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#but nah colored pencils are the way to go
redxriiot · 2 years
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No thoughts, just MH au ideas
#//Yeah; thinking about what I've talked to with friend Kit; Ei being human (wiyh possible monster blood) is a p great idea#//Mans really saw a flyer and thought that'd be a p cool place to go and signed on up#//Gets let in somehow like jn Rosario/Vampire and it doesn't wven hit that he's in a school full of monsters until too late#//Mans thought everyone was in costume and just ROLLED with it#//Any off glances his way he brushed off with saying he forgot to Dress Ip that day#//Or jokingly saying he's dressed up as the scariest thing known to man: A bored depressed teenager#//Which gets taken literally; monsters considered; and earns him Charisma Points#;mun has spoken#// a certain Illithid boi or even perhaps a Cursed boi prolly gigure out he's actually human first thing he gotta scramble to save himself#//Prolly BS his way out of trouble by convincing the school head to let him stay; for develoing monster-human relations he'd offer#//Or stays bc he successfully convinced everyone he's a witch with a simple magic trick and fooled them#//That last idea is funny. bc that means endless nights awake frantically learning every trick he can#//But ye#//i like this#//Mans has to come to school everyday looking like goth/punk as hell to sell the lie lmao#//Now i wanna do character desogn for this au oh no#//Lmao; monsters trying to get him to do magic for them and he goes on a BS tirade about how RUDE that is; how DARE they ask him so easily#//Also Ei; casually shows off a trick to make his thumb 'deattach' or the pencil wiggle illusion and make people LOSE THEIR MINDS#//jdvfbfb only shows off when it's non-specific ig#//Ask him to levitate a boulder? nah? ask for a random demonstration? here's Kiri; MAGICALLY changing the color of his (mood) ring
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deadsetobsessions · 9 days
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Alley Drunk! Danny AU- Pt. 4
[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3]
Danny blinked down at the cart, where a red hoodie and pants with red stripes along the side laid over the lip of the cart. Considering they’re in this universe’s brand of Marget- seriously, who names a store Target? If anything in Amity Park was named that, Skulker would have wrecked it in five seconds flat- it’s hilariously on brand. Though, to be fair, this was Gotham’s version too, which meant a lot of security guards (who definitely doubled as goons for the Rogues, Danny was sure) and the vibes were spooky.
“I’m guessing red’s your favorite color.”
Instead of the humorous way he meant the sentence, Jason looked up anxiously and Danny immediately hated himself a little bit more.
“Sh- I can put it back..?” Jason hunched in on himself.
Danny tracked the movement with clearer eyes than he’s had in a long while and ancients, does it remind him of how Dani was in front of Vlad all those years ago. And Danny has spent his entire half life being not like Vlad, so he’s not going to start now.
“Nah, you should definitely add some more stuff. This is no where near enough clothes.”
It really wasn’t. Danny had taken Jason to the store to pick out clothes- “Ther’s a second hand store down the stree’, ya know,” Jason had mumbled when they went through the doors- but the kid had only tentatively put in a small red hoodie and some pants in the cart. Now he had to put this in a way that’ll wipe the stubbornly hesitant look on Jason’s face off.
“Think about it this way, then. You’re repping me now, and while I might be the alley drunk, I’m not the poorly dressed alley drunk, yeah?”
“Oh. Tha’ makes sense.” Jason nodded to himself determinedly, and the kid strode over to the t-shirt section. For all of his confidence, he still glanced back to see if it was okay with Danny.
Well, Dani was the same way before she found her confidence (when she knew Danny wouldn’t abandon her or hurt her) so Danny just gave him a thumbs up before reaching into the rack and sweeping an armful of clothing straight into the cart. Then, he strode over to the jackets and grabbed the ones in Jason’s size and slightly bigger. Oh, he has to grab shoes. He’ll leave that for later, but Danny was going to get those ratty trainers off of Jason’s feet and into the nearest trash can if it was the last thing he does.
The halfa hummed, pausing at the first decidedly not miserable sound he’s made in a while. Dammit, if that wasn’t a sign of Danny’s attachment to Jason, he doesn’t know what would be. To be fair… Danny already committed murder for the kid, which was pretty much something he thought he’d never do, so in for a penny out for a pound or whatever.
He put a significant amount of the budget aside for the section labeled “JASON” so Danny shopped without a worry. Charlie’s ill-gotten assets were a good monetary compensation for his crime of existing near Jason or existing, period.
He picked up toiletries, toothbrushes and the like, when Jason came back sans t-shirt. Instead of a shirt- Danny had actually hoped that Jason would try to get multiple shirts- Jason was clutching a book.
Before he could even voice anything, Danny plucked the book out of his grip and put it into the cart with a disarming smile.
“Oh, good idea. We should get you books too. Wanna go pick out some more?”
“Uh- y’re just gonna get a book, just like that?”
“More than one book, I should hope. You are going to school, right?”
“…Yeah!” Danny couldn’t fathom ever being excited at the thought of school, but as Jason bounced away to peruse the admittedly poor selection of books, Danny couldn’t help but think that maybe he should give this education thing another try. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be less stressful now that he’s not Phantom.
Danny walked to the aisle next to the books and promptly proceeded to shove every single piece of stationary he thought was nice- pens, gel pens, cooling pens and pencils, a thick stack of notebooks, flash cards, etcetera- into the rapidly getting full cart.
Jason came back with three more books- nice, the classics- and froze at the sight of the cart.
“Oh, hey. Getting all of those?”
“Wha’- wha’s wit’ the stuff?”
“School supplies! Quality education starts with quality supplies, you know!” Danny said, a sliver of the grin that used to come so easily to him making an appearance on his face. "Don't worry, I budgeted. See?"
Danny handed Jason a piece of paper, confident that the kid would know if it was good or not.
"Where'd... ya get all of this?"
"Hmm... here and there."
Jason looked up at him, squinting suspiciously. "I hear' Charlie's gone poofed up."
Danny shrugged and put a calculator in the cart. "Oh, I'm sure he's busy."
Yeah, Danny thought vindictively. Busy being dead.
"Ya sound like a walking con," Jason said as he visibly decided to give up fighting against Danny's spending. "We nee' food."
"Gotcha. Well, if you need anything else, just bring it into the cart."
"I want veggies. Frozen, 's cheaper."
Danny nodded, resisting the urge to ruffle Jason's hair.
----
"Hey, you's the Alley Drunk, right? 'Bout that boy you've been toting ar-"
Danny punched the guy in the face, dropping him like a stone. He looked up slowly and swayed.
"Any of you ask about my kid brother again, and I won't bother with being drunk when I hit you."
Rapid nods. Danny shuffled away, satisfied.
----
Two weeks later, after a school day, Danny finds Jason heading to the bathroom with a box of...
"Hair-dye?"
Jason, who was marginally more relaxed and assured that Danny wasn't going to kick him out, nodded.
"Dye's fadin' n' I dun wanna get nabbed on the streets for having red hair."
Danny blinked. "You have red hair?"
"Sure do. See? Roots are showin' again." Jason pointed at his scalp where Danny could see the hair was getting lighter.
"Right. Well- I'll leave you to it. Let me know if you need help, kiddo." Danny said, desperately hoping he hid how off kilter he was feeling well.
"I don't need help, ah've been doing this for ages." The kid went into the bathroom and closed the door harshly. When the lock clicked and the faucet began running, Danny let himself slide down the wall into a crouch, hands cradling his head.
Red hair. Blue eyes. Tan skin. The facial features. The intelligence and empathy.
Danny chuckled hysterically under his breath.
Was Jason this universe's version of Jazz?
"Fuck."
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mewhenimanangel · 9 months
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spiderboy, miles morales x fem!reader
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part 1! ʚɞ part 2 ʚɞ part 3 ʚɞ part 4 ʚɞ part 5
pairing: earth 1610! miles morales x reader
synopsis: you didn’t think anything of it when you bumped into miles on your first day at visions. it slowly became one of the best things to happen to you.
wc: 1.9k
warnings!: cursing
You got ready for your first day at Brooklyn Visions Academy. Your mom had decided to send you there for better "academic challenges" or whatever. You were nervous but found solace in knowing you'd already have a friend there, Zoya Hart. You’ve been friends since the third grade, absolutely inseparable.
You put on your uniform skirt and finished your makeup. New school, if you didn't make a good first impression, at least you’d look good. "Y/n hurry up! I've gotta go!" your mom called out from the kitchen. "Mommy just go! I can walk" you applied her lip gloss in the mirror. "Ah-ah, you're gonna be late. Hurry up"
You rolled your eyes spraying perfume over your body. Grabbing your backpack you shoved in your books and pencil case inside. "Wait mommy I need to fill up my water bottle" you rushed to the fridge and pressed it against the water dispenser. "Come on!" your mom yelled walking over to the door. "Wait I need my headphones!" you ran to your room to grab the earbuds sitting on the dresser, quickly scratching your cat's head "Bye Bobo" you breathed out before rushing out the door. "Baby it's school what do you need headphones for?" your mom grew irritated. "If I don't have these, I'll literally kill myself"
"Aye, I told you to stop saying that!" you both walked out the door, locking it. Getting in the passenger seat, you checked her appearance on her phone, fiddling with the nose piercing that sat on her nostril. Your blonde box braids were in two pig tails, edges laid flat. You wore a gold necklace with a pendant in the shape of a bow, you loosened the tie around your neck. "I hate this stupid ass uniform" your mom laid a smack on your thigh. "Watch your mouth!" "Ow mommy sorry!" you exclaimed rubbing your hand over your leg.
You plugged your earbuds in, listening to music until you saw the school in the distance. Your heart sped up as you took her headphones out, tucking them in her backpack. "Alright baby have a good day okay. Make me proud, I love you" your mom said giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Love you too mommy bye" you replied getting out of the car as she drove off.
You opened up your phone to Zoya's contact.
'i'm here and i'm shaking where are you??' you sent a text.
'in the principal's office'
'surprise baby i'm your tour guide :P' Zoya replied.
You felt yourself bump into another body. Looking up from your phone you saw a boy with a dazed expression on his face. The boy wore a pair of Jordan 1 bloodlines, a tiny spider-man figure on his backpack. He was about four inches taller than her and a bit lanky, his skin dark brown. His hair was a taper fade with kinky curls, his eyes were dark brown almost black shade as he stared at you.
"I'm really sorry about that" you apologized putting your hands out in front of you "Ah it's cool, no worries" he brushed off with a smile. "Um do you know where the principal's office is?" you asked looking around. "Yeah, I can show you. Are you new here?" he asked leading you down the hall to the right. "Uh-huh" "New to New York?" he asked again. "Nah my parents just thought this would be a better school". He nodded his head as they came to the front door of the main office. "It's the one on the left. I've gotta get to class though. I'm Miles by the way" he said, waiting for you to respond. "Y/n" you replied with a smile.
He walked away when you made your way to the principal. "Y/n!!" Zoya exclaimed, going to hug the girl. She had a light tan complexion, pink lips and a bright white smile. Her hair was a beautiful ginger color with her curls falling past her shoulders. Zoya was about two inches taller than you, wearing a pair of platform doc marten 8053s. Her 'Z' necklace rest on her chest along with your matching bow necklace.
"Ugh I am so glad your parents sent you here!" The man behind the desk cleared his throat, alerting the two girls of his presence. "Oh sorry, Y/n this is Mr. Hale, our principal." He reached out his hand for you to shake. "Nice to meet you, Ms. L/n". She smiled as she shook his hand "Nice to meet you too, sorry I'm late" "No matter, it's your first day, just don't let it be a frequent problem." he sat back down in his chair.
"Alright, here's your schedule, look over it while i pull up your file" he handed you a piece of paper with all of your classes for the day.
'English Language Arts 11' 8:30 AM
'Modern Us History' 9:34 AM
'Ceramics 1' 10:38 AM
'Algebra 2' 11:42 AM
'Lunch 2' 12:45 PM
'Physics' 1:19 PM
'Sociology' 2:27 PM
He gave you all the information she needed: locker number and code, teacher's names, grade expectations, your guidance counselor's name and office, etc "Alright, I'll have Miss Hart here show you around." he said as the two of you made your way to the door. "Have a good day and good luck settling into your new classes. It's only September, so I'm sure you haven't missed much." he bid goodbye.
