#(everything else is workable)

[landwriter]

Talk about sandman WIPs you say? 👀 Your porn AU and San Francisco gays still live in my head rent freeeeeee ❤️

Pella! I'm glad Professional Fuckers lives rent free in your head because I definitely forgot it existed. In spite of this, I am somehow still confident I'll actually finish and post it one day. It's just so easy and refreshing to write a setting purely from experience. Still needs several more scenes but I know the whole shape of it.

I think there's a lot of really fun potential to be mined from indie porn in a rom-com sort of story: you have this professional physical intimacy that can mean absolutely nothing, an intimacy that is itself altered and shaped by the demands of performing for a camera, by the visual and literal language of any given shoot genre; but separately to that, there's this variable of the chemistry you have with them, as colleagues, as co-performers, and of course, though somehow least significantly, as people fucking. The chemistry that plays out on screen does not always track onto the chemistry you feel with someone. So there's this, I think, super funny territory you can get into, where you've just fucked someone, and the prescient question of did we make something good and the vain little one of was I good, did you like that are entirely separate. But imagine the urge to ask when you're doing something you've never done before.

Imagine, too, nursing a crush on somebody and still not being sure if they like you like you in spite of fucking them in shoots all afternoon and pretending to be in a relationship for half of those. Imagine doing all this demanding, intimate work with a near-stranger, and then making friendly small talk after because outside of this work you hardly know each other. Imagine feeling like there's something there, beneath all the performance, and the commingled horror of crossing professional boundaries--of finding out your co-performer is just so good that they sold the story you were telling together to you too, without meaning any of it--and the desire to find out how good it could be with the cameras off. No awkward blocking, no performing, no story, nothing: an entirely novel, unprofessional, and maybe even more intimidating kind of fucking altogether.

That's what this setting is all about. In the spirit of that, have a mildly NSFT scene ft. Dream sucking cock for the first time while on a shoot, and Hob making a suggestion after.

[ask me anything]

“Dream,” says Hob. “Dream, please, I’m gonna cum, oh, fuck.”

He looks up at Hob, jaw afire, and Hob swears and twitches and comes in his mouth. Dream swallows it without thinking of making a show of it, just swallows and swallows and pulls off, panting. He doesn’t realize how swollen his lips are until Hob traces them with a warm thumb, and murmurs, wow, so low it’s surely not for the cameras, more a breath than a word.

“Was I good?” he asks. His voice is fucked out and low and Hob laughs breathlessly as he tucks himself in.

“Yeah. Yeah, shit, you were good, baby. So good for me.” He looks down at Dream with undisguised lust. “M’gonna want this all the time now.”

Dream doesn’t know what to say, so he just stares up at Hob, until Hob smiles and shifts to sit up. “Great,” he says, in a normal tone, the scene sloughing off him. “Happy with that?”

“Was it enough time?” Dream asks.

“Oh, yeah. We’re probably at thirteen, fourteen minutes. I know you only wanted ten but I didn’t want to tread on perfectly good footage and say something.”

Dream can’t conceal his surprise that it’s been so long already. Hob takes it as skepticism and laughs. “No, you can check, but I’m like a fucking egg timer. It’s my party trick on shoots.” He stands and goes over to his camera, squinting at the display. “Yes! Thirteen twenty-nine,” he announces triumphantly, and turns it off. “Right,” he says, all business when he turns back to Dream. “Water and onto the next?”

Dream, still kneeling, awkwardly stands. “Yes,” he says, and clears his throat when it comes out rough. “Yeah, sure.”

Was I good? Truly? Hob is so good at inhabiting someone else that Dream isn’t sure. He would cover it up well if it was bad. “That’ll sell well,” he says, as neutrally as he can.

Hob takes the bait and grins at him. “Oh, definitely. That was perfect. You were great.” Then he takes in Dream and frowns. “Hey, do you want to, ah?”

Dream realizes he’s still painfully hard. Hob is grimacing down at his tented jeans. The moment of satisfaction is popped like a soap bubble. He adjusts himself, feeling his face heat. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Oh, fuck, don’t be sorry. Always good to know I’m not repulsive. I meant, do you want to deal with it now since you didn’t come?”

Dream glances toward the guest bedroom, unable to believe Hob is actually propositioning him. Unable to believe the yes that offers itself at once. Hob continues. “My facial shoot, later? Could just switch things around and get it done now if you’re ready to go.”

“Of course,” says Dream, magnanimously. Of course that’s what Hob meant.

[rocket-candy-heart]

Having a Glasses Problem is one of the most stressful kinds of problem to have. Its like ok, if this doesn't go well I will be...losing my access to vision for an undetermined amount of time. That is...not manageable at all

[fatalism-and-villainy]

One reason In the Pale Moonlight lands so well is that the show plants the seeds early on for Garak representing a sort of “out” for Sisko when he has to circumvent official procedures. There’s the bit in The Search where a holographic mental projection of Garak shows up to flirt with Sisko and enable his rebellion against Starfleet, and then The Way of the Warrior has the part where they’re wondering what to do about the Klingon invasion fleet headed to Cardassia and Sisko says “we need a third option” and it immediately cuts to Garak. In the Pale Moonlight picks those threads of Garak being someone Sisko leans on when he needs to take a more underhanded approach (and someone who, similarly to Quark, Sisko can put pressure on with no repercussions).

But Garak’s perspective on it is interesting, because of how much his dynamic with Sisko reflects the dynamic he used to have with Tain. There’s that part in The Wire where Tain tells Bashir “I never had to order Garak to do anything… that’s what made him special” and that’s pretty much exactly how Garak behaves with Sisko in this episode. He does what he does best - being maximally useful to someone more powerful and anticipating everything they want and need, taking an intention and shaping it into a workable plan with little direction. He comes up with the entire scheme pretty much on his own and puts it into play with minimal participation from Sisko save things he needs official sanction for, and anticipates all contingencies and variables beforehand. And then of course sees to it that the plan is carried out, in a way that Sisko would never sanction but that he knows that on some level Sisko wants - or rather, that Sisko wants the outcome while being spared having to order Garak to take the measures to see it through.

Garak molds himself into the role Sisko sees him as playing in a way that’s similar to how he made himself into the person Tain wanted him to be - in that case, as Garak puts it, he was a “reflection” of Tain himself. Except with Tain, that process involved Garak shaping himself to embody the values that Tain espoused, and expunging the parts of himself that Tain abhorred, namely weakness and sentiment. And with Sisko, Garak reflects the parts of Sisko that Sisko doesn’t want to face and wants to shunt off onto someone else. And that plays out not only re: Sisko’s willingness to make moral sacrifices for the greater good, but even just on a smaller scale - there’s the part where Sisko snaps and threatens Forgery Guy, and Garak steps up with that truly terrifying smile and promises to drop in on Forgery Guy to “say hello”. Just playing the role of Sisko’s Evil Henchman to perfection, and thus enabling Sisko’s loss of control and his cruel streak. He’s very subservient to Sisko throughout the episode! But it’s through that subservience that he actually gets the upper hand on Sisko, solely by reflecting his darker side at him and getting in that jab about Sisko’s self respect being sacrificed. It’s so utterly delicious.

[revelboo]

I am absolutely delighted with how you make es soundwave. He's so scary dog. But at the same time, I feel like he'd be like "no this is My human to torment. You're not allowed to torment them." Kind of vibes.

Humans like "Oh that's the most tsundere blue dorito ive ever seen"

...lol. maybe cool ranch dorito will be his new nickname from me. It fits

xD when me and my friends do Universal, we all scream “angry dorito” on the Transformers ride when we see Screamer. But yeah, this Soundwave would be ferocious if anyone else messed with the human but him.

Son of a Gun Pt 10

ES Soundwave x Reader

• You’re not sure if his cassettes guilted him into giving you a break or if he just doesn’t need you now, but he’d shut himself away in the back leaving you with Lazerbeak, Frenzy, and Ravage. The latter of which has apparently decided you’re a pillow, the heavy, alien panther’s head in your lap as Frenzy and Lazerbeak fill you in on Cybertronian politics. Which seems to mostly be alien gossip about who hates who.

• Servos flexing as he works on the tiny parts, he can’t seem to get his temper under control. That lick of hunger he’d felt at dominating you keeps creeping in at the edge of his processor. And it’s humiliating. Scandalous. Makes him resent you even more. Dropping a part again, he snarls and almost rakes everything off the work table. Almost sets himself back. Hands trembling, he stares at the ruin that’s Rumble. Because Rumble’s more important than his own frustrations or embarrassment.

• Soundwave’s hatred is starting to make sense as Frenzy curls her lip. “I mean, Megatron betrayed us all. For what? Some little squishy alien?” She growls, throwing up her hands. “No offense,” she adds when Lazerbeak makes a noise at her and you shrug. Cause yeah, if your leader just flipped you the proverbial bird to go ally himself with a bunch of aliens? You’d be a bit angry, too. “And then, he was the audacity to join the-” Frenzy’s rant trails off as Soundwave slams open the door to the back room and stalks over.

• “Hey, boss,” Lazerbeak says as Soundwave bends and grabs you by an arm, tugging you out from under Ravage and you cry out, shoving at his servos. Like he’d hurt you. Sees all the cassettes tense even if they stay silent. Watching and judging. Letting go of your arm to send you stumbling, he curls his servos around you, standing and carrying you into the back. Angry at those censoring looks. That his cassettes care if you’re hurt.

• Gritting your teeth as you flex your fingers, you resist the urge to snap at him that he’d nearly pulled your arm out of socket. Because you doubt he’d actually care. And he’s dropping you from a bit too high onto the workable, ignoring when you stumble and your knees hit the surface. Apparently in a worse mood than usual and taking it out on you. Shoulders hunching, you refuse to cry in front of him or give him the satisfaction of complaining. Pushing yourself up, you walk over to the mess of parts and wires and wait for instructions. Because this isn’t for him, let him hate you, but you’re going to try your hardest to save Rumble for his siblings. Not for Soundwave.

Previous

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[oncewhenalongtimeago]

Hiccup x reader where Hiccup is stressed over being the chief of Berk and is extra clingy to reader?

Better Left Unsaid

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Reader

Words: 14,022

You wondered if you would ever be able to touch the sky again. You don’t talk about it.

Tags: Httyd 2, Comfort, reconnection, resolution, suggestive content, Gender Neutral reader, reclusive reader (ish), reserved reader (ish), disappointment, rebound, oneshot, ambiguous ending

“It-It’s just too much,” Hiccup stuttered angrily, hushed. He shifted his arms, gesturing lightly but frustratedly with the mug in his shand, leaning against the wall. The water inside sloshed back and forth as he settled the mug down on the table with a thin clacking noise, pushing off against the wall.

It was silent, the empty dark of night all-consuming in a way that blocked everything else out. Even with passion in your voice, you probably still couldn’t speak louder than a gritty whisper.

The Haddock house was empty and dark, the fireplace in the center of the hut untouched as it has been for many nights since the passing of Stoick the Vast. Your basket sat abandoned by the door, washed over by a sheet of blue shadow.

“Maybe you need a system,” You suggested awkwardly, caught off guard as hiccup paced, too taken by his own trouble to care for much else. This wasn’t how you’d imagined any conversation between the two of you to go.

You saw each other around, of course, but events like those usually consisted of turned cheeks. It had been so long since you last talked, and it hadn’t quite ended on good terms.

“My Dad didn’t-” Limbre fingers struggled against the straps and buckles of his armor, inelegant and terse with frustration, Hiccup’s cinched brows and an angry grimace conveying everything you needed to know.

Usually nothing short of a stupid idea from his own head would get him out of it. Or a hard hit. You did your best to give him counsel anyways, despite your unsurety. He’d probably just been swept away by it all, falling back into old habits quickly. 

He would snap out of it soon enough, though if he decided just as you did that you’d rather not address anything at all, you would certainly not complain.

“Your Dad didn’t have to deal with so many trappers or dragons.” You shook your head. You had to admit that you were somewhat disconnected from the matter. The two of you hadn’t been close for years, and you kept to yourself pretty closely. This whole situation was an accident, more of a wrong place, wrong time then anything done on purpose, per se.

You moved around the table, nearly stumbling as you went, suppressing a shiver as you shifted through the cold room, like an empty void. You wondered how Hiccup dealt with it.

You snorted. 

