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#not saying I think my writings bad but this is a really old mostly dead fandom so I was keeping my expectations realistic

hello-eden · 1 month

Text

Someone mentioned trans! Talia and it has given me ideas. I might write this in the future but here are just my ideas. This is a sub Au of my Danny! Talia. So it is not at all Canon but if you were wondering Danny is more gender fluid in my og au, though I have not brought it up.

I like the idea that Damien still calls Danny mom. The term in my brain is not gendered for me.

no one to really talk about Talia around Damien at the beginning. In less he brings his mom up, so no one really realizes that Damian uses he/him pronouns for Thalia.

Danny more uses Talia as an alias as a way to dissociate that as a dead name.

ras is probably not super Progressive so this would be definitely kept more Under Wraps so Bruce has no idea. Bruce left before Danny could say anything.

Danny has binders and has definitely cut their hair but uses extensions or wigs when they're around Ras and maybe even Bruce.

Jason definitely met Talia while they were going around as Danny. Talia uses Danny as a way to surveil Jason's Missions with the league with him not knowing.

Damian has definitely gone around Gotham with Danny in Plainview of the bat family but they have no idea because they have no idea to look out for that.

Someone makes a joke about Bruce having tension with some of his female villains and Damian mentions that he has some tension with the male ones too. Damian obviously means their mother but no one has any idea of that so everyone is trying to figure out what Damian means. I think Damien would say it in a sort of tone that makes it seem like it was obvious and then just walk away so no one really gets any answers.

Damien would have no idea that it's something not widely known because Danny never really concealed it. In my AU for Danny! Talia I have Sam and Tucker running around as Danny's right hand man. Damian mostly being raised with people that Danny knows won't betray them so they never really had to censor their words. I also Imagine That Damian doesn't really understand gender as a concept until later as a result of this. I don't mean it in a bad way because he always asks what pronouns people use and then just continues on. The bat family has no idea what causes this in the beginning.

I'm just imagining a little 10-year-old Damien going up to Tim asking his pronouns and then threatening him but using the proper pronouns.

#dc x dp #danny phantom #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton #batfamily #dc x dp crossover #damian wayne #mom danny #danny reincarnates into talia al ghul au #T!danny al ghul au #batman #batfam

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unluckilyimnot · 23 days

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Hii love your writing sm! Can you write how would rin,sae,karasu and otoya react if them and the reader went on a date/stroll around the park and a lady who is selling roses approaches them and asks them if they woud buy one for the reader??

roses – rin, sae, karasu

m.list | rules

Note: hiii thank you for your request ! Here it is hihi for the fun fact, it happened to me once on a date with a guy (he didn’t say yes btw, it was like our second date something like that) sorry I couldn't think of eita's reaction ;-;

Rin Itoshi

Rin blushed a little and if he could, he would’ve turned his face away for you not to see this. You patted his arm sweetly before locking your arm with his. You were sure that his nervous self would panics at this situation.

“Sorry ma’am, that’s maybe too soon for that –” but Rin cut you off.

“Here.” He handed cash to the lady and she let you choose one of them with a smile.

You let go off his arm while looking a little. Your eyes met with hers and she flashes you a big smile. “You find a good one here.” she said with a wink.

You could feel your cheeks heat up as well and wave her goodbye with your fresh flower in hand. It smells so good, you were kinda sure it was from her garden.

Looking up to Rin, you pushed it under his nose ass well. “It really smells good.”

Sniffing a little, Rin only nods, still not looking at you. You almost started to feel bad.

“Thank you.” you whispered, laying your head on his arm. It wasn’t early in the relationship in fact, you just knew Rin was uncomfortable with this type of things. You never expected him to say yes. That for sure made your heart flutter.

She was totally right, you had to keep him.

Sae Itoshi

As soon as the lady came closer, Sae turned her off with a strict gaze. He’s not into this kind of stuff anyway, and it’s not a flower that can reflect how much he loves you. It fades away at some point, and he wishes to offer you the best things in life, not something that dies anyway.

He was about to go on with his day and forget about it already when the lady spoke to you.

“If he doesn’t even consider it, maybe you should find someone better.”

“Maybe you’re right.” you added, giggling with her to tease him a little.

You forget for a little how Sae takes things seriously. If you think that you have to reconsider his love over a flower, he’ll make sure to prove you wrong. Mostly her, in fact.

Turning around on his heels, he looked dead in her eyes and said, without even thinking twice this time, “I’ll take them all.”

You gasped before laughing out loud this time, tears already showing in your eyes. You grabbed his arm, shaking your head.

“Come on Sae, I’m kidding it’s fine !”

“No. I take it.”

That’s how you end up with around fifty roses and you were already thinking about where to pt them around your place .

Tabito Karasu

The second Tabito saw the old lady, it clicked in his head. He just had to find something to keep you occupied for a few minutes.

Bringing back the fact that you were hungry a while ago, he let you wait in the line for soame waffle and ice cream, faking that he had to call someone back quickly before he could come back. You didn’t ask anything about it, it happens quite often with his job. You understand that.

Little did you know, he rushed to the old lady the second your eyes fell on your phone. She wasn’t expecting him, he could tell when he heard her gasp.

“Sorry I surprised you, but he would really like one for my s/o without them knowing,” he explained, eyes wide open enough to make her giggle. She nodded of course, handing him two flowers.

“The second is a gift, they’re very lucky to have you, young man.” Her tender smile, showing him how age marked her yet never touched her kindness, made him soft as he thanked her with a warm smile as well. He’ll make sure to let you know.

You covered your mouth in shock when he tapped your shoulder before handing you the two roses. You didn’t expect him to find her himself for you.

“You didn’t have to !”

“One is from her, it’s a gift.” he chuckles, greatly appreciating the kiss you laid on his cheek to thank him.

I hope you liked it !

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shayyprasad · 1 month

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cool | peter parker

a/n: this concept was so sweet to me, and i had to write something for it. okay, so yeah, this is technically irondad + spiderson... but i wanted to add to it.

repost because this fic flopped with, like, 10 notes. if you look at the og, it says 700ish because of the prev notes of what i reblogged. interact with this fic, it's what keeps me going!

summary: you find that a brown haired boy is always at the restraunt you work at, covered with cuts and bruises. you're curious, so what do you do?

warnings: cursing, minor angst (not really tho, mostly fluff)

pairing: fem!reader x post-nwh!peter parker

word count: 1.5k+ words

you're working late, you don't normally. it doesn't hurt though, having a side hustle outside of college. with shit parents, community college is really all you have as an option, so extra money is welcomed.

it's 20 minutes until closing time, and you're the only one left. you've read enough articles and watched enough true crime to be at least a little paranoid. not expecting anyone else, you spray a table, wiping it down with a rag. might as well get started with cleaning, right?

so when you hear the familiar chime of the door, you've got the right to be suprised. looking up, you're greeted by the sight of a boy. he's got soft brown curls, and (you find, once you meet his gaze) matching dark, hazel eyes.

you wave at him and move behind the register. he looks harmless, but don't most men that have bad intentions? not that you think he's going to do anything.

you're just a woman. it's the way of life, this thought spiral.

"hi, what can i get you?" when he's closer, you can see the cut he's got on his cheek. it's dried blood, but still enough to make your eyebrows shoot up. in fact, he's got a bruise too.

under his left eye, and by the yellow-green, you can tell it's fresh. it's not your business to ask, well, it is... but you're only asking about his order. he runs a hand through his hair, obviously trying to tame it.

there's a leaf at the top, tangled in there. you want to take it out.

he sniffs, eying the menu. you've never seen him here before, and you've been working here for a while. now that you're looking at him, his eye looks swollen - like someone socked him. "a- a cheese-"

you're not sure where the sudden courage comes from, but you cut him off; "do you want an ice pack? or, uh, maybe frozen peas?"

he looks startled for a second, as if he were just now knocked out og this long train of thought. he pauses to touch his eye, "um," you can tell he doesn't want to trouble you, but you're intrigued now.

"seriously, it's no problem." (on the account you have frozen peas, then it would be no problem. if you didn't... a pack of cold, raw meat-?)

"sure, yeah."

"cool. er- stay right there." you go to the freezer room, rummaging around for frozen peas. it takes you a minute, and you're afraid there are none for a moment, but there are. triumphantly, you bring them back out.

he's standing in the same place, although you're not sure why he would've left. "peas!" you sing-song. handing them to him, you smile.

he throws one back, though it's forced and kind of hollow. you're afraid you've made him uncomfortable, or that you're too much. are you too much?

he squints at your nametag, "thanks, uh, gertrude?"

you're confused for a second, "oh, she's dead."

"i- sorry?" he tilts his head, now he's confused too.

"no, i mean, this isn't my nametag. it's old. like, super old. manager's dead wife. this place is too cheap to get new ones, so we, like, basically catfish people."

he nods, "okay. what's is it then?"

"huh?"

"your name."

you mentally smack your forehead, of course that's what he was asking. "y/n."

"cool. i'm peter. peter parker."

"nice to meet you peter peter parker," it's your attempt at a joke, paired with a lopsided grin. it makes peter smile though, so you consider it a win.

peter presses the pack to his eye, a wince turning into a sigh. oddly enough, it sounds sexual to you, and your face is heating up. what's wrong with you? seriously?

"okay, well, um, i assume you still wanna order something?"

"yeah. maybe just a cheeseburger and fries?"

"you got it," it's closing time, but you don't mind. peter is cute, and he seems nice as well. you're more than happy to stay around longer. "on the house," you say when he tries to offer you money, "seems like you had a rough night."

"no, i-"

"no sweat, parker."

you ring up his order, get it ready, and by the time you're done, he's settled at a table. "here you go. enjoy!"

you go back to sweeping, but you want to talk to him more. "you live around here? i haven't seen you here before."

"uh... not exactly. i don't come here often. i, um," he presses his lips together, "had a friend that brought me here. once or twice."

you frown, "oh, i'm sorry."

"what?" peter looks up from his meal.

"i just- well, you used past tense so i assumed you don't... aren't in touch anymore?" maybe small talk was a bad idea.

"oh. yeah. i guess. he's not really... around. he passed a little while back."

it's like your heart physically aches. "that's sad to hear."

"yeah. 's okay though, getting by fine. or- or better."

"mhm. it gets better. lost my sister a few a years back."

"really? i'm sorry." they're empty words, you've probably heard them a lot, he knows that. you know he knows that.

"thanks."

"yeah," it's quiet for a little while longer.

"so, uh," he pauses, taking a sip of his water, "are you still in school?"

"college," you pause, slightly embarrassed, "community, i mean."

"oh. cool. i'm at midtown. it's not, like, super fancy or whatever..."

you cut him off, shrugging, "better than community. and isn't it like so stupid, how they basically tell you that college is a must, and then have you pay all this money? 'oh, you need it for a good future!'" you mock, "aw, really? then make it free!"

you freeze, realizing you've gone on a tangent. "sorry," you say, flushing.

"no, it's okay," he laughs. "it's cool you're... passionate."

"thanks," you put the broom away. "um, i have to go take out the trash. would you mind... not stealing anything?"

"i'll try," he jokes.

"cool. i believe in your ability of self-restraint."

"cool," he says, matching your tone.

"cool."

"okay, that got weird after the, like, second time," you make a face.

"no, yeah, i agree."

"cool," you say, staring at each other in dead silence, before bursting into laughter. you hold up the trashbag, "yeah, so, one sec."

you push open the back door, tossing the bag in the dumpster.

he's so nice, you think. look at you, falling for a basically stranger. you walk back in, closing the door behind you. you notice he's done, so you throw out his things, cleaning down the table.

"hey, uh, when do you close?" peter asks.

you check the clock, "mm... 15 minutes ago."

"holy shit, really?"

"yeah. it's cool though. i was closing anyway, and the company didn't hurt. also... it looked like you needed this."

he looks down at his shoes, smiling, "yeah, no, i did. thanks. and sorry."

"like i said, it's cool."

"cool," you stop, "are you in a cult?" you blurt.

"um, sorry?"

"sorry, like, i just, you look... beat up. and i was wondering if you were in a gang... or something." you squint at the dried blood on his knuckles.

"uh... i am not."

"then how'd you get those?"

he looks conflicted, and you've probably crossed a line. "oh my god, i'm so sorry. obviously, it's not my business. i was just... curious."

you wipe down your last table, cursing yourself internally.

"no, it's cool. i'm..."

"seriously, it's not my business. don't tell me, actually. plausible deniability," you joke.

he says something, and it's so quiet, you don't hear it. "what?" you ask.

"i'm spider-man!"

"uh. what?"

"you don't know spider-man?"

"no, of course i know spider-man!"

"well, yeah. that's me. suprise." he says, doing a small show of jazz-hands.

"there's legit no way. i know i catfished you earlier, but that was on accident!"

he tilts his head, as if he's weighing his options. in reponse, you narrow your eyes at him, trying to figure out if it's one big joke. after that, it's so quick, you barely notice. something hits your hip, not harshly, and then you're spinning towards peter.

"holy-!" you look down at your side, trying to figure out what it is. you're tucked into peter, and you realize it's... a web. "no. way."

"yes way."

"why'd you tell me? now i can't plausibly deny anything! also, isn't this supposed to be a secret? isn't that the point of the mask? how do you know i won't sell you out?"

"that was a lot."

"i know. but it was very valid."

"i don't know. i just wanted to. you're nice and sweet and pretty-"

"oh, so pretty privilege?"

"no! no, of course not!"

"well, um," you wrap your arms around his neck, "thank you for trusting me. i won't tell anyone."

"cool."

his hands are on your hips, and he's leaning in, but you pull away, smirking.

"no kissing until the second date, i'm afraid."

"we're going on dates?"

"if you don't want me to broadcast to the world, yes."

"well, i would've asked to take you anyways."

you smile at him, enjoying the moment.

"wait, are those cameras?" there's absolute panic in his voice, and you giggle.

"those are fake. it's cardboard to scare people off."

"oh. cool."

"cool."

you end up kissing him anyways.

@whatsupstark@ell0ra-br3kk3r@idli-dosa@susvale@kdbsr-h@littlemsbumblebee @sflame15-blog @twinsunkithies @chocolateshepherddreamclod @one-piece-frvr7

#tom holland #peter parker #spiderman #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #peter parker imagine #angst

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seeingivy · 8 months

Text

funeral

actor!eren x f!reader

**part of my method acting fic

content: depictions of grief, talk of addiction/anxiety

an: i am alive (mostly). eat your cake, even though I think it Is bad (this chapter was the hardest to write, right next to the "the third act" chapter

songs mentioned: marjorie by taylor swift

previous part linked here

“What are you thinking, Eren?” Hange asks.

The question is stupid. Eren is thinking of the only logical conclusion that he can draw from the autopsy report. The implication of it, of how Marco really died, is sitting right in front of him.

The patient is a twenty-three year old Caucasian male with no significant medical history. Emergency services responded to the scene of a motor vehicle crash around nine p.m. At the scene, responders found that the patient was trapped in the vehicle, upturned on the side of the road, with no pulse at the time of arrival. Patient was declared dead on scene. Autopsy concluded that primary cause of death was asphyxiation, secondary cause being severe loss of blood due to injuries in the extremities.

“I’m thinking that the paparazzi killed him, Hange.” Eren spits.

“Eren.”

“Hange, don’t. Just-” Levi mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Levi’s eyes are borderline gaunt. Eren knows the past few days have sat horribly on Levi’s shoulders and perhaps the past year and a half have too.

The guilt is excruciating. Because all Eren knows how to do is ruin people.

He dragged Levi and Hange into his mess, when he asked them for help. But it had gone too far at that point, the interview, the night on the beach, the fight - he had exhausted all ends and desperately needed someone on his side.

Levi and Hange all but berated him for it. For letting it get so far, for waiting so long when he should have known that they were always there to help. But this reaction, Levi being the one to side with his outburst is proof enough that he made the wrong choice, that he should have stuck with himself. That them bending backwards and forwards to get him out of his mess has truly taken its toll.

Levi and Hange always mimicked him and you. Eren and Hange, he knows they both have a tendency to get so lost in the emotion, to feel it so deep that the response is too loud, too much for what’s called for. That’s when you and Levi would come in, to soothe them down and bring them back to Earth.

In the same vein, you and Levi, you planted your weeds too deep into the ground. Rooted in exactly what he’s not quite sure - perhaps misplaced insecurities, whatever the two of you seemed to hide in those deep inner walls - but it kept you both stagnant, stuck where you were. That’s where Hange and Eren came in, pushing you both to soar a little bit higher than what you imagined for yourself.

But now Levi’s here, all but exhausted and broken, the same way he’s sure you were. That’s why things got so fucked up. Eren didn’t let you pull him down. He didn’t pull you up.

“They killed him, Hange.” Levi states, tone void of any emotion.

“Levi. It’s almost midnight, we’re all feeling emotional right now. We should look at this all with a clear mind tomorrow.”

“They killed him. There is nothing to look at.” Levi says, enunciating every inflection of his words.

Eren knows it for a fact. And from the look on Hange’s face, he knows they do too. His train of thought is cut off by the knocking - rapid, loud consecutive knocks slamming against the wood.

“God, Eren. Go get it now before they run off with our food.” Hange murmurs, gesturing towards the door.

Eren shuffles past the length of the hallway and swings open the door to find not his UberEats bag, but Lana, out of breath and panting on his doorstep.

“Ew. You just left two hours ago. Why are you back already?”

“Eren. Oh my god.”

