#considering he's been with her all of...maybe 4 days tops at this point

[catsfor2]

hit me, part 1.5 (bonussss!)

wc: 1.5k, largely unedited warnings: swearing/language, very very light talk of smut, drug use (alcohol) a/n: hi everyone. the feedback on part one made me so so happy that i wanted to drop this for ya'll. i hope u like it ;) tags: @elliewilliamsmunch@intrnetdoll@me-and-your-husband@3zae-zae3@milahnoz@elliescumm

For context, this chapter takes place 4 years before part one, or where *reader is 16 and Ellie is 19*.This part is simply to explore an interesting friendship dynamic, teenage sexuality, and some backstory to Ellie + reader.

*I do not condone underage relationships and there will be no insinuations, assumptions, or even words that would suggest Ellie being romantically interested in reader at this point considering their age gap.*

I know this makes it sound super serious but i PROMISE YOU its not. i had to put in a disclaimer simply for respect and safety reasons. enjoy!

-j

part 1

"'Natty Light'? What the hell is that?"

"It's beer," Ellie reassures you. "it's what the college folk drink. Want some?" She says, offering out the can in her hand.

"I think I'll wait until I become...college folk." You remark, unsure.

Ellie liked being around you. When your dumbass boyfriend wasn't trying drown you with his spit every six minutes. God, he's such a dick. Ellie couldn't wait for you to grow up and see the scum of the world without youth clouding your eyes. Scum not just including your boyfriend, obviously, but mainly him.

You sit on Ellie's bed, flipping your phone back and forth between your hands like you'd been doing the entire hour you've been here.

Ellie knew what that meant. It meant that he hadn't responded for a couple days, and you're just starting to get anxious about it.

Fucking. Dick.

"What do you do in college?" You ponder.

"Fuck girls, get high, get drunk, and maybe learn. Not sure." Ellie says mindlessly. She didn't see the point in college. Thought it was a waste of time and energy. She also didn't have the money to attend.

"Or at least, that's what I would do." Ellie finishes, snatching your phone from your hands.

She chugs around half of the can after she finishes talking, topping it off with a burp.

"Give it back, Ellie." You demand.

"Why? If he hasn't texted in four days he's not gonna start now."

Ellie regretted saying that almost immediately. Sometimes you seemed so...grown up. It was hard to censor herself around you. Especially when it's something she's been trying to tell you forever.

She sees your face fall, head turn swiftly towards her window. You liked how she had a bunch of sketches up there, and when the sun shined through it you'd always say it 'looked like all of her drawings were glowing'. Ellie smiled so hard when you'd said that. One million watts for sure.

Some of them were of her current girlfriend. Some of them of her ex-girlfriends. Some of them of Dina. All you really wanted was to see yourself up there.

You were too nervous around Ellie to ask her to do anything like that. Like drawing you.

"Y'know he wasn't that way in the beginning. I used to really...like him, I think." You mutter, still facing the window.

Ellie scoffs.

"You think?"

"I'm being serious, Ellie. It's like you don't listen to me cause you think you know everything. You're not even that much older than me."

"Oh yeah? What's a condom?" She asks, eyeing you.

You don't even say anything.

"So is that because you don't know? Or--"

"Shut the fuck up. Give me my phone back already." You huff, frustrated.

"Oooh shes swearing now?" Ellie teases. She watches as your face gets all pink as you get more irritated. You cross your arms hastily. It was fun to make you mad, Ellie thought.

"You should break up with Cat."

Uh, what?

"I'm sorry?" Ellie questions, less upbeat than she was a moment ago.

"I'm tired of you nagging me about my boyfriend. Cat's not very much better than he is. In my opinion."

"Christ, you sound like Joel," Ellie spits.

If there's one thing Ellie never expected from you, it was this. You usually never breached the subject of Ellie's love life. Ellie didn't mind not talking about it, she knew you weren't homophobic or anything. She just thought, honestly, that you were disinterested. So she never really...brings Cat up.

"If you can talk about my boyfriend than I can talk about Cat. It's...fair."

"It's fucking different. You don't get it."

"Why?! You always say that," You retort, sitting up a little taller on the bed. "Just—just because I'm dating a guy and you're dating a girl?"

"Yes. Literally, yes. It's fuckin' different, I don't know what else to say." Ellie remarks, throwing the can she emptied minutes ago onto the floor. She grabs a new can from the pack, cracking it open on the spot.

"Tell me, then." You say. "Tell me how it's different."

"Well, first of all, no dicks—"

"Ellie."

She huffs out a big sigh before starting again.

"I don't even—" She burps.

"I don't even know why you wanna know. And like, right now, of all times."

When Ellie asks you that, you freeze. Obviously, noticeably, freeze. Because, well, you didn't even know why you wanted to know. You just did.

"I—I just wanna know more about you, I guess." You stutter out.

Ellie's eyes narrow. Are you...nervous?

"I know he's not a good boyfriend. I know that, Ellie. You think I'm stupid and I'm not. But I can't break up with him."

Ellie still feels like that's total bull.

"Why not."

"I just can't! It's like—it feels, like, safer, to be with him."

"That guy is anything but fucking safe—"

"You know what I mean." You say quietly.

"No, I don't." Ellie says, trying to look into your eyes.

Your head was faced downward toward the bed. Ellie practically screamed through her thoughts. You couldn't even look at her. Had she been too mean to you? In Ellie's mind, it always feels lighthearted. She didn't always take the time to make sure other people took it that way.

Finally, you look up, meeting Ellie's eyes.

"You...don't? You don’t get what I mean?”

"No, y/n. I have zero fuckin' clue. Am I...supposed to?" She questions, clearly starting to get confused.

Safe? Safe? It feels safer?! Ellie was fucking lost.

How could being with that piece of shit feel any safer than being fucking alone?

"I—y'know what, nevermind. It's dumb. I don't even know what I mean. I just thought that you would get it—for some reason. It's stupid. Sorry." You mumble out, trying to forget whatever miniscule things you were telling her.

"Don't say sorry, you didn't even fuckin' do anything," Ellie quips. "Why me?"

"I don't know. I just...thought of...you." You trail off, rubbing at your shoulders.

Yeah, whatever you were talking about? It made you really fucking nervous.

"Hmm..." Ellie hums, hopping off of the bed and beginning to rummage through a desk drawer. "Here."

"...What."

"Would you like to hear the story of my first gay crush?" She grins, knowing absolutely that you'll want to hear.

She hops back onto the bed, sitting a little closer to you.

Ellie knew she was a good storyteller, but you were by far her best listener. It's endearing, how engaged you get. Never even daring to take a glance anywhere but at Ellie.

"So her name was Riley. And I was...youngish, but—I knew for sure that my feelings were...gay feelings, y'know?"

"Well how'd you know?" You ask bluntly.

"Well I wanted to like, hold her hand? And stuff? I wanted to...to take her places. Like, cool places I found outside, and like, dumb little lookout points. I'd draw her tiny pictures of things she liked. Write stupid little notes and shit. I would make her...bracelets and, things she could wear. Stuff that didn't really cost anything. I don't know...I just kinda...knew."

You don't respond. Your eyes are glossy, barely gazing at Ellie.

"Y/N, you good?" Ellie laughs, grabbing your shoulder and shaking it a bit to get your attention.

"Yeah! I'm fine, sorry. Got in my head a little."

"Right, right, wanna see somethin' stupid?" She says, awaiting your response.

"Sure."

She picks up the item she was rummaging for a minute ago. It's a post it note.

"Oh! Can I read it?" You beg, excited to see the parts of Ellie's life you're so unfamiliar with.

"Hah, yeah, go for it. I promise you it's...underwhelming." She hands you the blue paper, drawing side down.

You begin to read.

"You are the prettiest girl I've ever seen. I drew you a penguin wearing a hat that says, 'you are the prettiest…princess…ever'. Best wishes, Ellie." You smile without meaning to.

You give her the post-it note back.

"I wish I got notes like this. Do guys...do that?" You ask.

"Um, maybe some? I wouldn't know." Ellie admits.

She wanted to say no, y/n, no guy will do that until you get married, probably, because that was the truth. However, seeing how happy you were at somebody else's love note, she didn't have the heart to say it. Ellie didn't mind letting you be sheltered a little longer if it made you happy.

Before the two of you could say anything else, a phone chimes.

Your phone.

It's him.

"Oh thank god. Ellie, I have to call him. Can I call him? I'll be back in a second I swear," You ramble, basically sprinting out the door to talk to the meathead in your phone.

Fuck.

One day you'll grow up. Ellie knows this. She sees how you change every day. It still makes her feel funny to see you so...dishonest with yourself.

The day you break up with that dick is the day I fucking win, Ellie thinks.

And that day occurred exactly a week later.

After Ellie had already left.

#ellie fic #ellie williams x reader #ellie tlou #ellie williams #ellie x reader #lesbian #tlou #tlou part 2 #tlou fic #catsfor2

[lokislittlemidgardian]

Anything poly!cg! Marauders x little!reader maybe like a 2-4 headspace?

It's okay, we're here now

Content - age regression, cg!remus, cg!james, cg!sirius, horrible days, soft toys, dummy use, detention, crying, angst turned fluff, quidditch practice, light swearing, modern!marauders (still in school but Harry's time), lily and marlene, don't like don't read.

Summary - sometimes hards days are horrible, especially when they cause you to involuntarily regress.

Authors note - this took so long for me to write I'm so sorry, I will definitely write more cg!marauders characters there's just something about it that soothes me. Photo credit to @_mwpp on tiktok please go check them out, hope you enjoy<3

Today had been absolutely treacherous.

First you hadn't been able to find your transfiguration homework resulting in professor mcgonagall giving you a detention at the end of the day. You loved professor mcgonagall you always got on well but you understood that she couldn't give special treatment, even to her favourite students.

Then you spilt ink over your potions assignment and to top it all off your uniform had been suffocating you all day.

It was days like this that you were thankful at least one of your partners were with you in each class.

However each of them had been increasingly distracted today.

James had been thinking about quidditch a lot lately since there was a match on Sunday against slytherin, everybody wanted to win but James always took it to a new level.

Remus's head had been trapped in his book practically all week, there was an assignment due for history of magic and to everyone's surprise remus was struggling slightly to make sense of the text as it contradicted itself many times. Personally you didn't really care about your results in history of magic you just saw it as a filler class occasionally copying down notes but mostly constructing origami birds.

Sirius had been the most present one today however he had spent his lessons thinking over new ways to taunt his brother and Snape not listening to you when you discouraged it.

You had hoped to spend a good amount of time with them after your classes but then you realised.

James had quidditch practice, sirius was going along to watch him and remus had a meeting with professor dumbledoor.

Brilliant.

───── ⋆⋅◇⋅⋆ ─────

Stepping through the entryway for the gryffindor common room you saw lily and marlene sitting on the crushed velvet sofa. As soon as you made your way over to them you dropped your bag onto the floor beside you and flopped down onto the cushions Making lily chuckle.

"Hard day huh?" She said with a knowing smile "torture" you agreed resting your head on her shoulder feeling her hand gently stroke your hair. "Aww hon, well it's over now until next week" "how was detention?" Marlene smirked eyeing you cheekily "I don't understand the point of it, all I did was sit there drawing" you chuckled kicking your feet up.

A good half an hour passed on the sofa with your best friends before you made your way up to the boys dorm room, you barley ever slept in your own dorm anymore. As soon as you reached the 6th step you felt a hazy feeling come over your mind.

Why did it always come at the worst times?

Holding onto the hand rail you made quick work of your journey. When you reached the large oak door you swung it open and locked it with a simple spell, the boys would know that it was only you.

Once you reached remus's bed you felt all attempts at staying in your big headspace leave you, the only thing was you felt young.

Really young.

Considering that you hadn't been able to regress in such a long time it wasn't really surprising however it felt scary, you never regressed this young on your own and you didn't know what to do.

Suddenly being made aware of your itchy uniform you tried desperately to remove it but there were too many zips and the buttons were to small so it was no use.

Realising that you couldn't do anything for yourself you excepted your fate and layed yourself down on the mattress hugging the pillow close to you wetting it with your tears.

"They'll be back soon" you thought to yourself.

───── ⋆⋅◇⋅⋆ ─────

"Your such a tosser" james expressed to sirius as they reached their dorm room. Trying the doorknob they realised that it was locked causing them to frown "alohomora" remus said hearing a click.

Walking through the doorway they saw you curled up on remus’s bed sobbing into his pillow, immediately they rushed over to you with sirius gently removing the pillow and laying down beside you "what's wrong sweetheart?" James asked sitting on your other side.

Trying to find the words you spoke softly "small" you whimpered cuddling into Sirius's arm feeling his hand gently stroke your hair. "Oh angel" you heard remus sigh guilt lacing his tone almost instantly you heard the two of them walk around the room.

After collecting some clothes for you remus walked over towards the bed gently turning you into your back causing you to protest "I know baby I know it's okay" he said unbuttoning your shirt, zipping down your skirt and bringing down your stockings. Feeling a soft jumper being pulled over your head you manoeuvred your way through it "there she is" sirius gasped when your head popped through the hole making you giggle.

Watching James from across the room you saw him pull down a lime green box and walk it over towards you. Pulling the lid off he took out a soft grey dummy and a soft lion toy, you had never seen these ones before.

Passing the dummy to sirius you felt him gently ease it into your mouth feeling remus squish in beside you and sirius he made his way towards his bed.

Hearing a loud noise you panicked slightly and shot up in the bed "Hey, hey sweetheart it's okay it's just daddy being an twat" "oi I'm just moving the bed so we can all fit, your welcome" james said sarcastically "Daddy's not a twat" you mumbled sleepily from behind your dummy "thank you baby" "you could have used your wand" remus stated a moment of silence following "shut up."

Feeling the boys spread out on the joined mattresses you rolled yourself over giggling slightly "aww our giggly little girl" sirius smiled placing a kiss to the back of your head. "Pass her over here" james said piping up from beside remus "come here honey" the lycanthrophe beside you mumbled rolling you over his stomach and into james arms "there she is" he sighed kissing your head gently.

Looking at you each of them realised that you were about to fall into dreamland, with james stroking your hair and remus patting your lower back soothingly you allowed yourself to sleep with Sirius's comforting words.

"Your okay now little one, we're here and we'll be here when you wake up."

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Taglist - @bootlegmothman420 @littlephia @whippedforhongjoong @youngstarfishdinosaur @patchesofwork @buggyateabug @autisticbeauty @friendlyneighborhoodkillerbunny @sparklybuck @2-gay-possums-in-a-trench-coat @hopelesswritergall @stuckysgirl27 @sleepyprinc3ss @minideathgodess @chaotic-little-witch

#daddy!sirius #daddy!remus #daddy!james #cg!sirius #cg!remus #cg!james #james potter x reader #sirius black x reader #remus lupin x reader #sirius x little reader #remus x little reader #james x little reader #james potter #remus lupin #sirius black #poly!marauders #ria answers #little!reader #sfw age regression #caregiver #age regression reader #sfw littlespace

[yiangchen]

it's so tragic funny that while i was watching t100, jroth was so adamant that there was nothing romantic there with bellarke, that it literally made me doubt what was very clearly being written as romantic (and it actually was. like, we know this now. it has been confirmed).

looking back, bellarke could have kissed at so many different points in the show, without changing anything else but having them kiss, and it would have made perfect sense. it would have flowed. it would have aligned with their relationship development.

just think about it. 1x09. unity day. is this a bit early? yes. but do they have the chemistry? yes. and have they had sufficient build up for two characters to have their first kiss? yes. honestly more than a lot of ships that happen in the first season of their show. especially since day trip just happened! plus, the flirting during unity day was...not subtle.

listen...she wanted to kiss him here so bad. seriously though. clarke could have and that would have been a very natural progression of this scene. it would have especially fit the early drop ship days vibe.

(or you could add in a scene where clarke finds him later, now sufficiently buzzed, they flirt some more, then she kisses him, and bellamy's like, "woah, woah, princess, what are you doing?" but he's smiling and she just shrugs with a smile and goes in to kiss him again, saying "having fun", and bellamy says, "you're drunk" and clarke is exasperated saying, "well you told me to!" and bellamy laughs, very amused, and from the look in his eyes, you can tell that he is also very very VERY smitten.)

if you still think that's too soon, yeah, i tend to agree. i love the idea of s1 bellarke in fanfic, but for the show, i prefer a bit more of slowburn. so let's push it to season 2. no, that's not a true slowburn, but still, you had to wait a little for it, and a lot of shows do this successfully. so anyway. 2x05. post iconic reunion hug, shot in a very romantic way i might add.

bellamy is watching clarke sleep by the fire, she wakes, we have some platonic gazing with firelight flickering across their faces...

we all know how the scene goes. he reassures her. he confides in her. she reassures him back.

i'm sorry, but the way they are looking at each other here? dude, if they had been sitting any closer, they could have kissed. i tend to think it would be more in character for clarke to initiate a first kiss with bellamy in s1-4, but in this scene, i 100% could see bellamy going in to kiss her after this.

(and yes, i'm aware that octavia was pretending to be asleep this whole time, but honestly, her reaction to them would have added some much needed levity to the situation. octavia is a bellarke shipper, after all. also, some people might say that this would make clarke's "i love you" to finn less believable, but i disagree. you can have feelings for two people at the same time. i mean, she literally kisses lxa very quickly after finn's death sooo yeah...plus, it would have made the bellarke angst of s2b/3 even better.)

maybe you still want more of a slowburn though, and that is perfectly fair, which brings me to s3, which in my opinion would have been one of the best seasons for canon bellarke. alright. 3x05. hakeldama yup! it was prime time for a first kiss. i mean, all the build up of s1/2 obviously, but also...this had just happened:

but anyway...back to hakeldama. this is the peak of their angst. nothing tops it.

but then, after the heat of the moment, the softness comes in. as it always does with these two. they wind up sharing the softest, most romantic scene in this entire show (fight me).

that last gif, man...at this point, i think they would both go in for the kiss. mutually initiated. god, it would have fit the scene so well!

(some people might say that this would invalidate clarke's love for lxa, considering everything that happens two eps later, but again, i disagree. like i said before, you can have feelings for two people at the same time. people might also say that this would undermine bellamy's relationship with gina, but you know what? the whole fucking narrative undermined that relationship, so i really don't care. i loved gina, but if clarke can kiss lxa right after finn's death, then bellamy can kiss clarke right after gina's death. this show is messy, okay? and bellarke are messy as fuckkkk.)

still think it would be too early? okay. season 4 then. very recently, i realized how easy making bellarke canon in s4 would have been, holyyyy. starting off in 4x03. bellamy is sleeping on the couch and clarke watches him sleep with the softest smile on her face (i'm still crying about this btw). i can't find the right gif, but you all know the smile! then clarke is struggling so bellamy wakes up and is there to support her, making a declaration that has romantic undertones, it just does!

and then clarke lowkey makes a move on him lmao. for real though?? what was this???

i would only change one thing here. he takes a seat beside her first and then puts his hand on her shoulder. so that way they are eye level (aka kissing level).

when she lifts her head off their hands, their faces would be so close. maybe bellamy would tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, not realizing how intimate that kind of thing is until he does it. i could see them kissing here. clarke would initiate. although, i think it would be so much better if it was just an almost kiss. bellamy tells her she should get some sleep right before it happens.

and then in 4x06...

it's actually so funny how she says that and then she's like 'oh no. that sounded like it implied something. i did not mean to imply.'

and bellamy's over here like 'omg she's implying.'

which leads to him literally about to confess. i'm sorry, but there is no other way to interpret....

and of course clarke interrupts, but this is the moment, you guys! this could have been the moment.

right after this, before roan's interruption, there's a pause, and then clarke kisses him. it's a quick one. the kind of kiss where she has both of her hands on his face and he's so stunned by it that his eyebrows raise in surprise and before he can even process that it's happened, she's pulled back and they're looking at each other, a bit in awe, both surprised that she just did that.

then in 4x09, we actually get to see the reunion!! and it's the running kind. just like 2x05. only this time, after they run to each other and hug, bellamy pulls back and takes her face in his hands to examine her for injuries, and once he realizes she's okay, probably after she reassures him and puts a hand on his face, then he kisses her, but they both go in for it (and i cry).

in 4x13, i would change the location of the head and heart scene. somewhere more private...a bedroom (!). so, after this moment:

and bellamy turns away, upset, clarke pulls him back to face her and takes his face in her hands. his eyes are watery. so are hers. she kisses him. one thing leads to another and we get the sex scene we deserved!! then they're lying in bed, cuddling. bellamy's head is on her chest and clarke's playing with his hair. that's when she decides to ruin the moment lmao and continues the head and heart convo with "we've been through a lot together, you and i." i can just see it so well. they would shift so that they're laying on their sides, facing one another. maybe clarke's fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck now. when she says he has a big heart, her palm rests on his bare chest. when she says he has to use his head too, her fingers of her other hand shift from his neck to his temple. when bellamy says, "i've got you for that," clarke kisses him. their foreheads stay touching for a few breathes, then she pulls back to look at him and says that raven's premonition came true. like...am i crazy or would this have worked so well?? literally the same dialogue but...they're together.