You and Zoya got to your locker as you attempted to put the code in. "Right, left, right" Zoya instructed. The locker popped open and you sorted out your things. You saw Zoya look over her shoulder at her sister, Maya. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?" she asked the girl. "Yeah, but I don't wanna be" Maya replied giggling. "Heyy, n/n! I forgot you were coming here." Maya said hugging you. "I'm giving her a tour of the school" Maya said, opening her phone to take a quick selfie with you. "Oou can I come?" Maya chirped. "Youu have a class to go to." Maya rolled her eyes and left you two to start your tour.
Zoya intertwined her arm with yours as you walked through the school. She showed you the gym, the library, the cafeteria - all huge. She showed you the student council room, the dorm halls - which wasn't necessary since you wouldn't be staying there, they made their way over to a big window in the main hallway which overlooked a courtyard where she found people sitting outside and a teacher have a class.
"This place is so fancy, shit" you exclaimed. "Ahhh it's aight" Zoya joked. Anyways, let's get you to class." It was 8:45 now and Zoya knocked on the door of your first period. "Meet me at lunch, good luck" Zoya kissed your cheek and walked away. "Well class, we have a new student joining us, Miss Y/n L/n"
Your day went pretty normal, people were nice enough to you and you talked to a few people, making their acquaintance. The bell rung which meant it was time for you to go to lunch and finally see your friend again. You sent her a text asking her where she was sitting when you bumped into someone again. "Woah, gotta stop meeting like this" the boy said letting out a light laugh. "Yeah, my bad" you let out an awkward laugh. "You have lunch now too?" he asked you "Yeah, actually I'm waiting for my friend-" you was interrupted by a hand on your shoulder.
"Hey, I'm starving let's go in the line" Zoya said. "Oh you know Zoya?" Miles said, dapping her up. "Yup, since third grade." "Cool well see you around, preferably not bumping into you" he joked and walked away with his friend. "How do you know Miles?" you asked her as you walked over to the lunch line. "Classes, plus he knows Peter." she replied, getting a cheeseburger and fries. "Why, do you think he's cute?" she teased . "Oh he's realll cute" you giggled.
You made your way over to a table where Peter, Maya, and a girl you didn't recognize were already sitting. "Yoo, n/n how you liking the school" Peter said, as he dap you up. "It's alright, fancy as fuck though" Zoya sat down next to Peter, giving him a kiss on the cheek, while you found a seat next to Maya. "Hey, I'm Kiona" the girl you didn't recognize spoke up. "Y/n, you're so pretty by the way" you smiled at the girl. "Aww thank you, you too"
Lunch ended as you and Peter parted ways with everyone. "Physics is brutal but Mr Johnson is chill as fuck" he informed you walking into the class. Peter took his seat as Mr Johnson spoke up "Ah, Miss L/n, nice to meet you. You can take a seat back there next to Morales" he pointed to the back of the room where Miles was sitting, already looking at you. You smiled at the boy and made your way to the back. "Hey" he whispered to you . "Hi" you replied. "Didn't know we'd have this class together. Shoulda told me" "You didn't ask" you joked, opening a notebook.
The bell rung and you got your stuff together "Hey what's your next class?" Miles asked, stacking his notebooks. "Sociology" you answered, putting papers in a folder. "Ah I don't have that" he said, disappointed. "Walk you to class?" he offered. You looked around and saw that Peter already left, so might as well. "Yeah, sure".
"This isn't going to make you late is it?" you asked him. "Nah it's in the same-". All of a sudden Miles tensed up and there was a loud booming noise coming from outside. Everyone in the hall, including you and Miles ran to nearby windows to see what was going on and here was a fire emerging from a bank down the road. You looked to your side to see that Miles wasn't there anymore. Out of nowhere, spider-man swung over to the bank stopping the guys who were trying to rob it. Everyone cheered when he brought the guys out, tied up in his webs
When school ended, Zoya and Maya came up to your locker as you were packing up to go home. "Hey n/n, you going home?" Maya asked, biting into an apple. "Yeah, it would be cool if i stayed in the dorms. Buttt that's mad money spending so nah". You gave the girls a hug and made your way out the building. "Oh Y/n, you're not staying in the dorms?" Miles asked, coming from the nurse's office with a few bandaids on his face and bandage on his arm. "No, what happened to you?" you asked pointing at his face. "Tripped down the stairs on the way to seventh period". You stifled a giggle and nodded your head. "Uh you want me to walk you home?" he offered.
You furrowed her eyebrows in confusion "You don't really have to do that.." "O-oh uh I was just offering, I'm not super busy right now and didn't want you to be alone-" You put her hand out and giggled "Okay yeah you can walk me home" He smiled and skipped down the steps to join you. "Don’t you get in trouble for leaving the dorms without permission?" you asked looking up at him. "Ah sometimes but I get my way out of it"
"So what happened earlier? You disappeared when the  fire happened." you asked him, finally. "Oh I had....gotten..scared" he said, looking up. "Oh..okay. That's normal I guess" "Well this is my stop" you said, walking up to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow" he said waving goodbye "See you" you said with a smile, unlocking the door.
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dilfl0v3rss · 9 months
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NAH CUZ THIS ONE CAME OUTTA NOWHERE BUT-
painter!Onyankopon 🧐🧐🧐🧐wat do we thinkkkkkkkk
who wanna paint his pretty lil girlfriend up as a bday gift but thingz start escalating-
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you ATEEEEE
“you done?” you asked excitedly as you laid naked on the bed. ony sitting in front of you with a chair and painting set while he gave you a petty eye roll. “mama you only been sitting here for ten minutes. what you think?” he sighed, pencil in hand as he sketched your pretty body onto his cavas. your boyfriend was a very talented and well known artist. he’s had his work shown in many different art museums around the world and you couldn’t be any prouder of him.
people have paid unbelievable prices for his beautiful paintings and even more for customs. you’ve been with him through it all and even though you never said it, ony could always see how entranced you’d look when he’d bring you with him as his “assistant” and decided there was no better time to finally let you shine than your birthday.
“m’almost done wit the first part sexy. just need you to stay still f’me so i get get it done and start mixing my colors for your pretty skin ‘kay?” you nodded your head, apologizing for the movement as you sat as still as you could on your knees. back facing him as you kept your head to the side so he could get your side profile. another ten minutes when by and ony was finally done with the sketch. quietly pulling his paints out to mix them together for your beautiful complexion. “red? maybe lighter like orange? ma you know the color of your undertones?” he asked, while holding up the red and orange paint bottles.
you turned your head a little more so he could see your face, quizzical look already telling him everything he needed to know. “can you put on some music tho? if ima be sitting here like this, i wanna at least have sum playing” ony nodded his head before opening your phone and going to the first playlist he saw, but you already know what he chose when poison by brent faiyaz began to play through the speaker on the bed. the sex playlist.
you didn’t mind it though, humming along to the music as ony continued to work behind his large canvas.
as your music played it was suddenly getting harder for your man to focus. hands beginning to sweat at just the slightest glance of your oiled back. ‘wonder if she oiled the front of her body too’ dirty thoughts clouded ony’s brain as he watched you mindlessly move your hips to the music. “stay still mama. you making this hard f’me” he mumbled as he eyed your neck, then your beautiful shoulders down to your smooth back, stopping at the sight of your beautifully brown ass.
before he knew it, ony was slowly walking up behind you. lightly pushing your back down before rubbing with the swell of your ass. “you changed your mind againnn? now how long is it gon take for you to sketch thissss?” you whined, not thinking anything of his actions until you felt his print brush against your bare pussy. “you so pretty mama” his hands rubbed all over your back, letting the oil spread to his fingers and clothes as he leaned down to kiss from your back to your neck. “wanna put my dick in you, jus the tip ‘cause i still got work t’do”
you nodded your head, already in a lust filled daze as you felt him continue to rub against you with his clothed dick. ony lifted you off the bed slightly by the front of your neck. “can i mama? you gon let me make you feel good?” his whispers went straight to your core. legs already growing weak as you moaned out a weak “yes”. with that ony lightly bent you back over, freeing his dick from his sweats before lining up with your wet entrance.
“j-just the tip right?” your voice was small as you looked back at him. a small smirk made its way to his face as he watched your pretty face contort, dick sinking deep into you before he started thrusting at a steady pace. “you know better than to be believing shit like that ma. pussy too good for me to only let my tip fuck” ony chuckled as he listened to you whine into the sheets. hips already moving hungrily so you can fuck him back.
“seems like you agree wit me, don’t you baby? pussy so fucking wet” his pace quickened, making your moans become louder and more frequent as you reached your arm back. not for him to stop, but for him to hold to keep you grounded while he pounded away at your pretty pussy. “feel so good daddyyy…fuck go harder” ony smiled at the action, eagerly holding your hand in his while he started fucking into you deeper.
the both of your voices harmonized with each other as you continued to fuck each other the way you liked. bodies working together so both of you can reach the orgasms you’ve been wanting since you laid your naked body on the bed. “you so fucking sexy mama. got the most beautiful body i swear” his inked hands ran all over your back, thighs and neck. massaging you as he gave you words of love. “no painting can ever be enough to portray how beautiful you are baby. so glad you mine.”
his dick curved just right, hitting all the places you needed to make you a blabbering mess below him. “l-love you so much…so much daddy. happy t’be yours….yours forever” ony couldn’t help but smile as he listened to you run your pretty mouth. your walls sucking him in as you spoke, like the fact that you were saying you were his turned you on even more. “love you more, h-happy..fuck…happy birthday princess. sorry i can’t finish your painting.”
your body was getting to him. strong arm pushing your back down as he squeezed your hand a little tighter. “want you to fill me up daddy” you moaned, the feeling of his dick twitching already telling you that he was going to cum. ony’s brown eyes rolled to the back of his head, hips pistonning into you even harder as he felt his release on the tip of his tongue.
“gotta show you how much i love you right now”
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writing-mlm · 4 months
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Right here
Druig x male!eternals!reader
wc: 2.8k
summary: dinner with the Avengers gets unexpectedly cut short
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“Uh… Mr. Corpus, sir?” Peter looks up from where he’s working on his homework, watching as you swirl his LEGOS in the air. They click into place, quickly forming some version of the Titanic but the colors are off. They release from their form and swirl in the air again as you look at him, your fingers held in a cupping motion. He looks away for a second, fiddling with his pencil. “Do you know what happened on July 14th, 1789?” 
“Storming of the Bastille,” You answer without thinking too much about it. “Very important moment in the French Revolution; Bastille was a prison that many aristocrats preferred to go to because it was a very… relaxed prison. Almost a thousand people surrounded the prisons, cannons, and gunpowder ready. They were afraid the King was going to arrest the new National Assembly. They were also wanting to fortify the prison, crime was horrid those days.” As you speak, Peter writes it down. He has no use for fact-checking you, you’re the Avengers history nerd. 
“Thank you,” He smiled and flipped to the next page. You nod, returning to your LEGOS and recreating the prison. It spins around and you look into the box of loose legos, using random pieces to create canons around it. 
Living with the Avengers was far from the plan you had set in your head when you finally broke away from your family. You didn’t want nor need a team of people to boss you around again but this was the easiest way to ensure the world was safe. At the top of the world, nothing was hidden. 
At least to you. 
You look at the other Avengers who’d found themselves a spot in the common area, blissfully unaware of the truth. They think they know it all, there’s nothing they don’t know. Anything and everything that happens on Earth— they’ll know it. And they’ll stop it. 
God, they were so fucking wrong. 
Sinking into your seat, your eyes drift off to the woods that surround the compound. They’re smaller but denser than the forest you’re used to back home, which reminds you that you ought to visit soon. It’s been almost a year since you’ve last been there and you’re sure you’re being missed day and night. 
And you miss it, too, of course. The dreams cannot replace reality. 
“Hey, Chronicle,” Tony calls and you look over to him. He lifts his cup to point towards the TV and you see you’re up for the next match of Mortal Kombat. Pulling yourself to sit next to Sam, you take the controller from Natasha and pick your character. Sam picks his and the round begins, you end up winning but that’s almost entirely due to the fact that for some odd reason, Sam could not have a steady grip on his controller. 
“He always cheats!” Sam points to you as you hand the controller to Tony. “Nah- nah, get the power blockers! I want a rematch!” He demands but everyone knows that for some stupid reason, it doesn’t work on you. 