Lana wraps her arms around him, squeezing hard, as she cries into his shoulder. Her demeanor settles an immediate panic under his skin. The last time she reacted like this, Eren had to watch the most gut wrenching interview of his life while she held his hand. God knows whatever she’s about to tell him now is going to break him.

Eren brings his hands up and grabs her shoulders, applying pressure to stop her from shaking in his arms.

“Lana. What’s wrong with you? Why are you-”

“Eren. I’m so sorry, you- I’m here for you, okay? Whatever you need, just-just say it.” she pants, hiccuping in between her tears.

Eren frowns, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her out of the cold Seattle air into the kitchen where Hange and Levi are cooking by the stove.

“Hi Lana Bear! How are you, kid?” Hange says, all but bouncing over to wrap their arms around Lana.

This only upsets Lana more, the discomfort worsening in Eren’s chest as he can’t help but stare at her, at her brown eyes turning almost red from the downpour of her tears and the tension sitting in her shoulders.

“What is it? Who died?”

The question, when Eren asks it, is entirely rhetorical. A figure of speech, meant to emphasize that Lana’s reaction was extreme, too obscene for whatever it is she must be talking about. But when she doesn’t respond and swallows hard, the look on her face so crestfallen, Eren’s chest settles into a panic.

His first thought is you.

“Lana. Is she dead? What are you-”

Lana scrambles for the remote on the counter, switching from the Disney Channel to the first news report she can find. The image is of an overturned car, the metal crushed and steaming in the front, accompanied with words that burn Eren’s ears. The first hit is relief - that it’s not you. The second hit is painful, like the air’s been sucked out of his lungs.

Because it’s Marco.

“What?” Levi says, taking his eyes off the stove to glance at the screen.

Eren can feel his phone incessantly buzzing in his pocket and he reaches for it immediately, Lana leaning into his side as she continues to cry into his shoulder. Levi and Hange are moving closer to the television, like that’ll somehow make the sound better, the image clearer, like they’ll be able to find falsity in it.

jean: the bodt’s said the funeral is going to be near the old house. ask levi and hange if we can all stay in the townhouse together.

bertholdt: reiner and i are heading over tonight.

sukuna: Let me know if you need anything. Give the paparazzi hell for this one.

connie: i’m coming back to seattle. i-i don’t know if i can do this.

Eren’s quick to respond to that one.

eren: i’ve got you man. meet us in new york as soon as you can, we’re all going to stay at the townhouse. don’t leave sasha’s side until you get there okay?

connie: alright. okay, thanks.

eren: phone is on.

“This is bullshit. How do they know it’s him?” Levi says angrily, hands crossed over his chest.

“Levi.” Hange says, voice nearly cracking.

“No, I’m being fucking serious. How do they know that this guy is our Marco? There’s no proof. Call the Bodt’s right now.” Levi says, pacing the kitchen for where he left his phone.

Eren frowns, his head racing as Levi walks the length of the kitchen and Hange settles into their immediate panic.

“Eren.” Lana says.

“Hm?”

“I have to tell you something. You’re going to hate it. I-”

“Just tell me, Lana. No-no beating around the bush.”

“The paparazzi…got to him first before the police.” she whispers.

“What?” Eren says, through gritted teeth as his head all but short circuits.

“They knew it was his car, he’d been driving it around that part of Nashville for a while. They were probably just following him to get pictures wherever he was going. But then he-he crashed and-”

“And what? They took pictures of it? Of him?” Eren asks, squeezing Lana’s shoulders too hard.

“Yeah. They-they only called the police when they were done, Eren. I-”

The tears fill Eren’s eyes as the implication cuts deep. It all but sears the air in his lungs, the tears welling so fast that it’s already obstructing his vision. All he can feel is Lana’s hands, squeezing his biceps, as he tries to control the heaving in his chest.

“How long?”

“Eren.” she says, tone so pitiful it makes his blood boil.

“How long, Lana?” he asks, voice cracking.

“It took them forty-five minutes to get there. They would have been there in fifteen.” she whispers.

And now, the autopsy report tells him enough. With a definitive resolve that the paparazzi killed Marco. Because he died from asphyxiation, from being twisted in the metal, not getting any air. And if the police had gotten there maybe a moment earlier, a second faster, they could have gotten him out, could have at least made sure he was breathing.

They wanted a picture. Marco died for it.

The anger surges through Eren, tenfold when he remembers the paparazzi lining up Jean and Mikasa’s engagement party, Falco’s school, his house the day his grandpa died. When you walked into his garage, drenched from the rain with a deep cut on your face and skidded knees, scared to death.

“I’m done sugarcoating, Hange. Eren is right. They killed Marco.” Levi responds.

Hange sighs, leaning against the counter as Eren walks up to them, resting his head against their shoulder. They all stand there in silence, not even seventy-two hours after the fact, and it still hasn’t hit Eren.

In full flesh, that Marco is gone.

The rapid knocking on the door, real this time, breaks him out of his thoughts.

“Probably Zeke or Armin. I’ve got it.” he murmurs.

“Thanks kid.”

Eren watches as Levi sinks into Hange’s arms, sighing as he shuffles to the door and flicks on the porch light. He swings it open and immediately feels his throat tighten, fully constricted, at the sight of you standing in the lamplight.

You’re looking up at him, swallowing hard, as you stare into his eyes and all Eren can do is wonder if your brain is short circuiting as much as his is. Surely, it isn’t. Eren has every reason to be embarrassed, to be ashamed. And you don’t.

For posterity, he fights all instincts, every urge in his body, to reach forward and hold you. To let your sweet flowery smell take over his nose, to settle his face into that crook in your neck, to have your soft, soft touch running over his skin. To let the mountain of emotions he’s been carrying fall, because you’re here.

But he can’t.

“Hi Eren.”

“Y/N.”

He can’t help but inspect every micro-movement, every gesture you make. Your eyes are nearly glassing over with tears and you’re nervously fidgeting with your fingers. You’ve dropped your gaze to focus on the ground, a habit you always had when you were sad, as your voice breaks into the air.

“Can I ask you something? Please?” you whisper.

He reaches forward, hands on your shoulders, squeezing once and praying to god you remember what it means, as he nods.

That he’s here and he’s got you.

“Anything. What is it?”

“Is he dead?”

Maybe not anything.

He can’t be the one to tell you. You of all people that Marco died, at the hands of the paparazzi. The same paparazzi who in your very pointed words, gutted your first love like a fish. Who were partly to blame, who drove you out of here alongside him.

“Y/N.”

“Is he?” you repeat, voice smaller.

“Okay. Let’s go inside, you-”

“Is Marco dead, Eren? I’m asking you a question.”

Your anger in your voice is enough to make him stop in his tracks, the second time your voice is laced with that animosity that it scares him into responding. He hears it, in his worst hours, echoing in his mind.

How many times are you going to keep breaking shit without any care in the world? The camera, the fucking award you picked over me, Connie’s fucking livelihood, my heart. God, Eren. All you’ve ever cared about is yourself. From the start.

He swallows hard.

“Yes. Marco’s dead.”

And you don’t even know the half of it.

He watches your glass tears, the ones sitting right on the edge of your eyelashes, fall in full force, onto your cheeks as you immediately start hiccuping, hands clasped against your chest.

“I-I saw it on the news. I-I didn’t believe it but I- They always lie about stuff. I thought it was the same as that and-”

“Y/N, come ins-”

Your panic sets in so fast, so quick that Eren doesn’t even register it. Because one second you’re panting and the next Eren’s watching you retch onto the grass Connie mowed this morning. Eren pushes you into the house the second you stop, straight to the kitchen where Levi and Hange are still standing in their spots.

“Wait, is that-”

“Do you guys know if we have something like…anti-nausea? Is that what you do when someone throws up or-” Eren asks.

“Is that Y/N?” Levi asks.

“Yeah, she-she was on the porch, I-”

Levi’s quick to walk up, hands on your shoulders as he talks, voice quiet and calm when he speaks near your ear. Hange moves to Eren’s side, her face wearing that concerned look she gives him too much these days, as they both rummage through the cabinets for anything that could help.

“Y/N. You okay?” Levi asks.

“I-I threw up on the-the porch. On the g-grass. So-sorry.”

“It’s just grass. What’s-”

Eren tries to still it - that pounding in his heart - as he walks over with the glass of water he filled up for you. Your hands must be wobbling too much because Eren doesn’t let the glass go, instead tilting your head up softly with his hands and pouring the water into your mouth.

“Hey. Drink some more for me.” Eren states, voice soft as he instinctively reaches forward to fix the hairs sticking to the sweat beading your forehead, feeling your skin burning under his touch.

“We should take her temperature.” Eren says.

Levi and Hange dart out of the room, to the drawer upstairs where the thermometer is, as Eren takes breaks between helping you drink the water and rubbing circles into your back.

Eren can feel every muscle in his body tense, his skin burning when you lean forward, forehead resting against his chest as you groan out in pain.

“Hey. You with me?” Eren asks, murmuring straight into your hair.

Eren feels your breathing still against him, his hands intuitively wrapping around you this time, cradling the back of your head in his hands. You hum in response to his question, which is a good enough answer for Eren now.

“Found it.” Levi says, all but speed walking as Eren spins you around, watching as Levi meticulously pushes your sweaty hair out of your face and holds the sensor against your head. You’re all standing there in silence, craning over the little plastic as the two consecutive beeps go off.

“98.6. You’re okay, Y/N.” Levi mutters, setting the thermometer back on the table.

“Thank you, Levi.” you respond back, rubbing your arms on your biceps as you stare at the two of them, withdrawn and withholding from you.

Granted, you’d do the same. You wouldn’t rush to their arms either if they ignored you for two years.

“You can take this for nausea. If it happens again.” Hange says, placing a bottle in your hands.

“Sure. Thank you, Hange.” you respond.

The silence hangs in the air between the four of you as you stand there, each of you racking your heads for the right thing to say. Eren wants to tell Levi and Hange to stop being so rude, that they were the ones who were begging you to come back and now that you’re here they won’t even talk to you. Levi and Hange are debating which one of them should yell at you first, for being withdrawn from them and not asking for help the way Eren did. And you’re figuring out who you should apologize to first, between the three of them.

None of you break. Because it’s not the right time. Because Marco is dead.

“Everyone is sleeping together upstairs. There should be an extra air mattress up there, Eren will get it for you….knock if you need something.” Levi says, tone exasperated as he shuffles away.

“Welcome back, kid.”

Hange gives you a full smile as they follow him, leaving you and Eren in the kitchen. The distance Levi is putting in between you and him stings, but you swallow the burn and remind yourself that you’re the one who inflicted it on yourself.

At the time, after the interview, the rationale made more sense. Nonsensically, you decided that you were done with the industry and that, by proxy, meant that you were done with them too. You did your interview and stuck to your word, never looked back.

It’s humiliating now. Debilitating thinking about how much you must have hurt them. Because each of them, they continually reached out until it stopped. Mikasa made every effort to have you come to her engagement party, that she would even stop the press from coming for Vogue the way they had planned for you.

And when you didn’t show, all she did was send you pictures, of her and Jean cutting the cake and of the dress she had bought for you to wear. Hange and Levi were so vigilant about it, on making sure that you were okay, that you had security details, that people really were leaving you alone. You didn’t heed any of their efforts, because for all intents and purposes, you were leaving the girl you were behind.

Her dreams, the love she held, the friends she had.

It seems stupid now. It seems incredibly and gut-wrenchingly stupid that your last words to Marco were over two years ago because you were punishing him for something that wasn’t his fault. That you can’t go to any of them for comfort because the thing that they need comfort from is you.

All you know how to do is ruin people.

“Are you hungry? Or do you want to go to bed?” Eren asks.

“I can go to bed. Levi said air mattress?”

“Yeah, we’re all sleeping together in the loft upstairs.”

“We?” you ask.

“Mikasa and Jean are here. Ymir and Hisu, Bertholdt and Reiner, Connie and Sash. Everyone else should be getting in tomorrow.”

Eren pads towards the stairs and you awkwardly follow, crawling up the stairs behind him. You can hear the loud chatter of voices, talking over each other, as you try to catch the ends of their conversation.

“But where do they go when you pee?” Sasha asks.

“Fuck do you mean, where do they go?” Reiner says, voice incredulous.

“Like in the bowl? Because if you’re sitting on the toilet, they have to go somewhere?” Sasha repeats.

“Sasha. It’s almost one in the morning. Please stop talking about balls.” Ymir groans, earning a good amount of laughs from the group.

“Eren, tell them all to shut the fuck up.” Jean groans, forearm over his eyes as he and Mikasa roll around on their mattress.

Eren looks at you, eyes weary, before he turns to respond to them.

“Y/N’s here.”

They all peek their heads up, curious eyes falling on you, as you give them a halfhearted smile, trying your best to wipe your sweaty palms on the back of your dress.

“Hi guys.”

The silence is deafening. You can’t pick what’s worse - Reiner and Bertholdt squinting their eyes at you or Mikasa and Jean refusing to look at you.

Mikasa and Jean.

Historia stands up, strutting over from her air mattress, to wrap her arms around you, the pressure of the hug so hard you can barely breathe. You breathe in her smell, spicy and sharp the way it’s always been, as she pulls away. Her warm hand is resting on your cheek, the smile on her face so genuine that it untangles the smallest parts of discomfort on your chest.

“Hi princess. Missed you.”

“Thanks, Hisu. I missed you too.”

That’s always been the thing about Historia. That she’ll pick up, even when you haven’t called her in two years, and run to your aid.

“How’d you know we were here?” Jean asks, hands resting on his knees.

“I asked Historia.” you respond.

“Told you I was her favorite. She reached out to me before you.” Historia mutters, flopping back onto the air mattress she’s sharing with Ymir.

“You’re so arrogant, Historia. And full of shit.” Jean responds, rolling his eyes.

“You’re so right, Jean-Boy. This is just like what we fought about earlier.” Connie responds.

The group of them break out into an argument, Historia looking like she’s full on about to wrestle Connie as he only instigates her on. Mikasa’s already resting with her eyes closed as Jean turns pink in the face from his irritations.

And you can’t help but laugh, warm tingling in your chest at all of them, wholeheartedly the same. You look over at Eren and smile, which he returns. But despite it all, that stillness, that outsider feeling sits in your skin. Because despite them being the same, the striking differences in the room tell you things are wholeheartedly different too.

“Okay. Where’s the extra air mattress?” Eren asks.

Connie turns, eyes wide, as he gives the two of you a sheepish smile.

“Really funny story. Sooooo….”

“God. What did you do?” Eren groans.

“Long story short, I was thinking about waterbeds. If you pop a water bed, it should be like a waterfall right? So if it’s an air mattress, it should be like an inflatable air balloon thing. Like the weird noodle guys at the car store? Right? So, I tried to pop it. And succeeded.” Connie responds, rambling.

“Was it cool?” you ask.

“Ugh. Not at all, princess.” Connie responds.

You smile, perhaps bigger than you should at Connie using your old nickname, as Eren starts yelling at him.

“You should be the one to sleep on the floor since you’re the one who ruined the mattress.” Eren states.

“She should sleep on the floor. She got here last!” Connie responds.

“She just threw up. And she wasn’t going to sleep on the floor regardless.”

“Is she contagious?” Connie responds.

“Connie!”

Eren rolls his eyes as Mikasa stands up, shuffling to your side and lightly tugging your arm. You look at her, taking her shorter hair in, as you give her a smile.

“Hey. Want to go change? Your old clothes should still be here, don’t know how well they’ll fit.”

Eren breaks out of his conversation, leaning forward to where the two of you are talking, to interject.

“What’s mine is yours. Take mine if you need to.” he says, before returning in full flesh to the argument he’s having with Connie. You can tell they’re both joking from the way they’re trying not to laugh as you start to walk away.

The two of you quietly pad down the length to the two doors, directly across from each other, as you take in the scribbled signs switched. Your old room now reads Jean and Mikasa with Connie’s handwriting scribbled underneath inscribing please fuck quietly on the door. And consequently, Eren’s room now reads Eren and Y/N with Sasha’s handwriting scribbled underneath reading yall are fucked UP for this.

You turn to Mikasa and give her a weird look.

“Right. We’ve been here for a week, actually. Table reading season four stuff. Jean and I want to share a room so we moved all of his stuff to your room and your stuff to Eren’s room. We’ll put it back.” Mikasa states, pushing open the door to Eren’s room as she starts rummaging through your old drawers in the closet.

“No, no. It’s okay. I wouldn’t want to impose on you guys when you’re almost about to be newlyweds?” you ask.

“Yeah. Yeah, next year. And we just moved it because we thought you weren’t going to come back. And Eren didn’t want to toss your stuff and all.” she responds. She pulls out a shirt, most definitely from when you’re fifteen, as you both snicker at the size and she keeps digging.

You walk around Eren’s room, your room too now, as you eye all the boxes filled with your things, tangled in with Eren’s clothes lying around on every open surface. You take a seat at his desk as you start inspecting his little bulletin board, the pictures underneath the pins.

One of him, Lana, and Sukuna - the three of them smoldering at the camera. Eren and Connie smiling, Eren and a little kid with short curly hair, and two pictures of you. The first one is of you and him sleeping on set and the other is the two of you with Falco, both of you crouching down to his height and hugging him from behind.

And hanging around both of the pins are your friendship bracelets, which you take off the hooks to inspect.

So that’s where it went. In all of the fire of moving around so much, jumping from one place to another, you always thought you lost it. But you must have left it here all along.

You run your hands over the beads, yours and Eren’s names, as Mikasa gives you a head shake, indicating she didn’t find anything.

“S’okay. I’ll look through Eren’s stuff I guess.” you murmur.

