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hintsofhoney · 3 years

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alright, *cracks fingers*. so. I’ve written up a transcript just to lay it all out for myself and get the most important parts. listen, everyone. for all intents and purposes and legal reasons, THIS WAS A DREAM. alright? I dreamt this. and he is literally the nicest human being ever so I don’t want to just like... put our whole convo out there like that, but I think he said some stuff that was important for people to hear so... here we go

my *dreamt* zoom call with thee crowley below the cut

The first five minutes (of my dream) was just a bunch of introduction stuff and talking about my favorite Supernatural seasons which eventually led to him telling me how they filmed the Season 8 finale (which they did over the span of three days, and in between takes the crew members were like dead silent, as to keep the moment going, which Mark thought was really cool. Said it was one of his favorite things they did on Supernatural.) Anyways, he eventually asked me if I had any questions, so, I’ll start there.

MARK: So, do you have any questions you want to ask me about aaaaaannyyyythingggg?

ME: Um, I guess the number one thing I wanna know… um, so, I know you can’t speak for Dean and I don’t want to talk about Dean because you’re not Jensen, but, there’s like a lot of questions I guess or subtext or whatever concerning Dean’s sexuality and what not, but I want to know about demon Dean and Crowley’s relationship and if there was, I don’t know, anything like, any implied –

MARK: Well I think – I think you’re talking about… there’s a massive difference between sex and love. There’s a massive difference between, um, well, they can intertwine perfectly, that’s not the issue, but I mean you would believe with all the things that Crowley did for the Winchesters, that he was – that he very much loved Sam and Dean or loved who they are or what they are. To reduce it to, you know, a crush, or to something that – I mean, I don’t know, I think Crowley is very probably pansexual more than anything else; I don’t think anything phased him. I think, that’s why the whole stuff with Lucifer and licking the floor was kind of really stupidly boring for me because Crowley did weirder and crazier things on his own. I mean, it became this joke of trying to humiliate somebody who can’t be humiliated. There’s nothing you can humiliate Crowley with. So, that never sort of made sense, that was just a sort of writer’s glitch of thinking, “oooh, this would be funny to knock him down into subservience” and that’s what he does on a Wednesday, I mean it’s like the most un-inspiring thing. I think so much is projected onto the relationship between, certainly the four main characters, um, and, you know, look, getting comfortable with one’s sexuality and one’s identity is a massively complicated things, and if you want to live vicariously through what you believe people’s identity is and you can relate to that, great! Who cares? I mean, can I be absolutely honest? Apart from – what I do care about, you know, don’t ever take this and piece me or misquote it, because it’s very, very specific – um, somebody stopping somebody being able to express their own identity or whatever is an issue for me. That will always be an issue for me. Um, we should all be treated equally, and we all have the rights to believe and follow those things that we wish to follow, but to project relationships onto characters is an odd thing to do. I mean, it’s wishful thinking in a lot of ways, I mean, actually it’s quite… it’s quite reasonable because in the past if you think about it, if you ask your parents or anyone else, the only way sexuality was used was to, uh, literally demonize somebody. It was only ever used to say somebody was bad because this who they’re in love with. You know, that’s, that’s the thing. And it’s a massive change in the world that we’re moving towards, I should say, uh – a lack of consequence for who one loves, apart from the obvious consequences of human nature. You know, political consequences for who one loves – I’ve just watched Pete Butteigieg being, you know, sitting in congress with his husband there with him; that’s the first time that’s ever happened in United States congress and I’m so proud of that. Not just because the man is gay and happily married – that’s not even the issue for me, it’s because he’s the best man for the job and one of the smartest people on the planet. You know, it’s like using sexual templates, as they were, or gender templates as they are, or orientation templates as they are, we always use to disclude people from things. They were always used to discriminate. You know, labeling somebody was a way of discrimination. And where as labels are very important, to ones self, and they’re very important politically and they’re very important socio-economically and they’re very important in all those aspects, I yearn for a time when nobody gives a damn. I really do. But I mean, we have to go through so much to get there. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t, you know, right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression in 20 minutes by saying, “let’s all move forward”. It just doesn’t work that way, it never has. But there’s a responsibility there, that if you’re going to represent, that you represent all. That you don’t just represent you. So, one has to be careful with a television program or, or, you know, Misha or myself, or, not speaking for the boys, but just generally, um, you have to be careful that what you advocate is inclusive, not disinclusive. Not excluding people... and it’s so hard to frame these conversations, that they’re equitable, it’s so hard to do that. And so, you know, we spend years pointing out the inequity and the injustice and the unfairness of the whole situation, and… I don’t know if the trick is to rise above, or, uh, maybe it’s as simple as love and coming together as a human race and make it very difficult for people to discriminate and exclude based on gender, race, color, religion, any of the subsets of humanity that we’ve decided we have. So, I think personal responsibility is the most important thing, but if one is in a position of power on a TV show, you got to remember what you’re representing, that you have a, you know, you have to cover all or cover none. So, you know, but if you stick to a story and you have a story about a person or two people and their journey, that’s shining light on things. If you try to advocate for all, I think it becomes a little more complicated. Does that make sense?

so, i just feel like he said some important things there, but like I also don’t really understand what he’s getting at really, y’know? oh! also, he didn’t watch the finale lmao

also! there’s this:

MARK: Because if you come down on one side or another, you’re admitting the sides, and that has its own political ramifications. If you push the ball up in the air and say, “you decide”, I don’t think that’s copping out. I think that’s, maybe not fulfilling everybody’s expectations, or not fulfilling everybody’s hopes, but at least you’re getting the question asked. You know, at least you’re getting the question asked. At least people are relating to it and going, “well, what if?”. Because it’s all “what if”, I mean, it’s a TV show, so it’s “what if”, you know? It’s not Misha being in love with Jensen, I mean as much as he loves Jensen, I don’t think that’s his thing – I mean you never know – but I’m saying yet again, I don’t exclude anything from anybody (I LITERALLY CAN’T BELIEVE HE SAID THIS LMAO). But to force my opinion or my identity belief upon a situation has a cost. It may be right, it may be absolutely right, and it may be necessary in many, many cases. But, in that circumstance, I think… there are a lot of people in the world that say that Jesus, for example, was anti-homosexual and that he was – and none of that is true, and none of that is provable in the New Testament, and I’m not talking about Leviticus and I’m not talking about early Bible and I’m not talking about the fact that more than 25,000 words have been changed in the King James edition and all of this stuff, but these things that people hold so sacred, the confusion that arises from that is being told that a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman or a man loving a man and a woman or whatever combination being there is either right or wrong because you’re being told by a pastor or the leaders of your church, is a very difficult thing to break down. I think what you have to do is at least put it out there so it’s visible, and so it becomes less and less deniable. And you know, people change over years, that’s the trouble with youth, is shit doesn’t move fast enough. “I need a decision now!”, and unfortunately, when you’re dealing with centuries of prejudice and centuries of un-enlightenment, I think that sometimes the best thing to do is reach as many people as possible and pose the question. And sometimes it’s essential to make a statement, absolutely, no question. It is essential to make a stand, in some circumstances. But to polarize a TV show, can be very disingenuous to those who need to go ask their own questions, who need to go say, “well, where does Jesus say this is wrong?” you know, if that’s your beliefs.

he also said, when we went off on a tangent about doom patrol:

MARK: There are issues that are being addressed here [on Doom Patrol] that are not being addressed on other shows, and yet again, we have the format, and I don’t know that Supernatural ever had the format because it was on the CW.

anywho, in conclusion, fuck the cw.

also, again, for all intents and purposes this was a dream I had :)))))))

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blockgamepirate · 3 years

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Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading

#technoblade #bladeblr #dream smp #dreamsmp #dsmp #l'manburg critical #c!wilbur soot critical #for courtesy tags #anarchy pog

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shigarakislittlepet · 3 years

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Hooooh boy👀 okay so if you have a character limit just do Dabi and Shinsou (my absolute favourite boys) but if you don't have a character limit I'd also like Aizawa and Bakugou with a s/o who's very obedient and good for them (and ofc good to them) and they're afraid that they're boring because they don't really break any rules or misbehave. Everybody's on and on abt brats and my obedient subby lil ass is over here like qwq obedient subbies aren't boring😤😤 take your time and don't feel pressured oke?? 💕💕

oh my god i love you, you are so so sweet 💕💕💕 I hope I did this request justice, the implications are just !!! So sweet QuQ

no character limit, so i will do all the bbys 🥰

TW: NSFW, Dom/sub themes, light quirk use for sexy times (shinsou), Daddy kink (for Aizawa, I’m sorry lol), some name calling... I think that’s it! Let me know if I missed anything!

HERES MY TAKE ON SUPER GOOD SUBS AND HOW THE HUBBIES WOULD REACT!

-Dabi-

•Okay okay so we all know Dabi is a HARD dom, he has a LOT of aggression to work through in a healthy way, and you help make that happen!

•You’d worry that Dabi would prefer a “bad girl”, a brat that talked back sometimes so he could punish them and REALLY let all that frustration out!

•Once you talked to him about it he would laugh at you. He’s just mean like that lol. BUT once he calmed down and realized it was something that was actually bothering you he’d just look at you and be like “...really?”

•Because what you HADN’T considered is that Dabi spent so much of his life with absolutely no control over his environment, he lived in constant fear of uncertainty. The only certainty he EVER had at home was pain.

•You provide him with total control. You never talk back, you never question him. You do as you’re told and then you say “Thank you Sir” in your sweet little voice no matter what depraved things he’s made you do for him. The absolute control he has with you makes him feel like he’s on top of the world! And you THANK him for it??? Way to stroke his massive ego while you’re at it, damn.

•You give him the stability he never thought he’d have, and the unconditional love and adoration and worship that he never thought he deserved. To him, you’re perfect. His perfect little angel. He would kill and die for you. He would get drunk off of your submission.

•He’d get bored of a brat pretty quickly, not as much of a power trip in his opinion. XP

•I feel like he doesn’t really go heavy on the praise, but when it DOES happen, when you’re on your knees worshipping his cock and using your talented mouth for what it’s MEANT to be used for, and he’s certain your mouth was meant for this, and he slides a hand into your hair grabbing a handful and tugging while his other hand grasps at any stable piece of furniture for some stability and groans out unfiltered praises in his deep gravelly voice??? It feels like you’re both on cloud nine, and nothing is ever going to tear you down from it.

-Shinsou-

• Shinsou would love his precious little kitty cat and shower you with praise and adoration and gifts to reward you for being so good for him all the time. He is a quiet simp, and will the worship the ground you walk on.

• If you voiced your concern about being boring, he would just smile deviously and then back you up against a wall of your shared apartment and start kissing your neck and saying things like “What do you mean kitty cat, don’t we have fun?” And then he will spend the next few hours reminding you just how much fun you have together~~~

• He would make sure that you never worried about being boring again. He would have a wonderful time making you verbalize all the "fun" things you want him to do to you. The fact that he can make you say all those embarrassing things so easily and make you beg for him without a second thought from you makes him so unbelievably feral. He doesn't even have to use his quirk to make you do anything he wants, which makes him feel like the most powerful man that’s ever lived, although whenever you bat your pretty little eyes at him and beg him to "Pleeeaaaassseeee brainwash me and turn me into your puppet? Pretty please?”. He will melt, and he will HAVE to grant all his perfect little kitten’s wishes.

• The reason he absolutely adores your complete obedience and submission is the undying and unwavering trust you clearly have in him. To do all the things he asks of you, no matter how humiliating, without so much as a single complaint? It makes him lightheaded and he will tell you that there is only one feeling in the world better than that, and thats being in love with you. He’s such a sap.

• It's the trust he gets off on. Even after becoming a pro-hero, the media tends to treat him similarly to Aizawa. They have this sort of “scary vigilanty that barely operates within the law” angle on him, even though he isn’t scary at all, and he’s a wonderful hero. The public tends to like him, but in a wary sort of way. Some people are still afraid to look him in the eyes or respond to him at all. So the trust you openly display is intoxicating to him.

• And of course, as is most important, the fact that you trust him enough that you will use your safe word when you need to, knowing that he will immediately put a stop to whatever is going on and hold you tight and take care of you never fails to warm his heart. He is never disappointed when this happens because it shows just how much you TRUST him to take care of you and not abuse his power.

-Aizawa-

• Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

•Okay so Aizawa is a different beast entirely.

•We all know Aizawa is a Daddy, and he expects his sweet little submissive baby to behave at all times. He’s HAD bratty subs before, and honestly, he finds them tiring. He can and WILL correct misbehaving subs with an iron fist, but over time he’s gotten tired of the whiny “make me”’s and the purposeful breaking of his carefully thought out rules.

•He deals with bratty teens all day, what makes you think he has the patience to deal with another brat at HOME? Nah.

•What he enjoys most about your near worshipful levels of obedience and submission is the level of respect you display to him. How much you truly want to please him and impress him. He finds it equally endearing and entertaining.

• You memorized every single one of his rules, every position, every expectation that he had of you, and you never failed to preform beautifully. He would never expect PERFECTION from a partner, per say, he’s perfectly lenient when and if you make an honest mistake, but he tells you all the time how perfect you are for him. He’ll tell you how much he loves the lengths at which you’ll go to please him.

• This man LIVES to tease you about how obedient you are, almost daring you to step out of line. You never take the bait though, you just get adorably embarrassed and pout at him while he teases you more. “Awe, what is it kitten? You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you like it when I tease you.” as he drags his thumb across your lower lip while it trembles, the deep bass of his voice reverebrating through your skull and turning you to mush.

•He layers the praise on THICK when you’ve earned it. Once he’s had his fun tormenting and teasing and edging you, he will fuck you slowly and deeply, agonizingly, and he will tell you what a good little slut you are for his cock and it’s ages before you realize that he’s prolonging your torture by fucking you this way and saying these things to you. He wants to see how far he can push you before you either break down into a pitiful mess of tears and pleas, or if maybe ther IS a needy little brat in there just waiting to come out. It’s always the former though, and he always loves getting you to that point. You’d do anything for him, and he knows it. He gets just a little high on it.

-Bakugou-

•Mans wrote the BOOK on hero worship, and he expects you to worship.

•Pro-hero Dynamight expects nothing but perfection, and he expects you to measure up. He can tell a brat from a mile away, and I genuinely think he actively avoids them. He’s enough of a brat to for both of you anyway lmao

•I hope you like pain, because he’s the type to inflict it for fun and not just for punishment. A true sadist for the truest masochist.

•If you ever talked to Bakugou about your fear of being boring to him, I really hope you’re prepared for the consequences. “What??? You think if you were just some boring shitty extra that I’d honestly waste any time on you? Do you really think I’m that stupid???” Its all in an attempt to reassure you, but he will spend the rest of the night punishing you for thinking so lowly of yourself.

•No matter HOW good you seem to be, getting a praise out of this man is damn near IMPOSSIBLE, even when he IS pleased with you. Getting him to verbalize anything he’s happy about is a struggle, so you start to look for the subtle signs. You notice his hands trail lightly down your back when you handle the paddle better than the night before. The way he brushes your hair out of your face when he’s roughly fucking into you after a particularly frustrating day of hero work, and you don’t even bat an eye at his brutality. The soft smile you almost miss when you KNOW he’s had a rough day at work and meet him at the door, already on your knees in one of his favorite outfits and with dinner already cooking away on the stove. Sure, he usually cooks, but when all he has to do is come home and have you... He’s damn near ready to propose every time you do it because you are just. So. Good to him. Good for him. And on those days, when you’re both showered and warm in bed and he’s stroking your hair and half asleep, you can hear faint praises fall from his lips. You know he means them everyday, but it’s on these days when his stress is melted away completely by your touch and your love and he’s so filled with contentment and just by being with you that his heart and mind are relaxed enough to let a little vulnerability show. As a treat.

• He never thought he would feel like this about anyone. Never thought that anyone would ever measure up to his impossible standards, but you take all his gruffness in stride and throw it back at him by being warm and loving, following all of his rules, doing everything you can to make him happy, and treating him like a god. He can’t think of anything better than spending the rest of his life with you.

#dabi x reader #shinsou x reader #shouta aizawa x reader #bakugou x reader #imagines

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goth-surana · 3 years

Text

Hope and Hopelessness Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of 7

Main pairing: Anders/Male Hawke

Main tags: Angst with a happy ending, tranquil!Anders, cure for tranquility

Summary: After some time on the run with Hawke, Anders is caught and made tranquil. Hawke cannot bring himself to kill him, instead chasing a distant hope that there may be a cure.