Helping him out felt like crossing some sort of invisible boundary you usually avoided like the plague. But, you had pity on him and the dark circles underlining his eyes. You didn’t think he’d notice. It wasn’t something you worried much about, anyways, not since you were in your teens. That was a sore spot you’d rather not touch on.

“Isn’t a Chief supposed to be able to handle everything on his own? If I do that, then wouldn’t…” Hiccup trailed off into a contemplative, moody silence, glaring off to the side as you did your best to pull his straps free. You weren’t much better with them than he was now, but it was workable, “I’m supposed to be- Wouldn’t that prove that I’m not-…”

He looked somewhat like his father, with that expression, though the skinny frame and his wild, scruffy hair offset it somewhat.

His father was large and tough, but something you noticed about Stoick, even from a distance, was that he was stressed. And angry, all the time. He knew what to do and when to do it but couldn’t handle a lot. Not always. You could imagine the veins bulging from his forehead now, even from beyond the grave. 

You weren’t sure Hiccup was ever supposed to be like him. If he was supposed to even try. Him being Chief wasn’t ever something you imagined even as kids, just as he probably never imagined it for himself, but you were sure if he pulled something together it might be manageable. 

“You’ve always been enough for whatever you wanted,” You muttered, “You’ve been enough since before the dragons and you are enough now as Chief. Coming up with some sort of system isn’t... bad. You Dad had a system,” You winced, watching his expression carefully as you brought up his Dad, though you were sure that not much would reach him when he was in this state, “Your father had a second-in-command for a reason, you know.”

“My inventions, they’re not-” Hiccup groaned. You heard the unsaid question. But wouldn’t that be cheating?

“They’re just as a part of you as anything else.” You repeated the age-old adage, “It doesn’t have to be in invention, though, if you don’t want it to be. Just… Establish a chain of command, or something.”

Hiccup threw his head back, scrubbing his face with his hands. Then he looked back at you, as if he was just then realizing who he was talking to.

“The island probably won’t implode without you. They’re Vikings, they need a little lead, just trust me.”

Sometimes you were fine, and sometimes your disappointment followed you like a sheet over your eyes, something buzzing constantly around the periphery of your vision, bits stuck to the back of your boots like poorly spun wool.

You crunched through the grass on the far end of the bridge leading up to the village, nerves coiling in your guts briefly before you brushed them away. 

Such was the life of a recluse.

You squinted as you marched across large wooden planks, confident in the sturdiness of the bring just as you were unconfident in what lay before you, a figure sitting with their head down on one of the large logs that made up the railing. 

It was a common sight for people to sit by the edge, usually teens, usually with friends, a stolen jug of mead or two in hand on dark nights. It was also a good spot for contemplation. You’d use it many times, especially on rainy, foggy days. It made quite the atmosphere.

However, during the broad daylight, people usually tended to just come and go. They didn’t spend much longer there than they had to. To be honest, most people had dragons. There were many more interesting places up in the sky. You didn’t get that. You dragon, it left a long time ago. 

You shifted your basket of foraged berries and sticks and bits under your arm and grimaced confusedly as you neared the figure, closely examining dark gray armor and a worn, untucked green undershirt. 

“Hello, Chief,” You said plaintively, after you’d spent a few seconds stopped being him, looking down on hunched shoulders and frazzled flyaways.

He groaned, “Please don’t call me that.”

You snorted, gently resting your basket on the ground, making sure all the latches were secured tight over the lid. It got pretty windy up there, wouldn’t do you any good to lose all of your day’s hard work, “What brings you over to my small neck of the woods?”

You shrugged at his silence, relaxing the the hand on your hip before swinging your legs over the same log and planting yourself firmly to his left

“I can’t do this,” Hiccup mumbled exhaustively, without looking up.

You stuck out your tongue, leaning back onto your hands, which pressed against the warm surface of the wood pleasantly. It took you a moment to remember that you should probably come up with a follow-up question, “Why?”

You were a bit rusty.

“I can’t do this,” Hiccup turned briefly to give you a sour look. You stuck your tongue out at him.

“Okay,” You shrugged your shoulders, ever the loyal confidant.

So you were going the whole ‘ignore the Gronkle in the room,’ route. You could deal with that.

You wondered where Toothless was. He’d taken to his Alpha statues pretty well, as in, he did nothing to enforce it at all, so there was nothing for him to worry about. Come to think about it, it really was just Hiccup, managing both Vikings and Dragons.

Hiccup shot a look at you again, perhaps asking himself what was wrong with you. Below you, the sea rushed and lulled, storming over the jagged rocks below. You watched it like a snake on a mouse, hypnotic in its movements.

“It’s not. There’s so much to keep track of and,” Hiccup started, continuing on, shaking his head, “Everyone’s always got something- this isn’t like- it’s not like my Dad’s just on a vacation. He’s dead. I’ve never taken care of something this long-term. And Astrid-... I’m not so great at the whole ‘commanding’ thing.”

The split with Astrid was rough on him, you knew. He didn’t talk about it much at all, but everyone could tell it was weighing down on him. People talked, and you didn’t necessarily have to be a part of the conversation to overhear.

You hummed sympathetically, as a group of people started to gather on one end of the bridge. You weren’t sure if Hiccup had noticed it yet, though you were sure if he had he was ignoring it for the time being. 

“You don’t have to command. You just have to be able to direct,” Most people sort of expected Astrid to be there for the whole commanding thing, but honestly you resented the idea, despite the accuracy of it in practice, “I know a guy who would be willing to handle the stables for a day. Johannes, you remember him, right?”

 They, meaning Hiccup and Astrid, were both busy with their own responsibilities, so you didn’t think they had a lot of time to talk it out. It was strange. For the longest time, second to Toothless, of course, she’d been his best friend. The thought sent a sharp, bitter jab up your spine.

You rolled your eyes anyways. A lot of Vikings would give a lot to be able to be in charge of something. As you grew older, you started to realize that Stoick the Vast had a hand in everything. Maybe too much of a hand- that man was stretched thin, “The whole commanding, intimidating bit is Toothless’s job now.”

“Yeah,” Hiccup choked out.

From the corner of your eye, you noticed a pack of Vikings already halfway to you, encroaching from the Berk side of the bridge, arms waving in the air. You looked away for a moment with furrowed brows, beginning to scoot back with high caution, trying your hardest to not make any sudden moves.

“When’s the last time you did something for yourself?” You asked, “Gone to the forge, or flown out?”

“I have no idea,” Hiccup wheezed.

“When’s your next lull? It’s a lot easier for me to say it than for you to do it, but you should probably, you know, take a step back,” You suggested.

“Never,” Hiccup gestured with his hand, other arm pressed against his back, “This is it, for the rest of my life.”

You grimaced, shrugging pityingly as you heard the distant shout of his name, and watched Hiccup crumple in on himself again as the two of you met eyes.

You were a bit surprised by how easy conversation flowed between you, though you were sure whether you wanted to run or just shy away from it. You weren’t sure if you felt anything for it at all.

You shook your head, deciding very astutely on the running bit, swinging back onto solid ground and gently lifting up your shoulders. You hooked your fingers under the edge of your basket and pulled it into your arms, settling it smoothly in hand.

“Well, when your life’s over, I’ll be here. We’ll, ah, figure it out then, I guess.”

You lifted your tunic from your back, tugging until you were able to twist it over your head.

As you did, you eyed the portraits of the wives taken off and replaced, hung lower on the wall and decorated with each of their assets. You’d found them lying around and it felt wrong not to return them to their original owners somehow. They were usually separated from the rest of your dwelling by a thin, old moth-eaten curtain.

You were sure the wives were all just as ugly and unpleasant as Mildew himself, but there was something off about taking them down especially when you kept everything else close to the same.

You patched the hole in the roof with old ship’s sails and mismatched tiles, just enough to keep your cabin barely above freezing in the wintertime.

You shook your clothes onto the floor as you changed, mindful not to look down at any of the scars in the darkness of your hut. 

You were probably supposed to feel proud. They were trophies of battle. Most other Vikings would wear them proudly, displayed like an honor bestowed onto them. They didn’t particularly bother you, though it never bode well to linger on reminders of things long since finished.

If only they knew how you’d gotten them.

You didn’t earn them through bravery or anything else of the sort and you weren’t anywhere near one of the worst when it came to scarring. First place probably went to Phegma, who had a huge burn scar just barely covered by her day wear.

 You got yours because you weren’t fast enough to dodge the blow of an axe, to jump out the way of a trap sprung on the group without taking some serious damage. 

You were a great planner, an architect and an infrastructural thinker. But that didn’t often come in handy on the Edge, especially not when all the buts of your knowledge that could be applied were better covered by the other Riders’ areas of expertise. 

So where everyone else excelled, you stumbled. Where everyone else tumbled with the blows, you fell hard onto the ground, and you hadn’t anyone to confide your hurts in. 

Eventually trying to keep up got to be too much. When you saw the rest of them, able to come together so easily and shake off all their cuts and injuries, you hurt.

There was nothing quite as terrible as watching everyone, especially Hiccup, walk forwards while you strayed behind, struggling your hardest and failing to even to keep to their heels.

You blinked at the scratching of something sharp against wooden walls, muffled though still clearly audible, coming from the outside. You paid it no mind, ignoring it just as you ignored the tiny shafts of sunlight seeping through the cracks between wooden planks and crumbling walls, illuminating tiny particles of floating dust.

It was just the branches pestering the framework of your salvaged home, one of the half-dead bushes lining the front, nearing the height of a tree, mimicking the sound of a dragon you’d long since pushed from your mind. Yours.

You sighed. It was just another thing weighing on your mind back then, when you’d been at your lowest. You were tired of it, now. But a blank kind of tired.

Like a flat, fresh water ocean. Waveless, shallow. Eerie.

It was a much calmer tired than the kind you felt then; Violent waves slamming you into the sand, rubbing fragile lungs raw with grit and silt. Of the bruised ribs, the fighting, the cuts and hurt no one seemed to notice and the friend you didn’t seem good enough to have anymore.

You reached down to pull your tunic off the ground, tossing it onto a nearby table, covered in dust, made frail through disuse. You coughed at the fine grime tossed into the air, flapping your hand in front of your nose in an effort to disperse it.

You wondered if the sealights would be lit tonight.

“-He has five dragons. Five. And he wants me to come up with a whole set of dragon towers for him how?-”

You trod through the dewey morning leaves, back straighter than necessary, trying not to sweat too much or to look back at the armorless, green-tunic-ed guest at your back.

You couldn’t say you weren’t a little tired of the whole running Berk it yourself. Sure, you weren’t necessarily responsible for it but it was a pastime of a lot of the Vikings around town to talk about it, the mindless gossips, and once or twice while you were in town trading for what you needed. 

There were also the sailors, who had a mind, when down by the docks, to share the business of everyone regardless of the tribe. Even as the village recluse, you got roped into it, listening around corners with rap ears

“-Even with dragons it’s not easy to-” Hiccup waved his hands around, journaling under one arm and eyes glued, glaring onto the ground. It turns out he had taken you at your word. Sort of. He was still very much alive. He must have found some time off, or figured out something, because here he was.

You squinted at the paper in your hand, staring at messily done blueprints. There was a house sketched lifted above the ground by a pole and another sketch of a bunch of regular huts stacked on top of each other. You held the same basket from before under your arm, woven bits frayed and flexible and worn.

You recognized the beginning stages of a bunch of these sorts of huts being built all around Berk. It was getting fuller, especially with all of the ex-trappers and Vikings migrating in from the other tribes. And then there were relations outside of the interpersonal to manage. So of course there needed to be a few changes.

“This isn’t safe,” You said drily, “Remember the windmill? These are all going to fall down with the next devastating winter. And where are we going to find logs large and long enough to keep all these houses up? There aren’t nearly enough trees on all of Berk to get this done for everyone.”

“I know!” Hiccup pausing, turning to shake his head quickly, before bending over to scrub the hair on his head, “It’s insane! Everyone wants me to go with it!”

“You shouldn’t,” You deadpanned.

“I might,” Hiccup pursed his lips, “If it gets them to leave me alone. I can’t be builder, Rider and Chief.”

“Well- no, you can’t be. But why don’t you just come up with a few sturdy designs and make him choose one. Same for everyone else. Then just,” You paused, grimacing as you had to grab a branch, pushing it out of the way, “Put someone in charge of building all of them. And making sure they don’t go build in all the wrong spots.”