(plus, this could have led to clarke raising bellamy's kid--august--along with madi over those six years they are separated, i'm just saying!)

maybe you still think that season 5 was the ultimate time for bellarke to go canon, and you know what? i honestly might just agree. the set up was there with clarke calling bellamy every day for 2,199 days. the potential was there. madi was the biggest bellarke shipper i swear. she wanted them to be together even more than all of us combined i think. for a bellarke kiss though, you would almost have to drastically change the course of events...unless you go with 5x13 and blecho have broken up earlier in the season. after clarke wakes bellamy from cryo (still crying about this moment, yeah!), i could see them having a moment.

before jordan walks in, maybe clarke helps bellamy out of the pod, and once they're both standing, bellamy would finally make his move. instead of bellamy asking why they're the only ones there, clarke does. bellamy tells her, "we'll figure it out, clarke, but first, i have something i wanna say." maybe he does something soft, like take her hand or brush her hair behind her ear. clarke is staring at him, not quite believing what is happening right now, but deep down, she knows. he tells her, "those six years without you were the worst of my life and i don't wanna waste any more time." clarke is wearing a watery smile, still not quite sure she believes what she's hearing. she tells him, "i radioed you every day you were gone." bellamy's whole face lights up and he tells her, "i know." their foreheads touch. both of his hands are cradling her cheeks, her hands are cradling his wrists. she whispers his name. it's the kind of kiss where the time before the kiss is excruciatingly long, but once they kiss, it becomes much more urgent as they finally give in to all of the feelings. god. would have been ICONIC.

plus, they both looked absolutely gorgeous in this scene. hello???

would have been one hell of an aesthetically pleasing first kiss holyyyy. then jordan interrupts and makes some comment about how his mom and dad were right all along :)

if not season 5 though...moving onto season 6. 6x10 to be exact. i know i've said that other times were the ultimate time for canon bellarke, but this episode is too! or right after it in 6x11. there are two scenarios that i see playing out here. (in both, blecho have broken up previously.)

in the first scenario, it's 6x10. as soon as bellamy saves clarke and she wakes up, instead of going in to hug him, i swear when i was watching it that i really thought she was going in for the kiss. that was the one and only time where i legitimately thought they were about to kiss while watching. it had never made more sense than in that moment. even with all of jroth's attempted brainwashing, my mind was stronger in that moment. it saw it coming. or at least i thought i did lmao. i know they didn't actually kiss.

but listen.

they really should have.

clarke is literally looking at him like this:

come on, man.

i usually say that bellamy should be the one initiating post s4, but in this moment, it would have been clarke.

and if not then, the other scenario is that they hug as usual. clarke gets some rest as usual. but when she wakes up in 6x11 and bellamy is at her side, they are in a separate private tent. they have that same conversation that they do. they argue about clarke risking her life again. but then...

he tells her, "hey, i just got you back." he says it firm but soft. i see bellamy initiating the kiss here, especially since he's almost lost her twice now, but once clarke realizes that this is really happening, that after all this time he wants her just as much as she wants him, she would for sure be the one initiating everything else. she would be sitting in his lap making out with him so fast jfsldkjfaslk and you know what? good for her!! they either just kiss a lot here, laying down on the bed, all tangled up together, and then they're interrupted, or maybe, just for once, they're allowed to be happy, uninterrupted, and they sleep together. either way. natural progression.

that's really the point of this longwinded post. so many times it could have happened. all of them a nature progression of the story that was being told.

then comes season 7...

there are no words.

6x13 left them off in a perfect place...

the set up was literally right there! they should have kissed in 7x01!! they should have lived happily ever after with madi in a seaside cabin situated in a field of gold!!

#so many wasted opportunites for an iconic first kiss i am TELLING YOU #absolutely TRAGIC #bellarke #t100 #this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks #just reread it and oof....... #so many feelings #so so many

[mostlylurkinbarelypostin]

Hot take: S3 Dustin sucked just as bad as S3 Mike and Lucas.

I’ve always found it kinda odd when people paint Dustin as some perfect friend in S3. The entire reason that Dustin was with Steve the whole season was because he was mad at all his friends for supposedly “ditching” him the night before at Weathertop. That’s why he goes to Steve instead of them after hearing the Russian transmission. He lies to Steve and says that all his friends ditched him, which, of course, made Steve feel bad for him. He then tells Steve “They’re gonna regret it though, big time, when they don’t get to share in my glory”.

Like come on. Tell me that boy wasn’t being SO petty. He was so confident that he was gonna be an “American hero” after hearing that Russian transmission and yet he wasn’t gonna share an ounce of that glory with his friends because it was late and they were probably tired of listening to him try and call Suzie for literal hours. That’s no exaggeration. When Mike and El leave the rest of the group on the hill, Dustin looks at his watch and says “curfew at 4?”. By the time Will, Max, and Lucas finally leave, it’s dark out and Will even says “it’s late”. They spent all afternoon up there.

So at that point, the group had surprised Dustin when he got home, helped him lug all the radio parts up the hill, built the radio, and then sat for hours while Dustin tried to contact Suzie… but apparently that wasn’t enough for him? Dustin still said that they ditched him, which like yes Mike and El did, but that was unfair to say about the others.

Robin actually says something interesting in the last episode that always stuck out to me. It’s when they’re driving to weathertop and she says “Suzie must be pretty special, huh? I mean if you built this thing and lugged it all the way to the middle of nowhere just to talk to her?” Interesting choice of words considering we were explicitly shown how Dustin didn’t do all that by himself, and how his friends helped him both carry the parts to the top of the hill and assemble the thing. This makes the implication something like “Your friends must be really special, huh? If they helped you lug this thing all the way to the middle of nowhere and build it, just so you could talk to your girlfriend?”

They also weren’t even confident that Suzie even existed at that point, but they helped him anyways. They did it because they love him. So with all that being said, kinda fucked up of him to say what he did to Steve and paint them as terrible friends.

It’s even worse when you look at Will specifically. I’ve heard some people say that Dustin would have totally played DND with Will if he was with The Party the whole season instead of Steve. However, that’s simply not true. Will was the last to leave Dustin on the hill and before he left he asked if they could maybe play DND (“or something fun”) tomorrow. It was a direct invitation to hangout again tomorrow but all Dustin gave him back was a self pitying little “Yeah, maybe.”

He doesn’t hangout with Will the next day.

So Will spent all day doing what Dustin wanted to do, but just like with Mike and Lucas, he couldn’t get the same in return. Even with an invitation to hangout again tomorrow, Dustin still clumped Will in with his other friends who he says ditched him, which makes it kind of hypocritical that Dustin doesn’t show up for Will the next day.

So no, Dustin wouldn’t have played DND with Will if he was around cause he was actively and knowingly choosing not to do that by going to the mall to see Steve. He could have been playing DND with Will if he wanted to. The offer was on the table. He didn’t take it though. He wanted to be petty instead.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that Dustin was no better of a friend to Will in S3 than Lucas or Mike was. One could even argue that he was worse than them.

Obviously I have no real beef with these made-up children, but I just think some might have missed this part of the story cause Dustin is not the perfect angel character that some see him as 😅

#stranger things #byler #dustin henderson #will byers #No one was being their best self in S3 #I think that was kinda the point #It was a transition season #Now we get to see how they better themselves

[demetris-cocksleeve]

(A/n: We all know about Dragon! Kirishima.... But what about Dragon Slayer! Kirishima? With that thought in mind, I present you with this:)

(Inspired by this from cookiecosplayers on tiktok)

(I have a confession... this was supposed to have smut, but it's just been sitting in my drafts for 4 months... since I can't find the flow to the nsfw, you guys get this unfinished and un-beta'd fic. Maybe I'll finish it some day🤷‍♀️😭)

Word Count: Good question

Summary- While sitting in a shady pub, you encounter a very intriguing stranger

Warnings: None

Age Rating: None

Dragon Slayer! Kirishima x Fem! Reader

------------------------------

You're sipping on a pint of stale mead when he slips into the booth across from you, interrupting your self-imposed pity party. The stranger glances around the pub, taking in the drunks and thugs with an unreadable expression before looking back to you.

"This isn't a place for pretty little things like yourself." His voice is gruffer than you'd assume from looking at him, though not unpleasant. In fact, the entirety of your sudden companion is more pleasant than you were getting used to seeing from your table.

His rogue leather armor -just a chest plate and cuffs, really-, and weaponry the only things pointing to his belonging. Armed with a claymore and various daggers, he certainly makes an imposing figure. From first glance, you'd say he's probably some type of mercenary. 'Murder for hire,' your mind unhelpfully supplies.

He's tall with bright red hair that's pulled off his face with a thick leather cord, broad shoulders and thick, veiny forearms. His face is deceptively soft, his right eye sporting a singular scar spanning from his eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone. His bright red eyes bore into you with an intensity that has the hair on the back of your neck stand on edge.

Any attraction you may have felt for him goes out the window at his choice of words, though. His condescending tone making you bristle in your seat.

Your eyebrows furrow as you glare at him. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, honey. You belong in a pretty little dress with pretty little flowers, not here with a bunch of lowlifes." He crosses his arms, and leans against the back of the booth, and regards you with a neutral expression. "Before you bite my head off: I'm just tryna look out for ya. You don't belong in a place like this, darlin'."

"And how do you know where I belong?" You snark, arms crossing as you continue to glare at the man in front of you.

"I just do..." He jabs a thumb at the rowdy patrons, "A little girl like you shouldn't be spending her time with these... creeps. This place is a cesspool of drunks, thugs, and low lives."

"If it's so bad, why are you here? Associating yourself with such bad people?"

A wolfish smile spreads across his face as he leans forward, resting his arms on the table. The faint lighting casting his eyes in an almost scary light. "Considering I'm one of the King's big, bad dragon slayers, I'd say I fit in here quite well..."

He grabs your pint and drinks from it. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Hey- You know what? Never mind, keep it," You're quickly realizing that arguing with this strange man is a losing battle. The distraction of his drink-stealing makes it take you a second to process his words, "Wait- Dragon slayer?"

You eye him for a second, not quite believing him. He may look strong and have the weapons, but he doesn't quite fit how the stories describe the King's most hardened warriors. You have to say, he doesn't look like he could take on such beasts.

Not the massive, armored creatures you've been warned about since you were a kid, anyway. With skin tougher than diamond, teeth shaper than the best blacksmiths' steel and claws longer than your forearm. You've been told even the smallest ones stand above even the tallest of men.

"No offense but you don't look like a dragon slayer."

He quirks an eyebrow at you. "And how am I s'posed to look, sweetie?"

Your face heats at the veiled accusation. "I dunno... Bigger, nastier. I've heard the dragon slayers are all filthy brutes that even the king cannot convince to be more civilized."

He smirks, briefly looking you up and down before leaning against the booth again, arm thrown over it as he manspreads.

"So, you don't think I'm a big, nasty brute?" He teases.

Your back straightens as you prepare to squawk out a defense only to be cut off as he laughs. "Calm down, sweetheart. I'm just playin with ya." He takes another swing from the stolen mead.

The man sets his -your- pint down to unhook his chest plate and pull his jacket aside, revealing a multitude of burn marks and various other scars. "How this for a brute?"

Your eyes widen at the suddenly exposed skin, any disbelief at his claim squashed with a single look at his marred skin. A small gasp leaves your parted lips at the way the pink flesh and silvery scratches and bites make his torso look almost like stained glass. Definitely the scars you've been told stories about.

Before you can stop yourself, you're asking, "What happened there?" As you point to a fairly large burn scar on the left side of his chest.

"That... was from a Firefury. The fucker's fire blasted me square in the chest. Burned straight through my armor like it was kindling." A smug smirk appears as he finishes, "Still managed to take him down, though..."

Any annoyance you held from his snide nicknames and earlier behavior is thrown out the window at the prospect of hearing about the dragons that plague your kingdom from someone who has actually been up close and personal with them. You can deal with his insufferable pet names in favor of firsthand stories.

He fixes his jacket in favor of rolling his left sleeve up to reveal a patch of slightly raised flesh molted with reds and purples. "This one, as you can probably guess, was from a Blue Terror."

You shift to the edge of your seat to get a better look. The noise of the other pub goers fades as you listen to the stranger's story.

"What did it do?" You look at his face only to find him already looking at you, a small smile gracing his lips unlike his previous smug expressions. You look back to the scarred skin to avoid eye contact.

Wondering what the skin feels like after such an injury, you start to reach for his arm before stopping yourself. You may be interested in the stranger now, but you'll be damned if you make a fool of yourself like that.

Seeing your intrigue, he gestures at you that it's okay to touch his arm as he speaks. "She got a lucky hit in; turned my forearm into what felt like a block of ice."

Apart from a few dry, scaley patches along the edge of the mark, the skin feels surprisingly smooth if not a bit tight.

"It lost some feeling after that and if it gets hit too much, it feels like my arm is being flamed all over again."

Confusion floods you at his words, "I thought they didn't breath fire?"

The man's eyebrows knit together before he seems to realize something. "I forget villagers don't normally come into contact with the beasts... Blue Terror's spit flame just like most dragons, contrary to what the folklore says about them breathing ice. Their name comes from where they live and the frigid feel of their flames. They're still very much flames, though. Don't be mistaken."

"Really?" If that piece of folklore was wrong, you wonder how else the dragons are different from what you've been told.

"Ye-" A loud bang from across the tavern interrupts him. A quick look reveals one of the drunks at the bar had merely slipped out of his seat and hit the floor. Shaking your head in distain, you turn back to your new-found acquaintance.

He lightheartedly snorts as the patron climbs back into his barstool.

You hate to do it, but you have to admit, at least to yourself, that looking past his introduction, the man was actually interesting company; not the zealot you would expect from a place like this.

Looking back to you he asks, "I have one more big one if you're interested?"

"You're quite fond of your scars, aren't you?" You lightly chuckle, resigning to take your mead back. You chug a bit before placing it back on the table.

He chuckes as well, "Yeah, I guess you get that way when they're all you've got to remember everything you've fought for."

At your curious look, he continues. "They're a reminder of the dangers of my job and of just how close I came to death. How many times I've pulled through a tough spot."

"The nightmares are a whole other issue though," he jokes.

You tilt your head at the man, "That's... kind of a beautiful way of looking at them..."

"Hey, don't get all sweet on me, honey. I'm a big, mean, uncivilized dragon slayer; I'm not supposed to feel emotions, remember?" He laughs, waving down the bar maid to order another pint.

You can't help the laugh that makes it way up your throat.

"What~?" He sips his drink once she brings it, chuckling. "It's true!"

"I'm sure it is," you're not sure how this went from you being chastised to an actually pleasant conversation, but you can't say you're complaining. "You said you had another one to show me?"

"Right," he turns to the side, moving his hair to reveal a massive star-shaped scar reaching across his neck, just touching his jaw and creeping under the shoulder of his jacket. "This one was the nastiest: A massive Ivorywing managed to get behind my while I was fighting and bit a clean chunk of flesh from me. No reason I shoulda survived, but here I am~"

He spreads his arm wide as he flashes another sharp smile your way.

You return it with a small shake of your head. "The rewards must be worth it, no? Along with the fame, that is?"

"I guess," he muses.

"The reward is nice - the recognition, though? That's the worst part," he continues. "The way I'm treated like some sort of hero or something. I'm no hero, doll. I'm just a guy doing my job; I don't need to be no damn fame..."

You furrow your brows at him. "What do you mean? Dragon slayers have saved hundreds of civilians - noble and peasant alike - I think that makes you well deserving of the 'hero' title."

The man in front of you has fallen some of the biggest beasts on this earth - has the scars to prove it - and doesn't think he is any sort of heroic? Insanity.

"I know it probably sounds dumb, but I stand by it..." He finishes his mead, chugging the rest of it in one go. "You know who doesn't get called heroes? The blacksmiths that make my weapons, the armorers who design my armor, the doctors who patch me up... They're the ones who should be called the heroes."

"That's very..." You struggle to find the words, "humble of you to say..."

He shrugs, "It's just my opinion. I don't deserve that title just because I have the shiny scars and cool stories."

There's a brief pause as you process what he says and he takes a breath to steady himself from the rant.

"You never answered my question, doll."

"What?"

"What you're doing in a place like this? I've talked enough about me, I wanna hear about you."

#eijirou kirishima x reader #eijirou kirishima #kirishima x reader #kirishima eijirou x reader #mha fantasy au #dragon slayers #dragon slayer au

[morningberriesao3]

MWMD - Kiss My Lips

Steve Harrington X Virgin!Eddie Munson

Summary: It's the Fourth of July -- Steve and Eddie have a bit too much to drink, and have some fun playing party games.

Word Count: 4.4K

Chapter: 4 of 6 CHAPTER LIST

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Content Warnings: Explicit m/m sexual content including… Virgin Eddie Munson, Dry Humping, Coming Untouched, Coming in Pants, Minor Crossdressing (ahem, EDDIE WEARS A G-STRING), Oh no they’re both tops?! what will they do!!?!, Top Steve Harrington, Power Bottom Eddie Munson, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Nipple Clamps, Under-Negotiated Kink, Unsafe Sex, Creampie. Underage Drinking and Recreational Drug Use.

Tags: Eddie Munson lives, 5 + 1 Things, slow burn, POV Eddie Munson, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Caretaking, Massages, Sharing a Bed, House Party, Play Flighting, Bros Being Bros (JK it’s very homoerotic), Halloween, Boys in Makeup, Independence Day, New Years Eve, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending

Many Ways, Many Days, to Say ‘I Love You’

July 4th, 1986

Everyone’s a little drunk already.

By everyone, Eddie means the only adults the gang really knows. He’s brought along Gareth and Jeff, who are absolutely beside themselves that they get to hang out at King Steve’s house. Robin has brought Vickie as her definitely not date. Jonathan has brought Argyle who Eddie already considers one of his new favourite people. Or maybe his mortal enemy. He’s not sure.

Eddie half expects Steve to have some girl attached to his hip since he hasn’t exactly been getting lucky since all but moving into his trailer. It would be one of Steve’s only chances, seeing as his parents have gone on some fancy business trip for Fourth of July weekend and he’s offered his house as tribute for a (kind of sad) rager.

But there is no girl that Steve has invited, at least not yet, and Eddie is more than okay with that. This way, he won’t have to pretend not to be jealous. And he won’t have to think about Steve’s dick being inside whoever’s pussy the next time it’s pressed against his own in the middle of the night.

It’s the first time Eddie has been invited to one of Harrington’s parties, and he’d be lying if he said he isn’t a little bit excited about it. Maybe King Steve is falling from his throne, but Eddie seems to be climbing the ranks. Maybe they’ll eventually meet somewhere in the middle.

Steve is currently lining up shots on the edge of his fancy, built-in kitchen island while Robin watches over his shoulder.

“Ugh, I hate tequila,” Robin says, scrunching her nose while Steve gets the saltshaker.

“Then don’t drink any.” Steve slices a lime into halves, and then into quarters, and then into eighths. He scans a few faces, and then his gaze lands on none other than Eddie’s. “You’ll do some shots with me, won’t you, Eds?”

Eds. Eds.

He barks out a startled laugh that Gareth raises an eyebrow at. Eddie smacks him in the arm before joining Steve by the island. Drinking had never been Eddie’s thing, mostly because he can’t afford that and weed. But he’s at a Harrington house party. When in Rome and all that.

“How’s this work then?”

“You’ve never done a tequila shot before?”

“Of course I have, Harrington. I’m not fucking twelve.” Eddie scoffs. He’s lying. “I just can’t remember the order.”

“Lick, shoot, suck,” says Steve, pointing first to the salt, then to the shot glasses, then to the lime slices. “Lick the salt, shoot the tequila, suck the lime.”

“What do I lick the salt off of?” Eddie asks.

“That’s the fun part.” Steve takes the saltshaker in his hands. “You can be boring and lick it off your own hand. Or –” he peels his dumb, striped polo off from his shoulders. This time Eddie doesn’t even pretend to look away. He’s already had a few beers, “– you can do a body shot.”

Eddie stares at Steve’s bare chest, made of all muscle and hair and sun-kissed skin. He lets his gaze fall to Steve’s navel where – rhetorically – he’d be taking the shot from.

“I…” he makes a kind of choking sound, then clears his throat, “I never back down from a challenge?” It comes out as more of a question, but honestly, Eddie is just glad he’s able to form words.

Steve’s face splits into a crooked smirk. He cups his hand over his mouth and swiftly turns to face the living room where most people are loitering around. “BODY SHOTS!”

There are a few whoops that come from probably Argyle and Jeff (who’s clearly gotten comfortable with the other guests). And suddenly, they have an audience.

“Alright, Eds and I are going first, because I want to be the one to pop his tequila cherry –”

“I’ve had tequila before!”

“Yeah, okay, whatever, man. We’re going first because Eddie is an expert at tequila body shots –”

“You’re such a prick.”

“–  and we have to teach all you losers how to do it properly. Capiche?”

Everyone is gathered around the kitchen now. And to Eddie’s surprise, Steve heads for the giant oak table in the dining room. He steps onto one of the matching chairs, and then plunks his ass down on the tabletop. Steve twists to his back, his head propped up with his hands, and a shit-eating grin plastered to his features like it’s now a permanent fixture of his face.

“Go ahead, Munson. Show them how it’s done.” Steve finally shuts up when he clamps down on the peel side of a slice of lime.