Read on AO3 or below the cut

Hawke could barely sleep that night, and he was in the best bed he had slept in in a year. He was too on edge, both from being in what he considered enemy territory and from the anticipation of the next day. The inquisitor may have given them her protection, but this decision was not supported by all. Anything could still happen, especially with Cullen hanging around. Hawke still couldn’t believe Varric had neglected to mention his presence here. This inquisition may have allied with the rebel mages, but any place with an army led by Cullen wasn’t safe for any mage.

How did the inquisitor not know that? Did she just not know about what an awful man he was? Sure, maybe he changed, but Hawke could barely imagine how a man with opinions like his could have.

Anders slept soundly in the same large bed next to Hawke, not nervous at all about the next day. Because he was still incapable of being nervous. Hawke was nervous. This had to work. Hawke was so close to breaking, this hope was all that held him together.

Finally, after fits of rest here and there, the sun rose over the mountains.

Anders woke up quickly, got dressed efficiently. Hawke missed his frantic scrambling when he realized he slept in too late, even if he didn’t miss Anders beating himself up about it.

Oh Maker, he even missed that. Anything to show Anders was Anders.

In the afternoon, the Hero of Fereldan arrived. Hawke was keeping to himself in the corners of rooms with Anders, staying away from the inquisition’s inner circle.

The doors to the war room flung open and in walked Surana, confident as ever. The whole room looked up in awe, all recognizing her.

Well, everyone stared in awe except for Leliana. Instead the woman rushed forward and wrapped her arms around the smaller elf, a hug which she returned in equal measure.

Surana was still not dressed in Warden’s regalia, likely trying to keep a low profile.

Surana muttered something to Leliana before turning to address the room.

“All right, get your staring out of the way,” she grinned. “Yes, it’s me, Hero of Fereldan, slayer of the archdemon. Blah blah and all that. I’m sure you’re all quite impressive yourselves.”

The room murmured nervously, and Cassandra scowled. Cullen was looking quite purposefully away from Surana.

Surana noticed.

“Ser Cullen!” She exclaimed, walking right over to the mortified man. “Good to see you again, although I’m surprised you haven’t combusted around all those mages out there.”

“Erm,” Cullen responded sheepishly, “a lot has changed since we last met, Re- uh, Warden Commander. I am no longer the man I was.”

“I sure hope not,” Regan replied good-naturedly, patting him aggressively on the shoulder. “Although I heard you did try to annul another Circle after Kinloch. Good thing there’s no more Circles, or I’d really be worried.”

She spoke easily, but venom underlined her words. So they had a history too, it seemed.

“I realize our meeting again is… complicated,” Cullen said. “But I do hope we can be acquainted better than last we met.”

Surana dropped her smile. “Fine, I can be civil. I agree that people can change. I’m here to help Anders anyway.”

Surana turned to the rest of the group. “So where are we doing this?”

“The cells,” Casandra said. Hawke turned to her immediately.

“To protect against the danger of suddenly returning magic,” she told Hawke firmly. “We do not know what kind of destruction he might unleash. Cullen will also be present in order to nullify any magic that gets out of hand.��

“You’re bringing him back with a bloody Templar hovering over him?” Hawke tried not to yell.

“Hawke, it makes sense,” Anders said quietly from beside him. “The inquisitor explained that I will likely be quite emotional. I will be a danger to everybody.”

Hawke shook his head. “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he muttered.

Adaar looked apologetically at them both. She had probably fought this. Surana just looked disgusted.

“Fine,” the elf said. “Let’s go then. Shouldn’t draw this out anymore than it needs to be.”

The small group made their way to the dungeons. Cassandra tried to convince Adaar not to accompany them, but she insisted. “Under my protection means I’m making sure they come to no harm,” she said. Looks like she didn’t trust this woman.

Surana kept a purposeful distance from Cullen, and gave Leliana’s hand a squeeze before she left.

It got worse before it got better. After some amount of argument it was decided that Anders would be handcuffed and chained to one of the walls. Cassandra and Cullen would not budge in their insistence, and finally Adaar relented. Hawke glowered at her, but felt no real animosity. He was just tired, tired and unwilling to treat his love like a wild animal.

In the center of the room was a bowl of shining lyrium, and Surana knelt beside it.

“One of you will have to catch me,” she told the room. “Once I put my hand in, my body will collapse. This may take some time, but I will get a spirit’s help. I am not sure if my own spirit will wish to stray this close to the waking world. She is… willful,” Surana said with some small amount of amusement, “so I may have to elicit the help of another.”

Surana grimaced, plunged her hand into the bowl of lyrium, and fell to the side.

Multiple people lunged forward to catch her falling body, but Cullen got there first. He seemed to have moved on instinct, looking almost surprised as he held the limp elf in his arms. Surana looked strangely fragile in this state, her small stature more apparent.

Cullen kept holding on, but had the look of a man about to be burned. The rest of the room waited in silence.

Minutes passed, but it felt so much longer. Hawke just kept looking at Anders, sitting quietly and waiting for his entire world to be shaken. Hawke’s chest felt tight, his head light. This was it. It would happen soon. Surana would return with a spirit and… and Anders would return to him.

Surana stirred, opened her eyes, then took a sharp intake of breath as she scrambled away from Cullen like a scared cat. There was a wild look in her eyes, but one that faded quickly into anger.

“Was he really the only one who could have caught me?” She asked haughtily, but Hawke could tell it was a haughtiness meant to cover up another emotion. Genuine panic.

Surana shook herself out of it, took a steadying breath, and looked at Hawke.

“I… I found him,” she said. Hawke’s heart nearly stopped.

“Anders? In the fade?”

“No,” she said. Her eyes welled up with tears as she spoke. “Justice. He’s… he’s been keeping an eye on me, it seems.”

“Justice is alive?” Hawke asked, shocked. He had assumed the spirit had been burnt out somehow when Anders was made tranquil.

“He’s home again,” Surana continued. “And… he’s going to return Anders to us. He also wanted to say he was sorry to both of you.”

Hawke didn’t know how to feel. Justice, sorry? That was not an emotion he associated with the spirit.

“Just…” Hawke managed to say through the lump in his throat, “just… get on with it. Bring him back.”

Surana nodded solemnly and turned back to Anders. She knelt down in front of him.

“I’m sorry I failed you before,” she told him quietly, tearfully. “But I can help you now.”

Surana’s hand glowed with what Hawke now recognized as spirit magic, and she brought her hand to the brand on Anders’ head.

The light focused on her arm, wound around them both, and for a split second Hawke swore he saw a ghostly gauntlet joining Surana in her touch.

Anders shuddered, and Hawke saw the one moment of true life in his eyes before he let out an agonized scream.

Magic burst forth from Anders, knocking Hawke and everyone else in the room to the ground.

Hawke fought against the continuing onslaught and crawled forward, determined to reach the man he loved. But before he could, all magic in the room abruptly was cut off, another palpable force replacing it in the air.

Anders collapsed face first to the ground before Hawke could reach him. Hawke pulled Anders back up, seeing a trail of blood gushing from his nose. Hawke turned furious eyes on Cullen, the source of the divine smite.

Anders curled in on himself, clearly in pain.

“Anders, Anders,” Hawke muttered, patting his face and trying to gently turn his cheek to face him. He needed to see those eyes again, to see eyes full of life.

Anders yelped and shook free of his grasp, stumbling on his knees off balance and falling again to the floor. He looked up, saw Cullen, and screamed again.

“Shh Shh,” Hawke practically begged, hovering over Anders but not sure if he could touch. “It’s okay, love it’s okay…”

Anders was shaking violently, his breathing becoming ragged. Then he seized up, clearly trying to draw in air but failing. Hawke watched helplessly, felt tears of helplessness well up in his eyes.

“Love, it’s okay, it’s okay-“

Then Hawke felt another wave of magic wash over them both, and Anders went limp. His eyes fluttered shut, and he fell asleep.

Hawke was about to get angry again, but then noticed that once he was asleep, his breathing evened out. Hawke looked up to see Surana, having just cast the spell.

“He shouldn’t wake up with us looming over him,” she said in a somewhat rough voice. “The spell had to be powerful to work, it will probably last a few hours at least.”

The room was silent.

“If he hadn’t been handcuffed,” Surana told the room angrily as she approached with soft footsteps, “he wouldn’t have broken his damn nose.”

She knelt again, and waved her hand gently above Anders’ blood-covered face as she healed him.

“Fucking barbarians,” she muttered so low that only Hawke heard. He was inclined to agree. If they hadn’t woken him in a damn cell, he might not have been so afraid-

Hawke felt his heart seize. He had looked afraid. For the first time in a year, Hawke had seen emotion on his lover’s face. Abandoning all dignity, Hawke let out a sob and hid his face in his hands. It had worked.

It had worked. Anders was back. Afraid, hurt, but… but himself. Hawke kept crying, hearing the other talk around him but paying them no attention. He couldn’t get ahold of himself, emotions he hadn’t let himself feel in a year washing over him. It was one thing to hope, it was another thing to know there was a cure, but it was entirely something else to see the cure work.

When Hawke finally looked up, there was one fewer person in the room. Cullen, thank the Maker, had left.

“He still needs to be restrained,” Cassandra said with a frown.

“Why?” Hawke demanded, incredulous. “He’s fucking asleep-“

“He will wake again, and will likely react the same. We can get him a cot to lie on, we can unbind his hands, but he will stay chained to the wall.”

Hawke practically snarled, his eyes still red from crying.

“I can handle him when he wakes up. What he needs is some fucking compassion.”

Cassandra glared at him in response. “Cullen will also be on standby in case anything goes wrong. I wouldn’t want to waste the commander’s time, but we have no other inner circle members with Templar training.”

“Give me the keys,” Adaar told Cassandra. “I will release him as soon as it is clear he is not a danger, which should be soon. I can stay with Cullen, just call us when he wakes up.”

“I’m not letting Cullen anywhere near him,” Hawke said, standing tall. “He’s had enough Templars.”

“Please,” Adaar said, looking at Hawke with imploring eyes. Then she turned to Casandra and Cullen. “I will talk to them. You two head back up stairs, return to your work. The Warden Commander said you wouldn’t be needed for at least a few hours.”

Cullen retreated quickly, almost nervously. Cassandra stayed a moment, but eventually left.

Adaar let out a sigh. “I’m sorry about that.” She sounded genuinely sorry, but Hawke wasn’t inclined to be sympathetic.

“I meant what I said,” he warned her.

“I know. I will be waiting with Cullen the whole time and we will only intervene if we hear destruction. Please, Hawke. I’m not happy about the treatment of him either, but I need to keep some peace within my inner circle. And you can have the key. I trust you to know when Anders is stable.”

Hawke listened with suspicion, but was somewhat satisfied with her suggestion. He was well aware that they were in hostile territory, that it was a blessing to have Adaar on their side at all.

“Fine. But I’m not leaving his side, not for anything until he wakes up. I know I agreed to talk to your people about Corypheus, but that can wait until I know Anders is well.”

“Of course,” Adaar replied. “And Warden, I’m afraid they will want to talk with you as well. The Wardens have been displaying strange behavior as of late…and now that you’re here I’m afraid they insist on talking with you.”

Surana rolled her eyes, but nodded. “I know. I knew this would happen if I came out of hiding…”

“I will do whatever I can to make your stay here more comfortable,” Adaar insisted, “just know that there are a lot of tensions I must handle right now. Like I said before, I need to maintain some semblance of order. I will do my best to negotiate on your behalf.”

Against his better judgement, Hawke believed her. There was something painfully earnest in her eyes.

Adaar personally brought in a set of cots, which of course she carried herself. Damn Qunari.

Hawke lifted Anders onto the cot closest to the wall and Adaar unlocked the cuffs behind his back. Of course one cuff had to stay, but this was better.

Adaar left them then, and Hawke sat with his back against the wall and sighed. Surana also stayed, sitting a few feet away.

When Adaar’s footsteps faded, Surana burst into tears.

Hawke was taken aback, and asked what was wrong out of sheer habit. It really wasn’t his business.

“I’m sorry,” Surana gasped, “I just… I shouldn’t bother you with this, I should go to Leliana… but I don’t want to fucking look at him, and if I leave he’ll be there…”

Hawke could hazard a guess who this “him” was.

“Cullen,” Hawke said solemnly.

Surana nodded. “I… I hate that man,” she said in a low voice. “I hate that he’s here, I hate that he still makes me feel…”

“Afraid?” Hawke asked, remembering her reaction earlier.

“…yeah,” Surana said with a strained voice. “I know it’s unbecoming of me, and normally I can hold my own but when I woke up he was touching me, holding me like I was his to hold…”

“Did he-“ Hawke asked, alarmed. He knew Cullen was a monster, but surely-

“No,” said Surana. “He never touched me. Not like that. But… but he wanted to.”

“That’s not much better, Surana,” Hawke said. “If he tried to assault you, then-“

“It’s not like that either,” she said quickly. “I don’t think he would have done it… not without my consent. Back when I was an apprentice, I tried not to think about the mages who were the subject of a Templar’s… attention. I always told myself it would never be me, I was too annoying and loud and… well, it was all very silly. It’s not any of their faults they’re preyed upon.”

Surana was silent for a moment. Hawke waited for her to continue. Listening to her story was better than the silence, and it sounded like she needed desperately for someone to know.

“When I returned to Kinloch Hold during the fifth blight, I found out that the whole time, he had… lusted after me. The whole time a Templar had been fantasizing about me. The whole time, if Cullen had been a worse person…”

Her voice grew quiet. “… I could have been raped. He could have gotten away with it, if he wanted. I wasn’t so invincible after all, my delusion was shattered.”

Hawke’s dull heart still felt for Surana. He knew too well how much a Templar could get away with. He heard from Anders about how all mages knew deep down that they were at the Templars’ mercy in every way.

“So….” Surana continued after taking a deep breath. “It was just bad, waking up with him touching me. Knowing he had touched me when I was unconscious. And that on top of seeing Justice again, coming here… it’s all just a lot.”

“So you’re hiding out down here for a bit to collect yourself.”

“Yep. Very brave, I know.”

“It’s not shameful,” Hawke said seriously. “I used to hide away in my room when things got bad in Kirkwall. Everyone saw the Champion, but only Anders saw me. Sometimes you just need to hide in order to go on to fight. It’s all about pacing yourself.”

Surana nodded, wiping her eyes. “I’m glad Anders has you. We don’t know each other well, but I just poured my fucking heart out to you and you just… listened. You’re a good man.”

Hawke smiled, slightly. Just knowing his Anders was waiting for him made him begin to feel like himself again. He was dependable and a good listener, he was empathetic and kind to his friends. Maybe he didn’t know Surana, but she was a friend to Anders and she needed a friend right now.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Hawke ventured, “I think Cullen shit his trousers when he first saw you.”

Surana laughed. “Yeah. I just gotta remember, I’m no longer trapped with him, he’s trapped with me. I’m the fucking Warden Commander.”

It broke Hawke’s heart a little to see a mage need to remind themselves they had power. He knew too well what was going on in Surana’s head, as he had seen Anders battle those very demons. Fear and helplessness. The feeling that suddenly everything would be taken from you when you could do nothing about it.

“Damn right,” Hawke agreed. “When Anders is better, before you leave again you’ll have to tell me stories from Amaranthine. The embarrassing ones Anders won’t tell,” Hawke finished with a conspiratorial nod.

Surana grinned. “I’ll tell you one now. It starts with a cave expedition, and ends with a very unclothed Anders…”

#handers #m!handers #anders/male hawke #anders/hawke

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selfindulgentpoorlywritten · 5 years

Text

Only You (Sidney Crosby Imagine)

The text got deleted for some godforsaken reason, so I’m hoping this fixes it.

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Fem!Reader

Words: 3462

Warnings: NSFW

Requested: yes / no

Summary/Request: hi! are you still taking requests? bc i wanted to know if i could get some sidney smut but like with a girl that's like way shorter than him

(AKA established relationship Sid smut with a super short reader)

No one would say you’re particularly good at dancing, but damn if you didn’t love it. You were always dancing by the end of every party, to whatever was playing over the speakers, whether it was intended to be a soundtrack or not. Today is no exception. At clubs you tended to get lost in the crowd, but since it was only yourself and a few of the other WAGs, you’re still visible from the outside. Visible to Sidney from his seat on the patio, where he’s stopped bothering to pretend to be invested in the conversation taking place around him.

