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thisnoodlewritesao3 · 3 years

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Please Don't Say Goodbye | Tsukishima Kei/Reader

Characters: Tsukishima Kei, Reader, Yamaguchi Tadashi

Pairings: Tsukishima Kei/Reader

Warnings: light swearing, crying, implied panic attacks, arguments, yelling, ummm lemme know if I missed anything

Word Count: 2181

A/N: This was meant to be a drabble- okay, in my defence, I've had such writers block and apparently the feels were necessary soooo. This is 1 of 2 fic ideas that were sent to me by @satan-ruler-of-hells for a prompt thing I did (idk if I can find the thing) and the next one is Tendou. So, maybe get ready for more feels of my almost 5 am angst. I also did not proof-read this, sooooo

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How had things ended up like this?

Every little thing was like the calm before the storm - the most tense calm that had ever existed; you were walking on eggshells, and maybe so was he, but you couldn’t help it. At least, you thought you couldn’t. Each attempt to try and fix the mess around you only ended up in more heartbreak.

The storm that always seemed to be headed in your direction had tore apart the home you’d meticulously built together. Plates and picture frames shattered to the ground; glass leaving you walking on bleeding feet. The flowers of your love torn apart somewhere in the distance now. Breath stolen from your lungs, but not from those kisses he’d give you back in high school, not from the way he’d dance with you around his bedroom (only to shove you onto the bed when his brother barged in), not from your outrageous laughter at something stupid that had happened. This was a breath stolen from countless nights arguing, screaming, trying to gain the upper hand in a situation where you were both at a standstill. A breath stolen from your heaving words as you scrunch your hands into your roots, pull your legs close to your chest and shove yourself into a corner while he slammed the door and left to God knows where. Breath stolen from the realization that maybe things just weren’t working like they used to, and that it was okay to love him, but to not be in love with him.

Tonight was just another picture perfect example of why you weren’t meant to be together. You’d come home late from work (because of some stupid assignment that you just wanted to finish today). He was sitting on the couch, scrolling through Netflix for something to watch. Honestly, you just wanted to eat something, so you didn’t bother greeting him, but the moment he noticed your presence in the house, he was hot on your tail.

“Where were you?” His voice sharp as daggers, digging under your skin and tearing you apart piece by piece. His arms are crossed over his chest, eyes so judgmental you feel like you’re in court. Nothing you say is the right answer, so you choose to not say anything. Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer either - this you find out when his iron grip settles on your shoulder and forces you to turn around.

“Hey-” you winced, trying to pry his fingers off.

“Where were you?” He repeated, basically growling at you through his gritted teeth.

“I was at work.” You rolled your eyes, turning your attention back towards the fridge, trying to ease the beating of your heart. In, hold, out. You repeat to yourself, barely remembering what all those instagram therapists had told you.

He scoffed, finally releasing his grip in favor of slamming the fridge door shut, “really? Because the last time I checked, your work ended two hours ago. What could you possibly have been doing for two whole hours?” He was in your face now, making you know how pissed he was.

But you already knew. You’d always known. Why did he need to try and make it so blindingly obvious to you?

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kei, I was working. What part of that is so hard to understand?” You snapped back, moving away from him with a heavy sigh. At this point, you didn’t bother holding back the venom in your words. You knew he had issues (and you knew why) but did that mean he should take it out on you? No. Fuck.

“Two hours! Y/N, I was waiting two hours. I was going to take us to dinner, we were going to have a nice time.” He followed after you, closing every cupboard door you opened, trying to get your attention. “But you didn’t even send me a text. Were you too busy fuck-”

“Oh my God!” You yelled over him, spinning around to face him with your pure unfiltered aggression.

Back and forth you went for what felt like hours. Tears were acid down your cheeks, your spit a very special concoction of venom just for him. And yet, even as you were dry heaving in the kitchen sink, yelling more obscenities at him, you could never seem to stop. Neither could he.

Tsukishima Kei was known for a lot of things, being an asshole was one of them. That you knew too well.

For a while, though, things were good. He loved you. You loved him.

As he sits there, accusing you over and over of cheating on him, even though you hadn’t and you wouldn’t. God.

When had he become so anxious and persistent that things were going wrong? Yes, they were going wrong, but not for the reasons he keeps saying. It’s driving you insane, to the point where you can’t even remember those stupid breathing techniques, or grounding techniques, or anything.

This argument had lost the plot at some point around when he started yelling at you for doing the dishes wrong (you still insisted there wasn’t a wrong way to do them). So you bit back that his clothes were stupid, or that dinosaurs were stupid, something. Something was stupid.

“If you have so many problems with the way I choose to live my life, then get the fuck out.” You screamed, slamming your fists down onto the table and pointing to the door. His expression was scrunched up into something completely unrecognizable - a fine mixture of hatred and anguish. His chest rising and falling so rapidly you’re amazing he’s still standing. His hair is a complete and utter mess, so many times he’d ran his hand through it to try and make sense of the nonsense you were both spouting.

“Fine, I will!” He yelled back, voice hoarse from the past two hours.

You watched him head towards the door without a second thought, grabbing his coat, shoving his shoes on. You didn’t have the energy to call out after him, no matter how much your heart begged you to.

And your heart did beg you to; but it had already accepted that the end had been coming for too long.

You lean back against one of the cupboards, looking up at that one crack in the ceiling that he’d insisted he’d get around to fixing but something had always come up.

If you had to say what was wrong in your relationship, it would just be something. Something was wrong, and neither of you knew what it was, but something would be your downfall. Something filled the air with poison and made you destined to hate each other; something danced around in your words and twisted the meaning; something caressed your cheek as tears fell.

Something was your downfall and you didn’t have the energy to fight it.

So, maybe you’d call in sick the next day, and your boss would believe you because your voice sounded like hell; and maybe you’d spend the entire day lying in bed despite the fact your stomach was beginning for some nutrients; and maybe it would feel good to not have that nagging voice that you shouldn’t sleep in all day.

But today would have felt nicer with him by your side.

If there was one thing Tsukishima Kei was good at (after a lot of practice), it was making you feel just a little bit better with his empty promises and sweet nothings.

So, maybe you’d dressed yourself in his shirt and breath in him; and maybe you’d grab that dinosaur plushie you’d bought him for his birthday so many years ago and pull it to your chest; maybe you’d sleep on his side of the bed even though his pillow wasn’t as fluffy as yours; and maybe, just maybe, you watched his favourite movie on repeat, hoping it would bring him back to you.

Those were all maybe’s. But maybe they did happen, and you wanted nothing more than to be in his arms and tease him for his glasses that he insisted were cool. Or to have him laugh at you for the fact you majored in literature, despite the fact you weren’t good with words.

When your phone rang, you didn’t hesitate in picking it up, almost too excited for his voice, “Kei-”

“Y/N…” Yamaguchi’s voice was soft, understanding. It killed your fire of excitement in an instant.

You listened to him talk, something about how Tsukishima had decided you needed a break and would be staying at his place for a little while. Something about how he still loved you, but he didn’t want to keep hurting you like this.

It wasn’t a surprise that you didn’t manage to keep it together and broke out crying all over again, basically screaming and begging for things to be okay. There was no doubt in your mind, if Tsukishima was in the room with Yamaguchi, then he’d heard your cries.

“I’ll be better…” you whimpered, after far too long, “I’ll be nice. A-and… I won’t make fun of his glasses. Or dinosaurs. Please… please, Yamaguchi, please tell him to come home!” You cried out, unsure if you even managed to breathe.

He was silent on the line. You couldn’t take it. The silence, you wanted the noise. You’d prefer the arguing over this.

“I’m sorry…” Yamaguchi said weakly, and you knew how much it was hurting him to say this.

He hung up the phone and you were left as a shell of yourself.

And yet, your life must go on. So, for two months, you pushed your problems to the side and kept dredging forward in the hope that the answer to your problems was in one of these articles. Hoping that your co-worker would tell you some shitty anecdote that would distract you for just a little while.

Yo couldn’t look at your apartment anymore, not as little pieces of him were still littered everywhere.

Only, one day, you came home and he wasn’t anywhere. You didn’t notice it, not at first, but then you saw his mug from your museum visit in his third year of high school wasn’t next to your matching one. And then neither were his books on the shelf in your living room, or under the coffee table. His clothes gone from the closet. Every inch. Every detail. Every bit of him you had left had disappeared in the span of one work day.

And you were left with nothing.

With as much energy as you could muster, you turned and ran in the general direction of Yamaguchi’s house (which was hopeless, considering you had the directional capability of a broken compass and the stamina of a dead horse). You really were hopeless as you dialed his number, ignoring the way the moon taunted you in the sky.

He answered, for whatever reason, and you let out a breath. “What is it?” His tone was even, but something told you he was barely holding it together.

“Is this it?” Was all you could say. Head dizzy as you looked for Yamaguchi’s house - which you just knew was somewhere around here.

“It’s been it for a long time.” He really sounded robotic, like he was reading from a script.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Your voice broke as you ran, ignoring the splintering pain in the balls of your feet, “you thought making Yamaguchi say you needed a break, and then disappearing for two months, and then only reappearing to take your things back was the answer?” You cried out.

“You know-” his voice cracked and he stopped speaking. God, it hurt you so much.

“I never wanted this.” Tears were pouring down your cheeks.

“You think I did?”

“No-”

“I tried, Y/N, I tried so hard. But you would never listen to me!”

“I tried too, Kei!” You tried not to yell, and you hoped that it worked.

Some miracle brought you to Yamaguchi’s door, the one you only recognized because of the little frog statue on the windowsill. You pressed the doorbell, hoping for the best.

“I tried because I loved you. And I waited for you, I waited and hoped you’d come back. I-” you ran your hands through your hair once again. “I know we aren’t the best, that something is always wrong, but we can work on this. We can… fuck, I don’t know. You were the smart one…” he let out a low chuckle laced with pain. “But we can work something out, can’t we?”

There was a pause, and Yamaguchi opened the door, shocked to see you. Your breath hitched but neither of you spoke.

“I… I can’t do this anymore…” he admitted, and you felt your heart shatter. “Y/N, this is it…”

You could see Tsukishima pacing in the living room just down the hall, and you know Yamaguchi knows you’ve seen him. His phone pulled away from his face, finger shaking over that familiar red button.

“Please don’t say goodbye…” you called out.

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@pies-writes-and-more @satan-ruler-of-hells @dekuspet @samkysnks @tobi-momo @kaleidoscopekai @elektrosonix @realcube @darkvadeeer

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#thisnoodlewrites #haikyuu tsukishima #tsukishima x reader #hq tsukishima #hq yamaguchi #haikyuu angst #tw: implied panic attacks #reader #break up angst?

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i-drink-and-i-write-fics · 2 years

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My Watcher

Sunny x Nix PoV One-Shot (Into the Badlands)

Summary: Nix finds herself in an impossible future. Her friend, Bren, knows of this world and is using it to his advantage. But Nix is a fish out of water, with a silent guardian making sure she won’t betray the Baron he works for. But is the assignment that simple?

Notes: We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you a one-shot from a fandom I don’t even know 🤣

@themerriweathermage is my enabler and this is a gift to him. Happy Festivus 😂

The Badlands. I didn’t know much about them. Ok, I knew next to shit about them. Still, here I was in Baron Quinn’s barony with my long-time best friend, Bren. How we got here, I haven’t a fucking clue. And at first, we had visited Minerva’s barony where we ran into Quinn and his regent, Sunny.

Sunny. Now there was an enigma.

He was Quinn’s top Clipper, whatever the hell that was. Bren had once told me, but in all honestly, a lot was lost as I tried to absorb being in our new world. All I remembered was that he was deadly, sarcastic, and loyal to Quinn.

And painfully good-looking. This world will be my downfall.

We had been here only a month, but it felt like ages. Perhaps because a majority of it was spent in Quinn’s barony and I LOATHED that man. Like, would actively plot his death if I thought I could make it out alive. But Bren liked him so I kept my murderous thoughts to myself. I did that by sneaking out of the house every once in a while.

Such as today. I knew I was never alone. Quinn was paranoid as fuck and he always sent Sunny to watch over me. He tried to be quiet when he followed me, to give me the illusion of solitude. But sometimes I got a good head start and he had to use his chopper to find me. Today was one of those days. Even though he left his chopper a mile back, I knew he was there.

I could feel him, my silent watcher. He clearly moved like a shadow, but still, I knew he was there. It was getting old.

He couldn’t stay as quiet when we crossed from grass to a rocky pathway. But he also knew that I was aware of him. At least he was giving me space.

Finally, as we reached a stream, I broke the silence. “Doesn’t this get old? Don’t you have real work to do?”

“Protecting the barony is my work.”

“Oh yeah, gotta protect the big bad wolf from some 5’5” sarcastic bitch. Gods know what I may do,” I rolled my eyes. “Your loyalty to the asshole is as amazing as it is baffling.”

“And your loyalty is to no one. Hence why I am here.”

I whirled on Sunny. “My loyalty is to Bren! I may not fully understand his draw to this baron, er barony. If this is where he wishes to be, then this is where I’ll remain.”

Sunny stepped into my personal space and I almost pushed him away. But my survival instincts did work at times.

“And you say my loyalty is baffling.”

“Bren has been my best friend for a long time. We would do what it takes to protect each other. Which is more than what I can say for your dynamic. Who do you have that would sacrifice for you?”

He looked at me for a long moment before sighing. “We should head back.”

I didn’t argue and this time we walked side by side.

I could feel him trying not to look down at me and it caused me to sigh. “Whatever it is, just say it. Just get it out, Regent.”

Sunny slightly frowned at my words. I hadn’t called him by his name much, and Quinn by his never. It was my own silent protest. “I just think-”

But whatever he was going to say got cut off by the sound of a twig snapping. In a blinding fast move, Sunny had me behind him as he turned towards the sound. A group of men exited the treeline, each holding a large weapon.

“Well, looky here boys. An actual Clipper. And a little lady with him,” the leader leered at me. “What say you, Clipper. Leave the girl and we’ll let you live.”

I could see Sunny tense at the words. “We both know my Baron doesn’t like anything taken from his lands.”

Normally I would have been hella offended at being referred to as a piece of someone’s land, but now was not the time. Reading A Song of Ice and Fire had taught me the rare moments to hold my sarcastic tongue in a dangerous place like this.

Sunny tilted his head back to speak to me, “no matter what, stay back. Stay by my chopper.”

I gave a slight nod to my head and took a few steps back as Sunny stepped forward to move into a fighting stance. It was one thing to watch him in the training fields, but here he flowed like water.

The nomads raced forward to attack Sunny and it became a deadly dance, with Sunny clearly leading them. I had never seen him in this light and I instantly understood why Quinn would want to keep him close. He was probably the only one who could fight Quinn and win.