Fuck.

Eddie is making a fool of himself already, and he hasn’t even started… whatever this is.

Robin saves his ass. She grabs the tequila bottle and flings the cap into the unknown. “I hope you washed your belly button, dude,” she says before pouring the liquor into Steve’s navel. It overflows a bit, dripping down his ridiculously pronounced obliques. “Where do you want to lick the salt from?”

It takes a second for Eddie to realise that Robin is talking to him. “Is his cock an okay answer?”

Just kidding. Eddie doesn’t say that.

Instead, he says, “I don’t know. Wherever is the least hairy. It’s hard enough not to gag on tequila as it is,” like he hasn’t fantasized a million times about pressing his face, his nose, his tongue, into every enticing patch of Steve’s hair, from his head down to his fuzzy calves.

Steve rolls his eyes and points to the dip under his ribcage where the skin is relatively smooth, compared. Robin wastes no time sprinkling salt onto that area. And then Steve is prepped, and all eyes are on Eddie. He kind of wants to die, but if he was dead he wouldn’t be five seconds away from getting his tongue onto Steve fucking Harrington. So in conclusion, he’s actually very, very thankful to be alive.

Eddie eyes up Steve’s body, plotting the easiest plan of attack. He decides he might as well commit since he’s already entirely mortified, so he hikes himself up on the table so he’s straddling Harrington’s thighs. Everyone starts hooting and hollering. Nancy is giggling behind her palm while Argyle is slowly nodding with a joint tucked behind his ear. Robin’s hands smack over her eyes but she peeks out from between her fingers. Gareth nudges Jeff’s shoulder like they know something, so Eddie throws them daggers with his gaze.

It takes Eddie a second to steel himself, but soon he musters enough courage to bend himself over Steve, who immediately starts giggling when Eddie licks a fat stripe over his salty skin. As Steve laughs, tequila sloshes around on his abdomen. So Eddie presses his palms into Steve’s hips to still them. He might be imagining it, but it sounds like Steve sucks in a sharp breath.

Which really just encourages Eddie.

He buries his fingers into the flesh of Steve’s hips (because he might as well while he’s here) and tucks his head low to suck the bitter liquid from Steve’s navel. He dips his tongue in there, too – he just can’t help himself – which makes Steve squirm under his body. The button of his jeans rub against Eddie’s chin and it takes everything inside of himself not to nip at Steve’s skin and trail his mouth lower.

He knows that’s not really body shot etiquette even though this is the first ever body shot he’s ever done.

Finally, Eddie crawls up the length of Steve’s body and hovers his mouth over the slice of lime that’s still being held between Steve’s teeth. But he pauses, because Steve is staring straight into Eddie’s soul, with lidded eyes and pupils blown. Maybe it’s in Eddie’s head but it really looks like Steve is turned on, but no, that doesn’t make sense because Steve is straight, and Eddie is pretty sure he’s not a girl.

Well, he does have feminine features, like his long hair and his big eyes, and his full lips which are actually kind of an insecurity because his upper lip is bigger than his lower lip, and he always thought that was weird. But maybe that’s why Steve looks like this – like he’s about to drag Eddie up to his abandoned bedroom – because he’s drunk and Eddie kinda sorta looks like a girl.

Whatever. Eddie will take it.

He brackets his arms around Steve’s shoulders as he bends down to bite the wedge of lime from between Steve’s teeth. It’s really lodged in there, and Steve isn’t exactly making it easy to pry it from his mouth, so Eddie seals his lips into the pulp, trying to suck the juice back from right there, in Steve’s mouth. The lime bursts sour liquid that squirts into Eddie’s mouth and dribbles down Steve’s chin, and Eddie nearly chases that with his tongue too, but ultimately decides against it since he’s already pushed the limits enough.

“It’s so wrong, but I can’t look away.” Robin’s voice pries Eddie from his revery. He sits back up, spine rod straight, to shoot her a look and point a finger into her face.

“Can it, Buckley.”

“Yeah, Eddie, how come you’ve never sucked tequila from my stomach?” Gareth barks a laugh, but then the girl that Nancy brought with her – Eddie forgets her name, but it’s some chick that ran the school paper – turns to Eddie’s friend.

“I’ll do it.”

That wipes the grin straight from Gareth’s face, replaced by a healthy flush beneath his cheeks. The whole group is then in an uproar, pointing to each other, and laughing, and separating into pairs to do body shots of their own. Only then does Eddie remember that he’s straddling Steve when he feels him wiggle beneath his thighs.

“Um, Eddie?”

“Oh, shit.” Eddie clambers from the table ungracefully as ever, lucky to land on his feet. “Sorry. Sorry, Harrington.”

Steve sits up, wiping his mouth of lime juice with the back of his hand before giving Eddie a mischievous look. “All good, man. Let’s get some more drinks.”

Steve grabs Eddie’s hand (like, he actually holds it for a minute, like he did in the hospital all those months ago) as he drags him to the counter with all the liquor. And there they do shot after shot until Eddie can’t down anymore without gagging it back up. But he does crack open a beer, and so does Steve, and they head to the living room while everyone else is screaming when Nancy sucks a shot of tequila from Robin’s navel.

Vickie looks a bit jealous, but Eddie averts his gaze before he can read too much into it.

“Holy shit,” Steve says, falling into the plush cushions of his parents’ couch. “I’m so drunk. I haven’t been this drunk in… forever.”

It’s not hard to believe, because Steve is slurring his words and each time he blinks his eyes it seems like it takes all of his energy to open them again. The room is spinning a bit, and Eddie realizes that he, too, is way more drunk than he’d been in a while.

“Same. But you know what would make it even better?” He pulls a joint from his crumby pocket and waggles his brows at Steve.

“Oh, man.” Steve slings his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “I knew there was a reason I love you.”

Eddie tries not to think too hard about that, and instead drags Steve up off the couch and out the door that leads to his pool. He digs around in his pocket until he finds a fluorescent orange lighter, and then he sparks it up.

The first drag burns deep, calming the excited, jittery nerves that he’s had all evening for some reason (his crush on Steve). He takes one more, then hands the spliff off. Steve takes a hit and lets his head loll backwards on his shoulders as he hums a noise of approval.

“Fuucckk,” he moans, making the little hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck stand on end. It shouldn’t sound so damn pornographic, but it does. Eddie’s been fighting off a boner all evening and the noises that Harrington makes is what finally takes the cake. He wishes he could readjust his dick in his too-tight jeans without being obvious about it but alas, he cannot. So he just lets his cock fill out as he breathes through it, and hopes that Steve doesn’t let his gaze fall below Eddie’s belt.

“You make it sound like that joint is better than sex, Harrington.”

“Yeah, well it might be.” Steve opens his eyes as he takes another puff and then hands it over to Eddie. “Not that I can remember, it’s been so long since I’ve gotten any.”

Eddie snorts and averts his gaze, sucking back on the roach in his fingers.

“What about you?”

Eddie looks back at Steve. “What about me?”

“When’s the last time you fucked someone?” Steve asks, unabashed. “Or, I don’t know. Got fucked by someone.”

Blood rushes around Eddie’s body, not sure if it wants to settle in his ears, or his cheeks, or his dick. But there seems to be plenty of it, because all three are getting a fresh supply. “Oh. I – uh. It’s been – you know. A while.”

Ever?

“Uhuh.” Steve nods. “So, when was it?”

“C’mon, man.” Eddie laughs nervously, snubbing out the joint on Harrington’s parents’ landing. “I haven’t – I mean. It’s been, a reeeaally long time for me.”

Twenty years.

Steve narrows his eyes, catching onto something Eddie isn’t sure he really wants him to. “Are you saying you’re like… a virgin?”

“No!” Eddie lies, crossing his arms defensively. He huffs out an embarrassed breath. “Well, maybe? When you’re gay, virginity isn’t exactly as black and white –”

He cuts himself off.

He just said that, in real words, out loud, in English. He just said he’s gay. And he also kind of admitted he’s a virgin, and Eddie doesn’t know which is worse. Maybe Steve is too drunk to realise? But no, he’s not, Steve still has his general wits about him and he’s looking at Eddie with such an intensity that Eddie feels like he’s about to get punched. Or maybe kissed?

Probably the former.

Steve doesn’t do either. He doesn’t even dwell on the elephant in the room. He just says, “Huh. So what have you done?”

Eddie feels the tension in his shoulders relax a bit. Maybe he’s okay, but it’s better safe than sorry. He tells himself that he’ll keep his words genderless, so he doesn’t out himself by accident a second time.

“I don’t know. A handjob here, a blowjob there.” The second thing is another lie, but admitting he’s only had one handjob seems more embarrassing than just being a virgin, period. He shrugs. “Believe it or not, when you’re a threepeat senior, and the Dungeon Master of a D&D club, you’re not exactly swimming in opportunities, Steve.”

Steve takes a step towards Eddie, which just makes Eddie believe that he really mustn’t have heard the gay thing. Because why would he be crowding his face into Eddie’s like this? Why would he be getting so damn close if he knew Eddie was into dudes?

“You’re a good-looking guy,” Steve says, cocking his head to one side and letting his gaze slowly trail down Eddie’s body like he’s appraising him for value. “Maybe you’re just not searching hard enough?”

Eddie makes a noise, something like a squeak, or a hiccup. He’s about to say something – anything – but before he can form words, Robin comes rushing out from the sliding doors. “We’re playing spin the bottle! Come on, it’s gonna be so fun.”

“Yeah, coming, Rob.” Steve takes a step away from Eddie. Smiles. “Maybe we’ll be able to get some action now. Let’s go.”

Eddie hopes that his blush isn’t all that visible, but he knows with his white-ass skin he’ll be stained up with splashes of pink watercolour. He kind of wants to sit this one out, because he’s sure that nobody wants to kiss The Freak of Hawkins High (even if they are all friends now).

He’s never once wished in his life to kiss Gareth or Jeff, but here he is, hoping that when he spins, the bottle will at least land on one of them to spare himself having to see the disgust in someone else’s face.

Everyone inside is already forming themselves into a loose circle. There’s enough space for Eddie and Steve to cram themselves between Argyle and Nancy. There’s an empty brown bottle in the middle that Robin is immediately taking hold of. “It was my idea, so I get to go first! And no copouts. Whoever it lands on, it lands on.”

She gives the bottle a good crank, and it ominously spins and spins, and eventually slows. The neck is pointing towards Jeff, who blushes, and Eddie feels a little bad for him because he definitely doesn’t know Robin is queerer than a three-dollar bill. He has a feeling he’ll be hearing Jeff talk about the pretty girl from the party for the next couple of months until he realises for himself that nothing is going to happen.

Robin grins and leans forward on her knees. Jeff meets her halfway. They smack a quick but playful kiss against each other’s lips right in the centre of the circle, and everyone cheers. Eddie catches himself grinning, too.

Jeff smiles his dopey little smile that Eddie kind of loves (but he’d never admit to it), and he grabs hold of the bottle next. It spins, and lands on Gareth. Eddie finds himself laughing aloud, clapping his hands together and chanting some sarcastically encouraging words.

Gareth grabs Jeffs cheeks and smooshes them together, and then plants a fat kiss to his forcefully puckered lips. Everyone in the circle laughs. “I know, I know,” says Gareth. “Here to rock everyone’s world.”

Eddie is still very much drunk, so he says, “Yeah? Make sure it lands on me and share some of that sugar.” He’s never said anything like that in his life, and as soon as he hears himself, he cringes. Beside him, Steve kind of furrows his brows and shifts around.

Maybe he is a little bit uncomfortable with gay things.

The whole circle is giggling when Gareth spins the bottle. It doesn’t land on Eddie, but the girl from earlier. Gareth looks all flustered again, and Eddie feels soft for a minute. He hopes that maybe something could come out of all this. It’s about time that one of them gets to start having sex.

The girl leans forward first. Gareth crawls on his knees and lets her press her lips into his. It’s a softer kiss than all the others – Robin and Nance coo while Eddie makes a dramatic gagging sound.

“Shut up, man!” Gareth tosses his empty beer can at Eddie’s head. The girl laughs and spins the bottle. It lands back on Gareth. The room erupts in cheers when they go in for their second kiss. It’s more confident that the first and Eddie feels like he’s witnessing something a little bit too personal. Gareth goes next, and it lands on Steve. “Pucker up, your highness.”

Eddie isn’t sure what he expects. Maybe for Steve to cringe or look mildly horrified. But he’s grinning a genuine grin, all crooked and happy like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Eddie is also ferociously jealous. Even though he knows both Gareth and Steve are straight.

Steve grabs Gareth’s head and smacks an aggressive but quick kiss to his lips. Gareth fakes a shudder. “C’mon, man,” Steve says. “Tell me that didn’t make you want to cream your pants.”

“That didn’t make me want to cream my pants.” Gareth rolls his eyes. “Guess I’m immune to the Harrington charm.”

“What a shame. Hopefully whoever it lands on actually wants a piece of this.”

“I’m pretty sure nobody here wants you, Steve,” says Robin. Steve sticks his tongue out at her, and she does it right back.

Eddie almost says that she couldn’t be more wrong, but he’s sober enough to keep his lips sealed.

Steve reaches down, grabs the neck of the bottle, cranks it to the side. It spins and it spins, and by some divine intervention or maybe some cosmic joke, it lands on Eddie.

His ears are ringing, but it’s not quite enough to drown out Robin’s laughing. “Part two to the show we got earlier!”

“Yeah, come on! Lay one on him!” says Gareth. Eddie whips his head to the side, hopefully looking at him with a menacing warning, but something tells him the only thing in his eyes is fear and want.

Eddie barely has time to think, let alone form a witty response, before Steve is grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and yanking him towards him. “Pucker up, baby.”

There are a few things that go through Eddie’s head in that moment.

First: Steve just called Eddie baby, and as one might guess, it definitely makes his dick jump in his pants. He’s embarrassed by how often that happens now, but there’s only so much he can do about it. And if Steve insists on always being so frustratingly sexy, it’s just something Eddie is going to have to get used to.

Second: That look is back in Steve’s eyes. The one that makes Eddie think he might actually want to be kissing him, like Steve’s glad that the bottle pointed towards him. Half-lidded gaze focused on Eddie’s lips, meanwhile his own tongue is wetting his, and fuck –

Third: Steve is kissing him. But it’s not like all of the other kisses of the evening, Eddie would like to point out. No, this one is very different. Because it’s lasting a lot longer than a second or two. It’s lasting – God – it’s lasting forever, and Eddie is vaguely aware that people are cheering. And then – Eddie shits you not – Steve’s lips part and Eddie just follows along, because what else is he supposed to do? So now their lips are slotted and moving together and Steve’s tongue fucking rubs against Eddie’s lower lip.

This is when Eddie realises he’s been holding his breath, so he pulls away from Steve out of instinct for air, not because he wants it to stop, and then everything kind of zeros back into reality that he’s at a party and he’s definitely trying to turn what’s supposed to be an innocent game of spin the bottle into a full-on make out session with Steve fucking Harrington. So instead of leaning back in to continue like he wants to, he just shakes his head and clears his throat, and says, “Jesus,” because it seems like an appropriate response.

“Wow.” Robin’s eyes are big, staring at Eddie and Steve with a sidelong gaze like she’s embarrassed for them. “That definitely bumped up this game from general audience.”

The whole circle laughs, and Eddie blushes, and he very pointedly does not look at Steve before he takes his turn. It lands on Nancy, and it’s a little weird to kiss her but it’s definitely not like the kiss he and Steve just shared. But he can see Steve staring from his peripheral vision and he battles everything in himself to look back because he knows he won’t be able to look Steve in the eye and not at his mouth.

The game continues for another fifteen minutes before people start getting up to refresh their drinks, and others get bored, and it just naturally fizzles out.

Eddie keeps sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Steve, who’s in some heated discussion with Jeff about six versus eight cylinder motors that Eddie knows absolutely nothing about. He toys with his empty can of beer, until there’s a hand on his knee.

It’s Steve’s.

“Can I get you another drink, man?” he asks, and Eddie just nods. Steve takes his empty can and brings him a fresh one, and Eddie decides that it’ll be the last drink of the night because his mind has been plotting about how to get Steve to kiss him again, which is a pretty good sign that he needs to stop.

The party wraps up at about one in the morning. Some people take cabs, others ride their bikes, some parents even come to pick up their children.

Eddie stays, because why wouldn’t he?

He and Steve half clean up, throwing the empty cans and bottles into bags, tossing the cardboard pizza boxes into the recycling after wrapping the leftovers and putting them in the fridge.

When it’s time for bed, Eddie eyes the spare rooms in the hall and wonders if that’s where he’s supposed to go, but Steve speaks up before he has a chance to dwell too long. “C’mon, man. My room is this one.”

Eddie follows Steve into his room, and watches as Steve strips down to his boxers. It shouldn’t be weirder than it normally is, but Eddie is very aware that this is an entirely different situation because at his trailer, his bed is the only option. Here, though, there are several, and Steve is still inviting Eddie to sleep next to him like it’s the only thing that makes sense, when really he’s having a whole internal crisis about it.

But Eddie tries not to think about it too hard, even though it’s kind of too late, and he undressed and follows Steve into his giant bed. Steve scootches closer and slots their legs together while they’re still awake. And fuck, they both have semis. Eddie feels like he wants to unpack that a bit, but instead he tells himself not to overthink it.

By the time Steve is sleeping, Eddie is leaking in his boxers, and he condemns himself for doing this but he really has no choice. He goes to Steve’s attached bathroom and he rubs one out, he comes to the thought of Steve’s lips and his tongue and his half-hard cock that he felt on his thigh. He comes hard, and he tries to aim it for the toilet, but it flies everywhere. So he spends a few minutes cleaning up after himself, ashamed. Satiated.

He crawls back into bed with Steve and hisses a bit when Steve’s thigh slots between his and rubs against his over-sensitive dick.

And maybe Eddie’s imagining it, he probably is, but it sounds like Steve huffs out a small laugh.

He really hopes he’s imagining it.

NEXT CHAPTER

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#eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie #stranger things #eddie munson fanfic #steve harrington fanfic #eddie munson smut #steve harrington smut #eddie munson x steve harrington #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie x steve #steve x eddie #steddie blurb #steddie fic #steddie fandom #steddie fanfiction #steddie brainrot #steddie fanfic #steddie smut #steddie thots #steve stranger things #bisexual steve harrington #gay eddie munson #eddie stranger things #virgin eddie munson #eddie munson loves steve harrington #bottom eddie munson #top steve harrington #mlm #smut

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Beautiful Disaster (4)

← Chapter 3 • series masterlist • Chapter 5 →

↳ 4 | Bottoms Up

Pairing: Gojo Satoru x f!Reader

talking to your mom and already getting fed up with gojo

words: 3.6k

cw: reader drinks a lot, to the point she gets sick

Taglist • Ao3 • Discord 18+ • Social Media • Series Masterlists

“Gojo’s really into you,” Nitta says randomly, causing you to sputter into your drink.

It’s Saturday, and you’re getting ready to go to his place for the party they're hosting - apparently they have parties more often than they don’t, which just kind of makes sense, based on the little you know about the three.

“How could you possibly know that?” You ask curiously after coughing a few times; your drink had gone down the wrong pipe in your surprise.

Nitta, the angel that she is, managed to score a few bottles of various alcohol from some upperclassmen. Shoko was quick to ask if you all could have one to pregame with.

“Could tell the other day just by how he was looking at you,” Shoko speaks up after a moment of silence, checking herself out in the mirror of your dorm room.

Utahime rolls her eyes before sighing, she’s laying on Nitta’s bed flipping through a magazine waiting for the three of you to finish getting ready, “Gojo told Geto, who told us.”

You can feel your cheeks heat at her comment, pursing your lips as you put mascara on.

“So…” Shoko begins, eyeballing you from the mirror she’s in front of. She’s in a low cut, dark green dress that’s flowy towards the bottom, “what do you think of him?”

“Oh… I don’t know,” you tell her honestly, “like, I was really into him the night we hooked up, and I like talking to him, but when he’s not directly in front of me… I don’t know.”

“That’s called charm,” Nitta adds, sipping on her drink, sitting next to Utahime. She looks adorable with her bleached blonde hair pulled back out of her face, a simple black dress on with her ankles crossed as she leans against the wall, “a lot of people like that about him.”

“Are you still planning on going on that date with him?” Utahime asks, sitting up. She’s in a dark lace top tucked into black jeans with a small belt.

You hum, contemplating, “I already told him I would. Besides, he hasn’t done anything to really make me want to back out of it, even if he is a serial dater. It’s not like anything has to come from the date.”

“He’s rich, so it’d probably be worth it just for that.” Nitta chimes in, surprising you all.

"Now you’re starting to sound like Mei,” Shoko teases.

You laugh alongside them, standing to check yourself in the full length mirror Shoko was just standing in front of. The dress you have on is black lace on top, cinching at your waist before draping past your hips, stopping midthigh.

There’s a smile fighting to spread across your face when you think about seeing Satoru tonight, and you relent a little. Maybe his charms have worked on you more than you’re willing to admit out loud.

Because saying it out loud makes it real and there’s no way in hell things would end well - not when he’s so… familiar with dating as you’ve heard, as he’s admitted.

