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dr3amofagame · 3 years

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take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi)

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete.

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now.

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news.

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright.

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now.

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots.

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine.

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?)

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all.

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen.

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it.

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs.

“Michael!”

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air.

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!”

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves.

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands.

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?”

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.”

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice.

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices.

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return.

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest.

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all?

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands.

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team.

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs.

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!”

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation.

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return.

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak.

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?”

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time.

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?”

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?”

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in.

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?”

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud.

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.”

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.”

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter.

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.”

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream.

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for.

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena.

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops.

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again.

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!”

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up.

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge.

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway.

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.”

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.”

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out.

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best.

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail.

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.”

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions-

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?”

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut.

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps.

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well.

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to.

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before.

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes.

“Like you did that much.”

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye.

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs.

“Fair.”

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow.

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future.

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever.

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team.

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits.

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?”

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they?

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body.

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well?

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further.

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him.

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own.

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?”

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words.

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?”

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.”

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?”

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red.

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?”

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome.

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break.

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain.

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.”

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own.

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake.

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point.

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.”

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.”

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time.

Keep your head down.

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.”

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race.

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!”

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.”

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again.

“Thanks, guys.”

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings.

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?”

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.”

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs.

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?”

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back.

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?”

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!”

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition.

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down.

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it.

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap.

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter.

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder.

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own.

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it.

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off.

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off.

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak.

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod.

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams, watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team -

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena.

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?”

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners.

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route.

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out.

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused.

“Gottem.”

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting.

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them.

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby.

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?”

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective.

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second -

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!”

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own.

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue.

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay.

The smile slips off his face.

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on.

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what?

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply.

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all.

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it.

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity.

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all.

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow.

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down.

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red.

---

“What the hell was that?”

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence.

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?”

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-”

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?”

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter.

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-”

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?”

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?”

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features.

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.”

“...liar.”

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down.

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward.

“Quackity!”

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-”

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops.

“LET’S GO!”

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows.

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time.

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself-

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.”

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?”

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.”

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder.

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp.

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.”

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..”

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.”

“Thanks for everything, Scott.”

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.”

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing.

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?”

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.”

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him.

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.”

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached.

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.”

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure.

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?”

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head.

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.”

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly.

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.”

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life.

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.”

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow.

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?”

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !!#long post

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reaganseyebags · 2 years

Text

I got a request: “A Reagan x Reader. The reader was once a past romance of her but moved away. They get forcefully hired into Incognito Inc as meeting Brett he accidentally reveals about its existence.”

Oh man this one is gonna be sad.

tw for violence, blood and manipulation

So we all know how Rand made that antiboy perfume,, well it didn’t really worked on you

You two fell in love- teen romance yknow,, knight. You two did silly things that kids in love do. (I never fucking dated anyone so idk what kids in love do sorry not sorry)

Overall it was pretty innocent

Well,, when Rand found out about this,, you were lucky you were still alive.

He really went out and beat the shit out of a 14yo kid-

“Listen here you little asshole,, I’m not letting some shithead take my daughter’s future away just cuz you wanna get some pussy. You are gonna move away and never, EVER see or contact her again,,, am I crystal clear here?!” He was holding you against the wall, your whole body was in unimaginable pain. In pure panic and fear you just nodded. It was more of the begging for dear life

You didn’t wanted to move away- you had so many memories in this city, but after Rand started assaulting your family you knew it was better to give up.

You moved few weeks after The Who incident happened, leaving your beloved Reagan behind

When Reagan got the news, god she was so sad- she just sobbed into moms chest for few hours- and still cried for few nights.

She didn’t care what the others said, she really did love you and this absolutely destroyed her-

She never really moved on, she kept your pictures and everything you ever got her to her adulthood. Sometimes she thought of with tears in her eyes.

And well,, you never moved on as well,, she was always somewhere in your mind

You were living your life like a very other normal person. You gratulated high school and collage and had a boring until one day some dudes threw a bag over your head and the last thing you know, you were lying on a cold floor in random building.

“That’s enough fellas, they had enough-“ said masculine voice

The figure took the bag off and you were blinded by the sudden light.

“Oh eh sorry, I should have done it slower. Well welcome Reader to the Cognito Inc!! My name is Brett!”

“Wha- What is happening,, god f-fuck my head-“

“I will explain everything later, now let me get some water-“

After you felt bit better Brett actually took you to look around,, so many strange people and not just people

“Ok well,, that’s cool and all but like why am I here?”

“Oh yeah well, you were chose to work for the Media Manipulation team!”

“Wait did I apply to this job?”

“Nah not really, sometimes we have to chose random strangers since we don’t have much applications” the man giggled. What the actual fuck? Are they just gonna kidnap you force you to work for them. That’s some bullshit

You two continued walking though the building as you passed a lab with the sigh that said “Reagan Ridley”

No fucking way

“Hey Brett,, does Reagan Ridley work here?”

“Yeah why? You know each other?”

“Yeah kind of…”

“Well I think she will be in her lab so you can try-“ you didn’t even let him finish the sentence- you just ran into her lab looking for her.

She was doing her paper work at her desk as she turned to face you.

“Who the fuckkkk-“ the moment she spot you she instantly knew. You could see the tears-

“It can’t be- I thought y-you were dead!” She sobbed out, running your direction.

At that point you were crying as well.

You open your arms, she quickly hugged you, squishing you so hard as she sobbed into your shoulder.

You were trying to say something but your mouth was shut, you just let her squish you, she smelled the exact same way as you remember maybe I bit more sweaty

The ending was rushed cuz I’m really tired but I hope you like it hun

#inside job #reagan ridley #inside job x reader #reagan ridley hurt/comfort #reagan ridley x reader #inside job headcanon

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sinagrace · 4 years

Text

On the subject of marvel comics ...

If we’re gonna talk about how Marvel does literally nothing about giving a leg up to marginalized creators and staff members, I’ve got another story to tell. Towards the end of my time there, I’d been getting a sense that marvel editors were lying about keeping me in mind for projects after iceman, and the following incident sealed the deal in terms of being told (not in any legally binding way) that I had overstayed my welcome at the house of ideas. Sometime in 2018, an editor at a different publishing house asked if I’d pitch for an all-ages Spider-Man book they were licensed to produce. Considering I saw CB Cebulski have a conniption at a comic con party when another Marvel Comics writer told him he’d been courted to do the same for avengers, I asked that editorial to make absolutely sure marvel was cool with me pitching for this project. The editor got approval, and I wrote a damn good idea that was on the fast track to being the next arc in the series. For those who aren’t familiar, when you’re not a household name, pitching for a legacy character is quite a bit of work. Given my lifelong love of Spider-Man, it wasn’t exactly grueling to come up with a handful of ideas and then properly outline the one my editor liked the most… but it’s still work. All that being said, I felt great about the final document, and that I’d bought myself a few more months of being Marvel-adjacent so I could continue growing my reputation for being known for my writing chops, and rinse off the notion that I was ever anyone’s diversity hire. Cut to a few weeks later, and my editor tells me that I can’t be used for the series. The exact words he relayed from Marvel were: “they’d like to keep the focus on iceman for now.” That e-mail came in the day I turned in my last script for Iceman. I reached out to Marvel’s talent relations guy, and he got me on the phone to explain a completely different reason why I was taken off the book: he said that Marvel only wanted people with experience in all-ages because there were different formatting rules than what goes into a standard comic script (a half truth that doesn’t matter when you read the next sentence). I mentioned that I did an all-ages book for Simon and Schuster, a middle grade series for Image Comics, short stories for Boom Studios, and edited an all-ages title for Robert Kirkman. The talent relations guy was like, “Oh, I didn’t know all that.” He then went on to say that Marvel had a list of people they wanted this editor to approach and as a result some wires got crossed and thus I was out of several months’ work. He didn’t offer to fix the problem, he didn’t offer to throw me on any number of space-filler mini-series that were just basically keeping Jonathan Hickman’s seat warm… nothing. In response, I said to the talent relations guy: “Do you believe what you’re telling me?” He didn’t have a particularly good answer. Oh if you’re wondering: like NONE of the writers who did end up getting hired for these all-ages titles had legitimate experience with all-ages material. They’re all great writers and some of them are my homies, but it’s not like they came from scholastic or random house. All of this is to say: I went above and beyond to make sure I was approved to pitch on a project, I worked my butt off and wrote something my editor was incredibly enthusiastic about, and then I magically got unpicked and wasn’t offered a reasonable explanation, a substitute gig, or a kill fee for the work I had put in on the proposal. Thanks, Marvel. This whole debacle wasn’t included in a piece I wrote last year because the editor I was working with asked me not to. Given that his relationship with Marvel was already tenuous, he didn’t really need more pressure/ stress. This guy went to bat for me and helped get me one of my favorite gigs, and having been in his position as an editor dealing with multiple bureaucracies, I didn’t want to make his life any harder. But he’s no longer at that company, and he gave me permission to bring this up. So here we are. I hate that I’m once again in a position where I have to call out Marvel on some BS, because I don’t know that anything positive will come from it, and that everything I’ve done in my career will once again be boiled down to: “semi-attractive queer comic creator complains about marvel comics.” Like, never mind that I’ve been at this since I was in high school, ran Kirkman’s imprint on my own before I was 25, and have gone on to write almost all of my favorite DC Comics characters after leaving Marvel. It’s shitty to be an individual talking about a beloved company... but it’s the right thing to do. The only thing I can 100% predict will happen from me speaking up is: a bunch of haters are going to get back on my dick again and make social media unbearable. To those folks, my birthday is on Monday… can you maybe not? Just this once? Stories like what I've written need to be considered when discussing if Marvel has actually done anything to be accountable for not only hiring more diversely, but for fostering an environment where those people feel valued. My only advice to Marvel would be: fucking hire a third party organization to teach you all how to do this right… you can’t keep propping Sana up on a podium and pat yourselves on the back for doing half of the bare minimum. I hate that I still love your books (I spent good money buying the oversized Silver Surfer Black collection), and I just wish that the gatekeepers were a bit more responsible and cognizant of how deep their behavior and apathy cuts. Granted, this is a company that has a bad reputation for not treating anybody fairly, so there is always the argument that Marvel Comics is just run by a box of pythons who indiscriminately poison and devour folks. I’m not sure... after 18 months away from them, I still try to excuse the bad behavior and blame myself for how things went down.

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lgbtkendricks · 3 years

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Does Annie (1982) provide a good representation of women?

Like many PG-Rated movies of the 80s, Annie is about a young child. An orphan, to be exact. A little orphan girl named Annie. She is spritely, funny, kind, hard-working and intelligent. Even through all her hardships the beloved Annie sings and dances to her heart’s content, with a bright grin and sunny exposition, quite literally believing that no matter what happens ‘the sun will come out tomorrow’.

The 1982 film adaptation of Annie holds heart and positivity as the protagonist and her friends embark on adventures such as escaping the orphanage, visiting radio stations and the movies, tricking their spiteful and alcoholic carer Miss Hannigan and even meeting President Roosevelt. Annie is one of my favourite films of all time. In my most humble opinion, it’s a work of pure brilliance with a strong likeable ensemble and brilliant choreography. It is no wonder why it instantly became a sensation and a classic which was remade multiple times (none of which hold up to the original, although Audra MacDonald as Grace Farrell was a particularly enjoyable performance).

However, even I – who has probably watched Annie around 60 times and can recite the entire script – have to admit that there are certain faults in the adaptation. Of course, there are many questionable parts throughout: the Asian character Punjab was played by a black man and was understood to be strangely magic and only uttered about five lines throughout the entire film, and there was particularly problematic music and accompanying choreography for a Chinese man working at Oliver Warbucks’ mansion during ‘We Got Annie.’

But on a whole, the representation of women throughout Annie is both empowering and disheartening. In a way, the film is reminiscent of the wonderful 1939 film ‘The Women’, starring Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer, in which the women are entirely dominant in driving the plot forward. The only man represented in the entire film is on the back of a newspaper one of the women read in an early scene. Whilst men are talked about and fought over, we never see a single male character, which was incredibly revolutionary then and even now, 81 years later, in terms of Hollywood. The fast-paced film is told entirely through the perspectives of several women of (supposed) high-society, and it is nothing short of a marvel.

Being in an all-girls orphanage, Annie is already surrounded by young girls throughout her childhood, who all share close relationships and confide with one another. It is heart-warming to watch and highlights the importance of friendship and positivity to its equally young audience. Scenes such as Annie fighting a group of boys within the first twenty minutes do well to strengthen the empowering nature of her character and the film as a whole. Conveying Annie’s bravery proves to the target audience that they can be a strong, gallant and determined individuals who don’t give up. Unfortunately, this message is debunked a few times throughout the film. Whilst the orphans remain as genuinely admirable and understandable as possible, the three main female adults in Annie waver between aggravating and powerful.