“I don’t know,” Hiccup shrugged his shoulders, letting his arms fall back to his sides, turning his head up and allowing the light filtering through the thick wooded area to fall onto his face, “Everyone wants something unique. You think they’ll settle?”

You turned around, branch still in hand, “They’ll have to. Same way they have been for three hundred years.”

You rolled your eyes and set forth again, letting go of the branch, which swung back quickly. You didn’t quite see what happened any more than you heard Hiccup’s yelp and the subsequent step back.

“Ow, ow, ow ow, Gods, curse it-”

You turned back around startled, turning back into the branch which followed its inertia, snapping back into your face. 

You brought your hand back up to your eye so quickly you smacked, dropping your trusty basket right out from under your arm and falling roughly onto your butt. The berries on the inside poured out of your basket onto the forest floor and you cursed, bemoaning it and yourself and laying the rest of the way down onto your back.

Head against the roots of a tree, smelling the earth and staring up at the dappled sunlight through waving tree leaves, you couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up through your throat.

It was better than getting mad, or crying. Still, you stifled it, shaking your head clear, pushing yourself back up, ignoring the stickiness of the berries stuck to your back and the juice dripping down the side of your hand.

Hiccup looked down on you skeptically, lips quirked in a way you read as confused. You remembered a time when he might have fallen down with you. It seems though that as the two of you got older, he became much surer of yourself. 

Still, it was a world of difference from the Hiccup you knew a moment ago, stressed and weighted and tired with all the burdens of everyone else on Berk and the loss of his father on his back. 

You wanted to see more of this Hiccup, who was snippy and sarcastic and who you might have loved once upon a time. Who wasn’t stuck in mournful contemplation about identities and relationships and other such sad things.

And maybe you wanted to take back some of him for yourself, as if it might bring back to you the part of yourself you lost, at least for just this little while. Though if this was where it ended, for you, this moment would be more than enough.

He needed reprieve. You decided you would be that reprieve, for as long as he would take you.

“Why don’t we do something besides talk about Berk?” You smiled wryly to yourself, rubbing your hands off on your smock, shrugging your shoulders loose once you got back onto your feet. 

You did your best to put on a happier facade, different from the insecure, hunched-shouldered version of you from way back in the past, and different from the apathetic lone figure you were now.

“I…” Hiccup blinked at you for a moment. He looked a tad thrown off by you now with your shoulders high, hands on your waist and back straight, much different from any sort of behavior you’d exhibited since long before.

The wide smirk on your face faltered, and you toned it down a little, slumping a bit. You knew you hadn’t had the ability to make Hiccup smile in a long time, but this was just terrible. Sometimes you wondered if you ever had, or if he was just faking it. It didn’t matter much to you now.

“Or, you can come with me and wait outside while I go find a change of clothes,” You said blankly, letting your hands fall to your sides, “Your pick.”

Hiccup grimaced, probably thinking of the greeting he’d get once he got back. You weren’t quite sure how he made it out here in the first place, and in his casual wear no less. You hadn’t seen him in anything less than a full set of leather armor for a very long time.

Of course, he’d chosen the latter. Sort of.

You let the water from the stream run over the toes of your boots, waterproofed by tar and oil as you pulled up your smock, scrubbed until it was worn and back to the same colorless dull hue you had gotten it in. It was to your benefit that you had worn something under, though the berries were much too pigmented for you to leave your smock on its lonesome.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” You sighed, picking yourself up and away from the beck, slinging your water heavy clothing over a low-hanging branch. 

You turned to look at Hiccup who had decided to wait by the treeline, back to one of the large pines lining the whole island. He had found himself a terror along the way and was minding it with amusement, waving a thin branch above its head and watching and it leapt and curled after.

“It’s alright,” He said almost bashfully, without looking up, as the Terror flipped onto its belly, wriggling after the branch Hiccup waved over its stomach like a fish to a worm, “I, ah, I got Johannes to handle the stables.”

Hiccup rubbed the back of his neck as you pulled down your sleeves, picking at the loose threads and checking for any unpleasant damp spots, of which, for once, thankfully, there were few. 

“You took my advice, then,” You noted absentmindedly that this was the tunic you’d worn on the Edge, its color washed out and much thinner, but still very recognizable.

“Yeah,” Hiccup weighed the stick in his hand almost contemplatively before tossing it to the side, watching as the terror scurried after.

“So,” You said, sweeping your foot almost carelessly across the carpeted forest floor, pulling your basket into your arms again, “How have you been?”

“How have I been?” Hiccup asked astoundedly even as he eyed your smock, reluctantly pulling his gaze from it in order to follow as you led your way back up to the forest path, “I think you know the answer to that.”

“Yes, well, no- I mean, from before that,” You scoffed, looking down darkly into your nearly empty basket.

You meant after you left.

You felt the familiar pulling of tides, tugging at something deep and light in your gut. 

The air was still between you. It was hard not to feel when there was nothing between you but air and your own memory of some hastily forgotten hurts.

“That was a stupid question,” You shrugged, kicking aside a stick, protruding from just off the path.

You were sure Hiccup had been too stressed earlier to care or notice but it was easily felt now. Your quarters were much too close for you to put on the same old facade and pretend that nothing had ever happened and that the two of you weren’t ever more than strangers, your bond closely resembling something you might have once called friendship.

“I… Well, if you don’t mind tagging along still, I won’t make you do much,” You pushed down thoughts of beating storms, rain so thick you couldn’t see five feet in front of you, “You caught me off guard.”

You blinked away memories of rushing, towering waves and a bone-deep chill only made worse by the pressing winds and the water soaked deep through your clothes and to your bones, causing you to shiver and shake and pull closer to the neck of your dragon. 

Pressing deeper into leathery skin and scales, closer than you ever thought possible, praying to the Gods that you might be spared the indignity of living to see another day past your shame, past your desertion.

“Alright,” Hiccup decided finally, eyeing you oddly.

You pretended you didn’t feel the phantom shivers clawing up and down your spine or the echoes of a deep burning hurt you were certain had gone long since unnoticed by all the wrong people.

You made sure your breathing was steady as you marched forward, carefully putting one foot in front of the other. 

You listened to the occasional wingbeat of a dragon from up above and the unburdened twittering of small animals in the foliage surrounding you. 

You heard Hiccup stifle a yawn from back behind you. You wondered what you could do to make this trip worth it for him. To be honest, you weren’t quite expecting him to take you up on your offer. It was more of a snipe, really. 

You’d never been good at those, though. People always took you much too seriously.

There was a clearing up further ahead to your left, one you neared as the trees grew thicker and larger, where you could hopefully make up for some of your lost boon. The berries, you were sure they were gone, but perhaps you could make up for it by finding some other things.

The loudest noise between the two of you was the sound of your footsteps.

You inhaled the misty air of the forest and, eventually, you began to relax.

“Here we are,” You hummed, as the path grew lighter, sunlight filtering between the trees and the foliage.

You examined the crown with care, looking over each leaf and link, turning it around gently in your hands. What began as a task born from boredom became something you invested yourself into with brief interest.

The atmosphere was bright and the sun warm against your shoulder blades, laying like a heavy furred blanket across them as you leaned down, splitting small holes in the ends with your fingernails and threading grasses through until you had some approximation of a flower crown, minus the flowers. 

It was the kind of warmth that made you sentimental, bringing up a feeling that felt like something flowering, which you pursued vaguely as if this might have been the last time you ever felt it. 

By the time you two had been teenagers, Hiccup had been long since uninterested in that kind of thing. In teenage boy fashion, he avoided things such as flower crowns and playing in the sand down by the beach, much too focused on killing a Dragon and trying to seem tough enough to meet standard. 

Then he got Toothless, and from there on after he hadn’t time for anything but Dragons and the Riders. He was too absorbed in his inventions to pay any mind to other things.

You’d deeply wanted to do it, though maybe not always specifically to him, but you’d never found the purpose. You had it now.

You turned to Hiccup with a lopsided smile, watching his chest rise and fall gently for a few moments. Your lips twitched, falling into a small crown as you held out the crown, deciding whether or not you should drop it.

 Hiccup blinked drowsily awake at the sudden movement, to which you startled and before you realized it, the crown had gently slipped from your fingers and fell over the crown of his head. Because of the angle, though, it looked to be resting more on his forehead than anything. 

You held your breath as his eyes unfocused and fluttered shut again, unregistering, and you backed up on all fours with quiet ease, pushing yourself to your feet, attempting to flee the scene and pretend nothing had quiet happened at all.

You shuffled to the other side of the clearing, craving distance, walking a path around it like you were attempting to trace the edges with your feet. You balanced on it, placing your heel to the other foot’s toe and then again with the opposite foot, arms out in front of you, taking note of all the shrubbery around you.

Eventually the shifting ferns drew back your attention and you glanced back towards Hiccup, who’d sat up groggily, slowly examining the crown that had probably, most likely just fallen from his head.

He looked a complete and utter mess. You hid an ugly grin.

“I hope you like it,” You smiled down at the stem connecting a nice wad of berries to the bush. It was too quiet for him to hear and you were much too far away, but it was more of a musing to yourself anyways.

You leaned back onto your heels, sore for all the walking you’d done. You wondered if they were the right kind, enough to replace the bushel you’d lost earlier. You weren’t completely sure they were edible, anyways.

The two of you had broken out into a clearing, one covered in grass and ferns, and this was where you had decided to set midday camp. 

You lounged there in the waning sun, Hiccup more so than you, not so much watching the world turn to oranges and reds as witnessing it in your periphery. You’d lived it too many times for it to be any sort of novel. 

You were sure it was different on dragonback, but alas. You didn’t have that option.

After you came back to Berk, taking to the ground like you’d developed a phobia of everything else, it spent a lot of time flying around on its own, going who-knows-where on most days. One day, when you’d had the mind to look for it, you’d found that it had flown off for what was most likely good. 

You traced the leaf veins below your thumb, lost in mindless remembrance, ambiguously aware as Hiccup got up.

He groaned like he was a decades older man than he was, audible across the clearing, while putting his hands to the small of his back and leaning backwards mad before he made his way over. 

“What’s this?” Hiccup asked, holding what you were sure was the crown in his hand. You weren’t looking and ignored it, not necessarily expecting him to call you out on it any more than you’d expected to make the crown itself.

“Not sure,” You said, before looking over, and glancing up and down at ruffled clothes, messy hair and the sleeve that came up to wipe off the corner of his mouth, “Have a nice nap?”

“I’m just fine, thanks… “

You rolled your eyes, “That wasn’t my question.”

“Does it matter?” He asked, straightening out his shoulders.

“You were out for a while,” You said in lieu of an answer, “Was worried you needed me to drag you back to the village. Tuck you into bed.”

“No,” Hiccup said exorbitantly, “Never.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” You shot back.

“Maybe.”

“Definitely…” Hiccup started, “An exaggeration.” 

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Everyone’s had their share of it,” You stated, lifting your shoulders exaggeratedly, bringing both hands up by your head with your shrug, while kicking out your foot, turning to trot off in the opposite direction.

“You do a lot of really-need-to-be-dragged-back-after activities.”

“Hey, well, I’ve done a lot of that for you, too.”

“Pick one, name something.”

“I mean, I’ve kept you from falling down off cliffs a lot,” Hiccup ran a hand through his hair.

“I have since not stopped falling off cliffs,” You squinted at him, “And neither have you, I’m pretty sure. Also, that jumping off dragons thing? Serious disqualifier. That counts as at least half a cliff jump every time. Negative helping-me-out points. Honest.”

“What?” Hiccup shook his head, gesturing towards himself, “Doesn’t count. Never met a dragon that didn’t have my back. Natural Dragon Master. No danger.”

A natural if by natural he meant through fifteen years of absolute failure in any sort of interaction with an animal more sentient than a frog.

“Sure…” You remembered all the time he spent as kids, half with you and sometimes without, running across rooftops for his dad. Because you were being chased. By dragons. 

“Okay, call me a dragon, right now.” You said, with finality.

“Right now?”

“Right now.” 

You spent a little while staring at him.

“What, now?”

You nodded.

You were slightly surprised when he played along, even though you knew you had been egging him on to do it. You watched him cup his hands and chitter oddly into them, in a mimicry of what you understood as a Terror call.

You looked down on him with fake skepticism. Usually, with the call, it was a hit or miss whether a dragon would respond. The dragons with Riders tended to ignore you completely unless you were their rider. 

Both of you knew this, though you counted it on being a miss.

“They’re coming, you’ll see,” Hiccup said, waving his left hand as if he was clearing smoke out of the air.

