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sineala · 4 years

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Hey Sineala, how are you 💐 I have come across many Tony Stark blogs and many are focusing on Tonys self-loath. It is pretty clear he is suffering from self-criticism, I can’t help but wonder why? I read his wiki page and it seems like from a young age he tried filling the void with alcohol, women and risky sports but does it all stem from the fact he feels guilty of weapon manufacturing? Thank you!

Hey, anon! So this is one of those areas where 616 actually differs a lot from MCU, because the answer to your question is that weapons manufacturing is eventually a thing Tony feels a great deal of guilt about, but it's not the origin of his self-loathing -- or even his superhero identity -- because he hated himself long before he started manufacturing weapons, and he actually continued manufacturing weapons for quite a long time after becoming Iron Man.

(I don't know MCU well enough to speak to whether Tony hates himself there, but he definitely hates himself in 616. It just has very little to do with weapons manufacturing -- or at least, while he is certainly capable of regretting his days as a weapons designer, it's not the root of all his problems or his drive to become a superhero. He's a superhero because he wants to save people, independently of whether he also wants to make weapons that kill people. Yes, it eventually occurs to him that these are two conflicting desires.)

The character of Tony Stark was created in 1963, and that was a time when attitudes toward the military-industrial complex were generally more positive than they are now, and definitely more positive among comics readers than they later became. Basically, Tony was a defense contractor and nobody had a problem with that. He was exemplifying the American dream! He was the best and most wonderful boss that anyone could be! He was, essentially, a fantasy of ethical capitalism. He was the guy who had it all. (And of course he was also Extremely Tragic because of his secret hidden disability, yes, so he really didn't have it all like everyone thought he did, but only he knew that.)

But then, Real Life happened, and the Vietnam War kept happening, and it kept getting more and more unpopular, and the people who read Iron Man comics started to not enjoy the fact that Tony kept making weapons. So Marvel changed that. In the mid-70s, Marvel ran an Iron Man arc involving Tony meeting a woman named Roxanne Gilbert, a pacifist who convinces him to stop making weapons. He changes the company name from Stark Industries to Stark International to reflect his new commitment. Iron Man v1 #78, from 1975, is the key issue you want to read here; it mostly consists of Tony thinking back to some of the horrors he saw in Vietnam and resolving that he's going to be a better man now and dedicate himself to peace.

It’s very touching, actually.

Keep in mind that this is 1975, so this happens more than ten real-life years after Tony debuted as a character. It took him a while to stop making weapons, is what I'm saying. (And even after then, people still try to force him back in -- this is in fact what Nick Fury tries to do to him in Demon in a Bottle, which is one of the things that leads to Tony’s massive drinking binge.)

When we see Tony talk about his weapons-manufacturing days at the beginning of Extremis (Iron Man v4 #1), he says that he doesn't intend to die as a weapons designer:

That entire interview sequence is definitely worth reading -- or even watching, if you prefer, since they made the Extremis arc into an animated cartoon -- if you want to see a modern take on Tony's approximately-current feelings about his weapon-designing days. Basically: he regrets a lot of things.

In fact, we know that one of the worst things that can happen to Tony these days is when people take his technology and use it as a weapon. And we know that because, well, that was the point of Armor Wars. Justin Hammer stole his tech and sold it to villains, and that's what started the whole catastrophe rolling there. And Tony, as you can see, is more than willing to beat himself up about it, here in Iron Man v1 #225:

And much later on, in The Five Nightmares, it is, literally, Tony's nightmare coming true when Zeke Stane uses Tony's repulsor technology to hurt people, as we see in Invincible Iron Man vol 1 #1:

(For MCU fans, I should point out that Zeke Stane is Obadiah's son looking for revenge, but also that, though 616 Obadiah Stane was very possibly the worst villain Tony ever faced, he is absolutely not the same as MCU Obadiah Stane and has very little in common with him.)

So, yes, he hates that this all happened, and he blames himself -- but it's not why he hates himself. Because Tony was sad and miserable long, long before he was Iron Man.

If you ask me -- and, hey, you did ask me -- I personally would be inclined to blame Tony’s self-loathing on the fact that Howard Stark was a horrible parent and was both emotionally and physically abusive toward Tony, and also was pretty much explicitly responsible for his alcoholism. Howard's shitty parenting continues to haunt Tony to this day. Sometimes literally.

(Incidentally, if anyone has a source for this one, could you tell me? I've been looking for it for years.)

So the Greatest Hits of Howard Stark, setting aside the part where he tried to sell Tony to Dracula (setting it aside because Tony is too young to remember that himself, and, yes, I swear this is canon), include such winning moments as That Time He Got Really Angry At Dinner And Was Clearly About To Get Violent, in Iron Man v1 #285:

(There is an issue somewhere in Fraction's run where a flashback shows him grabbing Tony's arms and Tony telling him he's hurting him, but I always misplace that panel, alas.)

Iron Man v1 #286 gives us the famous "Stark men are made of iron:"

In Iron Man v1 #287, we find out that Howard sent Tony to boarding school to toughen him up, because he was "sensitive" and "a coward;" you can see that Tony frames this as being "a disappointment" to his father:

And then there's Iron Man v1 #313, in which Tony recounts how he first started drinking as a child in an attempt to impress his father:

Yeah. So. I could go on, but you get the idea. Howard Stark really, really fucked Tony up. I mean, maybe Tony would have ended up hating himself anyway even if he'd been raised by a father who actually loved him and didn't do... anything like that. We can't know. But looking at the childhood he did get, this seems like a great way to raise a kid and ensure that they have massive, massive problems with ever feeling good enough, or loved enough, or, well, a whole lot of things.

So I think that's where all the self-loathing really comes from. It's not that Tony doesn't feel bad about having been a weapons manufacturer, or finding himself in a situation where things he invented are used for harm -- because he definitely does -- but that's not why he hates himself, deep down.

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thatgirlwritingficsatnight · 3 years

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Odi et Amo II

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior

Catullus, 85

After a few years of working in the USA for Disney and playing the role of The White Fox in Marvel Cinematic Universe you came back to your motherland - Korea only to be greeted with hatred and contempt. To make things harder for you the universe sends you the most irritating neighbour ™. Will you be able to find your happiness and accomplish your dream of becoming loved actress in Korea without complying with standards of patriarchal society?

pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

genre: actor au

warnings: angst, foul language (please don’t read it if you’re not old enough)

words: 5764

A/N: It was supposed to be published last week, but I was unhappy with it and ended up rewriting it/adding some things. Sorry! (*_ _)人 P.S Sorry for my grammatical errors! Enjoy!

Chapter I

***

Currently sitting in front of your manager you eyed him. He seemed tired and you felt a pang of conscience it was probably because of your tweets last night and you wouldn’t even think of meeting him if you weren’t in dire need of getaway from the uncomfortable conversation with your neighbor. You didn’t meet in your agency’s building since both of you despised the place even though it was a new and flashy building made out of something that looked like a white marble. Both of you agreed on meeting outside it, so you were sitting in the café nearby while wondering how did your shitty boss manage to rent it. Last time you’ve been here, it was a few rooms in shabby, old building. You shivered while imagining going in, that place had an evil aura even from across the street.

"Where did you get all that money to rent it?" you asked.

"We actually bought it."

"Well, business goes well then."

"Actually we are only able thanks to your movies. Don’t tell Kim Pd-nim I told you, he thinks you'll become arrogant."

"I already am." You smiled coldly.

"That's what I told him."

Your manager had a sarcastic smirk on. Both of you and hated your CEO and even mentioning him would bring up unpleasant memories. Kim Sanghoon was one of those bosses who wouldn't even think about trying to help idols and stars that were bringing him money. No matter what it was — crazy fans destroying your life, death threats, your collapsing mental health he didn’t care. Once you were attacked by media and netizens you were on your own and if it was too much for the company your contract was terminated. You often wondered when would you become too much for them to handle.

"How do you feel?" Your manager caught you off guard, even though you had known each other for a long time there was an unspoken rule between you not to talk about other things than work.

"Honesty..I'm fine I don't understand why everyone asks me that." You huffed a bit irritated and run fingers through your hair.

"Well it's just.. I know it was important to you and you worked hard to earn the hearts of your Korean fa..."

"I'm fine." you didn't manage to hide irritation in your voice. You were not used to talking about it and you didn't like it one bit. Besides what were you supposed to say anyway? No one else was as hated as you. Of course there were idols and stars that were occasionally criticized but not one of them was constantly a target of such hatred. Even when you left there were still death threats send from your motherland to you, nothing changed. Not to mention no one else got such welcoming on the day of return to their home. It was unfair, stupid, infuriating and saddening. And yet you couldn’t understand what people were expecting of you? Both Mark and your manager knew you, or so you thought. What were you supposed to do? Cry? You wouldn't cry, that was what weak people do, that would show you actually care about what those assholes think about you. You were just fine. Ok. Neither sad nor happy. You'd endure whatever you had to but you won't conform to their image of idol and woman nor will you show any sign of weakness. You'd rather stay hated than do that. Your manager sighed and it pulled you out of your thoughts.

"Well then. If you're okay then I'm glad. So just as I told you I have this drama for you if you're interested." You weren't the slightest bit. Frankly you'd rather stay in bed for the next three months jobless than play some crazy villain or villainous second female lead. Then again you felt bad about the amount of work he probably had because of you. You looked him in the eyes and answered with a sigh.

"I can't promise anything but I can at least listen what it’s about.." Your manager seemed surprised, but he didn't wait long, perhaps in case you'd change your mind. He took out some papers and handed them to you. You cringed on the sole title "Love is your destiny" — it sounded sappy.

"So it's a love story between fallen angel and this human..." he started.

"Angels...so who do they want me to play? Satan? Devil? Succubus?" You browsed through pages to find the villain.

"You'd know if you'd let me finish." You sent him a small apologetic smile. "They want you to play the main role." You stared at him confused before you burst with laughter.

"They want me to play cute girl in love with the angel?" The idea of you playing the sweet female lead was absurd, not that you weren’t able to do it, you were a good actress it wouldn’t be a problem for you, if anything it would most likely be a challenge for the audience.

"No, no! You'd play the angel. See this is drama with strong female lead. The origin of your character is fascinating. You had to watch the mistreatment of a woman extremely devoted to god. The lady prayed, but she still got beaten, almost killed even. Moreover, you had to be the guardian angel of her torturer — the aggressive husband. You pleaded to god, you asked him to let you guard her instead, but he didn’t agree and forbade you from intervening. One night when the husband got drunk, he beat her unconscious and you were sure he’d kill her. You decided to save her, you kill her husband and this is the moment when you fell. That's when you became deviant and promised yourself you'd help those who were denied it. You’d protect them and avenge them. Fast-forward a thousand years, and we are in Seoul and you meet a man, a painter..." He was so excited you almost didn't understand some words because of the speed. He was waiting for your response but you were too occupied with reading what he handed you. Once you finished it you looked at him with a mix of surprise and excitement.

"It's like it was made for me.." you said with bewildered tone.

"That's because it was made for you. The screenwriter wrote it with you in mind." You looked like a cartoon character, eyes wide, mouth in a shape of letter "o", once you heard him.

"Me?"

"Yes. She is apparently a big fan."

"And tvN is ok with that?" You furrowed your brows confused.

"Perhaps they aren't. But it is co-production with Netflix, and they pushed for you since you’re popular worldwide."

Your heart fluttered and the tips of your fingers tingled from excitement as you rummaged through the pages once again, not only it would be showed in TV during the prime-time but also streamed on Netflix weekly.

"The screenwriter and producer kept calling me since yesterday as soon as it was known you came back. They almost cast someone else. They were sure you're staying in the USA. Isn't it amazing?" He was as excited as you were and you felt some remorse for being so rude to him before. You gave him your warmest smile, one you usually used only around Mark and your family.

"It really is. Thank you and I'm sorry for being rude earlier." He was clearly uncomfortable with your apology, red spreading on his cheeks as he waved his hand dismissively.

"Ah don't mention it. Does that mean I can call them and say you are interested." You looked at the pages in front of you once again and smiled broadly before simply saying.

"Yes!"

Jinyoung was still amused you threatened him in his own café. He couldn't focus on the book he had in his hands anymore as he chuckled replying your angered and irritated expressions in his head. It was fun to tease you because you reacted so well. He could tell you could be great friends if you'd let him. He smiled to himself mouthing your own words "bloody Y/N". He was truly shocked that he met you here of all places and found it rather amusing when you yelled in English and caught his attention. He felt some disappointment upon seeing a half naked man talking to you from the screen of your phone but the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came up once your friend ended the call. Jinyoung wouldn't call himself a noisy person, but he found you interesting, and he wanted to know who it was and what kind of relationship you had although he rarely cared for stuff like this... His thoughts were interrupted by his ring-tone, BamBam's face illuminated the screen. He sighed but answered it anyway.

"Skrrrt, skrrt!"

"Ah yes, good morning to you to Bam." Jinyoung said in amused tone.

"Oh, hyung you seem in good mood. What you're up to?"

"Reading, thinking."

"Sounds boring wanna hang out?"

"Actually I wanted to ask you about something." Jinyoung ignored his question once he remembered how obsessed with celebrities and their styles Bam was.

"Shoot."

"Do you know any celebrities under the name Y/N." BamBam laughed wholeheartedly.

"That's very funny hyung."

"What do you mean?"

"OMG you're not joking! Are you living under a rock, hyung? Y/N is like the hottest actress ever. Her style is chic and comfy and artsy it's really cool, and she actually doesn't have a stylist, she does it on her ow..."

"She is an actress?"

"She is the actress! She played the White Fox in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lol, you call yourself an actor and you don't know the most popular Korean actress abroad."

"You know I don't like those superheroes movies. Besides why didn't I hear about her Korean career if she's so good?"

"You are so old it scares me sometimes. Well you should know her from internet. I think it's national sport to hate her or something. She just came back, and they're already frying her online not to mention the media and dating rumors."

"Dating rumors?"

"Yeah she dated few actors. I think Seojoon hyung dated her and Changwook hyung even almost proposed. The media made her to look like heartless vixen though. I mean they never liked her but her last ex gave a very unfavorable interview to dispatch and after that she became villain number one. She left shortly after."

"Mmmm... I see." Jinyoung only started his career four years ago so it shouldn't be weird you've never met before. He was also the type of person who couldn't care less about internet gossip and gutter press or dispatch. He sighed. Suddenly your angry reaction made much more sense and Jinyoung didn't feel as good about it as he did before. He scolded himself for being too frivolous and selfish. He just wanted to see your reactions - it was cute and funny...

"Why did you ask? OMG you've met her didn't you. I'm so jealous. What was she wearing? Was it Gucci? I heard she likes it."

"Ok Bam. I have to go. Thanks for the talk."

"Wait, so you wanna hang out?"

"Last time when you asked me to hang out I had to shop for 4 hours with you."

"Well... I am your stylist. Besides, it was fun, come on."

"I think we have different definitions of "fun""

You woke up to no noise pleasantly surprised. It seems that Sunday's were free from renovation and thanks to that you could sleep in. You stretched out and grabbed the phone to check the time. It was already past eleven. You smiled to yourself and fell to bed lazily. Soon you wouldn't have time for lazy days like this as the production team was supposed to finish up casting for the drama by the end of the next week. You thought about picking some groceries, maybe cooking yourself some food and enjoying the day with a book or perhaps some video games. You took shower and put on some comfortable clothes — beige cardigan you stole from Mark clearly too big for you and some black trousers pairing it up with brown coat. You left the apartment and as soon as you did the irritating voice in your head reminded you about your debt. Hesitant at first you shook off the feeling quickly and knocked on the door. This time you were prepared for teasing, you were expecting it even so you wouldn't be caught off guard. At least that's what you were telling yourself. Your neighbor, however, didn't act the way you expected him to. Instead of smirking at you and teasing you or straight up mocking you, he seemed nervous. He had deep purple bags under his usually sparkling eyes. Perhaps he didn’t feel well... you wondered whether you should ask him if he needed some help. You decided it would be extremely awkward and so you cleared your throat and spoke up — softness now somewhere in your voice.

"Is that bad time? I can come later I just wanted to give you back your money.."

"N-No." He started nervously "I mean no. It's fine. I'm actually glad you're here. Would you come in?"

You didn't want to come in and it must have shown on your face since he continued.

"Come on. I don't bite." He smiled warmly and it seemed much more normal than the timid self he showed you seconds ago. And so you came in curiously looking around his own apartment. It was a mirror image of your own in terms of room placements — a hallway leading to living room with opened kitchen. You came into the living room and Jinyoung rushed after you quickly turning the TV off. You didn't pay it any mind since you were looking around and taking in how different was his home compared to yours. It was very modern and yet it kept the homey feeling. Yours on the other hand, well it was raw yet full of stuff? Mark would probably call it unfinished and cluttered. Your neighbor sat on the other side of the couch leaving quite a lot of space between the two of you and run a hand through his hair. He wore a cardigan very similar to yours both in color and style in fact it could be the very same brand and style it’s just neither of you noticed it.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"I wanted to apologize." He responded quickly and gained a surprised look from you.

"Apologize?"

"Yes about yesterday…I shouldn't have said those things in public I could say I just didn't know about your situation but it’s no excuse. I’m truly sorry." he paused. "You don't have to be stressed about press or rumors though. It is my café and my staff, so they won't talk about it with anyone I took care of it." You took back everything you said, you weren’t prepared for meeting him, especially not getting apologies from him. On top of that he was the owner of your favorite café...

"I… it's fine." You said confused and tried to act as normal as possible while being very aware of your palms spread on your thighs. They were unnaturally clammy. It was a surprise to you, you rarely got any apologies and you were expecting some more teasing not something like that. Your eyes were everywhere except on him and you were screaming at yourself internally to say something, anything, but nothing was coming to your mind. Once again you lost your ability for forming witty sentences around him or in that case any sentences. There was awkward silence between you and you immensely regretted coming to see him today. You weren’t used to this. Somewhere in your belly you could feel as if butterflies - or rather moths — yes, moths of anxiety were fluttering their wings desperately trying to get into your chest. You never felt like this before. You tried to avoid looking at him but your own eyes betrayed you and fell on Jinyoung only to find out he was enjoying your anguish. His brown eyes were glimmering and his lips formed half smirk that he tried to cover with his left hand in a gesture of propping his head up. Immediately irritation came to you burning all the fluttering wings in the pits of your stomach. A frown formed on your face and you send him a glare. Wondering how could you be so stupid and fall for his act.

"You're really cute when you're shy or embarrassed." He chuckled now mocking you openly.

"I can't believe I took your apologies as sincere." He chuckled again clearly pleased with how you responded.

"They were sincere. I just enjoy teasing you."

"Could you stop? That's inappropriate you don't even know me."

"What do you mean we are neighbors and soon to be friends." He smiled broadly and for a second your mind travelled somewhere else simply admiring his beauty. You cursed his handsome face it could blind and charm everyone really. You wanted to leave, no you needed to leave. It was stuffy in here.

"I'm here for a reason." You reminded him, he was watching you with amusement. It felt almost as if a cat was observing you.

"Ah right... money." his tone seemed inattentive somehow. "I don't need it. Let's say it was a part of my apology."

"Just give me your account number and take the money."

"I don't remember it." You were getting more irritated every minute you talked to him.

"You don't remember your account number?" This man was unbelievable. He shrugged.

"You can send it to me through KakaoTalk if you really want." He smiled and took out the phone from the pocket of his pants.

"Fine. Just give it." Not wanting to spend any second longer here with him, you scanned his qr to add him quickly and transferred the money.

"Done. Now if you excuse me."

"Of course." He smiled again and you felt mocked by the sole action of his lips shooting upwards. He walked you to the door and watched as you slipped on your shoes. You tried to look as cold and dignified as possible but still tripped over the doorstep. He caught your arm firmly and straightened you. Your heart was beating so fast and hard all you could hear was blood pumping in your ears in fact you were sure he could hear it as well. On the other hand whose heart wouldn't when you almost fell face first, right…? Right? It surely wasn't because of his warm breath now tickling the crown of your head, nor the dangerously beautiful eyes... you absolutely regretted coming here today. It was foolish of you to think your cursed neighbor wouldn't shake you up today. And he was still holding you — how awkward is that; and you felt fine with being hold like that — what on earth was wrong with you? You started to think that maybe it would be better if you'd actually fell and hit that stupid head of yours.