“Has he ever just… been with one person? Like with Mei or anyone.” You find yourself asking curiously - not even sure what brought that question over you.

It’s not like you think you’re that special, more just wanting to know if he’s ever even tried.

The room is quiet and you can see Shoko shake her head and Utahime shrugs while Nitta chews the side of her cheek before saying, “I have no idea, actually.”

Out of anyone in the room, you assumed Nitta would at least know, considering she’s friends with Mei but she seems to be telling the truth and you don’t want to stay on the subject because it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Either he’s okay with just seeing one person or he’s not. There’s no changing that, no changing his mind - it’s something he’d have to decide on his own. And you’ll make it clear you have no interest in being juggled around like that.

“Shots?” Shoko asks and then you’re all giggling, talking about how you’re ready to wash away the stress from the week and have a good time as Nitta grabs a few extra plastic cups, laying them out so Shoko can fill them.

You watch the way Utahime watches Shoko, eyes soft, following her movements as Shoko lifts the bottle and pours each cup way too full for it to be one shot. When she’s finished, you grab yours, click your cup with the groups and down it in one gulp, wincing in the process.

You’re not really sure what to make out with the two of Shoko and Utahime - they’re so close, do everything together. Literally attached at each other's hips, unless guys are involved. When one of them talks about a guy they’re seeing there’s this… tension that you can’t really place.

It’s almost suffocating to watch the way they ignore it.

To be honest, when you first met them, you thought they were together. But when you mentioned it they both vehemently denied it.

“Oh, your phone's ringing,” Utahime says after taking the shot, grabbing your phone that’s vibrating on the desk next to her and handing it over.

You sigh, trilling your lips before canceling the call. It was your mother, again. And not even a minute later, your phone is vibrating in your hand, her name flashing on the screen. You stare at it for a moment before clicking your tongue and canceling.

Looking up you’re met with six pairs of eyes watching you curiously, “she’s been calling you for a few days, shouldn’t you answer? What if something bad happened?” Utahime questions.

Your mother had become insistent you answer her. And in typical “her” fashion, she started calling you repeatedly the last few days of the week.

At first you just silenced her calls and things were… fine after that. Despite the seemingly hundreds of voicemails she opted to leave, quickly filling your voicemail box.

“Yeah, I’ll just call her back tomorrow or something, it’s fine,” you wave Utahime off.

Your phone vibrates in your hand, your moms name flashing on the screen once again - because to you, she doesn’t deserve the title “mom” or “mother” anymore, but there’s also no way in hell you’re explaining to anyone what she did.

It’s fucked up and humiliating and even just thinking about it right now, with your stomach growing warm with alcohol, you want to vomit.

“It’s fine, I promise,” you say again, filling your cup with another shot, “besides, if it was important the higher ups would be contacted and Dean Yaga would call me into his office or whatever.”

“She’s probably just worried about you,” Shoko says innocently, following suit by filling her own cup and taking the shot without so much as a wince.

You shrug, downing your drink before saying “maybe,” just as your phone rings again.

“We’ll let you take that,” Utahime says quickly, grabbing both Shoko and Nitta by the wrist and walking to the door, “we’ll just see you at the party.”

You nod and take a deep breath, begrudgingly answering the phone.

“It’s about damn time. I’m assuming you haven’t forgotten our agreement,” she spits before you even have a chance to say hello.

“No, of course not.” You fill your cup once again before sitting on your bed, back against the wall. You’re going to need it if you plan on making it through this call.

“I agreed to let you transfer to Tokyo as long as you answered my calls without complaint,” she reminds you anyway and you take a big swig of your drink, already needing it, “unless you want me to stop paying for your classes and dorm room.”

“I’ve just been busy this week, getting to know campus and meeting new people, it’s been a lot to take in.” You reply defensively even though she’s well aware that’s not the whole reason. “Listen, I’m supposed to be going to a party tonight, can I call you back tomorrow?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” her voice is filled with venom, “your party can wait until I’m done talking with my daughter.”

You sigh, a deep heavy sigh and slump down. This is going to take forever, and now she’s going to just talk about nonsense to take up more of your time.

Putting the phone on speaker, you let her talk about her boyfriend and what they’ve been doing on the weekends when he’s free, and how he comes over during the week to help her take care of the house and make dinner.

Which you couldn't care less about if you tried.

As she talks about work, the neighbors and other boring shit you don’t particularly care about you open the messages app on your phone.

Satoru’s is the top, he had texted you the day after getting your number saying they were having a party at his place this weekend, and said you should come. Of course, you already knew from Suguru, so you told Satoru you’d be there.

Albeit, now you’re going to be later than originally intended.

You also roll your eyes when you see the unsolicited picture he sent, that you left unanswered.

It’s a shirtless picture of him from nose down, water droplets glistening against his skin after a shower, hard abdominals flexed with a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s grinning, because he always seems to be.

Truth be told, it left you flustered in more ways than one, which is partly why you never replied. You laid on your bed, staring at it for far too long trying to come up with something to say but all you could think of was ‘oh, that’s nice’ or ‘thank you.’

And then you had the uneasily thought of wondering just how many other people got that same exact photo which just made you jump ship on replying all together.

Your mom prattles on for the next hour to your dismay, the only thing really keeping you going at this point is the bottle Nitta left behind, but you’re really trying hard not to drink too much of it since it’s not yours.

Shoko texted you once, asking where you were and you let her know you were still on the phone but would come as soon as you could.

Which is going to be soon because you’re snapped back into the conversation when your mom says, “... and I think he’s going to move in after Winter break. Isn’t that wonderful?”

It’s anything and everything but wonderful. If there’s one person in the world you dislike, or even hate as much as her, it’s her boyfriend.

Her tone is triumphant and it takes everything in you to not hang up the phone as soon as those words tumble from her lips. Instead, you opt to tell her something came up and you have to go, hanging up before she’s had a chance to ask what happened.

She tries calling again, but you quickly cancel it before going into her contact and setting it on do not disturb. 

You’re jittery from the call, a flux of emotions you can’t quite place coursing through your veins, but rather than wasting time trying to make sense of them or thinking too hard about it, you grab the bottle of alcohol and take another two shots to calm your nerves before leaving the room.

When you walk into the front door of Satoru’s house you’re taken aback by just how different this party is compared to last week.

The music is still loud, bass driven as people dance and stand around talking - but there are also neon lights set up around the rooms, various shades of red, purples and blues. It’s more crowded than it was than last time as well.

“Didn’t think you were going to show,” Sukuna says when you stumble into the kitchen. You had made your way there first thinking your best chance at finding Shoko or Utahime was there, but clearly you were wrong.

There are other people in the kitchen, mixing drinks, standing around talking - some girls are on the counters drunkenly leaning into the person they’re conversing with, some making out.

“Uh, yeah I had something I had to do.” You reply vaguely, “do you wanna do shots?”

You probably shouldn’t do more, you realize when Sukuna grins at you but you’re over this night and just ready to let loose and have a good time. So why not just drink the hurt away.

Sukuna hands you a cup and you don’t even pay attention to what he poured before drinking it in one gulp, “damn, new girl,” he laughs following suit before pouring another.

This is by far the most you’ve ever had to drink in one night but you know what, fuck your mom, fuck her boyfriend. You know she only told you that so it’d get to you, ruin your night, and you’re hating that it’s working.

“You’re more fun than I gave you credit for,” Sukuna says while you drink the last shot he poured, making sure to get every last drop by tilting your head back. He laughs when you shiver and wince.

“Thanks?” You’re not really sure how to reply to that but you don’t bother trying to go in depth with it. Instead, you ask if he’s seen Shoko or Utahime, he hasn’t, but said Suguru was in the living room last time he saw him and Satoru was around “somewhere.”

Suguru is in fact in the living room, you didn’t see him on your first pass through on your way to the kitchen, but he’s hard to miss now that he has a body with pink hair grinding on his lap, lips attached to hers as they make out obscenely.

So, you sip on the mixed drink Sukuna made for you before you left the kitchen - far stronger than you would have made for yourself, but fuck it.

You also find Shoko, against the wall holding onto the shirt of the guy in front of her, biting her lip as they talk. He has his arm resting on the wall over her head.

Utahime isn’t far, conversing with a few people on a couch, she’s busy and doesn’t notice you and you’re far too drunk to care to interrupt her. Maybe if Shoko were with her you would, but you’re not even sure Utahime even likes you all that much and you don’t really feel like dealing with that right now.

When you spot Satoru, he’s sitting in a room off the kitchen, cup in hand as he’s leaned forward, elbows on his knees, smiling and talking with some blonde. You instantly regret chugging the mixed drink Sukuna made for you as your stomach starts churning and decide it’s because whatever he made was too strong for you.

Because letting it be any other reason would just be silly.

This night started out so fun - getting ready with friends, but then your mother called and it quickly turned disastrous. Now, rather than spending the evening with your friends, Suguru or even Satoru like you thought would happen, you’re stumbling down the steps in front of the house alone.

You stand for a second, closing your eyes trying to take a deep breath but the world is spinning when you do that and the contents in your stomach quickly come back up, so you sit on the ground next to a bush and vomit.

“Hey, you okay?” Satoru asks. He saw you chug your drink and walk away so he followed you outside.

You just stare at him, really unsure of how to answer.

Yes, because now that you’ve expelled some of the alcohol from your stomach you feel better, but also no, because fuck your mom. 

“Okay, so no, then.” He says when you don’t reply. You’re not sure how long he waited for one.

Groaning, you place your head between your knees and you know you’re being pathetic right now, but you’re far too inebriated to care, “c’mere.”

He helps you stand, resting most of your weight on him as he takes you back inside.

“I’m not gonna have sex with you,” you slur when you realize he’s brought you up to his bedroom.

“Yeah, I’m completely aware that’s not in the cards tonight.”

Pushing yourself off him, you make your way to his bathroom and get sick again as he stands in the doorway keeping an eye on you.

When you’re done, you rifle through his cabinets and he just watches, curious what you’re looking for until you find it - a spare toothbrush, drunkenly ripping it out of its packaging before wetting it and adding toothpaste you found.

“You could just do that in the morning.”

You stop brushing, looking at him with tired drunken eyes, toothpaste foaming around the corners of your mouth, “I’m gonna fuckin’ brush my teeth.”

“Yeah, okay,” he chuckles, scratching his eyebrow, “you’re really not from Tokyo, huh.”

“You’re not from Tokyo,” you mock, making your voice sound deeper than it is and then giggling.

“I am, actually, can google my family name and everything,” he’s amused, watching you gargle water loudly in the mirror.

Satoru helps you over to his bed where you dramatically fall over when trying to take the dress off as he grabs one of his shirts for you to sleep in. He chuckles before helping untangle your arms and hair from the fabric.

You watch as he holds out a shirt for you to put on as you unhook your bra and take it off and you can tell he’s trying very hard not to let his eyes wander while you’re this drunk. 

The door to his room opens startling the two of you, “Gojo,” you hear the melodic sound of a woman’s voice ringing before you see her, “are you in he-”

“What do you want, Mei,” his voice is harsh, starry eyes no longer glimmering with amusement. He doesn’t have to look back to know who it is.

Mei’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, an incredibly low cut purple top with a short leather skirt on. Her face is stern, eyes narrow as she glares at you from the hall.

“Are you seriously ditching me for her, again?” She scoffs at the end of her sentence, rolling her eyes like a child.

Satoru is quiet for a moment, feathering his jaw before taking a deep breath, “no, of course not.” he replies easily.

His tone doesn’t match the stern expression he adorns as he motions for you to lay down, helping move the covers out of your way.

“Get some rest,” Satoru murmurs, tucking hair behind your ear before kissing your temple, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

You try to stay up and wait for him, but your eyes are heavy and you’re emotionally exhausted from having to speak to your mother. It only takes a few minutes from when your head hits his plush pillow that you’re overcome with much needed sleep.

Your head is fucking pounding when your eyes finally flutter open. You sit up, entirely way too fast, to take in the scene around you. Not your room, Satoru’s you remember after a moment of confusion.

It’s still messy, same as last weekend and you briefly wonder if he ever cleans. There are a few pain relievers on the stand next to your side of the bed along with a glass of water that you quickly swallow, chugging all of the water because your body is begging for hydration.

Satoru must have laid them out for you when he came back to the room.

When you sit back on the bed there’s a hand on your back, rubbing small circles between your shoulder blades. Satoru has an arm over his eyes, shielding them from the sun's light that’s now beaming through the window.

“Fuck, this is mortifying,” you rasp, checking the time on your phone to see it’s almost noon.

Satoru sits up, taking a deep breath before stretching, “I’m just glad I found you and not some asshole.”

Groaning, you stretch your arms up before rubbing your hands in your face in embarrassment. Quite honestly, you could die in this moment and be totally fine with it.

“I should probably go,” you say awkwardly, cheeks flushed each time you recall your own actions last night, “I have some homework and studying I should do.”

“Didn’t realize you were so astute.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“I know what you taste like, what you feel like.” Satoru murmurs as he moves your hair, kissing your shoulder.

“Oh my god. You’re so gross,” your face is back in your hands, face so hot it feels like it could melt off.

“I think you like it,” he whispers next to your ear causing a shiver to run down your spine, he smirks at your reaction before leaning back a little, giving you enough room to breathe, “so, what happened last night? You were clearly upset about something.”

You groan again before sighing, “my mom and I… we don’t get along anymore. Not since after Christmas last year. She called and I- it’s just a lot to have to deal with her. She’s a spiteful person by nature.”

Even though she doesn’t have a reason to be spiteful in this situation, you refrain from sharing anymore details.

“Mm.” Satoru hums, “I’ve got family like that too. My dad, he can be pretty… crazy and my mom-,” he laughs, cutting himself off, “but hey, you know what's going to make me feel better? Our date later this week.”

“Really?” You’re amused, turning back to meet his starry gaze, crystalline eyes glimmering in the sunlight.

“Mhm. Yeah, it’ll really help ease the pain,” he jokes good naturedly before kissing your shoulder again.

You’re rolling your eyes and laughing, “even after watching me throw up in a bush and cry about not being able to get my dress off?”

“I think I can get over it because you look so pretty in my shirt. And I guess your personality is kind of cool too.”

You’re both smiling, it’s contagious, watching the way his eyes flicker between yours and down to your lips a few times before closing the distance.

His lips are as soft as you remember them, and he tastes like spearmint despite not having gotten out of bed to brush his teeth yet.

You’re really fucking glad you were so insistent on brushing your teeth though and you’re betting he is too when he slips his tongue past your lips, mapping out the inside of your mouth like his life depends on it.

Satoru helps you turn, laying your back flat against the mattress, slipping his hands up your thighs, pressing his thumb to your clothed clit, drawing one small tight circle, feeling the wet spot that’s formed just by talking to him.

How embarrassing.

His hands continue up, spanning your waist until he stops just below your breasts, thumbs teasingly grazing the soft skin there.

And then you remember how he brought you up here, and unceremoniously left you alone in his bed for Mei.

“Can we… Mm, can we just not do this, I feel kinda gross from last night.”

You may have brushed your teeth, but you definitely need to go shower after consuming as much alcohol as you did last night. An incredibly cold one.

“Yeah… yeah.” His voice is gruff, thick with arousal, eyebrows knitted together, “I was gonna say the same thing; that we should… stop right now, at this exact moment.”

“Good,” your tone is laced with annoyance, “yeah, wouldn’t want to hook up again, you know. Mei might get pissed about that.”

He scoffs, smile faltering a little, “we’re not together.”

“So I’ve heard but I was in bad shape last night and that didn’t stop you from leaving me, to what, hook up with her while I slept in your bed?”

“Ooooh, trying to figure out what I was up to. Sounds like you’re trying to be my girlfriend,” he teases and you just stare at him for a minute like he’s out of his goddamn mind.

“You know what, maybe we shouldn’t go on that date after all,” you’re scooting towards the side of the bed to redress so incredibly over this conversation, “getting involved with you just- I’m not interested.”

He grabs your arm, stopping you from moving any further away. When you finally turn back to meet his gaze it’s surprisingly sincere, “okay, relax, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” and now he’s grinning and you’re wondering if he knows how to take anything seriously, “scouts honor.”

“I highly doubt you were a scout,” you grumble as he stares at you with wide overly dramatic pleading eyes before you finally relent, “fine. We’ll go out, see how things go.”

“Where do you wanna go?” He asks curiously, watching you get out of bed, eyes never leaving for frame as you remove his shirt and put your dress back on.

“I really don’t care,” you sigh, “ask me in a few days when I’m less annoyed or better yet, take initiative and plan something that matches your interest level.”

You finish getting ready and he’s just smirking at you the whole time, arms crossed behind his head, sheet resting just at his hips showing off his defined chest and abdominals.

“And,” you continue, turning to face him as you open his bedroom door, pushing your luck to see how much you can get away with, “if you want to go out, then we’ll do it on Saturday. If you can’t make that work, that’s on you.”

@petalsrdead @sugurunicorn @niki-sun @lilith412426 @sofiaconlaz @lxvephxbic @kash2 @violetsapplejuice @iam-mia9 @laylasbunbunny @creolequeen11210 @xiaosie @lem-hhn @s-witch-bitch @yogurttea @slut-jr @watyousayin @crystxlline @desthevirgo @coffee-on-a-rainyautumn @ritsatoru @faewithsnakes

#jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen x reader #violetsaffronfic #jjk fanfic #jjk smut #jjk x reader #gojo satoru smut #gojou satoru x reader #gojo smut #gojo x y/n #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #gojo x reader #gojo x you #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo x y/n #BD

[go-rocksquadsfan]

Top 10 greek myths common interpretations that goes from slightly annoying me to make me want to unleash my inner Spartan warrior combined with Achilles' rage. Most of this list will be overall flanderization critic (and uh if this somehow offends any actual believer. Don't think it will but just in case tell me and I'll apologize)

1. Congratulations, you missed the point : Demeter being a bad parent. Been said a thousand times before, you know the drill. Listen I get wanting to make Hades and Persephone an actual loving couple, truly, but this is the prime example of making a story more misogynistic than it originally was. Also incredibly overdone.

1.5 Related to 1 but just the sentence "Hades and Persephone have one of the healthiest relationship in mythology" get out. Get out. (Shoutout to the other Olympian/Underworld gods couple Pasithea and Hypnos)

2. The wedding of Aphrodite and Hephaestus. So let me be clear. A woman is forced into a loveless marriage with a guy that sees her as a trophy. She still has sex with the guy she ACTUALLY loves (and that she was with before the wedding btw) but when he humiliates them in front of half Olympus people's reaction is "Omg poor Hephaestus he didn't deserve that he's a good guy" I'm going to strangle someone (also did y'all forget about what happens to Harmonia and her children ? The man was bitter. I don't like it much either but come on) . Also ironic considering Aglaia is right there but good luck seeing a mention of her lfmaooo. (We're a Aphrodite/Ares supporter in this house !) But NOOOOO we have to focus on the MAN's feelings AND villainize a woman (because since she "cheated" that's all she amounts to). I surely don't see Zeus and Hera get the same treatment !

3. The Iliad pack : making tue characters one dimensional : HELEN, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Hector, Achilles etc

4. ARES. My dude. Do I even have to say anything ? His characterisation is fascinating, even though some of it probably got lost and some was added to slander him. There's as much complexity to him as any other god (his relationship with goddesses/women, as well as the "Feasted by women" epithet even though women got the worst of it in war ?). The myth where he kills his daughter' rapist (a son of Poseidon) goes to trial in front of the other gods for it and get ACQUITTED ? The double standard between him and the other gods is insane.

5. APHRODITE. Again. On one hand you have the vapid woman obsessed with her looks, and on the other her being associated with the sentence "Make love not war" like... lmao. It's more complex than that. You're free to see her more inclined or repulsed towards it but making her completely dissociated with it is... exactly what they did in the Iliad... because they felt the need to because one war goddess is enough I guess. God forbid Aphrodite Areia goes on killing spree family bonding day with her man and Phobos and Deimos

6. Dionysus and Ariadne. Because I need the reasoning about why you would choose the version where he orders Theseus to leave her on the island other than wanting to make Theseus look good (and screwing a woman over). Which lots of people assume this version was made by the Athenians for that purpose 😭. But seriously why ruin one of the most beautiful relationships of the greek pantheon for a child kidnapper ??? (justice for Helen)

7. Congratulations, you missed the point : Eros and Psyche. She's supposed to be UNATTAINABLE. Something about changing that part of the story puts me off (maybe I'll try to explain it another time). Also depriving Psyche of her agency again god forbid a woman is the protagonist 😭 (I've seen it twice. There are probably more)

8.1. No, Artemis isn't a men hater (Unrelated but I realized she's the og lesbian hunter)

8.2. Now I have never seen Apollo hate with my own eyes but... apparently it's out there

9. Hera. Someone save her. She's the embodiment of the "You couldn't even handle her" memes

10. Now this is more on the "slight tick" side of the scale because the fanarts etc are gorgeous but. Achilles wasn't blonde. And even if he was... him and Patroclus are supposed to look alike. I'm aware the Hades/TSOA designs had an influence on this and I don't really mind it but if you want accuracy... yeah.