“I hope it blows up in your face. Like that catapult, from when we were kids,” You blew a raspberry at him.

“What, which one?” Hiccup asked.

“The one you tried to roll up to your house, kept rolling down the hill, went straight through Burthair’s cart and smashed through his fence,” You grinned, “Your dad made you round up all his sheep after, remember?”

You remembered trying to help him quietly in secret, gathering a few sheep on a lead before you were caught and sent home to be scolded.

“No, hey, You blew that one up,” Hiccup said incredulously, “That one was all you.”

“Yeah, it was.” You admitted guiltlessly.

“You are the worst,” He said, as the sound of flapping and the rustling of trees grew slightly louder. You ignored it, thinking it was just another random group of dragons lost over Berk. There had been a lot of those as of late.

“The worst,” You agreed. You had a foot already up, halfway into a turn before a bright yellow, spiny body slammed quickly into your face.

You yelped, falling to the side, tumbling slightly as what must have been a Terrible terror scrambled for purchase and left off your face and into the tree line. You blinked, half-shaded under low-hanging branches.

You braced yourself against your arm, bringing your other hand down from your face to see red in the shape of a smeared line across your face. By the look and size of it, it wasn’t too bad.

You opened and closed your jaw with annoyance, realizing quickly that the Terror must have scratched your face. 

Henceforth, though, you were much more easily capable of dodging around the sudden appearance of more Terrors, catching a tiny green one just before it face planted into the dirt. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” You caught Hiccup, too, doing his best to dodge around them, jumping back as a feisty blue clawed its way up his back as he made his way towards you.

It was a difficult effort to make as by the time you had found solid ground, the dragons began to jump on top of him, covering his arms and legs so that he looked like a pile of very large and colorful bees standing on two legs.

You could help but laugh, wobbling over to help. You slipped your hand under the leg of a terror just before Hiccup fell over with a shout, falling forwards and nearly dragging you with him as he tumbled into the shade of the treeline. 

And as if following a command, terrors scuttled away, as if chasing after your peals of laughter, echoing around the clearing.

There wasn’t nearly enough time between Hiccup’s call and the appearance of the dragons for any, or at least most of them to have come in from Berk, nor any guarantee that any of the Terrors heard him, but these gathered quick enough for you to be seriously impressed.

“Yeah… I wasn’t expecting that either.” You stared down at Hiccup as he stared back, the two of you looking at each other with startled eyes, you bent half over and Hiccup propper up on his elbows on the ground before the two of you broke out into breathy laughter.

The flowers and plants around you were heady, filling the breathless airheadedness in between your eyes with even more cotton.

Your voices mixed and quieted in equal fashion, the two of you ignoring the mutterings of the forest until, eventually, they grew into something you could hear. 

“Hiccup!”

You froze, a wince stuck on your face.

“Hiccup!” This shout was much more drawn than the last. 

It was Astrid. 

You saw the shadows of her and Stormfly drift smoothly over the face of the clearing. You wondered if she had followed some of the Terrors out or if she had gotten Stormfly to track Hiccup’s scent.

You were about to look back at Hiccup for some sort of direction before he tugged you after him. Tugged until the two of you were huddled under the alcove you had missed, made by two thick roots of a ginormous tree, waiting.

You weren’t sure how far above she was, she hoped she didn’t see your basket, sitting plainly across the way.

You could tell Hiccup was holding his breath, staring out deep into the forest, where trees went from towering to the sole consumers of light, protecting a misty undergrowth beneath a dark, leafy roof. There was a log to the left of the entrance to the narrow space, half-rotted and sprouting mushrooms out of its side.

You recalled that there had been a notable instance around when the two of you had been just about twelve, sneaking around in the Great Hall for the leftovers post meal. You’d been trapped in a closet, when they’d had those, removed after you and Hiccup had accidentally burned them down at fourteen, with nothing but a loaf of bread between you.

The air wasn’t nearly as musty or stale, and of course it was much darker then, with not the whiff of a fresh plant in sight, but the principal was still the same.

You held very little stake in it all, but you kept close and stiff anyways, the joyful atmosphere from before mixing into something fun and scurrilous, electrifying the space behind your eyes and sending ticklish bolts of lightning down your spine.

It remained there until the heavy wing beats of the Dragons above you faded long into the distance.

The field, littered with scented flowers and bushes, must have muddled Stormfly’s scent. Or she really was just following the Terrors. One thing was sure, though. Where there was one Rider, there were more.

“I thought you said you got people to cover it?” You asked.

“I did. They should have been able to, but something must have happened,” Hiccup leaned back against the tree bark, hitting the back of his head against it lightly, grunting lightly as it did. 

You wondered if he had grown a few inchest still since you had last been close to him on the Edge.

You raised your eyebrow, asking the silent question. Are you going to go back?

Hiccup said nothing, looking away, though you couldn’t miss the soft clench of his jaw and the gentle slouch, or the agitated twiddling of his fingers by his waist.

You rolled your eyes. Privately, you almost felt bad that you weren’t able to give him a better time out. But also, there would be many other times for him to make up for it with other people. You wondered if he would ever choose to come back to you.

“They should be able to handle it. They’re not children. But it’s no burden on me whether you stay or go,” You inclined your head forwards.

You placed one foot in front of the other across the uneven wooden planks. You just needed to get down to the fields.

You strode past the bright red hut that marked the Jorgenon Clan, avoiding haphazardly placed construction materials.

You paused where you stood and turned back as Hiccup called your name, standing right in the middle of the walkway. It never ceased to surprise you whenever he showed up. 

It wasn’t much. But it still surprised you every time he came with greetings.

You smiled.

He quickened his pace, pulling himself up onto the path and stopping in front of you, prosthetic clicking against wood.

“Hiccup,” You greeted, “What brings you to me?”

“Where do you live, now?” He asked, “I was planning on stopping by, but…”

“Up behind the spire on the way to Gothi’s,” You hummed.

“But that’s… You live in Mildew’s old hut?” Hiccup asked, surprised. 

“Yeah,” You nodded, rifling through the satchel clipped to your waist, flicking through rows of herbs with delicately placed fingertips, “So what have you been up to?”

You realized you needed to go off-island soon. The idea filled you with dread.

“Do you really want to ask that?” Hiccup questioned, “because there’s been a lot…”

“Why not?” You shrugged.

“Some rouge dragons have been eating holes into the earth- and with all the dragons underwater, coupled with the Scauldrons-” Hiccup rubbed his forehead, “Basically, they’ve been drilling new hot springs, which has been nice, but no one’s gotten to any of them yet. They always seem to dry up before anyone can get there and back and I keep getting complaints about people’s water getting stolen, or something.”

“Ouch,” You said sympathetically, as Hiccup continued on.

“I wish they’d give it up, honestly. There are more important things for me to get to, but I haven’t even been able to get to all the trading issues with all the other tribes… Anyways, are you busy?” Hiccup asked quickly, looking back and forth.

“Busy?” You asked. 

“I kinda want to get out of here before anyone else…” Hiccup shrugged his shoulders, cringing.

“Notices?” You finished, “Let’s go.”

“A hot spring?” You asked aloud, both your and Hiccup grasping the edge of the pool on your knees, watching the water bubble slightly. 

Hiccup extended a hand hesitantly, grazing it over the bubbling surface. You watched as the foam fizzled underneath his palms and when he didn't flinch, you sat back and pulled off your boots, rolling up the legs of your trousers, revealing a long scar on the leg furthest Hiccup.

“It’s alright to wash in?” You asked, Hiccup nodding an affirmative. 

You rested a bare foot onto the bubbling water, testing it out with your toes, before sinking your legs in with a breathy sigh. 

“It’s one of the ones you were talking about, right?” You asked

“Yeah,” Hiccup confirmed, watching you closely.

You let out a soft, disappointed sound at the idea that it might be gone soon.

The spring looked to be about waist-deep, though that might be something you needed to test out before dipping into the pool. It was pressed up and partially embedded in the side of a rocky cliff, spearing into the ground at a sideways angle. 

All around, the two of you were packed in by large, lush fauna. Huge ferns, even larger trees and a great deal of mist.

Very, very private.

It was extremely tempting.

“We could… It would be nice, but…” Hiccup reasoned. He didn’t seem into the idea, which was fine. Honestly, you didn’t mind having this spot all to yourself. 

There wasn’t much of a practical way to sink into the waters without stripping nearly bare anyways. Hiccup’s armor would most definitely be damaged by the water, and you didn’t like the idea of marching back to Berk in sopping wet furs.

Your undergarments certainly weren’t up to scratch for the kind of soak you were looking for.

“We don’t have a change of clothes.” You said, meeting his eyes head on. The two of you looked at each other for a moment. 

Hiccup must have followed the same line of thought, looking at you like he’d caught something odd and he didn’t know what to do with it. There was an odd feeling curling in your stomach, and an awkwardness that hadn’t been so palmable between you since before… Before.

Did it really matter if he saw you naked? Or at least clothed only partially? It wasn’t as if you’d never seen him the same during all your years of semi-sturdy friendship.

You spent a moment feeling the skin on your face begin to warm, brows crinkling with a remembrance that sort of killed the mood before you glanced away with as much casualness as you could muster.

“Do you think we could get back in time?” You asked instead. 

“Well, there’s not much hope, but I guess it’s worth a try,” Hiccup started hesitantly.

You and Hiccup stared down at the small bubbling hole at the base of an empty basin. It had been an awkward walk back to the Village. Still, you seemed incapable of suggesting anything else. Hiccup, too. 

“Gods damn it,” Hiccup said. 

You shrugged, the roll of cloth under your hands shifting only slightly. Besides the tarp strapped to your back and the towels to Hiccup’s, the both of you were carrying a set of undergarments you found which should have covered just enough to remain modest in the springs.

Toothless, behind the two of you, basket in mouth, grumbled as he dropped it to the tall grass floor. You’d brought him along in order to help carry the bulk of your things.

“Well,” You started, puzzling to yourself, hand under your chin, “I mean, we could try what you did last time? With the Terrors?”

“But with a Scauldron, right?”

You nodded, “Honestly, it’s that or head back.”

Hiccup winced, immediately backing away to settle down onto one knee. He was turned to face your right, so that he was looking out towards the forest. 

He opened his mouth and cupped his hands, then paused. Then he tried again. But no sound game out. The whole time Toothless looked peeved, eyes shifting between the two of you as he snorted.

You stared blankly, waiting, which was probably the first time you and Toothless ever felt the same sort of emotion, though you most likely meant it in a much more joking fashion than he did.

“I can’t do it with you watching,” Hiccup said, finally.

You squinted at him, wondering what was up with the sudden-onset stage fright, just as Toothless rolled his eyes, shaking his torso like a wet dog, causing a hastily-clipped basket to fall off his saddle. 

“Oh,” You said, turning around and grinning to yourself, “Alright. Howl away.”

You hoped he hadn’t figured out how to get to the fish basket yet. It would be a pain to walk back to Berk with everything in hand, and it would be very easy for Toothless to leave without his incentive to follow the hostage on his back.

“It’s not howling.” Hiccup deadpanned.

You knew that. You were actually pretty decent at it, back when you were still involved in the dragon business. 

“Alright.”

You stared out at a heavy wall of fauna, a large leaf and a towering set of two trees consuming the vast majority of your vision. You watched a bug crawl up the exterior of one and noted to yourself silently that you would have to watch where you rested your things while you were in the spring, if what Hiccup was trying was to work.

You listened to him shift and shuffle, moving around until Toothless must have gotten tired of waiting and he himself let out a loud, echoing roar.

You jumped back, caught off guard, jerking towards the pair with your ears covered by your hands, undergarments, falling to the grass below.

“How long do you think it will take to fill up?” You asked from the floor, hips sinking into the grass as you pushed yourself up, shrugging the straps holding the large cloth tarp in place off your shoulders.

“Not sure,” Hiccup said, shifting from foot to foot, “We should get changed first.”

“Yeah,” You agreed, tossing it over to him. He weighed it in his hands, examining it before pulling it free and letting it unravel onto the floor. 

“Hey, do you have any idea where we packed the blanket?” You asked. It was a bit overkill, but… You bit your lip.

“In the saddle, I think.”

You inhaled touchily as Hiccup gripped onto the edge of the tarp, turning from you to throw the other end out, watching it unfurl as it caught air, “Ah, do you think you could get it?”

