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bootleg-nessie · 5 months

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Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):

***FAQs at the end***

*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in

*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel

Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled

Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)

The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop

The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot

Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service

Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders

Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies

92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use

Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon

As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was

Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows

Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off

Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being

Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care

Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out

Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan

The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it

With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills

North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”

Germany has split up into East and West Germany again

Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively

The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did

The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming

The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP

Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement

All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade

Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high

Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people

The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.

A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism

Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”

For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984

It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness

Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman

The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing

England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock

The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon

Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time

In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere

As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder

Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music

Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready

The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth

We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there

The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors

Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID

Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past

Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are

China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?

A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds

After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief

In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert

Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight

Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office

Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)

FAQs:

FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?

A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.

FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?

A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.

FAQ: Where is the time machine now?

A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.

(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)

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elizabethemerald · 1 year

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Summoning the Cat

DP X DC prompt by @im-totally-not-an-alien-2

Danny attempts to summon his sister via a ghostly spell circle as a prank but instead keeps accidentally summoning the bat boys of Gotham instead. He even accidentally summons Bat-cow instead when he tries to summon Cujo. Annoyed and confused, Danny disconnects the summoning quickly each time. Finally, when Plasmius takes an attack a little too far, Danny attempts to summon his mom to snap some sense into him. Instead of summoning Maddie Fenton he summons Selina Kyle who had a lost a child that was hers and Bruce’s when the child was baby. Turns out Danny is a SelinaxBruce baby. 4812 words

***

Selina Kyle, known in certain small circles as the infamous thief Catwoman lept from one building to another. She landed in a neat roll that was almost completely silent. From there it was but the work of a moment to crack open the sky light and lower herself down into the apartment below her. Now usually she would enter her apartment through either the front door if she was out of costume or through the balcony door if she was. Of course, this wasn’t Her apartment.

Some rich tool, regular attendee of both the galas hosted by the Waynes and the Iceberg Lounge owned by Penguin. The owner was a gambler, a sleazeball and utterly corrupt. More than all that though, he was a braggart. He made the great misfortune of bragging at one of the Wayne’s Galas about illegally importing a rare Egyptian statuette. The statuette, predating the pyramids, was beyond priceless. Not that Selina planned to sell it. It was just something far too pretty to gather dust in some prick’s private display when it could be in her own display instead.

She bypassed the security almost effortlessly. She didn’t even need to break a sweat as she broke in, stole the precious cat statue (and numerous other valuables, no sense wasting an opportunity after all) then broke out and retreated to the neighboring tower. She was just about ready to gloat over her victory when she felt a presence join her on the roof. She dodged on instinct as a batarang whizzed past her head.

“Catwoman, that doesn’t belong to you.” A gruff voice said from the direction the bat shaped blade had come from.

“Well it does now, handsome.” She replied far sweeter as she turned to face Batman.

He emerged from the shadows, his customary glare firmly affixed to his face. She smiled at him and playfully adjusted the zipper on her skin tight suit. Despite all of his iron will power he still couldn’t help a glance at her generous cleavage.

“Mom?”

Her eyebrows pulled down in confusion and she glanced around the rooftop. Batman strode toward her, his usual imposing figure ruined by the fact that she had seen him completely naked and that she wasn’t paying attention to his attempts at intimidating her.

“Catwoman, you need to return what you’ve stolen. And come in for questioning about the missing diamonds from Starlabs.”

“Mom! I need you!”

She whirled around. There was a tugging sensation on her heart as she heard those words she had desperately wanted to hear for so long. Fifteen years had passed since she had last had hope of actually hearing someone call her that.

“Selina? What-?”

“Can it Bats.” Selina snapped as she tried to follow the tugging on her heart, but she couldn’t find any source for the voice.

Green mist began seeping out from around her feet, forming a circle on the rooftop and the tugging grew stronger. The mist was rising up and obscuring everything around her. She could only barely make out Bruce’s growing look of concern.

“Mom! He’s going to kill me!”

“Alan?!” Selina all but shrieked the name of the boy that had been taken from her. (Name borrowed from BatCat Spectre on AO3, Check it out!)

“Selina!” Bruce shouted just as the toxic green mist fully filled her vision and the tugging sensation grew to encompass her entire body. In the seconds she had she adjusted her costume for combat and bared the claws built into her gloves. If Alan was calling her for help, he would find her ready and willing.

“Mom, please hurry!” The voice that had sounded distant and distorted suddenly grew close and clear as the mist began to vanish from her sight.

Selina spun on her heel quickly taking in the boy cowering in the corner wearing an oversized NASA hoodie and the vampire? that was standing over his huddled form. Years of thieving and going toe to toe with the Bats had left Selina with incredible instincts and she used them now as she reacted. She raked her claws across the figure that towered over her son multiple times, drawing blood across his back, chest and face. She didn’t know if the sedative laced in her claws would affect this kind of creature, but the slash certainly got its attention.

The being immediately spun, faster than any human could move to grab her around the throat. She dug her claws into his hand and wrist, digging for his tendons even as she was lifted off her feet with one hand.

“Ah. The infamous Catwoman. This is who you summon for help? And here I thought you were calling your mother. You know very well, Little Badger, that Maddie has better things to do than come to your rescue.” The vampire said, seemingly unaffected by her ripping his hand to ribbons. “But I must thank you for delivering her. When I overshadow her I will have the best thief in the world under my control.”

Through her fading vision she could see his eyes glowing with a red light and could feel some strange force pressing down on her mind, even as she went through all the exercises Bruce had taught in how to resist mind control.

“You don’t get to touch her!” The same young voice that had called for her before shouted out.

Then her vision was once again filled with overwhelming, toxic green light. She fell to the ground released from the hold on her throat and the pressure on her mind disappeared in the same instant. She gasped for air then stood and braced herself for combat.

“Oh, Ancients! I’m so sorry!” The boy, who looked so much like Bruce cried as he jumped to her side to make sure she was alright.

Selina looked around for their assailant but all she could see was a smoking hole dug through the building. She couldn’t help but let her eyes widen at the clear power Alan possessed.

“I was trying to summon my mom to come and help me, but for some reason you came instead. It’s like when I tried to summon my sister and I kept getting all the different bat boys from Gotham. Like I got Nightwing and Red Robin. I even got a cow once when I tried to summon my pet!”

The boy kept talking at a rapid pace as he checked her for injuries. If it weren’t for having been around Dick when he was Robin she might have been able to understand Alan as he was speaking. Selina felt a chill around her neck that eased the pain in her throat. Something in his words stuck out to her.

“Did you try to summon your sister or your sibling?” She asked, looking over the boy curiously.

Warning bells were ringing in her head as she examined him. He was far too thin and for how tall she and Bruce were he should be much taller at fifteen, almost sixteen. He had dark bags under his eyes and cuts on his face. When he came to her side he moved with a noticeable limp, and he held one of his arms awkwardly close to his body.

“Uh. Sibling I think. Ghost Speak applies more weight to title than gender. Wait, why are we discussing summing semantics when Plasmius is still out there?”

“Plasmius?” Selina growled the name out even as her mind was racing at his words.

He had tried to summon his sibling and had gotten Dick and Tim. He tried to summon his pet and had gotten Bruce’s pet. He had tried to summon his mother and he got her. She mentally preened as the thought occurred to her. Whatever summoning ritual he had used clearly knew he was her family. But she still had the current problem to deal with before she could celebrate finding her son.

“Yeah Plasmius. Vlad Plasmius, floating vampire wanna-be, with the terrible dress code of someone who slept through the last century even though I know he was born in the eighties at the latest. He’s way more angry than he usually is but he’s obsessed with my mom, er, my uh, adopted mom. So I thought she would snap him out of it. Now come on, I need to break the ritual connection and send you back before you get hurt again.”

Alan dragged her back towards the glowing green sigil on the ground, but Selina dug her heels in and stopped him. He looked past her, desperation on his face, but he must have hit this Plasmius harder than he thought because he still wasn’t back.

“Alan, you called for help. Do you really think you’re going to just send me away?”

“Wait, Alan? Why are you calling me-? Never mind. I promise I can handle him myself. He’s never beaten me before no matter how close it’s gotten and I’m sure I can handle him now even as angry and nuts as he is now.”

“Absolutely not! I lost you fourteen years ago, I’m not going to turn my back on you now!”

The poor boy seemed frozen by her declaration. He had stopped trying to pull her towards the sigil, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide. Worst to her was the anguish on his face and the tears starting to shine in his eyes. What was wrong with Alan’s life that he had never had someone to protect him before.

“Now, tell me how to fight this guy, and quickly!”

He looked at her for another second, seemingly trying to read her very soul before he nodded. He stepped back from her and a blinding ring of light covered his body. Selina panicked for a moment before the flash of light vanished and Alan reappeared. He was floating, and all of the color had been bleached from his appearance other than his previously blue eyes turning a bright toxic green, but she could still tell that he was her Alan, just like she had been able to tell from the moment she set eyes on him.

“Ok. I didn’t want to show you my powers, but I can’t risk you getting hurt because I’m not doing my best.” He quickly floated over to a backpack in the corner and dug something out and tossed it to her. “Put that on! It will protect you from getting overshadowed. Er, humans call it getting possessed.”

Selina briefly examined what she now saw was a quite frankly hideous bracelet. This is exactly the type of trap someone who had never been bossed around by Batman would fall into, just slip on the bracelet that is said to protect you from mind control and immediately open yourself to actual mind control. Bruce would never put the bracelet on without a hundred questions. It was exactly the type of trap Selina was going to jump into. She had to trust the feeling in her heart and the look in Alan’s eyes that he wasn’t going to hurt her. She snapped the bracelet around her wrist.

“Oh perfect.” Alan was visibly relaxed seeing her protected, and he immediately stood back up and grabbed her hand to examine her claws. “So Vlad Plasmius is a ghost. He can phase through materials and turn invisible. If he disappears be careful but he should still be visible on thermal vision as a warm patch. He has a flame core. Your weapons and armor aren’t going to do anything, you only got those early attacks off because he was surprised.”

Alan examined her claws for a moment then nodded to himself a smirk on his face. Another chill spread across her hands, even colder than what she had felt on her neck. Ice formed around each of her fingers and spread up her wrist to her elbow. Her usual claws were now covered with massive talons that were supported all the way down to bracers that formed on each wrist. Selina couldn’t help but feel proud at Alan’s clear skill with his powers. She wasn’t sure where or how he had gotten powers, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

“Phantom!!!” A voice growled from the smoking hole in the wall. Alan turned to look, fear clear on his face before he returned to examining the rest of her body suit. Ice continued to flow from his hands in blue waves until almost every part of her was covered. “Phfffffffaaaaannntooommm!!!”

The lingering call seemed to be coming from every direction. Catwoman looked down at herself and was even more impressed at the ice armor her son had crafted for her. The ice was still light enough that her usual, very acrobatic, combat style wouldn’t be affected, yet covered her with leg and shin guards, arm guards and pauldrons and a flowing almost mech like armor on her torso.

“Daniel! This is enough. You just need to listen to me and do what I say!” Plasmius shouted.

Selina flexed her claws then darted to the side of the hole just before a pair of glowing red eyes shone into the room they were in. She looked over at Alan and now saw him standing almost fearlessly as his enemy entered the room.

“I heard dear Maddie and that oaf, Jack had you down in their lab recently!” Selina decided to let Plasmius monologue as she navigated directly behind him. “And yet you’re still loyal to them and not to me!”

Alan, Selina guessed he was known as Daniel here, grimaced at Plasmius’ words and she scowled, furious at him taking that tone with her son. She crouched, ready to pounce, waiting for the perfect moment.

“Maybe all you need to learn your true place is to spend some time in my lab. I could do it too, fill jars with your organs and blood and leave you to rot on my lab table, just like your parents did!”

Selina’s horrified shriek was the only warning Plasmius had before her claws were in his back and her weight was bearing him down to the floor. She rent his back as she pummeled him with her knees. Plasmius tried to buck her off but Alan, or Daniel grappled with him from the front. The ice on her claws and on her knee pads allowed her to tear into him. She tried to ignore the green that now covered her claws. She and Alan fought side by side keeping Plasmius on his toes and unable to use his more significant powers.

Plasmius blasted Selina back and fired another blast at Alan. Selina shrugged the blast off with her armor, but cried out as she watched her son fall. A metallic cylinder flew through the air having been knocked from Alan’s grasp by the Plasmius. Selina caught the cylinder out of the air, a brief glance told her it was some kind of mechanical… thermos?