#Max's rants #Other than my mutuals I kinda don't want to have people see this actually I'm scared #But anyway let me know what you think #I could go on about Ares actually #Mind you this is the one (male) god who's only crime is murder and HE'S THE BAD ONE ???? Him and Demeter were too advanced for our times fr

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Day 8: Mountain/Chains

Prompt List

Pt. 6 of The Empire of Samadhi AU

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 (you are here) | Pt. 7 (coming sometime...)

(This is day 8 of the Monkie Destiny Challenge Prompt Month October 2023)

Wordcount: 2k

Summary: Red Son is the son of an old empire, Mei is the daughter of a new one. Red Son, consumed by fire, was put into an induced stasis sleep to stop the world from burning until his family can find a way to safely remove the fire. They find a way but he never wakes up. Hundreds of years later he awakes to discover his power resides within another as she stares at him with wide eyes on fire.

Split.

They reached the mountain at daybreak. 

It wasn’t massive but it still counted as a mountain, albeit a small one. There were seals and spells lining the caverns on the inside of it, if nothing much had changed since Red Son had last visited the place. It was a little out of their way and put them a good half a day behind schedule to reach, but the mortals were insistent. Much to Red Son’s frustration. 

Why they were taking this detour was simple. 

Liú. 

That little puppet Mk had tucked into his sash comfortably that morning, with his little puppet arms and face free of the fabric. He’d spent a needlessly long amount of time making sure he was comfortable, not being crushed. No matter how many times Red Son told him he likely couldn’t feel it, Mk wasn’t taking any chances. 

“Just in case,” he had said that morning. “He might be conscious. It would be boring to look at the inside of a pocket all day.” 

No matter how much Red Son scoffed at it, Mei chimed in that she thought it was a good idea so that was the end of it, and he could do nothing to convince him otherwise. 

They were idiotic fools. 

They were weird. 

They chatted with the puppet all the way too, and on the way up the mountain, in-between complaints of sore feet and burning muscles from their upward decent. Red Son had to listen to their aggravating recap and their ‘Sifu Samadhi, he might look scary but he’s a softy,’ all the way up the mountain. 

Red Son was not a softy. 

He was going to kill them both the moment he had the fire just to prove that. 

“He can’t hear you,” Red Son tried to tell them for the thousandth time.  

“Maybe he can,” Mei said, sticking out her tongue like she did every time she replied. 

Truly they were idiotic. 

He had no doubt if Liú really was conscious as a little puppet, he would have rather been shoved into a pocket than listen to their whining. At least then the sounds would be muffled. 

“Are we there yet?” Mei groaned. “We've been walking for ages.” 

“Two hours,” Red Son said through gritted teeth, “is not ages.” 

“It's dark out,” Mk complained, “I want to sleep.” 

Red Son took a moment to breathe. If he pushed either of them off the mountain now he might never get his fire. “This little detour is costing us precious time. The sooner we reach the top the better. Unless you’d rather take a nap and watch the world burn from this vantage point?” 

That at least shut them up for a while. Then there was nothing but annoyed noises and huffing and puffing. 

Honestly they held up better than expected. Despite their complaining they were keeping up with Red Son’s, what would be considered, brutal pace for mortals. 

They reached the top before sunrise. 

Luckily the big open surface carved out remained which meant they wouldn’t need to clear anything. The last time Red Son had been here, there had been monuments and structures and even green life everywhere. He didn’t acknowledge the blackened empty state of it.

Red Son drew the circle in the ash and dirt himself, since he didn’t trust either of them to know what they were doing. It didn’t take very long, but it was long enough for Mei to complain again. Red Son ignored her. He scratched the letters into the dirt then snatched some of his fire from the rings and lit the spell. The fire filled the grooves quickly until every bit of lettering was illuminated. 

“Now,” he said, dusting his hands off and turning to Mei. “First things first. This is going to cause quite a commotion in the middle of nowhere. Without any life disguising my power, we might as well be sending an invitation to that thing to come find us. So.” He stepped over to one of the edges of the flat space, purposefully not too far away from the circle, but not close enough to mess with the spell. “This is our escape route. If he comes, stand here, and it will take us out of here in a more permanent teleportation than I can currently provide.” 

“Cool,” Mei said. “Where does it go?” 

“Let me worry about that,” Red Son said, crossing his arms. “Now the spell. Not that I care but keep in mind that if you lose control at any point during the ritual, he will undoubtedly die.” 

“What?” said Mk, shielding the puppet with his hand. 

“No pressure or anything,” Mei muttered. She frowned at the spell. 

“Hurry up, we don’t have all day,” Red Son snapped. 

“You can do this, Mei,” Mk said. “I know you can.” 

That made her crack a smile. They were both so strange. “Thanks Mk.” She seemed to brighten just a little bit. “Alright, let's do this.” She got into position and planted her feet. 

Mk hurried forward and placed the puppet in the middle of the circle, gently brushing ash from the spot so there was a clear spot to place it down. He then scurried out of the ring, cursing as the hem of his hanfu caught fire. He stamped it out, giving a big bright smile when Red Son glared at him. 

Mei took a breath, closing her eyes. She placed the palms of her hands together in a meditative movement, then her eyes snapped open and she stared with intense focus at the puppet on the ground. “Ready.”  

Red Son nodded. He lifted his hand, breathed and released the puppet from the seal. 

It was an awful twisting, crumpling moment, then there the puppet stood at its full size. Its one eye blinked. 

“Now!” Red Son yelled. 

Fire exploded over them. 

Red Son thought just in time to yank Mk behind him to shield him from it. Red Son planted his feet, nearly slipping from the force of it. 

“A bit of overkill,” he said through gritted teeth as he held the fire at bay. She likely didn’t hear him mutter it over the roar of the flames. That had been his intention. He wasn’t stupid enough to interrupt her focus on purpose. 

The puppet cowered, shielding its face, but its feet remained glued to the ground, trapped by the spell. The flames washed over it. It wailed. 

“Ignore it!” Red Son yelled to Mei before she could hesitate or ask. “Continue the ritual!” 

The fire burned through layers of the curse. 

“It's working!” Mk spoke like he could see it which was absurd. 

Chains flickered into view. They connected to the puppets wrists and ankles, long and icy and blue. Deep churning gray ones wrapped around the rest of him as though they were holding him together. Those chains were much thinner and weaker than the blue, but both could be handled just fine. One part possession, one part curse. The seals on the chains lit up with light, exposed by the fire. 

The fire flickered green. Red Son grit his teeth and said nothing. 

“You almost got him! Keep going!” Mk yelled. 

“I… am…” Mei grunted, straining and pushing the fire at the puppet, trying to keep it aimed at him. Some of it lashed out to the side, dangerously close to Mk. 

“Focus, Dragon Girl,” Red Son barked. 

“Both of you zip it!” Mei snapped back. “Stop yelling at me-” 

One of the chains cracked. 

“Keep going, you're doing it!” Mk cheered.  

“I asked for quiet please!” 

The puppets' eyes flickered from empty to wide and pained and human. The puppet-like designs on its skin seemed to start to burn off. Its screaming was muffled by the fire. 

“This is really hard!” Mei yelled. 

“Of course it is!” Red Son yelled back. “Keep going!” 

A chain snapped. 

“You’re doing it, Mei! You’re doing it!” 

“Yeah!” Mei cheered. Her power surged and pressed firmer against the curse. 

Red Son hadn’t sensed anything, perhaps due to the massive surge of power in front of him. But quite unexpectedly he exhaled and his breath was visible, even with the flames in front of him. 

He snapped his head up to look at the sky to find frosty clouds looming above them and closing in. The air behind where the fire was not was growing cold.

Red Son hadn’t felt him coming. 

They needed to leave. Now. 

“Dragon girl! Stop the fire! We need to go-!” 

He landed a short distance away at the edge of the space and the mountain shook with the impact. 

Red Son stumbled, on his feet, some of the fire escaping past him and over to Mk. 

The fire vanished. 

“Mk, grab Liú,” Mei barked. If Red Son wasn’t distracted he might have been proud of her authoritative voice, clearly reminiscent of his own. 

Mk jumped into action and ran forward, jumping over rocks. He scooped the puppet off the ground, and bolted back to Red Son. 

The figure that filled Red Son with such dread started forward. 

The fire blasted into existence again, all of it focused on the possessed creature. 

“Leave it! We need to go!” Red Son yelled. He and Mk were already standing in the escape route, they just needed Mei. 

Chains flickered. 

Red Son realized that his uncle was walking into the circle they’d made for the puppet. 

Chains, white freezing chains, thin and thick, wrapping around every limb, tight around every movement. There looked to be hundreds of them, some of them thicker than some tree trunks Red Son had seen, and only getting bigger, as they stretched out of sight. They wrapped around his wrists, his arms, his ankles, his legs, his tail, his throat, his torso, his head. 

Every single chain link from big to small had a seal on it. 

The horror that Red Son felt choked him for a moment. 

“Wait!” Mei yelled. “Do you see that? Maybe I can-” 

“YOU CAN’T!” Red Son roared. “LEAVE IT, MEI.”

He could see her hesitate. It was a split second of her really truly considering… Then she growled. With a frustrated yell, she hurled as much fire as she could at their pursuer before she abandoned the circle and sprinted towards where Red Son and Mk stood. 

“Hurry!” Mk held out his arm to her. “He’s right behind you!” 

Mei didn’t glance back, she just launched herself forward, leaping at them. 

Red Son slammed his hand onto the ground on top of the spell to activate it seeing her trajectory. He didn’t pray that he’d timed it right, he knew he had. 

That was the moment that everything went wrong. 

Mei was jerked backward, the Possessed catching the back of her hanfu. 

Mk lunged out of the circle and tackled him.

Mei was catapulted forward and bowled into Red Son, knocking him off his feet and partially out of the spell. 

The possessed moved forward, Mei lunged for Mk, the spell activated just as she touched him and the mountaintop exploded. 

The impact of Red Son hitting the ground face-first nearly knocked him out. It left him dizzy and disoriented for a moment. 

He pushed himself up and staggered to his feet. 

He looked for Mei first, expecting her to be a short distance away, buried by rubble or fighting his uncle, but very suddenly realized several things: 

He wasn’t atop the mountain any longer. He was beside a running river, surrounded by trees. It was damp, not as dry, there was no ash or flame to be found.

He couldn’t feel the warmth of his fire at all, which meant it was no longer in close proximity with him.

His uncle, Mei and Mk were nowhere to be found. 

His fire was gone. 

Red Son punched a tree, splitting a fist-shaped hole into the wood. 

Then he wordlessly screamed at the sky for more than a few reasons but mainly because that had really hurt. 

Imbeciles.

| beginning | next (coming...sometime...) |

#KNOX WRITES (me) #Monkie Destiny Challenge (2023) #Monkie Kid the Empire of Samadhi AU #Monkie Kid #LEGO Monkie kid #Monkie Kid Mei #Monkie Kid Mk #have i just skipped day 7 entirely? m a y b e #not purposefully i just had the idea for a truth serum/curse fic thing and i was thinking about writing that just haven't had the time #this one was already partially written #I'VE HAD A VERY FULL WEEKEND OKAYGBS;FKLSMDF #hopefully i'll get todays prompt out too before the day is done #whew weeee #we shall see how this goes i don't have any ideas for it yet hG;LSKJF #REMEMBER TO HYDRATE #this one feels very short BUT ITS FINE MOVING ON #MY COMPUTER KEEPS OVERHEATING I NEED TO SPEED OFF HERE I'M JUST TRYING TO POST THIS WHEEZING #straight up i couldn't think of what they were going to do next so i did this to give my brain something new to consider mWAHHAHAHA #what will happen next... hm..?

[idontknowreallywhy]

Estera Ch 4 - Thunderbird

(Prologue, Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3)

From here on ignore anything I say about future chapter length because somehow this one ended up longer still… but slightly too many words better than no words, right?

I need to work out how to properly tag this but there are… events of an unpleasant nature in E’s early adult life during the war which won’t ever be described but will be implied at various points and are a little more strongly implied here than they have been so far. As I say, there will never be anything graphic or in any way detailed but if the hint that there was something in the past is going to cause you a problem please dodge. I considered writing it out completely but it would involve rewriting a lot of how her character develops and I just couldn’t make it work.

Right, I’ll get on with dropping stuff on Scott…

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Thankfully the collapse was a short lived and highly localised one. Although the shockwave of each chunk of rock slamming into his back and helmet shuddered through his ribs and down his spine, it didn’t hurt too badly so it was unlikely much damage had been done. The suit had done its job - Brains really was a genius.

What was much more worrying was the way the teacher had gone entirely limp and collapsed on top of the two children she was shielding. Had a stray bit of debris hit her? Her helmet had slipped to one side but he was sure he’d covered her head… the movement of rock seemed to be slowing but it was too soon to move yet. Transferring his weight to one arm he flipped open the visor on his helmet and dragged his glove off with his teeth. He felt for a pulse while still sheltering her and the kids as best he could from the last few stray pebbles. There it was… and she seemed to be breathing slowly.

Ok. Right, ok.

He patted the shoulders of the two figures huddled beneath their teacher and called out some generically reassuring phrases to the other kids, told them to keep calm and still… then suppressed a grunt of pain as one last heavy shard came away and caught his neck and shoulder at an acute angle, tearing through the fabric of his suit. No longer able to support himself with the one arm, he braced with the other and bit back a bitter curse at the thought of how his brothers were going to react to this. Couldn’t he have at least got through one rescue without an injury to distract them with? Just one? His helmet lights flickered and went out.

A metallic pop then the fizz of static told him his comm connection was also probably a goner. It was beginning to feel distinctly less like a jazz hands kind of day.

He waited a couple more seconds to ensure nothing else would fall then with a slight grimace pushed himself up and gently rolled the teacher away from the shocked kids and into the recovery position. Her vitals were fine and from his brief torchlit inspection he couldn’t see or feel any head injury… maybe with the shock of everything she’d just fainted? Her forehead was furrowed which was… unusual. He shook her shoulder a little, she tensed her jaw but otherwise no response. Something told him to leave her be for a while.

He helped the kids up and checked them over. The rest of the class, seemingly frozen in shock up to now, suddenly rushed forwards towards their unconscious teacher. The flow of calming words continued without any conscious thought or effort as he persuaded her charges to back away a little and give her some room. She’d wake up soon. Her brain was just making her have a little rest after being so brave. She was ok, he promised. The sticky feeling progressing down his back was a reminder that he needed to keep the kids in front of him, no need to freak them out any more. He shifted so that his back was towards the wall and smiled round at them all. In a ploy to distract, he started asking them their names and favourite dinosaurs given that was clearly a topic of interest.

The two children the teacher had been sheltering were shaky but unharmed. One had snuck closer again and was gently stroking her hair. Well he’d turn a blind eye to that. The rest of the class… less so.

“Astraaaaa! Mr Scott said you have to keep away from Miss H so she can wake up slowly! It’s not fair!” Jeff’s fury at the injustice was potent.

“But I want to help!” Glistening eyes appealed to him in the dim light.

Scott cast his mind back to wrangling Gordon and Alan at this age. He just needed to get them working together somehow… he hoped he wouldn’t live to regret his next suggestion.

“Sometimes singing to somebody in a deep sleep can help. Do you guys know any songs she might like?”

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

The voices of young children singing faded into her field of hearing, distant and strange in timbre as if she was underwater. She tensed, remembering the taunts and harsh laughter that had immediately preceded the darkness. Had they gone? She held her breath. It…seemed so? There was singing and they’d never have allowed that. The mocking, hateful voices had been replaced by a more melodious one and she became aware of a gentle hand patting the side of her jaw. Opening her eyes she saw Blue frowning down at her.

No! No it wasn’t safe for him here!

She gasped and scrabbled backwards whereupon she was surrounded by little arms and worried voices and she wasn’t There at all but with the kids and they were all… where…?

She blinked dazedly for a moment then it finally came flooding back and she tried and failed to find her voice to reassure them all.

At least six of them began talking at a mile a minute and any contribution from her turned out to be unnecessary, so she released a breath slowly and allowed the wave of chatter to wash away the sense of horror and revulsion prickling at her skin. Why had she passed out? The flashback had been hazy, but the eyes had been so vivid. She stole a glance at the man using his foot to shift the larger pieces of rubble to the side of the cave.

Of course it hadn’t been Him. It was just the International Rescue guy. Who probably now thought she was pretty pathetic not to mention rude.

“And you dived over to save them just like a superhero, Miss! And then Mr Scott superheroed right on top of you AND Astra AND Bee but he didn’t fly you away or anything and the wall fell all over you and it was really really scary and Rozi screamed right in my ear but you weren’t dead and Mr Scott told us we shouldn’t all sit around and poke you so we sat over here, except Astra didn’t which really annoyed Jeff and then we sang to you did you like that?”

Xanthe paused for breath and Estera took the opportunity to stem the tide of information by thanking them all for the update and asking if everyone was ok. Again. As if the question made any difference. None of them were ok. How was any of this ok? She shoved down the bubble of despair that was lurking in her windpipe.

One of the torches flickered out.

The rescuer looked up and suggested they should turn off half the torches for now. There was the traditional excited squealing as the cave got darker but there was still enough light to see each other by.

Now what?

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

If he was honest, the look of absolute terror on her face had thrown him a little. He couldn’t quite rationalise it with the circumstances and it had felt quite… personal somehow, as if she wasn’t just scared but specifically scared of… him? That didn’t make any sense though. All the same he figured it wouldn’t do any harm to give her some space.

So he tidied away the fragments of rock because, well, the kids needed as much safe open floor space as possible. And he needed to do… something. He glanced over at the small oxygen tank and tried to calculate how much time had passed since his last contact with John and Virgil. They’d said half an hour. Must be coming up on that now. He hoped fervently that nothing had gone wrong, that whatever had caused the earth slip here in the cave hadn’t endangered his little brother too.

He took it back. Being out of contact with his brothers was hell. He’d take another month of smothering over this silence. Maybe two.

Maybe he had to admit that he hadn’t been ready. Something had set him on edge and he didn’t think it was the cave in, or the declining oxygen situation. There was something else wrong. What was he missing? Maybe if he was fit, he’d know but today… he cursed his fuzzy brain. The atmospheric sensor in his suit told him it was on the edge of too warm down here now but he was shivery and there were shadows at the very limits of his vision that didn’t line up with the positions of the torches…

He shifted his aching shoulder awkwardly. Ow. Oh! Blood loss! Oh! Maybe it was that. Hopefully it was just something as simple and easily fixed and could-happen-to-anyone as bleeding a little excessively and going wobbly at the edges. Somewhat relieved, and with not insignificant effort he returned his attention to the kids who had begun another passionate debate about something or other. At least they were no longer singing THAT song…

In an effort to get out of doing the actions, he’d had to pretend not to know Baby Shark… Ha! As if he’d had a chance to escape that one with a toddler Gordon in the house…

“TWO IS THE STRONGEST!”

“THREE CAN GO TO THE MOON!”

Hello? Scott perked up. This sounded more like his area.

“THREE IS RED WHICH IS THE BESTEST COLOUR! I’M RIGHT!”

“TWO PUTS OUT FIRES!”

He couldn’t help a quiet chuckle when one of them, he thought it might be Rozi, declared that Thunderbird 3’s pilot was the cutest and that she was going to marry him. Best start running, Allie.

“TWO CAN GO UNDERGROUND!”

Huh?

Outraged squawking resulted which the teacher shushed with a single raised hand. The conversation proceeded at a slightly lower volume.

“Two can’t go underground. You need a mole pod for that”

“Well you can’t have a mole pod without Two. OR Thunderbird Four. Or anything useful. Two carries all the things.”

“THUNDERBIRD TWO HAS POCKETS!” Astra stood and punched the air.

“So does my mum’s handbag, that doesn’t make it COOL.”

Scott barked out a laugh “I’ll tell him you said that.”

Eleven pairs of eyes snapped towards him.

“Which is your favourite Thunderbird, Mr Scott?”

Truthfully? Right now he’d quite like to get an eye-full of green cahelium, but this was a matter of principle.

“One, of course.”

There was a pause while the children considered. Reuben even put his fist to his jaw and gazed upwards in silent contemplation.

“One can go twenty times the speed of sound.” Piped up Sam.

Scott cringed “Uhhhh, well… nineteen times.”

“Why not twenty?”

“It’s just the way she is. After that it gets a bit… explodey.” Scott was sure Brains would back him up on that technical term…

Another pause.

“Well that’s still pretty fast.”

“Yeah but One is tiny and can’t carry a whole lake of water!”

They all turned to their teacher.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Estera had thus far masterfully avoided coming down on either side of the argument, convinced that the devoted fans on the opposing side would never forgive her. She was saved from further dodging by a popping noise and a loud hiss:

“Thunderbird Two to Thunderbird One, I am on approach to your location, eta 15 minutes. Do you read?”

The blue-eyed operative - somehow she couldn’t make his name stick in her mind - half raised his right arm then switched to the left, tapped the logo on his uniform and answered, a hint of formality layered over his lighthearted, friendly way of speaking.

“F.A.B. Thunderbird Two, great to hear your voice. Had a minor additional fall down here earlier but we’re all ok.”

There was a little ‘something’ in his voice that the man on the other end clearly noticed too.

“All of you?”

“Absolutely fine, Virgil”

She frowned and cleared her throat.