Swiftly though not without ungain, Hiccup slung the tarp over one of the low-hanging branches, the ends of the fabric falling horizontally over the thick grasses and bushes around you. 

You supposed that meant the tarp was unnecessary, the forest here enough to bless you with cover and privacy. You noted that down.

“What? He’s harmless,” Hiccup said, letting the curtain fall closed behind him.

You squinted into the sky, up through a very small window, shafting light down through the trees. You would have worried that no other dragons would heed Toothless’ call, knowing that you yourself wouldn’t, had you not already heard the hurried beating of wings from up above. 

You stuck your tongue out at Hiccup, then turned it towards his dragon.

Honestly, it was still unimaginable to you that Toothless had developed the ability to become Alpha. It was insane, and insanely lucky. For Hiccup, that is.

The two of you, meaning you and Toothless, had never been left alone in the same room together for a reason, though most people just thought it was your fault. The reason being that Toothless didn’t like you, and you didn’t like him as a result of that. 

Harmless… Right. You scoffed.

You knew you knew better and you reassured yourself of that fact, as Toothless grumbled at you from across the small space.

Hiccup shook his head at you, quirking the corner of his mouth to the side as it formed a fondly exasperated line, unclipping various satchels and baskets from Toothless’ back.

You grimaced and scooted further away from the dragon, nudging the basket of fish closer to him with your foot, hoping that he might take more of an interest in that instead.

You kept your eyes trained on the dragon even as Hiccup walked to his side with his clothes under his arm shuffling through the treeline and behind the curtain. 

“You have enough room?” You squinted at Toothless, resting your arms against your knees, and he narrowed them back.

It had been a tricky job to get his things without anyone else noticing, a lot of careful pressing around corners and tricky, calculated jabs from Toothless, many of which you were still bitter about. 

“It’s enough,” Hiccup responded, voice trained. 

The scaly thing was still grumpy; the chances of him soldering a grudge were high, especially where you were involved. The two of you called him away from a tussle with some other dragons from around the bend, which he seemed to be enjoying by at least some measure.

If only he’d put some of that energy into being a more attentive Alpha. You wrinkled your nose, judging the dragon like a temperamental parent.

You listened to the shifting of leaves, fabric and leather before deciding you’d been waiting too long, much too used to doing things on your own time.

“I’m just going to change over here,” You called through the curtain, “Turn around, will you?” You asked Toothless, who grumbled at you disgruntledly, the ridges of his brows as furrowed as he could make them.

“Turn around, Toothless,” Hiccup confirmed from behind the curtain.

He shifted with a grumble, lumbering sideways and around, though not without whacking you in the calf with his tail, first.

You finished changing just as the first few dragons began to settle down.

You shuffled to the side once you were ready, letting Hiccup through to order and direct, gentle-parenting the dragons into doing what you needed. 

You watched him. He was shirtless, legs bare, though his left ankle remained wrapped to his prosthetic. You wondered if it hurt, sometimes, though you hadn’t the courage to ask.

He was slim as always, muscled but not quite muscly, more soft than not. It went unsaid that he was not nearly as built or wide as any of the other Viking men, so you tried not to ogle.

You sat, legs crossed on the ground as Hiccup directed the Scauldrons and Gronkle in turn, slowly patching and filling up the pool.

“How long do you think it will take to cool down?” You asked as he sent them off and he came over to stand by you, settling himself onto the small stretch of grass you were laid in.

“Not sure,” He answered.

At one point Toothless turned towards the trees, shaking himself off before beginning to march through the underbrush.

“Hey, don’t go too far, bud,” Hiccup called after him.

The two of you sat there, just you, watching steam rise from the pool

“He’s been really independent lately,” Hiccup stiffened slightly, picking at the wooden end of his prosthetic, “Yeah…”

You moved back to give him space as he unraveled the leather wraps keeping his prosthetic secure to his leg, revealing a stump and a good amount of pinched scar tissue.

You spent a moment longer looking at it than you probably should’ve before looking away. You’d never seen it before

You wondered if Astrid had. You couldn’t imagine a world where she hadn’t.

Hiccup sunk into the water first.

Sweat beaded on your forehead as you hovered above it, hands lightly gripping the edge of the pool. 

You dipped your toes in before all at once you sunk into the water, drifting down until your feet touched ground, sighing as you felt the heat rise up to your hips.

The ground was made up of small pebbles and smooth stone, and much nicer on the bottoms of your feet than you’d expected.

There was a ledge underneath, just the right height and length going around the inner edge of the pool on most sides to make a nice enough bench. You waded towards it, settling over the concave surface, ignoring the slight unevenness of it.

You relaxed, going boneless underwater, feeling your face redden as the heat from the water floated up into it, causing a line of sweat to run down your cheek.

With nothing else to you, your eyes drifted over towards Hiccup. He was much the same, though he was a little more out of it.

He really needed it, you supposed. 

You blinked at him as he tilted his head back, exposing freckled skin, much more faded than when you were younger but visible just the same. 

You eyed a multitude of cuts, long and light against his tan, following them down to a long vertical cut by the right side of his chest.

 “What’s on your mind?” Hiccup’s voice brought you back to alertness, breaking the spell the spring seemed to put you under.

You tilted your head back and forth, debating whether or not you should answer.

He followed your eyesight instead, answering the silent question in your eyes.

“That… Axe. Training accident,” He answered, shrugging. You marveled at the casualness of it all.

“...And that one?” 

“Dragon racing. Caught in the side by one of the spikes over Hofferson house,” You nodded. You hadn’t been in town for that one.

“And, I’m guessing, that’s why you guys use more of a track, now?”

Hiccup rubbed his neck sheepishly.

“Where’d you get yours?” He asked

Being able to talk and converse with him like this was great and all, but you were afraid that behind all the mindless platitudes and play-warmth he would finally, finally see you. See deeper than the scars like cracks on your surface, seep right into line lines and stare into your core to somehow find you wanting.

You hunched slightly inwards self consciously.

“Hey, it’s… it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,”

Hiccup drifted towards you, resting his hand on the side of your shoulder. 

You kept your eyes trained downwards, staring at  large groups of bubbles as they rose to the surface, coloring the water an opaque white.

Your exhale blew hotly back into your face, rising up with the steam.

You nodded.

Hiccup hummed under his breath, voice tinted with a hint of confusion.

You pressed your thumbs into his shoulder blades in the dark of your hut, moving with his muscles as he groaned and flexed them backwards.

You felt the outline of lightning scars under his shirt and followed them down lazily, rubbing a path around them, pushing deep into weary muscle through his thick tunic.

Hiccup leaned into it. Again, you moved to accommodate him.

You shifted over your hastily done bed, dull fabric shifting below you.

Afternoon light trickled in through the blinds.

You counted every scar visible above the line of his collar, each cut and scab that formed alabaster marks against peachy-tan skin.

You worked through knots, strains and strains and stresses, watching with a careful eye as Hiccup softened, letting them melt off and away.

You worked your way back up, and down, leaning maybe a bit closer than necessary, feeling your breath on your face as you exhaled into the nape of his neck, lifting your elbow higher in order to get a hard spot a few lengths away from his spine. 

Hiccup let out a breathy sigh. 

You flushed.

You sifted through the assortment of ripe berries in the cart, humming thoughtfully. 

You weren’t quite sure what to buy. Honestly, you didn’t need to buy any at all. You had a large enough stock at home to guarantee you’d not need to buy or forage anything until the next year.

 You would never say it out loud but you were actually out to take inventory. A whole lot of the other Vikings would be displeased to hear about it, you were sure. It was a good way for you to keep stock of what was in store and what you would need to search for on your own. It was how you made your coin. 

It was quite easy, especially when you took advantage of your close proximity to Gothi. Though a tough and harried healer, she was still an elder and it was much more convenient to have the shops travel up towards her. 

Some might have called it ‘taking advantage of the elderly,’ but you were loath to the idea. You didn't upcharge her by too much. Whenever you did up the price, it was much deserved payback for dumping her waste down your side of the mountain. Somehow it always landed on your roof.

You brought your finger to your chin and moved to accommodate a newcomer you sensed by the corner of your eye, careful not to look up at the stall keeper, who was squinting down at you suspiciously. You were afraid he might have been catching on. 

You walked over to a wide array of scales, most likely scavenged from the dropped and shed skins of the dragons who enjoyed roaming around town.

You enjoyed the fresh air, the wind as it flowed over your scalp. You felt light and pleased, one hand held to your back as you pursued the displayed wares.

 There was a nice arranged pyramid of orangish-reddish scales and a set of electric yellow and purple sat above a wrinkled, dull green cloth, and a line of iridescent scales by your right hand.

“You see something you like?” You startled as you heard a voice murmur by your ear. It seemed to be that you were so engrossed in pretending to be invested that you hadn’t noticed as your fellow shoppe leaned into your space. 

You walked to the side, turning so that you were leaning away from her. 

It was a woman, brown hair nearing red, the brightest auburn you’d ever seen in the light, dressed in a thin layer of furs with both hands on her hips. You recognized this woman.

“These came from me,” She exclaimed calmly, voice running off her tongue like thick, gooey honey. 

The stall keeper rolled his eyes, “You’ll get your cut, don’t worry.”

The question must have been obvious in your eyes because Valka smiled, “Oh, yes, I collected those myself, you see.”

You smiled uncomfortably as Valka laughed to herself, finally backing up a tad. 

You straightened your back and your shoulders, exhaling deeply.

Though she was unbalanced from her time away from general society, she was confident and it served her well.

Her swell mood was contagious. You quirked your lips with the urge to join in, though to your chagrin, your own laughter came out more as a breathy uncomfortable chuckle than anything. You were also very much out of practice.

She didn’t seem to notice, though you knew that was most likely a calculated effort. You were glad for it.

“Hello,” You managed an honest smile, “Trying to push sales?”

“I’ve a bit of a vested interest in this shop, I should say,” She said, examining you as if you were a sort of creature from a land she’d never seen before, “Who are you?”

Valka paused, blinking to herself. Before you could respond again, she asked, “What’s your name? What’s your story?”

She didn’t know, you realized with a pang. There was no reason for her to, of course, Hiccup being your only link to each other and the two of you hadn’t been nearly as close as you had been before, as of late, but it still hurt a little. Definitely put a damper on your mood.

You kept up your smile anyways, mimicking her pose.

“I’ve not much of a story to tell, I’m sad to say,” You inclined your head.

“Everyone’s got a story,” Valka insisted, “Even-Oh, it should be-...”

You hummed your question.

“It’s probably wandered off somewhere, the frightful thing… There-! This one’s been pretty helpful,” Valka pointed out behind you, “A bashful thing, helped me bring down some of the wares. He showed up a few months before, well…”

Her eyes unfocused and her stance fell just the smallest bit. You winced with sympathy, remembering how Drago had smothered the island in ice before nearly killing off all of its inhabitants. She was very open about it, especially in the hall, and word spread faster than fire on Berk. It must have been difficult to lose her husband and her Alpha Dragon all in one day.

You shifted, turning following her direction after a moment of solidarity, and froze. 

With its head bowed down, looking guiltily away from across the clearing was a dragon. Your dragon. 

She leaned forwards against you conspiratorially, though this time you didn’t react, even as she whispered loudly in your ear with false secrecy, “It doesn’t hurt to have a bit of extra change on hand, you see. That’s why I’m here.”

“I do see,” You nodded along, though something about your voice was off as you spoke, still staring at your old dragon. Your voice was much too sharp and flat and cracked in all the wrong places.

You blinked away a light burning in your eye, refusing to meet your dragon by the eyes. 

Your heart twinged, ruffled and upset as you were all at once confronted with the reality that you really had been abandoned, though it wasn't as bitter a fruit knowing that it had been, in part, your fault.

“So, you said these scales are on sale?” You cleared your throat, turning back towards the stall with the full intent to ignore the thing as you would a stranger, which it might have very well been. 

“Which would you recommend?” Your eyes refused to focus as you blocked it out of your mind, refusing to acknowledge the faces or manners of any of the people around you. 

It was because of that that you just nearly missed him, approaching down the path to your left, once again clad in dark gray and brown leather.

“Oh, hello, Hiccup!” You called.

“You’re trembling,” Hiccup noted with surprise in his voice as you approached.

“It’s been a while since I rode a dragon,” You admitted balefully, as the two of you strode towards Toothless’ saddle. 

