of sight, you took off your stupid heels and hightailed it back to your bedroom. You threw your heels into your closet and practically ripped off your dress, throwing it back in there as well.

You couldn’t stop a couple of tears escaping, what was the point of that? You had just wasted all that time and money for nothing. You learned how to walk in heels for that guy and he couldn’t even manage to give you a compliment? You sniffled as you slowly took out an old band shirt that had faded over the many times it had been washes and a pair of grey joggers. You couldn’t face going back out there, you had just embarrassed yourself over a guy you barely knew.

You decided to stay inside your room for the rest of the day, communicating with the team through JARVIS and emails, faking being sick. The next day, you had a text from Natasha saying that Bucky was gone so you could come out now, you should’ve known that she wouldn’t let you hide away for much longer. You walked out and headed into the living room only to see Bucky sitting there on the couch. That bitch. You tried to sneak your way into the kitchen unnoticed but of course he heard you and turned to see you standing in the doorway.

“Morning, you look nice today.” You didn’t really know if he was being sarcastic or not but you scoffed anyway before making your way into the kitchen. You heard footsteps behind you so you could only assume that he was following you into the kitchen. You sighed and turned around to face him, “Can I help you?” Bucky stared back, “You can tell me why you’ve been avoiding everyone.” You looked at the ground, “That’s none of your business.”

Bucky chuckled, “Really? According to Natasha, it’s all mt fault.” You grit your teeth, you were going to kill her. Well you could think you could, but a chubby secretary against a highly skilled assassin meant that your chances of winning any fight with her were almost none existent. You clenched your jaw as you decided to stay silent, looking at the ground. You felt your heart race as you saw Bucky’s feet move closer to yours, what was he doing?

You panicked and blurted out, “I just wanted to impress you, okay?...I thought maybe you’d like me more if I dressed like those glamorous girls in the magazines.” You could feel yourself about to cry when you heard Bucky laughing, thinking he was laughing at you. He was, but not for the reason you think. “Doll, you didn’t need to change the clothes you wear, you look just fine like this, in fact, I think it looks better. I don’t want you to change just for me.” You let out a sigh of relief, “Thank god, those shoes were awful. My feet are still hurting.”

Bucky laughed softly and smiled down at you, “So, no more changes unless you want to do it for yourself, okay?” You shyly smiled back, “Okay.” Bucky nodded, “Good, besides, loose clothes are either to pull off anyway.” You blushed hard and nudged his shoulder, “Bucky!”

#avengers #avengers x reader #avengers x chubby reader #avengers x plus size reader #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky x chubby reader #bucky x plus size reader #chubby reader #x chubby reader #plus size reader #x plus size reader

686 notes · View notes

argumentl · 3 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression - Episode 46 The filming for the Dir en grey Real Avatar music video.

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru with this episode, uh, this week's episode of the Freedom of Expression. Joe san, Tasai san...it feels like a while since we were last here.

J, T: Yeah.

K: We've been on location, plus last time we filmed 4 episodes at once. Quite a while has passed since then.

T: It has.

J: Nothing new with you?

K: No, nothing.

T: Hahaha

J: Tokyo Sports seems pretty busy..

T: Yeah, I watched you two recently...on Niconama.

J: Ah, yeh. You wrote an article, thanks for that.

T: I was a bit envious while working on it.

J: Yeh, but what about that Tokyo Sports hoodie? How is it doing?

T: Yeah, it looks like its selling.

J: Right.

T: Thanks to you two.

J: No, no, its thanks to Kaoru, but..

K: No, no, its nothing.

J: You gotta make something else for round two.

T: Yeah, there might be a T-shirt collaboration in the works.

K: Ehh? Im looking forward to that.

J: Eventually we'll have like a The Freedom of Expression x Tokyo Sports collaboration set?

T: Yeh, and we could sell that, then go to Okinawa.

J: Go to Okinawa? Haha.

K: Hahaha.

J: Our plan is steadily progressing that far..

T: Together with you Joe.

J: Yes, please, haha.

K: Ok, so Joe, can I ask you to get us started today?

J: Got it! This is happy news, the news that Dir en grey will screen an avatar music video. Dir en grey will reveal a new music video on New Years Eve from 11:00pm, which includes avatar characters created using 3D scans of the members. The Explosion screenings of 'The World You Live In', have been sold out. So an encore entitled 'The World You Live In - additional' will be held on New Years Eve as an online broadcast. As well as a special talk event with the members, a music video with real avatar characters, made by 3D scanning each member, will be screened. Kaoru?

K: Thank you

J: This is good news, isn't it?

K: So as a rule, we always broadcast this show on Friday, but we've made it a bit irregular this time in order to talk about this. Well, of course, I've seen it already.

J: Have you? What was it like?

K: Well, first of all, as for the filming, we did our make up and costume etc, and had cameras surrounding us 360°. We filmed it there first, and then in a different studio, we put on clothes that had pointers all over them, and I played air guitar...

J: Ah, you performed.

K: And then we took photos seperately.

J: It sounds like hard work, was it?

K: Not really, it was over quite quickly.

J: Really?

K: For the photo shoot in full dress it was like, 'flash..flash..Ok, finished'. It felt like a waste of all the make up I was wearing. Like, 'Isn't there anything else?' haha.

J: Ah, if only you could've have done more...But when you were finished with all that, they made it into a moving person?

K: Well, yeh, it has the kind of atmosphere as if its in a game.

J, T: Ehh?

T: What are the facial expressions like?

K: It wasn't possible to go as far as making different facial expressions. Well, i mean, you could do that if you had the time, but we didn't...

J: This time you didn't go that far? But its the first time for Dir to try this kind of thing, right?

K: Yeah.

J: Was there any kind of catalyst that made you think, 'Lets do this'?

K: Well, there was a kind offer saying like, 'We can do this kind of thing'..

J: A suggestion came, and you decided to give it a go?

K: Yeah, thats it, kinda like that.

J, T: Ahhh.

J: You know, this is...

T: It looks interesting.

J: Its exciting, right?

K: When I was playing, there was a pointer right in the position that I usually hold my guitar, so they asked me if I could change the position.

J: Ah, the the postion you play the guitar?

K: Yeah. They tried to help me change the position, but it was still interfering, so I ended up playing up here at chest level, which would nomally be impossible, haha.

T: Hahaha

J: Pretty high up, its not very Kaoru style, is it?

K: I think it'll be a sight to see.

T, J: Hahaha.

K: Its soo high up! Haha

T, J: Hahaha.

J: By the way, are you influenced by anyone in particular as to the position in which you hold your guitar?

K: No, its just the best position I can play in, based on the size of my guitar.

J: Ah, I see. But somehow you ended up playing up here while filming this mv?

K: Yeah, well..I had to raise the position a bit.

J: Ahh, did the other members have to change anything?

K: No

J: Just you? Because it got in the way of the pointers?

K: Yeah.

J: Ahh, really? Die always plays quite low down doesn't he?

K: Yeah, he does. When we first put on all those pointers and mimicked playing the instruments, it came up on screen as just like moving lines. Even just looking at that, I could tell it was Die straight away.

J, T: Ehhh.

K: The shape on screen looked just like Die.

T: Thats pretty interesting.

J: He's very characteristic, isn't he? How do you film the drums? With pointers on them?

K: Haha, pretty tough, right? We had to use a photo of the drums and stick them on.

J: It seems like drums would be the most difficult to play by air. Or was it not that bad?

K: Well, if the positions of the pointers were set then...

K: Ahh, and it was over very quickly?

K: Yes　

J: And you were holding your guitar up here? I say that, but I don't know how good it looks *1, haha. Well, if i had to choose, playing it lower down probably seems cooler. There was a lot of people in the 90s playing guitar like that, right? Punks and stuff. They played it quite low down. There isn't anyone who plays it up high, is there?

K: No, not really.

J: How about actually holding it like that, Kaoru?

K: It would be pretty difficult to play.

J: It could be the 'Kaoru position'.