   “It’s okay, butterfingers,” You tell him, patting his shoulder as you return to your spot creating LEGOS. “I know you're getting all hot and bothered around me.” Sam closes his eyes, telling Bucky that he’s about to send you away and you offer an amused smile. 
The place settles down after that, you end up losing in the game because you had a long-standing promise with Bucky that you wouldn’t use your powers on him unless it was necessary. Some type of PTSD you didn’t care to dive into. All that mattered was that Bucky absolutely murked your character and Sam was cheering the entire time. 
Dinner rolls around and you agree to make something quick, but with how much everyone eats even a quick meal takes an hour with how much needs to be made. Thankfully, the kitchen has four ovens for that exact reason. Seven lasagna and garlic breads later, dinner is served and everyone is eating around a table. 
Thor, Steve, Bucky, and Peter each got their own pans. Although, Thor needed another and you’re glad you made seven because the remaining two were just enough for the rest of you with normal appetites. 
Midway through your slice, you feel a certain tug in your mind and smile, doing your best to not look away from your food. It’s a tug you’ve grown to love and adore, and it’s more than welcome to invade your mind. 
What’re you eatin’ tonight? Druig asked, his soft voice mulling over the voices around you. 
   Lasagna, the recipe I showed you. You answer, grabbing your cup of juice to hide your smile. You? 
    Soup. He replies. Arishem, I miss your cooking. You laugh, although you manage to keep it silent. 
I’m planning my next return, just have to make sure there’s nothing coming up here. 
Good, I cannot go another month without you, my love. 
Neither can I. You look up, seeing everyone is looking at you. One moment, darling. Like a phone call, you put the connection on hold and clear your throat. 
“Sorry, what did you say?” You ask, setting your cup down. 
   “Peter was asking for the recipe,” Wanda says, offering the kid a smile when you look at him. 
   “Oh, yeah, sure,” You nod. “Remind me later.” He nods and everyone slowly goes back to their conversations and you take Druig off of hold. 
You have to stop letting your mind wander. He teases and you roll your eyes, finishing up the last of your food. 
   Only to thoughts of you. You reply and he makes an ohh sound. Not in that way. You add, leaving the table with a simple see you later. 
One amazing thing about the compound is the fucking dishwasher, it’s honestly a lifesaver. 
I do not need a dishwasher. Druig says as you close the door to the washer. 
   You don’t have electricity, you cannot have one. He takes the reminder with a grain of salt and your conversation continues well into the night. Eventually, he falls asleep and you allow yourself to as well. 
One thing you absolutely dread about living with the others is the fact that whenever someone who’s not Tony or Peter is there, they insist on working out at the crack of dawn. 
You’re awake at four in the morning, several hours before you normally do, and have only managed to get two hours of sleep so you’re more than annoyed when Thor makes an announcement over every single speaker in the house. 
Begrudgingly, you get prepared for the workout and join Sam for the pre-workout smoothie. He makes the best ones, Steve just eats it dry and Bucky cannot make it taste good for the life of him. The others don’t take any before their workouts so it’s just the four of you drinking (and eating scoops of protein powder) before you head up to the gym. 
Workouts with the Avengers last for hours, although Tony taps out two hours in, Peter had to get ready for school, and Clint wanted to finally go home soon after. Sam is the next to go, he’s beyond tired three hours in and chooses to watch everyone instead. 
You’re on your ass as Natasha flips you over, the wind knocks out your chest as you land on the padding. She stands over you, her weapon tossed to the ground and you twitch your fingers. It flies through the air and knocks her backward as you pull yourself up. 
“Cheater,” She teases as you twirl her stick in the air with a shrug. “Mama never taught you to play nice with friends?” Dropping the stick into your hands, you swing and she ducks. This continues for a while until you have her pinned down— albeit using your powers but it was getting a little tiring using your arms. 
Training ends with five laps around the compound— which only Thor, Steve, and Bucky actually completed. You gave up after two and Natasha got through three and a half. You were many things, a try hard was not one of them. 
Cleaning up, you head to the common area to find something to watch. 
There’s a lot to which, with Tony having every single streaming service possible, but you eventually settle on some show Peter had recommended. 
“Dinner is ready!” Tony calls and for the first time since you started the show, you look away from the screen. It’s dark outside and you were well into the show… that's a little embarrassing. “C’mon, Matilda!” He calls when you’re not moving fast enough. 
    “Shut up, white man,” You grumble, pausing the show and heading to the others. Peter is back for the weekend but Clint stayed with his family. 
Dinner is a large order of pizza, boxes piled up on the table and the super eaters take theirs before everyone else takes their slices. Tonight you’re able to engage with them completely uninterrupted and come to think of it, you’d gone the entire day without talking to Druig. 
You couldn’t feel him in your mind, either. Normally there’s a small feeling when you focus, letting you know he was there but today he wasn’t. 
Sighing, you decide not to dwell on it just yet. He’s gone through periods where he doesn’t want to talk before, the longest being a week. You’d give him two days before you stole a jet to go and see him. 
“Unknown subjects approaching the compound,” FRIDAY says midway through dinner. “Unknown mass in the air approaching at rapid speeds, engage?” He’s basically buzzing to use the systems defense system. 
“Describe the mass,” Tony says, afraid FRIDAY is alerting them of another bird. It’s happened at least six times already. 
    “A large black triangle with unknown carvings on it, approaching in approximately five seconds,” FRIDAY says and you take that time to think about it. It sounds familiar and as you’re rushing out with the others to find out what the fuck it is,  it clicks. The Domo. 
“Holy shit!” Peter gasps when he sees the Domo hovering above the field in front of the compound. There’s a couple flashes of light and you rush over to where they’re going to be landing while the others remain a good distance away. You’re glad for their sake that they aren’t a shoot-first ask-questions-later type of group. 
“(Y/n), do not engage!” Tony shouts, stopping the others from going after you. You ignore him, stopping exactly two steps ahead of where you know they will land in a couple of seconds. The others are calling for you to get back— Sam is sure it’s some type of alien and he tells Bucky he’s always right about the people they have to fight. You tune them out, watching as the light shoots down completely from the Domo and as it falls to the ground. 
Druig is the first to land and wastes no time in his arms wrapping around your waist and you hold his face. He looks at you with these puppy dog eyes, a smile creeping up on his face and you dip your head down. 
Kissing him, one of his hands grabs the back of your neck, deepening it. You move one of your hands down to his belt loops and hold him. He laughs into the kiss but neither of you pulls away. You hear a gag but it’s clearly from Sprite so you ignore it. 
“I didn’t need to see that!” Sprite groans as she lands. “They’re worse than you and Dane.” She tells Sersi as you pull away from the kiss. But just slightly, you can still feel his lips on yours and you carefully rub his cheek. 
“Hello, beautiful,” He mutters against your lips. 
   “Hey,” You mutter back, going in for another kiss but Phastos pulls the two of you away. 
“Dude!” You whine as he holds your collar and drags you across the lawn until you’re more than an arm's distance from Druig. “Let me kiss my fuckin’ husband!” Druig smiles and you wink, finally getting put back on your feet. 
“Did he say, husband?” Natasha whispers to Tony who blankly nods. 
“You can kiss when we’re done here,” Ikaris says, floating down from the Domo. 
   “You’re not the only one who can fly, asshole,” You tease, rising to his level. “But yeah; whatever. Why're all— most of you here?” You correct yourself, seeing that Ajak and Gilgamesh aren’t with the others. 
“Aren’t you and Gilg a package dead?” You ask Thena and that seems to be the wrong question to as everyone looks sad. Lowering yourself to the ground, you look between everyone. “What’s going on?” You slowly ask, looking at Druig as he walks up to you. 
“Ajak and Gilgamesh are dead,” He says as he holds your hand. “Killed by deviants; they're back.” He softly adds. 
“There’s some more stuff,” Sersi steps forward, her hand on Thena’s shoulder. “We’ll explain everything in the Domo but we need to go now.” 
“Now— like, right this second now?” You ask and she nods. Looking at your team, you sigh and look back to the others. “Give me a second.” They nod and you rush over to the others. 
“I’ll be back, I just— I’ll explain when I get back.” You tell them, giving everyone a once over. “Um… yeah, see you!” 
“No way,” Tony says as he grabs your arm before you can go too far. “You aren’t just up and leaving like that! Where are you going? Who are they?” 
“We’re on a bit of a time crunch!” Kingo shouts and you sigh, apologizing to Tony before removing his hand with your powers. 
“I’ll explain when I get back, I promise!” 
Sitting on the beach, you look over at Druig who’s already looking at you rather than the very large golden hand sticking out from the sea. 
“I should’ve stayed with you,” You whisper, a frown forming on your face. “If I hadn’t been with the Avengers Gilgamesh would be alive, I could’ve stopped Ikarus long before this became such an issue.” Looking back to the water, you rest your head on his shoulder. 
    “Don't think like tha’,” Druig replies in the same whisper, brushing hair from your face. “You were doin’ your best, you joined that stupid team to help people. No one could’ve seen this comin’, darlin.” He wraps his arm around you and lays his head on top of yours. He glances at your red and gold suit, tracing the shapes that he’s traced for centuries before as the waves roll in. 
You stare at the crashing waves, your eyes drifting to and from the head and hand every so often. There are so many thoughts running through your mind. You’ve lost three friends, you look at Sprite and while the others might be able to forgive her you can’t. 
Sure, she looks like a child but she was… born at the same time everyone else was. She grew as everyone else grew, despite how it looked from the outside. You can’t look past the betrayal, no matter the reason. 
Then there’s Kingo, who you weren’t too sure about either. You’d always fought, no matter how dire the situation seemed. You fought and you fought together. And he ran. It left a bitter taste in your mouth. 
“I can still hear your thoughts,” Druig whispers. “Mind if I change those thoughts?” You hum, and move your head from his shoulder. His head moves back before it moves forward, his lips finding a home between yours. They’re dry, but you don’t doubt yours are either. And probably taste of sand just as his taste like volcanic ash. He smiles, glad your mind has drifted to other topics and you pull him on top of you. 
“Do not fuck on the beach,” Phastos grumbles. You pull away and tilt your head back to grin at him. Druig doesn’t pay him much mind, letting his eyes and hands wander your body. Although that’s probably to just annoy Phastos even more. 
   “You’re such a cockblock, y’know that right?” He rolls his eyes and joins the others several yards away. 
“We should head back, though.” You tell Druig, squeezing his arms. He looks at your face, and you stare at his blue eyes. God, they’re really fucking blue. 
   “They’ve always been blue,” His lips quirked into a smile and you shove his face away from you before bringing the two of you to your feet. 
“I know you want to go to space and like… save the others out there…” You start as the two of you walk back to the group. 
  “But you don’t?” He finishes and you sigh. “Can I ask why?” 
“I like it here,” You shrug. “I’ve built a life and I get to play with LEGOS and cheat during game night…”
“You’re afraid of space.” 
“I’m afraid of space.” You concede and he lets out a small laugh before his face softens. 
“We don’t have to go anywhere, darling. Right here is perfect.”
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teopatra · 7 months
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✨ pick a number reading✨
Hola, me llamo es T’Asia I go by Teopatra. Grand water trine babe, lifepath 8 & Scorpio stellium. I’m a Leo sun and was sick for my bday so I wasn’t able to embody the Leo energy for my season sooooo, here I am now on the first day of Virgo season exercising my creative muscle lol
How do others feel about you?
(Can be platonic or romantic) feel free to pick more than one message
Enjoy xoxo 💋 teo ✨
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Group # 1 :
you make people nervous or you get nervous when you realize someone is staring at you or has a crush on you and when you get nervous, it turns people on LOL people love to see you sweat because everyone looks at your reactions to things to compare how they feel, but you’re pretty attractive to a lot of people & may not even realize it some people wish they could cuddle/sleep next to you literally not in an intimate type of way just a romantic type of way or people could want to know what you look like when you sleep lol you give Angel baby vibes.
Pay attention to angel numbers 123 12:34 and 1:23, 😵‍💫 emoji or 📲 emojis
If you’re going thru your Saturn return , take note of your half birthday, also go back in your camera roll 6 months or to any November if any year and check your notes from 2020.