“Mom! Use it!” Alan’s desperate cry snapped her back to reality even as Plasmius slammed into her son. Selina had not mourned her son for the past fourteen years for him to get hurt on her watch. It only took a moment for her to figure out the “ON” switch for the thermos and she aimed it at the man attacking her son. With a scream of rage and a flash of light he was sucked into the thermos and Selina was left alone with her son. She immediately fell to her knees at his side where she could see he was holding a burn at his side.

“Alan? Or do you prefer Daniel?” She asked, trying to keep her voice soft and gentle.

“Uh, Danny actually.” He said with a smile that could have been from her own high school yearbook. “Though, Alan… might not be so bad, eventually.”

“Ok, Danny, are you ok? Do we need to get to a hospital?”

“No!” His shout startled her, but she didn’t let herself pull back from his side. “I can’t go to a hospital, they’ll turn me in, they’ll tear me apart.”

His voice fell away in a broken whine and she immediately curled her body around his, holding him tight. He started to shiver against her and she could feel sobs start to rack his too tiny body.

“That will never happen again, do you hear me? You were taken from me when you were a baby and I thought you were dead. But you managed to find me, you’re so smart, so clever, you found me and I’m here now and I-”

Her words cut off as a green mist began to again swirl around her. Danny looked at her with sad eyes.

“I’m exhausted. I can’t maintain the connection anymore.” He hesitated, looking away from her for a moment, before he looked back at her with an earnestness that startled her. “Are you really my mom? My birth mom?”

“I am.” Selina spoke with more confidence than truth, but she didn’t care about truth, or DNA checks or anything the Bat would insist on. She felt it in her heart. This was her baby. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” The mist was swirling around her faster and faster, she did everything she could to stay focused on Danny’s face. “I’ll find you. I promise you, I’ll find you!”

The green mist filled her vision and for just a moment she could feel skinny arms wrap tightly around her before the sensation faded along with the mist. Far too soon she was back on a rooftop in Gotham, breathing in the smog, still holding a thermos filled with someone who had threatened to disembowel her son. Selina threw her head back and howled her grief and rage at the sky that Danny wasn’t here any longer. She pulled the cowl of her costume off her head so she could dash tears from her eyes.

“Selina? What happened?” Bruce’s gruff voice made her whirl around and he almost got a face full of ice covered claws.

“Take me to the cave.” She stood on slightly shaky legs, clutching Danny’s enemy to her chest.

“Catwoman, you’re not acting like yourself.” He tried to stonewall her, but she was not having it. Danny was out there, exhausted, injured and was being abused by the people who should have loved him.

“Take me to the cave Bruce!” Selina snapped at him, already moving towards where he had parked the Batmobile. “And get your little listeners on the line, our son is out there, alive but in an abusive situation and I won’t allow him to get hurt any more.”

The ride back to the Batcave was spent with Bruce mostly in a paranoid and sullen silence. She didn’t care. She just didn’t care. She loved Bruce, he was one of the most important people in her life, but their son, the baby they had made together, was even more important to her. Instead she spent the ride filling in Oracle with everything she knew.

“His name is Danny, short for Daniel. His adoptive parents are named Jack and Maddie. They own a lab. A lab they held my son prisoner in.” Her voice broke and Batman almost drove off the road. Selina took a moment to gather herself, fiddling idly with the bracelet Danny had given her to keep her safe. Surprisingly it was still with her and the icy armor she was wearing wasn’t melting at all. The cold from the armor didn’t even feel uncomfortable. “He has wavy black hair, Bruce’s eyes, and my jaw. He’s about 5’3”, interested in NASA.” She leaned over to grab Bruce’s arm. “He’s too skinny, our kitten is too skinny.”

The Batmobile thundered into the Batcave where to Bruce’s surprise most of the rest of his kids were waiting. Alan’s siblings in another life. The knowing look they sent her made her think that Oracle must have been keeping the rest of them updated as she spoke. Red Robin was typing away at the Batcomputer while Robin leaned over his shoulder looking at the screen. Signal was probably still in bed. The two Batgirls, Black Bat and Spoiler leaned casually against each other nearby. Selina was surprised Nightwing wasn’t here. He, Red Hood and Oracle were the only ones who had really known that Alan had existed, much less that he had been taken from her and Bruce.

Selina struggled with the armor Danny had made for her for a few minutes while Red Robin and Oracle searched for anyone who matched the description she had given in their systems. Eventually Cass and Steph joined her to help her shed the armor. They were both curious about it even as they helped her out of it. They, like her, ignored Bruce trying to integrate her about what she went through and check her for known mind control elements. It’s Cassandra who notices the bracelet on her wrist, something she would normally not be caught dead in. She examines it then lifts her eyebrows in surprise. She twists Selina’s wrist so she can see the bracelet where a logo is placed.

“Fenton… Works. Fentonworks. Fentonworks!” Selina cheers as she reads the name out loud. Surely that could help them find Danny. “Search Fentonworks!”

There is a flurry of typing after her announcement both from Red Robin and from Oracle over the coms. It only takes a few more minutes of keys clacking, the noise grating against her already frayed nerves for Tim to cheer. She is at his side in a moment, looking at a hideously designed website for Fentonworks. Were these people incapable of actual aesthetically pleasing designs? The heavily modulated voice of Oracle began reading out information and coordinates of a city called Amity Park.

They were getting more and more information, images flying across the screen of the Batcomputer. The Drs. Fenton. Their research and experiments on Ecto-entities. Their children, one biological Jasmine Fenton, one adopted true age and name unknown, renamed as Daniel Fenton. His social media was pulled up, where it was clear he went by Danny, his close friends Samantha and Tucker. More and more information, but Selina was staring at the picture of Danny like a man in a desert staring at an oasis. That was her boy. That was her son. He had called her for help, she had told him, promised him that she would find him again and she had.

Suddenly the screen went dark. From the cries of anger and annoyance from the two boys it was clear it was not because of them. She looked over and saw Bruce near the power button for the screen, his cowl pulled back so she could see the suspicion in his eyes.

“Selina, you’re not acting like yourself.” He said slowly, calmly. As if he were talking to a wild animal. “I think it would be best if you lied down, and I can call Martian Manhunter to check your mind. Our son vanished fourteen years ago. Survival rates for kidnapped children are miniscule for that length of time. Also our son couldn’t be a meta, neither of us have the meta gene. This person is manipulating your emotions. Probably to extract information from you.”

Selina couldn’t help a sneer crossing her face. She regretted taking off her ice claws and armor. She would like to see how well the new attachments fared against the armor Batman wore.

“You can be a paranoid bastard all you want. I’m taking one of your planes to Amity Park tonight.”

Bruce tapped at something on his wrist computer. Her sneer curled up into a snarl, presumably he had just locked the planes. How dare he treat her like one of his Robins that he could just ground whenever he wanted to. Especially when their son was trapped in another state, injured and exhausted.

“No.” Bruce’s curt answer cut into Selina’s already thin patience. She was about to start screaming when another voice cut in.

“It may not be up to your decision any more, father.” Robin said, looking closely at his own wrist computer. “It looks like Richard rendezvoused with Todd at the secondary Batplane immediately after finding out about this person. As soon as they had coordinates they took off.”

Bruce turned the monitor back on to reveal one of the locator beacons from one of the other Batplanes already leaving Gotham airspace.

“Oracle. Shut the plane down remotely.”

There is a long moment of silence of the coms before Oracle hesitantly rejoins the conversation.

“I’m not going to do that.” Bruce looks like he wants to angrily reply but he is cut off as Barbara continues. “Catwoman knows enough about the risks of mind control to know when she’s being influenced. If there’s even a chance that there’s a child trapped in an abusive situation like she described, blood relative or not, meta or not, that child deserves to be freed from that situation. Red Hood and Nightwing are capable. They can retrieve the boy on their own.”

Jason’s own modulated voice came through the coms next.

“Don’t worry B, I’m here to restrain Dickiebird’s murderous impulses. We’re going to rescue our little brother, we’ll bring him home, Selina.”

Selina walked up to the computer and pressed the com button there.

“Be careful boys. His adoptive parents aren’t good people.” She hesitates, the desire so strong to tell them to make the Fentons pay, in blood if necessary. But she can’t do that. She can’t ask them to go against their code for her. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Understood, Selina.” Dick’s voice came through next. There was none of his usual cheer in his voice. “We’re switching to stealth mode now that we’re away from Gotham. We’ll be radio silent until either we have him safe and secure or something goes badly.”

Red Robin responds to the sign off. Selina can’t hear any more. She paces. Alfred convinces her to change into her civilian attire. She even showers on his recommendation. Then she’s back pacing the floor of the Batcave, her hair still damp. Red Robin eventually retires for some much needed sleep. Cassandra and Stephanie fall asleep cuddled together in their civies in the cave. Bruce the miserable, paranoid bastard just watches her. Every turn of her pacing she has to look at him. He’s still glaring at her, still thinking she’s been brainwashed or some such nonsense.

Hours pass.

Long hours of pacing. Long hours of flight over the midwest towards Amity Park. Long hours where Danny is hopefully safe and resting from his fight with Plasmius. Long hours where she could only pace and hold the thermos that held Danny’s enemy. The man who wanted to cut her baby open.

The passing hours strained every last iota of her self restraint. She wanted to slap Bruce and scream at him for his pigheadedness. She wanted to let Plasmius free and shred him to pieces under her claws. She wanted to pull up the flight data for the Batplane and track it across the country, even though that would be useless while it was in stealth mode.

Finally, just have dawn had broken, when Selina herself was starting to feel a little broken there came a crackle on the coms before a voice joined them.

“Nightwing to Batcave, come in Batcave.” Dick’s voice came in loud and clear, startling both of the Batgirls awake. Selina immediately dashed to the computer, pressing the com button herself.

“We can hear you, Nightwing. Do you have him?” Selina couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice even if she tried.

“Red Hood and I recovered one Daniel James Fenton, born Alan Thomas Kyle.” Selina could have jumped for joy, even as she wanted to laugh at his subtle dig at Bruce. The actual last name on Alan’s original birth certificate was Wayne. “We’ve also managed to recover his adopted sister, Jasmine, he wouldn’t leave Amity Park without her.”

Selina could feel the tension from the night draining out of her and she collapsed into the computer chair in front of the Bat computer. Bruce stepped up to the consol next.

“What of their parents?” He growled the question out. There was another long silence. Far longer than previous silences before Red Hood’s modulated voice came through the comms.

“They’ll live.” A brief pause then, “Though I did burn down their house. Both of the children insisted and I needed to destroy something after everything we saw.”

“They’ve been in a rough place for who even knows how many years. We’re going to bring the Batplane into the cave, have Agent A on stand-by.” Dick also hesitated for a moment. “Selina, we’re bringing him home.”

Selina could almost sob in relief.

This was not my intention to write something this long. I just hope you enjoy. If you like my writing, hang around! I’m going to be sharing some fully original pieces at the end of the month.

@memecow1, @andaspoonfulofangst-whoops , @colornotes23, @theamazingfox , @spectralstardustandphantomnights , @alcorbearson , @talafairy , @hnymp , @ironicvixen , @dangnoodles, @satoshy12 , @suppengott, @samgirl98 , @skulld3mort-1fan ,

That’s a lot of tags. Hopefully this works. And don’t forget to share!

#dp x dc #Danny Phantom #selina kyle #bruce wayne #batman #vlad plasmius #Writing Emerald #danny fenton #dc x dp

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heyidkyay · 1 month

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Pause it, play it, pause it, play it | Market girl AU

Matty x marketseller!reader

Summary: Saturday's are always the same working the stall, until a stranger stops in to disrupt your cassette display...

Authors note: A one shot for you, needed something to help me with a little writer's block so I hope it's alright! Nothing too detailed, mostly just fluff, just saw that middle picture and the idea took root:)

“Oi, Rob… You see where I set those new slips I just had?” I called out loudly, riffling my way through the boxes I’d brought over from the van that very same morning. “I swear I left them here in one of these lot.”

Rob seemed to shuffle over towards me at the beckon, peering around the tent whilst I pulled apart one box’s contents.

I huffed when I heard a familiar crunch and looked over my shoulder to see him stood there munching on an apple. “Nah, babe. Sorry. I can ‘ave a look though if you want, got Nance watchin’ out for me.” ‘Nance’ being Nancy, Rob’s massive Alsatian that had once been his grandad’s guard-dog when he’d manned the stall years back.

With a soft chuckle I pushed myself up onto my feet once more, tucking my hair behind my ears as I went.

