#which is. *accurate* for this character. but still ouch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

singingcicadas · 2 months

Text

More thoughts on Cyclonus.

Nova's evaluation of him in this panel is brutally accurate. That last sentence. Ouch.

On the surface level Cyclonus appears to be portrayed as this stiff proud warrior with an austere, diehard take on his own internal code of honour and patriotism, but the more I think about it his actual character is pretty much the opposite? He doesn't have any hardfast values or stances of his own aside from shallow romanticism for the preachings of others.

His whole life is comprised of hanging onto other people. First it's Nova and his group, despite Nova and Jhiaxius looking down on him and insulting him to his face and being very forthright about the actual purpose of their mission, which Cyclonus apparently had different ideals about. Theoretically. But he didn't say anything after Nova corrected him.

Then it's Galvatron, after Galvatron backstabbed Nova. Even when Galvatron became increasingly unhinged and violent toward him and also started insulting him to his face, he still continued to follow Galvatron around because Galvatron's powerful, hope he stays on our side.

Then after he broke off from Galvatron post-Chaos Theory he joined the Lost Light, an Autobot ship, despite not liking Autobots, because it had something that he wanted: the chance to start again.

His defense for murdering all those people in Kimia is literally "he made me do it." That's all he can come up with. He even knows it's a bad excuse.

And he always corrects people when they assume he's a Decepticon. Here he directly says that he doesn't want to be a Decepticon. Why not, if he clearly admires their ideology?

One possible reason is maybe he doesn't like their ideology that much. Enough to romanticize it from a safe distance but not enough to commit to it himself (since doing that would force him to do actual introspection about his own role in what made the Decepticon ideology so appealing in the first place). Second reason's simpler: Decepticons have to wear inhibitor chips. No thanks. They're the losing side.

Once on board the Lost Light he followed Rodimus' command fine despite Rodimus accusing him of murdering Red Alert without any proof. Then after he developed a relationship with Tailgate, he put Tailgate up on a pedestal and made Tailgate the center of his universe.

But then there's also this 🔽 after he thought Tailgate dumped him:

I don't even know what he's trying to do there😂

His lack of true conviction is evident in the little things too: he thinks it's unethical for Rodimus to perform mnemosurgery on Tailgate while he's unconscious and unable to give consent but drops the subject after Rodimus distracted him with fireworks. He thinks that mutiliating an enemy's corpse is appalling but doesn't say anything when Rodimus said they were going to use Skip's corpse as a shuttle to get off Necroworld. It's Nautica who raised ethical objections, not him. He's supposed to be really religious but when the guiding hand did their big reveal at the end of Lost Light, he got nearly zero lines because of compressed screentime except to argue with Epistemus over sending Tailgate into danger.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Cyclonus is essentially a go-with-the-flow sort of person. Nothing he holds is uncompromisable. Not his ideals, not his values, not his pride, not his faith. To an extent, not even his love for Tailgate, at least not completely, because he left when Tailgate told him to leave even when he suspected that Tailgate was lying about not loving him without making more of an effort to understand why. It all depends on the person he's hanging on to at the moment. And his choice of which leader to follow is ultimately based on self-serving reasons. This pattern is first broken when he turns on Galvatron, then fully subverted after he learns to love Tailgate as a sign of character growth.

He's not an intrinsically cruel or callous person. The way he learns to love Tailgate, befriend Whirl, and being kind and supportive to everyone when Rodimus left him in charge on the Necroworld are all attestments of his better nature. Water takes the shape of the container in which it's kept; surround him with people like Galvatron and Nova and he'll be their murder machine. Put him in the company of people who's mostly decent like the Lost Light crew and he'll grow into a compassionate person and a reliable friend.

#transformers #idw transformers #maccadam #mtmte #Cyclonus

199 notes · View notes

bwabys-scenarios · 11 months

Text

Reunited

Part 10

Illumi x Reader

Part 9

Part 11

Dawn breaks, as the airship carrying (Name) and her friends approaches its destination. The Third Phase of the Hunter Exam is about to begin.

(Name) startles awake when she hears an announcement play over the speakers.

“I apologize for the long wait. The airship will soon arrive at its destination.”

The girl rises from her place on the floor, watching the other woman do the same out of the corner of her eye.

(Name) stretches lightly and heads to the bathroom to get a quick shower before they land.

—————

The applicants gather on top of a large pillar, looking around in confusion.

“What is this?”

“There’s nothing here.”

(Name) joins her group, checking over her bag as she does.

“Ahem.”

Everyone turns to give Beans their full attention.

“Everyone, the exams Third Phase will begin here, at the top of trick tower.” Beans smiles. A man tilts his head, looking at Beans in confusion.

“Trick Tower?”

“To pass this phase, you must reach the tower’s base alive. The time limit is seventy-two hours. With that, we will now begin the Third Phase. I pray for your success!”

“No way.” Leorio whispers. (Name) begins to stretch her limbs to limber up.

The crowd disperses to check out their surroundings. (Name) attempts to do so as well, but before she can get more than ten feet away, she falls into a trap door.

The other four in her group remain unaware of her absence for around 5 minutes, until Gon’s eyes scan the area around them.

“Where did (Name) go?”

—————

“Ouch…”

(Name) stood slowly, rubbing her hurt wrist gently. She’d landed on it when she fell, and although Leorio had bandaged it and given her an ice pack, it still ached.

She was in a plain room, the only visible detail being a circular table holding several bracelets. On the wall behind the table was a sign.

“The five of you must follow the will of the majority to reach the goal.” (Name) read aloud. She let out a cry when the roof of the room opened up and another person fell in.

Though saying they fell in wasn’t accurate, the man landed perfectly. (Name) felt a twinge of jealousy at his safe landing. Her throbbing wrist was a constant reminder of her less than graceful tumble.

The man in question was the disguised Illumi, who (Name) recognized as Gittarackur. She studied how he surveyed the room with a careful eye, his gaze only faltering when it landed on her.

“Hello, I’m (Name). You’re Gittarackur, right?”

“… yes.”

Illumi’s eyes didn’t leave her figure, noticing her pained expression. His eyes softened ever so slightly when she leaned towards him, holding out her good hand. He shook it firmly, trying his best to be gentle.

“It’s nice to meet you, Gittarackur. I hope we can work together to get out of here.”

For a moment Illumi wondered if she was this kind to everyone. The way she smiled her pretty smile and shook his hand so delicately… did she do that with every person she met?

His thoughts were interrupted by the loud growl of his stomach. He had trouble sleeping last night and had slept in, which was unusual for him. Because of that, he hadn’t been able to eat breakfast. If his mother was here, she would scold him.

“Oh, did you eat breakfast? It was really good! I stuffed some extra bacon and toast into my bag. Want some?”

He felt something in his chest flutter. Her concern for him seemed to cause a reaction, what that was exactly he didn’t know. He could only nod quietly and watch her unpack the toast and bacon she had wrapped in aluminum foil.

Illumi had seen her packing the extra provisions before, so he decided to trust that she hadn’t poisoned. He was decent at reading peoples character, and (Name) didn’t seem like the type to poison him.

Once the food was in his hands, he devoured it like a starving dog, forgetting his manners. (Name) began packing her bag back up as he did.

—————

The two sat in silence as three other people fell into the room, one after the other. The first was a short man, second a tall one, a third a scrawny one. None of them seemed too interested in team work, so (Name) stuck by Illumi. Once the last person had fallen in, they all put on the bracelets and began the phase.

The group made their way through several doors, deciding which way to go each time. They mostly chose the same answers, besides when there was an option for left or right.

(Name) kept a close eye on “Gittarackur”, who she felt oddly connected with. She wasn’t quite sure why, but he felt like the best choice of a companion while she was separated from her group.

After one last answer, the group arrived at labyrinth like structure. The walls were 20 feet tall, and covered in vines. It smelled like decay, almost causing (Name) to vomit up her breakfast. She steeled herself, leaning against the doorway for support.

“So, this is our trial.”

The short man squatted down and began stretching his legs out, a confident smirk on his face. “I’ll just climb to the top and walk right out of here. See ya, losers!”

Before anyone could stop him, he climbed up the walls using the vines. (Name) marveled at his climbing ability, clapping as he easily reached the top.

“Wow, that’s amazing! He-“

She felt someone’s hands cover her eyes. (Name) almost wish they had covered her ears too, because the sound of screaming was almost worse than what she would have seen.

Illumi watched as the man was sliced in half by the talons of a harpy like beast. The harpy let out a satisfied screech as she began to tear into the flesh of the man, the sound of skin ripping and blood splashing the rock walls of the labyrinth echoing through the halls.

Once the harpy had eaten its full, it carried the remains off, perhaps to feed its young. Illumi waited until it was out of sight to pull his hands away from (Name)’s eyes. He bristled when he spotted big tears falling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

Her hands shook as she turned to look at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Will that happen to me?”

Illumi felt the world around him pause. He wondered why he felt the need to comfort her right now, why her trembling hands and watery eyes made him so angry and so…

“No. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That was that. He grabbed her hand and they continued through the labyrinth. He made sure to keep her on the opposite side the man had been devoured on.

——————

They’d been walking for about 4 hours when (Name) asked for a break. The group of four sat down, (Name) passing out drinks and food to everyone. Only Illumi noticed how small her own portion was. Another feeling washed over him. He was beginning to think this girl was more trouble than she was worth.

“Gittarackur!”

(Name) leaned towards him, whispering into his ear. Illumi jumped, having her so close that he could smell her strawberry lilac perfume made him… uneasy? Again he couldn’t place the feeling. She grabbed his hand, setting something in the palm of his hand.

“Shh, I only have this one left. Don’t tell the others.”

When he opened up his palm to peer in, he saw a shiny piece of butterscotch candy. The wrapping crinkled when he moved it, causing (Name) to frantically look around and press a finger to her lips.

He held back the urge to roll his eyes, opening it quietly then placing it on his tongue. (Name) perked up, her eyes observing his face fit a reaction that never came. Her lips formed a pout and she crossed her arms.

“Do you like it?”

She tried her best not to look disappointed when he shrugged. Illumi took a bit of pleasure in the way she huffed and packed her bag, finding it cute.

“It’s good.”

(Name) stopped at his words. She peered up from her bag to see him smiling, albeit a bit of a creepy smile. Nonetheless she smiled back, zipping her bag and placing it on her back.

While the two had been busy, the tall man had vanished. The last man, who neither of them had spoken to, seemed somewhat… suspicious. Illumi decided to keep a closer eye on him than before.

Another two hours passed on in silence, only occasionally interrupted by the sound of (Name) tripping over vines. Illumi had applied over 5 of (Name)’s bandaids to her slowly growing collection of scrapes.

“Can’t you be more careful? Didn’t anyone teach you to watch where you walk?” Illumi asked, applying the sixth Hello Kitty bandage to her knee. (Name) whined lightly, pulling her knees to her chest to pout.

“I am! It’s just…”

She looks away, her eyes on the vines.

“It’s like the vines are reaching out to grab me.”

Illumi stops, blinking slowly before reaching out and grabbing her ankle. (Name) starts to question him when he pulls her up by her leg, looking at her ankle questioningly.

“H-hey! Put me down!”

(Name) wiggled, trying to escape his ironclad grip to no avail. She instead chose to focus on keeping her skirt down. Even though she was wearing shorts underneath, it was still embarrassing to have a stranger holding her up by her ankles like she were a vegetable.

Illumi stared at her ankle, a theory forming in his mind. Her ankles were red, as if they had rope burn. He was sure if it now.

“The vines… are alive.”

He let her go, focusing on the scrawny man from before.

“What happened with you and the other man?”

The scrawny man started laughing, tears welling up in his eyes. “That man was my BROTHER. We came here to do the Hunter Exam together, hoping to pass so we could get some good paying jobs. But…”

He punched the wall, his fist breaking upon impact. “Those damn vines. While you two were having a relaxing picnic, my brother and I decided to sneak away to get out before you. Makes it easier to get through the phase when you have less competition right?”

He laughed humorlessly, biting his trembling lip. “My brother goes ahead of me to make sure it’s safe. He’s always been like that, my big brother. Always there for me, always protecting me…”

The man sighs, dropping his broken hand.