Signs: Pisces, cancer, libra, Capricorn or you know someone from that sign or nah dislike these signs
Group # 3 :
you have a warm nature and a nice looking physique I’m getting you don’t have the typical body whatever that means like you’re not a BBL IG figure you have a frame that makes people want to hug you or be near you because your energy is comforting. Someone or there’s a few people who have crushes on you and a small group of people may talk about how you look good and they be may be super nice to you and you kind of find it weird then it dawned on you 😂 that they like you people always want to touch your hands or share a pencil is what 😆.
Pay attention to angel numbers 333 and 5:55, 6:56 and 1:27 or that could be your bday
Lifepath 8s, the 🐸 emoji or lots of butterflies
Aries , gemini, Taurus or lifepath 7’s check camera roll from January or February, Aquarius season is significant
Group # 8 :
Other, see you as they’re saving grace like just when I feel like giving up, you save the day and you make them realize there’s more to life than was keeping them down people want to know how to be confident like you and I want to learn from you, but they feel stupid for asking for help. You may be expressed expressive are open with your emotions. Why people may know you to cry and random situation even though you’re not sad and that makes them laugh or smile because you’re just so silly and funny and cute.
Emojis 🐄, ❤️‍🩹, and 📿🩸. Your school colors can be red or that’s your favorite color.
Lifepath 2 and 7. Signs can be Aquarius, Taurus, libra, Leo, Scorpio or Sagittarius or check where these are in your chart for more messages
Check camera roll for April, angel numbers 11:11 or double numbers and reflective numbers like 12:21, 22:10, 22:11, 21:12 or 636 / 636 can be your area code iykyk lol
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acewithapaintbrush · 2 years
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Had a super weird (genius???) thought on the way home. 
Encanto, but it's a 'Final Destination' kind of horror setting. 
So! Bruno sees the future and he constantly sees the deaths of his loved ones and of course he prevents them. 
"Don't eat that."
"Don't go there." 
But Death comes when it is supposed to come for whom it is meant to come and it's not gonna let itself get cheated out of its charges. So it tries again and again and again and everytime Bruno is like "Nope. Not today."
"Don't wear those shoes, you'll trip." 
"Take an extra Arepa, lots of bees out there." 
And Death is getting desperate. By now every single member of Familia Madrigal should have died at least 14 times. But Bruno is so used to it all by now that the horror of the situation has faded and he is basically just a lil guy, swapping deadly situations away like flies. And Death's attempts become more and more outlandish and complicated. 
And so Bruno's warnings become more and more wacky. 
"When you color the tree in your drawing, choose the light green pencil, not the dark green." 
"Put your bracelet on the left wrist today and leave the earrings at home. And oh, no matter what you do, don't whistle that song that's stuck in your head on the way home." 
You might think his family would question such instructions, but they have caught on to the fact that they have had more near death experiences than you should have so they kinda adopt the attitude of "If Bruno tells you to not pick your nose while walking, you don't pick your nose, no matter what. Comprende?" 
(Writing this, I imagine them all sitting at the breakfast table and Bruno just giving out his warnings for the day like Alma is telling everyone their chores. 
"Luisa, the third donkey from the right. Leave it be. It will find its way home alone sooner or later. Camilo, I don't care how stupid your friend's new haircut looks, don't you dare laugh at them. Agustin…*sigh* bees, Agustin. It's always bees.. And no one approaches or helps Pezmuerto today." 
"Is she finally going to snap and kill one of us?" Camilo asks, excited. 
"Nah, I just don't like her.") 
I imagine it getting less horror and angst and more and more like slapstick humor or something until Death finally snaps and stands in front of Casita and demands to speak to Bruno because "Maaaan! What gives dude??? I'm just trying to do my job." 
(Imagine how it will end however you want, but I love the idea of Casita opening her doors really quick and hard and yeeting Death over the mountains). 
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fregget-frou · 1 year
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Ok this is a funny idea but like
Does the damn group know that Freelancer and Gavin technically have a kid??
Just imagine freelancer saying in passing “oh yeah Caelum would want this let’s get it” to a tiny sweater that would only fit a child. Huxley overheard and did see them put it in there cart but maybe it’s a birthday gift?
Gavin for a split second asking, “wait did we leave Caelum alone at home?” When the gang is going on a short trip, freelancer responding “nah, he’s with [insert name of his mentor because I forgot it] for the weekend :-)” and then continuing on talking like they didn’t bring up this mystery person the group has never seen.
Just your average conversation until either one accidentally brings him up to each other. Lasko thinks it’s freelancers cousin that comes over occasionally. Huxley thinks it’s their little brother.
But Damien does find out when he was over at FL and Gavin’s place and accidentally overheard a part of their conversation from the kitchen, “…I mean your basically like his dad? I feel like a parent…” (hc that freelancer feels a lot of parental love for Caelum and frequently gets into parental mode with him without realizing)
“….are we Cae’s parents???” Freelancer just thinking out loud before Gavin says something but Damien is already wracking his brain. I mean, if you look around there apartment there’s a small table filled with paper, coloring pencils and beads. He knows that the guest room can’t be slept in. Is that Caelums room.
Just a mini conspiracy until Damien tries to subtly give a pamphlet to Gavin for “advice and resources for young parents”. He might giggle and then he’d realize: oh shit they think we have a kid.
Do they eventually ask straight up because like, why are you hiding a child from your friends? So eventually Damien asks in a roundabout way and then Gavin said, “I told you they thought we were his parents.”
“Pff what??? Nooo…”
I think Gavin just comes out says that they take care of a young demon and they’ve may or may not latched on together and occasionally his heart dies when he sees FL and Caelum doodling together or doing typical parent activities. Nope, just babysitters. Definitely not adopted parents.
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mydearlybeloathed · 6 months
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𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐣𝐢𝐦 𝐥𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐣𝐫...
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𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: headcannons pertaining your growing relationship with the trollhunter.
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jim lake jr x fem!reader
𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
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When you met Jim, it was a normal day of school.
At least, for you it was.
For Jim, he had just been approached by two giant stone creatures telling him that he’s now their protector, and then he was attacked by an evil troll who totally kicked his ass.
But you couldn’t have known that, so it was just a normal school day.
You’d always known he existed, having gone to school with him since Kindergarten. 
But you’d never been friends, that was for sure. 
A few days before you had signed up to be a history tutor, needing some school approved service hours.
And just your luck, you had a session scheduled with Jim Lake Jr.
He was jittery, that was the first thing you realized. His eyes couldn’t stay focused on one thing for longer than two seconds, always jumping to the window.
You had been reaching for your pencil case, which was in your bag under the table. That was when you noticed his bruised up arms. Frozen in place, you also saw a large gash peeking out from his pant leg, just visible on his ankle.
It wasn’t your place to say anything, you knew. You barely knew Jim! But still… was he is trouble?
The thought distracted you, causing you to hit the back of your head on the underside of the table.
Wincing, you raised your head, spying Jim giving you a concerned look. You found yourself giving him a similar, more extreme stare. 
“So… I think we were on the Ottoman Empire in class, right?”
You didn’t answer. You didn’t think you could, not without asking. It became too much after an awkward second, and you blurted out the question. “Jim, did somebody hurt you?”
The way his face lost its color sent a shiver down your spine.
He laughed a laugh that was clearly forced—strangled even. “What makes you ask that?”
“Jim… Look at you. You’re all scratched up.”
A thick silence follows your tentative declaration.
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled. “I, uhm, I tried to ride my bike down the side of the canal. It didn’t go so well, as you can see.”
It was a good excuse, you thought, but did you believe it? Not for a second. It took you only a few moments before your eyes narrowed and you scooted your chair closer to his. 
Jim thought you looked murderous the longer he was locked in contact with your eyes. 
“Was it Steve Palchuk? ‘Cause if it was we need to say something. This is beyond bullying, Jim.”
What was he supposed to say? Oh, nah, don’t worry, Y/N. I was just beaten to near death by a stone giant last night. No biggy.
She’d walk him to an asylum herself.
Apparently, Jim took too long to respond, which to you was an response enough. You scoffed to yourself, shoving back in your seat with crossed arms. “I cannot believe that bitch. He won’t get away with this.”
Jim just fiddled with his pencil, eyes on his textbook. He didn’t know much about Y/N L/N, but he knew she was a force to be reckoned with. Ever since elementary school she’d taken charge in city clean ups, protested in cities as far as D.C., made speeches that changed the minds of Arcadia’s city council and their school board.
When she was mad about something, everyone knew, and she wouldn’t be placated till there was a change.
Jim had to hide his smirk behind his palm; he could just imagine Steve receiving the flame that the girl beside him would unleash. 
He had to ask, “What’re you gonna do?”
Your answer was instantaneous. “Talk to him, I think. I know him well enough, us being cousins and all.”
That was a shock for sure.
A day later, Jim was walking into school when he heard the tell tale sound of your voice. He turned the corner, stopping short at the sight before him.
You, at least a head shorter than Steve, had the poor guy gripped by the ear and pulled down to your height. Jim didn’t stick around to listen to what you were saying, seeing the fury all over your face and not wanting either of you to spy him loitering there.
But Jim had to admit, the look of terror on Steve’s face was hilarious.
After that, your tutoring sessions became more and more natural over time. The conversation drifted away from history and toward other things like interests and fun stories. 
Not only that, but the time drew on longer till it wasn’t so much a tutoring session as much as it was just two friends hanging out.
It didn’t take long for Jim to realize he enjoyed spending time with you much more than he wanted to.
Much more than he wanted to.
He thinks he realized how much he actually liked you around a few months before everything went to shit.
Jim offered to walk you home when the session dragged on so long that the moon had risen into the sky.
“You don’t live too far from me, I don’t mind.”
It was as they neared your driveway that he caught sight of Blinky from the corner of his eye, shooting fear straight to his heart. 
The many-eyed troll was rustling in the bushes, tailing him and you. You were oblivious, going on about the pranks you had planned for the upcoming April Fools Day. 
Jim wanted to be listening to you, mostly so he could avoid your schemes, but also because he enjoyed the lightheartedness with which you spoke. It was a nice change from the woe he heard whenever he entered Trollmarket. But he couldn’t give you the focus he wanted with Blinky just seven feet form being spotted.
“Welp,” you sighed. “This is where we part.”
Disappointment was on both of your minds as you smiled at each other. 
He managed to hold it together when, after a moment of hesitation, you lurched forward to wrap him in a hug. Surprised, he glanced up over your shoulder to see Blinky giving him four thumbs ups.
He used one arm to hug you back, and the other to flip the troll off. 
Being the Trollhunter was dangerous for not only Jim and everyone involved. And as the two of you started to hang out without the pretense of you being his tutor, he swore to himself that you would never find out his secret.
But as you grew closer, it became increasingly difficult to hide anything from you. 
You always found his new injuries and scrapes and even once somehow detected his bruised ribs. After a while, you became suspicious, no longer assuming your cousin was behind it. 
You didn’t want to assume anything severe, but you had to worry about his home life. 
You knew his mother—you’d met Dr. Lake when you ended up sitting together to watch Jim in Romeo and Juliet—and you didn’t get the feeling she would ever get… physical with him. The very thought made you shudder.
If not that, then what was it? Jim didn’t seem the street fighter type. It caused you more worry than you’d like to admit.
Over the past few months of knowing Jim Lake Jr., you think you’d be comfortable calling him your best friend. You two spent nearly everyday talking, whether it was between class or on the phone every once in a while. 
And it was obvious to everyone except to you that there was chemistry.
It caused Toby some anguish to say the least. 
Speaking of which, you’d grown closer with Jim’s best friend too, something you hadn’t expected.
Toby was a good friend to you, always taking time out of his day to ask about yours, questioning your every “It was fine” and demanding to know what was so “fine” about it. In return, he offered his own tales of misery, getting a laugh out of you nearly every time. 
You didn’t notice how he physically grimaced whenever you brushed off his attempts at finding out what you thought about ol’ Jimbo.
Moving on from all of that, to you, things were going great! Your grades could be better, but you had better friends than you’d ever had before. Added to your ranks was Claire Nuñez, and over time… well, you had to admit that you were suspicious.
Jim’s crush on Claire had been ever so obvious ever since the fourth grade, but that wasn’t it (Or rather, you hoped that wasn’t it). 
No matter how much you told yourself you were paranoid, you thought the three of them were hiding something. 
It hurt to say the least. You were friends… right? Did friends keep secrets?
This was what you thought as you sat alone during lunch, contemplating the way Jim, Toby, and Claire made some poor excuse about having to go to a chess club meeting.