It was beautiful and deadly watching him. I became so mesmerized I almost didn’t notice the nomad trying to sneak up on me. Almost.

I turned just as he thrust his sword at me, cutting my cheek with a shallow slice. My hand wrapped around his and I headbutted his nose, causing him to stagger back in pain as he began to bleed. Acting quickly in my motions, I snatched the blade from him and thrust my hand forward as he charged at me.

The shocked look in his eyes was the last thing I saw before he collapsed at my feet.

Oh my god. I actually killed someone.

“Phoenix?”

Oh my god, did I actually kill someone?

“Phoenix, are you alright?”

I couldn’t register the voice trying to reach me as shock threatened to take over my body. Fighting was nothing new to me in my old world. But I had never taken a life. Not even in self-defense.

Sunny came into my vision and looked down at the crumpled body at my feet. When he looked at my face, he connected the dots.

“Nix, it’s ok. It’s over. Look at me, Nix.”

Was Sunny calling me Nix? When the hell did he start doing that? The shock of him being informal pulled me away from the edge of the shock of killing someone. And just in time.

Sunny was so focused on me, he didn’t notice the nomad that wasn’t killed getting to his feet. Sword in his hands.

“Watch out!” The words flew out of my mouth as I grabbed Sunny by the shoulders and pushed him away, spinning as I did. My hand reached down and grabbed a dagger at Sunny’s hip.

I don’t remember throwing the blade, but it hit the mark and the nomad dropped to the ground. What in the hell was happening to me?

Sunny couldn’t help his mouth dropping in shock at my quick thinking. Then he collected himself and moved me back to his chopper, having me sit on the seat.

“Nix, look at me.” I blinked and followed his instructions, looking into his dark brown eyes. “Are you ok?”

“I- I think that’s subjective.”

He gently reached up and touched the cut on my face. “I’m sorry I let that happen.”

I shook my head. “It’s your job to make sure I don’t betray Captain Crybaby. Not keep me out of trouble. This isn’t your fault, Sunny.”

He reached into his saddlebag on his chopper and pulled out a small first aid kit. I sat still as he tended to the cut on my face and patiently let him look me over to make sure there weren’t any other wounds.

It was the closest he and I had been since we had met. It felt odd and comforting all at the same time. And then it hit me. Sunny. Nix. We were acknowledging each other beyond the bare polite greetings.

I watched as he cleaned off the nomad’s blood as best he could from me. He kept looking into my face to see any signs of shock returning.

“It probably won’t return until tonight when I go to sleep.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Yeah, well no offense but I don’t trust most of the people working for your boss.”

“Most?” He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me.

I gave a tired smile. “What can I say? I think I can trust you now.”

He was kneeling at my feet as he was putting the kit back and he paused in his actions, his eyes studying my face. He could sense it as well as I. In just one afternoon - one not-so-simple afternoon - the dynamic between Quinn’s Regent and myself had changed.

And gods only know what that could end up meaning.

Tagging Crew

Everything:

@itsafansworld07

@that-chick212

@keetnerj01

Into The Badlands

@themerriweathermage

#into the badlands #sunny #sunny x original female character #original female character #one shot #my watcher #welcome to the badlands series

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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What has Ironwood done that's objectively wrong? Bringing the fleet to Beacon makes sense with 1) Qrow's warning, 2) the presence of Grimm in general, 3) we have security forces for major events on Earth. Blake's trailer shows her & WF stealing dust for terrorist acts used at Beacon and Haven. His embargo makes sense. Penny & co. were fighting grimm in Mantle in vol. 7. Amity was used in vol. 8. I keep seeing people call him a Greek tragic hero and characters keep calling him misguided but why??

Personally, the only thing I think Ironwood has done objectively wrong is shooting Oscar and the Councilman, which is why those actions feels so far removed from the rest of his character — an attempt on the writers’ part to make him really evil when the story started insisting he’s an antagonist. RWBY isn’t interested in portraying Ironwood and Ruby as two heroes who go about saving people in different ways, like it was for Yang and Ruby: “You go save individuals and I’ll tell the world about Salem. We might disagree about how to help, but the narrative presents both actions as helping” (stupidity of the Amity plan aside). We could have easily gotten that with, “You go make a suicidal stand against Salem in an effort to save more people and I’ll take the risk of trying to escape with the people we have” but the show just... didn’t. Nor is the story interested in saying that Ruby was wrong, so the moment she took a firm stance against Ironwood he had to become the objective bad guy. If your story refuses to acknowledge that the hero is in any way flawed, then their opponents can’t have redeeming features that reflect badly on the hero. Which is what we had with Ironwood prior to the Oscar shooting, standing in contrast to Ruby with his practical approach that actually had a chance of saving some vs. her idealism that was going to get everyone killed (and still might). Everything Ironwood did was ABSOLUTELY iffy... but never objectively wrong. He had justified reasons for everything he did and only the best of intentions. Does that mean he was right every time? Wrong? It’s debatable and straddling that line was always the point. But once the story pit Ironwood against Ruby, a Ruby the story refuses to acknowledge as anything other than Pure and Good, that line could not longer exist. He HAD to be villainous in order to exist as her contrast, yet hadn’t acted in a villainous manner. So what do you do? Have him randomly shoot people to establish how evil he is.

As for the tragic hero aspect, I’d say it’s an easy claim to make if you don’t dive too deep into the story. Meaning, we can see a lot of similarities on the surface of Ironwood’s character, yet the actual meat of the story doesn’t support this reading very well. Ironwood is indeed a moral person of good standing whose misfortune stems from some bad luck/mistakes (army getting hacked is the best example), but that’s it. A great deal more of his misfortune stems from deliberate acts against him, both by Salem and (to a lesser extent) by Ruby. Ironwood’s supposed fatal flaw — the hamartia, usually hubris/pride — is not seen throughout the story, despite how much the fandom insists that he seizes power because he believes he’s Remnant’s savior. Throughout the whole series Ironwood continually eschews pride in favor of leaning on others: Let’s listen to Ozpin, let’s welcome new allies, let’s align ourselves with old enemies. It’s just that every time he reaches out, his allies fail him: Ozpin was keeping secrets (I love the guy and support most of his decisions, but I get why Ironwood's trust faltered, far more-so than I understand the group’s), Ruby lies and betrayed him, Robyn likewise betrayed him and helped get Clover killed. Pride is not his downfall, bad allies and an evil witch are!

Perhaps most importantly, the tragic hero is meant to elicit pity. Sometimes fear too, but mostly pity. The story should be cathartic for the viewer because they’re watching a good person meet a bad end, largely due to what we recognize as inevitable, human error. That’s not who the story now insists Ironwood is. The story wants us to hate him, hence the above paragraph about “He’s evil now and shoots people for no reason.” This isn’t to say that the tragic hero never does things/has characteristics that the audience dislikes — they are still meant to be very flawed — but those aspects should not outweigh our ability to connect with the character and understand them. The emotional foundation here is regret that things turned out this way when they didn’t have to and the character (or at least who the character started out as) didn’t deserve this fate. Is that what RWBY is aiming for with Ironwood? I wouldn’t say so. We, as individual fans, might feel sympathy for him — largely due to what we recognize as bad writing choices changing our perspective — but that doesn’t mean the story is actively angling for that response. I’d say RWBY wants us to despise Ironwood and root for his downfall, which flies in the face of the tragic hero. He’s moved into the category of a much more clear-cut villain: a killer, a contrast to the heroes, our protagonist tells the whole world not to trust him. It’s possible that Ironwood may circle back to a tragic hero, but again, I doubt RWBY will succeed in making that move in a persuasive manner. I think they’ll just kill Ironwood off and people will go, “See, that’s what happens to tragic heroes!” ignoring both what the story wanted us to feel for Ironwood this last volume (he’s villainous) and how it failed to get us there in a believable manner (he was a good guy who just inexplicably started shooting when the story needed him to).

These archetypes are complex and require that they be written with intent and, to be frank, skill. Compare Ironwood to someone like Walter White. Breaking Bad ensure we see from Episode One how Walter’s pride continually leads him down a dark path. His inability to lean on/trust others means that he goes to extreme lengths to do everything on his own, like making drugs to pay for his own cancer treatments. In time this leads to a more overt desire for power and his eventual downfall, wherein the audience recognizes the need for his punishment, yet still aches for the good man besieged by bad luck (cancer) that he once was. Ironwood’s fatal flaw is that he... wants to use military force against an endless army of literal monsters? That he doesn’t want to do everything on his own? Ironwood’s flaw is only a flaw in our world, not the world where magical monsters are eating people, and 99% of his misfortune stems not from his own actions coming about due to a different flaw, but because others are actively working against him. We can’t make broad-sweeping claims about Ironwood’s actions without first considering the actions of the characters around him. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he kills a man (action), ignorant that this is his father and thus fulfilling part of his prophecy. All of Ironwood’s recent, intended actions — tell the world about Salem, leaving with Amity, etc. — have not come about and his ignorance only existed because others deliberately kept that information from him. It’s like if a friend of Oedipus’ knew all along that Laius was his father but refused to tell him, then stopped him from killing Laius because that’s bad... but then blamed him when someone else killed him instead? I think the fandom forgets that things are #bad right now because Salem is attacking the kingdom with, like, five different evil weapons. The kingdom is falling mostly because Salem is an asshole and a little because Ruby has made awful choices lately. Ironwood’s supposed pride didn’t bring Salem here, didn’t keep people from surviving, is not stopping the group from winning their battle. The tragedies we see in the story right now are not on him.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

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okay so i just finished season 8, i can see why people didn’t like it but personally i really did. i feel like the thing people are mad about the most is that dany became a tyrant? watching the series knowing everyone’s endings allowed me to see things that most people probably wouldn’t catch on to. one thing is that arya’s end shot mimics the shot of her sailing to braavos at the end of season 4(i think it was season 4). also that danny’s speech to the dothraki, at the end, and her speeches to the unsullied,,, when paired with her actions(and with what tyrion said about how she kills evil men and we cheer her on i admit i did this too, but those cheers allow her to believe that she is always right and that makes her dangerous) it reminds me a lot of speeches dictators used. “you’re freeing the world” “we’re doing a great good” idk,, i like dany but i get annoyed when people say the signs weren’t there from the start, when they absolutely were. i do think that she could have been great, but people put to much faith in her which made her set extremely high expectations for herself and how people would treat her. and that ultimately led to her downfall. in short, i liked season 8. i like jon going north at the end, i like arya going off to explore, i really like sansa being queen, bran being king is eh but i like it overall. brienne writing jaime into the book of the kingsguard did made me cry, but i like that pod got knighted and i think brienne would have done something like that. even though he broke her heart.

My biggest issue with Season 8 is clear in my head, but difficult to describe with words.

Everyone seems to have at least one major plot point that hated to the point of feeling like it ruined the show. Jaime going back to Cersei, Arya killing the Night King, the Clegane Bowl, Sansa’s betrayal, the “R + L = J” storyline not amounting to much/the overall path of Jon’s character. And of course, Dany’s conclusion is a big one for most people. I don’t really have anything like that. (Okay that’s a lie, mine is the Grand Council scene. Fuck that scene in fifty different ways.) I suppose what makes Season 8 the “worst” season for a lot of people is that things just feel different. The writing feels different, the characters feel different, the storylines...it all feels just a bit “off.” I’m not even saying that it’s bad-different, but it isn’t good-different either. In hindsight, the fact that the writers were rushing through GOT to get to Star Wars...yeah, I can believe that.

But there’s a lot to like about Season 8 as well. Several things are carried over directly from Season 7 (which I’ll admit, is my favorite season) in particular, the first three episodes of S8 almost feel like the missing final three episodes of S7. I personally have no issue with Arya killing the Night King. While I did love the echoing of her boarding that ship like she did at the end of S4, and it totally feels like something she would do....I dunno, the line “A girl is Arya Stark from Winterfell. And I’m going home.” just really stuck with me, and I kinda thought she was over all that and just wanted to be with her family. I also have no issue with Sansa becoming Queen in The North. Like, what else was going to happen? Of course she would take up the mantle. Even if she wasn’t ready, who else was left? That said, she was ready and she damn well proved it in the final seasons. Sansa stood up for her people time and again. That was like, the entire reason for her conflict with Dany apart from overprotective sister instincts activating.

But, speaking of Dany...this is something that I always hesitate to talk about, but suffice it to say that I agree with you 100%. Of all the things in Season 8 that bothered me, I kinda saw this coming. Sure, I wish to hell and back that they hadn’t gone this direction, but it’s not even close to being as big a turnaround as Jaime had. I think a lot of fans identify with Dany and have latched onto her for that reason, and she’s a fantastic character to latch onto. But I’d be lying if I said that the signs weren’t there. She always did whatever the hell she wanted, and got away with it by the authority of “I have dragons.” This wasn’t just in the later seasons either. Remember the time she threatened to violate guest right because “My dragons made no such promise?” Tyrion’s speech to Jon in S8E6 was totally him being a loudspeaker for the writers, trying to convince the audience that this made sense...but it’s not like anything he said wasn’t true. As a Jon/Dany shipper, as someone who was rooting for either, or both of them, to wind up on the Iron Throne, as someone who unironically loved Dany’s character...yeah, it broke me. But it could have been worse. Some Dany stans hate Jon for killing her but seriously...at that point, what the hell was he supposed to do? She threatened Winterfell, and his sisters. Plus, y’know, she had murdered most of the population of King’s Landing. She had to be stopped, and Jon was the only one who stood a chance of getting close enough. He clearly hated having to do it, and he got a life sentence for it. So can’t we leave the poor guy alone? He’s suffered enough...

Jaime’s ending...is just depressing, and Brienne did not deserve that. I don’t hate Jaime for it, nor do I feel like it completely reversed all of the growth in his character. But it did yank his storyline in a total 180, and that can absolutely be utilized to tragic effect. The fact is, Jaime didn’t revert to being the asshole he was in Season 1. He simply resigned himself to the inevitability that he would always be that person. That because he still loved someone as wicked as Cersei, and had committed such crimes for her, that he would always be that person and there was no escaping it. The idea of becoming a better person was simply not something he would ever be allowed. This, my good friend, is 100% a symptom of abuse. Jaime and Cersei’s relationship is toxic as hell, not because of the whole twin thing, but because she is an abuser who brings out the worst in him. If Jaime had to die, I wish it had gone a different way. I can respect the full circle, but this is just so not the ending I wanted for him. And hell, seeing him cradle Cersei in his arms, seeing her sob about how she doesn’t want their baby to die...damn it, the character who’s death I was most expecting to cheer at, and I can’t even properly enjoy it. But it was a beautiful death scene, I’ll give them that, and seeing Tyrion’s reaction to finding the golden hand? Kill me now.

