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innranrae · 3 years

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🐚 A Birthday Amidst the Archipelago

A/N: oneshot for my fav russian boys bday, i included the golden apple archipelago bc it was the most fun event/area I've experienced in genshin so far and I'll miss it a lot but at least it's inazuma and electro aether time, anyways hope you enjoy this and if you have suggestions/tips on writing or anything please lmk! I'm new to it all and I'm trying my best ;w; my friend proofread this tho and shes big brain so id say this one is pretty swaggy

￫ pairing(s): Zhongli/Childe, Aether/Venti (kinda platonic tbh), Venti and Dvalin vibing

￫ word count: ~ 3k

￫ cw: alcohol

￫ ao3

🏖️

Zhongli sensed a large being coming from the skies of Duyun Ruins. He did not want to believe it, but his doubts were soon confirmed.

Dvalin descended from the clouds with a heavy thud, sending the living creatures around either running or flying. Mounted on the Dragon of the East were Venti and Aether; The bard wore a pair of sunglasses and a light attire that shocked Zhongli to the core, he had thought the anemo archon could not get any more ludicrous, but it appears he was mistaken.

A slight frown grew on his face watching the scene and the geo archon couldn’t help but raise his palm to his face, sighing. On the flip side, Childe was astonished; his eyes sparkled observing Dvalin, considering what the outcome would be if they were to fight.

—

2 days earlier

“Traveler,

It has been some time since we last saw each other. I do hope your ventures are going smoothly.

I am writing to you to request assistance with an event that will take place two days from now. As you may know, Childe’s birthday is on the 20th of this month and I have been finding it hard to come up with a suitable gift. I wish to surprise him but nothing that fits my criteria comes to mind, in addition to the fact I am still adjusting to mortal life and their festivals.

If you do not mind and, of course, if you are free that day, I hope you can help me with this matter.

Zhongli”

After sending his letter to Aether, Zhongli straightened his shoulders on the stool at one of Heyu Tea House’s tables, raising a cup of steaming tea to his mouth, and waited for his guest to arrive.

“Receiving an invitation from Mr. Zhongli first sure feels nice,” a voice shouted coming from the stairs.

Zhongli glanced at the harbinger who took a seat by his side, “Childe, do you have any plans for your birthday?”

Childe widened his eyes slightly, “Birthday?” He raised his hand thoughtfully to his face. “Oh, my birthday! Hm… Is Mr. Zhongli planning on giving me some type of gift?” The harbinger smiled playfully.

“Please answer my question.”

“Nope! None at all.”

In actuality, Childe should be busy taking care of the Fatui’s business around Liyue; unfortunately for his underlings, he was going to do whatever he wanted either way. Additionally, he had a feeling Mr. Zhongli’s question was not trivial, and speculated the archon probably wanted to make plans.

“I see."

Unexpectedly, instead of proceeding on that topic, Zhongli said nothing more as he took another sip of his tea.

Despite the surprising lack of further development, he forgot about it as soon as Zhongli started to talk about a Ruin Hunter he encountered the prior day in the fields.

He knew by now what topics intrigued Childe's simple warrior mind, and that alone had Childe rambling about fighting tactics and his own experiences to Zhongli, occasionally trying to convince the archon to fight him, which he politely refused.

—

Meanwhile, at the Golden Apple Archipelago...

"I could really use a hand over here, Venti!" Aether's cry for help could barely be heard over the shrieking group of hilichurls advancing one after the other.

"But I-"

After unleashing a wind vortex from his palm, Aether glared at the bard, who was leisurely plucking the strings of his lyre on top of a rock. "Playing a battle song isn't helping!" He cut Venti off, resulting in the end of Venti's untimely concert with lots of whining.

After jumping off the rock, the bard shot an arrow that sent the group of monsters flying altogether.

The pair had a short-lived moment of relief, but soon the eerie sound of a horn was heard, indicating that more enemies were on their way. Aether groaned while Venti giggled nervously, and so, they had to return to their combat stances.

Not long after engaging, the traveler heard a short sound that made him stop his blade.

“Oh, I’ve got mail,” Aether walked a few steps from the fighting, reading the message while leaving the bard to get the monsters’ attention.

Venti's eyes widened at the sudden rush of monsters coming directly at him, though luckily, he sent them flying once again.

“Woah~ Don’t do that so suddenly, traveler, so mean!”

After reading Zhongli’s message, Aether was deep in thought, looking around as if searching for something, until his eyes met the green-colored ones of the anemo archon that reciprocated the eye contact, with a touch of wonder.

Zhongli opened the new mail he received, analyzing the few words Aether had sent.

“Meet us by Duyun Ruins at 9 in the morning, bring Childe with you.”

“Meet us? If I am not mistaken, Paimon has been staying with Xiangling, and didn’t show any signs of wanting to leave any time soon. Perhaps she can easily travel back and forth,” Zhongli thought to himself.

—

Present Day, Duyun Ruins

Jumping from the dragon’s back, Venti beamed, “Morax! Long time no see~!” Arms wide open as he threw himself towards his old friend. But before he got too close, Zhongli shielded himself, and instead of a hug, Venti’s face was compressed against the solid surface of the geo shield.

Venti staggered a step back from the impact, raising his hand to his cheek, now starting to swell, “Ow!” He pouted.

Zhongli tried to keep his cool, throwing a look at the two boys who recently arrived,waiting for an explanation.

Aether catches on the meaningful gaze and reassures, “Don’t worry, I think we avoided being noticed by anyone.”

“Yeah, Dvalin here is… Well, he tries to be discreet when flying around. After all, I was the one who taught him that~" Venti put a hand on the dragon's body while the other gave Zhongli a thumbs up.

"Saying you were the one who taught him does not reassure me one bit…" Zhongli’s veins were protruding from distress by now. "Aside from that, aren't you supposed to be more careful not to expose your identity in front of the common folk?"

The three other men stared at Zhongli in confusion, exchanging looks between themselves, "Common folk?" Venti asked. Childe was the first to realize he was probably talking about him and began laughing at the Zhongli's seemingly forgetfulness.

"Morax, you sure only remember what you want, huh. Even I know from the traveler's stories that this boy here is the eleventh harbinger of the Fatui. If that harbinger lady took my gnosis, I'm sure this kid knows my identity by now," Venti reassured while Aether slowly nodded, feeling second-hand embarrassment.

Zhongli was at a loss for words, raising his fist to his mouth, awkwardly coughing. On the other hand, the harbinger found the situation quite funny and patted Morax's back a few times while giggling.

Zhongli met Aether's eyes, "Nevertheless, what I desire to know is why that bard and his dragon are here?"

"Well, you’ll see when we get there," Aether reassured, getting back on the dragon's back along with Venti.

Childe cheerfully jumped on, extending his hand down to the geo archon who bashfully accepted, pointedly ignoring the meaningful grins the two other boys directed at him. And with little effort, Dvalin took off to the Golden Apple Archipelago.

The Snezhnayan boy's eyes gleamed with excitement from his first-ever experience that high up, sitting between behind Aether and in front of Zhongli.

Though, his laxity almost made the reddish mask on his hair fly away, luckily being rescued by the man behind him.

"Thank you!" The powerful gushes of wind made his words difficult to understand, yet enough for Zhongli to understand them.

If any normal person would travel through the clouds in the back of a dragon for the first time in their life, surely they would practice caution or be a little wary of their surroundings.

However, because Childe was Childe, an expert in adapting fast to just about anything, the journey on the skies was far from frightening.

A few minutes had passed and the boys were already close to their destination, and with his usual carefree expression, Venti looked back at the men behind him, yelling as Dvalin descended, "Hold on tight!"

With another loud thud, Dvalin settled at the northwestern part of Twinning Isle. Aether grew anxious in anticipation, waiting for Childe to see the preparations that he and Venti had come up with in such a short timeframe.

They had the inspiration from Alice's surprise for Klee, though not as crafty as she was. With the help of Tubby back in the Serenitea Pot, he managed to decorate the place nicely with newly crafted objects.

Umbrellas and chairs painted a light shade of sky blue sat next to fishing rods, Sea Ganodermas and conches decorated the sand in a path leading to a gazebo, which had seashells and starfishes hang from the wooden ceiling, surrounded by curtains.

And inside of it, one chest stored miscellaneous things, while the one next to it contained something that Venti declared extremely necessary: summer clothing he managed to acquire. In addition to the clothes he prepared, the anemo archon was also tasked with providing the food and drinks.

Visibly so as there were at least three bottles of either dandelion or osmanthus wine for every single dish on the table. Which, of course, was all paid for with the traveler's Mora.

All in all, the table was charmingly organized. A cake with a whale drawn on top of it sat in the middle of it all, while balloons were tied to the wooden table.

Upon reaching the sand, Childe was fascinated. The ocean breeze brushing against his face, the warm sunlight of the Archipelago and the salty waves gently crashing onto the tide united all the scenery together.

He’d never seen such a tropical place in his life, so unfamiliar in comparison to his frozen homeland's weather and features.

Lost in admiration for the scenery, he had already forgotten that it was his birthday, only remembering when Zhongli called out his name, directing him to look ahead where the decorated area was put, in preparation for the celebration to commence.

Venti leaned back against Dvalin's tail, already playing a melody, as the other three walked along the decorated path.

Aether fastened his steps, going ahead and getting a small box. Then, turning back to the birthday boy, he extended the gift.

"Happy birthday, Childe."

The harbinger let out a small "thank you" before opening it.

His blue eyes twinkled as he grabbed the content inside the box for closer examination. It was a bright piece of wood with a smaller version of him, Teucer and Aether drawn on it, as well as a ruin guard, or “Mr. Cyclops” as his little brother would say, stood behind them.

Without thinking, Childe embraced Aether tightly with a wide smile across his face, and at the display of the ginger’s excitement, the traveler couldn't help but feel accomplished.

After the gift was exchanged, Venti pointed out the clothes he had prepared, which made Zhongli flinch at the thought of wearing sunglasses as eccentric as his. Luckily, they were just lighter clothes, not accessories.

Childe, already excited from the exotic scenery, went on ahead to change his clothes behind a tall rock.

Zhongli and Aether walked towards the same location, at a much slower pace than the Snezhnayan boy, who was already out of sight.

“Thank you for your efforts, traveler. You managed to surprise me as well,” Zhongli finally got the chance to say.

“It was no problem at all. I’m having fun and the ‘tone-deaf bard’ was a great help, too.”

Childe emerged from behind the rock suddenly, wearing shorts and a shirt that was presumably supposed to be buttoned up. As a matter of fact, all the attires were of a similar design, the few differences being their color schemes, a few patterns, and the boy’s usual accessories.

Before any reaction, they heard monstrous noises getting closer to the shelter. A group of hilichurls nearby seemed to have been alarmed by the dragon’s arrival.

Something inside Childe’s mind clicked and he immediately turned the way of the shrieks, getting ready to fight, “Leave them to me!”

“Oh I was counting on that,” Aether affirmed as Venti nodded. Knowing very well of the harbinger’s passion for fighting, they speculated about the attack and gladly attached it to the list of events for that day.

Aether’s words were thrown at no one though, since Childe had left as soon as those four words left his lips earlier, leaving no time to receive any reaction from the others.

Bad luck for those poor hilichurls, honestly.

Childe's hydro blades moved swiftly, leaving droplets in the sand as they slashed one after the other, ending each almost instantly, leaving little space for a counterattack. He only stopped moving when there were no more of the monsters around, either because they were actually all dead or ran away from fear.

Coming back to the shelter’s path, Childe saw that they were now fishing, which made him joyfully run to join them, and noticing that he was back, Zhongli offered Childe a fishing rod and a seat next to himself.

“Oh man, this takes me back to the old days with my dad,” The ginger said while settling down on the beach chair, “Though the temperatures are the complete opposite, haha. I wonder if my family would survive the extreme change in the weather, though.”

Zhongli and Aether listened attentively while holding their rods, all the while, the anemo archon, visibly tipsy, communicated with Dvalin nearby.

“How come you managed to adapt this easily to the sudden climate change, Childe?” Zhongli asked.

“A warrior must always adapt to any situation. If I let the heat get the best of me, I'm weakened, consequently leaving myself open to enemy attacks."

"Damn, he never changes. If it isn't about his family, the answer is always related to being a fighter… Well, it is almost comforting in a way." Aether thought, mentallyrolling his eyes while taking a sip of the drink Venti had given him.

"I see," Zhongli seriously responded, "It is indeed true. Keeping one's body and mind stable is a must when facing laborious challenges."

Childe was filled with joy upon hearing the acknowledgement. It was always pleasant to hear someone who understood his point of view.

The traveler shifted his attention upon feeling a small force pulling down the

rod.

A fish had finally taken the bait, and the eyes of the two men also moved towards him when they heard the small "oh" Aether let out.

They all rejoiced at the successful catch and its size, and the traveler went straight ahead to prepare a meal for them.

—

As the day went by, they had almost checked everything on the task list; They fished for a while, Aether showed the mechanisms and puzzles that Klee's mom prepared, even landing his Harpastum so Childe could try them, he also taught them how to ride and summon the Waverider, they exchanged various anecdotes, as well as how the traveler came across the Archipelago in the first place, describing the whole Dodo King saga, and finally, filled themselves with food and drinks.

The sun rapidly fell under the horizon, merging the last colored rays of marigold into the indigo night sky. Venti had managed to convince the traveler to drink with him throughout the day and, needless to say, they were quite drunk by now, though both of them had a high tolerance and were somehow still acting civilized.

While Dvalin slept, the four men sat on the sand, listening to Venti sing around the crackling campfire.

When the bard began to sing a piece about Snezhnaya, Childe seemed to have recalled something.

He shuffled through his belongings, grabbing a bottle with a clear liquid, “This was a gift I received earlier, it’s a Snezhnayan specialty alcohol, Fire-Water!”

Aether gulped nervously at the familiar name. He had heard the stories around Mondstadt, how Master Diluc spent three days in bed after drinking a single glass of it, leading to the unsuccessful partnership with the Snezhnayan merchants.

Childe poured the liquid into separate cups and went around distributing them to the boys. Sitting back in his original spot, he continued, “As per tradition, we have to down the cup in one go!”

Venti was all in for the proposal, and despite their concern at first, Zhongli and Aether respected the birthday boy’s wish.

After raising their cups in a toast, they all drank the beverage at once.

Childe cheered, rambling about how he missed the taste of the drink. Zhongli seemed to be unaffected, calm as always, smiling and listening to the Snezhnayan boy.

However, Aether didn’t seem so well, he had expected the feeling, but because of the previous drinks he shared with the bard, it seemed to have had a stronger effect on him.

Aether wasn't the most affected by the drink, though.

That one shot was the ultimatum for Venti. His vision was blurry and he couldn’t stop laughing, which alarmed the others, but before they could take action and ask what was wrong, the archon fell into the sand, a grin on his face as he passed out.

After the realization of what just happened, Aether was the first to talk, “Um, I’ll take him to the shelter. I’m feeling a bit… dizzy too. I’ll get some sleep, haha,” He was making a great effort to sound coherent.

“Hope you enjoyed your day, Childe.”

A sincere smile was directed towards the boy sitting next to Zhongli. That expression warmed Childe’s heart. Aether had put great effort into this whole day and he could tell.

Childe was about to open his mouth to say something after the traveler turned his back to them while carrying Venti, but was stopped by the blonde, “Oh, there’s something I forgot to say. If you go west from here you will find another island with a shipwreck on top of the, um… Rock structure thing. It’s a good place to watch the stars. Anyways, hehe, good night.”

That piqued the two tall men’s interest, and after watching Aether and Venti enter the shelter, Childe looked at Zhongli, who was already standing up, as if he shared the same idea as the other.

A short cruise to the Nameless Isle later, Zhongli and Childe were already walking side by side through the tide, leaving steady footprints on the sand’s surface.

When the two stopped to both admire the place and look for a way to get to the top of the rocky mountain, Zhongli noticed a mural on the rock, which showed a shipwreck and what seemed to be a few people trying to save each other.

The archon was pondering about the meaning of it when he heard Childe’s voice from behind him.

“Mr. Zhongli, there’s a wind current over here!”

Zhongli went to the other’s location, noticing the current that led to the top of the mountain.

Without much effort, both of them got to the original destination: The shipwreck Aether mentioned.

It was indeed a tragic but beautiful place; a place where one could watch the azure starry sky, pale moon glowing brightly.

The two found a spot to sit near the ship that once sailed the seas, and watched the galaxies above them.

Childe offered another shot of the Fire-Water, which the both of them shared. Zhongli closed his eyes, deep in thought.

He had been trying to find the chance to give Childe his birthday gift, but he couldn’t find the opportunity to do so. Finally, now seemed like the perfect time.

He reopened his eyes and stared at Childe, who was watching the sky attentively, blue eyes shining unitedly with the stars.

“Childe.”

Upon hearing his name, he turned to look at the archon.

“Give me your hand,” Zhongli said, reaching his own towards the harbinger.

Childe automatically did so, and after searching for an object on the pocket of his shorts, Zhongli put the present on the other’s palm.

It was a single earring made of Noctilucous Jade and Cor Lapis, in a similar fashion as the one earring Childe normally wore.

“This reminded me of you when I saw it. If you do not wish to wear it, I understand, but I do hope you could keep it with you.”

Zhongli said that but the harbinger was already taking off his original earring, making the archon a bit embarrassed at the impulsiveness of the boy, yet very pleased.

Childe had been rambling about the, now, old earring and how he had gotten it in the first place, but after a while of no response from Zhongli, he gazed at him, being met by the image of the geo archon fast asleep.

Zhongli had a high alcohol tolerance, but with the nightfall, his drowsiness had grown to an almost unbearable level, and now, he was finally subdued by it.

Ajax couldn’t help but feel a warmth in his chest, his expression softened and he decided it was time for him to rest too.

He had never had a better birthday in his life.

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yinglipeggedwenwu · 3 years

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(Re)Watching Tony Leung Chiu-wai: 赤壁 (Red Cliff, 2008-9)

SO I know I’m not the only one looking at Tony Leung Chiu-wai with fresh horny eyes after Shang Chi. I’ve seen quite a few folks who are similar to me too - the man is a household name to anyone adjacent to Hong Kong and Chinese media! But maybe similar to a lot of HK families, Wong Kar Wai flicks weren’t exactly on the rotation, and tbh I was more into the pretty boys like Takeshi Kaneshiro to pay attention to Lil Tony so I’m not gonna play like I have been in this camp all this time!! With that said, this was a good excuse to dip back into some Chinese films via Tony’s filmography. I bet many new/returning fans are doing the same, so I’m just going to chronicle my journey in case others are on the same path :D

I’m not doing this by any particular order, either, so without further ado: 赤壁 Red Cliff, the international cut!

OVERALL: It’s a good action flick, though I wish I could have seen the full version. Not Fast and the Furious levels of mindless, but definitely worth a watch for premium Asian studs (featuring actors from China, HK, Taiwan, and Japan) and a visualization of old time military tactics.

Tony notes: Zhou Yu is the antithesis of Xu Wenwu - if you wanna see the man flex some acting chops, it’s worth the watch. Despite the massive ensemble cast, Zhou Yu’s definitely a Main Character and gets a lot of screen time and dimension. Plus he shows some skin!

SOOOO Red Cliff was originally a massive two-parter, but unfortunately I could only find the international cut, which basically smashed the two together, which is a bit much. Red Cliff is a real battle, which is portrayed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms which like... historic RPF and so massive as a cultural thing in Asia that I just cannot dedicate more space to it right now. But the point I want to make is that the story has a LOT of names to digest, even for people who are comfortable with Chinese names. I have read Rot3K and played hours of Dynasty Warriors, so I’d say going in I knew 80% of the major cast names (and recognized the actors, too), but I had a hard time keeping up with like the ten dudes I didn’t know! So this might be a bit dense for folks who are coming in totally fresh to all of these names/faces. (flashbacks to me watching GoT and getting paranoid about having white people face blindness bc there’s no way she’s having sex with her brother! lol)

Yes the impetus to watch the film was Tony, but I was 300% invested for childhood crush Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang! Pet peeve: throughout the movie they refer to him as Zhuge, but the subtitles say Kong Ming. Kong Ming was a nickname, but I guess whoever subtitled it thought it might be too confusing to go back and forth?

