#you aren't being funny or progressive. you are being closed minded and shitty

[sugar-konpeito]

reminder that europeans can have brown skin (without being mixed with an ethnicity from another continent). thanks : )

#acting like all europeans are pasty white and accusing them of “race faking” when they aren't is just racism #you are racist. that's it. #you aren't being funny or progressive. you are being closed minded and shitty #it's almost like europe has multiple ethnic groups and isn't just britain #it's almost like it's an entire continent #cw rant #cw racism #getting reallyyyy sick of white supremacy being disguised with leftist words #erasure of non white cultures is okay as long as you say it in a leftist enough way and tack on something about hating “white people”😍 #how are you guys not realizing that it's fucked up to harass someone for having brown skin and keep telling them to lighten it #including when it's “just a tan”. why the fuck do you think you're the boss of someone else's *skin color* #all europeans should have light skin right? that's not racist or colorist to think at alllllllll #had to get this off my chest because for fucks sake

[spiralsandeyes]

I loved reading the Magnoliaverse and especially playing with matches, and one thing that I ended up very curious about was more about Michael's backstory in this au? He's one of the characters who shows up a lot and has a lot of backstory vaguely referenced but never gets a perspective to explore that so I was wondering if you'd be down to share what ideas you had for his backstory while you were writing. Thanks in advance!

omg thank you so much for this! :')) answer got long so i'm putting it under a cut <3

it's actually kind of funny that you ask this... playing with matches has always been the heart of magnolia verse to me, and future installments were/are going to focus on the characters in that fic (particularly agnes, oliver, julia and gerry, with some others). most of them have pretty detailed backstories in my mind but michael was one of the ones whose history i've actually thought less about!

i did have a few things in mind - michael had one particularly shitty relationship when he was ~16/17 that he still carries a lot of baggage from. he had crushes before that but never anything he was brave enough to act on, so it was pretty formative for him wrt his expectations for relationships. he was basically being strung along and used by a guy who didn't have strong romantic feelings for michael the way michael did for him. michael also didn't have a lot of friends growing up, or at least not since childhood, so he really wants to be loved (in any capacity, but he's particularly insecure about the romantic). going back and forth with his divorced parents didn't help with this - he stays with his mom most of the time and had to move when he was ~13-14, uprooting most of his life to a different school where he knew no one, and he never really settled in and found friends there. he's also pretty socially anxious and until meeting gerry, hasn't quite figured out how to get out into the world. he's a homebody mostly because he doesn't know how to be anything else (yet), and though he has art school friends, they aren't very close. too much of his impressions of queerness and college life were formed by the internet/popular media and he has a bit of an inferiority complex about it - he's very aware that he doesn't Do Much aside from art and feels like a loser because of it. (this is an unfortunate combo with his body image issues, insecurities about what he can offer in a relationship, and him being very much starstruck by gerry's band, leading to some of the conflict you see in playing with matches). some other random details: he's out to his parents but has a slightly strained relationship with both of them (he's closer with his grandma on his mom's side!), he has severe adhd but i don't think he knows it yet, he's been drawing for basically his whole life but recently focusing on art forms that involve more physical processes because it's good for his mental health (atm it's various forms of sculpture).

but honestly i've thought a lot more about michael's future than his past! at this point i've been telling people for years that magnolia verse is still in progress and feeling more and more guilty when a completed work fails to materialize, but i still can't stand the thought of leaving it as-is and have to believe in my ability to finish one more fic, so... there Will be one more... but probably not anytime soon and it probably won't be gerrymichael centric. so i'll just tell you about the gerrymichael fic i DID have planned lmao.