T: Haha.

J: The cool position!

T: Haha

K: Yeah.

J: Im looking forward to this.

T: The song is the new single 'Ochita koto no aru sora'?

K: Yeah.

J: Are you gonna test this out once and see the reaction, then maybe do more?

K: I think it would be interesting if we could spend a bit more time on it, and brush up the backgrounds and stuff.

J: You might be able to make new creations using only this. I am looking forward to this.

T: The broadcast will start at 23:00, ohh so its gonna be on as the year changes.

J: Yes.

K: First we'll show the same footage that was in the explosion screening, and then after the year changes we'll appear, and then play this mv.

J: Ah, I see.

K: During the live broadcast with the members, we'll play this. And then we'll kinda talk a bit.

J: I see.

T: This is a great way to bring in the new year for the people watching.

J: Right? There wasn't much good news in.2020, so they will really appreciate this piece of hope appearing at the end of the year. They'll be looking out for the postion of the guitars!

T: The same position as ???*2

J: Thats it.

K: It seems like Kami had no interest in this topic.

J: Isn't he here today? Are you there, Kami?

Kami: Yes, I'm here. I've seen it too.

J: You've seen it?!

T: Have you?!

Kami: Yes, I have.

J: Cause he's a god, right? He's different from humans.

K: He sees what we see.

Kami: Because gods have power.

J: Power? Even low grade ones?

Kami: But, no, it was very interesting.

J: You enjoyed it?

Kami: I did enjoy it, it was cool.

J: Did you notice anything about the postion Kaoru was holding his guitar?

Kami: Ah, no, not really.

J: Haha, didn't you? As a god, is there any scenes you would recommend to watch out for? Or any points to pay attention to?

Kami: Well, of course the images were good, but I really thought the song was good. Dir en grey are good at writing songs.

J, T: Hahaha.

K: Thanks, haha.

Kami: I think you have talent.

K: We're good, right?

J: Yeah! He's acting like a judge.

Kami: Thats because Im a god.

J: Well, yeah. Haha, saying, 'You're good at writing songs' to a pro. Thats a first. But thats just like Kami. So, you liked the visuals, but you heard the song again in a new light?

Kami: It was fun.

J: Ah, it was fun? Thank you.

T: How about making a Kami avatar?

K: Ah, yeh.

J: We've never seen what Kami looks like..

Kami: I can't show you that yet.

K: We could make an avatar, and then have it come on screen, when he's here.

T: Yeah, like in this area of the screen.

J: Yeah! If its technically possible.

K: Tasai could create the character.

T: Hahaha.

J: Like his legendary..Oh, lets do that.

T: But I can't draw him, I need to see him. Otherwise I'd have to imagine what he looks like.

K: Yeah, just draw it from imagination.

T: Like my own image of Kami?

J: Yeah, something like that. Well, in that case we could each try drawing him..

K: Even if it isn't a moving character, we could put it up on that line that appears when Kami talks..

J: Yeah, I see.

Kami: Im just a regular old guy.

K, T, J: Hahaha

K: Well, we know that...

J: Yeah, from what we've heard from him so far, we can gather that.

T: Thats it. I could kinda get an image of him by listening to all of his stories.

K: A combined picture of him.

J: Or a loud talk session with him. Thats not nice to think about, is it? haha

K: Yeah, with that voice, it might be a bit tough.

J: Haha, yeh, it would be exhausting.

K: Yeah.

J: Yeh..

K: Ok...well, also, this is a bit of promotion for me, but from February we will start our Explosion Screening tour of our Meguro RokumaykanGig live. We'll go all over Japan with it, and the member will also..

J: Join in, do a talk session?

K: Yeah, we'll do talk sessions.

J: You'll be there? Well, it has been announced already, so people can already check out all the info in realation to that.

K: Is that all?

J: Yeah, I think so.

K: Well, I'd love it if everyone was able to watch the live broadcast tomorrow.

J: Yep, don't miss it.

K: Ok, lets finish here for today. Please subscribe. Thank you very much.

*1 Not sure if this bit is entirely right.

*2 Couldn't figure out.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #tfoe #kaoru #薫

8 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

25 notes · View notes

crownjimin · 3 years

Text

✰ 086 | baby fish, part one

la vie en rose ━ in which lee aera, a girl who has been crushing on choi soobin for a long, long time, is starting her junior year and her friends decide that its time for her to make her move.

A/N: the entire thing ended up being 5k so like the last written part, i broke it up into two separate posts, which is why it took me so long to update. part two will be posted tomorrow.

( masterlist | prev | next )

The entire week leading up to Saturday was abnormal, to say the least. Firstly, Haeun hadn’t spoken a word about her and Hyunjin’s meet up from the previous Friday. From what Aera could tell, Haeun didn’t seem sad, which the smaller girl thought was good, but Haeun also didn’t seem completely happy. If Aera had to describe how her friend looked, she would probably say serene or tranquil, like she had less to worry about. There was definitely a weight lifted from Haeun’s shoulders, as far as the smaller girl could tell, but if that feeling would last is what Aera was unsure about.

Coupled with Haeun’s odd behavior, this week was the first that Jiah had insisted on Jeongin and his friends joining their table for lunch. Maybe it was because Hyunjin and Haeun had “resolved” their issues, so inviting his friends wouldn’t be awkward for Haeun, but Aera is almost certain Jiah forgot to wonder whether or not this would make Aera awkward.

On Monday and Tuesday things were fine when it came to seating arrangements. Sanha had sat next to Aera, since she sat at the very end of the table, meaning only one person could sit next to her. Soobin sat at the opposite end of the table, the furthest seat possible from her, something that Aera tried not to purposely pay attention to (or feel sad about). But on Wednesday, Soobin had decided to switch seats with Sanha, so instead of Sanha keeping Aera company, it was Soobin. From there, things progressively got weirder for Aera, mostly because she noticed that she wasn’t panicking at the thought of being so close to her long-time crush. And Aera always panicked when it came to Choi Soobin.

Maybe it was because Soobin had been to her house before, he had met her parents, and for crying out loud, they even hugged. So him sitting next to her should be a walk in the park for her, and it truly was. Up until Soobin’s leg brushed hers.

At first, she chalked it up to an accident, since it initially happened as a result of Soobin shouting out in excitement at something Huening Kai brought up. But once his leg had returned to its regular position, away from Aera’s, Soobin had deliberately moved it back, bringing back the warmth that came with it. And even worse, he stared at her while he did so, eye contact ensued, and maybe that meant something important to Aera.

She wasn’t sure yet.

The last bit of change that occurred throughout the week was that Soobin was everywhere. Yes, Aera and Soobin already shared two classes and lunch together, but usually Aera would walk there herself. But after lunch on Wednesday, Soobin waited for Aera to throw away her trash so they could walk to Music class together.

Together. Like, side-by-side.

While Aera never imagined herself walking anywhere with Soobin, having him as a somewhat guide, since he was so tall, wasn't that bad of a thing. He could see over the majority of everyone’s heads so Aera didn’t have to worry about navigating her ways through the crowded halls. Added onto the fact that the clutter of students practically parted for Soobin meant that Aera’s usual four minute trek to class was shaved down to two.

And from lunch to music wasn’t the only time Soobin walked her to class. He walked her from music to physics, then from physics to her brother’s car after school, keeping her company as she waited for her brother to arrive from his last class, which Aera used to do on her own.

But now she had Soobin.

So, yes, the week leading up to Saturday was odd. All of these actions, more so the ones from Soobin made her really think, was Saturday supposed to be a date? Is that why Soobin decided to start walking her from class to class and sitting next to her at lunch? Is that what people do when they start dating? Aera had no clue, but she couldn’t help but to have the smallest bit of hope that it meant something good.

_ _ _

When Soobin had told Aera that they would hang out on Saturday, it wasn’t until the day of that he realized he never told her what time. So on Saturday morning, as he woke up at a quarter past ten, he shot Aera a text, telling her he would be there by noon. Unsurprisingly, she texted back quite fast with a simple okay. Soon followed by another text, oh and also good morning soobi.