Mikasa nods as she leans against Eren’s desk, hands crossed over her chest, as the silence hangs in between the two of you. She takes one of the bracelets from your hands, twisting the beads in her fingers, as you do the same with yours.

You find solace in the fact that Mikasa is still wearing her engagement ring - a constant in the sparring mix of changes you just witnessed in the room.

Connie sober. Ymir and Historia sharing a mattress. Eren and Connie getting along. Mikasa and Jean even tolerating being in the same room as Eren. In the same room as you. And the jarring absence of Marco.

“How are you?” Mikasa asks.

“Okay, Mika. How are you?”

Mikasa sinks down, sitting flat on the floor as she hikes her knees to her chest. You follow suit, dropping from your chair to sit next to her, lacing your arm through hers as you both blankly stare at the floor ahead of you, picking what topic to broach first.

I missed you. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in two years. Our friend is dead. Eren is here.

“The engagement party looked beautiful, Mikasa.”

She smiles, leaning her head against yours.

“Thank you, Y/N. It was quite nice actually.”

“I watched it on Vogue. Cried quite a bit.” you respond.

She laughs, rolling her eyes at you as she lightly shoves you.

“Should’ve come then. Cried in real time.”

You swallow hard, cheeks warm, as you squeeze her hand. You know she’s joking, but the guilt runs too deep.

“I’m sorry for not coming. I-I really wish I was there. And I know there’s no justification for it but-”

“We aren’t mad at you. Jean and I.” she clarifies.

“I’d understand if you were. I’m your best friend. I’ve-I’ve been with you guys since the start and-”

Mikasa’s hands are soft on your shoulders, tears gathering in her eyes, as she looks at you, eyes pinched in pain.

“You had every right to not come. To be done with this. What they did to you, to Eren- Y/N, god.”

You swallow hard.

“It didn’t warrant me not coming to you-”

“It did. You don’t even know the half of it. You-you and Eren. You just-”

There’s a knocking at the door and Eren pads in, eyes wide as he sees you and Mikasa on the floor, tears gathered in her eyes and your limbs tangled together.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can come back.”

“No, no. It’s okay, Eren. Her clothes are too small. I can go grab mine for her if you two want to talk-” her words pointed, the emphasis on the last words hard.

“No, don’t bother Mikasa.” he responds, disappearing into his closet to find a pair of clothes for you.

Mikasa turns back to you, giving your cheek a pinch.

“I’ll make Jean sleep on the floor if Connie doesn’t give up his mattress. It’ll be like old times.” she responds, shuffling out of the room as you stay on your spot on the floor.

You hike your knees to your chest as you twist the beads in your fingers again, Eren’s name that you used to wear on your wrist almost every day foreign in your fingers.

“Eren. We’re going to be late.” you groan, impatiently tapping your foot on the ground as you wait for him by the door.

The two of you are already thirty minutes late to Erwin’s going away party, the last car waiting to take the two of you, Marco, and Annie out to the little soiree that Erwin is throwing for himself - in celebration of him being killed off.

“Sorry, sorry. Looking for my bracelet.” he responds, darting back and forth from different corners of the room.

“Well, hurry up. Annie’s getting pissed.”

“I found yours! But where is mine?”

You look down at your wrist to find the pink beads on your wrist, spelling out your name against your pulse point in your wrist.

“Oops, sorry. I’m wearing yours.” you respond.

Eren’s quick to walk over to where you’re standing on the door - giving you enough time to groan at how haphazardly he got ready for the party. His tie is loose against his neck, hair all messy as you reach up to fix it.

“God, Eren. At least brush your hair.”

“Quit moving your hands.”

Eren takes his hand in yours, quickly sliding the bracelet off your wrist and switching it with the one in his hand.

“Well, get ready properly. Your tie isn’t even on right.” you respond, irritated as you reach forward to tighten the fabric and smooth down his collar.

“And if I told you I put it on wrong just so you would fix it, what would you think?”

“That you’re asking for a death sentence from Annie for wasting time.”

He rolls his eyes, reaching up to lift the hand he just placed the bracelet on. His thumb is straight against your pulse point, blood pulsating under the spot, as he lifts his hand to leave a kiss right there.

“And that it’s cute that you did that.”

He gives you a wide grin, locking your hands together as you both rush out the door.

Eren shuffles out, sitting across from you as he puts the stack of clothes between you and hikes his knees to his chest. He holds his hand out and you place the bracelet in his hand.

“You left it in the bathroom.”

You nod as you try to steady your mind - still running a hundred miles per hour and overstimulated from seeing everyone again. From how familiar it all feels, how easy it all is to fall back into this despite how different things are.

How you and Eren are miles apart, how you haven’t talked to them all in months, how Marco is dead. That Marco’s death is suspending all of you in a weird state of reality, that every angry word spoken and every bit of harshness seems miniscule now.

“Do you want me to leave?” Eren asks.

“No.” you shrug.

“Do you want to talk?”

“No.”

Eren nods, counting each of the beads on the bracelet, as you both sit there in the silence, letting your eyes float around the room as you let your mind wander.

Marco and Colt playing chess everyday when he visited you in Canada, Marco falling for every stupid joke that Connie played on him, the way you all cried when Marco died in the show, Marco at the awards show.

“Eren?”

“Yes, Y/N?”

“Do you remember the first time we kissed?”

The question takes Eren off guard. He debates it then and there - telling you the truth full and whole - on the basis that he can’t handle the way you’re looking at him. At the fact that you even asked that, at the implication that you thought he could ever forget.

“Of course. On set, in the-”

“No, no. I mean, for real.”

“At the awards show.” Eren responds, without a beat.

“Yeah.”

Eren leans forward, wrapping his hands around your neck and pressing his lips to yours. You can still feel people moving around you, setting up things for the closing part of the ceremony, but the only thing you’re paying attention to is Eren. And his lips. And the way he’s pulling you closer, like he can’t get enough of you.

When you pull apart, you’re both panting, smiling at each other.

“Thank god. If I got cock-blocked from kissing you a third time, I was actually going to commit a murder.”

“You want me so bad.” you say, sarcastically.

“Obviously.”

You both smile and turn to the left, to a very smiley Marco staring at you two. And then you cringe, remembering that you and Eren are literally backstage and there’s like seven people who just watched you suck face. Marco walks up, wrapping his arms around both of you and hugging hard.

“I love you guys.”

“Marco. Don’t-” Eren starts.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. You need time to figure whatever is going on, without Connie and and Sasha up your ass the entire time. But I’m really, really happy for you.”

“Really, Marco?” you ask, leaning into Eren’s touch.

“It’s always been you guys. You guys better not break up or else I’ll come hunt both of you down. And if I’m dead, I’ll come back to life just to haunt you guys.”

“Do you think he’s haunting us?”

Eren frowns, the memory refreshing in his head. One he thought of a few days ago, lingering on the fact that Marco’s probably turning in grave right now. Granted, Marco was very vehement about his stance on you two - your interview and what Eren did, making Marco so agonizingly and uncharacteristically angry that it bothers him now.

For not listening to him. That if he does ever get to cross that bridge with you, at least be your friend again, that Marco won’t ever know.

“I just don’t understand why you won’t just go out there and tell her. You know where she lives.” Marco states, irritated.

“Because I just can’t, Marco! You watched the interview!”

“The entire song was about how she forgave you. How she isn’t holding a grudge against you. And-and the way she was talking about it, some part of her knows that other people had something to do with this, Eren. She knows deep down.”

“The interview was fucking horrible. This entire thing, this thing that I did, fucked her up so bad that she isn’t even doing this anymore. This was all she wanted, ever since she was a kid, she-she was so determined and she gave it up because I said all those things, because I did what I did.”

“Eren. It’s more compl-”

“No, it’s not. And she fucking hates me. You should have seen how upset she was at the awards show…..I-I ruined it for her. I ruined her entire dream, Marco.”

“God, Eren. Your tunnel vision is insane. You’re not even giving her a fighting chance when she doesn’t even know the truth!” he says.

“Maybe haunting is too mean of a word. I think he’d be happy to see us together, right now. Even if the circumstances aren’t the best.” he responds.

You smile, giving him a nod.

“He always did like playing cupid, didn’t he?”

“At the engagement party, he walked around telling everyone that Jean and Mikasa were only dating because of him.”

“That’s a lie.” you state.

“No one believed him.” Eren responds.

The two of you fall into silence again, resting your chins on your knees, as more thoughts swim through your head, pain so palpable it’s sitting in your chest. That if Marco were here, he’d be prancing in and giving you two devious smirks, lovingly teasing both of you. Pulling both of you aside, saying that bygones should be bygones if you still love each other.

You look up at him, watch his eyes flutter open and close, as he fidgets with his hands.

You still love him.

“Can we be civil for the weekend? Like…like you’re not Eren and I’m not Y/N, we’re just-” you sutter.

Your question falls short, hanging in the air as you watch the gears in Eren’s head turn.

“I just mean. So many things happened between us. And I know there’s hurt there, on your part and maybe mine too, but…..I don’t want us to be mad at each other at the funeral. Or after.”

You swallow hard.

“I’d hate for one of us to die being mad at each other. Without having talked in years.” you whisper.

Eren gets it. The guilt that must be wracking you for not talking to Marco, when you were one of the people who was closest to him. He reaches forward, taking your hand in his, as he fidgets with your fingers.

“He knows you loved him, Y/N.”

He watches the tears pour down your eyes, face pink and eyes swollen, as you talk.

“Did he? Because I ignored his texts. For years. He texted me happy birthday, asked how Falco was doing, wanted to know if I watched Halloweentown on October first like I always do, if I was happy, if I wanted to talk and-”

He squeezes your hand, pulling out his phone, as he scoots to the space next to you. He tries to still the pounding of his heart as you lace your arm through his, leaning your head against his.

“He knows, Y/N.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I was with him. I talked to him quite often after….after everything that happened. I promise you, he knows you loved him.”

You shake your head, guilt sitting in your head.

“I have something for you.” he murmurs.

“What is it?”

“It’s from a few years ago. I think he was really, really drunk.”

He hands you his phone, open to a voicemail from Marco, as you wipe the tears on your phone and press play. His voice comes through the speaker booming and giggling and hiccuping as he talks.

“Eren. Eren! Fuck, I love you so much dude. You’re-you’re such a guy. Like I-I just see you and think hmmmm. That’s a guy. Are you with Y/N? Tell her I love her. She’s my best friend. You’re all my best friends. I’m so happy I got to grow up with all of you. Oh, Connie just threw up on the floor, oh Connie- hey, stop! Okay, love you brother, I have to go.”

The voice cuts off abruptly, as you laugh.

“Never could hold his drink, could he?”

“Not everyone can be alcoholics like Jean and Mikasa.”

You both laugh, chest aching from how familiar, how soft this feels. That you’re both sitting in this room, where you grew up, fell in love, slept next to each other every night. Eren can see the tears welling in your eyes, thinking of his best efforts to stop it, at whatever is plaguing your mind.

“So. You said you’re not Y/N and I’m not Eren. So who are we?” he asks.

“I meant that metaphorically, you’re-”

You watch Eren’s eyes flit around his room, scanning till he stops around his bookshelf, and turns back to glance at you.

“Your new name is Margaret.”

“Ew. And I didn’t mean it like that, Eren.”

“Who is Eren? My name is….” he responds, giving you a smile as he elongagates the syllables waiting for your response.

You roll your eyes.

“Bruce. Your name is Bruce.”

“Bruce Wayne!”

“No. Not like Bruce Wayne. Think of someone really boring. Irritating, agitating.”

“Perfect! I’ll just think of you after five shots of tequila.”

You both laugh as Eren stands up, holding a hand out to pull you up. He sets the stack of clothes in your hand as he makes a move to walk out of the room. Except he hangs on the door for a second, voice soft when he talks.

“Does Bruce have permission to say something?”

“Sure.”

“I know he technically just met Margaret because she was born a minute ago, but he missed her. A lot.”

You feel your cheeks burn as you give him a nod, murmuring a quiet me too before sinking into the bathroom to slip his clothes on.

Connie, does in fact, not give up the mattress. Jean and Eren begrudgingly share as you and Mikasa cuddle into the night.

You wake up first, to find Mikasa sprawled over your entire frame. Her entire body is burning hot and you send a silent prayer to the world's strongest soldier, Jean Kirschtein, for putting up with this for so long. After you all but free yourself from her grasp, you spare a quick glance to see Jean must be smothering Eren more than Mikasa was you and silently muse that the two of them truly are made for each other.

You pad down to the kitchen, yanking the hood of Eren’s hoodie over your head, to find Connie sitting at the table, scribbling away in a journal, a steaming bowl of oatmeal next to him.

“Good morning, Con.’”

He looks up, one of his hands going instinctively to cover what he was writing as you take the seat next to him, crossing your legs up on the chair. He immediately relaxes, giving you a bright smile.

“Good morning, princess. You can have some if you want.”

“No, no. I don’t want to impose.”

“What’s mine is yours.” he says, mimicking Eren’s voice.

You snort, reaching for his spoon, as you take a bite of the warm food, soothing the stiffness in your throat.

“Sleep well?” he asks.

“Mikasa basically strangled me all night.”

“Ew. Of course she has the cuddle bug. I swear, Jean and Mikasa were always goo goo ga ga, but they’re even worse now.”

“They’re getting married, Connie. It’s sweet.”

He smiles, sliding the string through the pages, as he turns to you giving you a smile.

“Yeah. It is sweet.” he responds, voice quiet.

Connie swallows hard, eyes weary as he turns to you.

“I want to apologize.” Connie says.

The elephant in the room. He’s the first one to touch it.

“Oh. That’s okay, I under-”

“No, no. It’s not okay.” he responds, tone almost harsh.

You and Armin share a look the second he breaks the frame, glass shattering over the length of Armin’s apartment.

“Why the fuck would you guys bring me here?” Connie asks, sweat beading his forehead.

From the way he’s moving, all erratic and nonsensical, it makes you think that it’s out of his system. That if Connie had a chance, this would be when he would sneak off to the bathroom to get his fix. But he’s nowhere near that, instead settled into Armin’s tiny New York apartment, screaming at the two of you.

“Connie. You asked us too.” you respond.

“I was fucking high! Why would you guys even entertain a word I said?” Connie states, voice even more agitated now.

“Connie. You…you need help. We looked at some rehab places while you were asleep and-”

“Rehab? I’m not going to rehab. Are you trying to ruin my fucking career, Armin?”

“No, but we want to make sure you’re okay. They’ll be discrete, we’ll make sure the security detail is good so that you can be better and-”

“I am fucking fine. Do I look like I need help?”

You and Armin share a weary glance, before looking back at him.

“Connie. We love you. We-we just want to help you, okay?” you say.

“Does it ever embarrass you when you do this, Y/N?” Connie says, voice laced with venom.

“Sorry?”

“Does you not think it’s embarrassing to beg like this in front of people who don’t fucking care about you the way you do about them? I figured that Eren putting you in your place like that would set you straight but it seems like you didn’t learn your lesson, did you?”

You swallow hard, eyes and skin burning as Connie waits for your response.

“You don’t mean that. You-you’re just mad because you can’t be high right now.” you murmur.

“Am I, Y/N? Or is it true?”

“It’s not true. This isn’t you, Connie.”

“God, Y/N. Wake the fuck up. We aren’t fifteen anymore. No ones sitting here holding your hand telling you that you’ll be the best anymore. I get that you need that ego boost to move forward but I sure as hell am not going to be the one to give it to you.”

“Connie, that’s enough-”

Connie swallows hard, eyes focused on his fingers as he talks.

“I know-I know that I said it wasn’t true. But I really did say all of those things because I was high. Or because I wanted to be high and was in withdrawal and-”

“I know that, Connie. I’ve never held it against you.”

He frowns, twisting his pen to his fingers.

“You always give grace even when you don’t know the whole story. Me, Hisu, Eren.” he murmurs.

“You deserve it…and I partially knew. I mean, addiction is a disease. It hurt at first but that wasn’t your fault. You just needed to be treated and helped and I’m glad you did.”

He smiles, resting his cheek against his hand.

“Thank you, Y/N. Don’t mind me if I spend the rest of my life asking for forgiveness. I won’t ever feel like I deserve it but I’ll keep asking anyway.” he murmurs.

“I’ll always give it to you.” you respond, squeezing his shoulder.

You silently wonder that if you ever did come back, sans funeral, if things would be like this. If you and Eren could pretend, if Mikasa and Jean could look past it all. Because some parts of it, they feel earnest, truthful. But you can’t tell if you’re all suspended in some disbelief, clouded by your grief and trying to cling onto one of the things Marco loved most. His time on the show, with you all.

“Honey when I’m above the trees, I SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS.” Connie sings, screams.

“Oh my god, Connie.” you deadpan.

He’s singing happiness. Like the happiness you sang in your interview, when you forgave Eren.

“THERE’LL BE HAPPINESS AFTER YOU. BUT THERE WAS HAPPINESS BECAUSE OF YOUUUU. BOTH OF THESE THINGS CAN BE TRUE, THERE IS HAPPINESS.”

You clamp your hand flat against his mouth, trying not to snicker, as he continues to sing underneath your hand.

“Are you insane? They’re all sleeping.” you whisper.

“Not anymore we’re not.” Ymir responds, immediately smacking Connie against the head.

“You’re going to give Eren a nightmare, Connie.” Historia mutters, dragging her feet into the kitchen as Ymir follows.

“I’m already living it.” Eren grumbles, leaning against the counter as he splits a PopTart with Jean.