so: ex altiora goes viral and gets very popular very quickly when they finish school and release a full album. the speed of it is great for their careers and bad for their mental health. agnes and gerry really struggle with it. gerry in particular starts getting a lot of fans which makes him REALLY nervous because he's going stealth, trying to hide from his mom, and just generally not super interested in being a public sex object! this is a little bit Weird for his relationship with michael. he gets pretty (reasonably) paranoid and wants to keep his personal life very private, but michael Does Not Get It and is hurt because he feels like he's being kept a secret. he's also a little bit jealous of the attention, though he won't admit it, and is overall experiencing new depths of insecurity that he will (eventually) Finally get to process because he still thinks of gerry as the Cool One with all the power in the relationship. meanwhile gerry is so anxious and trying to cope with the spotlight of sudden internet fame/irl fame in certain contexts (i.e. shows) and feels like he can't confide in michael about it. the tension in his and julia's friendship is also reaching a breaking point around then and they have a huge fight which leads to them (gasp) speaking honestly about thoughts and feelings they've had for years! but anyway. everything gets sorted out in the end, and michael and gerry end up much happier! michael resolves his issues, gerry comes out to the world, they work out boundaries together, everyone becomes closer :)

#sorry to hit u with that tidal wave of information LMAO #this verse is simply so near and dear to my heart and i don't think most people understand that!! #the fact that years have passed since i posted means NOTHING in terms of how much i care abt these characters they're still my babies #i think of them regularly. if i wasn't engrossed in writing a massive stranger things fic atm i'd be working on the agnes fic #anyway thank you for giving me a chance to ramble <33 #answered #magnolia

[jennsmischievousmind]

Fucks not Found

Ghosts

Summary: You hack, that's what you do. Dying to do so freely, wasn't what you had expected. Meeting the weirdest fucking squad; losing the best part of you; falling for a thief : was not planned.

Pairing : Four/Billy (Ben Hardy) - You

A/N: The story goes through the all movie, so I suggest you watch it before reading.

I don't own any characters other than Eight.

English is not my native language, I'm trying to get better at it, please be indulgent.

Tried my best to match Ryan Reynold's level of sass aha

Ch1 Ghosts | Ch2 Florence | Ch3 A Matter of Seconds | Ch4 I need a Backdoor | Ch5 Die Hard | Ch6 White Flag | Ch7 Haunt the Living | Ch8 One, but not done [end]

This is how you die.

"So you're the one who hacked the wrong guy" You swiftly turn around gasping at the sudden voice in your apartment

"Depends, you’re his hitman?" You were ready to run even if it means jumping by the window.

"Nooo, I'm an angel.” You snort at his sarcasm, unknown to you at this moment that he was full of it.

"Wanna disappear?" he asked taking a seat at the kitchen table eyeing your bags at the door.

"In a body bag? Slowly you make your way to the knives, just in case.

"You are a funny one, aren't you? I know the man you stole from, you won't get far until he got you. But, he emphasized, if you’re willing to do what's right.."

"I've already done my part for the flag." Assuming he was American by the way he talked.

"I'm not talking about shitty drug dealers. But evil war-lovers, genocide perpetrators, that kind of shitty so-called human. Those ones that are above the laws with governments' balls in their hands, ready to squish them.”

"That's gross" your brother appeared from the adjacent room. You let your mind consider the stranger’s offer as soon as you look at your confused brother, knowing he was in danger because of you.

“You two look at lot alike.” The guy leaned in, screwing his eyes at you both.

“We’re twin dumbass” your brother answered glancing at you wondering.

“What’s the deal?” you asked considering the offer

The guy smirked, “Well, to be short you die, and then you take down evil motherfuckers without governments’ backlash on you.” He tapped his fingers against the Formica table.

It took 5 minutes.

"One condition, my brother comes to!"

"What's he good at?" he crossed his arms.

"I can drive…Hold on what? Die? Who the fuck are you!?”

"Already too many questions” he rolled his eyes

"He's a hell of a driver, it got him under surveillance when he got chased by 6 police cars after an illegal race back in the States."

"So they caught up Muttley” the guy clucked his tongue

“Hey!”  

"No, you interfered almost ashamed, I told him to stop the car...I got motion sickness."

The guy erupted in laughter, you two watching him unamused.

_

“I’m more like Peter Perfect.”  Your brother mumbled as the guy left.

You look by the window discreetly, catching a glimpse of the guy mingling in the crowd. “You’re Muttley bro.”

A week later you got a text. The guy who called himself One had planned your fake death. A random trek in Italy’s mountains, an assumed fatal fall, no bodies recovered.

It was never supposed to be your life. But we all know nothing happens as it should.