Jinyoung was having very dangerous thoughts. The kind he didn't have in a very long time. He wasn't prepared for this kind of proximity. He was already shaken up yesterday by your touch and closeness he only held your hand for a second or two. Maybe he didn't show it but he was. Honestly he wasn't even into PDA or flirting with someone or even thinking of flirting with someone. Yes, he liked teasing, and he teased you but it was in a FRIENDLY manner. Well it was safe to say he didn't have friendshippy type of thoughts right now. Jinyoung reacted automatically upon seeing you fall he just grabbed your arm and pulled you his way. He was still holding your now tensed muscles, but he couldn't let go of you. He was in trance. Your warmth radiating onto him, the way the smell of your shampoo was tingling his nose, your huge doe-like shocked eyes, parted lips, soft pink on the apples of your cheeks. He was wondering how badly would you kill him if he asked to kiss you right now. He was seriously considering it worthy asking even if you were to pull out his tongue like you threatened yesterday. He didn't ask though, the rational part of his brain finally letting go of you. His own feeling were mess, but he did what he knew best — he masked his emotional disarray with some more teasing hoping you wouldn’t notice.

"Falling for me already?" He smirked even though internally he was screaming and already thinking of confiding in Jackson to get himself calmed. He was clearly the one falling and he was panicked. You rolled your eyes on him seemingly gaining the composure while he was getting stunned even by such simple gesture like this.

"You're way below my standards." You seemed annoyed. He smiled again although he wanted you to leave quickly and leave him alone with his feelings, so he can sort this out. Your eyes narrowed at him even more.

"I need to go now."

"Well, have a great day."

"Right, you too." You were so cold Jinyoung almost chuckled at it because it almost wounded him, and yet he liked it. He enjoyed teasing you too much. You were already walking to the elevator, but he couldn't help himself.

"Oh, and try not to fall when I'm not around to catch you, Y/N." He laughed and you were already frowning at him absolutely mad which made his heart skip a beat, you were really too cute when you frowned. Jinyoung closed the door before you could say anything or worse before he did. He realized he was in deep shit. He tried to think reasonably. He probably just had a crush because he spent a whole night watching movies and dramas you were starring in, he might have also accidentally watched all of your interviews and went to sleep at 6 still smiling to himself from that interview where you had to answer questions about your body in preparation for your role in that Marvel movie. The reporter wouldn't stop asking about your body and making comments on it even though you were clearly uninterested in the topic which you finally cut with your own questions. "Are you looking for some weight loss tips? You look great. Seriously what is it about? Are you trying to fit in my suit?" The last question was asked with whole whisper theatrics and Jinyoung laughed at loud at five am hoping he didn't wake you up through the wall. The suit in question was extremely fitting white leather catsuit. It wasn't the only interview in which you showed off your wits, eloquence and badassness, or how Bam would call it "swag". You were also the most attractive actress he had seen. Of course, you were also attractive when you weren't acting but on the screen... you were amazing. So Jinyoung tried to calm himself down rationalizing his earlier thoughts as simply being starstrucked. That’s what fans felt towards their idols, he was simply charmed by his own new idol. Yes that was it — that’s exactly the type of thoughts some fanboys or fangirls would have. He called Jackson anyway, he knew the designer was the right person to talk to in situations like this.

Twenty minutes later Jinyoung regretted ever calling his best friend.

"OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO IN LOVE WITH HER!" Jackson basically yelled to the phone. Jinyoung groaned and massaged the space between his brows.

"Were you even listening? I'm just a big fan."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night man. I’m a big fan of Christian Dior and all I can think of is making out with him."

"Don’t compare it, he is dead!" Jinyoung yelled and his friend filled his ear in response.

You were regretting not taking the car for shopping. The walk did help with your racing heart, and helped ease off your mind but it turned out the supermarket isn't that close any more when you have to drag home ten bags of food and products. Thankfully a convenience store was on your way so you could make a stop there maybe you'd be lucky enough to see Seoyun, buy her coffee and have a chat. You knew it was stupid, because she could've just feel obliged to say she is your fan but you still wanted to tell her about your new upcoming role. Sadly she wasn't there and so you just made a stop and sat on one of nearby benches. Massaging your palms that had those harsh red lines imprinted in them now thanks to the bags. You could swear you heard the sound of released shutter and so now alarmed you looked around but it seemed you were the only person here. You sighed, how paranoid have you become that you started hearing the cameras when there was none. Then again you were extremely lucky dispatch and paparazzi haven't found you yet. Just before you left to the USA, your ex gave this interview and your life became hell. You didn't have a day without paparazzi running after you or spying on you. The memories came to you not without acrimony and hurt. Your ex, an actor just like you, used you to create scandal and gain some popularity. You could remember how enraged and morose it made you. You didn't date anyone since then even when Mark tried to introduce you to some people. You intended on staying that way. You didn't need anyone, you had Mark, and he was enough for you. Just you and your best friend. You weren't sure how long you stayed like this, deep in your thoughts. You moved only after you fingers became stiff from cold. Somehow you managed to carry the groceries back home. You were so tired that you just counted it as your training today. You checked the time and it was one PM, perfect time to call your bestie.

"Markiee!!" You whined as soon as his face appeared on your screen.

"Y/N-ah. I miss you." He was wearing some blue hoodie this time.

"That's my line. Do you have time to talk?"

"Bruh, for you? Always. What's up?"

"I am going to star in a drama!"

"What? I thought you hate those." He was genuinely shocked.

"I know, I do. But this one is different. I'm not playing the villain I got female lead, and she isn't some damsel in distress she is a badass character!" You almost screamed and he chuckled.

"Woah. Someone's excited. I'm so proud of you. So who is getting the privilege to be cast with you?"

"I don't know yet. I'm supposed to meet the cast next week." He nodded his head and smiled. "Anyway what are you up to?"

"I was actually thinking of playing Among Us and streaming wanna join?" He grinned.

"Absolutely, prepare to get wrecked Tuan." You used to play together at least once a week when you were in the USA, his fans loved you and shipped you even though you both told them you were just friends — it is some rule in the internet though, to ship close friends.

Few hours later you were once again killed as the first person, this time by Mark.

"YOU GONNA REGRET IT WHEN WE’LL MEET TUAN. I SWEAR I’M GONNA WHOOP YO ASS..." You screamed on top of your lungs and Mark laughed wholeheartedly, while his chat filled up with hundreds of LOL’s and LUL’s.

"You guys she threatens me. Someone make a clip and send it to the police once they find my dead body." He kept laughing and you couldn’t help but laugh as well. His smile and laugh were just too contagious.

"You really put our friendship to test lately Tuan, here I was foolishly trusting you when you killed me in cold blood. " You stretched and your stomach rumbled reminding you that you haven’t eaten yet and it was already around four pm.

" Hey don’t hate the player, hate the game. " He shrugged and winked, while you rolled your eyes.

"Okay Mark, I gotta go and eat. It’s already afternoon here."

"Sure, chat say bye to Y/N." They did as he asked and it was soon filled with many hearts and goodbyes. "Love you Y/N! Call me soon." He grinned and you smiled warmly.

"Love you too Mark. Bye guys!" With that you logged off the discord, and switched off his stream. You make your way to the kitchen and took out the ingredients for kimchi jjigae you bought before. You carefully read the recipe opened on your phone and began cooking. You had to make anchovy stock first so you grabbed some dried anchovies, kelp and slashed the daikon in cubicles — it looked quite awkward as each cubicle was different size but hey it was you eating it not some kind of culinary critic. You added water and left it to boil deciding to take care of the rest of ingredients. You cut some kimchi and ate some as a snack and reward for not ordering food today, sliced some green onions, cut the pork and the tofu as well. By the time you were done it was time to strain the broth and add the rest of ingredients. It had to cook so you decided to watch some TV in the meantime. You turned it on, it was some kind of reality show where idols were supposed to camp in the wild for a few days. The idols clearly didn’t feel like being there and the fact you knew neither of them didn’t help. You dozed off before you noticed, your eyelids getting as heavy as iron. The smell of burning woke you up. You shot upwards from your couch and rushed to the kitchen, bumping into a coffee table on your way there.

"FFFFFF-UUCK." you hissed, when your shin pulsed with pain. You quickly grabbed the pot with stew to get it off the fire, forgetting it would be hot as well. You hissed in pain and let id drop on your marble floor which was now covered in burned kimchi and some other things. "Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking shit." You cursed as you tried to navigate to the sink to ease off the burn with some cold water. The cold water did help and you sighed with relief only to later follow it with a sigh of resignation. You had to clean up this mess. It was when your phone barked — a new message. You checked it.

From Unknown number: Are you trying to burn down the whole building?

You furrowed your brows confused, wondering if it was one of those jokes or spam messages you heard about.

To Unknown number: Who’s this?

From Unknown number: Guess.

You huffed in disbelief.

To Unknown number: Ok, enjoy being blocked.

From Unknown number: Wait!

From Unknown number: It’s Jinyoung.

To Unknown number: How did you get my number? Never mind I’m blocking you I’m too busy to deal with you.

With that you put the phone back in your pocket and began cleaning up. You finished in no time now tired out by scrubbing. You sat on the floor and took out your phone to check it out. From Unknown number: Don’t block me what if you need my help one day.

To Unknown number: With what exactly?

From Unknown number: What if you get stuck in your bathroom and need someone to let you out?

You rolled your eyes and saved his contact

To Devil: There is at least 7 billion more people I’d rather ask to help me

From Devil: Ok then what if I get stuck in the bathroom and need your help.

To Devil: I’d leave you there

From Devil: Heartless

To Devil: Better tell me how did you get my phone number

From Devil: You gave it to me when you scanned my kakao code

You were bewildered, was that his plan from the very beginning or were you just paranoid? You were either prejudiced or he was in fact the devil with angel's face.

To Devil: Did you lie about not remembering your account number?

From Devil: Maybe

You couldn’t believe it, the audacity, the smugness. You could feel irritation building inside you but you decide to let it go when your stomach rumbled at you aggressively. After eating you took shower, read a few chapters of The Vegetarian and fell asleep.

Next week passed quickly but in the feeling of anticipation as you were supposed to meet the rest of the cast as well as the scriptwriter and director at the meeting on Friday. You kept calling your manager throughout the week trying to find out who could they be, but he didn’t know anything or didn’t want to tell you. And so you spent the week on training, running, reading and occasionally calling Mark to express your impatience and excitement. You didn’t meet your irritating neighbor even once this week — something you counted as blessing or perhaps a sign that the universe finally turned your karma around. It was finally Friday and you were already sitting in the meeting room waiting for everyone to come in. You smiled at the young man sitting next to you, he was really cute and had this mole under his right eye it added to his charm. He was about to introduce himself, when someone came through the door and greeted everyone cheerfully. You couldn’t believe it. You were cursed, actually cursed.

"YOU?!" was all that left your mouth upon seeing him entering the room.

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dustofinsanity · 4 years

Text

𝐺𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑂𝑣𝑒𝑟

Yugyeom / Readerㅤ ㅤㅤFriends to loversㅤ ㅤㅤWords count: 4.4k

Summary: Sick of the game Yugyeom was playing with you, you decided to move on. But, losing you wasn't in his plan.

Content/Warning: Romance/Fluff, Angst.

Notes: Thank you soooooo much @jj-nyoung for correcting this fic that was literally dying in the list. 💜

Notes 2: Thank you papa owner, aka @defsenses, for saving my life and making the gif. 💜

Everytime you were thinking about the first day you met your best friend, a soft smile stretched your lips, replaying the scene in your mind, seeing this adorable little boy running to you in the park and telling your mom he would take care of your scratched knee like the little superhero he was. You would never forget your mother's chuckle and the serious expression on the boy's face when he was cleaning your small wound and applying a cartoon bandage on it. You never understood why this mini superhero stopped playing with his friends to help you but, since that day, you always felt blessed to have him in your life. With time, though, the little superhero turned into an annoying and teasing young man. Yugyeom became the kind of men you couldn't stand but it was stronger than you and you always forgave him for being such a pain in the ass almost all the time. Actually, your feelings were stronger than you. It sounded so cliché but yes, you were one of those people who fell in love with their best friend. He was the only person in this world to whom you could say what was on your heart and in your mind, all your secrets, or at least almost all considering you never had the courage to tell him what you were feeling for him. You spent all your school years watching him date a lot of girls, thinking that none of them deserved him. In the end you were right, since you saw your best friend coming back at you, saying he wasted his time once again. Deep inside, you wanted to tell him he wouldn't waste his time with you but you always retained yourself, just saying you would always be here for him. The more you were thinking about it, the more you were finding this situation stupid. It looked like a romantic but cheesy drama show, the kind of things you didn't really liked. But, a day, things seemed to get better and when Yugyeom asked if you would be okay to be his roommate, you thought it was your chance to show him the perfect girlfriend you could be for him. So you moved in with him... And that's when your nightmare started. You knew your best friend was a player, collecting one night stands as you were collecting miniature perfume bottles but you didn't know it was that bad. Two or three girls each week! You even ended comforting some of those girls, offering them tea and saying Yugyeom wasn't ready to start a serious relationship when he dumped them without any explanation. But, to be honest, you didn't know if he would be ready some day. Like your best friend told you during one of your movie nights, he didn't want to get hurt so he preferred one night stands, like that, he didn't take any risk. And, like you told him, it was stupid but you knew you couldn't change his mind as long as he was satisfied with this kind of life. This is why you were never surprised when you saw another girl cuddling with Yugyeom on the couch - when they weren't doing something else, upon arriving at home. "Sorry but who are you?" your best friend's soon-to-be one night stand asked with a hint of arrogance in her voice, looking at you from head to toe while you were walking to the open kitchen of your apartment. "We want to be alone." "Gyeom, could you tell your toys that I'm also living here when you take them home?" you sighed loudly, taking a glass of cold water and drinking it in one go. "Toys?!" she choked and stood up, coming angrily towards you. "Who the fuck do you think you are?!" "I think I'm the one who will break your knees and make you swallow your teeth if you don't watch your tone," you calmly answered, facing and giving her a fake smile. "What's wrong, honey?" Yugyeom finally spoke, coming to you and wrapping his arms around your waist, not giving any attention to the girl who was staring at both of you with eyes wide open. "Long day," you told him, closing your eyes and tilting a bit your head when he softly put a kiss on it. Not understanding what was going on, Yugyeom's "date" furiously picked up her stuff and started to walk to the front door when she noticed your best friend didn't try to stop her. His arms still around you, he told her from the kitchen it was nice to know her and wished her a good night before hearing the door slam. Even if you weren't sorry at all, you still apologised to your friend for ruining his plans but, putting his lips back against your head, Yugyeom told you not to mention it. You were far more important than that chick and a movie night with you always sounded better than anything else for him. A discreet chuckle parted your lips when you heard these words because you knew he meant them, you knew you were more important than those girls to him. You were his best friend, his lovely little woman, his honey like he always called you, his everything. Sometimes, he even told you he would date you if you weren't that perfect for him. And, everytime, it broke your heart a bit more. But, everytime, you forgave him for being this stupid handsome man and ended on the couch, nestled in his arms, listening to his heartbeat while a movie was playing on the TV and he slowly stroke your hair.

"And how long this shitty situation will last?" Jaebeom asked, sipping his beer at the counter while you were serving another bottle to Jinyoung. "Yugyeom can be really oblivious and he could take time before figuring out your feelings." "Take time?" Jinyoung repeated, chuckling. "I would say an eternity. We are talking about Yugyeom." "I really want to tell you to be nicer with him but... You're totally right," you sighed, taking a sip of your soda and making the three of you laugh. You really loved these men, they were like older brothers for you and always gave you pretty good advices, except when Jinyoung told you to kick Yugyeom's ass, though... Anyway! Even if they were Yugyeom's friends first, when they met you, they immediately welcomed you in the group and acted like if you were their mascot, protecting and taking care of you as if they knew you since forever. Jinyoung was the first to notice the feelings you had for your best friend and, patting your shoulder, told you it would be a long hard way before opening Yugyeom's eyes. He didn't want to discourage you but, like Jaebeom, he just wanted you to be happy and not waste your time for someone who couldn't see how nice and sweet you were. "So, how long will you endure this?" Jaebeom asked once again, giving you a kind of concerned look. You slightly opened your mouth to answer you would talk with Yugyeom about the situation and your feelings when your best friend entered the bar, a large smile on his lips, waving at the three of you. You felt your heart race in your chest when he sat next to his friends but it broke as soon as Seolhyun, your beautiful new co-worker, joined you to ask how she could cancel an order on the cash desk, apologising for the inconvenience. You never saw Yugyeom looking at a woman like that, you never saw that many stars in his mesmerizing eyes. At this moment, you knew what you had to do and, before following the young woman to show her how to cancel that order, you looked at Jinyoung and Jaebeom. "It ends today."

Another day went and you found yourself alone in your new studio, watching a horror movie you probably watched a hundred times before, eating some junk food and thinking about your last disastrous date. After that day at the bar, Yugyeom asked you to introduce him to Seolhyun and, heartbroken, you accepted, knowing your co-worker was, after all, a nice woman. They started dating and, after almost a month, when you noticed Seolhyun was spending a lot of time at your apartment and when it became too hard to handle for you, you decided to move out, renting a small studio alone, not far away from your workplace. Caught off guard, Yugyeom didn't understand why you wanted to move away from him so suddenly, asking if he did something wrong, promising you not to do it again, breaking your heart even more without knowing it. Faking an amused smile like a pro, you told him you just wanted to give him space since he was, visibly, in a serious relationship, adding he could always come at your place anytime he wanted, giving him a spare key of your apartment. At first, you thought that living alone would help you moving on, to forget the feelings you had for your best friends, you really wished that. You even tried to date some men who, you had to admit, were as handsome, smart and funny. But there was a problem... They weren't Yugyeom. All your dates have led to nothing and, in the end, you ended staying just friends with these guys. Thinking about it, you believed it was better like that, you didn't want to use them to forget your long one-sided love, they didn't deserve that. On his side, your best friend was kind of living the same thing. Seolhyun made him happy but not like you did. She didn't smile like you would when he was coming back home. She didn't sigh like you did when he kissed the side of her head. The contact of her skin wasn't as sweet as yours even if his girlfriend's skin had nothing wrong. Seolhyun wasn't you and, day after day, it became a bit too hard to handle for the young man. "Hey, Gyeom, what's up?" you friendly asked when you picked up his call. "I miss you," he pouted on the other end of the line. "I want to see you." "We just saw each other three hours ago," you chuckled, sitting onto your couch, a cup of hot chocolate in your free hand. "Take Seolhyun on a romantic date. I can give you some good addresses if you want to." "I broke up with her," he dropped, hearing you gasp slightly and chuckling discreetly at how your face would look like at the moment. "She's cool but I think I didn't really love her. So! Now she won't come here anymore, you can come back!" Your heart dropped in your chest, weighing like a rock and making you suffer like it never did before. Of course, you wanted to come back. Of course, you wanted to run in Yugyeom's arms and spend other long movie nights snuggled against his chest. Of course, you wanted to be by his side. But, you couldn't, it was too hard for you and you promised not to fall into this again. Slightly, you sighed and then told him you preferred to stay at yours, lying about the fact you liked your studio. Clenching his teeth and pretending he understood, Yugyeom agreed, asking what you were doing the day after and proposing a movie night together since you didn't spend one together since he started dating your co-worker. "I'm pretty busy that week," you lied once again, not wanting to tell him you planned a few dates with a guy, Kim Sangjin, that Jinyoung introduced to you a few days ago. "I'll call you as soon as I have time, I promise," you sadly smiled before wishing him a good night and hanging up. Your phone in your hand, you looked at your lock screen - a picture of Yugyeom and you - letting your tears roll down your cheeks without trying to hold them when your best friend's name popped up. Gyeom: I know you will come back at home. You can't live without me. Love you, honey. It was stronger than you and you threw your phone against the wall, seeing it explode against the wallpaper. You promised yourself that, if you couldn't move on, you at least wouldn't fall into that shitty situation again, you wouldn't fall deeper for Yugyeom but your heart was deciding otherwise. The joy in his voice when he said you could come back was echoing in your head. His words, that were absolutely true, were flashing before your eyes. He was right, you couldn't live without him but you had no choice.