The eyebrow budget was... wow.

This movie seals the deal that I am most certainly attracted to Xu Wenwu and not Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and a testament to his skill as an actor. Zhou Yu exemplifies all the classic Chinese ‘Good Man!!!’ traits: learnedt, hyper perceptive (good ol’ Zhou ‘weird ears’ Yu), loyal/committed to the cause, humble, etc. Unfortunately, horniness is not really a valued quality back in the day, which is unfortunate because then the one sex scene we get really feels pretty lukewarm. (ok edited to say - on rewatch it’s ~lovemaking~ or something. it’s not as lukewarm as I thought but still not like, burning searing tension)

Luckily there is a lot of fire in the rest of the film to bring the heat.

Oh yes adding to the list of studs: Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as Sun Quan! Those rebel cheekbones can defend my land any day.

I really liked seeing some of the strategies play out. Reading some of these formations and stuff can be pretty abstract, so seeing them in action really helped me ‘get’ it. I think that’s where the movie really shines, is in showing that skilled coordination can overcome a disadvantage in numbers.

One of the hugest detriments to this international version is that I think the whole logic/explanation of Zhuge Liang sending out the straw boats was dropped? otherwise i really wasn’t paying attention. Basically - it was a wager between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu! They made some sort of bet bc they were short on weapons, and they were like ‘whoever can’t get 100,000 arrows by tomorrow will die’ or whatever, and Zhuge’s plan was that!

With that said, on the whole Kaneshiro really shone was Zhuge Liang. Taiwanese excellence all around in this flick.

Oh yeah the UST between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang? Palpable.

I wish I saw the full version, because my main critiques are that there’s a lot crammed into this, and it could use a little more breathing room. I do appreciate the slower moments that did their own space, in particular that moment Xiao Qiao does The Turn, and the framing is a perfect representation of Cao Cao’s painting.

I just skimmed the wikipedia again and apparently Tony was offered Zhuge Liang, but he turned it down???? Oh MAN Kaneshiro did the character right, and I think the two really had good chemistry. But MAN I really would have loved to see Tony as the weird horoscope guy!!!

#red cliff #chi bi #赤壁 #tony leung chiu wai #tony leung chiu wai cinematic universe #film review #i'd say spoilers but like... it's been almost 2000 yrs people

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rxmanticdevil · 3 years

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One Shot #1 - Magicians for Sport, Trelawny’s side

Characters: Josiah Trelawny, Arthur Morgan, Charles Smith Spoilers: Through Ch. 3 Words: ~3142 Trigger warnings: Kidnapping, violence, choking Explanation for this abomination: The story mission “Magicians for Sport” from the perspective of what happened to Trelawny. Josiah is minding his own business, bounty hunters decide they want a chat. Things get better from there (just kidding, they don’t get better). This has most likely been written before but tbh I didn’t look because I wanted to write it and I’ve just done research for my degree and I don’t want to research anymore.))

Trelawny was hardly registering his actions as he placed the two small slices of bread on a plate, a small meal for the early morning. His mind was distracted, his thoughts with the gang he had grown so fond of. Those bounty hunters were quite determined to get a hold of Dutch. And Arthur. The whole gang was in danger, which wasn’t really out of the norm. But this time it felt different, those bounty hunters seemed determined in a way that put Josiah’s hair on end.

The sound of hooves on dirt caught his already heightened attention, and he glanced out his window to see familiar figures coming up the path to the small collection of caravans full of the unsavory people he had found to blend into.

Those were the bounty hunters he had spoken to by the state line. Without wasting any time he pulled the curtains closed, locking the doors as he could. His caravan only had two rectangular rooms, but two doors – two areas of vulnerability.

He held his breath, they were getting closer, there were voices: We’re looking for a guy.

Another voice. The fence who operated out of the next caravan over. He pressed his ear against his front door, straining to hear. But he couldn’t make out what was being said, there was no loyalty here and he knew what the bounty hunters wanted. He was familiar enough with people like them – he knew what they’d do to get it.

The seconds ticked by but felt like hours until he heard the sound of horses trotting away. He took a deep breath, nearly collapsing to his knees from relief.

“Thank God….” – and the fence too. It seemed he would be escaping this scenario unharmed.

He went back to his plate of food but was once more unable to focus on it, his hands trembling too violently to be useful whenever he attempted to spread the raspberry jam over the bread. His mind raced. The bounty hunters were here, in Rhodes. While Josiah didn’t know where Dutch and the others were holed up now, he did know they would be coming back this way. It was imperative that he tracked them down, any of the gang down, at least to deliver the message –stay low, for God’s sake your lives are at stake. Stay. Alert.

Advice he should have heeded himself, it seemed.

The back door was kicked open with an unparalleled violent force at the same time as the front door. The sudden actions causing Josiah’s heart to jump, near pounding out of his chest, and his body escaped to the farthest point from the most immediate intruder at his front doorway. Unfortunately, that was the edge of his bed and it was hardly any more distance at all.

“Good morning, sir,” the bounty hunter coming from the front stood in his doorway, his body filling up the door frame as he held a gun in his hand, “We just got a few questions for you, we won’t be long.”

It was one of the first times in a long time that Trelawny felt genuine fear. Trapped, his revolver by the door where the man stood– there was no way he could get it without being grabbed – or shot. He could only wait for what would happen next. A fact that the man before him seemed to savor, drinking in Trelawny’s paled face and white knuckles clinging to the edge of his bed.

The man’s face melted into a cruel grin as he neared, “You remember me, right? We spoke at the state line?” he waited a moment, taunting Josiah to respond. “You remember we were talking – about Dutch Van der Linde? My colleagues and I seem to think you left out some details.”

“You must have me confused with someone else. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t, huh?” a fist went to the framed photograph on his wall, shattering the glass as it fell to the ground. The sharp action, the threat, caused Trelawny to jump. If these men didn’t kill him soon his heart would surely do him in.

“I told you, I just got here from Oregon-” It wasn’t acting this time, how his voice pitched up, squeaking out the story he had threaded during their earlier encounter.

A hand grabbed his neck and threw him onto the ground, into the glass. His attacker wasted no time looming over him, leaning down to grab him once more by the throat, pulling Josiah up close to his face.

“Try again.”

“I don’t know anything-”

The fist came at him once. And then twice. He was seeing stars, trying to regain any sense of equilibrium before he was picked up and thrown once more, like a ragdoll, from one side of his caravan to the other. His back hit his counter, knocking the shelves down.

“I said try again.”

Trelawny felt blood coming from his wounds, and an anger building inside him. Fear dissipating for a moment – how dare these men come into his home and cause such a mess. His hand balled into a fist, and he took the moment to throw a punch.

“And I said I don’t know anything, now leave.” He swung his fist, shocking the attacker just long enough to clip the man’s cheek. But before he could follow up, he felt two arms grab him tight from behind. The other bounty hunter. But Trelawny was determined: They had made it clear that he wasn’t getting out of this unscathed whether he cooperated or not.

He brought his elbow up and swung it back in a short, sharp motion- aiming to do as much damage as possible to the gut before he used his elbow and upper arm as the pendulum to swing his fist down into a more sensitive area. The bounty hunter yelped, releasing him.

A glint in the light caught his eye, his cane! A weapon he could get! He made a move for it, pulling it up and swinging down hard with the intent to end this quickly against the man who was doubled over in pain.

Then, there was nothing.

_______

“Then the idiot went after Davey and I grabbed one of the vases and smashed it over his head,” the bounty hunter lit his cigarette and brought it to his lips, “Dropped like a rock.”

“But he didn’t say anything?”

“Not a damn thing,” the man grumbled.

Well, that all certainly explained his splitting headache. He felt the dirt on his cheek, from his face having been in it for who knew how long. But the rest of his body didn’t seem to be responding. Not wanting to alert his new… friends that he was awake, but needing to check his situation, he slowly tried to move his limbs. All he found though was his wrists bound tight together as well as his ankles. Oh, if there was ever a time he wished for the gang to show up from one of their misadventures it would be now.

“Hey, George,” a third bounty hunter spoke to the first, “Look, your friend.”

And then all eyes were on him, and he knew he couldn’t play dead any longer. The bounty hunters eyeing him from their lean-to as he struggled in vain on the ground. ‘George’ gave him a grin, a sickening grin that told Trelawny nothing good was in his future. However futile struggling was, that look made Trelawny only try to free himself faster. It was no use of course, the man stepped over him, straddling him as he pulled his head up off the ground by the throat.

“Good morning, partner,” he said, cruelty in every line on the man’s face.

“I’d brush my teeth if I were you, good sir. You might scare children like that-”

A hand came sharp across his face, “Shut up, fool. You’re in no place to talk to anyone like that.” His throat was gripped even tighter, and Josiah’s body began to panic for air. He could barely register as the man above him spoke.

“Where. Are. They? Where. Is. Dutch?”

“I don’t know any Dutch fellows.” If he wasn’t going to tell them before he certainly wasn’t going to now after they had been so rude and rough.

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, “Dammit! I know you know!” The hand squeezed his throat tighter, and he felt himself gasping – fighting for air.

“Don’t kill him, George, or we’ll never get our answer. He just needs some more persuasion. Or maybe to be kept with us a little longer. If they find out we have him, they might send someone to get him back.”

“Think he’s worth somethin’ as bait?”

The hand relaxed on his throat and he gasped for air. Trelawny was less than soothed by that idea no matter that it bought him a few more minutes (hours? Days?) of life. He despised the thought of being bait for the Van der Linde gang. Sure, they exchanged favors of bailing each other out of sticky situations, but surely this would cross a line.

“So I can’t kill him but I can….”

Trelawny realized in that moment that he had let himself get distracted by thought, George had returned to his side. His eyes read nothing less than sadistic desire.

Whack! “Ahhh!” His legs dulled with the ache of great pain.

Whack! Pain shot through his side.

Whack! His shoulder screamed.

Each hit pulled a gasp from his lips. He caught a glimpse of the weapon – his cane. It came down on him again, and again.

“Hey, George! What’d we say? You’re going to kill him!”

“Fine by me!”

And then he saw the shine from the metal head of the cane as the shaft was swung down on him. He was out again.

_____

This time when he gained consciousness, he was sitting up. His arms tied still, his legs remained bound, and his vision blurred.

“There he is, good morning sunshine,” it was that George fellow again. Trelawny realized he didn’t have much voice left at all. His body weak, pain aching through every bone and every joint.

It was a time he could genuinely say he wished they would just kill him instead of continuing this treatment.

“Look, friend,” Davey knelt next to him, “We can let you go. Just tell us where they are. We can even give you some of the money. You know how much those guys are worth. You’d never have to work a day in your life again.”

Give him some of the money? Trelawny knew Dutch’s bounty was high. That would be no small sum but- no, how could he even entertain the idea? He might not have many morals, but he certainly had friends.

“I don’t… I don’t know… who you- you’re talking about-”

“BULLSHIT,” George was back in the scene. He kicked over Trelawny’s chair and the man fell to the hard, filthy cabin floor with a hard thud. Before he could gather his bearings once more a sharp foot made contact with his gut. The foot pulled back to go at him again.

“Whoa, George! Relax. We’ll make him talk yet. C’mon, I got an idea,” and Davey gave George a glance. A knowing glance. One that Trelawny was not happy to see them exchanging. He felt himself being yanked up by his arms, each touch hitting a point of injury sending shockwaves through his body and eliciting a cry from his lips. “Let’s get you out of here, come on boy.”

“The thing is,” George spoke as they began to pull the man out of the small cabin and down the steps, “after that shack, this will be remembered like a good time.”

“Put the man down, gentleman.” And then there was the click of two guns.

Trelawny could barely focus long enough to feel the relief wash over him in a tidal wave. That voice. Oh, that dear voice. That sweet voice. George left his side, and then Davey dropped him to the ground. It was another hard fall, but he was so filled with that joyous relief that he barely registered the pain. He wasn’t even sure if the tears in his eyes were from pain or relief – most likely both.

Feet entered his field of vision, a knife too – but any fear was dissipated when he realized it was none other than Charles. Another of Dutch’s loyal knights.

“That the lot of them?”

“I… I think so.” His hands were freed in an instant. His wrists red from chafing as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“So, you’re alive.” Arthur knelt by him with another knife, getting to work on the binds on his ankles.

“Allegedly.”

“Well, don’t worry. They won’t be for much longer.” Those words sparked that desire for revenge in Trelawny’s heart. Those bastards who broke into his home, kidnapped him, tortured him, and threatened his friends. He had no strength left but he had enough anger to help himself out of his own leg binding.

“Go get them, Arthur. I can handle this.”

Arthur met his eyes, and Trelawny took the second to drink in that familiar, gentle face. The man who was ruthless when necessary, but who had always been a kind – if a little sad – soul to Trelawny. Arthur seemed to be checking with Trelawny, to make sure he would sincerely be alright should he go off to stop the bounty hunters. In response, Trelawny waved his hand – urging Arthur onward. Not just for that desire of revenge either, should those bounty hunters escape they would escape with far too much information. They had to be dealt with accordingly.

In the next moment, Arthur had taken off to the fields. Gunshots rang out. Arthur and Charles will both be fine, he kept telling himself as he struggled to free his ankles. It would be easier if his hands weren’t having such trouble gripping things. Each movement made his body cry in pain, but at least… at least he was safe.

The rope around his ankles became slack after another moment of finicking. The gunshots were still echoing and Trelawny could only hope his friends were not on the receiving end.

Well, he couldn’t just wait here on the ground. In the dirt. His clothes were already filthy, his white shirt had blood stains on it, his beautiful vest simply torn to shreds. Lord only knew what his face looked like. His hair must be an utter mess. He would simply die of embarrassment should they return to him whining on the ground.

He tried to put a hand on the ground to push himself up to his feet, but his elbow buckled under his weight. Pain shot through the arm. His legs told him too we’re not standing. There was a chair on the patio of the small cabin, if he could just make it there he could take a seat like somewhat of a refined gentleman as opposed to a dirt dweller like he was now.

It took him longer than he’d like, and he had more crawled over the dirt than walked, but he found himself able to climb into the chair, letting himself finally take in a moment of peace despite the pain. Arthur is here. Charles is here. And because he had kept his mouth shut this time, he could look them in the face with dignity.

“Mr. Trelawny, where are you?”

He nearly felt the tears threaten again. That voice brought with it so much relief, he wasn’t sure he could ever explain to Arthur just how much it meant to him. Especially in that moment. And that was for no lack of intelligence on the other man’s part, Trelawny knew the man was quite prolific. Dutch and Hosea would have it no other way. “Over here, dear boy!”

“Put your feet up, why don’t you?” Arthur came into view on the hill, the words harsh and teasing but nothing that Trelawny would imagine taking offense to. And as Arthur approached, he could see his face soften and he could hear that kindness in his voice, “You okay?”

“Never finer.” Yes, this outlaw had probably just killed a small handful of other men. However, he had done it out of desire to protect his friends. And Trelawny was just glad that he was in that category. Trelawny tried to stand up, but pain brought him back into his chair.

“So, who was they?” The important question. Josiah couldn’t blame him for wanting to cut right to the chase. The man’s hand was gentle on his back, the other at his arm in quiet support.

“They were bounty hunters, ah, attached to Cole Stoudemire,” that was what they had told him at that camp long ago.

“Okay.”

“They weren’t looking for me, per se.”

“No…” Arthur quietly confirmed the unsaid part. They wanted you, Arthur. They wanted Dutch. “What you tell ‘em?”

Another important question. And one Josiah was glad he could answer with pride, “Not much. I… told them I was an intellectual come down here from Oregon…” He let Arthur steer him towards the horse, accepting his and Charles’ help to mount. He tried to grip the saddle, tried to pull himself up, but he knew he was fooling none of them: he had no energy, no strength left. “…looking for a job at the university. Course, they didn’t believe me. Seems you stirred up quite a hornet’s nest in Blackwater.”

“So I keep hearing.” Arthur backed slowly away from the horse, as though making sure that Trelawny could remain upright.

Josiah met his eyes once more, a little embarrassed by his own need to request yet even more from the gang. But it was how things had to be. “It might be best if I stay with you gentlemen for a while. Can’t go back to that caravan now.”

Not even a moment to think about it passed before Arthur nodded in agreement.

“Alright, Charles, you take Trelawny back to camp. I’ll catch up with you.”

“Okay.” And Charles moved his horse on, Trelawny following close behind. Their previous rides together had been full of Josiah’s stories, thoughts, and ideas. But this ride was different, it was quiet. Trelawny was lost in thought, energy spent with none to spare on a façade. And Charles’ silence was reassuring in its own right.

The bounty hunters had been dealt with. Josiah had been rescued. There would be time to worry about everything else, time to tell Dutch everything he had learned. Time to pay back the gang for saving his life. For now though, the hooves of the horses and the whistling of birds the only sound for miles, there was just time enough for peace.

#{rebloggable}#red dead redemption fanfic #rdr2 fanfic #josiah trelawny #arthur morgan #red dead redemption 2 #{my writing}#((I might write a drabble after this when Trelawny gets back to camp with Charles))#((but this was just something I've wanted to write for a while so here #it goes right here for now haha))#((I'd also thread an rp based off of this too if anyone wants to rp! :D))

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fallingsunflower · 3 years

Text

BESTIES I'm so sorry - I hit my post limit waaaay earlier than expected! Some of y'all joined me on my backup account, (which I also hit the limit on lmao), but I'm back now.

I had over 400 asks to go through and I'll give you a warning that not all of them will appear (either because they were old or because they were topics we already answered). But here is a giant list of asks I compiled for you from when I wasn't allowed to post lol they don't really require my response but I found them entertaining to read. Hope you don't mind I've just put them all together in one post. It's also to save me from using up my 250 posts lol

"this is all so embarrassing like my god imagine when the promotion of the movie starts how horrible it will be for other people who made the movie too"

"SELL UR TICKETS TODAY WATCH THE MOVIE ILLEGALLY, next article we’ll be talking about these two assholes filing for bankruptcy. cheap harlots. don’t mess with your meal ticket."

"hate to say it but i defs think they‘ve got a sliver of the gp’s attention for five minutes"

"I am scanning through all these photos looking for just ONE where he looks like he's smiling and enjoying this. It's so crazy."

"I guess those are all the pics we’re getting right now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they finish the Italy trip off with one more major Backgrid photo shoot."

"Olivia’s trending on Twitter but not Harry. Like it’s obvious who’s getting the PR gains here!"

"If they dont give us a 6 month or more break after this im gonna need them to pay for my therapy bills from now on bc of this damage no joke let me crawl back into my shit hole now 😑"

"The palce they at is referred to as “tuscanys best-kept secret”. Everyone point and laugh."

"she looks like she’s enjoying all of this. he looks like he wants to push her into the water."

"a few people said he’s keeping his shorts pulled up or covered in all the shots because of the Nike branding which they ask to not get photographed. What a setup."

"Man I knew the second those Tomdaya pics came out of them kissing and how they were trending so fast that HO were going to do something to 'top' them. Its pathetic /// FRRR. she probably hoped for the positive reactions that people gave tom & zendaya but unfortunately, miss girl got the opposite. when will they realize that nobody, but his fans, find them cute lmao can they just stop, it’s so embarrassing 😭😭😭"

"He really out here doing this with someone who almost old enough to be his mother, shiiiiiiiit. Sickening. Sick of these 2 for real now, i was fine with the good old blurry back content and whatnot but this? Crossing a line here nobody wanna see that shit and knowing how people feel goooooood damn."