“Your colleague is favouring his left arm, suspect some damage to his right shoulder or ribs on that side when the debris fell on him”

A deep sigh over the comm.

“Thanks, don’t let him make it worse.”

Mr Friendly-Voice spluttered.

“Et tu, Brute?”

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #idontknowreallywhy fanfic #scott tracy #Estera #Tw: implied violence #Tw: implied historic sa #TB Estera

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase Character Discussion (for your local Cyberchase trivia quiz) - #1: Inez

Since I have been archiving data from the Cyberchase section of the old pbskids.org website for the FlashPoint Archive Project lately, I thought should share some content I have dug up, particularly information that was provided on the different characters. Much of the information is no longer on the site. While much of it is available in the FlashPoint Archive Project now, and I would consider the project easy to look into and setup, not everyone will take the time to do so. #1: Inez I figure the best place to start is with her official "Meet the Cybersquad" character bio from back in the day. This was placed on the pbskids.org website way back in 2001, before the series initially started airing in 2002. This is no longer on the pbskids.org site, so I can't promise that it is still canon.

So, we start off learning that Inez is the youngest of the group, at nine years old. We never see the kids in school together, but I would not be surprised if Inez jumped forward a grade or two. The page emphasizes her curiosity. Now, would you call the parkway vs. driveway thing pedantic? For me: no comment.

The second page tells us that her favorite color is purple, her favorite food are popcorn and mangoes, and her favorite book in "By the Shores of Silver Lake", by Laura Ingalls Wilder. That is part of Wilder's autobiographical "Little House on the Prarie" series, with this particular book being published in 1939. I know its a classic that has been republished numerous times, but I do find it interesting that she went for such an old book. Her favorite music is by Mac Anthony. The page doesn't mention specific genres, and Marc Anthony has done several different genres over the years. I don't know his discography very well, but it looks like he was best known for Latin Salsa in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so that's probably her favorite music genre overall.

The third page tells us that her favorite move is "Harry Potter", as she loves Hermione Granger. Because this bio came out in 2001, only Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone would have been released as a movie at the time.

Her pet peeves are listed as heights, bad sportsmanship, and whenever Matt calls her "Nezzie". According to TVTropes, she did conquer her fear of heights by the time The Cyberchase Movie came out. She has one pet, her cat, Gatito. We do see Gatito in a few episodes of the show.

Now, there's something odd about Inez's design on the "Meet the Cybersquad" page. The star on her shirt is purple, as opposed to the yellow we got in the show. I'm not sure how this happened, as Inez had the yellow star as far back as the 1999 pilot.

This reminds me of another piece of trivia. During Season 4 Episode 2 "The Icky Factor", the kids get wetsuits for the first time, as they need to swim around Aquari-yum. They had already been to Aquari-yum twice by this point. However, they stayed in the sub the whole time during Season 1 Episode 16 "Codename Icky". Then, during Season 3 Episode 6 "The Grapes of Plath", they just wore their regular clothes with a bubble helmet to walk around the bottom of the bowl.

Look at their wetsuits. Matt gets plain blue wetsuit, Jackie gets a plain yellow wetsuit, and Digit gets a plain orange wetsuit. Inez gets a green wetsuit with a yellow star on the front and a purple vest. I like this detail. It's about as close to matching her color scheme as they could get without making the top half of the wetsuit pink, which would have just been weird. Maybe a full pink wetsuit would have been a little better? I don't know. If they did that, she would be missing out on the green from her shorts

Anyway, the next piece to look at is this page from Cyberchase: How It All Started: Webisode 3. This was an official prequel web comic that come out before the show started airing, so its a little off. I promise that this is the original image without any edits.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080610025304/http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/webisode_3/7.html

They got her skin-tone and hair color very wrong, as they showed her as white with red hair. The lenses on her glasses aren't as opaque. They did get the yellow star right this time, but I would consider her skin tone to be far more important. I would love to hear the story of how this mix-up happened. You know what? I'll add my attempt at fixing their mistake below, based on skin, hair, and glasses colors picked from "Meet the Cybersquad". I don't have much GIMP experience, but I think I did a pretty good job.

Anyway, the main reason I brought this image up was that she is noted as being a computer whiz who loves to go on the Internet. As far as I remember, she never uses her computer skills in the show, probably because they played it so fast and loose with the terminology.

So, that first image only showed her from the waist-up, but we do get a shot of her riding her bike to the library to meet her new friends and start the first episode. They did it again.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080607121655/http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/webisode_3/8.html

I honestly wouldn't care if it was just the shirt, vest, or shorts being the wrong color. Alright, I have added a color-corrected version below.

The second page gives us "Oh no, this is not good at all!" That is the prototype for her iconic phrase: "This is not good! This is not good at all!".

Did you know that on her way to the library, Inez road her bike all over town to run other errands? She went to Betty's House, the Post Office, and the Video (VHS) store before arriving at the library just in time to make some new friends and upload her mind into the Internet.

As far as character trivia goes, Cyberchase did have official printable trading cards. Here's the one for Nezzie. I love this card. One of her favorite things is E-mail. Her other favorite things include experiments and big words, but we all knew that already. They picked a more optimistic, but less iconic, favorite line for her with, "Hey, I've got an idea!" rather than "This is not good! This is not good at all!". She is great at basketball, which may be surprising to some, given her height. We'll come back to that. She is also great at reading, standing up for herself, and singing. We do get to hear her sing "Brahm's Lullaby" in Spanish for Chewcrocca's baby during Season 3 Episode 1 "EcoHaven CSE".

I can think of two pieces of official Cyberchase media related to Basketball. There was Season 6 Episode 7 "Jimaya Jam", which had a sport of the same name, except it took away dribbling. However, Inez was actually separated from the group at the time, with Creech taking over her role during the Jimaya Jam game. Presumably, Inez was just too powerful.

The second piece is from the singular Cyberchae chapter book, "The Search for the Power Orb". The story actually starts with Inez playing basketball against Matt. She is frustrated that he is able to block her shots due to his clear height advantage, and his teasing about her height doesn't help. Towards the end of the story, they retrieve the titular Power Orb, which is roughly the size of a basketball. It needs to go back into its basket to save Cybersite Serentia from complete deletion. Inez is able to use her short stature to run between The Hacker's legs, get a boost from Izzy, and slam dunk the Power Orb.

What else? I found this early concept art on the Cyberchase wiki. It seems like the biggest change was the style for her boots.

There is also this write-up from a "Who's Who" document. I don't know whether this was always available to the public, or if this was an internal document when they were developing and pitching the show. It doesn't add too much information to what I already posted, but it does state their intent to make her a tomboy, and it talks about her tendency to giggle, give inspirational quotes and stand on her head.

I figure no Inez compilation is complete without her standing on her head at some point. Here she is in Season 2 Episode 12 "The Guilty Party" flinging herself out of a handstand, twisting around, and landing on her feet.

#cyberchase #inez #cartoon #2000s #2000s childhood #she slam dunks the fucking thing #it's incredible #longpost #archived web content

[tizzyizzy]

Why Ed Got Kraken: The Benefits of Being Blackbeard

As the climactic emotional turning point of the season for Ed’s arc, we pay plenty of attention to the confrontation between Ed and Izzy in the captain’s quarters. Here’s my take.

“I should have let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.”

Right out of the gate, Izzy speaks what are actually his harshest words in the conversation. He says he should have let Ed die, that what ever he has become is worse than being dead. Between a different pair of characters, these cruel words would be the point of the scene. Ed would be dealing with his longtime friend and ally thinking so little of him. Wishing he was dead.

But, whatever bond they may have forged over the years, one of the most consistent things we see over the course of the series is how little Ed takes Izzy’s emotions and concerns into account. Sure, Ed listened and bowed to pressure when Izzy and the other crew members had a meeting about Stede being a pet. But Izzy both had back-up and was holding Ed up to his own rules and standards.

In general, Ed doesn’t pay much attention to Izzy’s emotional state, and when he does, he finds Izzy’s anger more amusing than upsetting. That’s not to say that Ed doesn’t care about Izzy at all, or that they aren’t friends. However, as their relationship has strained over the years, Ed seems to have gotten into the habit of tuning out Izzy’s ever growing list of complaints. Makes sense for the emotionally stunted pirate guys. Instead of leaning in to the relationship and dealing with the issue together, Ed leans away to escape Izzy’s pressure, only for Izzy to push even harder, which makes Ed lean away, etc.

And let’s be honest, Izzy can be pretty dramatic when he gets upset; it’s very possible Izzy has made over-the-top statements about how Edward will “rue this day” or whatever in the past in the heat of some fight only for things to cool down and return to normal.

So while Ed seems taken aback by how harsh Izzy is here, he responds more or less the same way we saw him respond in episode 4, where he just looked at Izzy in bafflement while the latter frothed and ranted.

This is just Izzy being Izzy. He’ll get over it.

“Well, I am still Blackbeard, so-”

Ed’s obviously got insecurities, but one thing he is absolutely proud of is being Blackbeard. He enjoys showing off his weather reading genius. He likes sauntering about the Revenge after rescuing Stede and co., basking in the awe of the starstruck crew. Ed worked long and hard and smart to have a reputation so legendary merchant ships surrender at the sight of his flag, and people the world over speak of him in hushed whispers. “I can do anything,” Ed said about running a restaurant. Blackbeard can do anything, and Ed is Blackbeard, so he can do anything.

Yeah, maybe Ed hasn’t been at his best the last few days, but who cares? He’s still, at his core, the infamous, skilled, indomitable Blackbeard. 

Thing is, being Blackbeard comes with a lot of perks. Automatic respect and fear. Spanish Jackie holds her fire because she wouldn’t risk crossing Blackbeard by murdering the Genital Pirate. It may be more boring nowadays when you don’t  have to fight to take a ship, but that’s reliable, safe booty. Dangerous people stay out of your way. Potentially useful ones compete for your favor. Izzy Hands says you’re the most brilliant sailor he’s ever met, and makes you tea and ties bows in your beard and is loyal no matter what.

Most importantly, as long as you’re Blackbeard? You’re somebody. By the time Ed appears in the story, the persona of Blackbeard has started to chafe. The excitement has been replaced by routine, and people see an exaggerated version of him with nine guns instead of his true self. But consider what Ed had before Blackbeard.

He was nothing. S lower class kid with a drunk for a father who wasn’t entitled to the simple pleasures of his aristocratic betters. Being Blackbeard might not be perfect, but it’s brought him so much more than whatever fate his lowly origins would have confined him to.

Back in the day, Ed was probably acutely aware of this. He started his career as nothing. Must have been exhilarating when people began to fear and respect him for the first time in his life, spreading his name far and wide.

But that was a long time ago, and Ed’s gotten complacent. He’s started to look for more out of life. However, he’s paid less attention to what earned him the security to worry about more than day to day survival. Ed didn’t think his slipping mattered, really. Sure, maybe he had made a few questionable decisions as his attention wandered from piracy, but he was still Blackbeard. Nothing’s going to change that.

But then Izzy, old, reliable Izzy, says he isn’t Blackbeard.

“No! This, this is Blackbeard! Not some namby-pamby in a silk robe pining for his boyfriend.”

These are the words that make him go from sedate to violent.

From episode 4 onward, Izzy has been a representative of Ed’s career as Blackbeard when he still had the passion for it. He’s a barometer that tells the audience how the Present Ed compares to Past Ed. In 10, he tells Ed and the audience that ratings are at an all time low. For the first time, Ed believes him.

When Izzy called him a “shell of a man who is merely posing at Blackbeard,” in 4, Ed didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Despite Izzy’s complaints, Ed was still confident that he was Blackbeard. In 4, despite his mistake with the date, Ed managed a brilliant plan with Stede’s help. Izzy apologized at the end of the episode, taking back his words. 

But a lot has changed since 4. 

Ed has fallen in love and had his heart broken. He’s become more open to his softer feelings, willing to express vulnerabilities. He found a friend, and lost him, and saw a different way of running a ship. He gave up his freedom for the love of a man who seemingly didn’t actually care about him. He learned he loved marmalade and wrote a song about his feelings and spent a week hiding in a pillow fort.

Ed has changed.

“Blackbeard is my captain. I serve Blackbeard. Not Edward.”

Know all those benefits I mentioned before? Izzy is one of them. Izzy was drawn to Blackbeard because of his brilliance. He is attracted to Ed as the daring, frightening, cunning pirate captain. Izzy even fell in love with him, and followed him with devout loyalty. Edward’s gotten so used to Izzy being there. It’s as natural as breathing to first reach out to Izzy when he needs something, even something intimate, or to chatter to Izzy about whatever has caught his interest.

Despite their rupture over Stede, their reconciliation wasn’t even worth a scene to itself. They fall back into their dynamic without question, because Izzy’s loyalty is that deep and Ed’s trust is that strong.

But Ed has taken the Blackbeard title for granted. Now, the ever loyal Izzy says he does not deserve it and he will no longer to submit to the authority it represents.

And when Ed is alone, having been abandoned by his most stalwart crewmember, he hears the crew calling him to sing again.

If Izzy doesn’t respect him anymore, no one will. The crew saw his vulnerable side. He has traded the respect of Blackbeard for...possibly nothing. To be treated as a joke. As someone who can be trifled with.

By trying to reach for something more, for real happiness beyond the security of infamy, Ed has risked the Blackbeard name he earned. Stede abandoned him. Izzy’s abandoning him. He’s on a boat with a crew that want to throw a talent show. If he doesn’t act soon, the name of Blackbeard could be dust...or worse, an object of ridicule (Remember how he feared being seen treasure hunting?). Then Ed will be back to the bottom of the barrel, same as the poor, lower class kid he started as, sneered at and looked down upon.

“Edward better watch his fucking step.”

This line is sometimes taken as a coercive threat, Izzy trying to intimidate Ed into bending to his will, but I’d argue that is not what is happening here.

When Izzy says these lines, he isn’t saying, “You’d better do what I want or I’ll make you regret it.” 

He’s saying: “I will obey Blackbeard and submit to the will of Blackbeard. But you aren’t Blackbeard anymore. You don’t get to slam me into a wall or command me like Blackbeard does. If you try it again, there will be consequences.”

It’s not, “Become Blackbeard again or else.” It’s “You’ve changed so much I am no longer loyal to you.”

This is why I disagree with the view that Ed is coerced, bullied, or intimidated by Izzy into becoming the Kraken. This isn’t a scene about Ed buckling  due to the fear of Izzy’s violent retribution, taking desperate measures to protect himself from The World’s Most Pathetic Man. It is about the threat of losing everything he’s built as Blackbeard.

This is why I find arguments about Ed resorting to maiming and forced auto cannibalism as semi-justified by his fear of Izzy, or some form of self-defense, particularly problematic: Ed wasn’t afraid of Izzy hurting him; he was afraid of Izzy leaving. Which is, uh, a very different thing.

Though it only kept Izzy from leaving because he’s loyal to the old Blackbeard, not due to fear.

“Hey Eddie, give us another song!”

(Interesting thing to note: Edward had just told the crew that he wanted to be called “Ed” instead of Blackbeard. He did not give anyone permission to call him by the cutesy, overly familiar diminutive “Eddie”. Perhaps a demonstration of how once he lost the aura of Blackbeard, the crew’s apparent respect for him began to diminish immediately.)

I think it does a disservice to Ed’s character to place the blame for his backslide into krakendom on Izzy. Izzy didn’t trick or manipulate or intimidate Ed. Ed isn’t scared of Izzy, for god’s sake. He isn’t being played. Izzy just exposed Ed to the very real potential consequences of his choices: losing everything he built with Blackbeard. And once Izzy is gone, Ed has hours to decide if he agrees with Izzy. In the end, he does.

I think, if Ed looked back at this moment, he wouldn’t be brooding about Izzy being mean or cruel. He’d think about being left alone in the captain’s quarters, a pit forming in his stomach, realizing that maybe what will give him true happiness and what will keep him safe are incompatible. Looking back on his past behavior in a panic, wondering if people are already beginning to hear tales of the newer, softer Blackbeard, and how that might change how they view him. Wondering, if Izzy is done with him, what does that mean about the rest of his crew? Wondering if he has nearly given up the legend of Blackbeard for an illusion of love. Looking around at all these trinkets left behind from Stede, how he used to long for them, but now they just look like the meaningless baubles of a man so rich he can afford to buy trash like Ed twice over.

“I am the Kraken.”

But it’s not too late. Ed just has to act fast. By the time night falls, he’s made his decision. He throws the member of Stede’s crew that has seen him at his most vulnerable, Lucius, off the boat, along with all his wisdom about relationships and emotions. He proves his commitment to being this version of Blackbeard to Izzy by performing a grotesque act of violence upon him. “The old Blackbeard’s back and he’s worse than ever,” is what he’s saying. “Don’t give up on me yet.”

Then all of Stede’s things have to go. All the baubles Ed was so excited about in 4, the big library, down they go into the drink. Then he maroons the foolish, trusting, ridiculous crew. They’re useless, and they’ve seen to much. Just more of Stede’s toys to play pirate.

He’s going to be okay. He’s still Blackbeard. He slipped, but he clawed his way back up at the last moment. He still hurts, but he can hide in his room to cry. And there’s the alcohol that we see him with, coping with pain like his father did. (Fang’s drinking now too. Bad times are coming again.)

The stabbed heart is sewed in his new flag, as a reminder not to let anyone in again.

He doesn’t have anything else, but he’s still Blackbeard.

#Edward Teach #Edward Teach meta #ofmd #ofmd meta #izzy hands

[justmochi]

IN THE SOOP EP. 4

pairing :: rosie x seventeen

word count :: 2.0k

synopsis :: seventeen complete their soopket lists. 

a/n :: daisie picnic except most of it had to be cut for screentime n daisie being sus

taglist :: @cafemilk-tea @cixrosie @moonlight-additions @cosmicwintr @astraw-astro @ateezjuliet @fromfreesia @succulentmom @kimhyejin3108 @enhacolor @multiplums​

The woman woke up fully rested. She was even shocked to see the time because she thought she had slept the entire day. Her stomach ache and migraine from the night before were almost too much to bear that it had tired her out.

Today she felt much better. She had done her morning routine, brushed her teeth, and applied her skincare before setting out the door.

The weather was perfect considering how all the members were going to be busy today. She managed to catch some of her members in the kitchen.

“Good morning.” She smiled, stretching her arms out as she watched Dokyeom pound pork.

“Rise and shine, Jangmi.” Joshua welcomed her in as he was also preparing breakfast.

“What are you making?” She watched as they prepared all the ingredients.

“Pork cutlet.” Dokyeom showcased the pork to her. “Hoshi wanted me to make him some.”

“At least we can all count on you to feed us.” She patted his shoulder before taking a seat at the table.

“Are you feeling better today?”

“Oh yes! Much better. I have to thank Jeonghan when he comes around.” She nodded, pulling her phone out of her pocket and setting it on the surface. “I hate being a girl sometimes.”

She watched their reactions, snorting at how they looked like they had no idea how to reply to her comment.

“Dokyeomie, you should teach me how to cook sometime.”

“I feel like I’d need to map out a whole curriculum for you.” He joked, making the other members laugh along with him.

“You should feel honored I’m asking you instead of resorting to Youtube videos.”

The members started joining in the dining room one by one, all waiting for the pork cutlet to be done. When it was finally served to the members, they didn’t hesitate in giving it a taste. The second the food hit her taste buds, she wanted to curse.

“Oh my god, this is amazing.” She covered her mouth as she chewed the pork, eyes wide as she shook her head.

Joshua pointed at her as Rosie managed to get a laugh out of him. As everyone finished up eating, they came to the conclusion that they would draw a spoon to see who would clean up. When Wonwoo pulled the unlucky spoon, Rosie frowned while shaking her fists.

“Wonwoo! Fighting!”

The rest of the members scattered as she was left in the dining room with Wonwoo. The day was designated for all their soopket list activities, so Rosie wanted to prepare for her and Dino’s picnic.

“Can I keep you company?” She asked Wonwoo, scrolling through her phone for picnic ideas. “I’ll clean up my mess, I promise.”

“Of course.” Wonwoo quickly put on gloves before starting the dishes.

“Have you ever been on a picnic?”

“Maybe when I was younger? I can’t remember.”

“I don’t know what to bring. I’m thinking of fruits and sandwiches but do you have any ideas?”

He listed ideas off the top of his head, Rosie making a list in her notes app before preparing food for the picnic later.

She made her way up to the playhouse, planning to use her spare time to play some games. She had finished all the treats she was going to bring to the picnic and was shocked to see that Dino had left with the guys to go fishing.

She was sulking since she had prepared the food in advance and also put on a cute outfit for their picnic. As she entered the playhouse, she was met with Joshua and Jun who were making crafts on the floor.

“What are you guys making?” She asked, plopping down on the chair and turning on the computer.

“A panda.” Jun held up his little model. As Rosie got a good look at it, she clapped her hands together for him.

“It kinda looks like a cat.” She smiled.

“What are you doing?” Joshua looked up from his project and towards her.

“I was supposed to go on a picnic with Chan, but now I have to wait till he gets back from fishing.” She frowned, slouching in her chair and logging into one of her games.

“Hopefully they won’t take too long. There’s still lots of daylight left.”

“I even made a bunch of snacks and packed everything nicely too.”