There is Miss Hannigan, played by the extraordinary Carol Burnett, whose personality seems to waver upon hating children (specifically ‘Little Girls’ – she spends about three minutes voicing her loathing through song), yearning for a male counterpart and an alcohol addiction. Whilst her character arc is impressive, due to her sudden protectiveness over Annie after realising her brother Rooster isn’t messing about, she isn’t a particularly good example of a person. Of course, this is the point: we as an audience are supposed to hate her after seeing how frightened the orphans are of Miss Hannigan upon her first entrance into the film, alongside the way she drags Annie and her friends around throughout the musical, aiming to discipline them as harshly as possible without breaking any laws. Still, her questionable morals and decisions do not change the fact that – as a character – she is portrayed well, and her actions and arc make perfect sense once we are given insight into how she feels about her situation.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is the character of Grace Farrell, played by Ann Reinking. She is the brilliant right-hand woman to influential billionaire Oliver Warbucks, carrying three solos throughout the film - the second-most after Annie herself. Arguably, by watching how well she manages both the mansion and the song ‘I Think I’m Gonna Like it Here’ simultaneously, it is clear that Grace’s resourcefulness contributes to her position in society, portraying her as an impressive example of a woman of the 1930s. However, as the film goes on it becomes clearer that she feels she needs Oliver’s constant approval and does everything in accordance to what he decides and desires. Before miraculously singing their way through dressing up in ‘Let’s Go To The Movies’, Annie tells her new motherly figure to wear her hair down as she looks “so pretty”, to which Grace immediately replied with “oh no, Annie, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, no, no, no!” and Annie provides an off-comment about how miss Hannigan says “a man don’t look at your brains”. Moreover, Grace seems delighted when Oliver tells her “you’re awfully pretty when you argue with me.” and nearly rushes off to get her crooked teeth fixed once Oliver points them out before he reassures her that he likes them crooked. After this, Grace sings and dances through her most energetic and impressive solo, ‘We Got Annie’, seemingly happier than ever. Of course, it’s more than understandable for someone to feel excited if their romantic interest compliments them, but after witnessing Grace’s capabilities and strong sense of self – alongside how she is Annie’s role model and thus the woman all young children watching should strive to be – it is fairly demeaning to watch Grace’s sudden incapability and giddiness when being complimented by “Oliver Warbucks the billionaire.” In fairness, it is important to remember that the actual film is set in 1933 and Grace’s reactions would have been the general consensus, and I am now reading the film in light of our Me Too era, scrutinising it just as I would anything else. Even so, at the time the film adaptation was written in the early 1980s, there had already been feminist movements such as the introduction of the washing machine for women to have the time to work weekdays as men do, and there was a slow influx of feminist books beginning to be written and published. Thus, there was no good reason for script-writer Carol Sobieski to disregard Grace’s intelligence and accomplishments in light of her sudden attraction to Oliver Warbucks – notably, Grace becomes slightly more helpless after this scene. In a way, it’s fairly ironic that the respectable Grace’s portrayal is somehow worse than Miss Hannigan’s in accordance to staying true to their characters, but I suppose that reflects somewhat the way the media currently view women: think Meghan Markle vs. Cardi B.

It’s saddening to see that even now, scriptwriters are using this trope that women can be hard-working and empowering in their chosen job, or they can be in love and focus on nothing else but their romantic interest, unable to find the balance. Whilst this is improving, there are many tv shows and films that disregard the need for change and proper accurate representation of how normal people live and balance their personal life and work ethic. To name a few that do represent this: One Day at a Time, Daddy Day Care, and How I Met Your Mother. Whilst representation of women and minorities in the media is improving, I still would like to see a wider range of films and television that further tackle and question if a character’s original motive or super-objective needs to be drastically altered for their romantic interest.

#please keep in mind that i wrote this when i was barely 17 #annie #annie 1982 #feminism #women #international womens week #musicals #film representation #representation of women #80s films #80s movies #lgbtkendricks

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masterhandss · 4 years

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Hamefura Idol AU! (part 2)

Here’s a completely unrelated Katarina idol art by @Sangotofura on twitter!

This is a continuation of my first post, the one that is more of an overview of the original FL game and the original descriptions of the characters. I don’t know if I want to write a story for this, since again this is just an excuse to draw, but I’m really having fun with expanding the alternate version of the world of hamefura.

It’s a lot of fun to rewrite hamefura’s story to fit in an idol setting, so I hope you guys don’t mind if I write a bit more for my dumb au dhjgfjs

More tidbits about the ‘Game’:

The game’s name, Fortune Lover: Cinderella Idol! or “Fortune Lover”, is read as “for-tune lover” by the fans (get it? tune?? pls laugh). The ‘F’ of the name is written as a fortissimo.

In the setting for Fortune Lover, the entertainment industry is the biggest industry of all time, with music being the most popular form. It has been like this for decades, and as time progressed, people’s tastes and expectations of music evolved, leading to the creation and popularity of idols.

Idol-Producers are a new project that is testing the capabilities of a idol teen, observing how their involvement in their own success can impact how they manage their time and how they can bring the absolute best out of themselves, on their own. Maria is the first idol who will be testing this new style. She is still a producer to herself, the boys, and even Sophia and Mary if you choose to have them join you. Despite being an idol, they still call Maria their “producer” and treats her like one.

The characters in the game are in 3D CG, as the game includes the dance choreography or “MV Mode” if you perfect the score of the rhythm game.

While Katarina’s bullying isn’t really death threatening, it’s more in line with the petty kind like verbal threats, sabotaging Maria’s idol clothes and stage equipment, paying someone to mess up her tracks during performances, badmouthing her infront of tv show producers and hosts, and stuff like that.

Katarina’s bullying isn’t as bad as it is in the original otome game, but she gets shunned by the public because behavior like that is only supposed to be done behind the curtains. The public has such a pure and honest perception of idols that they never think of the idea that the girls who smile and sing on stage actually try to stab each other in the back when the stage lights are off. Some people think that Katarina’s character is just a persona, so knowing that she is actually an ignorant and arrogant rich girl idol-wannabe, her fans lose respect for her. Katarina’s harassment of Maria is one of the few cases that are brought to light by the end of the game, and because of how much the public loves Maria by that point, they are enraged by Katarina’s behavior, making her lose support on all sides

Katarina had been in love with Gerald ever since they were children, and while Gerald has always been a popular boy among both his peers, when she found out Gerald was going to be an idol, she disliked the idea of sharing her beloved Gerald to a huge audience of people, so she became an idol to stand alongside him and to make herself worth of him by charming him as as an idol and gaining a large following herself. Despite this, Katarina didn’t strive too hard to be a talented idol, as she was too confident on herself due to the pampering of her parents.

Even if the player doesn’t desire to romance any of the four boys, given how the game is written and how it is programmed, the boy with the highest relationship points with Maria will confess to her by the end of the game. It would be impossible to not interact and gain points with the boys, as you gain relationship points in most areas of the games (when you “practice” your characters, when you “play” their songs, when you “give” them new clothes, when you “converse” with them in story mode, etc.). In the event that there are two characters with the exact same amount of points, the game will choose a boy for you.

Sorcier Pro.’s current president is Geoffrey Stuart (for reasons that will make sense someday)

Katarina-Gerald and Mary-Alan aren’t engaged in this au, but are constantly in each other’s presence due to most powerful bussinessmen and celebrities being good friends with each other.

Each girl has a specialty in a certain area: Katarina with dancing, Sophia with singing, Mary with acting/drama, and Maria (according to the official description of her in the box) with fashion coordination. Maria can be seen as more of a jack of all trades though, as she does represent the player.

While any of the boys can trigger the condemnation event that will lead to Katarina’s social suicide, the event is specifically associated with Keith and Gerald due to the severity of her presence and bullying if you have high relationship points with the two. With Alan and Nicole, Katarina’s event only happens for a few lines, but for Keith and Gerald, it takes place in complete detail, with it’s own animated cutscene.

Gerald’s route is also the most popular among the fans, with community surveys reporting that 53% of the game’s player base had Gerald as their final chosen love interest ( 25% with Keith, 12% with Nicol and 10% with Alan)

Monkey Girl/Past-Life Katarina

Since Maria’s name can’t be change in the game, but you can give her a “nickname” that represents the username of the player, Past-life Katarina’s name in the game is “SaruP” (or “Monkey producer” lol)

Saruchan (Monkey Girl) dies before she could finish her playthrough of the game, and all of her knowledge is based on her idol-expert best friend Acchan. She’s a bit tomboyish, and she loves to climb trees and move freely without a hint of poise or shyness, and is friendly to all genders. Her love for climbing, running, gardening with her grandma, and never ending amounts of energy gave her a pretty strong, flexible, agile and energetic body.

In Saruchan’s world, idols do exist, but aren’t portrayed in the cutesy and exaggerated manner that fiction does. Though it’s no surprise to know that in her world, almost every girl had dreamed to become an idol at one point, even herself. Acchan doesn’t find the idea interesting though, as she only lives for the idealized version of idols that exist in fiction. Acchan explains that girls their age are being brainwashed by the idealized version of idols that are presented in the media that they consume, and that they should wake up and learn to enjoy the fictional idols as they are. Despite Acchan’s realistic disapproval of idol fantasies, she does love playing idol rhythm games and gacha games, and spends her allowance on getting DLC costumes for Maria in FL. Acchan even pre-ordered tickets for herself and Saruchan for an idol concert featuring the VA of the characters, that they were supposed to attend to on the day that Saruchan dies.

She dies the game way: on her way to school and being killed by a truck that runs her over.

The last thing Saruchan sees before she loses consciousness forever is the wallpaper of the game’s boxart from her phone screen as it flies out of her hands.

My Next Life as an ‘Idol’?? All Routes Lead to Doom!!!

As usual, Katarina ends up remembering her future as an 8 year old kid, and plans to prepare for her future “banishment” and humiliation. She learns to farm in order to provide for herself once she gets shunned and retreats to the countryside, and (unknowingly) meets all the characters in the game and gains their good favor before the events of the game begins.

Her head bump still happens with Gerald, but their encounter happened in a party rather than an engagement meeting, with her tripping over a rock as she decides to run to the young man in order to introduce herself. Such introductions never got past beyond their names and few exchanges of dialogue, as the bump occurred and Katarina was immediately brought to the hospital after he called for help.

Being a girl who wanted to be an idol at one point, Katarina wanted to use this chance to fulfill her dream of becoming one! But knowing the fate that will await her, (public humiliation, isolation, and banishment to some degree) she tries to figure out ways to avoid ruining her future.

While not as bad as death, Katarina is aware that the ending of the game implies that the blemished opinion that everyone will gain of her will lead to her leading a miserable life; one that will prevent her from gaining new allies and even studying in peace without being made fun of or called out for. It might even ruin her marriage prospects, for all she knows (it doesn’t but she’s too stupid to know that). The stakes of the bad ending aren’t life threatening, but it is personal, as Katarina always dreamed of becoming an idol as a teen and doesn’t like the idea of being able to enjoy it for a few months only to be dragged down to hell right afterwards.

The Claes is a wealthy family known for her father’s knowledge and skills when it comes to trades and business, and for her mother’s beautiful opera singing voice and celebrity presence. As usual, Katarina’s father adopts Keith for the purpose of gaining a direct heir for the business, in fear that Katarina’s future significant other might just to interested in her to gain it.

Katarina’s plan is to learn how to farm in order to be able to support herself after her banishment, give Keith lots of love so he doesn’t end up becoming a playboy like in the game, and to train herself in dancing and singing in order to not embarrass herself like the original Katarina did. After meeting Gerald again and realizes his weakness, she eventually prepares (or buys, since the setting is modern) toy snakes that she can use to surprise him whenever the condemnation event occurs, using his shocked and panicked reaction as a way to distract the media from the claims that will surely fall upon her (since no one would have expected the calm and collected Gerald Stuart to scream like a girl at the sight of a toy snake, right? That would stay in the headlines for weeks! maybe).

As a kid, she has private singing tutors, and takes more general singing classes when she gets older. She doesn’t have dance training as a kid, but she does like to exercise and move her body around, so it slowly turned into the stamina-filled flexible body that she is used to.

Katarina and Keith - Their meeting and impressions are mostly the same, which the difference being that Katarina used a display axe above a fireplace to break down the door, and Keith got her injured by accidentally pushing her off a pretty high cliff in the Claes grounds while they were both running and playing chase (rather than being isolated for dangerous Earth Magic, Keith as a child was a clutz who attracted danger to everyone around him, making his older brothers make fun of him for being “cursed”).

Katarina showers him with love, making him affectionate towards his step sister, in the same as he was in the original material.

When Keith finds out about Katarina’s desire to train to become an idol, he is very supportive of her, and decides to train with her in order to be able to stand by his sister on stage (as well as to generally gain the same interests as her in order to guarantee that they will stay close as they age). The contrast being that instead of becoming an idol to gain the adoration of millions of nameless faces, he now wants to become an idol to gain the love and attention of a single person, which is Katarina uwu.

Katarina and Gerald - Gerald eventually attempts to visit Katarina to apologize for the incident, expecting her to blame him for what happened, given the personality she showed him. He was shocked to find a scar on her forehead, farming while wearing a farmer’s attire despite coming from a wealthy and esteemed family, singing and dancing to a song as she waters her vegetables. He watches for only a minute, unable to look away from the girl who danced like deflating balloon and sang off key while almost drowning her small vegetable in water. She looked weird, but she was having the time of her life, and he could see and hear it from where he stood.

In a daze, thinking he might have entered the wrong house by accident or walked on the daughter of a maid doing chores. He walks out and leave the Claes estate without a word, and visits again after only a few days, as he couldn’t get his mind off of the oddity that he had witnessed.

He eventually realizes that it was Katarina on his second visit, as he finds the scar of the odd farmer girl on the same girl who boasted about her family’s wealth in the party. After giving formal introductions, Gerald offers to walk around the garden to get to know each other better, in order to continue the conversation that she had originally forced on him back in the party (it was done to be polite and respectful, rather than any interest to continue). In the garden, they pass by the area that Katarina had planned to turn into her farm, and Gerald was in awe at how unorganized and messy everything looked (there was dirt everywhere, the tools were left on the floor because she had to prepare to meet him, there was more bags of manure than what was even needed etc! Katarina internally cursed at her 8 year old delicate rich girl body for not having the same arm strength as her 17 year old self). It was then that it sunk in that the adorable singing and dancing farming girl that he accidentally saw really was Katarina Claes. She wasn’t the very definition of abnormal, but she was nothing like the daughters of his father’s friends that cried when not attended to or complained when not given the best dresses and shoes. There was no shred of worry about her family’s expectations in her eyes, nor expectations of him to act like his perfect and matured self whenever they met in parties, movie premiers or social events, which made him yearn for her company.

After finding out about Katarina’s desire to become an idol one day, Gerald secretly planned to do the same (and even have her recruited in his brother’s agency) in order to become closer to her through her love of entertainment and to have a chance to be constantly in her presence. When he found out about the charms that male idols have on their female fans, he also plans on using this as an opportunity to gain both her attention and romantic affection, by perfecting his (already maxed out) charms as male idol.

Katarina and Mary - The two met during a part hosted by Mary’s mother in the Hunt Estate, inviting all of her mother’s old opera acquaintances, sponsors and co-workers for a formal reunion. Katarina and Keith accompanied their parents to the party, leading them to be introduced to the Hunt Family’s daughters. As usual, Katarina had the urge to “release the chocolate shark” during the party and takes an elegant leave. She eventually gets lost in the estate and finds herself in the garden. Katarina was in awe of the garden’s beauty, and stood still as she watched what seemed like beautiful siren sing by herself near a majestic fountain, with a single rose in hand.