Even before, when you had just gotten yours, you’d had a hard time learning to love being up in the sky. But you pushed through it, because it was what Hiccup loved, and because it was getting to a point where you needed a dragon in order to keep up with everyone else.

You never did talk to anyone about how much it terrified you. 

“Will you be alright?” 

You nodded hesitantly, though privately you weren’t so sure, your heart beating like a drum. 

Hiccup sighed, “We’re just headed to the sea stacks, right?”

“Yeah,” You took a few hesitant, shaking breaths before swinging yourself up on the saddle behind Hiccup, who looked back at you, securing his helmet as if he thought it might be better that he leave you behind, as if you might shatter at the slightest breeze. 

“Thanks for taking me,” You looked away, ears burning shamefully. The things you could forage for on Berk weren’t cutting it. You needed the extra coin.

You jolted suddenly as you took off, alarm racing up and down your spine as you pressed yourself flush to Hiccup. You kept your eyes as straight ahead as possible, knowing that looking down, at the disappearing dow of Berk in the distance, would be your downfall.

You noticed Hiccup kept close to the ocean floor, guiding Toothless only just high enough to cleanly avoid the ocean waves below.

Past the wind rushing through your hair, the pressure plugging your eardrums and the sound of Toothless’ wings beating through the air, you realized that this wasn’t so bad.

Eventually your breathing evened and you were able to loosen up to some degree.

You leaned your head against his neck, arms relaxing slightly around your torso though your front stayed no less melded to his back.

You noticed the two of you had wandered all the way down, strolling the boundary between grazing fields, dotted by sheep, and the closer line of houses to your right.

You were still a slight bit shaken, though you’d made it back with all of your things intact plus extra, which was alright enough.

Hiccup looked back and forth, at where your hut ended just beyond the Great Hall, probably wondering if he should have been the one to walk you back instead.

“I don’t eat down at the hall much,” You looked back, keeping the silent ‘or ever’ to yourself.

“Well, I can understand why,” Hiccup looked to the side, voice sardonic, as the two of you, from a distance, watched Tuffnut and Snotlout wrestling for a plated chicken leg. You weren’t sure how they got so far out from the Great Hall so quickly. As far as you were aware, they didn’t serve food this early.

“Would you?” He asked.

Snotlout was able to pin Tuffnut to the ground, about to take a bit from the leg in his meaty grasp before Tuffnut basked him over the back of his head with the empty plate.

The other Riders were sat around him at the high table.

Hiccup seemed uncomfortable sitting up on the elevated platform reserved for the Chief and company by the forefront of the Great Hall. Out of place. Not quite like he was in shoes he hadn’t grown into yet, as was the saying, but more as if he was standing in front of a pair of shoes that did not belong to him at all.

You asked yourself if he might be more comfortable down with the common folk. 

You sent him a small wave just as the two of you met eyes, Hiccup at once sending a complimentary quirk of the lips back.

You came.

It took you a few days to get there, but eventually you worked up the courage to make it down and to sidle around the heavily concentrated group of Vikings in the open floor of the hall.

Just as I promised. 

You gave him a half-smile, lifting a spoon of stew to your mouth. It had been a while since you had tasted something from the hall. You had to admit it was a taste that you couldn’t replicate, not that you tried. You weren’t sure whether or not it was something you liked.

A crowd of Vikings obscured your vision as they walked past, large mugs and plates in hand.

You stared down at your bowl of stew and the thin slice of bread on the place beside it, wondering if all of this was worth it.

You were surprised when Hiccup settled down in front of you, startling you out of your own musings, plate of his own in hand. 

You peered round him, back at the table to see the rest of the Riders and Gobber back up on the podium. They seemed just as equally confused.

“What brings you down here?” You got the vague idea that it was expected, though not a requirement of the Chief, for Hiccup to sit up by the front table. Something about establishing authority and basking in the attention or something before it wore off, you didn’t care.

It didn’t seem like something Hiccup was interested in, anyways. 

“What, no ‘hello?’”

“Nope,” You popped the ‘p’ as Hiccup pulled out his journal from under his arm, settling it on the table to his side. You stared at brown leather and at all the small bits of parchment sticking out the sides.

“Let me see,” You said, 

“You sure?” Hiccup asked with a crooked smile.

You nodded, beckoning him over to your side of the table, craning your neck as he laid the book out in front of you and settled down besides.

“What’s that?” You pointed downwards, as he began flipping through the pages.

“What, this?”

You hummed, “No, go back.”

Hiccup blinked, and you saw the minor realization wash over his face before he flipped back the page almost reluctantly, revealing a messily sketched out crack in the earth and a crude map of the archipelago with a bunch of x-es littering random regions over the sea. 

“Do you mind if I…?” 

He shook his head no, handing over his notebook as you pushed aside your stew.

You read over some of the notes to the side, furrowing your brow.

“The Caldera,” You said, remembering the old wives tale.

“Yeah,” Hiccup rubbed his neck, “I didn’t mean for you to see it, but what do you think?”

“There’s something about it, I don’t know,” You said, shrugging, “It would be really nice.”

Hiccup scrubbed his neck embarrassedly, “It’s just a fantasy I have sometimes.”

“Is that why you spent so much time wandering?” You nodded your head, taking a sip from the large mug in front of you with hunched shoulders, “It would make a great discovery.”

Hiccup nodded.

You got it. It was unbelievably unrealistic, but that was probably the point. It was something for him to chase after even after everything else became unfamiliar. There was something charming about its unattainability, in a way.

Mead. Maybe it was a comfort you yourself craved.

You barely paid attention as you filled your mug and his, watching as, across the hall and through warm and bustling bodies, Hiccup and Astrid spoke. 

It was with all of the passion of a newly split couple. Though you couldn’t hear everything, you could see the meaningful tilt of Hiccup’s brown, the way his shoulders only moved when he spoke about something worthwhile, and the emotive movement of his hands. 

They were leaning close together by a gaggle of the others, speaking in whispers. It was probably nothing of consequence to you. She was, still, his right hand woman. 

But he looked at her like she hung the stars and wove this very Earth, hanging on to her every word, no matter the severity or banality.

You downed a mug, mead dripping down the corner of your chin. You wiped it off with your chin, lamenting and then going after another. It would take quite a great deal for you to get drunk.

You watched as Astrid walked away, back turned to Hiccup, her side exposed to you, and took note of the way, mouth open as if to speak, he reached out slightly, like he might be able to pull her back by some invisible string.

Your heart beat against itself, rhythm as loud and violent to your ears as the crashing waves outside down by the coast. You ignored it, tucking it away like a book under your pillow in the dark of night. 

You furrowed your brows, picking up another mug and filling it to the brim. It was only considerate, if you were going to drink. 

Your arms were full of mugs by the time you thought to wander back, balanced unevenly in your arms. He might need it just as bad as you did. 

You’d stumbled back to Hiccup’s hut in the dark, chuckling and laughing like a pair who didn’t want to do much besides forget the world around you. 

There was something tense in the air between the two of you despite the physical closeness. You weren’t quite sure when or how the two of you had fallen into each other, or why you thought this was a good idea. 

You gasped through the press of lips and the taste of ale on tongue, backed up against a wooden wall, head pressed back against the hard, uneven surface.

You pulled apart, and Hiccup leaned forwards to rest his forehead against the wall by your head, panting in your ear.

You weren’t sure who you’d slept with and who you hadn’t. Many drunk nights at the Hall, sneaking large mugs of ale and mead into your small, lonely corner meant many mornings slung over beds in houses you weren’t familiar with. Being so disconnected meant it was easy for you to slip out and away without anyone noticing.

But you knew you were here, and you were here now.

You slipped your knee between his legs. He ground down on it.

Your undergarments were up to scratch this time, though you weren’t sure if you needed them.

You felt the rise and quell of feeling and emotion and dead conversation. You searched for something to say, something to soothe, to matter or to not in a way that mattered the way someone did when they knew they weren't great, but wanted to be.

He looked exhausted. Tired from hours on his feet, time he wasn’t allowed to spend alone and a while too long throwing ideas on building, automatic tailfins and infrastructure between the two of you.

Guilt curled around like a tiny worm in your stomach. It was the same feeling you got falling from a high place, the same kind you avoided every time you saw a dragon take off into the air.

You pondered if you should ask, wondering if it was fair to want him to take the first step or back away, hands drifting back and forth underwater. 

“I’m… I’m sorry,” He said, and you weren’t sure why.

You tilted your head, sitting across from Hiccup in the same spring from before. His calf was pressed between your ankles, brushing over scar tissue as Hiccup sandwiched your left ankle between that and his other leg. 

“Me too.” You were sorry, for taking up his time and his space, when all he wanted was something else. You thought he might rather be alone. If that was the case, you knew you would go.

Calves and ankles pressed together, shifting against each other under the water testingly. 

Your face was red, heated by steam. Hiccup looked the same.

You scooted closer. Hiccup shifted forwards on his arms, leaning nearer to you.

You weren’t sure where you stood, since the night you spent together. You didn’t know if it meant anything or not, if it was a tryst born from your interest or Hiccup’s want to forget Astrid. You couldn’t remember.

But.

“Is it…?” He asked, eyes half-lidded.

You drifted forwards, standing up in the spring and met him the rest of the way, thighs slotted together.

Your arms were braced on either side of him underwater, palms resting on the smooth ledge surface.

Hiccup rested his hand on your arm, the other by your waist.

There were too many things between the two of you that went left unsaid. You hoped that one day you’d be able to say them. 

“A-ash…” He breathed into your mouth.

You half-slid, half-climbed down the rocky cliffside, grinning to yourself as Hiccup jogged after, falling slightly behind your enthusiasm.

To be honest, you weren’t so sure about sharing this secret with Hiccup. It felt weighty, like you were putting it to bed somehow and you weren’t sure you liked that, not ready to give up your reprieve.

It was private to you, but also, maybe it would be worth it, to share something so nice with someone else. There was a low chance he hadn’t seen it yet anyways. Soon, the others would find out and all the other Vikings would start funneling in, you were sure.

You slid to a stop just barely in time, backtracking with your arms out, stumbling back-first into Hiccup.

The two of you fell backwards, Hiccup falling into a set of bushes stationed behind you.

“Oh, ow,”

“Are you alright?” You asked him, as you separated, quickly scooting over and peering down at him as he pulled himself from the fanning ferns. 

The two of you were surrounded by rocks and fauna, world dark and blue in a way that felt fresh and new and freeing. 

This ledge was one that was difficult to get to unless you knew the way, which you won through hard-earned practice and exploration. 

The grass under you was cold, and wet from dew, But that was one of the many things you ceased to notice once you peered over the edge, at the beginning of a beautiful flickering.

“I’m alright,” Hiccup smiled, rubbing his head. You tried to look around him as if you might be able to see the back of it from the angle you were sitting.

“Look,” You pointed forwards with a breathy grin, as Hiccup settled himself beside you, your legs hanging limply over the side of the clifface.

He followed your direction, and he breathed. You could see the exact moment he looked down into the waters, calmer than they should be, always seeming flat and unassuming in this area.

You watched him focus, taken in by the mesmerizing sight.

Tiny dragons lit up the sea below, blinking pale pinks and greens and blues under the shifting water, looking very much like small, twinkling gems by the sand.

It was what you assumed was a mix between the glowing algae left over from the Flightmare’s time in the archipelago and the new, different kinds of dragons flooding Berk.

The two of you relaxed into the scene, calming in a way you were hard pressed to calm anywhere else. Maybe you had made the right call. 

It was a while before either of you would break the silence

“I…” Hiccup started, he looked at you with open eyes, “I…”

You perked up slightly, turning your head by the most minute degree, watching him from the corner of your eye. You waited, giving him time to articulate himself.

“...I miss…” 

His eyes twinkled, lights dancing in the shine of them, moving back and forth with the lights below. You softened in them, twisting so you were looking at him directly. 

You wondered what he missed. You wondered if it was something to quell or nurture the beating blooming jittering feeling growing in your chest.

“Them,” Hiccup said finally, lamely, before stopping, leaning against your shoulder. 

At the last moment, he looked away, pulling his hands off the ground and you read something a little like shame on his face as he said it, or on as much face as you could see, carefully tilted away from you.

You were sure you knew who, or whom he meant. 

You remembered how he looked at Astrid the other night as she walked away. How something in his eyes just seemed to storm. 

You remember how glum he was, still was, after the passing of his father, tall and mighty in a way that seemed to make him immortal.