“We should tell them to hurry up. Jangmi can’t even cook and she went through all this trouble.” Jun jokes, sitting up straight to stretch his limbs out before pulling out his phone.

“You guys act like I can’t even make a basic sandwich.” She crossed her arms, “But yes please tell them to hurry up. I miss him.”

After another hour, she finally heard a car roll up and checked out the window. She spotted Dino with the older members, quickly running out of the playhouse and skipping down towards them. “Ya!”

When she finally reached them, she wrapped her arms around Dino, trapping him in a hug as Seungcheol laughed at them.

“I’m stealing him. He’s mine now.” She furrowed her brows towards them as he giggled. “We still have to go on our picnic.”

“I know. I didn’t forget.” He tried wiggling out of her grasp. “But I smell like the river. Can I freshen up a bit?”

She pouted, letting go of him. “Fine. I’ll pack the car but be quick.”

“I will.” He smiled with a nod, pinching her chin before running up to the house. She hurried back to the dining room, taking all the snacks she prepared and storing them in a basket that she brought just for the picnic. She set the basket in the backseat of the car, along with a cozy blanket. By the time she was done, Dino had finished freshening up and was helping her load the car.

“Do you have everything?” He asked her, putting the things he was bringing in the front seat.

“Yes. Now let’s go. I’m hungry.” She got in on the driver's side, buckling her seatbelt and watching him do the same. She adjusted her mirrors and everything before taking a moment to rub her hands together and get excited about their picnic date.

“Are you hyped?” She smiled, putting her hands on the steering wheel before turning to look at him.

“I am. Where are we gonna set up?”

“I figured we could venture out a little and find a wooded place.” She finally put the keys in the ignition, driving away from where they were staying.

Dino couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She caught him staring out of the corner of her eye and couldn’t keep a straight face.

“Do I have something on my face?” She quickly turned to face him before her eyes returned to the road.

“Rosie is making her driving debut.” He teased her, chuckling before pulling out his phone to take a picture. “I have to capture this groundbreaking moment.”

“Have I really not driven on camera before?” She laughed nervously, checking her mirrors while feeling the pressure.

“This would be the first time.”

“Well now you’re making me nervous.” She fixed her posture in case someone were to criticize her driving skills.

“Don’t be nervous. Just drive as you always do.”

“As I always rarely do.” She nodded, pursing her lips.

“I was thinking the same thing for a second.” He covered his mouth before laughing and looking out the car window.

Once they finally reached their destination, Rosie turned the car off before sitting back against her seat for a few. “We made it.”

He unbuckled himself, leaning over the console and smiling at her. “Can I do anything to help?”

“No.” She turned her head, giving him a sly look before getting out of the car. “Just stay in here till I get things set up.”

So Dino stayed in the car, watching as she came back and forth between their spot and getting things out of the backseat.

“I feel bad that Rosie is doing all this by herself.” He spoke to the camera that was in front of him on the dashboard. “But she told me to stay put so I’m not going to go against her wishes.”

Rosie finished up, going to his side and opening his door. “Alright, close your eyes.”

“I have to close my eyes?”

“Yes, now come on.” She motioned for him to get out. She quickly covered his eyes just in case he were to peek. She carefully led him in front of the blanket, her hands falling to his waist. “Okay, open.”

Dino opened his eyes, gasping at the cute picnic setup. The first thing he noticed were the fruit kabobs stacked on top of each other along with cheese and crackers. Then the strawberry and egg sandwiches. She also prepped onigiri.

“Wow.” He was clearly in shock. “Did you make all this?” He turned around to face her. She folded her hands and smiled up at him before nodding. She was looking forward to having a picnic with him way before she filled out her bucket list. She had even managed to match her outfit with the blanket, her cropped sweater tying everything together for the perfect weather.

He sighed, pulling her into a tight hug as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry for making you wait. If I had known-“

“Shh. You’re here now, so let’s enjoy our picnic.” She let go of him, going to sit on the blanket before remembering she didn’t take any pictures. “Well after I take some pictures.”

Dino laughed as she grabbed her bag from the car and searched for her phone, along with her instant camera. She even instructed him to sit down and pose for her before joining him.

“Let’s dig in.” She rubbed her hands together, Dino immediately going for one of the sandwiches.

She slowly ate one of the fruit kabobs, impatiently waiting for him to take a bite to see if she made it edible enough. When he finally did, his eyes grew twice in size and she was worried he hated it.

“Is it bad?” She pursed her lips until he shook his head and covered his mouth with his hand.

He forgot to swallow, talking with the food in his mouth. “No! It’s good! Really good!”

“Really? Are you lying?”

“No, it’s so yummy!”

She smiled wide with her teeth, blushing as she grabbed a sandwich too. She didn’t taste them while making it, so she felt proud of herself when she discovered that they were indeed yummy.

“Wow.” She chewed her food, covering her mouth. “This is actually pretty good considering I followed a tutorial for it.” She finished her sandwich in no time.

“Here, have some fruit. Aren’t they cute?” She picked up one of the fruit kabobs by the stick, holding it out for him. She giggled like an idiot as he bit down on the strawberry, struggling to get it off the stick but succeeding after a few attempts.

“You can hold it yourself, you know.”

“I know, but it’s better when you feed me.” Rosie rolled her eyes, quickly swatting his shoulder.

She almost forgot that she brought along bubbles, digging it out of the basket and unscrewing the cap. “I feel like I’m in a drama.” She joked before blowing through the wand.

Dino laughed, trying to pop the bubbles with his finger as they floated by. “You really outdid yourself.”

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling as she put the bubbles away and starting to eat the onigiri. 

Dino had laid down against the blanket, his head resting against her lap as he shut his eyes. He was able to take in the nature that surrounded them, Rosie blocking the sun from hitting his face.

She fed him a strawberry, her free hand running through his hair while looking down at him.

“This is perfect.” He praised her again, not being able to stop himself from showing his appreciation. He wanted her to know how proud and endeared he was. “Let’s do this more often.”

“I don’t know if I can put food together like this again. I think I just got lucky.”

“I can help you next time. It can’t be that hard, right?”

She smacked her lips, snorting as she argued against his claim. “Wonwoo almost witnessed me have three mental breakdowns. I wouldn’t be so sure.”

He opened his eyes, pouting at her before pinching her chin.

#justmochi: rosie #daisie #jangwoo #shusie #seoksie #junsie #rosecheol #in the soop extras #in the soop #14th member of seventeen #seventeen 14th member #fake seventeen member #fake seventeen oc #svt oc #fake svt member #fake svt addition #fake kpop addition #fake kpop idol #fake kpop soloist #addition to kpop

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Ok so, with the Tekken 8 Closed Network Test now concluded, I'd like to share a few thoughts.

The game looks great, I love the new redesigns, I love the new animations and the fact that they got the entire cast to rerecord their battle grunts and win / pre battle quotes, it was especially weird to have certain characters use voice lines from different actors, some of whom weren't even speaking the same language 🤣

The redesigns are almost exclusively great so far, but I do hope we get alternate costumes. Yeah customization is there but I don't really care to have Nina in jeans and cowboy boots or Jin in platinum blond pigtails like... A lot of fighting games just have a palette swap as the second costume and call it a day, but from the very beginning all the way up to Tekken 6, Tekken had an alternate outfit for every single character. Not only that, but it was usually a more "casual" outfit too like, Kazuya's Tekken 1 1P was his karate gi pants but his 2P was a tank top and jeans. Asuka's Tekken 5 1P was her Aikido uniform and her 2P was her trademark shorts and tank top and so on. Tekken 7 originally went for the 2P palette swap, but at some point they added extra costumes, including classic looks, via an update, and I hope they are there from the start this time.

I played almost exclusively as Nina because she's been my main since 2005, with a little Jun, a little Xiaoyu and a little Jin thrown in. I also tried Lili's, Hwoarang's and Asuka's combo trials (nice that they FINALLY added combo trials, I don't know what took them so long lol) I gotta say it's extremely satisfying to see Harada CONSTANTLY shading Street Fighter on Twitter by saying that the base roster will feature a lot more fighters than our competitors an also Mortal Kombat by saying that they are focusing on legacy fighters before they even start considering guests. Like. That's a ball move and a huge reassurance for the fans. I also know it's in good faith and no harm is meant towards Capcom or Netherrealm but he's right and he should say it!

If there's one thing I hope they copy off of Capcom is Word Tour mode. Yeah NetherRealm Studios' cinematic story mode is fine... I guess... But World Tour mode is the best single player mode ever featured in a fighting game and Namco even have their own blueprint in the form of Tekken Force. We're probably still getting a cinematic-style story but there's still hope for Tekken 9, or maybe even a smaller-scale Tekken Force return, in the style of Tekken 4 or sth.

Arcade Mode needs a proper reintroduction as well, in Tekken 6 you only got 4 battles and you were done and in Tekken 7 you straight up got nothing at all out of Arcade mode and character endings were instead for the base game characters who weren't prominently featured in the cinematic story and you got them after a single battle... Very underwhelming.

Also hoping other "missing" modes like Team Battle return and maybe Tekken Bowl will be included from the get go this time? I've also had this request forever but I'd love to see 1P Vs. Com or Com Vs. Com fights be included in offline versus. Literally every other fighting game has it except Tekken and Virtua Fighter and I can't tell why. It shouldn't be hard to implement and honestly sometimes it's just fun to pick characters, costumes and stage and just fight it out with the computer, as a break from online grinding and whatnot.

Now, as for the battle system itself... It's lots of fun! There's tons of stuff going on at all times but it feels great to experience and it's not really overwhelming or anything. It's cute that they have included an "easy mode" for new players to ease themselves in the fun. I'm not a master player by any means but I've had almost two decades of experience in Tekken and legacy skill does play a big role in the Tekken meta so it's an interesting way to even out the playing field. Interestingly, they also seem to have simplified some of the more complicated commands like, I can pull off all of Nina's combo throws now with a total of like, four button presses at most? Crazy! The heat system feels a bit weird at first but it's a huge asset once you get into it which doesn't take all that long anyway.

Overall I am very satisfied with what I got to play and I feel like Tekken 8 is gonna be another huge chapter in Tekken's history as well as the FGC's as a whole and I honestly cannot wait! Hopefully I will have moved out of Greece by the time it's out because my internet connection was killing me 😭🤣

I also better see miss Anna and Christie in the game or else I'm rioting.

#Tekken #Tekken 8 #Tekken 8 Closed Network Test #Tekken 8 CNT #Bandai Namco #Namco #Harada #Katshuhiro Harada #Tekken 7 #Video Games #Gaming #Fighting Games #Nina #Jin #Jun #Xiaoyu #Lili #Hwoarang #Asuka #Nina Williams #Jin Kazama #Jun Kazama #Ling Xiaoyu #Emilie de Rochefort #Asuka Kazama

[heygerald]

OLD HABITS DIE HARD - Part 1

Jake “Hangman” Seresin x oc

After years away, Lt. Zoe “Buzzard” Preston is back in Miramar as a candidate for a top secret mission. She’s excited for it, ready too. Her entire career has been building up to this moment. What she’s a little less excited for is a reunion with a starry eyed, smart-mouthed pilot who had broken her heart the first time around. Maybe, just maybe, this time she’ll be able to finally put him in her rearview mirror. Or maybe she’ll be forced to face the things that she preferred to keep in the dust.

Keep reading here: ... / part 2 / part 3 / *bonus chapter* /  part 4 / part 5 / *bonus chapter* / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / *say yes*

Five years. Ten months. Give or take a handful of weeks. A number of days. 

A shit load of time.

And yet, very little changed at Miramar during it. Sure, The Hard Deck had gotten a new owner who brought out all the bells and whistles; model plans and mugs hung from thousands of hooks in the ceilings. A new wave of steadfast patrons had filed in since the first glimmer of sunset on the California coast. New beer on tap left the old souls searching for something hoppy but cold, delicious but traditional. The parking lot had gotten a new coat of tarmac. The beach had gotten some new nets for volleyball and an array of food trucks. The base had gotten in a new era of plans, a change in CO a few times over, and the barracks had a fresh splattering of paint on them. 

But, as Lieutenant Zoe Preston stared up at the open doors with sandy feet and sunkissed skin, she could still hear the familiar crow of laughter and insults and egos that somehow managed to float above the Jukebox. 

Not much had changed, she figured, not where it mattered. 

A group of sailors whistled at her as she strode by. Familiar faces from her stint at Miramar half a decade earlier mixed with some unfamiliar faces that she wouldn’t care to remember come morning. 

“Boys,” she winked. 

One of them, a mechanic named Mason who had spent more than one weekend trying to buy her a drink, tipped his beer at her with a devious smirk. 

“Back so soon, Preston?”

“You know me,” she gave a lofty glance at the blinking sign. “I could never say no to a little bit of trouble.” 

“Yeah, well, trouble is already waiting for you inside. I think you’re the last to show up,” he noted.  

He held the door open as she stepped inside, took a deep whiff of sandalwood and spilt beer, watched as the crowd swept around her like she was a buoy out at sea. Penny wiped down the bar top with a rag while chatting amicably with a dark haired man that looked a flicker too familiar from his side profile, but her gaze quickly moved on to the crowd at the pool table just beyond. 

A crowd that she knew too well, bickering with a tone that she would never quite forget. 

“I’m surprised that you made it here at all, Bradshaw.” 

“Why? Didn’t think I might be in your tail wind?”

“Thought you might run out of jet fuel before you made it to the shoreline,” Hangman shot back. There was the familiar wisp of a smirk on his face as he rattled the pool balls with a swift flick of his wrist. Zoe didn’t need to know whether he was stripes or solid to know that he was winning—it was, afterall, the one thing that he did best in life. 

Maybe the only thing he did well.

“You know, considering that you always burn your fuel instead of making a decision,” came the punchline of his cloying insult; barely loud enough to be heard above the crowd. 

Rooster shook his head. A few sun-streaked wisps of hair bounced on his forehead, and Zoe bit back a smile as she drew closer. Time away had done him good; it had bronzed his skin and made him look a little bit more like the Bradshaw that she knew rather than the one people whispered about when they realized who his dad was. 

“I don’t need you to worry about me, Bagman. I made it here all on my own.” 

“That’s not entirely true, is it?” Hangman pointed his pool stick at Rooster before turning back to the table with a snicker. He smacked the cue ball once more, sending several balls into their designated pockets, before grinning at anyone who would give him their attention. Meandering—more like prancing—to the other side of the table where the cue ball laid in waiting, he tutted, “Phoenix over here was practically begging for you to show up. She needs someone to keep her tail up, afterall.” 

“Fuck off, Bagman,” Phoenix clipped, arms loosely crossed over her chest. 

“It’s Hangman. And it’s true. Not to worry though, you got Bob now. That should be great for your skillset. I’m sure he’s worthy of your time.” 

The WSO in question—one Zoe didn’t recognize but could already tell that he might be the brunt of everyone’s humor if his stunned silence was anything to go by—twisted a little uncomfortably at the side of the group, spectacles perched on the top of his nose as he glanced between his new pilot and the man who had just taken a pool stick out of his hands. He hadn’t even put up a fight for it; just let the betrayal happen while remaining respectful to all parties involved. 

Phoenix pulled her lips tight as Hangman lined up his last shot, retort coming. 

Zoe, not for the first time, delighted in beating her to the punch. 

“Considering that fact that Phoenix had a better run score than you did, Bagman, I thought you would have grown a little bit more appreciative of her skills after all these years.” 

Phoenix spun on her heel. Hangman jerked his wrist, sending the cue ball wildly spinning into a pocket on the opposite corner of the table, missing the eight ball entirely. Yale grinned as Zoe stepped forward into the group; laughter lighting up his eyes as he looked her over. 

“Holy shit,” Phoenix crowed. “Buzz! In the flesh!” 

“What’d you expect?” Zoe quipped back, arms still crossed as she grinned at the room.

“I expected you to be in a metal grave by now,” Harvard taunted. Though, when she narrowed her eyes in his direction, his face loosened into the flicker of a smile. Odd friends, even odder enemies, she supposed. “Guess the name still fits, though, huh?”

“Yours doesn’t. You’re still the stupidest fucker I know.” 

The ones who didn’t know Zoe watched the scene carefully. The ones that did know Zoe let her insults wash over, taking them as seriously as a grain of salt knowing that she was always quick to snarl but slow to bite. Yale snorted as he patted Harvard on the shoulder, earning a glare from the former, but then laughter, true and hearty, broke through the tension. Phoenix cut through the space the quickest to pull Zoe into a bone crushing hug. They knocked boots so hard that the pair nearly went careening down to the floor, and if it weren’t for Rooster propping her up with a warm hand to the shoulder, they might have made real asses of themselves. 

“I should have known you would be here,” Phoenix muttered into her ear. 

When she let go, Rooster was quick to pull her into a looser, if not warmer hug that made Zoe’s face crack open with a happy smile. It had been too long since she saw them; too long since her and Phoenix were tearing the tarmac up during Top Gun and since her and Rooster were getting drunk at the local bar. 

“You think I’d miss this shitshow?”

“Shitshow?” Hangman echoed, offended almost. 

His face was tight as he looked her over; green eyes scouring every inch of her. She looked the same, she knew, but different in the best of ways. Like how her hair was longer, skin was healthier, and bones were stronger. If he noticed, though, he made no indication. Just let that stupid smirk of his draw his features as he leaned onto the pool table with the cue stick in hand. 

“I think we’re in trouble if that’s all this is,” he told her half-heartedly. “Though, I get it. The talent is a bit lacking.” 

“Self retrospection, Seresin? How progressive of you.” 

He snorted. Sorta. It was more a mix of a startled laugh and then an annoyed grunt when he realized she had gotten a laugh out of him at all. Zoe figured that was pretty on par for him, though. 

The way his smile seemed to tighten at the edges, however, wasn’t. 

“Always quick with the quips, Preston,” he returned to the table. Somehow, despite his mess-up upon her arrival, he was still winning. It wouldn’t take him long now to sink the eight ball into the corner if he was anything like the guy she knew. “Hopefully, you’re just as quick with the maneuvers.” 

“Scared?”

“Bored and looking for a good competition.” 

The group rolled their eyes in unison at that. Phoenix, maybe, the hardest. Her and Hangman had hated one another since day one when he insinuated that she shouldn’t be a pilot just because she lacked the balls (both physically and metaphorically) for the job. Of course, he had shut up about that as soon as Zoe shot him down during an exercise. Still, the wound had never fully healed over their years apart. It seemed that the distance had only left the wounded ego to fester even further. 

She turned her back on him to face Rooster and Zoe. 

“Were neither of you going to tell me that you were back in the states?”

They shared a look.

“You want a beer?” Rooster asked Zoe, not even attempting to seem like he was avoiding the argument at hand. She smiled back. “Yeah. I’m gonna get us some beers.” 

He disappeared into the crowd. Phoenix put her hands on her hips. 

“Coward!” she shouted after him. 

“Big words from a little lady like yourself, P.”

“You’re such a dick,” she said, but the insult was clearly lacking malice. Instead, as the two women stared at one another, they both found themselves laughing at the idiocy of it all. Phoenix shook her head before pulling two other pilots into the conversation. “Fanboy, Payback, meet my sister from our early days at Top Gun. Zoe ‘Buzzard’ Preston. Buzz for short.” 

“You two were in the same class?” Fanboy asked. 

“Oh fuck yeah,” Phoenix laughed at the memory as Zoe winked at the boys in succession. “We were the best there was. Other than Bagman, of course. Buzz was almost number one, too; would have been if it wasn’t Seresin’s tendency to leave everyone else out to dry just for the sake of being an asshole.” 

Payback laughed. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that vibe.” 

“Just wait till you get to know him a little better,” Zoe said. 

She wasn’t exactly bitter about the whole second place thing, not anymore anyways. But she still was a little hurt—no matter how much she wanted to believe that she wasn’t—that he had so carelessly tossed their relationship into the trash over such a trivial little thing as a medal. Second place was fine by her, anyways. She got a good station and a successful career to boot. One that brought her back here of all places; right alongside him.

First place couldn’t mean all that much, then, could it?

“I’d recommend never expecting him to be your wingman,” she snarked. 

Perhaps, maybe, just a little bit, bitter. But who could blame her? She deserved to have a little bit of bitterness even after all this time. Hangman seemed worthy of it seeing as how his ego had yet to be reigned in after all these years. 

“In a bar or in the sky?” Fanboy asked. 

Phoenix laughed around the neck of her beer. “Either,” she told them. 

The boys shared a look; a silent conversation passing between that could only truly exist between a pilot and his WSO. No one bothered to ask what the conversation itself was about. The girls didn’t care enough to inquire, nor did they want to have a peek into the pair’s head just hours before their first training exercise.

That could all wait till tomorrow when it really mattered.

“So, what sort of name is Buzzard, anyways?” Fanboy asked after a moment. 

“I don’t know. What sort of name is Fanboy? You a Belieber or something?”

Payback guffawed into his drink, earning a hard elbow to the gut from his WSO. He winced, but didn’t apologize. Just wiped the spilt beer off his chin with a smile and said, “during flight school, he was always ending up in the nursing bay for one thing or another. We joked that it was to make his fans happy. The nurses all had heart eyes for him at one point or another.” 