Mary was surprised to hear an aggressive applause after singing to herself. Katarina aggressively complimented Mary for her adorable yet elegant voice, and asked who she was seeing as a singing trainer. When Mary replied that she was not having any singing or vocal training, Katarina rains even more compliments down, claiming that “her voice was that of an angel!”. Mary denied it, so Katarina proceeded to sing the same song that she had sang, as a point of comparison to make her feel more confident in herself. Mary shyly and unexpectedly joins her, and they ended up having a small and quiet duet in the garden. Katarina’s voice sounded a bit rough and squeak-ish, but alongside Mary’s elegant and controlled singing, they didn’t sound bad at all.

When Katarina finds out that Mary is also the one who tends to the flower garden, she proceeds to shower Mary with even more compliments, and asks her to visit and help with her own farm garden. Being complimented for having a beautiful voice and a green thumb made her feel validated and appreciated, so she often visits the Claes household in order to be in constant presence of her first and dearest friend. The rest is the same.

When Mary found out about Katarina’s dream of becoming an idol, she started taking intense vocal training as well as various exercises in order to be able to join her in her endeavor. She slowly built a more brazen and tough personality in order to be able to join and protect her friend from the rumored cold and intense reality of the idol world, as well as due to the antics of her friends.

Katarina and Alan - From Mary, she eventually finds out that the event where Mary duets and falls in love with Alan occurred. Katarina realizes that duet must not have been that effective because she has done the same with Mary, but is confident that Mary is in love with him because Alan is a very talented and handsome individual. A few days later, the fourth Stuart son bursts into the doors of the Claes household, and demands to meet with Katarina. She learns that Alan had developed a small crush on Mary, and that he wants to challenge Katarina for her hand. Same shenanigans ensues, leading up to the piano duel where his talents in the piano was in full display to everyone in the manor.

Katarina knew how to play the piano (just the basics though), so she was in awe listening to someone who almost sounded like a pro! Alan runs off after Gerald compliments him, Katarina chases after him, and they got to talk behind a bush. Alan wouldn’t take her compliments, but Katarina aggressively insisted that his talents are nothing to scoff at.

When Alan says that he’s sure that his brother can play just as good, if not better than him, Katarina speculates that it wasn’t the case, because everyone had things that they are good and bad at. Not everyone is the same, no one learns at the same pace, and that she’s sure even if Gerald can play the piano better than him (and she doubts he can in the first place), no one can play the piano like Alan can. The scores in his heart are his alone, and that nothing is more beautiful than the melody that the heart enacts. Katarina knew that the score he played wasn’t an existing one, and knowing Alan’s character from the game, it’s probably either an impromptu score or one he had composed by himself. Her guess was correct, leading Alan to be caught off guard by her compliment, almost feeling emotional as no one had ever guessed and believed that the music he played was his own, until Katarina did.

She shows off the power of the toy snake to Alan, making him laugh and see his brother in a different light. He still constantly visited Katarina for their duels, but as time progressed, he lost the affection for Mary (as he saw her as a little sister now after interacting with her in the Claes Household) that made him want to challenge Katarina. They still followed up on those challenges, for fun rather than for sport.

When he finds out about Katarina’s dream to become an idol, he is determined to join her in order to be able to compose songs and melodies that she can sing, intending to bring out the absolute best of his muse’s voice with his own music. Someone his age might not be fit to compose songs for an idol, so he intends to become one as well in order to gain a reputation as a competent composer.

Katarina and Sophia - The two meets at an afternoon party hosted by the Stuarts, as a celebration for the birthday of the twins. Katarina had to “powder her noes” after a few trips to the buffet table, and leaves Keith and Mary. She’s chased down by a dog, climbs up a tree, and accidentally watches a group of kids and older bully a small girl who sounded like she was about to cry. The same events occur, up to their second encounter in the party. Katarina accidentally quotes a line from a novel that she was reading, and after realizing that Sophia understood her reference, she asked for them to meet again in order to discuss their similar interests.

Everything is pretty much the same, the difference being that somehow idols were brought as a topic of conversation, with Sophia revealing that she is actually a huge fan of idols. Katarina, feeling reminiscent of her idol-expert best friend Acchan, tells her that she actually wants to be an idol herself and insists that Sophia tell her about everything she loves about idols. Sophia, who is surprised to also find another idol fan who is as young as her, becomes even more excited and tells her all about her love for idols: how they are able to wear such adorable outfits onstage, how they sing songs that carry so much meaning, how they carry their fan’s dreams with them when they dance and sing, how amazing it is to be able to juggle so many occupations at once, and much more.

With both love of novels and idols, Sophia constantly finds herself in the Claes Household in order to talk to Katarina about books, idols, song recommendations etc.

When Sophia was first told that Katarina wanted to be an idol, she was very supportive of her and announced herself as Katarina’s number one fan. As time passed, she realized she wasn’t just satisfied with just watching Katarina from afar, she wanted to sing and dance alongside her! She wants to use her knowledge of romance novels and idols to help make herself and Katarina the best idols to ever exist! She wants to sing on stage about her feelings: about how much she loves Katarina, idols and their beloved novels!

Katarina and Nicol - When he found out that someone had invited his little sister to a small book club, he was very wary, thinking that she was one of the many other girls who tried to use Sophia in order to become closer with him. He was shocked to realize that that was not the case, and that Katarina had barely seen him at all, and had opened his timid little sister’s heart. When Sophia asked Katarina if she found her appearance creepy, Nicol proceeds to explain further, expecting to see a hint of guilt or displeasure from Katarina Claes, only for both of them to be met with unyielding determination to have Sophia as a close friend. Sophia went home that day in tears, thankful to have found a friend who truly wanted to stick by her side.

The Claes siblings often visits their home so the girls can have their book club, even bringing Mary Hunt with them occasionally. Katarina, while looking a bit flustered, is capable of having a conversation with him without averting her eyes, which was a breath of fresh air to the countless camera crew, staff, visitors and even strangers who couldn’t look him in the eyes because how of how much of a beautiful child model he was. It all leads up to the moment where Katarina compliments him with how blessed he is to have such a beautiful and wonderful family, which contrasted against the ignorant adults who pitied him for having parents who refused to abuse the potential of his beautiful face and for not being as beautiful as their son, as well as for having a freakish looking sister.

Nicol, just like his sister, desired to constantly be in Katarina’s positive presence, and visited her often, leading them to be acquainted and friends with the entire group that Katarina enraptured.

When he found about his sister’s and Katarina’s desire to become idols, Nicol thought of doing the same, in order to be able to continue to watch over and protect both Sophia and Katarina, as well to be able to continue being close with Katarina (as their lack of similar interests and age gap might lead her away from him, but tbh that is never gonna be a problem with Katarina). He also plans to use his influence as a child model to propel Sophia and Katarina’s careers, as a way of supporting his two favorite girls.

Notes

I’m not sure how I feel about Gerald’s backstory, I might rewrite that if anyone kindly wants to critique it.

Instead of Mary’s green thumb, it’s her voice that leads her to Katarina and Alan, but I still think Sophia would still have a better singing voice than her, so both her voice and green thumbs both play a part in her character. Mary’s high pitched voice gets a bit deeper as she ages, while Sophia’s voice stays very high.

I really like the idea that rather than the original ambitions and goals that leads the harem to become idols in Fortune Lover, now it’s the effect of Katarina’s constant insistence and declarations of becoming an idol that leads to everyone doing the same. In this timeline, the harem probably wouldn’t have thought of (or planned early) becoming an idol if Katarina never brought it up.

I’m writing this at midnight again, lol, but yeah I’m not planning on writing a fanfiction for this, I guess, but I do want to have an established plot so rather than chapters, I’m just writing a full overview for fun haha

When I mentioned that Sophia loved idols, I didn’t realize that I might have accidentally implied that she was just as an idol fan as Acchan was, but with actual idols this time, so I went with :DD

I’ll touch up on Idol Katarina, Anne, Maria, Sirius/Raphael and Fortune Lover 2 in the next one.

I’m really happy that there are people who actually read my previous post and said that they liked it! Feedback and suggestions are appreciated! I still need a final name for the units so help me pls hahaha.

I’ll rewrite this post when I feel like adding/changing stuff.

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mrs-takami-keigo · 4 years

Text

Baked Lovin’

Parings Hawks X Quinn (OC)

Rating: EXPLICT! 18+

Warnings: Recriational drug use, fingering, oral sex

Description: Quinn never thought that Hawks meeting her old college friends would end up with him being as high as a fucking kite off of a few bites of an edible. Quirkless AU

Word count: 4.6K

Taglist: @katsukikitten, @honeytama, @prismaroyal, @hawks-senseis, @tui-lah

Notes: This is my fourth tile off of my BINGO sheet for the @bnhabookclub event! The tile prompt for this was High Sex and honestly this was freaking fun to write and use my OC Quinn for more than my SERIES she’s in.

At first, she was hesitant, her friends were on the wild side when they all got together. It was like they were all twenty or twenty one again, partying before an exam, and never getting a hangover.

“I don’t know Hawks. I’m not sure they are your kind of crowd.” Quinn said to him two weeks before the gathering. They were at home in their shared apartment, her and Hawks just having finished a hard day of work. Their schedules were perfect, Quinn worked as an executive for her uncle’s clothing brand called Todoroki Threads. While Hawks was the model and co-owner for Hotwing's, an alternative clothing brand made by her cousin and him.

When her uncle found out she was dating the ‘enemy’ he was livid but Quinn knew how to handle her uncle. Over time he gave up trying to break them up, seeing how she wasn’t letting go of her beloved boyfriend.

“I want to know the people that were around you during your roaring twenties.” Hawks crept up behind her as she prepared their dinner. His large hands ran down her sides, stopping when he reached her hips.

“Hmmm if you were to meet that Quinn, she would eat you alive little dove.” She pushed her plump ass against his sweatpants clad lower half, feeling his semi-hard cock brush against her.

Hawks let out a low groan as he nuzzled his face into the side of her neck, tentatively giving it a lick.

“I’m sure she would, firebird.” His grip on her hips tightened as he ground himself against her. “Why don’t you show me, baby?” He growled against her ear. And just like that dinner was put on hold while she had to show him just what she was capable of.

After continuous begging and just being plain out annoying, Quinn gave in and allowed Hawks to come with her and she was slowly regretting it. Having him in the states let alone in New York City was a mistake. He wanted to go to every tourist attraction, eat at every food cart he could find and on more than one occasion he got lost when he decided to venture off on his own.

“Hey, are you sure you still want to do this?” Quinn asked from the bathroom as she finished putting the last touches of her makeup on. Fluffing up her curly hair, she took a good look in the mirror.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Well hello there beautiful.” Hawks walked into the large penthouse bathroom, leaning against the sink as he eyed his girlfriend. No matter how many times he saw her dressed up, she looked like a fucking goddess in his eyes.

The way her tight high waisted jeans hugged her thick thighs, showing off every curve perfectly. Her hot pink bustier pushed her full breasts up, the color emphasized how beautiful her golden sun-kissed skin looked. She wore her hot pink wedges that matched her top, her manicured toes peeked out from the tip of the shoe. A simple look of a winged liner and glossed lips only enhanced her natural beauty.

“What? You’ve been staring at me for like five minutes and it's creeping me out.” Quinn walked up to him. She was only about two inches shorter than him, but whenever she wore heels of any kind Quinn would end up being an inch or so taller than him.

“Just thinking about how fucking perfect you are.” Hawks lazily wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her in. “How the hell did I get a woman like yourself to fall for a bastard like me?”

Quinn let her hands run up his chest to the back of his neck, where she played with the soft short hairs on the nape of it. “Because I have a thing for arrogant bastards who are gorgeous and have some good dick.”

“You do love it when I dick you down don’t you?” Hawks brought his face closer to the woman in his arms, the tip of his nose brushing against hers. His breath was mingling with hers as he spoke, those golden eyes she fell in love with were filled with desire. “Maybe we have time for a little demonstration.”

“I don’t think so dove, not when I’ve spent so long to get ready.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips, stepping out of his embrace and into the bedroom. “We have to leave now and get a cab. Everyone should be at Chris’ place soon.” Looking back at the bathroom door, Quinn got a full look at her boyfriend.

People would think that Hawks was a fashion-forward kind of man, seeing as how he was a model and had a clothing brand. But in fact, it was the exact opposite, Hawks was a simple dresser. Like tonight he wore a white slim fit v-neck t-shirt, a silver pillar chain hung from his neck. Black jeans with frayed holes on his knees and black vans that had red wings painted on the sides of them. Thick silver rings were on some of his long fingers, and a red braided yarn bracelet that was accompanied by some random black metal bracelets. It may have been simple but god was he sexy.

Hawks walked up behind her as she put on her golden hooped earrings in the mirror of the bedroom. Moving her thick burgundy and black curly hair to one side he kissed her shoulder.

“We’ll just have to have a full-on ride test when we get back.” Hawks locked eyes with her through the reflective object, her hazel ones were just as dark and full of lust as his.

“You better remember that promise baby boy.” Her voice was low, sending shivers down his spine. Hawks opened his mouth slightly on the junction of her neck and shoulder, biting it. That was his way of letting her know she was gonna get fucked tonight.

When the two finally made it to Quinn’s friend Chris’ house everyone was already there. Music was pumping through the large apartment, drinks in everyone's hands, and friends catching up with each other.

Quinn and Hawks were at the bar getting their drinks when she felt her body be lifted from the ground and spun around.

“If it isn’t Q!” Just hearing the voice Quinn knew exactly who it was.

“Mocha! Still as loud as ever!!” She giggled as he kept spinning her around while her confused and amused boyfriend watched.

Gently putting Quinn down Mocha pulled her in for a bear hug. “It’s been too long.”

“It really has, Mocha, it really has.” She heard Hawks cough behind her. “Oh Mocha, this is my boyfriend Keigo, but he goes by Hawks. Hawks this is Mocha, one of the best people to ever grace this earth.”

Hawks shook his hand, glad to meet such a good friend of Quinn’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You did good Q, he fine as hell.” Mocha winked at Hawks, causing the shorter male to laugh.

“Hearing that coming from someone as beautiful as you are a blessing in its own.” Hawks wanted to make a good impression on Quinn’s friends, he knew how much they meant to her.

“Now that’s a man! Come y’all let's go to the balcony, the rest of the dance team is over there.” Mocha grabbed Hawks’ hand, leaving Quinn to grab the drinks as she ran after her friend and her giggling boyfriend.