Slowly but surely, every one of them shuffles down to the room, the deja vu of the situation hitting deep as each person follows suit. Sasha ambles down after a few minutes, finishing off the bowl of oatmeal that you and Connie were sharing while Reiner and Bertholdt murmur quietly over the coffee cup. Eren’s in hushed conversation with Jean and Mikasa, fixing himself breakfast, as Hange and Levi wander into the room, immediately thrown off by all of you in there.

“Jesus.” Levi says, tone exasperated.

“Good morning, Levi.” Mikasa says, gesturing to the water boiling on the kettle for his tea. He gives her a grateful smile, taking a seat in his corner as Hange talks to the group of you. Connie’s resorted to cracking all of your knuckles since his are all worn out as they go on.

“Good morning kiddos!”

“Don’t….do such a cheery voice, Hange.” Levi says, sighing.

Hange’s smile falters, before dropping all together, and giving a thoughtful nod. Eren shuffles over to your side, taking the seat next to yours as he places a steaming bowl of ramen in front of you.

“Oh. Thank you, Eren.”

“Who?”

You roll your eyes as Eren smiles, reaching forward to flick your cheek.

“Bruce.”

“Bruce, indeed.” he responds.

Eren knows he’s in treacherous waters. That this line you’ve drawn, that you’re not you and he’s not himself, works almost too well for Eren’s purposes. That he can pretend, in earnest, that none of the things he said happened. That you and him are just as you always were, untouched in the bubble you were always in when you lived here. .

“The funeral is tomorrow, as we all know. The Bodt’s have requested that we get there ten minutes before the service, so be on time tomorrow. Bertholdt, Sasha, I’m looking at both of you. ”

You all nod, humming in response, as you start digging into the bowl, switching off with Connie and Sasha who are both trying to monopolize the only real food in a five feet radius.

“That being said…” Hange says, swallowing hard.

They’re pacing back and forth almost, teetering on their ankles, when they talk. And when they finish explaining - autopsy report in hand and the gut punch sticking in your chest - you all sit there, blankly staring.

And wander in silence for the rest of the day.

It was one thing that Marco died. And an entirely different one that he was killed.

“Someone go get Eren, we only have thirty minutes.” Levi says, everyone lingering in the kitchen and the living room, in a sea of black.

Almost everyone is here now - Erwin, Armin, even Eren’s parents - all lingering around as you wait to head to the funeral. You give a curt nod to Levi and march out to the pavement, pebbles crunching under your feet as you make your way to set.

Eren’s been in there since last night, never retreating to the room to change into his pajamas before he settled down on the couch downstairs. Despite your protests, he refuses to sleep in the same room as you. Or let you sleep anywhere else besides Jean’s old bed in his room.

You let the pebbles crunch under your feet, ignoring the sting as you pass the tandem bike, and slip onto the set. You can see new costumes designs printed against the walls, storyboards with Levi and Hange’s handwriting on them as you make your way to the back towards the piano.

When you see him, that rage, simmering warm in your stomach over the past twenty-four hours, the deep-seated pain of Marco dying alone, crying out for help, comes to a head when you see Eren. Because he’s sitting at the bench, with his book propped up against the stand, and a bottle of pills in his hands.

You march up to where he’s standing, crossing your hands across your chest as you all but glare at him.

“Oh. Hey, you look-”

“Are you serious?”

You watch his face scrunch up in confusion, that stupid look on his face aggravating you even more. His tie is unkempt, his hair is messy - he’s always so haphazard with these things.

“You’re doing pills in here before Marco’s funeral. Are you fucking serious?”

He looks down, at the bottle in his hand and stands up, and swallows hard when he looks at you.

“Wait-”

“No. No, for once, you’re going to listen to me. You-you’re sick. Marco’s dead. You can’t even give it to him to be fully there while we say goodbye? This means that much to you?” you spit, watching him shut his eyes.

“Y/N.”

“How could you do this? To him? To me?”

He reaches forward, hands on your shoulders as he squeezes, and your eyes burn like acid. And every feeling, building up over the past few days, comes tumbling out.

“Why did he have to leave us, Eren? We didn’t get enough time with him. He was only twenty-four, he didn't even get to grow old. He was supposed to die, years from now, so happy, so-so surrounded by people he loved.”

Eren forgoes the rational thought. He reaches forward fully, snaking his arms around you as he cradles your head into his frame, trying his best to stifle your cries into his shoulder.

“And you. He would hate that you were doing this. I hate that you’re doing this. You-you don’t have to. There are other things that can make you happy or-or fix whatever it is that’s wrong.”

“Y/N.”

“What, Eren?”

He pulls back, reaching for the pill bottle, and placing it in the palm of your hand. You read the label, immediately embarrassed and ashamed of your reaction.

Eren Jaeger *Lexapro 5 mg Take one tablet by mouth with the morning meal.

“Oh my god, Eren. I’m so sorry, I-”

You pull back, sitting down on the bench, as you dig your fingers into your temples, trying to stop that pulsating feeling under your skin. The rage, the feeling, coursing through you so hard that you can’t even pick what you’re mad at.

You’re breathing panic in and out, chest heaving, as Eren takes a seat next to you, leaning his elbows on his knees. And the feeling, it lands on feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed. Because Eren’s not doing drugs, he’s taking anti-anxiety pills.

“Eren. I’m so sorry. That was so horrible of me, I thought it was-”

“You thought it was like Connie.” he finishes

“Yeah. And I’m sorry for assuming, I just-”

“I’m not mad at you. You were just trying to take care of me. I appreciate it.”

You groan, embarrassment still coursing through you, as you lean your forehead straight against the piano, the smell of the ink on Eren’s book permeating your nose.

“Do you remember that birthday party of mine I told you about? When I was ten, at my old house in New York? It was when we were in Australia.”

You nod.

“I remember feeling it. A paralyzing block in my chest, like I couldn’t move. And when I was able to move, it was only because it all came rushing to me, so panicked, so fast that I-I didn’t even register what happened.”

He was barely even ten. You lift your hands to his shoulders, squeezing hard, as he continues.

You’re here and you’ve got him.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought that people feel this way, that it’s normal, but I just felt too much of it. That I just can’t handle things the way normal people do.”

You frown, reaching up to cup the side of his face. Your fingers brush over his dimples, soft under your fingers, as you talk.

“Eren. There is nothing wrong with you. That’s just an anxiety attack.” you whisper.

You’re not sure what it is about what you said but when you look up, there are soft tears flowing down Eren’s cheek, the voice coming out of his mouth so garbled you can barely understand what he’s saying.

“Hey, Eren.” you whisper,

“No. No, no. Stop.”

Eren stands up, retreating to the other side of the piano, where he’s leaning over, his entire frame heaving up and down as you walk to his side.

“Why are you-”

“I don’t want you to help me. You shouldn’t be helping me.” he says, his voice shuddering.

“Why not?” you ask, frowning.

“I’ve been horrible to you. I don’t deserve your help. You-you should be cussing me out, so mad that you can’t stand me, that you want me to suffer and you’re not. And it’s agonizing for me that you aren’t.”

You walk up behind him, wrapping your arms around him from the back, as you feel him sigh. You lean your cheek flat against his shoulder, squeezing as hard as you can as Eren continues to cry, fists clenched so tight on the piano that white.

“You’re not you and I’m not me. We agreed on that.” you murmur.

“Y/N. We can’t-”

“Who?”

He snickers, amidst his tears, as he turns around, and you slot your arms under his. You can feel his heart thumping under your ear, loud and fast, as you place your hand over the spot. The two of you stay that way for some time, Eren's tears falling onto you, as you try your best to remedy whatever it is that's burning inside of him.

“Just calm down and breathe. Falco says it always helps to talk about something else, when he feels like this.”

He tenses at the mention of Falco, which you realize was a mistake.

“Why were you in here?” you ask.

“The Bodt’s asked me to write a song for the service.”

The perfect distraction.

“Can you sing it for me?” you ask.

He looks down, green eyes - full and round - as he nods, shuffling towards the piano bench as you take the seat next to him. You can see that the lyrics are scribbled on the book resting against the stand, the paper stiff from blotches of Eren’s tears. He starts playing the piano, his voice echoing on the walls of the set.

And if I didn't know better I'd think you were talking to me now If I didn't know better I'd think you were still around What died didn't stay dead What died didn't stay dead You're alive, you're alive in my head What died didn't stay dead What died didn't stay dead You're alive, so alive

You rest your hands against the keys next to his, slowly following his pace, as he continues to sing, the hum of his voice filling the air. You can’t help but think it. That he’s beautiful. That this is your Eren, miles away from whoever he was when you saw him last.

I should've asked you questions I should've asked you how to be Asked you to write it down for me Should've kept every grocery store receipt 'Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me

You can feel the tears flowing down your cheeks now, straight onto the piano keys and your hands, as you cry.

And if I didn't know better I'd think you were singing to me now If I didn't know better I'd think you were still around I know better But I still feel you all around I know better But you're still around

When you and Eren get to the service, you walk hand in hand to the piano. And play the song together, for Marco and Marco only.

You knock on the door, padding into the room to find Levi, hunched over his computer and leaning his hand on his cheek. You take the seat next to him, crossing your legs against the chair, as he looks over at you, expressionless.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” you say.

Four days after the funeral and all of them have cleared out. Forced to go back to wherever they were before, to push down the beating pain and move forward. The grief, perhaps it did suspend reality for the rest of you. Leave you to pretend that nothing that happened was real, that you were still teenagers running around on this set together.

That wasn’t how it was for Levi. Because in almost a week of being there, he had yet to talk to you with a straight face.

“What are you working on, Levi?” you ask, cracking your knuckles.

He turns the laptop towards you, one of the old hard drives from the earlier seasons pulled up on his computer. He plays the video, one of Jean sitting in a chair behind the green backdrop.

“Okay, Jean. Tell me your goal for the end of the show.” Levi asks.

The video, Jean must be barely sixteen, wearing one of the old costumes from season one. You remember now, that Hange was insistent on documenting everything - that you all were going to grow up so fast that they should keep videos. Obviously, Hange is too disorganized to do it themselves, so Levi bit the bullet and did it for them.

“I don’t know. That’s so far away, Levi.” he groans, scrunching up his forehead.

“Just answer, Jean. Where do you see yourself at the end of the show, when you’re in your twenties?”

“With Mikasa.” he responds.

You both smile as Levi switches to the next videos, the two of you watching all of them in silence.

“I want to be myself. That’s all I want to be, not embarrassed or ashamed, I-I just want to be me.” Historia says, smiling into the camera.

“I don’t know. That’s a weird question, Levi.” Mikasa grumbles, glaring at him.

“You’re horrible, Mikasa. Jean said he wants to be with you.” Levi responds.

“Well, that’s a given. Of course, I’m going to be with Jean.” she responds, giving one last eye roll to the camera.

“Doing something important. That means something to people.” Connie responds.

You swallow hard, as you see Eren, fifteen and so smiley, as he crawlsl onto the little stool.

“My turn?” Eren asks, giving Levi a bright smile.

“Yes, kid. Your turn. Why else would you be sitting here?”

“Okay. This is a secret so don’t tell anyone.” he says.

“I’m not broadcasting to a news channel, Eren. Just hurry up, I still have to get through half of you.”

Eren nods, reaching up to fix his hair, before he talks - his voice filled with that confident resolve, that one he always sported when he was fifteen.

“I want to get the Best Actor in a Lead role award. And on the same night, I want Y/N to become a triple threat. And then I want us to tell her that I told her so. Me and her, at the top.” he says, giving the camera a bright smile, before jumping off.

The next one is of you, what you said being entirely lost to you in your memories.

“What do I want to do when I'm in my twenties? Hm.” you echo.

“Today would be nice.” Levi deadpans.

“Well, I don’t know! That’s so broad. I want to be doing stuff like this. Acting, making music, To have people enjoy the work I make, and making it with my friends, like Eren and Mikasa and Armin. I want to be here, more than anything. It feels so right to me, that I get to do this. It’s special, it’s a privilege and I’m really thankful I get to do it.”

“Note to anyone watching. This is one of our only kids with manners.” Levi says, setting the camera down to give you a hug.

You bite down on your cheek, looking over at Levi, as he plays the last one. Of Marco.

“Okay, Marco. What do you want to do when you’re in your twenties?”

“Well. I know what I’m going to be doing.” Marco says, crossing his arms against his chest.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“See. Spoiler alert, but Hange and Levi just killed me off this show. But we made a deal. That I get to be in each season, even if its a super minor role like a flashback or whatever. So in my twenties, I’ll be here. Surrounded by all my childhood best friends, making this show that’s always meant so much to us.”

You swallow hard as Levi wraps his arms around you, the two of you watching Marco’s smiley face disappear from the screen.

“So I’ll see you in four months? For season four?”

“Damn right you will.” you respond.

And for the first time in a week, Levi breaks a smile.

“Good.”

next part linked here

an, again: SEASON FOUR ERA (this shit abt to be so awkward when they're not all sad/grieving )

taglist: @k0z3me @kayleegomez @yihona-san06 @bsenpai @sweetenertea @mykyoon @violetmatcha @rebeccawinters @cutiejg @bokutosthings @bookwrmm @mblrrr @wheredidmycrowngo @somethinginyoureyes7 @chilichopsticks @okaystopwhore @you-always-made-me-blush @itzmeme @firelordazulaaaa @whoami-72 @g-ghostly-y-blog @intimacywithceline @erensmoodygf @cocomellxn @princess-ackerman @jaegerfiles @cacapeepee @squirrelspoetry @rui-0836 @moonmalice @invisible-mori @sofiasber @bbybeeb @timetobegone @tee4str @ttokki2 @leave-rae-alone @ec3lipsy @officialsimpp @gojojang @yookayyo @lordbugs @multiplefandomthings @iobeyfandoms @camilo-uwu @justanotherkpopstanlol @mel-star636 @fvckingeetar @ttalgi

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wordstome · 7 months

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I am having a goddamn nightmare of a time writing the university au (mostly because I have a shit ton of work to do…for my university…lol) so have some headcanons about the most toxic couple you’ve ever met. mdni under the cut

They’re like the definition of a situationship. They’re dating in every aspect except by name

At first she does try to sleep with other guys like she did before König but that doesn’t last long, because nobody else is as good as him. She will never admit this outside of the bedroom

Meanwhile he literally calls her his girlfriend behind her back

She’s emotionally unavailable toxic, he’s obsessive and possessive toxic

König enjoys the pursuit and just thinks it’s normal for women to be difficult like this. I would say “poor König” but he has a bad habit of picking her up and carrying her places against her will so he’s not that poor

She likes to tell herself she has no attachment to him, but she loves the ego boost he gives her by acting like a lovestruck puppy and following her everywhere. She’s also secretly into him being controlling

She does have her moments of genuinely caring about him, though. She brought him lunch once and he looked at her like she hung the moon the whole day. Her excuse was that she just happened to get/make an extra portion, but she did, in fact, get him a portion on purpose

She basically lives with him after a certain point. Her roommates barely see her anymore since she only comes and goes from her old place to get things. He constantly threatens to change the locks on her, but they both know it’s an empty threat. He much prefers to punish her in sexy ways

She'll just be minding her own business talking to a classmate or perhaps flirting with someone when König will come up behind her and put his arms around her. If she was just talking to someone she'll pat his face before attempting to shoo him off. If she was flirting with someone, she wrenches him off her and storms off in a huff (whoever she was talking to has definitely fled from König's evil eye by that point)

They don't really fight, they just have spats because König is endlessly amused by her anger and she is unable to stay mad at him for long. The one time they had a real fight was nasty, and they didn't talk for days afterwards

She's usually quite a chill, go with the flow person (because if she allowed herself too much stress or anxiety at once it would destroy her), but König brings out the spitfire in her

In equal measure, König is a bit of the shy and quiet giant type, but she brings out the brat tamer in him. They alternate balancing each other out

It's kind of easy to look at them and go "why are they still doing this to themselves" but when they get along (i.e. he's behaving himself and she's not pretending not to know him) they're as functional as any other couple

This definitely goes without saying: the nastiest most bed-breaking sex. They fuck like they’re trying to murder each other

I know it's a pet peeve of many people when they say the reader is ooooo so small and delicate next to the cod men, and I tend to agree. However, unless you are also nearly seven feet tall and built like an olympic swimmer, I'm just gonna say you're smaller than König

That being said, he LOVES using his size against her. Picking her up, bending her over things, bending her in half (mating press, his beloved)

If he wants her to stay, she'll stay. He'll have one hand on her throat pinning her down, the other keeping her open to slam into her

This brat will look him dead in the eye and ask "is that all you've got?", which obviously makes him lose his mind in the best way

She definitely has more experience than he does, which actually works out in his favor: him getting better at fucking really just means he's getting better at fucking her

They're so goddamn nasty they've definitely fucked in semi-public places because she teased him to the point of madness and he popped a boner so hard it was painful

Oh, the dirty talk. König is such a gentleman outside of the bedroom, but the degradation that comes out of him while he's fucking her is toe-curling. A lot of "nobody else can fuck you like this" and "all you're good for is taking me in your tight little hole"

He growls??? I don't know if y'all have heard his voicelines in German but he snarls at her when he's trying to teach her a lesson and it turns her into putty

This post is dedicated to @kneelingshadowsalome, who is waiting for this fic so patiently and is my shining beacon of motivation at this point lol

#könig #cod mw2 #call of duty #konig #könig cod #konig cod #könig mw2 #konig x reader #König x reader #konig x you #König x you #cod #mw2 #König call of duty #könig fanfiction #university au #fic: now playing

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miniisunshine · 3 months

Text

I got a boost of confidence publishing my first story, so here's another one!