“You accident prone, Fanboy?”

“Just like to please the ladies when I can,” he shot back. Phoenix faked a gag while Zoe rolled her eyes humorously. Not one to let it go, though, he turned his gaze back to her to ask again. “But, seriously? What’s with all the bird names around here? First there’s Phoenix, then Rooster, now Buzzard? I mean, I know that you two are birds and all, but Rooster doesn’t exactly fit the bill.” 

Payback snickered. “Well, Rooster fits it better than they do seeing as he actually has a co--oof!” 

He keeled forward at the waist, moaning in dramatics from where Phoenix had sent her elbow swiftly into his stomach. A little green in the face, he held his hands up as if to offer an apology, while mumbling, “alright, geez. Sorry, Mom. It was just a joke.” 

“Her name has nothing to do with her genitals,” Phoenix tutted, almost proudly.

“A weird way to defend me, but still true,” Zoe snarked at her friend. When she got the tail-end of Phoenix’s glare, however, she stepped far enough away that she wasn’t in reach of the woman’s elbows. It sent her backing up into Bob who quickly apologized—as if it was his fault in the first place—before moving to her opposite side so that Zoe had the free space next to the pool table. “How does anyone get their nickname, Fanboy? I didn’t pick it. It was given to me. Take it up with flight school, yeah?”

“There has to be some sort of meaning.” 

She harrumphed, knowing damn well there was a meaning. “Well, it’s—”

“It’s because when everyone else is dead,” a smooth voice cut through the fold. The four turned to find Hangman standing over their shoulder, bent over the edge of the pool table about to take his turn. He blinked up at the group, green eyes burning a line down her face, before swiftly turning away. “She’s the only one left circling the bodies. Earned the name in the early days when she was somewhat good at training exercises. More so that she just knows how to run away without getting shot, though.” 

He punctuated his statement by throwing his arm forward. The cue ball clacked against the eight ball, sending it into the corner at the far left of the table, leaving Yale and Harvard to groan about losing to him so quickly. Ego stocked, she watched Hangman stand to his full height with a smirk. 

“Isn’t that right, Preston?”

There was something suave about how he spoke, a staccato that Zoe had missed in their years apart, but something burning and sharp and deadly all the same. All those years ago she had been convinced she was in love with him because of who he was beneath the moonlight when no one else was around, but years apart had made her realize that she was really just addicted to the adrenaline of him. It was no different than the job. Her hands twitched and her brow would pool sweat and her heart would thump a rhythm in her chest that made her feel more alive then she would ever know anywhere else when he fixed her with his attention.  

But then just as quickly when he moved his attention elsewhere, she would return to the tarmac, her head would clear, and she would be forced to remember that who he was in the moonlight wasn’t the real him. Not really anyways. Who he was in the moonlight was just the version of him that she was attracted to; the soft side, the caring side, the side that made her feel seen. 

And what good was all that when his prominent side was like this. A total dick. 

“Well, you would know,” she shot back. “You were dead all those times, afterall.” 

His smile twitched a little, eyes darkening, before he got his footing. 

“Still got number one, though.” 

Her smirk became a little less of a smile and a little more of a snarl. It was so easy to fall into this quibble with him, fall back into dangerous patterns, and if the bar was a little bit shittier and a little less packed, Zoe might have thought that no time had passed at all.

But it did. 

And she was glad for it. 

“Still don’t have anyone to watch your back, though. Do you?”

For the second time that night, she watched his smirk twitch a little at the side. Almost as if what she was saying actually broke through his exterior to leave a mark on the man beneath. She doubted that was the case; quickly scolded herself for thinking that he was capable of having a hurt pride at all, let alone from someone like her. 

Old habits die hard, she supposed, but they do die. 

Hangman cracked his mouth open to make a retort, no doubt rude and egotistical, but before he could the music from the jukebox cut off. The bar groaned, heads turning left and right to figure out what had happened, before someone started keying up the piano. Zoe heard the first notes of a familiar song, and turned to Phoenix with a knowing grin.

“Leave it to Rooster to sniff out a piano.” 

“Are you complaining?” Phoenix grabbed a few of the boys; Fanboy, Payback, Coyote, and even Bob, before ushering them excitedly towards the other side of the bar. “I guess you’re not getting that beer any time soon.” 

“Probably shouldn’t have expected anything less. Rooster is so cheap sometimes.” 

Phoenix threw her head back with a laugh before disappearing into the crowd. The pool tables were suddenly much less crowded as the bar patrons slowly started to be pulled to where the music was. Hangman stood amidst it all, cue stick limp in hand, gaping in confusion. 

“What the hell happened to the jukebox?” he asked. 

Zoe snickered. He blinked at her with a small frown. She just arched a brow in retort before grabbing his beer off the side of the table to take a swig. 

“Rooster might not be an egomaniac like you, but he still loves to sing,” she said as if it were a simple truth. “Besides, you have a shit taste in music.” 

“I—I don’t,” he said. Then his frown deepened into a scowl as he snagged his beer back out of her hands. Despite not having qualms when she insulted him earlier, he didn’t seem to be excited about how she was jumping to Rooster’s defense so easily. “What’s with you two, anyways? You fucking or something?”

She rolled her eyes. “As if I’d ever date a pilot again.” 

“Doesn’t mean that you’re not fucking.” 

“Alright,” she narrowed her eyes in turn, mouth pinching a little bit at the unpleasurable turn of conversation. She forgot he could sour things so effortlessly. “No. We’re not fucking. Not that it’s any of your business if we were.” 

“Then—?”

“What’s the saying, Bagman? Birds of a feather tend to stick together?” she said with a forceful loftiness, enjoying his misery a little too much for anything else.

“He’s a dickhead.” 

“And you’re an asshole.” 

“He can’t fly.” 

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

Jake pinched his mouth tighter, gripped his beer a little harder. “He’s a total tool.”

“Careful, Seresin,” she quipped, enjoying his bad attitude even less now that the conversation was beginning to reach murky waters. Still, a smirk and sarcasm were as good as duct tape in a situation like this; able to manage today what she could worry about fixing tomorrow. “You almost sound jealous of him.” 

He went stiff beside her. 

“Please,” he scoffed as if the entire idea was ridiculous. Though, when his eyes darted to the crowded piano on the far side of the bar where the crowd was now raucously joining in on singing, she caught the briefest flicker of uncertainty. “I’ve heard all about Bradshaw through the rumor mill. He isn’t half the pilot he thinks he is. He’s more likely to stall out than to make a kill.” 

“What? Like you?”

“I have the record for a reason.” 

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” she muttered. 

“Maybe if someone else here had made a kill, I would. But, I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Especially not when they select me as team leader. I make the shots; both the kill and the instructions.” 

Zoe sighed. 

Yeah, she thought with a brief flicker of misery, things really didn’t change. 

“Glad to see that you’re still the same after all these years,” she rolled her eyes. She watched his eyes brighten, mouth quirking upwards, but before he could let the insult be taken as a compliment, she added, “You’re still an asshole who cares more about being number one than anything else. Like, you know, the fact that not everything is about being a pilot.” 

The brightness froze in his eyes instantly, before he was frowning at her, eyebrows knit tightly in the middle of his forehead. It was, perhaps, the most genuine reaction he had given her yet.

“That’s not true.” 

“And you’re still a shit liar, Seresin.”

He stared at her. Gaped, almost. Green eyes somehow both dark and bright as they swept over her features, looking for something, though she wasn’t sure what. She simply stared back, looking for something, though she wasn’t so sure of what that was either. 

“Look, Zoe, I—” 

“Jesus Christ, Buzz, what the fuck is going on here?” an amused voice cut through their staring contest like a knife through water. 

Zoe turned to find Dylan ‘Stitch’ Chutsky looming over her with damp hair and glistening skin, the curl of a smile burning a line across his pale features as he glanced around the bar. It was easy for him to do given the foot of height he had on Zoe, and not for the first time, she found herself relieved in her WSO’s presence. He had a uncanny habit of showing up at the worst of times with his endless snark and pointed insults. 

Right now, however, as she let out a breath of tension that she didn’t even realize she had been holding, wasn’t one of them.

Stitch arched a sharp brow with an equally sharp grin before asking, “are we on American Idol right now or is everyone in the bar just really fucking drunk already?”

She laughed, allowing her shoulders to lose a little bit of their stress. 

“Rooster found a piano,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Stitch nodded as if it did. “The jukebox is out? I thought Penny would have replaced that old shit box with one that worked properly by now.”

“Something like that,” she simpered with a glance at the blonde beside her. She could tell that Hangman was trying to keep that damned smirk of his plastered in place, but as she poked a little more at Rooster’s musical talent, it flickered at the edges. “He always did like the attention, though.” 

Stitch hummed. “I forgot he could do that.” 

“Sing?”

“Make an entire bar of people fall in love with him because he knows how to play a few keys on a piano.” 

“I wouldn’t say that they’re in love with him. He’s just playing a song that everybody knows,” Hangman argued, a little hot for the easy conversation that had been passing between the pair. 

They both turned to look at him. Stitch, blinking as if he only just recognized his presence, didn’t seem all that bothered by his acrid tone. Zoe, on the other hand, felt a headache forming when she noted the way his gaze swept over Stitch condescendingly. 

“Who are you?”

“Stitch.” 

“Is that supposed to mean something to me? I’ve never heard of you.”

Stitch let out a bark of laughter; not entirely amused, but certainly not unamused. He always did walk that fine line, enjoying a little bit of chaos in his life as if hurtling around enemy air space inside a jet wasn’t enough. “I’m her WSO, asshat,” he shot back. His tone was just as acrid, but the easy going smile on his face made it seem a little less so. “Who the hell are you?”

“Hangman.” 

“You’re Hangman?”

“Heard a lot about me?” Jake stood a little straight, puffed out his chest. 

It deflated almost as quickly when Stitch just belted out another mean laugh, shaking his head while sharing a look with Zoe that certainly couldn’t have been construed as complementary. “Nothing you’d want me to repeat. I got to say, though, that you’re a lot smaller than I expected. With all those rumors flying about, I would have thought your shoulders would have been bigger. Y’know, to withstand the weight of your ginormous fucking head.” 

Hangman’s smile turned icy, harsh. “Why don’t you dial it back a bit, buddy. You’re not even a pilot.” 

“As if I haven’t heard that one before.” 

Hangman floundered for a moment at Stitch’s apparent inability to take insult no matter how insulting someone could be. Shaking his head, his eyes darted to meet Zoe’s. She tried to stifle her smile when he did so, but, if she were being honest, it was hilarious to watch Stitch ding Hangman’s vanity without even breaking a sweat. 

Especially when she had spent the better part of their first two years together telling Stitch about all the different ways that Jake ‘Hangman” Seresin had broken her heart to smithereens. 

“What happened to Nantucket?” Hangman asked her after a moment.

“He got reassigned,” she shrugged. They had been through a hell of a lot back at Top Gun, but almost immediately after he got himself reassigned for losing his temper one too many times. She had been sad to see her partner go after so much blood, sweat, and tears together, but Stitch had been the best replacement anyone could ask for. Now, five years after the fact, she hardly ever thought about her former WSO. “Stitch has been with me ever since.” 

Hangman harrumphed. “I liked Nantucket,” he said; the implication was clear.

“Well, I’m sure you would, Nantucket never had a problem with you abandoning us during the training exercises because of his little man crush on you. Stitch has a bit more of a backbone. Makes it a lot easier to like someone when they actually have your back up in the sky.” 

There was that flicker again in his eyes, the tightness of his smile. 

She ignored it to nudge Stitch towards the piano. 

“C’mon, let’s go sing. Rooster is gonna want to talk to you, anyways. You still owe him money from that bet, remember? Back in Miami.”

Stitch threw his head back with a groan. “Fuck! I forgot about that. You think he’d take a lap dance as payment? I have, like, ten dollars in my bank account right now. Apparently buying stock in Blockbuster isn’t as lucrative as one might have expected.” 

She shoved him forward with an incredulous laugh. The things that he said were always so out of pocket that it was almost impossible not to laugh at him, but clearly he didn’t think his financial woes were as humorous as she did, and in response he flashed her a scandalized look over his shoulder.

“I’m serious, Buzz,” he huffed. “I might need to start panhandling for money soon. Or, worse, I might have to move in with you. Imagine the impact that will have on my sex life.” 

“Just go,” Zoe gave him another shove, another laugh, and was about to follow when a hand circled around her wrist; gentle but firm, warm but ice cold. 

“Buzz.” 

Zoe turned to find Hangman staring at her with a look that she couldn’t quite place; a look that she wasn’t sure she had ever seen him wear. Was that regret? Or disgust? Longing? Or was he about to tell her to keep their former relationship to herself because he didn’t want to give the other pilots any sort of leg up on him during training? 

She used to think that she knew everything about him. Every quirk, every smile.

But that wasn’t actually true. And it certainly wasn’t true anymore. 

“I—” he paused, floundered a little bit, eyes darting around the packed room as he took a deep breath. She furrowed her brows at him with a glance at the hand circled around her wrist, not liking the way her skin still smoldered under his touch after all these years. He noticed her gaze, and a moment later Zoe watched as he settled back onto his heels while licking his lips, hand dropping from her wrist. “Be careful trusting Rooster up there. The kid tends to freak out when he’s under pressure.” 

Zoe frowned, bewildered. 

It seemed like he wanted to say something more, but he never did, and she had grown tired of waiting for something from him that would never come. 

Why did she always expect so much from him? 

Shaking her own head, she shot him a winning grin that was as acidic as it was bitter along the edges. “I think you’re the last person that gets to lecture me about trust, Bagman.

He frowned at the use of the nickname that everyone had shoved upon him for his behavior up in the sky. And it did hurt a little to say; hurt when she knew how much it actually bothered him. But then she reminded herself that she didn’t care—couldn’t waste her time caring, not again—and quickly started shoving her way through the crowd. Rooster had finished his song now, but there were yells for him to sing something else, and by the time she got to a free spot at the piano, he was already banging another tune onto the keys with his shoulders thrown back.

Phoenix smiled at her, then glanced over her shoulder, and asked, “you good?”

“Sure,” she shrugged. 

“Hangman’s an asshole,” the brunette replied, as if that could fix everything from the past. It wouldn’t, they both knew, but it wouldn’t be the last time that Phoenix tried to remind Zoe of that fact either. “Don’t worry about him, though. Bob and I got your back. Right Bob?”

The bespectacled WSO glanced between the woman in confusion. “Uh, right. Yep. Yes ma’am. That’s the job, anyways. I got your back.” 

“You don’t even know what we’re talking about, do you?” Zoe asked with a wry smile.

He hesitated. 

Laughing, Zoe forgave him as soon as she threw a hand over his shoulder. “You and Stitch are gonna get along great. Maybe a little too, well, actually,” she said while rustling his hair. “In fact, don’t ever offer to do him a favor no matter how charming he might seem. You seem a little too nice to end up in the county jail for that idiot.” 

Bob didn’t seem too convinced. “Sounds good to me, ma’am.” 

Zoe laughed again. There was something entirely too sweet about the little man tucked beneath her arm. Something endearing that would likely get spit out if he didn’t also know how to piss people off. 

Maybe Hangman could teach him a thing or two about being upfront with people.

As if knowing where her mind went, Phoenix added, “I don’t know what you ever saw in that guy, by the way. Once you get past the rakishly nice face, you see that everything else is a total shitstorm.” 

“Since when do you call Hangman rakish?”

“Since I have a pair of eyes and the sunset lighting seems to make his skin glow. Plus, I saw the way you looked at each other, as if no time had actually passed,” Phoenix told her with a knowing look. Zoe scowled a little. Particularly when Bob’s gaze darted towards the blonde in question upon learning that little nugget of information. “It’s hard not to, really. I’m just trying to play along with it so that you’ll finally listen to me this time. No dick is worth that.” 

“There’s nothing there, anymore, P.” 

“That’s exactly what you said last time too.” 

“Yeah, well, this time I mean it,” Zoe rolled her eyes. She shot Bob a scowl when he raised his brows at her from beneath his glasses, clearly not convinced despite not even knowing the majority of her story. He blushed at being caught, but didn’t apologize. Groaning at them all, she said, “I’m serious! Hangman is a has-been. I’m onto better and brighter things now.” 

Phoenix rolled her eyes. “Sure.” 

“Don’t make me kick your ass, P. It’s early in the night but I will.” 

Her brunette companion grinned. “As if you could.” 

Zoe let out a noise of incredulity, but before she could make good on her threat, Stitch was inserting himself into the equation with a beer in each hand. Sometimes, she swore that he had a sixth sense about when to interrupt conversations. She minded a little bit less when he offered her one of his beers—half empty already, she noted, but said nothing—before he was sucking down the other with a curious glance at the trio. 

“What’d I miss?” he asked. 

Zoe glared at Phoenix, daring her to bring up Hangman to her WSO. Wisely, she said nothing. That left Bob to clear his throat and say, “uh… something about shots?”

Stitch didn’t even question it. Just threw his head back with a wild grin. 

“Shots!” he shouted. 

Phoenix laughed as she followed him to the bar, Bob in tow, leaving Zoe to shake her head after them with a hearty laugh. When she did follow, she ignored the pair of mossy green eyes that followed her towards the bar, and when she threw her shot back with a cry, she definitely didn’t think about how that has-been still tended to make her feel. 

#jake hangman seresin #hangman x oc #jake seresin x oc #top gun maverick #top gun imagine #jake seresin imagine #jake hangman seresin imagine #angst #fanfiction #i tried? #more to come #old habits die hard

[gloster]

SHIPPER TAG GAME

Tagged by @brazilian-whalien52

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Honestly- and this PAAAAAAINS to me to say since my middle-school self would be furious at me-but probably Troyella. Obviously, still love them. Still think of them fondly, but compared to other ships, they're on the lower end.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

I'm TEMPTED to say troyella again since they were the ship that made me realize what shipping was- and how hard it can go for a fangirl. But in terms of a ship you remember watching, loving, and loving seeing their interactions, that would have to be Tom and Kimberly from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Their chemistry, their moments were the reason why I loved the show so much

I didn't know what ship or OTP meant, but they were the definitely the first couple I remembered LOVING seeing them together

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

That would be Troy & Gabriella. The movie wasn't enough for me, so I decided to make more stories on them

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

That would be a tie between InuKag and Robstar. Those were the top 2 ships I remember seeing TONS of Youtube videos and fanart in middle school.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

*thinks hard* I want to say....no. Least I can't remember. I just chill in my little corner with my friends, gushing & reading fics of our ships

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

The way I DESPISED LOATHED AND HATED TROYPAY with a burning, burning deep passion. Couldn't stand the ship. Still don't like the ship. And obviously, Tommy x Kat because NO NO NO NO

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

Payurain in this WIP I'm really enjoying. Seriously, love these two boys

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

Oh dear lord, my OTPS literally have their yachts at this point. And the list of the top ones constantly switch, but at the moment I can say my top 6 include: drarry, zutara, sheith, tododeku, payurain, and of course dickkory

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Oh. Dear. Lord. The way at least several ships can fit this question, but that belongs to my top 3 ships that were done so dirty.

OBVIOUSLY-and forever fuming about it-THESE TWO:

Forever and ALWAYS THESE TWO that had everything. The history, the chemistry, best friends to lovers, ride or die, battle couple...and yet the writers were like, nah

TO INFINITY & BEYOND BEYOND BEYOND: DRARRY . You can't tell me NOTHING. If Harry was a girl, they would have been endgame. If Draco was a girl, they definitely would have gotten together. I will forever stand on this hill

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

I wouldn't dislike at all, but I can definitely say after the previous season, they got more on my radar and that would be Geto x Gojo. I've always been intrigued by their dynamic, but season 2 really showed so much depth in their relationship, their friendship, and how things went wrong. Just so well done and also extremely heartbreaking

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

Maybe.....Honestly, I can't think of one. Like none are coming to my head. Closest one I can think of would be Alison x Emily or Spencer x Toby. The former because the toxicity of the ship, the way Ali manipulated and gaslight Emily's emotions was fucked up. Just as Toby letting Spencer think he was dead, let her think she found his corpse, and watch her break down...only to give a half-ass apology.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

Honstly, Kyo x Arisa from Fruit Baskets- and that is solely because watching the way Arisa constantly rifled Kyo up was too damn hilarious.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics off?

Hands down, that would have to be drarry

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

Probably two sides of the same coin. Different in many ways but similar in others. With drarry, both being just a boy in time of war. For zutara, the sun and the moon. Grump x Sunshine, which is a similar dynamic for many of my ships.

15. What you absolutely hate in a ship?

Hands down, the quickest way for me to hate a ship is the following: A always loving B, B being OBLIVIOUS to A's affections even though the whole country is aware of it, and then when A finally moves on THAT'S WHEN B suddenly realizes OH MY GOSH I LOVE THEM. 🤢🤮🤬😡 I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Also, if the dynamic of the ship is unequal such as bully and bullied, in which the bully spends 90% of them torturing the love interest and then final 10% actually showing some care...NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

Tagging: @kila09, @dreamydrarry, @sebbies, @negrowhat, @goldentruth813, @starlitruns, @omgitsseddie, @sweet-potatah-pie, @narcobarbies, @bavariansugarcookie, @itsjustafia

#shipper game