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micahscowgirl · 3 years

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Bite Me ~ Chapter 6

Micah Bell x f!reader

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Warnings: SMUT (finally), cussing, biting kink (w/blood)

Word Count: 2550

Wow. This just happened.

Chapter 6

“What’s taking you so damn long?”

“Quit yappin’,” you sternly bite back at Micah through the curtain. “I’m not even done trying everything on”

Micah has brought you to the tailor shop in Valentine to pick out some new clothes. You have a small pile of garments sitting on the bench and floor next to you. You wouldn’t admit to Micah, but you have already tried everything on, but are debating between a few options.

After trying on a very different combinations of tops and pants, you finally settled on a grey, long-sleeved button up, a leather jacket, and black riding pants. You pull the curtain back and do a quick little model for Micah, fully aware of the flattering fit of the pants.

“So, what do you think?”

“My, my,” He starts, “who’re you trying to impress, doll?”

You shoot him a quick glance before returning to collect the clothes you didn’t want. “A lady’s got to make herself presentable, don’t you agree?”

When you turn your head towards him again, you notice him biting his bottom lip while admiring you. His hat was tilted in front of his eyes, so he didn’t realize you caught him. The sight gave you butterflies and you felt yourself throb slightly. You quickly push any thoughts that might have been making their way into your head away.

“So, uh, what do you normally do whenever the camp moves without you?” you try to make conversation.

“Well, it’s definitely not as simple as asking around. Hey Mister!” He begins to mock towards an imaginary man. “Can I bother you with a question? You see, I’ve lost my crew, most of whom have a huge criminal bounty, you wouldn’t happen to know where they headed off to, do ya now?”

This puts a grin on your face, “Well, well, Mister Bell, I never would’ve pegged you for the comedic type.”

He smiles, “Well, doll, I don’t show that side to many people.” When he makes eye contact with you, he turns away and clears his throat, “Ahem, anyway we should, uh, probably be off now.”

He pays the shopkeeper for your clothes, and walks out of the shop, leaving you to finish folding the clothes. You know you should be upset, but you’re not. You can’t help but feel sorry for him.

I wonder why he conceals himself so much. And what makes me different from everyone else?

~~~~~~

Micah had tracked the wagon trail tp the train tracks before turning towards town that morning, so that’s where you returned to. It was a silent ride, so all you had were your thoughts. No matter how many times you tried not to, you couldn’t stop thinking of the way he looked at you in the shop. What was he thinking about? Was he simply admiring you? Or was he imagining all the things he would do to you, given the chance?

“You ain’t falling asleep back there, are you?” He startles you out of your thoughts. Without realizing it, you had slowly started to lean onto his back, like you had slept the night before.

“Oh, uh, sorry. I was just, uh, lost in thought.” you stutter, trying to not make anything obvious.

“Oh? What were you thinking about, doll?”

Oh my God, does he know? He couldn’t know, right? Or--

“Micah? Is that you?” someone calls from up ahead.

“Yeah, me and Y/N.”

Bill steps from behind a tree, “Camp’s right up ahead.” he says to Micah. As y’all pass him, he nods to you. “Glad you made it back safe.” After some distance is made, Micah scoffs.

“Figures.” He says.

“What?”

“They’re only glad you made it back.”

Without knowing what to say, the trot towards the camp is a silent one.

Once you arrive at camp, you begin to notice the same reaction from everyone.

“Y/N, you made it!” Arthur walks up to the horse. Micah hops off, and knowing you’re still sore from the night before turns to help you, but not before Arthur beats him to it. “Dutch was so worried about you after he sent you off to Strawberry.” You accept his help and Micah turns and walks away stubbornly off into the trees.

“I ran into some trouble up that way, thankfully Micah was there to save me,” you say, giving him the credit. Even so, it was brushed away.

“Let’s get you something to eat.” Mary-Beth chimes in, taking you by the arm and pulling you away. “Charles and Hosea said they’d hitch your tent if you made it back today.” You turn your head and get one more glimpse of Micah before he is erased by the trees. I wouldn’t be back if it wasn’t for him.

~~~~~~

The afternoon is full of celebration led by Dutch. You can’t help but feel that this is his way of hiding that he did choose to move without waiting for you or sending anyone to find you. If it wasn’t for Micah, you’d be dead or even worse. “You’re going to be my little whore.” The voice of the O'Driscol echoes in your head.

Even though your sitting in front of a warm fire and everyone is singing and laughing, you can’t help but feel cold and sad. Micah hasn’t come back since he walked off earlier. He’s the one who saved your life and no one batted an eye for it.

When no one is paying attention, you stand and sneak your way to behind the tents. You make your way over to the horses and Baylock is still there. For the first time all night, you felt a small smile sneak it’s way onto your face. Micah must still be here somewhere.

“Y/N,” you jump and turn to see Arthur walking towards you. “What are you doing over here? You missing all the fun!” Arthur isn’t a heavy drinker, but you can tell he’s a little more than tipsy.

“I just needed a moment from the crowd.” You say, trying to hint at him to leave. With no prevail, you continue. “I was just going to take a small walk by myself.”

“Well, I can keep you comp’ny!” he slurs.

Dammit, Arthur.

You have an idea. “You know, Arthur, I think Mary-Beth has quite the thing for you.” He looks intrigued. “And, coming from a women’s perspective, a nice cool night like this is quite the romantic setting. I think you could make a pretty good move tonight.” You wink.

“You really think so?” he ponders the idea. “If you think I have a chance, maybe I’ll go for it!”

You gentle grab his arm and turn him to face the camp. “Go get’em, cowboy.”