Jaebeom and Jinyoung were sipping their beers at the counter and waiting for their girlfriends when, putting back his bottle on the varnished wood, Jaebeom asked his friend if he thought you would gave a chance to date Sangjin after everything you have been going through because of Yugyeom. "Honestly, I don't know," Jinyoung shrugged, putting his bottle next his friend's. "I think it will take time for her to forget this idiot but I really hope she will managed to do it. Y/n is a good girl, she deserves to be happy and move on. I don't know if she will give Sangjin his chance but if he can help her forget about Yugyeom, she should give it a chance." "Why would Y/n want to forget me?" Yugyeom suddenly asked behind his friends, frowning. "And who is Sangjin?" "Because you're a fucking idiot," Jaebeom sighed without turning to the youngest and took a sip of his beer. "And Sangjin could be Y/n's future boyfriend with a little luck," Jinyoung added, imitating his best friend. "Where are they?" Jaebeom asked why Yugyeom wanted to know where he could find you but your best friend cut him off, forcing him to turn around and face him while growling at the elders to tell him where you were. "Don't you think she's suffered enough because of you?" Jinyoung asked, glaring at Yugyeom. "You're so stupid and blind that you never saw the feelings she's always had for you." "Now that she can be happy, you want to ruin it?" Jaebeom added, taking off Yugyeom's hand from his shoulder. "You don't deserve her." "Please. Just tell me where they are," Yugyeom almost begged, head down, his lower jaw shaking slightly. "I just want to talk to her." The two elders looked at each other, a brow raised and gave in with a sigh. Telling their younger not to make you suffer once again or they would come after him, they told him he could find you in a coffee shop four blocks from the bar. Immediately, Yugyeom left the bar and ran to your dating place, hoping there was still a chance. Hoping he still had a chance. In the coffee shop, next to the window that allowed people to watch the street life, you were waiting for Sangjin. He sent you a text ten minutes ago, saying he would be late for your third date because there was a little emergency with one of his friends. When you read his message, you couldn't help but chuckle, thinking about how many people would take this kind of message pretty badly, while you were just understanding and answering that there wasn't any problem and you would wait for him. If you had to be honest, and even if you tried your best to make things work with Sangjin, deep inside, you knew you would never fall in love with him. Although he was nice and funny, he was still missing something, something you always looked for in men and that only Yugyeom had. You couldn't say what but you knew it was the reason why you couldn't love someone else than your best friend. Even if you promised yourself, Jaebeom and Jinyoung, not to let anyone make you suffer ever again, lately, you couldn't not think about your last movie night with Yugyeom. Not wanting him to feel put aside or left behind, you agreed to one of those Wednesday nights and as usual, it was great. Well, no, it wasn't as usual and it wasn't great. It was different, almost perfect. When you were both living together, it wasn't unusual that you ended in each other arms, cuddled on the couch, kissed each other’s forehead or, sometimes, even shared the same bed. And these mornings were the best. You loved opening your eyes and seeing his face inches aways from yours, a slight smile stretching his lips. Damn you wanted to kiss him every single time! But, on that Wednesday night, you didn't sleep at Yugyeom's, you just spent the night watching a movie you already saw a lot of times but still liked, nestled in his arms, your head on his chest while his chin was on the top of your head and his fingers softly running along your arm. Even if you already spent a hundred of nights like this one, that night seemed different, Yugyeom seemed different. His touch, his voice, his heartbeat or the way he was looking at you. Everything seemed different. A long sigh parting your lips, you tried to throw your thoughts away when the door of the coffee shop opened. Raising your head up with a smile on your lips, you were expecting to see Sangjin but the man who walked to your table wasn't him. He was the one you wanted to forget. "What are you-" you started to ask when Yugyeom picked up your bag and grabbed your wrist, forcing you to stand up and leave the place while everyone's eyes were on you. He wasn't listening to you, bringing you away from the coffee shop with his fingers tightly gripped around your wrist and anger in his eyes. "It hurts, Gyeom!" you shouted, taking off your arm from his grip and massaging it, making your best friend turn to you, mouth slightly open. "What's wrong with you? Are you crazy?!" "Who's that Sangjin?" Yugyeom almost growled, trying to hide the pain in his voice. "Did you avoid me because of him?" "Gyeom, it's not what-" "Tell me!" "I'm not avoiding you, It's just that-" "That you want to forget me for this bastard?!" he cut you off once again, a mix of so many feelings in his voice. "Do you want to date him? Really?" "Let me finish, please," you sighed, lowering your head and swallowing. "I'm tired, Gyeom, I really am. I'm tired of our game, I'm tired to play the perfect best friend when I want to be more than that. I want someone who really loves me, I want someone who can give me the affection and attention I need. There was a time I thought you could be that person," you told him, raising your head and looking straight into his beautiful eyes without noticing the tears that were escaping from yours. "But I was wrong. I loved you, Gyeom, I loved you with all my heart and, somehow, I always will but I can’t play this game anymore. It hurts too much." Softly, you cupped his face between your hands and, tip-toeing, put a chaste kiss on his lips, whispering you wished him to be happy before turning and leaving.

Standing in front of the countertop while making your daily smoothie and bobbing your head to the rhythm of the music playing in the living room, you didn't notice the young man coming behind you until he wrapped an arm around your waist and landed a hand on your left hip. Softly, he nuzzled his nose in your neck, his wet hair dripping on your shoulder and water running down your spine. You couldn't help but shiver and closed your eyes, tilting your head on the side where he put a kiss right behind your ear. "Smells good," the young man whispered before sinking into your neck once more. "What are you making tonight?” "Banana, red berries and, as always, rice milk," you listed, dropping all the fruits in the blender before adding the healthy drink. "Your ears." You knew he didn't really like the sound of the household appliance but, instead of putting his hands on his ears, he covered yours, making you chuckle slightly. As soon as the smoothie was ready to be poured in the glasses, your boyfriend wrapped his arm around your middle again and released a low growl when your phone vibrated in your shorts’ back-pocket. You both knew who was texting you. The man behind you didn't like the fact you were receiving messages from a guy, especially this one and, trying to keep his anger to himself, asked if he could finally leave you alone. "Be nice with him, please. He just misses me," you slightly chuckled, hitting his ribs playfully with your elbow. "He was late, he lost." "Actually, you were late," you reminded him, giving your boyfriend a quick look before focusing on the glasses you were filling. "He almost succeeded, by the way. I really wanted to go back to him." "But you didn't," he replied, tightening his grip around your waist. "And he's pretty mad at you about that," you couldn't help but laugh when he told you the other man could come after him and that he would fight and win anyway. "That's a pretty good idea. Your bodies covered by sweat while you would be both fighting for me. Oh, I’m shivering!" You laughed once again when your boyfriend playfully sunk his teeth into your skin and softly slapped your left cheek before squeezing it through the fabric of your shorts. Whispering he would wait for you on the balcony, he brought two slices of the apple pie you cooked that day and left the kitchen, starting to eat his share on his way. Smoothies in hands, you joined him a few seconds later and sat next to him in the two persons egg chair, your legs on his lap. Raising an eyebrow, your boyfriend wondered why you weren't answering to the other man’s text but you replied your friend could wait. "Do you regret, sometimes?" he shyly asked, looking straight as you, concerne visible in his eyes. "Oh! Each day of my life," you teased before coming closer to him and sat on his lap, your left arm wrapped around his neck. "Why do you think I would regret?" "Like you said, you really wanted to go back to him." "But you left me no choice and I'm glad you did," you smiled, leaving a sweet kiss on his lips before pulling away slowly and look at him, softly removing a few strands of hair away from his face. "I'm glad you came back home, honey." Biting your lower lip while a smile stretched the corners of your mouth, you couldn't help but think about that day once again. Your heart broke a little every time Yugyeom's face - when you left him at this street corner - appeared in your mind. You remembered how your tears flooded your cheeks and how it was impossible for you to hold them back. After what happened, you couldn't go back to the coffee shop for your date with Sangjin so, hands shaking like leaves, you sent him a text saying - or rather lying, that you were starting to feel sick when you were waiting for him and went back home. You didn't remember how many tissues you used that night, crying onto your couch, trying to understand why it was happening to you, but you remembered the trash you put next to the coffee table was full. So many questions were turning in loop in your head but the most important one was: Why did you reject Yugyeom like that when he finally seemed to share your feelings? Or.. did he really shared them or was he just afraid to lose you? Angry about not having any answer, you screamed into a pillow when the doorbell rang. Without moving, you asked who was coming that late and your eyes widened when you recognized Yugyeom's voice. "Open the door, Y/n." "You have a spare key," you replied, hoping he wouldn't use it. "Please, open that door." A long sigh parting your lips, you stood up and, as he wanted, opened the door, immediately noticing his red and puffy eyes. He cried, maybe as much as you. "Was it really a game for you?" Yugyeom asked, swallowing. "It seemed to be," you answered slowly, lowering your head. "Then game over," the young man replied, quickly cupping your face in-between his hands and pulling you into a feverish kiss. Bewildered, you pushed him away, looking straight at him with your mouth slightly open. What just happened? Frowning, you stared at him when you saw the discreet smile he was trying to hold back. "If it's another ga-" "I told you, honey," he cut you off, making a step towards you. "Game over. I don't want to play anymore, not with you." Heart racing in your chest, you couldn't give any other answer than kiss him back, your arms tightly wrapped around his neck while his were around your waist, pulling you as close as he could. "Would you open the door if someone else came that night?" Yugyeom asked, pulling you out of your thoughts and knowing exactly what you were thinking about. "I don't know. Would you use your key if I didn't?" you asked back, frowning when you saw him shook his head as a no. "Why?" "Because if you didn't open that door, I would understand I had no chance to have you back," he honestly answered, tucking one of your locks behind your ear. "But I'm glad you did." Smiling, you nodded, making him understand you were glad too by letting him pull you into a sweet kiss.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ⁓•⁓ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ Thank you for reading! 💜 ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ⁓•⁓

#kim yugyeom #kim yugyeom scenarios #kim yugyeom imagines #yugyeom #yugyeom scenarios #yugyeom imagines #got7 #got7 scenarios #got7 imagines #got7 kim yugyeom #got7 yugyeom #feedback is always appreciated

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arecomicsevengood · 3 years

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Notes On The Dirty Plotte Box Set

Kind of embarassing I haven’t really dug into Julie Doucet and Dirty Plotte but that’s just how things go sometime. Maybe growing up a reader of superhero comics Doucet felt like the deeper end of the alternative pool, offering zero concessions to the kind of kid I was. I think the first Drawn And Quarterly comic I bought when I was in high school was their reprint of Ed Brubaker and Jason Lutes’ The Fall. And then when I wanted to look into it, in college, I think I was confused because the book I’d heard was good, “Lift My Leg My Fish Is Dead” is actually the English translation of a book that’s title is in French. Dream comics and autobio continue to sound unappealing, as pitches, and then by that point I think there was also sorta fancy artbook stuff coming out. It’s been an overwhelming or confusing prospect for quite some time. Now, what’s available is this big box set: Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet, two hardcovers in a slipcase, for me to place on my bookshelf next to the Gary Panter Picturebox set. It’s a big-ticket purchase, but justifiable on account of how much crap I buy for cheap I end up not enjoying as much I would hope. (Also currently you can find discounted versions. but it might go out of print at some point.)

It turns out to be a pretty good format to read it in. I haven’t read The Complete Eightball hardcover, but I have a bunch of Clowes books — Caricature, Ghost World, Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, Twentieth Century Eightball —- that work great. I’m not certain if Doucet’s books work as well. The only one I’d read before this is The Madame Paul Affair, which is incredibly short. From what I can tell reading this, My New York Diary is also really short, but it also depicts her drawing comics that had run in the series years before, and I feel like it makes the most sense to read them in close proximity to each other.

Of course, once you start grouping the My New York Diary material with the work drawn during the time period depicted, you isolate out the intervening work, done after the move to Seattle but before the creating of a longer autobio work. Issue 8, for example, which had pages by other artists — J Bradley Johnson, Jeff Johnson — that are not reprinted here, which is fine and understandable, even if those are two artists whose work I wish was more accessible. It’s weirder to me to not include the back covers other artists did for two issues, so the glossy stock just goes to blank pages. The second book in the slipcase includes a lot of testimonials on Doucet’s work by other artists and ephemera like a letter from Gary Panter asking for a page for an anthology that never came out. I guess what’s a bummer about this is this element of “history being written by the winners” where people who are successful now get to say this work was important, but the people who were Doucet’s peers (or that she was championing, offering a platform to) don’t get a seat at the table in the canonization process. It is cool that John Porcellino is in here from having struck up a correspondence during the late eighties zine days and now he’s at Drawn And Quarterly. They try to sell John Porcellino as being similar to Chris Ware and that’s funny to me.

It’s also funny framing Dirty Plotte as the first solo comic book D+Q put out when it’s so much more wild than most if not all of what they currently publish. In that context, the luxury-item production values seem weirder, like it’s walling the work off, or pitching it to art museum gift shops whereas their other books go to Barnes And Noble. I would like this work to be accessible to the next generation of burgeoning young artists but I think there’s an unspoken understanding that zoomers would not tolerate, like… Doucet advertising a back issue of Answer Me on a back cover. While these are explicitly feminist comics and there’s a back-cover blurb by Kathleen Hanna it’s also firmly in the tradition of underground comics whose legacy of transgression people are uncomfortable with. Still, while I might bemoan the sense that embracing the bookstore market was a mistake because actual “alternative” voices aren’t embraced, Dan Nadel’s lengthy introduction did remind me that the most successful alt-comics were sold in record stores, including the chain Tower Records, and that’s not a viable path anymore. He does mention PJ Harvey as a part of the nineties feminist alt-cultural moment — I would like to directly compare Doucet’s frequent castration references to this appearance of PJ Harvey getting laughs from Jay Leno’s Tonight Show audience.

Doucet’s comics themselves are great. I don’t really feel qualified to write about them. But they read well. It really does feel like a modern take on classic comic newspaper strips, in terms of what the sense of humor is vs. how it’s conveyed in this detailed cartooning. I love the deep focus foregrounds, I love the occasional silhouettes. Good inky drawings. This is maybe a shitty criteria to judge a cartoonist by but out of all the big-name high-profile nineties alt-comics cartoonists Doucet seems like the only one who could do a good Paper Rodeo page. The earlier stuff looks like Anke Feuchtenberger.

I want to read Renee French’s pre-Grit-Bath minicomic Sociopath. Sounds dope.

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gh0stiegirlie · 4 years

Text

Synopsis: You have been a pro-hero for the past three years, and a damn good one too (although, you don’t think so). When you and Ground Zero are assigned on a stakeout case together to capture a member of the Dark Akumu, which is currently Musutafu's most threatening Villian League, it changes the entire course of your career-- and your life.

Length: 1.6k words

a/n: YOOOO the bitch is back better than ever after two years, and super into my hero academia. this is going to be a multiple parter series, so I hope this is a great lil pilot!

pt. 2 ->

The feeling of civilian eyes analyzing your every move is nothing new; You are a pro-hero, after all. However, the feeling of Ground Zero glaring daggers into you as you enter the sheriff’s office is a new-- and rather unsettling --experience.

“Welcome, Ether.” Sheriff Chie greets and gestures for you to take a seat in her office’s beaten-down spinny chair. “I have a very special case for you tomorrow night.”

“I’m all ears,” you shift awkwardly in the chair, trying to get comfortable. The number of times you and other heroes have sat in this shitty chair and listened to the Sheriff explain a convoluted plan to capture a villain was innumerable. Although, you guess the number is in the hundreds. At least.

“We’ve had a lesser-known pro-hero go undercover, and they were able to join the intermediate group of Dark Akumu. They’ve disclosed that during pro-agencies weekly wrap-ups with their heroes this Friday, they will be attacking several meetings. But, they can’t attack without supplies.” she continues pacing around her office, although she has nowhere to go. Her office is an inadequate size for the amount of time and effort she puts into her job, and every hero here knows she deserves a bigger space for her ideas of grandeur to fester-- and a raise in her salary, too. But since pro-heroes are the ones publicly capturing villains and doing the true “labor”, you’re the ones who receive the fame, glory, and money. Police officers no longer receive the credit they deserve, and some even believe they're no longer necessary. But Sheriff Chie is an example of why the police industry is still breathing within the tight confinements pro-heroes wrapped them in; they love representing and protecting the quirkless people of the world, and society needs that. Even if it doesn’t realize it. “Tomorrow night, the Dark Akumu will have their leader's right-hand man, Youkai, collect a shipment from a smaller underground group.” She slams her hands down on his desk with enthusiasm and points at you. “That’s when you and Ground Zero come in.”

You push yourself away from the desk in shock. “Katsuki Bakugou?” You exclaim, spinning around in your chair to face the door. You stare out the small window into the police department. “I haven’t spoken to him since high school…” you trail off, remembering his bitterly cold gaze from a few minutes ago. It looked like he was trying to ignite an explosion inside your intestines. After a few moments of reflecting, you turn to face Sheriff Chie. “Why us?”

“Your powers aid each other well,” she responds simply. “The two of you will stakeout until both parties arrive for the trade. The combination of your compatible powers with the element of surprise,” she grins, “you two will be unstoppable, and capture Youkai in a matter of seconds.”

“It’s a great plan, Chie, really. All your plans are.” you begin, “But I think you’re underestimating our foes here. Yeah, they only have one villain collecting the supplies, but still. This is currently Musutafu’s most threatening villain league. He's not going down without a fight. And by fight, I mean a full-on battle.”

The Sheriff scoffs. “You underestimate yourself, Ether. Ground Zero holds more confidence in you than you do,” she explains with a wink. You turn away once more, so she can’t see the pink blush encompassing your cheeks.

“You know Bakuguh—uh—Ground Zero and I haven’t spoken since U.A. Even then, we scarcely interacted. Except for a brawl or two.” You twirl a piece of h/c hair that fell out of your high ponytail. “It’s true that our quirks complement each other. So how come we’ve never been paired up before? Why now?” You question.

Chie simply replies with a shrug. “There’s never been a need for two of the most powerful modern heroes to pair up; Now there’s a demand for that exact role. And you two have been selected to fulfill it.” You shift in your chair uncomfortably and avoid Chie's imploring brown eyes. She puts a hand on your shoulder. “Cmon, Skylar. I understand you have a… difficult past with Ground Zero, but I’m asking you as a protector of people and as your friend to please try and look past that. At least for one night. The city needs you. ” Sheriff Chie pleads, and she’s right. You hang your head in your hands before running one through your hair. Then, you spin around with perfect posture and a humbling smile on your face. You respectfully nod your head at Sheriff Chie.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. You’re right. I’m sure Ground Zero and I are old enough to move on from our past together and instead focus on our future. Thank you.”

The Sheriff's proud grin is contagious, and you can’t help but smile in satisfaction with her plan. As you are about to leave the office, Chie stops you. “Before you go! I want to talk to you as your friend, not a sheriff.” You walk over to her desk and lean in close. “Hero Ground Zero was also somewhat… displeased, when he heard you were his partner. Just... Try not to fall... deeper, into his bad side. He'll lure you in, but you have to be smarter. And you are.”

“But... does he even have a good side?” You joke, and Chie chuckles.

“I know, right! With every passing second he spent in my office he looked more and more like an angry balloon ready to pop. I think his head just holds tons of hot air that he can only release by yelling at someone or punching something.”

“It felt like he spent all of high school searching for a reason two do one of those things! Someone could walk by him the “wrong way” and he would get offended.” You laugh, holding tightly onto your aching sides.

These are the moments with Sheriff Chie you cherish; the one when you two aren’t head sheriff and pro-hero, but Chie and Skylar. Normal people, normal friends.

After laughing over Ground Zero's unnecessarily aggressive attitude towards literally everything to the point of rolling around her modest office and bumping into shelves and knocking down paperwork, you decide it’s time to leave. You hug on the way out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at three pm sharp. I’ll briefly explain the mission again, and you two will be on your way shortly after.” You nod, and as you walk away Chie calls out from her office, “Oh! And we’ll be providing some spicy food!! The least we can do for our favorite heroes.”

You giggle and shake your head, sending a quick wave in Chie's direction as you continue to the exit. Before you leave, you glance at the spot Ground Zero was sitting in earlier. All that remains of the hero is a minor burn from his butt, presumably after growing impatient from sitting down for too long. Surprisingly, you smile at the thought. Ground Zero must not have changed much since U.A. While part of you dreads working alongside that hothead of a hero, another half appears eager to see what he's like as a pro.

It has only been a few years since you graduated with Bakugou and the rest of class 3-A at the age of seventeen. You're only twenty one now, but you feel like you've lived through three lives since high school, not three years. While the school had prepared you well for the fighting villains part of pro-hero life, they hadn’t prepared you for the physical and emotional consequences. As mentioned, you're barely twenty-one, but you're a regular at the doctor and chiropractor. You bare a heavy burden of having to execute everything perfectly all the time; no room for casualties. Because of this stress on saving every person, along with all your brand deals and sponsorships, you hardly maintain a life outside of work. While you love what you do, you miss meeting with friends at a coffee shop in the morning only to shop at the mall until midnight. You miss cuddling up with your Midnight plushie at 10 o’clock and watching superhero documentaries till the crack of dawn. Now, you are the one protecting those friends lounging around in coffee shops and malls, and the hero starring in documentaries. You truly love it all; You love digging your nose deep into Chemistry books and studying chemicals to create new toxins. You love protecting essential workers from the terrors of those who use their quirks for evil, and consequently beating the shit out of those people. But sometimes, you wish you were another bystander.