“Not this time. When he didn’t come back I went to get him, and what did I see? These fucking vines had encased him. Twisting him up like a pretzel, begging me to just kill him.”

(Name) held her hand over her mouth, waiting patiently for him to continue.

“And I did. How could I ignore my brother’s pain? I’ve helped him put sick animals out of misery, I’d be a hypocrite to let my own brother suffer like that.”

Illumi stood in front of (Name) protectively, waiting.

“Is that it?”

The man rolled his eyes, letting out a haughty laugh.

“Oh no no, of course not. The vines, they attached themselves to me. They’re alive, a network of living organisms. My brother is in there, and he’s hungry.”

He pulled out a hatchet, twirling it expertly.

“So I’m gonna feed you to them. Your blood will keep my brothers consciousness alive.”

The man gripped the handle of his hatchet, his broken hand cracking under the pressure.

(Name) closed her eyes, and when she opened them the man was dead on the floor. Illumi wiped blood off of the killing needle, his face neutral.

“Those vines cause hallucinations when they’re cut. He must of cut some when enacting his mercy killing. Vines must of made him think his brother was still alive and needed to feed.”

He began walking again, this time making sure to stay in the middle of the path to avoid the reaching vines. (Name) followed close behind.

She tried not to think about how easily her companion had taken a life, instead deciding to focus on the exam.

——————

The two reached the end of the labyrinth without much fuss. (Name) leaned against the now vine-less wall and sighed out in relief.

“When this exam is over I am going to sleep all day long.” she whined out, rubbing at her aching wrist.

(Name) and Illumi exit through a stone door, a voice saying they were 2nd(Illumi) and 3rd(Name) to complete the exam. It had taken them a total of 12 hours and 2 minutes.

Once they had entered the room, Illumi turned to see Hisoka sitting on the stone floor, leaning against the wall.

“I figured you’d already crossed the finish line.”

Hisoka only grinned, his eyes flitting to (Name) for just a second before another door opened.

“ALL RIGHT! I’m the first to fini-“

“Hanzo, applicant #294, is the fourth to pass!”

“Huh?”

Hanzo glances around the room, his gaze passing over each applicant before he cries out.

“No!! I don’t believe this! I came in fourth…”

(Name) laughed nervously, scooting behind Illumi to avoid Hisoka’s prying eyes. Illumi noticed this, looking between the two suspiciously.

“Let’s rest. We’ll have to wait around 60 hours for the other applicants to finish.” Illumi said, sitting down on the dusty floor. (Name) huffed, plopping down beside him with a pout on her lips.

“What if I have to pee? This sucks.”

Illumi tilted his head. “You can just go to a corner, I guess.”

(Name) groaned, covering her anguished expression with her hands. “Gittarackur, I am NOT going to pee in front of a bunch of guys, especially Hisoka. I feel like he would be into that.”

She whispered the last part into Illumi’s ear, looking over at Hisoka warily. Illumi raised an eyebrow, a smile pulling at his lips. He didn’t respond to her statement, only leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.

——————-

TAGLIST

@tsukilover11

if you’d like to be added to the taglist, please comment or send an ask!!

188 notes · View notes

dangermousie · 6 months

Text

When an episode opens this way, you know things are either go really glorious or really dark. And this drama does both. But before we plunge into horror, it gives the characters this moment of grace. I especially love when you see her hand on his back, next to the wound he got saving her.

And the voiceover, which combines the scene where they are closest with their talking about their most painful, separated time..

The way her eyes shine watching him sleep.

All that tenderness...

And that moment of grace is over as quickly as it came. JH finding out the Crown Prince is refusing to bring back captives - despite his cynicism and his experience, there is something incorrigibly naive about goodness and hope in JH. But also he got to know CP and he thought he could trust him a little. He does not know that CP cannot bring them back because the mad king views those miserable women, farmers and children as some sort of potential rebel army.

And things get worse - when JH gets them back regardless, they are ambushed and most of them are killed or wounded. People who survived captivity in enemy country, killed by their own, on orders of a paranoid madman. (I don't think anyone realized how far the King is gone - CP didn't want them back to save himself; not even he thought the King would order them massacred, and those who did not either die or make it back to China taken for torture and execution.)

The scenes of JH in the torture chambers - that vivid intelligence and strong will at the end of its rope - ouch!

The bit when he's barely conscious but still grabs her ring, my heart!!!

And I love that her ring is what saves him because she sees his slack hand drop it, when he's being taken out as one of the pile of corpses. Their love is their salvation, again.

The way she finds him (the fact she's in the palace in the first place is to look for him), the way she hides among the corpses, smearing herself with his blood, the way she brains the guard. THIS WOMAN IS EVERYTHING!!! (And I love that this time she rescues him.)

But also what a contrast that embrace at the end of the episode - on a pile of bodies, with him brutalized and dying - to the way the episode opened.

That line from Song of Solomon comes to mind: Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Switching gears entirely, I want to talk about the prince and king. I honestly love how upright both the prince and his wife are. She begs him to save himself and not plead for the captives (once he found out they crossed and were killed or taken to be tortured) but while he knows danger, he goes anyway.

And she goes with him. She may not care about his cause, or at least not as much as she cares about him, but she will follow him. (Seems pretty historically accurate for So Hyeon's Crown Princess and ultimately her doom.)

In an episode full of amazing scenes, my favorite is actually none of the rest of them but the scene between Crown Prince and his mad father. The way CP begs and the King cannot understand but suspects him more not just because he's paranoid but because he fundamentally cannot imagine someone caring for peasants (or for anyone not their dear self), not really. He cannot understand his son because they do not inhabit the same moral universe.

The way SH tries, tries SO HARD even as you see him realize his father is unreachable, even as he knows that jeopardizes his own life.

There is no hope there. (And the tragic thing is the King, paranoid and selfish and monstrous as he is, loves his son. He views not executing him as a kind act of love. My God!)

#kdrama #my dearest #ahn eun jin #nam goong min

103 notes · View notes

agerefandom · 20 days

Text

Skid Row Blues

Fandom: Little Shop of Horrors

Characters: regressor!Seymour Krelborn, Orin Scrivello

Words: 1,400

Summary: Seymour is trying to get through the day without regressing, but the appearance of Audrey's boyfriend in the shop sets a crisis in motion.

Warnings: Orin Scrivello is a warning in himself: threats of violence, yelling, anxiety, dissociation, canon-accurate sadist!Orin (which gives the scene a bit of an uncomfortable undertone), unwanted regression, physical restraint, hurt with no comfort.

A/N: someone requested regressor!Seymour interacting with Orin and I got a little carried away. This fic is unedited, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.

Seymour had been doing his best to keep himself together all day, but it was taking more energy than he had. He’d knocked over an empty plant pot that morning and cut himself on the shards: it hadn’t hurt very much at the time, but it had become a constant ache that wore on him every time he moved his hand.

Thankfully Mr. Mushnik hadn’t yelled at him, just huffing and leaving Seymour to clean it up. Seymour wasn’t sure if he could have held it together, if he’d yelled.

As it was, he was holding on by a thread: the knowledge that closing time was coming soon. They had barely sold three plants that day, but Seymour’s brain was too wrapped up in ouch and stuffed animal to really care about the shop’s finances. Closing time meant going downstairs to his bed and his favourite (only) plushie, and Seymour was clinging to that vision with both hands.

In the meantime, he had brought three plants to the counter and occupied himself by carefully pruning them, curling their discarded leaves between his fingers. The familiar snip of shears and texture of leaves was calming.

That was when the door was pushed open with too much force, sending the bell jangling and almost colliding with the shelf behind it.

Seymour flinched, first at the noise and then out of fear for the plants, but the door stopped just short of hitting anything.

“Hey, you!”

It was Audrey’s new boyfriend who stood in the doorway, arms crossed as he crossed the threshold and stopped in the middle of the room. Seymour had talked to him only once, and had seen him through the big shop windows many times. From these encounters, Seymour had drawn two conclusions.

Firstly, he did not like Orin Scrivello. Secondly, Orin was the last person Seymour wanted to be around when he was this close to regressing.

“Hello,” Seymour managed. Anything further refused to come out of his mouth. At least the greeting had sounded fairly normal.

“I’m lookin’ for Audrey. You seen her, kid?”

Seymour shook his head hard enough that his hair fell into his eyes. He went to push it back and realized he was still holding the small pruning shears. He ended up awkwardly putting his hands back down.

“You sure you haven’t seen her? I went to her place and she wasn’t there.”

Orin paced towards the counter, hands coming up as if getting ready to grab, or hit, or-

Seymour dropped the shears and splayed his hands in the air, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. From the way Orin’s eyes travelled from the shears to Seymour’s face, Seymour wasn’t sure that he had made the right choice. The smile on Orin’s face was more dangerous than those white-knuckled fists.

“Got something to hide, kid? You seem a little jumpy.”

Orin’s pace slowed as he got within arm’s length of the counter, almost sauntering the last two steps as he reached out and slid the shears over to his side, holding them up to the florescent lights and inspecting the blades.

“N-no. I-I-” Seymour’s brain tripped over itself, leaving his mouth useless.

“I-I- spit it out, huh?” Orin mocked him, high pitched for a moment before breaking into an angry growl.

Seymour’s lips sealed themselves, and he shook his head again, trying to gesture with his fingers that he had nothing to say.

“Wise guy,” Orin said, and reached out to catch one of Seymour’s wrists, easily pulling it down onto the counter between them. Seymour heard himself gasp, and make a little noise of distress. It surprised him how quickly he’d become completely separate from the situation, with almost no control over his body. Orin was only an inch or so taller than him, but Seymour could offer no resistance to the grip around his wrist.

“Now let’s try this again.” Orin brought the gardening shears down on the counter, the tip splintering the wood beside Seymour’s thumb. “When I ask you where Audrey is, you tell me. She never goes anywhere besides her little apartment and this little store, so I know that you know where she is. So let me ask one more time. I’m lookin’ for my girlfriend. Have. You. Seen her?”

“No. No, no, no,” Seymour heard himself say. His voice was high and shaky and wet, and that was what made him realize that he had started crying. “M’sorry, m’sorry, no, no, please.”

“Oh, I like that word.” Orin grinned wider and his enjoyment filled the room, oppressive and suffocating. Seymour was choking on it, even as he feebly tugged against the other man’s grip. He was too small for this, too small to understand what was happening or try to plan a way out through the blind panic that gripped him. “Say it again.”

“Please.” Seymour had no difficulty guessing what Orin wanted to hear. He wished that he didn’t know, that he could feign ignorance or make some kind of prideful stand, but all he wanted was to get out and get downstairs to his safe little room where he could hide under the blankets and maybe never come out. Like a fungus that grew in the damp and darkness, something that never needed the sun. “Please, please, no. Le’go please.”

Orin clicked his tongue, a caricature of disappointment.

“Very nice, but still the wrong answer. Where’s Audrey?” Orin wrenched the shears out of the wood, splinters falling from the blades as he raised them again.

“I don’t know, please, m’sorry! Please!” Seymour’s words blurred together, and he could feel snot and tears on his face. The shame was a distant sensation, the fear so much closer and brighter. He put his other hand on the edge of the counter to try and push away from Orin’s grip, but the other man was strong.

Orin swung the shears down, and Seymour could see the arc of movement headed straight for the back of his hand, where it was pinned helpless on the table, the glint of metal and –

At the very last moment Seymour’s hand slipped free, sending him reeling back into the shelves behind the counter. He saw the shears bite into the table again, and then he was slumping to the floor, his knees refusing to hold him. The desk hid him from Orin’s line of sight and Seymour covered his face as well.

Maybe if I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

Maybe if I can’t see him, he can’t hurt me.

Seymour screwed up his eyes and wished and hoped that Orin would leave him alone, that he was done, that this whole day was over.

“I believe you,” Orin said. “See you ‘round, kid.”

The sound of heavy motorcycle boots crossing the shop floor, and then the gentle tinkle of the bell over the door as it opened and closed.

And then, silence.

Seymour slowly uncovered one eye, and peeked at the desk. There was no one there that he could see. Shakily, he got to a crouch and dared to look over the counter. No one in the shop, and no sign of Orin in the street. The shears were still buried in the wood of the counter, and Seymour was definitely going to get in trouble for that tomorrow.