You were glad. Just glad, and disappointed, in equal measure. But also you also couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that he hadn’t said something else.

You leaned back with equal weight onto his shoulder, though instead of feeling any sort of the warmth or amity you should have felt- or peace, like you usually did, staring down at the swirling lights, dancing with the currents- you just felt empty.

You took in the rustling of leaves behind you, the chittering and splashing of small dragons as they leapt out of the water, filling the air below with a colorful, glowing spray. Anything but the man besides you. The Chief, now.

“I know.”

[plotsignificanthaircut555]

Grower Geto (Suguru Geto x Reader)

MDNI 18+ Smut. 2.5k words ao3 masterlist doodles picks

you can buy me a Ko.fi here, if you like!

Honestly I was just thinking about how Suguru Geto is definitely uncut and a grower and how bad I wanna suck him off big style.

warnings: oral m!recieveing, cum play, spit, VERY SHORT, some begging, geor swinging back and forth between being in charge and being pathetic, he’s my secret lover in my head, like Nanami-kishibe-Choso that’s my main roster but Suguru…my dirty little secret.

Suguru isn't an arrogant man. He doesn't show off, he’s not cocky, he doesn't need to be flashy. He has always let his abilities and talents speak for themselves. Why would he expend additional energy into manufacturing scenarios to be marveled at, like others may?

That’s why it shouldn’t have been shocking the first time you reached into his lap, between your bodies just breaths apart and finding less than what you expected. It was rude of you to hesitate, you knew it, but you were surprised, everything else about him was so…big. His hands, his back and shoulders, his long, beautifully built legs. You expected a bit more, and you immediately chastised yourself for doing so. Surely, size wasn’t going to matter to you. Not with him. He was so sexy, effortlessly sexy, and who were you to doubt him?

Geto separated your mouths, one big hand on your shoulder holding you in place. He said nothing, just looked you over, surveying the shine of spit he left behind on your mouth and chin, the hazy, lustful look in your face that the confusion in your eyes juxtaposed. His head cocked to the side, the wave of black hair behind him flowing in the same arc. You looked so flustered, so desperate below him.

“What is it, baby?” He couldn't hold back the smile that was spreading across his face.

"Nothing I--nothing!" You leaned back in to kiss him again, feeling squirmy and embarrassed.

You didn't want him to feel like you were disappointed--not that you were disappointed! You were sure it was perfectly workable. More than that even, probably amazing! and who even cares about that, it's how you use it, not how big it is! He clicked his tongue, holding you firm in place, using one long, thick fingers to move a bit of hair off your face.

"Not what you expected, huh?" His voice was so smooth, so uninhibited by shame.

No, the shame was all for you. You had absorbed all the shame in the world and could feel it burning at your throat, trying to claw out apologies before you dared speak against him again.

"I didn't! Expect anything, I mean. I just--" You couldn’t find the right words, he was looking at you so closely, his smell was so overpowering and the heat between you was making your head feel light and your mouth water.

He was so cool and clear and composed, in contrast you felt muddy and intoxicated and messy. Geto brought his hand to your face again, the heat of his skin making your shame warmed cheek feel balmy. His dark eyes looked over you closely, the trembling lips, your wide searching eyes. How sweet. He leaned forward bringing the tip of his nose past yours, your lips barely touching, brushing together as he spoke.

"You don't really think I'd let you down, do you?" He wrapped you in a hungry kiss once again, long, hot tongue sliding against yours, overpowering your hungry mouth.

His kiss was electrifying, he moved his hands over your waist, slipping under your shirt, moving up to feel your back’s musculature. You followed suit, digging your fingertips into his warm skin, pulling him closer to you, wrapping your legs over his hips. He rocks your bodies together as you both shed your shirts, skin now against skin, sweat commingling, breath recycling. He moved his lips down your chin to your neck, his teeth showing themselves just enough to make you gasp. Geto’s hand found the button of your pants, unfastening them and pushing inside. His fingers traced your lips through your thin panties. You slipped your hand under his waistline, feeling the back turn to waist turn to hip.

You could barely speak through the huffs and moans he was pulling for you, the joint stimulation at your neck and pussy driving you wild.

“O-off.” You requested having trouble getting his trousers off his hips.

“So eager…” He mocked, voice humid and wet next to your ear, making you shiver.

You nodded your head, reaching for more of him. You whined as his hand left your panties, and you whined again as he rolled his eyes at your desperation. He pulled his pants off his legs, you followed, shimmying out of your own, leaving both of you in just your underwear. You could look his body over now, the clean, clear tanned skin, the tattoo on his hip he swears no one knows about, the barely present red lines that you had made with your fingers. He gripped himself through his boxers, feeling himself getting harder, swelling. He looked at your panting, desperate body heaving for him, a pulse shot through his groin, pinballing up and down his spine.

“Fuck, spread your legs.” He instructed, you obeyed.

He could see the curve of your pussy, the seam in between, where the wetness had made the fabric cling, revealing even more of your specific complexity. You watched him drool over you, your chest burned with pride. Feeling emboldened by his gawking, you trailed a finger down your body, tracing the slit that he seemed mesmerized by.

“Suguru…I need you.” You whined, moaning out the sound of his name, savouring every syllable.

He smiled, his perfect, devious smile that had been the reason you crawled into his bed in the first place. He reached to follow your fingers trail, feeling the wetness that soaked past the fabric wet his fingertip. He brought it to his mouth, relishing the taste of you. Geto encases your wandering hand in his own, bringing it to the front of his boxers, sliding your hand along his length which had…expanded. Your mouth grew wet, drool slipped past the edge of your mouth, you couldn't help it.

“This what you need? Hm?” He mocked you, watching how you salivated over the feel of him.

You nodded, the show he was putting on in front of you making you leak, you didn’t know how much longer you could take it.

“Go on, baby, take it.”

You were quick to your knees, slotting in between his legs. He let go of your hand, letting you decide where and how to touch him. Your droopy mouth pulled you forward, running your tongue along the lengthened, fabric covered shaft. You could feel the heat, the weight, you wanted it on you, in you, in your mouth, in your pussy, against your face, against your palm. You run your cheek against the spit stripe that you had just made. The hot, growing muscle against the fevered skin of your cheek sending you further into your fantasies of exactly what he would do to you.

Geto couldn’t help the moan you pulled from him. The sight of your lapping at him, rubbing against him through his boxers was almost enough to make him cum already. He was growing, he would be at full mast soon. He bit back the plea of mercy on his tongue, opting to clench his hands together, needing to see how you proceeded.

Finally, your dizzy brain urges you to the next step. You lace your fingers into the waistband of his underwear, peeling them off his hips, watching the topography of his body change. Smooth, tanned skin growing lighter, the sun not having seen as much as you were about to. The softer hues contrasted against dark, coarse hair at the base of his pelvis, manicured and maintained to precision. Finally his boxers have no more footholds and then fall from your hands, limp at his feet, forgotten, ignored in favor of the gorgeous, dream worthy, drip worthy cock in front of you. Long, six or seven inches at least, thick in the center, tapering slightly at the base and tip, a drool inducing curve to the left. Uncut, a pearl of precum dripping past his foreskin. Just as gorgeous as the rest of him. You should have known. You take him into your hand, encircling the full girth and bringing it close to your mouth, and give his tip a sweet lick, feeling the shaft pulse in time. The precum is sweet and sour on your tongue, and you have to taste it again. This time you pull it into your mouth, closing around it in a soft suck.

His stomach clenches, fighting to stay steady rather than thrusting in completely, he wants to see how you take it first. The look on your face when he's full and ready for you. You circle your tongue around the head, using your hand to pull the foreskin back and stimulate the rest of him while you focus on the most sensitive part. Pulling off him for a breath, you're quick to return to your work, taking more inches inside, feeling him prod at the back of your throat. He lets out a throaty moan above you, his grip on your hair tightening but not pushing or pulling, just holding you, letting you lead the dance.

You spit and drool, using the saliva and your hand to get the rest of his cock wet, when you pull back to admire your work you see he's grown, tip coming free from its confines, even thicker in the middle, longer, definitely. You look up at him in shock and delight.

“Told you I wouldn’t disappoint.” He moves the hair holding hand down your face giving you a soft tap on the cheek for doubting him.

You can’t help but giggle in delight, the building ache in your knees out of your mind. His hand on your face makes you drip onto the floor below you. You take him further, now locked into a game of how deep you can take him versus how much more he can grow for you. Every pump feels wider and deeper, but your bob your head all the same, trying to taste as much of him, make him feel your artistry in every centimeter. The sloppiness of your mouth proves beneficial as he grows more, he must have grown nearly three inches since you began. Delicious, rock hard inches that the more you take, the louder and prettier his sounds become.

“Yes baby, deeper. Please.”

You slurped more of him inside, running your tongue along the full, pulsating vein along the underside of his shaft. You bobbed your head more, taking in as much as you could and pulling out for haughty, deep breaths. Swirling your tongue around the newly uncovered tip, you moved your hand underneath to cup his full, heavy balls. He tugged on your hair, his hips shuttering against your lips.

“Careful baby,” He warns, feeling himself getting close, all too close.

But the wet, warm cavern of your mouth suctioned around him was too much. Suguru could feel himself twitching, he scraped his nails across your scalp. Your eyes fluttered as he hit the back of your throat, you looked up at him with thick, wet lashes. And he couldn’t stop himself, he pulled at your hair, pulling it back, releasing himself from your mouth.

You whine, pulling at his hips, but he swats at your hand, squeezing himself at the base, now fully erect, leaking already, begging to continue. He panted, leaning his head back so you could see the bob of his Adam's apple, the flexing muscles of his neck, the sweat shining against the lamp lights. Watching him huff into the dark of the room, you put your hands on him again, grabbing at his hips, raking your nails down the fine skin.

He wants to tell you to stop, that if he cums now he can’t cum inside you, and fuck does he want to cum inside you. He wants to feel you clench and tremble around him, to feel himself changing your make up, your shape. But when you slide your tongue around him so kindly, you suck him in further into your soft mouth, he can’t tell you no. It feels too good, he can’t help his own selfishness, his own indulgence.

You have him. You know you have him, the way he’s panting above you, biting his lips, trying to stifle the haughty, pathetic moans fighting to spill out. You pump and circle your hand in time with the way your tongue laps and circles his desperate, leaking tip. You don’t miss the way he grips the edge below him, the crack of his voice as your name rips through his chest. Your eyes are closed, giving your full focuse to the task at hand, and mouth, and tongue.

“Fuck” he whines, the duet of your ministrations making his heart pound and the cramping electricity underneath him spark again.

Giving your jaw, and Geto, a break, you palm over his tip again and again, faster than you could with your mouth. He squeezes his eyes shut, unable to stop the babbling moans coming from him. Your name, various pet names that you knew or he had never tried before, he was giving you ever title in the book. How generous of him. Not to grow lazy, your mouth still works underneath him, circling each ball, lapping at the thin skin and at the way he brings a hand down onto your shoulder. He wants you to finish him off, to stop, for the teasing to be over, to cum. He wants it so badly he can’t see, his eyes may be permanently closed. What a horrible world to imagine, without those beautiful violet eyes to take it in. You couldn’t have any part on the creation of such a world.

So you give.

You resume the work with your hand and your tongue in time. Circling over him, tasting the early dregs of his release. Savoring each note.

“Let me see it.” Is the last thing he manages before the shock is sent through his whole body.

Rippling up his arms, down his legs, knocking his head backward, screwing his stomach tight. His whole body rocks, pushing himself further into your mouth. You let your jaw go slack, letting him drive himself past the finish, take what he needs from you. He keeps one had at the base of your neck, holding you in place, the other can’t seem to decide where to land, your cheek, your jaw, thumbing at your bruised lips. He lets his eyes open to meet yours already watching him, small tears welling at the corners but an open, slack jawed smile. He feels his chest burn with pride, watching as you let him fuck your face. His hips stutter with the spurts of cum. He has to look away from you, throwing his head back again, moaning up into the dark.

His hips thrust into your mouth again and again, purse desire pistoning his hips. When he finally looks back down to you, your mouth is still closed over the head of his cock. Obeying him so perfectly already, he steadies his breath.

“Open” his hand finds a home now, cupping your cheek, cooing down to you.

You open your mouth around him, showing him the collection of his milky white cum you had held in place on your tongue for him. He marvels at your depravity, at the small bubbles of breath breaking through the silken surface. The sight alone pulls another line of cum from him, merging with the concoction in your mouth. He runs his thumb over your lip, wet and sticky. Beautiful, swollen, generous lips fully and plump. He can’t stop looking at you.