Soobi.

If anyone else had come up with the nickname he probably would’ve thrown up, but it wasn’t anyone else. It was Aera.

Honestly, Soobin had never felt this way about anyone before. He wasn’t inexperienced when it came to having an occasional crush, he’d had plenty of them throughout middle school and even had one on Lee Chaeryeong in ninth grade before he decided that dating was one of his last priorities—so none of this was new to him. What was new to him was Lee Aera and the way she came out of nowhere, with her adorable eyes and cute pouty lips.

The first time he saw her he swore his first thought was: “is this love at first sight?”. Soobin wasn’t one for cliches or overly romantic gestures, but he was prepared to be at her beck and call, ready to do whatever she wished after that first glance. It was odd, and dramatic almost, which was weird because everyone knew Soobin was level headed and almost nonchalant when it came to pretty much everything.

But the way he had been acting recently whenever it came to Lee Aera was anything but level headed or nonchalant. And maybe he liked it a bit, he liked knowing that there was potentially someone he wanted to genuinely make happy in a non-platonic sense. Someone that mattered romantically to him, rather than as a friendship and it excited him while it also made him nervous.

He never actively sought to make someone his girlfriend before. He never had the self-doubt or the burden of worrying about a perfect date, and yet the moment Lee Aera showed up and smiled at him, his mind started thinking about and opening up to the idea of a relationship. It’s funny how much one person can influence sudden change in someone’s life, and at the moment Soobin was experiencing that firsthand.

But, oh, Soobin remembered, this wasn’t a date.

Brushing his teeth and styling his hair was quite easy for Soobin to handle on his own. When it came to choosing his outfit, that’s where Soobin found trouble. He changed from a collared white shirt to a plain tee, then back to the collared shirt. From sweatpants to joggers, back to sweatpants then to jeans. His collared shirt then turned into no shirt at all and instead a hoodie, and finally Soobin felt like he looked presentable. His outfit was simple enough to not clash with his purple hair (which was starting to fade, so he needed to decide a day where he dyes it back to dark brown).

The obvious choice in shoes were his high top black converse, and then he finally went downstairs for a light breakfast. By time he scarfed down his cereal it was eleven-thirty, so he called for his mom to see if she was ready.

From there, it was fast-paced. The trip to Aera’s house was blurry, and him ringing the doorbell was a fuzz as well. He seemed to snap from this odd state once Mrs. Lee, or Dongmin as she asked to be called, opened the front door with a bright smile and widened arms. With sounds of excitement, Dongmin pulled Soobin into a tight hug, swinging back and forth as Soobin heard the sound of his mom’s car engine turning off and a car door slamming.

At that, Dongmin stepped aside and ushered Soobin into the house, pointing up the stairs as she said, “Ae is upstairs, you can go get her.”

And with that, Soobin peeled off his shoes and began up the stairs. It wasn't hard to see which room was Aera’s since a large A was hanging on the closed door of only one of the many rooms on the second floor. He knocked and waited for a reply, but with the loud music that was slightly audible through the door, Soobin knew he wasn’t going to get an answer.

He took it upon himself to slowly push the door open, and the second he did so the loud music flooded into the hallway. Soobin was greeted with a sight that he couldn’t help but describe as devastatingly adorable and a pleasant view for his eyes.

Aera danced around her room with closed eyes and the utmost conviction, as if this was the last ever performance she would ever give. Her dance moves weren’t anything close to perfect, but they were so imperfect that they seemed natural coming from her. It made Soobin chuckle at her antics, an almost awed and proud feeling for him to see his favorite person so carefree and comfortable in her own space.

Soon though, she whipped around as she continued to sing, and spotted Soobin as he smiled at her with crossed arms and a teasing glint in his eye. He watched as she slipped on the hardwood floor from her socks as she scrambled over to her desk to shut her speaker off.

Silence filled the room for half a second before they both broke out into laughter, Aera with a more embarrassed tone compared to Soobin’s pure glee.

“Forget you saw that,” Aera spoke once she finished laughing. “You saw nothing.”

Soobin shrugged coyly, poking his bottom lip out in a joking manner. “I don’t think I will, Pouts. To me, it looked like you were putting on a good show.”

Aera’s cheeks tinted a shade of red as she stood frozen in place for a second. She then puckered her lips as she pointed at Soobin before she shook her head, seemingly deciding against saying whatever was on her mind. Soobin takes that as her moving on from the entire ordeal and begins to look around her room. Instead of posters lining her walls, like he had expected, there was art work, some framed while others were just sheets of paper that were pinned into the wall.

Some of the pieces were colored, others just rough sketches made with what looked like a pen or pencil. Many of them weren’t finished, just random sketches of life-like hands or other body parts--one page having multiple sketches of noses of different shapes and sizes, some with shading and others with scribbles over them.

Aera never spoke about or mentioned any interest in drawing, and maybe it was something she wanted to keep private because the moment she realized Soobin was studying the art on her wall, she rushed over to him, and practically shielded them from his eyesight with her body.

“They’re terrible, I know,” she said, grabbing one of his arms and turning him the opposite direction, so his back was facing the wall. “I just do it for fun, so please don’t judge too hard.”

Soobin quickly shook his head. “I’m not judging at all. And they’re not terrible, they’re really good—like super good.”

“You’re only saying that to spare my feelings.”

“No, really,” he followed Aera as she walked to her closet. “I wouldn’t lie. It’s really good.”

Apparently, Soobin had followed too closely and too quickly, because once Aera had reached her closet and gotten what she needed (which were her shoes), she had whipped right back around, colliding forehead first into Soobin’s chest. They both jolted at that, Aera jumping back and Soobin doing the same, except he didn’t land on his feet, he landed on his butt after his foot caught onto a stray piece of clothing that was on the floor.

Immediately, Aera rushed to help him up, tossing the shirt that Soobin tripped on across her room a little too harshly, before she tugged him off the floor. His clothes were disheveled and Aera was panting a little too hard from the energy it took for her to pull him up, but they didn’t have time to dwell as their mothers shouted up the stairs after hearing the thud of Soobin’s fall.

With that, the two of them gathered themselves and left Aera’s room, heading down the stairs fast and awkwardly, with Aera behind Soobin. So far this “not date” was starting off fantastic.

_______

Neither of their mothers noticed the awkward air between Soobin and Aera once they greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. Soobin’s mother and Dongmin seemed to have bonded quite nicely while Soobin was in Aera’s room, seeing as two empty wine glasses sat on the coffee table in the living room.

Soobin’s mom, who Aera learned was named Ruha, reassured the two of them that she was more than sober enough to still drive them to the park where they planned to hang for the afternoon, and the three of them planned to head out. But first, Dongmin made sure to ask Aera a million and one questions before she could leave.

“You have a jacket?”

“What about money? Do you need money? Go check your dad’s wallet for some money.”

“What about your phone? Is it charged?”

“Are you sure those pants will keep you warm? You know it’s getting chilly outside. Maybe you should go chang--”

“Eomma,” Aera gasped. “It’s fine! I’m fine! I have money, my phone, and a jacket. It’s fine!”

Dongmin rose from her spot on the couch and walked up to her daughter, smoothing her hands down her shirt sleeves while simultaneously raking her eyes over the entirety of Aera’s outfit. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Dongmin takes a second to look at Soobin, “Awe, how cute! You guys are all matchy-matchy.” She points at the both of them before grabbing each of their shoulders and smashing them together. “Same shoes and black jackets, so cute. Ruha, look.”

Soobin’s mom walked over from her spot by the door to see what Dongmin was cooing about and once she explained everything to Ruha, they both began teasing their children. Soobin took control of the situation before it got any worse and reminded his mother of their plans, wrapping his arm around his mom’s shoulder as he led her towards the door while shouting a farewell to Dongmin. Aera followed close behind after she looked at her mother with a deadpan look, already regretting having Soobin pick her up from her house.