“Have at, can’t for the life of me find them.” I told him, watching on in growing amusement as he bit down on the green fruit to hold it between his teeth whilst he mooched about the pyramid of cardboard boxes for me, “Sure you’ll still have enough left to sell? Last Saturday you ate your way through six of those, the one before that was the highest yet, at eight.”

Huffing, Rob took another bite of his apple and then shot me a wink. “Keepin’ an eye on me, are you?”

I rolled my eyes as a breathy laugh escaped me, falling against the stall’s main bench so that I could cross my arms over my chest.

A quick glance at the time told me that we still had a while yet ‘til it hit nine and the market opened properly, letting that first bit of crowd sail in. Though I’d always found it was easier most days to just enjoy the atmosphere that was Portobello, instead of focusing in on the imminent mob.

See, I’d been at the market since I were nine, working the vintage stretch with my mum and aunt, having grown all too fond of the people and their many eccentricities. Rob was of the same cloth, though a tad bit older, just enough that I’d had the fattest crush on him and that East London accent of his as a kid.

It had faded over time, mind, what with him jetting off a couple years back when he’d been a holiday rep in Ibiza and me realising that I’d wanted to try my luck at art school. Not that either of those things had worked out, which had ultimately led us back here, surprised not to be rid of the other.

He was as close as I could get to a best mate though. Strange yeah, but he was family, wasn’t he? Everyone who worked the market was.

“With an arse like that? Always.” I retorted easily enough to have him laughing along with me and shaking his head at my antics. Something he’d grown all too used to in the recent years since I’d come back and made my mark with a stall of my own.

It wasn’t anything too grand, my stall. Nothing like the tourist trapping shops that sat a little further down, but sweet enough for the likes of me and the massive music collection I managed to drag down here each weekend. Set up was always mad, yes, but with Rob, Nancy and a few other early starters, time slipped away quick enough.

“Here we go then.”

I blinked and looked back over at Rob, who was now beaming brightly at the set of LP slips I’d ordered in special, waving them about in smarmy pride. I swatted his side as I made a grab for the things, only to have him lift them up higher to where I couldn’t reach.

“Don't be a twat, pass them over. We open in five!”

Rob simply chuckled in retort, taking another chomp out of that apple of his. “A thanks wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Yeah, yeah, I would’ve gotten to it!” I swiftly shot back, jumping up to swipe them from his grasp and grinning in triumph when I managed it. He only laughed, a slight rasp working its way into it like it typically did. “Thanks.” I added after I’d thumbed through the lot, smiling up at him as he made his way to the other side of the tent.

“Buy me a pint and we’ll call it even, treacle.”

I gave him a roll of my eyes, but agreed without much fuss. “Fine, but just the one, tight arse.”

His hearty chuckle filled the steadily growing street of sellers and I watched on as he stroked Nancy’s collar before settling back in at his own stall which resided by mine.

“Penny’s take care of the pounds, my darlin’.”

I raised a single brow and tucked the slips into one of the closer vinyl cubbies- 70’s Proto-punk wasn’t much of a seller anyway. “You mean, look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

Rob clucked his tongue, waving the correction away with the hand that held his apple core, “Alright, smart-arse. You knew what I meant.”

I smirked, tittering quietly to myself whilst he settled his usual bum bag around his hips. It suited him, I thought, the neon green pouch sitting atop that awful red and white apron he’d pinched off the butchers up in Notting Hill when he’d worked there for a weekend. Though I much preferred my own, my nephew having decked it out in all sorts of pins and patches for me a while back now.

With that Rob and I settled into our own stations, me taking perch on the old wooden stool I’d found in the back of a garden shed, and Rob being his usual loudmouth self, beckoning the arriving customers on closer.

The crowd grew bigger and bigger the closer it got to ten, lots of people stopped by to have a chat or a look round, a few purchased a couple of bits. It was mainly just the vinyls that sold these days, but I still had posters, cd’s, and even cassettes on show.

It wasn’t usual for the cassettes to get a good look over though, mainly just a ‘Oh! Do you remember them?’ and then a small laugh before people eventually moved on. Which was why I was more than a little surprised to see a figure having a right old rummage through the steady collection I owned, once I’d managed to wrap up another sale.

Glancing about, I spotted a pair of old birds flirting with Rob by the pears, Nance having gone to settle herself down by my bag in the back to hide from their gentle clucking, and how the crowded mob had thinned out a tad since most people had made their way further down the road’s neck.

I tucked the few notes I held into my pouch and stepped over a tangle of cables to make my way closer to the person, taking in their too big graphic tee and the tight zip up that had been layered over top of it. The nearer I grew the more I spotted though, the slight nod of a head as fingers worked their way deftly through the collection, the array of dark curls that poked their way out of the sides of a worn cap, and then the tiny hoop which dangled from a right earlobe.

“Looking for something specific?”

The bloke didn’t startle much, there was no real jump at the sound of my voice, only the slight tilt of his head, as though he was used to being caught off guard. I watched him closer after that, noting how his thumb trailed across one of the few Sonic Youth singles I had.

“Their ‘86 album?”

His voice was gentler than I’d first been expecting, rasped with a slight accent I couldn’t quite place. I blinked at his ask, skimming through the catalogue of tapes my mind offered me, which hardly ever seemed to move from their typical place of sorting.

“Um, top right? Should be one there, got Sister and Goo too, if I’m not wrong. Though the ‘88 album seems to be their most popular- even in cassette form.” I had rambled a tad there, I knew that much, but it was all part of the job to me. Talk and talk until they either fled the scene or decided to buy more than what they’d first come for. “You into cassettes then?”

He gave me a low chuckle and pulled away from the stand slightly, it was then that I caught sight of his face, a tad bit stubbled and lips parted almost in wait. He must’ve been closer to Rob’s age than my own.

I raised a brow when he didn’t offer me an answer, tilting my head in turn. “Or, is it a gift of some sort?” I dragged out.

With a blink, he seemed to stand a little taller and I noticed he only had an inch or two on me.

“Er, no.” He muttered, before mimicking my head’s movement and propping his elbow up on the cassette stand almost as if he was attempting to suss me out. It took a second before he finally flashed me a slow but genuine smile, “Looking for a certain sound. Some tapes sound better than the actual record so I figured here would be my best bet.”

I hummed, crossing one ankle over the other. “The further back you go you can hear it, but most of their stuff's good either way.”

He smirked as he settled in further, looking out at me from under the brim of his cap, “Aren’t you meant to be selling it to me?”

My laughter couldn’t have been helped because he did have a point there, only… “It’s just not everyday that someone pops by to talk about music mediums with me.” I argued, all too pleased when I heard him give another hearty chuckle in reply, “So forgive me for my excitement.”

“Will do.” He simpered, eyes flicking down to where he still held the Evol tape, I reached out to tap its plastic top.

“That one’s known for its ballads, if that’s something you’re into, but,” I practically sang before peering round him to see if I could find the one cassette case I was thinking of, “If you’re wanting a specific sound then A Thousand Leaves is probably worth giving a listen to. Personally I don’t think it got the recognition it deserved, but there was a lot of experimenting whilst also managing not to betray their roots, you know? It’s softer, smoother, and the guitars are almost unmatched.”

When I went to hand it over to him just to have a look at, I found him already watching me with this inscrutable sort of expression. I merely brushed it off, figuring that he’d just leave if he did eventually grow tired of my ranting, then turned slightly when a round of whispers echoed around the tent. It seemed a few younger girls had wandered straight on over to the independent artists section I had placed by the front and were arguing over who got this one Sam Fender album.

I looked away and went to say something else to him, but the way he'd simultaneously moved to angle his back away from the cassette tapes when he too spotted the new arrivals wasn't lost on me. I frowned a tad, though chose not to comment on it. “So, what sort of sound are you searching for anyway?”

His gaze skittered away from the tapes to meet mine for a second and I wondered, briefly, why he’d so suddenly lost the relaxed stance he’d been in just minutes before, but then he said, “Anything I haven’t heard much of before, in truth.”

Mulling his words over I then gestured towards the stand. “Can I?” I gestured, and immediately he knew where I was going with it, jumping back a step to let me riffle through the lot.

I pulled out a couple I figured he might be into, simply going off of the Sonic Youth album he’d been eyeing, then a few of my own favourites, not that I’d let that tidbit slip.

Handing them over, I let him search through their titles and answered one or two questions he had for me. I had to admit he intrigued me a bit, I’d had music enthusiasts stop by and talk about this and that with me, even had a couple people who played and were searching for new stuff to learn and adapt, but him? He didn’t give much away.

“Any good?” I questioned once I'd wandered back over to join him. I’d only left him to look through the selection again when a customer had called me over towards the front, and was just tucking away the few extra coins I’d been given when he glanced up at me with a bright grin. I was a little surprised to say it caught me off balance a bit.

“I’ll take the lot.”

Trying my hardest not to outright baulk, I paused. “The lot?”

Sure, cassettes weren’t all that pricey, not compared to pressed records at least, but there must’ve been just over a dozen that I’d pulled out to show him and now he supposedly wanted to take them all.

He laughed after a moment, most likely at the baffled look that marred my face, and made to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. “That gonna be a problem?”

The question was almost argumentative, pushy even, but in a jokey sort of way, the kind you’d use when ribbing a mate, not now. Not with some stranger at a market stall. It only left me marvelling further.

“Might be, I’ll have to find a bag big enough to fit them all though.” I countered, hiding my own smile when I heard him laugh again whilst I spun around to fetch exactly that.

“Anything will do, love.”

I dipped my chin in a slight nod but didn’t go right for the usual stack of black baggies I used for most sales, instead I swiped one of the few printed totes I had hung up for trade and tallied up the price. “You gonna be alright walking the rest of the market stretch with that?” I teased him, looking up once the transaction completed to hand him the now very full bag only to find him already looking back at me.

He hummed around a sly smile, fingers meeting mine around the totes handle before they were slipping away again. “Think I’ll make do. Only came looking for these anyway.”

My brows jumped up in surprise as I watched him tuck his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans. “Everyone loves Portobello.” I murmured and his light laughter echoed around the market stall once more before he simply shrugged.

“Been a couple times before, and besides, don't reckon I’ll get a better deal than this, do you?”

My eyes narrowed when I smiled, humoured by his easy going nature and quick quips. I found that I wanted him to stick around a while longer, if only to solve the mystery he made. “No, don't reckon so.”

He lingered for a moment or two more, simply smiling at me and I found myself smiling back, before a gaggle of school kids wandered on over, loud and uncaring of the looks they garnered. They caught my attention too and I found myself reminiscing over years where I’d been much of the same.

When I glanced back over to him, I saw that he was gone. My forehead pinched in confusion and I glanced around to see if I could spot him in the busy crowd, but it had grown all too quickly again and appeared easy enough for anyone to get swept up and lost in.

I rocked back on my heels as I gave up the search, just before I was called over by one of the kids asking for a specific LP. I let it go, him and the strange encounter we’d shared, and went about the rest of the day just going through the motions.

By the time seven o’clock rolled around I was shattered and had already packed most of the stall away. I waited patiently for Rob to help me with loading the larger bits into the van, watching Nance for him whilst he wrapped up what remained of the fruit and veg, knowing he’d take most of it back home to his family. It was at that moment that I caught sight of something amiss in the vinyl cubby I’d used to hide those slipcovers in just before we'd opened.

I walked over and was more than a little dumbfounded to spot a cassette lying there on its side. Standing On A Beach. One of The Cure albums I’d mentioned to that bloke in the cap earlier, the very same he’d gone and bought, and the exact one I was more than sure I’d bagged.

I picked it up, feeling Nancy brush up against my side whilst Rob called out to say that he was just dropping off his usual round of goodybags to the nearby sellers. I waved him off, then looked down at the tape I held, pausing when my thumb caught on something attached to the back.

Flipping it over I found a quickly scribbled note, its corner tucked into the case's opening so that it would hold its place.

(It sounded like you enjoyed this one when I asked about it. Know it’s a first edition too, so I figured maybe you should be the one keep it. - Matty.)

Matty.

“What you smiling at, weirdo?”

I startled at the sound of Rob’s usual drawl, head snapping over to my left to find him already trailing back towards us, a happy grin plastered over his face.

“Go on, tell us!” He ribbed, and now that he was drawing nearer I was quick to tuck the note into my back pocket.

“Nothing, just this tape. Figured I’d keep it.” I told him with a small shrug, clutching the cassette closer when he hip checked me in passing and bent down to give Nancy a good old stroke.