Tears still rolling down his cheeks, Seymour carefully pulled himself to his feet and removed the shears from the counter, laying them down gently. He locked the cash register and put the key into his pocket, then tiptoed over to the door and locked that as well.

Seymour flipped the sign to ‘Closed’ and finally allowed himself to breathe. He took the steps downstairs one by one, holding onto the banister. Clumsy at the best of times, he didn’t want to fall and hurt himself any more. He was so, so tired of hurting.

In the basement (home at last), Seymour immediately dove for the bed and threw the covers over his head, rummaging in the pillow case to bring out his stuffed bear and crushing it against his chest. He cried for as long as he wanted to, until his eyes burned and his throat felt raw.

Someday, Seymour told himself, hugging his bear close. Someday I won’t live here with all these terrible people and all of this fear. Someday I’ll be somewhere cozy, and comfortable…. and green.

#my writing #fandom agere #lsoh agere #musicals agere #agere writing #agere fic #angst #my fics #little shop of horrors

13 notes · View notes

alena-reblobs · 9 months

Text

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol8 Part2

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 |

Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1 | Vol08 Part2

Oh hell yeah we'll get to one of my favourite spreads of the whole series in this Part.

I will also not excuse any swearing that I'm doing while writing this review.

Now I don't think I got this on my first read through, but the sound here ("Gakin") sounds very much like no bullet was loaded? Sooo I guess Wolfwood very cleverly anticipated this move by Legato so we have him double-tricking him! Good boy! (I haven't read all bookclub posts to vol8 yet, if smb else already said this, whoops)

He's free...but instant knock-out. Ouch.

"Oh no fucker, I WON'T have you staring at my bf's ass." (loosely interpreted Wolfwood's thoughts)

If he missed, does this mean Legato changed the trajectory of the bullets with his powers? Sounds like a wild thing to do (but I'm not sure if it's a wild thing for HIM or completely within his normal powers?)

THIS shit was not part of the plan.

Reclaimed his ass (good for him)

This panel of Livio shooting behin him and saying "Amen"? It's pretty fucking cool.

Much less cool is that he's shooting Wolfwood.

And now Chapel literally casting judgement upon Wolfwood from above. God has this boy not suffered enough?

It's started, guys. The inner thoughs of Wolfwood...You know when I started reading Trigun, I had just watched ep4 or 5 of Trigun and I thought Wolfwood was "just" another cool character, but basically a sidekick to the main character Vash. Then I binged the manga in 3 days and saw that, although none of the other characters like Meryl and Milly are any less fleshed out or any less important, next to Vash he's probably the only one about whom we get so so much wonderful insight. So much deep character feelings, so much thoughts...and I'm so so in love with his inner monologues. They hurt to read but they show he's not just the cool priest with the machine gun, but he's hurting, he's self doubting, he's vulnerable and afraid at times and he has wishes too...

And when he's sitting there, riddled with bullets, it's the thought of Livio and how he still has to save him, that manages to get him to keep going.

They were friends, brothers! Memories of happier times...

Which fucker shot my Wolfwood.

Gnaring, biting, chomping on wood.

It's coming it's coming

SJAKD fskfa Vash literally answering his prayer. Cradling Wolfwood in his wings gently!! And protecting him from the bullets. And also being turned to him with his body, partly shielding Wolfwood with himself, too. This whole page. is so...romantic. And that feels almost like it doesn't even describe it accurately. This is most definitely the part where I really started to ship them, but then, is it romantic or platonic? It doesn't really matter because as much as you want to or NOT want to interpret into their relationship at this point, to me it's clear that there's some kind of love here that's based on their mutual understanding, trust, and how they both have supported each other until this point.

sjkADfaf *sighs*

Big fan of this Vash drawing with this pose here.

Reading this for the thousandth time and falling only deeper into the Vashwood hole.

Knives your vulnerability is showing again.

Cheeky bastard! (I say with love)

The right page is absolutely beautiful. And I love how the panel on the left pages insinuates how they are bumping againest the ship on their way through very comedy-style.

Next chapter! Chapter 5:

I'm cherishing every panel where we see them close and caring about each other. Imagining Vash gently leaning Wolfwood against the rock after catching them both from the fall (did they land on his feathers or did they fly to the earth? I'd have loved to know how they did it)

Love that panel at the bottom of Wolfwood! And, Vash with his hair down (and cloak off) like this looks soo young! More like Wolfwood's age instead of 150 haha

Baby Wolfwood Baby Wolfwood

The situation is turned into a funny one on the next page, but these pleas, they are very much real and urgent and from the bottom of Wolfwood's heart...and he rarely ever begs or asks for anything.

Marlon!! So so happy to get some characters back that we know, and he's a very lovable character!! And, of course, Meryl <3

Knowing that his friends are there to back him up, even from afar, he looks more sure of himself. Because you're not alone!

And THEN you had to go and ruin the atmosphere, Wolfwood. Because you just WALKED AWAY you big idiot

Anybody else got reminded of the Cowboy Bebop ending notes?

And that's all of the Vol8 recap I'm gonna do. There's one more chapter but I don't really feel like doing that, others have already discussed it anyway, so that's it for me! Now I can really dig into vol9 this week, oh lord I can't wait.

#trigun #trigunbookclub #vashwood #the mentioned swearing occuring in my comments I mean

21 notes · View notes

s0fti3w1tch · 1 year

Text

ROTTMNT Leo-Focus fics I like

Gen fics, no ships edition

Ongoing:

Two Souls by Virgilisspidey (18/?, 105k words)

Leonardo has a friend that nobody else can see. "Aoi" has been beside him for as long as he could ever remember. AKA: A ROTTMNT rewrite where 2k12!Leonardo's soul is attached to Rise Leo's and "acts like a weird imaginary friend."

Personal note: the fic I loved so much I decided to make a ficlet of it. No serious, I love this one a lot.

Shell Shocked (Literally) by Pachinko_Lessons_101 (12/? chapters, 19k words)

Leonardo gets transported to Bayverse after a lab mishap with Donnie. Emotions ensue.

Personal Notes: Literally the story that got me into reading and writing fanfic again in 2022 after 4 years.

Every Night the Longest Day by ashtreelane (16/17 chapters, 42k words)

Leonardo gets hit with a curse that doesn't allow him to sleep. With sleep deprivation getting to him with each passing day, his family desperately searches for a fix.

Personal note: I unfortunately know from personal experience this fic is very accurate to bad sleep deprivation. Not to the extent in the fic, but damn I've stayed up.

You Are Not My Brothers by Marien0_0StrawberryMilk (3/? chapters, 2.5k words)

We have Baron "I wanted to make weapons of war but the tiny red-eared slider called me dad and I'm experiencing a moral dilemma" Draxum. In which Lou Jitsu lost one of the turtles, and Draxum accidentally becomes Leonardo's parent.

Completed, Multi-chapter:

waiting on a miracle by lydiasgrace (11 chapters, 29k words)

Leo watches 'Encanto' and he gets inspired to pull another Leo "it's not about me" move and carry the weight of his family post-kraang healing by himself. It's ow.

His World by SkylerSkyhigh (25 chapters, 124k words)

After the events of the Kraang, Leonardo starts to "hallucinate" other versions of himself, guiding him on leadership. AKA, 2k12!Leo and Future!Rise Leo work through very Leo issues with Rise Leo. Oh BTW, it turns into a musical by the midpoint. Do not be fooled, there's still ouch.

Warning: Disability erasure of a canonically disabled character in the final chapter. Something that I, as a disabled reader, care deeply about and have felt really genuinely hurt by in a fic I liked everything else about. Please remember to educate and not harass the author about this if you wish to call it out (note that I have -spoilers contained- commented about it already).

Proud Hermanos by HellsTrojanHorse (9 chapters, 8k words)

Señor Hueso teaches Leonardo how to play guitar. Leonardo expresses his emotions and love through music. ( w/ Songs from Disney's Coco. )

Cradled Close by Poppyseed20 (2 chapters, 2.9k words)

2 different points in time where Splinter takes care of sick Leonardo.

One Shots:

Tiger and Turtle by Dream_En (1.9k words)

Tigerclaw stumbled upon a crying tot!Leo. He keeps him company 'til Leo's family could find him.

a month or two by anonymous user (9k words)

5 times Leonardo comforts his family post-Kraang, and the 1 time he gets it back.

No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk by SIverfandweedo (879 words)

Leonardo drops a glass of milk and it's overwhelming.

Personal note: he's just like me!!!

"Anytime" by zesty_lemony (Lemons_are_just_cake) (711 words)

Leonardo has a breakdown and his brothers are there to comfort him.

Freezing heart by Sweet_bubbs (1.9k words)

It's winter, and the heating in Leo's room sucks. He doesn't tell anyone.

Creative title goes here by callmesummon (460 words)

Baby Leo has a nightmare and Splinter's there to help

I Don't Dance by SkylersSkyhigh (2.4k words)

A diegetic musical number between Rise Leo, Future!Rise Leo, 12!Leo fighting against the Sando Brothers in the span of a 4-minute High School Musical 2 song.

all the things that i could live without by taizi (1.3k words)

Just some family fluff with Donatello and an injured Leonardo, post-Kraang.

#regular buwan blog #fic rec #rottmnt fanfic #leonardo rottmnt fanfic #leo-centric fanfic #rottmnt fic recs #as of dec 13 2022

94 notes · View notes

whenthechickencry · 8 months

Text

Umineko Ch1. Replay 2

I've always wondered whether Jessica knows Kinzo is dead? I guess she has to and the answer she gives is weirdly evasive, kinda wish we got some info on what her thoughts about the whole situation were.

Ok yeah she definitely knows, implies she has seen him leave.

He really did basically entirely forget, ouch

corner kumasawa jumpscare

Oh my god I definitely wasn't expecting Kumasawa to drop hints about the baby yasu plot point so early

yeah ahah her ruse would be broken if he did indeed grope her but also the way George always feeds into her complex (without even bothering to understand what 'furniture' means to her!) always struck me in such a bad way, I don't think this relationship would be very healthy even under better circumstances for Yasu

haha Maria Yasu moments are cute

There's a full line of people to go through before Kinzo even considered his wife, huh

boo natsuhi is the best battler

he sure is

I can't tell if Kinzo's disdain for Maria is something that actually happened? I remember Rosa saying Kinzo didn't like her naming her child Maria, so I guess it's possible he was grumpy when she was born and it's something that got exaggerated by everyone's already negative opinion of Kinzo?

Very interesting to try and untangle which parts of the fantasy Kinzo scenes are an accurate portrayal of Kinzo, what other characters saw as Kinzo, or even a stand-in for Yasu

Kind of interesting to interpret lines like this instead as support for her parents, like, if even Jessica, someone who considers herself completely separated from the inheritance problem, acts so hard like Kinzo is alive then it lends a lot of credence to her parents claims that he's alive

oh battler

oh that's his magic name or whatever isn't it

idk battler of all the things i could say about kinzo moving like others wanted him to isn't how id think of him

You can sorta see how Battler struggles to try to understand people on their terms and not his own even in small interactions like this. That is probably the exact kind of compliment Gohda was fishing for here!

nice save kumasawa

While Kumasawa was also a bit of an enabler wrt Kinzo, it still makes me sad to think of all the times she died at the hands of someone she had warm feelings for while having no idea what was going on .

You wasted all your money on moon expeditions I wouldn't try to hold those words against anyone Krauss!

Team Natsuhi getting into formation for defense

Man, Kyrie and Natsuhi have it tough. Being both the main brains behind the team but also the ones their husbands constantly work against because of misogyny. Kinda fascinating to see the contrast between them and Eva and Hideyoshi - Hideyoshi mostly being the one to smooth things over when Eva goes too far, they are actually working as a team.

Krauss still trying to prepare for repeating the Kinzo is alive play next year as well, surely 3 years in a row is trying your luck? Especially since everyone knows by now lol.