As a kid, you watched in awe as the heroes fought tirelessly, day and night, to always flawlessly beat the villain. But actually doing that, especially without complaints, is more difficult than you ever comprehended.

You park your Toyota Supra outside one of your perks of being a top ten pro hero. Currently, you live in a 1286112000.00 yen mansion and recently bought a 5358800000.00 yen estate. You were to begin moving next week and considered holding a little gathering at your new home in Tokyo as an excuse to hang out with your pro-hero 3-A classmates.

When you lock the front door, that’s when the isolation consumes you. Vast linoleum halls and long vinyl walls form a repetitive, meandering maze in your home. The only company you have are the halls that are starting to fill with donation boxes. There is one similarity between you and this house you are preparing to abandon; You both are empty on the inside.

You shuffle your way onto your velvet sofa and turn on the TV, ensuring to avoid the news. While mindless cartoons play in the background, you take out your phone and read every Google result for Ground Zero.

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pedal-mail · 4 years

Text

@kiingcorobo got an ask last night for an absolutely beautiful au idea, and through a series of anon, the See No Evil au was made! And,,,,I couldn’t not write something for it. So! Here you go lads!

TW: Graphic descriptions of violence, murder, lots of mentions of child abuse, there’s a suggestive part, and a really dumb ending.

“Shh...shh, you’re alright now. It’s okay. You are safe. You never have to see her again. You are safe.”

“Th-thank you...thank you!”

“Of course. You never have to see her again Putunia.”

“When are the cops gonna be here?”

“Soon...I have to take you back to my apartment.”

“Why?”

“Cops are very unfair. They might try to make you do things you don’t want to.”

“Oh…”

“Would you like to come with me?”

“You promise I’ll be safe?”

“Yes. Pinkie promise?”

“Pinkie promise.”

***

“Kamal, we’ve got a case for you.” Kamal looked up excitedly from his paperwork. Even something as simple as petty theft would be better than this. His boss put a file on his desk, and he quickly flipped through it. “First degree murder. Some sicko murdered a woman in her home, and her daughter is missing. It’s...it’s pretty safe to assume the kid didn’t make it.” Kamal bit his lip. He felt a little bad about being excited for this.

“Alright. Well...I’ll need to get to the scene of the crime and-”

“Not so fast Bora.” Kamal bristled. It was never a good thing when his boss used his last name. “We’re putting you with a partner for this.”

“What?!?” Kamal yelped, almost falling out of his chair. “I work alone, you know that!”

“Kamal, please. You say it like you’re some lone wolf. We all know you’re just terrified of interacting with new people,” his boss said, chuckling. Kamal frowned, but stood up.

“Fine. Where are they?” He asked. His boss gestured to him to follow him, and he led his through the station to the front.

Kamal’s eyes widened as he spotted his partner for the case. He was a ridiculously tall man, he looked absolutely cramped in the shitty plastic chairs they had in the lobby. Kamal swallowed. He’d never been the tallest guy, and he was easily intimidated. Well, he was when he wasn’t in the field. His boss led him right over to the guy.

“Boris Habit, meet Kamal Bora. He’s our top investigator.” Kamal held his hand out, and Habit shook it excitedly.

“It is good to meet you Kamal! I look forward to working with you!” He said. Kamal frowned.

“Look, just call me Bora,” he said. Habit’s smile faltered, but he nodded. “So...what exactly do you do?”

“I’m a dentist!” Habit said, grinning at Kamal. Kamal just stared for a moment, before turning to his boss.

“You wanna run that by me again?” He asked, sort of to both of them.

“Habit is a forensic odontologist. There were several bite marks at the scene of the crime and on the victim’s body. He can help you out with those.” Kamal nodded and turned back to Habit.

“Well...just don’t get in the way,” Kamal said. He gripped the file tightly and made his way towards the door.

“O-oh! Okay!” Habit said, hopping up to follow him. Kamal’s boss shook his head, but smiled.

“Those two sure are a pair…” he muttered.

***

“Alright, there’s gonna be a lot of blood. Along with bite marks there were also plenty of bash wounds and…” Kamal swallowed. “Oh god. One of her arms was removed with excessive force.” Habit winced and Kamal swallowed again. “Okay...that’s terrifying. I’m gonna have to be very careful when we track down someone…”

“We will have to be careful,” Habit corrected. Kamal frowned.

“Wait, I thought you were just working from a lab?” He asked. Habit smiled again.

“I will do more of my work from there, but I have also been told to help you in the field! I can tell someone’s dental history from a quick glance, you probably cannot tell a molar from an incisor!” Habit said, chuckling slightly. Kamal frowned.

“Well, I certainly can’t tell someone’s dental history from a mile away, but I know my way around teeth. This isn’t the first case I’ve done that involved them,” he said. Habit nodded absentmindedly.

“Then perhaps you should take care of your own teeth better,” he mumbled. Kamal glared at him as he pulled up in front of the apartment building that was the scene of the crime.

“Well, coffee and cigarettes does that to you,” he said, before getting out of the car.

He chuckled as he watched Habit struggle to get out of the car. Habit was a big enough guy that even an average sized car like Kamal’s was hard for him to navigate. He watched as Habit tried a couple different angles, before finally managing to pry himself from the car. “Real graceful Habit,” Kamal teased.

“Yes...thank you,” Habit said. He seemed distracted by the apartment building. “This...this is my building.” Kamal jumped.

“Wait, seriously?” Kamal asked. “Where do you live?”

“Fifth floor, room 506,” Habit replied. Kamal nodded.

“Crime was on the second floor. It makes sense you didn’t know about it in progress. Did you not notice the police on the way out this morning?” The whole apartment building was crawling with police officers.

“Of course I did! I just...well, this isn’t the nicest neighborhood,” Habit said. Kamal nodded, and started making his way through the police tape. Most of the other cops recognized him, so he just had to explain that Habit was with him before they let them through.

Kamal opened the door to the apartment, 211, and stepped inside. The front room didn’t look so bad, but he immediately smelled something like copper. Habit was right behind him, and he seemed to also smell it. Neither of them said anything as they made their way into the living room. Kamal felt his stomach roil at the sight before him.

A woman was lying face down on the carpeted floor. Almost the entire carpet was stained red, only the tail corners the beige it had originally been. The woman’s arm was lying next to her, completely severed. Not cleanly with a weapon either, jagged and violent with force. Her body was covered in bite marks, all of them large. Kamal took a small step forward, looking around the room.

“Okay. I’m gonna look around the room for evidence. You get to work on the bite marks on the body,” Kamal said. Habit nodded and went over to crouch beside the body. Kamal watched for a moment as he pulled some tools from his pockets, which Kamal hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. He only watched for a moment, before setting about looking around.

About half the blood had dried, and all of it would have if there hadn’t been so damn much of it. Kamal looked around for potential weapons that could’ve been used, since the body had bash wounds as well. He looked around the room, and his eyes landed on a modern looking brass desk lamp. It was bent slightly. Kamal went over to it and looked it over. The lightbulb was shattered. “Habit, are there any cuts around any of the bash wounds?” He asked. There was a moment of silence before Habit spoke.

“Yes! How did you figure it out?” Habit voice was filled with awe, and Kamal had to force down a smile.

“The lightbulb in this lamp is shattered, and the lamp itself is bent. Only slightly though, this must be a pretty sturdy thing.” Kamal leaned in to get a closer look at the lamp. “Oh...shit…” he muttered.

“What?” Habit asked, standing.

“It’s not brass. It’s gold. I...I can’t tell if it’s gold finish or solid gold. Gold finish would be better, and more likely. I hope it’s that…”

“Why does it matter?” Habit asked. Kamal turned to look at him, unamused.

“Have you ever done this before?” He asked. Habit looked nervous for a moment.

“Only once. I usually work for morgues.” Kamal nodded. “And the other guy I worked with wasn’t anywhere near as smart as you.” Kamal tried not to blush.

“Well...thanks…” he muttered. Habit just grinned. “Anything coming with the body?”

“The bite marks are too shallow for a good model of the teeth. But the perpetrator is missing a few teeth on their right side. But...they oddly have more teeth than average,” Habit said. Kamal nodded.

“At least that’s incredibly specific. Both good and bad.”

“How so?”

“Well, when we find them, there probably won’t be much doubt about if we’re right. But...it’s probably gonna take a while to find them,” Kamal said. Habit nodded. “Did you look at the arm?”

“Excessive force,” Habit said. “Whoever this was, they were very very strong. Possibly inhumanly so.” They both shuddered. “Is there anything else?”

“Well, we’ve got to find out if this is actually gold or not. And...I want to see the little girl’s room,” Kamal said.

“Little girl?” Habit asked.

“Yeah. The woman’s daughter is missing. She’s...she’s assumed dead.” Kamal shook his head. “But I’m not giving up. She isn’t legally dead until twenty years from now, and even if the odds aren’t good, I’m holding on to that.” Habit nodded.

The two of them looked through the rooms in the apartment. Kamal stepped inside each one and had a quick look around. They stopped in a room that was decorated with tons of cartoon posters and action figures. They both stepped inside and looked around. Kamal looked through the closet, and under the bed. He frowned at what he found under the bed. A little nook filled with toys and a small diary.

“Oh god...Putunia…” Habit whispered. Kamal stood, the diary in hand, and turned to Habit. Habit was holding a superhero’s mask, running his thumb over it. “Not Putunia…”

“You knew her?” Kamal asked. Habit nodded. “I...I’m sorry.”

“She was so full of energy…”

“She is.” Habit turned to Kamal, and Kamal realized there were tears in his eyes. “Don’t cry. She’s not dead.”

“But-”

“Most people like to look on the down side of things with cases like this. So they can be pleasantly surprised. I’d rather keep my optimism, and then be disappointed,” Kamal said. “Believe what you’d like, but in my books, she isn’t dead til we find a body. Okay?” Habit nodded and smiled slightly, even as a few tears rolled down his cheeks. “I found a diary. I’m guessing it’s hers. Wanna tell me a little about her?”

“Well...she has just turned eight,” Habit said, as the two of them exited the apartment. “She invited me to her birthday party. I didn’t want to interrupt her and her friends though.” He chuckled. “I do not know why she latched onto me so tightly. Perhaps it is because she does not have a father?” Habit shrugged. “All I know is that she was full of energy and always so excited about everything. I...I really hope she’s okay.”

“We’re going to help her Habit,” Kamal said. He reached up and pat Habit’s arm. “We’re gonna help her as best as we can. We’ll find her. I’m sure of it.”

***

“I have looked through all my medical records. I cannot find anyone with teeth who fit the bite mark,” Habit said as he entered Kamal’s office. Kamal nodded.

It’d been two days since they’d looked through the apartment. Kamal hated not being able to do anything, especially when there was a little girl in danger, but he had to give Habit time to go over his medical records. And...apparently, that hadn’t led to anything. “I know doctor patient confidentiality is important, but I believe the police overcome that. We can ask other dentists in the area.” Kamal nodded again. “Are you alright?”

“I read the diary,” he said. Habit nodded. “She...god, I hope she’s alive.”

“She is a sweet girl, yes.”

“No, not just that.” Habit looked at him, confused. “Half the pages had little bloody fingerprints. She wrote about how her ‘mommy’ would hit her or cut her or burn her or…”

“Stop!” Kamal turned to Habit quickly, and found that he was hyperventilating and gripping his hair tightly. “Please, stop!”

“Shit, are you okay?” Kamal hopped up and went to stand in front of Habit. Habit flinched away from him and he took a small step back. “Hey...hey, it’s okay. You’re okay Boris. You’re safe.” He held his hands in front of him. “Can you take my hands?” Habit shakily moved his hands so they were resting on top of Kamal’s. Kamal tried not to blush at how big Habit’s hands were compared to his. “Can you breathe with me?” Habit nodded.

The two of them stood in Kamal’s office, holding hands and breathing together steadily. Kamal watched as Habit’s eyes stopped darting around and he stopped shaking. His breathing evened out in a more natural way, and he slowly gripped Kamal’s hands instead of just putting them limply on top of them. “Feel better?” Habit nodded. “Do...do you wanna talk about it?” Habit shook his head. “Okay...well...there wasn’t anything of any use in the diary. Just...just that stuff. And normal kid stuff.” Habit nodded. “You...can we go ask some other dentists about who we’re after?”

“Y-yes,” Habit muttered, and Kamal relaxed when he realized that Habit was talking again.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

***

Kamal sat in the waiting room of the dentist, his leg bouncing. Around now was when his smoke break was on a paperwork day, so he was a little jittery. He’d learned that Habit had asthma though, and he wasn’t an asshole, so he hadn’t smoked on the job for a few days. It was starting to grate on him, but he could handle it. If anything, it was a good thing. He needed to quit.

Point was, he couldn’t smoke in a dentist’s waiting room. Habit was in the back, explaining the situation. He’d only had to flash his badge to the woman at the desk when he’d entered, and Habit had full clearance to see their medical files. Kamal didn’t understand a word of what it all meant, so he was stuck out here. He kept catching the woman behind the desk staring, and he inwardly groaned. He didn’t need someone hitting on him on top of everything.

“Kamal! We have progress!” Habit said, bursting in from the back. Kamal jumped up and grinned. “Hunter White. He’s missing the appropriate teeth, and while he doesn’t have the excess teeth, it’s only because he got them removed last night. So, he still would have had them at the time of the murder!” Kamal shushed Habit, not wanting to make people waiting afraid by talking loudly about a murder. “We just have to go find his address!”

“Great job Boris!” Kamal said. They both blushed and looked away when they realized Kamal had used Habit’s first name. “So uh...I can get that for us, and then we can….we can get in there and arrest him!”

***

“You need more proof.” Kamal held back an annoyed groan and nodded at what his boss was saying. “You can’t just arrest because of some dental records that point in that direction. I mean, yeah, it’s sound evidence, and I’m proud of you both for getting it, but it’s not enough to arrest on. You’ve gotta find something else.”

“Can’t we search his place?”

“We don’t even have enough for a warrant.” Kamal really did groan this time. “I know you want to find that girl Kamal, but you can’t just ignore the law.” Kamal nodded.

“What should we do then?” Habit asked. Kamal grinned as an idea came to mind.

“We could do a stake out,” he suggested. His boss rolled his eyes, but nodded.

“Yeah, I was gonna suggest that. I know how much you love them Kamal, but you’ve gotta stay professional for this,” he said. Kamal nodded.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

***

“Did you bring snacks?” Habit asked, sliding into the car beside Kamal. Kamal chuckled.

“Trust me Boris, if we’re out here for hours, we’re gonna want these.” The first name thing had kind of become normal. “Besides! I figured this could kinda...I dunno, be a chance to get to know each other more?” Kamal rubbed the back of his neck, trying hard not to blush.

He wouldn’t be lying if he said that he’d found Boris pretty attractive the moment he saw him. And then he’d been so kind and sweet about Putunia. And then he’d been vulnerable with Kamal. And then he’d been really smart about the teeth. And then….well. Kamal was interested. Boris just grinned at him though.

“I would like that!” He said. Kamal smiled back, but faltered slightly.

How had he never noticed the missing teeth?

“Okay, well, he’s been spotted at this bar pretty frequently, so we’re starting here. Hopefully we won’t have to follow him for a while,” Kamal said. Boris nodded. They sat in silence for about fifteen minutes, before Kamal decided to break the silence. “So...uh...do you like working as a dentist?” Boris hummed.

“Not really.” Kamal turned to look at him fully. “I have always wanted to be a botanist. But my parents wanted me to be a dentist, and I am good at it, so I thought I might as well. I moved up to forensic odontologist because it was at least more interesting than just being a normal dentist.” Kamal nodded. “What about you? Did you see yourself becoming an investigator?”

“Honestly? No.” Kamal chuckled. “When I was a teen I was totally into the whole anarchy thing. And...okay, small world and all, but I always wanted to be a dental assistant.” Boris laughed, and Kamal grinned at him. “But...well, I was no good at it. And I’ve got a pretty deductive mind. So...here we are.”

“Best dentist in New York, and the best investigator in New York. What an odd couple we are…” Boris said. Kamal blushed at the phrasing, but nodded. “Speaking of couples...you have never told me about any of your personal life! Is there someone special?” Boris nudged him with his shoulder, and Kamal laughed. He got quiet after a moment though.

“Um...no. No one, not really. I mean...I have my family but...y’know, that’s it. And I don’t really see them that often anymore. They’ve all got lives and stuff now, y’know?” Kamal said. Boris nodded.

“I am sorry you don’t see them as often as you’d like.” Kamal shrugged.

“It’s alright. I’ve got cases and paperwork to keep me company,” he said. Boris nodded. “What about you? Anyone special in your life?”

Boris opened his mouth to say something, before clicking it shut again. He seemed to fumble over his words for almost a whole minute. “You...you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.” Boris shook his head.

“No, sorry, I just...never mind.” He cleared his throat. “There is no one.” Kamal nodded. He remembered the breakdown Habit had had in his office, and decided to not ask about family. They sat in silence for a while, just staring at the bar across the street. “Do...Kamal, do you ever wonder if...if you’re doing what you were put on this earth to be doing?” Kamal turned to look at Boris with a surprised expression.

“Where did that come from?” Boris shrugged. “Well...I’m not a religious man. And I don’t really believe in fate either. So...I don’t think there’s really a specific thing that we’re put on the earth to do. So...I guess I don’t think about that. Sorry, that’s not exactly helpful.” Kamal smiled apologetically at Boris. “You know what I do think?”

“What?”

“I think we make our own purpose to be on this earth. I think we make our own version of what we’re supposed to do,” Kamal said. “I think...as long as you think what you’re doing is what you’re supposed to be doing, then you’re doing just fine.” Boris nodded. “Why? Is...is there something going on?”

“Yes but...it is personal. I am sorry,” Boris said. Kamal put a hand on his arm.

“Don’t be. You’ve only known me for a couple weeks, you don’t have to share your whole life story with me,” Kamal replied. Boris smiled down at him, and Kamal felt his face flush. He removed his arm, and put his eyes back on the bar in front of them.

Kamal kept glancing at Boris out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t help it, Boris was absolutely gorgeous. His hair looked so soft, and his eyes were so welcoming. His smile was adorable, and even though he had scars on his face, Kamal just wanted to run his fingers along them, or kiss them. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold Boris’s face gently in his hands. At one point when he glanced over, Boris’s eyes were on him. They both quickly looked away, blushing.

They sat there for hours. Sometimes talking, sometimes not. Brushing fingers against each other, stealing looks. As wonderful and sweet and torturous as it was, Kamal couldn’t help an anxious feeling in his gut. Something about this didn’t feel right. Their perp hadn’t shown up at the bar. This bar, and his apartment, weren’t anywhere close to the scene of the crime. None of this felt right, but he was too distracted by the way Boris’s pinkie was now hooked with his.

He shook his head. No. He needed to be professional above all else.

“I think we might want to call it a night. This is...the more I think about it, the more I think we may need to go back to the drawing board. Something about this all isn’t right, I-” He was cut off very suddenly by Boris crashing their lips together.

Fuck profesanilsm.

Kamal gripped Boris’s shirt tightly and kissed him with everything he had. Boris quickly moved his hands so they were resting on Kamal’s hips, and squeezed them tightly. Kamal gasped quietly, and Boris used the opportunity to use some tongue. When Boris pulled away, Kamal was panting.

“How...how close is your place?” Boris asked. Kamal was bright red.

“Not far,” he answered, and quickly started the car. “Not far at all.”

***

Kamal woke up the next morning with a sour taste in his mouth. Not a real taste, something much worse, something emotional. He quickly hopped out of his bed and got dressed again, dressed for work. There was still a little girl out there who needed him, and he’d spent the night doing something that wasn’t helping anyone.

Still, when he looked over at Boris, who was still fast asleep, he couldn’t say he regretted it. He walked around the bed to brush some of Boris’s hair out of his face. Boris didn’t wake up, just pressed himself against Kamal’s hand. Kamal felt his heart melt, and he knelt down to kiss Boris’s temple. He carefully left the room, and went to go make some coffee.

As the pot was brewing, Kamal noticed something sitting on his kitchen table. A simple manila folder. He picked it up and looked at the label. “Hunter White”. He recognized it as the perp’s medical records. He realized he’d never actually seen them. Boris seemed to always keep them on his person. That’s how they must have ended up here. Even though he was starting to highly doubt this was their man, he still flicked through the pages. He knew how to read dental charts from that short time he had spent in medical school.