“Thieving your own gear! Wow, that’s a new low even for you.” Rob chuckled, shooting me a bright smile before he stood once more.

“Hush up, it’s a goodun. Forgot I even had it.” I defended, but he merely continued to laugh at me. Rolling my eyes, I shoved his arm lightly before I said, “Now be useful for once and grab the last of those boxes for us, will you.”

“Tetchy.”

I simply snorted, shaking my head as I moved to pick up my bag, clinging to the old cassette case for a second before finally dropping it inside.

“You coming then?”

With a deep breath I took one last glance around the stall and didn’t see anything that had been missed, so I wiped down my jeans and then gave Nance another pet, “Yeah, coming!”

…

My week continued on much the same after that. I worked in the local pub behind the bar when I wasn’t performing on the crate stage there and on my day off I took the tube over to see my mum and nan. They lived further East nowadays, closer to the clinic my nana hated but needed, and not too far from the street she’d grown up on as a girl.

Saturdays were my only market days, even though it was open most of the week. Rob usually did Fridays there and the rare Tuesday too, when he could be arsed. Though the rest of his time was used up by frequenting the old boxing club every other evening, training and helping out with the younger lot that liked to come in. I’d only been half a dozen times, but he was very much in his element there.

So in shorter terms, my week had slipped on by without much fanfare, which meant that Saturday had seemed to both crawl and shoot back around.

I opened the stall like usual, only without Rob for the first time in ages. He had apparently come down with some sort of bug or other that he’d gone and caught off of his nieces when he’d popped round to see them Wednesday afternoon- and well, he was a man, wasn't he? Which ultimately meant that he was dying.

He’d let me have Nancy though, seeing as she hadn’t been out very much since the cold had hit him. So the Alsatian had jumped in my van that same morning and had been as good as gold all day. To be honest, she was a much better seller than me and I could see why Rob always brought her along with him, people seemed to flock to dogs which in turn meant more sales for me.

I’d been fanning the crowds away ever since we’d opened, which typically only tended to happen during half term or school holidays, but nonetheless it was a more than welcome change after the crappy tips I’d garnered down at the pub the night before.

‘Cause well, since I’d dropped out of school I’d taken to performing there on the more livelier nights, a few covers, one or two of my own songs, and then I’d end the set and slide behind the bar to serve. Normally I was fine with that, the tips were often good when both the older folk and the younger lot rolled in, Friday nights especially. Only, there’d been a gig on down at the O2 so we hadn’t gotten our usual patrons in, and had instead been sacked with a couple of stragglers and a less than lively lot.

Still, today more than made up for it.

The sun was shining as much as it could do during a London March, the skies were blue although not completely clear, and the market crowd seemed to be in good spirits too.

Sy, who worked a couple stands down, had passed out a tray of coffees not too long ago, just after the lunchtime rush, and then Dianne and Reg had followed with some of their freshly baked pastries. They’d even thought to bring a little treat over for Nance too.

I'd just texted a picture to Rob to show him what he’d missed out on by having a case of man-flu and had just got up to toss the last of the rubbish away when I was caught off guard by an unexpected surprise.

“You!”

Matty, my mind supplied a half a second later. The same name that had been circling my thoughts since he’d left me that note the Saturday prior. I blinked at the sight of him. He was wearing a cap again, although this one was different, a dusky navy blue that he’d gone and tucked under a giant grey hoodie.

“Me.” He grinned in glinted amusement, jutting out his chin in a gentle hello. “Figured I might find you here.”

The snort I gave was unprecedented, “Oh, really? Wonder what gave that away.”

Matty smirked. Matty. It felt strange to put his name to his face then, even though it had been puttering around in my head like the bouncing DVD logo since the last time we’d met.

“Got any more tapes for me then?”

My eyes squinted in my attempt to dim my smile, not really believing that he was actually here, before I pursed my lips and tilted my head at him. “Might do. Take it you liked the last few?”

He hummed, smiling down at Nancy who’d trailed on over and allowing her to sniff at his hand. When she nudged his leg with her snout I watched on as he dropped into a crouch to give her a proper stroke. Nance seemed to be quite taken with him after that.

I propped a hip against the nearest vinyl cubby, crossing my arms over my chest whilst he replied, “They were good- helped a lot, in truth. You were right about the Roxy Music album, too.”

Chuffed with that, I shot him a pleased little grin.

“You’ll come to learn that it’s to be expected.”

“What, you bein’ right?” Matty wondered with a low laugh, petting Nancy’s head once more before he forced himself back up onto his feet.

“What I said, in’t it?”

He shook his head softly and I felt his eyes on me before I finally gestured him on over to the cassette stand. “I found a few new ones in the charity shop near my mum’s the other day, figured it’d be best to add to the collection after you nearly took the lot.”

“Wow, and she’s dramatic too.”

I swatted his arm thoughtlessly, then stilled the second I realised what I’d done, but Matty was either none the wiser to my momentary pause or just didn’t care. “That come with the job then? Having to be mouthy?”

My jaw dropped a tad at his sudden cheek and I tutted around the tiny beginnings of a stuttered laugh, “You’re brave. I’ll let you have that. But honestly, you’re probably not wrong there either.” We shared a chuckle, coming to a standstill by the tower full of tapes, “Most of this lot have to be gobby enough to have a shout at bagging any customers, especially when Rob’s around.”

“Rob?”

I titled my head over towards the next stall which sat empty, “Yeah, he works the fruit and veg. Might’ve seen, or rather heard him last weekend.”

Matty gave a slow nod, dragging his gaze away from where I’d pointed and back to the many cassettes I had to offer.

“So what're we looking for this time?” I smiled, thoughts on The Cure tape he’d gifted me, although wary to mention it too soon. “80’s Punk? Electro? Rhythm and Blues?” I dragged that last one out, enjoying the sight of his smile and how it only appeared to lift on one side before dimpling the corner ever so faintly.

“Give me one of your favourites.”

“Mine?” I blinked.

He hummed again, fingertips trailing over multiple rows of cases. I watched the movement, caught up in it in actuality, before I tore my eyes back over to him.

I caught him looking again, only this time around I didn’t much question it, not when the Saturday sun sitting high in the sky reflected so prettily in his eyes. Lightening them enough that they almost appeared to glow.

I followed through on the ask though, once I’d finally managed to get my head in working order and drag my gaze back towards the task at hand, pulling out an extensive range of cassettes, both singles and albums, for him to view.

Matty liked to talk, I quickly learned. He asked question after question, even when it seemed like he knew more than he was letting on at times, and he waited whenever someone else walked over, sitting amongst the back shelves with Nancy whilst I talked and sold a couple of vinyls.

Soon enough the sun had started to dip low in the sky and we realised that the hours had honestly escaped us. I was startled when I finally looked down at my phone to see that it was almost time to start packing away, having lost myself in the conversation we’d shared, or rather the debates we had both started over artists and genres, and what decade had done the most for music.

“Oh shit! I can’t believe it’s almost half six!”

Matty appeared to remember himself at my exclaim, pulling out his own phone to see for himself and blowing out a large breath when it rang true. “Fuck, ah, I didn’t even realise.”

He actually looked somewhat apologetic when he met my eye again.

I shook my head and waved him off, “You’re all good, actually one of the best market days I’ve had in truth, made almost double than what I did last weekend, even with the stash you claimed.”

With a soft laugh, Matty made to stand, holding out a hand to help me up too once he'd found his footing. I smiled softly at the offer and took it, perplexed by the careful callouses which lined the tops of his fingertips and the soft palm that accompanied them.

“You play?”

“Hm?”

My chin jerked over towards where an older acoustic hung on display in the stall across from mine, “Guitar. Do you play?”

His brows knitted together at the ask but he did eventually give me a low chuckle too, hand still holding my own. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

My eyes flickered up to find his and I gave a small smirk, unable to help myself. “Intuition.”

Matty scoffed in amusement, “Oh yeah? How’s that work?”

Shrugging a single shoulder, I stepped on closer to him, near enough that the brim of his hat shaded the top half of my face and the toes of our shoes almost aligned. “Just comes to me, I ‘spose.”

He quirked a questioning brow.

“What’s your intuition telling you now then?”

I bit down on the insides of my cheeks in hopes to contain my playful smile, figuring I’d best take the chance now while it was being handed to me. “That you’re gonna buy me a drink.”

“Am I?” Matty answered, voice dropping a fraction as a grin threatened to split his face.

Humming, I could only smile, eyes flickering between his own before they darted up towards the brim of his cap. With the hand not holding his, I reached up and settled it a little lower on his head, then glanced back down at that growing grin. “I mean, if you’re gonna keep coming back each Saturday then…”

His eyes narrowed a tad and finally he let go of the chuckle he’d been holding onto, leaning in even closer to me. “Intuition telling you that?”

“Hm, along with a couple other things.” I quipped, revelling in the hand that came to rest on the hem of my jeans. “So, that drink?”

Matty laughed, sweet and lovely. “Might know a place.”

“Good,” I murmured in the little space he’d placed between us, mouth almost touching his own before I was smirking and pulling away, “Guess you can help me pack up then.”

Matty huffed out a breathy chuckle whilst shook his head at me, watching as his hand slipped from mine. Though he wasn’t left lonely for too long, seeing as Nancy padded on over to him for another round of strokes whilst I set to picking up a horde of albums. “Tease.” He shot out, though he didn't look too disheartened.

I gave him a loud laugh in return, content with being labelled as such. “Well you’d best get to work then. Quicker we’re done here, quicker we can see about you and me sharing anything other than a drink.”

And he did, he set to work swift enough, the two of us slipping by one another with a gentle ease we shouldn’t have yet earned and sharing soft smiles in the lessening market bustle. All the while I continued to wonder and watch him, thinking back on the cassette he’d gifted me and the sudden fondness I’d found for him.

“Ready to go?” He asked me not long later and I found myself never wanting to say no to that pretty smile of his. So I just nodded and took the hand he held out, Nance moving to join us too before we finally ventured our way out of the market street. Matty asking me every question he’d been holding back the further we got, and making realise that I had a horde of my own.

#the 1975 #matty healy #x reader #fluff #flirting #humour #fic #writing #plot #matty #the 1975 band #y/n #matty healy fic #matty the 1975 #reader #oneshot #imagines #heyidkyay

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thot-of-khonshu · 2 years

Text

French Lessons

Pairing: Steven Grant X f! reader

Summary: You had been in desperate want to learn French, but the absolute droll of learning through a boring app was no fun. Coincidentally, you meet a brilliant gift shop clerk at the museum who can teach you French while you can teach him a thing or two about love.

Rating: Explicit 18+ (By proceeding to read beyond this warning, you agree that you are 18 years or older)

Word Count: 5K

Content: Explicit Smut, pining, masturbation references, dry humping, fingering, handjob, fluff, romance, French, Steven Grant, slight reference to Marc Spector

Notes: My Steven fic has finally arrived!! I'm hoping to turn this into a series because I have quite a few other ideas and I don't want to leave you hanging with just a taste of the two of them. But I hope you like it and share/reblog! Love y'all!

Updated Note: Wow!! Thank you so much for all of your kind words and notes. Part 2 is currently in the works and coming soon.

Part 2

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Vivienne Rousseau et bienvenue à votre premier cours de français’!

Hello! My name is Vivienne Rousseau and welcome to your first French lesson! Did you understand my first sentence? If not, not to worry! I will teach you how to learn and with the right dedication you’ll be speaking fluently in the next 6 months! Today’s lesson is all about beginnings…

You whine as you raise your volume on your phone to stay focused. However, the tall statues and figurines in front of you were not helping like you thought it would. You had come to the National Museum to gain some peace and clarity while starting this new venture. French was always a language you had dreamed of learning, so why not start now? Sure, the grating voice of Vivienne Rousseau would drag you along through it, but this was a new adventure. The start of something interesting…

As long as you could pay attention. It wasn’t your fault Vivienne’s voice sounded like a high-pitched foghorn. But the reviews for her app were rave and they wouldn’t take your credit card information for another week, so if it became a bigger drag than it already was, you could cancel your free trial.

You walked throughout the museum trying to focus on your lesson, but rewound the same phrases over and over.

Je m’apelle Vivienne. Je suis ravi de vous rencontrer.

You were thinking it wasn’t the pyramids and statues that weren’t helping you focus, but you figured it was time for you to leave the museum, regardless. Before the trip home, you stopped at the gift shop for a bottle of water. You walked over to the gift shop counter t o grab the attention of a man entirely more focused on his Egyptian mythology book than having to sell stuffed scarabs. He looked slightly disheveled, with black curly tendrils falling all over his head. When you made eye contact with him, he had dark crescents under his eyes and a timid smile. He looked so nervous to a complete stranger, you couldn’t imagine how he was towards his coworkers.