The less that is said about the talking computer pretending to be Bran, the better. I won’t go into my spiel about why this enrages me because we’d be here forever, but I’ll just say that it actually made my knuckles whiten when they had the nerve to play House Stark’s theme over his coronation. Why? Why would they do that? It’s not like a Stark is being crowned King. Because, by his own admission, that entity sitting in the chair is not Brandon Stark anymore. He is the Three-Eyed Raven. Bran is effectively dead, and it low-key drives me crazy that everyone, including his family, just carry on as if that wasn’t the case. But I’ll leave it there. “King Bran” was a terrible idea, but I won’t go into the myriad of reasons why.

#Game of Thrones #Game of Thrones Season 8 #GOT Season 8 #Arya Stark #Sansa Stark #Daenerys Targaryen #Jon Snow #Jaime Lannister #The Three Eyed Raven #Brandon Stark

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charlienick · 5 years

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hi and i love u. "i swallow your heart and it crawls right out of my mouth" for the prompts....

Richie has decided that his dream-self can get fucked. And not in the fun way.

When he’s 24, at least once per night, Richie has what he would describe as an erotic nightmare. He never actually has sex in these dreams, nor does he die or even get seriously maimed. But they’re still definitely erotic, and they’re definitely nightmares.

The first went something like this:

He is tied to a chair. He can’t get up. The rope is chafing his skin. He struggles against the darkness, but he does not move. He can’t. Squinting out into the inky black, he wonders if he’s wearing his glasses. It’s only once he has that thought that he sees a spotlight lighting up his childhood kitchen. His refrigerator has magnets from Acadia National Park, a photo of him and Bill flipping off the camera and laughing, a copy of his sonogram. The sight of it makes him ache in a way he can’t describe, nor does he have time to, because stepping out of the hallway and into the light is his childhood best friend, Eddie Kaspbrak.

Eddie is wearing a cream-colored sweater that he wore a lot in his late-teens and the bright red shorts he was so fond of in middle school. It’s a jarring combination, because Richie never saw him wear those two articles of clothing at the same time, let alone in the same era. He’s picking at a thread spinning loose from the sweater, looking down at it. He bites his bottom lip, and Richie starts to feel nervous, uncomfortable, because whenever he finds himself wishing Eddie were a woman so that it would feel normal for him to want to take his lip between his own, he looks away. Makes a joke. Averts attention from the ache in his heart, in his head, in his jeans.

He can’t do that now. He tries, but he doesn’t succeed. There’s something invisible keeping his head pointed forward. Eddie snaps his eyes up, smirks with the lip still caught in his teeth, and says… something. Richie can’t hear him from so far away, his hearing fuzzy the way his vision always is. The smirk isn’t cruel, isn’t mean or even teasing. Eddie looks proud of himself. He shucks off his sweater in one fluid movement and drops it to the linoleum beneath him. His skin shines golden, and Richie can hardly breathe. He feels like he’s being asphyxiated, and he bucks his hips, turned on and terrified.

And then he wakes up.

Dreams like this have happened almost nightly for months now. Once, it’s Eddie giving him a lap dance while he’s tied to the couch in their apartment. Another time, Bev catches Eddie stripping for him in his bedroom, and her laughter echoes all the way into the waking world. Regardless of the content of his dreams, Richie always remembers them in painstaking detail, and it’s really causing a rift between he and Eddie.

This sucks major donkey dick for three reasons: the first is that Richie is, like, deeply uncomfortable in his own home at all times. He can’t look at Eddie with his feet propped up on the ottoman without remembering how his legs looked wrapped around Richie’s waist, can’t hear his voice without remembering how he sounded moaning Richie’s name. The second reason, of course, is that Eddie is his best friend, and it’s shitty that Richie can’t find comfort in that the way he used to.

The third reason is that Eddie is starting to fucking notice.

He cornered Richie in the kitchen while he was making himself breakfast two mornings ago, and demanded he tell him what he did wrong because he couldn’t stand another weird, uncomfortable second of this weird standstill he and Richie had found themselves in. “What weird, uncomfortable standstill?” Richie had basically responded with, chuckling manically like that wouldn’t be a total tip-off that things were in fact weird and uncomfortable.

He has stopped walking around in his boxers, terrified that he’s going to get a hard-on when Eddie, like, waters the fucking spider plant and his shirt rides up and Richie short-circuits and has a total meltdown.

So he figures he’s attracted to his best friend. So what, he says to himself alone in his bedroom after jacking off the moment he woke up for the fifth day in a row. So I’m attracted to Eddie. Eddie is a pretty boy. This means nothing. I’m still straight.

He considers bringing this up to Stan, because next to Eddie, Stan is his best friend, but Stan would definitely laugh at him and say something like you’re an idiot. Go kiss your roommate and leave me be, which, okay, true, but not necessary. He knows, Brain-Stan! He’s aware the situation is reaching its boiling point! But he can’t exactly fucking tell Eddie, hey, I wanna suck your dick, but no homo, O best friend of mine! Eddie wouldn’t understand that the situation is precariously balanced between Richie’s suppression and the knowledge that Eddie has definitely sucked dick before.

Because Eddie was able to come out after he and the Losers moved from Maine to San Francisco, he has caught some dick regularly for the past six years. He’s pretty, as Richie’s head, heart, and apparently now dick all agree upon, and the four or so men he has in rotation all seem to think so, too. When Eddie would bring home a suitor prior to Richie’s epic sexual breakdown, he would just scamper over to Bev and Ben’s, or go bother Stan, Mike, and Bill at theirs. Now however, because on top of being attracted to his best friend, he’s also a goddamn masochist, and he’s staying holed up in his room listening to Eddie get fucked (or fuck? He isn’t certain on the makeup of his screwings, though not for lack of trying), one hand stripping his dick, feeling like a total and complete asshole.

Richie knows that one’s sexuality is not always privy to one’s knowledge of whether or not the person would be interested in bedding him or not, and his wild imagination is not totally hinged upon reality. Bev and Ben would definitely not tie him up and have their way with him, but that’s still a familiar fantasy in his spank bank; he knows it will never happen, but it’s called a fantasy for a reason. However, jacking off to the sound of actual-Eddie’s moans and sighs is definitely crossing a line, and he knows it.

So since that one fated, sordid evening, he has decided that he isn’t going to jack off at all until either the dreams stop or he’s able to talk this out with Eddie in a normal way without totally having a mental breakdown.

This was a stupid decision, he decides ten days in, because it seems like the dreams aren’t going to stop and he’s going to have to face this for real or his subconscious might actually eat him alive. He’s not going to give into his libido because his heart is stronger than that. His weak willpower will not be his downfall.

So he decides to talk to Ben, because he’s the least likely to make fun of him about this, and because he might be able to knock some sense into him.

“Wait, you and Eddie aren’t making love already?” Ben’s face screws up in confusion. “Oh.”

“What do you mean, oh? We haven’t ever knocked boots because I’m straight as an arrow.”

“Sorry to inform you, Rich, but having… ‘erotic nightmares’ about your male best friend isn’t exactly heterosexual behavior.” Richie goes to cut in, but Ben holds a hand up. “And what would be so wrong with liking boys? Or liking Eddie?” Richie snaps his mouth shut. “Eddie is the best. You love Eddie as a friend, right?”

“Totally, yeah, I mean, yeah!” Richie rambles, nodding violently.

Ben smiles patiently, “So what would be so bad about loving him all the way?”

“I… I didn’t know… I mean, I’ve had sex with girls. It just doesn’t light a fire under my dick the same way this seems to. He’s so pretty, and I don’t quite know how to go back to seeing him the way I used to now that I see him so clearly. It’s like I’ve been looking at him without my glasses on my whole life, and now everything is so much less fuzzy. Like I understand it better now.” His eyes widen as the silence stretches on, Ben smiling softly the whole time. “I mean, uh, you know, he could hop on my dick and I wouldn’t say no. Then I’d have fucked the whole Kaspbrak clan.”

Ben’s nose wrinkles in distaste, so he doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he says, “Tell him, Richie. I promise it won’t go badly.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to fuck me back?”

“You really think all this is is sex, Richie?” Ben asks quietly. He offers him another smile, an encouraging one this time, “And I already promised—it won’t go badly.”

So Richie decides, fuck it. He’ll tell Eddie tomorrow.

But then he wakes up in a cold sweat from tonight’s newest erotic nightmare, this time leaning more heavily on the nightmarish aspect than the erotic, and he decides tomorrow can’t wait. Tonight. He’s doing this right now, because he can’t stand another moment not being close to Eddie.

He puts on his glasses, pads out of his room and knocks softly on Eddie’s door. “Eds? You up?” Silence. He knocks a bit harder. “Eddie?” He hears Eddie sniff harshly from inside his room, and something knocks loudly. “Eds? You okay?”

“Mmph,” comes Eddie’s muffled reply. “Come in, you dick.”

Richie smiles and does as he’s told. He can see Eddie relatively clearly through the slats in the blinds open to the moon high above them. He’s rubbing the side of his head, his hair a total mess, his shirt rumpled, his frown intense, and Richie realizes, fuck, I love this angry little goblin. Jesus Christ, I love him.

“Hitting your head on the headboard is way less fun when you’re by yourself,” he grumbles. He wraps an arm around his knees and tilts his head. “What’s up at… 3:50 AM?”

“I…” Richie breathes out unsteadily. He decides to go with the truth: “I had a nightmare.”

“Oh. Shit,” Eddie frowns, pulling back the blankets. “You wanna cuddle?”

Richie nods dramatically and pitches himself into Eddie’s bed, immediately wrapping himself around Eddie. Eddie snorts, laughs quietly, and turns in Richie’s hold, slotting their thighs together so they’re facing one another. “Dick. You know I don’t like to be the little spoon, ‘specially with you and your newborn-deer limbs.”

“Can’t you make an exception just this once, Spaghetti?” Richie smiles, but he’s really only teasing; he’s just fine with this.

“So long as you tell me what the dream was about.” Richie tenses in Eddie’s hold, thinking, shit, I really should’ve assumed he’d ask. “I mean, if you want. But until you tell me, I demand to be the big spoon.”

Richie sighs, turning in Eddie’s hold only because it’ll be easier to say it if he isn’t looking right at him. “So I’ve been having these… we’ll call them erotic nightmares.”

“That sounds like a term you thought of weeks ago and are very proud to finally get the chance to utter.”

“Die.” Eddie snorts. “Actually, don’t-don’t do that,” Richie whispers, “please don’t die.”

“I won’t,” Eddie says, sounding like he’s about to laugh but trying not to. “Was that what the dream was about tonight? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

“Sort of, yeah. You were, uh, you were on top of me, and you… I didn’t even see it coming. Your heart, it was… I don’t even think it could ever happen in real life.”

Eddie slips a hand beneath Richie’s shirt, cupping his hip bone and rhythmically running his thumb in the hollow between it and his stomach. “It didn’t happen, Rich. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Richie breathes out, less shaky this time, and nods. “Okay.”

A long pause, and then, “You said these nightmares, they’re erotic.” Richie’s blood runs cold. Fuck, he didn’t want this to be how he said it. “Is that why I was on top of you?”

“Sort of,” Richie whispers. “Yeah.”

“Like… Like this?” Eddie dislodges his thigh out from between Richie’s and hooks it over his hips, forcing him to lay flat on the bed. Eddie hovers over him, eyes dark and electric in the moonlight. He looks ethereal, holy, and nothing like he did in the dream. “What happens next? When I’m above you like this?”

“It’s different every time,” Richie says all in one breath. Eddie’s boxer shorts are hanging and brushing against the tops of Richie’s thighs. He feels a light breeze away from spontaneously combusting. “Sometimes you dance for me.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose, laughing quietly, “I can’t dance.”

“I know that, but my dreams don’t.” Eddie smile drops in an instant.

“What else?”

“Sometimes you hold me down⁠—”

Richie cuts himself off with a gasp when Eddie nudges Richie’s hands out from where they’re balled in Eddie’s sheets and presses them down to the bed beside his head. “Like this?” Richie chokes, nodding. He can’t say anything. He can hardly breathe. “What’s next, Richie?”

“You-you grind on me ‘til you—oh, holy shit.” Eddie swivels his hips in a tight circle against Richie’s dick, both of them already hard.

“Yeah? You been dreamin’ of me like this, Rich? How long?”

“What?”

“How long,” he grinds down low, and Richie moans, “have you,” he does it again, and Richie gasps, keening loudly, “been dreaming of me? Because I’ve been dreaming of you for years, Rich.”

“Motherfucking tap-dancing Jesus, you have?” Richie demands.

“Of course I have. Sometimes, when I bring a boy home, I pretend he’s you.”

“Oh my God.”

“Sometimes I accidentally say your name.”

Richie bucks his hips, feeling wild, caged. “Eddie, please, I need—”

“What do you want, Rich? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Kiss me.” And he does. It’s everything and nothing like Richie dreamed it would be. It’s hot, searing, Eddie’s mouth a brand against his own, but the way Eddie is licking into his mouth feels nothing like he dreamed it would. It feels like he just wants to take care of Richie; he really wants to give Richie everything he asks for, and Richie feels drunk with the power-rush that brings. Beautiful, perfect, wonderful Eddie Kaspbrak wants to give him what he asks.

“Eddie,” he pants, and Eddie immediately pulls away, eyes liquid as they rake over Richie’s chest, still covered in his shirt. The light weight of it is suddenly stifling. “Please take off my shirt.”

“Of course, baby,” Eddie murmurs, unlocking their fingers and helping Richie sit up so he can do as he’s asked. “That better, angel?”

“Oh my God,” Richie whines, nodding. “This is so hot.”

Eddie smiles, “I agree. You’re definitely as beautiful as I dreamed you’d be.”

“You dreamed about me, too?” Richie sighs, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the thought of Eddie stripping his dick to the girls Richie’s brought home.

“Of course, Richie,” Eddie responds, hushed as he maps out Richie’s torso with the palms of his hands. One of his thumbs catches on Richie’s nipple, and he hisses, then gasps when he does it again. “Sometimes it’s sex dreams, like yours, but sometimes I dream you take me out to eat, or to the movies. Once, I dreamed you asked me to marry you and I woke up crying.”

“Eddie,” Richie says, all broken into pieces, jagged edges that sound serrated. “I would. You know I would, right?”

Eddie smiles softly, leaning over Richie and lacing their fingers back together, but the weight of Eddie on top of him doesn’t feel so suppressive anymore. It’s a comfort. It’s everything he could never admit to wanting. “I do now.”

He captures Richie’s mouth again, kisses that fall over him like stars, like meteorites, planets exploding behind his eyelids and pop rocks fizzing in his blood. He’s a shaking mess by the time Eddie pulls back again, kissing his neck and then sucking a mark into his collarbone, to his pulse point. He feels ready to burst, nearing absolute explosion.