"I aboslutely despise kendall for obvious reason but this one is actually worse than the hendall one bc you couldnt really see as much as now dis gos tang."

"She’s also wearing the cross necklace again. I feel like if that was so meaningful to her she wouldn’t risk loosing it in the ocean 🙄"

"guys have eyes on tmz. I Do not have tw now. they were so aggressive towards them"

"I'm sorry for Harry because you lost your damn mind bro"

"Now why the hendall pics are better ?? NO SHADE BUTT"

"I’m genuine confused like do they actually want dwd to flop or what? I just threw up in my mouth I sure as hell ain’t gonna watch their sorry ass movie. Is it supposed to flop? I’m so confused!"

"The match was not interesting enough so they cooked up something different especially since people were pointing out how they staged the PDA. And the page 6 article is out already!!!"

"Who the fuck thought this was a good idea"

"Is it just me or does harry's face looks really blank for someone out on a Romantic date with his alleged girlfriend.?"

"if thats it, harry hasn’t no game🤣🤣🤣🤣"

"so this is why the tabloids weren’t talking about the match pics! they didn’t have any value on their own. now with the yacht pics? my oh my they’re gonna get the clicks of their lives. her team was prob like “wait a sec we got something for y’all”"

"If they were models hired to act like a couple they wouldn't get the job......"

"Not them starring right at the camera in some of them help make it less obvious will you"

"HENDALL🤣🤣🤣is that uuuu"

"Harry’s ass crack thought it should make an appearance too."

"What a great day for team PR, happy Monday you guys! Let's pop the champagne 🍾🍾🍾🍾 P. S. They both need acting lessons, tbh"

"It’s quite interesting how everything that’s happened before I’ve seen predicted weeks/and in advance on blogs or fan accounts. Like his life has always been so predictable but damn"

"He was hiding the Nike check. That’s why his swim trucks are rolled up to an absurd degree even for him. He knew he was gonna get photographed."

"What I’m noticing is wether people like them together or not, everyone’s saying they’re aren’t a hot couple…there was more chemistry in the Kendall pics by far"

"i also find it weird that he’s not smiling in any of the pictures and it would be one thing if there were five pics from ten minutes of time but there are like 70 from an obvious extended period of time"

"It's interesting everyone involved is being Team Try Hard. Yet the universe says no. The last set of pics, Tom and Zendaya overshadowed. People even paid more attention to Angelina and the Weekend (even if business possibly). Fast forward to today and all this fakery only for Gwen/Blake to tie the knot. His team needs to get a clue. She needs to go. Harry needs to clean this up fast."

"Ok i looked at one hugging pic and one kidding pic and they could not look more stagged. It looks unatural ,strange and weird from all angles. You can clearly see from their body posture they are posing for a photographer from backgrid."

"Like I said in my ask a couple days ago the day we get kissing pics is the day that I believe this is all a stunt and I was right. They took a page out of hendall 2016 and it’s looks so forced and awkward. Hendall did it better cause at prater they had chemistry. They must be scared this movie is going to tank because they are pushing this way too hard"

"Real, PR, or whatever relationship it is, they’re fucking boring. You are on a yacht in Italy, can’t you have a little bit of fun? I can’t believe how boring they are, I just can’t. Even if it is just PR, can’t you make a fucking dumb joke so you can laugh or something? Do they have anything in common like to talk about or discuss or make fun of? I’d literally killed myself if I looked like that in a relationship. They are not communicating in any photos we’ve got. They are just walking, or sitting. Even when they hold hands or kiss or hug, they never communicate."

"okay but did ya’ll see the pic of her diving in?? i can’t stop laughing 😭😭😭😭"

"they look horrifically awkward i cannot believe what harry is doing"

"“HEY PAPS COME GET A PIC OF US KISSING TO MAKE OUR RELATIONSHIP MORE BELIEVABLE!!!!!”"

"his ass is hanging out and her bra is almost off what in the hell"

"Hqs on a yacht like that? Mhmhmhm hmmmmm / I bloody well hope that’s not the extend of their acting. That’s dire! 🤦‍♀️"

"this is literally the most predictable “couple” to exist. first, people talked about them showing up the game, and they did. second, people were just talking about kissing pics... AND THEY JUST CAME OUT LMAOOOOOO"

"annnnnnnnnnnnnd there it is. YOU KNOW THEY KNEW THERE WAS A CAMERA."

"ok but where’s the pda or did that get made up? cause these have to be the most awkward pics i’ve ever seen which makes me feel better 😂 also i can feel the meme’s coming with the one of her diving off the boat"

"I call it how I see it they are both assholes and full of shit. Like do your fake kiss somewhere else I do not want to see it!"

"Can they at least act like they’re having a good time?"

"hahahaha I can't stop laughing with that photo of O it's literally her knowing she's being photographed and diving into a professional swimmer style😭"

"the pics are so organic that Olivia is looking straight at the pap before kissing Harry."

"he looked a lot happier with kendall in their yacht pics compared to today’s. i know that was PR too, but he was very smiley and seemed talkative. with this girl it’s like the complete opposite lmao."

#this is also good visual proof for how many people are on team PR lol

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wordsablaze · 4 years

Text

4/13 - heterochromia

A Dozen Denials Soulmate-identifiers exist to make things easier unless you’re Jaskier, who’s equally as deep in love as he is in denial. But there’s only so many excuses you can make to avoid the truth… (aka jaskier’s soulmate is definitely a witcher, just not the one he first assumes)

A/N: haven’t updated this for a while but we’re finally back to making an oblivious mess of destiny ;)

previous chapter

The heterochromia is entirely unexpected.

Jaskier hadn’t heard a lot about it whilst growing up and it was rarely mentioned in any of the numerous books he’d read in various different libraries. And that’s not to say it was wholly unknown to him - he is a bard, after all - but he hadn’t been expecting to experience it.

He doesn’t even realise he is experiencing it until the hostler gives him a weird look.

“Do you need something from me?” Jaskier asks, winking.

The man opens his mouth, closes it, and then shakes his head. “Your eyes…” he replies, but turns away before Jaskier can flirt with him again.

Jaskier frowns at him, stupidly wasting a few moments to try and look at his own eyes before realising he can’t do that without losing his sight entirely. “Geralt!”

Geralt doesn’t reply before Jaskier settles at the corner they’ve chosen inside the inn, at which point he raises an eyebrow, continuing to eat. “Jaskier?”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Jaskier asks, not caring that they have a very small audience because of his mildly dramatic entrance. When Geralt finally looks up, both of them freeze, staring at one another in shock.

Oh.

It seems Geralt’s eyes have finally decided to hint at the identity of his soulmate and, judging by the witcher’s startled expression, Jaskier’s eyes must be doing the same.

“Are you sure you still don’t believe in Destiny?” Jaskier asks weakly, deciding that he really doesn’t want to be entirely sober after this rather strange turn of events, moving his attention over to his tankard.

Geralt hums dismissively, but stands before Jaskier can ask anything else. “I’m need to go hunting.”

Jaskier frowns at him. “Geralt, dear, we have a room and an innkeeper who’s more than willing to provide us another meal free of cost before we leave tomorrow. Whatever do you need to hunt for?”

Geralt doesn’t reply, turning to look directly at Jaskier for just a moment, his gaze rapidly flickering between his eyes before he shakes his head. “I’ll see you in the morning, Jaskier.”

He’s too busy staring at Geralt’s eyes to think of an adequate response in time, his brain finally catching up when Geralt is halfway out of the door. He sighs, finishing the ale before letting his head fall onto the table as he takes a few deep breaths.

Exactly two minutes later, he brushes away his confusion and slips out of the inn.

The local mage’s house isn’t particularly difficult to find and he’s just about sober enough not to make an utter fool of himself on the way there so she lets him in with little argument, raising an eyebrow when she sees his eyes. “I can’t change your Destiny,” she tells him immediately.

Jaskier shakes his head. “Nor would I ask you to do so, of course. I only wish to ask whether you know why our eyes would only change colour now as opposed to the many years we’ve spent together?”

She sighs, gesturing for him to sit down and doing the same once he’s settled. “There are certain points on the continent where the enchantments of Destiny are inexplicably stronger, more likely to try and intervene with the paths we should take..”

He isn’t foolish enough to argue with a mage about chaos but he doesn’t quite understand her theory. “But I’ve already found my soulmate, why would I…?”

There’s something odd in her expression when she gently cups his face in her hand and moves each side of his face into the light cast through the window beside them. “I can’t tell you that. It shouldn’t affect either of you so suddenly if you’ve already found and accepted one another.”

Jaskier wants to argue again but he thinks back to Geralt’s behaviour and abruptly, it seems to make more sense because, yes, they’ve found one another but they may not have done the latter. The shock meant he hadn’t been paying a lot of attention back at the inn but he’s pretty sure Geralt’s other eye had been blue so clearly the only problem here is his stubborn refusal to admit his destined path might have been right after all.

He grins, taking the mage’s hand and planting a soft kiss on her fingers. “Thank you for the information, I think I understand now. Do you require payment?”

She glances over him before shaking her head. Regardless, he decides he’s going to do something for her anyway. “Well, I shall spin you a lovely tune and make sure everyone in this town knows exactly how beautiful and helpful you are.”

Laughing, she stands and waves the door open. “Good luck.”

Jaskier grins again, giddy from both the alcohol and the information. “I don’t need it but thank you! “

It’s dark by the time he gets back, promising the innkeeper he’ll be up early in the morning to rouse the early crowd before making his way upstairs. To his surprise, he finds Geralt waiting for him.

“Geralt? Weren’t you hunting?” he asks, placing his hands on his hips.

Geralt sighs and, even in the dim light, Jaskier can tell he’s practically frowning hard enough to hurt himself. He makes his way over to the bed, sitting beside him and gently running his fingers along Geralt’s forehead, forcing him to relax.

“I’m sorry, Jaskier, I…”

“I know. You don’t like Destiny, I know that. But I can assure you it doesn’t mean anything serious, it’s just this town and its inexplicable geographical link to chaos.”

“How do you know that?” Geralt asks, then wrinkles his nose. “You went to the mage.”

Jaskier huffs. “Well, of course I did. It’s not like anyone else was going to try and tell me having one yellow eye while we’re here is absolutely normal, was it?”

Geralt snorts, pulling him closer. Jaskier melts into his touch, placing his hands on either side of Geralt’s face. One of his eyes is ever so slightly glowing, as one of his own must be, but the other is more ordinary and although Jaskier can’t quite make it out anymore, he’s certain it’s blue like his own.

He smiles at the thought and although they’re leaving town as early as possible, he’s glad they’d at least stopped for a small break. And hey, maybe Geralt will be more likely to accept everything he keeps saying after this blatant display of evidence; maybe they can finally both admit that he’s right about them being soulmates after all.

(little did he know he couldn’t be more wrong.)

now i know what you're thinking: how can they possibly be THIS blind to reality ?? and tbh i have the same question but unfortunately, we're not even halfway through the obliviousness so...

thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier | next chapter

#jaskier #geralt #eskel #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x eskel #it's complicated #jaskel #soulmates #soulmates gone wrong #hurt jaskier #the witcher #fanfic #obliviousness all around #heterochromia #my writing #add

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ihavenocluedude · 4 years

Text

The two awkward fools

Chapter 2. Could lead to sadness

Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (AOS) x OFC

Chapter 1

A/N: I felt bored and wanted to share more of the fic already... oops(?). Nah but honestly I feel like at least the first two chapters are kiiind of slow and maybe doesn’t offer that much, especially with this one being pretty darn short (according to me all the parts I’ve written so far have been pretty short tbh, I’m used to reading one shots that are like 2k, I’ve “been” spoiled by other fic writers basically...) Welcome to another part of: Em absolutely loving tech dudes way too much.

Word Count: 959

“Jen!” Max shouted to Jen who stood farther in, in the engineering station. Max had searched around practically everywhere in the confusing engineering station for her and was just about to give up when she saw her. The place was a mess, tools everywhere and people running around like crazy, Max had probably bumped into 4 people in just the last minute. All Max knew was that McCoy had forced her down there to just grab some engineer, however not wanting to bother with one of the newbies; telling her to grab someone she trusts to not fuck up the medical bay equipment.

After a few more calls of Jen’s name Max finally grabbed her attention. Jen was the only engineer Max truly knew. Though Max had perhaps hung out with a few engineers during shore leaves or during nights where they may be the only ones with alcohol. But that was irrelevant, she never truly got to know any of them, which made being in one of the engineering stations pretty awkward.

“Elfie!” Jen called out towards her, finally running over to her “What are you doing here? Don’t you hate this place?” Jen questioned in a rushed tone, still a smile on her lips and chuckling as always but looking around herself to glare back at her workmates that had started staring at them.

“Look McCoy told me that we need some engineer person who we trust and who wouldn’t screw up the medical equipment, please tell me you can help me.” Max pleaded, pouting slightly.

“Uhm… I mean… Yeah? I think I can? I should go check with Scotty though. Come with me?” Jen’s sentence had forced a wondering look on Max’s face before she eventually shrugged and allowed Jen to drag her along, placing her hand in Jen’s outstretched hand. Max wouldn’t be surprised if they got lost in the station or lost from each other but she had no doubt Jen would find her way to Scotty eventually. “You haven’t spoken to him since last week right?” Jen questioned looking back at her friend, Max nodded quickly.

“I haven’t been avoiding him but… We hadn’t met before that so what’s to say we’ll cross each other’s ways again? Well except right now of course but this doesn’t quite count does it? You’re actually physically leading me to him and all.” Max’s flustered voice and expression didn’t go lost on Jen, a smug smirk spreading on her face as she kept heading forward towards where Scotty should be. Scotty didn’t have much of an office, rather a small space where he should be the majority of the time to be available to the people he’s chief to. However as Scotty is someone who likes to be social and also likes to actually manage the engineering, he wasn’t always there. Or actually very rarely there. This time though, they had been in luck, Scotty sitting in his chair, legs propped up on the desk looking at his PADD. Releasing each other’s hands and looking towards the Chief engineer that seemed lost within the information on his PADD. By the looks of it he didn’t even seem to notice the two friends standing in his little area.

“Scotty?” Jen said quietly, not wanting to startle her superior. But that was unfortunately not possible as Scotty jolted up slightly and instantly placed his feet back on the ground, his eyes snapping up towards the two girls. “Hi! I… Uhm… Well the medical bay seems to need some help and Elfie came to get me so I wanted to check if I could… well if I could go up there and look at their issues?” Jen stumbled through her words once again, it wasn’t that she was scared or nervous to talk to her superior, it was slightly more that she didn’t know what words to use.

Well at least not in the professional sense, if it had been a friday evening in the engineering station she would’ve easily had a conversation with Scotty. However now she was completely sober and nervous about doing anything even slightly unprofessional.

“I though’ no one called ya Elfie, Max?” Scotty joked as he then turned his focus back to Jen “Tha’s fine, I could follow along if ya need any help?” Scotty’s offer was sweet, not in anyway necessary but sweet nonetheless. However before Max could’ve said that it wasn’t necessary, Jen had of course told him that it’d be for the best. ‘You are the chief engineer after all’ Jen had told him with a small smile. “Lead the way.” Scotty told the two girls as they started to walk towards the exit of the engineering station.

“Scotty? Jen is the only one that calls me Elfie… She’s my best friend. Everyone else just usually calls me Max or Maxwell…” Max felt that she had to explain to Scotty as they had made their way into the hallway, Jen leading the group even if Max probably knew the way way better. “Well… I- … My family does call me Elfie as well, which is reasonable… I suppose.”

“D’ya not like the name?”

“No not really,” Max answered quickly, it was a question she had answered before and some understood, some did not “it’s just that… I don’t know… I just-”

“Lass it’s fine but jus’ so ya know, Elfie is a very pretty name. Y’know my name’s actually Montgomery, my family usually calls me Monty…” Scotty gives her a big smile, patting her lightly on her back. Monty sounded better, it felt more… Well personal Max supposed, it fit him, he feels home-y. But feeling too at home with him could lead to sadness, Max had just met him after all.

A/N: I might post part 3 in a few hours too, Idek dudes, hope you liked it. As always I appreciate feedback soooo much so if you have the energy, please do!

Next chapter

#montgomery scott x reader #montgomery scott #Simon Pegg x reader #Star Trek AOS #star trek fanfiction #My writing

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writerseven · 4 years

Note

i would love commentary on the ending conversation between jason and bruce from present if you're willing (sorry i tried sending the actual passage but tumblr kept rejecting my ask for some reason when i actually pasted it) love your fics!!!

Thank you!! yeah tumblr is a nightmare, but no worries about not pasting the section; this works too! I'll include it here myself

When he returns to his bedroom, Jason is finally sitting up, hair still rumbled and face imprinted with the pillow's creases. He looks around the room before squinting up at Bruce.

(gonna be real I just love the contrast of Big Scary Jason having pillow imprints on his face. also I just found another typo from doing this booo)

“Where's the kid?” he asks.

Bruce raises his eyebrows in judgment. “It's Monday. He's at school.”

Jason, as always, falters and then steels back up at the implied insult to his intelligence. “Yeah. Right.”

Before he can wake up enough to become irritable, Bruce glides over to him for a deep and forceful kiss. Jason catches up after a moment, grasping handfuls of Bruce's shirt to hold him close, and then shoving him away.

In terms of word choice/little micro writing decisions, describing that judgmental 'he's at school' took me a minute. Even though this fic is 100% Bruce's PoV I originally imagined that moment more from Jason's, where it's easier to just describe Bruce as judgmental and Jason as upset. Writing it in Bruce's PoV unlocks all the underlying motivation—Bruce knows he's being a condescending dick, doesn't even think Jason is stupid, and just figures the insecurity will put Jason on the defensive—and I wildly over-explained all of that when I first wrote it

(A consistent problem for me: I am always trying to talk myself down from explaining too much, and reminding myself I can trust readers to put things together themselves. That's also just a good writing tip in general! Trust your readers to pay attention!)

“Alfred kept breakfast warm for you,” Bruce says, belaying whatever Jason meant to say and redirecting to safer topics. “I think he mentioned showing you the remodels to the library when he returns, if you're up for it.”

Jason grunts, shifting off the bed. “I'm taking a shower.”

It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.

OKAY so writing any given scene is a lot easier when I know what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and this scene was for two things. The first was just to sort of establish time moving forward and give a baseline for what everybody will be doing.

Lure to present all take place over the weekend with very few pauses left to the imagination between events, but I knew I was going to jump ahead a little bit going forward (and switch temporarily away from the Bruce/Jason/Tim trio with Dick's PoV), so I wanted to briefly establish that Jason is still at the manor even with Tim gone, and Bruce is probably using various little activities and excuses (and Alfred) to keep him around. It may just be me, and I definitely get far more intense about time lines than most people, but I knew it would bug me if I didn't give some indication of where Jason would be and why. He probably wouldn't stick around without the Tim-excuse on his own, thus Bruce guiding to safe topics like “Alfred wants to show you stuff!”

(also: “It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.“ he’s just the WORST)

“Jason,” Bruce says, stopping him as he reaches the bathroom doorway. He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty. “Last night was...” Revelatory. A perfect gift.

“Thank you," he finishes. "I don't know what I'd do without you.”

(two typos ughhhhhhhhhhhh)

The second goal was making that extremely unsubtle parallel between Bruce's manipulations of Jason and of Tim with I don't know what I'd do without you. There have definitely been some parallels already, but I really liked making it super blatant. (Hey remember three seconds ago when I said I tend to over-explain? Whoops. Hopefully this one was merited and enjoyable.) It's a comment on how awful Bruce is, but also a little bit how lazy he's gotten—he doesn't even need to come up with anything else, because he just uses the exact same line on both.