And this wasn’t right.

Hunter White was missing the teeth that had been missing in the bite marks, but he’d never had any extra teeth. They hadn’t been pulled, they were just never there.

“Boris...lied?” Kamal muttered to himself. He felt his heartbeat quicken.

Doing what you’re meant to on this earth...the missing teeth...the odd feel of his mouth the night before...the complete lack of reaction to the dead body despite only doing this once before…it being in his building...faking evidence...

“Oh god…” Kamal whispered. “Boris did it.”

“Shit.” Kamal turned around quickly, and found Boris standing in the doorway. “I...Kamal, please, you have to listen to me, I-”

“Boris…” Kamal felt tears in his eyes, and he tried to fight them off. “No…”

“Kamal, please, you have to listen-”

“What is wrong with you?” Kamal asked. Boris stepped towards him, and he stepped back quickly. “You...you’re sick!”

“She was in danger! I had to help Putunia, she-”

“You ripped that woman’s arm off! Oh god, how the hell did you even do that?!?”

“Kamal please!” Boris took another step forward, and Kamal thanked his lucky stars that he’d gotten dressed for work, because he pulled out his taser. Boris froze. “Kamal…”

“Boris Habit, you are under arrest,” Kamal said, his voice shaking. “You...you have the right to remain silent.”

“No! Kamal, please!” Tears were streaming down Boris’s face. “You can’t do this to me!”

“Anything you say can be used against you in court.” Kamal stuck to his speech like a mantra, trying to use it like a crutch. “You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning.”

“What I did was right!” Boris screamed. “She was hurting Putunia! I saved that girl’s life!”

“If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish!” Kamal was screaming back now, he couldn’t keep his voice level. “If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time!”

“I thought you loved me!” Boris yelled. Kamal lowered his taser, and sobbed quietly.

“I thought I did too,” he whispered. He pulled out his handcuffs. “Are you going to resist arrest?” Boris didn’t answer. Kamal stepped forward and snapped the handcuffs on his wrists.

Boris pulled his arms apart and they snapped in half.

“Holy shit!”

“Kamal…” Boris whispered. “Please, don’t take me in. Her mother was abusive. I was doing the right thing. I was saving her life…”

“Where is she?” Kamal asked. The levelness in his voice was back, and he’d managed to stop crying. His sadness had been replaced with numbing rage. “Where is she Boris?”

“My place…” Kamal nodded. “I...I’m sorry I broke your handcuffs.”

“We’ll have to use zip ties. They’re way comfortable.” Boris nodded.

“I’m sorry…”

Kamal didn’t answer.

***

Kamal opened the door to Boris’s apartment, and carefully stepped in. It looked completely normal, exactly how he expected it to look only a few days ago. But since this morning, he was expecting something very different.

But it was just...normal. Completely normal.

He heard an excited gasp from deeper in the apartment, and soon a little girl came barreling into his chest. He held her tightly, squeezing her.

“Dad! You’re…” when she pulled away from him, her face lost its color. “No...no, no, no!”

“I don’t know what Habit told you about cops, but whatever it was, he’s wrong,” Kamal said. “I’m here to help you.” She struggled to get away from him, but he kept a tight grip on her.

“No!” She screamed. “No, I don’t want to go with you! Let me go!”

“Habit’s in the car. He wants to see you,” Kamal said, changing tactics. The girl calmed down enough for him to scoop her up and carry her out of the apartment. She began to scream again as he carried her down the hallway, but he had plenty of practice carrying struggling people.

He stepped out of the building and went over to his car. He opened the backseat and set Putunia down in it, closing the door before she could run. He got in the driver’s seat, and tried not to listen to the way she sobbed, or the way Bor...Habit whispered to her. He couldn’t stop himself from hearing.

“Dad’s going away for a while, okay? I...I’ll try to find you when I get out. I love you so much ‘Nia. You’re going to be okay. I promise you would be safe, and I’m not going to break that promise. You’ll be safe with Kamal.

“I love you.”

***

“A full confession. Don’t know how you did it Bora!” Kamal hummed at his boss’s words. “Well, you’ve got to go talk to the girl today. Good luck with that.” Kamal nodded. His boss was quiet for a moment. “Uh...hey. I know...I know you and Habit got along well. I’m really sorry it turned out like this…”

“Don’t be. He meant nothing to me. I’m a lone wolf.” Just saying the words made him want to sob, but Kamal tried to believe them. His boss pat his shoulder.

“Well...if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here,” he said. Kamal just nodded, and waved him off. He watched as his boss left.

He glanced at a clock in his office. Two. He had until four until he had to leave to see Putunia.

Yeah. That was enough time.

***

“Kamal? This certainly is a surprise…” Trencil said. He stepped aside, letting Kamal in.

“Sorry Trencil, I’m in a hurry. This is gonna be an advice only visit,” Kamal said. Trencil nodded.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He went into the living room and sat down heavily on the couch. Kamal sat next to him. “Now...tell me, what’s the matter?”

“I did something, and I don’t know if it was wrong or not…” Kamal said. Trencil nodded, and gestured for him to continue. “I had a partner for my latest case. I...I fell in love with him. Turns out, he did the crime. I turned him in. Was that right?”

“I think that depends on what he did,” Trencil said.

“First degree murder.” Trencil opened his mouth, but Kamal kept speaking. “She was abusing her kid though. Boris took the kid in, so she was listed as missing. I...I picked the kid up. That’s why I’m in a hurry. I have to go see her at four thirty.” Trencil was silent for a moment. “Did I do the right thing?”

“Well...in the eyes of the law, yes,” Trencil said. Kamal nodded.

“I feel like there's a ‘but’ here.”

“There is. Look Kamal, I don’t know the whole situation. But...from what you’re describing, it sounds, to me, like you’ve done the wrong thing.” Kamal’s heart sank. “I mean...Jimothan did what he was accused of, and I think turning him in was the wrong thing.”

“Yeah, but he was doing that in self defence!” Kamal said.

Jimothan had “assaulted” someone who had come into his bar and was harassing other patrons. Trencil had been set on his case, before he had injured his knee. The two of them had a very similar situation to him and Boris, which is why he’d come to Trencil for advice. The difference was, Jimothan was doing something heroic but technically illegal while Boris had…

Had…

“He saved a child’s life…” Kamal said. “We...there are so many times we’ve been too late. There are so many times we never knew at all. Boris...he saved a child’s life.”

“It is up to you Kamal. You are the only one who can decide if you think what you did is wrong or right. But...I think we both know the answer.” Kamal nodded at Trencil’s words. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Something...something rash and stupid and very against the law.”

“Well...I see I’ve done something right in mentoring you.”

***

“Hey kid,” Kamal said, sitting down across from Putunia.

“Go away,” she mumbled. He smiled softly at her.

“I know you don’t want to see me, but I’ve got a surprise for you. If you’ll come with me, I can show you something really awesome.” Putunia looked at him skeptically. “Pinkie promise.” Kamal held his pinkie out to her. She looked thoughtful for a moment, before hooking her finger with his.

“Pinkie promise.”

***

“He’s being transferred across town. It’s better security over there, and less crowded. It’ll be safer for everyone.” Boris winced at the voice. It was impossible not to recognize. Sure, this was New York, but Kamal’s accent was very very thick.

“Alright Kamal, if you say so. I wanna see the paperwork on my desk tomorrow though.”

“Of course sir.” Boris heard footsteps approaching his cell. He looked up as they stopped in front of it. He looked at Kamal, and he knew he looked like a broken man. “On your feet Habit. You’re moving across town.”

Habit stood, and let Kamal put the handcuffs on him. He let himself be led out of the prison he was being held in. He let himself be shoved into the familiar backseat of Kamal’s squad car. He didn’t let himself cry, no matter how much he wanted to. The car was silent as Kamal drove for a while. “Okay ‘Nia. Show time.” Kamal suddenly said.

“Dad!” A small lump that had been on the floor suddenly threw the cover off itself and launched itself at Boris.

“I...what?” Boris asked as he realized that Putunia was clinging to him. “What the hell?”

“Break through those cuffs big guy, I know you can,” Kamal said.

“Is...is this some kind of trap? I already confessed!” Boris asked.

“No, it’s me apologizing,” Kamal said. “You were right Boris. You did the right thing. You saved Putunia. It’s my turn to save you.” Kamal turned to look at the backseat when he reached a red light. “We’ve got about an hour before I’m supposed to have Putunia back, and I can do about another hour of stalling, so we’ve got about two hours to get as far out of the city as possible.”

“Kamal, you...what?”

“I love you Boris. And if that means a life on the run, then so be it.”

“You’ve known me for two weeks!”

“Think of it as a horrible rom com! We run off at the end, and we’re a happy family with our wonderful daughter Putunia!”

“That’s me!” Putunia yelled, jumping up and down slightly.

“Kamal, this is insane!” Boris yelled.

“And you killed a lady! I think we’re both a little insane!” Kamal yelled back.

Boris snapped the cuffs and lunged forward to kiss Kamal. Kamal reached back with one arm and buried his hand in Boris’s hair. They kissed until someone behind them blared their horn and Kamal had to face the front to drive again. “I love you Boris.”

“I love you too Kamal.” Boris scooped Putunia up and held her close. “I love you so much.”

#the formatting looks so fucked up so hopefully it isn't when it posts #but it might be #no way is this going in the main tag #see no evil au #my writing

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fourdaysofrain · 5 years

Text

By Any Other Name

Summary: 5 times Peter called Mr. Stark Tony, and one time he called him something else entirely.

(Still set in the Irondad oasis between Homecoming and Infinity War)

Read on AO3

i. in the lab

It started, as most of their personal conversations do, during a late night in the lab. Peter was alternating between working on a history worksheet and his web-shooters, switching between the two projects when he ran out of steam. Tony was idly tinkering with a box of scraps while he waited for FRIDAY to process his newest idea for nanotech, which would take at least another hour. It was a gentle kind of silence that filled the room, only broken by various lab noises that they had both since learned to tune out-- a whir here, the ting of a fallen screw there, the soft scratching of a pencil on paper.

“Hey Mr. Stark,” Peter said, his voice easily carrying over the room, “What was the main catalyst for World War I?”

There was a short pause while Tony switched his attention from the growing pile of machinery in front of him to the teenager across the room before he answered, “Franz Ferdinand’s death.”

“Thanks,” Peter responded as he quickly wrote something down, “that’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure about his name.” He laughed to himself softly, but it faded when he looked up to see Tony looking at him intently.

Tony took a breath to center himself before speaking. How could he tell the kid every time he called him Mr. Stark, it just reminded him of shitty fathers and childhoods spent masquerading like adults and drinking to avoid the stares of students and professors alike and-- he cut off his spiral with a short sniff. He decided casual was the best way to approach this.

“Hey kid, why do you still call me Mr. Stark?”

Peter blanched as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“It’s just that you’re a billionaire and a literal superhero, and May raised me to be respectful, I guess. There’s nothing more to it.” If it weren’t for the slightly more hysterical than normal nervous laugh that followed, Tony might have believed him.

“You call Rhodey by his first name,” Tony countered, “well, technically by his middle name, but the point stands.”

“That’s different because Rhodey’s not--” the man who spends all of his time either protecting me or poking fun at me, my childhood hero, my quasi-dad parental figure type person “--my mentor.”

“I can safely say that as your mentor, and given that you are also a ‘literal superhero,’” he rolled his eyes, successfully getting an annoyed smile from Peter, “I hereby grant you the ability to call me Tony.” He punctuated his words with a quick flourish of his hands.

Peter sighed before making hesitant eye contact, tapping his fingers against the leg of his jeans, “Okay… Tony.”

“That wasn’t too bad, was it? The world is still standing, the clock is still ticking,” now it was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes, “and speaking of the clock still ticking, looks like we let it tick a little too long. Time for bed, Spiderling.”

Peter reacted quickly to the change in conversation, “I can’t go to bed yet! I still have a few questions on this worksheet, and it’s due tomorrow!”

“You should have thought about that sometime before--” his eyes flitted to the clock and back, “--12:30 am. Jesus kid, you really do have to get to bed. Don’t want you taking after me too much.”

Tony tried to keep his tone light and joking, but it fell flat. Peter and him made eye contact for a second that seemed to stretch towards infinity before Tony looked away, pretending to study something on his desk.

“I mean, red and gold aren’t my colors, but I could manage,” Peter joked.

Tony chuckled at that, letting himself live in a world where his biggest regret was Iron Man’s suit design for a few moments.

“C’mon kid, flattery will get you nowhere. Let’s close up for the night.” He didn’t bother with clearing the scraps off his desk, he would go back down to the lab after making sure Peter went to bed.

“Please let me finish this, I promise it’ll be less than five minutes. I’ll even use FRIDAY so I can go even faster!”

“Kid, only you could make cheating sound like a good thing,” Tony took a beat to decide, as if Peter didn’t already have him wrapped around his finger, “Alright, just don’t tell your aunt that I let you stay up so late, it makes me look irresponsible. Or Pepper, for that matter. Thank God she’s still on her business trip or we would both be in trouble.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Stark-- Tony. I’ll be out of here soon.”

Tony huffed out a laugh at the kid’s antics as he walked across the room to grab some more tools.

True to his word, Peter finished his homework in record time, thanks to FRIDAY’s seemingly endless database of information. Just as Tony was relaxing into the steady back and forth of their conversation, he heard the harsh zip of Peter’s backpack.

“Alright, it’s all finished, so I can go to bed now,” Peter said, looking pointedly at Tony.

“What’s with the look?”

“I think if you’re forcing me to go to bed, you should too.” Peter normally lost his filter when he was tired, so Tony shouldn’t be surprised that he’s getting rightfully called out.

“How about this-- I’ll walk you up, and then you can pretend I went to bed and not listen to my footsteps as I come back down here.”

Peter rolled his eyes but saved the witty comeback. He instead just walked to the door with his backpack and looked back at Tony like a dog getting ready for a walk. The imagery made Tony laugh to himself.

“Alright, I’m coming. FRI, put the lights to 50% all the way to Pete’s room.” A quick confirmation from the AI was all he needed to open the door and lead the way to the bedroom wing. He slung an arm around Peter, grasping his shoulder as the kid walked sleepily beside him.

They walked in amicable, or just tired, silence until they got to Peter’s door. May let him spend the night enough times that Peter finally felt comfortable enough to take ownership of the room, instead of having everyone pretend it was the guest room. It had a small whiteboard on the outside, reminding Tony of his days in the dorms at MIT. Tony smirked when he saw that someone, probably one of Peter’s Midtown friends, had drawn a spider building a web in the corner.

“Last stop, Underoos,” Tony said, softly breaking the silence. Peter mumbled a thanks as he went to open the door. He looked at Tony expectantly for a beat before walking into his bedroom.

“Goodnight, Tony,” came Peter’s voice from inside as the door closed behind him. Tony frowned. He sounded disappointed. He shrugged it off as lack of sleep.

“Night Pete,” he replied.

He stood still in front of Peter’s door. He wanted to go back to the lab to work on his newest idea for nanotech. He knew FRIDAY would be done with rendering the new models by now. Nonetheless, he signed before continuing down the hall to his own bedroom. That damn kid.

ii. in the kitchen

The kitchen was filled with the aroma of warm spices. Peter followed it like a cartoon character after a pie. He expected to find Pepper, or maybe even Rhodey, baking something to share with everyone. He wasn’t prepared to see Tony Stark wearing an apron with the Mark VII’s arc reactor printed on the chest while singing proudly along to the music playing through FRIDAY’s speakers. Peter could have sworn he saw that apron at a tourist shop somewhere downtown. He walked into Tony’s line of sight, causing him to stop singing and tell FRIDAY to turn the volume down, though he didn’t look at all embarrassed at being caught.

“Hey kid, have you ever had my famous molasses cookies? They’re an old Stark recipe. My mom taught me, her dad taught her, his dad... et cetera. It’s passed onto the firstborn. Top secret stuff.” He shot a silly wink across the room.

Peter shook his head, still shell-shocked from seeing Tony acting so… domestic.

“Well, today’s your lucky day. The first batch just came out.” Tony motioned to where a dozen cookies were sitting on a wire rack, and Peter eyed it hungrily.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark!” As Pete moved to the counter to grab one, Tony stepped in to block his way.

“What’s the magic word?” he asked playfully.

“Please?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’ with a smirk, “for me, it’s Tony.”

Peter shook his head as he said, “Sorry. Thanks, Tony.” He was rewarded with a clear path to the cooling cookies. He walked over and grabbed one, nowhere near as excited as he was a few seconds earlier. Tony frowned.

“What’s up, Pete?”

“Nothing,” Tony fixed him with a hard stare, and Peter took a second before continuing, “it’s just that calling you Tony is weird for me.” He grabbed a few cookies and a napkin, and sat at the counter across from Tony, not eating them yet.

“Why would it be weird? It’s my name, right?” Peter nodded, so he continued, “Mr. Stark is what everyone called my dad, or what people trying to brown-nose called me. Neither of those options makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You’re better than them, kid.” A flash of guilt went over Peter’s face, but Tony convinced himself he imagined it.

“It’s just I already had the habit of calling you Mr. Stark, so it’ll take me a while to get used to it. No biggie,” he ended with taking a bite of a cookie, “Oh my God, these are insane! Why have you never made them before?”

Tony wasn’t entirely convinced but was willing to let it slide for now.

“Next time, I’ll teach you the recipe so you can make them yourself,” he said casually.

“Um, didn’t you say the recipe was for Starks only?” Peter looked up from his cookies to Tony, his eyes wide and innocent.

“Yeah well,” Tony scratched his eyebrow, searching for what to say, “just don’t tell TMZ and I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Peter smiled softly to himself as he continued to eat. Tony failed to suppress his own warm smile as he started to scoop out the next batch. The unsaid message was heard loud and clear.

You’re family.

iii. at home

May and Peter were eating take-out at the table, May’s failed dinner residing somewhere in the dumpster outside. The clinks of their silverware and their warm conversation filled the apartment.

“So what are your plans for this weekend? Ned seemed excited about something last time I saw him,” May asked as she took another bite. Peter made sure to swallow his own mouthful of food before responding.

“He got a new Lego set, and I’m going to help him build it on Sunday. But Friday night I’m going to spend the night at Tony’s, he said he already cleared it with you, and then Saturday I’ll probably be patrolling and doing homework all day.” Peter looked at May to find her smiling at him. He gave her a confused look.

“It’s so funny to hear you call him Tony. Like he’s a high school friend or something.” Peter laughed along with her goodnaturedly.

“He said Mr. Stark makes him feel like his dad, so I’m getting used to saying Tony.”

“I can imagine. If you called me Mrs. Parker I think I’d have to kick you out.” May and Peter shared a playful smirk.

“Yeah well, that’s different. You’re my aunt, he’s Iron Man!” Peter still couldn’t hide his feeling of awe at personally knowing the Iron Man. May just smiled sweetly at him.

“And being your aunt is the closest to a superhero I ever want to be,” May said as she reached over and rubbed his cheek, “and speaking of Tony, you should invite him over for dinner sometime. I’m willing to let him try to win me over after seeing how much he matters to you.”

Peter blushed but nodded. May hummed in response, and they kept eating dinner.

iv. at the front desk

Peter swore under his breath. He’s supposed to be working on Dum-E and U’s little brother right now, but he has to get to the lab first. He was in the lobby of the tower (Tony decided not to sell it after the whole plane crash incident), and couldn’t think of how to get past the front desk. His suit was still being repaired in the lab, so he couldn’t just crawl up the side of the building. Happy didn’t drop him off today, so he couldn’t use his ID card, and his phone died on the cab ride over, so he couldn’t just text Mr. Stark-- Tony.

He’s gotten better with calling him Tony, but it still feels clunky and strange on his tongue. And now, he had the added guilt of making Tony think of his dad every time he messed up. They didn’t talk about it much, but Peter was good enough at understanding subtext to know he wasn’t a good person to be reminded of. He hated to see the hurt look on his face when he couldn’t say Tony with the same excitement as Mr. Stark. But how do you explain to someone that using their first name makes you think of your dead uncle?

Peter knew he’s had a lot of trauma in his life, especially regarding the death of family members-- specifically, parental figures.

He called Richard “Dad” because that’s what he was, and that’s all he thought mattered at that age. He taught him to tie his shoes, he was there when he was born, and he heard his first word. But then, he died. And Peter moved in with Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

He called Ben by his first name because Dad was already taken. It was a simple decision. They had a conversation one night where Peter said he saw Ben as a father in every way except for the title. Ben’s eyes had been misty as he gave him a hug goodnight that evening. Then Ben was also taken from him, and he was left to mourn with Aunt May.