And per usual, Dongmin ignored the look from her daughter and sent her a flying kiss as Aera walked out the door and to Soobin’s mom’s car.

#choi beomgyu #choi soobin #choi yeonjun #hueningkai #kang taehyun #choi soobin x female oc #kpop #social media au #txt #txt social media au

15 notes · View notes

josefavomjaaga · 3 years

Text

Sir Robert Wilson on Murat and Eugène

Okay, so I said I would read up on Wilson first before reading anything by him – but I had already looked into the second volume of his diaries, and this is just perfect: During the final days of March and April 1814, when the First Empire ended in Upper Italy, he visited both Murat and Eugène and had dinner with them.

Please bear with me, this is going to be lengthy. Plus, I do not know if these diaries were truely private or intended for publication, so I have no clue in how far they were edited later and how trustworthy they are as a source.

We start off in mid-March. Eugène is still holding the Mincio line for Napoleon. Murat has received the ratification of his treaty with Austria but is still on awful terms with Austrian Field Marshal Bellegarde – and with Bentinck [»Lord William«, as Wilson writes], of course.

March 15th – As I am of the species of anecdote collectors, I must note a speech of Beauharnois at Verona, which has made an impression in his favour, although it is not sufficiently towering for a hero's last struggle and would rather suit a sixth than a fifth Henry:

"Pour moi, je suis monté par un escalier si bas que je ne me ferai pas du mal en descendant. Je n'aurai que du chagrin pour ma femme, née et elevée princesse."

In English: "As for me, I have climbed a staircase from so low that I shall not harm myself on the way down. I will only grieve for my wife, born and bred a princess." That was Eugène’s usual attitude. Auguste did the same, in reverse: Of course she never wanted that crown of Italy for herself. But her Eugène (best of husbands™) deserved it so much more than anyone else in Napoleon’s family!

There are many others recorded equally meek; and this humility of spirit, combined with other good qualities and his present martial and military conduct, excites great interest in his favour.[...]

Yesterday, Colonel Cattanelli arrived and brought me advice that Lord William and Murat were at Reggio, contending for and against the British occupation of Tuscany. [...]

March 20th - We have no further advices from Reggio, but are most anxious to know the result of Murat's and Lord William's final conference.

Cattanelli tells me that Murat said to him: "Whereever I am in all the great battles, I have seen General Wilson. He is certainly one of the most distinguished officers, and if it had not been for him, we should in various instances in Russia have got through much better. He has done us infinite harm, but it is a fatality that he should always be opposed to me." He then continued his remarks, observing that I was an enemy to him, his family, the French nation etc. Cattanelli told him that he had heard me extol his military conduct, which pleased him much.

The fact is that I have not written a line or given an opinion under the influence of personal feeling. I have not shown the smallest prejudice in conversation or official correspondence, although I consider Murat's conduct as very dishonourable with reference to his benefactor. I have always said that the Allies did not give his renegade zeal fair trial, and that our present propositions are inadmissable by a King of Naples having only an armistice with England.

There is a reason, why, personally, I would wish to serve Murat. He now knows it, and will be satisfied that at all events I respect myself too much to wrong him.

March 29th, Bologna. - In consequence of the difficulties which existed and seemed to increase, I was requested by Lord William to negotiate with Murat. Constant to the principle of promoting public utility, I acquiesced, but I felt much personal reluctance. […]

At midday I went with Lord William, and was introduced to Murat. He received me very amicably; and we had more than an hour's very interesting conversation on past military events, particularly those relating to the Russian campaign; and I acquired some valuable information on that subject. Murat's dress was singular. Hair curled in Roman coiffure—two ringlets, or what, à la Parisienne, are styled “pensées”, dependent on each shoulder. Blue uniform coat, red pantaloons, yellow shoes, with spurs; sword, with three pictures in the handle. His countenance martial, his manners soft, his conversation easy and intelligent. I reserve further opinion until I have transacted business with his Majesty.

30th. — I dined with the Duke di Gallo - a handsome entertainment and a well-chosen party. In the evening went to the opera. Murat was seated as a Sultan -- princes and dukes all standing behind his throne-chair. He is by far the best actor that has appeared in the royalty theatre. This morning Lord William is gone to have an interview with the Pope. I am left to negotiate. I find myself much like the Allies in France—without any base for operations, line of communication uncertain, various interests clashing, and no unity of direction. [...]

April 1st. —On the evening of the 29th, at half-past six, I was at the dinner-table with Murat. The banquet was according to all the rules of perfect gastronomy. The master's manners were very gracious. It was impossible for Lord Chesterfield to have done the honours better. A certain high personage in England would, I am sure, ever feel a little jealous of his kingly courtesies. There was somewhat more of ceremony in the arrangement of the table than I ever witnessed before in royal fêtes. Murat occupied one whole side himself. Three persons sat opposite, and two at each end. With the exception of this distinction, there was no extraordinary attention paid to him, and the conversation was as general, fluent, and free as in private society. After dinner was over we remained talking till near eleven o'clock. I fought with his Majesty all the battles over again which we had witnessed together. He was exceedingly interesting, very candid, and by no means a Gascon for himself or his brethren in arms. I profited by this opportunity again to acquire information on various subjects which he was best qualified to give, and which may tend to make a posthumous memorandum of the late campaigns more valuable. […]

3rd. - I, yesterday, had a very long audience of Murat, and received his ultimatum on the subject of Lord William's demands. I begged, however, to have the statement in writing, and Murat promises to give it under his own hand. I think his case a good one. In foro conscientiæ he is justified. He has had much reason to feel mistrust and suspect hostile intentions under the pretext of peace. […]

Wilson actually lists up a whole bunch of reasons why Murat was justified both to mistrust the Allies and to break away from Napoleon, including Napoleon's intended takeover of Naples. So, in comparison with what he wrote on March 20, his opinion of Murat seems to have improved much by the end, on meeting him personally and on hearing his side of the story.

I skip over some stuff: The Allies and a bit later the Italians receive the news of Napoleon's abdication, which leads to a first military convention between Eugène and Bellegarde. Then we get the anti-French riots in Milan as soon as the senate tries to install Eugène as king of Lombardy, Pina gets tortured to death. That’s the point when Eugène quits the game.

25th. —Events have streamed so rapidly that I cannot attempt to note their progress. Yesterday, Marshal Beauharnois agreed to surrender the kingdom of Italy. The insurrection at Milan and the intelligence of Buonaparte's cession of the iron crown, with other circumstances, determined that measure.

I have, in my despatch to Lord Castlereagh, rendered justice to his conduct as an administrator, a general, and a man.

I passed the whole of yesterday evening with Beauharnois and in Mantua, and enjoyed very interesting conversation on all subjects. He treated me with a confidence that very few friends could experience from a person in his situation, and earnestly begged that I would see him again to pursue our discourses. There is unquestionably great satisfaction in a reception which gives proof of previous good repute, and shows the existence of unlimited credit on the heart's stores. [...]

Well, if I may suggest – don’t flatter yourself too much. That has, I fear, a lot to do with Eugène and rather little with you. (And btw, Eugène was not a marshal!)

The dinner was a most agreeable part of the day's entertainment, not only because we did not sit down till 7 o'clock in the evening, which is a great extension beyond 2 o 'clock, but because the society was very select, there not being more than eight, including three ladies appertaining to the Princess whose presence embellished the company. The Princess was herself not visible, having been confined only eight days, but they say she is very handsome. Her children, four of whom I saw, are of the best appearance and manners.

Beauharnois asked much after the Duke and Duchess of Bedford.

And that’s because he kinda knew the duchess pretty well before she became the duchess, during the peace of Amiens, when all the Brits crowded Paris. (There had even been talk about marriage but in the end either First Consul Bonaparte or the Duchess of Gordon decided against it.)

He is altered, but has a great resemblance to Moreau, and is as plain as Murat is gaudy in his dress. He is, in my opinion, just the man to suit some good Englishmen of my acquaintance.