...the embarrassing addition here is that the first version I posted left it unclear who said that last line, which I didn't realize until a commenter referred to it as Jason speaking. 😬 Tbh the idea of Jason already knowing exactly what Bruce was going to say was super cool and interesting and I straight up wondered if that be better and I should canon-ize it—but ultimately it just doesn't work with where I'm pushing the characters. Unfortunately for Jason, as aware as he is of Bruce's manipulative tendencies in general, he completely fails—or perhaps subconsciously refuses—to notice Bruce is using them on him too.

Subtler parallel: Jason's initial confusion at Tim being gone, having completely forgotten about the concept of school, lightly mirrors Tim in the previous fic thinking about how strange and distant “real life” felt. (Though Jason has the excuse of, you know, not having school and a “normal” life since he died)

That sort of calls back to one of my favorite parallels (though probably not as noticeable since it's between fics)—Jason noting in surrogate that everybody brushing their teeth together is the weirdest thing he's done, and then Tim noting in prevaricator that seeing Jason eat breakfast like a normal person is the weirdest thing he's seen. They're both SO USED to this ridiculously fucked up situation that mundane and calm events are what register as wrong.

And jumping back for one last thing:

He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty.

I wanted to remind everyone that Jason's return was very recent (because I know typical batfic picks up awhile after it) but more importantly, I wanted to make it clear that Bruce really does...care about Jason.

It's a shitty, manipulative, controlling kind of care, but he loves his son. I've read various sorta similar fics where it turns out Bruce never liked Jason (or even arranged his death!!!) and I wanted to take very much the opposite path here. imo it's more twisted and more compelling the less black and white things are. Bruce isn't a heartless monster who only wants to abuse his kids and doesn't care for them; Bruce is a horrible person who abuses his kids but still fully believes he loves them in his own way, and would absolutely protect them from any danger (except, yknow, the danger Bruce poses himself).

This commentary is way longer than the actual passage, but hopefully y'all liked reading it as much as I liked rambling. Thanks for the ask, anon!!!

#7ask #anon #new ask game: send me sections with typos and see if i actually notice them on the fifth read through #props series

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luccislegs · 5 years

Note

Hello! Might I be able to get a scenario of Nami with a S/O who has a DF ability to charm/persuade people? They used to do all kinds of jobs overseas for their kingdom, something they were continuously asked to do. They left the kingdom, wandering the seas and became lazy without a purpose- both mentally and in terms of using their powers.

i don’t really know if i filled out the request specifically like you wanted but yk, it happens. i love nami’s hair after the timeskip tbh. also, in case anyone doesn’t want to read it, it is written with a female partner in mind, but the pronouns are only used once. i try really hard to encompass a gender neutral reader, but sometimes i just can’t swing it entirely. it’s also 3k words so avoid if you don’t want to read it all lol

–

“Oh, come on,” you said, feeling the familiar feeling of your power flowing through your fingertips. You rested your hand on the pretty shopkeeps arm, watching her cheeks pink as it hit her. “I just need some new clothes and I know you don’t want me wandering around without a jacket, do you?”

She stuttered and seemed just on the verge of giving in when the bell rang above the door. You sighed as the shopkeep snapped out of it, wearing a flustered, confused look. At your elbow, a red-head appeared, with large brown eyes and an expression that was all too familiar. It was the same one you were wearing just a few moments ago.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said in a falsely sweet voice, and you smirked. She was good, but you were better.

“That’s okay,” you said, stroking your finger down the attendants hand and allowing the charm to flow again. “What were you going to say, sweetie?”

The confused look cleared up, leaving only the pink cheeked fluster behind again. “O-Oh, right. You can have a few things, i-if you really need it. I think that’ll be okay.”

The red-head watched in awe as you smiled sweetly and turned, allowing the essence to linger long enough for you to snag up a dozen different articles of clothing. You had scoped out exactly what you wanted before speaking to the cashier. It wasn’t that you couldn’t use your powers to a more full effect, you just didn’t want to.

As you were putting the clothing into a bag, the other woman followed you and, in a whisper, asked, “How did you do that?”

You turned to her and grinned as you were double checking on the size of the rather gorgeous jacket that had caused you to enter the store in the first place. Satisfied, you tucked it into the bag before heading back to the counter. Before you could even think to say anything, she was already blushing.

“My friend here forgot her wallet…would it be okay for her to grab a few things. I’m sure she’ll come and pay you back,” you said, covering her hand with yours. You almost felt bad as you watched her eyes glaze over and her head nod. She was likely going to get into trouble for this. Then again, you couldn’t really bring yourself not to. It was too easy and you were far too lazy to actually try and earn your way.

“I-I don’t think…well…alright. Just-Just one thing, though, okay?” she said, her brows furrowing in her attempt to fight against you. Just a little more, and she relaxed again. “Alright, alright. My boss is gonna kill me but…”

“You’re so sweet! Thank you so much,” you said, squeezing her hand once before letting go. You’re sweet smile turned into an amused smirk as you met the pretty woman’s surprised eyes.

“That is a seriously useful trick,” she said and went around gathering up the things that caught her eye. She wasted no time and was back in front of you before you knew it with a large bag stuffed full of whatever looked good. “I’ve got a friend back on the ship who might like some of these too, so I just grabbed stuff. It’s not every day that I get such a great deal.”

The bell above the door rang and, as soon as it shut again,, the poor attendant looked around in utter confusion. “Where did they go?”

Outside, you were watching the woman look around at the other shops in the area, as if she were trying to decide where to go next.

“Unfortunately,” you said to gather her attention, “I won’t be able to accompany you on your next heist. Of course, you could join me for lunch. I might be able to swing us a free meal. If you’re interested.”

Her eyes lit up at the mention of ‘free food’ and nodded. “I’m Nami, by the way. Thank you for doing that. It was awesome.”

You grinned. You hadn’t even had to use your power on her to get her to agree. A dark feeling welled up inside of you at the thought, the reminder of things you used to have to do with your powers. When you had left the employ of your former king, you swore never to do that again. Which left you feeling pretty pleased with yourself that Nami had agreed to lunch with you.

“Where do you want to go?” you asked, and followed her directions to a rather upscale restaurant a little ways down. You laughed at the choice, and she grinned.

Opening the door, she said, “I like the finer things in life, but I don’t like paying for them. You seem like you might be the same way.”

You nodded in agreement, although that wasn’t entirely the case. You didn’t care so much about how nice things were so much as how easy those nice things were to obtain. The shopkeeper was an easy target, she had been eyeing you the moment you entered the store anyway. The host that greeted you at the door was already turning his nose up at you, which annoyed you.

Taking Nami’s hand in yours, you said, “Two please,” with an obviously false smile.

You could already see in his eyes that he was going to say no, but you were ready for it. Allowing just a little more of your essence to spread to him, his eyes glazed over and he smiled.

“Right this way, please.”

Once you were seated, Nami immediately started in asking about your powers. You politely explained to her about your Devil Fruit, the Glamour Glamour Fruit, and what it allowed you to do. It actually allowed you to do far more than just get free things, but you had no real inclination to use them, for a variety of reasons, none of which you shared with her. You paused only when the waiter arrived, and immediately pegged him as an easy mark. No doubt he would lose his job over it, but that wasn’t your concern.

“So,” she said once you finished going into detail, “did you use your powers to seduce me?” She said it in a joking tone, but it still sent a tremor through you. More than once, you had done that, and the end results were usually rather messy.

“No, I’m afraid this is all on you,” you said with a laugh, hoping you hid your unease well enough. It wasn’t something you liked to dwell on if you could help it, but somehow she kept bringing up those distant memories. She’s just lucky she’s so pretty, you thought with a fond smile.

The rest of the meal was filled with mundane chatter. You had recognized her in the shop as the Cat Burglar from the Straw Hats, but her name escaped you at the time. She told you some of her adventures with them, and you smiled wistfully. It had been such a long time since you had experienced anything like that and you envied her.

By the time the check rolled around, you were sure you had made a friend for life. She was charming in her own way, hilarious, and not to mention beautiful. You found yourself not wanting to say goodbye as you left the restaurant, leaving the waiter to foot the bill this round.

“Well, I’d better go find my crewmates…” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She looked nervous, and kept meeting your eyes only to look away.

You weren’t faring much better, wanting to look but nervously avoiding anything longer than a glance. After a few awkward moments of neither of you saying anything, she took a deep breath.

“So, my crew and I are gonna be at the bar over there later tonight. I’d really like it if you’d join us,” she said breathlessly, her cheeks pink. She fidgeted with the back in her hand as she waited for your answer, unable to look at you. She really hoped that you would say yes, because she really wanted to see you again, having had such a great time with you.

You flushed the same as her and grinned. “You just want free drinks,” you teased gently, poking her shoulder.

Nami laughed nervously and shook her head. “No, no, definitely not. I just…you know, had fun today and wanted you to meet the others is all.” She didn’t say it, but she hoped you understood that she wanted to spend more time with you. Fortunately for her, it seemed you did, because you nodded.

“Sure, I’ll be there,” you said and held up your bag of new clothes. “It’ll give me a chance to wear these anyway. I’ll…see you later, I guess.”

“Bye,” she said, walking backwards a little before turning away. You watched for a moment longer as she sashayed away before heading towards the inn you were staying at. You had a few hours to kill and, for the first time in a long time, you decided to actually put some effort into something.

___

When you arrived at the bar, it was already packed, and you had to stand on your tiptoes and hope you caught sight of that fiery red hair. Before you could delve into the crowd in search of them, though, Nami appeared at your elbow. Taking yours into her small, soft one, she pulled you through the bar without a word, to a table that was filled with a half dozen other people. As soon as you sat down, a blond man started fawning over the two of you.

“Nami told me you were gorgeous, but she didn’t tell me how gorgeous,” Sanji blurted out, seemingly without thinking. This earned him a solid punch to the head from a furious Nami, who was blushing hard enough that you could tell where her hair ended and her face began.

When she sat back down next to you, she wouldn’t look at you and the red didn’t fade. With a laugh, you reached out and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. She finally looked to you and smiled, though it seemed if anything she burned brighter. All the while, Sanji was gushing away in the background so hard you were surprised he hadn’t passed out.

Introductions were finally made, and you stood up to get a drink and Nami stood with you. After you ordered, Nami apologized for ‘her friends behavior’.

You waved her off with a laugh and a shrug. “It’s nice, Nami. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun. Is Sanji always likes that?” you asked, leaning against the bar. You had already worked your charms on the bartender, so you and the others would be getting free drinks for the rest of the night.

Nami nodded, leaning next to you, close enough that even breathing caused you to brush her arm. Looking over, you smiled. Even without your power, she had managed to charm you fiercely. Even her friends were charming, in their own way. You had heard a lot of stuff about the Straw Hats, but you couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake. It seemed that most of it was lies though, based on how they were acting tonight. Ridiculous, is the word you would use, but you used it fondly.

Nami shuffled next to you, moving closer into your side. You turned to look and found a man in her space, leering unpleasantly.

“How would you ladies like to join me for a drink?” he asked, following her into you. Before he could get much further, you pulled her away, placing her on your other side.

“Excuse me, would you mind leaving my date alone?” you asked, planting yourself firmly in his path. You could feel Nami’s hand curled around your arm, squeezing gently as she watched you.

The man turned his focus to you, the nasty smile not dropping from his face. “You don’t have to be jealous, beautiful. I said ladies.”

You grimaced and sighed. Typical, you couldn’t have a peaceful night without someone trying to ruin it. You reached out and grabbed the man’s shoulder, watching a glaze wash over his face. His eyes were unsteady but focused on you. “You want to leave us alone, don’t you? You don’t want to ruin our night, that would be rude, wouldn’t it?”

The man was nodding along with your words absentmindedly and, when you released his shoulder, tottered off like he was drunk. You watched him go with a frown, an unpleasant feeling lingering after using that particular power, but you brushed it off. The situation had been resolved without violence, which is all you were after. Turning to Nami, you met her awe struck stare.

“You weren’t joking. You really can just manipulate people like that, huh?” she asked, letting go of your shirt. She leaned around you and watched the man leave the bar and start, looking around in confusion. But he continued to walk without looking back, until he rounded a corner and disappeared.

You nodded and smiled, but you could tell by the look on her face that it wasn’t convincing. To your relief and gratitude though, she didn’t ask. Instead she snagged up one of the drinks that had been placed on the countertop and took your hand in her free one, waiting for you to gather up the remaining mug before tugging you through the crowd. As soon as you were seated at the table, Nami dropped a bomb on you.

“I want you to join our crew,” she said to everyone, but her eyes were mostly on you. The others wore looks of surprise at varying stages, and turned to look at Luffy, who was wearing the most peculiar expression.

“Sure. I like _____. She can join, if you really want, Nami,” he said after a moment. The expression cleared up into a huge grin and that seemed to settle the matter for them.

Nami turned to you, putting on her best puppy dog expression, jutting her lower lip out. “Will you please join, _____? It would mean a lot to me,” she said, squeezing the hand she still held.

You laughed, a full laugh that rang out over the din of the bar and wrapped your arms around her. “Yeah, sure, Nami. I’d love to.”

#cat burglar nami #nami x reader #one piece scenarios

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im-not-corrupted · 4 years

Text

Safi, No (A Witchlands Fanfiction) - Chapter Nine

Written with @un-empressed, who wrote Aeduan’s POV!

Chapter Summary:

The group chat is a mess. Iseult and Aeduan end up talking a bit more.

Also on Ao3!

Aeduan was doing a great job of ignoring his phone. He could tolerate it lighting up every now and then, signalling a message from the insane group chat he decided to ignore.

It was going very well until Iseult called him. He didn't know it was her at first. She probably got his number from the group. It was weird, but Aeduan found he didn't really mind.

"Stop them," Iseult said as soon as he answered the call. Aeduan didn't even need to ask who 'they' were at this point.

"What are they doing now? Is somebody trying to bribe and corrupt people again?"

"Well, yes, but they want - Just read the messages. You'll see what they want," she said. Aeduan went to respond, but the call was already done. Aeduan shook his head to himself. Out of all groups he could've gotten himself involved with...

Aeduan opened the group chat and scrolled up to the beginning. Apparently Vaness's friend joined the group chat. Aeduan couldn't believe how well this whole thing was working for such a petty cause. Merik Nihar had better watch out.

Aeduan rolled his eyes as he read the first few messages. They weren't that bad, but since Safi sent them, they were... Well, what she considered hilarious, and everyone else considered over the top. Still, Aeduan had to admit how she referred to everyone in the group was sort of funny, if the slightest bit offensive.

But who wouldn't laugh? She kept referring to Iseult as her favourite partner in crime, and called Stix a 'traitor, but tbh I get it, imagine being loyal to Merik'.

Aeduan himself was 'Polly's moody friend who tolerates only Iz'. It was the truth, really, but something about the way it was phrased made Aeduan uneasy. And after all, he did 'tolerate' Vaness as well. She was unwillingly thrown into the whole mess, after all.

It was harmless, considering what Safi was capable of doing. Aeduan wondered why Iseult called him, but as he continued reading, he understood.

Iseult: Seriously? Nobody minds the nicknames?

Aeduan most decidedly minded his, but looking at the time stamp of the message, he was twelve minutes late.

Stix: Not really. Get me 'Traitor' on a jacket and I'd wear it

Safi: Oooooh! That's a great idea! We should all get jackets! Does anyone know someone willing to make us jackets?

Lev: I have this theory that Caden can sew

Aeduan snorted out loud. He hoped Caden couldn't sew, though. Safi was definitely not above getting them jackets.

Safi: I'm intrigued. Continue

Caden: It's been months! Just let it go already! I genuinely don't remember where I got the shirt!

Lev: suuuuuureeee

Safi: No, but this is perfect. We need some kind of motto for our group

Vivia: I thought Bribery and Corruption was the motto?

Stix: No, that's the name and main policy

Vaness: You are all insufferable

Aeduan had to agree with Vaness on that. They were all worse than the last. He wouldn't be surprised if Vaness's friend chickened out after a week. He certainly wouldn't blame her.

Safi: Thanks

Safi: Does anybody have suggestions for the motto?

Lev: "This guy's not even worth digging a hole"

Zander: We aren't using that one

Stix: I've got 99 problems and at least 73 were created by Merik Nihar

Safi: And the other 28?

Iseult: *26

Safi: Oh well forgive me for not being a math magician

Safi: So?

Stix: I am literally half blind

Safi: ?

Stix: Nearsighted

Vaness: Then why don't you wear glasses? It must be hard to get around with bad vision

Stix: First of all, glasses would ruin my whole aesthetic. Second of all, I'll have you know I have at least a mediocre vision and that I do not deserve to be made fun of like that

Vaness: I fail at feeling even remotely apologetic for insulting your eyesight

Safi: You could've just said "fuck you too" but okay

Aeduan rolled his eyes. He really didn't want to keep reading, but he did regardless.

Safi: Do we get them personalised for each of us or should they all say the same thing?

Iseult: Saf, we are not getting jackets

Safi: But Iz!!! It's what the people want!!

Vaness: It is absolutely not

Stix: I mean, it kind of is

Lev: It definitely is

Safi: See?

Iseult: I do, unfortunately

Safi: Why are you so negative?

Aeduan could list a few reasons why. The first few were perhaps a bit rude and subjective, but he didn't really care anymore.

Iseult: Maybe because you're setting up a plot to get revenge on someone who only kind of unintentionally wronged you?

Vivia: Knowing him, it was definitely intentional

Safi: See???

Iseult: Still, you don't even know him.

Vivia: Lucky her

Stix: Amen

Aeduan had never talked to Merik, but surely that many people couldn't all be exaggerating the same thing on the same level. Or maybe Leopold paid them to, just to mess with Aeduan. He was certainly both rich and insane enough.

They were all amazing actors if that was the case. Aeduan was genuinely afraid of Safi making him wear a personalised bribery and corruption jacket. He was really, really afraid.

Safi: I found a good website for ordering custom clothes

Iseult: No

Safi: Yes

Vaness: Safi, No

Safi: Safi yes

Stix: Safi definitely

Caden: Safi maybe? Depends on how the jackets look

Iseult: We are not getting jackets

Vivia: I mean, if they're subtle enough I wouldn't be opposed to it

Vaness: I thought you were sensible

Stix: She is. Those were words of a sane woman if I've ever heard some

Safi: See? My revenge plan is a great opportunity to make friends

Zander: That sounds almost like a commercial

Stix: "Break Merik's leg and you get the satisfaction of breaking Merik's leg"

Safi: 9 out of 10 doctors don't recommend it but that's what makes it fun

Iseult: Why would one doctor recommend it??

Caden: Because Safi bribed and corrupted him.

[x]

"You're a monster," she told Safi once again. 'You're a monster' was the only accurate way to describe her friend these days, even if Iseult said it with fondness.

Safi grinned and winked at her. "Thanks."

"And you're insufferable."

"Again. Thanks."

Safi confused her when she did things like that - when she took everything as a compliment, even when they certainly weren't intended as a compliment. There wasn't much of a difference to Safi, though, and Iseult had to admire her confidence.

Safi sat at the edge of her bed, staring down at her phone with a glint in her eyes that Iseult recognised and did not trust. "Who else could be bribe and corrupt?" She asked Iseult, who rolled her eyes.

"I already told you, I'm not taking part in the revenge plan. And that means I'm not helping you decide who to bribe and corrupt next." Iseult shook her head. Really, how many times did she have to repeat herself? It was beginning to get annoying, though she would never say that.

Safi pouted. "Oh, come on. Please?"

"No."

"Wait!" Safi grinned again. "What about that Ryber girl? Or Ryber's friend, Tanzi? They're friends with Merik. It could work to our advantage."

"No, it will not work to our advantage," Iseult stated matter-of-factly. "Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because they're Merik's friends."

"Stix was Merik's friend, and she was more than eager to join," Safi pointed out.