“I want to fuck you, Richie,” Eddie says against his skin, and Richie moans to the ceiling, eyes rolling back in his head. “I want to fuck you, but I need to know this isn’t a one time thing. I won’t be my best friend’s sexual experiment, and I won’t be your fuck buddy. I can’t.”

“Eddie, I… look at me, please look at me,” Richie begs, unlacing their fingers and cupping Eddie’s cheeks. He looks terrified, ready to work himself into a panic attack, so Richie says, “I want to fuck you too, but more than that, I want to fuck your heart.”

Eddie snorts and goes boneless, his forehead knocking into Richie’s chin. “I hate you so much. I can’t believe you just said you want to fuck my heart, that’s so gross, what does that even mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” Richie says, proud that he managed to distract Eddie from the burgeoning panic. “I want to fuck your heart.”

“No, I want to fuck your heart,” Eddie shoots back, frowning intensely. Richie’s responding smile is blinding.

“We’re heart-switches.”

“This is the worst day of my life.”

“Sure, Eds.”

“Don’t call me Eds in bed! I’m outlawing all nicknames when we’re hard, it’s uncouth!”

“What about…” Richie runs the tip of his nose over the thin skin of Eddie’s neck, “baby?”

“Oh,” Eddie sighs, elbows buckling where he’s holding himself over top of Richie, “baby’s good.”

“Yeah?” Richie smiles, hooking his hands up under Eddie’s shirt and bunching it under his arms. “What about angel, my love, is that one okay?”

“This isn’t fair,” Eddie whines, falling down to his elbows and crushing Richie as he laughs, “you can’t use my weak heart against me.”

“Weak?” Richie smiles against Eddie’s skin, feeling more at home than he ever has in his life. “Nah. I think you’re the strongest person I know.”

“Richie…” Eddie smiles, embarrassed, and leans up to kiss him again, which is fine with Richie, because he’s embarrassed, too. Thank god for erotic nightmares, Richie thinks as he cups Eddie’s hip and licks into his mouth, finally free, finally alive.

#ask #michelllejones #richie tozier #reddie #it chapter two #what is this!!!!!#masterpost #greatest hits

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kenzieam · 4 years

Text

Destroyed - Chapter One (Chris X OC)

Rating: M

Warnings: Violence, language, drama, angst

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@iammarylastar @captstefanbrandt @jewels2876�� @moonbeambucky @badassbaker @everythingisoverrated @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @oliviastan17

I KNOW I’M MISSING TAGS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT IN

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What happens if Chris survived the bank robbery?

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Five Years Later

The sun beat heavy on his bare shoulders, the skin pulling slightly with the beginnings of a sunburn. Chris tightened the final bolt then straightened, ducking out from under the reach of the truck’s hood, stretching his spine with a groan as he dropped the wrench with a clatter in with its mates then pulled a rag from his back pocket to wipe his hands.

He let the sun warm his face for a moment, eyes closed and contemplated; should he get a start on figuring out what was making the Adler’s van run so rough, or go eat lunch?

That was his life now, and he was content with it.

He’d just made up his mind, lunch first, Adler’s van second, when a new sound pierced his thoughts. Dropping his head from the sun’s warmth, he turned to look over his shoulder.

A late seventies Toyota Land Cruiser wheezed towards him. Although old, it was in decent shape, either an older restoration or just plain well cared for, but right now, it needed help. Chris watched as it wound down, seemingly like a wind-up toy petering out, and gasped one last time before stalling a few dozen feet away. All clearance lights, already dimmed, died instantly and Chris, although not a betting man, not since gambling with his life five years ago, would have laid odds on what the Toyota’s problem was.

The driver’s door opened as Chris approached and he felt a sudden jolt of electricity. Not even Erin’s kiss in that bar as they’d learned their cover had affected him like this. A woman stepped out, no… scratch that, an angel appeared.

Long auburn hair, faint strands of blond catching the sun; thick and wavy and just perfect for Chris to card his hands through. Sunglasses of probably the same vintage as the Cruiser were pushed up into that glorious mane to reveal a set of cat-shaped eyes in the most unique and breath-taking shade of lilac-grey Chris had ever seen. Faint wrinkles of worry marred the smooth heart-shaped face and then she was looking right at him and Chris felt like he’d been kicked in the guts.

“Hey- , uh. Car trouble?” He stuttered, feeling his face start to flame.

The faintest of smiles. “Yeah.”

“Sounds like your alternator.” Chris scrambled for steady ground; known terrain when the earth was practically shaking beneath his feet.

“I thought so,” she murmured, sounding resigned. She met his eyes and Chris felt a fresh jolt. “Do you think it took my battery out with it?”

A lopsided grin, the majority of people he helped had no idea what an alternator even was, let alone knew how it worked.

“I’ll check that, if you got it here fast enough, it should be okay.”

She bit her lip for a moment. “How long will it take? I have to get to work.”

“Not long, I can have it done by this afternoon if I’ve got the part laying around.”

The woman flinched slightly. “I work late, I won’t be able to come back until tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. You said you had to work? I can take you-“ Chris was babbling and he knew it, forced himself to shut up. “I mean, if you’d like.”

The faint smile again, a hint of pink in her cheeks. Maybe he wasn’t the only one being thrown off his axis right now. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“No, it’s fine.” Chris was inexplicably terrified of losing contact with this woman and if he’d had more time to think about it, it probably would have bothered him, this sudden attachment. “I’m just heading out to lunch; I can give you a ride. Where are you going?”

Her eyes met his, that strange lilac-grey seeming to pierce into his soul. After a heartbeat, something flickered in her gaze, something Chris would swear was fear. “No, thank you.” Her voice was firm now, insistent and Chris felt an unexpected and unexplained pang of disappointment. She reached into her purse and pulled out a flip phone.

Chris stood rooted to the spot, frozen, until the woman raised her head. “Would you like me to sign anything first?” Her voice was tentative again, as if she worried she’d angered him.

Chris swallowed hard, hating that she was slipping between his fingers and at the same time, absolutely stunned that it mattered so much to him already. What the fuck is wrong with you, King? “Yeah, follow me. I’ll make out a work order.” He turned and strode into the shop, heart hammering a frantic tattoo in his chest. Reaching the counter, he grabbed the necessary paperwork and a pen. “Uh, name?”

The woman had reached the other side of the counter and now shifted her weight, almost uneasily, as if she was leery even of giving Chris her name. “Raen.” She finally answered, pronouncing it like ‘Rain’. “R A E N Casteel.”

“And a number to reach you at?”

Another pause, as if weighing her options. Chris had studied body language and received more than enough training in the F.B.I. to read this woman’s behaviour. She had been hurt by someone in the past, badly, and was either running from it still or was just permanently marked, forever cautious around strangers, especially men. His heart ached with a sudden desire to pull her close and crush away all her bad memories, show her that not all love and all men meant pain; and track down the ratfuck that had made her this way to begin with. Finally, she offered a number, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Okay,” Chris scrawled the number, mind racing as he tried to organize his thoughts. He’d never been so thrown by someone in his life, not since her. In the space of only a few minutes, he’d gone from content and hungry, his biggest decision of the day being when and what to eat, to being absolutely swept up in a mysterious woman, ready to fight for her and kiss away her sorrow. But no.

He couldn’t.

He’d fallen hard for a woman before, and it had nearly killed him. He could not do that again.

“Alright.” He cleared his throat, forcing a casual tone. “I’ll look at it and give you a call and an estimate.”

“Thank you. If I don’t answer, please leave a message.”

“Sure.”

The woman gave him one last hesitant smile, then dropped the keys on the counter, turned and almost fled the shop, the door banging closed behind her. Chris watched her hurry away and disappear around the corner.

Jesus wept.

He wanted to help her, and not just by fixing her vehicle.

As soon as his doctors discharged him from the hospital, as soon as it wasn’t abject agony to move anymore (because Chris had gone cold-turkey on all hard drugs after), he’d left the F.B.I., taking all the compensation and bonuses offered to him for his service and sacrifice. Breaking the lease on his apartment, he’d loaded his truck (not the monster he’d driven as Undercover Chris, but his own) and pointed it east, intent on leaving L.A. and California and the west coast entirely, not stopping until the icy dread that ran rampant through his veins finally ebbed and he could draw a deep breath again.

Staying in L.A. meant memories, it meant driving past old haunts and neighborhoods, remembering his shitty past and even shittier career as a Special Agent; one that had started promisingly enough, especially for a delinquent kid who had more in common with the thugs he chased than the agents who hunted them, but had cratered hard when he’d accepted his last assignment.

Deep cover, a chance to advance and take out an asshole at the same time. Dangerous, but definitely worth it; and then he’d met her.

Erin Bell, his awakening and his ruin. His rise and his downfall. In her he’d found a partner, a fellow survivor of a hellish childhood and for a time, he’d been in love. Blinded by the light, as the song went.

He’d let himself believe he could have it all, that he and Erin could give the middle finger to Silas’ gang, to the F.B.I., Sheriff’s Office and the whole fucking world and just run off together with a shit-ton of stolen money.

How wrong he’d been. At the last moment, his conscience had finally intervened, and he remembered the fright and tears in that blonde teller’s eyes as Silas had screamed at her, the abject terror in her innocent face. As he’d watched Silas drop the duffels, spewing tell-tale purple clouds and storm back into the bank, the haze had lifted from his mind and even Erin’s horrified, pleading stare hadn’t been enough to bring it back.

No one gets a fuckin’ scratch. He’d vowed, but he’d been the naïve one then.

“F.B.I.!” His words hadn’t had the desired effect, Silas hadn’t fl0undered in shock or dropped to his knees in acquiescence; it was like he’d known and, looking back, he probably had, trading Arturo for Chris at the last moment, the psycho had at least suspected someone was a mole and Chris had been the one to break cover.

The memory of the burn from the bullets was something that still woke Chris up from a dead sleep, multiple points of agony in his torso, a line of fire on his scalp. That last bullet Silas gave him, aimed as the kill shot to his skull as he lay gasping and already dying on the grimy industrial carpet of the bank; had, depending on your viewpoint, either saved or doomed Chris, missing his brain and splitting a line on his scalp instead. Silas hadn’t noticed as he’d stalked out and Chris carried that scar to this day, visible at all times because although he hated thinking about his past, he’d kept the shorn head and facial hair.

If asked, he couldn’t explain why, but maybe it really was to remember, even though he hated to. Seeing Undercover Chris, with a buzz cut and goatee everyday in the mirror was his penance. He couldn’t, he didn’t deserve to go back to the neatly-groomed man he’d been before, hair longer and fluffy and worthy of a woman running their fingers through it; he wasn’t that man anymore, for better or worse.

He’d driven until his truck had made the choice for him, quitting in this mid-sized town in New York state, lasting long enough for him to limp it into this very mechanic’s shop. A chance comment from the owner, that he needed a new mechanic, had been the catalyst for Chris to stay, at least for awhile.

As a kid, knowing through bitter experience that his own mother was an unreliable source, Chris had kept himself alive with his hands. More specifically, using his hands to fix and tinker. A few hours working on the neighbor’s broken lawnmower earned him enough to eat for a week, the car he’d traded a day’s worth of small engine work for and spent two months of weekends working on before selling to the plumber down the street helped him make it when his mother finally OD’d and he’d needed to keep himself afloat, keep the nosy housewives on the block from calling CPS and reporting a child left alone. Not that they’d have been overly concerned for Chris’ wellbeing, his mother had supported her drug habit by spreading her legs for anyone with cash or drugs, and most if not all of these women’s husbands had partaken at one time or another, meaning Chris was practically guaranteed abandonment when the real object of their fury and indignation was gone, and only her son was left to blame.

That history had been his fuel for a time, spurring him to apply for the F.B.I., encouraging and driving his ambitions to make something of himself, to be more than the fatherless son of a crack-whore.

And, for a time, he had been. He’d been more. Chosen for the assignment, entrusted with the delicate task, but he’d fucked it up, as it was in his genes to do and it still burned sometimes to think about it.

And now, working at the shop had kept him busy, tired him out enough that sometimes he was even too exhausted for the nightmares. So, when the old man had announced his retirement two years later, Chris had offered to buy the place.

For almost three years now he’d been here, running his own business, continuing and building on the shop’s reputation in town, paying Karma back with steady and honest work.

But was Raen another Erin? Another flash fire that would only leave him staggering and burned, another paradigm shift in his already jagged and torn existence?

He’d worked so hard to rebuild his life, was he ready to risk it all again?

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky #au bucky barnes #sebastian stan #destroyer #destroyed #destroyer chris #chris x raen #destroyer chris fanfic #destroyer chris fantiction #destroyer chris angst #destroyer chris drama

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years

Text

917. I didn’t want you to see me like this.

Shoutout to the awesome anon requesting this! Unfortunately I realised I misunderstood something only after finishing this short, so this is Sixty saying it to Allen not the other way around as you prompted. You second one will have it in the right order :)

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Allen60 (Warning: violence, gunfights)

Sixty hated that he had to walk through the bullpen to exit the building. They were a separate unit, their office was in a separate building, why did they have to see these idiots every day? He maybe could have stomached the humans and androids working there he hadn’t yet met and would never have to talk to. But he absolutely despised the four people he did know: The other RK800 unit who called himself his brother and had been the reason for his mission to fail and Cyberlife’s downfall. His alcoholic human partner who had dared to shoot him. The RK900, who he had hoped would be the worthy opponent he deserved, being the superior model. The complete moron of a person the RK900 had instead fallen for. No, Sixty hated them with every bit of his being, hated them for their failures and their indifference towards them. He had been thankful he had been sent to the SWAT unit of the DPD, working directly under and with their Captain, an incredibly remarkable human. Maybe the only one Sixty ever respected. All he cared for was a job well and effectively done with minimal casualties. Something Sixty could easily grasp and adopt as it was similar to his base programming, something he still held onto even in deviancy.

Having at least one human share his believes and work ethic made everything else endurable. Still he was relieved to be outside and to enter the transporter after the Captain while all other humans followed. He was a well-respected asset of their team, having saved countless lives of hostages and other SWAT-members with his efficient fighting style and quick calculations. He never did it for the humans though. Everything that counted to him was his reputation, his flawless statistics. Every other RK unit had failed their mission. Be it to fall for the virus and start an android revolution, be it to deviate and help said RK with it or be it to join deviants and fall in love instead of destroying all deviants and remaining machine. Sixty made sure to impress. He had deviated, but he didn’t embrace the emotions with it. They were part of him of course, but that was it. A part of many.