I wanna read about Krauss Natsuhi and Jessica in Disney Land that seems like an amusing story

Kinda interesting how much worse Rosa's financial situation seems to be than the other siblings. I guess they had the benefits of being able to get bailed by Kinzo of any mistakes for longer (or in Krauss' current state, just embezzling the funds lol)

Natsuhi really is trying so hard. And she's alone at that - It seems Krauss' plan isn't as much deceiving everyone as much as making them okay with his shit for a while. You could communicate better with your wife!

Eva's vitriol towards Natsuhi is of course very interesting. She uses her as a punching bag to launch all the misogyny she has received in her life back to someone while also being deeply bitter and envious of her: She got the position she always wanted as head of the Ushiromiya family and not only that she got it *because* she is a woman (Krauss' wife) which is the exact reason she was being denied it her entire time! Of course, she also got basically sold off from her family because she is a woman and treated as a baby maker for the same reason but. I can't really blame her for being extremely bitter, even if you know the correct answer would be to help each other and kiss and Also, with Eva having George as a mad ploy to usurp the head from Krauss, I wonder what she would have done had George been born a boy? Would she finally give up on her dreams now that they were certainly crushed? Would she put her child through a completely futile quest to become the head? Idk I would probably read a story based on this premise!

Seeing Natsuhi trying so hard for a family who has never really respected her but she has deluded herself into thinking they (Or at least Kinzo) have is very sad

#umineko #UmiEpisode1

8 notes · View notes

coffeebanana · 11 months

Note

If you're still doing writer asks, 17 and 25!

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Way too more than I ever needed to know about the french schooling system 😂

LOL but aside from that...I think I either tend to research next to nothing for a fic or fixate on one tiny detail and research it for an absurd amount of time. Like, for This Distance Between Us I spent several hours researching the Ritz London (ie. what it looks like, how the afternoon tea works, the menu, when courses are served, dress code, etc...) because apparently that had to be accurate. And for I Don't Believe In Umbrellas I had the characters taking a Psych course, which I've never taken, so I asked people for old course notes, looked up a syllabus for the actual NYU class, and looked through a few different topics and picked a few to learn a bit more about for some throwaway lines. For that one I went as far as taking attachment style quizes from the POV of the characters--or at least for Kagami, I can't remember if I actually did the ones for Marinette and Adrien.

For a lot of medical things I use Reddit for part of my research--not for the actual medicine, but for the how it feels part. Because you get a lot of first-hand details there that's missing from the more scientific/medical information. And I think that's made me feel a lot more confident writing about those sorts of things, because you start to realize that people will experience/describe having experienced the same thing in different ways. There's not a one-size-fits-all and that means there's lots of room for interpretation! And that's sort of how I've always approached writing things like depression and anxiety because I always knew it's not the same for everyone, but it's cool to see the same thing on the more physical side of health.

Lately I've also been researching PTSD for Marinette in Say Something, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've actually pulled up the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for mental health realted things in my writing. And I hadn't added the tag to the fic until recently--because it wasn't something I was explicitly trying to write in yet, even though it was in the back of my mind, and I hadn't written down a list of symptoms for her yet even though I had looked through the criteria a few times. But then I DID write down a list and I recently added the tag to the fic because I realized in my last couple rereads I realized I've actually touched (at least briefly) on pretty much everything there already--except that the symptoms have to have lasted for a month and the fic's only taken place over the course of like...a week I believe? So...it wassomewhat satisfying to find out I'm on the right track ahaha.

25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing? Yes! Usually after the actual writing part--when I go back to reread something and I've forgotten a specific line that packs a punch and I'm like...ouch? That happened to me like last week when I was rereading the last chapter of Say Something because a lot of that chapter touches on things that are somewhat personal to me--even though Adrien's circumstances are very different. So that resonated ahaha. And then I was upset I didn't have the ending yet to make everything better 😂

I think the only fics I ever had to step away from briefly in the middle of writing them were talk to me through the Christmas Lights and A Drop In the Ocean--the latter because (cw pregnancy loss, and this might be oversharing askjdbfskjfd but) while pregnancy loss is not something I've personally experienced, it did happen to my mom when I was 8 or 9, and that definitely impacted me too in ways I don't think I really ackowledged or realized for a long time. It's weird to be grieving in a place where people aren't giving you space to grieve--because people were telling me in different ways that they weren't my feelings to have. Which is understandable and also...not really true. And I guess I wonder how it impacted my relationship with my mom. We're not really close, but at the time I think she was actually the one person who did try to make space for my feelings. And that wasn't really what the fic was about, but it still brought up all that for me. So idk, that fic was unexpectedly hard for me to delve into. And it's probably the most nervous I've ever been posting something haha.

Thanks for the ask!! 💜

Fic Writer Asks

#ask response #kasienda #long post #cw pregnancy loss

6 notes · View notes

bess3714 · 1 year

Text

I watched Birds of Prey and here's my thoughts on it even though this movie has been out for like three years

It wasn't #girlboss

This movie didn't feel like a hyper-feminist capitalism girl power we-will-overcome movie. You know what I mean? Like it was very much a movie about women, but not in the 'watch this movie because hashtag feminism' way that Hollywood likes to give us. Women were the focus and the movie didn't make a big deal about it and it was nice.

2. Gotham was bright

If you watch Batman movies, Gotham is always gloomy and overcast, but in Birds of Prey Gotham has sunlight. Gotham actually looks like a place people could live in which was pretty cool and different.

3. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) was a backwards title.

It might have been called Birds of Prey but it was undeniably about Harley Quinn. It could have more accurately been called The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (and the Birds of Prey). Harley took center stage, which, to be clear, wasn't a bad thing. (To be fair, it's also known as Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, so.)

I think this scene with Harley and Dinah at the club really gets at what this movie is about.

Harley: "How do you spell "mercenary"? Merceninny… Merceran? Singer lady woman! You're really, really good."

Dinah: "Yeah."

Harley: "Know what a harlequin is?"

Dinah: "Janky-ass clown with bad eye makeup?"

Harley: "Oof! Ouch! A harlequin's role is to serve. An audience. A master. You know, a harlequin's nothing without a master. And no one gives two fucks who we are beyond that.

Dinah: "Yeah, I don't know who you think I am, lady, but I'm not her."

It's about Harley breaking with what everyone, including herself, thinks is her role in the world. She's no longer willing to serve the Joker, but she's still performing for an audience, trying to get a reaction out of the people around her through the crazy things she does. Harley, throughout the movie, learns to (somewhat) define herself on her own terms and stand on her own two fee. She's by no means perfect at the end, but she's grown from the sad, pathetic, just-been-dumped Harley at the beginning of the movie.

4. Roman Sionis and Victor Zsasz gave me Gaston and LeFou vibes

Something something hyper masculinity something something queer coding idk idk

5. None of the main characters felt flat

Harley was, of course, the most fleshed out, followed by Dinah and Renee, then Cass and Helena. Helena was, in my opinion, the least developed character, but least-developed is not the same as under-developed. In movies where there's a team of people, there's always going to be characters that get more focus. However, my pet peeve is when teams have useless characters, people who don't do anything and could easily be cut from the movie without really affecting much, and I didn't see that with Birds of Prey.

6. The fight scenes were delightfully violent

I just really liked seeing Harley hitting people. It was fun, and the entire sequence of her fighting at the police station was really entertaining and well choreographed. Additionally, Roman's demise was shockingly and delightfully abrupt.

7. Final Review

3/5 stars, so a pretty solid movie in my book! The plot was pretty basic but was helped by Harley's non-linear narrative, which thankfully did a fairly decent job of keeping things fairly straight on where we were in the plot. The characters were interesting, and I felt like the actors all did an excellent job portraying their roles. The cinematography was beautiful, and though it wouldn't be the first movie I pick, I wouldn't turn down a rewatch if offered.

(This gif is what Batman would have looked like dancing at the club with Harley had he been in this movie, just fyi.)

#harley quinn #birds of prey 2020 #dceu #margot robbie is a treasure #due to inflation my opinion is worth ten cents

8 notes · View notes

vincess-princess · 2 years

Text

the wild, the wayward and the wicked

hello guys! i'm here with a new fic! :) *shoves all unfinished wips back into the basement* this one is totally not inspired by rdr 2 which is definitely not actively sabotaging my grades and responsibilities right now by making me play it 24/7, because, as you are all well-aware, i'm a fully functional human being!

Fandom: Motley Crue

Characters: the usual bunch

Pairings: implied Nikki Sixx/Vince Neil

Rating: Mature

Status: ongoing

Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, mentions of past drug addiction, period-typical homophobia, self-harm, a whole lot of crimes of all shapes and sizes

Summary: after an ambitious heist gone wrong, professional outlaws Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars are stranded in a city full of lawmen hounding them and with not a single dollar in their pockets. To start a new life in another state, they need a great deal of cash - and they decide to get it by temporarily becoming the men of law themselves and bringing to justice one of their own kind, who not-so-coincidentally also has a tremendous bounty to his name.

A/N: this takes place in California in 1880s, and in my attempt to be as historically accurate as possible i had to google the etymology of so. many. expressions. but i learned a lot of new things! :) (if i do get something wrong, though, you're welcome to tell me) i decided the chapters in this one will be shorter than usual (no 5k monstrosities lmao), and i'll try to post them more often too.

Chapter 1.

Word count: 1545

Even after five years of the life of an outlaw Tommy remained dreadfully - even deadly - thoughtless. Otherwise he would have reconsidered trying to sneak up from behind to Nikki downing a shot at the bar counter. The whiskey ended up in his eyes, and Nikki’s revolver – pressing between his ribs.

“Ouch!” Tommy’s hands flew to his face, and the piece of paper he was holding glided down onto the counter. Some whiskey got onto it, but mostly at the corners, so the text was still readable.

“Don’t rub your eyes, it’ll make it worse,” Nikki advised, reaching for the paper. The next second the half-full mug of beer belonging to a guy sitting next to him was upended above his head. Two indignant cries blended together, putting “I’m gonna end you” across perfectly without a single word. Nikki’s was louder, though – it was him getting a beer shower, after all, and it wasn’t even good beer.

“No guns!” the barkeeper warned and immediately exempted himself from his own rule, pulling a Colt New Army from under the counter. The “argument” – or, rather, six of them – was compelling enough for both Nikki and the guy to reluctantly holster their weapons. Not that Nikki would actually shoot Tommy, but he had to keep the little shit on his toes. The other guy, though… this saloon was the hottest spot in town for crooks and lowlifes, and they were always quick to anger. Nikki and Tommy blended right in for that very reason, but also ran certain risks because of it.

“Sorry, partner,” Nikki turned to the now beerless guy that turned beet-red and looked like he was going to explode, “this idiot here is pea-brained and even that pea usually goes unused. Lemme buy you another beer.” He fumbled in his already very light pockets with growing anxiety until his fingers brushed against a warm half-dollar and slid it across the counter to the barkeeper. Then he stood up, shook his head like a dog, spattering the beer on the counter, barkeeper and the guy, put on his hat, grabbed Tommy by the elbow and forcefully led him to the exit. The kid apparently realized he had just done something outrageously stupid and obediently allowed Nikki to drag him out of the saloon and into a narrow alleyway behind it. Judging by suspicious brown stains on the ground, it had quite a history of dispute settlements.

Nikki didn’t intend to go to such extremes, of course. A lot of lessons could be learned without bloodshed: a couple bruises would do the job just as well. Tommy endured his mandatory punch in the face without a single complaint, which was unusual of him, as it was his favorite thing to do. But this time he just wiped his nose with his calloused hand, avoiding looking Nikki in the face. Was he actually sorry?

Nikki was gonna give him some more tongue-lashing, but decided against it.

“Do not startle me like that anymore,” he only said tiredly. “The last thing we need right now is a commotion. And that was exactly what you almost did.”

“You splashed whiskey on me first,” Tommy murmured defensively. Well, maybe he wasn’t actually that sorry.

“Because you startled me! You know not to come up to me from the back like that. You’ll get punched. Or splashed. Or both, like in this case.”

“Well, it ain’t my fault you’re that neurotic! No lawman ever goes to The Diablo. You don’t have to be so vigilant there.”

“You’re a fool,” Nikki said almost fondly. “With a bounty like ours, any criminal will readily convert into a man of law just seeing us. Which is why we should prevent their looking as much as possible.”