Reaching for your water, the cord of your earbuds snapped and broke free from your phone. If you hadn’t noticed by the snapping of the cord, you would’ve noticed from Vivienne’s grating voice booming throughout your speaker:

Bonjour! Comment ça vas?

“Bien, merci. Et vous-même?” You look up and the tired, timid man has spoken, meeting your eyes with a softer smile.

You smile back and laugh. “Sorry about that. This is what happens when I don’t get earbuds from the last five years.”

“Well, it’s not about the earbuds, innit? It’s what’s in them that matters. Learning French?” He asks.

“If you could even call it that. I thought coming to the museum would help me focus up, but this woman I’m listening to sounds well braindead.”

“Je suis désolé. D'après ce que j'ai entendu, elle ressemblait à un bouton absolu.” The crinkles in the corner of his eyes became more prominent and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m sorry. From what I heard, she sounded like an absolute knob.” He translated. He introduced himself. Steven. With a V. You asked Steven with a V if he’d like to make some extra money on the side and before you knew it, you were meeting at the bistro every Wednesday for an hour of French lessons with Steven with a V.

Steven was not as drab and droning as Vivienne Rousseau, quite the opposite. Before and after your hour was up, you found yourselves talking more and more about your days; him describing the gift shop and his aspirations to be a tour guide despite his awful boss Donna. You couldn’t understand how he wasn’t. It seemed like everything he talked about could circle back to his love for Egyptology and the wonder of the gods and goddesses. How does someone like that know so much about it but he’s stuck behind a desk selling crisps and plushies?

After your 3rd meeting, you’d plucked up the courage to ask him. The first thing he did was look at you after those compliments with such earnest gratitude you felt your insides melt. The second thing he told you was that he had a sleeping disorder that kept him further back in life than he’d wanted. He aspired to have adventure, and life and zest as much as he could, but for right now… the gift shop was just enough.

That was the first night you had gone to bed thinking of how kind his smile was, chasing the warmth throughout your body it had given you as if you’d just taken a shot. You’d found yourself eager for the next lesson, to hear about his new studies, to watch his hands as he notated on your writing.

You’d gotten to the bistro thirty minutes early, in your same corner table at the patio, waiting for Steven.

You waited.

And you waited.

Two hours later, he never showed.

You felt your insides deflate as you traveled home. You’d checked your text messages every ten minutes hoping to see a sign that he was okay or if he was busy or if he just didn’t want to come. Maybe he’d seen the way you looked at him in your last lesson and found it inappropriate?

You wished Steven standing you up would’ve completely turned you off to him, but unfortunately, it just had him occupying your mind more and more until the sounds of his voice describing tales of the green jewel lulled you to sleep.

You woke up the next morning to your phone going off, although it wasn’t your alarm. Steven was in the middle of writing you a flurry of text messages with apologies about how he wasn’t able to make it last night and how his sleeping had completely mucked his week up. He asked if you were free that night for your lesson and a free meal to make it up. While you agreed to see him, your worry and apprehension weren’t immediately gone. You weren’t sure if this was just his common excuse he had given women, but, it was worth it to hear him out.

You had gotten to the restaurant and there at your familiar corner table was Steven Grant, looking like the saddest dog you had ever seen. As soon as you were in eye view, he walked up to you, moving to place his hand on your shoulder but hesitating. He moved it back to clasp his other palm, whispering your name.

“I am so deeply, deeply sorry. I go to bed on Saturday and then I woke up, and it’s Thursday and I feel like I got hit by a double-decker bus and— “

“Je te pardonne. Mangeons.” You had said. I forgive you. Let’s Eat. And he flashed you that damn smile again, and you felt your insides crack like an egg to the stove.

There wasn’t as much lesson as there was dinner this night as you and Steven had discussed every topic you could. Work, music, books, television. No topic was left off the table as you waited for your food. The server brought out the very vegan Steven’s steaming lentil soup and what was supposed to be your salmon was replaced with a large burger.

“I’m so sorry miss, it’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen back there tonight. I’ll get this sorted out straight away.” The server said to you. You saw the steam coming out of Steven’s soup and instead of digging in, his hands were placed politely on his lap.

When the server came back out, he had brought trout, which you were unfortunately allergic to or else you would’ve scarfed it down by then. More than a half hour had gone by and you were still waiting for your dinner. And there was Steven, hands no longer in his lap but marking your French in his thick glasses. You took a mental note of how good he looked in them while cursing yourself for doing so.

“Steven, if you want to eat, I completely understand. Your food must already be freezing.” You said, eying the way his hands held his pen.

“Not to worry.” He said cheerfully. “The great thing about lentils is that you can eat them hot or cold and I want to make sure you’re taken care of. Laisse moi prendre soin de toi.” You immediately felt your face redden and were so glad that your food had come back correctly this time so you could bury your head in your salmon and vegetables.

When you went home that night, you thought of his thick fingers, his kind eyes and the repeat of him saying “Laisse moi prendre soin de toi” in your head as you slowly slipped your fingers under the covers, dreaming of how your French tutor would say that to the heat between your legs.

Laisse moi prendre soin de toi. Let me take care of you.

He wasn’t late for the next lesson. He was there when you had arrived, 15 minutes before, to counter the overeager 30 minutes versus strolling in right on time. You wanted him to know you care about these lessons, but maybe not too much.

When you had walked over to the table, Steven had another downtrodden look on his face. His lips were turned down, and he was looking down at the ground. When he heard your footsteps, his face immediately brightened and damn, this was not helping your crush.

“Bad day at the museum?” You greet him as he sullenly nodded.

“Donna started taking the piss at me as soon as I got into work. A child — a child!! — came up to me and asked me where the bloody bathroom was and all I hear after I show her where it is—‘Stevie, you’re not a tour guide. It’ll never happen, so stop trying.’” He mocked Donna with a nasally grating voice.

“I’m sorry. It’s like she doesn’t even give you a chance to prove yourself.”

“Exactly!!” Steven excitedly exclaims as a few people from other tables looked around. He muttered apologies. “I’m just so tired of her thinking I’m some bumbling git. It’s not like she knows where the Hathor temple is and she could answer someone if they asked her. She wouldn’t even know Hathor if she bit her in the arse.”

You giggled as he went on. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling. Let’s get on with our lesson soon, but do you mind if I eat here again tonight? She wouldn’t even let me take a lunch today!”

“Well, since you had an absolutely shit day, I think it’s my turn to get dinner. And I’ll do one extra.” The server came around to your table as Steven looked at you, puzzled.

“Excuse me, sir, but can you recommend your finest French wine?”

A couple of hours later and two bottles of wine down, dinner was finished but there yet again wasn’t much of a French lesson. Giddy and bubbly from wine, you and Steven continued your endless back and forth and it felt like you could talk to him about just about anything. You saw him look at his phone screen to look at the time and you felt your heart sink a bit.

“Oh bugger, it’s already 9 PM.” Steven frowned. “I don’t want to keep you too long. I’m sure you have plenty to do.”

“No! Wednesdays are always our nights.” You saw his smile widen when you said that, the crinkles in his eyes deepening. “Besides, I wouldn’t just consider tonight a French lesson but me trying to cheer up a friend who seems to have had a bad day.”

“Not so bad now, innit?” He grinned. You looked into his eyes with no reluctance, the alcohol warming your body giving you courage to keep contact. He had beautiful, dark eyes and his nose was so strong and defined. You knew better than to even look at his lips, though, because once you did, you would stare too long and then goodbye to your friend and French tutor.

You heard a slight rumble and felt droplets hit your shoulders. First quietly and then pounding as the rain came through like a. Luckily you had already paid for yours and Steven’s food so you ran under the patio’s awning, Steven’s arm was halfway out of his jacket when he ran over to you and then flipped the jacket over your head.

“What do we do now? I know we’re having a great time, but you’re also not exactly paying me to gossip during a rainstorm.” Steven shouted over the loud rain.

Liquid courage be damned. You thought of an offer that you didn’t want to come off the wrong way, but it was raining and you did pay him for a lesson you hadn’t exactly completed. You bit your lip in contemplation and you could’ve sworn in the corner of your eye you saw Steven eyeing your swollen bottom lip.

“My flat isn’t too far, if you don’t mind it.” Steven looked at you for what felt like a long moment and you held your breath. He nodded and kept his jacket above your head the entire way.

As soon as you had gotten to your flat, you thought the alcohol would wear off, but the last bottle you two had shared was just kicking in. The two of you ran and giggled back to your apartment like a couple of schoolchildren, and you felt so refreshed. You loved that you could be silly with him.

“This is it! Sorry I haven’t fixed it up much.” You said, tossing your shoes on the floor and your keys on your counter.

“It’s much better than my place.” Steven looked around. “You wouldn’t be surprised though, loads of books, loads of paperwork, a goldfish named Gus.”

You snorted. “Come on, my books and my desk are in the bedroom.”

He followed you into your bedroom as you turned on the desk light, lit enough to illuminate the space needed but not too bright to cause a headache. You fell onto your bed, back first, with your arms stretched out to the back of your head. It felt so good to close your eyes. It felt so good being tipsy. It felt so good being with Steven. Where is Steven? When you opened your eyes, there he was at your desk, eyeing your stack of French books.

“I have to say this is quite the collection, miss.” He took his glasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them on and you had to shut your eyes quickly before the heat between your legs grew to an uncomfortable amount. “Baudelaire, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and you have my favorite, Victor Hugo.”

“No way, Victor Hugo is my favorite as well!” You shot up excitedly. He had Hugo’s book in his hand as he skimmed through.

“Le Roi S’amuse, I love absolutely love this play.”

“Can I tell you something?” You swung your feet off of your bed to distract your bubbling nerves. “I’ve really wanted to pick up French just so I can read more French literature I can fall in love with. See more plays, get more cultured.”

“That’s what I like about you.” Steven said, bringing the book with him as moved next to you on the bed. “We haven’t exactly gone over this term yet, but when I think about you, I think of your joie de vivre. Your lust for life. You see things and opportunities and you take them.”

You feel yourself redden. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I just mean, if it was the other way around, I could’ve never walked up to an attractive stranger and asked them to teach me French.” He looks down nervously for a brief moment and then steadies himself, giving you deep eye contact. You’re almost rendered speechless.

“Are you telling me you find yourself attractive, Steven Grant?” You whisper. Your eyes are locked on each other. You’ve never seen someone with such dark, kind eyes.

“Can I tell you which verse is my favorite?” You break the silence. “It would probably do me good to have you hear some of my French tonight.” You giggle. Steven doesn’t giggle. He slowly nods as your liquid courage takes over. Your hands are shaking, but you feel the electricity.

You slip your hands onto his and help guide him to your favorite passage. His eyes don’t leave your face. It’s as if he’s studying you like a new art installation.

“La vie est une fleur, l’amour en est le miel.” You recite.

“Life is a flower, love is its honey.” Steven translates. His hands are so, so warm on yours.

“C’est la colombe unie à l’aigle dans le ciel,” you continue, briefly daring to look up at his eyes, which are now on your hands. He looks absolutely dazed, as if he can’t believe this is real.

“It’s the dove united with the eagle in the sky,” You notice Steven's hands are shaking too.

“C’est la grâce tremblante à la force appuyée,” Do you dare to move your hands?

“It’s the trembling grace to the leaning force,” He’s looking directly at you again. No wine, no French, no lentil soup could save you now.

“C’est ta main dans ma main doucement oubliée…” You rub your hands on top of his and his fingers feel exactly how you thought they would, and more.

“It’s your hand in my gently forgotten hand…” He moves one hand to your shoulder. Your heart feels as if it’s in your throat.

“Aimons-nous! aimons-nous!” There are exclamation points in the text, but all that comes out of your mouth is a faint whisper.

“Let’s love each other. Let’s love each other.” Somehow, your faint whisper is louder than Steven’s.

And then silence. You feel yourself gravitate towards him, the heat of your lips meeting as they finally collide and give you the sweetest satisfaction.

Steven Grant’s lips are softer than you could have ever fantasized. He’s gentle, slow and leaves you lingering for more. One hand is still on your Victor Hugo book, rubbing the palm of your hand as your fingers are laced together.

You break apart briefly and lean your foreheads on each other, grinning as he rubbed your shoulder.