You sigh as he makes his way back to the camp, now to find Micah.

~~~~~~

You had made your way into the trees. Thankfully, the moon was bright tonight and you could see under the shade of the trees. Finding him shouldn’t be a problem. Your confidence grew thin the longer you looked, though. You were about to give up when you saw a small wisp of smoke glow from behind a tree. The pine needles beneath your feet made it hard for him to hear you, so you speak softly as to not startle him.

“Micah, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

You approach the tree he is leaning on and turn to face him. He is sitting on the ground and his head is tilted so you can’t see his eyes. You want nothing more than to see them and get lost in their deep blue color.

“What’re you doing way out here?” You know the answer, but you needed something to say.

“Same thing I always do, sweetheart. Avoiding those who despise me, which unfortunately seems to be everyone at the moment.”

After a small pause, you say, “I don’t despise you.”

He takes a long draw from his cigarette before he looks up. “And why is that? What do you see in me? ‘Cause there ain’t nothing here worth giving two shits about.”

You can’t think of anything to say that won’t set him off. You can tell he’s right on the edge of snapping.

He sighs, “That’s what I thought, there ain’t--” He stops when he sees you walking towards him.

You move so your standing over him, one foot on either side of his legs. He flicks away his cigarette and slowly runs his hands softly up your legs. Once he reached your thighs, you lower yourself to straddle him. Your heart is pounding, but you don’t want to let him see how nervous you really are.

One of his hands stops on your hip, while the other one continues. He runs his fingers up your arm, following them with his eyes. They brush over your shoulder, onto your neck, and down your jaw. He finally makes eye-contact with you making you shiver.

“Now what do you think you’re up to, doll.”

You don’t respond with words. Instead, you place your hands on his chest, grab the fabric of his shirt, and lean in to kiss him. You pull away, stopping only a few inches back, just so you can look into his eyes.

He moves one hand around your waist and the other gets lost in your hair as he pulls you in to a much deeper kiss. As his tongue enters you mouth, you begin to feel yourself throb. You’ve been hoping for this for so long and it’s finally happening. Your heart beats faster as you begin to grind against him slowly but rough.

He pulls himself away from the kiss. “Are you sure you want this? With me?”

You reach down to start undoing the buttons on your shirt. “I want this. I want you, Micah.”

You pull off your shirt and your battered undershirt, revealing your breasts. He glances at you approval before he grabs them. He leans back in to kiss you. As he moves his hands to hold your waist again, he grazes your nipple, causing you to moan into the kiss. That must’ve been what did it for him because he grabs tightly onto your hips.

“If you want me, your gonna need to loose these,” He runs his fingers down your pants. Before you can respond, his thumb has reached down the the seam right in-between your legs. You didn’t realize how wet you had became until he started to apply pressure. You let out a small moan again. You were so sensitive from anticipation for the moment, you could hardly stand it.

He begins to rub more as he leans in to start sucking on your neck. It’s becoming too much for you; you want him so bad. You reach down, moving your hand past his to grab onto his bulge through his pants. When you do this, he bites down onto the spot he had just made on your neck, causing you to whimper. All at once, he removes his mouth from your neck and his hand from your pants. You let out a sigh, missing the sensation.

He starts to undo his belt. Taking that as a sign, you stand to remove your pants and panties. Wasting no time, you straddle him again.

“This is your last chance, doll, you sure you want this. I can’t promise I’ll be gentle.”

“Yes, Micah, please. I’ve been wanting this for so long.”

He smiles as he moves his hand back down, starting to run small circles or your clit. “Trust me, princess, I’ve been wanting this too.”

You lean in to kiss him again, trying to silence your moans. He slowly begins to move two fingers to enter you. You can’t hold back the whimpers escaping your throat; you crave him so much.

He continues to rub your clit with his thumb as the two fingers curl inside of you.

“P-please, Micah, I can’t take it. I want you.”

As much as he was trying to hold back as long as he could, your begs pushed him over once again. He reaches into his pants and pulls out his dick.

“Look at me,” He says. You do as you’re told. You bite your lip as he rubs his member over your clit and entrance, wetting himself with your slick. All at once, he shoves himself into you, causing you to let out a loud moan. He reaches up and covers your mouth.

“Shhh. You don’t want the whole camp coming over here and interrupting us, do you, doll?” He hisses. You shake your head, his hand holding back muffled whimpers as you get use to his size. Once you’re quiet, he moves his hand away. “Good girl.”

He grabs onto your hips tightly, his thumbs digging into them hard. He lifts you and slams you back onto him. Another moan tries to escape you. “I’m not going to continue until I know you can be quiet, babe.” he teases. You pout your lips at him. He smiles and tilts his head, exposing his neck from underneath his hair. You look at his neck then back at him. He grins.

“Bite me.” he says in a deep tone that you can feel in your chest, causing you to shiver and tighten on his cock that’s deep inside you. “Well?” he smirks.

You put your arms on his shoulders and place your lips on his neck. You can’t imagine actually biting him, that would hurt too much, right?

He starts to slowly lift you and thrust into you. You wants to moan so badly, but you know he’ll only stop again. You keep your lips shut tightly, keeping them pressed up against him.

He begins to thrust harder, grinding your clit against him every time. It’s too much and you open your mouth to moan, but instead bite down onto his neck. You hear him snarl and feel a growl in his throat. He speeds up, lifting you high enough each time to take in his whole shaft. He pounds into you, you feel your clit start to throb more and more and your insides tighten.

You start to taste the metallic flavor of blood right as you tip over the edge. You can’t help it, you pull away from him to arch your back and ride through your climax. The feeling keeps getting better and better. You sense he’s lifting you lower as his arms grow tired. You begin to lift yourself, riding him until he’s finished. You feel his cock grow stiffer and begin to throb as he’s about to come.

He reaches up and grabs your hair, pulling you forward into a sloppy kiss. He reaches down and grabs your hips a final time to slam into you as hard as he can. He let’s out a deep moan through gritted teeth and he finishes, filling you up. This causes you to let out one final moan before you fall onto his chest.

“God-dammit, Y/N.” He pushes you up so he can look at you. “What the hell got into you?”

You smile, too exhausted for words. You lean forward and lick the small drops of blood from his neck.

“You wouldn’t happen to have enough space in that tent of yours for one more, would you?” he says. He leans forward to leave a small trail of kisses up your neck and across you jaw.

“Hmm, I think I can make some room.”

#wow #micah bell #micah bell smut #smut #yummy #rdr2 #Red Dead Redemption #it's about time #yay

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amarits · 3 years

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Chirp Extra - Bruce POV from Chapter 32

Way back when I was writing Chapter 32, I hit a stumbling block on the part where Jason overhears Bruce and Tim arguing. He only needed to hear a few lines from the argument, but for some reason I was having the hardest time making those lines sound natural. So I did what any reasonable person would do, and I wrote an entire 1,100 word scene that I knew would never be in the story, just to make a few lines sound right. Not all of the dialogue lines up perfectly, since I made a few changes while writing it from Jason's perspective, but this gave me what I needed to get started.

Hope you enjoy some rare Bruce perspective!

—

The advantage of having money, Bruce thought, is that he didn’t have any trouble arranging for half a semester of tutoring at the last minute with no questions asked. It didn’t solve anything that really mattered. It didn’t make Jason better, or catch the Joker, who was still at large, but at least his son would get an education.

The grandfather clock behind him swung open, and he was on his feet in an instant, hand reaching for the secret compartment under his desk that held defensive weapons. Nothing bat themed, nothing that would out him as Batman up here in the manor, but enough to protect himself from an unexpected enemy.

Tim came out from the tunnel carrying a bulky bookbag. “Oh,” he said when he caught sight of Bruce, like he was surprised to see him here. That was fair, he supposed. He hadn’t spent much time away from Jason’s bed since he woke up.

Actually, he hadn’t seen Tim at all since Jason woke up. He was disappointed in himself to realize that he’d barely given the boy a thought for the last week.

Tim rallied quickly, dropping the bookbag onto the ground beside him and pulling out his phone.

“The Joker’s back,” he said, without even a greeting, facing the screen towards Bruce. The image showed a man in a glass cage with a crazed expression and outstretched lips, apparently mid-laugh. Joker toxin.

“Where did you get this?” he asked. He tried to take the phone, but Tim held tight. Bruce let him. Tim had a reason to be protective of his devices.

“I went back to the apartment we were surveilling, the one with Blue Shirt and Green Shirt.”

“You what?”

Tim stiffened, the way he always did when he knew he’d done something he shouldn’t but was going to argue it was for the best anyway. “I tried to film it from the outside first, but there weren’t any good angles,” he said, his words clipped and precise. “I went when I knew no one would be there and snuck in to leave some better cameras. And then I found this.” He flipped through the photos on his phone. Each showed a few seconds of movement before settling on the photo. Several more prisoners. A wide-screen of the whole room. “There were canisters of gas in the hallway closet, but I wasn’t able to get a picture.”

“Why not?”

Tim’s brief hesitation was enough for Bruce’s insides to turn to ice before he even heard the answer. “People showed up, so I had to get out.”

‘People.’ Tim didn’t specify, but there was no questioning who he meant, not with the way Tim’s eyes flicked guiltily to the side or how the hand not holding the phone pulled on his sweatshirt. He could have lost a second child to the Joker, and never even known it was happening. Not known until days later when his body showed up in the river. He needed to keep a better eye on Tim. Were his parents even in town right now? Would anyone report him missing if he didn’t come home?

“You shouldn’t have been there.” It came out harsher than he’d intended, and Tim reacted to the anger, stiffening further, his shoulders rising to his chin.

“Someone needed to look into it and you were busy. Isn’t it better that we know?”

“A little bit of information isn’t worth your life!” He didn’t understand how Tim couldn’t get that. How Tim valued his life so little. Flashes of Jason covered in blood filled his vision.

“I was careful.”

“Not careful enough. Never go out alone. Do you understand me?”

“I wasn’t—”

Whatever argument Tim had been about to make cut off. He stilled, his gaze falling on something past Bruce. He hadn’t heard anyone coming over the rush of blood in his ears. He turned to see Jason standing in the doorway, covered in blood.

No, the blood was in his memories. Jason was fine, wearing Robin pajamas that Dick had insisted on getting him while he was still in the coma. Said it would make him stronger. Bruce hadn’t had the heart to argue, even with the risk to their identities.

“Jason,” Tim breathed behind him. That’s right. Tim hadn’t seen Jason since he woke up. “How are you doing? Are you feeling better? You look—”

Jason wasn’t looking at Tim, his eyes boring into Bruce’s. “You replaced me?” he asked.

Bruce’s stomach fell out and Tim quieted behind him. “Of course not,” he said. He tried to unsee the blood that dripped down Jason’s skin, but it was as much a part of his psyche now as pearls scattered across an alley.

“Oh, so Tim’s not going out as Robin then?” Jason asked, sarcasm dripping heavily from every word. Guilt filled Bruce. He had never wanted another kid to put on the suit, to be in danger. He certainly hadn’t wanted to hurt Jason.

“I’m just filling in,” Tim said, his words blending together like he was trying to get as many out at once as he could. “We needed—”

“I’m not talking to you,” Jason spat at him.

There was a long silence behind him, but he didn’t turn to look, unable to tear his eyes away from Jason. “Fine,” Tim said, the anger of a few moments before back. He stalked past Bruce towards the door, his bookbag back over his shoulder. “I’ll send the information I gathered to the Batcomputer,” he said as he shouldered past

“Wait, Tim,” another voice said. Dick. Bruce hadn’t even realized he was there, and as soon as Bruce noticed him he was gone, chasing after Tim. Bruce knew he should do more, that Tim needed him too, but he couldn’t focus on that, not with Jason right in front of him, with the memories of blood still staining his face.

“I didn’t replace you, Jason. I would never replace you.” He felt vulnerable, cut open and left for vultures to eat in a hot desert sun.

“Yeah, well, that’s not what it looks like from here.” Jason twirled on his toes to go and stumbled. Bruce stepped forward to catch him, but Jason was already stalking off. His steps were unsteady, but Dick rushed by soon after and caught up to him. Dick would make sure he made it back to his room.

Bruce knew he should follow, should explain, but he’d have to leave that to Dick too. The Joker was back, and if his children were going to be safe, he needed to find out his plan and put a stop to it as soon as possible.

#tim drake #bruce wayne #jason todd #batfam #batfic #mywriting #chirp #chirp extra

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laurenhufflepuff2 · 3 years

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A list of fandoms I'm in (in no particular order, will probably be updated regularly. Some fandoms are more intense and some are more casual. Depending on the fandom, I could go on and on about fandom topics for HOURS. Let's get into it!)

Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, DC comics, Miraculous Ladybug, Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, Star Wars, Literature, Winx Club, Nintendo, Minecraft, Little Witch Academia, Voltron, Coraline

Details:

Harry Potter- I got into Harry Potter in 7th grade and now I am the resident expert in my family and in my friend group. I read all the books, watched all the movies (notably the British version), and I've seen the Fantastic Beasts films as well. I've also read Tales of Beedle the Bard (the Warlock's Hairy Heart was traumatizing) along with the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook (plus an updated edition). I also read The Cursed Child script and while I mean no hate to anyone that liked it, I hated what it did to the canon. I am in Hufflepuff with some Ravenclaw tendencies (I took the Pottermore quiz 3 times, 2 out of 3 I got Hufflepuff, the other time was Ravenclaw). I had a pottermore account and I was so upset when it got converted to the Wizarding World page. I cosplayed Hermione in 7th grade complete with British accent and even monologued as her for a talent show (classmates and teachers would recognize me as the Hermione girl all the way through high school). I was obsessed and I still love it even if J.K. Rowling has gone off the deep end on Twitter... yeah... my favorite character is Hermione but I also relate to Luna

Disney- there's so much that goes into the Disney part of my fandom list. I'm excluding Marvel and Star Wars from this part as they were originally separate entities before Disney got the rights to them. I have seen almost every animated Disney film ever and often use random movie quotes in conversation. My favorite villain is Maleficent, my favorite princess is Ariel (followed by Belle, Rapunzel, and Anna). I relate to so many of the characters. I'm not sure who my favorite Pixar character is though (I love Violet, Sadness, Dory, and Piper (from the short)). My favorite Disney fairy is Fawn. My favorite characters overall are Ariel and Stitch. Disney is definitely on the list as one of my biggest obsessions. My favorite movies are Lilo and Stitch, the Little Mermaid, Inside Out, Alice in Wonderland (original), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Marvel- I mostly get my Marvel exposure through the MCU, other movies, and animated TV shows. I have difficulty reading graphic novels so most of my comic book knowledge comes from friends, posts, or wikis. My favorite characters are Spider-Man, Captain America, Peggy Carter, and Scarlet Witch. I also like Gwenpool, Deadpool, Spider-Gwen/ Ghost-Spider, Venom, Squirrel Girl, Daredevil, Mantis, Gamora, Black Widow, Iron Man, Thor, Loki, Bucky, Black Panther, and most MCU characters. Out of the X-men I really like Professor X, Wolverine, Mystique, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver (either version- MCU or Fox).

DC- this was the franchise I was more familiar with growing up but again, graphic novels aren't easy for me to read so most of my knowledge comes from information pages about the comics or from tv/movies. My earliest experience with DC came from the 60s Batman series, with Catwoman and Robin being my favorites. I also watched the Wonder Woman series from the 70s and a handful of CW shows, my favorite of which being the Flash and Arrow. I also managed to watch all 5 seasons of the Teen Titans Cartoon Network series from 2003. With that being said, my favorite characters are Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Flash, Batman, Nightwing/Robin (Dick Grayson), Green Arrow, Starfire, Raven, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Alfred. I also like most of the bat family, and when it comes to CW I LOVE Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost and Cisco.

Miraculous- this is one of my guilty fandoms but since this is Tumblr I'm not too worried about it. I love Marinette and I relate to her on an astoundingly deep level (minus the stalking and obsession with potential lovers, that's creepy). If I had a miraculous, I'd probably want the Ladybug one, but the Cat miraculous, fox miraculous, and snake miraculous are good too. My favorite character is Marinette/Ladybug.

Atla/Tlok- I jumped on the avatar bandwagon just when it was starting to get popular, so I managed to get through the series before the memes took over everything. Same with Tlok, although i couldn't completely avoid the spoilers for that when i started it. I've been wanting to get into the comics because of the short story comics I've read, they seem easier to read than superhero comics. My favorite characters are Aang, Katara, Ty Lee, Iroh, Korra, Jinora, Asami, Suki, Appa, Momo, Naga, and Pabu. I also like Sokka, Mai, Zuko, Lin, Kuvira, Varrick, Zhu Lee, and Azula. I feel really sorry for her and while I understand that a redemption arc would undermine the importance of her corruption arc, I still wish she could have one. I would love to be a waterbender or an airbender... maybe a waterbender raised in the air nation? Obviously, being the avatar itself would be awesome. The show has taught me a lot of great lessons and put a lot of stuff into perspective for me.

Star Wars- oh boy, talking about this one is dangerous. I've seen firsthand the horrors of the Star Wars fandom but then again no one will probably see this anyway so... I've seen all the movies and I remember watching the clone wars series with my brother when I was younger but we fell wayyy behind and it's taking us forever to get back into it. I've also seen the Mandalorian and quite enjoyed it. I like the prequels unironically, in fact, the prequels are some of my favorite movies. I especially like how they switched from lightsabers being heavy weapons to light weapons that can be used for all kinds of tricks that make for epic battles like the ones we see in Revenge of the Sith. The sequels were fun to watch but when I would analyze them along side their predecessors, I came to the conclusion that, for me, they were good to watch but did not do anything good for the rest of the franchise. My favorite characters are prequels/clone wars Obi Wan and Anakin, Padme, Ashoka, Leia, R2D2, BB-8, R4-P17, the Mandalorian (Din Djarin), and Grogu. If I had a lightsaber I'd want it to be blue, but when I was little I got a purple one like Mace Windu because it was closer to pink and I was into pink at the time. I still have that lightsaber and none of my friends have a purple one so it's one of my flexes. I feel like I wouldn't make a good jedi because of attachments being forbidden, so I'd probably become a grey jedi.

Literature- this is a broad term I use to cover all the random books and stories I liked reading and have studied. So we have Shakespeare (Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet), The Great Gatsby (bored while reading, loved to analyze), Grendel (HATED reading, loved to analyze, Grendel really needed a hug and a friend), The Crucible, Fahrenheit 451, Dark Life (+ the sequel Riptide, both are by Kat Falls good reads, sci-fi and kind of dystopian), The Once and Future King

Winx Club- I think the show is trashy but I still love watching it. I haven't been able to get through season 6 though and I hated what they did with season 8 and Fate: the Winx Saga. My favorite character is Bloom along with Stella and Flora. I prefer rai to nick. My favorite transformations are magic winx, enchantix, and harmonix. My favorite member of the Trix is Icy followed by Darcy. My favorite Pixies are Chatta and Lockette.

Nintendo- mainly Pokémon above all else, followed by Animal Crossing. I have also played (mostly as player 2 or just never beat or watched my brother play) mario games, legend of zelda, pikmin, and kirby. Games I haven't played but I just liked the characters/the lore and probably learned about through Super Smash Bros. are Fire Emblem (Lucina mostly), Metroid (Samus and baby metroid), and Kid Icarus. Pokémon is where I'm most knowledgeable but you'll most likely beat me in battle. I am however great at MarioKart and I always destroy my friends at it. Terrible at fighting games though.

Minecraft- I like playing this casually. Sure, I'll play for hours and hours on end for months, but I prefer to stay exclusively in peaceful when playing Survival mode and I don't make anything too ambitious in Creative mode. I like to write, so sometimes I'll make a rough layout of the settings of my stories in different worlds. I prefer interior design and decorating when building, and when in survival mode I focus more on mining and gathering while my brother works on ambitious building projects. I just bring him the raw materials and furnish the interior when he finishes the outside.

Little Witch Academia- this takes up a smaller portion of my fandom list because there were only 2 seasons and a couple movies and I watched the whole series years ago, but I still enjoy it. At one point I wanted to cosplay Akko, and I loved the nod at Twilight through the Nightfall series. And I especially liked the twist that Shiny Chariot was Ursula, which I suspected for some time. The blend between magic and technology was fun to see, but I was so sad that the series ended RIGHT when Akko finally showed signs of magic proficiency. Also, Shiny Chariot being the reason Akko couldn't do magic was heartbreaking.