Iseult rolled her eyes. It was an action she caught herself doing often around Safi. "Stix wasn't his friend."

"Then why did she sit with him?"

"For her actual friend, Kullen, who happened to be friends with Merik." She sighed. "Didn't you listen to a thing Stix said earlier?"

Safi stared into the distance for a second before shrugging. "Apparently not. To be fair, I was making a mental list of who else to bribe and corrupt."

"Don't you have enough people in on the revenge plan?"

Her friend stared at Iseult in horror. "Iseult, darling, there is never 'enough people' when it comes to making Merik's life hell."

"I'm just saying," Iseult replied, raising her hand in mock-surrender. "It will be a whole lot easier for someone - for Merik - to find out about your plan if you 'bribe and corrupt' more people."

Despite having a very good point, Iseult's words weren't actually paid any attention. No, instead of listening to the voice of reason, Safi was grinning down at her phone, typing something quickly. At first, Iseult thought that maybe Safi had decided who she wanted to bribe or corrupt next, but when Safi looked up from her phone and Iseult's didn't show any notifications from the group chat, she quickly changed her mind.

"Iseult," Safi began in a sing-song voice. It was a tone of voice that would've sounded innocent if it wasn't coming from Safi.

She sighed. "Yes?"

"Leopold wants to discuss strategy at the ice cream place."

Iseult snorted. "'Discuss strategy'? We aren't fighting a war, Saf."

Her friend glared at her. "This is war, Iseult. Merik is a plague upon this earth. War is the only way to rid of him."

"Okay then," Iseult nodded along, giving up. Safi was clearly set in her ways.

"Good," Safi nodded. "Now, are you in? Aeduan will be there."

Iseult was going to say 'yes' anyway, but the promise of Aeduan being there made it sound somewhat more appealing. She shrugged. "Sure."

Iseult was an idiot. That was the only thing she could think as she sat opposite Aeduan in total silence - the same state they had been in for the last ten minutes.

To be fair, Safi made it very easy to trust her. Too easy. She had walked to the ice cream place with Iseult, waiting for Leopold and Aeduan to arrive. But before they did, Safi claimed she needed the toilet and disappeared, leaving Iseult there alone.

Until Leopold had arrived with a very unhappy-looking Aeduan in tow. They talked for a bit, not long, when she received a text from Safi. Sorry, had to head home. You guys have fun! ;)

Iseult hadn't thought anything of it until Leopold stood from his seat, a mask of innocence plastered on his face as he said, "Oh, sorry, I'm needed...elsewhere? Yeah, elsewhere. See you tomorrow!"

That's when it dawned on Iseult. Leopold's mask of innocence did not discuss the mischief in his eyes.

Leopold and Safi had set them up.

That's how her and Aeduan ended up in this predicament - sat opposite each other, with no idea what to say. All their interactions so far had been focused on the revenge plan, so now that they weren't forced into talking about it, they didn't know just what to talk about.

"Is Safi late?" Aeduan asked her. It sounded like a genuine question, and that was almost enough to make Iseult bang her head on the table in front of her.

Apparently, it hadn't quite dawned on Aeduan yet.

Iseult rolled her eyes. "No, she just had to head home."

Aeduan nodded, though he looked confused. "Okay then. Do you want some ice cream? I'll get it for us."

"Sure thing. Might as well since we're here," she answered with a slight shrug, relieved that they were no longer stuck in silence.

Aeduan didn't move. "What flavour?"

"Oh, yeah." She forgot flavours were a thing. "Strawberry, please?"

"Sure." Aeduan left to get their ice cream, leaving her alone, though not for long. He came back a few minutes later, two ice cream cones in hand - two scoops of strawberry for her, and mint-chocolate-chip for him.

"Thanks," she said, taking the cone from him.

"No problem," he replied, and took a bite of his ice cream.

Iseult stared at him in horror. "You just - did you just bite into your ice cream?"

"Yes?" He answered, though it sounded more like a question in his confusion.

"How the fucking hell? Didn't it hurt your teeth?" She took a lick of her own as Aeduan's confusion only intensified.

"Uh, no?"

"You alien."

He laughed slightly. "So, what should we talk about?"

Iseult shrugged. "Literally anything would do."

"Okay." He took another bite, an action that still baffled her, and seemed to consider his question carefully. "Let's start with something easy. How did you and Safi become friends? You two seem like polar opposites."

"What can I say? Opposites attract, or whatever people say." She shrugged, licking her ice cream again. "We've been friends since we were kids. Some kids were picking on me - I don't really remember it now - and Safi stood up for me. We've been friends ever since."

"She sounds like a good friend," Aeduan replied.

"She is. I'd ask about you and Leopold, but I already know the story behind that one." She laughed a little, and he smiled a little.

"Yeah, I don't feel like going through the many questions there," he joked, taking another bite. He surveyed the rest of the room - there were few people there, and it was very quiet. "Hey, do you want to get out of here?"

She contemplated that for a second, then shrugged. What was the harm? If he turned out to be a serial killer and murdered her, Safi was to blame for the not-so-subtle set up. "Okay."

Read the next chapter here: Chapter Ten

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heyitsneen · 4 years

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Buckle in because I have been on a RIDE the last few months so I wanna write it all out how BTS stole my whole soul.

I didn’t want to get into kpop even though i remember casually liking a couple shinee songs way back in like 2008 and coming across some kpop music videos when i lived in vietnam in 2012. all i remembered basically was ‘SHIIIIINNNEEEE’ lmao and remembered thinking it was fun but not really listening to it. I had a weird snobbishness against kpop fandom but secretly always knew from the glimpses of fancams and gifs and music vids i’d casually come across that if i looked into it i’d probably like it. I had no IDEA though how talented most kpop groups are and how much dancing was involved. I confess I had a really american view of pop groups and expected it to be all about looks and really poppy boy-band/girl-band, which I also do like...but didn’t put me in a rush to find out more about kpop. If I had realized how much they dance I know I would have looked more into it years ago because I love and respect dancing. I still knew I had the potential to like it if i ever looked into it, but I thought of it super shallow-ly so I never took the time to learn more.

I remember years ago when Jin trended as ‘third guy from the left’ and i didn’t really know who he was at the time except that bts was pretty big and my college roommate casually liked them. I read through the comments on twitter at the time and was entertained and a little curious but didn’t look further. I remember seeing a pic as a result of the trend and finding out ppl called him World Wide Handsome and i found that hilarious and awesome and agreed with the assessment, I remember finding them all super handsome, but at this point still had only heard a little bit of Boy with Love.

Much later (years?) an NPR podcast I followed talked about Blackpink doing coachella and I got curious and watched a couple mvs and was really impressed but still casually. I now had a bit of a better respect for it but was still not really into it yet except thinking blackpink had bops and being generally vaguely aware that blackpink and bts were popular (i really didn’t realize how popular and how much music they were selling tbh).

Time passed and I forgot about it until about this april while I was bored in quarantine. I got SUPER into The Untamed and then super into finding out more about Wang Yibo...which lead to watching all of his dance stuff on youtube, which lead to a ton of stuff about Uniq. I was intrigued by kpop now because of learning more about Uniq, yibo, and then produce 101 and woodz but it was still casual.

I especially loved watching the dancing so I started watching dance compilations on youtube of kpop dancing. The whole dance practice thing amazed me and I had so much fun watching dances but wasn’t really getting into who was who yet or the music really. Then Taemin’s Move happened to me and I was HOOKED on that and watched it a ton of times in the next week or so while also watching playlists of generally popular kpop music vids. I started wanting to just see a bit of what was popular and was having a good time but not really hooked yet beyond quarantine boredom and knowing that looking up kpop dance vids was going to become a thing i did on youtube probably from then on.

By coincidence around this time the Daechwita music video came out and had a ton of views so i got curious and was in awe of it when I watched it. I loved the rapping, the hype-ness, the cinematography, the lyrics...everything. I learned then from the comment section that Agust D was actually Suga from BTS which instantly made me want to know way more about bts, but I was still stuck on thinking of them as pop and amazed that suga was such a good rapper. So I wanted to see how other people reacted to him and watched a ton of reaction vids of ppl reacting to Daechwita.

This made me curious about Suga and BTS so I watched DNA and Boy With Love and enjoyed those but they were more what I expected as more poppy songs, so at that point I just enjoyed it casually for the eye and ear candy, but I was amazed that agust d was one of the members in that group and the duality of that had me intrigued (i naively thought agust d/suga’s rapping was completely a separate persona than BTS, before I realized how talented suga, RM, and jhope are within bts too and how many of their songs have a lot of rap as well). So I wanted to learn more about BTS but just watching stuff by myself seemed boring so I binge watched reaction vids of people reacting to bts for the first time and learned way more about them along with youtubers and had a blast. Watching reaction vids at first felt like hanging out with other clueless friends all chatting about this thing new to us, so somehow it made everything feel more accessible to me especially while I missed casually browsing youtube with my friends during quarantine. Mic Drop was the first of their songs to get stuck in my head and had me specifically looking up the MV/listening to it and searching out ppls reactions to Mic Drop. Then I came across reactions to the 2019 mma performance and was blown away and watched a TON of reactions to that but I still didn’t know who anyone was and hadn’t looked into many lyrics but by then i was super impressed by the effort and performance level.

A turning point from casual fun interest to deeper stanning happened though when I watched a reaction vid someone made (unfortunately can’t remember who now) to Spring Day and the explanation of Spring Day. I was AMAZED at the intellectual and careful artistry in that music video and the heart put into it. This for me started to elevate my curiosity about bts specifically over just being curious about kpop in general. I decided to watch a bunch of reactions to ‘who is bts’ type of vids because i wanted to know their names at that point and I was blindsided by how impressed I was with their thought processes (specifically RM and Suga, especially at first), their individual strengths, their personalities in general, their bonds, their work ethic and ambition, and their inspirational story. I decided to watch their music vids on my own in chronological order and realized that there was reoccurring and connected story and symbolism in their music vids stretching for years and was SO HYPE about that and impressed by it (I love analyzing media, I even was briefly a film major so I was GEEKED about the artistry and symbols in their music vids even before I realized the references or how confusing and deep it ran and that made me like them even more). I googled about the storyline looking for theories/explanations and found the webtoon, which just blew my mind that they even had a webtoon! I read it in one night lol, I was in multimedia heaven honestly I have never heard of a music group being so into using so many mediums for entertainment and was definitely feeling so happy to get into it. THE WINGS SHORT FILMS were I think what officially elevated everything for me and made me know I’d always want to keep an eye on what they were putting out there because it was so so cool to me that they’d have this storyline in their music videos and also take the time to make these little artsy short movies I was SO IMPRESSED and blown away.

The real soul steeling happened though when I saw RM’s UN speech and started watching more compilations and reactions showing RM and Suga talking about their thoughts about their success and their music and learning about the relationships and personalities of the members...I quickly grew to appreciate each individual which really surprised me because how can one group be so complete and have 7 individually interesting people in it. I loved too that they all had their own solo stuff and were allowed to each shine in their own ways. It became about more than music for me at some point in there and I know now I’ll probably have warm feelings about them and want to root for them on a deeper level for a long time. Now their music is so enriched for me by all the behind the scenes stuff I’ve seen. I really in earnest then was mainlining all of the stuff I could in a mix of reaction vids to funny compilations to lyric breakdowns to finding an index that lists as much as possible in chronological order that I’m now watching through including their early vlogs and gameshows and it’s just so fascinating to me how much content they have documenting their whole journey and I am having such a fun and moving and inspiring time watching it. It’s really helped me during quarantine especially and now I can really say I am a really big fan of BTS and probably will be for a really long time.

I still sometimes watch other kpop music vids and have now seen all of TXTs stuff, but so far other groups haven’t grabbed my heart in the same way. I know at some point they probably will and I have been really impressed by the talent all throughout kpop in general that i’ve seen. I can usually only be obsessed with one thing at a time though lol, but I look forward to paying more attention in general to kpop from now on!

But there is something really special to me about BTS right now so I’m just letting myself bask in that obsession and it is so great. So many of their lyrics move me, RM and Suga alone are such interesting people that they alone would make me want to keep up with BTS. But then on top of that the rest are so great in their own ways too and Jimin along the way became probably my ‘bias’ though I really do like them all so much in their own ways that choosing one as a fave feels stupid. Then on the shallower note they are also beautiful, so there is that...but that is such a small piece of why I love them now. Kpop combos everything I love about music...the theatrics, the symbolism, the flashiness, the music, the makeup, the glam, the dancing, the fun, the inspiration, the acting, the iconography...and with bts it’s also a group of guys who are so intensely likable and root-able, with a huge amount of content, who reflect a lot on what it means to love yourself and know yourself and who are really open about how much effort goes into their crazy lives...and I am just upset that I didn’t know more about them years ago.

I can also completely see why fans are a bit obsessive and defensive about the genre and about their fave groups now...because the western media still doesn’t really get how impressive this stuff is and how much work goes into it. I mean already groups like one direction and other pop groups had to fight uphill battles for respect b/c for some reason pop music gets such a bad rep. But western media and ppl who never bother to look into kpop look down on it so dismissively as mindless pop or just about looks and are so extra condescending about it like these kpop groups are lucky to come to the US or something. There’s so much reluctance to embrace it even when it’s so popular, that fans have to shove it’s popularity in ppls faces for it to start to be accepted finally, and even now the attitude in media toward it seems pretty dismissive like it’s just temporary or about teenage girls or they focus on the fans and not the music...or they purposefully overly focus on negative or perceived negatives and look for things to discredit their accomplishments. In some ways the popularity BTS has accomplished is even more impressive to me than the beatles comparisons imply, because BTS did it with a language barrier, while dancing, and in the face of the US still being pretty racist against asians. It really is impressive, and even as a new fan I get so frustrated when people try to dismiss it as fad or minimize their successes and the mark on culture and music history that not just kpop but specifically BTS is making with these accolades and firsts.

Way too much western media focus goes to extra shit like: how young they are (they aren’t even really younger than a lot of american performers anyway), dismissing their involvement in the music process (freaking do your research and give credit where credit is due, many idols are more involved in their creative process than american singers anyway and even if they weren’t why are we suddenly caring about that?!), focusing on the rules they are under from companies (accept that it’s a different culture...also, disney anyone?), crediting their collaborators for their success more than them (sia added absolutely nothing to ON for example...and their success is not because of Halsey..and stop f-ing asking who they want to collab with), not giving credit for their dancing and over-focusing on live vocals without crediting them for singing /while/ dancing (that shit’s hard and no one is doing it like kpop, and even if sometimes live vocals get shaky the way people specifically nitpick and harp on that for them is so stupid when plenty of super popular ‘western’ singers also give some shaky live performances or also use a backing track all while dancing a hell of a lot less), criticizing them for makeup (i honestly think this is thinly disguised racism/fetishism at work because plenty of american male artists wear makeup and are not met with the uncomfortable comparisons to dolls and girls and sexualized criticism that american media gives this), dismissing them as just ‘pretty’, judging them for how the trainee system works (which they don’t really have control over, and is pretty hypocritical anyway when you consider how western music contracts and studios work...shadiness is intense in american music industry too), constantly wanting them to put more english into their music (spanish songs are getting radio play (tbh also not enough), and their global success keeping their korean lyrics proves anyway that we should be moving beyond caring so much about language barriers but the radio/media response is just so behind what people are listening to/buying and it’s frustrating how xenophobic it is).

now that I know more about it, it’s so insulting how condescending some of the interview questions they get and some of the articles about kpop are because they act like kpop is some alien thing that’s lucky to break into the US as if the US is the center of everything and tbh it’s disrespectful and xenophobic and often racist. kpop is a whole package of entertainment and showmanship that honestly is way more work than most of the famous ‘western’ performers bring to their shows and music vids. I am not naive and I do know that language does affect radio play, but it’s not hard to look up lyric translations and music is really transcendent of language imo. It’s not like they need to be playing every new group or even a ton of korean music, I know that american radio is pretty guttless at the prospect of sharing ‘new’ stuff, it’s a lot of the same stuff repeatedly, but at the very least the groups and songs that are organically selling huge numbers and getting hugely popular should get the radio play that reflects some of that popularity. Really entertainers in the US should be trying to learn from the kpop scene and tbh it should be way more respected than the condescending reluctant attitude music media in the US especially has been giving it. I do feel like maybe the attitudes are changing and I hope they are. I really feel like it’s the future of pop and it’s really exciting for me now to finally know more about it and be more aware of it for the future.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #ramble #sorry this is so long but i might have a lot more bts stuff on my blog and i wanted to explain some of my discovery journey #i wish i wasn't ever so snobby about kpop #kpop is fun yall and if you have been stubbornly resisting it you might find eventually that you missed out!#i mean i know everyone has different tastes but there is so much entertainment in the kpop world even on top of the music #the music vids performances and dancing are so fun it is such a fun world that has opened up to me :)#i wish the world was more open to just letting people like what they like #music is fun for me again #haven't been so obsessed with music since savage garden and darren hayes #i mean i LOVE music but i often don't really get so interested or fannish about the people behind the music #so this has been so so so fun for me and reconnecting me with stuff i really do love like music makeup theatrics dancing pop etc #lady gaga comes the closest for me in providing this much theater with the music and i loved her for that in monster era #but sooooo many kpop groups bring that energy and i love it #and bts brings the positive messages too and has an it factor that even my overly cheesy sounding praise still doesn't quite capture for me

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tony-starkrogers · 5 years

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The Massive SteveTony Rec List

Welcome to my Fairly Comprehensive, Ridiculously Long SteveTony Fic Recs, aka my collection of pretty much nearly everything I’ve read and loved so far over the years. This fandom is lucky enough to have some truly brilliant and dedicated authors, and I’m always discovering new fics to love, so I thought I’d share some of them with you! Fics will be sorted alphabetically tbh just because I suck at sorting stuff? Some of my personal forever-faves will be marked with ♡. This is by no means all of the fics this fandom has to offer, but if you’re new to the fandom, this should give you a good place to start, and if you’ve been a SteveTony shipper for a while, hopefully you’ll find something new! And if you do have a favorite fic that’s not on the list, please add it to the comments or rec it to me (because who doesn’t need more fics)!

Here’s just a few GREAT resources to check out if you’re looking for Even More fic recs:

@sabrecmcstonyficrecs - I mean, sabre is basically THE fandom resource? Any and all fic you’re looking for you’ll likely find here. ||| @findingstony - if you’re looking for a particular fic and don’t remember where you found it, look here first! ||| @cap-ironman - the place to go, especially for brand new fics! the fandom lives here ||| @nasaficsrecs - many good fic recs ||| @ishipallthings many wonderful rec lists ||| @sineala - the place to go if you are at all interested in 616 SteveTony or really anything in the 616 comics universe

I have lots of fics bookmarked on ao3: my bookmarks! You can also check out my other fic rec lists, and my general fic rec tag. Also while you’re at it maybe check out some of my fics?

And here are the recs! (under the cut.) Have fun reading and be sure to show your authors some love with kudos and comments!!!

♡ 1796 Broadway by rainproof, teaberryblue - M | 460,220 words

Captain America respectfully requests that all complaints be addressed to him in writing. On paper, the nice old-fashioned way, because the computer screen hurts his eyes.

Put your phone down, Tony.

absence makes the heart by fantalaimon - G | 4,835 words

“One night,” Tony says, and just flies himself bodily into one of the canary yellow beekeepers like a red and gold battering ram. “I ask for one measly night. One single goddamn night with my boyfriend—”

“Oh, is the boyfriend label on now?” Clint asks over the comms.

A Higher Form of War by sabrecmc - M | 292,114 words

Tony is a King with a surprising number of people out to kill him. Steve and the rest of the Avengers are fighting for Pierce's rebellion and end up with Tony as their prisoner. Oops.