You knew they weren’t a part of the chess club. You were president of the chess club. How did they not know that? Were they that bad at lying? Or did they not care if you knew how much they actually hated you?
You were overthinking. They didn’t hate you. Jim certainly didn’t, you think. He was so kind and caring and thoughtful… your cheeks burned red at the thoughts running across your mind… you shook your head, reasoning that there must be an explanation that didn’t involve thier secret vendetta against you.
You just had to find out what it was.
But as they abandoned you more and more for their secret escapades, and as they ditched you to work on group projects alone, and they generally lied time and time again… you grew tired of the confusion.
Your cousin was starting to warm up to you, something about his brutish personality shifting over the course of that school year. He noticed first how you sat alone at lunch, and then he looked around at his table full of kids… and realized he too was alone—in a mental sense, that is.
So he picked up his tray and bag and trudged over to your table in the corner of the lunchroom. 
The look of shock on your face didn’t fade away till he was sitting there across from you, and you deduced that he probably wasn’t here to tease you.
The conversation was slow at first, even dull, just small talk, but then he caught sight of the comic book tucked under your lunch tray. 
He hesitated, knowing his friends at the other table had made fun of him for liking those sort of things… but you had never done that before. Steve could trust you... probably.
So he asks you about it, and you go into a long winded explanation of it, only for him to interrupt with, “I know what it is… I’ve got the entire set back home.”
You blinked, shocked, and you thought that maybe your cousin Steve wasn’t so terrible after all.
Your friends wanted to ditch you? Fine. You’d make yourself useful and stop being their deadweight. It was somewhat freeing, no matter how much it pained you to sweep past Jim’s sweet smile and ready sandwich (made just how you like it). But it was for the best. You couldn’t stand the way they treated you.
It was only a month after you severed ties with them that you realized how much they’d impacted you.
You no longer found Nougat Nummies that Toby had put in your backpack. You could no longer ask Claire for help with studying. You couldn’t waltz into Jim’s house like you owned the place, hop up onto his counter, and spiel on and on about whatever was on your mind while Jim cooked food around the kitchen.
You might’ve missed that last one more than the other memories.
You might’ve missed Jim more than the others.
And you might’ve liked him a bit too much too.
On Jim’s side, he knew why you’d grown distant. It pained him to keep such a big secret from you, especially when he could see it was hurting you, but what else could he do? Tell you he’s the Trollhunter?
No. Jim would never do that to you. If you knew, then they would find you. You’d wind up hurt. It was bad enough he’d dragged Claire into all this, but you? Jim couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. 
He didn’t think about how much not having you in his life would hurt.
Maybe a month goes by, and the two of you get back to a steady rhythm without the other. Unbeknownst to you, your old friends were preparing for war.
How could you know? How could you have prepared? Simple. You couldn’t have.
So that’s why, the night of the school dance, instead of going to that stupid party just to stand alone in the corner, you decided you would be getting your answers.
What spurred this sudden quest? You didn’t know. But you needed to know what you did wrong. What had you done to drive Jim away?
So that’s how you ended up on his doorstep at just the wrong moment. 
Before you knocked on the door, you heard crashing and shouting from inside. 
Your heart raced. Were you right about Jim being hurt at home. You decided to raise your voice. “Jim?! Jim, are you in there!”
Inside, Jim heard your yells, and a pang of fear swelled up in him. 
He stood in armor of glowing silver beside his high school principal, who looked nothing like the lanky man everyone knew him as, yet appeared as a green skinned creature with jagged wings. A changeling.
And across from him was an ancient entity, with eyes blank and voidish, and a smirk that sent shivers down the boys spine. Angor Rot.
The fight had gone still at the sound of your pounding fist against the door. Jim didn’t like the sadistic gleam in Angor’s dark eyes. 
“Jim! Open this door! Are you all right?!”
No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
This couldn’t be happening. He’d tried so hard to keep safe, to keep you away from all of this!
He should’ve known better; you weren’t so easily shoved off, and you never knew when to quit.
Angor swept to greet you with Jim hot on his tail, swinging his sword wildly.
He was too late. 
A long story short, you were way in over your head with this one. 
Being the hostage of a centuries old… thing was so not on your bucket list. Yet, here you were, shaking as Angor Rot held a dagger to your neck. His entire being stenched of age, and you had to hold in your gagging lest it push you forth into the blade.
You didn’t know what to do. You didn’t knwo what was happening. But you knew Jim was there. He was right there, wearing his armor from Romeo and Juliet and wielding the same prop sword that didn’t look so prop-like now. 
He was right there, and he was looking at you, and you were looking at him, and you were both terrified.
“Jim,” you whispered, scared that even the slight word would force your skin forth and the knife would slit her neck. “Jim, what’s going on?”
Angor chuckled darkly as he peered down at you. “Ah, that’s right. You have no idea what your friend has been doing in the shadows.”
Your gaze was directed at Jim, your jaw shaky and your eyes wide with confusion. “What–?”
“So, Trollhunter,” Angor seethed. “Shall we risk your flower’s life today?”
You hadn’t been killed, fortunately. It all happened so fast, and all you really remembered was Jim fighting that thing, the changeling happening to be your principal, Dr. Lake in mortal danger, and an underground city of stone creatures.
The same underground city you now sat in, the boy of the hour right beside you. Neither of you had said a word since everything calmed down. It was driving you mad.
You raised your eyes to see Dr. Lake standing nearby, safe now that the battle with Angor was over. Then you swiveled to face Jim, your face screwed up. 
“Jim… who are you?”
He didn’t have much of a choice. You’d seen all you’d seen, hurt and fought alongside him despite never lifting a weapon against anyone in all your life. You deserved the truth.
“I’m the Trollhunter.”
It took nearly an hour for him to explain everything, and when it was all said and done, your jaw was hanging open. You now sat on the step below him, looking up at the boy you now knew was so terribly brave. Everything he’d gone through… it nearly made you forgive him.
You’d known Jim Lake Jr. as one thing for months and months, and now it seemed he was something entirely different. 
He wasn’t a scared kid who needed you to defend him to your ex-jerk of a cousin. He was strong and held himself with a certain dignity and humility that you envied. Yeah, he was awkward and foolish at times—foolish like when he ditched you just to keep you safe, which you supposed was understandable given that night’s events—but you liked him anyway.
You really liked him, despite all the pain and confusion and this fast turn of events. 
He hadn’t changed, you realized as you just stared up at him whilst he awaited what you would say. 
He was Jim, the boy you could have called your best friend had anyone asked, and the boy you had slowly harbored a crush on.
It was this thought process that made you lock eyes with him. You didn’t like secrets, and you hated lying. You sucked in a breath and put everything out in the open for him to see. 
“I like you, Jim.” The words were harder than you thought. “You don’t have to like me too, I just needed to say it. I want to be your friend no matter what, and I guess I can understand why you’d keep this from me. I just… I need you to know you can trust me.”
There. There it was. A confession, an offer, a pledge. It was everything you needed to say. 
And as you forced yourself to keep looking at Jim, you saw his eyes flutter and his jaw hang a bit. You felt slightly nauseous as your words came back to your memory. Had you said something you shouldn’t have?
“You like me?”
It was your time to blink blankly. That was all he got from that? You cracked a grin, not knowing where this was going. “Yeah. I really like you.”
He couldn’t believe it. He thought surely you would hate him, or at the very least never want to see his face again. But you liked him? Even after all that? After all the lies?
You liked him back?
Jim smiled, hand reaching for yours, itching to grab your hand, only for him to pull back at the awkward last second.
You tilted your head, wondering just what you were getting yourself into as you took his hand and gripped it tight.
Trollmarket was in shambles all around. Jim’s mother’s memory was wiped. His principal was a changeling. Enrique was in the Darklands. But you were there, and you were on his side.
Still, he had secrets to keep. Secrets from you, Toby, Claire, Blinky. Everyone. 
So as he dropped your hand with a subtle drop to his smile, he thought back to all that had happened, all that had been lost, and all that could be lost in the future.
“I like you too,” said Jim. You didn’t notice how his eyes filled with pain as he excused himself to deal with some Trollhunter business. 
You didn’t realize that might’ve been the last time you saw him as he turned away and walked off in a hurry.
How could you have known? You were new to this. You had no clue about the bridge or Enrique or Jim’s promise to Claire.
So when you saw Claire and Toby run by with panicked expressions, you were quick to rush after them. You had no clue what was going on, but you’d always been quick on the uptake.
Jim was going someplace he should not be going alone. He was leaving them all behind to go there. He was going to the Darklands.
You had just gotten him back, and now, he was ditching you again. 
Sure, it was meant to be heroic, but you just wanted your best friend to stick around for a little while.
Weeks go by, and you assist in Claire and Toby’s search for a way to save Jim. Eventually you help to free him, somehow managing to survive a short traipse through the Darklands.
It was safe to say you weren’t letting Jim get too out of sight for a time after that, and he wasn’t going to complain.
He never kept anything from you again, admitting it was torture to keep lying to you and keep you at a distance.
Jim often felt so out of touch with the rest of the world, being stuck in the middle of human and troll lives, and it was easy for him to disassociate and just brush everyone off. It was days like those that Jim was glad he had you.
“Jim?” 
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
You’d only sigh, catching the way he kept zoning out, getting lost in his own head. In your opinion, he’d been through too much to be only sixteen. So you took his hand or drew him in for a hug or just slung an arm around him--any of the like would do.
Instantly, his nerves would calm and his attention drawn back to the present. 
“You don’t have to be fine, you know.”
He hadn’t known that, not really. Not until he met you.
Those all around you two would notice a distinct change in Jim’s demeanor, so subtle yet so clear. He was somehow softer, which Toby hadn’t thought possible, and the light in his eyes began to spark up again.
His mother was especially grateful, loving the life you brought back into Jim. Blinky adored your very nature. Draal tolerated your eagerness to train with him. Vendel mused your every demanding question.
It wasn’t long before Jim got nervous; you were now one more person he couldn’t stand losing.
But you never let his thoughts run too wild, somehow always one step ahead of his overthinking, ready to put out every doubt and every fear.
“Hey, listen. You’re stuck with me, Lake. Nothing, especially not Bular or Gunmar or any other creep, is ever going to keep me from getting back to you.”
He wasn’t sure how to express just how much you meant to him, so he settled for a watery grin. “Back at you.”
I love you was just a breath away from being spoken into reality, but neither you nor Jim were eager to shove it out there. The fact was there whether it was spoken or not, and the both fo you were well aware of its presence.
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faffreux · 6 months
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can you tell us about when you fell in love with fawful? :)
Yep. In fact, I'll write a whole mini essay for you so I can add it to the FAQ section of my website coming up shortly LMAO (SINCE I NEED TO FULLY ANSWER THIS QUESTION FOR THERE ANYWAY, RIGHT???) CLICK UNDER THE READ MORE TO SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER POSTED HERE, LMAO.
To preface, I have been a fan of the M&L games going back to the early-mid 2000s when I was a kid. I had no involvement with fandom or anything of the sort back then but I used to hop on my mom's bulky computer and look up fanart and other related content as early as 2004/5 and as a result, ended up captivated by the characters long before I knew who they actually were. (As a result of this, I have the names and art styles of various old M&L fandom creators permanently ingrained in my head and often wonder where they are today since a good deal of them vanished..!) It wasn't until 2006 that I got my first handheld console (DS Lite) and of course, what did I do? Immediately begged my mom to order me a used GBA copy of Superstar Saga. 
When I finally had the game in my hands it was like coming home to a colorful world that I'd been captivated by for so long but never gotten the chance to actually explore until now. The characters felt like old friends and the Beanbean Kingdom as a location felt familiar and comforting to me. (As a side note, Popple quickly became my favorite. Shocker, right?)
I used to sketch various beans in my notebooks as well as on printer paper we had lying around the house. Long story short, I finished Superstar Saga and then a few years later in 2010 I picked up Bowser’s Inside Story and THAT’S WHEN THINGS SHIFTED–
BIS brought Fawful and his personality to life in a way that captivated my imagination like nothing else had prior. He quickly overtook Popple as my favorite character from then on forward… and that’s where it ends! Or.. is it?