“Taking after you,” Tommy grumbled. Nikki graciously ignored it, because it was true. “And if you hadn’t doused me in whiskey and listened instead, I would have suggested we do it too!”

“What?” Nikki frowned, but the menacing effect he aspired for was ruined by a very untimely sneeze. The beer odor kept assailing his poor nose, completely blocking his sense of smell. He needed a bath real bad, but going looking for it to a hotel or a bathhouse was hardly better than walking right into the police station. His posters were hanging on every pole in town, and these places were among the first to be informed of wanted outlaws in case they try to seek shelter there. Nikki had since shaved off his beard, of course, losing at least five years and the charm of a highway robber together with it, but he still didn’t wanna risk it.

“Look what I found!” Tommy pulled a wad of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Nikki. Upon unwrapping it, he recognized the piece of paper that Tommy brought into the bar. He hadn’t noticed him picking it up again, but the kid was extraordinarily, even unnaturally nimble-fingered and took to thieving like a duck to water. Nikki’s been doing it since he could remember himself, but next to Tommy he was an absolute jackleg.

The layout on the paper looked familiar. A huge WANTED on top, a mugshot underneath…

“A bounty poster that is not of us?” Nikki skimmed through the text until he got to the sum. It wasn’t dark enough in the alleyway, and Nikki only had one whiskey shot, so the zeros shouldn’t have been doubling in front of his eyes, right? He twisted the poster, held it an inch away from his eyes, then extended his arm as far as he could, trying to catch the stray zero fleeing from the scene, but all four of them stood their ground. Eventually he did come to the conclusion that the sum offered was real. And all that just for one guy?

Then Nikki read the charges, and things got a bit clearer. Murder, including that of an officer, theft, armed robbery, breaking and entering and… sodomy?

“Quite a character, right?” Tommy grinned as he saw Nikki’s eyebrows fly up. “And would you look at that hefty sum! It could last us a few months until things settle down a bit. Just for bringing one guy in!”

Nikki looked more closely at the photo of the criminal. Well, he could as well have had “sodomy” written all over his face: long blonde hair, plump lips twisted into a lecherous smile, and a heavy stare from underneath thick long lashes… if Nikki hadn’t read his name written on the top, he would have taken him for a wanton woman.

But no, the name – Vincent Neil Wharton, usually going by Vince Neil – was clearly male. Unless the doctor was drunk during his birth and his mother never bothered to check.

“Whatcha staring at?” Tommy narrowed his eyes, and Nikki finally managed to tear his gaze away from the photo. Then his lips stretched into a sleazy grin. “What, lack of gals hitting you that hard?”

“Hey, you took the poster, not me,” Nikki snapped back. “So many bounty posters out there, and you picked this one! Says something about you, huh?”

“Yeah, it says that I like more money for less effort,” Tommy retorted easily. “The biggest bounty of the rest was half of what’s offered here.”

“It’s that high for a reason,” Nikki hurried to curb his enthusiasm. “You see that list of offences? This guy knows what side to grip the gun from and ain’t got no morals to hold him from using it. And you know how the cops are – they wouldn’t have offered such a sum if they could catch the man themselves. Besides, he’s wanted alive, which makes it ten times harder.”

“What, are you scared of him?” Tommy laughed. Nikki loved hearing him laugh – Tommy always managed to find something funny in any situation, however desperate. Unfortunately for Tommy, Nikki’s dislike of being mocked exceeded that love by a large margin – as, coincidentally, did Nikki’s muscular mass compared to Tommy’s. So the next few minutes the kid was eating dirt – not on his own volition, of course, but he had no other option with Nikki’s knee pressing into the small of his neck, and thrashing around and shouting curses only made it worse.

Soon enough Tommy came to accept that his only choice was to surrender and stopped writhing in Nikki’s grip. Nikki held him down for a few more seconds – for the lesson to assimilate better - before letting him go. Their fights always ended like this, no exceptions, yet Tommy never learned.

Tommy slowly rose from the ground, spit out soil and licked his split lip.

“Was that really necessary? Another punch would do the job just fine,” he murmured with resentment.

“It wouldn’t, your skull is too thick.” Nikki picked up the long-suffering bounty poster again. “And I’m not scared, I’m being reasonably careful. As you should be too.”

“It’s gonna be three against one. What’s there to fea- be careful about?”

“You don’t know the man. There’s always something.”

“Now you’re just overthinking it.”

“Gotta think for the two of us.” Nikki folded the poster and shoved it into his pocket. “I need to talk it over with Mick. Let’s get out of here.”

#motley crue #motley crue fanfiction #nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #mick mars #motley crue au #outlaw au #nikki sixx/vince neil #vinikki #just to clarify! i don't plan any sex scenes in the fic but it'll get pretty close to it at one point #also the relationships between the three of them is....complicated. maybe even destructive or abusive a bit #GOD i spent so much time looking for appropriate adjectives starting with w for the title #my writing #the wild the wayward and the wicked #or www for short lmao

14 notes · View notes

another-dra-anew · 1 year

Note

maybe maki you don't talk about her enough...

i dont!!! so i will answer this because shes neglected. not because im procrastinating. sobs sobs sobs-

cw: icky bad parents/abuse mentioned. but like. that cw is equal in severity/detail as the actual point where its mentioned. no detail/infos on how theyre icky bad, just that theyre icky bad

My identity hc for them

canonically sapphic! i feel like ive spoken before on her identity past that uhhh. i dont know what im on about?

+ trans lass! i think she still overall just has a journey ahead of her when it comes to feeling secure in her identity and etc etc? thats kinda just a general thought. she's got some internalized issues she needs to work through but like. w/o getting into backstory spoilers shes being so brave esp for her age and im so proud of her <33. she's having a vv normal and expected relationship with her identity and im so proud of my girlie. she can work through her internalized stuff now that she has fwends by her side, she's already done so much on her own and im so proud of my girlie

Thoughts on their home life/family

maki comes across veryyy. edgy and like "oh duhhh this character has trauma they're wearing their pain on their sleeve" and so i worry her backstory is too. ouch the edge? but i think like... ultimately her relationship with her parents and her relationship with ryutaro are accurate to like... toxic households/what happens when ur a child abuse victim. even if what exactly Happened there is a bit more nonsensical, the dynamics portrayed are (hopefully) accurate depictions which hold weight because of what they're like, if not how they came to be.

thatsss meta reflection tho lol. for something in-universe... hm. how do i say things without spoiling. i think her being a big sister is very important to her and she wants to be like. part of the club with yamaguchi and hatano and uehara and etc etc. but her relationship with ryutaro is like. Explodes. so while the fact she's a big sibling is something that holds a lot of weight to her shes like. well i cant really call myself a big sibling now can i. hm. (<- dont worry about it its just the horrors ! )

How i feel about their canonical writing/handling

she's... a hard character for me to nail. this is something ive noticed with her and uehara both? its funny i used to feel fine with writing them but now im comfy writing yamaguchi and inori and not these two. ugh. buuuut.. i feel like i just need practice? maybe ill revisit that old maki fic.... i think i just need to spin her a bit in my head, and actually. im confident in her writing but not how i portray it. i need to do more to show that she's very... withdrawn and on the defense 90% of the time.

The one thing i’d want to make canon about them

hmm- OH. she and tsu would be/should be besties. but like. even in non despair itd take monthsss for them to be in the same social sphere + interacting enough to be besties. and in the kg tsu is busy trying to be bob the builder for everyones mental health ("can we fix it? yes we can!) and maki is Not Well. so. sadly no "pls my kids take care of ur ears look at ur talents oh lordy" besties :(...

My number one favorite ship for them

obligatory makitomo per tomoris ask meme! i think they'd 100% have a mutual crush in non despair, and even in kg there's definitely like.. hints of stuff there, romance just isn't reallyyyyy... what's been on makis mind.

…Now everyone else i ship with them

i think she and kurokawa r cute, and i think her and inori could be fun... maki is funny cuz she's one of the few girls i dont especially ship with hatano or iranami? but yeah! tbf i just think kuronori/makitomo is cute. polycuuuule!

The thing i will NEVER ship

i meaaaan? damn. i really just don't have m/f ships in dra. wow. uhhh anyways. there's nothing im against for her, just stuff im not too interested in of my own volition!

a dynamic/relationship i wish was explored more (in canon, or in fandom)

i miss talking about my edgy trio :( (inori maki uehara)..... uhhhhm.. i dont think there's really anything else? but yk. actually in terms of makis relationships being talked about. do u all ever question whats going on with maki and ryutaro? or makis past in general? ???

thoughts on their design (appearance-wise)

im preeetty happy with her fit, but im thinking about changing her color palette.... i need to upload fit explanations in general? but thats not something im gonna get to for awhile- like.. two weeks after i graduate im going on a out of country trip (its through girl scouts!) and so i wont be on my phone much... so i wanna get to a good place w/beta, and its just... this mess of me trying to organize everything so im in a good place to be offline for a Bit (+unproductive), so we'll see what i get done before then- maybe ill type up fits when im out of country, maybe ill do them before as filler before we advance with the plot! we'll see jesus fuck this was supposed to be about maki

mkay. yeah i like her fit! i like the new one wayyy more than her og fit, but i struggle a bit with her hair/eye color and making it fit with her look... ive lightened her hair so its not quite the neon yellow of canon, but i'm still toying with it! it'd prolly be good for me to be more adventurous with like... i dunno. i tend to use/reference hair and eye colors in character's fits, and i need to be more Okay with not doing that.

A music-related thought- a song that reminds me of them, or what their music taste is, etc

MAKI HAS A PLAYLIST. it hasn't been updated in forever but it exists. i deserve to bleed - sushi soucy. a vv commonly used song/prolly expected but it works very well for her. i feel like there's other songs that are like... on the tip of my tongue for her? but i cant think of any </3. sorry girlie...

#maki kiyoka #ask meme #'yomi this isnt accurate to the order i sent asks in maki shouldnt be first' shhh u dont see anything

4 notes · View notes

thecityonthemoon · 2 years

Text

I never posted my planed commentary on the Darkhold comic, so let’s do it now:

Let’s start this by saying I just vaguely know the context of the comic. I will read the full thing one day, but this time I just wanted to see BB post-cursed comic. I do know this is… AU? some nightmare dimension? Anyway

I think I said it before, but getting BB narrating the whole thing in first person was such an experience! I guess it doesn’t happen more often to keep his air of mystery, and I kinda like the air of mystery, but I like getting to know what he’s thinking too.

“The thing about spending a lifetime in silence is that you often forget you have a voice”

Hmmm 🤔🤔🤔

This is a lot. First, are those two guys with Maximus and Medusa those two that eventually became Maximus’ minions? The blond one in red looks like Leonus, and the tree guy might be Timberius (I think there were other tree guys at some point too but if that’s Leonus, it makes sense this one is Timberius)

It looks like Max just took his friends to bully his brother. Or maybe they got curious and he agreed to show them. Anyway this could mean that this is the first time Medusa and BB saw each other! And Max was the one to introduce them! He played himself!

(Also note how Medusa is the only one that isn’t being mean. That’s cute.)

And BB’s narration highlights another thing I love in well-written siblings conflict: both parts are jealous of each other. Max is jealous of BB’s powers and him being the heir to the throne. BB is jealous of Max being free (and maybe also having friends). They’re both right that the other has something they don’t.

Also:

BB would gladly give up on his power for Max

Except his power is no gift, but a burden

He wouldn’t wish this burden on Max

Because he loves Max

Since we don’t get to hear from BB often, there are not many times in which we see him viewing his power as a burden, and I am in love with each of them. Also, had we ever seen him directly saying he loves Max before? Of course, his actions showed, but to read it makes me go 🥺

Also let’s not forget to mention Lockjaw being a good boy and loyal friend to BB

Lastly, if I recall correctly, both Leonus and Timberius were already criminals before becoming Max’ minions, so I wonder, if they were really Max’ friends in his youth, did their crimes have anything to do with him? Did they remain close as they grew up? Or did they only meet again that day when Max helped their group and made them his minions?