‘Okay, you all have been in the briefing, so I won’t bore you by sitting through it again. But are there any questions? Everything set? We can’t allow any mistakes, there are lives on the line.’ As always, Sixty sighed inwardly, but didn’t complain. Short attention spans and memory loss were the most annoying human failures in his opinion, but Captain Allen always kept it in mind, despite being organic himself. Another quality Sixty admired him for – on a completely professional level of course. He was met by heads shaking and mumbled negations. ‘Fine. Sixty, you still okay with going solo? Someone could accompany you.’ The android scowled at the humans sitting on the benches to either side of the transporter rattling through the streets. ‘I am fine. A human accompanying me would only hinder me and raise the risk of casualties.’ ‘Okay, then. Just take care then. You will enter through the back entrance, while we serve as a distraction just outside the café.’ Sixty nodded. He didn’t need a repetition of his role, but the Captain always tended to treat him like he would treat a human. He knew it was a matter of making him feel equal to the others and more accepted. But when he knew he was better than that it just sounded ridiculous and unnecessary to him.

They arrived at the location and the men left the transporter to get to their positions in front of the little cosy café. A weird place to hold hostages in, but who was Sixty to judge. At the edge of the transporter, Captain Allen held him back. ‘Hey, Sixty. I meant it when I said take care. You might be right saying we want no human casualties, but I want all of my men back at the precinct unharmed. That includes you.’ ‘Don’t worry, Captain’, Sixty smirked, pointing at his forehead. ‘It needs more than a bullet to kill me.’ He knew that mentioning his first death just made the man uncomfortable, but it was an easy argument to bring whenever there was misguided concern. He wouldn’t fail his mission like the other’s had. And if he did, he was just a machine. He could be repaired and if the damage was bad enough to make repair impossible, then he deserved it for his mistakes.

The Captain walked outside, standing before the rest of the SWAT-members in position to start his monologue to whoever held the people inside hostage. It was just a distraction unless the criminals agreed to let their hostages go and comply. As soon as he began to talk, Sixty left the transporter and hurried around the building to the back entrance, always out of sight by any camera or the big front windows. Arriving at the back entrance it was easy to hack the lock – a low security digital pad. Absolutely no challenge for an android like him. The lock clicked open a few seconds after his interface and he was to wait for Allen’s command. Bored he kicked a stone through the back alley and watched a few pigeons scatter at the disturbance. There was no way they would let the hostages go. When had that ever worked? He sighed, this time out loud. He hated waiting when he could be productive instead.

‘Sixty? You copy?’ ‘I’m in position’, the android answered, rolling a little stick in between his fingers. ‘You are allowed to intervene. Use non-lethal force wherever possible. We are your backup, should you need it.’ ‘I won’t’, Sixty sighed, but couldn’t hide his anticipation. This would be another flawless mission without doubt. Another red LED turn in the RK900 at his statistics update and the RK800 would congratulate him, what equalled a defeat in Sixty’s mind. But most importantly, Captain Allen would praise him again in front of everyone. ‘Moving in’, he announced, as he shouldered through the door, not missing the whispered ‘good luck’ under the Captain’s breath. As if he needed that.

Sixty hurried through the small kitchen of the café completely silent. There was no sound of his entrance, until he was standing inside the main room, gun raised and action calculated in a split second. The first bullet hit the first of four criminals in the leg, shooting clean through the lower leg. He fell down, Sixty taking his place immediately to punch the next and grab his arms in the confusion. Holding both of them behind his back he had acquired a human shield and disarmed him at the same time. He moved forwards, kicking the next one in the groin. He doubled over and let the gun slip out of his hand. Sixty quickly kicked it away and moved towards the last one, who had finally reacted and grabbed a hostage, very much like Sixty had done. The android took a second to calculate his plan more thoroughly, then raised his gun to shoot. The criminal’s hand was so shaky he doubted he would have pulled the trigger. Sixty hit him in the shoulder, the idiot letting go of the hostage to touch the wound. Immediately Sixty was near, grabbing the damaged shoulder and pressing, so that the man screamed and let go of his weapon.

Sixty was close to signalling his Captain a [mission successful], as he sensed a gunshot behind him. The first one, the one he had shot in the leg had still held on to his weapon and proved the android wrong, who had thought the pain to be too much to think clearly. But there the asshole was, shooting him. He would have laughed at the audacity, had the bullet not hit one of the major thirium tubes in his chest and hadn’t his HUD immediately started informing him of a thirium shortage in his legs. They gave in, but Sixty managed to shoot the first criminal in the hand, rendering him unable to harm him further. During the fall he had pulled his human shield down with him and kept him in his grip next to him.

‘Captain. I need backup. Unit compromised. Hostages safe. Criminals incapacitated for now.’ Admitting this defeat weighted greater than the pain he felt. Immediately there was chaos, the rest of the SWAT storming the place and cuffing the criminals on the ground. Sixty let go of the one he had held as Captain Allen appeared in his vision. ‘I didn’t want you to see me like this’, Sixty grumbled static and looked away from the man’s far too emotional eyes. ‘Shut up, what is going on? What can I do to help? What happened?’ ‘Got shot in the back. A thirium tube is broken. I failed my mission. Sorry.’ ‘The fuck you did. You didn’t fail. You got shot on a mission. You still made it, didn’t you, you dumb machine? Look: The criminals are alive and arrested, the hostages are all alive and unharmed. Sounds pretty successful to me.’ ‘I should have been better.’ 'Hey, hey, Sixty! Shut up. You did fine. You did well. I should have given you someone as backup.' 'That’s exactly what I mean! I failed to prove my value. Now I'm just another Connor who needs a partner.' 'Goddamn, there is nothing wrong with accepting help.' The Captain grunted lifting him up and snaking an arm around Sixty's upper back. 'Come on, we'll patch you up in the car.' 'I'll be a failure just like Connor.' 'You won't, Six. You won't. We are a team, right? No one needs to know about this, if you are so damn stubborn to count this as a failed mission.' 'Really? You won't tell them?' 'Why should I? You did fine, Sixty. Even more than that. Also, I’m Captain of SWAT, what I tell and what I leave out for them to read in some forgotten folder down in the archives is my responsibility, isn’t it?’ ‘And I won’t get a partner to babysit?’ ‘How about I offer you to partner up? How does partner of a Captain sound? As I remember the other RKs only have a Detective and a Lieutenant.’ Sixty perked up. That would indeed be something he could boast about to them… Also, he could be near the one human he really respected. This may not be so bad after all… ‘That would sound great, if I think about it. My expertise might be of help to you.’ ‘Of course, I would feel honoured to have the best RK for a partner.’

#detroit become human #dbh #Allen60 #connor-60 #Captain Allen #Is this really my first story on them? Because I dig them a lot in different dynamics. How have I never written anything?#Not really proud of this one though. I can do better #But whatever life is shit androids are not I hope this is still a good read

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kagehinataboke · 5 years

Note

For the new prompts, can I please ask for 56 and 15? ❤Thanks! Love your work 😁

tdbk, [15] Criminal AU and [56] Awful First Meeting

this really turned into like 8 AUs but i just got super into it ;-;

***

Their first meeting was eventful, to say the least.

Todoroki doesn’t make it a habit to get kidnapped. Really. He expected higher crime rates in the city, of course, but nothing like this. He moved into an apartment close to his new university, and he got a good lock on his door. That was supposed to be the end of that.

And it was, until last night. He wasn’t even at home when it happened. He’d just gotten out of a night lecture and was walking home, practically dead on his feet. The professor always went till the last possible second, as if he didn’t care that half of his students also had morning classes to attend.

All that was on Todoroki’s mind was food and sleep—which ended up being his downfall. If he were more awake, he would’ve heard the footsteps behind him or reacted quicker when the rag went over his mouth. But no: he was so tired and distracted that he went down like a sack of potatoes. Now, here he is, tied to a chair and making exhausted eye-contact with his kidnapper. He’s fit, blond, and definitely an asshole based on the smirk he’s flashing.

“What do you want?” Todoroki sighs, giving into the loaded silence. “Can we cut this short? I barely have any money, and I’m really tired.”

The criminal’s smile wavers, but doesn’t disappear. He’s leaning against the wall of wherever they are, but he leaves it to stand behind Todoroki, speaking into his ear. “We both know that’s not true.”

“I have… no idea what you’re talking about though?”

That annoys the blond enough to wipe the smile off his face. “Really? Christ, you’re a moron. You’re Todoroki Shouto, aren’t you?”

“Yeah? And?” God, this is so annoying. Todoroki can’t get up at six AM unless he gets to sleep in the next twenty minutes—which definitely won’t happen.

“And? You’re a famous CEO’s son. That means you have money.”

Great: he’s been kidnapped by a misinformed bad guy. “Oh. Didn’t you hear? My family cut me off ages ago. I’m penniless. Just an average broke college student.”

The kidnapper hesitates. “You’re… being serious?”

“This is a pretty ‘serious’ situation.”

“What? Fuck.” He collapses into a chair opposite Todoroki’s. “I thought this’d be the day, for sure. Christ. Fuck me.”

“Can you let me go now?” Todoroki asks, interrupting his captor’s mental breakdown. He doesn’t have time to deal with the feelings of petty criminals. “I really need to sleep. I have a morning class.”

“Oh really?” The blond snorts, running a hand through his unruly hair. “Whatever. God, you’re so fucking weird.” He gets up to free Todoroki’s wrists. “Get the hell out of here, moron. If you call the police on me, I’ll fucking kill you.”

***

”I heard a new student will be transferring in today.”

“No way. In the middle of the semester?”

“Yeah, Bakugou Katsuki. Supposedly, it’s because he got into a fight and suddenly decided to switch out of the engineering department. They say he’s a genius.”

“Really handsome, too. Do you think it’s true?”

Todoroki quickly grows annoyed with the girlish giggling of his classmates and moves to the back row of the lecture hall where he can focus. It’s been a rough few weeks, what with the kidnapping and all. He missed his morning class and went from an A- to a B+. His grades are the only thing he has to be proud of, and now he’s struggling to fix them. Who cares about some transfer student?

“Oh, that must be him! Whoa… So intense. Look at the blond hair.”

Todoroki isn’t sure what possesses him to look up, but he does. Their eyes lock across the room, and the world stops for several long seconds before Todoroki half-jolts out of his seat.

It’s his kidnapper. Standing in the front of his class, looking sheepish.

“Excuse me, professor.” Todoroki sprints out without waiting for the okay, pausing in the hall with his heart in his throat. Why would he be here? Things were supposed to go back to normal. Was he coming to kill him? For real? But the rumors had said he was from the engineering department…

“Well, guess we meet again.” Handsome kidnapper-turned-transfer-student, Bakugou Katsuki, grins at him evilly. “Never expected you’d be at my school.”

Todoroki holds up his hands, then forces himself to lower them again. This guy can’t do anything to him when they’re in public. “I was about to say the same thing. I never imagined a kidnapper would be attending school, let alone mine.”

“Oi, that was a one-time thing.” Bakugou leans against the wall, barely three feet from Todoroki’s face. “And don’t look so damn edgy. I’m not gonna do anything to you.”

“You kidnapped and tied me up.”

“One-time thing, asshole!” Bakugou clicks his tongue, but his smirk isn’t gone for long. “You’re not as brave as you were when we met.”

“I was exhausted then.” Todoroki can’t bring himself to look at him, for some reason. “Why’d you follow me?”

“I go here, too, dipshit.”

“No, I meant… into the hall.”

“Oh. Well. I guess I’m just interested in you. Or something.”

“…Interested?” Todoroki asks.

“Interested,” Bakugou confirms. He pushes away from the wall. “I’m not sure why yet. But I’ll see you around, Todoroki Shouto.”

***

“Is there a reason you need to sit right next to me?” Todoroki shifts to emphasis just how close Bakugou is, but the blond doesn’t seem fazed.

“Yes. I want to.” He leans even closer to read Todoroki’s notebook. “This is how you take notes? How the fuck do you even read this, Shouto?”

Todoroki closes his eyes to keep from sighing. “I told you not to call me Shouto. We just met last month.”

Bakugou ignores him. “Look, this is how you take proper notes. See, fucking color-code that shit. It’s so much easier.”

It’s impossible to argue with him, so Todoroki just nods along. It’s been like this for two weeks now. Since Bakugou transferred majors, he and Todoroki have almost every class together—and Bakugou insists on sticking to him like a melted crayon to a car dashboard. He even walks him home at night because “oh, this neighborhood is dangerous at night.” Hilarious, coming from the person who mugged him.

But, as annoying as he is, Bakugou isn’t a terrible person. He’s had it rough. An orphan with no living relatives, who got in with the wrong crowd in high school and has struggled to stay out of trouble ever since. Todoroki doesn’t have the heart, nor the energy, to ignore him. However, a big problem is starting to form.

“Can I come over to your place?” Bakugou asked him this morning, and Todoroki said yes (for some unfathomable reason). He’s been sitting on the couch staring at the wall for twenty minutes trying to decide why he agreed—and why his heart is beating so fast. By now he knows Bakugou isn’t really dangerous, so fear can be ruled out. What, then?

“I’m here!” Bakugou calls from the front door. Speak of the devil.

Todoroki gets up to let him in, and nearly has a heart attack in the entryway. Bakugou usually dresses in sweatshirts and basketball shorts, but he put in some effort today. Ripped jeans, and a black button-up that shows off the lean muscle of his chest and arms.

“…Hey.” Todoroki practically throws himself away from the door. “Come in.”

Bakugou walks right by him, and Todoroki is terrified he’ll lose his cool. This is fine, he tells himself. He’s had people in his apartment before. Just never past delinquents with perfect abs and pretty eyes. Shit. Where’d that come from?

“Nice place.” Bakugou looks at him, lifting a brow when Todoroki stares at him blankly. “You good?”

“No. I mean, yes. I’m fine. Just nervous.”

“What’s there to be nervous about?” Bakugou is smirking again in that way that makes Todoroki‘s chest pound. “Being alone with me, maybe? I won’t mug you.” He drifts closer, settling a heavy arm across Todoroki’s shoulder. “Unless you’re worried about something else?”

He does this on purpose… Todoroki can barely contain the heat creeping up his neck. This has happened once before: Bakugou getting too close. “I’m not worried about anything, okay? Just… give me some space.”

“Eh? Whatever.” Bakugou lets him go, falling into the empty couch cushions. “You seem tense lately.”

“I’m scared of you, I think,” Todoroki says, even though they’re sitting right next to each other. “I can’t explain it.”

“Scared of me?” Bakugou shifts closer. Their knees are almost touching. He’s smiling again. “What about me scares you?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” Todoroki leans away from his warmth. He’s afraid Bakugou will be able to feel how fast his heart his beating. “Maybe it’s because you kidnapped me. I subconsciously think you’re a bad guy. Or something like that.”