He loves to dance as well-- especially when he’s got a few drinks in him-- but he’s always loved your dancing. He can’t help but watch every time you take the floor, mesmerized by the way you move. By the way you sway just a tad awkwardly, the way you don’t even care. The freedom of it. But more than that, he’s captivated by how stunning you are. His favorite thing to do is remind you of how gorgeous he thinks you are, with quick comments and long nights, depending on how much he gets to see you.

Before you ever met him, you’d already felt short enough. Dating a professional hockey player and spending time with his friends only made you more acutely aware of your height. Considering the entire team is at least as tall as Sidney, who has more height on you than you’d like to acknowledge, you felt like you were Jack after climbing the beanstalk, surrounded by giants. That’s bad enough, though you’d expected the guys to make you feel small and were prepared for it; what you weren’t prepared for was the WAGs. They were all tall and long-legged and blonde and graceful and dazzling. You were the shortest by far, not even reaching Sidney’s chin, and most of them had half a foot or more on you. It rarely bothered you, but when you’re surrounded by literal models all the time, it’s difficult not to feel self-conscious on occasion.

The party is winding down alongside the sunset, and the small group of you retire from dancing to help Tanger and Catherine start cleaning up. You gather some used plates and cups that had been abandoned on tables around the yard, depositing them in the trash bag Kelsey is walking around with. The serving dishes for the food need to be brought inside, but you notice that-- aside from Tanger-- the guys are still sitting around shooting the shit while the girls do the work. On your way inside with a casserole dish, you smack Sidney on the arm and scold the lot of them. They hang their heads and stand to join in with the tidying-up effort, adequately chastised.

Sid keeps shooting you looks, the kind of looks that make your face heat and your heart skip beats. Anticipation coils in your gut. You’d been having a great time dancing and talking with everyone, but you’re suddenly eager for this to be over.

The downside of Sid being Captain is that he can’t beg off team events early unless it’s a legitimate emergency, so you’re stuck cleaning and talking for what feels like an eternity. The party was a “team bonding” event to welcome the newcomers to Pittsburgh, and Tanev, Galchenyuk, and Kahun seemed to appreciate it, at least. You would appreciate if everyone would leave, so you can go home and fully enjoy the promise of the heated once-overs Sidney has been so generously giving you all evening.

You try to appreciate the time with everyone and be present in the conversations going on, but Sid has taken every free moment to shoot you glance after glance, like he can’t keep his eyes off of you. It’s not as if you haven’t been zoning out of various discussions to look at him too, though, so glass houses and all that. The guys slowly trickle out with their better halves over time, until Geno and Anna are the only ones left. It takes you a moment to notice, since you’ve been a bit transfixed by Sidney’s hands for a few minutes, because he’s definitely showing them off, knowing your weakness for them.

Momentarily, you meet eyes with Geno, who looks knowing and smug, before he turns his gaze to Sid. That’s probably going to be embarrassing later, but right now you don’t really care if anyone knows your plans. Despite being an asshole, Geno is actually a good guy, so he excuses himself and Anna not long after. They say their goodbyes, giving out hugs and cheek-kisses and back-slaps before leaving, both giving you a wink on the way out. They really are perfect for each other, huh?

More importantly, you’re now free to go. You make some polite conversation with Catherine quickly, just thanking her for hosting and wishing her luck with the children, offering to babysit if she ever needs a break. Sid switches with you, giving Catherine a hug and thanking her succinctly. It takes a handful of minutes for you to say goodbye to Kris, and you swear you can feel Sid’s frustration at having to wait. Typically, he wouldn’t care about waiting for you, but he’s been clearly turned on for at least an hour and probably desperate to get you alone. You’re definitely on the same page. Unfortunately: societal niceties.

The instant you’ve finished with Kris, Sidney has a hand on your lower back, guiding you toward the door and out with a final farewell thrown over your shoulder. Kris and Catherine stand in the doorway to see you out, making sure you get into the car and start up safely. Luckily, you can justify Sid’s potentially-inappropriate handle on you as coincidence, considering the fact that his hand naturally rests at the same level as your lower back, more or less. It’s just incidental, or a happy accident, or whatever. When he has to remove his hand so you can both load into his car, you immediately miss the contact.

You return the Letangs’ friendly wave as Sid backs out of the driveway. Even if he didn’t have the C, you’d never be able to leave events early because he always parks in the driveway and gets blocked in. Or maybe he lets himself get blocked in because the C means he’s trapped anyway? Not important. What is important is the big hand he lays heavily on your thigh, too high up for polite company and so, so warm. He keeps his eyes solely on the road as he drives, despite clearly holding onto the last of his composure by threads.

“The worst part is that you don’t even mean to do it,” he says, voice far deeper than when he spoke to Tanger. It sends a shiver down your spine, your entire body tensing in a barely-visible wave at the familiar sound. You have no idea what he means, and your confusion definitely shows on your face. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to want a response, because he just takes a beat and continues.

“You just dance, like there’s no one watching, like you wouldn’t even care if there were,” he says, voice conveying a thousand things; arousal, possession, awe, “And everybody watches you, but you only look at me.” His hands squeeze the steering wheel and your thigh in equal measure. You’re not proud of the sharp inhale you take in response, but you’re also not really thinking of your pride right now, or anything other than the heat and pressure just close enough to tease. Your brain is stuck on a loop of only you only you only you, but you don’t say it, not willing to give him the satisfaction of your devotion yet. Also, if you did give in and say it now, the two of you would probably end up with a ticket for public indecency. You can talk your way out of it once, but twice would probably be pushing it.

You don’t say a word the entire ride home, and his grip on you and the wheel eventually loosens. Though he does periodically tighten his fingers back around you, just sporadically enough to keep you on edge, keep you wanting. And god, did you want. Sid was the most beautiful man in the world on a normal day, so when he’s all focused and deliberate, almost ready to succumb to lust? Truly Athena herself couldn’t keep chaste in his presence.

Pulling up the driveway with his hand tight on the skin bared by your now bunched up skirt-- easily pushed out of the way by Sid’s searching fingers-- has your heart rate skyrocketing. He doesn’t spare you a peep before he cuts the ignition and exits the car, not needing to say a word for you to scramble to follow him, grabbing your bag and climbing out of the car so quickly you almost end up tumbling face-first onto the concrete. By time you get to the mud room, he’s already removed one shoe and is working on the other. He hadn’t worn a jacket, since it’s one of those rare September days where the world forgets it’s supposed to be transitioning into fall, so it’s 91° and 8-fuck-thousand percent humidity, so he doesn’t have to bother taking it off. Good. Less time wasted. As for you, you kick off your shoes and place them in their usual place a little less carefully than usual. Sid definitely has some level of OCD, but that won’t bother him. Probably. Maybe.

Clearly it doesn’t bother him right now, because he walks through the second door into the living room, still without a word. You follow behind, but staunchly refuse to compare yourself to an eager puppy despite the similarity. He leads the way to the bedroom, which seems way too far right now, in your opinion, but that’s not your brain talking. At least you get a nice view of Sid’s ass in his black swim trunks, close-fitting enough to accentuate his figure rather than hide it.

What you expect to happen once you reach the bedroom, is for him to immediately push you up against the door and kiss you senseless. What you do not expect, is for him to slowly crowd into your space, cupping your jaw with one hand and stroking your cheek gently with his thumb. The other hand comes to rest on the side of your ribcage, squeezing gently once as he looks down into your eyes. There’s so much adoration in his gaze that you feel like the swelling affection inside you is going to make you burst.

“I love you,” he says. His expression turns a bit bittersweet, like he knows he doesn’t say it enough, but appreciates you understanding it anyway. You cradle his face in both hands and kiss him once, almost chaste. A far cry from what you anticipated.

“I love you too,” you reply. You know you maybe say it too much, often enough that he gets flustered sometimes, or thinks it’s said out of habit and not sincerity. But you mean it every time, with all your heart. Again his expression changes, this time from bittersweet certainty to overt devotion. He looks at you as if you’re the most extraordinary person in the world, like he can’t believe he gets to have you, like you’re the exceptional one in this relationship. All you can do is kiss him again, longer this time, harder.

This is where the passion you’d expected comes in, where he starts kissing you like he can’t bear to part from you even for the necessity of breath. Where his hands run down your sides to sneak under your shirt, so they can skim back up your stomach to cup your breasts. Your bathing suit suddenly feels like far too much material between his hands and your skin, and you itch to take it off. To take all of it off, to bare yourself to him in a way that never felt so right with anyone before.

With your diminutive stature, he has to bend at the waist to kiss you while standing, and you know it sometimes gives him a crick in his neck. Which is totally the reason you’re eager to get to the bed, obviously. Not because his hands are warm even through your top and his lips are soft and damp against yours and the small needy sounds he makes into your mouth drive you wild. You’re just being considerate. Yup.

Whatever ulterior motives you may or may not have, you nudge him backward, guiding him toward the bed even as he continues to dip down to kiss you between looking back to make sure he doesn’t trip. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress, he doesn’t fall, just stops. He strips off his shirt with an unrestricted urgency he never shows anyone but you, throwing it toward the hamper. You follow suit, shucking off both tops, and pushing down your coverup skirt for good measure. He pauses, brushing his big hands over your shoulders and down your chest, admiring your figure so brazenly you feel yourself blush.

“You just gonna look?” you ask rhetorically, still a tad breathless, but feeling a bit bold yourself. In return, you’re graced with that beautiful crooked smile and a look far too dark to match-- under normal circumstances, at least. He squats down to grab you around the waist, tossing you onto the bed in a feat of strength that’s more than a little sexy. The noise you make is decidedly less sexy, but he just smiles wider, shoving off his trunks like an afterthought before joining you on the bed. You wriggle out of your suit bottoms, not getting a chance to throw them off the bed before he’s on top of you.

Sid is so intense this way, laser focus directed solely on you, fixated on the best way to take you apart. For the most part, you go with the flow. You’re more than willing to follow his lead, knowing from experience that he’ll make this more than exceptional.

With your body bared to him, he looms over you, eyes roaming your upper body. His thick thighs are solid and warm against your own legs, closer to your knees than you might expect of a more proportional couple; though all you can think of is how the scratch of his wiry body hair drives you a bit crazy. He kisses you again, only momentarily, before moving to your jaw, your neck, your shoulders. There will definitely be some dark spots that Malin and Kelsey will tease you about next time they see you, but the pressure and tinge of pain feel so good that you don’t much care.

Before Sid, you had assumed that your breasts simply weren’t that sensitive. Since the first time you’d slept together, however, you’d learned that maybe you just hadn’t had competent partners before. He sucks more hickeys into the thin skin of your breasts, mouthing and teasing at your nipples until you’re arching into his lips as you make sounds a bit too desperate for your liking. It’s just so good.

Occasionally, he’ll ask you to sit on his face. He knows it’s not easy for you, because your height means you have to rest a bit higher on your knees, which stresses your thighs. But he loves it so dearly that you do it from time to time. This evening, however, he seems far too frantic to eat you out as per usual. Instead, he abandons your chest to recapture your mouth. After so long, he knows exactly how to move, to lick, to press, to drive you crazy. Crazy enough that his fingers dipping into your folds make you gasp into his mouth in surprise.

Your focus shuttles between his fingers stretching you meticulously and the way he’s kissing the soul out of you. Your brain simply refuses to focus on one thing, jumping from his lips to his fingers to his thighs on your knees to his dick occasionally brushing your thigh. It’s all so much, his body the perfect complement to yours, no matter how counterintuitive that may seem.. He’s so big and warm, enveloping you in smooth skin and pounding pulse, completely encompassing you.

Once he deems you adequately stretched, he kisses you once again, slow and wet and deep. He asks you for the umpeenth time if you’re ready, if you’re okay with this, and you’re too much of a goner for him to do much more than kiss him and shimmy your hips closer to his own.

You’ll never get used to the first push inward. Sid’s not particularly long, but he’s thick, stretching you wide and hitting all the right spots you never even knew existed before him. His back is curled in a deep arch so he can bury his face in your chest for the initial stretch, like if he looks at you, he’ll lose it. Not that you would know, really, with how you throw your head back into the bottom edge of the pillow. All you can do is make a small “ah” sound, rocking your hips back and forth in an attempt to adjust to his size. Once bottomed out, Sid stays still as long as you need, no matter how the involuntary rolling of your pelvis makes him dig blunt nails into your hips.

“Come on,” you say, finally, hips reduced to tiny twitches, “Fuck me, Sid.” The phrasing draws a broken moan from his throat. He doesn’t bother wasting time with slow, dragging thrusts; just goes straight to fucking you into the mattress with as much speed and force as he can manage. Your ankles barely meet behind his back with how broad his torso is, so you dig fingertips into his shoulders to avoid being driven up the mattress.

No matter how single-minded he may seem as he shoves in and drags out, he still kisses you so sweetly. Whispering endearments and reassurances against your lips (though he still has to crane his head to do so, so maybe avoiding neck pain wasn’t your only motive for getting him into bed), he steadily fucks you into oblivion. By time he sucks a mark just under your jaw that’s sure to last, you’re gone, floating somewhere above yourself. When he comes, he bites into your collar bone, groaning out his pleasure as he fills you. You reply with a groan of your own, acutely aware of the warmth filling you, his cock still spreading you wide.

“Maybe I should dance more often,” you quip, once your breathing settles to something manageable. Sid huffs a laugh into the pillow, rolling to the side to avoid crushing you any more than he already has.

“As long as you’re not looking at any other guys,” he replies, letting his head flop to the side to smile at you.

“You know it’s only ever you, Sid,” you can feel your smile grow into something halfway between giddy and sentimental, “Only you.” He groans dramatically and throws an arm over his face, in a gesture you know means that he wishes he was 18 again so he could go twice in a row. All you can do is laugh and turn toward him, peeling his arm away and giving him a soft, lingering kiss.

“Just make sure you stay on the edge of the crowd so I can actually see you,” he says against your lips, grinning even as you gasp and smack his shoulder.

Over time, you’ve learned that aftercare is important to Sid. He likes to pamper you, to guide you into the shower so he can soap you up and wash you down. He loves to carefully towel you off, pressing gentle kisses to the places he bruised with his mouth and fingers. To cover you with his clothing, a t-shirt that reaches past the mid-point of your thighs and shorts that may as well be capris. To settle you into the bed once the duvet has been tossed toward the hamper, wrapping you in the sheets and comforter, tight against himself. Taking care of you has always been his favorite thing, the way you look up at him with drooping eyes and sleepy voice to thank him for everything. For the reassurance, for helping clean you, for your vaguely sore lower body and the way it makes you feel such deep satisfaction, for loving you, for making you feel loved, for making you believe you are loved. Believe you are loved, are cared for, are worth his love and care. Only you.

#sidney crosby imagine #nhl imagines #RI #andis coping mechanism #nws #scrosby

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Text

why do people seem to think i’m a big name blogger

i only have like 1800 followers (or I guess closer to 1900 now?), that’s pocket change compared to some of the people around here

i know there’s people with less, and that doesn’t make you invalid or anything. Because it’s not about size. It’s either about quality or about enjoyment, and really, your latter should come first in fandom. If you have a hobby blog designed to spread enjoyment, then yes, quality. If you positively impact just 5 people’s lives on the regular, you’ve done a good thing.

This falls in line with my “anyone can meta” and moods about who feels comfortable metaing or having those opinions, but it’s become a general sentiment.

And most of all don’t feel like you need to lockstep with me. now, not lockstepping with me doesn’t mean "shit directly on someone’s positive content post like a whole entitled jackass”, but like. I don’t care if you were some little blog with 10 followers that I gave a boost and now you’re kinda popular. you don’t owe me shit.

Because that’s another weird thing and I think people need to practice self-care on this more. Four different people, on four different occasions, that were incensed I wouldn’t fall into borg mind or surrender my opinions, have tried to claim they “made” me. Ironically, none of them did. Like even ignoring my following point, even in the way they meant it -- which is the irony.

When Kelloggs club pounced on my first ever fandom tweet years ago for the sin of having a Cas plushie icon, and I floored them with numbers they had never seen and got blocked by the whole damn hoard in my first hour in fandom like a temporary urban legend, I made me. Sure, they drew attention and made a shitshow. Sure, it led to me being drawn into group chats that expanded my networking and stuff. But I made me. When a big name fan was upset at how much traction I’d gained in a month, because this fandom is obsessed with clout for some goddamn reason, and I stood my ground? They drew attention. But the way I held my ground? I made me.