Enter Tony Stark. Peter has known him since just a few months after he got bit by a spider and fell into the persona of a crime-fighting vigilante. In the short time he’d known him, Tony had already made a big impact on his life. An upgraded suit, access to a high-tech lab with the supplies to make anything he could ever want, and, of course, another sort of father figure. Tony isn’t as confident in his emotions as Ben, or as outwardly paternal as Richard, but their bond is already much stronger than a standard mentor-mentee relationship.

It’s depressing to even think about, but Peter is running out of ways to address the influential men in his life. Richard got the title, Ben got the first name, which leaves an awkward “Mr. Stark” leftover. It didn’t make sense, Peter knew that, but calling Mr. Stark by his first name just made him think of all the times he called Ben by his. But he’d gone through worse, and he could handle saying Tony, for his sake.

He shook his head a bit before finally walking up to the front desk. The best way out of the woods is through, after all. He smiled awkwardly at the woman behind the front desk, knowing he must have seemed very out of place.

“Can I help you?” she said, looking at his nerdy graphic tee and jeans dismissively over her glasses.

“Yes, thank you, I’m just here to see Tony.” Peter tried to give his best I’m a sweet kid, please help me smile.

“Tony…?”

“Sorry, Tony Stark. I’m supposed to be in the lab with him right now, but I was running late so I had to take a cab, and my phone died so I can’t text him,” he started to trail off, looking for any reaction in the receptionist.

“Cute,” she said, her bored expression not changing, “but Mr. Stark is very busy right now. You can check the website for when he does meet and greets. If you have any fan mail, you can leave it with me and I’ll send it to his office.”

“No I’m--” Peter cut himself off by running a hand through his hair, “I’m not a fan, I’m serious, can you just tell him Peter’s in the lobby?”

“Listen kid,” and wow did it sound much icier than when Tony said it, “you seem really sweet, but do you really expect me to believe that not only does a middle schooler get to spend one-on-one time with the owner of SI in his personal labs, but he’s on a first name basis with him, too?”

“I’m in high school,” Peter said, but his confidence had already wilted. He wished that he and Tony had actually set up his internship documents instead of continuously putting it off, so he could just scan an ID and walk in.

“Sure. Do you have any other stories, or do I need to call security?”

Peter murmured to himself as he started to turn away, stopping when he saw the receptionist’s face finally change from bored to shocked. Not a second later, he felt a steady hand clap his shoulder. He instinctively looked behind him, only to see Tony, sporting a pair of sunglasses and a suit.

“That won’t be necessary, Miss…” Tony checked the nametag of the receptionist before continuing to speak, “Debbie. Peter here just got a little lost. He’s a high school intern, who I still need to issue an ID to.”

“I’m so sorry Mr. Stark--” Tony cut her off with a raised hand.

“No need to apologize, I’m glad you’re doing your job well. We’ll be going now.”

Tony led Peter to the elevators, leaving the shocked receptionist blinking to herself. Peter waited until the doors slid shut behind them before he spoke.

“Sorry Tony, I left my suit in the lab, and then my phone ran out of battery on the way here--” Tony cut him off by ruffling his hair as he took his sunglasses off.

“What’s with people and apologizing to me today? FRIDAY let me know when you walked in, I just had to finish some boring meeting before coming down.”

“Oh. Okay, cool.” Peter bounced on his heels awkwardly as the elevator slowed to a stop.

“And,” Tony smirked down at Peter and tapped the sunglasses in his hand when he looked up, “I heard and saw everything through FRIDAY. So if you do have any fan mail, please make sure it gets to my office.”

Peter groaned. He would never live that down.

v. on a rooftop

Peter swung to the top of a nearby building and sat with his back leaning against the roof entrance, letting out a huge sigh as he finally got to relax. He slid his mask off and closed his eyes to work through the withdrawal of adrenaline as he waited for Tony’s inevitable lecture. Thankfully (or not), he didn’t have to wait too long. It was only a matter of minutes before he heard the Iron Man suit touch down next to him. He heard the faceplate lifting before Tony’s voice cut through the silence.

“Are you hurt, Pete?” Peter was too tired to try to analyze his mood through his voice. He just shook his head from side to side.

“FRI, do a scan for me.” He couldn’t hear FRIDAY’s response from where he was sitting, but it must have proved he was okay because Tony just huffed and walked to his side.

“Sorry,” Peter muttered.

“Kid, you can’t just apologize and keep doing the same thing over and over. I told you to not meddle with this… goblin guy. If you’re really sorry you wouldn’t keep going against my direct orders.”

Peter just muttered under his breath as he turned to face away from Tony.

“Hey, we’re having a conversation here, look at me,” he ordered.

“Are we?” Peter swung his head back to face Tony, feeling some of his exhaustion fall away at the prospect of an argument, “because it seems pretty one-sided to me.”

“No, you don’t get to do that,” Tony pointed his finger accusingly, “you could have been hurt, you could have died today Peter, are you willing to face that? What would have happened if I hadn’t shown up?”

“I would have been fine,” Peter said, stumbling as he stood up. Despite himself, Tony automatically started to move to help steady him before he was waved off, “I can handle myself.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“I wish you did, too.”

Tony broke eye contact first, stepping back and rubbing his face as he sighed.

“Kid, you remind me too much of myself, which just makes me end up feeling like my dad. You have to listen to me when I tell you to do something. I do, in fact, have a reason behind what I say to you. If you died out there, I’d--”

“You’d what,” Peter interrupted, his temper rising, “you’d feel sad? You’d be guilty? You know what’d I feel if I died? Nothing. At all. So stop trying to guilt-trip me--”

“Guilt-trip? That’s not what’s happening here. Jesus kid, I’m just trying to say that you have people who care about you, and you need to take care of yourself.”

“Yeah well people caring about me won’t stop me from doing the right thing. He would have killed plenty of innocent civilians who also had people that cared about them if I hadn’t stopped him.”

“Listen, I know you think you know what’s best for you and what’s best for the world, but you’re 16, you have no clue what the world can do to a person.”

“I have no clue what the world can do to a person?” Peter was definitely angry now. His filter completely gone, he continued, “My parents died when I was six. I was there to see my uncle die. Aunt May and I were barely living paycheck to paycheck before I met you. My first girlfriend’s dad tried to kill me. Next time try taking the silver spoon out of your mouth before you try to talk to me about knowing what the world can do to a person, Tony.”

The name shot out like a bullet covered in ice. Peter’s shoulders were still shaking with his heavy, angry breaths. He looked up to see Tony’s face passively blank, the same way it looked when Peter asked about his black eye on the way back from Germany. He instantly felt a wave of guilt.

“Look, I’m sorry--” Tony silently raised a hand, cutting him off.

“I know you’ve gone through a lot, Peter. I’m willing to ignore that outburst. I also know that you feel like you need to save the whole world, but you can’t. No matter how good of a hero you are, there’s always going to be people you can’t save.”

Peter looked to his feet as Tony let his final statement float in the air for a beat.

“That’s why I put you on the bench sometimes. You have to let the people who have already lost fight the battles where they’re going to lose more. You’re still young, and you have to let us protect you. Me, your aunt, Rhodey, even Happy. We all want the best for you, kid. You’re going to be the best of us. We want to make sure you stay safe for long enough so we have someone to pass the torch to.” A beat passed before Peter nodded and put his mask back on.

“I think I’m just gonna go back home now.”

“I can handle that,” Tony said cooly. Peter walked to the edge of the roof, about to jump off, when he looked back over his shoulder.

“Tony?” he heard the clink of the faceplate moving back into place before he saw Tony turn around. They looked at each other across the roof for a beat, through the safety of their masks, before Peter continued.

“Thank you.”

vi. in the lab (again)

It was just an average weekend. That is to say, an average weekend for someone who was bitten by a radioactive spider and then taken under the wing of the local billionaire/superhero. Peter and Tony were tinkering in the lab together on Peter’s Mark III suit. The sun was just starting to dip under the horizon, momentarily painting the whole room pink.

“I don’t know if I want the instant-kill mode anymore,” Peter said hesitantly. He looked over to see Tony’s hard stare focused on FRIDAY’s hologram of the suit between them.

“Non-negotiable. You don’t have to use it, but I’ll sleep better knowing you have it.” Peter looked away, suddenly wanting to change the subject.

“What about the web-shooters? Do you still think I need all 576 combinations?” His attempt to lighten the mood worked and Tony looked over at him with a smirk.

“Have you tried all of them yet?”

“Well,” Peter looked to the side as he tried to remember, “I think I’ve used at least 6 different ones.”

“We can keep them until you’ve tried them all, then.” Peter coughed something that sounds suspiciously like “helicopter mom” and Tony jokingly tapped his fist against his shoulder.

“You still like the red and blue?” Tony asked, “I tried adding different colors in different marks of the Iron Man suits, it keeps things fresh.” Peter screwed his face up in concentration, or maybe in disgust at remembering the Mark XXVII’s color scheme.

“I want people to be able to recognize me still. So let’s stick with the same general design.” Tony nodded his head as he typed something into the projected keyboard in front of him and the phrase “similar design” showed up on a growing list of points next to the suit’s hologram.

“How’s your… stickiness working? Is the suit getting in the way?” Peter sighed in frustration.

“I wish I knew how it worked so we could figure out how to help it, but the suit doesn’t bother it. As long as I don’t think about it too hard I can stick to anything.”

“Next week let’s experiment with the ‘anything’ part,” Tony said as he pushed away from the desk they were sharing. He tapped Peter’s shoulder as he walked behind him, “Be right back, coffee break.”

Peter nodded, his focus on the suit. His brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out what to improve. He remembered that his phone’s touchscreen couldn’t register his fingers in the suit, and they could easily put conductive material in the gloves to solve it. He turned around to get Tony’s attention.

“Hey, Ben--” and he instantly closed his mouth.

Time froze. Tony turned at the noise, and they both stared at each other like two deer in headlights. The amicable silence in the lab turned oppressive. Peter could pinpoint the exact moment when Tony remembered that Ben was the name of his late uncle by how his eyes went from squinting in confusion to wide in shock. They were both somehow blushing and pale as a sheet at the same time, seemingly stuck in that position for hours. Peter tried to think of the best excuse to leave the lab as soon as he could.

“I forgot something in my bedroom,” Peter said, starting time back up again. He quickly skittered to the lab door.

“Wait,” he felt himself stop at Tony’s words, even though he wanted nothing more than to escape this situation, “as much as we both would much rather ignore what just happened, let’s… talk about this.” At least Peter wasn’t alone in his agony. He slowly turned around to face the awkward conversation head-on. They both stood in silence before Peter finally spoke.

“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, it’s just--”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Tony said, setting his coffee mug down on the counter, “you don’t need to apologize. I’m telling you right now that I’m not offended or upset with you at all about this. I just think we should talk about why it happened.” Peter sighed and ran a hand nervously through his hair as Tony looked anywhere but his face.

“Well… you know how my parents and uncle are dead?” Peter looked over to see Tony’s eyes snap to his as a mix of confusion, sadness, and sympathy. He chuckled a little at the sight before continuing, “sorry, that was a little harsh. But they are. Dead, that is.”

Tony’s face didn’t improve. Peter had to psych himself up a little bit more and took another breath to compose his thoughts.

“Wow, I am just saying… words. But, um, yeah. I called my dad ‘Dad’ because he was my dad. Obviously,” Jesus Parker, get it together, “and then Ben was like a dad to me in so many ways, but I called him by his first name because ‘Dad’ was already taken, you know?” Realization was starting to dawn on Tony’s face.

“Kid…” Peter waved him off and continued, looking pointedly at the ground, trying to ignore the shameful pricks in the corners of his eyes.

“And then you came in, and you do so many things that remind me of them, Mr. Stark,” Peter paused, tears starting to pool up in his eyelids. He forced himself to look at Tony, “so many things. And I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I just latch onto people in my life, and I don’t let them go. Even for a moment. And I’m projecting this idea of all the expectations of people I’ve lost in my past onto you, and that’s not healthy for me because I’ll just be disappointed when it turns out you--”

Peter’s emotions were coming out of him like air rushing out of a balloon. It’s like calling Tony by his uncle’s name took the cork off a bottle that was now pouring all of its contents down the sink. He couldn’t stop talking now, even if he wanted to. He tried to hide his shaky breaths with a sigh, and Tony looked at him sadly, knowing to let him finish before speaking.

“And I just-- hm. I called Ben by his first name because I couldn’t call him dad. And I called you Ben because I’m just--” he cut himself off as his voice filled with more emotion, and started to pace anxiously around the lab, “--I see you as a father figure, okay? Ben was my father figure for over half my life and calling you by your first name when I already see you in the same light just made my wires get crossed. It’s not the end of the world or anything. It shouldn’t have to be this big secret. I’m an orphan one and a half times over, and you’re-- You’re a superhero, my honest-to-God childhood hero, and you take care of me in so many ways. You make me do my homework, you yell at me when I get myself hurt, we watch movies together, you ruffle my hair and call me kid, am I supposed to just treat you the same as any other adult in my life?

“I know that’s a lot of pressure for you, and I know that we’re both shitty with talking about our feelings but this has just been festering inside of me, and every time I call you Tony I just think of Ben, and I--” a sob, this time not hidden at all as he sat down on a nearby bench, “--I miss him so much, Mr. Stark. Every day. I’m never going to get over that. And I called him by his first name. So I can’t call you by your first name, and I’m never going to call you Dad, and I’m sorry. I just-- They’re taken. And now calling someone by their last name will just make me think of you and I’m just so screwed up that I can’t--”

Peter sobbed again, dropping his head into his hands. He kept starting meaningless syllables and cutting himself off with heavy, ragged breaths. Tony quickly went over and sat next to him. He cautiously placed a hand on his back, trying to move it in circles like he remembered Rhodey doing to him when he found out his parents passed away. Peter’s breath slowly became more even as he gathered himself. Tony decided this would be a good time to say his piece.

“Okay, first of all, I want to make sure you are absolutely certain that I am not going anywhere. You’re going to have to put up with me for a very long time.” Peter smiled softly through his tear-stained face at that, which Tony counted as a win as he continued.

“Kid, I know I don’t say it a lot but I do care about you,” Tony hoped he didn’t notice the waver in his paper-thin voice, “I do love you, Peter. In a very paternal way. Don’t ever be ashamed of seeing me as a father figure, because I suppose I see you as a… son figure.” Tony took a second to rub his eyes and steady his breath. He looked over to see Peter’s face red and puffy, but full of adoration, and warmth, and just pure love. Tony swore he felt ten years get added to his lifespan instantly. He wanted to take a picture and tie it to the end of his suit as he flew above the city, showing off to the whole world what love looks like.

“But you have to let me know when you’re hurting, Pete,” he continued, making sure Peter was looking at him still, “you have to. Especially if I’m the cause of it. I don’t care if I’m about to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and the last time we talked was an argument where you said you hated me. If you need help, I will be there in the blink of an eye. You just have to tell me. Tell me what is going wrong so I can fix it. It’s what I do.

“And as for what you call me, Mr. Stark is perfect. I thought I-- well. It used to remind me of my father, but now it’ll just remind me of you.” He finished his small speech with a smile directed at Peter, his eyes wet but sparkling with love as he looked at his kid.

They sat like that for a few minutes. Just basking in the warmth of their shared love as the pink light of the sunset faded and FRIDAY turned on the overhead lighting. Tony eventually decided to break the silence.

“All those emotions certainly tired me out,” Tony joked, getting a grin from Peter in return, “You ready for bed, Pete?”

“I’m ready to lay in my bed on my phone for a few hours before actually falling asleep if that’s what you mean.” Tony rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“Okay whippersnapper, I’ll never understand your generation.”

Tony opened the lab door and led them both out into the hallway. They walked to the bedroom wing without saying anything, the comfortable silence they had in the lab still covering them like a warm blanket. They stopped outside Peter’s bedroom as usual.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Underoos,” Tony said as he turned to go to his bedroom.

“I love you, Mr. Stark,” Peter blurted out, causing Tony to turn around, “I didn’t say it earlier. But I do.”

Peter was biting his lip nervously as Tony felt his heart beat a little quicker. He smiled warmly at Peter, more genuine than he had smiled in a long time.

“Oh, come on over here, kid. I think we’re there.”

Tony opened his arms and Peter practically ran into him.

“Watch the spider-strength,” He grunted as Peter laughed and tucked his face into Tony’s chest. His nose was just barely brushing against the metal border of his arc reactor. The blue light made Peter’s hair look like a painting.

Standing there, with Peter’s arms wrapped around him, Tony knew that he would do anything in his power to make sure he stayed safe and happy. He felt a fierce fire deep in his chest that almost dared the world to send something at him, just to let him have something to prove his strength to. He felt like he could take down an entire army. Like he could climb to the top of Mount Everest without even breaking a sweat.

But instead, he just wrapped his arms around Peter and took a deep breath, committing this feeling to memory.

“I love you too, kid.”

Tag List: @ironfamjam

#wooo im real proud of this boy #feel free to yell at me about it!#irondad #spiderman #spider man #iron man #irondad and spiderson #tony stark #mcu #peter parker #tony stark has a heart #art writes

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sauntervaguelydown · 4 years

Note

"6 different popular continuities" LITERALLY WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?? Is it comic books??? this is exactly what i'm talking about! What is HAPPENING in this fandom?? I LOVE it. I just saw some of the really pretty fanart after reading a thing about how tranformers reproduce i'm confused and i love it

okay so what you’ve got to understand is there’s a transformers where the transformers transform into only cars but if they transform into planes that means they’re evil but it’s different from the one where earth is the corpse of a sleeping god full of goth crack cocaine that helps you do necromancy and BOTH of those are different than the

i’m sorry let me do this again

so this franchise has been around since the early 80′s and because the toys came first and the story came second, it keeps being reinvented in new and weird and delightful ways because the only true and central thing is the design+name combination of the line up, and even that gets changed from time to time for arcane business reasons

G1, the original 80′s cartoon, has absolutely nothing about the robots being in Disguise despite that being in the fucking title song, they’re just on earth being action superhero alien robots who sometimes politicians hate and want to ban because they’re Not Like Us. There are two cast lineups I this show, because after season 2 the big theatrical movie killed off 90% of the original cast and then had a bunch of new robots fill in their roles in the story more or less. This was designed to Move Products.

Beastwars. This is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, with the script writing that first elevated transformers as a franchise into something (I would argue) worth remembering for more than being fun toys. Everyone turns into an earth animal of some kind. There are no humans.

When the Bay movies were in production, Cartoon Network started a new carton series (TFA) in which Optimus Prime was a disgraced young military officer who took the fall for his shitty friend when their mutual girlfriend died on a forbidden planet. This show resembles Teen Titans with 90% more alien protagonists. It’s very sexist but otherwise surprisingly good. Only Decepticons turn into flight capable alt modes. This is a plot point.

After that The Hub produced a CGI cartoon (Prime, or “TFP”) which had more Bay movie flavor, but also one of the most good hearted and soothing Optimus Primes of all time, and he’s got a snatched waist. In this show all the Decepticons also turn into planes, but it’s not a plot point, it’s just a Thing that Happens. this is the one that has the amazing Starscream with the built in high heels, who looks nothing like any other Starscream. In this one, being in disguise and living secretly on the planet is a plot point. Planet Earth is an eldritch abomination.

There’s a newer cartoon which is “Cyberverse”, which has a lot of the goofy cartoon energy of G1 but with new popular highlights from other continuities such as: Bumblebee having his voice box ripped out by Megatron and being therefore mute (but also an amnesiac); Windblade, a female transformer who isn’t a sexist caricature; Optimus and Megatron being friends before a major political schism.

ANDDDDD the comics. Which are MY favorite part. There have been comics off and on since the 80′s; there’s a current reboot running since 2019, but most people are deeply unimpressed with its meandering plot and overload of characters. The continuity that I stan ran from 2005 to 2018, and it included such exciting concepts as: monogender asexual species with homoerotic pairbonds, an entire political system based on racism against test tube babies, Starscream having Body Dysphoria because he was made in a factory, and a bunch of super boring crossovers with GIJOE comics

:)c any questions?