“I feel like I’ve been wanting to do that since I first met you.” Steven confesses. You take your other hand and run it through his tussled black curls as you continue to kiss him. He follows your lead, matching the pace of your kisses and, albeit awkwardly initially, slipped his tongue into your mouth, letting you taste him.

As the kiss deepened, you heard the book slam onto the ground with a large thud as you lifted yourself onto his lap. You heard Steven gasp, and you broke the kiss.

“Is everything alright?” You scan his eyes for any discomfort.

“I’m alright, love.” His hands continue gripping your shoulders tightly. You place your hands on them, moving them slowly from your shoulders to the curve of your hips.

“You don’t have to worry.” You whisper into his lips. “You can touch me however you want.” He exhaled and gripped your hip with more confidence. His other hand moved to the back of your neck as your lips crashed together, moving at a faster pace. You moan as he slips his tongue into your mouth, which causes him to moan. You pushed against him, slowly rocking on him, your skirt slipping up by the friction.

He groans before breaking the kiss. “I should let you know something. I’m not like other men.”

“That’s precisely what I like about you, Steven.” You move your lips to the warmth of his neck, sucking on him as he groans again, shaking his head as if he needs to get out of his trance.

“No, I’m serious. I’ve told you about my sleeping disorder… how it causes me to miss certain days and how I feel so knackered afterwards. It’s… caused me to miss quite a bit out of life.”

“And I can help you make it up.” You nibble on his ear.

“I’m a virgin.” He blurts out so fast you almost miss it.

You take a moment to settle into his lap, hands still firmly smoothing out his soft curls. He looks down with a tinge of shame and embarrassment that you’re puzzled by, so you reassure him by lifting his chin up and giving him a soft kiss.

“Hey, come on now. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It just hasn’t happened yet.”

“Yeah, at least not with the right person.” He takes his slightly shaky hand to hold the side of your face as you kiss his palm.

“Well, we can go at whatever pace you like tonight.”

"I just want to make you feel good.” Steven whispers. “Show me how to do that and I’ll be satisfied enough tonight.”

“But I want you to be satisfied too, Steven. And I think I know of a way to do that.”

You press your lips against his, but this time hungrier, needier. You wanted to show him how much you had been pining for him all of these weeks. Steven could steadily match with your pace, boldly biting your lower lip and smiling as he heard a moan exit your mouth.

You move his hand from your face, slowly sliding it down your neck, to the curve of your breast. Steven let out a whimper as you guided his hand to knead your breast. He stared at your hands together, mouth agape, eyes hooded, in a trance.

You moved his hand from your breast to your stomach, to your thighs as you guided his hand up your dress. You planted soft kisses on him while you guided him, but when you stop at the heat between your legs, he’s absolutely speechless. You remove your hand from his, letting him decide his next step.

He rubs the outline of the wetness of your underwear as you sigh in pleasure.

“Steven…” You whisper.

“I could never get tired of hearing my name said like that.” He sighed, still looking at you in absolute unabashed awe. You removed the straps from your sundress, exposing your naked breasts, and instead of the trembling nerves Steven had shown you, he was massaging and rubbing at one nipple while still rubbing the outline of your underwear.

“That feel good?” Steven murmured.

“So good Steven.” Your nipples had started to harden under his touch. Steven removed his hand from your crotch so he could steady himself and focus on putting his breasts in your mouth. He took ample time with both of them, switching back and forth and sucking on them with such passion that his eyes were shut and he was moaning, silently praising your chest.

After a few moments of bliss, you stopped him, lifting his head up as he could watch you get off of his lap and onto your knees. Just the simple action of you kneeling between his raging erection caused him to start quietly panting, not wanting any sudden movements to ruin this moment.

You unfastened his belt, eyes still met with his as you saw the bulge from his boxers. There was a slight wet spot of pre-cum on the fabric and you felt your mouth water with anticipation. You pulled his boxers down so his cock could spring free and you weren’t only surprised but very pleased.

Steven’s cock was so thick you could barely touch your thumb when wrapping your hand around him. He was already so firm and hard for you, veins slightly protruding out and more liquid glistening at the top of his tip.

“Oh my God.” Steven chanted as you rubbed him up and down. “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I can’t believe you’re so big.” You say, a bit hypnotized yourself. You had fantasized about this moment but couldn’t believe it was actually happening and better than you had ever expected.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Steven strained out. “As much as I would love for you to put your mouth… all… over me… I think our fun would end rather quickly, and that leaves us with a bit of a problem.”

You slightly turn your mouth, upset you can’t have your mouth take the challenge of swallowing his cock just yet, but then you come up with an even better idea, giving Steven a devilish grin.

You slip his boxers back on, his bulge even more prominent than before, and Steven looks up at you with a puzzled look. You wrapped your legs around his hips and sunk your clothed crotch into his.

“Oh, fuck.” Steven moaned, calling out your name. “Fuck, that feels amazing.” He fastened his hands on your hips as you slowly rocked into him. You put your forehead onto his, breathing in each other’s air as Steven quickened the pace, the pressure of his thickness tightening your bundle of nerves. You started to grind onto him, hard and fast, as he held himself steady with the softness of your ass.

The warm pressure of his cock was about to make you come undone. His head was buried in between your breasts, not sucking at them but just breathing you in, just to make sure you were real. That this was real.

Steven pushed his crotch up against you at a pace that you knew would unravel you. Your moans together became more rhythmic.

“Steven, I’m so close, please don’t stop.” You whined. You brought your hand not tangled in his curls to your clit as you began to rub it, this just quickened Steven’s pace as you bounced on his crotch, his hands gripped on your ass so tightly you knew you’d have bruises later.

As your moans got louder, you felt yourself release, your orgasm throbbing throughout your entire body. Steven came quickly after, abruptly stopping as he released his warmth into his boxers. The two of you panted together, heads still connected through your foreheads. Closer than ever.

“Wow.” Steven meekly whispered. “That was better than I ever imagined it would be. Tu es exquis."

”Tu es incroyable.” You whispered back, looking at him as he smiled warmly at you. “See, I’ve been paying attention.”

The two of you laid there for a few moments until Steven went into your bathroom to clean up. You had slowly stripped away your dress and your bra, nestling under your duvet, leaving some space behind you for the wonderful man you were waiting for.

A few moments passed, and you felt his warm body surrounding you, arms around your waist as he lay there naked, reciting Victor Hugo’s romantic poetry into your ear.

“I reckon if I can’t give you a full French lesson, this was the best substitute.” Steven’s hands were circling lazily around your arms and you briefly reminisced about the time when he didn’t even know if a hug was appropriate. And now here he is in your bed, wearing no clothes and reciting poetry into your ear.

Sometimes real life really eclipses fantasy.

“I’d say this absolutely makes up for it, and then some. But… I think we’re going to have to go into double time next lesson to make up for it.” You grinned.

“You’re right, maybe an oral exam will have to do.” Steven awkwardly quipped and you both laughed at his awkwardly adorable attempt at double entendre.

You turned around and opened your arms up towards him. He moved his head towards your chest, arms gripping your waist tightly with the same fervor as earlier, as if you would float away and this was all a dream.

You buried your fingers in his curls, gripping your free hand to the back of his head until you drifted asleep.

Steven Grant, the shy gift shop clerk that had offered you French lessons.

Steven Grant, the brilliant, burgeoning Egyptologist that brightened your life with his stories and his warmth.

Steven Grant. The start of something new.

#steven grant #steven grant smut #steven grant x you #steven grant fluff #steven grant x reader #steven grant fanfiction #moon knight #moon knight x reader #moon knight x you #moon knight smut #oscar isaac x you #oscar isaac x reader #oscar isaac smut #oscar isaac x y/n #steven grant x y/n #marvel #mcu #mcu smut #marvel smut

2K notes · View notes

hellbornsworld · 7 months

Text

BTS X READER WATTPAD RECOMMENDATIONS(2) ⋆｡ﾟ ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

✨Hostess | BTS X Reader | Author : blingchick | 47 Parts | Completed

"A whore is someone who sells their body; a hostess is someone who entertains guests to make them feel welcomed and loved. There is a difference."

In which Kim Taehyung tweets at a Dora the Explorer twt account and gets a creepy dm from them. Soon , he realizes he got himself into some deep sh*t and has to discover who's behind the account before it's to late.

A tragic love story filled with pain, betrayals, miseries and deadly plot twists.

"Nothing's changed. You'll go home. You'll be bored. You'll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You're too clever and too beautiful for them to understand. They don't even remember your name."

✨ Mask Parade | BTS X Reader | Author : blingchick | 33 Parts | Ongoing

"Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off."

✨killjoy | Only BTS | Author : taenology | 50 Parts | Completed

a computer game can't hurt anyone, right?

✨The Keeper's Tale | BTS X Reader | Author : TaeTae_lyfe | 45 Parts | Completed

They witnessed her destruction, They were left to wonder why, She saw nothing but darkness, Though the stars shown in her eyes, But maybe they'd forgotten, When they failed to see the cracks, That a stars light shines brightest, When it starts to collapse.

✨Singularity | BTS x Reader | Author : mociminji | 36 Parts | Ongoing

You were stolen by the devil. He claimed you as his own. Little did he know, you are going to be the death of him.

✨The Seven | BTS X Reader | Author : TaeTae_lyfe | 45 Parts | Completed

"I'm crazy? No, darling. What's crazy is that the world refuses to let me be with you."

✨Black Swan | BTS X Reader | Author : blingchick | 17 Parts | Ongoing

"What are you going to do to me now, Swan?"

✨The 7 Princes | BTS X Reader | Author : FireTiger8 | 82 Parts | Completed

Surprise! Your parents have been keeping a secret from you - you are royal princess and sole heir to the throne. To break the news to you, your parents have sent you to a neighboring kingdom where seven handsome, irresistible princes will teach you all you need to know about becoming the next ruler.

✨The Blue Eyes Series | BTS X Reader | Author : TaeTae_lyfe | 4 Books | Ongoing

# BOOK 1 The Four Kingdoms |

There's a fire in her. If loved correctly, she will warm your entire home. If abused, she will burn it to ash.

# BOOK 2 Pyramids |

She didn't need a crown, because she wasn't a queen.... She was a goddess.

# BOOK 3 Dynasty |

You can say she's crazy, but her eyes see the spirits of the past.... She talks to them.... And they talk back.

# BOOK 4 Mist |

You watch her walk away and it hits you that she is an entire ocean And you were wrong, so very wrong Because you let her go Thinking she was just a girl

✨Gods of the Sea | BTS!Vocal Liner X Reader | Author : FireTiger8 | 87 Parts | Completed

"My name is Captain Jeon Jungkook. I'm here to kidnap you."

7 boys, 7 chapters, 7 different stories

✨Oh My Gospel! | BTS X Reader | Author : mociminji | 88 Parts | Ongoing

In which you are a prude theology student and one day, your sneaky twin brother sent you a link to the livestream of an infamous camboy, Park Jimin.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Other Posts:

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION (1)

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION(2)

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATIONS(3)

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION(4)

ALL BTS MEMBERS WATTPAD RECOMMENDATIONS(1)

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incorrect-hs-quotes · 8 months

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[arachnidsGrip began trolling grimAuxilliatrix]

AG: I am looking for people who are interested in turning 80 8oondollars to 8000 8oondollars.

AG: This is not a pyramid scheme or Crypto/NFT project

AG: We will 8e selling Crack ::::)

GA: Oh Thank Gog A Reputable Profession

#submission #Source: Tumblr user atlas-sharted #homestuck #incorrect homestuck quotes #vriska serket #kanaya maryam #mod terezi #oh great now she's heisen8erg #actual that might be better than where she was gonna end up at the rate she was going

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creature-wizard · 4 months

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"Paganism isn't a Burger King or a Chinese buffet, you can't just pick and choose what you want" is bad rhetoric, and here's why.

I recently got an anon message telling me that paganism isn't like a Burger King or a Chinese buffet; you can't just have things your way or pick and choose what you like, and that "everything was organized a certain way for a reason" and that you "change the system at your own risk."

I pointed out that this is an incredibly historically-uninformed take, because there's never been a time or place in history where paganism was pure and unchanging, and there were many reasons for things being the way things were, most of them just not that deep or mysterious. (For example, politics.)

Anon sent a follow-up message stating that they were talking about cultural appropriation, which... strange if true, given that I hadn't been posting anything about appropriation recently.

In fact, it seems that the post this person was responding to was a post about pop culture witchcraft, given that the OP of that post got an anon message with the words "Chinese buffet analogy" and "pop culture paganism" in the same sentence. (It seems this person doesn't understand the difference between witchcraft and paganism. Common beginner mistake, but also, oof.) Said post wasn't encouraging any kind of appropriative behavior, but go off I guess, anon.