Once again, not based on the movie Lord of Chaos and also not based on the real Euronymous, only Rory's portrayal!

Synopsis: "You're not that evil!"

"Shut up emo girl..."

Warnings : P in V, AFAB character, soft dom?¿, unprotected sex (don't do this at home), swearing

Like every friday after work, you made your way into the music store, looking at the new arrivals and in search of classics albums you didn't already had. Well, classics for you of course, because the young black metal enjoyer who worked there would tell you otherwise.

It was the same old routine: you would pick up a CD, maybe Pierce The Veil, or Bring me the Horizon if you felt fancy, he would ring you up, judging your music taste saying something in the line of :

"This is not real music"

You would scoff, telling him goodbye with a smirk and then go on your merry way.

But not today, after observing what you had brought, Øystein looked at you with a neutral face.

"Do you wanna come to my show tonight? See and hear what real music is?"

You laughed at his question thinking it was one unique way to tell you that your tastes were trash.

"No I'm dead serious! I can write your name on the vip list. Free show, who could say no?"

You thought a little bit, you had nothing planned really, what could go wrong?

"Fine. But if I hate it, I'm never coming back at this store"

"Shut up emo girl..."

He laughed, took your name and number for the list and bid you farewell, letting you go with your stuff.

You didn't know why you went, but there you were, surrounded by angry and sweaty men.

The band entered the stage and you could see Øystein to the right, hair covering his face while he played his guitar.

You couldn't lie, he was one good looking mother fucker.

The new sound intrigued your ears, but you didn't hate it. The lyrics were, non understandable, but the beat and the feelings were there, angry feelings mostly.

After the show, you scurried your way out the venue before receiving a text message.

Its Øystein. Enjoyed the show?

I can't lie, it was impressive..

Wanna come take a beer at my place to talk about it?

I can't say no to a free beer lol

While in theory it was a bad idea to go to a stranger's place at this hour, you had a feeling this man wasn't a threat, even if he was considered the "Lord of Destruction". You were also quite attracted to him, so...

Knocking on his door, you began to feel nervous, regretting the easy going girl you were 15 minutes ago.

He opened the door, greeting you with wet hair and only some pyjamas pants on.

"So.. The emo girl do like true Norwegian Black Metal!"

You scoffed at his statement and entered his appartment, blushing at the little clothes he had on.

"It was fine! A little bit too angry for me, but it wasn't AS bad as I thought"

He brought you a drink, leading you to his couch, before taking a swig of his beer.

"Well that's what we proclaim! Anger, rage, death, violence-"

You burst up laughing

"Yea right! All I could see tonight was a young music shop worker playing pretend with his little friends! But the music was good.."

Øystein looked at you with, once again, no emotion. You couldn't see if he was mad or sad, but you knew he wasn't laughing with you.

"Wanna see the real dark side of me?"

That's when your curiosity entered the room and the excitement made you kinda hot.

"I'm all yours for the night baby!"

He took you by your wrist, making you following him in his bedroom before throwing you on his bed.

You were quite shocked by his feriocity, but you were in for it. You ankered both elbows into the mattress, looking at him with envy.

"Strip for me beautiful"

And you did, but slowly, making him longing for your body while he rubbed his erection over his pants

Piece by piece, you reveal your naked self to him.

Øystein waisted no time before hovering you on his bed, pulling you in a passionnate kiss while exploring your body.

He released his lips from yours, trailing his mouth on your neck, your collarbone, nibling and leaving marks on your skin before beginning torturing your breasts.

You started panting, your breath going faster and faster. Your hands travelling and scratching his back before stopping at the waistband of his pyjamas, pulling them down so you could offer him pleasure as well.

You could feel his moans vibrating on your skin, making you want more of him, so you lead his member closer to you, letting his tip go back and forth in between your wet folds.

Understanding what you wanted, Øystein stopped what he was doing, replacing your hand by his on his dick, guiding himself slowly into you, making you melt under the sensation.

You crossed your arms behind his neck, pulling a little his long black hair as he thrust into you, finding a comfortable pace.

Your moans interweaved together as he went faster into you.

"F-fuck Øystein.. Don't s-stop!"

He watched you slowly coming undone as he rubbed circles on your clit, making you cry out of pleasure.

"So fucking hot"

Watching you squirm under him while your tits bounced to his rythm was to much for him, so without warning he came into you, you following not long after.

Øystein collapsed onto you and you took this opportunity to play with his hair while you both catched your breath.

He made sure to clean you all nice before pulling you onto his chest.

"You're really not as evil as you claim to be"

"Shut up emo girl"

I'm really tired this may be not as good as i thought it was gonna be lol

#i ❤️ rory culkin #rory culkin x reader #rory culkin smut #euronymous #lords of chaos #euronymous x reader #r!euronymous #smut #rory culkin

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mysticalsoot · 1 year

Note

hi Connor! can i request a hurt/comfort cc!Wilbur x reader in which reader's going through a rough path of mental health? to be more specific, a lot happened and they're overwhelmed, their mind is all over the place and they need someone to assure them that they're human and not some sort of flickering ghost like they thought. it'd be nice if there's no pronoun in the writing and Wilbur holding reader hands, squeeze it to remind them that they're human :)

don't lock yourself away (request)

A/N; this took me too many months to get to you and for that, I am sorry- but here it is!! I'm trying to work more and more on my requests so hopefully this is the start of many more request posts!!

summary; reader goes through a rough patch mentally and sort of disappears and wilbur gets fed up, taking matters into his own hands and reminding reader that they aren't all what their brain says they are :)

tw// swearing, $uicidal ideation a bit, negative thoughts, depression, dissociation (some), uhh I think that's all?

words; 1.5k

pairings; cc!wilbur x gn!reader

pronouns; none, at least one use of y/n tho!!

masterlist

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

Like most other people, your mental health wasn't always the most steady. You'd come and go between happy, good days and depressing, bad days. Most of the time, your depressive episodes didn't even have much of a cause. Your mental health was simply a precariously stacked pile of things with one last feather on the top, and when it would touch the tower of reasons, it'd cause it to fall over.

You weren't sure what your reason was this time. But nonetheless, whatever it was; threw you over the pier into the ocean of despair. It's been a week since you left your flat, and you stopped answering calls and texts five days ago, and now you felt as though you were rotting—but in the comfort of your sheets and pillows.

Rotting away in comfort sounded like a good way to go, your eyes slipping shut to never open again—you stopped yourself every time you thought that. It was easy to succumb to the negative and end all thoughts but you managed to stop yourself—at least this time you did.

Your phone was most definitely dead and Wilbur knew that. Every call he sent through would go straight to voicemail and every text went unanswered. He understood if you were busy, but it had been so many days since anybody heard you from. And yeah, he was on tour for half of your isolation from the world—but he still cared. He really really cared, but he didn't know what to do. What was he supposed to do?

He’d called and texted and even went to your apartment with his spare key--but it didn’t fit. And you weren’t answering your door either.

Maybe he had an old key or maybe your apartment building changed the locks while he was gone and you didn't get the chance to tell him—hypotheticals aside, he had no real idea of what had happened or what was going on. And that scared him. It terrified him, actually.

It was a fear that went deep in his bones, that maybe something had happened and no one noticed or told him and he'd never find out why. Your door wasn't working, you weren't answering his calls and texts, what else was he meant to think? He tried knocking, truly he did, but there was still no response or sounds

He tried everything but it wouldn't budge, so he resorted to resting against the door as he sat on the carpeted hall. He'd wait here as long as he needed to. And so he messaged Tommy that he wouldn't be able to do a vlog with him tomorrow and he settled in to figure out what to do. He wasn't sure if he cared about being polite, maybe he should find a way to break in, just so he can make sure you're okay—but that would probably scare you and he can't risk that, can he?

At this point, he might as well. He brings himself back to his feet and grabs a safety pin he left in his wallet—mostly just to pick the lock at his office when he locked himself in, because whatever genius engineer decided the lock of his office's doors should be on the outside also made it very difficult to keep unlocked. It was like the doors had minds of their own. It was a few moments before he heard a click and he muttered a phrase of excitement before he jingled the door open and closed it behind him when he stepped a foot into your apartment.

He gazes around for any sign of you or life in general and not much was found. Surprisingly, things were decently tidy, there weren't any dishes or chores undone—which was unusual for what he assumed to be a depressive episode but he shrugged it off and beelined for your bedroom after dropping his keys in the bowl next to the door. He's quick to shuffle the door open and his eyes almost immediately land on your curled form.

You're laying under the covers, curled up into yourself and you're silent. Wilbur steps closer to the bed and he calls out for you, "Love?" He steps closer again, "Darling?"

You mumble something incoherent and he's taken aback by how out of it you are-- how unlike yourself you are. He finds his spot next to you and lays a hand on your hip, “Y/N?”

You don’t respond, keeping to yourself, trying to still your breaths--make yourself disappear into the mattress. Maybe he won’t ask questions then, maybe he’ll go away if you don’t answer.

He pulls away his hand a whine nearly drawls itself from your throat, you liked that but you’d never admit it in this state.

“I know you're not going to answer me, so I’m going to tell you what I think and hope you're listening, okay?” He turns on his side to face you, your eyes are wide open now and he smiles a bit to himself, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I think you feel like a shell. You do this a lot, when you're upset or in a funk. I know you can’t help it, I know it's human nature to hide away within yourself and your safe spaces. I don’t blame you, my love. But I need some assurance I’m not going to lose you, okay? A simple nod now or a simple word texted to me later when you feel yourself spiraling. So I can be there for you, I want to be but you have to let me first.”

During his small speech, you found yourself curling into the fetal position, hiding your face in the covers and by your pillows. You closed your eyes and you felt that pang of guilt in your chest despite his reassuring words.

“You’re here, you’re real, and you’re loved, okay?” He nods softly to himself, lips forming a thin line as he crawls out of the bed, “I’ll be out in the living room if you need me, okay? Come talk to me when you feel like it.”

His words echoed in your mind as you heard him leave the door cracked behind him. You felt terrible for making him feel as scared as he must be, yet you still needed a minute and you hoped that was enough. You opened your eyes, carefully eyeing the crack of light through the door, feeling yourself getting heavier with sleep, your eyes drooping shut.

A few hours later and your eyes were opening and a yawn was let out as you stretched, reaching over at Wilbur’s side of the bed only to find it cold. You felt better now, for some odd reason, and as memories of a few hours prior seeped in, you knew why. Maybe isolating yourself only made you feel more alien and the thought of his words so kind and so careful was so beautifully overwhelming. It was something you weren’t sure you could ever have a full grasp upon. Someone loving you as deeply and as carefully as Wilbur does.

You didn’t take much thought as you tossed your legs over the side of the bed, pushing yourself up to stand, ignoring the ache in your muscles as you dragged yourself over to the door and being methodical with how slow you opened the door--avoiding any screeches of the hinges. And then you were careful again, taking soft steps towards the living room, and when there was no sight of Wilbur, you pattered over to the kitchen. Being fully sure you were quiet and slow as you walked up behind him, wrapping your arms around his stomach and pressing the side of your head against his back. You felt him relax under your touch, any tension or worry completely fizzling from his being.

“I feel transparent, Wil. Like a ghost wandering aimlessly through life. I don't feel real, y’know?” You hum softly against his back, pressing soft and careful kisses against his back. He turns in your grasp to face you, leaning against the counter as he uses his pointer finger to lift your chin up so your eyes meet his. Only a soft love is held in his eyes, almost a promise in the way they glisten. An unspoken promise of forever.

“You aren’t a ghost, you’re a star. Everyone looks up at your shining light and thinks of how beautiful and wonderful it is to exist at the same time as a sight like that,” He moved his hands behind his back to grasp yours. The hold was gentle as he met your eyes again, voice merely a whisper, “You’re real, you’re special, you’re important.”

He squeezed your hands with every word and you nodded gently, a playful smile forming, a gentle scoff following, “I feel compelled to believe you.”

“Well, you should,” He smiled wider, moving his hands to rest on your sides, pulling you flush against him, “Now, do me a favor and, don’t lock yourself away.”

You nod in agreement, “I won’t, I promise.”

taglist; @sleepyburs @ella-fella-bo-bella @lillylvjy

#wilbur soot #cc!wilbur #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur #cc!wilbur x reader #cc!wilbur soot x male reader #cc!wilbur soot #wilbur gold #wilbur soot imagine #wilbur soot x gn!reader #wilbur x reader #dsmp wilbur

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chweverni · 5 months

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HOMESICK (...)

pairing; bf!woonhak x fem!reader synopsis; oh no! you and your boyfriend were cycling after school but then.. he scraped his knee. what do you do? don't freak out, please? warning; both reader and woonhak have the mental ages of 8 year olds, i don't make the rules (sorry) word count; 558 words author's note; its woonhak missing hours :( merry christmas to whoever celebrates it! listened to w2e while writing this aaaa woonhak come home to me :((((( </3

"AH- y/n! are you still following? i can't see you anymore, pedal faster please!", woonhak screamed from his bicycle, as he tried to slow down but struggled miserably. you, on the other hand found it difficult to catch up to him, because honestly, you didn't really cycle often. you loved walking more, because you could maintain your pace without having to worry about these stupid pedals.

"i'm right behind you, slow down! we're gonna go downhill from here, slow down! please!"

but woonhak was now confused. should he pedal faster, or should he slow down? i mean he wanted to pedal faster, and you wanted to slow down. gosh, why do you both never stand on a common ground? his legs began to wobble and before he could think, he lost balance and fell on the grass, his bicycle now dead, lying aimlessly on the ground. stupid bicycle.

"oh no! woonie, are you- are you hurt?", you shrieked, jumping down from your cycle, as it fell onto the ground with a thud. woonhak now sat on the grass, hugging his knee closer as he stared at his scraped knee. and it was kind of bad. his knee looked like some bear with fine nails scratched him. you were scared. "that's- that's.. a big wound. what do we do?", you asked, the question coming out quieter as tears welled in your eyes.

"you're hurt! i'm so sorry it's because i kept telling you to slow down and-", you began wailing like a toddler, because honestly, who would not when their adorable boyfriend literally is now wounded. woonhak on the other hand, was now freaking out even more. mostly because his knee was hurt, and because his other half was crying loudly like he lost an arm or something.

"baby, do you have your phone on you right now?"

you nodded weakly, sniffling soundly because now your nose was runny as heck. you took out your phone to phone your mom and you sat down beside woonhak as the phone began to ring. as your mom picked up, you told her about your situation and soon she rescued you both from the crime scene.

"are you okay now, woonie? it isn't bleeding now right?", you asked, your finger nervously twirling the telephone wire.

"yes, i am. don't worry, y/n-ie! i am your strong boyfriend, if i wasn't, i wouldn't walk out my bedroom, come downstairs just to pick your phone call, knowing that you, in fact own a smart phone too.."

oh. "i'm so sorry.. i completely forgot about that." you replied with a pout, and surely, woonhak knew so he chuckled from the line.

"i'll see you at school tomorrow, okay? i have to catch up on the homework. we'll study together after school too."

"are you perhaps planning a study date? and at my place please!"

"yes and yes. see you soon. l-word you so much!", woonhak replied, leaving a kiss on the phone as he quickly cut the call so that his mom won't hear.

your heart skipped a beat. did he say that he l-worded me? you skipped excitedly towards your room as you planned to text him from the smart phone, you definitely owned. you l-worded him a lot too, and you couldn't wait to show off your strong boyfriend to everyone tomorrow at school.

hes so cute bye

all creds to chweverni only on tumblr <3 byebyebye

#boynextdoor x reader #boynextdoor imagines #boynextdoor #boynextdoor woonhak #bnd woonhak #woonhak x reader #woonhak fluff #woonhak boynextdoor #woonhak imagines #woonhak #i lob him smsmsm

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siryouarebeingmocked · 9 months

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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: I may have activated my own trap card

Spoilers for a movie that's two months old and also out on home release.

So, Miles, Gwen, Pavitr (Spider-India), and Hobie (Spider-Punk) all seem to have modern left-wing politics, though Gwen's got edited out. Hobie's introduction specifically says he hates "fascists", which carries over from the original comics.

By the time Hobie came around, I assumed he was just another poser, cooler than the hero rival character, expressing generic leftie politics, and his punk ethos wasn't sincere.

Which is exactly what the writers wanted me to think.

Not only is Hobie perfectly sincere about being anti-authoritarian, but he's been helping Miles since before they even met. He's been blatantly stealing junk from the Spider Society to build his own universe-jumping watch, and disguising it as petty vandalism.

He even tries to talk Miles out of trying to join the Spider-Society before the reveal that Miles himself is an anomaly, and the SS (geddit?) tries to detain Miles.

When Hobie says he's against authoritarianism, he really means it.

Speaking of the left-wing politics, Miles has a "#BLM" pin on his bag. It's very visible while he sits next to his dad.

Who's a cop.

(TANGENT: A few years ago, someone drew a stupid, very bad comic where Spider-Man (Peter Parker) was a) black, b) hated cops, and c) assaulted and subdued riot cops when they asked him for help.

That the comic didn't even show the riot cops were wrong. We were just supposed to assume they deserve to be left to the mercy of an angry mob.

Also, in this comic, Uncle Ben was killed by a cop, not a random thug who Spidey could've stopped but chose not to. Which makes me wonder how that would shake out.

It's kind of weird for someone to look at a character who's about personal responsibility to an unhealthy degree, and use him to express their collectivist anti-cop terrorism fantasies. That, or they didn't think through their fantasies.)