Nah, that’s where it gets funky. Life got a little chaotic after that and not only did I stop playing video games altogether for many years, but I also almost completely gave up on art - the one thing I was most passionate about above all and thought I would make a career out of someday. A series of depressing events caused me to lose all hope and motivation for anything I created and the spark I’d kept inside of me for so long all but died out as a result.
We’re going to timeskip again, this time to late 2019. I’d just moved away from home permanently for the first time and had been getting settled in and no matter what I did to make my new apartment a cozy place it always felt like something was missing. My mind would keep wandering to the fact that I never made art anymore despite it having been such a key part of my life when I was younger. I so desperately wanted to change this and over the next few months the frustration only kept growing until on January 1st, 2020, I sat down in the living room with a pencil and paper in my hand and shut my eyes tightly before saying under my breath:
“I do not care what it is, I don’t care how it comes. Just please… PLEASE send me something to bring my art back. Anything… anything at all. I don’t care what I draw, I just want to be drawing again.” And with that, I placed the lead onto the paper and began to sketch…
And from there… a familiar face appeared!
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(Now I could ramble to you about how much I do NOT like this drawing and how off model it is from how Fawful actually looks… but I’ll forgive myself since I hadn’t touched the M&L games in over a decade at this point and had forgotten most of Fawful’s character. And yet?? Here he was.)
How else can I explain it except that in that moment it felt like the pencil in my hand had suddenly become one of these:
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A joy that I hadn’t felt in SO long suddenly filled my entire being and without wasting another second, I immediately went online and ordered both Superstar Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story to replay again. In the time waiting for the games to arrive I had started drawing daily again - sketching out various old characters of mine with dozens of doodles of the bean man stacked in between them all.
There he was… always smiling, always happy to see me, and oftentimes with his arms outstretched as if to give an encouraging hug. When the games arrived I worked through them quicker than I ever had prior - finishing up Superstar Saga in less than a week and subsequently moving onto Bowser’s Inside Story with a LOT of excitement built up for it. 
It was my first day playing and I was having the time of my life! The way Fawful looked in his little grey cloak with that enormous, charming grin of his as he bamboozled Bowser into eating the Vaccuum Shroom had me giggling with joy while words repeated in my brain over and over of: “I need to draw this later, I NEED to draw this later!!!” I WAS EXCITED ABOUT ART AGAIN… AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. I was practically hopping in my seat from the happiness I felt in my heart and chest every time Fawful appeared at this point!
This was how it felt until the moment I arrived at the Fawful Theatre and watched as he began dancing on the stage floor. THIS time.. something different came over me. If you’ve felt it before, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it was like my entire body turned warm all at once, like some sort of flame had been lit inside. I’d never felt it for anything or anyone prior to then, and that's partly why it hit me as hard as it did. I was practically sweating.
Heck, I was so absorbed in my feelings that I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room with me! That is.. Until my roommate at the time spoke up: 
Her: Are you alright? Me: Uhhh… yeah, why? Her: You’re red as a beet. Are you sure you’re okay?
By this time I had realized what was really going on so I reassured her I was fine, grabbed my 3DS, and ran to my room to finish the playthrough on my own so I wouldn’t embarrass myself any further, hahaha.
In the days, weeks, and months following that moment I became dedicated to drawing the best art of Fawful I could possibly create! What started as a challenge to myself to ‘give back’ to the person who’d given me back the ability to create again turned into someone I genuinely could not stop drawing for how much fun I was having doing it. The desire to make better and better art in order to honor him drove me to improve at a speed I never had prior, and soon thereafter I created Jolligig as a way for me to be in this colorful world with him and to express the deepening affection I was feeling for him with every day that passed by.
By some miracle, my prayer had been answered and here it was in the form of a grinning lima bean.
[End of Part 1. Interested in the rest? Yes… there’s more, I’m sorry. Please let me know in the comments. This took a while to write so I thought splitting it up would be best if folks are interested, LOL.]
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Hi! This is my first time asking a question, so I’m really hoping I don’t mess this up. If your 17 year old self were to see your current art, do you think you would have taken an art major? Thanks!
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That's a very fun question! Thanks for asking!
The answer is... probably not?
Let me explain.
I didn't major in art - not because of pressure or lack of self confidence. (In fact, I think as a teen I had way too MUCH self confidence. I thought I was the shit. Top shelf.)
In a weird inversion of the trope of most artists disappointing their families, my family actually encouraged me to go to art school. My mother actively thought I should try it.
I refused back then, because I knew it was very difficult to get a career in art without being extremely hardworking and prolific. I knew how hard artists worked - other artists, that is. I didn't work hard. I just doodled. As a 17 year old, I never spent more than an hour on any drawing. I enjoyed art, but I didn't really work hard on it. It was a hobby.
I saw other artists spending 3+ hours on a realistic pencil drawing, making portfolios, doing color studies, going to special art high-schools, etc and knew that I did not do art that way. I knew I would always draw, no matter what I did, so I left my art on the side and decided to take a different major, which interested me way more academically.
which also ended up being pretty useless in terms of making money, but you know.
I think art school can be great, but it's by no means the only way to go into art.
Many people who are exceptional artists have never gone to art school! Others who did go to art school find that it kills their passion for art. A small subset benefit from it and learn a lot!
It's not for everyone. I don't think it was for me, especially when I was 17. Maybe now I would enjoy it, but back then...? Nah. I would have just exhausted myself and hated the rigidity.
It's fun to think about though!
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brittlecakes92 · 2 years
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What happens if I roast the main 6 Lin kuei boys before the cyber initiative
Ohhhh the fun I had with this one...
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Kuai Liang - His face speaks for itself, truly. Annoyed with your shit. - "Kuai... How you going to have half your titties on display while covering your nips? It's okay Miyagi son, take your time with the answer." - " Wax on, wax off? More like take those shoes off my guy. You look like you are wearing some curb steppers from the yee olden times." - When you feel you've crossed the line you tell him you are just messing with him... before telling him his attitude is colder then any attack his ass can manage. (Not going to lie, it was hard to try to seriously drag this sweet angel. The rest of them... not so much. Lol)
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Bi Han - He can't decide if he is amused, or if he wants to freeze your mouth shut. - "God damn pasty, have you ever heard of the sun... are you allergic, because looking at you hurts my eyes." - "How you going to buy your tight ass clothes from the children's section of Ninjas-R-Us and your accessories from hot topic? Make it make sense." - "Are your eyes okay? Oh, good, because looking at your outfit is killing mine." - You can't tell me he didn't buy his tight ass clothes from the children's section... - He thinks it best to freeze your whole mouth shut at this point.
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Smoke - Poor boy never stood a chance. -" Oh hey Crow, didn't know you were back for some vengence." - I'm so EdGy... the only thing darker the my mood is my soul." - "2010 called, they want their fucking hair style back." -I could go on with the poor emo roasts you would do to him. -The worse is all the music.. He is just pure confusion. - He really doesn't know how to take it. He even asks Kuai if this is normal behavior.
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Sektor - Be prepared for him to be the pissiest of all. -Boy can't take the roast.. He would go to his room to cry, truly. '"If the arch on your brows got any sharper, I could do division questions on them." "When did the pencil thin douche staches come back? Oh wait... You've never left that phase? Makes sense." -" Must be so hard for you... being a biggity bitch." "It's cute how bad you want to be a pyromancer, last time I checked Tunda and Sub zero didn't have to have the help of a toy.." - I can see when it hits the point of being enough he will slam his fist on the table or whatever surface. (Never to hurt you or intimidate you, but to let you know you've done your job.) - You definitely like to humor him, keep his ego in check. - It pisses him off, but he likes that you have the balls to go toe to toe with him and not back down regardless of what looks are thrown your way.
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Cyrax - Prepare for the worst side eyes of you life. -"Jesus did you save any yellow for the rest of the Lin Kuei?" -" Stop? Nah, you're outfit screams to procced with caution." - "Glad to see you matched your beads with the rest of your outfit. It's cute, does your underwear match too?" - He wants to gag your mouth, truly. - The worst is when Bi- Han and Sektor start in on his color of choice. - He's contemplated new color options.
Hydro.. (Sorry I tried finding a photo) -" Hey, it's the knock off Sub zero brother." - "Does it kill you that the only way you can get any girl wet is if you use your powers?" - He usually squirts you with water before exiting the room. - He truly doesn't have time for your mess at all. - He is a steeled Lin Kuei warrior, the only water that will leave his body won't be from his eyes. Yeah.. Hydros might have been the second worst on the roast, his honestly is a little harder! BUT I hope you enjoy it! (:
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gamesception · 8 months
Text
Sception Reads Cass Cain #12
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Batgirl #1 story: Scott Peterson & Kelley Puckett script: Kelley Puckett, pencils: Damion Scott
We've finally made it to issue #1 of Cass's solo Batgirl title, under her initial creative team - who I still associate her with to this day - of Peterson, Puckett, and Scott. While I do think it was worth taking the time to look at her earlier appearances, this is where I started following the character. But while it hooked me back in the day, unlike other formative works of fiction that I've returned to repeatedly over the years, I haven't sat down and read Batgirl #1 as a stand alone comic book issue in a long time. I'm eager to see how it holds up.
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The issue starts with a Flashback to when Cass was young and still being raised by David Cain. The first panels have her putting a fairly simple puzzle together - a kid activity, to entertain a kid, when she hears David speak to his guests in front of her using words - a rare enough surprise that she drops her puzzle piece. Either that, or she's excited for the test to start, since she's stretching & getting ready right after.
David's getting a high speed camera ready for the event, which the dialog calls out as being fancy and high end even though it looks old fashioned to us, which helps us place this as a flashback even if we aren't previously familiar with young Cass and David from her introduction in NML.
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First of all, that worms eye panel with the forshortening looking up at the knife, the girl, the guy in the chair? That is a fantastic fucking panel.
Mostly though I want to stop and point out that Scott puts a fair bit of individuality into all of these guys. Like, they're clearly built on cliches, but still, this bunch of violence-for-hire street toughs who in most bat books would be the forgettable hench goons of some colorful supervillain here get to feel like people in their own right. Especially the middle guy who's like 'nah, dude, I hurt people for money, but that is a child." Of course, even if we're not previously familiar with Cass as a character, we can see where this is going, and these guys hurting the kid was never an option on the table.
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Jesus Christ How Horrifying.
The way everything goes red when the violence and the blood starts is really something, especially with the stark contrast between that red and little Cass's black hair and body suit. Very dynamic. And David there with the smug little jab at the end.
It's not exactly clear what Cass is thinking through this. She's casually committing some pretty extreme violence as a... not even as a test, the outcome was never in question for her or David. This is a demonstration, an exposition for the camera. Like a kid's music recital or something. Her facial expression is mostly fairly flat and serious, but this one panel:
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She knows what's about to happen, and she's smiling. Determined, eager, she knows they're underestimating her, and she's looking forward to showing them just how badly. She likes this. The violence in and of itself? Hurting people - even hurting them badly? That doesn't bother little Cass, that won't be why she leaves David.
...
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The scene shifts from child Cassandra beating up a group of grown men to teenage Cassandra practicing fighting sticks with Barbara, and getting disarmed when she gets distracted by a picture of Babs as Batgirl from before she was paralyzed. Which is a nice little demonstration of the limits of Cass's martial abilities - she's extremely good, but she's not invincible. She can be beaten by a normal human opponent if they're skilled and she's distracted. We also see Cass surprised by the loss. Scott's art can be a bit rubbery and cartoony, the proportions can be a bit weird at times, but his faces are super expressive, and that's obviously so much more important when portraying a character who doesn't speak.
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Cassandra is still a new enough character that a single page can give all the essential narration to cover her basic backstory to this point. Also, blowing the dandelion seeds and saying 'me' is such a great little bit of pantomime for conveying the idea of spending years drifting aimlessly. Cass may not be able to speak more than a few words, but she can still communicate.
Even so, with a largely non-verbal protagonist, someone needs to deliver necessary exposition to the reader, and Babs as Oracle serves the role of conveying necessary information to both the reader and to Cass, while also taking on a sort of surrogate mother/big sister role.
The green blocks on these couple pages, justified in universe as Barbara's recorded notes, are the only narration blocks in the entire book, though. There are word bubbles when characters talk, but nothing that directly spells out what they're thinking, or what's happening. That work is left entirely to the artist. It's a task that not many comic artists would be up to, but Scott delivers here.