Voltron- this takes up a much smaller portion of my fandom list mainly because I haven't even finished it. I know hardly anything about Transformers aside from the Bumblebee movie so to me I just watch it for fun. It reminds me of power rangers, star wars, and star trek, and then there's just a transformer insert. But I don't know anything about Transformers so maybe the show is more rooted in canon than I think.

Coraline- I am in a love-hate relationship with Coraline. I have watched the movie several times, I've read the book, I've watched hours of theories and analyses on youtube, I've watched behind the scenes videos by Laika, and I even wrote a script for a fan film parody. I am amazed at how original the story is and how impressive the stop motion animation is but I also have recurring nightmares from it and it scares me/creeps me out to the max. If anyone asks what my scariness limit is, it's definitely Coraline.

#fandoms #about me #harry potter #disney #dc #marvel #avatar the last airbender #the legend of korra #star wars #miraculous ladybug #literature #winx club #nintendo #minecraft #pokémon #little witch academia #voltron #coraline

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anthonyed · 4 years

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I'll keep you warm, stevetony (fluff mayhaps?)

Anon, not gonna lie: I did the prompts in order so the one I did before this were angst and hurt/comfort respectively which made me forgot how to write fluff for a sec. Point is: before I wrote the actual (what I hope) fluff (above cut and some below), I wrote something that leans more to hurt/comfort/soft (some weird genre idk) and I’m including that under the cut just because.

Hope at least one of the below satisfies your fluff need, anon :) (from this list: "I'll keep you warm")

-//-

Steve is something else.

Well, he's many things in the sense that you see or hear him do that and be like, yeah. That sounds like Steve.

But then, there are other things he'd do and nobody would buy Tony when he says: "Steve did that! I swear, Pepper, I'm not exaggerating."

Like right now, coming into the workshop wrapped neck down in their comforter which -

"What are you doing?" Tony asks, jaw slack, voice high and airy in disbelief, mouth agape and eyes wide behind his safety goggles.

Lucky for him, he created JARVIS when he was 21 and had a stroke of brilliance in the middle of an ugly grieving so he doesn't have to suffer a third-degree burn from a hot glue gun today.

Steve though, he plops in front of Tony with his massive comforter wrapped form and burrows into it deeper, letting only baby blue eyes peek out like a damned mole - Jesus Christ - and he whines, "I'm cold."

Tony's mouth snaps close at one. His eyes narrow and he points the glue-gun at Steve. "You," he says, "You, you, you. I know exactly what you're doing."

But Steve is a stubborn, stubborn man. He makes sure he gets what he wants by the sheer force of his will if that's what he's left to give. Or maybe it's Tony who's a weak dumb man when it comes to Steve.

Either way, Steve purses his lips, bats his lashes and tilts his head at an angle. All the while looking at Tony with those baby blue puppy eyes and that's all it takes for Tony to drop the glue gun and groan into his hands.

This is not fair! "Jarvis, I need this footage to show Pepper tomorrow morning," he says, standing up.

Steve straightens up, letting his whole head pop out of the blanket burrito he'd wrapped himself in and Tony makes it a point to chuck his goggles with an extra dose of venom while glaring at him.

"Captain America, they said. Prime man full of virtues, my ass. This!" he points at Steve's exaggerated innocent face. "This is not virtue. This is playing dirty."

"But I'm not Captain America," Steve grins, dropping the facade as he waddles clumsily behind Tony, marching out of the shop; the extra length of the comforter dragging like a tail behind him. "I'm Steve Rogers, making sure my boyfriend comes to bed on time."

Tony waits until they're inside the elevator to stare him up and down and he lets out a defeated sigh, "Still not fair."

Steve smiles, smug and well - he has a very good reason to be, no shit. "All is fair in love and war," he says, chest puffing out in pride.

"No," Tony draws the line. "You say that one more time and I'm going straight back to the shop."

The effect is instant like he'd flicked a switch and Steve goes from a smug bastard to his faux innocent puppy eyes burrowing into his comforter wrap.

"But I am cold." He mumbles into it, blinking up at Tony. "I need you to warm me up."

And the elevator door opens, but Tony has already made up his mind quicker. "Are you now?" He pouts back, cocking his head sideway, playing into whatever his boyfriend's doing.

But the wiggle to his lips betray his mischievous intent spectacularly and Steve's already one foot out of the elevator by the time Tony lunges for him.

Super soldier and their super speed: "Come here, you!" Tony calls, breaking into a jog and God forbid, he'd lived close to half a century of his life; Steve even worse, but also not. He's 33 if they're counting out the years he'd spent in the ice. Still old enough to not run but he is; bolting into their shared bedroom like the devil himself is at his tail, chuckles like chiming bells following his path.

And no, Tony thinks, after the first few feet. He refuses to play chase at this age, but not so much to tickling Steve in the bed once he'd caught up. Asking, "You want me to keep you warm? Huh? Is that what you want? I'll keep you warm. Come here, you big blonde cheat."

All the while Steve's laughing into the pile of comforter he'd shed as soon as he'd accomplished his mission, twitching with every poke and jab to his flanks.

"Uncle!" He gasps. "Uncle, uncle, uncle!"

And Tony lets him go. Breath heaving as he rolls off of Steve, brushing hair out of his eyes. "You asked for this." He tells his panting boyfriend; red in the face, hair mussed, spilling soft all over his face and he looks so precious that Tony has to just cup his face and smack a kiss on his grinning mouth.

"You win," he admits, rolling out of the bed and peeling off his shirt, letting it fall in a lump on the floor as he walks to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

"This time!" He shouts back just to make it clear, so Steve doesn't get any wild ideas about fooling Tony again in the future.

He thinks he hears a faint "Every single time," but promptly decides to ignore that.

-//- vers 2 -//-

“Come here,” Steve says, stretched out in bed looking expectant like everything’s perfect.

Any other time, Tony would have leaped at the chance. He’s never been a guy for picket fences and happy endings but sitting in one of Barton’s kid’s rooms changes perspective.

If you look out the window, you can see the barn cum garage and Tony’s been there earlier this afternoon, checking on their tractor, speaking with Fury about stuff and he’d came out of there for hours now but there was a thought he had when he was still inside:

Wood fire is great; Steve could chop the logs and I can work the tractor. We’ll have to discuss who cooks dinner, and there’ll be a kid, a boy running around calling for us, maybe. One day - Maybe.

And that thought’s still swimming in his head.

The thing is, they’re still raw from battle. Just hours ago, they’d almost had a fight (if not for Mrs Barton) and now, Steve’s here on a single bed pretending like that didn’t happen, calling Tony for a cuddle.

“I’m fine.” He says, turning back to the gauntlet he's fiddling with under a low table lamp, straining his eyes behind his glasses.

It’s late summer but something about the secluded farmhouse in the middle of nowhere makes the wind chiller. And his body responds with a shiver when a draft passes by. He looks up, checks the window and he knows it’s closed tight; he did that a minute ago.

“Tony,” Steve sighs, sounding closer than before and when he looks up, he’s right; Steve is closer, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed now - Didn’t even hear him move, which is a surprise, so Tony looks at the bed frame, wondering what material it’s made of.

“Tony,” Steve calls again. Softer.

He looks up. Steve looks weary, but he strains to smile. “Come to bed,” he says. “You need rest.”

And Tony knows he does, but-

But, he doesn’t deserve to rest. He is the reason why all this happened - is happening - in the first place. He caused this - How can he rest?

He goes back to the gauntlet.

And he forgets just how stubborn Steve is until he feels a hand on his shoulder. Then another lands over his, before he can even turn around, to pry the gauntlet from his fingers. “Come on,” Steve says, pressing the words into his temple.

With one hand, he frees the tiny wrench from Tony’s grip while he holds Tony’s head to his mouth with the other, pressing a kiss and he combs his hair back, leaning away, looking into Tony’s eyes when a shiver wrecks down Tony’s spine.

“It’s kinda cold tonight,” he smiles, soft eyes tempting like whiskey on a lonely evening, “Warm me up?” and Tony has to roll his eyes at that.

“What are you? 12?” he snorts. “Is this how you flirt, because Rogers you better count your lucky stars you landed me for your boyfriend. I let you get away with this. Anyone else, I doubt they will.”

“I got blue eyes and blonde hair,” Steve shrugs and it’s lame; Tony knows what he’s doing, knows it’s working, but it’s not like he’s fighting against Steve’s efforts, anyway.

They’re lame; could be better. But it’s past midnight in some unregistered region on earth and they’re tired from fighting his own creation, tired of arguing; it's a picket fence farm with children and everything feels like fairy dreams here.

Tony doesn’t do fairy dreams but Steve makes him want to. He makes him think: maybe - one day.

Maybe that’s why he lets Steve have that satisfaction of pulling him up to his feet and onto the bed.

Maybe that’s why he lets Steve tuck his head under his chin and says, “I’ll keep you warm, super soldier.”

#stony #i love them in case that hasn't been made clear yet #stevetony #mine #prompts #HOW DO I KEEP INJECTING MY REPLY INTO ASKBOXS??? ASKSJSJSKS

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oneirataxxiaa · 4 years

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SOULMATE AU HEADCANONS

the girls of the team <3

so *cough* I struggle to write from a male perspective, and also it's pride month so try and stop me? these are all either mega gay or gender neutral.

ARTEMIS CROCK

matching tattoos (different then Jaimes headcanons)

the arrow tattoo on your shoulder was usually what people noticed about you first.

it was a stark contrast against the colour of your skin, so it was easily spotted.

one of the reasons that, when your mother dragged you into a life of crime and villainy, you had to wear sleeves.

sleeves are for chumps.

you didn't really have a choice with the whole villainy thing, but you went along with it to please your mother.

after a little while, she deemed you a good enough fighter to present you to the light, who began to use you as a pawn, much like many of the teen villains that the light had under their wing.

you run into the team on a mission nothing after being brought to the Light.

You almost instantly die during the fight because your too distracted by the blonde teen with the arrow tattoo to focus on not getting your ass kicked by Robin.

When one of his birdarangs slices the sleeve from your shoulder, you begin to focus.

Only for everyone else to stop when Robin yells in surprise.

your tattoo is showing. The fight sort of slows.

the team was winning anyway, Icicle Jr is on the ground, held down by one of Zatannas spells, and Mammoth had been trapped in a metal shipping container by Superboy.

'that's not something you see everyday' Robin says.

but you throw down a gas bomb and vanish before Artemis can talk to you.

She isn't one to dance around stuff, she'll hunt you down to talk to you.

you've got an apartment to yourself, there's a knock at the door and suddenly there's this ponytail blonde chick in your apartment.

'do you have any idea how hard it is to find you? ever?'

once you figure out who she is, the two of you talk - without you gas bombing your way out of the situation.

the two of you start meeting up for coffee, then dates.

suddenly you wake up to Cheshire in your apartment asking about your intentions with her sister.

the same thing happens a week later when Sportsmaster gets wind of what was happening.

why does her family resort to violence so quickly? you've had to dodge three ninja stars and a baseball bat this week alone.

God help you.

Artemis is there though, to help you out and tell her family to calm the hell down.

you'd be fairly quick at jumping over to the team to avoid your mother. as always, Artemis is right there to help her soulmate out.

MEGAN

danger meter

you weren’t sure how to react on the day your soulmates danger meter hit 10.

you were about fifteen when it happened. and you had no idea what to think considering no one anywhere near your age had anything over a 5.

life went on as normal as it could after that.

every now and again you would get questions about it, from friends or families.

about how your number is so high, how dangerous your soulmate is.

as you get older, people begin to avoid you, stemming from the belief that your soulmate is one of the many chaotic villains that appear across the world.

you’re seventeen when you run into your soulmate during an attack in your home on Rhode Island. Living so close to happy harbour always seemed to attract trouble it seemed.

Theres screams and explosions from the street ahead of you, and fueled by curiosity, you run ahead to see whats happening.

Only to have a block of concrete hurled in your direction.

It stops centimetres from your face, glowing a faint green before being pulled away and thrown back at the source.

“Are you alright?” a soft voice asks you, almost right away you realise this girl is your soulmate, and you can understand why the danger number is so high.

Shes a hero, and a powerful one at that considering how she just saved your life.

“uh yeah, i’m fine” you stammer out and she smiles. sticking out her hand and introducing herself.

one of the other heroes calls out at her, telling her to focus on the battle and make introductions later.

She promises to talk to you after the fight, and suddenly your like a mile away and a ginger boy is giving you a mock salute before vanishing into a yellow blue.

not even twenty minutes later and Megan is there, happily reintroducing herself and asking if the two of you can hang out.

you ask about the danger number, yours in fairly low, but your curious as to why hers is so high.

She explains her martian powers as best she can to you, but they are a little confusing for someone who has never been exposed to that sort of stuff before.

Megan is a little bit of a hopeless romantic, so she may jump too quickly into a relationship with you, assuming since you are soulmates that you have to be together.

It’ll take a little bit of talking between you two to understand what you both actually want in a relationship.

Honestly and trust being one of them.

you sometimes worry when she goes on long missions and you’re not updated on her status. Nightwing likes to keep you in the loop, par a request from the martian herself.

ZATANNA ZATARA

red string of fate

if there is anything more fitting with Zatanna’s abilities, its the red string of fate,

A endless blood red string that is attached and tied around the pinky of two individuals. only those two people can see their string, and it becomes tighter the closer one is to their soulmate,

You never really paid attention to your string. It never became taut, always hanging loosely.

You mostly ignored it to be honest.

rather focusing on your school work and trying to balance your work with Lexcorp.

you were just an intern there, but it could be a huge stepping stone to another career for you.

university is a bit of a struggle sometimes. so when you get a break from your work and your friends take you for a day trip in DC you are glad for a break from the workload.

visiting the hall of justice had always been a dream for you, something that was definitely on your bucket list.

so you are basically dragging your friends up the front steps.

as your looking around the exhibits, the string around your finger seems to be almost pulling you, then it's definitely pulling you.

towards two girls in casual clothes talking by the door.

one has brown skin with short hair and is taking rather loud.

the other, you have to take in a breath to realise how pretty she is.

and also the fact that attached to her finger is the other end of your string.

'hi' you seem to appear out of nowhere for them. Your soul mate asks why you suddenly are talking to them, and you raise your hand to show her.

she's kind of in shock for a second and rocket is just, living for it.

'ohhhhhh your soulmate! yes girl!'

she's really not helping your nerves.

you three chat for a little before exchanging numbers with Zatanna - as she introduced herself - and running of with your friends to the next tourist stop.

Zatanna basically tells the whole team when she gets back and they're all ecstatic for her.

you two text a lot since you're busy with school and work, and she's got this super secret job she can't talk about.

She ends up telling you later however when you two are much closer and she feels she can trust you more.

Zatanna would be the best girlfriend. if you're ever feeling down, she's right there to cheer you up no matter what.

she's got your back and you've got hers.

date night's aren't really a thing because of how busy you guys are.

mostly just hanging out in your dorm while you work on a project and she leans up against you, asleep. resting after a mission.

we love you guys

some more soulmate headcanons cause you guys made them my most liked posts!!

the next fic (unless I get a request) will be a Wondergirl one!!

REQUESTS ARE OPEN, THROW THEM IN MY ASKS

#young justice #young justice x reader #young justice headcanons #young justice oneshot #zatanna #zatanna x reader #zatanna zatara #artemis crock #yj fanfic #artemis x reader #meg'ann #megan mor'azz #miss martian x reader #miss martian

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heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 4 years

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Name: Moon or Rose, sometimes Luna to people who have known me for a long time

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Height: I honestly can’t remember what they said last time they measured me an it wasn’t even “accurate” because slouching and hunching and scoliosis but my mother did it again when I was in bed and she had a tape measure and I’m 4′8 I think? :D

Languages: English

Nationality: Irish (American...Long Island)

Favorite Fruit: Rasberries, Strawberries, Pomegranate, Tomatos, Cherries

Favorite Sent: Roses, Fresh dirt, Gardens, plants and Flowers, any type of wood, rain, popcorn, Curry, (never actually tried but WANT TO) any type of hot beverage, any type of bake goods out the oven ..

Favorite colors: Black, purples and blues, ESPECIALLY the dark ones, any type greens ......... Also reds and pinks .......

Favorite Animal: Rat’s and rodents, always, ever since I was little ... Bats, Owls, bigger felines and canines (Lions, Tigers, Wolf’s, Etc.) Smaller Cats and Dogs, (Striped cats, fluffy cats, black cats, pit-bulls and SPINX’S are my favorites cause those are the ones that I have expect for the last one) Frogs and toads too,... opossums, chinchillas, squirrels, eye-eyes, pigs, rabbits, ravens, crows, in a certain way spiders, bees, moths, butterflies, fox’s, minks, lemurs.... skunks. flamingo’s, swans....lady bugs, crickets fireflies , goats....turtles, Gryphons ....(Far underrated and superior to dragons, this a fact not an opinion.)

And I’m about to admit this VERY, EXTREMELY begrudgingly and through my longest sigh ever but ... Deer? I just freaking. Wrote out an whole entire separate thing concerning my.... complicated perspective on deer and I had to copy and paste it into an entirely different document because I talked for way to long, but it’s gotten to the point where I have this desperate need to just ... vent of what this animal has become for me and what they mean to me, because this has currently became something that has made my heartache the more and more I’ve tried to pretend it does not effect me and I will say that it’s been a long time coming and as of recently I can no longer afford to avoid how much...So um. I’ve decided that this may be the year... That ...I am finally going to talk about this. Of course not like, right /now/ this minute ... But I will say in short that like, I live by a lot of deer and they’ve always been a part of my life for better or worse, and I could never really escape them or the part they’ve played in my life, hurting or healing, even if I wanted to. So, I say that, if I ever got the opportunity to observe one up close in my chair or feed a doe from my hand or hold a baby fawn or do anything like that with supervision in a moment, I totally would, in a heartbeat, without question. Even though from far away it hurts to think about the relationship I’ve had with them through who I was connected to. I refuse disrespect this animal just because someone who I loved who loved them hurt me once. Does that make sense? Sometimes.... Certain things that hurt you can also heal you. I’ve realized recently that I’m still not over how much I’ve been hurting. But that doesn’t mean that deer haven’t also, in their own way, been helping me heal. And I’m just thankful they exist for that because I’ve also learned through many narratives throughout the years, at in watching animation, how deer can have so many different sides to them and they don’t always have to be so interpreted as so “good” and “pure” and righteous and ...., ugh. As everyone projects to be, and I’ve always like to think that’s that’s helped keep a nuanced perspective of what’s happened to me throughout the years even as certain events were taking place and for that... I’ll always love and respect deer as an animal themself.

As a character, trope though, I’ve always observed that they’ve always been these fucking, self important, entitled a-holes who always assume that they’re charming enough to deserve your time, and think they can just come and go in and out of your life as they please and are far too proud of themselves to admit when they are wrong and will never apologize to you ever until they are pushed and until then, they just keep popping in and out of your life to vex and annoy you and ......

Mm.

Tastes like perspective.

Anyway, I’m writing something for later.

Maybe.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

First time sharing any inkling of my emotions about deer.

I’m honestly so afraid about what this and the other post will entail for later, my other deer tail, if you will.

I’ll stop talking about deer before this gets weird.

You have no ideer......

Last pun until next post, promise.