This shows BB’s memories, I think I recognize some battles. And the one in front not only has him and Medusa being super cute, but I think it’s from when she told him she was pregnant 🥺

And in the back there’s a teen BB with Lockjaw

I just love that both of these are there together with fighting Galactus

“Welcome to the world, brother. It is your world after all.”

Ouch.

Agon and Rynda (with a very accurate design to her original one) just smile as they watch it, probably missing the bitterness in Max’ tone. Another thing I love in fiction is parents who don’t realize the people their children are becoming.

Plot twist? What plot twist?

Just kidding. I felt like I was watching an episode of Twilight Zone. Wouldn’t it be fucked up if- yeah, it would, it fucked me up. Interesting that Max and BB have swapped places before (recently in Royals, when Max got BB sent to the space prison, and at least once before back when Attilan was on the moon and Max was believed to be dead), but never like this. Never in a way so permanent. So it feels in character for Max to come with a plan like this but it still manages to be chilling in a way the previous times weren’t.

Really like it. Canon or not, I am so stealing the flashback stuff for fics.

#silence or death

1 note · View note

eyrieofsynapses · 3 years

Text

Redemption Panel Highlights and Reactions

GATORS

i.e., Beth Riesgraf and Christian Kane (mostly Beth) talking about filming the scenes in (what I presume is) The Rollin’ on the River Job, where they’re pulling some stuff out of the water, and finding out the next day that there was an absolutely massive alligator pulled out of the same place just a little while after they filmed it

Beth’s impression of the wildlife folks warning them about the alligators

Beth scaring the hell out of Noah Wyle by yelling “GATOR” at him just after he finished his scene

seriously that was an absolutely WILD part of the panel

Everyone showering Aleyse Shannon with literally all the love!

Aldis Hodge in particular big-brothering her, and also the older actors calling her out for not giving herself enough credit, and Dean Devlin talking about how she blew him away at the auditions with her ability to turn on a dime

Seeing Kane with his glasses off wiping at his eyes, momentarily thinking “you okay dude?” and then realizing that he was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes

(same)

The The Bucket Job clip! I’ve been a bit meh on a lot of Redemption, just in how it didn’t feel quite right, but that is possibly the absolute closest I’ve seen it get to the original in the best way. Brilliant

Which comes as no surprise since BETH RIESGRAF directed the episode!!! And apparently put an insane amount of effort in!

Beth’s utter delight and joy at both directing the episode and having the crew behind her

THE CHAIR

So apparently she and Christian went to town on the fight scene and he winds up tied up in a chair somewhere along the line and there’s a whole wild scene, which I am really looking forward to

Beth knowing how insanely particular he’d be about things like zip ties vs rope and what kind of rope e.t.c. e.t.c.

Apparently this is also tied into a VERY DEEP scene with Eliot? It sounds like they’re going to go super hard on his backstory, which is terrifyingly exciting

Just. Beth and Christian going very hard on that episode together

Speaking of: the panel’s going amazingly, I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts, things are relatively light, and then, of fucking course—

Kane hitting us over the head about Eliot being a mass murderer who can’t be redeemed, is trying to stay static so that he can maintain the place he’s in, and is thus LIVING VICARIOUSLY THROUGH HARRY

What the FUCK. This is of course incredibly insightful and perfectly on point (because it’s Kane) but also, EXCUSE ME, OUCH, why would you DO THAT to us?

Everyone talking about having their families on set and their kids!

Beth’s son growing up on the original Leverage set and now going into being a director himself!

Gina’s daughter also growing up on set!

Noah Wyle’s daughter is playing Harry’s daughter I REPEAT NOAH WYLE’S ACTUAL DAUGHTER IS PLAYING AS HARRY’S DAUGHTER

Gina Bellman remaining relatively stoic throughout much of the panel (seriously, this woman, how the heck does she do it) and then losing it when they’re asked about running/inside jokes

A lot of them are, of course, apparently not appropriate to be spoken on-panel

(A lot of the others are the little inside ones that are special enough not to be ones they want to share, which is sweet!)

Everyone collectively losing it over having LeVar Burton on for The Bucket Job

Devlin and everyone laughing about collecting the various Star Trek people on Leverage

Beth talking about Burton coming over while she’s getting ready and asking her if she’s living on coffee and water, her laughing because he was absolutely right, and then him gently reminding her to remember to eat, which is the sweetest thing in the world oh my gods

Kane apparently choreographing an intense scene with Burton and being scared out of his mind, because Burton really wanted to go for it, but to Kane it was like he’s a figurine that’s not to be messed with because he was so worried about hurting him

Kane choreographing a massive amount of the show, which I knew already, but seriously, this guy blows me away

Gina and the crew talking about how he’d be away for a day of shooting a fight and all of them would be missing him and thinking about him

Family Vibes

Everyone talking about how they’re very noisy and loud together on set and it’s a bit like walking into a group of people having Christmas dinner (or something to that effect) because they’re just Like That together

Aleyse being the most surprised by Beth when she met her because she was like a little angel of light during the auditions but turned out to be an absolute ball of wild energy on set

Gina going “wait you were a MODEL” at Beth

Aldis talking about how much he loved how Parker and Hardison’s relationship had developed and grown!

Also, Aldis apologizing when the New York (iirc) background noise got loud and everyone going “no no we get you”

His outfit is ON POINT today

Gina saying that Christian is the goofiest and wildest out of them in terms of humor

(she goes “some of you may not know this,” which, fair, but also, if you’ve seen more than ten minutes of this guy outside of character you know he’s an absolute ball of sunshine)

Gina, Beth, and Christian talking about how they’d challenge each other to stay off sweets back on the original set, because they knew they needed to stay in shape and also just because they’re competitive (apparently all of them are major sweet tooths) and hide brownies and things from each other, while Aldis is just. doing pushups. eating all the healthy stuff. and then wanders into the room with a literal cupful of chocolates

(and Aldis going “well yeah I have to work off the sweets SOMEHOW”)

Beth explaining that sometimes they’d order a “Kane burrito” from Christian and he’d alter it slightly

Like, you know, chopping up hot jalapenos super fine and mixing them in, and Beth practically not being able to talk after the first bite

Apparently Aldis still went back a lot even after that

(Christian just seems very pleased with himself over it)

(THESE PEOPLE)

Gina goes “hey we should have an episode where we all swap roles,” Devlin going “WAIT FOR SEASON ONE TO BE DONE,” and then somebody (maybe the moderator?? I don’t remember exactly) going “uh actually. We did that”

Cue immediate scramble of “WAIT WHICH JOB WAS THAT”

(paraphrasing) “Yeah you remember the bit where you put on Parker’s harness and went off a building?”

Turns out half the cast had actually forgotten that that existed and only remember when reminded

The original cast all think of the episodes as “jobs”!!!!

Everyone talking over each other, Devlin going “it was with Sterling when we blew up the offices,” deciding that it was the season one finale, and then trying to figure out what episode title it was (eventually they figure out it’s the David jobs)

Moderator and Devlin accurately commenting that the fans know the show much better than they do

Noah Wyle very correctly explaining how Electric Entertainment is like a family and Devlin just. Keeps people

Aleyse and Aldis talking about typing when they’re hacking and going “WHAT THE HECK DO WE TYPE”

Aldis goes “yeah I just type all the bad words that we’re not allowed to say”

Aleyse saying that she’s always a little worried they’re hiding a Word document behind the blue screen and they’re going to pull up what she’s typing at the end of the day and print it out and put it in her trailer going “what the HECK is this”

Noah talking about filming The Golf Job and just getting to direct Jason Marsters and Christian together

Apparently their dynamic in that episode accurately mirrors the one with their characters in Angel!

Which promptly goes straight to the comment that it was very hard to make Marsters look like a golfer (pfft)

(Also apparently Christian plays golf for fun with his friends? Not necessarily something I would’ve thought of!)

Aleyse happily talking about how she loved the dynamic on set and it was very different from what she was used to

Also Aleyse talking about doing stunts and everyone else praising her for going whole hog

Beth especially praising her for the bit where she’s hit with the paralysis injection (I don’t remember which ep it’s from) and her acting for it, because it was incredibly hard to drop off screen in the particular way she did

Aleyse promptly answers that she was terrified with some of those, especially one where she had to keep a clock from falling and breaking

Everyone discussing how they see a new aspect of Breanna’s character in The Train Job

Also, to get serious for a moment, Kate Rorick in particular talks about how Breanna’s part of Gen Z and how we didn’t get the “days of yore” where everything was chill. We’ve basically been living in a world of hostility the whole time. It’s something I deeply appreciate, as someone who’s part of that group, and I love how they emphasize that for us.

This panel was pure chaos and I loved every moment of it! My stomach was actually hurting from laughing so hard, I swear. They had me cackling well over half the time. I would happily take panels double or triple the length of this, this was amazing. I also adore how the second you drop these six people in a room together, they immediately take off and literally just run and give you everything you wanted and more. (It is also evidently very hard to get them to STOP talking.)

I’m also just going to stop and take a second to fawn over the effects for the 3D room. It’s gorgeous—I love how they replicated the headquarters, especially with the stained glass ceilings! Super impressive, especially with all the photos, and I just love the whole thing. Kudos to whoever put that together.

Anyway, I’m definitely missing some stuff too; seriously, there wasn’t a second wasted in this thing, they were cracking some kind of joke or dropping some really interesting piece of information practically every thirty seconds. (And I haven’t even gotten into the clips OR the bloopers. I miiiight do a separate reaction purely for those.) It’s still up right now if you missed it and you want to watch it! I’ll probably watch it again, honestly.

#leverage #leverage redemption #leverage redemption panel #synapse reacts

363 notes · View notes

makeste · 3 years

Text

BnHA 326: What’s up Kids, It’s Me, Your Old Pal Stain

Previously on BnHA: Ochako shamed the U.A. Clown Mob into letting Deku go back inside his own fucking school by giving them an hour-long speech about how not to be humongous dickheads. Kouta and Gigantic Fox Lady saved the manga by being the only ones brave enough to give Deku a hug. Shouto was all “man, all this togetherness sure does remind me of that promise you made that we would handle Touya together which you immediately bailed on, doesn’t it, Dad.” Aizawa was all, “for the one and a half people out there who thought that my losing an eye and a leg might actually make me less sexy, I’m very happy to prove you wrong.” All Might was all, “[standing outside the U.A. fortress alone in the rain talking to someone or something??].” Like seriously, what was up with that though.

Today on BnHA: All Might is all “here I am in Kamino having a belated mid-life crisis because Deku abandoned me and I’m a terrible mentor and everything sucks and I hate myself.” Stain is all, “don’t make me come over there and give you a ten page speech about why you’re still the goat while menacingly holding you at swordpoint the entire time” because idk if you knew this guys, but Stain is pretty crazy actually. Anyway so he does that, and then All Might gets all emotional, and then the lady from chapter 92 shows up and gives All Might’s statue an encouraging pep talk, and then Horikoshi is all “and it even stopped raining lol can you believe this shit I’m not even a little bit subtle,” and he really isn’t. But I still got emotional anyway, because seeing people reassure All Might that everything he’s struggled for his entire life hasn’t been in vain just got to me okay. Horikoshi knows I am weak to the All Might feels and he just goes for the jugular every time, that bastard.

lmao. “in the neverending downpour, All Might is...” yeah, thank you, glad we’re getting right to that then

“All Might is driving 95 mph in his busted ass car in the pouring rain, is what he’s doing.” huh

so basically a day or two after his adopted child refused to accept the handmade bento that he packed with love, my man is out here acting like he’s got nothing to live for anymore. this sure bodes well for certain prophecies on which the clock is still ominously ticking down

his fucking face though omg. is it weird that I’m kind of hoping more people ambush him just because I think it’d be funny to see them get their asses kicked like the last bunch

(ETA: or maybe he will just stand there openly not giving a fuck and basically daring them to stab him!! get it together please All Might.)

side note, “anti-hero supporters” is such a strange way of saying “people who hate heroes”, which I’m assuming is what they actually wanted to say?? this makes it sound like it’s a group that really loves antiheroes. “these Hannibal stans have been a real menace lately. time to go deal with them”

ha ha ha, fucking ouch

are you really gonna do it Horikoshi you bastard. are you really going to let that be the final encounter between the two characters whose relationship you once described as the vertical axis of the entire fucking story. are you really gonna?? huh??