The result is a book that puts you in Cass's head, understanding and relating to the other characters the way she does.
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Cassandra may be the new Batgirl, but she takes more after Bruce than Barbara.
As much as I complain about the design of Cass's Batgirl outfit being a mistake for how difficult it makes depicting her expression and emotions, it really is very cool and sleek and striking and spooky, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of what motivated me to pick up her book in the first place. And yeah, despite Cass being younger and smaller, you have no trouble buying her being every bit as intimidating as Bruce in costume.
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Before we get to Bruce, though, there's another flashback. I don't know why this one's all 'flashback sepia toned' when the first one wasn't, but regardless it seems Mr. Merc from the first flashback is a bit down on his luck since his earlier encounter with Cassandra. He's got some new scars on his face, and the elbow she broke is still bandaged, and instead of taking fighting jobs for cash from mysterious strangers here he is getting in fights with homeless guys over half-drunk bottles of booze.
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When he sees Cass, now homeless and drifting herself, he recognizes her. You see a moment of fear bolt through his face, and he smashes the stolen bottle to use it as a weapon to defend himself.
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Cass just runs away, leaving the guy to realize he's smashed the bottle of booze that he had just been fighting over.
It's a pretty simple moment, watching this guy hit rock bottom. You can feel something for him. Not sympathy necessarily, but he feels like a person. It's a lot of time put into characterizing some random guy who happened to wander into Cass's life by chance.
...
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After the second flashback, there's a scene where Cass stops a man from assaulting a woman in an alley - but she's holding back. She uses the bare minimum force needed to get they guy off of his victim. He's not exactly sorry. He's not afraid of Cassandra. Despite the spooky suit, she hasn't given him a reason to be. And he's still threatening the woman, even while Cass has him pinned...
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Until Batman shows up, exercising a considerably more extreme degree of violence. Something much closer to Cassandra's training with David Cain. Brutal enough that Cass is momentarily taken aback - He's supposed to be good, is it ok for him to be doing that?
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The next day, Cass is still thinking about it when Babs notices and tries to get her out of the house to cheer her up.
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They head out to the park and Barbara tries to talk to Cass about what she's going through, but Cass just doesn't have the words and runs off in frustration.
It won't always be written well, admittedly, but this is an important point of tension between Babs and Cass. They're sort of mirrored opposites. Babs is trapped in a chair by her injury. Her interactions with the world and especially her career in super heroics are limited largely to words - information gathering, communications. On the other hand Cass, even after she learns to speak, is the opposite - excelling in the physical world, but largely disconnected from the world of words, especially the written word.
They complement each others abilities, making them an especially effective team. But they also can't help but see each other as a representation of the skills they lack, and evidence that the skills they have might not really be that important. The wedge this puts between them gets in the way of Barbara's attempts to look out for Cass and help her build a life that isn't entirely devoted to violence.
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Ie, Bruce's life. And here he is, an ominous shadow, like the Ghost of Christmas Future, pointing a bony finger at fate that Cassandra is aimed towards. A never ending crusade, compassion and hope ground down to the bone, emotionally stunted by trauma and violence, only feeling alive when risking his own life, only feeling joy when hurting people he's deemed it morally acceptable to hurt, isolated, unable to relate even his own surrogate family.
There have been many takes on Batman over the years, and in general I prefer ones considerably less brutal and broken than this one. But this was already the Batman of the time, even before Cass showed up, and even in books without her. Cassandra is built by her creators to be this Batman's daughter - to reflect, comment on, and maybe criticize his choices and life style.
Like a lot of the characterization in the book, it's something that comes across most clearly in the art. Other characters get Scott's signature expressive faces, but here Bruce is an inhuman shadow.
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From issue one, Batgirl's writers are intent on driving home how similar Cassandra is to Bruce, and how that's not necessarily a good thing. And the person most convinced of this similarity is Bruce himself. He looks at Cassandra, and he sees his reflection.
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God, the way Scott draw's Barbara's face when she's hearing what exactly David did to Cassandra.
Bruce has worked out Cassandra's body reading gimmick, which was alluded to but not fully spelled out before this. And it's described as 'understanding physical movement as a language,' but it's essentially just empathy? Not psychic powers, but just normal style recognizing facial expression and body language and processing that to understand how people are feeling and what they're doing, only taken to a comic book extreme.
In a fight, at least against regular human opponents, it effectively amounts to knowing what her opponents are going to do and how they're going to move moments before they do so - rendering Cass nigh unbeatable. And that's nice, that's a costumed superhero gimmick right there, but understanding the ability as empathy dovetails nicely with the book's focus on the humanity of the people Cass comes across, and on her own emotional struggles.
It also tells us what the stakes won't be in Cass's stories. The question is never "will Cass be able to defeat the bad guy in a fight." Since that's taken off the table from the start, her book is forced to focus on more difficult and personal questions.
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That night Bruce takes Cassandra out to an abandoned building for training, but not like the usual. He wants them to fight. For real. For her to show him what she can "really do," when she isn't holding back, like in the alley before. Cass may be nigh unbeatable in a fight against a 'normal human', but Bruce isn't exactly normal. She can hurt him. He can take it.
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Here we have my only real complaint about this issue, because it skips over that fight, and it does so in a way that it's hard to tell that it even happened. Like, it doesn't cut to another scene and then come back to imply the passage of time, or even throw up a little "one hour later" spongebob meme, we just go straight from the above panel to this one, with only the busted up windows and Cass looking tired to imply a fight even happened.
And it's not just a problem because it's potentially confusing, it's also a missed opportunity. Like, imagine if the fight had been drawn with some striking poses, and then later we had seen those same poses mirrored in a flashback panel of young Cass training with David?
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I love the decision to have her out of her mask here, and I love the way Scott draws Cass's face - her bright eyes, bushy eyebrows, wide smile, big jaw & chin. She's so expressive.
Bruce can fight Cass, they're on a pretty similar level, but while she's just worn out, he's suffered internal damage and is coughing up blood. At first he's acting like he beat her, the stern implacable mentor, all criticism and ways she can improve. But he's more hurt than she is, and they both know it, and they're both smiling about it.
What happened between them was violent, and, while we didn't get to see it directly, we can infer that it was pretty extreme. A degree of violence between mentor and protege - between father and daughter - that anyone on the outside looking in would consider abuse. But in universe, in character, they're playing with each other. They're having fun. Bruce is proud of her ability to suffer violence and pay it back with interest, and Cass is thriving on his approval, and the parallels to her training with David Cain are not subtle.
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Bruce & Cass's moment is interrupted by the sound of a gunshot outside. It's our friend from the flashbacks. He's not showing his face in this panel, but we can already recognize him from his hair and from... did he... did he have his jacket sleeve embroidered to match the tattoo on his shoulder? That's some commitment to the bit. Anyway, he's robbing an armored car, and has already killed the driver. In Gotham, my guy? Really? Like, you could talk about his bad luck, but still. Anyway, Bruce chases an accomplice while Cassandra confronts Mr. Merc.
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He pulls a gun on her, but she casually swats it away and grabs him... but something distracts her and she pulls back, giving Mr. Merc time to run. But what could have captured Cass's attention...
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Her own shadow on the wall. Batman's shadow. She's been living with all this guilt, not just because of what she did, but because the enjoyed her life training to be an assassin right up until she learned what that meant. Finding out didn't just mean she had done something evil, it meant that her entire life - a life she had loved to that point - had been in service to that evil thing. The skills she was so proud of were evil. The father she loved was evil. She wasn't just ashamed of one act, she was ashamed of her entire identity.
Being Batgirl - putting herself in harms way, suffering pain and risking death to save others - had been a way to make up for that evil, a life of penance, a sacrifice - but in this moment she's realizing that it's not just a way to make amends for the evil thing she did, it's a way to re-contextualize everything else. She could take pride in her skills again. She could have a father who would be proud of her again. She could have the life she loved back. Even memories of David could be retroactively redeemed, if it had all been part of this destiny, to help her become this person. Yes, she'd still feel guilty for the evil thing she did, but it didn't have to mean her entire life and everything about her was evil too.
And all she would have to do is dedicate her entire life to Batman's crusade with absolutely nothing left for herself, and suborn her entire sense of identity and self worth to Batman's approval forever. It's a good thing this Batman isn't an unreasonably demanding asshole. /s
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With this new epiphany - that the violence she enacts on people like Mr. Merc can be a righteous instead of despicable - Cass is freed to cut loose on the guy. He's a murderer after all! (like she is) He deserves it! (like she does) She can beat him into submission, and since she's acting on Batman's behalf, she doesn't have to feel guilty that she enjoys doing it, that it feels like singing.
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But something about Cassandra's righteous beat down triggers Mr. Merc's memories, and he knows. Years later, half a world away, shrouded by completely concealing costume, and serving the Batman instead of an assassin, but Mr. Merc recognizes her. Despite all that, despite her big revelation moments before in the alley, she hasn't changed. She's still the same. And here's this random guy from her memories as a sign, telling her, and the reader, that her past won't be so easy to put behind her.
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Satisfied that Cass is ready, Bruce cuts her loose for solo work, with one restriction - no costumed criminals. In universe this is because Cass depends on her body-reading for defense, and that ability can't necessarily be relied on when facing supervillains. In the real world, though, it's to keep her book grounded and human, telling smaller, more personal stories like that of Mr. Merc in this issue, allowing the book to keep a tight focus on Cassandra's emotions, motivations, and relationships in a way that wouldn't be possible with a big colorful attention-magnet like the Joker chewing the scenery.
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But speaking of those relationships, and of a past that can't just be left behind, the issue ends on David Cain, watching his recording of the opening flashback, bringing the whole issue neatly full circle.
...
So that was the first issue of Batgirl (2000), Cass's solo title. In the end I wasn't able to resist going through the whole thing nearly page by page and spending too much time on plot summary and reaction rather than calling out, like the creative choices and execution in the art and the writing. But yeah, for me the book holds up extremely well. I'm immediately sucked right back in. The layered character dynamics, the reliance on art over text narration for characterization and storytelling, the parallels between Bruce and David - and the criticism of Bruce that those parallels imply. It all makes for a very dense book, one you can really dig into. And I love Damion Scott's art here. I don't think anyone else could have pulled this off as well.
I promise I'll try to be more concise going forward - especially since I've taken so long on some of these, and this one in particular, that I've entirely used up my posting lead and now I don't have anything queued to go up while I'm out of town for the next week. But I couldn't stop myself from gushing over the first issue.
My entire love of this medium, at least the mainstream big two American superhero corner of this medium, lived and died on this run of this character under this creative team. I liked Batman and Superman and Spiderman and the X-Men from various movies and cartoons in the 90s, and I enjoyed some individual comics here and there. But in retrospect I was never a superhero comics fan generally. I was a fan of Peterson, Puckett, and Scott's 'Batgirl' specifically. And reading this issue again more that 20 years later, I still am.
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dgknightblue · 1 year
Text
Man, if the Leo’s got together and talked about Usagi.
Then Rise Leo’s Usagi shows up to the lair to hang out with Leo.
Everyone realizes Rise Raph really is a Raph. His smile has a menacing aura as he hears Leo scream, “Usagi!?”
“I’ll be right back.”, he gets up calmly.
His footsteps are heavy and Usagi is already sweating. He places a hand on Leo’s shoulder.
“Usagi! Good to see you.”, he holds out his hand.
Usagi holds his hands up, palms out. Leo takes this as an invitation to hug him. Usagi panics as Raph scowls at him.
“Leo, I’m not really feeling like hugging right now, so maybe let go?”, he lets go.
Mikey calls Leo over to get his colored pencils. Leo leaves. Usagi nervously grabs Raph’s hand and almost falls to his knees because it hurts.
“Control that expression, Leo’s watching.”
Usagi twitched and stood straight as his hand is still trapped.
“It’s nice to see you too.”
Raph let’s go to sit back down. Donnie comes up to him next.
“I’m going to be direct with you.”, he manifests a gun.
“If anything happens to him, we will kill you.”, he cocked the gun.
Usagi nodded at the bloodlust a radiating off the calm soft shell.
Usagi walks over to Leo.
———
Next is a series of Raph cutting between the two.
Leo trying to hold Usagi’s hand? Raph is there.
Leo wants a hug? Raph is there.
Leo tries to kiss Usagi? Raph’s arm is reaching between them to grab his phone.
Leo pouts.