“Wait so you're telling me, Quinn, like MY Quinn, used to dance?!” Hawks was sitting on the edge of his seat, Quinn had a hand over her face as her friends decided to tell him every little detail about her college life.

“Yeah, and she had a stage name.” One of her female friends said digging Quinn even further down the rabbit hole.

“Wasn’t it a bird of some sort. Oh, wait I got it, wasn’t it Phoenix?!”

“Shoot me now please.” Quinn sunk lower into the chair, trying to just disappear as Hawks looked at her.

“Yup! Everyone called her Phoenix, she even had a Fanclub on campus.” Mocha was enjoying seeing his friend like this. “Broke a lot of hearts too.”

“Oh really?” Hawks raised an eyebrow at Mocha’s statement, glancing over at Quinn. “You were breaking hearts instead of doing your studies huh?”

“Fuck off, I will not be slandered like this.” Quinn got up from her seat, grabbing her drink. “I’ll be inside talking to my real friends.” She heard the group chuckle as she stormed into the living room.

Quinn had been hanging out with some of her other friends when Chris came up to her.

“Well well, if it isn’t Ms. Phoenix.”

“Hello, Chris.” Her voice was monotonous as she took a sip of her second drink that night.

“Still the ice queen I see.”

They both stared at each other before bursting out laughing. “Ice queen, how original.” Quinn pushed him on the shoulder, the tall dark-haired man rubbed the spot she pushed.

“Damn Quinn, what do you do for a living fight crime? Why are you so strong?”

“I hate you.” Chris was her best friend in the entire world. She would kill for that man, and he would do the same for her.

“Would you really hate the man that brought you a present?” Chris reached into the backpack he had, pulling out a neatly wrapped lucky charms cereal bar.

“Is that what I think it is?” A wide grin spread across Quinn’s face as she reached for it.

“It sure is, all two hundred milligrams of it.” If there was a guilty pleasure of Quinn’s it would be weed. Back in her college days, she was what the media and police would call a pothead.

“And you brought it for me?!” She pretended to have tears in her eyes as she took the cereal bar from his hands.

“Anything for my favorite girl.” Chris smiled at his best friend while she ate half of the illegal treat. Wrapping it back up in the plastic, Quinn put it in her small purse, continuing her conversation with Chris.

The night had passed on, Hawks was introduced to more of Quinn’s friends and before she knew it people started to leave. That’s when Quinn noticed she hadn’t seen Hawks for about an hour now.

Walking up to Mocha who was helping Chris clean up she asked, “Have you guys seen Hawks? Last I saw him was when I asked for him to hold my purse while I used the bathroom.”

“I saw him sitting outside.” Mocha nodded to the balcony. Turning over her shoulder she saw Hawks lying on the lounge chair staring at the sky.

Stepping through the sliding glass doors, Quinn squatted down next to her boyfriend. “Come on baby let’s go back to the room.” She was already feeling the edible she ate from before, it was finally kicking into her system.

“Have you ever been able to feel every nerve ending in your body?” Hawks kept staring at the sky, his body still, except for his chest moving up and down.

“Huh, what are you talking about?” Quinn moved his legs over so she could share the chair with him.

“I can feel every nerve in my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.” That’s when he looked at her, his golden eyes were glossed over, with a slight tint of red where the white was.

“Oh fuck!” She grabbed her purse, ripping it open. Digging around her purse she couldn’t find the other half of her edible. “Keigo, baby did you eat the cereal bar in my bag?” Her hands were pressed against the sides of his face, making him focus on her.

“I was hungry, speaking of hunger can we get something you eat? I’m starving.” He had a goofy grin on his face as he spoke to her. Quinn could only hang her head as she realized, she had gotten her boyfriend high for the first time.

“What do you think this sauce is made of? It's amazing!” Hawks shouted through the hallway of the hotel.

“Shhh! What did I tell you about being quiet?” Getting Hawks back to the room deserved to be an Olympic sport. He wanted to talk to every person he came in contact with, kept asking Quinn for kisses, and when she did he would scream “I won! I won!” to the sky. She had finally got him to quiet down when she bought him some Halal from the cart down the block.

“Oh yeah, we have to be like ninja’s.” With his white container full food in his hands, Hawks pressed himself against the wall, tiptoeing as he walked.

The two finally made it to the room, where Hawks plopped on the couch and rubbed his belly.

“That was amazing!” He kicked off his shoes, sending them flying across the room.

“Good, now I’m going to go take a shower, so behave.” She didn’t want to leave him alone to his own devices but she had to. “Keigo promise me you’ll behave.”

“You got it, baby, anything for you.” He sent her a wink before he threw his head over the back of the couch.

Sighing Quinn walked over to the bathroom, not shutting the door all the way just in case. She peeled the tight clothing off of her body unaware a pair of dark golden eyes were watching her every move.

The shower was quick, seeing as Quinn opted to not wash her hair. Walking out of the steaming bathroom, wrapped in nothing but a towel, Quinn had expected to see Hawks laid out on the bed or on the small couch passed out. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Panic started to run through her body as she thought the worst.

“Did he walk out for more food?’ Oh god, please just don’t get arrested!”

Quinn was about to go for her purse to grab her phone when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her towards a hard chest.

“Where are you going firebird?” Hawk’s growled in her ear, his tongue coming out giving the shell of her ear a soft lick. She could feel his rock hard dick pressing against her.

“Hawks what are you doing?”

Hawks didn’t answer her right away, he let his hands travel down her stomach, to where the small slit of the towel was, slipping his fingers inside. He grazed his fingers against her sunkissed golden skin, shivers ran up her spine. Hawks nuzzled his nose into her neck, exhaling gently against it.

“God you feel so good, just let me feel you.” Hawks opened the towel, letting it fall to the floor, pooling around their feet. “It’s like I can feel every single nerve in my fingertips. It’s like electricity shooting through my body.”

Quinn let her head fall back against his shoulder, the effects of the edible were still coursing through her body. She could feel every nerve as well and right now with just his touch she was ready to cum for him.

“Wait until you feel this.” She grabbed his hand, bringing it down to her wet pussy. Hawks' fingers immediately started to play with her slick folds.

“Oh fuck, your so fucking wet for me.” She could feel his lips kiss along her shoulder, his hips involuntarily bucking against her.

She reached up to cup the back of Hawks neck, her delicate fingers played with his hair. Hawks continued his slow torture on her pussy, his fingers would just slide against her, going between grazing her hardened clit and her pulsating entrance.

“Get on the bed for me, on all fours baby.” Quinn was so lost in his touch that she hadn’t heard him speak to her. Getting frustrated Hawks used his other hand to grip her jaw, forcing her to look at him. His lips brushed against hers as he growled.

“On the bed now!” Quinn could only moan in response, with the way he was making her feel right now, words failed her.

Doing as he asked Quinn climbed on the bed, hands and knees pressed against the soft white bedding, back arched and ass up and in full view for Hawks. She could hear the rustling of clothes behind her, glancing back she watched as Hawks pulled his shirt over his head. His arm muscles flexed as he started to undo his belt.

Quinn bit her bottom lip as she watched him, she always knew he was sexy and so goddamn good looking but right now, he looked like some kind of god. His messy blonde hair was sticking up everywhere, those golden eyes that kept looking over at her were still glossed over. She couldn’t help herself, reaching one of her hands under her, she started to play with herself.

“Keigo.” She moaned out his name when she slid two fingers into her wet pussy. Hawks was down to his boxers about to take them off when she called out his name, stopping his movements. His eyes darkened as he watched her slide those fingers in and out, pleasuring herself in front of him.

“AH!” Quinn looked behind her to see Hawks down on his knees, his teeth digging into her ass. Releasing his teeth, Hawks looked her in the eyes as he licked the wounded area.

“I couldn’t resist, your ass just looks good enough to eat.” He peppered kisses along her cheeks. He had each hand full of her ass, eyes closed. He was enjoying feeling her against his lips. That edible made him feel like he was on top of the fucking world, with the love of his life face down and ass up of him, he felt unstoppable.

“You better get to eatin’, baby boy.” Quinn pulled her fingers out of her soaking wet cunt, pressing the side of her face against the bed. Her hands reached around, spreading her cheeks to present herself to him.

Hawks felt his mouth water as he eyed her glistening sex. He’s eaten her out more times than he could count but never like this. Running his hands over her ass, up her back, his pink tongue came out, swiping it across her pussy. He moaned against her, her juices hitting every taste bud on his tongue.

“Fuck!” wrapping his arms around her thighs, Hawks brought his lips back to hers, lapping up all of her juices. He made work of his tongue, between flicking it over her clit and then gently sucking on it.

Quinn’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, her mouth open as soft whimpers came out of her. If there was one thing Hawks knew, it was how to use that sinful mouth of his. The way his tongue felt on her, the slurping sounds he made when he sucked on her clit. His grunts and moans against her were nothing but vibrations that made her toes curl and her thighs shake.

“Do that again Keigo.” her words came out as a moan when he stuck his tongue inside of her. Hawks loved to please her, he had a pleasure kink. He wanted to make sure she knew it was him doing this to her, making her scream his name in pure ecstasy. So if Quinn said to do it again, he was going to.

“Yes just like that, don’t fucking stop.” Her arms were stretched out across the bed, gripping at the comforter. She could feel the tightening in her lower abdomen, knowing if he kept that up she wouldn’t last much longer.

Just as she felt it building, Hawks pulled away from her. Lifting up her torso from the bed she looked under her to see Hawks turn himself over, the back of his head rested on the bed, his face directly under her pussy. Using his legs he propped up his lower half, a large hand jerking off his hard cock, his other hand playing with her folds.

“Arch that back for me.” lowering herself back to the bed like before, Quinn felt Hawks slip a finger into her entrance. “So fucking tight.” After a few pumps in and out of the wet entrance, Hawks added another finger, stretching her out.

“Bring me that pussy, baby girl.” Spreading her legs further apart, Quinn lowered her bottom half, her pussy was back on his lips. He went back to what he was doing before, sucking on her now extra sensitive clit while he fingered her.

“Oh my god please don’t stop! I’m so close.” Quinn planted her face against the soft material, biting it. Hawks stopped moving his hand that was around his cock, instead he wrapped it around her waist, holding her against him.

With two fingers inside of her, Hawks curled them up, hitting her bundle of nerves. Quinn was positive it was because of the edible she ate that it made her extra sensitive. She felt that tight bundle in her lower abdomen release itself as she came on Hawks fingers.

“Holy fuck Keigo.” Her body convulsed ever so slightly as he kept licking her clean, making sure to get every drop of her essence.

“I’m not done with you yet.” He bit her inner thigh, making sure to leave a mark in his wake. Sliding out from under her, Hawks walked over to his luggage to grab a condom. Quinn took this moment to try and catch her breath. Moving to the middle of the bed, she laid on her back with her hazel eyes closed, legs slightly spread apart. She was too fucking high for this, between the edible and the way Hawks made her see cloud nine she wasn’t sure if she could keep up.

She felt her body slipping into sleep mode when she felt hands wrapping around her ankles, pulling her to the edge of the bed.

“Don’t you dare sleep firebird, I’ve got a raging hard cock just for you.” He was kneeling on the bed, her legs over his hands while his arms locked them in place, her ass slightly off the bed. Her thick thighs were touching but she could see Hawks’ cock resting in between her slick folds, his hips rocking gently, brushing against her sensitive clit.

“The way you have me feeling right now is fucking insane.” He continued to move against her, as he watched her squirm. Soft plump lips were slightly agape as she purred for him. Her beautiful curls were fanned out around her, her baby hairs sticking to her sweaty forehead. Those breasts he loved so much moved with each grind he did against her. Hazel colored eyes staring right at him as he looked over her body.

“Fuck Quinn you look so beautiful right now.” Pulling back Hawks aligned himself with her entrance. Slowly he eased inside of her, watching as she took every inch of him.

Hawks let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, once he was fully inside of her. Her walls were constricting around him. Her small hand reached out to cup his face, her thumb brushing against his swollen lips. Closing his eyes Hawks leaned into Quinn’s touch, kissing her thumb.

“You have no idea how much I love you.” It was a whisper but Quinn heard it and she felt her heart quicken its pace.

“Move Keigo, please I need it, I need you.”

He didn’t need to be told twice, slightly pulling back he thrust his hips forward, back into her. Quinn’s eyes rolled back into her head, as a moan slipped past her lips. Hawks thrust were slow and deep, making sure she felt all of him. But he was slowly losing and uphill battle.

Quinn knew he was sensitive because of the drug and she wanted him to cum just like she had.

“Come here.” She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, bringing him down to her. Letting go of her legs, he put them over his shoulders, bending her in half. His nose brushed against her rounded one, breaths mingling with each other, his hips never stopped moving.

“No one has made me ever feel the way you do Keigo. The feeling of your dick inside of me, my walls stretching around you is the best feeling in the world baby.” Their eyes were locked, his hips moving faster. Yes, he had a pleasure kink, but he also had a praise kink.

“That’s right baby fuck me. Make me scream out your name while I cum for you and only you!” The grip she had on his neck tightened and he moved faster and faster. The position had him going so deep inside of her, pushing against her soft bundle of nerves.

She could feel his hips stutter in their movements, he was about to cum. “That’s right Keigo Cum. I want to feel it, I’ll cum with you, just don’t fucking stop.” Moving her face to the side her lips met his in a kiss that was messy and full of tongue.

“Fuck Quinn!” Hawks broke the kiss, closing his eyes and his forehead rested against hers. The sound of skin slapping against each other and their moans filled the room. Hawks felt like he was flying through the sky, the stars were right in his reach.

Quinn felt it too as if she was flying along with him, not caring about anything but the man on top of her as he brought her to a new kind of high.

Hawks opened his eyes and he felt his heart stop. She was looking right at him, her eyes full of love and lust for him. He was sure his own mirrored hers. Mouths were opened, only shuddering breaths were coming out with each deep thrust. Quinn’s hands traveled to his back, raking her nails across his skin, leaving red marks behind. She was so close and so was Hawks, with one final thrust, they both felt that white-hot flash run through their body.

“FUCK!” They both screamed as their release hit them at the same time. Slowly they rode out their orgasm, Hawks moving slowly and Quinn’s body going limp. Pulling out of her, Hawks took off the condom, knotting the top and tossing it in the trash can.

Slowly he let down her legs, moving next to her, he placed one arm under her shoulders and another under her knees. Gently he moved her further up the bed to where the pillows were, moving the comforter so he could wrap her in it.