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taiblogcomics · 4 years

Text

No Rave Reviews for Ravagers

Hey there, characters named after songs. Man, I looked ahead, and the next Teen Titans story arc is a long one about Wonder Girl. And, like... Cassie has been such a drag this whole series. I don't really want to focus on her right now. I mean, do you~? And so, let's do something a little different this week. I'm-a use my reviewer's privilege and drop in a substitute. One I've been teasing for, like, at least a month or so~

Here's the cover:

Hey, we've got an all-new team of characters spinning off from Teen Titans! How do we sell our first issue? We put boobs on the cover, that's how. I mean, honestly, nothing else is gonna sell this series. Three of these characters are basically all new, and the ones that aren't, we'd rather see in a better series than this. Nobody liked them in "the pages of Teen Titans", and no one's gonna like them here~

By the way, the cover also mixed up Thunder and Lightning’s names. Lightning is the blue-haired girl, and Thunder is the dude with the subwoofer in his chest. So, great job making us care about the characters, comic, when you couldn’t even care enough to get their names right~

The comic opens with the group bursting out of the ground to escape. Caitlin suggests that, based on the topography, they’re in Alaska now. That’s quite a journey from Antarctica. And right away, we see that not only is the cover trying to get you on a "sexy sells" sort of way, it's not even true. Caitlin Fairchild does not appear in anything as skimpy as on the cover. She is wearing a full-body suit with gloves and boots. Other than a couple tears in the fabric, she's completely covered from the neck down, and stays that way for the entire comic.

Now, I know why they did it, and I do mean other than to try to get you to buy the comic by titillating you with the cover. It's because in Gen13, it was a running gag that Caitlin's clothes would get destroyed during fights. Now, obviously I'm glad that's not the case here, but the point is that it's trying to make you think this is the same character as the previous series, when it's really not at all.

Anyways, Caitlin is also our narrator for the book. The group of them burst out of the ground, and are already constantly bickering with one another. This is a recurring theme throughout: none of them can stand each other. Caitlin's actually the only one who's likeable, because she's the only one saying "Look, we were all in a shitty situation, but that doesn't mean we have to be shitty people. We gotta work together, so we don't die, because we're still in Alaska." Nobody else wants to listen to her, especially Ridge, and the group points out that she looks like she'll be fine. Caitlin then suddenly loses about two feet of height and all her muscle mass. Her power is being able to get temporary super strength. Hey, as long as it's not ripping her costume up to do it.

Despite the fact that she's the only one making sense, none of the rest are willing to listen, and in fact several of the rescuees just fuck off out of the story. Beast Boy and Terra are the first to do so--so the only other recognisable heroes have left, and thus any draw the story had regarding said heroes--as do a couple minor characters named Windshear and Brighteyes. Ridge then gets pissy with Caitlin trying to suggest he's the reason no one wants to stick around, because he's one of the Ravagers who used to torment them. He in turn hates her, because she's one of the scientists who turned him into a monster. Not personally, mind you, she just worked there. Unlike him, who did torment kids personally. So, you know, completely justified, right~?

She convinces him to at least not snap her neck then and there, and the group is interrupted by a squad of some of Harvest's generic soldiers turning up. The soldiers immediately surrender, and while "we were just following orders" is not an excuse, the soldiers are laying down their weapons and not making any hostile actions. So of course, Lightning decides they should execute them. We actually get a little more characterisation for Thunder here. Apparently using his powers causes him pain, so he is very reluctant to do so. Lightning's powers work best when they're working in tandem, though, so his dilemma is that attacking the soldiers also hurts him. Not emotionally, though, so Lightning doesn't care.

Meanwhile, with those nothing characters Windshear and Brighteyes, they're flying along when they suddenly get spotted by one of Harvest's ships. Brighteyes uses her surprisingly literal power as a distraction, but it doesn't work. So Windshear? Just to increase the effort to make everyone in this issue unlikeable, he chucks Brighteyes at the flying vehicle and flies off on his own. This doesn't help either of them, though, as Warblade simply kills Brighteyes through the windshield, and Rose WIlson jumps out of the ship to land on Windshear, murdering him too. Somehow she doesn't get killed in the process and actually ends up back on the ship.

There's a long tense scene of both Caitlin and Thunder pleading with Ridge and Lightning not to murder all the surrendering soldiers, mostly based on the notion of "we can be better than them". It's fine, especially in helping make Thunder a more likeable character, but it doesn't feel like anything you probably haven't seen before. The group's ready to move on, which is just in time for the ship that Caitlin's been remotely calling closer to show up. Ridge points out that it's one of Harvest's ships, and that brings back bad memories, and gets pissy all over again. And like, first of all, no duh it's gonna be one of Harvest's ships, whose base did you just escape from? And secondly, you're in Alaska. Any ship is better than being in Alaska!

So because Ridge was pissy, karma swings back around again and the flight ship plows into the ground and explodes. Why? Because this is actually the ship that Warblade and Rose are piloting. I'm not even sure how that works, if Caitlin thought she was remotely piloting a vehicle but Warblade thought theirs was flying... I dunno. But anyway, Warblade and Rose pop out of the explosion and proceed to murder all the other survivors, leaving only our four protagonists. To get away from them, Thunder's powers turn on and begin carving away into the ground. It actually carves off the cliff-face they've been backed onto, like a Road Runner cartoon, and plunges them into the sea below, ending the issue.

My god, this issue is not good. The cover has all sorts of problems, which I pointed out. But even besides that, none of these characters are likeable. Like, don’t get me wrong, you have to have conflict in a story. But you can’t have nothing but conflict, and that’s what this feels like. Beast Boy and Terra were right to fuck off out of the plot early (unfortunately for them, they’ll be back). It’s just not a fun story, and that’s a bad sign when it’s a book about teen superheroes~

#comics #reviews #The Ravagers #Taiblog

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drownedkiwi · 5 years

Text

Much like being given a prophetic destiny, Ducks love for Minerva comes out of the blue.

There’s no grand romantic gestures; no stammering compliments, no shy glances or softly brushed hands. Duck is a good thirty years out of highschool and a good thirty years tired of crushes - hes too old for that kind of thing, really, and too old to beat around the bush when it comes to romance. Too old for romance at all, he had thought.

Of course, he had also thought he wasn't really one for fulfilling his unwanted destiny, or saving the universe, either, so it was just a given now that his judgment wasn't really to be trusted anymore.

When Duck announces hes moving to brazil, its not so much as an announcement but a goodbye; his flight is the next day, he tells Juno and Minerva and Leo, and his transfer was accepted over a week ago. He never was one for goodbye parties and he knows they would have thrown one together, so it was for the best he told them this way. Juno cries. Leo shakes his hand, and tells him to stay in touch, and that he was the best damned chosen partner he could have asked for. Sarah Drake kind of shrugs and hands him an old mug of hers from the observatory, because they hadnt really known eachother that long yet, but he seemed like a cool dude. He finds somewhere to put the mug in his bag, but Minerva is quiet.

He mistakes her quietness for confusion, and tries to explain that hes leaving the country. In a way, he's right, just slightly to the left.

“No, i understand what you’re doing, Duck Newton. It is exciting! A new adventure.” She smiles, and wraps an arm around his shoulder. “I look forward to braving the dangers of the Amazon by your side.”

It costs him an arm and a leg to book another next-day ticket to Brazil, and she talks the entire plane ride over, but when they start unpacking their suitcases in the shitty hotel the ranger station set them up in for a few days, Duck realizes that he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Without the imminent threat of death or destruction hanging over their heads, their mentor and mentee relationship dissolves within a matter of days. It doesnt worry him. Nothing about Minerva worries him; theyve known eachother long enough, now, and spent enough time with eachother both in battle and out for him to know that she always has his back regardless of what kind of sword is at his throat. She knows its the same with him - though most of the battles she faces are...endearing, to say the least, with the dangers of speeding cars still not fully understood - and their mutual respect for one another evolves into something new. Softer, maybe, something tinted in quiet moments and patience.

Ducks hair grows longer until it brushes the tips of his shoulders, and hers into a peach fuzz of stubble. He runs his hands through it when theyre watching Lost on tv and her head is resting on his shoulder, makes a joke about having his own personal matchbook always on hand, and she enthusiastically agrees. Duck has to stop her from trying to light a match on her head, and laughs, and laughs, and just cant stop laughing, and forgets for a moment how the heat makes his mullet stick to his neck in an uncomfortable sweat. She notices, one day, and offers to cut it.

“Naw,” he says, shrugging as he maneuvers his way around her in their small kitchen like hes done a thousand times before. “Kinda like it when the breeze gets under there and makes it blow like im some sort of superhero in an old cartoon.”

The ranger station in Brazil offers to set them up in separate apartments, eventually, but they decide to just keep sharing the one they already have. They don't mind sharing the bed, or the drawers, or the movies or kitchen or leftovers.

“We’re used to working together,” they say, and share a secret smile that means something neither of them bother to untangle.

After long days that have Duck planting for hours and Minerva on her feet all day, they collapse together on the couch in a sticky mess and dont speak for hours. They sit in silence until the sun goes down, until the mosquitos are buzzing in a threatening drone, and even then the only move made is Minerva gently kneading at his back until the knots all dissolve and he relaxes with a contented sigh. He makes them dinner, and it's bad, and when he kisses her on the cheek before going to work the next morning, neither of them think anything of it.

Juno emails them one day. Shes moving, its decided, because even after her promotion and all the work that needs to be done in Kepler, she figures theres work to be done in Brazil, too, and that Duck probably needs someone to keep him in check. Shes coming in a month. They offer to lend her their apartment - their apartment, they say, that she can sleep on the couch if she doesnt mind, but she rolls her eyes and laughs about how she wouldnt want to ruin their honeymoon period. Duck kind of shrugs it off, and Minerva doesnt quite know what that piece of slang means, but when he takes her hand as they walk around the grounds that evening she doesnt let go. And she keeps not letting go, even when he does it again the day after that, and even the day after that, and even when they pick up Juno at the airport, together.

Jane visits. Jane refers to Minerva as Ducks partner on the phone to their mom, and he doesnt correct her. Neither does Minerva, even when she asks how they met - she just smiles, keeps holding Ducks hand, and says “a very long time ago.”

Duck kind of figures that eventually he should ask her out proper. Figures it, for a while. Eventually, he doesnt really see the need to - they go out enough together to class those as dates, most of em, anyway, and when Minerva kisses him it doesnt feel like a ‘we’re very close friends and this his how i express emotions” kind of kiss. When Minerva kisses him he doesnt think much at all, actually. Mostly about kissing her back. A little bit about how they needed to pick up some more milk on the way home so she could have her Fruit Loops tomorrow. Its paperwork day, Duck thinks, as he winds his arms around her waist and keeps kissing her, and Minerva likes to eat Fruit Loops on paperwork day to make sure it doesnt get too boring.

Most of their kisses are like that.

He calls her honey, and she calls him Duck - Wayne, when its serious. Its not very often. Her serious means hes lost his keys again, or forgotten to sign off an important document. He likes her kind of serious. Serious used to mean life or death, or maybe a sprinkling of both, used to mean blood and terror and pain; he prefers it now, prefers to be afraid of a cold shoulder or a late night spent working on something he didnt want to do.

When Duck says hes tired of waiting, he means it. He like stagnant. He likes the stillness of the forest, of their time spent here. He doesnt want to wait anymore for something thats never going to come. Hes tired of pretending like theyre going to fight again.

When Duck says he wants to grow, Minerva holds his hand, and smiles, and the together is said in silence.

#justin mcelroy held me at gunpoint with that relationship reveal and made me write this #i cant fucking believe.#i cnanot.#i love them. so much #LET THEM BE SOFT.#LET THEM LOVE EACHTOHER #LET THEM GROW AND LOVE AND LIVE TOGETHER #THEY DESERVE A QUIET ENDING #THEY DESERVE TO LIVE IN PEACE TOGETHER #taz amnesty spoilers #taz amnesty #taz duck newton #taz fic #taz snippet #taz minerva #also this isnt proofread at all #we die like men

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i-rove-rock-n-roll · 5 years

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I just found my writing from elementary school. (Ages 6-10 mostly, though some of this came later)

Such hits as

Raindeer Trouble (corrected by the teacher as Reindeer Trouble) a one page story where Santa’s reindeer are sick, then have a miraculous recovery, all taking place a week before Christmas. I wrote it in either first or second grade, if memory serves me correctly (which I doubt it is)

Monkey Madness-written maybe a year later? Basically there’s this witch that hates the superhero Underdog’s guts (I had just seen the live action movie and loved it) and her plan was to make a super powered monkey to hypnotize to do her bidding. Her end goal was to become world leader and have everyone dress up as scary monsters for Halloween, rather than superheroes and “something else good and sweet”. Whatever that means. Then she started kidnapping people with the monkey’s help and turning them into real monsters. Eventually the monkey starts asking questions, like, “can you carve carnivorous cotton candy into kittys (kitties)?” (Idk wtf that even has to do with the rest of the plot but he gets sulky cause she doesn’t make him a cat at one point) There’s more gems in this one, plus a really wacky fight scene. This one was most definitely second grade, since a few words are in cursive, which I had just started learning. I also remember drawing a “cover” to this one, but idk where it is now.

The next one is Super Horse Heros (Heroes). I basically wrote down the stories my gram used to tell my sister and I when we demanded bedtime stories. An old horse wants a new life, and has to do 3 good deeds before his fairy god horse will turn him into a ‘“unisus” (unicorn/Pegasus combo). After that, the unisus saves a bunch of horses who were kidnapped and shipped to a glue factory. Then they became the Super Horse Heroes, saving children lost in cornfields (aka my sister and I) and flying off into the sunset.

I also found 2 essays in this folder-one about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and the other a 12 page paper on the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe which I used to apply to college.

Also a drawing of the Moirae and a spinning wheel that isn’t half bad.

Back to the writing!

Let’s see...a type written version (I used to have a typewriter before SOMEONE broke it one time when I moved) of Reindeer Trouble.

Oh! Here’s a gem! It’s titled: A Bad Toddler Finds a treasure at a popular amusement park. He finds literal treasure, fame, fortune, and an old boot.

The Adventures of Pretzel Man! With a little drawing in the corner. (I used to have a Nabisco pretzel looking doll, that was the inspo) He sells pretzels by day apparently and also fights crime. His enemy in this story is creatively called Taffy Laffy, who turns people into Taffy Zombies, and—

This story is unfinished. WHAT? I was actually wanting to know the end!

Ugh. Anyway, let’s continue

This next one is called Turkey Terror: a turkey’s life from my point of view. Basically this kid gets turned into a turkey (but they still have their own head??) it’s also 2 days before thanksgiving. The turkey kid’s name is apparently Sheldon, who makes friends with a chipmunk named Chippy...who is a total backstabbing liar leading Sheldon to an ambush in a cave, where he gets a bullet to the head, only to wake up and find it was all a dream...

WTF PAST ME?? WHAT—

More drawings in here, terribly proportioned gangster from the 20s...some drawings I did of phantom of the opera (I, uh, copied some drawings I liked by other artists at the time with the sole intention of just sticking them on my wall because i apparently forgot what a printer was)

Drawings of flowers...drawing of my dog’s eyeball for whatever reason...

Heaven or Hell: Gateway to Another World (keep in mind I was going based off of cartoons but I think my complete lack of understanding of religion is why I would up majoring in it)

More writing, some based on the imagery I got from songs I was listening to... one page thing I apparently wrote about the death of Jesus (???) once I had seen and been awestruck by Michaelangelo’s Pieta (on screen unfortunately, I’ve never seen it in person)

A paper with only one line on it saying “Mrs. Jenelle Hartson née Deveroux was always the first to tell anyone she was a crazy old bat”

Okay.

Oh no! Well, not no, but well—

Basically scrap paper bits of To Kill A Mockingbird from Boo Radleys POV. The whole thing would up being like 15 pages and was turned in for a school assignment. I think I scared the teacher with how long it was since he only asked for 2-3 pages. I have the whole thing on here somewhere in all it’s terrible glory if any of you want....

Bingo! Found a bunch from a wip I really liked like, 6-7 years ago! (So early high school) Scientist named Phineas Lancaster develops a way to jump between universes, is being pursued by the government, and winds up running into himself, but a deadbeat version who dropped out of college after a horrible accident. Let’s see what gems are in here....

“Phineas Lancaster, resident bum and professional alcoholic of the sprawling town Rock Falls, woke up feeling as if he had been slammed into by a bus. He hadn’t, but for a minute he’d thought he’d wandered into the middle of 32nd Avenue during Rush hour. Again.”

(Phineas, realizing he was kidnapped by a dude he doesn’t realize is himself from another universe) “His captor smiled at him in what he must have thought was [a] friendly way. Phineas was now more irritated than before when he noticed the flashing white of his captor’s teeth. ‘no way those are real’. He scowled at the man. ‘He looks like he popped out of a freaking toothpaste commercial’ he’d been abducted by a real like infomercial buffoon. Lovely.”

“I love your place.” He hated it. “Very homey.”

“He’s even got a nerdy voice, Janine. I can’t have a nerd for a twin.”

“Say hello to the guy that decided to kidnap me. He had some sort of weird spaz attack and, being the kind and loving soul I am, couldn’t just leave him in the middle of the desert to die. Ergo, he’s here.”

“I got us a lift from a very nice gentleman who is currently searching for Glenn Miller. He gave me his card in case I either found Glenn or if I need another lift, since he’s going to be in town for a few days.”

“I bet you’re a dentist. Dentists are evil.”

(When drunk Phineas not smart phineas is abducted by agents)

“All I wanted to do was stop by the Dollar Store for some Gummy Bears. I just had to get kidnapped again. Yay me, I could set a record.”

“Aaaand cut! Try it again, maybe with some more threatening looks this time, you might make me wet myself if you try hard enough.”

“Gee, i don’t know, I think I was too busy running for my life to ask, ‘I’m sorry, do you want to exchange numbers so we can do this again sometime? Maybe meet for tea?’”

“How ever did you make such a realistic looking doohickey?”

(One Phineas to the other)

“I totally got mom’s humor. You got dad’s shitty ability to make a person die of boredom.”

Road tripping to Golden Earring (and trying not to murder Phineas when he starts singing)

...guess I got a lot of stuff to play with now! Happy early birthday to me!

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drunkcomicbookrants · 5 years

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ROBERT KIRKMAN AND THE END OF AN ERA

Walking Dead was the first comic book I read.

Before that, I mostly knew comics from 90s cartoons I watched when I was a kid.

I would read about comics on wikipedia and get excited, the fact that Spider-Man and the X-Men shared the same universe was REAL NEAT in a way that I couldn’t quite explain, the idea of Big Events like House of M and Secret Wars was REALLY COOL to me, but I didn’t actually know how to go about reading those. I bought a couple issues off ebay, I wanted to like comic books, but I didn’t have enough context to really get into it. I had no idea that comics came out every Wednesday, or that there were options outside of MArvel and DC.

I was in college, working a shitty retail job, with a manager who saw through the veil. Life is meaningless, we’re all gonna die, humans are caterpillars with wasp eggs in our brain.

(this was before zombies or superheroes were cool, yes I know how hipster that sounds, whatever it was the early oughties)

youtube

So when this coworker pitches WALKIND DEAD to me I am ALL EARS. He tells me to check out the first trade paperback. I didn’t know what that meant, but I went to BARNES AND NOBLE because that was still a thin. This was the description on the back:

(I just dug this out of my closet, feels weird man)

and yes I know how edgelordy it seems now, but back then THIS GOT ME, this tapped into a frustration or frascination or SOMETHING that nothing else ever had in the same way

SO YEAH I GO AHEAD AND BUY THOIS FOR NINE DOILLARS AND NINETY NINE SENCSE

I read that first trade, which in hindsidght collects the first 6 issues, and then I’m at a loss. How to read more?? I wait for the next trade, and the next trade. I would go into barnes and noble every couple months and check if the next book was there (again, this was before I knew what I was doing, before everything was shoved down your throats, back when Walking Dead was something that nobody else heard about, yes I know I sound like a grouchy old man)

At this point I’m living in the cornfields of Lancaster county. I’m like 19, not sure if I should drop out of college or not.

I decided to Google the author Robert Kirkman, and I found out he wrote a bunch of other books. He wrote Wolfman and Brit and Battle Pope, the list goes on. WAIT A SECOND YOU CAN JUST BUY COMIC BOOKS OFF THE INTERNET?

So down the rabbit hole I go. Of course I stumble upon INVINCIBLE which is THE BEST SUPERHERO COMIC IN THE UNIVERSE so I start picking up those trades. This leads me to other trades, I read through WATCHMEN and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and ULTIMATES and NIGHTLY NEWS. It’s all fuckin really exciting because these are some of the first comics I’ve read, and I’m going in completely fucking blind. HERE HAVE A NEW ART FORM WHY NOT READ JUST THE BEST THINGS FROM HISTORY HERE THEY ALL ARE AT ONCE

At this point it’s like 2009 and I’ve graduated college, I live in Maryland now, and maybe I’m going through some shit and one day when I’m getting a California Tortilla burrito I decide to step into a comic shop

“uhhh I’ve been getting the Walking Dead trades and the Invincible collections, I’ve read up to this point, how do I start reading the single issues or whatever you call them?”