Something makes me think he does not intend this to be a compliment 😉.

27th. — Yesterday, Beauharnois and his Princess arrived here. The preceding day there was much reason to fear that there might be obstacles to his departure, as the Italian generals, etc, were greatly displeased with the second convention which surrendered the capital and the fortresses without any arrangement made for them, according to the express stipulation of the first convention to that effect. I think, however, that Beauharnois does right; especially as Berthier desired him to withdraw, and the people had commenced a senseless and what threatened to be a very sanguinary insurrection, only to be repressed in its first outbreak by the presence of an Austrian force. [...]

The Princess, although only brought to bed twelve days, bore the journey very well; but Assalini tells me that she is very delicate, and that he fears the more for her as her mother died after child-birth. I have just sent her a bottle of Tokay from the cellar of John Sobieski. It was given me when I was in Warsaw, and I have carried it about intact on the presumption that I might one day apply the nectar to a better purpose than the gratification of my own palate. If I have not, as I hope, combined the “ utile dulci,” I have at least combined in this instance the “decorum dulci,” and this is more in character.

28th - Yesterday, Beauharnois showed me a letter from his sister, the Queen of Holland. It was full of anecdote about Buonaparte, the Empresses, etc, and proved that she possessed much good sense and good feeling. One of her remarks was—“Fatality determined that no experience, no counsel, not even the Emperor's own intelligent mind should discover the bandage which it had bound over his eyes. The perception of the heart was wanting, and great geniuses rarely possess it. He has been abandoned almost by all. Rustan (the Mameluke) is even about to quit, and when I saw the Empress Louisa the other day, she had not more than one valet-à-pied in her service. She came to the advanced posts to embrace her father before she followed her husband, but it is now said that she will not be allowed to go after him. It is true that he was not latterly kind to you, but I am sure you will remark only his benefactions at this time.” The tears started in the eyes of Beauharnois as he read.

May 1st. - I dined on the 29th with the Prince Eugène, the Princess and three ladies of her court; no other persons present. A conversation of five hours enabled me to travel over much matter, but without exhausting our subjects. I had every reason to be pleased with the Prince, and to be assured that we did not separate without a mutual wish to meet again. He was very anxious that I should be at Paris when he was there, but as I hate traitors and cowards - however beneficial their treason and baseness — I shall not sojourn in that city. I would rather be Buonaparte, to have written his last bulletin, than any one of the yet prosperous renegades.

So, to sum up: Murat fascinating but hard to assess, Eugène plain boring. No surprises there.

#joachim murat #eugene beauharnais #eugene de beauharnais #napoleon #italy1814 #sir robert wilson #abdication #trust in whoever meets murat to describe his outfit in detail #napoleon's marshals - not!

7 notes · View notes

highly-opinionated-ramblings · 4 years

Text

Batshipping masterpost

Sometimes asking yourself the question “what would it take for me to ship these two characters together?” helps you come up with really really good stories that you otherwise might never have thought of!

Very fun writing exercise. Do recommend.

ANYWAY. I like Batman, so I asked myself this question about him, and these were the results!

(Featuring: Catwoman, Riddler, Twoface, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Azrael, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Aquaman)

What would it take for me to ship Batman with that character? A few key ingredients:

If they are/were a villain, a redemption of sorts. A slow process of coming to terms and actively deciding “yeah, that’s not who I am anymore.”

A connection, a distinct moment where they’re able to talk to Batman as more than just an old enemy or a League ally. A spark that generates interest in developing the relationship further.

An establishment of explicit trust. This usually comes in the form of Bruce revealing his identity to the other and trusting them (maybe tentatively at first, but even so) not to give it away.

An introduction to the kids. I am one hundred percent positive that this is, for the vast majority, not a voluntary action on Batman’s part. But if you raise nine kids to be detectives, you can’t expect to keep secrets from them for long! And once they know you’ve been sleeping with that former villain, you’re going to have to justify that to them somehow.

Then the whole cycle starts again as the villain redeems themselves in the eyes of the kids and gains their trust and acceptance too. Good stuff.

Note: my interpretations of these characters are entirely my own and by no means do all of them line up with any sort of canon. I just sort of do whatever.

Also: some of the bullet points below address some of the mental health problems in the villains, so proceed at your own discretion.

Catwoman: I really like the Gotham tv show’s dynamic between Bruce and Selina, which is to say, they were childhood friends with an early attraction to one another, but had a falling out sometime around the very beginnings of Bruce actually becoming Batman. She spends a few years as a professional thief. He sends her to prison a few times. But eventually she settles down and opens up a casino or whatever, where she deals information under the table. Alfred and the kids know her these days as an ally rather than enemy. So it’s just a matter of her realizing that her attraction to Bruce is deeper than originally assumed, and that if she wants to be with him she has to really dedicate herself to that idea, and for him to realize that she’s being serious and that he needs to prioritize spending time with her over obsessing over his work.

Bruce takes his mask off dramatically, saying something along the lines of “it’s me, Selina” and she’s like “yeah I know.” “What?” “You do this thing where you pace back and forth and nod your head up and down when you’re thinking. Never known anyone else who did that but Bruce Wayne.” “...Oh.”

Childhood friends interpretation is also great because Alfred already knows her and likes her. And she has all these embarrassing stories about 14 year old Bruce to share, which means that even the most resistant of the kids warm up to her right away.

Riddler: the first line in his Arkham file is that he has an obsessive need for attention. And Bruce KNOWS that. But it takes years for it to occur to him, incredibly sleep-deprived and staring down one of Ed’s death traps that he really, really doesn’t want to deal with today....what would happen if he just, y’know, gives it to him? The attention that he wants? And the results are instantaneous. It’s like the floodgates are open and Ed just can’t stop talking. It starts out snide and derogatory, the same way he usually talks to Batman, but the longer it goes on the more it deteriorates into something oddly helpless and vulnerable. Bruce has been so used to cocky, swaggering Ed that it never really occurred to him that this was someone suffering, who needed help. So he sits down and does his best to convince Ed that he’s not going to take him in (how many times has he been sent to Arkham? And what good has it done him, really?) and they talk. He leaves out of necessity (bank robbery in progress, says Barbara’s voice in his ear) but he goes back the next day, and again after that. Ed gets attention from Bruce without having to resort to crime to get it. Bruce gets a break from head busting and an outlet for some of the stale energy inside his head. They tell each other riddles and play strategy games and get to know each other, for real this time.

Ed stops worrying so much about proving that he’s smarter than Batman. Instead he channels all that energy into uncovering Bruce’s secret identity. It’s just another one of their games. Bruce has kept that secret for a long time and he’s confident he can keep it up, but Ed’s always alert waiting for him to slip up, to leave a clue

Option 1 for how he finds out: he sets up an elaborate trap, making it seem like he’s in danger and the only way to save him is for Bruce to take his mask off, so he does. Ed is outraged. “REALLY? BRUCE WAYNE? FUCKING REALLY?” he yells, dropping all pretense of being in danger. The robots he made for this setup drop like puppets with cut strings. Bruce gets ready to Fight.