In the blink of an eye, Bakugou has pushed him down and is straddling his hips. Todoroki’s too-heavy breathing fills the air between them. Bakugou’s eyes glow with an unreadable emotion he’s never seen before. “I could be much more of a bad guy to you, Shouto,” he whispers in Todoroki’s ear. “But I haven’t done anything yet. That proves I’m good, doesn’t it?”

Todoroki stares at him until he finds his voice again. “Why?” he murmurs. “Why am I like this? What is this feeling I get in my chest? I don’t get it at all.”

“I couldn’t tell you.” Bakugou releases him, slumping back into a sitting position. “That’s something you need to figure out yourself.”

***

It’s now been three months since they met. The air has grown colder, and the wind smells of autumn. Todoroki hasn’t seen Bakugou all week, but that’s probably because he hates this time of year. He told Todoroki that a while ago, and it stuck with him. What kind of person holds a grudge against a season?

Not that it matters. Todoroki has midterms to be worried about. He’s definitely too busy studying to worry about that blond moron. Definitely.

…Shit. He’s not sick, is he? He may seem like a delinquent, but he never skips class. He’s got even better grades than Todoroki does. What could that idiot be up to?

A knock at the door startles Todoroki out of his stupor. He drops his pencil—which he really wasn’t using anyway—and goes to answer it.

“…Bakugou?” Todoroki blinks hard to make sure he’s not hallucinating. The idiot is still standing on his doorstep. “What are you doing here? Where have you been for the last—“

Bakugou’s head falls against his shoulder, halting the question. He smells like a mix of fresh air and whisky, and his knuckles are blossoming purple and red. Is he drunk? Did he get into a fight? When he lifts his head to speak, his breath is hot. “Shouto… I want the spring to come.”

“What are you talking about?” Todoroki helps him far enough inside to close the door. “Are you wasted? You can stay here if you’re—“

Bakugou crashes into him without warning. They both go down hard, Todoroki’s elbow smacking into the coffee table. He starts to swear, but Bakugou’s expression shuts him up. Pale, somber, almost depressed. Scary. His arms are shaking. He’s bracing them on either side of Todoroki’s head.

“What’s… wrong?”

“My parents died around this time of year.” Bakugou speaks into Todoroki’s neck, his words and breath achingly soft. “But I met you in the spring. I want to go back in time and give you a better impression of me. I don’t want to be bad.”

He’s drunk, but Todoroki’s face still blooms red. “What are you even saying? I don’t think you’re a bad guy, okay?” He hugs Bakugou around the middle, if only to still his trembling. “You barely even kidnapped me.”

“But I’ve done other things. I met all the wrong people instead of meeting you.” Wetness glides down Todoroki’s throat. “Everything moves by too damn fast. I can’t hold on to anything. If I asked to stay, what would you say?”

Whether he means to stay in the apartment, in Todoroki’s life, or in this world is hard to tell. Whatever the case, the answer is obvious. Maybe it has been for a while. This person is someone Todoroki never knew he needed in his life until he barged his way in. Now, it would be weird without him.

“Are you stupid?” Todoroki hugs him tighter. They’re so close that he can almost imagine their two hearts beating as one. “I’d clearly say yes, moron.”

After a shuddering breath, Bakugou finally relaxes against him. “…Thank you.”

For a while, they stay like that, embracing on the apartment floor. Although it’s uncomfortable, it somehow feels like a fresh start—like they’re meeting for the first time all over again, only without rope and chloroform this time.

When Todoroki closes his eyes, Bakugou almost smells like the spring.

#well #i'm deceased #so thank you #y'all already know i'm a sucker for delinquent baku #todobaku #answered asks #trope prompts #calla.txt

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hipsofsteel · 5 years

Note

Can we hear more about Jan?

Of course, anon! I’d be glad to yell a lot of information about the man who lists yelling as one of his hobbies.

And, without further ado, an introduction and character summary below.

Jan Kees Jones, personification of New York State

All art credited to @zapphi, 2017, 2018, 2019

Physical Description

Jan Kees is 5′11, with semi-styled sandy blonde hair, and blue-green eyes. He is of a medium build, and decently fit. He has been referred to as a shorter version of his father, Lars. Neither can deny relationship to the other. He identifies as Dutch-American. His birth year was 1614, and he celebrates his birthday on July 26th.

Jan Kee’s face claim is model Andrej Halasa, his voice claim is Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre fame, and as of this moment, he has no singing voice claim.

Personality

Money makes the world go around, the world go around… (Me, starting this section).

Jan is a loud, somewhat egotistical bastard, whose got just enough of a hidden golden heart to be worth knowing, somehow. He’s really good with kids, passionate, and driven to do whatever he decides to do. His passion and drive can play against him at times when he comes off as stubborn and resistant to outside ideas, and aides in many negative perceptions of him. He can also be very indifferent at times to various situations, unless he has a direct stake in it, and pride is a very definite and major downfall he has.

At the same time, he believes strongly in family. While he probably fights with his two brothers more than anyone else, he’ll be right at their side the moment anyone else goes after them. And as for his family back in Europe, he considers himself still very close to his father, and visits him often. He’s also a little bit of a prankster, and he and Seth (@zapphi’s Massachusetts) have gotten into multiple prank wars.

Sexuality and Gender

Jan Kees is queer and cisgender. He has tried ascribing other names to his sexuality over the years, but it has been very fluid at times, so he prefers the overall term of queer. The closest he’s come to using any other name for his sexual orientation was bisexual, but he remained somewhat uncomfortable with the term before switching back to queer.

Jan can additionally be very open with his sexuality at times, and has historically been quite the womanizer and been willing to sleep with about anyone who lets him. When other states joke about the “Promiscusquad”, they count Jan Kees in as a founding member. However, if you’re in a serious relationship with him, he’s a one-person man.

Religion

Jan was raised as a Dutch protestant, and while he remains culturally Christian, indetifies as an agnostic or atheist nowadays. He is very aware of other cultures and religious practices, and tries to be very respectful of them, and has spent a lot of time studying Judaism in particular, as both his brothers are Jewish.

Employment

Jan has two fields in which he’s incredibly passionate and focused in, law and finance. Following World War Two, he has predominantly focused in law, although he continues to invest his money. He used to mainly making a living in finance, but after the Great Depression, felt that law was a more stable career.

Pets

Jan has three pets, all gifts from Lars to celebrate another century of age. In order, he recieved:

Niagara

A Friesian mare Jan recieved on his 100th birthday, Niagara was a very practical gift. He was a growing colony, and although he was now a British colony, Lars felt he needed his own transportation and Arthur was failing to provide him it. Jan and Niagara were pretty inseperable until the age of the automobile. Nowadays, Niagara lives on Jan’s property in upstate New York and enjoys her well-deserved retirement.

Hamilton

A blue and white British Shorthair was given to Jan as his 200th birthday present, and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Jan is definitely more of a cat person than a dog person, and Hamilton can about get away with murder. He sleeps on Jan’s chest (which is bad when he weighs as much as he does), loves all of Jan’s “enemies” more than he loves Jan, and loves the smell of mint gum which Jan is sometimes forcefed so he won’t smoke.

Hamilton, you traitor, stop adoring Massachusetts.

When life gives you mint gum, Hamilton glues himself to your face.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt exists pretty much solely because of this picture of Jan’s faceclaim. Rembrandt was a gift for Jan’s 300th birthday, and Rembrandt the hedgehog is living the ideal life in Jan’s apartment. He crawls around on the floor as a walking pincushion, Hamilton is terrified of him and Jan’s terrified of stepping on him, he gets taken out for fun photoshoots by literally anyone who’s ever housesat for Jan so they can spam Jan with pics. His life is amazing.

After reiceiving Rembrandt, Jan has made it clear he has as many pets as he wants, so he didn’t recieve another pet for his 400th birthday in 2014.

Relationships with other States

We’ll start with family.

New Jersey

Elijah, only ten years younger than Jan, has never been someone whose content to be in the shadows OR bossed around by his older brother. Fiercely independent from the start, he resisted assimilation into a Dutch way of life, clinging to his native roots and converting to Judaism very early on. Half the time, they’re at the other’s throats over the smallest things. The other half of the time, they’re about the only person watching each other’s back. They’re a formidable team when cooperating, and Elijah admits he’d miss arguing with him if something happened to the asshole, but don’t you dare tell Jan that!

Delaware

No art for Aaron, so imagine Elijah, but approximately one inch shorter.

Aaron always felt a bit like the third wheel of the family, and he isn’t entirely wrong (Jan and Elijah can be rather self-centered at times). At the same time, Aaron serves as a peacekeeper between the two and he and Elijah bond over their shared faith.

Yet, some doubts about his place in the family were destroyed when Aaron came out of the closet as trans. Jan Kees and Elijah immediately stopped using Aaron’s deadname, Miriam, and bookended his seat for several meetings, ready to throw down with anyone who challenged Aaron. Jan Kees has even helped financially with some of Aaron’s surgeries and made sure his brother has all the expensive male fashion that he will probably never wear because “I never wore this sort of stuff before, Jan, why would I start now?”

Okay, family section over onto other states

Massachusetts

He’s only around eight inches taller than Seth, but this is what Seth thinks their height difference is. And honestly, Jan gloats over it, so he does too.

Seth Adams Jones and Jan Kees’ relationship with him is one of the most complicated things in Jan’s life. He can’t decide if he loves or hates the guy.

I’d like to thank Talia and also Talia for my life. -Jess

Jan Kees came into the original thirteen colonies in a lot of turmoil, and Seth didn’t help. Jan Kees had lost his only parental figure at the time, couldn’t speak much English, was a Dutch Protestant rather than a Puritan, and had Jewish younger siblings.

Needless to say, when one of the first memories you have of someone is getting into a fistfight with them for stealing your brother’s Magen David, you have gotten off on the wrong foot.

They eventually figured out some sort of antagonistic truce, and half-cooperated long enough to see themselves through the French-Indian War, and during the lead-up to the Revolution, Jan had a horrible realization, that he had a lot of feelings towards Seth. So in classic Protestant fashion, aka conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know, he pretended those feelings didn’t exist. He went through the revolution as a spy for George Washington wishing that he was literally anywhere else doing anything else like maybe fighting with his crush by his side but also no I don’t have a crush on him God I’m a mess, help me.

Also, kinda awkward when your crush mistakes you for an actual redcoat and shoots you at one point when you’re trying to bring in your spy reports.

Jan’s crush remained pretty steady until after the Civil War, when it slowly began to fade over the next fifty years (in canon, Jan ends up dating @bottot‘s Florida, Marco). However, in many AUs, it just keeps simmering in this idiot forever until eventually, somehow, it slips out.

They continue to have a semi-antagonistic friendship, because really to Jan, is it worth knowing someone if they aren’t at least a bit of a fucking bastard? (He says, crawling out of the Boston Harbor for the sixteenth time this year after Seth threw him in.)

And, when times are tough, they can set aside the bullshit and be there for each other. Because you’re my oldest frenemy, damn it, I need you to help get me through this.

Michigan

Ever end up as the primary mentor of a kid who thankfully ends up nothing like you? That’s Jan Kees and Fatima in a nutshell. Fatima had been around for a while as a very small and sometimes struggling personification, but when the Erie Canal opened, so did a whole new world of settlement from the northeastern states, and trade, with New York being the center of it.

Jan served as a primary contact between Fatima and the world for a while, and even bought her her first translation of the Quran when she admitted to being curious about Islam. But in some ways, most importantly to her, he introduced her to Elijah. She and New Jersey somehow hit it off, even with totally opposite personalities, and now she’s practically his sister-in-law, so at least she tolerates his bullshit really well.

Florida

This just in: The moment Elijah realizes Jan Kees liked Marco, he had Jan’s type in men pegged to a T.

Marco is a bitter old salt whose approach to life is “Fuck it, if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll be something I can tell stories about later”. Full of salt, short, and ready to argue with anyone who will let him, he and Jan have interactions eeirly similar to some of Jan and Seth’s interactions.

But Marco also has a way of bringing out the kid in Jan again, making him do ridiculous things and actually having him enjoy it. Finally having their first proper meeting right after the Civil War, they were pretty wary of each other at first, but over time, a begrudging respect formed, followed by begruding affection.

They might not admit it, but they’d literally cross a war zone for each other.

At the same time, they have some things in their relationship that are a little explosive and tense. Marco is jealous of several other states who had short-term relationships with Jan since he used to be very promicious, and can hover a little too much in Jan’s space at times because of that. Meanwhile, Jan can be overprotective and stifle Marco with good intentions and concerns. But they’ll eventually set aside the argument, talk it out, and then go to bed together that night, with Hamilton and Pink treating them as their own private heating pads installed on the mattress.

In the end, they’ll never get used to the other’s weather, but they’ll never stop enduring the heat/cold to see each other either. They’ve both waited long enough to have something good like this, and they’re both too stubborn to let go.

Other States-Brief Thoughts

Vermont- Jackass. Rarely calls Ethan by name, since he fought so damn hard to be Vermont.

Rest of the NE besides Vermont and Massachusetts- Eh, assholes, but I’ll live.

Pennslyvania- Is this actually food or are you poisoning me?

Virginia- Oh, fuck off, you got the capital, but I’ve got the banks.

California- Stealing your money, power, glory, and fame since 1849.

Oregon- Feral tree child.

Washington State- Attractive. Slept with her a few times after WW2. Got threatened by Roberto for it. In retrospect, California was probably right but still. Ouch.

Kansas- Yeah, the appropriate way to get over your crush on Massachusetts probably isn’t to sleep with the girl he considers his daughter. Funnily enough, she ends up dating Washington State later, so that happened.

RANDOM FACTS

-In the Statetalia Canon I’ve created, Jan Kees is the Original Yankee because England misheard his name as Yankee. He referred to Jan as this until Jan knew enough English to correct him.

-He ran away to Canada in 1940 and joined the Canadian Army in response to the invasion of the Netherlands and continued US inaction. Alfred didn’t know until Matthew sent him a telegram that basically said “Yeah, I have custody of New York until the war’s over, bye!”

-Sports team rivalries are his life. I, Jess, know nothing about sports.

-Speaks Dutch, Iriquios, Yiddish, Spanish, Italian, Quebecios French, Mandarin, and English.

-Major insomniac, has no really well established circadian rhythm.

-A really good cook, actually! Too bad he prefers to order take-out.

#Anonymous #aph new york #hws new york #oc jan #ask hipsofsteel #you ask for ze boy and i deliver (eventually) ze boy

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centaurianthropology · 5 years

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The Magnus Archives ‘Remains to Be Seen’ (S04E07) Analysis

A hell of a statement, a follow-up to the beginning of things, and an ill-advised visit. Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘Remains to be Seen.’