A New Way For Us by ann2who - M | 24,435 words

They fight Thanos—and they’re losing. And before Tony knows what’s happening, he’s standing with Doctor Strange in front of the Eye of Agamotto and gets send back in time. Can he find a way to fix things this time around, or are they doomed to fall apart all over again?

♡ A Partial Dictionary Of The 21st Century By Captain Steve Rogers, US Army by copperbadge - E | 13,888 words

Steve is adapting well to the new millennium, and he has the dictionary to prove it.

age is an irrational number by valtyr - E | 8,749 words

Steve and Tony grow old together.

♡ All Roads Lead To by theappleppielifestyle - G | 13,155 words

After Obadiah's betrayal, Tony hides in the depths of the Midwest to become a mechanic.

The Avengers come into his life anyway.

All These Things I've Said by Amuly - M | 5,840 words

When Tony starts talking in a language Steve can't understand--the language of science--Steve figures he'll retaliate with a little foreign language knowledge of his own. Only once he starts speaking French around Tony, Steve finds that sometimes it's easier to say what he really wants to say to Tony in a language he can't understand.

Good thing Tony doesn't know French.

And The Void Would Be Calling. by jadedoll - E | 17,721 words

Tony could be suffering from amnesia, a hitch-hiker from a parallel dimension, a ghost or maybe a time-traveller. He's sure he could work out the answer if Steve would just stop pretending he was Tony's boyfriend.

♡ As Sharp As Any Thorn by RurouniHime - E | 47,027 words

It’s four days to Christmas, there’s a city in shambles, and the nation is in mourning because of the actions of a single man.

♡ Be No Stranger (All Your Saints and Soldiers Remix) by jibrailis - T | 5,973 words

That's the twenty-first century love song, baby. Glitz and glamour and every one of us is a liar.

Bizarre Love Triangle by panickyintheuk - T | 1,929 words

Once the idea was in his head, he’d started picking up on all kinds of things, like the way Stark talked about Iron Man with such affection, and seemed to share so many of his mannerisms, and was constantly working on ways of improving the suit. It was obvious.

Blank Slate - A Tony Stark Mystery by navaan - T | 25,381 words

He doesn’t remember who he is or who his friends are, but he knows he’s in a Nazi prison and needs to get away. He doesn’t remember anything about Captain America either, but the man seems to be the kind of guy you trust.And apparently they share more history than meets the eye at first glance.

♡ But Loving Him Is Red by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 25,524 words

"It is- it is not just destined, Steve Rogers. It will reach through the decades, through entire universes if it has to. It will scour the galaxies without rest until the two of you are standing next to each other. Migardians- Migardians call them soulmates, I believe."

♡ Captain America, Undone by laireshi - M | 2,818 words

Steve thinks he can seduce Tony before Tony seduces him. He's very, very wrong.

♡ Captain !@#$*%& America by Wordsplat - T | 8,093 words

The first time Tony hears Steve swear, he's pretty sure it's a dream. The second time is a lot harder to dismiss, considering it's the middle of the afternoon and they're both clearly awake. After that, what else can Tony do but use science to get to the bottom of it?

Catching Lightning in a Bottle by sabrecmc - M | 120,650 words

College student Tony meets janitor Steve at MIT and they fall blissfully in love, until Howard happens and things fall apart. One divorce paperwork snafu courtesy of the ever-helpful Jarvis, and ten years later, Tony has to get re-divorced from Steve.

This does not go as he imagines.

♡ Cherry Ride by copperbadge - E | 12,318 words

A SHIELD agent named Roger Stevens told Tony that his nickname was "Cap". Tony didn't connect the dots until it was much, much too late.

♡ Counterpart by sara_holmes - M | 217,400 words

coun•ter•part [koun-ter-pahrt] [noun] 1. a person or thing closely resembling another, especially in function. 2. a copy; duplicate. 3. one of two parts that fit, complete, or complement one another.

Just because Hydra used the DNA of a Captain America from another dimension to create a lab-grown, six-year-old super-soldier, it doesn't mean that said six-year old super-soldier is biologically Steve's, right?

(Where Steve wants to ban Clint from bringing things home from alternative dimensions, until he doesn't.)

Dangerous Kitchen Tools by ladyshadowdrake - E | 18,330 words

Engineering prodigy, billionaire, and heir to the Stark Industries empire, Tony Stark turned the business world on its head by opening a restuarant and burying himself in the kitchen. Years later, he covers an informal evening cooking class for his friend and fellow molecular gastronomist, Bruce Banner, where he meets famously camera-shy comic artist Steve Rogers.

♡ Dazed and Confused by tsukinofaerii - M | 4,160 words

Captain America has a great many duties that need careful attention. He has to... uh... That thing where... Wow, Tony's pants are awfully tight, aren't they?

Dear Tony, by sirona - T | 5,925 words

Once the dust after what no one is referring to as "The Break-up" has settled, Steve starts writing and doesn't seem to know how to stop.

"death by coffee" and other search queries by goodmorningbeloved - T | 2,841 words

In which Steve's feelings are hopelessly obvious through his Google searches. JARVIS decides to step in.

Deep in the Heart of Me by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar) - E | 255,926 words

There were days when the realization that he was someone’s father made Steve's head hurt, but mostly he was grateful that he could trust his instincts, because apparently Peter was what had been missing from his life. Yes, he still had lingering, unresolved issues from his time in the Army, and sure, he had what Bucky annoyingly referred to as a criminally untapped ass, and no life outside of work and Peter, but Steve was okay with how his life had turned out because of trusting his instincts.

Unfortunately, those same instincts had straight up betrayed him by going absolutely haywire upon being exposed to Tony Stark.

Do It Over by Sineala - T | 1,999 words

The last words your soulmate says to you are written on your skin, and you won't know who they are until they die. The thing is, Steve and Tony die a lot.

♡ don't know why it took me so long to see by goodmorningbeloved - M | 11,209 words

“Oh, watch this,” Natasha says, propping her chin against her knuckles and turning a sweet gaze on him. “Tony, what’s it like dating a superhero?”Tony bristles in irritation. “We’re not dating,” he snaps. “Captain America probably thinks he can get into anyone’s pants just ‘cause he’s got a mask, costume, and reputation, but not me, buddy. That shield? Gotta be overcompensating for something.” He adds, a bit petulantly, “Oh, and all that blue? Definitely more Steve’s color than his.”-

In which Tony is a genius in all matters except recognizing his boyfriend past a mask.

♡ Emanata (The Comics Will Break Your Heart Remix) by teaberryblue - T | 29,720 words

Steve Rogers has the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dreams of becoming a comic artist when eccentric billionaire, superhero patron, and obsessive comic enthusiast Tony Stark offers him a job drawing Iron Man.

But Tony Stark has no idea that Steve Rogers is really Captain America, the newest member of the Avengers.

And Iron Man has no idea that Captain America is really Steve Rogers, up-and-coming comic book artist.

And Steve doesn't know what to do about the fact that he's falling head over heels for them both.

♡ Engaging the Enemy by tsukinofaerii - T | 22,823 words

Iron Man is one of the more persistent villains that the Ultimates face, with a special fondness for one Captain America. As Steve starts to findout more and more about him, the lines between hero and villain begin to blur. Sometimes, you don't have to be on the right side of the law to be in the right.

even if the brain has forgotten, perhaps the teeth remember (or the fingers) by theappleppielifestyle - G | 8,906 words

Tony gets temporary amnesia.

Some things are clearer without his preconceptions dragging him down.

♡ Even My Phone Misses Your Call by rainbowninja167 - E | 10,869 words

Steve makes it all the way to Ohio before conceding that the post-Chitauri road trip might’ve been a mistake.

Or, ten times Steve has to call Tony to come pick him up.

Even Tony Can't Resist Puppy Love by Wordsplat - T | 7,766 words

In which there is a dinner bet, a com line confession, and, as usual, Loki's magical hijinks make Tony's life unnecessarily difficult.

Fairy Godmother by Amuly - T | 5,186 words

Auntie Peggy has been telling Tony stories about Captain America his whole life. Only problem is, the real thing just about measures up to the stories. Which means, of course, that Aunt Peg has to go to work, because an Aunt's work is never done.

Favorable Winds by RurouniHime - T | 2,056 words

Steve’s voice comes from behind, a sigh and a thump as his own pack hits the floor. “Sam. Meet Tony Stark.”

Follow in Your Footsteps by Sineala - T | 6,788 words

When Tony is twelve, his soulmate's name appears on his wrist. Unfortunately, it's hard to find out anything at all about Steve Rogers.

It turns out there's a reason for that.

Formerly by laireshi - T | 13,620 words

A week ago, he touched Steve at night. A week ago, he kissed him. A week ago, Steve kissed him back.

(A week ago Steve was dead, and Tony deleted his brain.)

The Foodieverse (series) by copperbadge, scifigrl47 - works G-T | 130,326 words in series

It's an AU where everyone works in the food industry. That makes total sense and is definitely not wildly irrational on any axis.

♡ Get Some Now by Sineala - T | 10,376 words

Avengers Mansion has a mysterious feline infestation. Meanwhile, Steve just can't figure out how to ask Tony out on a date. And the thirteen teleporting cats sure aren't helping matters any.

♡ Going on a Ride (series) by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 14,306 words in series

"You want to take me for a ride on your motorcycle," Tony repeats, slow so he can process it as he’s saying it, "because you think my glasses are cute."

Hashtag Finally by Wordsplat - T | 15,208 words

Tony doesn't ever actually ask the Avengers to move into his house, steal his wifi, eat all his food, and become the best family he's ever known. They do it anyway.

How To Be a Truly Terrible Wingman by Wordsplat - M | 11,721 words

Prompt: "We were both playing wingman for our friends who have now decided to go home together, and after five minutes of conversation we fucking hate each other. Let’s bang it out."

♡ How To Excel At Supervillainy (and lose your heart to America) by Zekkass - E | 13,531 words

And that's how Tony's supervillainy hobby got way way way complicated.

♡ How to Lose a Super Soldier in One Easy Step by and_backagain, jibrailis - E | 18,248 words

Rogers jerks backwards, shock registering on his face, and Tony thinks, welcome back to the land of the living, Cap, looks like you're sticking around.

Or, a Pushing Daisies AU.

♡ I (created from fantasies) exist solely for you by Mizzy - T | 62,917 words

Six years ago, without the Avengers Initiative there to save the day, scientist Dr. Eric Selvig sacrificed himself to save the world, the almighty demi-god Thor was lost to a terrible storm, and vigilante Iron Man – spotted with a nuclear weapon trying to take advantage of the situation – was forever labelled an enemy of SHIELD.

This is a comic book office AU, where Steve is defrosted a year too late, Thor has forgotten who he is, and no one knows Tony is Iron Man. Also includes: office pranks, inappropriate post-it notes, and superheroes who like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain

Indecent Proposal by gyzym, Siria - T | 2,592 words

On the plus side, marriage is bound to be easier than proposing.

i stole the keys to this guy by kellifer_fic - M | 6,007 words

Where it was Nick Fury's idea, but he didn't mean it like that

♡ In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury) (series) by scifigrl47 - works rated T-M | 343,010 words

Steve takes things like personal responsibility and respect seriously. Tony's got people he pays to take care of that kind of thing, and anyway, he's pretty sure that he's going to die of some exotic disease in his workshop, because Dummy's still a little spotty about what is 'clean' enough to put on an open wound. The rest of the Avengers are in this for personal gain, except for Clint, he just enjoys being a dick.

And some things shouldn't be a chore.

♡ i will never stop losing my breath (every time i see you looking back at me) by theappleppielifestyle - G | 3,222 words

In all fairness, Tony is on autopilot when this happens. He’s had a long, hard day, and it’s possible he hasn’t slept in several long, hard days. He’s already half-asleep on the couch and he’s relaxed and happy, which is a rarity on its’ own, and he’s comfortable enough to let his guard down and get his body to do all the work without switching his brain on.

That should’ve been enough of a warning sign, but apparently not: Tony stretches, says goodnight to his teammates and gets varied responses back, and then he kisses Steve.

He only realizes what he’s done after he’s started to lean back, opening his eyes to see Steve’s blown wide, staring at Tony with his lips gone slack and a tiny furrow between his eyebrows.

if they be worthy by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 824 words

Everyone's staring, and Tony isn't awake enough to do anything but gape dumbly at the hammer in his hand."Huh," he says."Seconded," Steve says through his toast. "Tasha, go tell Coulson another one of us can pick it up."

♡ Last Train Home by erde - T | 10,983 words

Steve writes letters to Tony that he never sends. By the time he hands them to their rightful owner, Tony has had a brush with death, has retired as a superhero, and now has a small town workshop of his very own. But it's okay, Steve has gone into retirement too.

Like Gene Kelly in the Movies by lyra_wing - M | 11,449 words

Everything Tony Stark does is a dance. And it's super confusing for Steve.

Like Sunlight by sara_holmes - M | 8,309 words

Steve is used to the way it feels by now; a strange but gentle tugging connection under his sternum, warm tingles in his skin whenever they touch. That is, until Tony gets himself kidnapped. Then it kinda feels more like someone is trying to wrench his heart out through his ribcage.

Looking for Heaven by foxxcub - E | 31,950 words

When young Lord Anthony Stark learns Steven Rogers has enlisted in the army, he thinks he's seen the last of his tiny, headstrong, haughty stable boy. But four years later, Lord Stark gets an unexpected visit from Steve, whose mother has fallen gravely ill and into financial ruin. Even more unexpected, Steve agrees to a shocking proposal: they will marry, giving Steve the necessary funds to save his mother, and Tony the much-needed reprieve from harassing would-be suitors. It is a business arrangement, nothing more. But as time goes on and circumstances arise, Tony begins to learn that keeping his heart away from his husband is easier said than done.

♡ Love in a Time of Amnesia by Amuly - T | 6,241 words

Carol might have lost all her memories of her friends, but there's at least one thing she can know with absolute certainty: Steve and Tony are a couple. And if the rest of the Avengers insist on saying they're not, well: Carol will just have to put her amnesia to use, for the greater good.

♡ L☆VE by copperbadge - M | 3,773 words

Steve's favorite shirt is at the center of a debate about masculinity, sexuality, and whether or not he did in fact steal it like a thief in the night from Tony.

♡ Meet Your Heroes by Wordsplat - M | 4,130 words

Tony gets rescued by a highly concerned, very handsy Captain America. This is confusing for a number of reasons.

Momentary Paws (or, DO NOT WANT) by velithya - T | 16,834 words

WTF KITTEN

♡ Mr. July by jibrailis - E | 10,065 words

Tony is the only one who can defend Steve's virtue. Tony hates his life.

♡ Neanderthals In Tights (Also Known As a Football Game) by Wordsplat - T | 3,228 words

In which Tony supports Steve at his first big football game, with guest appearances by an exasperated Pepper and an embarrassed Bruce, because yeah, okay, maybe Tony's not really one hundred percent clear on the rules of this game. Why, exactly, are a bunch of neanderthals tackling his boyfriend again?

one hundred percent skill, fifty percent luck by kellifer_fic - T | 7,418 words

Where there is a poker game, a v-card and general misunderstandings

Orbiter Dictum by schmevil - T | 7,357 words

Steve is at the sink, washing the few dishes that pizza for two generates, when he realizes that Tony is in love with him.

Our Weight In Gold by ann2who - E | 33,607 words

It was every cliché he’d ever heard about. Every sappy thing they wrote down in the magazines, every single thing he had always hated about the myth. It was as though he had experienced life without sight, and was suddenly bombarded by a storm of color. It was all-consuming, and rushing through his veins like molten lava, like his whole existence was suddenly filled with sunlight. A door opened, and a myriad of emotions stormed through his body: confusion, disbelief, loneliness, and so much fierce determination that it almost knocked Tony off his feet. And he understood then, understood that these emotions weren’t his. They were Rogers’.

This is a story about fate, self-doubt, choice and eventually—love.

Over Sea, Under Stars by vorkosigan - T | 36,651 words

Tony gets the phone, but he never uses it and he never intends to. Or, he doesn’t until Steve starts texting him, asking strange questions about medication and mental health, which is when Tony gets worried.

♡ Phil Coulson's Case Files of the Toasterverse - works rated mostly G-T, | 287,890 words in series

Short stories from the Toasterverse

Place Your Bets by RurouniHime - M | 35,999 words

Steve Rogers may or may not have just picked up a prostitute. This may or may not be Tony Stark’s fault.

♡ Pulse, Beat, and Measure (series) by Sineala - E | 134,095 words in series

Two men. Two worlds. Life during wartime.

Ready, Fire, Aim (series) by gyzym - M | 63,019 words in series

There's no "I" in "Avenger."

♡ Relativistic Heat Conduction (series) by BlossomsintheMist - E | 70,484 words in series

Age of Ultron-based, but not entirely canon compliant. Written for the 2013 Cap-Iron Man Reverse Big Bang. Ultron has attacked, obliterating most of the world's superheroes and resistance in a matter of hours. The remaining heroes band together and share what strength they have to get through it, to survive, and defeat Ultron once and for all. Steve Rogers grieves in the wake of the disaster and the heroes' defeat, and no one knows if he will be able to provide the leadership they need--but Tony Stark isn't about to let him slip away that easily.

♡ Rom-Commed By Fate (Or JARVIS) by leashy_bebes - E | 14,387 words

The best thing about being an Artificial Intelligence is the ability to parse, filter and modify the things people say until you've got the cause to do exactly what you wanted in the first place. Or, in which JARVIS cock blocks Tony into having an actual relationship.

♡ Run Program: {x} by Amuly - M | 19,728 words

Taking care of Tony is a lot of work. Especially when you’ve only got one arm. And your code dates back to the 1980s.

♡ Secrets of a Successful Marriage by valtyr - E | 24,118 words

Tony Stark lives a double life; he's secretly the supervillain known as Iron Man. But his loving husband Steve has a few secrets of his own, as Tony is about to discover.

♡ SexyMechanic70 by Potrix - T | 2,449 words

“SexyMechanic70,” Natasha reads aloud, nodding approvingly.“Sounds promising,” Clint offers.“And look,” Bucky adds, “he didn’t even send a dick pic! And he praised your sketch which, by the way, is a totally lame icon choice.”Steve snatches his phone back, batting Bucky’s hands away when he struggles to reach for it again. “Cut it out,” he grouses. “Also, excuse me for not posting a picture of my abs.”“A true tragedy,” Sam sighs, earning himself an indignant squawk from Bucky and a betrayed look from Steve. “What? I’m just saying. They’re great abs.”“True,” Nat hums and bumps the fist Clint is holding out to her.

♡ Sixpence In His Shoe by scifigrl47 - M | 103,682 words

Steve and Tony should really read the fine print on what they're signing. Then again, some mistakes are not really mistakes.

♡ Soul Bomb by copperbadge - T | 1,944 words

Suddenly everyone in Manhattan has someone else's voice in their head. Tony got Steve's, for his sins.

♡ Stand Back, I'm Going To Try Science by Good_News_Everyone - T | 2,123 words

Soulmates are a rare and cherished thing, a simple touch of hands bringing love that lasts forever. By all the rules of romance, they're meant to wait for each other and to trust in the vagaries of fate to bring them together. Tony's never been good at waiting, and when he has science on his side, who needs fate?

♡ Start as You Mean to Go On by BlackEyedGirl - E | 2,612 words

Tony gets that the others think this is an ego thing - the way he can’t resist pushing Steve’s buttons. Honest-to-God, the guy just bugs him. Mostly because Steve is distractingly perfect, but a little bit because of the family history.

♡ Steve Rogers Is (Not) A Morning Person by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 1,161 words

Dream, Steve decides. With that comforting knowledge, Steve takes Tony's face in his hands and kisses him.

(Spoilers: it isn't a dream.)

Steve Rogers Takes Offense and the World Gets Schooled by RurouniHime - T | 2,463 words

In which Steve has no idea how that got up on BuzzFeed (aka, because some people don't respond to anything but the direct approach.)