During Spider-India's opening, Miles says "I love Chai Tea!" And Pavitr goes on a rant about how "Chai" means "tea". Later on, The Spot says he's been on a "journey of self-discovery", and Pavitr basically says he's racist.

Which is a tad ironic, because Spot is literally white. And also because Pavitr is the one making the racist assumptions.

And I personally go to a church - in England - that has a lot of non-white non-British people. Mostly Africans. And me, of course. I wonder if any Asians ever went on a journey of self discovery to South London.

And I don't just mean as a cab driver.

"Wait, SYABM, didn't you move to the UK for self-discovery?"

W-well, yes, partially.

Aside: I made the mistake of watching a Youtube video with the Chai Tea joke, and then I looked at the comments.

One guy said "tfw when Twitter users write a movie". An idiot (with much more upvotes) said "bro out here wanting blatant racism in movies".

...When the whole point of the joke is that the racism is not blatant.

It's only "blatant" if you're insufferably Twitterized. There are loads of redundant phrasings in English, like "ATM machine", and words often shift when they're adopted from other languages.

Also, "I dislike this joke" is not the same as "I want racism in this movie", when the "racism" in the movie is only there so it could be mocked.

One of the issues with putting real world movements in worlds that are drastically different - it's one of the main selling points of the franchise - is that it may seem odd that those movements exist in very similar form to the IRL version.

For example, Miles supports BLM in both his video game, and this. Which makes me think "did Trayvon Martin get shot in Florida? How about Mike Brown? Wouldn't the existence of supervillains throw things into a new perspective?"

Did I mention the giant George Floyd-style "REST IN POWER" mural to Miles' dead uncle? I cringed at that in the Wakanda Forever trailer, and I rolled my eyes at it here.

Floyd wasn't a saintly martyr, he was an unlucky violent thug.

Also, Aaron was a supervillain killed by another bad guy who nearly destroyed the city, not a cop.

Also, this is at a party to celebrate how Miles' dad is about to be promoted. Assuming Floyd died and the 2020 protests/riots also happened in Miles' universe, then it seems a tad tasteless to have a mural inspired by an anti-cop movement overlooking it, even if the party is not full of cops.

Spider-India lives in "Mumbattan".

The people who settled the Manhattan area were originally Indian. But the other type of Indian. The Indians we're not supposed to call Indians anymore.

The name "Manhattan" is even Native American.

The first permanent settlement was Dutch. Then the English got it. I guess the English could've shipped Indians to the other side of the world and eventually ceded the area to them, or maybe in this world India was a world-conquering superpower and Mumbattan is the result of...importing Native Americans?

Which would make Pavitr's complaint that "the British stole all of our stuff and put it in their museums" seem a tad hypocritical.

Of course, since I wrote all that, someone reminded me that Pavitr explicitly says the joint is in India.

"SYABM," you say, "you're overthinking this."

Yes, I am. Because the filmmakers didn't think it through. If you want to use ha-ha-funny to make a serious point, you invite examination of that point.

Miles (as Spidey) now works with his dad, though he disguises his voice. At one point, Miles tells his father that men bottle up mental health issues.

This is true (and ironic, considering Miles is hiding who he is from Jeff), but it's not the first time I've seen some progressive work try to address men's issues in an very awkward way. At least here, it's played for comedy.

Also, seems a tad hypocritical coming from a guy who wears a "#BLM" pin in the presence of his cop father.

Also, if you work the timeline, that would mean Miles was about 7 or 6 when BLM started. Which means he's gone most of his life knowing nothing else.

There was a controversy over a "protect trans kids" trans flag in Gwen's room, which was apparently edited out.

IMO, it seems a tad strange for a girl who feels estranged from everyone in her world to join a social movement, but what do I know? Maybe it was there before then.

Some people came to the extremely logical conclusion that Gwen herself is trans. Even though she's distinctly physically feminine and possibly too young for puberty blockers depending on Earth 65′s laws.

Like the "oh great, it's Liv" shippers, people are reaching really hard to see what they want to see.

Some people have said that Gwen's issues with her dad and herself seem awfully similar to the issues LGBTQIA2S+ kids go through.

Gee, it's not like, y'know, feeling estranged from one's family is a common theme in fiction about teenagers and superhero, and the whole "superpowers = minority" thing has been done to death for most of the past century.

Perhaps most notably - and clumsily - in X-Men.

youtube

I'm not saying this wasn't the intended subtext. I'm saying if it was, it would just be really, really cliche.

There's this recurring theme of people telling miles "how [his] story is supposed to go".

When he's at a meeting with his parents and his guidance counselor, the lady says his story of being a black-Latino son of an immigrant would sound great in the college application letters. His mom is a tad miffed, given that they're a) solidly middle class, and b) as a Puerto Rican, she considers herself American.

Miguel (Spider-Man 2099) doesn't want Miles in the multiversal council of Spiders, because Miles was bitten by the radioactive spider from a different universe. Which is why his local Spider-Man died, and the spider's home dimension has no Spider-Man.

Also, Miguel is fixated on "canon events". The idea that there are certain things, especially tragedies, that have to happen to Spiders, or their entire universe falls apart.

And he knows this, because he tried to take over for a version of him that got shot dead by a thug. Tried to raise his daughter.

And he watched as the universe collapsed in front of him.

So he's projecting his own guilt onto Miles, a tad.

According to TVtropes and other sources, this was actually about the people who didn't accept Miles as a replacement Spidey, possibly out of racism.

Yeah, that's real hard-hitting topical meta-commentary about a character who debuted 12 years ago. 8 years when the first movie came out.

I'd also like to point out that despite stereotypes of comic book fans, certain minority successors to banner superheros have been fairly well-received. Like Jaime Reyes, or Cassandra Cain.

(Note: I wrote that before the Blue Beetle movie came out. And flopped.)

And, of course, loads of people like Miles specifically because he's a minority Spidey, which is also racist, just from the other direction. In fact, a lot of his fans seem to forget the "Latino" part of "Afro-Latino". From what little I've seen of Miles early comics, they did actually put strong emphasis on his race.

I also suspect the filmmakers may be misinterpreting the usual successor knee-jerk reactions

as racism. If you're using an established brand name for your new hero, you're creating some expectations.

Also, you know the most popular meme about regular Spidey that I see? That Marvel's writers just keep making him suffer and don't want him to actually develop. Which would kinda make Marvel closer to Team Miguel than Team Miles.

Miles also gripes that Miguel is letting "some algorithm" tell him what to do. While I agree with the sentiment, I'd like to point out that, again, Miles supports BLM.

A movement popularized by an algorithm.

A movement made up of narratives and assumptions.

A movement which has never proven a single incident was because of racism.

During the big chase scene, we see a Spider girl in a wheelchair, aka Sun-Spider. She's from the comics. Same initiative that gave us "Web-Weaver".

Who is, of course, an extremely effete gay fashion designer Spidey. I kinda like his outfit, though the Spider-eyes with eyelashes is a little too far.

And Sun-Spider seems exactly like a character a stereotypical 90s executive and focus group would come up with. Down to the backward baseball cap.

(Turns out she's Dayn Broder's actual Spider-Sona.)

Also, while I was looking up that one black and white Spider who said "nowhere to run" (Metro-Spider, played by record producer Metro Boomin [/sic]), I found out that Aunt May's full name is "Maybelle", not just "May". TIL.

There's a bit of a double standard with this version of Spider-Woman, who's black and pregnant. -People in the movie - including Peter B - regularly point out how Peter B endangering his infant daughter Mayday by taking her along with him. But for some reason, nobody says a word about Jessica, who's an active-duty stunt-biking superhero.

Even regular motorbiking can be dangerous for pregnant women.

In fact, the movie portrays this as heroic and impressive. When Gwen sees Jess is preggos, she asks if Jess can adopt her.

Not to mention the whole "afro and hoop earrings" thing, which seem like a bad idea for a type of hero who often gets into melee combat, even with Spider-Sense.

Yes, I'm aware that female heroes, including the Spider-Ladies, often have exposed hair. It's a genre convention. Incidentally, it was nice to see Batwoman wore a detachable decoy wig in the comics. Some bad guy tries to grab it in a fight? It comes right off.

Also, Jess doesn't have much actual character.

Being pregnant is not a character trait. In fact, her only real traits are basically "cool but stern sassy mentor", to contrast with Peter B. -Incidentally, someone on TVtropes pointed out the double standard. And when I saw the page again, a page-camper had deleted it, with no explanation.

Guess they couldn't stand someone pointing out the flaws of their waifu.

(One) Spider-UK in this movie is Muslim. I know she's Muslim because she wears a Spider-themed headdress. Note that regular Marvel 616 has a muslim lady Spider-UK, but her name is Zarina Zahari and she doesn't wear a hijabi.

(Also, she could be mistaken for Ms. Marvel.)

ms marvel.jpg

You might be thinking "wait, isn't a headdress impractical in a melee fight? Doesn't it give your enemy something to grab?" Yes, it is.

But so are Jess's earrings, afro, and being pregnant, so clearly there's a lot of artistic license going on.

Maybe it's partially tearaway, like Batman's cape.

I gotta wonder about the religious rules of wearing a head covering over a mask that *already* covers your entire head. Did she go see her imam and go "Okay, I have a really weird question..."

Come to think, Spidey is usually slim, but a lot of lady Spideys in this movie seemed to have wide hips. Including muscular ladies. Kris Anka's concept art goes really hard on wide hips. I don't know why. Stronger, faster character reads during the big chase?

I guess Spiders could be expected to have strong legs.

BOTTOM LINE:

I liked the movie overall, though the progressive bits made me roll my eyes a little. I...want to see the third one, with reservations.

#tvtropes #spiderman #character design #movies

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purplehairedwonder · 10 months

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Chapter 1088: Ethics 101

This write-up is a bit delayed, but I definitely wanted to comment on a few things.

For one thing, Garp’s lesson feels like he’s teaching a philosophy class.

So, that’s probably why it reminded me of Chidi in The Good Place, particularly when he was going over the Trolley Problem. (It’s not an exact replica of the ethical dilemma here but there are similarities.)

Garp gets lectured for telling his proteges to protect the future...

Of course, the Marines declaring “All lives are equal” is downright laughable. These are the people who serve at the whim of the Celestial Dragons, wiped out Ohara, Flevance, and, recently, Lulusia.

They’re also content to sacrifice troops rather than take on an Emperor, so it takes a SWORD Member (Koby) to step in.

It’s interesting that Koby volunteered here; Blackbeard wasn’t actually interested in him in the first place.

Still, the fact that Blackbeard took this deal means Koby’s reputation is widespread. Rocky Port reveal when, Oda?!

Back to the present day, is it weird to say that Garp reminds me a bit of Luffy here?

Luffy has unwavering faith in his nakama. He has people on his crew who can do things he can’t, and he can do things they can’t. Garp here, like his grandson, puts his unmitigated faith in his people--though in this case, it’s more a case of handing the baton to the next generation. We’ve been focusing mostly on the next generation of pirates in the Worst Generation, but this is the next generation of the Marines stepping forward into the limelight.

Once the youngin’s are off, Garp returns his focus to his former protégé.

And all I can think of is Monty Python.

Okay, fine. It’s quite compelling that we’ve got Garp protecting and encouraging his current batch of proteges while facing off against his former protégé in Kuzan. (Kuzan’s line last chapter about Garp raising enemies is still ringing in my ears; that was cold.)

We also get a flashback, learning Koby’s been doing the “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” training montage from Mulan after training.

“You must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon”

Koby is so wholesome that even his attack has a wholesome name.

Still, this is very impressive. Koby stocks on the rise.

Garp, Grus, and Helmeppo get back to the ship, just leaving Garp remaining on Hachinosu.

Look, I have plenty of issues with Garp, but to his credit here, he’s willing to walk the walk when it comes to saving the future generation over the old generation. He sacrifices himself so they ship can escape.

(Also, what was the point in Tashigi being here? I was really hoping we were going to see Smoker at some point, but nope. She’s just hanging out in the background doing nothing. Yeesh, let the woman do something for once, Oda.)

This looks bad for Garp. It feels like a sendoff, and Garp--a D.--is laughing in the face of death.

I don’t think he’s dead, though. For one thing, this is One Piece where death is made up and the points don’t matter. And the narration box says he’s MIA, which is quite different than some of the other more dramatic descriptions of defeat we’ve gotten in recent chapters.

Second, this is not the first time we’ve seen a D. face death with a smile and survive. (Remember Law’s smirk when Doffy had a gun to his chest on the rooftop in Dressrosa?)

Third, if Saul survived Kuzan’s attack, I’d imagine Garp could, too. I could see the ice here is actually saving him from what looks like an ugly stab wound.

More than that, though, it’s makes little strategic sense to kill him. Blackbeard wants a hostage to bargain with the World Government for Hachinosu’s sovereignty. Garp is a significantly more high-value hostage than Koby; it would not be smart to kill him and lose their leverage when they could use him.

Narrative-wise, there’s also a lot left to settle between Luffy and Garp. And what about Dragon?

There’s so much setup with Hachinosu that we’re definitely going there with the Straw Hats at some point. I still think Luffy and Law team up again now that Law is both crewless and shipless, and if Blackbeard takes the surviving Hearts hostage, that will give the renewed alliance reason to go there. Law would also likely be able to save a frozen Garp using his fruit.

All of that being said, I’m looking forward to returning to Egghead next chapter as the Marines arrive.

#One Piece #One Piece 1088 #One Piece chapter 1088 #One Piece spoilers #One Piece chapter 1088 spoilers #Chapter write-up #Monkey D. Garp #Koby #Kuzan #Tashigi #Trafalgar Law #Monkey D. Luffy #Jaguar D. Saul #Blackbeard #Hachinosu

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wheels-of-despair · 1 year

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@funsonmunson-again's Birthday Week Writing Challenge Oliver Soon-to-be-Munson and the Best Birthday Ever The Eddie: Janitor!Eddie The Prompt: #6: write me something domestic. use your eddie of choice, reader pregnant or not, just give me something for my ovaries to combust to. show me dad!eddie Words: 3.8k? It just kinda... happened. 😳 Contains: Oliver's first birthday with Janitor!Eddie and Teach. Notes: I did some bad math and figured they'd get Oliver in about 1994, so this is meant to take place that summer, while they're just fostering him. Then somebody dropped new Eddie Age info and I was too far into it to recalculate. Disregard if this conflicts with the official timeline. This contains no I Love You's - because I don't know if they're there yet at this point, and those firsts aren't mine to write anyway. (But I'd love to read them, hint hint.)

"Ollie's got a birthday coming up. Any ideas?"

"Hmmm," Eddie hums, crawling into bed after a long day. He settles his head on your chest and wiggles the rest of his body so close, he's nearly on top of you. You smile and wrap your arms around him. You both lie there and think quietly for a moment.

"I don't think we should do anything too big," he says thoughtfully. "Just something normal. If his mom gets him back, we don't want his next birthday to be drastically different."

"Good idea," you agree, twirling a strand of his hair in your fingers. "What's considered normal these days?"

"You're asking me about normal?" he chuckles.

"Nevermind," you laugh. "What was your most memorable birthday?"

"The year it was just me and my mom," he answers quickly. "Dad was in jail. Mom made me a cake and gave me a little red matchbox car. It was all I played with for months."

"Aw," you coo, scratching his scalp gently.

"Then Dad got out and stomped it 'cause I left it in the floor." You kiss the top of his head and hold him a little tighter.

"What was yours?" he asks.

"We were never really big on birthdays. Just dinner and a present or two. Cards from relatives. Very low-key."

He hums and nuzzles into you. You let out a sigh.

"I kinda feel like we should just ask him, but I think it would put too much pressure on him. Poor baby's still afraid to ask for seconds at dinner. Even if he had something in mind, he probably wouldn't tell us."

A sad silence falls over the room. You want to give your sweet boy the world, but you don't know if he could handle it just yet.

"Wayne used to take me to the movies," Eddie says.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Dollar Days at The Hawk."

"The Hawk?"

"There used to be a theater on Main Street, before the mall moved in and turned it into a ghost town. When times were slow, and there was nothing good out, they'd show old movies. A double feature for a dollar. It was old black and white stuff, mostly. The first time Wayne took me, it was pirate movies. That's what kicked off my pirate era."

"Pirate Eddie, huh?"

"Oh yeah. Talked like a pirate for almost a year. Badly. Every stick was a sword. Surprised Wayne didn't make me walk the plank." You chuckle, and you can feel him grinning into your chest.

"I bet you were adorable."

He scoffs. "Pirates are not adorable! They're rough and tough!"

"If you say so, baby." You kiss the top of his head again with a grin.

"Anyway, that was our thing. My birthday's a movie dead zone, so there was usually a Dollar Days promotion going on. I don't think we ever saw pirates again, though. It was mostly westerns after that."

"Was there a Cowboy Eddie era?"

"You bet there was, little lady," he drawls. You cackle and quickly quiet yourself, hoping you hadn't woken up Ollie. "I was gonna move out west and live like the good ol' days. I wanted a ranch with horses and cows and a good dog and a pretty lady."

"Well, one out of five's not bad, I guess." He looks up at you in confusion. "You got the lady, at least," you tease with a wink.

"That's all I need," he whispers. You give him a kiss on the forehead, and both return to your previous positions.

"So, making Oliver a cake and taking him to the movies?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Good morning, birthday boy!" you smile from the stove, where you're keeping an eye on the bacon.

Oliver has finally wandered in, still in his pajamas. He's hugging his teddy bear with one arm and rubbing his eyes with his free hand. This child is the cutest little thing you've ever seen.