When TAW went bananas on me for catching him hand in the cookie jar with Misha and my unwillingness to be backed off that turned heads? I made me. Everybody helped with of course blacklisttaw, but I didn’t make blacklisttaw, everyone made blacklisttaw, I just started it. And it worked. Because of everybody. He hasn’t had a non-indie job aside from things being re-re-re-re-reannounced from 2008 plans or things stuck in production purgatory since 2014 releasing late since. That ain’t all my credit. I didn’t MAKE that. I started it, maybe. But you guys made that. I just stood there with a megaphone for those who weren’t positioned to speak, and gave some cornerstones. Everybody else’s work did the rest.

(And ironically, NONE of the people that wanted me to feel like they MADE me were involved in that. I think they all actually came after all of these things.)

The people along the way help. But just because someone helps you doesn’t mean you’re indentured to them, their demands, or even their abuse for life, or touting every single thing they say as truth.

Whatever content you made that got shared? You made that. You made you. Your thoughts, opinions, contributions, choices made you. Someone giving you a digital nickel along the way, or even a digital hundred dolla bill, doesn’t obligate you to them. If they genuinely appreciated your thoughts and content instead of finding it temporarily useful or convenient... then they gained the benefit of your contribution in exchange. If someone had another intent, that’s on them.

(honestly same goes for RL on this point; sure try to repay people but repayment doesn’t mean you’re shackled to them for all eternity and if someone said they wanted to HELP you and then turned around like “ok and the interest accrued is--” or flags it around as some weight? Fuckin’ run. RUN AWAY. “Help” doesn’t come with a leash or a motive. It comes because they want to help. And anyone that spins that around on you -- life lesson -- holy shit. Run. You help people because you care, whether that’s about them as an individual or general human empathy -- not for what you get out of it. And again seriously guys REAL LIFE PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND IF YOU TAKE NOTHING ELSE FROM ANYTHING I EVER SAID. If someone had told me this when I was younger I would have dodged YEARS of receiving violence. It’s like the shittier, less competent version of mob logic, only at least the mob is honest that they’re gonna break your kneecaps if you fuck up before you get started. Y’know what? I value honesty. If you’re gonna demand something, be honest and threaten my kneecaps up front.)

Nobody made you but you. I helped along the way, or some other people helped. But I’m never going to be like HOW DARE YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT OPINION I MADE YOU!!!!!!! because like-- is anybody watching the show right now? Anybody at all? Chuck’s stomping around and throwing hissyfits because hE mAdE thEm AnD hE’Ll ShoW tHEm and like in the end, Chuck didn’t make them. Maybe he influenced things around them. But they’re making themselves.

And I feel like this fandom would do so much better if they abandoned this tribalistic herd mind nonsense for fear of obligation to *whatever* because guys, people who hold you to that? They’re abusers. Like. Literally. No lie. Shit man. Those people online can’t even “make” anyone, because they only make themselves, and then people react to what they’ve made of themselves. Everyone decides they’re too much? Too bitter? Too whatever? Everybody stops spreading their content? Guess what they’ve got. A big ball of Too Much Bitter on their dash and nothing else. But you know what? They made them. They made that. They make that big ball of whatever.

Like congrats guys you temporarily liked my opinions when you liked them and strolled along when I was at like 700 followers already and now that you don’t you’re gonna-- what? Get mad at other opinions? Come on now. People aren’t just tools to be waved around. We’re complex. You’re complex. Hopefully you all treat other people as complex. Never put yourself in a digital collar to jump through digital flaming hoops for fear of some kind of digital retaliation.

Hell, if there’s one moral from How-I-Made-Me in that list above, that’s it, really. Lmao, fuck the borg guys, come on. You do you. My path was essentially “Fuck the bronlies, fuck the extreme con crowd, fuck sexual predators, and fuck extremes of any fandom lane, even if that’s a lane within my own ship.” -- your path doesn’t have to be my path. You make your path. You just share it with people on the way. If they diverge, they don’t get to throw you down whatever hill they’ve declared is the one to go down. And definitely make sure in the land of “all opinions/interpretations are equal” that is said online like a parrot stuck in a loop, you’re not letting them use that to completely ironically steamroll over your own while leaving theirs unchecked of any real compunction.

So no, don’t come shit on my posts directly, don’t come whatever. But don’t ever just lockstep with me, or anyone else, because you feel some weird form of obligation over something as irrelevant as digital clout in the world of a TV fandom that IS ENDING ANYWAY so WHAT THE FUCK. The people you have around you? The views you soak? The follows you have? Good and bad. Those are what are going to paint the rest of your experience for this show you (theoretically) love from here into eternity.

Am I too loud? That’s fine. You do you. Is someone else too perpetually bitter? Don’t tie yourself to them. Pay close attention to what is sculpting your fandom experience in this final hour and into its life beyond. Because that’s gonna be the difference between you keeping love for this show in your heart once it’s off the air or petering off into distressed disfavor for it.

At one point when the show was ending, I thought “I’ma follow every account like in the history of ever” and man was that a bad idea. A few sweeps later and I’ve cleared out bitter bullshit clogging my dash, random cacophony, and have nothing but good shit to reblog again and damn if that isn’t even gonna make the experience of everyone in my proximity better too. Much less my own. And yeah, that matters. It’s called fandom. It’s supposed to be fun. Not obligate chaos.

Either people take you as you are, or they don’t. Fuck the ones that just want parts of you for a time and want to discard the rest. Those people aren’t worth your time. Hell, that even wants to go for people who have dedicated bitter blogs. You wanna be bitter and nasty okay that’s fine, if somebody is just there for some other shit and then gets mad that you’re bitter after goddamn choosing to follow you knowing full god damn and well you’re bitter, they can fuck off too. Stay mad if you want. You do you. I might say it’s probably not the best for mental health and general wellness but in the end that’s still up to you. And put an asterisk that doing shit on tumblr is different than twitter where if you make a bunch of rowdy bitter people in your area and you or they start shit-tagging creatives and doing the above kinda bullshit, no, that doesn’t work the same. Or like the multishipper I saw getting attacked despite making a whole other blogspace to keep their wincest away from impacting other people’s eyes like -- if they’re hunting down that side account just to cause bullshit, fuck them too. Seriously, fuck the borg.

#supernatural #fandom #ethics #honesty #manipulation #independence #group think #free thinkers

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heisalonetonight · 5 years

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hi - anon from before - pls excuse me bc i'm absolutely /sobbing/ at your response bruh. thank /you/ for answering so openly (just like Adrien! :0 ) I'm shook at the fact you started publishing from 14 to now, that's incredible!! can i ask what you published? :0 Also wow @ that characterization of Adrien towards the end, it really makes a lot of sense!! is there a difference between Adrien and Chat? Or are they similar but just show different amounts of certain feelings? :0

Oh, just poems and stories! I don’t want to show off lol they were achievements for sure but I’m sure you have something better to do than read about them :P And thank you, I have a lot of opinions about who Adrien is and how he does it. Onto Chat vs Adrien - I think inherently they are the same person, obviously, but Chat Noir lives without the same sort of ... suffocation, I guess? Being Adrien Agreste is work. That’s something that he carries with him every minute of every day - being an Agreste means that there are always cameras somewhere, and his every move is scrutinised. As much as Adrien likes to kick back and relax with his friends, and really does love and trust them very deeply (and god, he loves being called ‘dude’!), the role his friends play in Adrien’s life is actually very minor, by necessity (not by choice: he would always choose to hang out with those guys, sans the nights his father promises he’ll make it to dinner this time - this time). He is working. He has expectations to manage and a phone which is waiting to call him home at the drop of a hat when his father hasn’t quite managed to make this meeting, could he please stand in, or Adrien, there’s a charity event you need to attend, or Adrien, please turn another 13 degrees to the left so the cameras can get your smile properly while you talk to your friends. Adrien’s got a lot of very high expectations put on him which are inherently expectations, rather than goals - they are things he can fall short of or meet, but they are so high it is impossible to exceed them, so his options are disappointing his father or .... not disappointing him.

Adrien really, really cares about his father. I think it’s underestimated, the turmoil that he goes through in Chat Blanc - since the disappearance of his mother his father really, truly changed, and Adrien really believes that that’s because Gabriel is trying to hold things together. He thinks his father has, essentially, fallen apart, and when has it ever been like Adrien to hold somebody’s turmoil and fear and sickness against them? His father is sick. He’s afraid of going outside, he’s afraid for Adrien so hard that it’s sometimes suffocating, and Adrien wants him to get better. Before he met Ladybug, Adrien Agreste needed to find something - some relationship - to anchor himself into, to strap himself onto and not let go of, and for him that relationship was his father’s. To Adrien, he and Gabriel are a team. The same sort of team Ladybug and Chat Noir are, the same sort of inherent and unbreakable bond that they have: he is inseperable from his father. Whatever this terrible grief is, whatever it has stolen from Gabriel, they are in it together. They are in it together and it is just Adrien’s turn to be the part of the team who does more work, and that is because Gabriel is self-destructing, and Adrien aches for his father to be better, more than he aches to be wanted. And besides, Adrien doesn’t do love like that (here’s a link to the fic exactly on that subject!). He doesn’t do it like his father needs to earn it, he has been loved like that before - like he could be loved if only he was good enough - and he would not wish that on his worst enemy, much less the people he loves. Gabriel does not owe him anything, to earn Adrien’s love. If the only way to express it - their partnership - is through the avenues of work that Gabriel opens up to him, asks him to do, then that’s what Adrien will do. He considers them a team.

Chat Noir, meanwhile, has a different partner - a teammate who will play the game with him in equal parts, who often overtakes him because she is just amazing and dynamic and beautiful, who soars past him on gilded wings and takes his breath away. And then she turns back to offer him her hand, to pull him onward, because she loves him, and it has never in her entire life ever been a problem for Ladybug that she did not feel loved, that she did not know how to show people that they were wanted. She has never even hesitated to smile for people - especially Chat - or to support him when he’s down. She has been wildly, miraculously, crazily kind to him, and been open about her emotions, and accessible, and responsive, and amazing, and his best friend (sorry Nino) he’s ever had, the best friend he’s ever been lucky enough to meet. And you know his luck! She takes his breath away not just because she is kind and gentle and soft, where everybody else in his life has always been hard, but because she is basically a genius and she knows it, and she’s ridiculously impressive, and Adrien Agreste, my friends, is 100% the sort of guy who is turned on by girls who can kick his butt, that is the sort of thing he loves, not least because they don’t need him to be doing anything - they don’t need him in the charity event, they don’t need him to be on call, they don’t need him - but they want him. Ladybug wants him. And if she does need him, it’s only in equal parts to how often and how badly he needs her. She is so.... Anyway. Let’s not go on a long rant about what he loves about Ladybug, I do need to finish this response conceivably within the next several years. The key difference between Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste is that the people who they tie themselves into the world with either love him or they don’t, and Adrien feels like he must be doing something wrong (not being able to reach his father properly - he thinks he just hasn’t found the right path - he thinks they are a team and it is his job to reach him, and he hasn’t done it, yet, and it make him a bad teammate), though he is very quiet about his confusion, and he does what he is asked to do because he has very little alternative. Ladybug’s team... being on Ladybug’s team comes as easily as breathing. It makes him happy. It teaches him everything he needs to be taught about the world, about how love works, about what it is like when you are just - well - happy, and you don’t care if anybody is watching. That same thing can be said, increasingly, more and more often, of Adrien’s time he spends with his friends - Marinette and Kagami and Nino and Alya and Max and everybody - and in fact we have seen the influence of people who really love him leaking into his behaviour, as he is slowly departing from doing every single thing his father ever asks from him, as he sneaks off to London (from which he was, I remind you, once banned, even though he could have gone to his uncle’s funeral) with nary a glance behind him, with this breathy little exhilaration which is only cemented by his friends’ acceptance and excitement rather than disgust and disappointment. He hosts his party. He finds ways to live when he still can, he finds ways to breathe these stolen gasps of air when he’s got the time to do it, and it just would not have occurred to him to even try, before this series started. Before he met someone (in this case, Plagg) who offered him an out.

There’s a lot to write about Chloe here as well, but I am already several paragraphs deep into this. Chloe’s role as his only friend is important and he really does like her a lot, she is one of his closest and is literally his oldest friend, and there’s a lot to be said for how he defends her and tries for her and believes in her. They are genuinely, really friends. But we’re not getting into it.

As Adrien prioritises his partnership - his team - with Ladybug more and more, he is growing to learn what a real team looks like. Chat is loose and easy and relaxed and he relishes that, and he loves being with her more than he loves anything else in the entire world, because he has her back and he really believes she has his, and the whole rest of the world really doesn’t matter. I’ve written about this before - he has long-held beliefs about the world, absolute truths that he feels he can dig and dig and dig and dig and he will never come out the other side, they’re just true. They’re just true.

But it costs Adrien something, to believe that he is a team with his father, and it does not cost him anything to believe the same of his best friend. Still, he will not ever let one of his absolute truths go easily (which is why he struggles with Kagami so much - one of his truths is that he is in love with Ladybug; and why he struggles with Chat Blanc, letting his father go, even though he knew that’s what he had to do), and that is why ... he is a sad boy. It is because he is fighting to find out where the truth is. He knows it has to be there somewhere. He knows it has to be buried somewhere under these swathes of work and isolation and barely-acceptable-son-but-thanks-for-trying behaviour. He just isn’t looking hard enough, there is want, somewhere under there. Gabriel wants him, somewhere there. It does not help that Gabriel throws out occasionally flashes of love, a hug here, concern for him there, a conversation once a month. It doesn’t help that he is being strung along.

(As a spoiler, Adrien is wasting his time.)

Anyway, the differences between Adrien and Chat are really just how much of Adrien is actually welcome, at any one time. Adrien mostly just works for his father, has always mostly just done work, he has a packed schedule - and nobody cares who Adrien is, they care what the young Monsieur Agreste can do for them. Chat is always welcome. Chat is always wanted. Chat always feels wanted, and she finds new ways to make him feel it almost every time he sees her. He craves that, and flourishes in it. I guess that’s the main difference.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug rp #mlb rp #adrien agreste #chat noir #ingrid talks #Anonymous

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bucci-gang · 5 years

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you asked for it kiddo... do you have any la squadra backstory hc's? (i saw it in one of your tags don't try and hide it 👀)

oHHHHH!!!!!! THANK YOU- this got pretty long jhhhhhggh,,,, and also!! some of these are very heavily influenced by stuff i’ve seen in the fandom, although a majority of these are my own!

(Content warning though, this gets pretty heavy- i’m going to be talking about death, miscarriages, illnesses, injury, neglect and csa in this one. Tagged and under a cut to be safe.)

RISOTTO NERO

No one would believe you if you told them, but Polpo is his father. If the eyes didn’t give it away, Polpo’s old pictures (if you manage to get a hold of them, that is) most definitely will. No one knows how Polpo ended up looking like that now, but in his younger days, around the same age as Risotto, he looked pretty much exactly like him.

He’s not aware of his biological mother, but he knows she’s a stand user from Egypt, who utilizes magnetism.

Risotto was adopted by a Sicilian family, and was raised without knowledge of his connections to the mafia, or stands. It was not until he began killing at age 18 that he began to look more into who his real parents were.

He doesn’t resent his adoptive parents- his adoptive father was a carpenter, who raised Risotto to be well-versed in carpentry as well, and his adoptive mother was a seamstress. He had an adoptive older sister, and of course, his little cousin who came over so often he practically lived with them. His family isn’t perfect, of course- his father is too strict, his mother too troubled, and his sister was too distant. Thinking about it now as an adult, he couldn’t blame them for being like that. His mother’s miscarriage probably weighed on the family too.

He was always the quiet brooding type. As a child, his quiet inclinations were regarded as him being shy. When he reached into adolescence and began forming opinions of his own, Risotto was then given the “quiet and serious” adage under his name. He’d always been the type to lead and act according to what he believes is right, after all. That being said, however, he operates under his own judgement and experiences, and the same can still be said about him even after so long. His general distrust of authority began showing itself in his adolescence, as well.

Sometimes, Risotto feels a tug in his heart, begging him to come home in their little house in Sicily, and visit his family once more. He painstakingly ignores this, and carries on. He does keep tabs on them however, and the knowledge that they’re safe and sound is enough to carry him on.