Next Mikey sits between the two during a movie to snuggle with Leo. If he accidentally kicks Usagi off the couch, what can anyone do? Especially if Donnie sits in his spot.
Splinter bemoans that Usagi will take little blue a way! That’s his baby! He’ll never come back! He’s too young to leave! He’s not ready! So he glared at Usagi too.
April shows up to randomly do wood whittling of faces. She’s working on a Mayhem head for the Aprils. She sits near by Usagi and stares directly at him as she takes her knife out.
The only one that doesn’t seem bother by Leo’s crush is Piebald and Leo. All she said is that he shouldn’t mess this up (to Usagi) and pat his shoulder before she left.
————-
12 crew thinks rise Leo is acting like 12 Donnie so 12 Donnie tries to talk to rise Leo.
“But he kissed me, that has to mean he likes me, right?”, Leo said innocently confused.
12 Donnie felt his throat tighten. The others are in varying degrees of concerned.
“It was on the lips!”, he whispered and smiled.
Someone felt a twitch happening.
Leo is 16, he’s too young to date- thought someone.
Leo giggled and left. Someone is trying to calm down and makes sure not to let rise Raph know.
————
When they think no one is watching them- Donnie records everything so of course he has a camera watching.
They all see Usagi kiss Leo on the cheek. Leo is dazed.
They know the context of the kiss, but they still aren’t happy. 12 Donnie thinks out loud about adding a chainsaw to his staff for no reason.
12 Leo encouraged this thought. So did 07 and 03 Donnie.
Rise Leo is a baby (he’s 16!!! Dude it’s fine. Said a Casey, foolishly, before getting run back to his dimension) and a kind kid. He’s sweet and smart and friendly.
—————
Rise Raph laminated about Leo trusting Usagi so readily when he always calls them out for trusting other people so readily.
“I mean he was right the majority of the time, but still! Hypocrisy! Dangerous hypocrisy if you ask me!”
———
Rise Leo went a round saying he loved everyone.
“And I love you too!”, Leo said Hugging Usagi.
“Your practically my best friend!”, he leaned up to kiss his cheek.
They were once again ripped a part, but not by rise Raph.
————-
Will I show you what Usagi feels about Leo? Nah, I gave you a hint in a different post and that’s it.
Think Raph is mostly upset because Usagi is that same age as him? Raph is a year older than the twins.
Gosh if he was two years older than Leo- Raph really would kill him. Someone older than Raph? Not if he can help it.
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trentskibunny66 · 1 year
Text
Trent Alexander Arnold - First Sight.
summary/request: you bump into Trent in the stairs for the first time ever. You recognize him, but you decide to act cool and different.
Should I make this into a series? You can drop in your requests if you'd like.
Word count: 1.2k
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I swing my tote onto my shoulder and stuff my papers and my ipad in it. I stare at the bag's contents for a second trying to recall if I forgot anything. "Keys, charger, wallet", my thoughts escape my mouth as I focus attentively.
I stare for a couple more seconds, completely zoned out of it. "Shit", I say as I finally realize what I had forgotten. I rush back to my room quietly trying to not wake up my cat and roommates, and snatch my holy make up pouch. Ain't no way I'm spending a whole packed day at uni without a make up retouch, hell nah.
I let out a sight of relief now that I have everything I need to get off to class. I check my phone and "oh fuck" I murmur under my breath as the realization of how late I am snaps me back to reality. My professor does not tolerate tardiness at all.
I rush out of the apartment not caring about making noise anymore. Run to the elevator and "ughh" it's out of service. I rush down the stairs careful not to twist my ankles. My heels are making loud thud noises with each step, wow that's embarrassi-.
My trail of thoughts is abruptly interrupted by the sharp pain in my my spine as my ass hits the concrete floor. I moan in pain as I reach down to touch the area where it hurts; as if it'll make the pain magically go away.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry I didn't think anyone would be in here" the voice of a man with a thick scouse accent penetrates my ear drums.
I look up to meet his eyes but my vision is blurry. The man towering above me helps me back on my feet and keeps rambling about how sorry he is and how he was on a run.
Who the fuck runs up the stairs at 7am man.
I hear words but don't really understand his accent much, nor do I care what he has to say. "It's whatever" I say as I try to get a better look at this apologetic asshole and "oh".
His face meets mine so closely I can see the the sparkle in his eyes. I feel the heat travel up my body to my cheeks and can tell that I'm blushing by the look on his face.
he looks familiar?
A charming smile appeared on his face putting color on his cheeks as well. He looks down, still smiling, and realizes he is holding me tightly with both arms up against his body, as if he's afraid I'm going to fall again.
I honestly did not notice he was holding me until he let go of me and all the warmth left me feeling the freezing cold air. He coughs awkwardly and takes a couple steps back allowing me to fix myself properly.
I get a better look at him now that we are standing a couple feet apart; dreads, warm-brown skin, wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles,broad-ass-fucking-shoulders and big hands.
That's Trent Alexander Arnold!! I can recognize his face anywhere! My ex would ignore me for hours to watch Liverpool play.
I know he is getting a better look at me too. My long legs in chunky heels and sheer black pantyhose, paired with a shamelessly short pencil skirt and a skin tight plain beige top.
I thank God silently that I took the time to get pretty today. He starts saying some stuff again and I geniunely can barely understand anything. it's my first time in England and scouse accent is the hardest.
My best guess is that he asked if I lived here and that he never saw me here before.
"Yeah I moved in two days ago." I quickly blurted as I picked up my tote and got to moving again. I'm so awkward when I'm flustered.
He gets in my way stopping me from walking past him, and says "what's your name?" With a wide smile. He has really nice teeth wow.
"(y/n)" I say looking up to him, trying to be as nice as possible since I'm running so late.
" (y/n)? Suits you very well" he says brightly down at me. "I'm Trent" he reaches for a handshake and I take it quickly.
"very nice to meet you Trent, I have to get going, sorry!!" I say in the nicest tone i can manage.
If I'm late for my morning lecture my professor will mark me absent for the entire day. I can't afford another absence, it's a bad look for my scholarship.
"oh you're in a hurry sorry, where are you going?"
"uni" I say quickly as I start walking past him.
"I can drive you there, it's only 5 mins by car!" He blurts out.
I immediately stop hearing his request. I really need that ride.. but even if he's a world class famous football player, he's still a stranger. On top of being a stranger, he's a man...
Young, rich, successful and insanely famous in Liverpool. He probably thinks he can bag every single girl he wants without even trying too hard. He also probably has hundreds of girls lining up for his attention.
The thought of being in competition with girls over a man boils my blood, gives me flashbacks of my cocky abusive ex.
I gather the courage to politely decline his request of driving me.
Yeah he's handsome as hell, but I'd rather sit naked on a hot grill than further feed a man's ego.
He looks startled as I declined him and stutters on his words for a second.
"oh, a-alright then, I guess I'll see you around!" He says clearly disappointed and confused.
I was right, he really thought he could get me as easy as that. It is satisfying to shut him down but I feel kind of guilty.
I switch to autopilot as I drive to uni, and for some reason all I can think about is him. This carried on for the rest of the day during my lectures. I kept daydreaming about his pefume. I could not focus on anything my professor was saying. Do I have a crush?? That is so embarrassing, at my old age a crush on a guy I bumped into.
My trail of thoughts is cut quick by the realization that for once in so long, I am not thinking about my toxic ex. I am not spending the day with that gut wrenching feeling of sadness as I replay the scene of him on top of my best friend in my bed.
I'm not thinking about my ex anymore yea, but I simply cannot expect this guy to be any different. If anything, he might be worse.
After uni ended, I drove back to my building with a feeling of excitement. I haven't felt like this in ages, I miss having a silly crush.
to be continued...
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13phantom13angel13 · 2 years
Text
Be Careful. He Bites.
Author’s Note: Ok, now I can get back into the swing of things now that life has calmed down. Sorry I take so long to post, guys. My job is very taxing. ANYWHO! Enjoy! ❤️
~~~~~~~~~~
Dick was in a mood. He found a feather duster and wanted to mess with someone really bad today. The bummer; no one was home. Well, Damian was home, however his two main targets were not. Tim was out with a friend. Jason was out doing…Jason things. Dick didn’t really want to think about that too hard.
So, with only one person in the manor to prank, he decided to test his luck on the resident hell spawn. Going down a couple hallways, Dick found Damian in the living room, sketch book open in his lap and Titus laying beside him. Damian tapped his pencil against his chin seemingly trying to decide what he wanted to draw.
Dick’s lips curled up into a mischievous smirk. If he played his cards right, he could sneak up on baby Wayne. So, he crouched down and silently made his way behind him. Years of training as a vigilante and an acrobat made him surprisingly quiet on his feet. Titus didn’t even stir from his nap. And it seemed Damian couldn’t hear him either, too engrossed in thought. His guard was down completely, much to Dick’s surprise.
Dick finally stood behind him on the couch, holding his breath as he brought the feather duster up to the back of Damian’s neck and wiggled it. Dick expected a bit of a shutter, maybe a slight jump. What he didn’t expect was the actual reaction he got. Damian let out a high pitched squeal, jolted forward, and fell off the couch; pencils and sketch book flying everywhere. Titus jumped up, huffing at Damian as he moved to the other side of the couch. Dick stared down at him in gleeful surprise.
“Uh…you ok, Dami?” Damian sat up quickly, glaring daggers at the older man.
“What was that for, Grayson!?” He hissed as he rubbed his neck.
“Oh, you know. Just for fun. I’m bored.” Dick hopped over the couch and kneeled down, eye level to Damian. An evil smirk spread over his lips. “And I think I just found a source of entertainment.”
Damian’s eyes widened at that. He quickly scampered backwards, however Dick grabbed his ankle, dragging him back towards him.
“Now where do you think you’re going? I’m not done with you.” Dick chuckled.
“Don’t you dare, Grayson! Unhand me!” Damian growled as he kicked at his older brother. Dick clicked his tongue, disapprovingly.
“I don’t think I will, Dami. This is too much fun to pass up on! Just wait until the others find out!” Dick tossed the feather duster aside and latched on to Damian’s knee. He chuckled at the scream he got. “Aw…tell me something, baby bat. Are you ticklish?”
“GRAYSON DON’T!” Was all Damian was able to get out before Dick started to rapidly squeeze his knee. Childish laughter came flooding out of his mouth before he had the chance to stop it. Dick’s smile grew tenfold as he listened to his baby brother laugh.
“Oh my god! You’re the cutest thing ever! You should laugh more!” Damian’s face colored a bright red, almost rivaling his Robin suit. He struggled against his brother’s hold, trying to dislodge him from his knee.
“GRAYSON! STAHAHAHAHAP! NOHOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHEHEHERE!”
“Oooh. Is this a bad spot, baby bat?”
“YEHEHEHEHEHES! NOW CEHEHEHEHEASE THIS!”
“Hm….nah.” Dick’s tickling fingers traveled upwards, tickling along his thigh, hip, side, and ribs; Damian’s laughter changed with each spot. From loud guffaws to soft titters. He tickled under his armpit for a second but decided against that when Damian screeched and swung at him. He knew how hard the kid could hit.
However, his biggest mistake was when he tickled his neck. Damian scrunched up, high pitched giggles escaping him against his will, hiccups started to punctuate between each snicker.
“Grahahahahaysohohohon! Stahahahahap! I wihihihill bihihihite you!”
Dick scoffed at him. “Yeah. Sure you will.”
With a fiery fury burning in his eyes at the absolute audacity of his older brother, Damian sure proved him wrong. His head lurched to the side as his teeth latched on to Dick’s wrist. Hard. Dick cried out in pain, releasing his baby brother from the tickly torture. Damian released Dick in return, but not before drawing blood.
“You bit me!” Dick cried out holding his arm.
“I warned you, did I not?” Damian inquired, wiping his mouth before standing up to dust himself off. He looked down at Dick, as he remained crouching. “Next time, I won’t let you off so easy, Grayson.”
Dick couldn’t help but smirk. “Next time? So you’re giving me permission?”
Damian’s face heated up as he sputtered at him, trying to come back with a witty retort. Instead, he huffed and exited the room. Dick chuckled as he examined the bite mark on his arm. He groaned quietly.
“That’s gonna leave a scar…Tim and Jay are going to get a kick out of this one.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I hope this was good for you!
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