"Happy Birthday, bud," Eddie says, coming in from the living room.

"Thanks," Oliver says shyly, looking at the floor.

"What do you think: Breakfast first, or a present?" Eddie asks the boy with a mischievous grin.

Oliver's eyes light up, but he shrugs.

"What do you think, sweetheart?" Eddie asks you.

"I think I'm not quite done over here yet, so you should probably start with a present. That alright with you, Ollie?"

He nods, and you grin at him.

Eddie ducks back into the living room and returns with a neatly wrapped box, which he sets on the table with an exaggerated grunt. Oliver looks from the gift to Eddie to you, silently asking permission.

"It's okay," you encourage him with a smile and a nod.

He sits at the table and carefully unwraps it, almost like he's afraid of what's inside.

What's inside are ten Hardy Boys books.

The school library had a few random volumes left over from the 50s, and Ollie always had one checked out. They were his favorites; he would read the same four or five mysteries over and over again.

You'd never seen a child so happy about getting a book. His jaw dropped, and he reached out and ran his finger along the spines. You'd found a boxed set of the first ten books at a thrift store. They looked almost like new.

"They're really mine?"

"Of course, bud," Eddie assures him.

"For keeps?"

"Yup," you chirp.

First, he hugs his books. Then he hugs Eddie. Then he runs over and hugs you. (You step away from the stove when you see him coming, not wanting him to get too close to the hot pans.) And then he returns to his books, staring at them like he's afraid to take them out.

Eddie seems to sense this, and pulls his chair closer.

"Have you read any of these yet?" he asks.

"This one," Oliver points to a spine, "and this one. I think."

Eddie pulls out the first book Oliver pointed at and reads the summary on the back.

"Yeah, that's my favorite!" Oliver says in amazement when he sees the cover of the book Eddie holds, which is facing him. He excitedly pulls the rest out, one at a time, and carefully inspects each cover.

While he's busy poring over every detail of the cover art, Eddie gives you a smile that almost makes you forget the breakfast you're supposed to be cooking. The ding of the oven timer brings you back to reality.

Turning back to the stove, you hurriedly pull out a pan of biscuits and start turning off burners. Eddie gets up and pulls down a stack of plates for you.

"Alright bud, ready for breakfast now?"

Oliver nods, carefully putting his books back into their box, in the correct order. He tries to pick it up off the table, but struggles until Eddie swoops in. He's just a little guy, after all.

"Wanna put these in your room for now?" Eddie asks. Oliver nods and follows him to the bedroom; Eddie with an armful of books and Ollie with his teddy bear. By the time they get back - the books had to go on a shelf, obviously - breakfast is on the table. Bacon, and eggs, and biscuits made from scratch. The only person who was a bigger biscuit junkie than Ollie was Eddie, so you had two very happy and full boys that morning.

"What time's the thing?" you asked inconspicuously, washing the last of the dishes.

Eddie, who's on drying duty, looks down at his hand. He'd written down the showtime when he double-checked the paper that morning. "11:20."

"You wanna get Ollie dressed while I hop in the shower? If I go out smelling like bacon grease, every dog in town's gonna be chasing us."

He laughs and kisses your forehead, hanging up the dish towel and heading for Ollie's room. You drain the sink and make your way to the bathroom, smiling when you overhear Eddie teasing a fun birthday adventure while trying not to spill the beans.

After you're all dressed (and de-baconed), you hop in the car. Ollie watches curiously from his booster seat in the back.

"Where are we going?"

"Do you really want to know, or do you want it to be a surprise?" You turn around and give him a smile while Eddie drives. "It's okay either way. It's your call, bud."

Oliver shrugs.

"Do you want a hint?"

He thinks about it, then nods his head. A nod instead of a shrug. Progress!

"We're going to the movies."

Confusion clouds his little face.

"Have you ever been to the movies before?" you ask with a smile, hoping that it's disguising the panic you suddenly felt. Had he really never been before? Is this going to be overwhelming for him? Why hadn't you thought of this?!

"Like when we rent tapes?"

"Not exactly. We're going to a theater."

His face is blank.

"It's a big room in the mall, with lots of seats and a huge screen."

"Muuuch bigger than our TV," Eddie adds.

"And we watch the movie there?"

"Yup, on the big screen."

"Why?"

You look at Eddie helplessly, and he chuckles at you.

"Because it's fun," he says. "My Uncle Wayne used to take me on my birthday when I was little. We'd get a bucket of popcorn, and a drink, and then go sit in a comfy chair and wait for the lights to go down. They show you previews of other movies coming out soon, just like on the tapes we rent. And then they turn the real movie on. You've never seen anything like it. It's so big! It doesn't even matter what the movie is. It's just a cool thing to see, and a cool place to be."

"Especially when you're there with your favorite people," you add, looking at Eddie with a smile. He reaches over and squeezes your hand.

"So, sound like fun?" you ask, turning your attention back to Ollie.

He nods. You'll take it.

Oliver is understandably nervous when you arrive at the theater. It's his very first time, after all. He clings to your side from the minute you help him out of the car. Eddie buys the tickets at the box office out front, and sticks them in his front pocket. You walk Oliver around the lobby to look at the posters while Eddie waits in line to buy a bucket of popcorn and a drink from the counter inside.

Ollie's eyes linger over the candy counter when you come to meet Eddie, but he doesn't say a word. That's alright. You'll hook him up later, you think with a smirk. Moms have their ways.

("Their ways" meaning you bought candy at the dollar store a few days ago and hid it in the bottom of your purse. You feel no shame about this. Movie theater candy is highway robbery. Just the facts.)

With a bucket of popcorn and a gallon of soda, Eddie leads the way into the theater. He picks a spot in the back, away from everyone else, and you all get settled in. You check your watch.

"Ten minutes to go. Probably a good time to hit the bathroom," you note. Eddie nods.

"Wanna hit the head before the movie starts, buddy?" Oliver shrugs. "C'mon," Eddie says with a smile and a tilt of his head. They leave together, and you guard the popcorn.

They come back just in time. Oliver sits between you, munching on popcorn and looking around. There's not a whole lot to see in here; it's a morning matinee, and the movie's been out for a while, so there's only a handful of other people. Then the lights go down, and Oliver tenses.

"It's alright, it just means the show's about to start," Eddie whispers to him. Oliver looks to you, and you nod in agreement. He sits back in his seat and pulls his knees up, resting his chin on them. You and Eddie share A Look over his head.

And then the screen comes to life. Oliver's eyes widen. You and Eddie are both trying to watch him without being obvious about it, and failing hilariously. You watch him all through the previews, completely transfixed by the clips on the giant screen in front of him.

When the theater chain's roller coaster intro came on, you thought Oliver was going to lose his mind. His eyes were the size of saucers, and his jaw was dangerously close to coming unhinged. You and Eddie grin at each other. This was the show you came to see.

And then the lights dim more, and the movie starts. Oliver perks up at the Disney logo, which he is very familiar with. You and Eddie's traditional Friday night plans of "dinner and a movie" looked a little different these days, but you loved them just the same. Maybe more.

A song blasts through the speakers scattered throughout the theater. Oliver leans forward, seemingly possessed by the music, inching closer and closer to the empty seat in front of him as each new animal appears. By the time the lions show up, he's standing, grasping the top edge of the chair in front of him with both hands, like it's all that's keeping him from falling into the movie.

You cover your mouth and look over at Eddie, who is grinning so hard, it looks like it might actually split his face.

After a few minutes of letting him soak it in, you reach forward and hook your finger through his belt loop, pulling him back to his seat gently. He lands on his chair with a light bounce, but doesn't seem to notice. You and Eddie share another grin, and start digging into the popcorn.

You've never seen any child pay such close attention to anything for so long in your life. And you've spent quite a lot of time around them. But Oliver remains focused throughout the entire movie, from the opening sunrise to the final scene where the good guy triumphs. He didn't even get scared during those freaky hyena scenes.

When the lights finally come back on, Oliver sits back in his seat and breathes for the first time in an hour and a half. He looks up at Eddie, then at you.

"Well, what'd you think?" you ask.

"This was the best birthday EVER."

The cub's ruling may have come a little early, because the day was still young.

Oliver had been too captivated by the movie to eat anything, and you and Eddie had only eaten half the popcorn, so you brought the bucket home with you. You looked back at him, munching on a handful and staring thoughtfully out the window. You wished you knew what was going on in his head…

But you soon found out. After he'd eaten his fill of popcorn and had time to process the mind-blowing event of going to the movies for the first time, and he started talking. And he didn't stop.

He told you about his favorite scenes, and his favorite characters, and what his favorite song was, and that he knew all along that the good guy would win in the end. He'd memorized so many details from the movie, after only one viewing, you were extremely impressed. You and Eddie nodded along happily, laughing and gasping in the appropriate places of his passionate re-telling.

By the time you got close to home, Oliver had nearly talked himself out. His blinks were becoming longer, and he leaned his head back against the seat. Eddie, who'd been keeping an eye on him in the rearview mirror, took the long way around instead of his usual shortcut. Oliver was asleep when you pulled in the driveway.

Eddie handed you the keys and opened the back door to unbuckle Oliver and pull him out. You led the way up the front steps and unlocked the door, holding it for your beautiful boys. Eddie carried Oliver into his room and came back out with a grin.

"You think he liked it?" he asks, causing both of you to burst into a fit of hushed giggles.

"Wayne'll be here in an hour and a half. Wanna get stuff ready, or lay on the couch for a few?" Eddie asks. You look at each other for approximately three seconds before heading to the couch.

You doze for about an hour, then get up and start working on Oliver's birthday dinner. You've got a salad to make and a cake to ice. Eddie's got grilling to do. After all the vegetables are washed, Eddie goes to wake up Oliver. When they return to the kitchen, you send them both outside with a pan full of vegetables wrapped in foil. Eddie might not be great with the baking, but the man can grill anything.

A few minutes later, Wayne knocks twice, then lets himself in as you're starting to frost the cake you baked late last night.

"Hi, Wayne!"

"Hey, darlin'. You need help?"

"Nope, just finishing up. You need a drink?"

"Eddie's got the cooler outside. Uh…" You look up from the cake to see Wayne rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, just like Eddie does. "You got wrappin' paper?"

"Yeah, hall closet." You point, and he shuffles over and pulls out a roll of blue striped paper.

"Scissors?"

"Scissors and tape are in the top drawer closest to you," you point again. "You need help?"

"I can wrap a damn present, girl."

"Then why didn't you teach Eddie how?"

"Boy wouldn't sit still long enough." You both grin, and he pulls something out of his flannel pocket and drops it on the table, turning his back to you and getting to work.

You slather the last of the frosting on your cake as Wayne walks the roll of blue paper back to the closet.

"I, uh… I didn't have any."

"That's okay. I've always got plenty, appropriate for any gift-wrapping occasion. Help yourself, any time."

"Thanks. Uh... all I had was newspaper, and I didn't have time to make it to the store and back… I, uh, didn't want the boy to feel like he was an afterthought." Your heart swells, but you can already hear Wayne's "don't go gettin' all emotional on me, girl", so you take an alternate route.

"Wayne, you know it's what's inside the paper that counts," you say with a wink. He chuckles, and Oliver peeks his head inside the door.

"Eddie says to bring him some dang meat."

"Tell him to hold his dang horses," you laugh, reaching into the fridge for a plate of burgers and hot dogs. Oliver relays your reply out the door, and you can hear Eddie cackle from his place by the grill. Wayne stuffs the little package back into his pocket and reaches for the dang meat. You pick up your salad and follow him out the door, which Oliver holds for you like a gentleman.

While Eddie cooks his dang meat, Oliver tells Wayne about his day so far: breakfast, books, the coolest movie ever. Wayne grins, then pats his pocket with a questioning look at you. You nod. He pulls out his present, and hands it to Ollie.

"Another present?!"

"Yup. Happy Birthday, little man."

Oliver looks at you, and you nod, giving him the go-ahead. He tears off the paper to reveal two matchbox cars: a red one, and a blue one.

"What'd you get, buddy?" Eddie asks, leaning over to see. He freezes when he sees the two little cars.

"I figured you needed two so you could play with your-- with Eddie," Wayne corrects quickly.

"Thank you!" Ollie says with a grin, holding his cars closer to inspect the details. Eddie shares a look with Wayne, then looks to you. You give him a warm smile, knowing exactly what this reminds him of.

Dinner went great. You had burgers, hot dogs, roasted veggies and corn on the cob, salad, and potato chips. (Eddie insisted that having a cook-out without potato chips was against the laws of America. Wayne and Oliver backed him up on this. Who were you to argue with the laws of America, as decided by the people?)

You brought out the cake and stuck the candles in it. Eddie insisted that everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to Ollie, and proceeded to dramatically air-guitar his way through it. Oliver laughed so hard at Eddie, and at Wayne rolling his eyes at Eddie, he had to hold onto you for support. He finally caught his breath and blew out his candles. While Eddie was removing the candles and preparing to cut the cake, Ollie looked up at you with his big eyes. You leaned down closer, sensing that he wanted to tell you something.

"Do you want to know what I wished for?" he whispers.

"If you tell, it won't come true," you whisper back. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then grins.

"Cake?" he asks.

"Cake!" you repeat.

"Cake." Eddie says, placing a piece in front of Oliver, then handing you one across the table.

"Cake?" Wayne asks, not wanting to be left out.

"Cake!" Eddie says, giving Wayne a piece, then settling down with his own.

After everyone was properly caked, Wayne went home to get ready for work. You and Eddie performed a hasty clean-up (thank you, aluminum foil), and you put away leftovers while the boys played on the living room floor with their new cars. Ollie's favorite color is blue, so Eddie laid claim to the red car. (Even though you heard Ollie tell Eddie he could have the blue one if he wanted, like the sweetest boy in the whole world.)

You leaned on the counter and watched them play, racing and doing daring stunts and making hilarious sound effects as they recklessly 'drove' over any surface in reach. You could watch them for hours, but that would interfere with a certain birthday boy's bedtime.

Ollie never complained when you told him it was bedtime. Maybe because bedtime here meant he got to wear clean pajamas and crawl into his own bed with a full belly and his favorite teddy bear, and have a bedtime story read to him by people who loved him.

He was struggling to keep his eyes open when Eddie finished tonight's chapter of the fantasy book they'd picked out together. You tucked him in while Eddie turned on the nightlight.

"Good night, baby," you whisper with a kiss to the top of his head.

"Good night, buddy," Eddie said quietly on his way to the door.

"'Night," Oliver mumbles sleepily, "was best birthday ever."

It really was.

Bonus: Oliver's wish was that he could stay with you and Eddie forever. I can tell you that now, because it already came true. 😉

Double Bonus:

#writings of despair #funsonsbdaygame #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #janitor!eddie #i did not mean for this to get so long #it just! wouldn't! stop!

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thatscarletflycatcher · 10 months

Text

So you have heard Rick Astley was the unexpected sensation at Glastonbury this year...

and you'd like to get a taster of his music, but you don't know where to start, because you are only/mostly familiar with Never Gonna Give You Up?

This post is for you!

I'll give you a quick overview of his discography, and a recommendation of what I think are the best tracks of each album and why. Aggregated playlist at the bottom of the post.

Whenever You Need Somebody (1987)

This was Rick's debut album, and the one that included Never Gonna Give You Up. If you have heard the piece of trivia that says "if you drop the pitch Kylie Minogue's I Should Be So Lucky, it will sound like Rick Astley"... there's a very easy explanation for that: both were composed by Stock Aitken Waterman, a trio of music producers that wrote several of the most well known eurobeat hits of the late 80s and early 90s (i.e. You Spin Me Like a Record), based on the principles of... well, being very generic and catchy. Half of the tracks of this album were written by them.

Thematically the album is strangely obsessed with cheating, cheating women, and being in love with cheating women, and being heartbroken over them. I don't know what to tell you, sometimes I forget how common this was around that time for the romantic ballad outside of the US (?)

Anyways, of the 10 tracks of the original album, the best (and also most Never Gonna Give You Up-like) are Together Forever, Don't Say Goodbye, and Whenever You Need Somebody.

The album closes with a cover of When I Fall in Love, that to me feels very out of place. Perhaps it was one thing Rick himself was dead set on singing?

This album had a 15th anniversary expanded remaster in 2010, including 3 ""old-new"" songs and 4 remixes (one of them is an extended version of NGGYU). I'll Never Set You Free is remarkable for being one of the creepiest songs this side of Every Breath You Take.

The 2022 remaster:

This one includes one "old-new" track that is a severe earworm, My Arms Keep Missing You (it does deserve the THREE remixes it gets in this album), several remixes of other songs, three instrumentals, AND, most notably for me, three "reimaginings" of NGGYU, Together Forever, and Whenever You Need Somebody as slow piano ballads, very very worth listening if you are into that sort of thing (these were first released in the compilation album The Best of Me (2019)).

It also includes a new version of When I Fall in Love, that really highlights Rick's growth as a singer and an artist, very worth comparing the 1987 to the 2022 one.

The remixes and "old-new" tracks in these anniversary editions come from compilation albums Rick Astley - 12" Collection (1989) and Dance Mixes (1990).

2. Hold Me In Your Arms (1988)

If you liked Whenever You Need Somebody (1987), then Hold Me In Your Arms (1988) is just the thing for you, because it's more of the same, but louder, catchier, and now with less cheating obsession! This time it's 3 out of the 10 songs that are SAW written, one is a cover of The Temptations' Ain't Too Proud To Beg, and the remaining 6 are all by Rick himself, but the tone doesn't shift that much between them.