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: My silly abled assistant worker got me addicted to coffee again before she had me institutionalized and soaking in my own piss for four days because she didn’t understand how hospitals worked, and then they cut her hours when she was about to abandon me in what was basically a nursing home for and after a month I started trying to explain to her and my caseworker that I wasn’t feeling very well and they basically laughed at me and told me I was dirty and so yeah I spent my 25th birthday in a nursing home with an infection that I didn’t know I had and then one of the staff yelled at me for allowing this nice hyper boy who lived there to help push my crappy black manual wheelchair (you know the one) and practically tossed me out of my wheelchair to get me to what she wanted and then accused me of soiling myself when she was removing my clothes for the shower when I was on the toilet and then started screaming at me again and accusing me of lying when I asked her why she thought I had an accident and then she slammed the door and abandoned me in the bathroom when I wouldn’t give her the answer that she wanted and then I had a breakdown ... So I decided to use my mom’s birthday as an excuse to come home and check what was going with me and get some real food and I told my assistant and my caseworker and they basically laughed at me and said was a bad idea and told me I was dirty again and then I was punished and taken home for being “rude” and “too emotional” but not before the assistant worker brought me some crappy bitter ass coffee flavored fudge when the rocky road was right next to it because she was some vegan ass “straight ally” one year younger then me with a 29 year old boyfriend millennial who “missed my birthday” and complained about how miserable I was and how wasn’t enjoying the pumpkin farm which she originally wasn’t even gonna take me through, because my caseworker insisted that she cancel plans and bring me back to the nursing home as punishment for calling my mother. So when she DID bring me back after arguing with me for being ungrateful enough to not enjoy a place that she didn’t even wanna take me, she left me parked on the living room carpet, instead of bringing back into the dining room where my laptop was set up, like she’d normally do, said “good luck with your mom”, and left. Then, it took me about an hour to wheel myself off of the carpet, find someone to help me to the bathroom, and get me the phone to call my mom back and tell her it was okay to pick me up.

I come home, discover I have a lump in my left breast which is benign but still hasn’t gone away, go to the doctor, and it turns out I had two infections.

My mom seemed prepared to let me go back to the group home if I wanted to but after I told the doctor what happened with the staff worker the day after my birthday and the night before I called. The doctor told me that I wasn’t safe at the group home ether and ordered that I go back home with my mom and stay there.

So I’m back home now.

Two months.

And of course my caseworker shit on me for THAT.

And of course she informed me that my assistant worker quit on me.

And I still haven’t spoken to my father since I’ve been back here.

And I still have the scar he gave me.

And I’m still trying to ween myself off of coffee.

But before all of this my go to warm drinks were usual tea or hot chocolate. Sometimes hot chocolate with liquor.

My tongue went numb for a time because that was the first thing that I did non- stop each day for like four days after the day I finally finished my meds and my period hit immediately (which is already a whole other nightmare that I was dreading having to go through in a nursing home when everything already felt fucking inflamed and swollen and infected with already visible particles of dried up soap.... because.... it was ......)

But like, yeah...... Tea and Hot Chocolate!

Dream Trip: To have the opportunity to visit and interact with/get to know some queer cripple friends in person, and to visit my good friend @colorcinabrio in Mexico to travel round the world with them if ever given the chance! ❤

When Blog was created:

Somewhere around two years ago... I wanted to make blog that reflected my disability and really let me identify as a cripple and focused more focused more on cripple things and maybe make some cripple friends! ^ ^’ ❤

Last Movie Seen: That comes to mind that I actually enjoyed? The Favorite.

Favorite Holiday: I really love people’s birthday’s also and I always try and do something for my friends birthdays if I can! ^ ^ ❤

Songs on repeat: As of recently, ‘Fake Happy’, by Paramore.

Tagged by @qjusttheletter

Tagging: @colorcinabrio @thetrainticket @finallyhaunted @thequantumqueer @rosered3 @isnezzed @purplepeoplelickingtruthpeddler @transplorer

Thank you so much for tagging me, Q! ^ ^’ ❤ I know it took a while to answer but as I said before I really did go on a deer tangent for a minute! ^ ^’ ❤ But being tagged by you brightened my day and I know we don’t talk much directly but I really do think of you as a friend!!!! :D ❤ O.X

#qjusttheletter #replies #tumblrs also really been upsetting me lately so that's I've kinda been offline too but seriously thank you for the tag it means so much I'm #just sorry I took so long writing!!!!! ^ ^; <3 O.X

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afriendlyirin · 5 years

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Steven Universe Rewrite

So I’ve now finished my rewrite of the final arc (go read it and tell me all your thoughts), and while I’m satisfied with it in many respects, I still feel like it doesn’t properly resolve or engage with everything I’d like to, nor is it fully in keeping with the parts of Steven Universe I liked, despite that being my goal. There’s simply too much to get into and too little space to for it. To fully “fix” the narrative in my mind, I’d probably have to diverge much farther back.

I’m not interested in actually writing such a story, but I think it would be a good exercise to sketch an outline of what such a thing might look like.

I think the biggest problem is that Steven Universe has too many antagonists. The three initial Homeworld gems work well on their own – we spend a lot of time between each one, giving us time to process what’s happened before they return or a new antagonist gains focus. But with the diamonds, we don’t really get that breathing room. We barely know anything of Yellow before Blue shows up, we’re only just starting to really process them before White appears, and then the show ends. And throughout all of this, we have even more unresolved antagonists dangling – Jasper, the rubies, Topaz and Aquamarine, Homeworld’s system itself. To do justice to all of these characters at the previous pace of the show would probably have taken twice as many seasons.

My second problem, which is more personal preference, is that I don’t like how the plot ended up going epic, with Steven having to take on uberpowerful opponents with an entire empire of resources. I’d say this is also thematically confused – the show starts off making it seem like everyone is safe on Earth and the war is in the distant past, but it’s then revealed the war is very much still on and the plot becomes about Steven continuing the rebellion Rose left half-finished. My favorite parts of the show were seasons 1-3, which were much the antithesis of that – the conflicts were much more subdued, against lone actors or just interpersonal problems.

So, let us combine these things to give us a different starting state.

There was only one diamond, and she was destroyed during Rose’s rebellion. Either she blew herself up with a corruption bomb, or the shattering of a diamond is what makes a corruption blast. Down-scale the empire’s resources such that they were putting most of their manpower into fighting the rebellion, meaning that their population is utterly crippled by the fallout of the blast in addition to their loss of leadership. The gem empire still exists but as a shadow of its former self; it no longer has the manpower to invade new planets. (We can also tone down the oppression; no killing people just for being born. Whether or not that is still the case for Era 1, it’s just not possible to keep doing that with your population so crippled. Homeworld can still be oppressively conformist, but not to the point of EUGENICS EVERYWHERE.)

Right off the bat, this dodges a lot of awkward questions that are present in canon. Why did Rose stop fighting just because she saved one of many colonies, and why did she make Steven when Homeworld was still a threat that could endanger him – why, in sum, does she act like the war is over? Well, because it is, and she won.

This shifts the tone and focus of the story away from an epic rebellion plot and into one of postwar reconstruction. After the dust has settled, what happens? How do you pick up the pieces and move forward? Steven will only ever encounter pale shadows of Homeworld’s former power. Things like the Cluster become akin to forgotten landmines, echoes of a violent past that can still hurt people long after the conflict is over. He can still fight Homeworld gems, but they are lone agents acting on personal grudges; Jasper is not acting under orders, she just really wants to take a swing at Rose Quartz. (This setup even works a lot better with the threat level we actually see from canon, which is that Homeworld keeps sending weak scouts and small groups instead of bringing their full military might to bear against the Crystal Gems.)

This frees up a lot of space to just get into the characters talking about their feelings, which was always the real core of Steven Universe. In canon, Amethyst is the only Crystal Gem who really gets a full arc with a proper resolution (the battle with Jasper at the conclusion of season 3); Garnet’s gets flattened to just be about her relationship so it can be rushed through in Heart of the Crystal Gems, and Pearl’s arc gets completely substituted for something else that officially has no problem for her to resolve at all. The time spent on the diamonds and battle logistics could instead be spent on developing those arcs. With the antagonist compression, we could develop the Homeworld gems further as well, perhaps making them proper foils to Crystal Gems – something I get the impression canon was trying to go for but never seemed to really commit to.

Speaking of which, this would make the Homeworld gems much more tragic and sympathetic. Lapis’ despair over how different the new Homeworld is would no longer be about the simple passage of time, but because it is genuinely a shambling corpse of what it once was. And because Era 2 is so different than Era 1, Peridot, an Era 2 gem, would lack much of the shared culture and knowledge other gems have, justifying her naivete and social awkwardness. Finally, the rebellion destroying the entire army makes Jasper even more isolated – she is one of the very few survivors of the war, further justifying her fury at Rose and her inability to open up to her peers – she has none.

This would also make everything about Bismuth so, so much more reasonable. Instead of reacting to the fact that Rose lost the war that is very much still on, she’s advocating for igniting a brand new one before the ashes have even cooled on the first. (For extra horror, she might not even be dissuaded by the news Rose killed the diamond after all – they may have understood Homeworld’s soldiers were only following orders and assumed they would defect if they removed the command structure… but now you’re telling her they assassinated the head honcho and they’re still loyal to Homeworld? Clearly the only solution is to KILL ‘EM ALL.) It is far more understandable for Steven to keep her bubbled in that situation, and for the Crystal Gems to agree to it.

Ultimately, I think this plotline could remain very similar for seasons 1-3; perhaps move up the “Rose shattered Diamond” reveal to around season 2, and follow it with the Cluster plot to show why that really was necessary while emphasizing that yeah, war is horrible we really shouldn’t be starting another one, Bismuth!

The major difference would be swapping out Yellow Diamond for a lower administrative gem. I thought Yellow Diamond alone worked as a fine antagonist, really, so not much needs to change – just transplant her personality into another gem. This character could function as a foil to Garnet, someone thrust into overwhelming responsibility because there’s no one else qualified left alive. We could even double down on this and make her a permafusion; that maps really well onto modern conservatism, where people who would actually be hurt by the old hegemonies still romanticize them anyway. Season 4’s arc could revolve around her; having dealt with Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper, Steven must go to Homeworld and address the problem at its source. (The events of “Raising the Barn” could happen here, giving Lapis an extra season to work through her issues.) This could actually be resolved very similarly to the White Diamond resolution in canon, but it would fit with the earlier themes much better – this gem really would have reasons to feel insecure about her failure to live up to a perfect ideal. And for bonus points, that makes her a foil to Steven, too.

It would also make it a lot more believable that these gems would need Steven to teach them what is, if we’re being honest, pretty basic philosophy. If they are technically free of the old system but still stubbornly cling to its trappings, it makes sense that they’d need an outsider to tell them to think for themselves and that this would genuinely be a radical new perspective for them. Hauntings, again – just as in real life, the system still influences peoples’ thinking long after it was officially dismantled.

We could replace the Zoo arc with something that hits the same beats. The rubies return (or someone new gets sent) and capture Greg for some reason. Instead of seeing the Zoo we get to see Homeworld society directly during the trip. The events of That Will Be All still occur, as Not Yellow Diamond, cracking under the strain, unfuses and argues with herself behind closed doors.

Instead of the gems only being caught as a joke (and having that also be resolved as a joke), it’s a choice Steven makes. We invoke the hero’s last temptation: He has everything he’s ever wanted, his family in one piece and Homeworld beaten so thoroughly they’ll never threaten them again… but to take that offer means looking away, and abandoning everyone who is still suffering on Homeworld. He looks upon the gates of Heaven, but willingly chooses to walk back into Hell.

(Connie should probably be present to witness this so we can set up the falling-out arc, which is important for deconstructing Steven’s martyr complex.)

This leads to an analogous arc to Wanted and Diamond Days where Steven navigates Homeworld until he finally reaches Not Yellow Diamond. For added tension, the gems are separated somehow and Steven spends a significant time on his own befriending Homeworld gems. Garnet converges with him for the finale so we can make it about her (maybe extend her themes to the previous arc, focus on her stress and failures as leader during the heist).

Not Yellow Diamond is a noncombatant, but hides behind elite guards and defenses that Garnet and Steven can’t handle on their own, necessitating a fusion. The theme here could be that Garnet is paralyzed by her responsibilities, unable to both mount an offense while also keep Steven protected; Steven cuts through this by taking on his own responsibility, showing Garnet that she doesn’t have to do everything herself.

Not Yellow Diamond’s redemption happens similarly to White Diamond’s, but because she’s a noncombatant it is actually reasonable for Steven to spend so long on a nonviolent solution. Possibly Garnet even tries to shatter her (this could be what makes them unfuse), but Steven stops her. Not Yellow Diamond more explicitly agrees to change things and protect Earth.

So by this point, Steven will have dealt with all extant threats… but there are still issues left unresolved. The corrupted gems still aren’t healed, Bismuth’s still bubbled, Lapis is still missing, and Pearl hasn’t had a personal arc to resolve her issues. This would then turn season 5 into something of a denouement season, tying up all the remaining loose ends. This season’s theme could be one of self-actualization, revolving around Lapis and Pearl working through their difficult mental health problems and Steven, though seeing his own issues reflected in them, overcoming his own imposter syndrome in the process.

Season 5 starts after a timeskip. Steven is trying to heal the corrupted gems but is making no progress. Make this into a metaplot, with snippets in other episodes throughout the season showing he’s continuing to try and making more progress as his personal arc progresses.

Bismuth is already unbubbled to leapfrog over that awkward conversation, but still suffers from PTSD. She gets an episode (or two) about her issues, primarily grief. She bemoans the loss of her friends, and Steven tries to assure her that he’ll heal the corrupted gems any day now. She shows him the shards and says bitterly, “Can you heal these?” Spirals into a breakdown naming and remembering all the shattered gems. Steven tries to lay down some generic platitudes like he always does, but this time it doesn’t work; Bismuth calls him out on his ignorance and innocence, that he’s never lost anyone so he has no idea how she feels. This forces him to rethink things and actually listen to Bismuth, foreshadowing that that will be the theme of this season. (For bonus points, could also have her echo Pearl’s “She’s gone, but I’m still here,” re: the shattered gems.)

This could probably happen simultaneously with the falling-out arc (though that interacts awkwardly with the timeskip since Connie would probably be upset immediately after), could draw a connection by having Steven realize or Connie point out his god complex, he wants to help people for his sake not for theirs.

After that heavy opening we can have funtimes with human friends; Sadie Killer arc happens here plus any outstanding human subplots resolve. Should probably also have an episode about Pearl that touches on her issues since that’ll be the topic of the final stretch.

Then Lapis comes back. Have a conversation about PTSD and how she needed to do it on her own time etc., Steven can show his growth by accepting this and not pushing.

If the Lion chest is important, Lapis found the key while soul-searching (it was hidden somewhere on Earth the CGs didn’t look).

Next plot episode is Steven getting frustrated over his inability to heal the corrupted gems (can have a comedy bit where he tries increasingly absurd and convoluted methods), wonders what he’s doing wrong. Something happens that leads to him talking to Pearl about Rose. Possibly he thinks whatever’s in the chest is the cure, but that seems pretty stupid even for him. Events lead to Pearl revealing that she shattered Diamond and Steven has a fresh meltdown, accuses all the other gems of secretly being shatterers and not telling him (Garnet could react really awkwardly, implying she actually has killed people), decides that’s the problem and runs off.

(If there is a similar memory scene with Pearl, it’s via hologram; Diamond literally does not get a voice.)

Either Pearl tracks him down, or someone else brings him back only for him to discover that Pearl has run off because she agrees that she is horrible and shouldn’t be around Steven. Either way leads to a deep conversation about their issues. The climax here would result in Steven fusing with Pearl as he has with the others, but perhaps this time the context is peaceful rather than it being a tactic used in desperation, affirming the idea that fusions are a way of life and not just a tool.

As a result of his growth from this, Steven finally figures out the method to heal the corrupted gems, whatever that may be. We have a great happy ending montage where it looks like everything’s resolved – Steven has forged peace with Homeworld, and all the corrupted gems are healed, including Jasper…

…who immediately attacks him. We get one final episode, or perhaps even a full arc, revolving around a final fight with Jasper. Because Steven never actually resolved her issues before she got bubbled! She is still mad, still violent, and still hurting. This is the most narratively satisfying climax, because Jasper is all the story’s themes embodied: the sins of the past come back to haunt us, the scars left by war, and the pain of grief and acceptance. She always made the most sense as a “final villain” to me. Steven’s usual approach of steamrollering people with generic feel-good platitudes would not work here; he must actually use what he’s learned and engage with Jasper on her own terms.

(If this were an actual show THIS is where I would pull the surprise season extension, lead everyone to think the Pearl reconciliation is the grand finale and then surprise them with Jasper.)

The Jasper episode, or the finale if it’s a whole arc, would be titled “Under the Stars So Bright” as a reference to Trigun and also the imagery of being under the star of Diamond.

I feel the only way to make this work would be to intercut the Jasper ep with flashbacks to her time under Diamond, much like Trigun’s final episode. Only issue is that the sudden change in POV would be really weird; Trigun worked because the hero was there for those events and we only see his perspective, but Steven has no window into Jasper’s past.

Jasper poofs all the CGs and digs a hole to the core with the intent of popping the Cluster. Steven proceeds to get the crap beaten out of him protecting and bubbling the CGs like Vash vs. Midvalley in Trigun. Make this incredibly gruesome, even with the bubble shields she cracks his gem and draws blood.

Steven tries to reason with her like he did before, and like before it just makes her push back harder. Eventually she tries to pull a suicide by cop and bait Steven into shattering her. He gruesomely rams his fingers through her face to grab her gem and draws his fist back to kill her, and then we get a flashback montage of all his family memories – but in an inversion of Vash vs. Legato, this results in him not killing her. (For bonus creepy, he could also be stopped by Jasper flashing a grin or letting slip that she wants to die.)

Maybe as a compromise, he does poof her – this would be the only time in the series he intentionally does so.

(In the fantasy world where I have an animation studio at my beck and call, this would be filled with visual references to Trigun, both the Legato and Knives confrontations.)

Ending is Jasper going to prison to face trial for trying to blow up Earth. Lapis gets to say her piece, then Steven gives a more mature redemption speech than usual, about how he can’t make her change and she has to want to become a better person but he still believes in her anyway. This can perhaps be the nuanced message that the movie… appeared to be trying to go for with Spinel, that people can have understandable reasons for lashing out and doing bad things, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to exhaust yourself for them; you don’t have to be a martyr.

In the final montage, Jasper reunites with other jaspers who were corrupted in the war (maybe mirrored with a montage of Bismuth hugging formerly-corrupted Crystal Gems). Final message is what the canon ending claims to be: Steven has gained a more mature and complex outlook on “good” and “evil” but he still chooses to be optimistic and believe in the goodness of people. GOOD END.

That’s my take. Ultimately, it seems Steven Universe bit off more than it could chew, or perhaps had too many cooks. The most important takeaway from this, in my view, is to keep things to a manageable level in your story. Don’t introduce elements you know you won’t have time to adequately address; a few points done well will often land better than a lot of stuff done slapdashedly.

#steven universe #su #fanfiction #su meta #steven universe meta #my posts

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1358456 · 5 years

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Review Response, June 16-22, 2019

Got a lot of stuff! ... Thanks to one person, mostly!