This was a hell of a statement. Hell of an episode, really. I know Jonny likes his historical statements possibly the best of all, and this is a follow-up of ‘Schwartzwald’. After some decent statements and some general depression in the meta-plot, I was seriously happy to not only get some movement in a spookier and less wholly depressing direction in the meta plot, but also to get probably my favorite statement so far this season.

This time, it’s less ‘Count Magnus’ and more a sadder version of ‘Dracula’ at play. It seems that Albrecht von Closen restored the books he found in the tomb in ‘Scwartzwald’, what many of us had considered an Archive prior to the one in London (and after the one in Alexandria). Poor Albrecht quickly found himself being ‘read’ by the books, fed story after story and horror after horror. In essence, he was instantly coopted as the first Archivist of the modern era.

And he was lined on the inside, every bit of him, with eyes (which is an extremely Bloodborne image). And so, I imagine, is Jon. The more he grows and learns, the more eyes on the inside he acquires, looking in and looking out.

And Jon knows he’s changing. He heals far too quickly. He wasn’t killed by the blast that killed both Tim and even Nikola. He knows things whenever he needs them. He has a dam in his head, but behind it is an ocean of knowledge, pressing in on him, threatening to overwhelm him. Holding onto his humanity sounds like a genuine struggle under all that weight.

It also sounds as though there’s very little way out for a budding Archivist. Returning the books to the mausoleum didn’t help Albrecht. Returning the books simply killed the would-be Archivist, or whatever was in the stone coffin killed him. It also sounds as though Albrecht either returned the wrong books (having been bound and swapped out by Jonah Magnus while he filled his own first attempt at an Archive), or that as Albrecht read, the pages went blank and he absorbed their stories.

But given that we have an Institute, I think it’s likely to be the former. Jonah Magnus, desperate to establish himself as something in the supernatural community, leaped at the opportunity to get his hands on this collection. Hell, it even seems like he was trying to establish a space for these books that was already aligned with the Beholding, if his clear connection to Millbank Prison is any indication. I have to wonder if he and Smirke worked directly together, or if Smirke didn’t care one way or the other about who utilized what he built, so long as it created that balance he hungered for so much.

Whatever Jonah’s intent in clearing out the space in or under Millbank, and establishing this first Archive, it cost his friend’s death. Did he know? Did he care? Was Jonah more like Jon, who still has those he cares about die, but doesn’t want it to happen, or was he more like Jurgen Leitner, viewing everyone around him as expendable fuel to brighten his own ascent to knowledge and power?

I have the terrible feeling, given what we know happened with Barnabas Bennett and others, that he was far more a Leitner. And that a great many people died in the establishment of the Institute.

And a great many more continue to die or suffer. Jon knows it. Basira knows it. Melanie is shattered in a way that may not be reparable. She can apologize, but taking the Slaughter out of her may have left her defenseless in ways she wasn’t before.

And Martin is in an even worse position than we thought. His mother died shortly after Jon’s coma started, and I really have to wonder how much of a hand Peter had in that. Peter singled Martin out from the beginning, even in last season. He’s the only person Peter will appear to, and Peter seems bound and determined to sever every tie Martin has to the world. His mother’s gone, perhaps helped along by Peter. Jon was gone, and now Martin’s been convinced that whatever his plan is, it requires him to stay away from Jon. It seems like a terrible idea. It seems like Martin both knows he’s being manipulated by Peter, but might not know how much.

Either way, the one person Jon ought to talk to is the one person being deliberately held out of his reach. But Jon, in a twist of events that I didn’t see coming, is actually trying to just gather information and help his friends right now. He’s making good decisions.

Which, unfortunately, means other people have to make bad decisions for him. And so Basira goes to Elias for help. I really feel like having Elias finally appear in a Jonah Magnus statement is fitting. They’re the same, he and Jonah. I doubt that Jonah was ever the Archivist. The Archivist is ridiculously powerful, yes, but seems more dispensable than Jonah wanted to be. I think he carved out a position he considered unique (though it had almost certainly existed before, and would exist again) in order to watch over the Archives and the Archivist. He created the Institute. He wanted more than just to serve it.

No, Jonah wasn’t the Archivist sort. He was the Head of Institute sort.

And Elias is just as ambitious. He wants the Watcher’s Crown to happen, and I really don’t think he trusts Peter to see that through for him. So instead, with Peter having snatched up Martin, Elias is getting to work on Basira. He’s playing on her own need to protect people, her fear that while they saved Melanie as a person, they’ve lost her as a fighter. Basira, just like Martin, is convinced that she has to act to protect the others, and rather than talking to them and planning with them, she ran to the most powerful being she could lay hands on.

All Elias wants to do is talk, and all he wants her to do is listen? Terrible idea. Elias’ words are his weapons. So long as he can speak, he can twist reality around himself. Even more than Peter, who seems to require Martin’s willing cooperation, Elias can blackmail and emotionally bludgeon people into submission.

And I imagine he can manipulate with far more proficiency than Peter too.

Now I’m really worried about Basira. I had thought it would be Jon or Martin keyed in to kick off the Watcher’s Crown, but Basira seems far more lined up for it now. She’s clever, but Elias is wily and vicious. He knows she’s desperate. He knows that Peter has her isolated and scared. He knows that seeing Melanie needy and far too much like Daisy is leaving Basira vulnerable, loath though she would be to admit it. So he’s going to stick the knife in and twist. He’s going to go after her, and plant ideas in her head.

I get the horrible feeling that, if Basira really does start the Watcher’s Crown, she’ll honestly think it was her idea. Elias talked about just needing her ‘time’, and I fear that has a lot more implications than just a chat. He does love wordplay. Could he steal time from her lifespan, or channel it into power? Could he convince her that she could save the others with it (and likely, she could), but it also is a major step toward the Watcher’s Crown?

Or, he’s taking her time literally, as in taking the time she has as herself. If Elias and Jonah are the same in a literal as well as metaphorical way, Jonah may be planning to jump from Elias’ body to Basira’s.

I hope she has ideas and ways that will keep her safe from Elias, but working with him is a deal with the devil. And I definitely think she may get burned.

We’ve now got two potential major threats set up: the rise of the new power, which is supposedly what Peter and Martin are working on, and the Watcher’s Crown, which Elias has been working on, and which he may have just subconsciously recruited Basira to help with. And between them we have Jon, who’s just trying to keep himself from drowning.

Shit’s finally starting to move. After being trapped in the emotional doldrums for the last few episodes, I’m honestly excited to see where things are going again. Bringing Elias back in is always welcome, because the man is the antithesis of emotional stasis. He’s got plans, and he pushes things forward. And right now, Jon and his team need something big to shock them out of their own wallowing, and back into something resembling trust and working together. I fear that it may require a genuine world-ending-level threat to do it, but I do believe that Jon, Basira, Martin, and Melanie have reparable relationships. And right now they all need one another more than ever. They have nothing outside the Archives. All other allies have other motives and are more likely than not to use and discard them. Having these four finally gel as a team is honestly all I want out of this season.

But in the meantime? I’m so glad the smarmy villainous asshole that is Elias Bouchard is back in play. As worried as I am for Basira, for the story, he’s just what we needed. Peter’s too vague and too nebulous a threat to seem frightening right now, and his saccharine sweet manipulations make him a less likeable villain for me. Also, his entire focus is to target the weak, the lonely, and the emotionally vulnerable.

Elias’ sort of villainy, on the other hand, is direct. He likes to target the clever, those so confident in their own abilities that they never see their own downfall. Vulnerability, if anything, bores him. Martin being as weak and as lovesick as he was made him beneath Elias’ notice. Martin’s ability to use that against Elias is commendable, but it’s also commendable that Elias most of the time lets vulnerable people to their own devices. He let Basira do what she liked as long as she played hostage. He roped Melanie into the job, but didn’t stifle her decisions until those decisions directly threatened his life too many times for him to ignore.

In other words, Elias’ villainy is fair, in a way. Or at least he manipulates people who ought to know better. It’s the sort of villainy to make me grin from ear to ear. Because he really is rather decent to his employees, and treats those not standing in his way with courtesy. ��He keep things running smoothly, and wants to end the world on his own time and not interfere with his paperwork. He manipulates Jon, yes, but in such a way that Jon knows it’s happening and will do what Elias wants anyway. Elias’ need to show off and demonstrate how smart he is actually means he’s less underhanded than Peter.

And the way Elias treats Jon? Or even Melanie during her early attempts at his life? The way he talks to Basira? It sounds almost … fond. Not the solicitous faux-concern of Peter, but a genuine delight in everyone’s fumbling attempts to foil him.

Peter once said that Elias was too protective of his people, and I think that in a weird way that’s true. He won’t let any of them stand in the way of his ultimate goals or even his own power, no, but so long as that’s not the case, he treats them surprisingly well. Especially seeing how quickly everything’s gone to shit under Peter, it makes Elias’ presence even more missed. Elias will stab you in the back, but he really would prefer to stab you in the face. He wants to do you that courtesy.

And so, yeah. Very glad that ‘Stellar Firma’ isn’t going to be depriving us entirely of Ben Meredith’s presence on this podcast. The team seems to get stuck in their own misery without him to provide a clear and present asshole to work against, and so Elias, both as an antagonist and as a team-building exercise, is more than welcome back.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis

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walkingtheplankonasinkingship · 6 years

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Well, it’s Fic Writer Appreciation Day, so what better time to make a rec list that no one asked for?

These are just a few of my favorites. I definitely haven’t read all of the legendary KiriBaku fics, so I know there are some amazing pieces that I missed. I also limited myself to only 2 per author and 20 total, so I highly recommend checking out some of the other works by some of these authors!

Hopefully all the links and the cut on this works, because it’s gonna be long.

Students at UA

acceptance and denial by @vikingpoteto

It all goes okay when Kirishima decides to come out to his friends and it all goes wrong when decides that Bakugou is the best fake boyfriend material.

G. Fake dating while still at UA. First fic I ever read and I don’t regret it!

Pro Heroes

slow it down (go easy on me) by @newamsterdame

When a confrontation with a villain throws Bakugou through time, he's forced to face a future he never imagined, and maybe something he can't leave behind.

T. The time travel fic that puts all others to shame.

the fool’s rush by @chonideno

Settling down with each other is naturally what comes after being dorm neighbors for years. It’s time to navigate through adulthood together, to live the daily grind of being pro-heroes, to learn more than they thought they’d like to know about each other, about themselves.

T. Mutual pining with a side of hurt/comfort? Yes, please!

Coming Up for Air by @ellieb3an

Kirishima learns to cope with the trauma of having been trapped in his own quirk, and Bakugo helps him through it.

T. I don’t have any commentary to add that wouldn’t be a spoiler. Just know that I REALLY love this one.

Six Page Spread by @indigonow

They're 22 and Bakugou's finally gotten control over his public image. Think more..."bad boy" and less "explosive asshole".

E. Ongoing. At this point, I think every KiriBaku shipper is already reading this one, but it’s too good not to rec!

Black Out by @kiribakurecs

After a fight gone wrong, Bakugou suffers from irreversible amnesia. Kirishima tries to put him back together again.

T. Ongoing. It’s still early in the story, but I was hooked within the first two paragraphs.

Fantasy AU

such a funny pair by @ellieb3an

6-year-old Katsuki runs away from home and forms an unlikely friendship with the dragon hatchling that has been stalking him through the woods.

G. Nothing should be allowed to be this cute. It will melt even the coldest of icy hearts.

The King of the Mountain by @kobonibomibo

Rumors of the barbarian king are easy to come by, but few have actually lived to tell.

U. Nothing explicit happens, just jokes. But holy crap, I was in stitches from laughing.

what’s a secret amongst friends by @electricitylightning

The five times Bakugou nearly finds out Kirishima’s part dragon and the one time he actually does.

T. Chaotic Bakusquad shenanigans in the fantasy AU. What more could I ask for?

Other AUs

but i’ve got an angry heart by @newamsterdame

Bakugou Katsuki is not going to jeopardize his future a second time, and that means staying away from anyone who gets too close. Kirishima Eijirou has never learned how not to be close to someone. Of course, they end up as next-door neighbors.

T. Quirkless college AU. I don’t know what to say. Words cannot convey how much I recommend reading this fic.

neon season by @chonideno

how kirishima and bakugou share food, beds, bodies, and refuse to admit they want it to last

T. Quirkless AU. Fan fic is not an accurate description of what this is. This is a fucking experience. The mood is incredible and the emotions are intense. It’s a must read.

A Meme A Day by PorcelainRose

Kirishima's always been happy to meet people and make new friends. Needless to say, he's ecstatic when he's informed that he's finally getting assigned a roommate after a month of living alone in a dorm room. He's more than happy to welcome his new roommate with a smile and help him out with anything he needs. He isn't expecting, however, to meet a seriously attractive blonde with intense irises that shine with his favorite color, and who he also has trouble keeping his own eyes off of.

T. Ongoing, but updates weekly. Quirkless High School AU. Super cute and low angst, but it is definitely a slow burn. I look forward to this one every week.

Beating in Time by @patster223

To be honest, it never occurs to Kirishima to actually tell Bakugou that he’s a vampire. Bakugou is the most observant guy on the planet; surely he’s already figured it out. Right?

T. Vampire AU. What can I say, I love some high quality hurt/comfort content, and this is definitely it.

you and I might just be the best thing by @vikingpoteto

Kirishima has the bad habit of falling in love with assholes - and then he meets Bakugou.

T. Quirkless College AU. Kirishima is a pining fool and I love him!

will you lead me? by @kiribakus

If the wolf is going to follow Bakugou into town, the least he can do is pretend he's not a wild animal.

T. Werewolf AU. Perfection. The dynamics between the characters are great, the werewolves are done in a way that I love, and the worldbuilding is beautiful.

Make You Cry (AKA Major Character Death)

Finding home by Save1410

Inko gasped when her eyes fell on Katsuki. “Oh my lord! A kitsune!” His eyes were wide as she passed by her son and kneeled down in front of him. “Oh my oh my. Look at you poor thing!”

T. Baby kitsune Bakugou must find his place in the world after the death of his parents.

Winters Home by @red-rioting

After his release from the hospital the first thing he had done in weeks was buy a large bouquet of flowers, different varieties of reds and orange, from roses to tulips. All the flowers he knew Kirishima admired the most and drove out to the hiking trail, his feet crushing the brown fallen leaves that scattered the ground as he walked the trail.

G. A near-death experience temporarily brings Bakugou together with his lost love. I never cry. I made the mistake of reading this at work and had to hide my tears. It’s so good, if you can handle the sadness I highly recommend!