Fucking honestly great job @bigplanetcomics in Silver Spring MD. Super welcoming to a newbie, and honestly helped me through some shit

They point me to the single issues of Walking Dead and Invincible. For a while I go there monthly, pick up the single issues, get my hair cut at Floyds, and eat a burrito for lunch. I start picking up other issues, the habit is certainly forming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZfKOmygkr4

This doesn’t mean anything to you but that is a TIME IN MY LIFE that I guess I’m being nostalgic about now. This was how I discourved comic books, mixed in with learning how to be an adult in a city that didn’t feel like home

Eventually I move to Virginia, it’s 2012 now and at this point I’m going to Big Planet Comics Vienna every Wednesday (that’s when new comis books come out, WHO KNEW, honestly they don’t tell you that and THEY REALLY SHOULD). I’m still picking up WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE, but I’m also picking up pretty much any new #1 that comes out, for better and often for worse

if you hand me an old issue of WALKING DEAD or INVINCIBLE right now, I can tel you what was going on in my life when that issue came out. What girl was I dating, what was I doing at my job, where was I eating lunch on Saturdays. Again, not super interesting to other people, but for me each issue is a window into my life that month, it’s 22 pages of who I used to be

The point I want to make but haven’t yet is that these books lead me to OTHER BOOKS. Robert Kirkman was always very open about WAlking Dead being a GATEWAY DRUg: “The Walking Dead, although I love it, is far from the best comic being published today.” so without Walking Dead, I would not have read PRETTY DEADLY or ALEX + ADA or RESIDENT ALIEN or EAST OF WEST or SQUIRREL GIRL or MS MARVEL or LUMBERJANES

Fast forward a few years, through some fuckin chapters in my biography, it’s 2016 now and I’m about to move to California. This is going to sound dumb but I only cried twice when I was moving. Once when I said goodbye to the girl I thought I would marry, and once when I asked for my pull list from Big Planet Comics for the last time.

Before I move to California, one of the first things I do is look up the local comic shop. I find one that’s between my apartment and my job. I go there the first Wednesday after I move, and I’ve gone there every Wednesday since then.

Whatever else is going on in my life, picking up my books on Wednesday has been a part of the routine for the last 10 years or so. And for that entire time, WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE have been with me through it all.

SO FUCK ME RIGHT when Robert Kirkman stabs me through the heart and tells me that INVINCBLE is ending. THAT LAST ISSUE IS like jumping ahead 50 years and looking through a photo album of the best friends you made in college, living life, finding meaning, and moving on without you. RYAN OTTLEY’s art has been a part of my ACTUAL FUCKING LIFE for so long that MY EYES AREN’T SURE WHAT TO DO WITHOUT HIM (other than to buy Spider-Man).

But Walking Dead is still going strong, right? WRONG. Extremely recently, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn PULLED A FAST ONE ON US and ENDED WALKING DEAD without announcing it ahead of time.

I bought issue 193, thinking it was a regular issue. It was not. It was the end.

I had no idea this was coming.

And as part of that issue, one of the characters made this speech:

PLEASE UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH OF A MOMENT THIS WAS FOR ME

this was the excerpt I read in barnes and noble when I was 19 living in Lancaster not sure if I should drop out of college, passing through the years of monthly comic shop trips by myself in Maryland, through Virginia and lending out books to anyone who would listen, to California where my comic shop now has palm trees and I now have gray hairs and eye crinkles

Since I started reading Walking Dead and Invincible, zombies became overdone, superheroes went from “Jessica AlbaFantatsic Four movie” to Avengers Endgame. I went from terrified 19 year old to crinkly-eyed 33 year old. It’s hard not to look back on that transition and not feel.... sad

Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard and Ryan Ottley you sons of a bitches. I know it’s basic to like zombies and superheroes now, but YOU GOT ME THROUGH SOME THINGS and I honestly feel... thankful for the time we spent together. I know you’re working on other stuff now, and I’m excited for it. I’m also excited about other books like GIDEON FALLS and EAST OF WEST and PAPER GIRLS and SAGA. But I’m going to mourn this end of an era.

tl;dr: Invincible and Walking Dead are over. So are my twenties.

#walking dead #invincible #image comics #Robert Kirkman #Ryan Ottley #Charlie Adlard #K's Choice #Big Planet Comics #dogfishbeer

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distractedhistotech · 5 years

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Before MSA + 1: Now a Trio

It wasn’t just the start of a new school year. It was their first year of middle school, and Lewis and Sydney were both excited and nervous. On one hand, they were growing up, and their parents were discussing letting them walk home on their own. On the other hand, they didn’t share a lot of classes outside of social studies, English, and lunch. That was going to require a lot of changes in how they studied and did homework.

As they no longer had recess, they decided to make the most of their lunch hour by bringing lunch so they could skip the lines. There was just one small issue.

“I thought I was gonna make both our lunches,” said Lewis, who was holding two bags of lunch. He’d been learning how to cook and decided fixing their lunches would be the best way to get practice in.

Sydney held up her own bag. “You said you were going to make chicken!”

“I made a different dish for you!”

“That had to take forever!”

“How long do you think it takes to cook?” questioned Lewis. “It took me a couple of hours to make the chicken. It didn’t take as long to make yours, and I have leftovers for a couple of days.”

“I guess that helps, but you have homework. I don’t want you to exhaust yourself making food for both of us.” Sydney held up her bag, which was noticeably heavier than either of the bags Lewis had. “Plus, vegetarians have to eat a lot more than a normal diet.”

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s some shrimp in…” Lewis trailed off as she saw a bunch of nasty looking ghosts around a boy sitting by himself.

“Okay, the shrimp helps,” admitted Sydney. “But it sure sounds like those take a while to cook.” Sydney walked forward another couple of steps before realizing Lewis wasn’t following her. “Lewis? Is something wrong?”

Lewis swallowed. “That kid there.” He pointed towards the boy. “There’s some nasty ghosts around him.”

Sydney stared at the boy, unable to see the ghosts. “Oh. Okay. Let’s sit with him then.”

The two had come to realize that ghosts…didn’t like Sydney. The normal ones were more or less willing to tolerate her presence. Some of the less pleasant ghosts didn’t want to be around her at all. All ghosts absolutely hated being touched by her. Lewis was willing to admit he’d taken advantage of this a couple of times when something nasty had tried to follow him around. Of course, Sydney had been okay with it. It wasn’t like she’d had to do anything different.

Lewis guessed it wasn’t that surprising that Sydney was willing to sit with a complete stranger to keep something nasty away from him.

So that was why the two were sliding in across from the boy, who looked up at them in surprise. The ghosts had already fled. “Hi, I’m Sydney,” greeted Sydney. She gestured towards Lewis. “This is Lewis. Don’t be fooled by his size. He might be the size of a bear, but he’s just a teddy bear. Although teddy bears might just be baby bears. Eh, I think it can still apply ‘cause we’re still just kids. Better temper though. Like Baloo! Or Little John.” Sydney seemed to think for a second before. Nodding. “So what’s your name?”

“…I’m Arthur,” the boy answered with a slight accent.

“You have really cool hair,” said Sydney. “You look like an anime character. Do you cosplay? If you cosplay, I can introduce you to my dad. He makes costumes and accessories for cosplay. He makes Halloween costumes for Lewis and me every year. Way better than what you find in the stores.” Here Sydney had to pause to eat some of her lunch.

Arthur raised his hands towards his hair. “It’s…it’s always looked like this.”

Sydney’s eyes sparkled. “That is awesome! Are you a real life anime character? Is your life like an anime? Oh, wait, that might not be a good thing. Some of those characters have shitty backstories. Unless it’s some sort of comedy or maybe a slice of life series.” Sydney gave Arthur a serious look. “Which genre would you say applies to your life the most?”

Arthur was visibly overwhelmed. Lewis clapped a hand on Sydney’s shoulder. “Sydney, give him some room to breathe.”

Sydney stopped. “Oh. Oops.” Sydney gave Arthur a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I got carried away.”

Lewis gave Sydney a fond smile before turning it towards Arthur. “Sydney didn’t mean anything. She just talks about whatever comes to mind.”

“And I have ADHD so a lot of stuff pops up in my head!” proclaimed Sydney. “Also, I had to adjust my medication recently. It gets a little worse during adjustment.”

Arthur blinked a couple of times. “Okay…”

“So what grade are you in?” asked Lewis. “We’re in 6th grade.”

“First day in middle school ever!” added Sydney.

“Uh, 8th grade,” answered Arthur. “It’s, uh, uh, my first day too,” he said quietly.

“Huh?” Lewis and Sydney shared a confused look before something occurred to Lewis. “Oh, homeschool?” Arthur nodded in response.

“My parents thought about homeschooling me,” commented Sydney.

Lewis turned to Sydney in surprise. “What? When?”

“When I was really young. Before we moved here.” She smiled at Lewis. “Then we moved and you and your family helped me with school.” She winced. “Oof. Gonna have to get the hang of taking notes on my own now.”

“Your notes aren’t that bad.”

“I once doodled a superhero battle over my cheat sheet,” countered Sydney before whispering in aside to Arthur. “Daredevil won.”

“Who?” asked Arthur.

“Matt Murdock,” explained Sydney. “As a child, he shoved a blind man out of the way of a chemical truck. He saved the man, but the truck spilled chemicals in his eyes, making him go blind. But! They also made his other senses super strong, which he used to compensate for his loss of vision. He went on to become a defense lawyer by day and parkouring ninja vigilante by night!”

Arthur swallowed and looked down. “Vigilantism is illegal. He should know better.”

Sydney shrugged. “Yeah, well, if you heard or saw someone in trouble, you’d stop to help ‘em, right?” Arthur nodded. “Remember how I said Matt’s other senses were super strong?” Arthur nodded again. “Well, he can hear someone getting beat up over a block away. He could call the police, but it’s Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. It would take time for the police to get there, but Matt could get there pretty quickly with his skills. A few seconds can mean the difference between life and death.” And then the sudden seriousness melted away as she shrugged. “But it’s a comic book, just a bunch of writers having fun. You gotta suspend the disbelief a little. I mean, they also had a guy develop spider powers after getting bitten by a radioactive spider.”

Arthur nodded, looking thoughtful. “It should have given him cancer.”

“Besides, the point of comics and superheroes isn’t to teach you about law,” said Lewis. “It’s…Well, technically the point of them is to entertain people, but you also can learn life lessons from them. Like how deal with the death of a loved one.”

“Or how not to deal with the death of a loved one,” added Sydney.

“The emotional impact a simple act of kindness can have on someone having a bad day.”

“How your actions can impact more people than you’ll ever meet.”

“That things are never as bad as they seem.”

“How to live your life.”

“And some do teach you information about things like legends,” added Lewis.

“Huh, you know, it’s actually kind of hard to put it into words,” commented Sydney. “It just feels like if you let them, the stories told in comics can help shape you into a better person.” She frowned. “As long as they’re good comics. Some have pretty nasty stories. It would be bad if you took those to heart.”

“A lot of things that are made for fun are like that,” agreed Lewis. “You get pulled in by the bright lights and action and end up learning something important by the end of it. Personally, I think those are the best shows.” He grinned towards Sydney. “Or comics.” Sydney smiled back as Lewis turned to smile at Arthur. “Or videogames.”

Arthur blinked. “I…guess. I don’t have a lot of experience.”

“Really? Well, I guess comics aren’t for everyone,” admitted Sydney. “What about cartoons?”

“I…didn’t have comics…or television…or videogames…or fiction books,” admitted Arthur. Lewis and Sydney stared. “My…family was strict.”

“But it’s okay now?” asked Lewis. “You won’t get in trouble for talking about them with someone?”

Arthur shook his head. “I’m living with my uncle. He bought me comics and videos.”

“Anything you like so far?” asked Sydney.

Arthur shrugged. It was too new for him.

“I’m pretty fond of Sailor Moon personally,” said Lewis.

The rest of the lunch period was spent telling Arthur about Sailor Moon.

#sydney scoville jr.#Lewis Pepper #Arthur Kingsman #mystery skulls animated #msa + 1 #au #grrlpowercomic #school #first meetings

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dcarevu · 5 years

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Christmas With The Joker

“It’s not relentlessly cheerful, is it?”

So, only one episode in, and they do a Christmas special. One episode into this series that they wanted to be dark, serious, and adult…and they do a Christmas special. A Batman. Christmas. Special. Huh. Well, it is becoming that time of year. So let’s sleigh right into: Christmas With The Joker

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Villain: The Joker Robin: Yes Writer: Eddie Gorodetsky Director: Kent Butterworth Animator: Akom Airdate: November 13, 1992 Episode Grade: B This episode holds the distinction of being the very first episode of Batman The Animated Series I ever saw. I had seen Mask Of The Phantasm prior (which was a glorious place to start), and eventually Warner Brothers started releasing these Batman TAS VHS tapes each featuring a particular villain. My mom bought me one featuring the Joker, which included this episode, along with The Laughing Fish. I picked it out specifically because of the screenshot of the Joker wrapped up in his straightjacket shown on the back, and I assumed this was from his origin episode. I didn’t get an origin episode, but I did get a Christmas special that I now watch every single year. I absolutely love it.

I’ve always been someone that enjoys the darker side of Christmas. Carol Of the Bells. A Christmas Carol. That one Twilight Zone episode featuring a drunk Santa Claus that ends up making Christmas magical for everyone. It’s funny, because despite this, I very much enjoy the more innocent side of Halloween (think of cute Beistle die cuts or Scooby Doo). This episode fits right into this archetype, and maybe that is why I love it so much. Of course, this isn’t the only reason. We also get the first appearance of the Joker, voiced by Mark Hamill (yes, that Mark Hamill), and overall a very entertaining episode, Christmas concept aside.

So it’s Christmas Eve, and Dick Grayson (Robin) is home for the holidays. All he wants to do is spend the night relaxing to Christmas dinner and It’s a Wonderful Life, but Bruce isn’t about to let up his night watch just because of the following day. He just knows that something will happen, and right as he finally gives in to Robin’s movie request, we see that the Joker has somehow interrupted pretty much every channel broadcast, and is airing a Christmas special all his own. Featuring a kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, Detective Bullock, and Summer Gleeson, a news reporter (I had no idea it was her before reading it on the DCAU wiki. Kinda cool that it’s not simply some unnamed character!). Batman, aware of the Joker’s love of destructive games sets out with Robin to find his broadcast, and put an end to the Christmas Eve havoc. Throughout the episode he gets sidetracked by an exploding train track (done by the Joker of course), a barrage of cannonballs being fired straight into the city (done by, again, the Joker), and a barrage of Christmas-themed dangers at an abandoned toy factory. At the end of the episode, with the Joker found, and the kidnapped three dangling above a vat of acid, the Joker has Batman open up a special present addressed specifically for him (complete with bat wrapping paper). “Don’t do it, Batman!” shouts Robin, but Batman knows that it’s the only way to save the three and Gotham City as a whole. What’s inside? A pie in the face, what else? Immediately afterward, although Joker tries to run, he slips on a roller skate and nearly falls into the acid himself…but is caught by Batman on the way down. Everyone is saved, and the two heroes even get to finally watch their Christmas special in peace.

Let’s talk about the two big things with this episode: Robin and the Joker. The idea of using an older Robin was obviously a way to bring some realism to the character, and to not ruin the tone that they were going for. Robin is historically kind of a goofy character, and was meant to be a role model for the kiddies. Wanting to avoid specifically kid elements in their show, they used a college-aged Robin. I think it works sometimes, and not so much at other times. It is a little weird seeing such an old character wearing the Robin outfit, but they also made an effort to tone down the silliness of it a little bit. Thank god we didn’t get those little elf shoes and those freshly-waxed legs. While Robin’s usefulness varies throughout the show, I think in this episode they work pretty well together, and for an episode like this, it gives Batman someone to talk to, and introduces some comic relief. Hearing Batman referred to as a Scrooge and seeing him bag on Robin’s choice of movies is pretty funny, and I feel like these two have similar exchanges about Christmas as a lot of us do in real life. The action scenes with Robin were also pretty good, and I never really felt like either of them had nothing to do/were a damsel in distress. That’s the one thing about Robin that bugs me sometimes, and it wasn’t until much later when they got consistently good at having more than one superhero on screen at once, balancing everything out. I will admit, some of it did get a little too corny for my liking…particularly the way Batman would bark things like, “Easy, Robin!” But it also reminded me a little bit of the Adam West show in a charming way that I accept much more with a Christmas episode. So take these comments how you take them.

And the Joker? Fantastic debut. He’s funny. He’s menacing. He’s batshit insane. He’s charismatic. He’s everything a classic, definitive Joker should be. I love Heath as much as anyone else, but being a great Joker vs being a definitive Joker are two different things. I wouldn’t get rid of either of them, and I think they both perfectly represent the type of character they are meant to be. I think the Joker changed a lot throughout this show. He giggles unlike later in the series here, and he’s clearly mentally unstable in a different, albeit very fun way. But then there are moments like where he laughs in someone’s face because he knows that her mother is on a train that is headed straight for a blown up bridge. He’s that character that you love to hate, and as much as you want Batman to sock each and every one of those yellow teeth out of his mouth, you also can’t help but root for him to keep getting away just so that you get more of him. It is kinda weird for me picturing this episode’s version of the Joker with Harley, and Harley Quinn may be the main reason why the Joker’s personality changed a little bit and got a hair more serious. In this episode he’s like, well, a cartoon character. More than usual. He has a stylized personality as much as he has a stylized look.

When I mentioned earlier that this episode fits alongside a lot of the darker aspects of Christmas, to clarify a little bit more, it’s not just because you have a psychotic killing clown and a scary guy dressed as a bat. It also has the vintage aspect to it. You have the “dark deco” 30′s aesthetic already in place. Then you add the vintage-looking wintery landscape...the Nutcracker music...and even the dark, snowy city that almost makes me think of Victorian England. I think all of this creates the old-timey Christmas feel without shoving religious morals, or Santa Claus, or greedy marketing down our throats. It succeeds in being a Christmas special almost exclusively through vibes, and mention of it being the holiday. Okay, and Robin’s green and red pajamas are pretty festive as well. The DCAU would do a couple more Christmas episodes later, another one of them being Batman, and while this one is also great, it communicates Christmas in a vastly different way than this one, a way which is much more modern. Both can be great, but this is the Batman Christmas special I will come back to year after year.

As far as my girlfriend Char’s impressions, she really liked this episode too. As someone who has never seen a single episode of the DCAU before this blog, she said that she expected and was hoping for Harley Quinn, but wasn’t necessarily disappointed that she didn’t show up. Picturing a world of Batman TAS before Harley’s existence is something that I feel like we all sorta gloss over since it’s almost like she’s always existed. And while the show got better with her first appearance, I’m glad that they could do a solid Joker beforehand. Char loved the Joker’s representation, and was surprisingly very much in line with what she expected from the character. She said that he was very creepy, but in a very entertaining way. She also noted his design, particularly his color pallet (wait till she sees TNBA). Some more comments about Harley Quinn were made, and she’s scared for Harley after seeing what a maniac the Joker is. She ships Harley and Poison Ivy, something that I see a lot. I don’t necessarily disagree 100%, but, well, we’ll save a lot of that conversation for later.

An older Robin was something that Char was really into, and I got the impression that she never really cared for the super young Robin, as, well, yeah, it is kinda strange. Back when the character was introduced, maybe not so much, nut nowadays? Yeah. What the hell, Batman. Also, Loren Lester provides a voice that she always sorta pictures with the character, and again, she noted how definitive everything seemed.

Some other stray observations she made: She agreed with me on some of Batman’s lines being corny, but she also found them a little bit creepy.It was a unique Christmas special. Batman and Robin sorta feel like father and son, but only sorta. This is something the show will get into much more as we go on. She thought the Joker would make a hilarious game show host if he weren’t, well, evil. She noted how shitty the star on the tree at the very beginning was. Apparently Arkham Asylum needs a better interior decorator. And lastly, she loved the ending. As do I. It’s so unsettling, yet so perfect. Better than what I expected when I saw the screenshot on the back of the VHS as a kid. Char’s grade: B

Major Firsts: The Joker, Robin, Summer Gleeson, Arkham Asylum, Xmas episode, we see the Batmobile has a TV, a musical number (The Joker sings) Next time: Nothing To Fear

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman #batman tas #batman the animated series #the joker #christmas #xmas #christmas with the joker #robin

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