Option 2: Some other villain reveals Bruce’s identity before he gets the chance (Arkhamverse style). Ed is outraged. “HOW DARE YOU LET ANYONE ELSE BUT ME DO THAT” he yells while Bruce tries his best to ignore him and focus on calling the JL to fix the whole situation somehow

Option 3: Bruce just tells him. Ed is outraged. “I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE TO FIGURE IT OUT YOU IDIOT”

The kids are Not Happy about Bruce dating Gotham’s Most Annoying Super Villain

Twoface: again I gotta go with the whole ‘they were friends when they were younger and Bruce had a raging crush on him’ setup. Cause that adds a whole layer to Bruce’s part of the story, watching Harvey become Twoface and assuming responsibility for locking him up every time he gets out. One day something happens in Gotham- string of murders or something, it’s not important really what it is. Bruce goes after the person responsible and his trail leads him to Harvey. So he busts into the safe house, intending to intimidate anything Harvey knows out of him, and then throw him back in Blackgate. “Ohohoho, noooooo, you got this all wrong,” Harvey says when he figures out what Batman’s getting at. “That motherfucker put a dozen of my men in the ground. This is personal. You want me to tell you what I know, you’re going to take me with you.” And Bruce agrees. Cause he knows Harvey’s got a certain moral code that he can be trusted to stick to, and it’s the most painless way of getting what he wants from him anyway. Working with Harvey is weird, though. He shoots a couple of goons going after Batman and gives him that lopsided smile, says “I’ve got your back,” and suddenly Bruce is like 20 again and Harvey is bringing him a coffee, smiling. During their chase they have a dramatic rooftop showdown with whoever it is they’re chasing. Bruce turns around just in time to see one of the thugs push Twoface over the edge. He gets caught up in the moment and practically screams, “Harvey!” Of course, he’s able to dramatically swoop in and save him, though it’s a pretty close call. When Harvey comes to he sits up and says quietly, “It’s been a long time since anyone’s called my name like that, did we have that kind of relationship?” and Bruce panics and tries to brush it off as his imagination, but Harvey shakes his head and says “once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it, man. It’s you under there, isn’t it, Bruce?” And it turns out that knowing Bruce’s real identity turned out to be exactly what Harvey needed. Cause he can identify some of the duality he feels about himself in Batman, now. They spend some more time together, talking some of that out, and it doesn’t take long for Bruce’s crush to return en force.

Poison Ivy: He lets her go. He knew she was at that scene, and she knows he saw her, but he lets her go, cause it wasn’t a big deal. No one died, relatively little property damage, and that jerk deserved it anyway. The next day there’s a potted plant sitting on GCPD’s doorstep and they call Batman thinking it might be dangerous, but it’s just a lovely specimen of a rare flower, which he knows is her way of saying thanks. (He doesn’t let the police know that, though. He just puts it in the back of the Batmobile and tells them it’s nothing he can’t handle). He takes it home with him and treats it well. And she knows it, can kind of sense it, distantly. They have a few more run ins over the course of the next few months and they take it easy on each other, having this sort of mutually unspoken agreement. Eventually something happens for her to need to talk to Batman, so she digs her roots in deep and finds that flower...in the garden at Wayne Manor. She leaves a message for Batman and they meet up and talk about whatever she needed. She doesn’t mention the Manor, so he asks about it. She just shrugs and mentions something about Bruce Wayne’s recent efforts in protecting the environment. “Maybe we’re not as different as I thought, after all.” They give each other more little presents from afar. One day she sees him hanging around (where she knows he knows she can see him), and drops by to talk. He offers her a ride home and ends up spending the night.

This one I think he owns up to before the kids can figure it out. Pam’s a good source of information, and if he was desperate he’d call her even with all of them watching. They’d all think he’d been bewitched, of course. It’d take a while to convince them all otherwise.

Harley Quinn: all it takes is for him to get his first glimpse of the real her and decide that Joker victims need to stick together and help other Joker victims. After the breakup and the subsequent recovery, she’s living free (albeit under Constant Surveillance) in Gotham, and he checks in every once in a while, just to make sure she’s doing ok and not reverting to her previous, Joker-driven, rocket-fueled bad habits. One day there’s an incident in her neighborhood- maybe someone was going after her and Bruce was there protecting her, or maybe it wasn’t related to her at all. Regardless, it’s her who finds him after the explosion and takes him home and gives him first aid. He’s groggy and panicky when he first wakes up in a strange place (not a hospital, not the cave) with an IV drip in his arm (he’s not in a hospital, where did that come from!). It gets worse when he realizes that his mask was blown right off his face in the blast. It gets SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE when Harley appears in his field of vision, waving around a tablet pulled up to Bruce Wayne’s wikipedia page, in full psychologist mode, ranting about how he’s been going about dealing with his childhood trauma All Wrong. But they talk, and she promises not to give his secret away. “What would I have to gain from that? You’d stop coming to visit me then!” It takes a while for the two of them to figure out exactly what’s going on between them but once they’re both sure the others’ intentions are good, they develop a good, strong relationship.

Bonus points if, at any point in the above time space, she walks up to him one day and hands him an unmarked usb drive. “What’s on this?” “My daughter.” “What.” “My daughter! Her location and everything about her.” “Is she...Joker’s?” “I dunno. Could have been him or any one of a number of other guys. Mistah J threw some really wild parties. *shrug* The only part that really matters to me is that she’s mine. And if anything ever happens to me, she’ll need someone to look out for her, y’know?” “And that’s me???” “Well, helping people in need is one of your compulsions, after all. Especially kids, or else you wouldn’t have so many of your own.”

I usually imagine Jason as one of the ones kind of sticking up for Batman, citing how crime has all but disappeared since he started sleeping with whatever particular villain and that who are they to police who Bruce shares his bed with anyway (BONUS bonus points if he’s just entering the early stages of coming to terms with his own bisexuality and never realized that Bruce was bi, too), but that wouldn’t be the case with Harley. He’d feel pretty hurt about that, I think. On the other hand: Dick has been around since Harley’s debut on the scene, and has always thought of her as relatively harmless and even respected her to a degree, as a fellow acrobat, so he’s cool with her dating Bruce

Azrael: His JL team goes on hiatus for a little while, so he calls Bruce up like “uhhh, I don’t really have much of anywhere else to go, so can I come back to Gotham for a while?” And Bruce tells him that they’re actually experiencing a pretty calm stretch for a change, but yeah, he can come if he wants. At first he’s excited because he’s never been invited to the actual, og Batcave, but there really IS nothing going on. He meets Alfred, who offers him tea. He meets Steph and Tim, out of masks, lounging on the couch playing Street Fighter. They assure him that if literally anything happens, one of their gajillion alert systems will let them know. He goes off in search of Bruce, finds him sitting at the kitchen table making his way through a veritable mountain of paperwork. Eventually he admits that he doesn’t really know what to do with himself in the downtime. “I usually try to use time like this to do things for Bruce Wayne, instead of for Batman,” Bruce explains. “You should do something for Michael Lane, while you have the chance.” “But...but...but I’ve been Azrael full-time for years now...” “Alright, well, what did you like to do before you were Azrael?” “UHH...” Before he can short-circuit too much trying to come up with an actual answer to that question, Bruce puts aside his paperwork and takes his arm. They get in the car and Bruce takes him to like a hobby shop or something. They buy model kits and a cookbook and some yarn (”one of the kids can teach you”), and he promises that one of these days they’ll clear some space on the lawn to play football. Michael hasn’t experienced this level of anyone caring for his well-being probably ever? and all he can do is stammer something about “is there anything I can do for Bruce Wayne in return?” “You can keep me company while I file all my paperwork, I guess.” So he sits at the table across from Bruce and builds his little ATAT model kit feeling happier than he has in a long time. Bruce can tell that a little more attention would do him good, so they spend some more time hanging out which leads to having some deep conversations and building up feelings for each other, it’s all very cute

Right at the beginning of Michael developing his crush on Bruce he realizes that something’s different, but doesn’t quite realize what it is, and his mind jumps to the worst case scenario right away. He locks himself in his room, calls Bruce at work, panicking, and says he thinks his St. Dumas brainwashed obsession with Bruce might be coming back. Bruce tells him to calm down, they’ll run some tests. All the tests come back negative, but Michael is visibly shaken, so Bruce offers for him to hang around Gotham a little longer so they can monitor him, which is what leads to his extended stay in Gotham