Once Quinn was snuggled into the bed he walked over to the light switch, turning it off. Climbing onto the mattress next to his beloved, Hawks placed an arm over her waist, his head resting on her chest. Quinn moved her free arm to rub her finger through his soft hair. Lulling him into a deep sleep. The love between them didn’t need words, they knew that they had something different, something real.

Quinn opened her eyes to the sound of a water bottle being crushed. Her mouth was dry as if full of cotton and her lower half was sore. Sitting up she saw the white containers of what looked like Halal food and Hawks clothes thrown around the room. Flashes of last night flooded her mind.

“Baby why am I so thirsty?! What was in that cereal bar?” Hawks was sitting in front of the minibar, opening his fourth bottle of water.

Quinn couldn’t help but laugh at him. “You’re so lucky I love you.”

#bnhabookclub #bnhabookclub bingo event #bnha hawks #mha hawks #keigo takami x oc #keigo takami #bnha smut #tw: drugs #bnha #bnha x oc #mha x oc #mha x reader #bnha x reader #bnha x poc

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

Media Twitter does not hate Substack because it’s pretending to be a platform when it’s a publisher; they don’t hate it because it’s filled with anti-woke white guys; they don’t hate it because of harassment or any such thing. I don’t think they really hate it at all. Substack is a small and ultimately not-very-relevant outpost in a vastly larger industry; they may not like it but it’s not important enough for them to hate it. What do they hate? They hate where their industry is and they hate where they are within their industry. But that’s a big problem that they don’t feel like they can solve. If you feel you can’t get mad at the industry that’s impoverishing you, it’s much easier to get mad at the people who you feel are unjustly succeeding in that industry. Trying to cancel Glenn Greenwald (again) because he criticizes the media harshly? Trying to tarnish Substack’s reputation so that cool, paid-up writer types leave it and the bad types like me get kicked off? That they can maybe do. Confronting their industry’s future with open eyes? Too scary, especially for people who were raised to see success as their birthright and have suddenly found that their degrees and their witheringly dry one-liners do not help them when the rent comes due.

…

Life in the “content” industry already sucks. A small handful of people make bank while the vast majority hustle relentlessly just to hold on to the meager pay they already receive. There are staff writers at big-name publications who produce thousands of words every week and who make less than $40,000 a year for their trouble. There are permanent employees of highly prestigious newspapers and magazines who don’t receive health insurance. Venues close all the time. Mourning another huge round of layoffs is a regular bonding experience for people in the industry. Writers have to constantly job hop just to try and grind out an extra $1,500 a year, making their whole lives permanent job interviews where they can’t risk offending their potential bosses and peers. Many of them dream of selling that book to save themselves financially, not seeming to understand that book advances have fallen 40% in 10 years - median figure now $6,080 - and that the odds of actually making back even that meager advance are slim, meaning most authors are making less than minimum wage from their books when you do the math. They have to tweet constantly for the good of their careers, or so they believe, which amounts to hundreds of hours of unpaid work a year. Their publications increasingly strong arm them into churning out pathetic pop-culture ephemera like listicles about the outfits on Wandavision. They live in fear of being the one to lose out when the next layoffs come and the game of media musical chairs spins up once again. They have to pretend to like ghouls like Ezra Klein and Jonah Peretti and make believe that there’s such a thing as “the Daily Beast reputation for excellence.”

I have always felt bad for them, despite our differences, because of these conditions. And they have a right to be angry. But they don’t have much in the way of self-awareness about where their anger really lies. A newsletter company hosting Bari Weiss is why you can’t pay your student loans? You sure?

They’ll tell you about the terrible conditions in their industry themselves, when they’re feeling honest. So what are they really mad about? That I’m making a really-just-decent guaranteed wage for just one year? Or that this decent wage is the kind of money many of them dream of making despite the fact that, in their minds, they’ve done everything right and played by all the rules? Is their anger really about a half-dozen guys whose writing you have to actively seek out to see? (If you click the button and put in your email address, you’ll get these newsletters. If you don’t, you won’t. So if you’re a media type who hates my writing, consider just… not clicking that button.) Or do they need someplace to put the rage and resentment that grows inside them as they realize, no, it’s not getting better, this is all I get?

It’s true that I have, in a very limited way, achieved the new American dream: getting a little bit of VC cash. I’m sorry. But it’s much much less than one half of what Felix Salmon was making in 2017 and again, it’s only for one year.

You think the writers complaining in that piece I linked to at the top wanted to be here, at this place in their career, after all those years of hustling? You think decades into their media career, the writers who decamped to Substack said to themselves “you know, I’d really like to be in my 40s and having to hope that enough people will pitch in $5 a month so I can pay my mortgage”? No. But the industry didn’t give them what they felt they deserved either. So they displace and project. They can hate Jesse Singal, but Jesse Singal isn’t where this burning anger is coming from. Neither am I. They’re so angry because they bought into a notoriously savage industry at the nadir of its labor conditions and were surprised to find that they’re drifting into middle age without anything resembling financial security. I feel for them as I feel for all people living economically precarious lives, but getting rid of Substack or any of its writers will not do anything to fix their industry or their jobs. They wanted more and they got less and it hurts. This isn’t what they dreamed. That’s what this is really about.

…

My own deal here is not mysterious. It’s just based on a fact that the blue checks on Twitter have never wanted to accept. I got offered money to write here for the same reason I got offered to write for The New York Times and Harper’s and The Washington Post and The LA Times, the same reason I’ve gotten a half-dozen invitations to pitch since I started here a few weeks ago, the same reason a literary agent sought me out and asked me to write a book, the same reason I sold that book for a decent advance: because I pull traffic. Though I am a social outcast from professional opinion writing, I have a better freelance publishing history than many, many of my critics who are paid-up, obedient members of the media social scene. Why? Because the editors who hired me thought I was a great guy? No. Because I pull traffic. I always have. That’s why you’re reading this on Substack right now.

…

A really important lesson to learn, in life, is this: your enemies are more honest about you than your friends ever will be. I’ve been telling the blue checks for over a decade that their industry was existentially fucked, that the all-advertising model was broken, that Google and Facebook would inevitably hoover up all the profit, that there are too many affluent kids fresh out of college just looking for a foothold in New York who’ll work for next to nothing and in doing so driving down the wages of everyone else, that their mockery of early subscription programs like Times Select was creating a disastrous industry expectation that asking your readers directly for money was embarrassing. Trump is gone and the news business is cratering. Michael Tracey didn’t make that happen. None of this anger will heal what’s wrong. If you get all of the people you don’t like fired from Substack tomorrow, what will change? How will your life improve? Greenwald will spend more time with his hottie husband and his beloved kids and his 6,000 dogs in his beautiful home in Rio. Glenn will be fine. How do we do the real work of getting you job security and a decent wage?

…

But how do things get better in that way? Only through real self-criticism (which Twitter makes impossible) and by asking hard questions. Questions like one that has not been credibly confronted a single time in this entire media meltdown: why are so many people subscribing to Substacks? What is the traditional media not providing that they’re seeking elsewhere? Why have half a million people signed up as paying subscribers of various Substack newsletters, if the establishment media is providing the diversity of viewpoints that is an absolute market requirement in a country with a vast diversity of opinions? You can try to make an adult determination about that question, to better understand what media is missing, or you can read this and write some shitty joke tweet while your industry burns to the ground around you. It’s your call.

Substack might fold tomorrow, but someone would else sell independent media; there’s a market. Substack might kick me and the rest of the unclean off of their platforms tomorrow, but other critics of social justice politics would pop up here; there’s a market. Establishment media’s takeover by this strange brand of academic identity politics might grow even more powerful, if that’s even possible, but dissenters will find a place to sell alternative opinion; there’s a market. What there might not be much of a market for anymore is, well, you - college educated, urban, upwardly striving if not economically improving, woke, ironic, and selling that wokeness and that irony as your only product. Because you flooded the market. Everyone in your entire industry is selling the exact same thing, tired sarcastic jokes and bleating righteousness about injustices they don’t suffer under themselves, and it’s not good in basic economic terms if you’re selling the same thing as everyone else. You add that on to structural problems within your business model and your utter subservience to a Silicon Valley that increasingly hates you, well…. I get why you’re mad. And I get that you don’t like me. But I’m not what you’re mad about. Not really.

In the span of a decade or so, essentially all professional media not explicitly branded as conservative has been taken over by a school of politics that emerged from humanities departments at elite universities and began colonizing the college educated through social media. Those politics are obscure, they are confusing, they are socially and culturally extreme, they are expressed in a bizarre vocabulary, they are deeply alienating to many, and they are very unpopular by any definition. The vast majority of the country is not woke, including the vast majority of women and people of color. How could it possibly be healthy for the entire media industry to be captured by any single niche political movement, let alone one that nobody likes? Why does no one in media seem willing to have an honest, uncomfortable conversation about the near-total takeover of their industry by a fringe ideology?

And the bizarre assumption of almost everyone in media seems to have been that they could adopt this brand of extreme niche politics, in mass, as an industry, and treat those politics as a crusade that trumps every other journalistic value, with no professional or economic consequences. They seem to have thought that Americans were just going to swallow it; they seem to have thought they could paint most of the country as vicious bigots and that their audiences would just come along for the ride. They haven’t. In fact Republicans are making great hay of the collapse of the media into pure unapologetic advocacy journalism. Some people are turning to alternative media to find options that are neither reactionary ideologues or self-righteous woke yelling. Can you blame them? Substack didn’t create this dynamic, and neither did I. The exact same media people who are so angry about Substack did, when they abandoned any pretense to serving the entire country and decided that their only job was to advance a political cause that most ordinary people, of any gender or race, find alienating and wrong. So maybe try and look at where your problems actually come from. They’re not going away.

Now steel yourselves, media people, take a shot of something strong, look yourself in the eye in the mirror, summon you most honest self, and tell me: am I wrong?

#freddie deboer #substack #journalism

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every1studio · 4 years

Text

REQUESTED: “someone’s hero” [ateez: hongjoong]

genre: ANGST + slight fluff + MENTIONS OF AN END

ficstyle: bulletpoints

request: “ Hi!!! Can I get an angsty hananki disease au for hongjoong?? “ + “ Ur robbing us of a spiderman hongjoong😔💜🥺♥️♥️ “

note: trying to kill 2 birds with one stone here

"Hongjoong! you were almost late for class!” you smacked the arm of your best friend as he collapsed on his desk

Hongjoong was almost late because he was just doing small acts of good deeds

you know, the usual

helping an elderly woman cross the crosswalk

picking up after people as they litter

saving a bank from a band of robbers

the usual

Hongjoong lived another life outside of being your typical high school student and helping others

back in middle school, he got bit by a radioactive spider; giving him the abilities of a spider

he honed his skills for the greater good and perform heroic deeds to help the neighborhood

but he knew he couldn’t juggle being a normal high school

so the only people that knew of his hidden identity are his parents

you nudge at Hongjoong’s elbow as you show him your phone

“our friendly neighborhood hero strikes again. I really wanna know who this guy is..”

Hongjoong smirks at you as he rests his chin on his arm, “what would you say if you got a chance to talk to him?”

you sat up a little straighter, “I would thank him for his services and..”

“and~?” Hongjoong’s ears perked up

“I would ask to see his face.. I mean what if he’s this insanely good looking guy?!”

“he could be insanely ugly too..” he jeered

you slapped him on the arm, “don’t talk about him like that! with that selfless heart and toned body? there’s no way that he’s ugly!”

Hongjoong blushed at your words but you couldn’t know his true identity, nobody could

he ruffles the back of his head before clearing his throat, “so um.. are you gonna go to homecoming?”

you shrugged as you got out your physics textbook, “I don’t know... you know it’s not my thing...”

he dramatically hung his head down as he pouted at you, “it’s our senior year though...”

“I’ll let you know if I change my mind,” you said as you rolled your eyes

Hongjoong didn’t have the courage to ask you out; he was suppose to ask you out a long time ago

it was easier was you two were younger

but the older you two got, the harder it was for him to tell you all the feelings he had pent up inside for you

you could say he’s been in love with you when you two were 5 and finding ladybugs until the sunset

he made a daisy ring for you and announced that when you two are old enough, he’ll buy you a real shiny ring

up until today, he doesn’t know if you liked him back or not

but that fact that you didn’t push him away gave him hope

Hongjoong was a pretty good student so he only had 3 classes; which were all the classes that you had with him

it gave him enough time to spend with you AND go do his heroic deeds

“do you want anything from Starbucks?” Hongjoong gets up to leave for the day

you gave him a smile that he fell in love with, “the usual please~”

“with extra cinnamon on top?” he asked with a smile

“just the way I like it~”

Hongjoong was so giddy he didn’t notice Yunho walking passed him, with a bouquet of flowers behind his back

it was a long day for Hongjoong, he got caught up with a bunch of little hooligans but he made it back to school in time for your last class of the day

everyone was teasing and nudging at you and Yunho

Hongjoong had a bad feeling about it

he stopped someone who was recording the two of you, “what’s going on?”

“oh Yunho asked Y/N out to homecoming in the CUTEST way; they’ve got to hook up!” the girl squealed as she posted the video on her social media

Hongjoong felt like it was hard to breath all of a sudden; he tried clearing his throat but the feeling didn’t go away

he was going to turn away until-

“Joongie!!” it belong to your voice and upon hearing it, it made his chest hurt

“here’s your Starbucks..” he managed to choke up

you took the drink and placed it down

you moved his face so that he was only going to focus on your face, “Joongie... are you okay? what’s wrong?”