... Really missing those single line breaks...

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Wings #004

1) Heyo, I saw your responses to my reviews. I forgot my password when I read Wings and I didn't want to go through the whole resetting password thing, so I went in as a guest. I didn't really intend to come back to FanFiction, hence the random keyboard smashing username, yet here I am again to read your stories! Haha. I suppose I'll just keep my original username here.

Anyways, back onto the review! I really found this chapter to be amusing and engaging!

I should have realized Black was there! Rereading the last chapter, I missed the "loud" voice. Oops! And as much as I would love to see familiar faces meeting our lovely protagonist Y here, I like how you're going at a steady pace so the introductions won't be rushed. It makes the eventual meetings better, and I'd look forward to them more that way. (Highkey looking forward to Diamond to appear!)

Crystal as the soccer coach is so, so fitting. And the more I read about Y's struggles to do well, the funnier it gets when she fails due to her own recklessness or other people's mistakes. And when she had enough, she reminded me of a Rhyhorn stampeding through the field, bashing away any poor soccer players that were in her way. She's definitely going to join the soccer team now. ...the team is filled with hotheads.

Oh, hi Gold! Fancy seeing you here! I wonder if he's a teacher as well? Maybe another coach? ...is he and Crystal a thing yet? Asking for a friend.

Hey, you’re back to the old familiar ID! Hehehe.

Ah yes. Black’s inclusion was a subtle hint in the last chapter. The only hint being the italicized “loud”, indicating that he was in the soccer team somewhere. And yes. Y is going to be meeting the other familiar faces slowly over time. I mean, my favorite Dex Holder Platinum hasn’t even been mentioned yet, and it’s been 4 chapters. I’m taking things quite slowly in that regard, because it makes sense. A 1st year student is not going to be meeting all sorts of 2nd and 3rd year students right off the bat, you know? And oh yes. Diamond is definitely going to be in Wings. I think he’ll be the first Sinnoh Dex Holder that Y will meet.

Yep! Crystal as soccer coach! Definitely! And oh, Y. She’s like a rampaging Dragon when frustrated and pissed off, plowing through everything in her way, whether it’s her teammates or the opponent. Hehe. A soccer team filled with hotheads. Oh dear. Hahaha.

Nah. Gold is no teacher. What could he possibly be teaching in Wings? No, no. He’s there for a different reason that’ll be covered later. And yes, Gold and Crystal are in a relationship. They are “a thing”. Obviously it’s not going to be getting a whole ton of focus, but it’ll be there.

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Destiny #007

1) Its confirmed, eh? This entire thing was orchestrated by Peter. Not that I'm surprised, it's just nice to have clarity on that part. Anyways, I can definitely see Blue doing something she'll regret later. I mean if it says that Blue will probably help, then she just might. But I don't think she would help knowing it'd hurt the other dexholders. If she helps Peter it'd be because he somehow tricks her into doing it. But hmm, there's only one way to find out. And that's to read more chapters. Also, that small little tidbit about Black's feelings on the whole light stone matter I thought was really nice. I'm not exactly sure how, but it tied that entire part together. And it definitely made everything seem more real. I feel like I'm just being dramatic, but that's how I feel on the matter. And just wanted tp congratulate you on that part 'cause it was wonderful written. Well, the entire chapter was wonderfully written, but I can only hope you know what I mean. Speaking of Unova dexholders. That particular scene with Ruby, Sapphire, and White; I thought although great to read, was not how I imagined it going down. I think I explained this in one of my previous reviews, or at least predicted it. But now that I think about it, it's completely plausible. And one last thing before I end this review. I just realized that it's been quite some time since we've seen Green. Haven't read anything in his point of view since he found out that Blue left and set out to look for her. Which makes me wonder. Will you write his perspective while he's searching hopelessly for her? Or right before he spots her somehow? Cannot wait to see things from his perspective again! Makes my urge to smack him lessen. Fucking asshole, I know he didn't mean to do that especially in that way. But god was that a jerky move. Low-key wanna punch him senseless, but oh well. I'll just have to read his P.O.V. in order to be satisfied. Again, thank you!

The continuation!

Yes. Blue, despite wandering off on her own and thus being led astray, is still a good girl at heart. She wouldn’t willingly help in hurting her former friends. She would more likely simply walk away and not interfere than actively hurting them. But... there really is only one way to find out, eh?

I guess Black escaping the Light Stone in that fashion is kind of amusing in hindsight, now that he’s actually free. Hehe. ... And is partly plot relevant later on :) And yes. A part of my “headcanon” with Black & White is that Black is forever fated to be indebted to her. Nothing serious, but enough that he’d be more compelled to care for her. Something stupidly sweet like that. Hehe.

The meeting of Ruby and Sapphire with White? This is basically the easiest way for me to drag Black and White, who are completely unrelated to the whole Mega Hunter shenanigans, into the plot! It’s a natural conversation that leads to White tagging along for the sake of meeting the others. Hehe.

Heh. Green ain’t going to find Blue. He doesn’t even know that she’s not in Kanto anymore. He said it himself too. If Blue doesn’t want to be found, she’s going to just disappear. And it’s his fault. Unintentional, perhaps, but his fault anyways. Because compared to Red, he’s a dick. Hehe.

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Destiny #008

1) WHAT. THE. FUCK. HE JUST TOOK OUT A FUCKING ULTRA BALL AND THEN BRAINWASHED THIS POOR, UNSUSPECTING CHILD? HOW TF DID HE DO THAT? WHY CAN'T THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST KEEL OVER AND DIE? I am legitimately raging right now. He's too goddamn powerful. How are the dexholders going to defeat this dude? I mean it was 27 vs 6. That's insane. How the hell did this dude even get his hands on such powerful pokémon anyway? You don't actually need to answer these questions, they're just rhetorical. And I know I'll get my answer later on. Also, speaking of that battle. When Green and red joined in, I swear to god I started clapping. The relief was immense. And reading that scene the only things going through my mind was that this was where Y and Ruby are going to die. Thank god that they didn't. But with those wounds? They can't battle him at his full power, not when they only have three days to recover. And they're not going to spend their days completely recovering. They'll have to pull themselves together and practice. That is, unless Yellow could use her healing power on humans. But I don't think that's the case. And how tf are they going to get that strong in three days? I know somehow they'll pull it of—as that is the way of stories—but as to how exactly they might go about doing that? I'm clueless. Speaking of which... it would be nice to have a story that doesn't go the same path as so many others. Where, somehow, the hero always prevails! Why? Because they're the hero. And, I mean, I guess it makes sense. They're the hero for a reason, but isn't it unrealistic for the hero to always win? To err is human after all. That is, if the hero was human. Don't get me wrong, I love stories with happy endings. It's just sometimes I ponder whether that was the realistic outcome. But anyways, I'm getting off-topic. I'm sure that in your story if the dexholders win, it would be for a very good reason. And it excites me to think of the ways of how you'll surprise me! This has been a long-ass review. I spent forever writing it, and I'm terribly sorry. But I thank you for writing this. Anyways, on to the next chapter!

Assimilation successful. ... It’s a phrase that you would’ve seen immediately in Destiny. I think the first chapter pretty much begins with that.

Hehe. How is he so strong? GAME MECHANICS!! The power of RNG abuse to get shiny IV 31 all things with the desired natures, and then EV raising them for max efficiency! And to make things worse, TEAM SYNERGY! ... And level 100! Because the Mega Hunter and his Pokemon are all based on a real life friend and his HUGE pile of RNGed Pokemon. ... I also have a similar sized pile of level 100 RNGed Pokemon, but I didn’t want to put myself in. That’d be weird! ... Heh. So. How are the Dex Holders going to win? ... I don’t know.

... “As that is the way of stories”... OTHER people’s stories, perhaps. Heh. The “power of bullsh*t” doesn’t work in my stories, you know. None of that “I have the willpower, I will succeed!” nonsense, or “the power of friendship!!”. Heh. “I am the main character, so I can do everything!” ... Nope. Not in here, bud. Hahaha.

2) Oh fuck I got so into writing that review that I forgot to put my name. Yeah the last long-ass review is Mel's.

Don’t worry, I figured! :)

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Destiny #009

1) Oh god oh fuck. So soon! The scouts are coming... which brings me to another topic. How tf did this dude get so many scouts? How is he seeing what they're seeing? And who exactly are these scouts? 'Cause if they're just little children as the scout who got caught, then the dexholders will have no problem. But this dude isn't that stupid, or he is and he's planning on winning because of numbers. Which, I guess, isn't a bad idea. Numbers certainly help, but I mean come on. What a horrible thing to do to brainwash children. This dude is such an asshole and my ahem for him grows with every chapter. What even is the point in causing so much chaos? How will this benefit him? (And coming from a lazy person) Why tf would he go to such lengths? It sounds like too much work tbh. Fuck that, I'd rather stay at home relaxing. But I guess each to their own. Also, the writing in this chapter was sooo well done. It is envy chapter, but this one I loved the uncertainty it exuded, because of the uncertainty in the dexholders. What I guess I'm trying to say is, is that your writing reflects the emotions and thoughts of the dexholders in a way. This might just be me, I felt it was like that. It wasn't too overtly noticeable, but it left me with that feeling. Oh, and also some things I forgot to mention in the last review. I think I might've mentioned this before, but it just made me really happy to see that you kept the characters in... well... character. Incorporating things such as Pearl shouting the moves that the pokémon were going to execute really excite me. That's because so many times writers forget these things. And in the end product, you read something that resembles a character, but isn't quite actually like them. Actually, now I'm sure. I did say this another review. I'm sorry for the repetition them, it just amazes me. Another thing that amazes me, the strategies! You did really well in planning out the strategies in the battles. They were intricate, but easily understandable. And they sounded really effective. Really nice job on coming up with those. Oh, and before I end this. I just wanted to say that the interaction between Gold and Crystal at the beginning of this chapter was great. Still staying on the matter at hand, but also delving a bit into their history. Their relationship... they've broken up... made me sad ngl. But oh well, It's to be expected of that certain relationship. It can either be a really good one... or one that ends in heartbreak. It's definitely complicated for them. But one thing that made me chuckle was when Crystal retorted with "You were the one begging for me to come back to you." or something like that. Like it's so true. That's exactly what would happen, and of course Gold would try to play it so that he was the cool one. But we all know that he was the one begging lmaoooo. Also, the way you wrote in Green's concern for Blue in the chapter made me cry because of how beautiful it was. You didn't touch on the topic, but you made it so clear by his actions and things he said. It reminds me of this one thing C. S. Lewis once said, where it was something like, "Show, don't tell.". And that was a good example of that I thought. Makes me think there's hope for their relationship. Also, I know I talk a lot abut how you're work makes me cry. But goddamn are you also good at writing fluff. And it's incorporated a lot in your stories, even your more tragic ones. It's nice, because it's always good to have a balance. I mean, having a completely tragic story without any elements of happiness isn't a good read. So while some parts are sad, there are so many others where I smile or clap or laugh and the list goes on. I never realized how expressive I am when I'm reading lmao. Anyways, thank youuuuuu again.

How did the Mega Hunter get so many scouts mind controlled? ... Well, there are a lot of fodder class trainers that’ll get stomped in like 0.5 seconds and then get taken. Given established time gap, it’s certainly plausible to have mind controlled a crapton of nameless fodder! ... Well, that’s the excuse, anyways. You always need some fodder, you know?

Heh. Imagine if the villains were lazy. “Aw man. I don’t want to plant bombs in all those places... it’s rush hour...” Why is he stirring up chaos? Hehe. You’ll see later~ ... ... Well of course, you’ll see later. It’s the PLOT. ... Real subtle there, 135. Well done...

Aha, Pearl’s Detector trait in use! It’s often hard to do given just how many Dex Holders there are, but I try to think like “in this situation, what would this group do, and how would the members react?” So in the case of a battle, Pearl would be the first to detect which attacks are incoming since that’s his whole shtick.

The... battle strategies... well, they’re mostly just recreations of what I went through in XY/ORAS battles with the guy who the Mega Hunter is based on. That freaking Eruption, man. ... More of the “asshole combos” later.

Hehe. Yep. Gold got dumped, begged, and is trying to maintain the “cool guy” outlook by pretending that she was the one begging. ... Poor dude. But hey, now’s the chance for him to show just how reliable he is! After all, there’s something about destruction and devastation that brings people together!!

Green’s concerns for Blue that has to be put under because of ensuing chaos. Hehe. This is a loose reference to something that happens in SA, and what Blue says to him: “Can’t you put me on the top of your priorities just once?” Almost a year after that story ended (Dec 2013), Destiny began (Sept 2014), and... sure enough, Green is forced to put something else on the top of his priorities, over Blue. It’s because of his personality. Task first. Personal problems come after the public ones. ... But it doesn’t mean he likes that.

Yes. BALANCE. I write a ton of cutesy, fluffy stuff, along with horrific doom hammer strikes. But the fluffy stuff don’t stand out in memory because they don’t have shock value, but doom stuff do. So the common misconception is that I always write doom. No, I do not. BALANCE! Especially much further on where a chapter is half fluff, half doom. BALANCE. ... That said, I think you will cry a lot though. Hehehe... But hey, you’ll be laughing and clapping, and even shuddering at the pure cute fluff later on as well!

2) Also I meant to each their own kek.

To each their own indeed. In a lot of ways.

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Heart #001

1) So I'm just going to say this before actually reading so I, don't forget.

So Platinum has to pick between the boys...?

OK, but *grabs a mic* WHY NOT BOTH?

*drops mic*

Seriously though, consider the ot3 as a viable outcome, please. Don't just... tease me with the ship 'tag' I guess dunno how to call it in FF

Yes, Platinum has to pick one or the other. Why not both? ... This is a PAIRING. A pair has two members. And forcing all three Sinnoh Dex Holders into a single “pair”ing does not work out for anyone.

The “tag”...

I assume you mean that? I only did that because I couldn’t add Platinum twice. My original intent was to put Platinum with Diamond and Platinum again with Pearl. But I couldn’t put up Platinum twice or have her be in two different pairings at once. And it’s not like I could isolate one of the boys either, because... well, that’s a little... on-the-nose, isn’t it? But to avoid “teasing”, I could just give one of the boys the boot and spoil the ending, which... well, I’m sure everyone who reads my stuff will know anyways.

All three of them together is not a viable outcome. As friends? Certainly. I’m not breaking the Morning Sound trio. In a love relationship? Nope. Not happening. One is going to be accepted and experience pure bliss. The other is going to be rejected and experience bitter heartbreak. It’s inevitable and meant to be. ... Just delayed for as long as Platinum doesn’t realize the situation.

#qna

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airyravenmaid · 5 years

Text

Eye Contact

Back at it again at Krispy Kreme with more FF Versus XV bullshit. This one’s kinda wonky and really bizarre since the AU overall ties in with a KH crossover I helped make up along with personal headcanons, but can also standalone for a FFXV AU in itself. I’m just clearing that up since there is a part mentioned towards the end that nods to a world the Chocobros went to as one of their many “world detours” en route to the one they needed to go to in order to establish diplomatic relations with a potential sister kingdom also of light. ...Oh, and there are implications of another headcanon regarding a certain Immortal Marshal, but that’s a popular HC in itself, so that goes without saying. So, yeah, sorry for that; just warning y’all so you don’t get confused and want me burned at the stake.

Alright, alright, that’s enough idiotic justification rambling from me; I’m already buzzed as is and can hardly think right anyways lol. Just enjoy the crazy piece I wrote so I can try and work on the next tone. This one’s not Lightis and is more platonic bc Light’s making fray-ends with these dumb boys :3c. Maybe I can write more of her befriending the others, but we’ll see. ‘Til then, here’s this one and happy reading for those who see this! 💘

Staring back at Prompto from the caravan bathroom mirror was himself, but more clouded. He only blamed it on having just gotten up and dressed for the day not too long ago, figuring he’d taken care of everything he needed to per his morning routine. The very sight of his dull, everyday mirror reflection made him sigh a tad forlornly, but realizing the time to go was imminent only had him slap two hands to his cheeks once. Putting on his more traditional smile, Prompto gave the mirror two thumbs up as enough motivation to start the day right. No prob! He could do this, he could do this!

Upon going to exit the vicinity for the fresher outside world, Prompto rubbed whatever lingering weariness stuck by away from his eyes to clear his vision. When things still looked slightly blurry as before, he gulped. Fumbling through his smallest bag, he dug for what he thought was taken care of already. Pulling out two connected circles he knew to be his contact lenses case, Prompto opened it to find it empty, to his panic.

“Maybe I’ve still got my spares…?” Prompto hoped, rummaging through the bag to try and find more disposable lenses. He found the source box, but opening it only gave him an empty container and an expectation for a very rough day ahead. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! I’m out already?!”

“Prompto, what’s the hold up in there?” Gladio called from outside. “We gotta move!”

“Be right out! Just— making sure I didn’t forget anything is all!”

“Then do one last good check and hurry. We haven’t got all day either!”

Prompto in response called out a playfully affirmative “Aye, aye, Big Guy!” before going to search what he could of something to counteract his flawed eyesight. There was a definite solution on him, he knew, but the glasses case buried somewhere on his possession was considered a dead last resort. Otherwise, those days of having them as his sole option were over and done with. His investigation was thorough, but unfortunately, his results came up fruitless with no lenses available.

Giving up, he exited the caravan to catch up with the other four and hurry into the vacant passenger’s seat in the Regalia before it finally drove off along the world around it. His only hope now was for supplies to be low enough for warranting a pit stop at the nearest store of some sorts, or at least somewhere he can pick up some new spares. Luckily in recent days, he’d been thoroughly reminded to digitally order replacements by a certain team strategist, but there was no telling when the chance to claim them would come. A gunsman’s aim-precise eyes certainly depended on excellent vision, and in a way, so did the entire team.

“So! Ignis, where’s our next destination?” Prompto asked next to him, knowing subtlety was key in his strategy to get his lens replacements. “Anything we gotta do first?”

“Actually, our first order of business is none too far from the Disc of Cauthess,” Ignis noted. “Seems we’ve run low on a few things, and waiting to get them is out of the question.”

“I couldn’t agree more! The sooner, the better; the more supplies, the merrier! So, no need to wait on it.”

“What’s your hurry for?” Lightning inquired, suspicious. “It’s just a run-of-the-mill supply run. We’ve done them hundreds of times.”

“Oh, I know that, it’s just, umm… you never know what you’ll find there that’s useful. And I’m just curious on what’s ‘in store’ for us.”

Lightning rolled her eyes at the quip and slouched back a bit further in her seat. “I guess. Whatever floats your boat, Prompto.”

Prompto knew the excuse was flimsier than wet paper, but if it got Lightning to not interrogate him any further thanks to her lack of concern, then he wasn’t gonna complain anytime soon. His secret plot was to rightfully claim his contact lenses in the proper place, find a place to hide and put them in, and the others would remain none the wiser without being slowed down in the slightest. Until then, however, he’d be stuck in the car unable to so much as fully enjoy the moving sights around him. And what photographer could be truly happy at being unable to see the full, beautiful world that made their digital easel? So much as thinking about it made him more antsy than usual, Prompto exerting it in the form of impatiently bouncing his leg due to only so much space in the Regalia.

He was too distracted by his hasty need for his contacts that he didn’t notice the sky blue eyes of Lightning staring a hole in his skull from the seat behind him. The only feeling compelling her to stare was her good old friend skepticism. Though definitely none of her direct concern, Prompto seemed up to something. But, what was it? That answer she didn’t quite know just yet.

Ignis pulled the car up next to one of the gas tanks, his suggestion to Noctis and Gladio on filling it up for the road taken without much question from either. Lightning got up to stretch her legs and see if anything was of necessary interest in the Mini-Mart, while Prompto went a little further a distance to see if his guess was correct. To his relief, he found what he’d expected to be in the area’s vicinity. It didn’t let him stray so far from the others that the Regalia was out of sight, but it was still a bit of a walk away on its own.