He joined Passione at 21 years old, around the same time he awoke his stand. He used to be of equal footing to Sorbet and Gelato, who at the time were both under a different capo. He broke apart from the gang to form his own, having decided that assassination was the best application for his skills after being involved in one of two many murders that were considered “overkill”, even for the mafia.

FORMAGGIO

Formaggio came from an average to low income family. His family was big, too- he had a mother, a father, two older sisters, and three younger sisters. As the only son, he was depended on for a lot of things, and often had to fill in for the father that his little sisters are clearly missing, by being the best older brother he could be. Obviously not by his own volition- he’d very much just relax and enjoy his teenage years, thank you very much- but he’s smart enough to know that his sisters deserve someone to guide them in their early years.

He’s always been street-smart, having dropped out of school just after he finished 7th grade to work. Home life was rather bleak- his father wasn’t home often, but when he was, he was always drunk and would go and beat his mother and his older sisters. This eventually stopped when their father died of liver cancer. Formaggio’s never been religious, but he felt overwhelmed enough to thank whoever was responsible for it.

He committed his first murder when he walked in on one of his elder sisters getting beaten by her husband. Formaggio at the time lived with her, and with two of his little sisters in tow. His other elder sister lived with his mom, along with his other little sister. Thankfully enough, the children were not there to witness either of the abuse or the murder. This had Formaggio contemplating a lot of other things, and soon, he succumbed to the bleak, and harsh criminal underbelly of Italy. He was recruited a year later by Risotto.

Just to establish my last point- Formaggio is actually only one year younger than Risotto- which makes him older than everybody else save for Sorbet. No one else but Risotto, Sorbet and Gelato believe this.

ILLUSO

Came from a well-off, but not wealthy, family. He had an older brother and an older sister, and while their parents weren’t always present due to work, they made sure they were there when public appearances were necessary. He’d always been distant with everybody except for his elder sister, who would care for him to the best of her ability despite being frail and sickly.

Illuso always had a fascination with observing behind the scenes. Being quiet and often overlooked, he grew accustomed to being alone. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sneak off to spy on other people’s conversations he probably shouldn’t be listening to in the first place.

He knew something was bound to come out of those late night meetings where his father would come home tipsy and infuriated about something. Soon enough, his suspicions were confirmed. His father had lost everything to his gambling addiction, and with it came the family’s already estranged relations with one another. The final straw was when his sister died.

Illuso, having lost all motivation to keep living in such a life, left home. He figured, he’d always been alone, anyway. What’s a couple of years in the streets gonna do to him? With his natural intuition and general sneaky tendencies, his skills proved important out in the world, where the rule was survival of the fittest.

He was found by a capo, and drafted into the Intel Team after he’d been shot by the arrow by accident. He was a key member until he was reassigned to La Squadra due to a sudden influx of newcomers in the mob.

Admittedly enough, his origins have made him somewhat sympathetic to Fugo, although he’d never admit it.

PROSCIUTTO

Prosciutto was born from an American-Italian family, and was totally a private school kid. He was raised in the States for a while until his 15th birthday, where he travelled with his grandfather from the US to Italy. His family was distant and secretive, but he definitely knew they had ties to something very, very illegal. His mother was sickly and stayed at home, seeing doctors more than she saw her own sons; and their father was never around. Despite the luxury they were raised in, he and Pesci were all they really had.

He might’ve not noticed it when he was young, but he was trained and educated exactly where they wanted him to– to eventually take over the family business when he was old enough. His grandfather was incredibly supportive of this, and when Prosciutto started showing signs that he had tremendous potential to become the head of the famiglia.

When he travelled from the US to Italy, this was his first introduction to the bleak life his grandfather led. He committed his first murder at 16, all curated and taken care of by the mafia. It was certainly a bit much, but Prosciutto showed commitment to his grandfather’s will for him.

He joined Passione at 20 years old, after his famiglia’s territory was taken over by Passione. Some of his men survived, while some were not so lucky. He was officially drafted into the Hitman Team shortly after Formaggio was.

PESCI

Him and Prosciutto are actually full brothers. Him and Prosciutto were private school kids, and while Prosciutto aced all his classes, Pesci was content receiving average marks. He truly excelled in choir and in theater, however, and in turn made his mother incredibly proud of him. She would always come to his recitals whenever he performed, main role or not, despite how sickly she was.

Pesci didn’t bother with their dad- Fra says not to. And while was not close to his own grandfather like Prosciutto was, he was incredibly close to his uncle. While he had his suspicions about the true source of their family’s ludicrous wealth, his uncle always made sure to spend time with Pesci, taking him out swimming and fishing and all that. His uncle made sure he had a childhood- too concerned with Pesci being drafted into their dangerous lifestyle too early like Prosciutto was.

When Prosciutto left for Italy, Pesci stayed behind for a while, as he was only 12 when his brother went. He caught wind of his brother’s untimely fate of joining the mafia when he was 17, and it goes without saying that Pesci was heartbroken. He then ultimately made it his goal to find him and be reunited once more.

Pesci was drafted into Passione at age 20, but became a part of the Hitman Team at 21, after a particularly intense argument with Prosciutto.

MELONE

Melone was born in Switzerland, but he moved to Italy when he was around 10 years old. His parents were doctors who were constantly away due to their job, and while he had no other siblings, his parents made sure he had everything he could ever want. From toys to new clothes to books, he was very much spoiled. Perhaps it was to compensate for the fact that while he attained a lot of academic achievements, his parents remained absent. They were very proud of him, however, as he’d proven himself to be nothing short of a genius at a very young age. He was polite, and spoke well with elders. He generally got along with his peers, although they did find him odd and intimidating at times.

When he was in his teens, he begun to seek out partners. Perhaps due to his own curiosity, he saw too much a little too soon. This was also when he’d killed his uncle in a fit of rage, after he’d tried to assault Melone. This was when his genius turned into a maddening hunger for knowledge. It goes without saying that Melone experimented on his uncle’s corpse, and a bunch of other laboratory samples.

When he dropped out of university, he begun to sell information about his research in shady places online. He was drafted into Passione when a capo took note of his rather… interesting discoveries about reproduction and genetics, and figured his abilities could prove useful.

He became part of the Hitman Team shortly after Illuso joined.

GHIACCIO

Ghiaccio was born in Korea, but moved in his pre-teen years after his parents were offered work in Italy. He had an older sister whom he idolized, and initially was his reason for pursuing ice skating in the first place. Their parents were never the most outwardly affectionate, towards each other and their children, but Ghiaccio’s older sister always made sure he knew how much she loved him.

His interest in linguistics were sparked by his parents, who were interpreters. He never really cared much for it when he was really young, but when he began to turn his attention to books instead of his peers who would often cast him out, he found out he was a natural at picking up different languages and its quirks.

He started seriously skating when he was 10 years old, and would always beg his sister to come with him. She humoured him, being a skater herself. Ghiaccio has very fond memories of those winter mornings when him and his sister would sneak out of the house to go find a lake frozen over, and skate for a few hours, forgetting all their troubles. He started competing at age 13, and won his first gold medal at 14. He proved to be a prodigy in ice skating.

Due to his peers casting him out and emotional neglect from his parents, his characteristic anger issues began manifesting. They started showing more violently out of humiliation and hatred for himself when he injured himself during a performance. He begun to shut others out, only ever reacting in anger and annoyance. His anger issues got worse when his older sister was injured just before one of her performances, and out of anger, he took off and killed the person who had orchestrated her injury.

Knowing he could never return to his old life after this, he set off and took his anger out on a random group of strangers at a bar who pissed him off too much at the moment, the alcohol in his system amplifying the anger and shame he felt. He was found by Sorbet and Gelato, who recommended him to Risotto. He became part of the Hitman Team shortly before Pesci joined.

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teddystrap · 5 years

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[神なる君と] Osananajimi Duo - Narumi

This game is like a time capsule from back in the pre-2012 days, before the do-S trend took hold and every playable guy became an abusive asshole. Our heroine has a feisty personality and witty comebacks, and the whole story is packed with funny moments - which just goes to show, Otomate can put out quality stuff... when they want to.

Incidentally I also really love the Shinto theme and the familiarity of rural small-town Japan, which actually makes me a bit nostalgic for the time I spent there.

[Synopsis] 17-year-old Kamiki Sakuya is helping out at her friend’s shrine, when suddenly some strange dude in wasou cosplay appeared under a *magical tree* and started babbling something about a 1000-year promise. When she came to, she had been made the Goddess of the shrine, to replace the current God - the aforementioned strange dude, Mikoto - for a short while until the hoshimatsuri (lit. ‘start festival’), an annual tradition of the town. The main routes take place within this time frame.

-Sakaki Narumi-

Narumi is Sakuya’s classmate, childhood best friend, and heir to the Kunihoshi Shrine. From a young age, he has able to see supernatural things, which made everyone think he's a freak and caused his parents to abandon him. His grandfather, the shrine owner, took him in and raised him as his successor. For a while he was bullied by the kids at school due to his abilities, and thus he developed a lone-wolf, withdrawn, thorny personality. Sakuya was the only person who genuinely accepted him unconditionally, and he pretty much fell in love with her at first sight.

Narumi's route basically runs on two ideas:

1. The social position difference, between him (religious minister/'servant') and Sakuya (Goddess). This idea was leveraged in one of his ema minigames, and in the beginning he sort of uses this as a cover up for the real reason they're forbidden to date:

2. It turns out, there’s a 1000-year curse that runs in his family:

1000 years ago, the Sakaki family were well-to-do religious ministers, and the town was protected under a shield by the gods. The family had a daughter, who fell in love with a demon. She let the demon into the town, and he ended up causing great destruction. As punishment, the gods stripped her family of their title and assets, placed a curse on her, and used her as bait to kill the demon.

Despite all this, however, she refused to lift her curse by renouncing her love for the demon and erasing all their shared memories. A certain god (ahem *Mikoto*) took pity on her and erased all her memories anyway #forherowngood, and she spent her last days roaming the land as an amnesiac, trying to reclaim something important that she couldn’t remember.

This curse forbids anyone in the Sakaki family from falling in love with a God or a demon. If they do, they will be gradually deprived of their five senses, until they finally become entirely cut off from the outside world. And for 1000 years everybody has abided by this rule... until Narumi. After Sakuya realised her feelings for him, she tried to confess to him, but got cockblocked left and right by Yakumo (who was probably used by Fate to stop her). Then she wrote him a love letter with hilarious spelling errors, and after he read it, he told her he felt the same way, but they could never be together. ;_;

‘Please be my weirdo.’

Narumi actually thought (mistakenly) that the curse will hurt her, but when Mikoto clarified that it will only affect him, he was immediately like, "LET'S FALL IN LOVE." XD ...It didn't take long for symptoms of the curse to manifest in him. He looked for ways to overcome it, and came to the hypothesis that the hoshimatsuri may be a test of the strength of their #lovebond vs #damnedcurse.

Near the end of the hoshimatsuri he was almost completely senile. So then Sakuya, who had been plotting her own #evilmasterplan all this time, couldn't take it anymore. She took him under the *magical tree* and planned to break their bond right there and then. But then Narumi was like STOP, WOMAN. At which point you have a choice whether to (a) accept his opinion or (b) ignore him because at this rate he's gonna turn into Ronald Reagan.

It sounds almost like she wants to challenge him to a bare-knuckle fistfight under this tree.

a. Good End: Well it turns out Sakuya didn't have to make this choice. While she's hesitating, Narumi kisses her to shut her mouth, and their love successfully overcomes the curse. One year later, Sakuya is being inducted into their shrine as a minister. They plan to go to religious university together to get their religious certification (can you tell I don't really know much about this lol),... and Narumi suddenly drops down one knee and asks for her hand.ヾ(｡>﹏<｡)ﾉﾞ✧*

b. Tragic End: Through a blizzard of... uhh... white light, Sakuya thanks him for the good times, before their memories are erased. A year later, she visits the shrine and sees him there doing chores. They don't recognise each other at all, but she suddenly gets a momentary flashback of their time together, and starts crying without knowing why. They part ways after exchanging some pleasantries. - This must be one of Otomate's favourite motifs, because it's a sad ending but still makes you feel warm and fuzzy, knowing that they are better off than the actual curse ending.

I feel this way about Life sometimes.

[Thoughts] Ugh, I cried so many times throughout the overall story/this route that I lost count (TдT). There's too many events to mention here, but the curse and its aftermath obvsly caused some kind of time warp, which transported Yorihito Jr. to the future to be mentored by Yorihito Sr. (the mascot statue of the shrine, who was actually modelled after Jr.'s likeness).

Also it's almost certain that Mikoto made Sakuya a Goddess to protect her and/or other people from something related to the curse, and it's just a matter of the rest of the routes enlightening us as to the links between the main characters and the past - who is a descendant of whom, and so on.

I like Narumi as a character, but the route felt like it dragged on needlessly, when he was trying to hide first the details about the curse and then his symptoms from Sakuya. Those things are pretty obvious to us (the player), so I couldn't help feeling a bit emotionally constipated impatient with him at times.

He does have his surprisingly candid moments, too, though. Like when Fuu-san teased them about being on a date and he just smoothly rolled with it (maybe because he thought at that time that they will never be together). And after he read Sakuya's letter, he told her he's always loved her, but they can't be together and he wouldn't tell her why. I can see why Sakuya got frustrated and went into WHYWHYWHYWHY mode after that. Guess it shows that, despite his usual maturity and poise, he's still only 17 and doesn't have the ability to manage both his own feelings and someone else's at the same time.

(On that count I think Yakumo actually manages things in a more adult way, even though he can appear rather mentally deficient at times.)

I wanna have ‘secret muscle training’ session with Yakumo-nii-san... if you get my meaning ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I also love the way that Narumi and Sakuya support each other. She comforts him after he failed at making takoyaki, and in turn he consoles and encourages her about the future goals form. They really feel like equals, it's not all one-sided 'big-brotherly duties' like her relationship with Yakumo. (I can't help talking about Yakumo here because I just love him (ノ｡・﹏・｡)ノ❤. But anyway, he'll get my special attention in a later post.)

One sweet discovery here is that Yuzuru(-senpai) might be a secret romantic. Just as Mikoto was about to repeat what he did 1000 years ago on Narumi and Sakuya, Yuzuru jumps in and is all like: STAHP, shouldn't you let these two choose for themselves? Aww. Assholes with a heart of gold are my favourite assholes in the world. (^o^)丿

#kami naru kimi to #otome #otome game #visual novel #idea factory #otomate #psp #sakurai takahiro

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bluh-bluh-liveblogging · 5 years

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Queer Eye - You Can’t Fix Ugly

Okay, to preface this: I don‘t like Reality TV. At all. I decided to put Queer Eye into my watchlist… because it was available, obviously queer and I‘d heard very good things about it.

I wanted to like this show, I really did! But going in, I was also very sure this was not going to be my kind of thing.

Hoo boy was I wrong about that!

Starting with the intro (just like the episode) I‘ve gotta say that I approve a helluva lot of all these rainbows and dancing guys. Very nice! The whole thing is very cute, very relatable, there‘s been a few faces and names. (Five, in fact, which I remember only because I know their group has been dubbed „Fab 5“ - they even put it on their number plate! How is that legal? I don‘t actually care!) How in hell is anybody supposed to remember so many people and faces though? Also, the intro seems a bit weirdly cut in some places? To match up their little speeches and give everyone equal screentime? Which is a good idea, but ends up a smidgen chaotic.

But it‘s VERY queer, VERY cute and I like the music! Introducing, then, the guy our actually very well put-together motley crew is out to fix! His routine and those interactions with the diner lady, as well as his own introduction itself, feel very staged. Then again, this IS a TV show. Everything is staged; it has to be.

It‘s both obvious that his daughter is the one who actually made Tom (yassss got the name) apply to this and she also seems to be the driving force behind this endeavour.

Then again, it‘s not like Tom himself doesn‘t realize he has a problem! He seems very willing to trust the Fab V with his life and it‘s sweet how he‘s looking forward to the new him! (Inciting factors for him wanting to change right now are… his grandson? Also his loneliness? And uh… him being too settled in his own routines and not knowing how to escape them? Let‘s see how that holds up later.)