In any case, this kind of restaurant rhetoric isn't even good for safeguarding against cultural appropriation. It doesn't actually explain why cultural appropriation is a problem, and functionally just tells people to stay with what they they've been taught and don't question it. If anything, it reminds me of conservative Christian rhetoric telling people that they can't be Christian and pro-LGBTQ+ because "you can't pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow." (And I think we can all agree that we're better off when Christians decide to ignore this kind of sentiment.)

And speaking of conservative Christianity, people trying to get away from that kind of crap are generally not the kind of people who appreciate being stuck in shitty little boxes and being told they have to follow the rules Or Else. If you use this line on them, sooner or later they'll probably decide that this whole notion of cultural appropriation is a bunch of xenophobic, dogmatic crap, and they're not going to care anymore.

And if it does work on them? If they do internalize it? Congratulations, you've just taught them that policing people's practices for Not Being Pagan Enough is the way to go. This is how you get people harassing each other and putting each other down over total non-issues. It also means that they're less likely to think critically about their own beliefs and practices, and realize that maybe, just maybe, they're actually kinda shitty.

We should be able to explain to people that being mindful of cultural appropriation is about respecting other people's boundaries, access, and general welfare. We should be able to explain the actual harm that cultural appropriation does. Here are some examples:

The high demand for white sage among neopagans has contributed to overharvesting of white sage for commercial sale. This has resulted in ecological damage and made it more difficult for Natives to access the herb.

Ancient astronaut theorists twist and distort myths and traditions from numerous non-white cultures to make it seem as if they support a pseudohistorical narrative in which aliens supposedly built structures such as the Great Pyramids and Puma Punku. This narrative is linked with far right conspiracy theories in general. Those who speak out against the appropriation of their cultures' myths are regarded as unenlightened or agents of the conspiracy.

Commercializing aspects of marginalized culture to sell to the masses is essentially a form of exploitation; large companies benefit while they get nothing. Basically, if you wouldn't support intellectual property theft, you shouldn't support this kind of thing.

Said commercial products typically reinforce harmful stereotypes and misconceptions about said cultures.

In reality, there's no reason why people shouldn't pick and choose what they want provided they are minding boundaries. If somebody wants to worship Freya and Mercury and ignore other Norse and Roman gods, it literally hurts nobody.

There are many things that paganism is not. Paganism is not an unchanging monolith. Paganism is not decreed to us by an infallible authority. "Paganism" genuinely isn't even a very useful term to talk about Europe's rich tapestry of polytheistic beliefs with. But one thing that it is, is up to us, the living practitioners.

#cultural appropriation #paganism #paganblr #critical thinking #pagan

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atopvisenyashill · 2 months

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"Daenerys has done a lot of wrongs" and said are killing slavers

thanks for this one actually because you gave me an excuse to talk about that for a bit.

now first of all - i find it very frustrating that when people say “this was wrong” everyone defaults to “why do you care about slavers” when usually, when i’m talking about things dany has done wrong, i’m talking about mirri maz durr, sacking astapor, sexually abusing irri, and taking a profit off slavery. mirri wasn’t a slaver, she was a slave, and she was blood sacrificed by dany. sacking a city, regardless of who is in that city, is always messy and bad - ask Cleos the Butcher and the people he rules over how they feel about the Sack. Ask the people of King's Landing how they feel about their houses being set on fire every few decades. Ask Missandei how she really feels watching the woman she put all her faith in take a cut off the selling of slaves. Hell, Dany knows that Irri does not want to have sex with her and is doing it because she feels "obligated" because she's a slave and Dany still uses her as a bed warmer and then bars her from expressing an interest in Rakharo because she doesn't believe Irri is ~worthy~ of Rakharo (worthy to fuck but not to love and don't I fucking know about attitudes like that coming from white straight girls lmao).

But let's move past all of that (you certainly seem uninterested in talking about the personhood of slaves like Missandei and Mirri after all, despite ostensibly defending them here) and dig into the crucifying of the Great Masters. In fact, let's turn to Dany's own thoughts over this, bolded part mine:

In the plaza before the Great Pyramid, the Meereenese huddled forlorn. The Great Masters had looked anything but great in the morning light. Stripped of their jewels and their fringed tokars, they were contemptible; a herd of old men with shriveled balls and spotted skin and young men with ridiculous hair. Their women were either soft and fleshy or as dry as old sticks, their face paint streaked by tears. “I want your leaders,” Dany told them. “Give them up, and the rest of you shall be spared.” “How many?” one old woman had asked, sobbing. “How many must you have to spare us?” “One hundred and sixty-three,” she answered. She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood… Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

Immediately after doing it, Dany regrets it. She recognizes she did it while angry and impassioned and reckless, and that the deaths were agonizing, that she did it not for the children but because she was angry and humiliated. This scene has never been as righteously clean morally than people would believe from the moment it was on page! She recognizes she did a fucked up thing but rationalizes it away because she can't admit she made a mistake. She reflects on it later again as she's ruling Meereen:

She had not forgotten the slave children nailed up along the road from Yunkai. They had numbered one hundred sixty-three, a child every mile, nailed to mileposts with one arm outstretched to point her way. After Meereen had fallen, Dany had nailed up a like number of Great Masters. Swarms of flies had attended their slow dying, and the stench had lingered long in the plaza. Yet some days she feared that she had not gone far enough. These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted her at every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes … only to hire them back as servants at wages so meagre that most could scarce afford to eat. Those too old or young to be of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm and the crippled. And still the Great Masters gathered atop their lofty pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen had filled their noble city with hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores. To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them.

She lets the bodies of the people she wants to rule rot, the smell lingering in the plaza for weeks, reminding the people she is trying to make peace with that she can and will viciously murder their families and gloat over their corpses and they cannot stop her. Then doesn't put in any rules about wages, anything to help the sick and disabled. She blames the Great Masters for working within the system they've had for generations despite yelling at them to get a new system and doing nothing to help them move to that new system. She judges them, she hates them, and she wonders why she has the Meereneese version of the KKK springing up afterwards. She is just as ineffective as Andrew Johnson is during Reconstruction, too focused on her own feelings to look objectively at what this destroyed city actually needs from her, instead judging them from her own lofty pyramid with her own slaves and her own superior culture and mopes about how much she wants the Seven Kingdoms.

SHE is the one who decided she was going to rule this place. But instead of focusing on reconciliation, she focuses in on revenge. And that is why she sets herself up to fail.

#ya'll are so fucking annoying #anti daenerys targaryen #anti dany stans #slavery in essos #asks #anons

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theresattrpgforthat · 1 year

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Second, do you have any good fantasy RPGs set in a non-european focused or at least not medieval-European world? It can be based off of a real-world culture or something brand new

THEME: Non-Western Fantasy

Hello friend! For this recommendation, I wanted to highlight games made about non-western fantasy by authors who hail from the cultures that inspire the games. For that purpose I really want to shout-out to rpgsea and rpglatam, two community/movements that have made it much easier for creators from Southeast Asian and Latin American cultures to advertise and publish their games. Not all of my recommendations come from these communities, but they’re a great jumping-off point to find more games with unique settings, fresh ideas, and beautiful, beautiful art.

Nahual, by Miguel Angel Espinoza.

Nahual is a tabletop roleplaying game about brjos nahuales, humans of mestizo and indigenous ancestry that have the power to shapeshifter into an animal form. These nahuales hunt angels to make a living, running a changarro - a business - together to sell the products they make from the bodies of the angels they have killed. These are stories about underdogs, struggling to find their place in a Mexican world of fantastical and overwhelming forces.

Miguel Ángel Espinoza is a Mexican layout artist and game designer, and the head of Smoking Mirror Games. His ttrpg Nahual really picked up steam on Kickstarter, unlocking stretch goal after stretch goal. At its core, this game is PbtA game about underdogs going up against celestial parasites. Angel Dust is a potent drug, and angels are used by corporations, politicians, and the Church to lure in worshipers and make money. You play the labourers at the bottom of this pyramid, aching for freedom but trapped inside a concrete jungle. Your biggest asset? The special gifts you’ve inherited from your ancestors, watered down as you’ve lost your cultural memories.

This game is more urban fantasy than anything else on this list, but if you want to explore a game about reclaiming something that you’ve almost lost, you should definitely check out Nahual.

ARC, by momatoes.

Ready Yourself. For Tonight, we save the world.

The RPG to slay the apocalypse. Capture your imagination with near-inescapable dooms that threaten infinite worlds. Be a hero or be the guide to facilitate a heart-racing story to remember.

ARC enables people wishing to run a game with limited experience. The Doom and its Omens help create tension and manage the story’s pacing. The rules are approachable so you can focus on helping make the best story for the table. Additionally, the last chapter of the full book is filled with tips for building a good experience for you and your friends.

The creator, Momatoes (aka Bianca Canoza), is from the Philippines, and is the custodian of RPGSEA, as well as a Winner of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award. Her game, ARC doesn’t have a lot of setting decided for you - instead, you decide elements of the setting yourself. There's even a license for creators who want to publish their own content! The biggest selling point of ARC is the Doom, a terrible event that the Heroes want to prevent at any cost. The GM will set up Omens, which are pieces of the story that advance the Doom - pieces the characters will need to investigate and interact with in order to resolve. Finally, the Doomsday clock is a tool that can be used to keep the sessions tight and focused: every moment on the Doomsday clock has the GM roll 1d6 per unresolved moment - the higher the roll, the closer you tick towards catastrophe! If you want a beginner-friendly game that allows maximum creativity, you should definitely check out ARC.

Arunika, by Anonymocha.

Darkness and gloom threaten to shroud the entirety of this world you call home. Or perhaps, it already had. However, there's hope.

You are a Light Bearer. This beacon of light you hold is the key to reviving the world's gleam and hope, through your own. You are bestowed with the pursuit of rekindling the world, forging bonds with its inhabitants along the path, and freeing it from the murk with what you can offer.

Arunika is a TTRPG of maintaining hope, sharing it with the world, and most importantly, caring for yourself while you're at it.

The rulebook reflects a world's journey towards revival from the characters who escalate it. It is made with the vision of a game that has a non-violent, narrative-first, and feelings-focused system which can be interpreted in many optimistic, creative, whimsical, melancholic, or introspective ways.

Mocha, the creator, is an Indonesian artist with a beautiful and unique art style, visible in the projects they create and contribute to. One person plays the Light Bearer, a character who holds the Light, a beacon that needs to be used to rekindle the world. Other players can play the Companions, friends and old foes that accompany the Light Bearer on their journey. This game can be run with just a GM and one player, with all of the Companions as NPCs. The stats of your character will fill or deplete depending on the events of the game, so Heart will increase when the party has a positive interaction, while Hurt will increase from suffering harm, or decrease when your character is comforted. If you want a game that is easy on the eyes, gives you the basic premise and lets you build your own world, you should check out Arunika.

Hearts of Wulin, by Lowell Francis and Agatha Cheng.

Hearts of Wulin is a game of wuxia melodrama, Powered by the Apocalypse. Players take the role of skilled martial artists in a world of rival clans, conspiracies, and obligations. The game emulates films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Chinese wuxia TV series like The Smiling Proud Wanderer and Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, and Chinese martial arts novels from the second half of the twentieth century. In these tales, romance is as dangerous as a blade. Everyone has ties to factions, loves they can’t quite express, and secrets which will shake them to their core. As in the source material, stories in Hearts of Wulin are driven by the characters’ duties, romantic desires, and entanglements with other characters.

You get everything you need to play the game in three different styles: Core, Courtly, and Fantastic. The core game is as described above: a game of wuxia melodrama featuring wandering wulin warriors. The courtly style of play sets the game in a world of politics and factional scheming. The fantastic game adds strong elements of the superrnatural to the story. Each style of play has its own playbooks and moves—it's like having three games in one!

Agatha Cheng is a cultural consultant and a podcast host, on top of being a co-author of this wuxia-inspired game, in a genre she’s loved since childhood. Hearts of Wulin is an homage to melodramatic stories about protagonists, torn between equally treasured relationships. You may be in love with your teacher’s greatest rival, or perhaps your master and your father despise each-other. The PbtA system that Hearts is built on prioritizes emotional conflict and failure that moves the story forward, while slimming down the mechanics to simple 2d6 dice rolls. If what you’re looking for is story beats that rip your heart up and make you feel all of the feelings, you should check out this game.

Gubat Banwa, by makapatag.