♡ Syzygy (a Kludged Together remix) by Mizzy - T | 20,198 words

When Tony Stark cut Steve Rogers' morning jog short to join him on a reconnaissance mission off the East Coast, Tony sure wasn’t expecting to end up stuck on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, Steve's hand knuckle-deep in his chest.

♡ Tales of the Bots by scifigrl47 (series) - most works rated M | 523,654 words

When Tony Stark was seventeen years old, he built his first AI. On that day, he ceased to be his father's creation, and became a creating force in his own right.

That one act likely saved his life, and not always in the most obvious ways.

The Best Policy by cylobaby27 - M | 22,724 words

Tony Stark breezes through life on bluster and bullshit. When he gets hit by a truth spell, he locks himself away in his workshop so he can find a way to reverse it without anyone finding out. So why can't he say no when Steve keeps asking to spend time with him?

♡ the family you choose by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 7,385 words

“Just who exactly was my son making out with in a closet?”

“Tony Stark.”Huh.“You might know him,” Fury continues, and Sarah nods, furiously biting at her cheek so she doesn’t do something awful, like giggle.

♡ The Forever-Nighter by Wordsplat - T | 10,172 words

When Rhodey decides that Tony's been slacking lately and drags him along to the gym, Tony's fully prepared to duck right back out the door the first time Rhodey turns around. Then he sees Hot Blond Guy.

♡ The Last Love Song of Anthony E. Stark by jibrailis - M | 42,327 words

After contracting an Asgardian virus, Tony starts forgetting things. And people. And Steve.

♡ The Opposite of a Problem by Sineala - T | 2,490 words

"I promise to love, honor, and probably not obey you, and, uh, take you as my totally-unlawfully-wedded husband, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part, or for at least the next seventy-two hours."

(Or: Tony and Steve get fake-married for the sake of the mission.)

♡ The Tchotchke Cha Cha by Arukou - T | 7,269 words

What started off as one impulse buy souvenir snowballs into a constant flow of knickknacks from all over the world, and Steve is starting to wonder if it's more than just Tony being nice.

♡ The Twice-Told Tale by arysteia - E | 15,789 words

For someone he'd hero-worshipped for so long, Steve Rogers in the flesh is a pretty big disappointment. For one thing, he keeps looking at Tony as though he reminds him of someone else, and even if he never says anything, Tony's pretty sure it's his father. A lifetime of not measuring up to Howard's expectations is more than enough, thank you very much, and he's certainly not going to make an effort to live up to any of Steve's. Steve's pretty clearly failed to live up to his expectations, in any case, and that's not hypocritical at all.

Think of This as Solving Problems (That Should Never Have Occurred) by Sineala - T | 35,216 words

No one knows Tony is Iron Man. Then Tony gets amnesia, and literally no one knows Tony is Iron Man.

♡ Toasted Buns by copperbadge, scifigrl47 - E | 47,044 words

After seeing Tony naked and tanned -- all over -- in a decontamination shower, Steve realizes he may be in trouble. Tony, meanwhile, is definitely in trouble over those tabloid pictures of him sunbathing nude. The solution is clearly a tropical island getaway.

♡ Tony Stark Falls In Love With A Cat by shellhead - M | 6,887 words

When Steve goes missing, Tony ends up finding him at an animal shelter. Volunteering.

♡ Tony Stark and the Super Sleeper, or actually, Soldier by RurouniHime - T | 8,571 words

The one where Steve keeps falling asleep on Tony.

♡ Tony Stark Takes a Liberty and the Universe Thanks Him by RurouniHime - T | 1,512 words

In which people think they are entitled to Steve Roger's face (aka, because tomorrow is coming, and I hold out hope, Supreme Court.)

♡ Toy Soldiers by copperbadge - E | 44,241

When Steve Rogers, five foot four and a hundred and ten pounds, met Tony Stark in a bar, he didn't expect it to lead to a relationship. Or that Tony would find out he's not an art student during a SHIELD rescue mission in Afghanistan.

♡ Truth by valtyr - E | 2,677 words

Captain America takes truth serum. Tony is all over that.

♡ Two Out of Three (Ain't Bad) by plingo_kat - T | 9,449 words

It blindsides him one morning in the middle of his customary third cup of coffee; Steve walks through the door in loose cotton pants, shirt pulled up to wipe the sweat off his face from his usual morning workout, and Tony thinks: adorable.

♡ Unveil My Unsightly Heart by Mizzy - M | 43,019 words

Looking over an old prototype helicarrier for its future viability as a base for the Avengers should have just been a routine day full of bickering and non-adventure for Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.

But when they're catapulted into an alternate universe – where their alternate selves are married and battling with a mysterious threat – the two are forced to get over their differences in order to figure out what's going on, before it's too late.

Because there's more going on than meets the eye, and Steve and Tony falling in love might just be the most dangerous thing that can happen. Not just for one universe, but for all of them…

Wait & Sea by Lenalena - E | 53,244 words

In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

Wash It All Away by ann2who - E | 8,634 words

Steve hummed, looking up at him. “All right. Strip.” Tony blinked at him. “Excuse me?” “Can’t very well wash your clothes while you wear ‘em,” he said and held out a hand expectantly.

What You Don't Know by Sineala - E | 9,808 words

In 1941, two strangers meet in a bar. And then Captain America meets Iron Man. And then Steve Rogers meets Tony Stark. They get it right. Eventually. And also they fall out of an airplane.

♡ when i run out of road, you bring me home by quidhitch - M | 18,466 words

“Oh, I won’t bother you.” The tone of Steve’s voice implies that he definitely will be bothering Tony, aggressively and frequently. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep to my farm, you keep to yours. Solitude together.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue that that’s not how this works, but he snaps it shut at the realization that Steven Grant Rogers is fucking with him. That twinkle in his eye has accelerated into a full-on glimmer, and the ends of his lips are twitching. Jesus, he hates this man. Or maybe he wishes he did. Tony can’t really tell the difference anymore.

♡ When I think about you by sirona - E | 11,955

Five times someone saw Steve sass the hell out of Tony and one time Tony finally bought a clue. Also known as the story of Captain Sasspants more than handling his own with Tony Stark at his most devious.

♡ When I Think (Oh, it Terrifies Me) by celli - E | 8,641 words

Look, some mornings you wake up and little green men are invading New York City; some mornings you wake up and you can hear Captain America's voice in your head. Tony has been an Avenger long enough that he saves his freakout for important things.

♡ will we ever say the words we're feeling by theappleppielifestyle - Not Rated | 1,673 words

He breaks off then, the realization of what he’s just revealed finally hitting him, and he stops, and Tony’s still staring.

(Or, Steve and Tony argue and Steve lets something slip.)

♡ With Words Other Than These by RurouniHime - E | 14,690 words

The way Steve’s beating that bag, though—Tony traces the cadence as well as the lines of Steve’s body, and wonders if he might not need to know about the mission after all. There’s a lot of tension knotted in Steve’s shoulders, a frenzy to each punch. The precision lacks. Maybe Steve’s just getting started, and if that’s the case, Tony could be here a long, long while.

with you by laireshi - M | 3,108 words

Sometimes Steve gets overwhelmed by how much he loves Tony.

Your Name on Every Wall by Sineala - T | 17,863 words

The Time Gem throws Steve into the past rather than the future, and in doing so, it gives him the opportunity to undo his past mistakes. But when it turns out that all of his mistakes involve Tony Stark, Steve begins to wonder if he's ever going to be able to mend things between them.

---

Hey, the list did have to end at some point! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed these recs!

Tagging some people who might be interested:

@divine529, @sabrecmcstonyficrecs, @sineala, @ishipallthings, @itsallavengers, @nasafic, @estebanrxgers, @starksnstripes, @goodmorningbeloved, @goose-danvers

#stevetony #stony #stony fic rec #stevetony fic rec #stevetony rec list #stony rec list #superhusbands #my fic recs #fic rec

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chrysalispen · 5 years

Text

kissing prompt: ‘a kiss meant to seduce’

not answering these in any particular order but tbh i’m trying to get these nero/WoL wips out the door so have another prompt response. more or less a lead-in to this fic i wrote which i don’t hate quite enough to take down.

not explicit, but probably a T/M rating on AO3 for mention of dirty talk etc.

=============================================================

All told, no one had seemed to be in an agreeable mood on the way down to the Find from the Crystal Tower courtyard, or after they'd arrived. Cid's expression had been positively thunderous, blue eyes dark with his agitation, and the overall feeling from the other Ironworks engineers on site ran the gamut between confusion and suspicious resignation.

Well. Almost no one. Their sudden interloper seemed quite cheerful about the entire circumstance, as though all of this were going exactly the way he had wanted and they were all just cogs in some machine he'd set in motion.

That idea was absurd, of course; Nero tol Scaeva couldn't have had much more of an inkling of what was behind those doors than anyone else here, surely. But the calm, self-assured way he moved told her he did know something, and more to the point, that he had some plan in mind for it once they’d bypassed all the security for him.

That alone was more than enough to make her wary.

She glanced from side to side, looking for Cid, but he appeared to have quit the Find in a fit of pique (not that she particularly blamed him). The other engineers were just as busy, and G'raha was animatedly chattering to Unei and Doga who were both attempting to answer his flood of questions as best as they could manage.

Everyone seemed to have quite forgotten her presence now that her ability to brute-force the doors to the Labyrinth open was no longer necessary. She wished she could feel even slightly surprised, but that was what she was here for, she supposed. The muscle, the good luck charm.

With a sigh, Aurelia approached Rammbroes' study pavilion and lifted the tent flaps, letting herself inside. If the scholar or one of his fellows -- or better yet, Cid -- was there, she could talk with them, feel out if there was anything that they ought to be concerned about before venturing into the tower should Nero's timely appearance be subterfuge for something sinister...? But the tent was---

---the tent was not empty, as it had appeared from the outside. A familiar figure turned towards the sound of her entrance, a leather-bound book clasped in one hand.

She immediately reached for her weapon, snapping, "What are you--"

Nero tol Scaeva lifted his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

"Before you cut me down in cold blood, the journal is mine own. I was attempting to compare my notes with that of your associates here."

Aurelia's eyes narrowed but the tribunus only stared back, a look that was both coaxing and challenging at the same time, as if waiting to see what she would do. Finally she relented, tucking her staff back over her shoulder. While it was obvious he'd come in here by himself to rummage through papers, it seemed that he hadn't been here much longer than she had. So it wasn't as though he had had sufficient opportunity to do anything.

Nothing she could prove at the moment, anyroad.

"And the tomestones? I can't imagine you'd want to leave those behind without having a look for yourself."

"They're welcome to them," Nero said with a dismissive shrug.

She blinked. “That was... not the answer I expected.”

"Personal experience from the Ultima Project. The majority of those tomestones will be naught more than particularly expensive paperweights; what useful data exists on them has quite likely been eroded due to time and exposure. As counterintuitive as it may seem, their decision to keep written documentation of the dig may be the wiser course of action." His pale blue eyes had not tracked away from her face the entire time he had spoken. The gaze he’d leveled upon her was sharp, scrutinizing, intense, and this time she didn't have the benefit of his magitek armor to hide that interest from her sight.

Not that he was bothering to hide it in any way. What game was he playing...?

She broke eye contact, feeling ill at ease as she glanced at the entrance to Rammbroes' tent. She'd backed up against a nearby worktable; heavy and sturdy, it sat just below her waist, at hip height. Perfectly appropriate for a roegadyn sitting down to pen missives or peruse dusty old texts or review Allagan tomestones.

Nero was smiling but he still hadn't said anything, and that made her uncomfortable enough to finally break the silence between them with a defensive "What?"

"Any particular reason you happen to be blushing?"

"Wh- I'm not blushing."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

The right corner of his lips tugged slightly upwards, just enough to reveal a flash of canine. She chewed on her lower lip, grasping at the table for a sense of purchase and trying not to think about things she... really should not be thinking about. Really shouldn't. Like how in the seven hells a man was born with a mouth like that. It was- it was unfair.

His answering chuckle made her realize, much to her chagrin, that she had spoken aloud.

He braced his hands against the table's surface and leaned his weight back against it, slotting himself in the open space at her side. Unconsciously, Aurelia shifted herself to put a few ilms of space between them, trying not to think about the difference in height that was somehow far more noticeable now. Nero tol Scaeva was damnably tall; she was average height for a Garlean woman and still barely came up to his shoulders when they stood side by side, let alone in a position like this.

"To that end I've a question for you, eikon-slayer,” he continued smoothly, “if you would be so kind as to indulge me."

"About...?"

"I find it passing strange that a woman who can slay gods without blinking should find my presence in any way disconcerting. An artifact of your upbringing, I assume?" He was baiting her, she knew; the tone of his question was decidedly mocking. But that smile-- that had turned into something speculative and dark. Combined with the intensity of his stare, it set alight a strange, pressurized heat in the pit of her stomach. "Does Garlond elicit this reaction?"

"Cid? Hardly." Aurelia wrenched her gaze away from the movements of his lips to stare over his shoulder at the tent opening. Scholars and Ironworks engineers were passing to and fro just outside; she could see the shadows they cast upon the tarpaulin. "Cid also doesn't stand two ilms away from my face and stare me right in the eyes like he's about to devour me, so take that as you will, I suppose."

" 'Devour' you? What an interesting turn of phrase. Although I must admit you make a salient point. I cannot imagine that you are embarrassed by the slightest of his attentions as you are mine."

Was... was he trying to do what she suspected he was doing? The idea seemed laughable on its face -- Eorzea had no shortage of beautiful women, so who on earth would find her appealing? -- but the problem she currently faced was that it was actually working, damn him. It didn’t help that it had been... she couldn't remember how long since anyone had taken any sort of prurient interest in her, now that she thought about it.

Assuming of course that she wasn't just overthinking this and he wasn't putting her wind up for fun. Either way, she had to put an end to this now before it escalated any further.

"Unfortunately for you, I am not interested.” Calm, collected, and to the point. Yes, she thought; very well done.

She'd hoped that her bluntness would deter him, but that smile only widened, the maw of a hunting predator about to strike.

"Something tells me you are perhaps not being forthright with me." His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth. "Shame on you, hero."

"I mean it. I am not interested," she repeated, this time with more resolve. "After what you did in the Prae-"

"Ah, you're concerned that I might turn on you all like a rabid dog, as it were. Worry for Garlond? Thinking I might sabotage his precious Ironworks or somesuch?"

"Not---no, none of those things, not as such, but to say I trust you would be a stretch. Not a word in all these weeks and suddenly you turn up, unannounced, as thought naught had transpired?"

"Your concern is unwarranted. Merely do I find myself with a plethora of free time in the wake of my sudden discharge from military service.”

“You-,” she began, but he was not finished.

“Lest you labor beneath the assumption that I intend you any sort of bodily harm, for a long while before we were... shall we say ‘formally introduced’, I had this recurring dream about you, me, and an interrogation chair-" At the wide flare of her eyes, he paused, only to grin at her: "...Now that, eikon-slayer, is a very interested look."

She tried to scoff at him, but it came out as a short, sharp, nervous bark.

"What look? I didn't give you any look."

"You most certainly did."

"You're reading intent where none exists-"

"Am I? Couple that with the fact you're mortified by the slightest hint of insinuation on my part and it's quite telling."

"Scaeva, I was in the legions myself once. Do you seriously think I'd not been exposed to the odd bit of barracks chatter?" She scowled at him. "I'm a chirurgeon by trade. I think I know enough of the human condition not to be easily embarrassed by such things."

There it was--the look she'd seen him pass Cid every time he was wont to needle the man in the space of a single conversation, coupled with the upwards arch of one eyebrow. She’d not realized how aggravating it was to be on the receiving end of that look until this moment, now that she was the subject of Nero's condescension.

"I'd wager that what you believe passes for 'barracks chatter' is overwhelmingly tame. You've not heard the half of it, I assure you. Even the worst among the rank and file will behave themselves around a skirt, especially if the lady in question is a pureblood."

"Perhaps if the lady had seen no military service. I imagine there is precious little they could say that would shock me."

He pushed himself upright and turned to face her, bracing his hands on either side and giving her precious little in the way of an escape route.

“I am very willing to test your hypothesis."

"I'm sure you are.” She kept her voice steady with some considerable effort. His mouth now lingered but a bare hairsbreadth apart from her own, and trying not to think about that fact was only causing her to hyperfocus on it.

"No time like the present,” he said, “and I am a man of science. Call it professional curiosity, if you like. May I?"

He'd called her bluff, and after her own assertion she felt she had little choice but to accept the consequences. At last Aurelia nodded, stiffly, trying to ignore the faintly triumphant curl to his answering smile.

His hand cupped her jaw, warm and callused fingertips trailing the shell of her ear, palm just barely cradling the soft skin over her throat. If he wished he could close his grip and tighten it, squeeze until she had no air to breathe- but the Echo would have warned her of any killing intent. Although it gave her no indication of any danger from him, it took a conscious effort not to bolt under his arm and flee the tent. Tension thrummed through her frame like a live wire.

Nero leaned inward until they were cheek to cheek. Her breath hitched for the briefest of moments when she felt the light scrape of stubble and caught his scent: some kind of aftershave perhaps, a bit stringent but not unpleasant, and the heat in her belly clenched tight. Lips lingered at her ear and she could feel the tribunus' warm breath fanning very lightly across her skin.

Then he began to speak.

Sotto voce, in their native Garlean tongue. A soft, soporific rumble, breath just slightly uneven- and not the mildly suggestive banter or off-color jokes she’d expected but a soldier's words of coupling, rough and lascivious and filthy.

All of it aimed at her.

Her grip on the table tightened as she willed herself to remain still through the impulse to slap him or shove him away in shocked mortification, as he well knew a proper young lady of gentle birth would have been expected to do. He knew, too; could sense her dismay, how much it cost her just to maintain some semblance of composure, and he wasn't fooled by it.

He was laughing at her, the bastard: she could hear the soft, breathy chuckles woven through his unending stream of vulgarities. Her face felt as though he had set it afire and she knew she was probably bright red right down to the roots of her hair---and then she felt the press of his mouth, a light kiss along the juncture of her jaw just beneath the earlobe.

A hot shudder of anticipation warped its way down her spine.

"So the eikon-slayer is undone by a bit of bawdy talk after all." He had not moved his lips away from her skin before speaking. She could feel the heat of his breath against her, warm and velvet and damp and gods, he was practically purring in her ear- "It would appear your theory has been disproven, hero."

She found herself unable to respond, mouth feeling suddenly very dry, swallowing with some effort. The clicking sound her throat made in her ears as she did was so, so loud.

And before she had quite managed to gather her wits again, Nero tol Scaeva straightened his posture and backed away from her position against the table with a mocking bow before tucking the journal in his coat pocket and strolling towards the tent flap. Turning his back on her, quite deliberately, and making his exit.

As though the entire exchange had never occurred.

She let out the exhalation she hadn't realized she was holding, sagging back against the sturdy oak surface of Rammbroes’ makeshift writing desk and attempting to ease her breathing into something resembling an even pace. He'd left her rattled and flustered and... burning. There was a deep, aching knot of tension that had formed in the base of her belly, one that would not fade quickly.

And she suspected that like as not, he’d only done it to prove a point, namely that his wits were malms beyond hers and her victory in the Praetorium had been but a simple fluke, a stroke of blind luck.

Small wonder Cid's hackles had been raised by his mere presence. Hells take him, the man was utterly insufferable.

After some time had passed (and the heat in her cheeks had faded), she slipped out of Rammbroes' "study" and saddled her chocobo. She had to talk to Cid about this, she decided, regardless of how sour his mood might be. Someone was going to have to keep an eye on Nero once they set foot in the tower, and given everyone else’s relative importance in the grand scheme of things, it might as well be her; she could endure his baiting so long as she made sure they had an understanding.