Okay, en-bee-dee, Prompto kept reassuring himself. Just a little trip to the nearest little pharmacy; in and out, then nothing happened from the others’ perspective. Walking in was a lot easier when only strangers he didn’t feel as self-conscious around were also minding their own business like he was non-existent. They were oblivious to who he was as a person and everything; the perfect getaway, he could say! In and out, then he’s run about!

“Hello, Sir, how may I help you?” the optical center clerk greeted. “Are you here to pick up something?”

“Yeah. I’ve got my prescription,” Prompto told them, surrendering the proof that he was medically approved to be there. “I’m here for my spares.”

The clerk looked it over carefully, nodding once the written prescription was validated and approved. “Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be right back out with the brand. It’s the monthly ones, right?”

“Yup! I know they say ‘daily is healthy’, but… turns out it depends on the person.” Prompto let out a laugh under his breath. That was certainly not an agonizing road he wanted to go back down again. Better safe than sorry!

The clerk took about as long as they’d promised. In “Prompto Time”, however, it felt as though every second passed was a minute wasted. He nervously clung to the hope of the others not having gotten done sooner and were presently waiting on their energetic youngest member. Just when it felt like forever had almost gone by him, back came the solution to his trouble of the day. Prompto mutely sighed in relief, thanking them while taking his new supply of contact lenses and handling what he needed to in regards to officially purchasing them.

So as not to risk hitting the road blind as a bat, Prompto hurried into the nearest bathroom to put them in his eyes. In accordance with his process, Prompto removed no more than his fingerless gloves and washed the hands underneath. His studded wristbands got a bit damp from the watery suds, but he couldn’t have cared less. Under the warm gusts of the hand dryer his palms went, rubbing each other all over to eliminate every layer of water.

And now… the harder part he dreaded so much. Two tiny dome-shaped, colorless terrors waiting to torture Prompto until he was to manage in getting them over the two most sensitive organs in his head. Nonetheless, he opened the box and took out the first pair, peeling off their wrapping and concentrating on his reflection. One wrong move, and it’d be over for him and his vision. Spreading his first pair of lids apart with his thumb and pointer finger, Prompto used the other index one to use as an applicator.

“Just a little further…” Prompto gulped, shakily pressing the contact more towards the rim surrounding the stressed lavender-blue of his eye. When it got too close, he wound up giving into fear and setting his finger down to let him blink for relief. “Wait, okay, time out! I need a second…”

“You did remember to wash your hands first, right?” the sudden voice of Ignis asked from behind, startling Prompto into nearly poking his eye out with the younger’s shriek.

“Ignis! Dude, don’t do that! But, yes, I washed my hands, I promise. What— are you doing here, by the way?”

“Tracking down my AWOL friend, who I knew to be running a bit low on his own supplies. Did you find what you needed?”

“Yep! Should be good for a long while!” Prompto looked behind Ignis, even near spots most wouldn’t detect so easily. “Nobody… followed you, did they? Like say…”

“If it’s Light you’re worried about seeing you, then no, she’s waiting in the car. Even if she had followed me, I believe you’d be more than safe in the men’s bathroom.”

“Right, right! Just making sure is all! You never know, you know…?”

“I ‘know’ that there’s also no harm in her finding out about your poor eyesight. I doubt she’d care too much if she knew, anyways.”

“Well, sure, but… let’s just say some things are just better off totally left behind without the reminder. And besides, there’s no harm in not telling her, either! For now, ignorance is bliss.”

“At least, until she gets too suspicious and finds out one way or another. You aren’t exactly among the best at ‘acting natural’, Prompto. Especially when you’re nervous.”

Prompto dismissed the notion, working on getting the first lens into his eye. “I’ll be fine, Iggy. What Light will never know won’t hurt her~.”

“One way or another, something’s bound to happen. But, on the subject. These lenses? They are not meant to be worn to sleep.”

In response, Prompto first let out a mock-buzzer noise while crossing his arms into an X-shape. “Wrong, Iggy! I was sure to get the monthly ones that are a little safer. Besides, that was like one time I did that!” Seeing the raised brow on Ignis’ forehead made Prompto backtrack, knowing he’d been seen right through like glass. “...Plus— okay, maybe two others, but I know that now! Thanks… anyways, though. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“I’ve enough faith in you to uphold that, but also give your eyes time to ‘breathe’ to be at your safest. And, do know that there’s no harm in a certain someone learning something new.”

Ignis left Prompto to finish putting his contacts in peacefully, having no need to tell him where to go afterwards. One down, the other to go. His fingers were shaky, but gripped the lens for dear life to do everything in his power not to drop it. At a snail’s pace, towards the other eye it went until its rim made a perfect contact around the iris. Winking a few times to get the plastic to stick, Prompto moved both eyes back and forth behind his lids, settling on a good enough feel for the new contacts in place.

“Ah, that’s better,” Prompto sighed, happy to see everything clearer than before. “Thank the Six for ‘boneless glasses’ to make my life just a little easier!”

Cleaning out his contact lens case with enough disinfecting solution and putting them in the Armiger’s storage system for ultimate safety, Prompto looked both ways and around on the outside of the men’s room. When the coast was clear, he shuffled out of the store uttering the appropriate “stealth music” as if a spy on a deathly mission. He ducked around some of the aisle shelves to hide himself occasionally, holding a long note once at the entrance before springing out of the building.

“Haha! Completely nailed it!” Prompto boasted, hurrying his way back to the Coernix Station - Cauthess while looking back at the pharmacy he’d escaped from. “And just in time to hit the— ROAD!”

“There you are,” Lightning said, knuckles on her hips and slightly hunched forward to show more of her disapproval at the spooked boy. “Missed you at the shop. Where’d you decide to wander off to?”

“N— Oh, nowhere, Light! The shop just didn’t have what I needed to pick up, so I found someplace else!” Prompto grew even more anxious at the well-known glare being as strong as ever thrown right at him. “I’m telling the truth! I didn’t go too far!”

“You’re up to something, Argentum.”

“Yeah, I am. I’d say about… five-foot-eight? Not as tall as Gladio or Ignis, but you’ve got a little catching up to do—”

“—You know what I mean, don’t be wise. What are you hiding?”

“Me? I’d never hide a thing, ma’am! I’m Prompto ‘Open Book’ Argentum, that’s me!”

“If you’re such an open book, then you’ve got no reason to be so scared of telling me the truth. What is it, already? Spill it.”

Just then, the savior in the form of the Regalia pulled up and honked the horn, courtesy of Noctis driving up front. “You two having fun over there? Whatever you’re talking about can be said in the car, too.”

“Can it, Prince,” Lightning hissed coldly, getting in one of the two remaining seats. “This conversation isn’t over, Prompto. I’m letting you know that now.”

Gulping, Prompto sat himself down in the car, giving Noctis wordless permission to drive onwards again. Thankfully, he was separated from Lightning in the back thanks to Gladio sitting between them. A bit of a tight fit considering how large the man was, but nothing close to “excruciatingly unbearable”. Even with a living barrier between them, Prompto got chills tingling his spine in the worst way possible whenever he was faced the brunt of Lightning’s infamous staredown. Six, if looks could kill, then he’d have been vaporized by now for gazing directly at such a goddess in woman form that had as much beauty as she did perseverance. All he had to do for the time being was work his way around her suspicion until she forgot about it enough, and he’d be home free! After all, how hard could that be to try and get away with…?

The next time they stopped for a while to camp out later on in the day, Prompto sought the opportunity to celebrate his new contact lenses. He did so in the form of, what else, taking advantage of the exquisite outdoor scenery. Letting everyone else know he’d return in due time, Prompto set off to a remote area of the woods with his camera in hand, on the hunt for whatever might catch his eye and become a future memory of the past. Such a moment would be even better with someone else there to also experience the magic with him, but— as much as he’d rather stay far away from the nastier parts of it— nature was bound to have something to tickle his fancy within it.

Prompto took in everything about his surroundings to see what he could do for his little “indie photo op”, as he’d put it before stepping away from camp. Tripod, check. Camera, obvious. Light source? “On fleek”! Angling? Top-notch! Alright, everything was in place and nothing nearby that he could see to mess it up. Selecting his first snapshot spot, Prompto positioned his beloved camera in its standing hold, setting the timer for when it’d go off. Counting down the seconds; three, two…!

“There you are,” Lightning interrupted, scaring Prompto into stumbling into his tripod and accidentally taking a blurred photo of the ground instead of the nice view.

“And there goes my shot,” Prompto sighed, filling his lungs with his breath and exhaling to calm himself enough. “Light, at least warn me first before sneaking up on me like a serial killer!”

“If you’re mad about your dinky little photo, just take it again. This place isn’t going anywhere, but neither am I until you tell me the truth.”

“Oi-vey, there’s just no dropping that, is there? Why do you wanna know so badly, anyways?”

“Because if it wasn’t something worth hiding, you wouldn’t be dodging the question so much. Now, fess up, Argentum. I’d hate to resort to ‘less pleasant’ ways of getting you to talk.”

Prompto found himself sweating in the brow and backing away, one step in reverse synchronized with Lightning’s forward. “There’s nothing to say, already! I’m not hiding a thing!”

“I don’t buy it. Either tell me and let me leave you alone, or don’t tell me and only make this harder on yourself. Make the right choice.”

He’d run out of options, and inner shame prevented him from potentially making for an awkward confession. So, between fighting it or flight, Prompto chose the impulsive option of the latter with his beloved camera in hand. He could always come back for the tripod later once he didn’t have a rosy-haired warrior out for his past. Although it was common sense to know Lightning was chasing after him, Prompto gave into looking back at her anyways and running faster before turning his head around again. When he did, all he received was a faceful of tree bark smacking him right against the face, his camera falling to the soft ground unharmed when his hands went to cover achingly where he got hit.

“Looks like you’re out of options, Argen—” Lightning started to say until she realized Prompto sank to the ground covering his face. Her irritation cooled into an odd sense of concern, now going over to inspect the man more carefully. “Wait, are you hurt?”

“Mmm-mmm,” Prompto got out, something crystalline falling from his left eye and sticking to his upper cheek. When he felt it, he gasped. “Don’t come any closer, okay?”

Lightning grew more worried, especially at the sight of what seemed to be a tear. Did she go too far in pressuring him into injuring himself? That was quite a run into the tree he just did… “I have to make sure nothing’s broken. Are you bleeding?”

“No! Stay back! I’m fine!”

Lightning disobeyed and removed Prompto’s hands from his face. To her relief, he didn’t seem to be bleeding or bruised, but strangely, neither eye seemed damp with any tears. How that could be was unknown to her, but then she looked closer at what was really stuck on a freckle. Against Prompto’s further protest, Lightning picked it up and squeezed it between two gloved fingers while examining it a little better. After a few seconds, she recognized what it’d been if not a salted tear of pain like she initially believed.

“...It’s a contact lens,” Lightning pointed out, still looking at it until Prompto snatched it back from her. “Why do you have a contact lens on you?”

“N— Not important,” Prompto mumbled, trying to slip the lens back into his eye, but to no avail without the proper concentration.

“Sounds so to me. Look.” Lightning knelt down in front of Prompto, getting him to look at the new gentleness her eyes now held for him, not a trace of force to be seen on her. “If this was what everything was all about, you can tell me. Unless you really are somehow secretly conspiring against the others, then I have no reason to get that much on your case over a little contact lens.”

“You thought I was—? No! Never!” Prompto sounded almost offended that she’d think that of him, but in all fairness, he was acting a little off his loop from trying to hide his secret from her. “...I dunno if I can tell you, though. I wanted to make a good impression on— well, someone who’s never met me before this.”

“You’d have better luck by being honest. Trust me, I’ve had my share of bad news, so since you’re not putting anyone’s life in danger, whatever you have in you, I can take.”

Before he could think of any other objection, Lightning sat down next to him against the tree, picking up his camera and brushing off the dirt it’d acquired from the fall. She checked it over to see if it’d gotten cracked or anything of the sort, but was pleased to hand it back to Prompto when it looked as intact as ever. Prompto frowned; there was no way out of this, was there? And it’d be rude to leave a lady unanswered when she’d so sincerely asked, so… time to face the music, it seemed. Astrals, this was gonna suck.

“Well, as you could probably guess, my vision’s not the best in the world,” Prompto confessed, a sheepish laugh leaving his throat. “That’s why I gotta wear contact lenses to— ya know, fix that. Can’t be a photographer or gunsman that can’t see, can you?”

“Then how come you don’t just get glasses?” Lightning wondered as Prompto used his phone reflection to fight the lens back over his vision hole. “It seems harder to put those things in, doesn’t it? One wrong move, and you’d never see again.”

“It’s not so tough once you get used to it and take care of them the right way. And I am never going back to wearing glasses again when I don’t have to! They look fine on Iggy, but count me out!”

“So, you did used to wear them? Why’d you stop?”

“That’s kinda where the whole ‘I’d rather not talk about this’ part comes in. When I was a kid, I didn’t just wear glasses. Believe it or not, I also actually used to be pretty chunky and more of a turtle. Always in my shell and whatnot, you know?”

Lightning didn’t say it aloud, but the revelation did surprise her. Trying to picture a younger, slightly more plump Prompto that couldn’t so much as speak his mind sounded completely foreign to her. But, he also sounded… different in telling his tale. There wasn’t the usual buoyancy to really be heard, or too much of the wise-cracking nature she was more familiar with. No, all Lightning could hear was more of a sadder little boy wearing a sunnier mask to hide a past he wasn’t proud of. She logically kept her full judgement in line, wanting to hear more to see what else there was to it.

“You don’t say?” Lightning commented. “First, on you needing glasses back then, why was that? I’d have figured a noble from Lucis would be able to afford something ridiculous like laser eye surgery, or—”

“—Eh? ‘Noble’, who? If you’re talking about me, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong guy there, Pink,” Prompto laughed uneasily. “I could never be able to pay for that.”

“You’re not a noble? How could that be; you’re travelling with a prince of all kinds of people!”

“I know. I’m as surprised as you are, trust me. But, alack, I am but a commoner in a group of rich men! Even so, I honest to the Six doubt Pop would have been able to afford getting eye correction surgery for me. Shit’s expensive, lady!”

“Fair enough. Then, how did you get into the Crownsguard if you’re just normal?”

Prompto’s face grew even more sullen, looking at the camera between his fingers without a hint of his usual smile. “That’s what I’d like to know. It’d be super nice to think ‘wow, all my hard work paid off, so I got to be worthy of joining’, but… I just can’t believe it’s anywhere close to the truth. Sure, I got in; lost the weight, did the work, yadda-yadda. But really, even with Pop training me to get here today, I just don’t know if I’d have done so well on my own anyways.”

“It… sounds really important to you. Then, why go through so much if you feel this way?”

“To be honest with myself? A big reason’s all because I wanted to be worth something to Noct. Oh, and that’s besides him being a prince dealing with a commoner and stuff, too. My bestie’s kinda my ‘firstie’ too, if you know what I’m saying.”

Lightning scoffed, rolling her eyes more at the mention of Noctis than Prompto’s friendship with him. “Leave it to the little snob of a prince to hold such expectations on you. He’s got two others that aren’t broken, so why rope you into it?”

“What? Oh! No, no, Pink, you’ve got it all wrong!” Prompto’s tone grew more frantic, realizing he’d planted an accidental misconception in the ex-soldier’s head. “Look, I get you and Noct would rather not wanna deal with each other, but believe me. I’ve known the guy since at least high school; he’s a total sweetheart once you see enough underneath the surface! A little crabby, sure, but he’s really not anywhere as bad as you’re making him out to be.”

“More power to you, then, because I’m not seeing it. Whatever, this is about you, not him.”

“In a way, it’s kinda both. If it weren’t for how my friendship with Noct started, then I dunno where I’d be now. Me wanting to both protect him and be a good enough friend to him is what got me started on the road to changing who I was into someone much better. I’m not sure if I’ve totally succeeded yet, but if I’ve been with him this long, maybe I’m doing something okay for once? Maybe you don’t understand what I’m saying, but to put it all simply, Noct’s done nothing but help me all these years. And all I wanna do is do it back and keep doing it for as long as possible.”

...Wow. At that moment, that was the only word Lightning could form in her mind. She may not have understood why Prompto was going to such lengths for someone like Noctis, but if there was something she did get, it was the gunsman’s process. And though Gladio and Ignis she was beyond fine with as people once she’d gotten to know enough of them, something with Prompto resonated with her in a way those two hadn’t quite achieved (at least, not yet to her knowledge). Maybe it was on the fact at not being the only common person after all Now that he’d said that to her, but whatever it was, Lightning was curious enough to know more.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t go and say I don’t understand where you’re coming from,” Lightning admitted. “To want to change so badly to make someone you care about the most happy… you’re not as off base as you think.”

“Really, now? Anyone back home make you feel that way?” Prompto wondered. “Like a best friend you’ve got yourself?”

“Yes, and no. Just know I’d do anything to see them have a good life. I can only hope I did enough to make that happen, considering every horrible mistake I’ve made.”

“Assuming they’re still around, if they seem to be doing okay because of you, then… well, lo hiciste, you did it!”

“Sh— they’re thankfully alive and breathing, but I can’t help but worry if I ever did enough or not. And even if I did, what now? Will they still need me anymore?”

‘This would be a little easier if I knew how close she was to the person she’s talking about.’ Prompto worded what he wanted to carefully. It wasn’t every day Lightning have off such a vulnerable aura, so the last thing he wanted to do was make her more upset. “If you ask me, just being able to stand by them and know you could help them go far in life sounds like reward enough. Sure, maybe you can’t be together forever and ever, but knowing you made an impact comes just as close.”

“And how would I know if my impact even mattered? For all I can tell, they could be fine without me. Better, even.”

“One way of seeing it? They may be able to live their own life just fine, but it’s hard to forget how they got to that life in the first place. If you impact enough, they’ll be sure to never take that for granted.”

Hardly even realizing it immediately, Lightning felt her heart mellow out a tad melancholically the more she thought about her most cherished protectorate. All the foolish mistakes she’d made along the way she may not have been ready to forgive herself entirely for, but in where everyone from Cocoon and Gran Pulse now were, she’d do anything to keep it how it’d become in the end. Now, of all the people to find that appeared to understand her in that way, it’s Prompto who claims such a spot.

“Those are some wise words coming from you of anyone,” Lightning told him. “Never imagined it’d be from the same person who’s compared gloves to being ‘hand condoms’, either.”

“Light, that’s only the beginning of my endless wisdom,” Prompto said proudly before simmering back down in his tone again. “But, frankly? I’m more surprised you were so willing to listen that easily. I’ve only really said all that to Noct.”

“It’d be ‘pot calling the kettle black’ if I gave you such a rough time about this. But, if you ask me, it really looks like you’re on the right track, even if you think you aren’t.”

“Can’t stop you if you wanna think that, but all I can do is keep trying and see if I can succeed. Until then, there’s no saying for sure.”

“Well, considering you’re already pulling more weight out here than any nobody could hope to, I’d say you’re making the progress you need. Hell, you’d give Sazh a run for his money if he saw how well you work a pistol. And he uses two!”

“Right! Now, for my next question; who the heck is Sazh?” Prompto in asking it sounded closer to his more chipper side, but was just as unfamiliar with the comparison.

“A friend back home. I think you’d like him just fine.” Lightning started counting off a few fingers, fishing out the similarities. “You’re both top-notch gunsmen, wise-cracking even in the tightest of situations, have a fondness for chocobos—”

“—Wait, wait, hold up! This friend of yours also sees the true glory of Eos’ finest creatures?! Do tell, Miss Farron! Don’t keep a guy waiting!”

Lightning couldn’t help but softly laugh at Prompto’s enthusiasm for once. That certainly got his attention. “It’s more his son, Dajh, that’s crazy about them. But, if keeping a chocobo chick in his hair amounts to anything, I’d say he’s a huge fan of them, too.”

“He keeps a chocobo chick in—! Get out! I’ve— that clinches it! I gotta meet this man someday! I just gotta, Pink! I’ve gotta learn his ways! How could I have been so blind?!”

Lightning pat Prompto a few times on the head, appearing to quell his innumerable excitement levels. “Easy does it, Sunspot. I’m sure he’d forgive you for taking a while to do that. But, while we’re on it, how did you get so good at firing a gun?”

“Well, I hate to keep bringing my pop into this, but back when I was still in training, he found my aim wasn’t just top-notch in taking a few snaps. Turns out projectiles are just my calling, too.”