Gubat Banwa is a game of rapid kinetic martial arts, violent sorcery, heartrending convictions and bouts of will. Warriors that channel gods face sorcerers that master black arts, martial artists who have unlocked a new form of cultivation clash swords with those that perfect the night alchemies.

Gubat Banwa is a Southeast Asian fantasy martial arts Role-Playing Game, inspired by the refulgent cultures of Southeast Asia. Raise your spears, KADUNGGANAN, you elite warrior-braves and asura-knights who travel The Sword Isles to prove their conviction and dictate the fate of the world. Revel in larger-than-life war drama like in Asian Dramas, ballistic tactical martial arts grid gameplay in the vein of Lancer or Final Fantasy Tactics, and find glory beyond heaven. Wield the Thunderbolt of Liberation! Rejoice! In the Glory of Combat!

Makapatag, or Waks, is a Filipino creature who loves creating tactical ttrpgs. All of their games have strong Southeast Asian inspiration, but Gubat Banwa is what you’re looking for if you want good old fantasy. Rules-wise, the author credits Lancer, Pathfinder 2e, ICON, Ryuutama, Apocalypse World, and so many more iconic, well-loved games for their inspiration. This game is made to specifically centre Southeast Asian cultures, and the setting is not solely based in a specific historical setting, but is rather inspired by many cultures and stories of these cultures. I strongly recommend you read the Note On Intended Audience on page 4 if you get this book.

And what a book it is. 400 pages, with maps, roll-tables, an extensive dive into the lore and terms created for this book, and pages and pages of gorgeous gorgeous art. Character creation is heavily involved, incorporating the culture you hail from, the ideal you’re fighting for, major life events and debts, as well as different Disciplines, combat arts that each have their own styles, weapons, and techniques. Fighting in this game is not just a matter of survival - it is a science. If you want a game that gives you in-depth characters and hours and hours of material in a world in which every piece of lore has been carefully thought out, I heavily recommend Gubat Banwa.

Mangayaw, by goobernuts.

Mangayaw is an RPG for one facilitator (the Mangaawit) and at least one other player. Players act as Binmanwa, adventurers and survivors in an archipelago of bloodshed and goldlust. This game is inspired by Philippine legend, folklore, culture and history. The game and its setting is still a work-in-progress. Based on and inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, Mausritter and numerous other games.

Benj, the creator, is a member of RPGsea, and draws heavily from Philippine folklore and history for this game. This is absolutely for OSR fans, with delay fast combat, class-less and level-less characters, and a ton of equipment and magic items inspired by Philippines folklore.

Whereas many OSR games present the rules with the assumption that the GM knows what they’re doing, Mangayaw contains a page of principles for the Mangaawit, outlining narrative focus, the purpose of danger and treasure, and advice on how to present the characters with choices, NPC motivations, and the benefits of random generation. It also contains principles for the players, and principles of the World, providing guidance for folks who may be unfamiliar with the culture that inspires this setting. There’s suggestions for names, descriptions of unique items, and tables for magic and sorcery. If you love roll tables, you’ll love Mangayaw.

Brave Zenith, by Roll 4 Tarrasque.

Brave Zenith is a post-fantasy tabletop RPG, set in a world inspired by Brazilian culture and long summer nights playing JRPGs on a pirated PS1. With a set of simple interpretative rules, that focus on player creativity and imagination, explore the ruined world of pastpresent, meet colourful (and deadly) creatures, see the sights of the Second City, partake in delicious Monkey Oil and become an adventurer.

Roll 4 Tarrasque is a team of Latinx creators whose efforts won Game of the Year for 2022 at the Indie Groundbreaker Awards with this game. Brave Zenith is a game about fantasy odd-jobs, rather than epic quests - your characters are cleaning up houses, hunting ghosts, stealing from the rich, etc. The people and creatures of the world are unique and enchanting, from the friendly Jelly shopkeeper to the slippery butter construct, to little porcini goblins.

Characters have 3 stats, gain abilities based off of their occupations. There are three suggested origins to help you determine what your character looks like, but you’re also welcome to create your own! There are typical hallmarks of dungeon delving here, such as loot tables, monsters to fight, and spells to cast. For the GMs, there’s a chapter full of advice on how to prepare for a session, quick NPC generation, and tables to help you write an adventure on the fly. Finally, the rulebook itself is bright, colourful, and fun - perfect for communicating the kinds of games it’s designed to run!

Lutong Banwa by Sinta Posadas (Diwata ng Manila).

We, the Tamawo, we have no concept of hunger, food, or of a nuclear family. We wandered aimlessly for a long time. Then, we met a Giant Grab. She took us in like her own children. Clothed and sheltered us like we were her kind. We call her Mama Kasag. She showed us more about the people that came before us. The ones she calls “Humans”.

Lutong Banwa is a cooking game, where you set out to adventure and find ingredients from Spirits and recipes from old civilizations. Embark on this anti-canon storygame adventure with its own custom system and play to find out just what sort of zany adventures you can get up to in this weird, wild world. Do whatever you want.

Sin is a Filipino game designer who loves designing games that incorporate magic realism. Lutong Banwa is no different. You play Tamawo, who have bodies that appear similar to humans, but live in an age in which humans are long gone. Humans are strange beings of a past age, with unfamiliar customs, such as cooking. You’ve picked up cooking as something to explore, and thus go out on errands to find new ingredients for Mama Kasag. This game is charming and small, quick to learn and easy to play. It even includes recipes to get you in the cooking mood! If you like cozy games with low stakes and a charming setting, you should absolutely check out this game.

A Thousand Thousand Islands.

This is not a game, but rather, a collection of system-agnostic zines for use in fantasy tabletop games. This collection is designed by a trio of Malaysian designers, and contains places such as Mr-Kr-Gr, a river kingdom ruled by crocodiles, Korvu, a maritime nation of tenant mercenaries, and Ngelalangka, a market inspired by Southeast Asian bazaars. If you have a game system that you’re already comfortable with and you want to explore fantastical places within that system, I heavily encourage you to check out these zines.

#dnd #tabletop games #game recommendations #asks #this was one of the most satisfying posts I've put together in a long time #fantasy #indie ttrpgs

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wizard-on-whales · 4 months

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Modern AU! for rdr2 characters

These are my headcannons for each character and what I think they would do in modern times.

Characters included: Arthur, Micah, Dutch, John, Abigail, Mary-Beth, Karen, Tilly, Sadie, Strauss, Charles, Susan, Bill, Lenny, Hosea, Sean, Molly, Javier, Swanson

_______________________________

Arthur Morgan:

He works a blue-collar job. He would most likely be a ranch hand, but for some reason, I can also imagine him being a plumber or welder. In his free time, he does art and sells prints on Etsy. He is still an old-fashioned gentleman (In a good way), and all of the ladies he meets swoon for him, but he is a himbo and doesn't realize they are practically in love with him. They will give him the most obvious hints, but he will think the women are just being nice.

Micah Bell:

He's the creepy uncle that you avoid at every family gathering. He hasn't had a job in like 15 years, and no one knows how he can still pay his bills. And he also always smells like lingering alcohol and cigarettes. He will lean too close to his nieces and say extremely concerning things everyone would choose to ignore. Im also getting the vibes that he went to prison for several years, but no one knows what for.

Dutch Van Der Linde:

He sells people scams or owns a pyramid scheme business. Similar to Scentsy products, he somehow convinces all of these people to buy his products to sell to other people, telling them they will get rich by selling these products, but, in reality, he's screwing them over and making most of the money himself.

John Marston:

If we are talking about early Red Dead 2 Marston, he still lives in his parent's basement and plays video games on his PC all day. He also watches Andrew Tate and would try to boss Abigail around and tell her he's an alpha male. (She'd slap him and tell him to get over himself) Late rdr2 and rdr1, he's grown out of that mindset and has become a working family man. Potentially also a welder, like I said for Arthur. But any high-paying physical job works.

I feel like Abigail, Mary-Beth, Karen, and Tilly would all have a mom group they host every week to discuss their child's newest achievements. Their husbands think that is all they do at the meetings, but they also have in-depth conversations about women's suffrage and how the world caters to men. They think of ways to better the world and bring more women together to discuss these topics and bring light to issues regarding women. The girls would run a pretty popular Facebook group where they let other women express their opinions on those topics. (Arthur is a part of the Facebook group and likes every post he sees and comments shit like, “You're doing great, ladies! Keep up the good work! 😁🥰👍”)

Sadie would probably occasionally attend these meetings (Although I dont see her having children, she would go for the cheap wine and to hang with her friends). Sadie would also go for the in-depth conversations and bring new thoughts to the table because she is a CEO or manager for a very successful company. She would share her experiences of what it's like to be on top of the men who work for her but still be looked down upon by them simply because of her gender. She would also probably share tips on that Facebook page on how to create a successful business without having to attend years of college and give tips for all stay-at-home moms who want to be more than just moms and wives. (She would also be the cool rich aunt)

Leopold Strauss:

He would do the same thing. He gives loans to people who he knows won't be able to pay back the money, and then when the bill comes, he'd ruin their lives and probably end up breaking up families/ relationships and send people to jail for not paying back the money in time.

Charles Smith:

I can see him being a park ranger or working in any conservation field. Potentially even a firefighter who deals with all of the forest fires that happen in places along the West Coast. He’d also be one to do something similar to what he did in the game, but he would work with the local native tribes against companies to try to win back their lands before it gets plowed over for an Amazon factory or something.

Susan Grimshaw:

I can see her being the mean substitute teacher who yells at everyone to get to work, and then when someone does something slightly wrong, she would yell at the whole class and be like, “In all of my years of teaching, I have never seen a class behave this badly.” Either that or she would work at the front desk of the business Sadie runs. Miss Grimshaw would NOT play with anyone who would try to be rude towards her.

Bill Williamson:

Ehem…a police officer. I feel like this one is self-explanatory. But he would mostly sit in his car and do nothing his entire shift. Occasionally pulling someone over for speeding. If they are a white dude, he'd would let them off with just a warning. Poor Lenny would probably get the ticket.

Lenny Summers:

I feel like he would be the one to graduate high school early and go to college as soon as possible. I dont know exactly what he would choose for his degree, but I feel like it would be something involving politics. Maybe that wouldn't be his major, but he would take a government class. Or Potentially going into journaling.

Hosea Matthews:

He's the retired grandpa who used to work in a factory where he made a surprising amount of money and was able to retire early. He spends most of his days walking up at 5 in the morning to watch the sunrise and read the morning paper. And he’ll spend every opportunity he gets to take his kids or grandkids fishing. And if you stay at his house overnight or for the weekend, he gives you a bowl of ice cream every night before bed and recounts every story he could think of that happened from the last time you saw him. (Some of them are surprisingly concerning, but he is one of those badass grandpas)

Sean Macguire:

Similar to John, Sean would spend most of his time gaming on his PC and arguing with children on COD or Fortnite. But he also works at a local bar as the bartender and won't hesitate to argue with the drunk assholes and would slap a bitch if needed. But he also embarrasses himself by flirting with women who will give him dirty looks or tell him that they are gay. (I feel like Karen would also work late-night shifts at the bar with him, but shes also taking online college classes because she wants to be a social worker)

Molly O’Shea:

Instagram and TikTok influencer 100%, and lots of brands like to sponsor her and send her free stuff (Mostly because of Dutch’s business.) and she posts videos of her and Dutch, and everyone in the comments freaks out about how he is grooming her because of their age difference but she denies it all and says that they are actually in love. But then she would post a video to that one sound, “My god this reminds me of when we were young.” And Molly be like 8, and Dutch be in his mid-to-late 20s.

Javier Escuella:

He’d be a musician. He would have started out in a shitty garage band with Sean and John or something, but then he’d realize he actually wants to be a serious musician while the other guys were just messing around. So he’d leave and make solo music that blows up, and he ends up going on tour, and making a lot of money and becoming hugely successful.

Reverend Swanson:

The preacher you always see in the corner of the bar Sean works at. And if you went up to him and started talking to him, he’d tell you the most profound things. He would tell you about his life when he was younger and what happened that made him lose hope, but he would motivate you to never give up. He’d be that person you meet by chance for a few seconds that you would never forget. Hosea probably invites him to go fishing with him from time to time. But instead of fishing, Swanson stares at the water ripples in silence. Hosea would let him sit in silence and let Swanson enjoy the company and the time to think while being sober.

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#arthur morgan #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #dutch van der linde #van der linde gang #john marston #micah bell #hosea matthews #red dead fandom #javier escuella #lenny summers #arthur morgan rdr2

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