Hongjoong pushed through the excruciating pain with a smile, “I’m okay.. I’m just tired, I don’t think I can take you home today..”

you were genuinely concerned for him; he’s always taken care of you, just as you have with him

but you thought maybe some space would be good for him

“please call me when you get the chance...” you looked at him with worried eyes

he pats your hair like he always did but he doesn’t say anything

he made eye contact with Yunho and walked away

there was nothing to hate about Yunho; he was tall, handsome, caring, and just a genuinely good person

would you have changed your mind if he asked you first?

would you have gone with homecoming with him?

would he have had a chance with you?

but was he ready for you to know the truth about him?

all these thoughts made his chest hurts

he laid in bed, coughing and hacking up petals

daisy petals, to be exact; which took him back to his proposal to you back when you were kids

homecoming was suppose to be the end of the week

it was announced on the news that their neighborhood hero was nowhere to be seen

Hongjoong’s condition made it hard for him to use any of abilities

he thought that this was a passing sickness that will go away; he did his research on his condition

Hanakaki Disease: where the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from an one-sided love. when the person the victim loves returns the feelings, the condition will be lifted. or can be removed surgically but the feelings the victim has for the beloved will disappear

Hongjoong slouched in his chair when he read articles upon articles about this condition

he couldn’t go through with the surgery; he wanted to love you until the day he died

every time he thinks about you, he coughs up a bouquet of daisy petals

the most he can do with his spidery abilities is use it to clean up the petals in his room

despite of living so close, you two loved to exchange handwritten letter; he kept every single on that you wrote to him and would read it until he fell asleep

he got excused from school for a week; which was probably for the best

he wouldn’t have to seen you with Yunho

he answered your texts and calls but other than that, he wouldn’t let you visit him

told you that he was scared that you would catch what he has

this went on until the night of homecoming

Hongjoong was getting ready for homecoming; it was his senior year after all

you invited him to go with your group; he was your childhood friend and your best friend after all

“you look beautiful..” he murmurs into your ear after you all get into venue

“you don’t look too bad yourself, Hongjoong~” you smirked

but your joking demeanor changed as you grabbed the sleeve of his tuxedo, “I missed you.. I know you were only gone for a week but it felt like more...”

Hongjoong’s chest didn’t feel as heavy as it’s been for the whole week he was at home, “I missed you too..”

“Y/N! you ready?” Yunho put his arm out for you to take, “oh hey Hongjoong, you feeling better?”

Hongjoong had the urge to cough but he held it back, “better than ever”

you slipped away from Hongjoong and linked arms with Yunho

when you walked away with Yunho, Hongjoong excused him to cough

he coughed up petals until he couldn’t breathe and asked himself was it worth it to even go to this dance

everyone in the group danced to the music but Hongjoong couldn’t help but watch the lights dancing off of your face

you looked so beautiful, he could cry

suddenly, the ground started to shake

everyone was stumbling and falling

the earthquake alarms came on

everyone ran to the safety zones

Hongjoong knew that in a case of this kind of panic; he was needed the most

he slipped out of his tuxedo and started to help out anywhere that he could

there was still chaos even though the earthquake subsided

it seemed like only the building that the dance took place at was the only unstable building so evacuating everyone was a better idea than having them hide in the safety zone until authorities came

Hongjoong thought he got everyone out until Yunho came back into the building

“hey man.. I was with my date and I can’t seem to find them.. you gotta go find them! please...”

“you gotta get back outside.. I’ll look for them...”

Hongjoong sprinted, swung at the speed of light trying to find you

he found you trapped in between two slabs of concrete; you were safe but you were unable to get out of it

he shot out webs that moved the slabs out of the way

“oh my gosh... I’m a big fan of yours...” you were in awe that you were standing right in front of the neighborhood hero

“look we gotta go.. it’s not safe here..” he tried to get you out to safety

“wait look this is probably the only time I’ll even get to talk to you like this.. how can I thank you?” you fidgeted; the adrenaline was running in your veins, “could I kiss you?”

Hongjoong wasn’t able to say anything but he lifted his mask off

“Joongie?”

“surprise~ and I insanely handsome like you thought I was” he announced with a sense of sarcastically glum manner

you grabbed his face and kissed him

he was so shock and in that moment, he didn’t know he could breathe so clearly

he wrapped his arm around your waist

it was like time stopped for the two of you, “Joongie, I have sooo many questions..”

“let’s get out of here first..“ he reeled back into reality, “gotta get you back to Yunho..”

you couldn’t say anything to that

he dropped you off at the entrance

there was a moment of blissful silence until the entrance way was crumbling

he pushed you as hard as he could into Yunho’s arm and tried to keep the pillars up

but even at the extraordinary limits of his abilities, Hongjoong couldn’t keep them up

in front of your face, you saw them collapse onto him

your eyes welt up with tears, you tried to run to him as you called his name but Yunho held you back

the authorities came too late

Hongjoong didn’t make it to the hospital

his death was a tragedy; he was known as the infamous neighborhood hero

but he was your childhood friend

and your best friend

and your first love

his mother let you into his room one last time before they were going to move away

the death of their son was too much for them to stay in the same house that they raised him in

the TV was on in his room; there was a bed made of daisy petals

“Kim Hongjoong, senior at KQ High School, died as our friendly neighborhood, hero. he was also known as Spider-Man. the hospital also diagnosed that he was suffering with Hanakaki disease. our hero died with an one-sided love disease..”

you switched off the TV and clenched your heart

you convinced yourself that you didn’t have anything to do with his Hanakaki disease

his mother knocked on the door before entering, “hey there sweetie... Hongjoong told me to give this to you if anything happened to him..”

she gave you a peck on the forehead, “let me know if you need anything..”

the letter was sealed with a spider web

Y/N.. hey.. remember all the letters we wrote each other? I have them all saved up still. I read them when I’m bored.. or when I miss you. if you’re getting this letter, something probably happened to me. and if you’re getting this letter, I probably haven’t told you everything about me. I’m Spider-Man. big surprise! but that’s not the main point of this letter. I was able to make this neighborhood safe but I wasn’t able to confess to you. the scariest thing was, knowing that another guy could make you happier than I could. and all of my efforts would just be a nuisance to you. I just want you to know if that no matter what, I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise of proposing to you when we were kids.. childish I know, but that’s what keeps me going everyday. I want you to be the best version of yourself and be the happiest person in the world. Yunho is a great guy and I know that he’s going to treat you well. even if I’m not your hero, I hope someone out there will be..

your tears trickled over the letter

he wasn’t just someone’s hero

he was yours

you loved every part of him; he was your hero before he was anyone else’s hero

but you convinced yourself that you were never going to be good enough for him

but like the wishes he had for you in his letter

your brain convinced your heart that you were going to continue loving Yunho so that you wouldn’t have the Hanakaki disease

you wished that there was more time for him to confess to you

you wished that there was more time for you to confess to him

and now you lost your childhood friend

your best friend

and your first, true love

[ masterlist + guidelines ]

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windandwater · 4 years

Text

When my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away, I wrote up a piece with just one family story after another about the experience. I can’t really do the same thing in the same way this time, but I am finding that, in every death, family draws tighter together and tells stories to each other almost on instinct, finding common ground around this one person who shaped us.

Here are some stories that have come out of the last few weeks.

I will warn you that the story of my mom’s family has a dark side��her biological mother was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive. My grandfather was the one who saved his children from her and thus I can’t speak of him without speaking of her as well. I ended up only telling one story that involves her and it has a content warning at the beginning as well as a note for when the story ends.

In his eulogy, my step-uncle said that my grandfather, his stepfather, taught him that “family isn’t about biology. It’s about love.”

Well, he was the one who taught me that too, only not because I had crappy parents. Until he remarried, mom had a crappy parent and a good parent, and the good parent held the family together and shaped us in ways that I’m still only beginning to find out.

CW CHILD ABUSE

(Note: I’m referring to her as my mom’s bio-mom or by her initials, NW.)

The custody battle was brutal, and it went all the way to the state supreme court. Fathers didn’t get custody back then—my mom says “abuse” wasn’t even in the lexicon in the initial court cases.

We found this out because my brother & his girlfriend googled my grandfather and this is what came up. They read the deposition and initially my brother was uncomfortable with her seeing it, but my mom said it grazed the surface—and as I told him, the only reason I don’t going around telling people that my mom’s bio mom did stuff like frequently sprain her wrist from beating them is that it’s not exactly the kind of thing you dump on people without warning, not because it’s a secret or because my mom doesn’t want me to talk about it.

I’ve known for a long time that when I was really little, my mom once found herself with her hands around my throat, freaked the fuck out, and from that moment had to second guess every inch of her parenting and her actions around us, because she had no instincts to fall back on. I didn’t need to read “choking her eldest daughter” as an example of abuse in a court case to know that that happened to my mom.

Anyway, the psychological abuse always scared me more. Because my mom won’t talk about it much.

END CW

Apparently, even though moms are perfect angels who should always get child custody and can do no wrong to children, word was getting around about her and someone offered to “take care of the problem” for $150.

My grandfather never would’ve said yes to that, and he decided to try the legal route first. But he was ready to take the kids and run, if he didn’t get custody. Leave his job, fake name, move to Phoenix, everything. I’m beyond thankful that didn’t have to happen but also beyond relieved that he was ready to.

He never spoke a single ill word about NW.

I was very disappointed about missing the funeral in person. I was hoping they’d have it after my ankle surgery so I could at least be propped up in a corner somewhere, high on Vicodin maybe, but there.

Honestly I’m disappointed about a lot of things this month.

The day before the funeral, my dad came in with a picture showing me the outside of the house. There was a rainbow. A little one, but a rainbow.

I of course dragged my ass out of my sickbed, hopped my way out there, and made him set up a chair so I could see it too.

There’s a reason I run a side blog of rainbows. There’s a personal & private story there, but what you need to know is that in dark moments, I often look for rainbows or have literal rainbows sent my way. They bring me hope every time. I sat outside, foot hurting and sweating all over from the heat, watching the rainbow fade, knowing it was going to be okay.

I haven’t always gotten along with my cousins on that side of the family. They grew up in Louisiana and are much closer to each other, so there’s a lot of gaps to bridge and we taller, dark-haired city people from Yankee land who clung close to each other and weren’t used to big families always kind of stuck out a bit among the short blondes who had always lived in the South in a big insane group of cousins and step-cousins.

We’ve gotten closer more recently. It’s trendy to hate on your family on facebook, but interacting on social media has given me some separation between the stuff that makes me roll my eyes about my cousins and the stuff that endears me to them.

And it was through facebook that we came together because of one simple fact: we all had the same, terrible morning.

We all woke up first thing to our moms, broken in half themselves, breaking our hearts too.

I get told that I laugh and smile a lot. Sometimes I’m even told that in non-creepy ways! And it’s true. I sometimes think I exist moment to moment trying to find something new to make me laugh. I learned that from my parents, who will watch or listen to just about anything if it’s funny. I learned to tell stories from them too, to take all my experiences and find the good the bad and the funny in everything.

My mom is my best audience. She laughs like a hyena at all my stories, my good lines and my bad lines. She’ll laugh at jokes that I *know* aren’t funny, at the ones that I think are hilarious but no one else laughed at, and she laughs the hardest of all at the jokes I’m extremely proud of and that land really well nearly every time.

Her whole family’s like that. Head thrown back, laughing hysterically, whole conversations just an excuse to try and make each other laugh.

Her dad, too. Just as loud and as hard as the rest of them. He had a giggle, and also a cackle. He used to give points when someone said something particularly funny, let out a really good zinger, or “won” a round of conversation. He’d just grin, solemnly lick his finger, and draw a “1” in the air.

He liked pranks. I’ve told story after story on my blog about how my family likes to mess with each other at Christmas. My mom’s saying is that “there’s no such thing as a lie at Christmas”, meaning that your gift is late or it wasn’t in stock or we can’t do it this year, I haven’t found a gift for you so you’re just getting candy? Not lies.

Except it’s not her saying. It’s his.

Anything that arrives at the house in December gets wrapped up and put under the tree; it’s automatically a gift. You think that trick of wrapping things in progressively smaller boxes is a prank? Amateur hour. I’ve wrapped up individual pieces of candy, individual matryoshka dolls, and yes, the smallest git in the largest box but also filled the box with packing peanuts to make it extra annoying.

I learned all of this from my mother.

But he taught it to her.

If I find hideous things to give my brother, it’s because my mom’s family rotated a Velvet Elvis, giving it to each other, for years. If my mom watched in stoic silence as my dad tore the house apart for looking something they got in Arizona that was wrapped up under the tree, it’s because someone wrapped up two huge boxes for my grandfather that he was excited to open, that turned out to be two light fixtures he’d ordered and forgotten about.

We never lost the magic of Christmas in my house. If anything it got more magical, more fun to surprise each other and find funny and creative ways to show each other how much we care. Gift giving is an art form in my family and I look forward to it every year.

It’s all because of my grandfather.

I learned so many things from my parents that they in turn learned from my grandfather. Even my dad learned a lot from him as his father-in-law, because it was impossible not to look up to him, and he was a teacher in his profession and by nature. Everyone talked so much at the funeral and afterwards about how he could fix anything, build anything, do, anything.

I was called “Tinker” at one of my old jobs for how I was always fixing everyone’s computer and the various office machinery. I didn’t necessarily know how until I sat down and looked at it. I just knew how to figure it out.

I always thought I learned that from my parents, which I guess is still true, but now I know who they passed it on to me from.

One thing I always associated with my mom was that any time she saw a pile of my necklaces in a knotted mess, she would sit down an untangle them for me. I never asked her to do that; she would just see them, and sit down and start working on them. She always got a specific look of concentration on her face as she did.

My dad and I were talking after the funeral and he mentioned my grandfather doing that exact thing in our house at ninety-something years old. He has a picture of it. I knew without seeing it exactly what the expression on his face would be.

It’s now one of my favorite pictures of him.

There was technical trouble with the Zoom funeral, which was pretty disastrous—I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to attend due to health & other problems. For someone so beloved, so central to the family, who we all owe so much to but don’t even think of it that way because he was so fun and easy to love…well, funerals are for the living, and not being able to be there in person hurt, bad, and I know I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. We were relying on being able to attend digitally.

But most of the world is still getting used to doing things over video, and certainly the older couple running the funeral home was a bit clueless. I, on the other hand, ran video calls (not over Zoom, but still) almost daily for 2 years while I was an admin and we had remote employees calling in to meetings. So as soon as I realized exactly what was causing the problem, I got on the phone with the funeral home and did my best to salvage what we could.

And then I pulled the recording for everyone (thank goodness it was recorded).

And then before I watched it I wrote up some instructions, with screenshots, for the funeral home for next time, because they genuinely didn’t know what to do and I wanted to make sure the next family had an easier time and if the problem is just understanding technology, I know how to help with that! I’m good at figuring out and explaining this stuff! It’s just what you do—you help people when you can! You know?

And then I watched the funeral, and listened to my uncle talk about my grandfather always fixing things, and always teaching people.

And I just broke down. Because I knew. I knew who I was.

If the legacy I carry is that of someone who can’t resist helping others by teaching and fixing problems, then may I never ever ever let go of that legacy.