Mr. Freeze: One day something changes. One day the realization finally, finally clicks into place. There’s a huge floating JL base in the sky and aliens living on Earth and people coming back from the dead and healing from miraculous injuries and plagues all the time. If it was going to happen to him, it would have happened by now. It’s over. Nora’s not coming back. That day he laces up his boots and loads his gun and walks over to the little diner on the corner and wrecks it. Batman gets the call, and obviously he knows that something’s different, this isn’t Vic’s MO, but he goes anyway, of course. Vic blasts away at him with his freeze gun, wildly, recklessly, screaming and ranting the whole time. Bruce dodges out of view, and Vic transfers his aggressions to the nearest object in sight: a table. He blasts that thing in half, and then in half again, and keeps going until it’s nothing but splinters and he’s just standing there, gasping for breath. “Victor,” says Bruce from behind him, “tell me what’s wrong.” “Nora’s dead,” Vic mumbles under his breath. Bruce comes around to face him and Vic is looking at him with THE SADDEST puppy dog eyes he’s ever seen. (I know what you’re thinking right now. “Mr. Freeze can’t do puppy dog eyes.” You’re WRONG, I’m telling you) “That’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud, I think... I d-don’t...I don’t know what to do…” and Bruce is like, darn, I can’t take this fool to jail. So he brings him back to his chilly lair instead and sits him down and talks him through it a little. Leaves him with a phone number to call if it gets real bad again, but makes the first call to check up on him later anyway. This one is a sloooow burn, it takes Vic MONTHS to get over Nora, couple weeks to realize he MIGHT? be developing feelings for Bruce, couple more weeks to wrestle with the guilt of that. Learning Bruce’s identity is the thing that really brings all of it to a head. Maybe there’s an attempt on Bruce Wayne’s life and later that day Batman shows up with the same pattern of lacerations on his cheek, or broken leg, or whatever. Vic’s not an idiot. He can put two and two together. When Bruce finally takes off the helmet in front of him, it’s a huge relief. To be able to say “I know what it’s like to lose people” and for Vic to know he’s not just talking about heroing. They get closer and closer from there. Their relationship is a weird one, with a lot of compromises to make, but they do the best they can.

The kids don’t particularly mind Bruce going out with Vic. He’s not so much a villain as he is just a guy who’s been dealt a bad hand in life and done the best he could with it. But having around makes the already-cool cave soooo much colder, which isn’t so fun.

Clayface: There hasn’t been an incident with Clayface in years. He’s older, little calmer, little more mature (I like the New 52 plotline of him joining Kate’s crime busting team, but this little scenario works even without that part thrown in). Still, when Bruce hears he’s back in town, he figures he should probably pay him a visit anyway. Just in case he’s planning something. But he goes to the address he was given, some apartment building in Kingston, opens the door, and finds Basil. Not Clayface, Basil Karlo, sitting in a chair by the window reading a paper. “Haven’t seen that face on you in a while,” he says, still unsure if it’s a trick or not. “Oh,” Basil shrugs, unsure if he should be worried about being tossed in jail again or not. “Well, it’s my face. The one I’m most familiar with, takes the least amount of concentration to keep up with. I did make some changes, though, see? Few gray hairs, few lines on my face. Do I look older?” “Yes. It’s a good look.” He keeps checking in with him, cause you can never be too careful, and then because he actually starts to enjoy Basil’s company. Their relationship is one of the more light-hearted ones on this list. They get wine drunk and make out on the roof of the apartment building, very giggly.

“If I learned anything at Arkham, it’s that there are some things that you know are wrong with you, but there are also things that are wrong with you that you aren’t even aware of, and that you couldn’t identify or fix even if you tried.” “One of the psychologists told you that?” “No. I shared a cell with Tetch for a few weeks. That dude is so much more messed up than you realize.”

Superman: Clark calls him up saying something about a mystery in Metropolis that has everyone stumped, and maybe the World’s Greatest Detective wouldn’t mind helping him out? So Bruce drops by to lend him a hand. The ‘mystery’ turns out to be a group of unfamiliar aliens who’re out to get Superman (I don’t care why. Maybe they’re holding some kind of grudge, maybe they’re bounty hunters, maybe they want to sell him off into space-gladiator slavery, whatever). These antagonistic aliens have been very careful in their preparations- they’ve done all the math, and come up with special weapons specifically designed to hit Superman hard enough to knock him out. But they didn’t plan on Batman being there with him, which throws them off just enough that Superman is able to chase them off successfully. In the midst of that fight, though, Bruce takes a hit. A hit calculated for Superman. It breaks several of his ribs and punctures a lung. Clark panics, scoops him up and flies him to the nearest hospital at record speeds. They’re able to stabilize him at Metropolis, and then they send him back to the Watchtower for further treatment. When he wakes up he’s pretty disoriented and confused, but Clark (who had been listening for a change in his breathing and heartbeat from a couple rooms away) comes rushing in, ushering him back to bed and promising to explain everything. Bruce is woozy and wonky enough from whatever drugs they gave him that he lays back down and lets Clark hold his hand protectively without argument. He listens to Clark’s explanation, mumbles something about calling Alfred, and promptly falls back asleep. Clark feels so guilty about his injury that he won’t leave his side for weeks, even following him back to Gotham once he’s well enough to leave the Watchtower.

“God, when will they finally just kiss already,” Jason says, taking cover with the rest of the family in the cave. “I know, right,” says Steph while Tim, Cass, and Duke (and Alfred) all nod in agreement. “SHUT UP,” yells Damian, having a hard time adapting to the idea of his dad and his best friend’s dad getting together

Any Superbat is good Superbat but I enjoy it best in the context of ‘they’re old enough by now to be embarrassed about how angsty and competitive they were when they first met, and they both have huge extended families, and the rest of the JL has been watching them dance around each other for YEARS, JUST KISS ALREADY DAMMIT’

Wonder Woman: I don’t usually imagine Bruce as a flustered kind of guy, but Wonder Woman is everything he wants to be when he grows up and he can’t help it. She’s so effortlessly cool, calm, and collected. And she’s a natural charmer, the public loves her. She always manages to come at things with a fresh perspective that has helped unstick his too-logical train of thought numerous times. She paid him a compliment once and he sat in the batmobile in the parking lot thinking about it for like twenty minutes. One day they get assigned to a League PR thing together that turns into an assassination attempt (surprising no one), but everything turns out ok. Minor damage to the surrounding buildings, a few people injured in the mass chaos, that’s all. She goes looking for him after returning from talking to the local cops, and finds him with a toddler girl on his hip, holding hands with her six yo sister, helping them look for their parents. And she just has to stop and marvel for a minute at how soft his voice is??? How the toddler isn’t even crying??? He bends down to hug the little girl bye after returning her to her fam and Diana almost has a heart attack. “I see that the gods have blessed you with an affinity for children of all ages,” she says. By the time he straightens back up he’s Batman again. “What do you mean by that?” “I can never get kids to warm up to me like that in situations like these...I always thought it was because I was just too big and imposing. How did you do it?” “Oh. Well. You know. *gestures vaguely* You just gotta give them what they want.” “And what is that?” “Security. A promise of safety from an adult that they can trust.” She doesn’t quite get it but she watches him, and talks to his sidekicks sometimes. It amazes her how much kindness and love are hidden under that mask of his. When he smiles from the heart he could melt glaciers. So she starts to press, just a little, just to see how he’ll respond. And once she figures out exactly how flustered he can get, too, it’s all downhill from there.

Martian Manhunter: This one is literally one of the sweetest, most pure relationship dynamics I think I’ve ever written, which really caught me by surprise! The way I think of it is like this: When they first meet, Bruce is really, really uncomfortable with the idea of having J’onn in his head, so J’onn tries to keep telecommunication with him to a minimum. So when Bruce gets his attention during like a meeting or something and subtly lets him know he needs to talk, J’onn knows it must be important. So he opens up a private channel and helps Bruce deal with whatever it is (I don’t know exactly what that would be, only that it’d be some kind of sensitive topic best kept between the two of them). And over the course of that, all those one-on-one mind convos, Bruce starts to get used to talking like that with J’onn. In return, while they’re working together, he helps J’onn get used to human physical contact. It starts with small things- handshakes, little pats on the shoulder- until J’onn is comfortable returning them. One day J’onn has a bad day and it’s Bruce that comes to find him, to comfort him. He doesn’t really say anything, just puts his arms around J’onn and holds him close. Most humans- and hell, even most Martians- wouldn’t have done that for him. What else was J’onn supposed to do but fall in love with him?