huh

you’re telling me you were driving 112 mph and you still didn’t get there in time. you’re losing your touch old man. lol Todo’s ice is almost fully melted already, how late were you

(ETA: so apparently this is taking place after the end of chapter 325, meaning he went to U.A., hung out for a bit, saw the kids come back with his bedraggled half-dead protégé in tow, watched as they shamed the civilians into some long-overdue character development, and then was all “welp, time to go argue with the hero-hating faction or something because I’m feeling useless.” and Edge just let him go, just like that. though to be fair I have to imagine it’s pretty hard to say no to All Fucking Might.)

also belated lol at the fact that the kids were all “yeahhhhhhh we are definitely not gonna touch that thing, let’s just leave it here, he doesn’t need it anyway.” probably the right call to make since they couldn’t get a hazmat team on such short notice

fuck. ha ha ha fucking ouch part two

All Might please put that thing down before you get gangrene. also yeah, you dropped the ball, good for you to acknowledge it. nobody’s perfect and you did your best. but yeah you could have handled a lot of things completely differently. but I still love you

is Horikoshi really putting this flashback here. are you serious. what kind of fucking sadist

look, I swear I’m not one of those people that runs up and down the street shouting “DEATH FLAG!!” at every third panel lol. but this shit screamed Death Flag when we originally got it, and it’s screaming DEATH FLAG!!! even more now. like with the capital letters and exclamation marks and all. and that’s just a fact. I don’t like it but that’s how it is

ffkdjslk

“DID YOU READ THE SIGN??!” Horikoshi asks while zooming in maniacally because he thinks we’re blind or something. lol what

-- though actually, it only just occurred to me that this sign is actually written in English. I never really paid attention up until now and had been assuming it was written in Japanese and translated by the scanlators, but the writing here is clearly part of the original image. anyway so maybe that’s why he’s zooming in?? just to make sure everybody pays attention lol

okay fuck this

see, this is the whole problem right here. once again All Might is all on his own. Deku’s self-destructive angst spiral was fortunately brought to a grinding halt because he actually has support from his friends and family and teachers and classmates. but All Might never had that same kind of support, and it’s made all the difference between the two of them, and not in a good way. Katsuki wasn’t wrong when he said All Might and Deku were both cut from the same cloth. but now when it’s All Might’s turn to go all “I WALK A LONELY ROAD~~” once again, there’s nobody in sight

just, after forty plus years of him carrying this torch, I just wish someone would finally come along to let him know he doesn’t have to. all those things that he wanted to say to Deku are also things that he needs and deserves to hear himself. Aizawa was making a little progress there, but now he’s got his sad zombie cloud boyfriend situation to deal with, and we can’t expect him and his perfect hair to solve all our problems. someone else has gotta step up

oh my god

“you rang?” never mind I take it all back sob

omg why am I laughing. shit

this man truly has the best PR game in the series. we were truly convinced he was gonna suddenly become a good guy and defend All Might against the other villains or some nonsense. as if this wasn’t the same man who decided on a whim that Iida Tensei deserved to be paralyzed, and that his fifteen-year-old brother deserved to die for daring to be upset about it

lol even All Might is all “I genuinely never saw this coming” lmao

just want to say, for the record, I have always harbored a very sensible hatred toward Stain. feeling very vindicated right now. good job Past Me

adsfklwkfsdwgkj

ffffwefjslkg. ghsdlkg. dsfkkkslkjldwkjrg

STAIN: heard you talking shit old man

ME: smh that’s what I thought you’d say you dumb fucking Stain

STAIN: how dare you talk about All Might that way

ME: gljfljgk

(ETA: in hindsight I have no idea how I didn’t clue in sooner that he didn’t recognize him -- or, well, ~didn’t recognize~ him, to be more accurate lol. I think it was the whole “is that a slight against the heroes?” thing that threw me. Viz’s translation makes it much clearer that he’s offended on behalf of All Might specifically, not heroes in general. anyways.)

sob. so All Might is all “yeah I don’t blame you for not recognizing me in this sweet leather jacket”

good thing he still knows how to do this party trick

A+ reflexes on Stain’s part presumably pulling the sword back a few inches to keep this dumbass from impaling himself with his whole pufferfish routine. can you imagine if that was the gruesome death Nighteye foresaw. and he was just too embarrassed to say anything

lol anyways guess I was wrong about Stain everyone

way to fucking go, Past Me. you really biffed this one

oh wait

Stain sure is one wacky rollercoaster ride

oh fuck me lol I forgot how much I did not miss this

(ETA: “this here is the sacred ground where All Might gave up the last of his power and turned into a shriveled old man!! please ignore the part where I admit to knowing all about that, and yet pretend not to recognize said man when he’s standing two feet in front of me.”)

Past Me, I know we’ve had our ups and downs these past ninety seconds, but I’m really starting to think you were on to something. this dude has always been kind of insufferable. always acting like his high horse is a fucking giraffe when it’s actually a Shetland pony

dammit now he’s got All Might going off on a depressed monologue

oh my god my heart

shit

why the fuck does that hit so hard. he became a hero because he couldn’t bear to just sit back and let bad things happen to people who didn’t deserve it. I mean that’s basically the same as every hero ever, right? so why does it still hit so fucking hard every single time though. what is it about seeing someone so determined to stand up for other people and fight on their behalf. it just never loses its impact no matter how many times I see that determination mirrored in so many of my favorite characters

“I wanted to make the world a better place.” omg. but you did, though. like seriously, I feel like people are always dogging on him for not being 100% perfect, and fandom really doesn’t give him enough credit for everything he still managed to accomplish. this man came of age at a time when Japan was by all accounts a total shitshow, and singlehandedly managed to bring about an era of peace that lasted for four fucking decades. can you imagine having peace for that long?? that’s longer than I’ve been alive. shit

and he gave people hope. he inspired them and protected them and made them feel safe. and no, he couldn’t save everyone, because he’s only one fucking dude (and also because the whole time AFO was also out there desperately working to undermine him so that he could keep preaching his narrative of “heroes are bad actually”). but you know what he did do, is inspire multiple new generations of heroes who, if they can all manage to work together, will finally be able to accomplish everything he never could

so yeah. forty years of peace, and inspired the “that’s how we all became the greatest heroes” generation -- that’s a fucking win in my book. talk about having a net positive impact on the world. lol anyways now I’m all fired up and ready to fight anyone who tries to talk any shit about you, All Might

“but what if I talk shit about myself” okay listen up All Might I’m gonna need you to try just a little bit harder to work with me here okay. please calm down and stop blaming yourself for every single bad thing that’s ever happened in the world. do you remember that time Bakugou was blaming himself for Kamino, and you gave him a hug and told him it wasn’t his fault, and that he was only a boy, and that even though he was strong, even strong people can struggle with the burdens they place on themselves, and that you were sorry for not seeing that earlier? do you remember all of that? that’s what I want someone to tell you too, dammit. anyway please stop breaking my heart please and thanks

wtf

are you dead All Might

I don’t even have the slightest idea what’s happening lol

oh snap did he grab him so they could hide??

hold the fucking phone. don’t tell me this person in the background with the umbrella is here to actually do something decent??

oh my godddd

and here come the feels. oh boy. okay don’t mind me, I’m just gonna sit here sobbing over this fictional lady and her simple act of kindness in this weekly shounen manga that I care about way too much

FUCKING DAMMIT AND HERE’S A SECOND HELPING

DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST GETTING DISPROPORTIONATELY EMOTIONAL OVER THIS WOMAN’S DETERMINATION TO HONOR A MAN WHO SACRIFICED EVERYTHING TO SAVE HER AND COUNTLESS OTHERS. I’M JUST HAVING SOME FEELS OVER HERE ABOUT HER HEARTFELT, DOESN’T-EVEN-KNOW-ANYONE-ELSE-IS-WATCHING FEELINGS OF GRATITUDE THAT COMPELLED HER TO COME OUT HERE AND MAKE THIS SMALL BUT POWERFUL GESTURE. I’M JUST OUT HERE GETTING ALL PROFOUNDLY WORKED UP ABOUT STATUE MAINTENANCE AND THE HUMAN RACE. NEVER MIND. JUST IGNORE ME AND CARRY ON

holy shit. I was not even remotely prepared. you can’t just do that to me. you can’t just leave all these death flags on my lawn and then suddenly shift gears to show me the best of humanity in a chapter where I was expecting the worst. that fucks a person up lol

OH ARE WE STILL GOING

my heart. you see that, All Might. your legacy is so much more powerful and meaningful than you think

...has. has Stain actually been giving All Might a pep talk this entire time

I give up lol. this dude is a fucking enigma

YAYYY

it may just be a metaphor panel, but I’ll take it lol. I missed them. nice to see the traffic light trio front and off-center. I know the whole “this is the story of how we all became the greatest heroes” thing had left some questioning whether certain characters would continue to play a central role in the narrative, and hopefully this will help to ease those concerns just a bit

anyway, so idk if it’s getting a bit chilly down there in hell, but damned if Stain didn’t just give an actual decent fucking speech

I have to say, earlier when I was whining about All Might not having a support squad, I really was not expecting Stain to be the one to come over and pat his head and reassure him that he made the world a better place

-- okay LISTEN

YOU CAN’T JUST COME INTO MY HOUSE AND HIT ME WITH THOSE ALL MIGHT TEARS AGAIN GODDAMMIT THIS ISN’T FAIR. my god. first 317 and now this

holy fucking shit

“I’m just gonna pretend like I haven’t been stalking him for two days and didn’t see the entire Deku bentogate thing go down, and then I’ll give him the whole big speech that I rehearsed, and then I’ll turn around and be all ‘BUT IF YOU’RE A TRUE HERO’, and then I’ll toss him the super-secret AFO wifi password that I stole from Tartarus. god I’m such a badass. fucking give myself chills”

so basically what you’re telling me is that this whole time my “what’s up kids” characterization of Stain from this shitpost has actually been 100% accurate. just want to make sure I’m understanding this right. okay then

“and then I’ll dramatically spin around and be all NOW COME KILL ME BITCH”

it must be so much fun to write Stain. drawing this coked-out maniac who talks like a chatbot that was trained to speak by reading Alan Moore monologues. that must be a trip

anyway so All Might is still crying, the awesome lady from chapter 92 is admiring her handiwork totally oblivious to the batshit insanity going on fifty meters to her right, and it’s finally stopped raining lol

“THE RAIN WAS A METAPHOR YOU SEE” yes, yes, we got it lol. thanks for that Horikoshi. don’t think we needed any help putting the pieces together on that one but I appreciate the effort

so that’s the end! and as I mentioned in another post, I had the count off by one chapter, but next week should be cliffhanger week! so break out your U.A. Traitor bingo cards, friends and fiends. either that or something else happens that I’m completely not expecting at all. which, based on my success rate with Stain predictions, I’d say is more than likely lol

mmm but anyway, so now that the Hug Deku 2021 campaign has finally come to an end, what’s it gonna take to get a hug for my struggling bento-preparing jacket-rocking world-weary death-flag-waving husband who is the worthiest man to ever live and deserves the fucking world, goddammit

#bnha 326 #all might #yagi toshinori #stain (bnha)#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

263 notes · View notes

kittydemon9000 · 3 years

Text

The Beginning of Heatstroke, aka Red's Villain Origin

* crashes down from the ceiling * I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED ONE OF MY 5+ CURRENT WRITING PROJECTS! BEHOLD, A WRITTEN VERSION OF THE 'Red's Villain Origin AU', also known as RVO / Heatstroke AU

To summarize the AU for SPBNR for those that don't now it:

“Who'd be the biggest conspiracy theorist out of the M!Ninja? The one who drinks 5 hour energy at 3am and spits off the craziest theories and then actually gets it right but nobody gives the theory any merit because the rest of the theories are too crazy?”

The answer: Red / M!Kai

Red: Okay hear me out: Smith is actually an alternative version of one of us sent here from another dimension.