Oh, that title-drop tho! They are not being subtle here! „You can‘t fix ugly“ seems to be set up as a statement that, at the same time is easily disproven and perceived by many to be true, making it an ambitious, great set-up for a first episode. Good job, show-runners! I also like the implication that by choosing to emphasise this statement as the one that needs to be torn out by the roots, they take a firm stance against letting genetic disposal (meaning something that one has no input in) dictate one‘s life and self-image. In the meantime, between fantastic shots of rural Georgia, the Gays are getting ready in the car – and I sense a theme here. To be fair, mostly because of all the car gifs that I‘ve seen on the internet. They can‘t possibly all come from this one episode. But still, I sense it in my bones.

Holy shit, I do love the ROMEOS! It‘s such a nice and self-humouring name! And I love how supportive all these old people are of the good dude. Is it too much to ask to have such a nice circle of friends to grow old with? Evidently not!

Just as evidently, they are also not afraid to give Tom shit, like, at all. They are brutally honest, in fact. And they do have very strong opinions on him needing to get his act together.

Why the constant reiteration of relationship issues, though? Isn‘t there another angle they could push? I mean, it‘s obvious that he‘s lonely and needs someone to share his life with and a girlfriend/wife would do him worlds of good… but why does EVERYONE instantly jump on that?

Seriously, jumping forward to the apartment inspection a bit, the main point every single person seems to consider is relationship and sex stuff. It does make me uncomfortable – not the relationship stuff itself, that‘s adorable, more that it‘s the one thing that, in the blink of an eye, becomes the focus of the whole episode. It‘s teased already, with the goal of the makeover being to make Tom a new and better Tom until the car show. Where he is going to take „a special person“. Maybe. But of course, there needs to be a tangible goal, to actually see some results. Aside from that, it is very cute to see the Gays play around with his stuff – Jonathan using the hair-dryer to blow his luscious locks around? And then picking out the… whatever that thing is supposed to be. A robe? Personally, I would probably murder anyone who‘d put their hands all over my stuff like that – but then again, that‘s what they were invited to do! It doesn‘t feel disrespectful either, the way they just have fun with his stuff and tease Tom about it. (To be honest, though, it was kind of surprisingly clean and everything? Except for the reclining chair of course, I do get why they were so grossed out by that thing… Not much of a revelation, then, that Tom had very little to do with the decoration of his own apartment. Which is obviously a problem! Hearing Tom talk, it is very obvious that he‘s never taken the time to shake off some of the influence his past relationships have had on him. Of course, you don‘t need to completely reinvent yourself once you break up with your partner; or the reverse. But even if Tom doesn‘t see it that way, he does tend to hang on to things that don‘t belong to his current life anymore. Having the Fab 5 rearrange his house will certainly help him have a space completely independent from past and evidently failed marriages…)

The pyjama was really cute though! I don‘t get why Tan jumped on it so viciously as a sex-killer – sure, it‘s NOT sexy, but it shows that the wearer doesn‘t hang on too much to a constructed self-image? Then again, Tom already radiated putting zero thought in his appearance at all times anyway. Good call, maybe. It is a pity that the dude doesn‘t take advantage of what he already possesses, though. Forgoing any kind of interesting in favour of comfortable and I‘m glad the Gays are there to show him that you can have both. (Even if that‘s the quintessential bisexual experience… shutting up, now!)

The skin care tips are very helpful and I like how they don‘t even give Tom a chance to blame everything on his lupus and instead show him ways to make flare-ups easier to circumvent and ease. And yeah, the beard does show potential. Not into it as much as Jonathan and Tan (?) seem to be, but… it`s good? Obviously a point of pride for Tom, too.

Oh, so that is what they meant with „culture“! Karamo is there for the psychological aspect of it all, for interpersonal relationships and the way he presents himself. Focussing on the dating website profile seems to make sense, then. Albeit the fact that it is rendered almost unimportant by the revelation occurring… in the kitchen?

How come the ONE conversation that didn‘t involve dating issues from the start derailed SO HARD into the big revelation? OF COURSE, after this there‘s no going back from that angle – the goal is now to woo a woman… that already loves him? And he loves her too?

Why the FUCK did they divorce though??? WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ABBY???

Very nice ending for the day: everybody tries the Redneck Margharita!

„Who doesn‘t love mountain dew? Who doesn‘t love margaritas?“

(Cue spluttering and dramatic puking noises)

„That shit was gross AF!“ Didn‘t think it was gonna be any good :/ All of the Fab 5 simultaneously screaming „you need to stop saying that“ whenever Tom‘s title-mantra comes up gives me life, btw. (Also, what DOES „snatched“ mean? Isn‘t it just like… SNATCHED? Help? Is there another secret slang meaning there?)

Second day! And they are ritually getting rid of The Chair, which, good for Tom! Very nice how they pulled this off!

Also great is how every bit of sexism and homophobia is addressed within seconds and murdered, but gently! It is both gratifying to see that being brought up in the show and very nice how Tom is willing to work on his attitude and internalized prejudices – a bit uncomfortable, but wholesome! Mattress shopping surely is not the most important thing in the world, but you sleep on those things every day… so you better get something that actually makes you feel good! Introducing the memory foam for back problems is very helpful and it‘s wonderful to see how much thought the Gays put into accommodating Tom‘s ailments – as they should! But back issues etc are not often approached with the care they demand and here, they are! Beautiful interactions between the Fab 5 themselves, too! The birth-reenactment was hilarious!

The vintage clothing store is looking good – great decoration and everything, but the best thing about this is that they‘re not actually buying much. Actually, the cap thingie might have been the only thing they bought? And it does make him look so much more sophisticated! It‘s really good that they‘re not replacing his whole wardrobe though – just giving him the means to shop for clothing that he‘ll look good in any time. (Everything is so cute!) (Isn‘t he wearing a reddish pink shirt right now? Wouldn‘t that also have to go into the „not your friend“-pile?) The makeover cleanses my soul. A new haircut! Better beard! All of this is such an upgrade and he looks so much better with just these relatively small changes! (Let‘s just hope he‘ll keep this up afterwards too?) Everybody complimenting him the second they lay eyes on him is both well-deserved and – repeating myself here – so very sweet. (I‘ll have to interrupt myself here, though – what. The fuck. Is going on with Antoni‘s smile? Who allowed him to have that??? Like, every single member of the Fab 5 is incredible. But this guy‘s smile? Divine. I don‘t do crushes on random celebrities – still don‘t – but hell if I didn‘t just fucking FALL IN LOVE with that smile. What even) The most interesting part by far is Karamo‘s, though – and it‘s comparably short, but holy hell if Tom ain‘t just calling Abby. Hoo boy, he‘s very forward and she seems to have no clue what‘s coming… aaaand she said yes! Awesome!

(Realistically, she must have signed all sorts of waivers to appear on this show and can‘t have been too surprised at what is happening here – but the conversation is also very short. Not a lot to analyze, there…) This point in the episode was when I felt a slight tinge in my cheekbones and realized that I was smiling; had been for a long time, actually. Thus began my descent into really loving this show that I so far have only seen one episode of. Oh well.

House reveal! House is amazing! Prepared Looks are amazing! The food, the body care, the beard care – everything is amazing! Tom‘s daughter reacting to all of that is just awwwww and my teeth are dissolving from all this sweetness! The grandson doesn‘t look too happy, but why would he?

Jonathan is just a reaction gif trapped in human form, I have no idea how many #relatable things he‘s said in this episode alone, but I believe that may be cuz it‘s been too many to count. ...and now everybody‘s crying, they‘re all saying goodbye – but there‘s still a fair chunk of the episode left? What… is going on? Of course! The car show! And of course, Tom has to do this alone, has to use the resources he‘s been given and prove his mettle!

Meanwhile, the Fab 5 are watching and commenting from afar. Golly, they can be mean though… I mean, yeah, there are a few hiccups with the outfit choice! (And the green stick thing. But he eventually found his nose!) In the end, though, BY GOLLY does Tom show that he hasn‘t forgotten everything. Even though he sticks with his most comfortable option. That‘s okay, buddy! Still need to have an ace in the sleeve for the next date(s)! That‘s the car show – is this the first time since his magical girl transformation that Tom actually meets his peers? They seem appropriately surprised and in awe. Every single one of these (tbf not that) old guys looks so happy to see their friend thrive and I‘m here for it! Holy crap, that‘s Abby! She‘s so pretty, what‘s up with that? Naaaawww that is cute. Gotta hand it to Tom, he may be incredibly unsubtle, but slick. Very slick.

Then again, as Abby, according to earlier in the episode, already loves him anyway, I don‘t think she requires that much persuasion? We‘ve got the upcoming dinner date and the „his and her“ space and it ends on a very positive note. All of this is culminating in Tom and Abby awkwardly getting closer – but the best thing?

The Fab 5 reacting to this ordeal! Why is this so lovely? Also, Antoni, put that smile away, I swear to all that is sparkly! (jk pls don‘t lol)

All in all, this first episode was surprisingly enjoyable, lovely to the nth degree and I think I might be addicted. Even the outro is a thing of beauty! Thanks for the concept explanation, the margarita tips and more impromptu dancing!

Actually, thanks for this whole show! I shall now scour the deepest edges of the internet for numerous flashes of Antoni‘s smile, and reappear to the surface only when but the grainiest snapshot remains untouched by my hungry eyes.

Goodnight.

#queer eye #fab 5 #gay #episode review #first episode #noooo but why is this so good #wanna watch more #this is my new comfort series #low effort watching #great satisfaction #very gay #very queer in general #in conclusion #absolute gem

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pixiedurango · 6 years

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30 days of John Standring - Writting challenge day 1

This is my contribution to @deepestfirefun ‘s marvelous writing challenge which starts today with the following tasks:

“I thought for a minute I was losing my sanity, but then realized it´s just you,”

“Is it suppose to look like this?”

I chose to write 30 days of John Standring (FRom Sparkhouse, one of Richard’s early roles) and I decided to go back and re-visit and explore/ expand the relationship of John and Meg which gently began to bloom in this oneshot

Enjoy!

John Standring was - in general - a fairly laid back bloke. Friendly per default and unlikely to be overly nervous over his every day life.

Until it came to women. In general. And especially to one in particular.

He always was nervous, almost anxious and shy when he was around women and he was learning just now that there probably was no reason to be.

Because he finally had a girlfriend. A real one. A woman to love and to spoil and she was more than worth every effort. Because she loved him back. Not like Carol once who only wanted to use him for his money and his utter fondness of her. But he realized it early enough before making a gravely mistake and taking her offer to marry him so he could sell his house to safe Sparkhouse for her. He had said no. Because he realized, almost too late, that there was something else. Someone else.

Meg might be an average girl. A 'girl-next-door' so to speak. In his case even literally. Because she owned the house next to him. They had been neighbors first, then friends and now lovers. His life was good.

Well, as long as he tried not to think about what was supposed to happen next weekend: They would travel to London. Meet her parents. And this was the point he realized that sometimes he might not be as laid back as he always imagined to be. Actually, John Standring was almost scared to death! But she did everything to cheer him up and help him keep his courage up.

She already had taken him to the barbershop and actually he began to ask himself why he hadn't gone for a decent haircut ages ago. Her eyes were bright and she couldn't stop smiling whenever she now looked at him. He would gladly walk behind her like a puppy to what ever shenanigans she had planned if she would keep that smile up forever. Proud and loving to be his and he barely could believe his luck when she walked the streets of Leeds with him, hand in hand, showing everybody that they belonged together, on their way to get him some clothes he could wear to London.

The high spirits inevitably lowered down when they left the third shop without having found anything suitable. Either too fancy or “not you!” as she more than once exclaimed and he finally hung his head as he mumbled in his thickest Yorkshire accent - which only happened when he was in some kind of emotionally turmoil.

“I'm hopeless, I'll find nowt around here. Or anywhere. You better travelin to London on yer own. Maybe better anyway. I'm flayed yer parents won't approve of me anyway.”

She looked surprised but finally realizing how anxious he still was about that weekend trip.

“John, darling...” She wrapped her arms around him as if to give him more strength and confidence through her touch alone. “I'm pretty sure they'll adore you just as much as I do. We don't have to continue shopping if you feel like I'm trying to dress you up. A pair of your clean jeans and once I ironed one of your shirts.... you'll be dashing!”

He actually blushed.

Dashing was about the last word he would ever come up with to describe himself. It was tempting to just go the easy way and accept her offer. Go home and be done with this unnerving matter. But where was the point of their trip to Leeds then? John Standring was – more than anything else – a man of pragmatism. And no one should say he was not bold.

“I guess there's no harm in actually looking for a pair of new britches... and some shirts... maybe? Since we're around anyway.”

“That's the spirit!” She merrily grabbed his elbow and he followed her into the next department store. In there she shoved him into the changing booth and pulled the curtains close. “Wait here and just try what I bring.” She giggled and he shook his head with a fond smile while he was already pulling down his worn out corduroy pants and pulled his sweatshirt over his head, waiting for her in his boxers a plain white t-shirt and his equally white tennis socks. Sometimes she was friendly mocking him a bit about his old fashioned underwear and he had come to think that maybe he should have a look at things a bit fancier. Not that he knew where to start but he was certain she would know.

He was musing how funny it was that things like that mattered all in a sudden and he decided that this might be love. Not feeling pushed to change but wanting to please the eye of the loved one and therefore ready to try something new.

John almost jumped when suddenly a mountain of fabrics in all possible colors appeared in his booth. When he had assembled himself again, with a laugh he grabbed for a good part of what ever she had brought and near giggled.

“I thought for a minute I was losing my sanity, but then realized it´s just you.” He exaggerated a bit for comical relief and took the rest of the clothes she had chosen for him to try. He pulled her into the booth with him. Before being with her he would have felt ashamed being seen by a woman (especially one he was fond of) in his underwear but Meg had changes everything. It was natural, being with her. No shame. And after all she was the one on who's opinion he had to rely here, rather to step out from the booth to be seen by everybody who was shopping in this department store in Leeds today.

And so he tried everything she was holding up to him and more than once he asked: “Is it supposed to look like this?” which always made her gigglesnort until they both were a giggling laughing mess. They made a happening of him trying on all the things and he felt free and happy like never before. Having her was the best thing ever happened to him and it was the easiest and most freeing thing in the world to just be a bit childish in front of the mirror while trying on new clothes.

And not so very surprisingly, after trying on what were easily about 3 dozen different combinations of all the stuff she had brought him, they happily could agree on a few pieces that looked all good together no matter how he would put them together.

Each a pair of fashionable khaki and black pants, a blue jeans, three shirts white, black and dark blue, a jumper and a cardigan which by no means looked like the cardigans he had known from his grandpa and t-shirts in black and gray.

“Is that alright love? It's quite a bunch?” She asked with a caring frown. “Please take only the things you really like. Not because I chose them.“

John gently shook his head and placed a soft kiss on her forehead to counter her frown.

“Actually, I like them all and could not possibly chose what to leave behind. I'm happy when you are happy. And since we are already on it, we may stop at the socks and undies and look for a few new things there, too?”

And as if to prove how very necessary that was he was waggling his toes in his horrid white tennis socks.

#30 days writing challenge by deepestfirefun #John Standring #Richard Armitage #Sparkhouse

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

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Below are the Top 10 executive orders Joe Biden could sign, benefiting all Americans… even without help from the intellectually impoverished crocodiles.

The American Prospect has published numerous articles on these possible executive actions. I’m not going to focus on whether Biden will do these things (he won’t), but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt (he won’t do them) since he hasn’t even settled into the office yet (he totally won’t do any of this) and no one can know for sure what he’ll choose to do (not a chance). Maybe he’ll be awesome! (Nope.)

1. Joe Biden could start by protecting all immigrants.

Immigrants are some of the people struggling the most during this pandemic. There’s a provision in our laws called Temporary Protected Status, which allows an immigrant to stay here without fear of deportation, and considering how they’ve been treated over the past four years, I think they could use a break. Can we please give them a second to catch their breath before the next round of good ol’ American xenophobic bigoted hatred towards people who are even slightly different? (Hell, if you just have a different haircut we might put you in a cage and give your kids away to a group of Guatemalan paramilitary drug runners.)

As Marcia Brown writes “[Temporary Protected Status] is a blanket protection offered to a country’s nationals who have experienced a natural disaster such as hurricane or earthquake, civil war, or other extraordinary circumstances.”