I really liked the scene in JL8 where J’onn was trying to, like, share a memory with Bruce or something, and instead he ended up unintentionally stumbling into some of Bruce’s trauma memories, which freaked both of them out pretty badly. I think that little scene would fit quite nicely into this scenario. Bonus, if it happens in the really early days of the League, it doubles as the moment when J’onn first learns Bruce’s secret identity.

Flash: It’s been a longtime headcanon of mine that Barry is very active in the Central City community, not just as Flash, but as himself, too. Namely, he spends a good deal of his free time volunteering with the local homeless shelter slash food bank. I mean, come on, just by the very nature of his powers, is it any surprise that he has a vested interest in ending hunger in his community? One day he stops Bruce in the hall in the Watchtower, and clumsily explains that he needs to ask a favor. The shelter has been looking to expand their operations for some time, but right at the last second one of their backers pulled out. They’re short 7k for the payment on the property they needed to make tomorrow, and Barry didn’t know where else to turn to get that much money that quickly. He promises to pay him back, somehow, eventually. Bruce cuts him a check right there for 10k, and tells him to consider it a gift. Later he even publicly endorses the program on social media, saying he thinks Gotham should implement something similar. Barry invites him down to see the building he paid for, so Bruce rolls up his sleeves and spends the day volunteering with him. It’s a chance for both of them to see a side of the other that they’ve never seen before. Bruce watches Barry shine like a ray of sunshine, bringing light and laughter to a room full of people at their very lowest. Barry watches Bruce inspire trust and confidence in complete strangers, like magic. Not to mention, that smile- Barry tries not to use his powers out in the open if he can avoid it, but he discreetly flashes over to stop a tray or something from falling, and of course it doesn’t escape Bruce’s notice. He grins at Barry from across the room and Barry’s heart fully stops for a second.

I like to think of Bruce as a little older than Barry. Just a little, just a few years. Just enough that Barry always feels like an inexperienced, incompetent baby in the face of The Batman

This one throws the kids for such a loop once they find out about it. “THIS is what you’re attracted to, Bruce? THIS???”

Green Lantern: what I know about Hal is that he’s sassy. And what I know about Bruce is that if anyone he doesn’t have the ability to tell to go to their room is sassy with him, he gets snippy. So he and Hal butt heads a lot. One day Hal is venting to Superman in like, an elevator or something about how Bruce just Doesn’t Get It, Clark, He Doesn’t Understand Me, and Clark says, “well, Hal, can you honestly say that you understand him, either?” And suggests that maybe he should spend some more time actually getting to know Bruce before passing judgement. Hal takes that to mean ‘maybe I should go to Gotham and spy on Batman for a day’. When he spots him doing his best to hide inconspicuously on a nearby rooftop, Bruce rolls his eyes and ignores him. Dick spots him too, though, and invites him to the cave in hopes that maybe they’ll be able to settle whatever their argument was about (Jason, Tim, and Steph break out the popcorn and get themselves front row seats for the Drama). But in the end, an up-close perspective was exactly what Hal needed to realize that there was more to Batman than had been meeting his eye. He watches Bruce juggle ten different comm feeds while giving a press conference AND directing his kids’ efforts in the field at the same time, and he earns a new respect for Bruce. He gets where he’s coming from now, and why he’s always so cautious all the time. The guy has a lot to lose. So he mans up and apologizes. Bruce accepts the apology graciously, says he realizes that they’re fundamentally different people but that he values Hal as a comrade and respects his prowess with the ring, and Hal is like, ‘ah. We Are Friends Now.’ He spends more of his time on Earth with Bruce, and along the way he trips and falls headlong into a debilitating crush on him. Like, a visibly obvious crush. Bruce finds it adorable.

Green Arrow: Bruce and Ollie get invited to the same billionaire shindig one day and neither of them can think of a good enough reason to not go. Ollie’s recovering from a bad ankle sprain, and Bruce hasn’t slept in days, so instead of socializing with anyone else there they just sit in the corner and hang out with each other. Midway through the event Bruce closes his eyes and does this forceful little sigh through his nose. Ollie knows him well enough by now to know that small outward signs indicate big amounts of internal emotions with Bruce, and this is about as frustrated as he’s ever seen him out of mask. Normally his act is impenetrable. “What,” he asks, imagination running full speed ahead thinking about what might have happened, “what’s wrong?” “Firefly just broke out of prison,” Bruce growls, reaching for a refill of whatever he’s drinking. “Wh- Wait, who?” “Pyromaniac, serial arsonist in Gotham.” “How exactly did you learn this?” (read: do you have some kind of spider sense I don’t know about?) Bruce just gestures to his microscopic earpiece. Ollie offers, probably against his better judgement, to take a trip to Gotham and help catch Firefly. Bruce, barely able to see straight at that point (bad combination of sleeplessness and alcohol), accepts. So Ollie gets the full treatment, a trip to the cave and tea from Alfred and a haranguing from the kids and a trip to Blackgate with Firefly, even. In return he offers to have Bruce over in Star City sometime. Ollie is usually a little on edge around Bruce, but then he starts to see the real him and finds out that he does, in fact have a sense of humor. They have goofy adventures together and it’s all very cute

Aquaman: Arthur is hotheaded and when he gets in a Mood, the sight of Bruce and his stupid unmovable face just makes him angrier. But once during a mission, when Arthur is busy working himself into a panic, not knowing what to do, it’s Bruce that snaps him out of it. Grabs him by the shoulders and demands that he get a hold of himself. And it’s enough of a shock that it actually works- Bruce tells Arthur the plan, and Arthur does it without argument. No one is more surprised when it works than he is. He is SHOOK. Eventually he swallows his pride enough to go up to Batman and admit, “I think I’m still too emotionally invested in this, can you help me?” Bruce agrees, of course. He does his best to explain how he always keeps his emotions in check, especially when lives are on the line. It occurs to Arthur to wonder what kind of toll that takes on a person. He decides that Bruce could probably use a little vacation of sorts, and invites him to spend a day with him in Atlantis. A day in the life of a king, if you will. Bruce rolls his eyes and agrees, just to play along, but he ends up really enjoying it. Yes, there are a dozen-odd irons in the fire waiting for him when he gets home, but this time he finds that he actually has the energy to deal with them for once. Which is a good enough excuse to go back and do it again, and spend more time with Arthur in the process.

Dami is usually super resistant to Bruce dating anyone, but he would be ok with Arthur, I think. Like, “you bagged a king? Ok, respect”

Extra notes:

I feel like a lot of my thoughts about Clayface and Martian Manhunter specifically could also apply to Killer Croc, too, in a way. I mean, he’s not EVIL. He’s just never really been treated like a person, and so he embraced his image as Killer Croc instead of continuing to face that rejection. But if anyone can look past his exterior and see the needs of the man within, Bruce could. Feels a little weird to think about but maybe there’s something there.

Polyshipping is GREAT may I interest you in some ot3s??? SuperWonderBat is one of the more obvious ones, and I love it (cause Diana gets to play with TWO flustered boys) but BatLanternFlash is also top tier. And then there’s the villains! RiddleBatCat is one of my favorites! Also TwoRiddleBat and BruHarlIvy. The possibilities are endless!

I considered adding Lex and Slade to this post, but in the end I left them off. Cause it’s hard for me to see those as anything but weird, inherently unhealthy relationships. They’d make great black ships though : o

When talking about Bruce dating someone else from the JL, there’s DOUBLE the kids to embarrass. Can you imagine you’re like, Roy Harper or something, somebody’s sidekick, and you walk in and find BATMAN in bed with your mentor???? WILD

This post really got away from me, haha. Thanks for reading! Hit me up if you ever need someone to talk about Batshipping with (especially rarepairs, I got you fam)!

181 notes · View notes