“And I may as well ask this, too, but who is your dad? He sounds a little more than just another commoner. Is he a veteran?”

“You could say that, but you’ve met him already! He’s the same guy who sent you to travel with us in the first place!”

“What? But that was—” Lightning stopped, eyes widening when she realized who Prompto was talking about. She looked at his sunny, almost cutesy-looking mug, then comparing it to the complete 180 of his apparent parentage. “...No way. The Marshal?! Cor Leonis is your dad of all people?!”

“Yes… and no. Obviously, we’re not blood related, but he sorta adopted me as a baby. Then, eventually, he had to give me up to my… other parents. So, I guess I grew up the rest of the way with them.”

“He had to give you up? Why?”

“Guess it had to do with him being leader of the Crownsguard and all. Someone like that can’t balance such a huge responsibility and a kid, so he didn’t have a choice on it at all.”

“Then, how come you still call him your dad if he’s technically not anymore?”

“I try not to when I need to be formal or in front of other Guard members, but honestly, I still pretty much consider him my father even though I had to go somewhere else.” Prompto’s mouth flattened into another frown, this one as wistful as the ones before it. “Hard to admit, but he’s the only older adult figure in my life there enough to earn that title. My… folks weren’t exactly home too much, so I mostly had to look after myself all the time.”

“They left their kid on his own just like that?! Some ‘parents’ ya got there. Actually, I don’t think I should use that word. If they were really your mom and dad, then they shouldn’t leave their kid behind when it’s still in their control. If it wasn’t? Different story. But, that’s not the case here, is it?”

“Well, I— look, Pink, bad mouthing them isn’t the answer. Can’t change how I was brought up, so… what, huh?”

“I don’t care in the slightest. Prompto, you don’t deserve to be practically ignored by the two people meant to be there for you the most. I’m not accepting it, and neither should you, Mister.”

“It’s not like I ‘accept’ it, exactly. It’s— I just wish… you know…”

The words faded on Prompto’s tongue, but were replaced by a quiet gasp at what happened next. Of all the things to get from Lightning for any reason, her arms wrapped around his body in a strangely maternal embrace was definitely not one he expected. But, for once, it simmered his heart into steady, rather sad thumps. He didn’t find it appropriate to hug back, but it appeared Lightning wasn’t going to let go of him just yet. Although it was his primary thought, it didn’t seem to be a hug of empty pity; even at her rare warmest, the woman to him never appeared as the type to go and show something so pointless for another person. Rather, the display felt as comforting to Prompto as it did secretly unearned.

“You’re doing just fine. You just have to not quit while you’re ahead,” Lightning reassured him. “I haven’t been here as long as you four, but I’m sure they’d have said something by now if you weren’t at least close to good enough. Real friends stick by you from start to finish, but also know when you’re falling behind on what’s really crucial.”

“That sounds true and all, but…” Prompto silenced himself, shaking his head without the desire to say too much more. “Nevermind. You’re right; I shouldn’t overreact or turn into a real ‘Debbie Downer’ here.”

“I never said you were. Feeling low’s gonna happen against your control; it’s what you do with it is what makes the difference. I’m nobody to tell anyone else how to feel, but I can at least encourage you not to throw your hopes out the window just yet. Think you’d be able to do that?”

“Hmm, dunno. I’ve already got bad eyesight, so it’s not like I’ve got better ‘future sight’, either. But, man! Would if I could, Light. Would if I could.”

Lightning could feel a delicate little smile tug at her mouth corners hearing Prompto regain the laugh in his voice. “Careful what you wish for. Being able to see into the future might not be as nice as you think.”

“What makes you say that? Having that as a superpower would rock! Unless— yeah, maybe some things are just not meant to be seen before they happen. Is that why?”

“Among… other reasons people wouldn’t like it. Bottom line, I’d rather you waited and saw, and not saw and waited. You got that?”

“I gotcha! Won’t see any ESP from me, lay-dee! But, you mind if we get going? I did say I was only gonna be gone for a little bit. Don’t want everyone thinking I almost became bear chow again.”

“It is a good time to— wait, ‘again’? What do you mean ‘again’?”

“Nothing that’s not best left in the past! It was before you came along, and we’re all fine now! Don’t you worry your pretty pink little head there.”

Having done enough of interrogating Prompto for one day, Lightning left it at that and got herself off the ground. She was about to turn the other way hoping to be followed, when Prompto let out a loud, energetic gasp after looking at his camera again. Without explaining himself, he grabbed Lightning by the wrist and ran in the direction of where she’d originally chased him from. Besides not wanting to leave his poor tripod all by its lonesome, having another person with him in such a great spot was a photo opportunity just begging on its knees for him to take it.

And just who was he to up and refuse it so rudely?

“Really, Prom, we’ve gotta go,” Lightning insisted as Prompto set her up in front of the tripod and camera like a living prop. “Can’t this wait until later?”

“Not a chance!” Prompto chirped, making sure everything on his camera was all set and in position. “Why pass up the chance of a lifetime in getting a nice snap with my favorite photogenic newcomer?”

“If you wanted a selfie, then you don’t need my help with that,” Lightning quipped, hiding her smirk behind a few fingers at the consequent stunned blush on Prompto’s face born from the comment.

“Oh, fair maiden, how you flatter a clown. But, nope! You’ve gotta be in the shot; no way out until this memory’s made!” Prompto set the timer up, running to where Lightning was and readying himself for the shoot. “Smile for the camera, Pink! It loves ya!”

Lightning never really considered herself a “camera person”, but with how little time she had to think about it before the camera went off and captured her appearance in the moment, she did what first came to her mind. Giving off the most modest of her smiles, the shutter went off and immortalized the exact moment and pose the two were in. Prompto went to go look at his new photograph, rather pleased with the almost punkish way he had his tongue stuck out and the peace sign fingers on the hand belonging to the arm he’d wrapped around Lightning’s shoulders without actually making physical contact. As for his female companion in the snapshot, hers didn’t seem like anything to write home about, but nothing of it wiped even a bit away of the smile on his face.

“Another shot gotten! And this one’s the first to be blessed full-on by such a gracious presence!” Prompto beamed, making loops around the moon from how happy he was to have gotten a photo with Lightning. “Hey, why don’t you see how it came out, too? No need to let you miss out on it.”

“Why don’t you show me while we’re heading back to camp?” Lightning suggested, hauling the tripod under her arm and allowing Prompto to follow in her steps. “Nothing against you doing what you like, but we were supposed to head back a while ago.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course! And since we’re doing it now, take a quick look!” Prompto put the camera in front of Lightning’s eyes, the screen still on its most recent picture.

“Easy with— ...oh.” Lightning saw how the photo came out, rather impressed by the expert-level accuracy and the fact that even her more mild expression didn’t lower any of the quality either. “Gotta say, for someone that needs contacts, you’ve really got an eye for the camera.”

“I’ve had two for as long as I can remember. This journey’s not gonna last forever, so I might as well make a way to capture it for as long— WHOA!”

Lightning immediately ducked and caught Prompto by hugging her arms around to his torso, pulling him back up onto his feet hiding her suppressed urge to laugh. “Maybe tell me more on the way back. While looking where you’re going, of course.”

“That can be arranged. See, it all started when…”

Ignis was in the middle of getting the last few minor touches on camp set up, at the same time Gladio and Noctis were preoccupying themselves a distance from him with a harmless sparring match. Their combat reminded him personally to take a good look at his recently acquired Mythril Knives to ensure they were ready for use next time the team was to be under attack by the forces of evil or wilderness. His ears picked up on faint chatter past the sound of swords clashing and a prince rapidly warping, further investigation informing him that the culprits were the previously absent Prompto and Lightning. The ecstatic storytelling from his blond friend was nothing new, but the interested placid smile on his pink-haired one certainly provided some questions on what happened between them in the woods.

“—Then, I got attacked by a horde of angry baboons! As if that wasn’t bad enough, this leopard comes along and tried to take a bite of me in the worst way possible!” Prompto recited to a fascinated Lightning, Ignis recalling exactly the moment in question on one of the detours taken before they’d even officially set out on their current mission. “All because I wanted to snap a pic of this cute little baby monkey I saw, too! Was that so wrong?”

“You might have just scared the thing with your camera,” Lightning guessed. “What’s harmless to people might not be so to a wild animal. It probably mistook you for a hunter.”

“Still no excuse to try and get me killed! The little…” Prompto grumbled, trailing off and ending the bitter sentence in his head. “Any jungles where you’re from, Pink?”

“Not where I’m living now, no. But, where I was born, the closest I can think of is the Sunleth Waterscape. Never been myself; my sister and a few of our friends passed through it, though.”

“Bummer. Was that awesome ‘Sazh’ guy you were talking about one of those people?”

Lightning nodded. “Him and Vanille went at the same time. Speaking of which, you act a lot like her, too. I think you almost have her beat in the ‘perky youth’ department. And… some other more personal things you’ve got in common, too.”

“I won’t make you say things you don’t wanna, but my ‘Light’s friends I just gotta meet’ list is growing!”

“Maybe when I go back home, you can find time to visit. I’m sure they’d get a kick out of you.” Lightning’s voice had a noticeable lightheartedness to it, imagining the sheer chaos of Prompto meeting her loved ones back home.

“It sounds like you two had a good time out?” Ignis inquired, finally getting the two’s attention on him. His glasses-covered eyes were particularly on Prompto asking it, who knew the reason why.

“Definitely nothing I was expecting, that’s for sure. Anything could end a lot worse, but I’m happy this didn’t.”

“That makes two of us, sister!” Prompto agreed, bringing up the new photo of him and Lightning on his camera. “And guess who also finally got the ultimate selfie today? This guy, that’s who!”

“You finally partook in one of Prompto’s photos, Light? I always thought you to be the camera-shy type,” Ignis said, scanning the camera screen with intrigue.

“I’m not much for taking them, but it came out really well,” Lightning admitted. “As long as Prom doesn’t ask me to take too many of them, I don’t mind getting another in for him.”

“Do you really mean that?!” Prompto squeaked, beyond joyous.

“I just might. I don’t have ‘future sight’ either, though. We’ll just see where things go after this.”

Lightning only left it at that after, flashing Prompto another kind glance before going over to request a sparring match of her own with Gladio after Noctis concluded his with him. It hadn’t gone past Prompto’s cleared up eyes at all, the ecstatic shutterbug still feeling his innards doing giddy flips and turns about the events that’d transpired overall. He found himself smiling with his sunny aura after Lightning, freezing when he’d caught the look on Ignis’ face, too.

“Seems you’ve made a friend in her,” Ignis pointed out. “I’d have to be halfway blind to think she isn’t starting to warm up to you.”

“You really think so?” Prompto breathed, scratching one cheek with his pointer finger.

“I’ve more than a feeling. Not as scary as you thought her finding about your contact lenses was going to be, was it?”

“Pish-pish, lucky guess. Turns out, a lot of things that’s bothered me, she’s been on the same ride just as bad.”

“And yet a lot remains a mystery about our newest comrade. However, enough has certainly come to ‘Light’ with her since she joined us.”

Prompto laughed, quickly catching onto the discreet humor. “Can’t know everything about everybody, of course. Especially since there’s some things we just don’t know the answer to.” At the same time he said that, he fixed the black bands covering his right wrist so they wouldn’t reveal anything the mystery mark underneath.

“Which is perfectly fine. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet, big or small. It’s only a matter of how people take them is what makes the difference.”

Prompto couldn’t argue with that, being unable to avoid looking at not just Noctis toying around on a favored game on his smartphone, but also Lightning performing an impressive deflecting of Gladio’s strike. He still couldn’t fully believe what happened today did, nevermind actually reaching this point in his life. And yet, somehow, here he was; still among the Crownsguard of all things, and making a new friend that turned out to be sailing in the same boat as him in a way.

Another person— Lightning, no less, was more than willing to encourage him from her own honest faith alone. She’d joined Noctis in rooting for him, so Prompto had to be a fool to do so much as consider letting her own too because he couldn’t live up to the simplest of expectations. Whether or not he was sure he’d succeed in the end aside from his personal lack of true confidence, nothing was an excuse to stop after every step taken in the first place.

Prompto tapped one closed eyelid each gingerly, making sure what stuck to his eyes behind them were both secure. He laughed once to himself. Of all the ways possible he could have shared such a deep moment in the woods with someone, it had to be over a measly pair of contact lenses. Small world, he thought. Small world, indeed.

#Final Fantasy XV #Final Fantasy XIII #FF Crossover #Prompto Argentum #Lightning Farron #Tales From The LibrAiry #FF Versus XV #idk what the name for these two is; but it's platonic anyways so no need to use it I don't think???#Regardless; Lemonade Mouth is a go :3c #Also you can pry dad!Cor from my cold; dead hands; let Prom have at least one (1) good parent in his life goddamn it

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makeste · 6 years

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KHR 068: Literal Food Wars

Stay tuned guys, because this chapter features Bianchi’s one and only fight scene, and it’s about six pages long but it’s one of the strangest things that’s ever gone down in this manga.

But before we get to that, this thing opens with one of my all-time favorite KHR jokes! Let’s appreciate it together.

YOU BET YOUR ASS HE HAD A SPARE. And he just WHIPS IT OUT like an RPG character dumping his massive inventory. And Yamamoto is just like, “oh, thank you!” because PAPAMOTO DONE RAISED HIM RIGHT. And his face. Oh my god just look at it it’s perfect.

All in all, a 10 out of 10. Really, we can go ahead and end the arc right here.

Just kidding, obviously we need to continue. At the very least until we find out just what exactly Mukuro is planning on doing with all those teeth!

So anyway, I skipped over it, but it’s important to note that yet again Tsuna is having feelings of guilt over his freezing up and having to be saved by his friends who then end up getting hurt protecting him.

This is beautiful slow-burn character development, so let’s keep track of it as it continues.

It almost seems too easy, doesn’t it? [counts the number of chapters left in this arc] Something fishy going on here.

At this point, poor Ken, who has now been relegated to comic relief status, severely misapprehends the position he’s currently in, and decides to start some shit.

Honestly, he almost even gave the whole game away with that “you’ll die before you see his face” remark. Mukuro really needs to have a talk with him.

An annoyed Gokudera belligerently sprinkles some sand on him (because making his face very slightly dirty, THAT’LL SHOW HIM). An equally annoyed Bianchi tsks at Hayato’s childishness. Clearly, what this situation calls for instead is some light murder in the first degree.

This chapter is off to an excellent fucking start so far.

Reborn then starts hyping Mukuro up again and to be honest he does a pretty good job. But more importantly, he hands the photograph over to Tsuna, so that we, the audience, can get this next page, and presumably scratch our heads in confusion.

“These two Mukuros who look nothing alike… does a trap lie behind its secret?”

Well, let me think. We know that the person that Tsuna and co. think is Mukuro is not actually Mukuro. We also know that Reborn has only one Dying Will bullet left. One trump card; two Mukuros.

Nah, I think it’s going to be fine.

Anyway. Look who’s awake!

Hey, Mukuro actually bandaged him up! And put him in bed. And was just sitting there watching him. Mukuro, could it be you’re actually a nice guy?!?!?!

The answer is no, not quite, since there’s still all that teeth-harvesting and attempted murder and actual murder and kidnapping and wanting to cleanse the world with darkness (we haven’t even gotten to that yet but yeah) and stuff. But watch this space!

Chikusa and Mukuro catch each other up on recent events. Take a gander there at Chikusa’s little exclamation mark speech bubble when he finds out Ken’s been defeated, which is almost identical to Mukuro’s little exclamation mark when Chikusa fell on his face after stumbling back wounded a few chapters ago! The emotionally challenged apple doesn’t fall far from the emotionally challenged tree.

And then Mukuro introduces some ~reinforcements~, and lo and behold:

It’s a two-page spread of antagonists! Which means it’s time for a round of let’s-analyze-the-two-page-spread-using-bullet-points! Man, I love this. It’s been a while.

BIRDS - A.k.a. the literal worst character in the entire series! 100% no hyperbole or exaggeration! That is the correct use of “literal.” There is in fact no one worse than Birds.

CREEPY TWINS - I kind of love them tbh. They’re SO FUCKING DISTURBING and I feel like we never get anything even close to that kind of creepy again afterwards. Except for the Vindice maybe. Fun fact, this chapter came out roughly around 2005, so these guys predate Slenderman. Godfathers of creepypasta right here.

LANCIA IN A HAT - Hey it’s Lancia wearing a funny hat

M.M. - Pretty much the only one of these guys who actually sticks around in the long run. (Not counting Lancia, since as far as I can recall he only makes the one cameo at the end of the Varia Arc and then disappears from our lives forever.) She actually makes it into Tsuna’s nostalgic montage in the very last chapter of the series! But the rest of this chapter is about her, so I’ll hold off on additional comments for now.

BONUS ROUND:

Well, I guess Birds did manage to do one good thing during his fortunately-brief tenure in KHR! Somehow I always manage to forget the origins of this little guy.

Does he really? Somehow I don’t exactly associate the Kokuyou gang with piles of cash (something to do with them squatting in an abandoned mall and constantly seeming to be on the verge of starving to death). Maybe it’s illusionary money. This would have been funny to see if it had actually worked out.

I hope the other Kokuyous get Mukuro a “World’s Best Grandma” trophy for his next birthday.

We then cut over to the small child that Mukuro kidnapped! I’m gonna get whiplash from going back and forth on how evil he actually is in this arc, goddamn it.

Whatever, Mukuro!!!

Okay, so after all of these villain introductions, we finally return to our intrepid group of heroes.

This little hobbit’s feet are tired and he wants to stop and have second breakfast.

So they sit down at some picnic tables and Bianchi once again recalls how much she fucking despises Yamamoto!

“MOVE OR YOU WILL BE MOVED!!”

He makes the greatest fucking faces every time she does this shit, I swear.

There are some comedic bits involving Bianchi just straight up offering Tsuna literal bug soup to eat (like, not even any sort of pretense this time around as to whether it’s actually edible or not). But then, suddenly…!

Yikes.

And of course, Tsuna naturally just assumes Bianchi’s food did that on its own, which. Yeah, that would normally check out. But Bianchi says it wasn’t her!

I don’t have any of the Viz-translated volumes but I wonder what they turned this “oh shi—” into. I’m feeling like they would have gone with a good old-fashioned, nonsensical “Cowabunga!”

Okay but apparently M.M., just like Ken before her, for whatever reason has decided it’s better to just dick around and not actually go for the kill. Because I have to assume that if she could do that to a lunch box, she could do it to a person instead. So I guess everyone should be thankful that their opponent isn’t quite fucked up enough to be the type of person who just explodes all of her enemies from off-screen before they ever have the chance to mount any kind of defense.

Gokudera hears music coming from somewhere and tries to blow it up! This is notable because of how he somehow then manages to forget, less than two pages later, that he actually has bombs. It’s kind of amazing, actually.

Because Gokudera used the power of forced perspective, and Ken literally just hyaahoed around and did absolutely nothing!

Tsuna, Yamamoto, and Gokudera immediately exchange confused looks.

“How many does this make? [counting on fingers] OH SHIT.”

M.M. then proceeds to mercilessly ridicule the Vongola boys who apparently are not up to her mafia standards. Being a bunch of self-conscious eighth graders, they have absolutely no defense against this kind of shade and are blown the fuck away.

“SHABBY LOOKING??”

M.M. then again inexplicably refers to Mukuro as though he’s some sort of Rich Uncle Pennybags type figure, just making it rain everywhere he goes, and in all seriousness this is really starting to confuse the shit out of me.

Either Mukuro has some stash hidden away that the others never knew about, or he was lying through his teeth. Personally, I absolutely believe it’s some sort of leprechaun situation, and M.M. was going to receive a mountain of cash that then mysteriously vanished two days later, by which time Mukuro was conveniently on the other side of the planet probably.

Anyways, having tired of this conversation, M.M. decides it’s time to take them out, so she aggressively plays her clarinet at them.

Because it’s KHR, this is actually a really effective attack.

Okay, and this is the shit I was talking about earlier. If only one of you lunkheads had a ranged attack that you could use in a situation like this, Gokudera! That would sure help the others out a lot, Gokudera “SMOKING BOMB” Hayato, it’s you, I’M TALKING TO YOU, YOU’RE THE LUNKHEAD.

I DON’T KNOW, MAYBE YOU CAN GO BACK TO WHEREVER KEN IS AND SEE IF HE HAS A FUCKING BRAIN CHANNEL YOU CAN BORROW

So finally Bianchi steps up to bat, because no one else has seemed to register the fact that they’re hiding from a fucking clarinet, and the most intimidating thing it’s done so far is heat up some sushi and a few water bottles.