My mother called me to tell me that when they realized what was going on and what I was doing, my uncles both said the same thing, that “that was Papa.”

The only good part about any of this is that I’m here with my mom right now. She talked to him all the time before he died but she didn’t get to see him, and she keeps saying things like how she wishes she could tell him the good joke she heard. She’ll casually talk about the depression she’s fighting off.

I didn’t want a broken ankle to strand me here but there are worse times to be stuck with my mom.

#grief for ts #my writing #family #my mom

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ambrosenina · 4 years

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HELLO TALK TAG!

It’s me, Mia, rolling back to FTW like a Chef Boyardee can. I’ve got a new bb!

Nina Ambrose. Twenty-three. Heiress to the Ambrose fortune. Social Media Manager for Ambrose Media and King Charitable Entities.

Looks like a cinnamon roll, is absolutely not a cinnamon roll.

Incredibly spoiled, Daddy’s little girl, used to getting everything she wants.

The Kings are her second family; she grew up alongside Emilia and idolized Milena.

Her father got her involved with the Ivory Syndicate when she turned eighteen. She does odd jobs for them to help gather information - seductions, snooping, you name it. Lies to her best friend about all of it.

Dad moved them to Canada shortly after the Ivories set up shop there. She’s been around for a little over a year, although...

She was devastated by Milena’s death and left town with Emilia, but Princess Em gave her the slip around month six. Came back to Montreal to refocus.

Fun-loving, but very serious where her family and the Syndicate are concerned. Determined to live up to her father’s expectations and blow everyone away. Everything is about being powerful and adored for her.

Full bio under the cut :) Shoot me a message if you want my Discord and we can PLOT!

The Ambrose family had always been lucky; lucky in business, lucky in love, lucky in...well, success of nearly every kind. Ambrose Media was built from the ground up, beginning as a boutique production company in the 1930s and changing with the times until it’s reached far beyond its competitors. By the 1990s, the Ambroses’ triumph was seen as nearly untouchable, which left the family and the company financially and mentally secure. There was no reason to believe that anything could possibly go wrong.

Fortunately for the company’s employees, nothing in their work lives did go wrong. However, in the summer of 1996, the president and CEO’s luck had run out. His beloved wife died giving birth to their long-awaited child, leaving him to raise his baby daughter alone. It was a tremendous feat for a man who had been raised mostly by nannies himself, but the moment he saw his daughter’s face, he knew that he would do everything in his power to provide a spectacular life for her. Nina grew up with a doting father, a man who ran his own company but still made it a priority to attend her dance recitals, gymnastics meets, and indulge in her excessive spending.

His constant attention was noticed by onlookers and appreciated by his daughter, but certainly did not help deflate her growing ego. Nina lived the life of a modern-day princess and took advantage of her family’s status in any way that she could. She was the natural Queen Bee of her school, the defacto leader of any friend group she formed or intruded upon, and with her father’s money lining her designer pockets, she could have whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

The King family had been a part of her life since before she was born. Marco and her father had been friends in school before following in their own fathers’ footsteps, which included, of course, heavy involvement in the Kings’ most lucrative dealings. Marco, Milena, and Emilia were her second family, a family that Nina and her parents could have been akin to had events not transpired as they did. Emilia became Nina’s closest confidante and the only person she truly ever let her guard down around, and Milena was the strongest maternal figure that she could hope for. There was something about the Kings, however, that Nina could not quite put her finger on; something was lurking under the surface, something that was spoken through meaningful glances at the dinner table and behind closed home office doors. When her father caught her eavesdropping one night, however, he did not reprimand her; when Marco and the other people Nina had grown to consider members or her extended family had left, her father sat her down, asked what she had heard, and answered her questions truthfully. There wasn’t much that he could tell, but it was enough to confirm her suspicions. Admiring her tenacity and seeing his own fire reflected in his daughter, her father committed himself to taking Nina into the fold, despite the fact that he knew that his late wife would have objected.

When Nina graduated from high school, everything changed. Her best friend went off to college in Canada of all places, but Nina was not on the same track. She was given an intern position at Ambrose Media, which later became an assistant job and then a title of her own: Social Media Manager. Milena took her further under her wing and gave her similar duties in her charitable organizations. At the same time, her father was exposing her to more of the Ivory Syndicate’s dealings and pushing to get her foot in the door - Nina would be the perfect distraction, the perfect secret weapon to acquiring information because nobody would suspect her of being involved in any wrongdoing, much less a notorious crime organization. She’d go on a dinner date with a rival drug kingpin’s son, let an old businessman talk her ear off at a museum opening, stand around and look pretty at an important event. Nina thrived on the adventure and the danger, but most of all, she felt powerful. She craved the rush of adrenaline than shot through her when she asked just the right question or overheard the exact bit of information the Syndicate needed. She wanted to feel that way all the time...she wanted people to adore her, to worship at her feet...and she was on her way, under one condition: keep everything from Emilia.

It was simple when Nina was in New York and Emilia was in Montreal; lying to her friend was not something that she enjoyed doing, but Nina could already see the path in front of her and she could not give that up. She began to have slight doubts, however, when Milena asked her and her father to move up to Montreal. It made sense, of course, but it definitely made lying a lot more difficult. Still, she managed, and Nina had just gotten adjusted to life in Canada when the worst possible scenario occurred: Milena was killed.

The Ivory matriarch’s death sent the organization into a tailspin, but it hit those closest to her the hardest. Emilia completely shut down and Nina was uncharacteristically inconsolable - Emilia had lost her mother, and Nina had lost the only mother-figure she had even known. Her friend wanted to go away and Nina insisted on going with her, not only to keep an eye on her for the organization but because she, too, was hurting. The pair jumped from country to country, city to city, and while the travel and anonymity seemed to do Nina some good, she couldn’t see the same healing occurring in her friend. They spent a late night out in Colombia and when Nina woke up the next day, Emilia was gone.

She considered going after her. She considered scouring her friend’s favorite places high and low until she found her, but Nina knew that wasn’t the right choice. She took a few days and then returned to Montreal, convincing herself that she was ready to focus on the tasks at hand. It was more important now than ever before to make a name for herself in the Ivory Syndicate; she was determined to prove to her father and everyone else that Milena’s trust in her had not been in vain. And, more than anything, she desired her own crown.

#ftwintro

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ayankun · 4 years

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The Asset

so I’m making my mom watch Agents of SHIELD (obviously) and today we watched eps 1x03 - 1x06. That’s The Asset, Eye Spy, Girl in the Flower Dress, and FZZT.

THEN I ACCIDENTALLY SPENT LIKE FIVE HOURS DISSECTING MY LEAST FAVORITE EPISODE YOU’RE WELCOME

First off, full spoilers ahead, of course.

1x03 is, hands down, the worst episode of the series. PERIOD. I didn’t give it my full attention when I did my rewatch, because I remembered it well enough for some reason and the guy that plays Quinn looks too much but not enough like Tahmoh Penikett to seriously irritate me. DODGED A BULLET THERE.

Giving it your full attention does not do it any favors. I was physically discomfited, squirming in my seat and dropping snide remarks every 12 seconds. It’s bad, you guys.

First off, we have this guy, who is, for now in S1, the one and only “Agent Mack.”

THE SIMILARITIES ARE UNCANNY.

Then this big rig gets dropped like 50 feet and I’m supposed to believe that this guy strapped in the back only had his glasses knocked askew?

Ok then we go see what the team is up to, and lord, three episodes has not been enough time for Chloe or Brett to Figure Their Shit Out. They’re so awkward and dumb looking.

After a passable briefing scene, where we learn that Baldy McGlasses is a valuable asset (and beloved advisor to FitzSimmons) who was being transported with maximum security before being kidnapped, we get this wildly wild “we have to put something on the screen while exposition happens” shot:

Which cuts contemporaneously to

Thanks I hate it

Where did the atmospheric smoke go? Was that highway always there? What time of day is this supposed to be where the ambient light changes so drastically over a matter of seconds? They couldn’t have kept the camera on the left side of the lane marker?

But it gets worse because Simmons has a line and the coverage for this is basically just a matched jump cut over to the other half of the line up and back again.

I can’t stand it.

So Agent Mack survived the fall and is still on the scene of the accident. My mom was pretty incredulous that he was alive, and I was thinking it was too bad that he had to sit there for hours waiting to be debriefed instead of being taken to a hospital.

THEN there’s some FitzSimmons pratfall-adjacent sci-fi nonsense that my mom really got a kick out of. But I was too distracted by Iain’s decision to play Fitz as a douchebag so far this season so I wasn’t in the right mood to be impressed.

Ok then we go back to the lab to do some science on the MacGuffin, and I will admit my favorite part so far is Skye challenging Coulson on the existence of the truth serum, and Coulson plays it so Coulson-y it’s truly chef’s kiss.

BUT THEN May comes along and drops 100 pounds of print media for Skye to review (oh yeah, there’s a key subplot about there potentially being a mole inside SHIELD, which is how McGlasses got got) and MY MOM who REGULARLY prints out things like Facebook posts to keep for posterity rightly pointed out that they have high-tech on this plane like holograms and stuff, so printing out all this correspondence in order to go through it page by page makes 0% sense.

Also we never see it again.

OKAY THEN COULSON AND WARD ACCOST A COWBOY RIDING A HORSE THROUGH THE WOODS. Said cowboy also just happens to have the incriminating bag of gold on his person, which Coulson and Ward straight up steal. That’s it. That’s the whole concept for the scene. Coulson’s just parked his car along a narrow woodland path, just waiting for a cowboy to come riding along so he can accost him/steal his gold.

Check out how whack this scene-setting shot is, too. We have Coulson on the left, facing the Cowboy on the right. At this trajectory, you can see that Lola and the horse are basically pointed perpendicular to one another.

Yet cowboy pulls to a stop without banking and addresses something dead ahead of him.

Surprise! Coulson’s over there now and Lola and the horse are facing dead on.

To really drive this home, cowboy spends the rest of the scene on the left, addressing Coulson who remains on the right.

Anyway so yeah, this scene is about roughing up an innocent civilian for intel and then stealing his legally acquired wealth.

At least they can’t take the sky from him.

The purpose of the cowboy gold is that it’s directly traceable back to Quinn Worldwide, which is hilarious considering that one assumes the under-the-table transaction used this method of currency in order to not be easily traced.

Coulson name drops Quinn like he’s some off-brand Tony Stark that we should be impressed with, and we are immediately shown that Ian Quinn’s defining characteristic is that he has an assistant to hang up his cell phone calls for him. We are not impressed with Ian Quinn.

OKAY AND THEN WE GET THIS COMPLETE MIS-READ OF SCRIPT INTENT IN THIS SHOT

why why why why why why would you ignore a character’s line like that. Why are you choosing to TELL me that a man is tied up when it would be SO EASY to SHOW me.

Especially since the narrative so far is that McGlasses has been skillfully kidnapped by a very determined adversary, and this moment, this interaction, is where that assumption is proven erroneous. Quinn’s line is a very specific cue that we are meant to SEE that he’s restrained, per our expectations following a kidnapping, specifically to introduce the twist that Quinn is just that budget Tony Stark who actually has no malicious intentions towards his former colleague.

A super close close up of McGlasses fails to achieve that moment the script was hunting for. I’m feeling that the intent was to keep the focus on this dude because of the upcoming secondary twist where he is revealed to be the SHIELD mole who masterminded his own kidnapping, but this guy is So Bad at acting I don’t think keeping him front and center is ever going to pay off.

(ok I just checked and it turns out Ian Hart is a prolific English actor. this makes me feel like I ought to chalk it up to “difficulty emoting while doing a fake American accent” but guys this performance is so bad I’m really not willing to believe there’s a good excuse)

anyway it turns out Quinn’s good guy!

.....but then he’s on the wrong side of the shot all of a sudden for no good reason and HEY maybe this set up with the wide angle on the lab and a clear look at McGlasses’ physical situation within that environment would have been an alternative for, you know, maybe some sort of establishing shot? Maybe? No?

Also here let’s take a moment to let the “plot” really sink in. These two chuckleheads are former classmates and colleagues, even though one of them looks about 20 years older than the other, and Quinn discovered that “an asset” was being moved, “deduced” that the asset was McGlasses, and wanted to bring McGlasses in on his semi-nefarious science plan. So to avoid SHIELD interference in his schemey scheme, Quinn

kidnaps McGlasses directly from SHIELD custody,

in the showiest manner, not only using but LEAVING BEHIND the exact product at the core of his scheme,

and pays a local cowboy with easily traceable gold in exchange for just some regular backhoe to bust open the big rig transporting McGlasses, instead of, I don’t know, using his massive wealth and influence and in-house R&D products to not massively incriminate himself

He couldn’t have just invited McGlasses over without calling attention to himself?

There is the way that “the asset” was being “moved” makes it sound like McGlasses was on top secret lock down with no civilian rights or means of making/receiving contact with people like old colleagues. But this is never clarified, like, the only other thing we know about him is that he evidently advises classes at the Sci-Ops branch of the SHIELD academy.

ALSO we have yet to learn that McGlasses personally staged “being moved” and leaked the hints regarding the identity of “the asset” to Quinn just so that Quinn would do all these nonsense things he done. He couldn’t have just invited himself over???

Also the conversation they have at this point is real rough, with non-sequiturs, shambling exposition, and garbage jokes that wouldn’t float even if you didn’t have a log and a ham struggling to mimic human behavior.

Also Quinn bought the PRIME MINISTER OF MALTA’S old manor specifically because it has a huge underground lab???? What about Malta do I need to know about before this makes sense?

Let’s move on. FitzSkimmons have an only-mostly painful scene of exposition in which Iain is still having a hard time with the lines/characterization the Powers That Be are forcing Fitz to be at the moment. I’m going to say it. Season 1 Fitz is Utterly Unlikable.

However, this rant has given me the opportunity to 1) stand corrected and 2) appreciate this understated joke:

She’s still on page 1 of 1 billion LOLOLOLOL

The other nice thing to come out of this scene is the casual validation that the public school system may not be right for everyone, and that being a high school drop out does not mean you can’t also be an intelligent self-starter who finds value and satisfaction in picking up a trade skill on your own. *coughs in Robbie Reyes*

UGH but then we go back to McWooden and Bargain Ham. Their story is UNINTERESTING and their performances are HARD TO STOMACH. Also it ends on a mirror of the shot we started with (so there is some evidence of intelligent design at play here after all)

But this framing makes me so uncomfortable like, I’ve shipped for less don’t put weird ideas in my head that no one wants least of all me--

Ok. We’re a third of the way through. It doesn’t stop getting worse.