The other M!Ninja: You’re just saying that because Smith’s cool and you want him to be your counterpart

Based on the M!ninja making red cork boards trying to figure out ‘What Is Up With Smith’: Red gets increasingly accurate and nobody will believe him (all pre shogun reveal) and he eventually snaps and takes up a secret villain persona to fight Shogun like 'if they won't believe me I'll do it myself' and it gets awkward when he accidentally does too much damage and catches not only Shogun's attention like planned, but also the rest of the Ninjaforce, and now he has to keep his own identity a secret

So, without further ado, I present... Heatstroke

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

Red blamed the 5-hour energy coffee blend at 3:00am for this.

It was no surprise that between ‘Operation: What’s Going on with Smith’ & the sudden appearance of Shogun that the resident Bounty red-stringed ‘joke’ cork-board doubled in size and seriousness. It also was no surprise that Red had a corner all to himself and that his theories were… in the words of the others, ‘wildly inaccurate and implausible’.

But this time, he was sure he’d gotten it right.

Smith is Shogun sent here from another continent/planet/dimension with the goal of protecting Ninjago City.

The latest string of laughs and scoffs at his theory was the last straw. He’d show them. He’d prove it!

Which was why he was currently standing on the roof of a noodle house, awkwardly adjusting the spare motorcycle helmet he’d ‘borrowed’ from Nya and painted black and orangey-yellow (red had seemed too obvious). He’d exchanged his Ninjaforce outfit for a soot-burned cross between a bomber jacket and a leather jacket. Down his back jutted a row of flames like the spines of a monster, courtesy of one of Nya & Jay’s unfinished inventions Red had modified- surely nothing bad would come of that!

For tonight, the Red Ninja was off-duty. For tonight, it was Heatstroke’s turn.

He fiddled with one of the weapons he’d ‘lent out’ from Master Wu. It resembled a small arm canon, like a smaller version of the Ultimate Weapon. The plaque under its post had read ‘Elemental Focuser’, which, in cryptic Wu speak, probably translated to ‘you can use an elemental power like something out of Avatar: The Last Airbender’. So far he’d only figured out how to activate a focused jet of fire. Well, at least it was on brand. He hoped it would help him catch Shogun’s attention so he could unmask him.

He’d tried confronting Smith at school, of course. But there were only so many ways of saying ‘are you the new vigilante helping the ninjas’, and Smith has a genuine talent for dancing around the topic. Red could confront him with the name Shogun to get a proper reaction, but that would mean explaining how he knew the name and outing himself as the Red Ninja.

So fake villainy really was the only way.

His plan was to use the Elemental Focuser to cause some minor petty damage, just enough to attract the new vigilante. Perhaps set a trash can on fire, block an alleyway with rocks (if he figured out how to change the setting from fire to earth), small things that could easily be repaired.

Of course, plans were never actually stuck to. One way or another, something was always improvised.

Red’s improvisation just happened to involve him accidentally setting the entire alleyway on fire.

He’d only been aiming for one dumpster, honest! And maybe he’d spotted a couple fliers for a SoG meeting on the ground and happened to burn those too. And a newspaper article blaming Lloyd for the recent Garmadon attack, again. And an article about those ‘Damn Ninja Menaces’ by a S. Sonah Sameson. And-

Okay, so maybe Red had aimed the fire at a few small targets. But just a few! And with good reason and good care, but…

Well, fire liked to burn. Give it enough kindle and it’ll continue to grow, stretching like reaching branches towards each other to join in a massive bonfire.

So now the entire alleyway was on fire, and Red was panicking.

He’d luckily chosen an abandoned part of town near the beaches where Shogun sightings seemed most frequent, but with the stupid Elemental Focuser not switching from fire mode to water mode or ice mode or something that didn’t have the potential to burn Ninjago City to the ground, Red had no way of stopping the flames.

And more flames meant more destruction which meant a bigger audience.

Which was why his previously muted comm suddenly flared to life, the only warning Red had before Nya’s water strider mech slid around the corner.

Red scrambled onto a roof as the mech drove past, spraying water at the bonfire to dose it. His sigh of relief was just as quickly dosed as Lloyd’s voice came over the comms; “Status, Grey?”

“Flames are out,” Nya replied. “Pursing the joker that set it ablaze.”

Uh oh. Red took off across the roof, leaping from building to building. Tiles creaked, pebbled and dust scattering underfoot. The sounds of the mech’s engine roaring behind him echoed through alleyways below to create the illusion the mech was everywhere at once.

As the chase grew on, more mechs started to join in. Red ducked into a narrow avenue to avoid Zane’s tank, then under a cafe overhang to throw off Jay and Lloyd. His heart hammered in his chest and he groaned, filling the inside of the motorcycle helmet with steam. Saying this was going ‘bad’ would be the understatement of the century.

What had he been thinking? Oh wait: he hadn’t. Seriously? ‘Oh I’ll just pretend to be a villain real quick, that should get Shogun’s attention and not the attention of literally my entire team of fellow ninjas!’ Stupid, impulsive, this was why everyone was always calling the red ninja the ‘hothead’ when he really tried not to be- Lloyd’s voice over the comms snapped him from his thoughts. “I can’t catch them! It’s like they know our every move!”

Red winced as he climbed up a banister and leapt from balcony to balcony. Sorry, Lloyd.

He didn’t miss how the others asked Nya where Red was. And how she made up excuses the others bought so easily- granted, he’d told those excuses to his sister before setting his plan into motion, but still, ouch. They acted like he was simply being at best too busy and at worst lazy and selfish.

He just wanted them to know the truth! Why couldn’t they at least try to believe him when-

Of course, that was when Shogun dropped out of the sky and tackled him.

Red shouted with surprise as he tumbled down from the second floor, slamming into a few softer bags of garbage to break his fall before rolling and slamming into the unforgiving concrete. A crack formed in his vision as the visor of his motorbike helmet smacked into the concrete ground. One of the fire jets on his back sputtered and sparked, sending a thin wisp of smoke into the air.

Shogun pinned his wrists to the ground and growled. “Who are you?”

Red tried to break free, agony turning his muscles and bones to fire with the movement after his fall, but the vigilante was too strong. Damn, how often did this guy train?

“Who am I?” Red said, a nervous tinge to his voice. He quickly smoothed it over with faked confidence. “Who are you? Who are all of us, really?”

Shogun narrowed his eyes behind his hood. “Did Garmadon send you? Or someone else?”

Red sputtered. Really, the nerve! Garmadon? The thought turned his insides to disgusting mud. “Nobody sent me!”

“Then why are you here?” Shogun spat.

“Why am I here?” Why was he here again? Oh right, the bright idea on how to reveal that Shogun was Smith. “It’s, uh… a valid reason! That I don’t have to tell you!” He tried for a villainous laugh. Stay in character, don’t blow your cover, you got this!

Shogun was unimpressed. “Nearly burning down my home was a valid reason?”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to set everything on- wait, WHAT?” Uh oh. “You LIVE here?”

Now it was Shogun’s turn to look uncomfortable, though the expression was quickly wiped from his face. “Nothing wrong with this district.”

Red nodded. “‘Course not. Uh, sorry about that… wasn’t my intention, I swear.”

Shoot, he could hear Jay’s jet getting closer. He had to get out of here, but Shogun, annoyingly, didn’t seem to be in the mood to simply let him go. “Then what is your intention?”

“Well, for starters, it’s getting out of here. This really isn’t going to plan and I’d rather just be home right now, or even inventing a time machine like in that book ‘Hands of Time’ to slap my past self in the face for even thinking about this stupid idea in the first place-“

Jay wasn’t the only one that could ramble under pressure, it seemed.

Shogun leaned closer. “What idea?”

Red shrugged as best he could with how he was pinned to the ground. “Well, for starters, I just wanted to prove to my friends that you’re Smith, and things just kinda escalated from-”

The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he said.

Shogun lurched back, letting go of him. His eyes betrayed a kaleidoscope of emotions; surprise, worry, suspicious, hurt, fear, realization.

“…Kai?”

Well, f!ck.

“I-“

Red was about to badly attempt to bullsh!t his way out of his identity reveal before it suddenly dawned on him that Shogun had not denied his theory.

Which meant Shogun was Smith.

And it also meant Smith instantly recognized him as Kai, which, considering his disguise, was aptly concerning. Sure, he was the first one in his group of friends people would think to do something this extreme but give him some credit! Zane was a regular detective, he’d do the same if it meant answers! Or, well, at least something similar. And Nya could be an adrenaline seeker. And Lloyd- well, maybe not Lloyd. Or Jay, either. Cole had his head just enough on his shoulders that he probably wouldn’t do this either.

But come on, instantly guessing it?

Well, at least Smith/Shogun didn’t know Kai was the Red Ninja. That would be a catastrophe.

Right. Back to the current catastrophe at hand.

Shogun- Smith- still had a look as if he’d been slapped, and Red hated it. He hadn’t meant to hurt his friend. Shogun… Shogun hadn’t wanted them to find out his identity. And then Red had gone and done it, just to prove that he could be the smart one, or a leader, or the protector so they didn’t get hurt, or literally anything but just the ‘hotheaded one’.

…And he’d done it in the most hotheaded, impulsive way possible.

He really was an idiot.

The cracked helmet hid the look on his face, a twisted mess of distraught and shame. But it didn’t help hide how he took stumbled to his feet and away from Smith, nervous that any second he’d spill another mistake and mess up again, like how he always freaking messed up on everything. Don’t pick this fight, interject there instead, no, not there, idiot, there, FMS why are you so useless-

Focus, focus.

Lloyd’s voice, sharp in the intercom and full of static from his tumble, snapped him from his thoughts. “Anyone got eyes on the arsonist?”

Red caught Smith’s eye as he raised his hand to his own communicator. He was so screwed, so busted, so doomed… Smith would report it, and the others would know, and they’d think he was just messing around in an alleyway with some stolen devices and weapons out of curiosity or rage, - and-

“None yet, still looking.”

…What?

Smith stared at him, gaze searching. He looked shaken, more so than Red- who’d just taken a fall from a second story, mind you, it was a miracle he wasn’t more injured than a couple small scrapes and some future bruises-, yet everything from the set of his jaw to the softening of his furrowed brows suggested a change in emotions. Well, not quite change; more like repress and replace.

“You wanted to prove yourself, didn’t you.”

Red flushed, hand instinctually clamping into a tight fist at his side. The still-working fire jets on his back ignited without him pressing any buttons; faulty activation from the fall or something.

Palms up and hands raised, Smith silently asked to defuse the situation. “Didn’t mean it as an insult. This wasn’t about venting some anger, was it.”

Red’s lack of response only confirmed it. Smith continued. “I won’t say anything about this if you don’t tell anyone my identity. Deal? I know finding it out was important to you, but-“

“Deal,” Red interrupted. Guilt ate away at his core, like a wave of water dousing a candle. “Smith, I-“ He swallowed hard and stared at the alley floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… to…”

Smith’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder and he flinched before relaxing as Smith didn’t move further, nor did the grip tighten. “I’m a little hurt, you’re right. But I’m not mad. And I won’t tell the others, so you can relax. But you better get out of here and get yourself an alibi. We can talk at school or something.”

Wow, he was handling this rather calmly. Red was struck by the sudden memory of- what did Jay call the word? Right. Compartmentalizing. That… wasn’t healthy. But at the roar of Lloyd’s mech somewhere nearby, he didn’t comment further. Instead, he shot Smith a grateful nod and ran down the alley, sticking to the shadows and blind spots of the flying mechs and the tight alleyways where the land mechs couldn’t reach him.

When he got home, miraculously without further incident (though Shogun leading the others on a wild goose chase over the comms certainly helped there), he ditched the outfit in a bag hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the shed. He’d return the weapon to Master Wu’s ship later, and… well, hope Nya never searched for the missing supplies. There wasn’t a way of fixing it without involving her or Jay, and neither was an option.

Heatstroke was back off duty, and so was the Red Ninja.

For now, he could just be Kai Smith. And there wasn’t any issue with that.

…

Right?

—————

yooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THIS IS AMAZING REHJJGFHDESFXJVZ

and ah yes, good ol trauma and compartmentalizing, we love to see it

#We love ourselves some good ol aus #same people but not really #Spbnr #spbnr aus

158 notes · View notes