[WONDER WOMAN THEME MUSIC PLAYS!!]

CAN’T BUY ME LOOOOOOVE

Bianchi then proceeds to lay out a detailed analysis of M.M.’s mysterious clarinet weapon after seeing it in action a grand total of once, and holy shit, I’m starting to think she may actually be even more of a nerd than her so-called genius younger brother (especially given the severe dive his intelligence has apparently taken in this chapter).

M.M. then breaks it down in even more gratuitous detail, and I’m starting to fall asleep here christ

BLAH BLAH TL;DR THIS DEADLY WOODWIND INSTRUMENT MAKES THINGS HEAT UP AND EXPLODE

That’s what I was saying before! Then why didn’t you fucking do that??

So the boys absolutely FREAK THE FUCK OUT, which, I would too if someone could nuke my fucking body just by playing “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Bianchi, however, isn’t fazed in the slightest, and whips up a couple trays of weaponized P.F. Chang’s to counterattack.

Look at poor Gokudera’s face. [p-pats]

M.M. isn’t having it and slings some smooth jazz Bianchi’s way!

Very impressive that she can shout the attack name and still play the instrument at the same time.

I never made it more than one episode into Shokugeki no Soma because I couldn’t get past the foodgasms, but basically this is what I always imagined that show should be like.

Somehow Bianchi manages to fully dodge the microwave music attack using the power of PLATES, and takes a dive toward M.M.!

M.M. is all like “AAAAAHHH” but then suddenly she’s like “JUST KIDDING”

She then announces that close-quarters combat is her specialty, and proves it by CONVERTING THE CLARINET INTO A PAIR OF NUNCHUCKS AND WHAPPING BIANCHI ON THE HEAD.

OKAY

On the surface, this looks bad—but Gokudera Hayato knows better.

That is the face of a kid who has seen some shit.

Holy shit this arc had some fucked up moments didn’t it.

Quick refresher, so this is referring to chapter 51, “June Bride”, during which Bianchi almost married Reborn but then didn’t! Because it wasn’t really Reborn at all, but a robot. Haha this manga is weird.

Anyway. So M.M. falls over dead and this horrifically weird battle comes to an end!

Yes. Actually yes. It’s completely impossible. But that’s KHR for you.

And it turns out the reason Bianchi was fighting so passionately was in order to protect Reborn’s nap time!

Hibari Kyoya should look into hiring this one.

But before anyone has a chance to celebrate, they’re interrupted by a horrible old man holding up a laptop because tablets weren’t a thing yet!

I know I should be properly horrified, but all I can think is how absurd this looks now. Here he is, introducing himself and then holding up his unwieldy Macbook with two open QuickTime windows and what I’m just going to assume is Winamp running down there in the corner. Like, this guy is in the fucking stone age still.

So yeah, next chapter is the CREEPY TWINS chapter where Tsuna almost fucking stabs himself to death! Gonna be wild.

#khr #katekyo hitman reborn #yay old chapter #who here knows what winamp is #this is one of those things that really outs me as the dinosaur I am isn't it #actually I'm pretty sure it's still around but you can't tell me anyone still uses it #but I did!#I used it to play my mp3s that I got off of napster and kazaa #yeah that's right #fucking kazaa

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toughguywithbossygirlfriend · 6 years

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Romance history in the comics ? WonderBat vs BatCat ?

Not so long ago, a BatCat fan cross tagged one of her post about Rebirth Batman #40, surely as a result of the WonderBat development in both Issues #39 and #40 ...

I made a comment about BatCat being from an historical stand point more like a “War/Sex/Hate” kind of relationship rather than a real “Love Story” and of course it unleashed “War/Hate” ...

Over the time I’ve read numerous comments about how much BatCat “love” you can find in the history of Batman and Catwoman , how old their “Love story” is, and thus I was kind of confused with what I could remember from my own youth or recent history ... but I had really a hard time to see any signs of such an old and strong love story.

So I decided to check the comics for real legit history, rather than just reading another post from other people, who read themselves from other posts, that resume other posts, written out of informations from other posts ...

But DC Comics has a wast History ... and I don’t really have access to all the comics ever published ... so what do you do ? and where do you start ?

I couldn’t and I didn’t go extensively into oldtimers as far as the 40′s, the 50′s, the 60′s or the 70′s ... but usually people agree that prior to the 80′s Catwoman was just one of many villains and any romance was impossible because of that.

In an Issue from April 1968 of “the Brave and the Bold”, Wonder Woman falls in love for real with Batman after faking it first. A year later Steve Trevor Dies in her arms in a WW Issue of 1969. Later in another Brave and the Bold Issue 1978 Batman puts himself on purpose in danger of death to push Wonder Woman to surpass herself and break the chains that kept her prisoner earlier... it seems she cared enough... Meanwhile Catwoman, no matter the outfit, just wanted to get him into a coffin...

Still I was wrong and there is no point in denying that there are stories were he had a “love story” with Selina Kyle like the one below in the Batman (1940) Serie, but she was always a repentant criminal :

(Bruce and Selina - #308, #317, # 326 from 1981 to 1982)

Unlike the Catwoman in “Rebirth Batman”, the Selina in the Bronze era decided to turn her back on her criminal activities in #308 and that enabled the starting of a relationship with Bruce Wayne in # 317. Bruce knew about her Catwoman identity but he didn’t tell her that he was Batman. Even though she sincerely stopped her criminal activities, he didn’t trust his Girlfriend and she broke up the relationship because of that in #326. After that she had to put again the Catwoman mask and learned later that he was the Batman, she even became his “sidekick” in #392 a few Issues before the end of Bronze Age Batman.

Warning : If You “keep reading”, note that I cover mainly the Modern Age of DC Comics (around 1987 until now). I try to focus on the Batman and Catwoman relationship but parallel it with some important WonderBat moments to get a better overview. This may end up “pro-WonderBat” but it is not “anti-Catwoman”. And you should not judge Selina too quickly or too hard, even if she looks quite messed up. She did go through quite a bad twisted history as well as Bruce, but she didn’t have a caring butler, she wasn’t bathed in limitless wealth, securely sheltered in a great mansion, and for a girl/woman, the corrupted and evil streets of Gotham are a lot worse than for a boy/man ...

Before the modern age ... this was a time were between the different series Batman, Detective Comics, the Brave and the Bold, Bruce had an average rate of one Girlfriend (or Love interests) every 10 Issues ... Julie Madison, Selina Kyle, Linda Page, Vicki Vale, Kathy Kane (Batwoman, no joke !), Patricia Powell, Marcia Monroe, Poison Ivy, Silver St-cloud, Lina Muller, Talia Al Guhl, Nocturna(Natalia Mitternacht), Julia Remarques, ... even Diana Prince and Barbara Gordon fall for him... Some fell in love with Bruce, some with Batman and some for the combination ...

(A few kisses ... but you can find much much more of course)

I always wondered were his Playboy persona did come from ... now I know !... the Bronze Age era. Even James Bond will find it hard to beat the duo Batman/Bruce Wayne ...

Even if there are a lot of older History and more BatCat stuff then WondeBat, you can resume it for Selina Kyle with : “No criminal activities”/”Love story works” vs “Criminal activities”/“no Love story”.

However “Rebirth Batman” is not part of the Bronze Age but of the Modern Age, thus I wanted to check out the last 30 years of WonderBat and BatCat relationships, platonic or not. Compared to the Bronze era Batman the Girlfriend renewal rate of the Modern Age of DC comics has dramatically dropped, surely because mentalities changed and today that kind of behavior would be considered disrespectful to women ... building up a strong love affair with the Princess of the Amazons would have been hard with a guy who changes Girlfriends like shirts ... Bruce Wayne evolved strongly from real Playboy, to ... Single Dad and Family man faking a playboy persona... more suitable to the job but still keeping his charm intact.

Checking out every comic more or less related to these three (Batman, Wonder Woman and Catwoman), would have already taken far too much time, even if I didn’t digg into stuff older than then “Batman Year One” (February to May 1987)

I didn’t really feel like checking out every alternate world or elseworld because I am pretty sure the “Batman who laughts” from “Dark nights: Metal” would have a lot to tell about WonderBat in these worlds ... so lets keep it mainstream.

I had a relative good Idea, even if not exhaustive, about WonderBat, but I needed more Infos on BatCat. I figured that there was less to read about Catwoman then Batman, and anyway if there was gonna be some romance stuff it would be easier to pick it up on the more emotional Catwoman then with the unreadable Dark Knight.

That’s why I decided to focus mainly on the Catwoman series and started with a mini-serie from 1989 and going on from there ... trying to cover these last 30+ years.

(Catwoman Mini-Serie - February to May 1989)

With this mini-serie I was glad to rediscovered something covering quite well, the things that I remembered from my own comic youth...

I would dare to say “the Title speaks for itself”, No ?!

So she kills a bad guy, while the knight in batsuit saves the girl she couldn’t protect ... then she wants to kill a second one... Batman steps in the middle and she just doesn’t want to listen...

“It’s to be a War between us” ... Hey, don’t look at me ... I didn’t say anything ... Batman said it ... Just then, she rubs her breasts on him ... and of course they kiss ... Sorry people, don’t throw the stone at Batman he didn’t start the teasing ... she did ! ... She has a beautiful body ... she wants it right there... He is single, may not have had his fix for some time now and I am pretty sure his blood is already boiling ... Dammit, its a guy ..what did you expect ?? Tea time ?? ... of course he gives in ... quit being naive.

Bang !!! That didn’t last long ... as usual,.. Oh, and just for the record he didn’t start the fight either ... but nothing easier to get a guy lower his defense then teasing him with the perspective of Sex ... Selina uses her sexuality as a tool all the time to create distraction, to regain the initiative, (and definitively not only with Batman) ... just like Batman uses fear. Over the years to come it gets obvious that Selina has a problem with males, and she surely has more reason to hate them, than the Amazons, but the constant Support and Righteousness of Batman slowly attracts her to him.

“Lover” ... Is that why every one seems to think this has anything to do with love ??? ... sure I feel the Love, Bats too, i guess ...

So If you think “sex” is “love” or even “implied love” .. I’d hate to break it to anyone but you can “pay for sex” since the beginning of humanity, both sexes used sexual intercourse to gain favors, and in modern times, “One night stands” or “booty calls” are surely things you’ve already heard about, ... and none of this has anything to do with real Love. Even though Sex is usually a part of a Loving relationship. OK maybe you could put “Friendship with benefits” into the “loving” category ... your choice ...

Lets take a time jump to the next serie a few years later...

It is a Serie of 94 Issues ... I confess I am not going through the whole Serie Just look at a few Issues at the beginning starting in August 1993 and a few Issues at the end in July 2001... If there is a positive evolution in their relationship it is to expect that it gets to its peak at the end ...

(Catwoman Serie 1993 -Issue #1 from 1993)

This is a young blond girl named Arizona, and adopted by Catwoman, talking about Selina (the dark haired woman in blue). Selina starts as a “sweet girl” who kicks law enforcement’s asses, works for Bane, and kills bad guys again ... Worst enemy of Batman?, Greatest enemy ?, most deadly enemy ?, you choose ... BatCat Love ? not in the picture ...

(Catwoman - 1993 -Issue #94 from July 2001)

So, at the end of the serie, 8 years later, with surely quite some rooftop “war between sexes” in between... OK, Yeah it ends with a kiss again,... that she initiated again, ... but if you take a look at his face would you consider that he returns the kiss ? ... Obviously she always considers that there is something between them and he reminds her that they “had this conversation before” ... but i take it I’m supposed to consider “you know that can never happen” to be a clear sign of love... right ?

(JLA 1997 - #46 from Oct 2000 - The tower of Babel)

A little earlier Batman got expulsed from the Justice league and Wonder Woman was kind of really angry at him after years of strong friendship. She surely felt hurt more than anyone. So it wasn’t really “WonderBat” that prevented him from running away having a good time in Sao Paulo (see below)... Diana regrets it because she likes his skills, his warrior spirit, his intelligence, his dedication, his compassion, nearly everything about him but she’s totally into truth, so Bats secrecy and secret identity was a hindrance so far. The Amazon doesn't give up her unconditional trust to a man that easily ... and she feels hurt ...

(Catwoman - 1993 -Issue #94 from July 2001)

It is obvious that Selina doesn’t know Bruce Wayne, but she wants to know him ... so far, IF she’s “in love” with someone it would be with “the Batman”, but is it “true love” for the man below that she doesn’t know or “groupie love” for the symbol ? she’s quite adamant in this last Issue about what made her put on the mask herself : seeing Batman of “Year one” ... Bruce/Batman cares for her but much like in Bronze Age : Criminal activities = No love story

2001 is also the time where Batman reveals to Diana and the JLA that he is Bruce Wayne ... Now Diana can see the real him ... and it is even better than she expected because as a filthily rich he still chooses to put his life on the line to protect others ... you can add generosity, modesty, and others qualities to the guy .. and there is a broken boy inside of him that compels her motherly instincts, or compassion if you prefer ... and a good father that doesn't go unnoticed by the woman in her ... I guess he just added a lot to his “sex appeal”.

For Bats, things started to get a lot better with the Amazon from that point ... If Doomsday Clock rewinds time prior to that period it may erase WonderBat as well.

While Selina still has, lets say ... some heavy Issues with males and relationships ...

(Nightwing 1996 - #52 from 2001)

She dreams to marry Batman, then she kills him in the same dream’s wedding night ... so much for the love story ... then she wakes up in her bed ...

... looks out for some diamonds, trips over Nightwing and tries to seduce him ... the son of Batman ... yeah, smart move ... maybe she loves him too, he would be her “son in law” after all if she ever got to marry Batman ... then she tries mischievously to push Nightwing to tell Batman hoping the latter gets Jealous ... But by the reaction of Nightwing you can tell Bruce isn’t on the same page as Selina. Why would she do that ? out of “true Love” ? This story makes her look like a slut ... but I think it is not that ... her time in the dark streets of Gotham has ruined her vision of love and sex ... we’ll get a better (darker) picture in the coming Post-Flashpoint Catwoman serie ... and with the “Gentle Man” in Batman Rebirth #39 and #40 she’s gonna discover the difference between Love and Sex or even Marriage.

A little Jump to the next Catwoman Serie

2002, Catwoman returns (from Sao Paulo ;) ) in a new serie that goes on until 2010 and from the first Issue I would say their relationship is more peaceful, friendly...

(Catwoman - 2002 -Issue #01 from 2001)

It at least looks like a friendship... But you could say that at least her feelings for Batman may be beyond that ... maybe ...

Still the same rules apply her territory is “In between right and wrong” and ... its a no go for the Crusader of Justice !...

Ironically, the character definition of DC Rebirth for Catwoman and Batman reveals the same rift that is resumed in the above pics... Somehow Tom King seems to ignore that... why ?

But what about Bruce and Diana during that same period ?

That happened during the “Obsidian Age” ...

They kiss !! ... Ok, I can hear you shout “That’s no proof that they Love each other, because Selina kisses him all the time !! ” .. OK, that’s correct, but do they Die together hand in hand ? (obviously Bruce grabbed Diana’s hand and not the reverse)

Not enough ? OK, I’ll take the Challenge ... What about : “Love conquers all ? ... even Powerful Old Magic” is that better ?

Diana is about to be Sacrificed and all her Teammates, including Bruce, have been set asleep by a very powerful sorcerer using powerful Old Magic ... a magical sleep NO MAN should be able to awaken from ... but nonetheless the imminent Danger to Diana causes one, and only one, to awaken and save her ... Bruce ... and Diana knows how old magic works ...

So it wasn’t only Batman’s “will power” that enabled him to beat the Magic ?... could it be that the only other thing that can beat Old and Powerful Magic is the Power of Love ? Pretty sure that if Friendship was enough Clark would have woken up as well ... but he didn’t.

Clearly Bruce roots hard for the Amazon ... and not for the Cat ... and a few Issues after that, in JLA#90, it is obvious that Diana has surrendered her heart to Bruce as well.

(Bruce and Diana - JLA 1997 - #90 from Jan 2004)

But neither Diana nor Bruce are willing to take a risk with their way too precious friendship. They choose not to act on their, now unquestionable, feelings for each other ...

(Catwoman serie 2002 - #82 in 2008)

At the end of this Catwoman serie: Of course Batman runs after Catwoman ... he is gentle, he tries to help, but says one wrong word ... and she gets crazy, he goes from Ally to Enemy. But he is Batman and she gets cornered ... again as usual when Option “A” and “B” won’t work she uses “C”.

But again she uses the kiss as a tool .. this time to diffuse the situation and she explains in the end that if she could she would stop all that ... with Helena she wouldn’t need the Batman/Catwoman “rush” thing ... isn’t Helena about her real love here ? ... She always has a Girl/Woman (Arizona, Helena, Holly, ...) that means much more to her than “the Batman” ... At least now she knows his real name “Bruce”.

Deep down she knows, that what she shares with Batman isn’t Love its a substitute to fill her empty heart (at the end of the Catwoman 1993 Serie she tells him pretty much the same). Selina is much more messed up than Bruce Wayne. Bruce had Alfred, his Robins, Diana and his Friends from the JL. Selina was alone ... and that is the reason why he tries to help her like he already said it in the first Issue of that Serie : “I believe that deep down, you’re a good person”...

(Blakest Night : Wonder Woman - #2 from March 2010)

Unlike Selina who would have given up Bruce “Batman” Wayne for Helena if she wasn’t that screwed up ... Diana loves Bruce even more than before, or as a matter of fact more than her mother Hippolyta or closest amazon sisters (Cassie and Donna), ... I think with that level of “Love” between two partners, we can easily agree to qualify them as “Soulmates” ... and I have no doubt that the Bruce didn’t move on either ... trying to help criminals like Selina and give them a second chance is what he does every time it is possible (recently : clayface, killer frost, lobo, ...) ... doesn’t mean he is in love with them ...

To make it short : Over the past 20 years (1989 - 2011) all three characters evolutions make sense and it doesn't point out to “True Love” between Selina and Bruce unlike with Diana and Bruce. Bruce and Selina just share regular “One night stands” to comfort each other while Bruce and Diana torture themselves by refraining their Love out of fear of screwing up their friendship if they give into their feelings ...

Sorry, but so far obviously no true BatCat Love Story !!! but WonderBat “true deep Love” is canon ... just no sex, no dating, no usual relationship stuff ...

Comes “Flashpoint” during 2011... the Cosmic MOAB

Starting with that event the continuity gets "kind of” thrown out of the Window for WonderBat romance ... but not entirely.

In the new Catwoman Serie starting Nov 2011 Catwoman did forget Batmans real identity and Wondy suddenly roots for Supes ... Eww ! ... not to mention Steve Trevor returns from the dead again, I think he could compete with Catwoman about his number of lives but I didn’t count ...

In this serie you get from the start a pretty good look at the ordeal Selina must have lived while she grow up... Like I said, Compared to Selina, Bruce was a “Lucky” child with a stable childhood ...

(Catwoman - 2011 - Issue #01 from Nov 2011)

No wonder your relationship Compass spins around like crazy if you were raised in such an environment. Sex is a job, Violence the way to settle differences, Women are Sextoys or beaten to death if not shot by the local dirtbags, and Men are worthless and heartless monsters... Gotham’s darkest side as playground for a young Girl ... She nonetheless keeps a Good heart ... the Dark Knight cannot hold back his need to help her in anyway possible ... She is a really good soul, heavily messed up, but good ...

Selina doesn’t really care about the Guy under the mask, he protects her in exchange for Sex, ... at least that is what she thinks this is about...

In the last Issue of Catwoman 2011 - Issue 52 from Jul 2016 we learn that in that reality she had a real love years ago. He was named David, not Bruce, and he turned out a Bad Guy after faking her his death ... She doesn’t trust any man ... except maybe Batman.

(Forever Evil - July 2014)

SuperWonder era ... Superman and Wonder Woman are together for over a year now but Batman is still in love with Diana like prior to Flashpoint and thus can use Diana’s lasso ... surely the real reason why “There can’t be” nothing else ... even if she was a “Good Girl”. Honestly you feel really bad for the girl...

(Rebirth Justice League - #14 from April 2017)

Diana still mourns SuperWonder ...

Then comes DC Rebirth Superman #20 “Reborn” erasing SuperWonder from continuity setting Diana’s heart free from that ...

(Rebirth Wonder Woman - #25 from August 2017)

Diana Sleeps with Trevor ...

(Rebirth Batman - #32)

Selina answers “Yes” to Bruce’s proposal ... but she stays a thief... and that was a no go for the last 78 years !??...

One of Batman’s Bronze Age Lovers, Nocturna, had an interesting theory about Batman’s Lovers :

This alone explains why Diana is his greatest problem if he wants to keep his heart safe from “Love”... She has her own way of being very “Dark and Dangerous” but every thing in her drives her to avoid doing the king of “Dark and Dangerous” things that could push him away from her in the way Nocturna or Selina do ...

(Rebirth Batman #39 and #40)

“WonderBat Love” in “the Realm”

Obviously whatever the Power that is messing up with the Heroes history (Doomsday Clock storyline) is looking for, it seems at least to want to avoid WonderBat at all costs ... first SuperWonder then WonderTrev and BatCat, and now in Justice League #38: Bruce Wayne/Jessica Cruz ?!?...

#wonderbat #wonder woman #diana prince #batman #bruce wayne

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britesparc · 3 years

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