Hmmm, a natural disaster you say? Oh, they mean like a fucking pandemic. Between the pandemic, U.S. bombing overseas, U.S. economic sanctions, climate change, and auto-tune —pretty much every country in the world right now is experiencing some kind of disaster. …Except Finland. (But they weren’t immigrating here anyway. You don’t hear a lot of Finnish people saying, “Is there a place I can move to where I could pay tens of thousands of dollars for healthcare, pay way more for education, and if I have a baby, be forced to strap it to my chest while I continue to load Chicken McNugget goo into the meat squirter because there’s no maternity leave? There IS such a magical land?!”)

Point is – Joe Biden could give Temporary Protected Status to every immigrant in the country immediately without congressional approval.

2. Next up, Biden could end the War on Terror.

That’s right. Congress gave up its war powers long ago. So Biden, all by himself, could end the War on Terror. Afterall, this “war” (against an emotion) made no sense from the beginning, and it has killed millions, made America less secure by making us despised worldwide, and has always been unconstitutional.

So, the most law-abiding, sweet, kindly, heroic thing Mr. Biden could do is end this evil, villainous, dastardly, dark, depraved, morally repulsive, vulgar, nefarious, malignant, malicious, poisonous, and poopy ENDLESS WAR! …Not that I have an opinion either way. Just an idea.

3. Next – the new president could give us tuition-free college without Congress.

As the American Prospect covered, “Michael Dannenberg, a former senior aide to the late Senator Ted Kennedy, asserts that Biden can use existing statutory authority to forgive loans equal to average public-college tuition on a rolling basis for two- and four-year public colleges, effectively making college free.”

And guess what — having more educated citizens without debt means a better society in general. If your neighborhood isn’t educated, the people often can’t make a good living, and then the neighborhood goes into disrepair — which is when the crooks and the head-bangers and the con-men and the witch whisperers show up. And before you know it your little girl has lost her mind virginity to a charlatan ridin’ around in a crank mobile! (We’ve all seen it happen.)

But rather than attacking student debt, it seems Biden and his allies are slowly decreasing the amount of student debt they say they plan to erase. First they said everything under $50,000, then $25,000, and now it’s $10,000 and under. Pretty soon Biden will proudly unveil his plan to erase $13 of student debt for every American and send us each a free coupon for Hamburger Helper.

So with just three executive orders, Biden could end war, save all the immigrants, and end student debt — not bad for before breakfast. On the other hand, my executive orders usually just stipulate that my cat can’t eat my sandwiches anymore, and they hold very little power.

Let’s move on to ending poverty. Poverty is of course raging out of the control right now, with millions facing eviction and Americans waiting hours at food banks. So, what could Joe Biden do without Congress to get more people the assistance they need?

Change the definition of poverty.

I’m not kidding. People who are below the poverty line qualify for a lot of benefits like food stamps, health care, and affordable housing. Trump was trying to alter the poverty measure so fewer people would be considered truly poor and he could then announce, “Look, I got rid of poverty!” It would be like a hospital saying they got rid of broken legs, and then we find out they simply re-designated broken legs as “surprise moments of bone realignment.”

4. So if Joe Biden wanted to, he could do the reverse and give millions of poor people the benefits they need.

“The Official Poverty Measure (OPM), based on an outdated calculation designed 60 years ago, is absurdly low. …Today, the federal poverty threshold for a family of three is $20,578. …on day one, the incoming Biden administration can drop the OPM entirely and alter poverty measurement so that it better reflects need…” This would make loads of benefits (and perhaps even shit loads) available for people who are struggling.

Anyway, in the interest of avoiding making this column as long as the stimulus bill, here are several more actions Biden could take without Congress.

5. He could stop massive corporations from using tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes.

6. He could close Guantanamo Bay. (Remember that?!)

7. He could give a $15 minimum wage to all federal contract employees.

8. He could end federal prosecutions for marijuana.

9. He could make us all much safer from nuclear weapons.

And finally, here’s the icing on the cake. The recent fight to force a vote on Medicare For All has captured the interest and energy of many progressives.

10. Well, it turns out Joe Biden could himself give everyone Medicare For All right now.

According to David Dayen, he could do it using “…Section 1881A of the Social Security Act. The language of the statute refers to any individuals subject to an ‘environmental exposure,’…” and it says that the Department of Health and Human Services can stipulate that such people get a single-payer Medicare For All type system.

Has this ever happened in the U.S.? Has a whole area simply been given Medicare For All by proclamation from the gilded towers of our federal government? I’m glad you asked! Libby, Montana: Population 2,628 has already — wait, sorry, just refreshed the page — Population 2,627. (A kid ate a Matchbox car.)

Libby, Montana, has Medicare For All because the entire community has been exposed to airborne asbestos thanks to mining in the area. Therefore, Health and Human Services secured them Medicare For All. Shall we now take a moment to ponder whether there are other Americans who have been exposed to hazardous chemicals or diseases recently?

Allow me to think for a moment — wait for it — Oh, that’s right, everyone!

We’re in a fucking pandemic — we’ve all been exposed. Biden could give everyone healthcare, allowing us to join the rest of the developed world. And even without the pandemic, Biden could still give most Americans healthcare for other exposures — Los Angeles’ smog, the cancerous Roundup herbicide sprayed all over New York City (which lawmakers recently voted to ban), cities near fracking wells or coal mines or oil spills or how about the 2,000 cities across the U.S. that have excessive lead levels, or everybody exposed to auto-tune. Biden could give all of us healthcare right now — No excuses, no dickin’ around, no tomfoolery, no malarkey, and no funny stuff.

Give – Every – American – Free – Healthcare – Now.

So those are the Top 10 actions Biden could take without getting anywhere near the dumb-dumb crocodile swamp known as Congress. …But he won’t.

Unless he fears that the people will stand up and fight back.

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loki-of-war · 6 years

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On the future of TWD

(EDIT: Reposting due to a formatting error)

So I’ve seen a lot of people commenting and sharing their opinions lately on how Chandler’s departure will affect the show, if it will survive this hit or not, for how many seasons more will TWD run, etc, etc. And I decided, now that I’m thinking more rationally (I hope) and I’m able to form understandable sentences, to share my honest thoughts with you lovely people on this entire mess.

Which is as follows: I give the show a minimum lifespan of ten seasons (meaning, the show will end in two more seasons) and a maximum of twelve seasons in total. This is my verdict, feel free to disagree with me.

Now onto explaining why I think this is so:

I can sort of see why old fans who left and people who have never liked Carl or feel lukewarm about him are happy this death is going to happen. But on the other side I'm thinking this kind of mentality is the reason why the show gets away with terrible decisions and why they keep making them over and over, declining in quality. I don't think it's right to condone mediocrity; this is from someone like me who has stayed on the TWD's side so far hoping they'd find the right footing at some point this season (then, obviously, because why wouldn’t they, my patience and tolerance was rewarded with this haha). And as I mentioned in a previous comment I made on YT, no matter what the public's feelings for Carl are, they won't change the importance of his role in the plot and his fundamental connection to Rick (this latter element has an effect on the whole cast, for better or for worse).

But anyway, Carl's death is going to change the entire mood of the series from now on so it definitely will never be as it once was and I think because of that the story will slowly bleed out. I mean, Carl has been the greatest determinator for every single one of Rick's decisions the entire show, and not only that but what he symbolised as a character, the hope for a better future, is gone now. What do children, sons, daughters, symbolise in every universal story? The next generation, what comes after, that not everything is going to be screwed up forever; especially after seeing how unmerciful TWD's world has proven to be for children and having Carl be the only exception to this 'kids cannot survive this world' rule has sort of become a moot point thanks to the...current circumstances.

Rick's and Lori's speeches to Carl in seasons 2 and 3 respectively justify this way of thinking: that after everyone from their generation (the adults) dies, Carl will have to take the reins and move on. I refuse to believe any writer with common sense would write such important pieces of dialogue just because they felt like it, just because they're emotional words without any other kind of meaning behind them. That is just lazy and awful writing in my opinion. Why write these poignant moments only to have the kid killed long before the end of the series? Why write/do anything if those things are going to be ignored later down the line, nevermind that every piece in a story must connect with the others? Why bother teaching him this morality lessons if they're all going to go to waste anyway; if he will never have a character arc/storyline that is plot relevant where his morals are challenged? (Good on you, whoever made the call, for missing out on possible great storylines for Carl that would have improved viewing and the quality of the show). That doesn't make a bit of sense, unless that what they were looking for was to give the events leading up to his sudden death some twist of irony, and that'd be perfect and all, except that Carl dying was so not part of the plan (the improvisation is so obvious it hurts me in the balls I don't have) and even the way his death was set up was graceless-the bite- and not something one would expect from the same people who made/directed/wrote/produced Season 4. In other words, killing him was basically flipping off the idea of a future in the face, whether they meant to do that or not, and this is bound to turn the overall mood the series to a much grim and darker tone to an already heavy themed and toned series. Many people won't find themselves too content with that heavier tonal change, I think, if the ratings for season 7 are to be trusted.

Ignoring that the conclusion to this was having him die though, I do have to say the actual set up in the mid season finale itself was beautiful and emotional (Chandler's acting was on point, he was the star of this episode), but the chain of actions leading up to it was lackluster. With lackluster I mean that he is a very important character that has literally been wasted for far too long; if you look at his progression throughout the seasons you'll realize he has not done much from a plot perspective despite being a main character. Therefore, his death feels unsatisfactory and empty because one can't help but feel that he hasn't nearly done as much as he should have. What he did to save his people in the mid season finale was amazing but it wasn't enough to make up for a notorious lack of screen time over full eight seasons, moreover if the motivations that drove him to that point, to that mentality, to that philosophy, don't make sense because his personality has made a one eighty from how he was the previous season with no type of prior explanation as to why that happened.

It may not seem like it but I'm actually a huge fan of angst and favorite-character-slaughter. I love when books, music, movies, videogames, series make me suffer (great examples of this are my undying love for Hannibal the tv show and that my favorite videogames are the ones directed by this one man, life destroyer actually, called Yoko Taro). Perhaps that is another reason why I'm being so critical with the choice to kill Carl (asides from the horrible decision-making and poor writing), because I love being hit in the feels in the best way possible, without holding back any punches, just go straight for the kill and make me cry like a newborn. However, I don't like tragedy when it's done for shock value, or when it's done simple-mindedly. If a favorite character of mine is going down, it has to make sense and they must have had filled out their purpose in the story, reached a state of character development we're all satisfied with so that when they die one can accept it and be happy despite the possible trauma that could ensue after (well, one can't exactly pin point when that happens, when enough is enough, but to have had the character embark on a lot of adventures even without them accomplishing their purpose, is enough to embrace their death). I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that, while on one hand I would have preferred him outliving everybody else, if they were still so adamant on having him die at some point of the story (as if killing Carl had actually been part of a long term plan and not some last minute decision) they should have developed him first and foremost, and then assign him a proper death in later seasons, most preferably before the last season ends given that him dying before Rick is several different levels of wrong; if he wasn't such a huge part of Rick's character then fine, do it, but putting and end to him is equal to neutralizing Rick for literally years, which is time that both a comic and a tv show cannot afford, so to do it near the end of everything would be a better fit.

And, I don't know, even having Judith fill the void won't be of much help either, because we haven’t and we won't see her grow the same way we did Carl, her relationship with Rick will be vastly different, and so on. Probably this is just me but I'm not really attached to her; Judith so far is to me only a concept and not actually a person (yet). The fact that they keep changing the little baby girls who portray her doesn't really help, that gets me out of the story everytime. She just can't replace Carl, she might take his future storylines but it won't be the same. Besides, by the time she grows up, she’ll already be deep into this world, this is her normal life and probably by that time things will have changed.

So basically, not only in killing Carl they destroyed the image of a future, they have killed a foundational part of the essence that made The Walking Dead be The Walking Dead we all knew and loved, and that will never return. Also, allow me to point out that for those who think that The Walking Dead is about people dying whenever and wherever, and the cruel injustice that is life, I am not going to say that your interpretation is wrong but it is an incomplete one. The audience doesn’t watch TWD only to see tons of MC’s get murdered on a daily basis. Otherwise, why bother with investing time on a plot and just have them all killed at once. The soul of TWD is not about senseless killing and murder and tragedy and sadness. Simplifying it all to ‘this show is about the possibility of anybody dying/gore/zombies/etc’ is a great disservice to the show and the fans. Obviously, I am not neither the writer of the show or Robert Kirkman to claim to know to a T what the central theme of The Walking Dead is, and for full disclosure I have not read the comics. Nonetheless, basing my personal opinion on the tv show alone, I would like to think one of the core themes the show has explored and returns to time and time again is the topic in regards to the essence of human nature, and how in spite of apparent doom and the horrible circumstances we are forced to face, humans will always find the way to move forwards and stay strong, ergo, the message is a positive one, not a negative one, depressing, nihilistic one. And what better character to portray this versatility of human nature, this capacity for change, other than Carl Grimes, a child of transition, a child who was pulled out of his normal childhood and thrown right into the chaos of the apocalypse? A boy who has witnessed inhumane things, horrible things, has killed his mother, his second father figure, has done awful things himself, has always been toeing the line between right and wrong, cruel and kind, because of all the experiences he has had to process in a very short period of time? He was obligated to grow in a decaying world, watching his father and the ones surroundind him make mistakes, learning from them, evolving, seeing close ones die, starving, surviving insane experiences... If someone like that manages to grow in such a hostile environment and still remains true to himself and still has not lost faith in the world and humanity, and keeps close all the meaningful, important things his family and friends told him in the course of his entire life and not only that, but also applies them... What does that mean for you, to you? What does it mean for us? What does it say about human nature that hasn’t been told before or not quite in this manner?

Well, that is the point. I guess we will never get to find out in the Tv Show the answer to those questions. Regrettably.

If, and just if, the show manages to recover from this point onwards, I still have no idea how I'd feel about having the show thrive on the tails of throwing under the bus such a key character with no legitimate reasons behind the choice (don't even get me started on what they've done to poor Chandler). I'll still watch the show but I would be incredibly uncomfortable if that is how it turns out to be.

Finally, I apologize for any grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing you may find, it’s way too late to be doing such a long post and English is not my main language. Please don’t be afraid or feel awkward about replying to this post, even if it’s to hate on it. I really don’t mind having a long conversation about this topic with you all since I’ve literally been dying since Sunday night to discuss it.

Thank you so much for reading!

#twd #the walking dead #Carl Grimes #Rick Grimes #Chandler Riggs #Andrew Lincoln #Michonne #Danai Gurira #Negan #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #season 8 #twd s8 #scott gimple #amc

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lady-divine-writes · 7 years

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Klaine one-shot - “Not a Warlock” (Rated PG13)

Kurt and Blaine's son Tracy has a unique request for what he wants to be for Halloween, which Kurt is more than happy to help him with, but it ends up coming with some unexpected stress ... and an equally unexpected revelation on Kurt's part. (2469 words)

A/N: Tis the season once again. I'm feeling a little Halloween-y so I thought I would post this. This is also a re-write. Let me know what you think <3

Read on AO3.

“What an adorable little warlock!”

Kurt sighs to himself. It’s the first comment that they’ve gotten so far, but they’re only at the first house on the block. Kurt knows it’s not going to be the last.

“Actually” - Kurt puts his hands protectively on his son’s shoulders, preparing to deflect whatever unintendedly offensive remark his explanation might garner - “he’s dressed as a witch this year for Halloween. Not a warlock.”

“Oh?” The woman at the door, holding a bowl filled with Butterfingers (Tracy’s absolute favorite candy in the world), sizes the little boy up and down. Kurt’s son stands patiently on the woman’s doorstep dressed in a black, ankle-length gown that Kurt designed and made; holding an authentically-styled besom, which Kurt and Tracy made together using twigs they’d gathered in their front yard. Kurt spent close to an hour doing Tracy’s makeup, covering the boy’s skin with green face paint, shading his cheeks and eyes black to make his chubby, cherubic boy sinister (which didn’t work too well since Tracy’s natural cuteness prevailed against Kurt’s makeup mastery). Kurt even fashioned a hooked nose prosthetic and wart from liquid latex. Kurt went through all of this in the hopes that Tracy would look undeniably and unmistakably like a witch, a la Idina Menzel from Wicked. But, apparently, it didn’t work as well as he thought. “But, aren’t male witches traditionally called warlocks?”

“Maybe,” Kurt says, keeping his voice bright and his disposition cheery for as long as he can before he’s forced to call on his inner papa bear for reinforcements, “but Tracy decided he wanted to be a witch for Halloween, so that’s what he is.”