Papà went to fight a war and disappeared, you were forced to move in America when you were 6.

Mammà never cope the loss of her motherland and husband. She died of a belated broken heart syndrome when you were 16. 

Both you and your brother were placed in a host family. It wasn’t a crappy family like it’s always the case in some tv show, they were nice and wealthy. The father was a tech engineer, somehow you took interest in his work and start learning to code, soon reading about hackers: white hats; black hats; “We are Legion”, you were hooked and skilled in a matter of time.

When you turned major though, things turned difficult, the host family had to let you go and Internal Affairs of your state caught you looking in their network. Which led to you working as a C.I for them, it was that or prison. Not thrilled by the idea but obliged to cooperate was your new motto.

Your brother had some job here and there but nothing steady, so money from the IA was welcome.

After a year and a half, I.A ditched you, it was rather good news in a way, they’ve erased your past mistakes but said they’d keep a distant eye on you.

So you moved on from your shithole that was the 1 bedroom apartment you and your brother shared and went to your parents’ hometown in Italy. Your brother was reluctant at first as he couldn’t even say hello in Italian, you taught him as your mamma had done it with you but he wasn’t that interested.

Working with people was not your forte, you were too bossy, so you got fired ... plenty of times: from a coffee shop, a rental bike shop and a tourist city tour bus thingy. So you started doing what you were good at, hacking for money, it went well for a few years, never being too greedy - until you hacked the wrong person and got in trouble.

That's how you became a Ghost and ended up in the middle of the California Desert.

_

One had built a squad. No names, only numbers to identify each other. Not calling your brother by his name was a challenge, same for him.

There were 7 of you.

One, the “boss”, a mysterious sassy billionaire who decided to fund his own strike team.

Two, a French blonde woman, pretty cold, a spy apparently

Three, a crazy hitman who couldn’t shut up

Four, a young parkour master and reformed thief

Five, a Doctor, but you heard she was actually working at a Dentist

Six, your brother, the annoying driver.

And then Eight, you, the Black Hat somehow becoming a hacktivist.

Why not Seven? Long story short, it was one more condition you’d submitted to One.

_

_SICILY

"Your focus determines your reality.”

“Oh for fuck's sake One, quit your Jedi bullshit!” you loosed your temper typing on your keyboard angrily. An entire week, an ENTIRE WEEK quoting Star Wars!

Four and Five laughed in the comm. One braced himself on the other end of the line. Three cut the heavy silence.

“Eight, Chiquita please stop yelling”

“I’m not a Chiquita stop saying that!”

“Ok ok chi…Eight, damn you’re stressful” 

“God, why do I have to team you up!!” One facepalm

“Now what?” Five asked

Radio silence

“Oh so now no one’s talking! What are you, 4?” One angrily called out to you 2.

“Yeah, uh high, literally.” Four answered One, you snorted.

“No ..  damn not you!”

“You called me Mate!” Four said offended

“No, shush – Eight are you done with the system?” he was about to lose it.

“I’ve been done with it the second Three called me Chiquita!” you crossed your arms in front of your laptop.

“Hey ..” “We’re not talking about that again!” One cut Three

“Can we get going now?” Two interfered, you heard her bike roaring.

“Finally, some sensed words.” One said wrapping it up.

Four entered the place you’d hacked the system of. Six and Two were not far in case of trouble.

“Four, the hard drive is in the main office. Second floor.” One enunciated, you followed Fours progression with the security cameras.

It was enlivening, stressful, but oh so exciting. When you worked with I.A you were never there when they’d go down in action, it was nothing but boring data researched and dealer’s MacBook.

“Freeze Four, guards coming east.” Switching cams you gave him a safe path.

“Ok, you’re clear. Now to your left, third door then turn right.”

Four got his hands on the hard drive containing all you needed to know about the next target.

“Well done.” One congratulated the team

“Thanks, thanks, It helps to have a sexy voice guiding you” Four chuckled, you blushed, sexy voice? is that even possible?

“Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.”

You rolled your eyes at the endless use of Star Wars' quotes.