Non-KiriBaku

saltwater room by reapers

It starts —like all ideas that inevitably lead to one’s downfall do— with something akin to this: Midoriya Izuku. Midoriya Izuku and a five-story house by the beach, completely devoid of any entry-fee --save for the one where Todoroki has to pretend to be Deku’s boyfriend.

All-in-all though, not an awful price to pay for the vacation of their dreams, right?

Right?

T. Tododeku. Quirkless AU. Fake dating. Kinda has the feel of the beachouse part of quote love unquote (which I also recommend even if it’s not technically on this list). Has some great character dynamics.

The Legend of DKFSTA by @kiribaku-some-cute-stuff

Sero gets roped the worst god damned slumber party game of all time.

T. Light Seroroki. Remember the game MASH? The girls make Sero play a game similar to that. There’s a ton of teasing and it’s funny as hell.

fall from the sky with several flowers by @gaybirdkid

Shouto struggles with his overwhelming emotions after Hanta is injured. He doesn't do well with being powerless.

T. Seroroki. Established relationship. Third years at UA. A beautiful piece about a painfully small rare pair.

#fic recs #bnha fic recs #i hope someone finds something they like from this cuz i spent a long time on it

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donvex · 6 years

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you said you take prompts right?? how about a richie that doesn't see the point of art and a eddie whos a artist, and somehow they fall in love?

Here you go, anon! This prompt hit me with inspiration in the middle of... Well, let’s just say I was in a situation pretty similar to Eddie’s.

I Don’t Like Art, But I Do Like You - AO3 Link

It doesn’t matter that he goes to an art school -

Richie Tozier does not respect art majors.

He just doesn’t, not when they’re all pretentious and useless. The dance majors spend every night partying, and then meet up with the musical theater majors in the morning to dance on the tables in the cafeteria. The crafts majors are a joke before you even get past their name. There’s literally no use for a degree in fucking drawing.

He doesn’t respect them, not when they’re all useless.

Richie actually puts work into his craft. Woodcarving is difficult work that keeps his hands occupied and actually produces something useful in the end. His pieces, if not sold after turning them in for a grade, he can keep and use. Most of the furniture in his apartment is his own - which really saves him money.

And he’s dedicated enough that instead of going out on Saturday night to get wrecked, he tucks himself in early so that he can go into the studios at 6:30am on a Sunday.

Yeah, he’s a pretty great student.

The only downfall to going into the studios early, and on an off-day, is that almost every room is locked. The facilities are shit, to say the least, considering they’re only open twenty four seven during the last two weeks of each semester. And now he’s going to have to scope out the building to see if any floor has an already open room; Otherwise he’s going to have to go down to the security desk again and wait for twenty minutes for someone to bring a key.

Things aren’t looking great when he reaches the fourth floor and finds all the woodshop studios locked tight, but he doesn’t actually need the woodshop today. It’s just some prep work for his final project. There’s a whole lotta work to put down on paper before he’s ready to start building. So, since he doesn’t need the woodshop he decides to scour the rest of the building for an empty room.

The fibers floor isn’t even split into a bunch of studios. It’s just three long hallways that are, in themselves, studios - and all three hallways are locked. The illustration floor, two up from fibers and proudly displaying a glistening display case filled with art work, is equally useless. But snugged in between, past a small gallery and the lightbox room - is the guillotine. Richie doesn’t typically have need for the paper cutter, save on rare occasions where he needs to mat and display his blueprints, but he knows it’s there. And, to his surprise and pleasure, the light in the room is on.

Which means it’s open.

Which also means someone must be inside.

Richie’s first thought upon opening the door is fuck, I got beat out. That thought is quickly followed by a string of I was right, there is someone inside and oh god, it’s gonna be a useless visual arts major.

And, again, he’s right.

The single, large table in the room is covered in a stack of objects. Sketchbooks are flipped open to thumbnails and references, larger printed sketches with value are taped down beside that, and neon colored pencils spill out from a lavender colored tote. Several plastic containers are laid out, filled with water, watercolor tablets, and some remnants of paint mixing. A laptop is angled between them, the screen filled with photos and the speakers quietly playing music.

And, the crowning jewel - there’s a cute boy at the center of it all, frowning in Richie’s direction.

“You’re covered in fucking dust.”

Oh. Oh no. Richie likes that.

But, he reminds himself, he also likes his dust.

“Yeah, that comes from hours of working hard, short stuff. Using the whole table?” Richie leans against the doorframe, making it clear he isn’t going anywhere. He crosses his ankles, his scuffed up boots dragging across the floor. He would be going for a kind of rugged look, if it wasn’t for the fact that his denim jacket was hand-dyed to be bright pink.

“What’s the point of not utilizing my space when no one else is here?”

“Well, it didn’t take long for someone to show up, did it?” Richie is grinning, feeling like he holds the upper hand. There’s no real reason for him to be an asshole right now, but according to him, it’s part of his charm. It’s supposed to be endearing.

The kid does not seem to find it endearing in anyway. He just snorts and fixes a pointed look on Richie.

“It took sixteen hours.”

Richie is visibly confused, and the kid laughs at him. It’s more of a bark, but Richie hesitantly labels it as, well, endearing.

What he’s supposed to be, right now.

“I’ve been here since 3pm yesterday. You wanna share the table? Sure. You wanna be a dick about it? I’ve been staked out here on and off for the past five nights, you can go back to your own floor.”

Richie is...floored. Astonished. Confused?

This kid, this visual artist, has been here for sixteen hours. Sixteen hours on a Saturday night. Into a Sunday morning. And more than that, this isn’t even the first night.

“You gotta be a wreck.” There’s something new in Richie’s voice, something eerily close to a begrudging respect.

“Yeah, most of the illustration students are.”

Oh. Oh no again.

This kid isn’t just cute, he’s funny. He’s got a spark. Richie doesn’t think he can stand for that, not if he still intends on disrespecting visual artists.

“When are you going home?”

“God, you’re that desperate to take this room from me? I’ll probably go home around noon, but I’m coming back tonight. I need this done for my six hour studio tomorrow.”

Richie finally pulls out a stool and leans directly into this kid’s space, actually looking at what he’s working on. It’s a series of record covers, from what he can tell. He’s actually kind of fascinated by the layout, there’s obviously a lot of planning gone into it. Even the lettering is styled, pages of calligraphy and designs laid out next to the finalized sketch. The kid doesn’t push him away, either. He lets Richie take it all in, and after a few moments, quietly starts pointing out his favorite parts.

It’s quiet and soft. It’s still the early hours, when most people aren’t in the studios to begin with, and they have the room all to themselves. Richie thinks of a few questions to ask, and the more he pushes, the more interested he is. This kid has an answer for everything, and a good one. It’s not as bullshit as Richie thought it was.

Eventually this kid points to the sunrise, and Richie thinks for a moment that he’s going to take it all back if he has to pause for a picture, but again, he’s surprised.

“Look at that piece of shit,” Eddie grumbles. “That goddamn orange dot is supposed to make staying up worth it? Who cares that I just gave up an entire night of sleep when I get to see the fucking sunrise! Yeah, sure.”

Richie thinks he’s gonna piss himself from laughing so hard, or at least fall off the stool.

It’s still early, to be fair. And he hasn’t had coffee or breakfast. And he was immediately thrown off his game when he met an artist who’s actually competent. So he doesn’t think he can be completely to blame when his filter isn’t as strong as it should be.

“I think I’m in love with you. I think I’m in love with you and I don’t even know your name.”

He gets pushed off his stool.

(It’s worth it, though, when he looks up to a pair of shining eyes and the words “It’s Eddie.”)

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it 2017 #my writing #Anonymous #answered asks

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ferdinandcham · 7 years

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Justice League Review (Spoilers)

Disclaimer: I think Ben Affleck is a shitty actor and is up there on the stale list with Tom Cruise. Fight me.

DC has been my favorite since I was a little girl. I grew up reading the comics and loving the cartoons. Yadda yadda yadda. (Spoilers ahead, turn back now.)

So after the BEAUTY that was Wonder Woman, I was far more pumped for Justice League hoping that this would be a redemption arc for the DCEU.

Then came Jason and Ezra, and I started getting my hopes up even more. Could Gal, Jason, and Ezra save the DCEU from Ben Affleck? Could it ever truly recover from Green Lantern?

Then. Enter Joss Whedon. That’s when the true tragic downfall began. But I still held out hope and went to watch this movie. Because I had to support Gal and Jason.

I’ll start with saying something good and then ending with the bad. To create some balance because there ARE enjoyable parts of the movie.

• Gal Gadot was wonderful as usual. Patty wasn’t there to truly make her shine as she did in Wonder Woman, but she did her best as one of the only female characters in the entire movie after Joss mangled it. She was strong and was clearly acknowledged as the strongest one on the team. She wasn’t shy about using her clear advantage over the men to keep them in place either. (I wish she’d done more damage when she shoved Ben Affleck’s shitty Batman after his crass remarks.) Also Patty was probably foaming at the mouth at every ass and cleavage shot that the male directors plastered throughout the movie. Because I was furious. They scrapped an entire movie about Wonder Woman’s empowerment to create fake chemistry between Diana and Ben-Bruce and give nasty little boys their sexy scenes.

•Ezra Miller was a gem. He was the humor and it was very well timed. He played the socially awkward fanboy perfectly and he channeled how any normal person would react being put in a situation where he had to be the hero. He was witty and energetic and everything I love about the Flash. My only regret is that for some reason they never can capture how truly intelligent and fast Barry Allen is. It’s not just running or quick reflexes. His brain works at that same speed as well and they never really bring that to the plate with his live action portrayals.

•Jason Momoa. HOW ARE YOU DOIN. He’s such a versatile actor. He truly is. He plays snark well. He plays seriousness well. He plays lovers well. He’s just a magnificent man, both in personality, skill, and physique. He did well with what scenes he actually was allowed to keep and I enjoyed the parallel of him sitting on Diana’s rope and admitting he was afraid he was going to die as when Steve Trevor did it. I was really disappointed that we got almost no actual backstory for him or Cyborg.

•STEVE TREVOR IS GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. I immensely enjoyed that Steve is still a large factor in Diana’s life. He was truly the love of her life and decades later, his influence over her is still strong.

I did NOT appreciate Ben Affleck’s Batman using Steve as a verbal slap against Diana every chance he got. To me, it wasn’t even a good plot point and if you wanted to use it as a motivator to push Diana into a leadership role, it should have been handled better. Frankly, anytime Ben-Bruce said something about Steve and taunted Diana with it, it seemed to come more from jealousy that Diana loved Steve and that there was no room for Bruce rather than from an attempt to motivate her into a leadership role. Steve Trevor did not die for Joss and Ben to use him as a sexist tool to manipulate and hurt Diana and create fake chemistry between her and Ben-Bruce.

(Before little fanboys come spouting shit about WonderBat, I’ve always been a Steve Trevor fan and the Wonder Woman movie solidified that. Plus MY Batman is far more respectful of others and is a GOOD person. He would never be that cruel and crass towards someone in pain. MY Batman is the one who got Harley Quinn a dress after she had a bad day. MY Batman adopted a billion children and was a good father. MY Batman wasn’t a dickfuck. Ben Affleck’s asshole, sexist, jealous portrayal is #notmybatman)

•Mera was gorgeous and badass. She faced off with Steppenwolf with no fear. But we got, like, MAYBE three minutes of screen time for her??? I want to write more about her but they didn’t even give me enough to go on. That was extremely disappointing. This was a heavily male driven movie. Joss cut most of Mera’s scenes, completely disregarded Iris West and cut her completely out of the movie, and cut half of Lois Lane’s scenes. So out of ten (Batman, Superman, Flash, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Steppenwolf, Aquaman, Martha Kent, Lois Lane, Alfred) significant characters, only three (Martha, Lois, and Diana) were women and only one (Diana) had significant screen time.

•I reallllly want more Atlantis. Like just give me an Aquaman movie soon please.

•I’m not even a major Superman fan, but Lois and Clark are too cute to be legal and Zack Snyder is clearly their biggest fangirl. I really enjoyed that Lois Lane is considered a big gun and that she’s a force to be reckoned with. BUT WHY WOULD YOU CUT OUT THE RING SCENE. WHY JOSS. YOU FUCKHEAD. AND WAS CGI SHAVED FACE NECESSARY??!?!?

•Cyborg did not get enough development. He was finally portrayed as a funny guy towards the end, but all we got was angst and daddy issues. I wanted more. He is a large character that needed more development than what he got. Little disappointed that due to Iris being cut, Cyborg (POC) and Flash (Jewish) were the only established non-white people in the movie.

•Cyborg and Flash’s friendship was super adorable and I need more. I’m glad they established these two as the outcasts and the younger friends. So was the friendship between these two and Diana. So pure. So wholesome. Some of Diana’s best scenes were with these two and being a gentle and motherly-figure to them. It really showcased that Wonder Woman is a truly rounded wholesome character who is able to be the compassionate friend or the kickass warrior.

•Wally vs. Clark in every moment was great. 10/10 a great addition to the movie. Just wholesome. Whether it be a speed contest or a who can rescue more civilians contest. Pure. Wholesome. Lovely.

•Steppenwolf was stale. Like almost as stale as Ben-Bruce. Stale like old white bread. Just stale. There had to have been other villains to make the big bad. I don’t know. Just couldn’t really enjoy the lack of characterization.

•I enjoyed the hints about the Lantern Corps. Hopefully they can redeem themselves from the Green Lantern movie. That was just bad. I hope that the ring that flew back into space is Hal Jordan. Or better yet, John Stewart. Either way I’ll be happy though. Hal and Barry are super adorable together as besties.

•I really love Alfred. Alfred to me is what kept Bruce from being what Ben is portraying him as. But this Alfred? Not so much. Really disappointed that this Alfred is only concerned with trying to get Ben-Bruce’s dick inside Diana. Not impressed. Where is Michael Caine when you need him?

•I DESPISE Jesse whatshisname as Lex Luthor, but I’m very ready for the Legion of Doom. Although Deathstroke wasn’t really apart of it. But whatever. I’m excited to see Cheetah and Poison Ivy. Not so pumped for Gorilla Grodd but I’ll live. Maybe they won’t add him.

•I would really like to see more variety in gender and in color in the next movies. Iris needs to be back. They need more character development for the others. We’ve seen Batman vs. Superman and Man is Steel, and although I LOVE her, we’ve seen Wonder Woman. Can we get more focus on the newer characters to round them out? Or at least give them their own stand alone films sooner rather than later, and tie them to references from Justice League so it feels a bit more put together and less patchy.

•Also, bah Joss Whedon from any further involvement with any franchise that gives him the chance to fuck up female characters? He butchered Black Widow to give Hulk more characterization. And now he’s attempting to do so in this franchise. Enough is enough.

Hopefully the next DCEU movie improves on Justice League.

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