So here’s the correct way to reposition your characters if you want to change up the eye lines without making it super jarring! The start of this scene is actually really textbook-nice, just look:

The pre-mission planning is already in full swing, but we follow Skye, the outsider on the outside, approaching the scene with some amount of hesitation.

She starts on the right, facing left, and crosses across the path of the camera as it follows her towards the meeting, ending up on its left while the folks currently giving lines are framed over her right shoulder. Your eye line and sense of positioning has fluidly followed hers, and this makes sense.

From this establishing shot, we do a real nice punch in on Coulson as he’s speaking, using a really action smooth cut as he does a bit of business with his hand.

We’re still coming into this scene from Skye’s POV, and this shot reflects that -- close enough to focus on the important action, but distant enough to show Skye’s current position (literally and figuratively) relative to the rest of the team.

The reverse shot is ... fine. It’s fine. I don’t like that she’s framed on the right hand side of the screen (exactly where Coulson was a split second ago), but the eye lines still match up and it does give the impression that the camera is the avatar of the audience and we just turned on the spot to look at her as she quietly invites herself to this scene and starts putting that big beautiful brain of hers to work.

Then we leave her to it! Feel the difference this cut has, emotionally, from the last time we looked over at Coulson:

We’ve left Skye’s aloof POV and now we’re all up in his biz. This framing tells us he’s no longer the subject of Skye’s contemplation and has gone back to being a character of the TV screen doing TV character things.

The remainder of this scene holds onto that “normal” shot-reverse-shot framing of the team as they give their opinions and work through the plan.

This laudable result of thoughtful camera work is almost instantly ruined by Fitz yammering on about using a brave little monkey to do their serious spy business and HOLY COW Iain does his best with the dreck he’s been given but there is no universe in which I will find this type of dialogue acceptable.

The valuable plot point here is that Skye is finding her footing on the team, doing hacky stuff on her phone and putting herself out there as -- wait for it -- an asset to Coulson. Ward responds to this with bafflement, being generally supportive of her known abilities while also being doubtful that she’s a complete package, and turning to Coulson for advice on how to round her training out.

This results in yet another JARRING AF transition (read: there’s no transition) from Ward and Coulson’s heart to heart to Ward pointing a gun at Skye at some indeterminate amount of time later.

Look we haven’t even had time to ingest Coulson’s line yet and BAM we’re here.

This scene’s fine. It’s doing double duty and that’s admirable. Triple duty, even. Many duties are being performed in this scene. We have

fledgling Skyeward

the introduction to the gun-manipulation maneuver Skye will use later on

Skye’s irreverence butting heads with Ward’s need for brass-tacks

at least one solid joke at Ward’s expense

Ward valuing Skye’s er, assets -- I’M TALKING COMPUTER SCIENCE YA PERVS

a very competent conversational segue into Ward’s Whole Deal, wherein we are introduced to the concept of his childhood trauma (lolol and man does Brett just fail to deliver these lines in any sort of a way that inspires human empathy wowowo he’s so bad in this one)

a callback to an earlier conversation as well as a set up for a future joke

SKYE STEALING WARD’S GUN FROM OUT OF HIS PANTS A++++

Now we go into pre-heist plan-walkthrough mode, and it’s so boring and lifeless that Skye’s actual summary line is “Plan, green, drop, walk ... pie.” To be honest, she got more out of the discussion than I did.

May has an interesting character moment where she’s complaining about going into the field and then immediately regrets it because she was never going to be sent in, but that means Coulson’s going in instead and that worries her. I keep thinking back on this season as being unfocused, but that’s because I forget that the sales pitch for this entire shebang is “we killed Coulson in Avengers but now here’s a show where he’s the lead because everyone loves him so much” and the subsequent focus of the inaugural season is everyone’s burning curiosity to find out how they undid his murder.

Aside from the sci-fi/Marvel/generic spy show gimmick of the week, these early episodes never fail to prioritize the interpersonal dynamic of their team while simultaneously teasing out the Coulson mystery with these nice little regular hits.

I let it keep playing while I was typing, and we flew over some whatever business where Skye goes to Quinn’s party, and Coulson and Ward land their little raft on the beach, and the other kids are watching from the Bus and FITZ IS AGAIN TERRIBLE

I feel you, Jemma.

(Also, am I wrong in hearing him give in and say “boobs?” The Netflix subtitles have it as “oops” but that can’t be it.)

Anyway so Skye’s busy using her Assets to win Quinn over, and Chloe’s shining moment in this scene is the delivery of the drivers test joke.

Back to stuff that’s gratingly awful, we’re supposedly on Malta, right? And you know how Hollywood generally and the spy show/movie genre specifically tries to stretch their location budgets by putting on color filters to “evoke” distant lands?

We go from the above, washed out and unfiltered, to this sepia-toned nonsense:

This is supposed to be taking place basically right outside. Why not just keep the filter on for the interior scenes, too? There’s plenty of searing Maltese light coming in through that wall of windows.

(They must have had a hard time on location for the manor shoots, though, it’s just as washed out in the earlier scene set outdoors that I didn’t show you because it was boring but I’m showing you know because it’s not even the same color filter as the Coulson/Ward shots

)

((Also, yeah, I get it. You can’t fly to Malta for a day for a television shoot. But how many people are you fooling when you put the Santa Monica mountains in the backdrop of every exterior shot?))

So we go back and forth between these high-grain-low-saturation beachfront stuff to these holy angelic light of judgement shots and I hate it.

Like, why choose to shoot against this nuclear-blast light? It’s not doing your actors any favors.

Especially when you’re ALSO choosing to depict that same “natural” light with a whole different palette and then continue to give us the opportunity to compare and contrast.

Also I hate the Ward/Coulson business because it’s just generic spy stuff where some guards come out of nowhere and I guess maybe it’s implied that their cute boat was found but it could just as easily be that it was explicitly stated that there were guard patrols and I forgot.

But then they fight and defeat the guards in literally under 8 seconds and that’s that. End of stakes.

The character moment that validates this trivial obstacle is that Coulson tries to do something with a gun and finds that May’s concerns weren’t entirely unfounded. He’s a little rusty.

Also Ward’s response to this is to chuck the gun into the laser wall and I don’t know why. In any case, the energy from both of them in this screenshot really resonates with me.

So then Skye Does The Thing with her Assets and if you’ll let me be picky again about plot holes, why does the wireless access MacGuffin need to have an interface for Skye to check that the connection is possible, and THEN have that connection activated by LITERALLY dropping it on the table. They couldn’t have set it to auto-scan and then tell her through her earpiece to stay still when the connection activated itself?

Whatever. Success! Immediately followed by ... INEXPLICABLE OBSTACLE

WHO, praytell, is on the other end of that walkie talkie? Because the downed man is the man you see. Typically, it would be like a survivor of the scuffle who radios for backup, but here we see the scene of the scuffle and some unknown unseen ADDITIONAL MAN who I guess is just spying on them from somewhere and radioing still more unseen men?

Instantly hearing this news, the Unseen begin a sniper assault on Coulson and Ward, and we get to see their bullets getting evaporated by the laser wall. Remember those guards walking along the sea cliff towards the sign? There’s no place for the snipers to be sniping from, unless they have some kind of invisible floating island.

This scenario is made even more hilarious once Fitz brings down the laser wall and Coulson and Ward dive through like they think they some kind of James Bonds and then the wall goes back up and the snipers keep sniping.

Why aren’t the guards on the inside of the perimeter of the compound which they guard? This laser fence is now protecting the intruders. Minor design flaw.

Anywho, Quinn is still talking about how he doesn’t trust SHIELD and SHIELD doesn’t trust him, so it’s like, what are we supposed to believe about this guy anyway? Why did Coulson introduce him as bargain bin Tony Stark if he was known to be bargain bin Justin Hammer all along?

So now that snipers have failed to snipe the intruders, some Seen Guards come to alert Quinn so he breaks the wireless MacGuffin and turns a gun on Skye. (Just sayin, if it had been some secret device that was still in her bag, she’d have plausible deniability)

I think, at this point, I have two conclusions

Team Coulson has no extraction plan for getting McGlasses out of the compound since they don’t have a Plan B to get back through the laser wall, no firepower to use on the Seen Guards, and no available land-or-sea getaway vehicles.

There was never any sort of extraction plan for Skye even if the laser wall and the Seen Guards were not an obstacle.

Here’s where it gets the messiest.

Coulson busts in on McGlasses but is told no rescue is required.

AT THAT SAME TIME

May has just popped open a tablet over in some room by herself, evidently disinterested in whatever FitzSimmons is probably doing right now in light of this drastic turn of events, and she’s randomly googling up on the SHIELD leak mentioned earlier, only to discover that it was MCGLASSES ALL ALONG.

Keeps a cool head, our May.

Yeah, we know, we .. he ... he just said ... you know what? We didn’t actually care, though? Who the mole was or that it was McGlasses. We certainly didn’t spend the last half hour watching May diligently tracking down some breadcrumb trail of clues to get to this dramatic reveal, only to find out a second too late. We didn’t even see her checking up that Skye had/didn’t have this angle covered.

Did she print out the contents of the four-foot binder as some sort of eco-terrorist cruel joke since she was just planning on spending three seconds on the computer to complete the same task?

Ok so Coulson misinterprets McGlasses’ decline of his rescue operation as collaboration with Quinn until May clues him in. We then go to commercials and come back and have to go over all this info again just in case we didn’t follow that super exciting double-cross the first two times.

At which point we figure out where all the pre-production time was sunk -- somebody had to spend a lot of effort envisioning how they were going to do the wacky-gravity scenes. My feeling is that fun challenges like that are what stand out to people who are working on a thing, and sometimes the prestige of “pulling that off” can overshadow the need to pay attention to other, less exciting aspects of filmmaking, like making sure your eye lines stay coherent in a scene or that your color gradings aren’t super distracting.

Anyway I do really like the load-bearing scene where Quinn threatens Skye at gunpoint because it is one of those many examples this season has of laying ground work for and paying off character moments.

Skye’s flip and smart and completely not ready for this level of field action, but she remembers her training, remembers how earnestly Ward wanted her to be ready for this defining moment, and gets the gun!

That “nOPE” when she can’t shoot the man is also Classic Skye and we Love Her For It.

Anyway oh yeah, McGlasses reveals his master plan to get kidnapped, so that he could get on site and ruin Quinn’s everything because he’s a Bad Justin Hammer. His performance is SO PAINFUL and his reasoning has yet to make sense. Coulson doesn’t ask “why did you have to be kidnapped to get in, though” but he does ask “why didn’t you try reasoning with him” as if that were the question we needed an answer to.

Also it turns out FitzSimmons has been pretty chill this whole time since their agents lost their extraction plan (well, they’re smart, they probably knew all along that there wasn’t one) and are just puttering around the lab working on what looks like their regular day-to-day science, talking excitedly about gravitonium rather than panicking that the whole plan’s gone to shit.

Unflappable.

COME ON PEOPLE the mission wasn’t “throw McGlasses into the gravitonium and do high-fives” it was “rescue McGlasses from Quinn’s grasp.” From the way that this plays out, there is 0% indication that their initial plan was ever expected to succeed.

WE DON’T EVEN SEE HOW THEY GET OUT OF THERE, WE JUST LOOK AT SOME MCGRAVITONIUM AND THEN SEE COULSON ON THE BUS INSTRUCTING THE CONTAINMENT FACILITY ON HOW IT SHOULD BE HANDLED.

Oh well, the gratuitous plot is disposed with after this point.

In the denouement, we get to see May and Coulson interact over his experience in the field and her experience being stuck watching him in the field. She’s finally ready for combat, but strictly for his sake. And he’s at the point where he’s ready and willing to take her up on her offer instead of trying to prove that he’s everything he was before he died.

Following that, we get some Skyeward with some really gross romantic comedy type music. Bear, you’re better than this!! But the scene is nice, Chloe really brings it (almost brings too much) and Brett is there to support her.

It’s a really on-the-nose admission from Skye that her allegiances lie with SHIELD, but its an organic continuation of that bit from earlier where she wandered all up on their meeting, the outsider, and pushed her way into the heart of it. She wants this. She wants to feel like she belongs here. And now she’s been trusted with some opportunities and tools to prove it!

This early in the season, we’re still doubtful that she’s on the up and up, what with that Rising Tide plot thread hanging so loose and tantalizing over our heads. Due to the potential of a storyline revolving around her betrayal, there are a lot of fun little moments in the next few episodes where Ward gets to say some betrayal-related stuff that is absolutely excellent in retrospect.

I was watching some old interviews and while it is very clear Brett did not know the fate of his character in advance, it’s also distinctly implied that no one knew and the arc of the season may have developed episode by episode. That’s so nutty to me, considering how strong the structure of the season is, how there are so many satisfying call backs and payoffs later on.

I think I’m more likely to applaud a well-plotted narrative, in which foreshadowing and a deliberate order of events slowly unravel to great effect. But I can definitely appreciate the ability to force the illusion of the same by being crafty and attentive and not letting any usable threads go to waste.

Ultimately, whether by design or by providence, Season 1 is successful in pulling it all together. It’s just that episodes like this one don’t really inspire you to believe that that outcome is likely, or even possible. Episodes like this one cause a person to give up watching halfway through the season and walk away for years until cajoled into giving it another shot because “it got good somehow.”

But what this season has, every episode, especially ones like this one, is a pronounced, chaotic, relentless prioritization of Character over Plot. What is this show about? Who cares. That’s the wrong question. This show could have been about anything, and these early episodes are all too aware of it. What kind of story can you tell when every option is on the table and no one knows what to expect from you?

You find that story, step by step, episode by episode, through the eyes of your characters. The forward motion of the story isn’t “how did Coulson come back to life” but “what is life going to be like for him now?” It’s not “will Skye betray the team” it’s “what does she want and what is she willing to do to get it?”

Posing and answering these character questions generates the Story of Agents of SHIELD. Plots be damned. Remember how at one point in this episode, our heroes robbed a cowboy at gunpoint? Yeah. Me either.

And I can’t agree more with this approach. In my experience, PWP works best when its about the characters.

#agents of shield #aos

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