“Hum that’s my sister, remember?” Six growled tightening the wheel

“Luke grab Solo, meet up in 15minutes at the hotel. Everyone move!” One instructed you smiled at the thought of being Leïa. Gosh, you were as much of a nerd as One.

Climbing down the jeep Three had rented, you laughed seeing your brother holding Four in an arm lock for a few seconds anyway, Four reversed the lock, pining your brother’s arms behind himself.

You passed by them “Easy with my twin please.” Four wasn’t releasing his hold so you stopped, turning back you lift an eyebrow at Four insisting he let him go.

“Oh!” he lifted his hands in defence taking a step back.

Grabbing your brother by the sleeves as he was about to jump on Four “Come on piccino” you made your way in the hotel laughing.

_ 

Your first big mission started a few weeks after, everyone gathered in The Haunted House as One called it, an old bunker, cheesy name for an HQ.

“You don’t get it, I need a CAR!”

“That’s a car, Six.” Three argued back.

“No that’s a heap, that thing won’t get us through the paved road of Italy, believe me.”

Four and Five were amused by the situation, Three had rent a truck and an old Volvo for this mission.

“Alright, shut up, we’ll get another car!” One declared, Six flicked to Three.

One resumed the mission’s details. Giving everyone their own missions. A simple mission, retrieve a lawyer’s smartphone.

In the midst of it, your hand flew to your brother’s head next to you. The smacked resonating between the walls of the unfinished bunker.

“Why ..why’d you hit him?” One asked confused, your brother was rubbing the back of his head frowning at you.

“Cain’s instinct.” You replied wriggling your fingers for him to continue. Four snorted, Six nudged him in the ribs.

In a few months, you had learned a lot from this weird squad. Learning to shoot was an obligation, Three was insane but a good teacher.

You’d asked Four to teach you some parkour in case of a chase. Six and Four became close friends in a matter of time. Five was nice, but you were never one to be good at making friends. Two was not a big talker and frankly, she scared you a little.

So you spend your free time hacking and reading, on the hammock installed between a dismantle plane and a dead tree. Not far from there you could hear Four skating in the empty pool and three at the makeshift shooting range.

Suddenly,

“EIGHT!”

Groaning you closed your book “WHAT!?

Your voice boomed against the caravan and lost itself in the desert, but you still hoped Four had heard. It was his thing, screaming your name instead of coming to you directly. At his silence, you wriggle out the hammock and strode to the pool.

“What’d you want skater boy?”

He was lying in the pool his board by his side. “Four?” you made your way to the ladder, “hey” you gently nudge him with your foot but he didn’t move.

“Four? you called out worried, “shit” knees hitting the vinyl liner checking if he was breathing, he wasn’t.

“Hey wake up, seriously dude don’t make me do CPR on you, I suck at it!” suddenly laughter erupted in your ears. Six appearing on the edge, Four chucked on the floor.

“Pranking you..he tried to breathe in, is always the best sis!” Six laughed even harder at your confused face. Still kneeling at Four’s side, he was looking at you laughing, until he wasn’t, catching a glimpse of worry melting with anger in your eyes.

Punching his left shoulder, you hurried out the pool. He stayed on the floor watching you go.

“Don’t make me do CPR I suck at it!” your brother was still laughing his brain's out.

_

“What was that?”

Four leaned on the dead tree near your head, his shadow offering some shade.

“A real bad joke?”

“No I mean, why’d you hit me?”

Sighing you clasped your book closed for the second time today “you really got me worried, happy?”

“No, you propped up on your elbow at his answer craning your head to him, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His warm hand slide in your hair at the base of your neck, he leaned in, letting you enough time to push him away if you wanted.

"Sorry" he whispered, his lips pressing in your temple gently, warmly for a few seconds. Catching yourself leaning in you almost fell off the swinging' hammock as he released his hold, he grinned and left not saying anything more.

"What the hell Four!!" you yelled at him, an ounce of laughter in your voice, a blush creeping into your cheeks, his own laughter filling the desert's silence.

FLORENCE

A/N: don't forget to double tap if you liked it. 🙏

#billy x reader #four x reader #6 underground imagine #four imagine #Ben Hardy #6 underground Four x reader #Fucks not Found