The first half of the album is non-stop top danceable tunes: She Wants to Dance With Me, Take Me To Your Heart, I Don't Want To Lose Her, Giving Up On Love (big involuntary "I'm killing off Sherlock Holmes" moment for Rick, the not giving up didn't even last a year :P), and Ain't Too Proud to Beg; the second half is not as strong, but also not bad either. It definitely helps that the tracks are ordered in such a way as to slowly slow down till the beautiful sweet soft ballad that closes the album and gives it its name: Hold Me In Your Arms.

I Don't Want to Be Your Lover, the penultimate track, is the first song that feels more like what Rick writes and sings as a more mature artist.

The 2010 expanded remaster is just remixes of some of these songs, I'll Be Fine (which is, quality wise, between the rest of the tracks of the second half) and My Arms Keep Missing You, again.

The 2022 remaster includes even more remixes, reimaginings of She Wants To Dance With Me and Hold Me In Your Arms (I'm not a big fan of either, but they are interesting, as they are much more modern ballad sounding) and instrumental versions of Take Me To Your Heart and She Wants To Dance With Me.

3. Free (1991)

Almost like a pun, this is Rick's first album "free" of SAW. He even grew out his hair! (probably one of the rare cases of a guy to having gorgeous hair that somehow suits his face horribly). The tone moves away from the 80s eurobeat hit into the soul-ish + gospel-ish ballad, which seems to be more like the territory he feels comfortable in. It's a bit of an "experimental" album, in the sense that he's trying new things and new sounds, but it's all very tentative, and the unsure footing is noticeable.

Even so, Cry For Help, written and sung by him was a hit all the same, although it isn't a favorite of mine. In general it's difficult for me to pick favorites here; none of the songs stick out to me as particularly good or particularly bad. If you like slow ballads, you will probably like Cry For Help, Wonderful You, and Behind the Smile. Really Got a Problem is a first sample of a "social" song in his repertoire. Move Right Out, Never Knew Love, and The Bottom Line are more the essence of what his music evolved into later on, whereas In The Name of Love, Be With You, and This Must Be Heaven are dead on the sort of generic adult-contemporary of the early 90s.

4. Body and Soul (1993)

This album takes a more... lounge-ish turn I do not relish. You'd say, okay, but what sets Rick Astley apart from the general adult standard lounge music of whatever decade he sings in? Difficult question to answer, as all questions about vibes are. To me it is a mixture of A) cringe is dead, long live cringe B) earnest feeling C) plain, direct and sometimes quirky lyrics D) It sounds like he's having a good time singing them.

I just cannot really buy the constant "baby" and "lover" in Everytime, for example. And while none of the songs in this album are bad, most of them aren't even fun. Body and Soul and Enough Love I think are the two most interesting tracks here.

That same year, Rick got on hiatus.

5. Keep It Turned On (2001)

This comeback album is a bit of a rarity -it was released in Germany, but never in the UK (although some of its tracks made it to compilations later on), and it's therefore rare to find, which is a pity, because I think it is one of his best!

It is also one of the most early 2000s sounding things ever. It is to 2000s eurobeat and pop ballad what Whenever You Need Somebody and Hold Me In Your Arms were to 1980s eurobeat and pop ballad, so if you are into it, this whole album will be for you.

I have a particularly soft spot for Sleeping, and the way it just sounds like what a 2001-2007 summer night sounded to me; it's very nostalgic. The lyrics, just like the ones in the ballad Breathe, give heartbreak what I perceive to be a more mature tone that I like much more than the treatment it gets in previous albums.

Other highlights are the very danceable Wanna Believe You and Keep It Turned On (this last one a very pick me up song), and on the ballad front, I think Romeo Loves Juliet has the most delicate, enjoyable sound, but Full of You has better lyrics.

6. Portrait (2005)

This album is a collection of covers of classic pop standards, so there isn't much rickness to it at all, and it is to me, personally, a skip; while I usually like Rick's covers in other albums (and I think his reimaginings of the SAW songs are interesting) these are... off. I just don't think the style he picked for them suits at all.

Between this and his following album, Rick released two independent singles: Lights Out (2010) and Superman (2012) which I think are both peak Rick and worth a listen; earnest, simple feeling and catchy sound.

7. 50 (2016)

This is my favorite Rick Astley album, and it seems I'm not alone in this! It was the first album of his to be number one since his debut one. He sung AND played all instruments for it, and it really feels like a personal project, that brings the artist close to the audience.

From the very title you know you are in for something: the 50, Rick's age in 2016, is a tongue-in-cheek homage to Adele (whose albums have all been titled after her age at the time of release), that also speaks of this sense of being a middle aged artist in an industry and particularly a genre or family of genres that leans so heavily into youth and coolness.

In 50 Rick leans on instead of shying away from the fact that he's not young (In either the heartfelt "Don't fake it, I can't take it/My heart is, close to breaking/It reminds me of my youth" or the humorous "I got to thirty and you show a little wrinkle/One more big plate/Now I'm putting on weight/Skinny jeans but nobody's fooled"), cool, or detached, but that doesn't make him jaded, heavy, or self important; the songs of this album are filled with a sense of hope, gratitude, generosity, and... fun. It's a curious marriage of the lighthearted beat of the pop that made him famous, and a mature version of the soul-ish style he seems to love and that he tried first in Free. Although there isn't a single skip in this album for me, the most representative, and that have what in my opinion is the best sound, are Keep Singing, Angels On My Side, Wish Away, Pieces, I Like the Sun, Let It Rain, Let it be Tonight.

8. Beautiful Life (2018)

There's little I can say about Beautiful Life in general, other than characterize it as an echo of 50. Same ideas, same themes, same tone and sound.

The highlight tracks are: Beautiful Life, Last Night on Earth, Rise Up, and Try.

Since Beautiful Life, Rick has released a compilation album (The Best of Me, 2019), a few remixes and a couple new singles; of those singles I'd highlight Giant (a true banger), Every One Of Us, and Unwanted.

Rick's next album, Are We There Yet? releases in October this year (2023).

#Rick Astley #music #discography overview #nostalgia

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goldenbloodytears · 2 months

Note

Got me thinking after the last (one of??) question you've answered. How do you picture the day Danny killed the senior Johnson and the aftermath of it?

Good question. I don’t have the entire thing sketched out in my head but here’s a rough outline of the ideas I’ve had banging around inside my skull for a while.

The tome does all but outright say that Danny killed his old man on a wild impulse… so following along with that, I think it was an “accident” too.

I put the rest under a read more since I think it got a little long haha

I think Danny had long prior developed a fantasy where he would kill his dad, one where he thought out all the little minute details based on his dad’s habits. I don’t know if he would have physically written anything down plan-wise, but I view it as the originating behaviour of his later impulse and style of stalking, he just became more organized about it once he knew he would be purposefully hunting people later.

I think the situation leading up to the event was something like this. The old man tells Danny they’re going on a hunting/camping trip, whatever plans Danny has made previous to this does not matter—he is expected to drop them. They take a long drive out to the middle of nowhere, and it’s tense and awkward. They get where they’re going, setup everything…. And eventually they get into an argument. Possibly one which elevates into a physical altercation and Danny ends up pulling his knife.

I had the particularly unhinged thought last night of whether his old man would be proud of Danny attacking him or at least suddenly try to comfort him “it’s okay son it’s an accident” while he’s bleeding the fuck out in the middle of nowhere… this is admittedly where my ideas start to break down and get fuzzy.

The next part I’m not sure about, but I can see Danny trying to rig the scene afterwards… despite the fact it’s an accident. This is assuming he doesn’t just go into shock for a bit. I don’t think he would know what to do here, nor am I super sure either. Would he leave to try to flag down the cops or attempted medical help if his dad wasn’t quite dead yet? Idk.

There’s an entire alternate scenario in which Danny just buries his dad in the woods and then fucks off to new life, but that feels a little too… I’m not sure if it’s easy, but it feels rather fanciful? I kinda feel like it’s the story he would tell to make himself sound badass.

So I feel like either way he probably got caught that first time. Maybe his dad had invited some old friends of his for the thing but they only show up later to a dissociated bloody Danny and his dead dad a couple feet away.

I should probably note that I’ve been considering this incident as happening while Danny is an older teen or young adult. Within the 17-21 range. Mostly because I think part of their argument would be related to Danny’s plans for the future and his dad wanting him to follow in his footsteps.

If we do go with the outcome where he gets charged, then he ends up calling his mom to bail him out—he’s pretty understandably freaking out at this point as the reality sets in. She flys out and immediately takes over in being the mom he hasn’t had for years; she’s the one who takes care of his legal fees and finding him a really good defence lawyer. I think I’ve said it already but his mom feels massively guilty about the situation.

There’s a couple potential outcomes to the situation here, and also some things to note.

I think the resulting legal trial would be Danny’s first taste of the media’s interest in bad news on a personal level, deeper than the “oh look more bad news” when you’re watching the local news at six kinda deal. I don’t picture it gaining much more than local publicity however.

Then you have where he might get charged with a lesser count like manslaughter, rather than homicide (this is related to my thoughts about him writing out his fantasies earlier… a good prosecutor would be able to argue he had criminal intent if his writings were found, whereas a lack of prior documentation heavily pushes the legal narrative more towards voluntary manslaughter by way of emotional distress)…. regardless of what he gets charged with, I’m a little stumped as to whether he could get a full acquittal or not.

The outcome I like is where he does get an acquittal (or extremely lenient sentencing), but his mom still has Danny move in with her and the family she’s got going, and there’s a brief period where he’s going to therapy or taking self-help classes (once again paid for by mommy dearest). Everything looks normal for a bit (I think the sudden “normalcy” drives him a little crazy tbh) and he gets his first journalism job at a paper… only to end up having the epiphany that the best way for him to get anywhere in the news world is to create the news himself.

He makes the conscious decision to go forward with what he’s doing at this point, after all, isn’t he hunting humans like his old man wanted him to do?

The only contention I have is that a criminal record could make things complicated, but at the same time explains some of his idiosyncrasies—like why is his background entry for dbd so obsessed with him not leaving any dna?? Well, maybe because he already has finger prints saved in a local law agency somewhere. Why does he use fake identities? Because he has a crime associated with his legal one, and because it provided more “protection” for what he’s doing.

At the same time, I think having a near brush with the law, one where he was lucky enough to escape without a criminal record, is enough to also explain the same things.

As a final thought, he definitely carries guilt about his dad’s death, like… his lore is pretty clear that he feels like his old man deserved a “better design” which makes me wonder if the original plan he had was a lot more… peaceful for Johnson senior to experience, or whether that’s just the reflection of “wow that really sucked” and not living up to the idealized fantasy he built in his head.

Also random trivia bit but I think he calls his mom on her birthday every year and tells her about how his life is “going” (probably making it sound way better than it is). She’s always chiding him to come visit and to call more often bc she loves and misses him.

#danny johnson #dbd ghostface #ghostface #dead by daylight #danny jed olsen johnson #dbd lore #dbd headcanons #dbd

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vethbrenatto · 1 year

Text

TLOVM S2 E1: Thoughts

OH NO! The guy who thought scanlan was hot is dead

Raishan really is that bitch isn’t she?

If these dragons are bad why are they sick as hell

“And I’m so glad you’re alive too, Scanlan!” ahskfkfl

THIS VAX’ILMORE MOMENT MY HEART OH MY GOD- they just really GET gilmore

“Lock the gates!” Followed by the dragon smashing directly through the gates is so funny

Best Characterization: Gilmore I guess? Not a lot of character content, mostly a setup episodes

TLOVM S2 E2: Thoughts

FIRST MATT NPC!!

Vax your sexy death visions are sooo cool

Writing Zahra in as Vex’s “”””old friend”””” I see. So glad they fucked in canon

Ladies is it gay to wear your “””old friend”””’s feather on ur shirt

I thought the episode was a little scattered (trying to do too much- Groon, Vasselheim’s Council, Slayer’s Take) but I will say the payoff of the climax with Groon and Grog + the sphinx reading VM to filth.. very good

VICTOR I LOVE YOU

Best characterization: Vex

TLOVM S2 E3: Thoughts

THIS feels like the start of the adventure. The first two episodes did feel like a prologue

Nonono don’t bring my Kashleth heart into this

“Do not go far from me” he did it he said the line!

God Zahra and Vex are giving “you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid”

HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY GOING TO LEAVE IT THERE I THOUGHT THIS WAS A FOUR EPISODE DROP NOT THREE

best ep of the three by far

Best Characterization: Vax

Overall Thoughts: I think this was a much stronger start than S1, they understand the humor better and I had some real chuckles while watching. The first two episodes did feel like setup but damn did it pick up in 3. Im gonna be haunted by that closing shot. (Also to address my Pikelan agenda I am just asking for crumbs and they can’t even deliver that to me)

#the legend of vox machina #tlovm thoughts #tlovm spoilers

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kyomunosaki · 8 months

Text

I started Hypnospace Outlaw

...and I've noticed a few small things that are super interesting, mostly with the idea of tutorialization.

I didn't plan to do a writeup on this, so I don't have any of my own gameplay's screenshots. I remember most of the gist, so I can probably write a few sentences on this topic that really stuck with me. I would've gone back for more screens but I'm feeling very lazy and I might repost this with editing/photos in the future lol

So Hypnospace Outlaw is basically a pre-2K "internet janitor simulator" except that you don't do it for free. You're like a free contractor/PMC janitor, where you get comissions to hunt down certain infringement of internet/Hypnospace law.

The first case is to find instances where the copyright for a 1968 of a cartoon character named Gumshoe Gooper is being infringed upon. I found this case to be a phenomenal tutorial for both the game mechanics and the philosophical(?) questions the game wants to ask.

Gumshoe Gooper (Hypnospace Outlaw)

At first upon getting this case, I was still grappling with the game mechanics, exploring the Windows 98-ass interface with the skill of an old man in a nursing home. At the time I entirely forgot about the search function, so I just explored by going through various web portals and webrings, a la Geocities.

I found a lot of interesting sites that I don't really have the time (nor screenshots) to talk about and do justice with, but there's a lot of awesome things to find in Hypnospace if you're willing to just take time and look around. I do want to possibly talk about that later if there's interest.

After just stumbling around the internet and remembering how hard it is to find stuff through web portals, I remembered the search function existed thanks to one of the sites I ended up on having tags that open up the search window. So I searched for "gooper"

You find 3 sites from that search, two from AbbyWrites58 and another from another woman who's name I can't recall right now. The first site is a typical late 90s personal site you might find, for a first-grade teacher. It contains mentions of memorials to dead lost ones, a Hypnospace Heaven or something, and is part of a "Spirituality" web ring, but otherwise not much to note. The first link however, is a link to "Drawings of Gumshoe Gooper by my first graders"

Webrings on Abby's World (Hypnospace Outlaw)

On the link, its filled with pencil/crayon sketches of Gumshoe Gooper by a bunch of children, but also 2 gifs that seem like legitimate copyright infringement. I still felt apprehensive about reporting this page to the Hypnospace Enforcers, because it felt like a teacher just wanting to share the work of her students and I was hoping to find other violations to fit my quota. Regardless, even if I were to fill out my quota there were only 2 very clear examples of copyright infringement on the page.

So, I went back and checked out the other site by AbbyWrites58, and this one was... a political support website for a local politician? Who was seemingly a politician that had different views than, I, the player did? And she was using a GIF of Gumshoe Gooper saying that he supported her? I didn't have much hesitation just hitting her with the copyright violation on this page.

The third page was just another site but with an official Gumshoe Gooper strip posted on it. As you can tell the rest of this essay is lazily thrown together and just a retelling of events, but I do not remember the exact details of the page. I just remember still feeling apprehensive about reporting stuff on the page with children's art, so I think I reported that strip.

I still hadn't reached my quota of 3 violations reported, so I begrudgingly made my way back to the initial site I had landed on in my search. I decided to report one of the GIFs, and didn't feel too bad about it since while she did teach first graders I did find her political views somewhat, off-putting. I was going to make my way back to the case page to finalize it, but I got a notification on the not!Clippy software, telling me that if I find more violations I could get a bonus on closing the case?

A child's drawing of Gumshoe Gooper (Hypnospace Outlaw)

So, I decide to report the other GIF on the page as well, and look at that: more money. And then I have a dark urge to test something out. What about this first grader's art? What if I file it for copyright infringement, what would happen? Would the kid get in trouble? Will the teacher get the blame? Did the teacher even deserve any blame? Well, I hit the report. It works. So I go through the page, filing every crude drawing of Gumshoe Gooper by children as a violation of copyright law.

I get a lot of money, and I don't feel too bad after learning more about AbbyWrites58. Besides, the other members of her webring were openly fascists! That sort of association makes you liable to uh, getting in serious trouble over copyright infringement of a 1968 cartoon character right? It's just my job! I needed to hit the quota! And what if I flag her account to the authorities, her account with her location and other personal information tied to it?! What is the worst that could happen, and maybe I would feel a bit more bad about it if her political views weren't so, wrong?

This sort of self-justification I found myself doing just felt fascinating. It was some of the most engaged I felt with a game's narrative in so long, and it's only been made more fascinating by later cases like even the one just following this with ZANE_ROCKS_14. If you liked this post, maybe I'll actually try to edit this one down properly and actually take screenshots too. Regardless, if you got this far thanks for reading!

Edit: I can see how this makes me look like kind of a dumbass but I guess what's more accurate is "what her political views were being signalled as" is more accurate for some of the stuff I say above lol, but I'm too lazy to edit the post more than this

#hypnospace outlaw #ludonarrative #game tutorials #essay #video game essay

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