Aurelia didn’t see any sign of him on her way out of the camp. Doubtlessly he’d gone in search of someone or something else to act as his temporary source of entertainment until the expedition into the Tower was underway, she thought. She could not well decide if she was disappointed or relieved.

But if he planned to behave this way the entire time, it was going to be a very, very long expedition indeed.

#nero/wol #nero tol scaeva/warrior of light #another wip bites the dust #i'll leave what he actually said to your imaginations #stupid sexy garleans

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ra-lek · 5 years

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I have watched mr robot so many times and I am still confused to why they picked “red wheelbarrow” as season 2 and 3’s symbol and how it ties the show together? Where did it come from? What’s the actual significance of it?

aalright first thing’s first- i’m so sorry for the long wait. i’ve been busy & all over the place but i wanted to give this ask my full attention because i’m beyoNd excited to get into it!!

second- this gets long. like, very long. so if you’re cool w that; buckle up, click on that ‘read more’ and let’s go: the red wheelbarrow

i’m gonna attempt to explain all the questions above- to the best of my ability. but to do so i have to make something clear: as you will see in my analysis below, or if you’ve, y’know, seen the show- mr robot does not play episodes in chronological order. or scenes, for that matter.

there was absolutely no way to know anything about a red wheelbarrow until the end of s2- so, naturally, there are going to be gaps in my list. but in order to fill them, we need to see what we missed out on once s4 comes out. (this is basically my apologies in advance if some questions are left unanswered)

so, some facts: the red wheelbarrow is a poem written by william carlos williams & published in 1923. it’s a real, existing poem, and the first time it appears in mr robot is actually in the FIRST season. and that’s exactly why it’s such a staple to the rest of the story.

but you see, the scene itself is split into puzzle pieces across 3 seasons.

so let’s treat it as such. i’m going to list & highlight important scenes in each season the best i can and then we’ll piece it all together, sounds good?

SEASON 1

this is the very base of the series. so it’s not surprising the red wheelbarrow is nested within it. trust me, if i attempted to piece everything together in one post it’ll be longer than a fucking bible so i’m only going to focus on the god night™

okay, so- the first time some shady shit happened was in episode 8 when we saw an SUV parked at coney island in which tyrell and mr robot were sitting & having a discussion. tyrell starts the conversation by saying he has to know what mr robot is planning because they were meant to be allies; that they want the same thing & he wants to be involved.

mr robot responds with flat out telling him he’s wrong- that there’s nothing they could possibly agree on. tyrell demands more explanations and mr robot is so fed up at this point he goes to leave only to be pulled back by his shirt. tyrell asks “aren’t you forgetting i know about your dirty little secret? there are people close to you who wouldn’t be happy if they knew what i know” to which robot replies casually. they’re both too smart to allow pettiness to dictate their actions, there’s no benefit to either one of them to say those things to anybody- and that the best thing for tyrell to do when it comes to HIM? is nothing.

the scene ends there but transitions into mr wellick coming home lookin’ like a wreck and downing half a bottle of vodka- this surprises joanna since she actually heard some good news from tyrell’s lawyer- but he interrupts by telling her none of that matters; because there’s this tech he met a month ago, talks about his motives a bit to a very concerned woman at this point- and when he mentions not seeing what’s above them- she asks what it is exactly. he responds, “god.”

at this point into the show, the ‘who is mr robot’ reveal hasn’t happened yet.

the conversation he had with tyrell happened the day before it, actually. since, in the same episode, elliot gets to find out who his family is- and the episode ends with mr robot saying “it’s time to talk.” and the reason i know this is because the following episode starts and,

episode 9.

suddenly, it’s morning. elliot is freaking out and yelling and he’s confused and we’re confused and we’re yelling and mr robot is not helping at all by being so goddamn vague but there is one sentence that stands out and that is - “especially since that unprompted visit from tyrell wellick last night”

he is referring to the car scene only. because both he and tyrell came home after that talk- so it is not a 5/9 attack they did then. because, once again, there’s a sentence mr robot says: “i’ll explain everything. tonight.”

alright then so how do i explain the fact darlene was in elliot’s room looking for his meds after the reveal scene and THEN tyrell entered? – it’s actually pretty simple, it didn’t happen the day of the reveal.

because, remember, elliot realized who darlene was the day before. she is concerned because he forgot again. those are the meds she’s looking for- they never acknowledge HIM.

once she leaves, and says she’ll be back with the meds soon- it’s understandable why she’s been looking for elliot for quite some time earlier in the episode and why mr robot came to elliot’s apartment at night- but they only had the ‘talk’ in the morning.

that same, unfortunate night for elliot tbh, tyrell enters the room and says he’s been waiting for darlene to leave. he approaches him for the first time, tells him how he strangled a woman and how he knows everything elliot’s been behind. that’s he’s the one constant in the sea of variables. so, he puts on his ‘fighting’ gloves and-

next thing we know, we’re in the arcade. elliot talks about changing the world and whatnot- says no one else is involved- tyrell very beautifully says “well it’s you and me now” and the episode ends with elliot looking over to the popcorn machine.

this is the night of the 5/9 attack.

we know, because elliot wakes up in tyrell’s car- 2 days later- and is met with world destruction (the song) playing in the background. you know what i mean- the deed has been done we don’t have time for this.

one more thing to point out about s1 before we wrap that one up is: when elliot searches for tyrell, joanna recognized him as the young tech her husband told her about when he was going on about god or whatever. she asked him when she last saw him and if he seemed strange- elliot replied with “a week ago” and “no” which she found funny because, the last time she saw him, he was acting very strange.

SEASON 2

elliot put himself in jail out of spite. anyway, as i said, not a lot of time to decipher everything so let’s get to the main meal. we get some teasers about tyrell being a wanted criminal associated w fsociety and the one behind 5/9. that’s all the info we need cause the piece we’re searching for here is in episode 12.

we get the full version of the car scene!! this time, we see elliot as mr robot- delivering the same line. however, we were lead to believe that once mr robot exited the car it was the end of the scene but no no no no no- tyrell now opens his door and calls out to elliot.

he’s desperate and just wants to be a part of this project honestly so he says there’s something between them and he can feel it. now, mr robot/elliot says “you’re only seeing what’s in front of you. you’re not seeing what’s above you” tyrell asks for an explanation, doesn’t get one, and so he decides to fight cryptic with cryptic and recite the poem we mentioned like 7 hours ago.

“so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.”

now mr robot/elliot is intrigued. he lowers his head slightly and tyrell explains how his father used to quote that old poem all the time, how it meant so much to him, that it had been the only english he knew. so today, tyrell is using it as a reminder. a reminder of him, and a reminder of what he never wants to become.

i’m going to take one more paragraph to dedicate to this season and say: no this is not the only important thing. i’m just trying to not spiral out of the main focus. but if you’re interested you can send me an ask about red wheelbarrow spottings and meanings in s2 by just sending “godot?” and i gotchu, granted, in a few days- but i gotchu.

SEASON 3

this is where we get the full picture. well, sorta. because we don’t know exactly what happened after they part ways. but it’s okay, it’s not like the show is over.

now, a psychology break: elliot alderson suffers from dissociative identity disorder. (shocker, i know) mr robot is an alter. but you know a fun fact? most DID cases have more than just one alter. there’s at least two besides the host personality. and they all serve a specific purpose in order to keep you alive and help you cope with extreme trauma.

mr robot, as we’ve seen him, is a protector. the moment tyrell put on those beating gloves it was a trigger and mr robot took over. same for when those neo-nazis were punching elliot, same for when he took a beating from ray’s men, and so on. — point is: alters come out with a help of a trigger. just how elliot says talking to darlene makes him see mr robot more often, for instance.

this is important because, even though neither he nor mr robot remember the quote, elliot can’t stop thinking about red wheelbarrows. he’s named his journal after it, he draws wheelbarrows in it.

the red wheelbarrow. something tyrell associated with his father whom he despised. something about that changed something in elliot- it could’ve been a trigger, it might’ve pulled another alter forward.

so, without further ado, let’s paint:

how about we pick up from what we see in s1e9. since, all of this happens in that day. welcome to 5/9

elliot remembers leading tyrell into the arcade, he remembers looking at popcorn. and that’s it. (he says so at the beginning of his journal, too) elliot switched with mr robot for enough time to remember tyrell and popcorn. but also there’s just something about wheelbarrows that keeps ringing in his head during his time in prison.

next, everything is from mr robot’s perspective. he slowly reaches for the gun, aims it at tyrell, fires- but nothing happens. this leads tyrell to an impressive conclusion: they’re gods. he insists they were destined to be together and work together. so he says “now i understand- when you told me i wasn’t seeing what was above me” and while he goes off we see mr robot’s face frowning with confusion because.

“what the fuck are you talking about?”

he doesn’t remember saying that, doesn’t remember the poem. but he disregards all of that once tyrell drops on his knees and aims the gun at his own head. he wants to test fate once more, so they do. which is when mr robot decides tyrell is just the right amount of crazy to save him from himself.

as the hacking is happening, the dark army arrives. irving, walking in, explains the honeypot situation which was reported to the FBI (dark army owns them) so. they’re here.

remember, elliot had discussed the honeypot with whiterose- not mr robot.

irving sees the gun on the table, sees the situation, casually threatens both of them in this very charming way of his. it’s very clear they’re fucked and have to comply with what the dark army says. they ask mr robot if he knows how to drive that SUV out front- he says yes. irving explains they will be taking care of tyrell, cause now he’s the most wanted criminal there is- and robot is advised to drive it to a location elliot wakes up in season 1 finale.

above him, glasses with an usb containing the ‘boardwalk fail’ clip.

NOW,

tyrell got taken to a cabin, kept away from the world, chopping wood and asking where elliot is, chatting with irving occasionally- until one day he wakes to see some unusual things, among which is mr. williams if you remember, that’s the last name of the poet- but doesn’t have to mean much.

he asks him questions, until he proves he’s loyal to them. however, he says he is only loyal to elliot. which is a good answer- because the DA is now giving him a laptop and they’re starting to work on stage2. but then;

“the operation will be called the red wheelbarrow, mr. alderson’s request.”

THAT is how it ties everything together, where it came from, who said it, the only thing left to decipher is why it stuck. maybe we can leave that for another time?

there are plenty of different interpretations when it comes to the poem, honestly. it seems tyrell’s resentment towards his father, and mr robot calling elliot’s dad a zero- was what got to elliot, or whoever it was, that can relate.

lemme know what you think!! i hope you’re satisfied w the answer and, again, im so sorry for the long wait.

if there are any mistakes just keep in mind it’s 7am right now and i need some mercy.

#a very very long post #im not even gonna proofread it im so tired im gonna go straight to bed #mr robot #elliot alderson #tyrell wellick #/mine #shutupneil

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callie-the-snarky-geek-blog · 5 years

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RvB16 Episode 2 Review: Incendiary Incidents

(Old Blog Repost)

Last time, not a lot happened other than going out for food, Donut unlocking his true potential as a contortionist, and alien Norse Gods are a thing that exist. Nothing that unusual for this show. We got the setup, so what’ll they do with it now as the pizza quest continues? Lets find out!

Overview

To the shock of no one, Grif crashed the ship. He rushes everyone through the insults and sidenote to Kai’s… so does she actually have regular contact with their mom? Makes me really wonder about where Grif stands with his family. Anyways, good news is the pizza place isn’t far off! They just have to go through some ominous woods! Grif however opts to go through the less than ominous woods which would take longer, but isn’t… well, ominous. This gets Simmons attention. Enough that, as they make their way through, he pulls Grif aside to find out what his deal is. My shipping heart is happy to see Simmons noticing that something’s not right with his not-boyfriend and getting to the bottom of it… please tell me I didn’t accidentally write an innuendo,

So you knwo that ‘new science’ Grif mentioned last episode? Well here’s that new science: laziness… sort of! So when stuck on the moon (I THINK he called it Iris? So… after Michael and Lindsay’s daughter/Geoff’s goddaughter? AWW!), Grif found a book that Jax left behind about story structure. He found out about ‘incendiary incidents’, which are incidents that jumpstart a plot essentially I tried to look it up to see if that’s an actual term… and all I got was a bunch of fire safety websites. But I’ll take Joe’s word for it and say it’s an actual term. So Grif cutting off Jensen before, crashing the ship deliberately as it turns out due to a message from Locus, and avoiding the ominous woods is to avoid getting into an incident that would jumpstart a plot, and therefore lead them into another adventure. IDK if this is clever fourth wall breaking but… wow. WOW. Even Simmons gets chocked up about how much effort Grif put into doing nothing. It’s counterproductive when you think about it, but still!

Unfortunately for Grif, he IS in a webshow with plot structure and the powers to be aren’t going to let them get out of it that easy. Caboose discovered a glowing lake. And a figure emerges form it. Now the episode summary describes a thought to be deceased team member returning. Oh my Gd, that… that’s crazy! It could anyone! But why?! Tex? Flowers? Shelia? Church? Alpha Church? Yellow Church?! The guy who got killed during one of those 360 videos?! The possibilities are endless! It could be anyone! Who knows what kind of shocking twist it cou.. it’s Donut. Who we all knew was alive. Yeah… well I’ll give them this, it had me hyped for the episode.

So Donut… Jesus Christ. No, seriously, Donut is now Jesus. He walked ont he water for crying out loud! Donut says that he had been taken through time and that they have to go into the past to stop a great danger… and absolutely no one buys it. Now to be fair, Simmons makes a good point later. They already went through a time travel story and it turns out it was just a simulation. So them being skeptical about this happening again, especially since only Caboose saw the body horror last episode and I imagine that he forgot by now, is pretty understandable. But yeah no one buys it and Grif feels relieved about avoiding the story bomb… until Simmons points out that refusing the call is an actual story trope. See Grif? There’s no escaping!

So the Reds and Blues make it to ton and… yeah, it’s been totaled. After talking to Jeremy Dooley… I-I mean a cop… no, I’m 90% sure that was Jeremy. Anyways! After that, Donut tries to convince them of time travel again, and this time has actual proof. He has this new gun which he uses to open a portal to a few days earlier. How did he get this? Well to put it simply, after he got hit by Loco’s machine he got sent back in time and his body got wrecked, but God found him and fixed him. IDK if he means the Christian God or one of these alien Gods, but they’ve picked the Reds and Blues to be his time traveling warriors and has sent back four more guns for them to use to go back in time with. The portals can also only fit two grown humans at once.

Unfortunately, things go downhill quickly. So you guys remember the four armed guy from the trailer? Well the sky goes dark and he appears… oh sorry, typed that wrong. I mean that SHE appears. Yes everyone, we have a legit female villain at last!! I couldn’t get her name, but part of it sounded like Callie… which is my name… UGH… anyways! Yeah, she starts causing chaos and destruction. Donut uses a bubble shield, telling the others to use the portal guns and get away. They comply with everyone pairing off: Cabbose and Lopez, Tucker and Sister, Grif and Doc, and Sarge and Simmons. Donut remains behind, though I assume that he’ll follow them later. Huggins, who has been following the group, chases after Grif and Doc by going through their portal. We follow Sarge and Simmons as they land in… what looks like ancient Egypt. Could be wrong, but we’ll have to wait and find out cause that’s the end of the episode!

Review

Well all of that escalated quickly!

So… gonna talk about Grif first! Cause yes, he’s getting a character arc! I mean I guess it could have ended here since his plan failed, but since Huggins went after him and Doc we could get something on that front. Anyways, so I was right and Grif is actively trying to keep them out of getting into adventures. To the point that he’s putting effort into maintaining laziness… that’s the kind of logic I expect form this show. It wasn’t how I expected it, but I expected it. It’s also good to see that he does still have some hangups from the moon. He seems a lot more… what’s the word? High-strung than normal? He’s also still talking in pretty large bursts compared to normal. I don’t know if that’s just me reading into it too much, but it seems like Joe is trying to show that Grif still has hangups from his self-exile. Which hey, if it means more Grif focus, I am not complaining!

The episode is more about plot than the last one. Last week was the setup, and now the payoff is here. So first, Donut. He was written SO WELL. One of the issues last season was that Donut was pretty much a background prop and they even forgot to put him in scenes. Joe must have realized that this was a problem cause he’s already fixing it BIG TIME. Donut’s had shit happen man! He comes off as slightly mroe serious and competent in a sense that he actually knows the gravity of the situation. But he still feels and acts like Donut, which is good! It shows that he CAN be useful and competent, but without sacrificing his personality. Heck he only spouted out one innuendo and it was just to prove that it was really him. I am digging this new direction!

So turns out that the four armed guy si a terrifying alien goddess of death… I dig it! So someone pointed out that this character is similar to Hela from Thor: Ragnarok. SO it REALLY seems like Joe is basing the villain off Norse mythology… or just the Marvel Cinematic Universe verisons of them. Either way is fine. So I’m not sure if… Kali-Ra I think is her name? Anyways it doesn’t seem like she’s with the same group as Huggins cause I imagine that she would have reacted. I also don’t think that this chick is the main villain since DOnut referred to a ‘devil man’, but still she is terrifying and badass and I LOVE it. We finally got a female main villain guys! Joe is the hero we’ve waited for! Yay! Also Sarge asking he rot marry him, Of course he’d want to marry a violent death goddess… I’ll totes ship this!

Alright, time travel! SO ever since Joe mentioned it in that post a while ago, I’ve… been skeptical. Time travel in pretty much every show tends to be confusing and create tons of plot holes. It even happened in RvB before with Season 3 before Burnie retconned it as a simulation. Didn’t save my head from imploding, but still that’s a fair excuse. Hopefully Joe has a VERY good idea on what he’s doing with this, but I’ve been warming up to the idea since then. It’ll be fun to see the guys in different time periods at least! Form how it looks, Sarge and Simmons may go tomb raiding it it really is Ancient Egypt. I mean Sarge vs mummies, there is no way that cannot be epic!

So the gang is being split up, and the pairs are interesting! Sarge and Simmons sin’t that much of a surprise and tbf it’s been a long time since they had some one-on-one time. Simmons has also grown out of being a kissass quite a bit, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. Caboose and Lopez are together… so I’ just going to assume that in every animated RT production, Burnie is just meant to be stuck with/get annoyed with Joel in one way or another. Cause that is the impression I’m getting. Tucker and Sister are together, so I imagine flirting… okay I’m good with that! Hopefully Sister gets some focus to herself that isn’t just Tucker trying to hit on her, but still I’m good with this!

And finally Grif and Doc… that one is gonna be interesting. Grif in particular seems very grudgey against Doc for the betrayal and we just saw Doc save Grif form getting crushed by tackling him into the portal. Which props to Doc for that BTW. Still with that and since they’re 100 on an adventure now, Grif’s not gonna be a happy camper. Also if O’Malley gets active and starts going into Grif’s past issues like in S13, I… imagine that’ll be rough for our favorite orange boy. Also Huggins chased after them, so I assume that they’ll be discovering her soon. Which if she pals up with them…t hat could be really cute tbh! I am all for Grif and Doc shenanigans with a a ball of light! But yeah, this could lead to a LOT of things and I’m very interested in seeing how this plays out.

Final Thoughts

It was great! Admittedly this is a lot mroe bizarre than RvB has been in a while but it’s also RvB where Grif still being alive after getting hit by a tank and having Simmons organs thrown into him improperly isn’t ever questioned. Alien Norse Gods? Ia m all for it! Donut being Jesus? Awesome! More setup for Grf having a character arc? HELL YEAH MAN. It was a well done episode, progressing the plot without wasting any time, gives us a glimpse at how dangerous our villains our, gives us a badass female villain, and sets up everything for the episodes ot come. There’s definitely a feeling of epicness compared to last time, so it looks lie Joe is taking the armature gloves off and giving us one Hell of a story. I am very excited to see where it leads!

#rvb #rvb16 #rvb reviews #old blog repost

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