“Yup,” Tracy says proudly, holding his bag up for a piece of candy, “and Hepburn is my animal familiar.” Tracy looks over his raised arm at the Ander-Hummel’s pet Labradoodle sitting obediently beside him. The woman’s eyes follow. She raises a brow at the off-white colored dog. Tracy leans in close to the lady putting two bars of chocolate in his bag. “We were going to dress him up as a cat, but I thought that might be a little mean. You know … because he’s a dog.”

“Gotcha.” The woman gives Tracy a wink that, thankfully, looks genuine. “Well, you definitely have my vote for best witch costume this year. Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween!” Kurt smiles, steering Tracy down the street. He breathes a sigh of relief, but it doesn’t calm him. They’ve just started their route. They still have about three blocks of houses to go.

And each one goes about the way Kurt pictured it.

Knock-knock.

“Trick or Treat!”

“What an adorable warlock!”

“I’m a witch.”

“He’s a witch.”

“But isn’t a male witch called a warlock?”

“Normally, I suppose, but this year Tracy wanted to be a witch. So, he’s a witch. Trick or Treat!”

Knock-knock.

“Trick or Treat!”

“Look at the cute war---“

“Witch. He’s a witch.”

“I’m a witch.”

“But, aren’t male witches…”

“Still a witch. Happy Halloween!”

Knock-knock.

“Trick or Treat!”

“Oh, Tracy! What an inspired little warlock---“

“Witch! He’s a witch He’s dressed as a witch this year, not a warlock! A witch!” There’s an awkward moment of quiet staring between Kurt and the matronly lady at the front door. His smile, about as fake as his exhausted, twitchy lips can form, somehow grows to meet the lines wrinkling his stressed brow. “Happy Halloween!”

By the twenty-fifth house, Kurt’s face is frozen with strain. He’s smiling too tight and grinding his teeth. Before people open their mouths to say anything about his son’s costume, Kurt barks out, “Witch! He’s a witch. Not a warlock, but a witch! He wanted to be a witch, so he’s a witch! Got it? Trick or Treat!”

If Blaine was going door-to-door with them instead of manning their own front door with a bowl of full-sized Snickers, he would joke that people are giving Tracy two candy bars instead of the requisite one (which they are) not because he’s so damn adorable (which he is) but because they want crazy-eyes Kurt Ander-Hummel to go away and not come back later in the night to torch their houses.

Knock-knock.

“Trick or Treat!”

“Oh, Tracy!” Mrs. Henderson, one of their older neighbors, with a son already grown and gone, puts a slightly shaking hand to her lips as she gets a good look at the beaming boy on her doorstep. “Don’t you make the sweetest little---“

“Witch!” Kurt cuts in, his reaction a reflex by now. “He’s a witch!”

Mrs. Henderson stares at Kurt, wide-eyed with surprise, but aims a delighted smile at Tracy.

“I was just about to say what a smart little witch you make, Tracy,” she says. “And what a bold costume choice.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Henderson,” Tracy says, rolling on his heels and waiting patiently for his candy.

“You know, when my Artie was seven, he wanted to be Malibu Barbie for Halloween.”

Kurt’s stiff veneer, crackling along the edges, softens at the green-eyed woman addressing his little boy.

“Really?” Kurt asks, astonished.

“Yup. He’d made up his mind the second those dolls hit the shelves, and asked me for a costume every day after that. Told everyone we knew about it. Even told people on the street he’d just met.”

“Why did he want to be Barbie so badly?” Kurt asks, relaxing enough to lean against the doorframe, no longer gearing up for an argument.

“Well, look at her!” Mrs. Henderson chuckles. “She had a dream house, a Corvette, she was a doctor, went to the moon, flew a plane, she was even president!”

“True,” Kurt agrees, surprised that he’d never thought of it that way. With the way people always cry out to ban Barbie for promoting an unhealthy body image, Kurt had overlooked all of the positive things Barbie has done in her life, things little girls (and boys) should be encouraged to try and do.

The conversation pauses while Mrs. Henderson reaches for a treat for Tracy, the inevitable question hanging in the air, but Kurt feels like a hypocrite for considering asking it.

“My Artie isn’t homosexual,” Mrs. Henderson says, answering the question anyway, as if she knew that’s what Kurt was waiting for. She tucks a homemade popcorn ball and a Three Musketeers into Tracy’s bag. “But that wouldn’t have mattered. Barbie is a role model as far as I’m concerned, and I felt there was nothing wrong with it. Other people” – She shrugs – “well, you know what they say about opinions and butt holes.”

“Mrs. Henderson!” Tracy exclaims with a giggle.

“Yeah, I know.” Kurt laughs. “So, what did you do?”

“Well, I made him two costumes that year. I made him a Malibu Barbie costume - the gold swimsuit with a pink cover-up shirt that ties in the front, and a big blonde wig. But I also made him a Superman costume with a cape and …” Mrs. Henderson shakes her head. “You know, in the end I knew which one he was going to pick, so I put extra time and effort into it.”

“Which one was he?” Tracy asks. Kurt inches forward, on the edge of his seat.

Mrs. Henderson puts a finger up, reaching out to a shelf by the door for a photo album. She flips a few pages, then shows Kurt and Tracy a photograph of a smiling boy in a blonde wig, wearing a gold bathing suit with a pink cover-up.

“Oh my goodness!” Kurt chuckles. “He looks adorable!”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Henderson says, holding the album lower for Tracy to see. “You know, there were three other children dressed as Barbie that year, but he was the cutest. Everyone said so.”

“Where’s that costume now?”

“Artie’s daughter wore it for Halloween a few years back,” she says, returning the album to its shelf. “This year she wanted to be Cobra from G.I. Joe, and you know, no one gave her any grief about it. Most people think it’s cute, her being a fan of boy things.”

Kurt nods. “Strange, huh?”

“Meh.” The older woman waves a hand in front of her face. “It seems to be the way of human beings to try and stick everybody in a little box with their name on it, and three lines maximum saying who they are, but there’s only one time in your life you should ever let that happen, and even then, make sure you approve of the summary.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, catching her meaning. He remembers his mom and dad both saying something similar when he was growing up. It’s still excellent advice. “Good night, Mrs. Henderson. Thanks so much for everything.”

“Yup,” Tracy agrees, happy to move on since most of the conversation had started going over his head. “Your popcorn balls are the best!”

“I’m glad you like them. Have a safe night.” She sends Kurt and Tracy off with a final wave, then closes her door, and the smile on Kurt’s face starts to look a little less manic.

***

“Okay” - Blaine climbs under the comforter with his worn-out husband, already in bed and reading a magazine - “I got the story from the munchkin while I was tucking him in. Now you tell me - how did it go?”

“About sixty/forty.” Kurt closes his magazine and sets it aside. “But to tell you the truth, by the time we reached our last house, I began to realize that most of the stress of the evening was on me. Nobody was trying to be mean to Tracy or make him feel bad about his costume. It just needed a little explaining. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Did you see the look on his face when he got home?” Blaine lays with his head in Kurt’s lap. “If anyone did give him the evil eye, I don’t think he noticed one way or the other.”

“They didn’t,” Kurt reassures him.

“That’s good,” Blaine says with a they better not have or else expression on his face.

“That’s because we live in a nice, polite, mostly tolerant, sheltered little hamlet,” Kurt says. “We might have our differences with a few of our neighbors, but for the most part, they’re decent people.”

“Does the include Mrs. Sebiane?” Blaine raises his eyebrows playfully, waiting for the rant he knows is coming.

“Okay” - Kurt starts, talking mostly with his hands - “I mean, I love butterscotch chips as much as the next person, but please! They shouldn’t go in everything!”

“She says it’s her secret ingredient.”

“Yeah, well, FYI, it isn’t a secret, especially when everything she bakes comes out puke orange!”

“Oh, God! That image is going to be burned into my eyes forever!”

Kurt crosses his arms, grazing his husband’s nose with his elbow, but Blaine stays put. Horizontal with his head in his husband’s lap is one of Blaine’s favorite positions in the world. But right before Blaine’s eyes, the fire in Kurt’s expression dims, and an overall look of tired returns to his face.

“Blaine?” Kurt stares at the wall when he speaks, at the pictures hanging there of their little family – Blaine and Kurt on their wedding day, Tracy on the first day of school, his father and Carole from last Christmas, old pictures of Finn from way back in high school. His eyes land on those and stay there, on pictures taken in the choir room, the auditorium, the gym – places he considered both home and hell for him. “Is it awful that I hope that Tracy … isn’t gay?”

Blaine sighs. He saw this coming, and not just because of tonight. It’s been weaving its way into the background of many of their recent conversations with regard to their son. The moment Tracy asked Kurt if he could be a witch for Halloween, at the start of the school year when his class started reading selections by Roald Dahl, Blaine had seen something foreign in Kurt’s eyes, something Kurt wasn’t talking about, something Blaine himself had never even thought to consider.

“No,” Blaine says, taking his husband’s hand, “it’s not awful, sweetheart. It’s understandable. You don’t want him to have problems. You don’t want him to get bullied the way we did – Slushied in the face or beaten up outside of a school dance. You don’t want people to make the choice to hate him without getting to know him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“If the world were just a little bit different …” Kurt starts, but a sniffle stalls his progress.

“I know.” Blaine kisses Kurt’s soft skin. “And it’s Tracy’s generation that has to carry the burden of making it different. I mean, you and I, and the generation after us, we’re doing what we can, but I’m not sure it’s going to be what it needs to be when the time comes.”

“That’s part of what I’m afraid of,” Kurt admits in a shaky voice. “I catch myself praying that if he is gay, he changes, not the world, and I …” Kurt’s words bleed into a nervous laugh “… I kind of hate myself for it.”

“Hey” - Blaine sits up, pulling his husband into his arms and rocking him gently - “it’s okay. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I mean, isn’t that my job?” Blaine bounces his eyebrows, and Kurt chuckles at his husband’s weak attempt at raunchy humor.

“You’re not doing it very well if I’m thinking about all this heavy stuff.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Blaine says, kissing his husband on the forehead. “You’d be a fool if you weren’t. But the important thing is that if Tracy ever does come to us and tell us that he’s gay, or bi, or pan, or ace, or trans, or anything else under the sun, that we’re the most loving, supportive parents we can be, right? We should live in the kind of world that accepts our son no matter what, not the kind he needs to change to live in, but … that’s not reality.”

“I know,” Kurt says. “We have to roll with the punches, and be prepared to handle the big issues when the time comes.”

Blaine runs a hand through his husband’s hair, cradling his cheek when his palm brushes against it. “No one said being parents would be easy.”

“You’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” Blaine chuckles. “It happens quite a bit. You always sound so surprised.”

Kurt shakes his head. “How did you get to be so smart, and compassionate, and know the perfect thing to say all the time?”

“I lucked out.”

“Genetics?”

Blaine squeezes his husband tight. “Nope. I married the smartest, most compassionate man I’ve ever met, and he’s been rubbing off on me ever since.”

#klaine fanfiction #klaine #klaine fic #Frankie writes

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quicksilverslover · 7 years

Text

Say Freeze! - Peter Maximoff x Reader

I can’t believe I had to rewrite this. Goddamit. Anyway, I tried. I swear I tried. @galacyan, I did. But... No ;-; Err, enjoy the fluffiness, or not :’^)

Words: 1086

Y/N couldn’t understand why everybody thought she was a cold hearted bitch. Well, it could be because of her mutation; she could freeze pretty much anything, both connotatively and literally, including time. It could also be because, not so long ago, she was the “villain” and attempted to kill the X-Men simply because they tried to convince her that the world wasn’t the hellhole she was used to. But she had been just scared. It didn’t take long for her to accept their (more like Quicksilver’s) offer to live in the mansion and start a new life. It was way easier than to spend years running away from the authorities, but Y/N knew she wasn’t 100% welcome in the mansion either. Except for one specific speedster, whom, even though knew the atrocities she did in the past, accepted her fully.

Charles Xavier had the opinion that Y/N was equal to Erik in many aspects. She didn’t have a noble past, and that, added to such a powerful mutation, contributed to her difficulty to social acceptance. He had been wary about her himself, at first, under the premise that she was a killer, but after a few missions and reports from the X-Men about the girl’s deeds and Jean’s mind-reading, his wisdom allowed him to conclude she Y/N needed help. Therefore, he provided it to her. Yet, he would never guessed Peter Maximoff was the one who would melt her heart. In many ways.

Jean could see Peter was head over heels for the rimy woman, since the very beginning. Actually, his entire circle of friends could tell that, and teased him about it. He denied it to the ends of the Earth, but could never hide the smile at simply thought of her. The redheaded telekinetic was the most observant one. There was no need to read Peter’s mind to know he was probably having a not innocent thought about Y/N, or just recalling memories he had with her about the months she’d been there. And it was all reciprocal.

Peter, indeed, doted on Y/N. She made him feel special, and made sure to thank him every day for what he had done for her. They had developed a special friendship and the most surprising to Peter about the ice controller was to find out she wasn’t bad tempered, egocentric or even a sadist, like he originally had thought. Y/N was actually a sweet and warm person to be around, even though not physically. He found himself seeking to be around her, and wanting to do everything with her. Hanging out, pranking, watching movies…

Y/N found in Peter someone who saved her from the world and from herself, by caring about her. She didn’t have to pretend anything. She could be herself, and only the cute speedster knew this side. People assumed that, because of her mutation, she was cruel and cold no matter what. She didn’t blame them, of course, but they could at least get to know her, like Peter did.

Whatever. He was everything she needed.

“I’m gonna ask her out.” The gust of wind hadn’t even weakened the blow on Jean’s hair when she heard Peter say that. She slowly looked up from her book with a sweet smile. “About time.” She raised an eyebrow as he tapped his foot on the ground, it made her uncomfortable due to his speed. “What?” Jean asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“I’m nervous, alright? What if she sees me just as a friend? Or worse, what if she sees me just as the guy who helped through her shit?!” The silver haired man swallowed hard and ran a hand over his hair. His brain began to make up many scenarios of Y/N rejecting him, from gentle to rough. Jean’s head began to ache as she tried to keep up with his thoughts.

“That’s stupid, Peter. Besides, being the guy who ‘helped her through her shit’ means everything to her. You mean everything to her, trust me. She’s in the library.” She crossed her arms against her chest Peter decided not to bother his friend anymore, and left in a blur. He took his time to gain courage before meeting Y/N.

The low temperature didn’t bother him. It was the sign he needed to know she was there. And no mistake, there was Y/N, diverting her gaze from the ice statue she was working on and sending him a smile, which he returned. It became a grin once he noticed it was a small version of him.

“Y/N… Hey. Pretty cool. ‘Cause it’s me and such. Yeah~” He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. ‘Dammit, you loser, it’s not that difficult!’ he kept telling himself, but her mere voice was enough to put an end to his senses. “I’m… So glad you like it, Pete. It’s for you.” The look of glee for his acceptance and the blush on her cheeks made any coherence left on Peter’s head fly out the window. Suddenly, his lips pressed her cold ones. Just as fast, he pulled away and started mumbling thousands of words per second, not giving Y/N any chances to react.

“I’m sorry!! I didn’t mean to do that but you just looked so adorable now, I actually came here to ask you out but then you made this for me and I just realized I’m in love with you and I want to ask for a chance so please at least go out with me before saying no-“ She cut him off with a deep kiss, wrapping her arms around Peter’s neck. He reacted quickly as always, placing two bold hands on her waist and pulling her closer to his body. Their make out session became impetuous, and they only stopped to breathe. Even though it was cold inside the library, they felt hot.

“I love you.” She whispered against his lips, biting the lower one.

This kind of memory often showed up in Peter’s mind and made him smile to himself. He opened his eyes and found his significant other sitting next to him, playing with ice and creating small snowmen around them. They smiled and waved at Peter under her command. He kissed her jaw and she giggled, brushing her lips on his and meeting his gaze finally. Her icy blue eyes were full of love and adoration (not different from his).

How could not everyone see the humanity in her?

Whatever. She was everything he needed.

:’) Thanks for reading!

My other imagine: “Can I Borrow Your Shirt?”

There could or not be a part 2, idk~

#peter maximoff #peter maximoff x reader #peter maximoff imagine #evan peters #evan peters x reader #evan peters imagine #quicksilver #quicksilver x reader #quicksilver imagine #pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff x reader #pietro maximoff imagine #peter maximoff fanfiction #quicksilver fanfiction

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