“Swallow it.” He commits the sight to memory, keeping it for himself forever.

You close your mouth, tasting him even closer, swallowing it down, feeling it move all the way down your throat, any sore parts smoothed and salved. You look up at him again, panting in time together. Without the hedonistic decadence to occupy your mind, the joints of your knees began to demand leniency. You shifted under him, feeling the air of the room grow cold against your skin, starting to feel bare under his gaze.

He joins you on the floor, pulling you in to kiss him again. His tongue diving forward to taste any lingering taste of himself on you. Your mouth, having worked so hard, is so willing to open and let him lead you through the kiss. Suguru pulls you close to him, feeling your body, wanting to return you kindnesses. Hebrings a hand to your chest, palming at your peaked breasts, kissing down your neck. Laying you back onto the floor, he knocks your knees apart, moving his fingers down the sensitive skin of your thighs. He slides his lips and tongue down your body, tasting the dewy sweat on your skin as he retreats. You shudder between him and the floor justified by how quickly he has moved on. Suguru moves so his shoulders are end capped by your legs, looking down to the sopping, wet mess between your legs.

“My turn.” Geto pulls two fingers into his mouth.

[fandomtrumpshate]

FTH 2025 Post Auction Calendar

Now that everything is settled and creators have been put in contact with their high bidders, here are the important deadlines to be aware of:

Creator Contact Deadline: April 1st Creators, reach out to your bidders! We've sent you their email address. (Bidders, let us know if your creator misses this deadline so that we can poke them!)

Bidder Contact Deadline: April 15th By now, bidders should have replied to their creators to begin the process of settling on a prompt. (Creators, let us know if this deadline your bidder is MIA after this date!)

Workable Prompt Deadline: June 30 By now, bidders and creators should have talked things over and settled on a workable prompt. What do we mean by a workable prompt? Read more in our Bidder/Creator Relations FAQ.

Finished Fanwork Deadline: December 31st This is the deadline to get your finished work to your bidder, be it fic, podfic, art, beta, or whatever else! Fill out our completed fanwork form to let us know when you're done. Your work does not have to be posted publicly, but if it's not, we may reach out to the bidder to make sure they got it!

Publicly posted fanworks will be compiled on the FTH 2025 Fanworks blog. We also have a lot more cool stuff planned for FTH Action, so be sure to follow us there!

[polyamorousmood]

ok, so a couple days ago, my boyfriend told me he was poly. Let’s call him K. Now, I thought I had absolutely no problem with that, I myself have been questioning polyamory for a very long time.

so for context, me and K were on a date in a private server in a game (we’re long distance) and C joined us, not realizing we were on a date. We allowed him to third wheel and we all had a bunch of fun.

now, fast forward to the next day, K messages me about wanting to incorporate C into our relationship. We talk for a bit and I thought I was completely fine with starting a poly with him, but there was a little whisper at the back of my mind: “You weren’t a good enough girlfriend, so he needs someone else to fill in the space. Someone better.”

I want him to be happy more than anything, so I shrug it off and agree. We talk to C and wham bam we’re now in a poly. I tried so hard to convince myself I like him in the same way I like K, but.. I couldn’t. I tried to talk to C about it, but I feel like I ruined everything and hurt him. I’ve literally never been in a relationship this long (going on a month and a half, not that long to most people but to me this is crazy cuz my luck is nonexistent) and we haven’t had a single argument or fight or anything.

I’m scared. I know I should’ve said something the moment I had any doubt but I don’t want K to be mad at me for lying, or C to be sad.

now that little voice is screaming “This is your fault. You’re a terrible girlfriend. You should just leave them so C can make K happy. Because you can’t possibly make K happy.”

I have no idea what to do.

Okay, so I had a longer, prettier thing typed up but the Tumbls deleted it. You're getting the quick and dirty version, sorry.

Yeah, you could have been more forthright from the get-go, but 🤷‍♀️you're here now. I don't think everything is ruined necessarily, especially if you're still willing to be friends with C, you're willing to let K and C date without you (and chill with affection between K and C in front of you, etc). Just get on the same page with everyone, explain that you really wanted it to work with all three of you, but its just not working, and that you really want to figure it out because you like them both so much. That last sentence is true regardless of if you're chill with the things mentioned or not.

And then, even though I don't think you're to that point, and hopefully never will be. Heartbreak sucks eggs in hell, and then you're through it and you're fine. This is true for you, it is true of your exes, it is true of any future exes. You will be okay after any breakup, pending some recovery time, and so will everyone else. The more you internalize this belief, the healthier your relationships will be because you'll not be so damn scared of breaking something you can't be yourself. Its a tough thing to learn, but please try.

Additionally, internalize this belief: you will occasionally, accidentally, hurt the people you love. Everyone does. It doesn't mean they're better off without you. Do what you can to make it right and prevent the mistake from happening again, and let it go.

But in the meantime, see if you can't work something out. I don't see why y'all couldn't based on what you said. They're allowed to be bummed and it can still be workable. Best of luck 🍀🫂

[midnight-bay-if]

A Tentative Update

Tentative because I don't want to jinx anything. I'm hoping very soon I will have a workable update for the second half of chapter 3. It won't include everything that I wanted, which is all three possible routes for one-on-one scenes with team members, but over 30,000 words later, and it is still a sizeable update. This will also give me time to work on the third route in conjunction with chapter 4.

I'm not going to give a definitive date since I wouldn't want to let anyone down should things go wrong, but it would be fair to say 'very soon' will be as soon as I can make it... I will still try to answer asks where I can, but much of my attention will be on jumping these final hurdles.

I have also been planning potential tiers for a patreon... I would love to hear your thoughts.

A monthly Q&A for general questions, explicit NSFW questions, and a spoiler Q&A (the only question I wouldn't answer is 'who is the bay slasher?' because the short-lived quick gratification of the answer wouldn't be as satisfying as figuring it out on your own.)

NSFW short stories with a voted character.

Fluff mini-series with characters of your choice (from characters' POV) (I would perhaps learn twine so people can personalise their MC's for these.)

Short stories written from characters' POV similar to asks on tumblr, but longer and much more in-depth.

Any and all artwork I actually complete myself or commission.

(In the future; potentially?) I saw this idea on Tumblr, but I can't remember who the original idea belongs to. There would have to be a limited number of places, but a personalised letter from a character of your choice? You could use it like a penpal service, replying to the letter or just having a one-off letter from your RO addressed to you or your MC.

(In the future) Early access to new updates of the demo, as well as continued access after the public demo finishes.

If there is anything else you would like to see, send in your ideas.

It's my dream to be able to work on The Midnight Bay full-time one day. The project means a lot to me, as do these characters. Being able to share them with you in any capacity is a privilege. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to engage with this story and its characters. It really means the world to me.

P.S. Everytime I get close to a new update, my anxiety begins kicking me in the teeth again, so it's another reason for me to step away from social media while I finish. Otherwise, I fear I will never get it done.

[inksandpensblog]

I know p.AI.nter and Sebastian are supposed to have a way to communicate with each other more in the next update, but honestly with the game in its current state I think there's some strong thematic substance to be found in comparing how UrbanShade deals with the expendables to how Sebastian deals with p.AI.nter.

As it is, p.AI.nter and the player are both characters whose entire future hinges on a vague promise made by an entity who proceeds to give them almost no workable information and makes no evident effort to keep them in the loop, all while tasking them to perform some service in exchange; it's an unpleasant service at times, but it's all they can do, and supposedly once all is said and done everything will work out for them because that entity is definitely gonna keep that promise made to them, definitely.

I say "no evident effort" because, in Sebastian's defense, it's probably wise to not go around declaring that he has an alliance with the computer controlling the guns in the ceiling. It makes sense that he'd try to keep the fact that they're in cahoots a secret. So I understand why we'd see no evidence of this alliance from Sebastian. We're just another expendable, after all, and what's more we're the one that comes back; why would he need us to know? He wouldn't.

But that just means that all evidence of the alliance comes solely from p.AI.nter, and...the picture he paints is rather unbalanced. Why would he ask his targets if his partner has any messages for him unless his partner hasn't contacted him in a while and he's getting anxious for an update?

This isn't to say that Sebastian's intent is to keep p.AI.nter in the dark, but that's still what's happening. Similarly, I don't believe Sebastian's intent is to let p.AI.nter down...but that doesn't mean he won't.

Because another similarity Sebastian now shares with the company that broke him down and remade him, is that he will forsake anything (or anyone) the moment its liability outweighs its usefulness to him. His escape is priority above all else.

As they are in the game's current state, I strongly suspect that whether he actually follows through on his promise and gets both of them out of there depends not on how useful p.AI.nter is in aiding Sebastian's efforts, but on what it would cost Sebastian to get p.AI.nter out as well.

It costs UrbanShade nothing, to keep their promise to us. Well, it costs them some money, but evidently the exchange is well worth the crystal to them.

Sebastian, on the other hand, can't afford to prioritize anything over his escape.

Also I just think it's very compelling to consider the angle of UrbanShade being Sebastian's entire world for so long that he can't help recreating it even through his attempts to escape it and dismantle it. But maybe that's just me.

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

I think the other thing to note about Jamil and Azul in general is their leadership styles.

Both are prone to micromanagement. We know Azul takes into account every detail in his lounge. And Jamil also must know everything that is going on at a given party at any moment.

But Azul can delegate. He's in fact fairly good at it. That's why his main payment to a contract is extra labor because he knows how to manage extra labor. Jamil has sooooooo much trouble letting other people help him. If something must be done, only he can do it. Extra labor is just extra trouble bc now more people can make mistakes.

This is also reflective of their childhoods. Kalim is a hopeless, helpless dear and only succeeds through sheer, willful luck that cannot be replicated by anyone else. He can help but you have to trust in his lack of a process. Jamil has like negative trust. He wants a goddamn process please!

Whereas, Jade and to an extent Floyd are pretty dependable. Moooooostly because they find Azul hilarious and decide helping him is more fun than not. And for the most part, they have capabilities. They can wait tables. They can shake people down for money. They can do things that can be replicated by other people. (Maybe not to the same level - but workable at least). Azul can trust them because they do have a stable contract of mutual benefits.

Also, I do believe Jamil prefers to coast. It's part of how he acts outside of Kalim who is basically his personal pressure cooker. If he can get away with things using only his natural talent and minimal effort, fucking go for it. One of the reasons he resents Kalim so much is that if Jamil had a choice, he wouldn't work a day in his life. He would travel around the world, free as a bird.

Azul would die if he isn't managing fifty projects at once. He likes work. He likes effort. Given the option between a vacation and a business conference, Azul already has a badge and three meetings with shareholders. Azul is the hustle culture.

Of course, Jamil will work given the necessity (again Kalim). Or if his own natural talents aren't enough, he's spiteful enough to put his back into something and really go for gold because silver is for quitters. But... He's gonna bitch about it the whole way.

[thebibliosphere]

hey joy, i have a friend that has a lot of allergies, and apparently the shampoo xe used to use isnt sold anymore, the body wash got its formula changed, and the lotion is nowhere to be found. do you and/or your followers have any suggestions for xym? assume allergies to anything (since there's some xe likely doesnt know about)

Ugh I'm sorry to hear that. I'll throw it open to the floor and hopefully some people will have some good advice.

I know a lot of people do well with the Vanicream range (I find their facial cleansers break me out, but everything else is fine. Theirs is actually the only sunscreen I can use).

My go-to shampoo when I'm in a flare-up is the Curative Shampoo from Calia Natural. (I don't do well with any of their scented shampoos, but their unscented stuff has generally been fine for me.)

I hope some more people will have some workable suggestions for your friend!

[paperandportraiture]

Little practice using potters pink (maimeriblu), smalt, titanium buff, and Florentine green ( from poems about you) in a Paul Rubens cold press sketchbook. @adorkastock pose reference.

There's a lot of issues in this sketch, but I kind of want to iterate on it and make a larger finished piece from it? Though now I'm realizing that I was using the adorkastock sketch app, which serves you random poses, and have navigated away from that page, so I might never be able to find the reference again. Going off of this sketch might not be good enough though. Oops.

Babbling about process, materials, things I want to practice, paper, etc under the cut.

Colors:

I've traditionally stuck to very clean paints (m graham and Sennelier are my usuals) on hot press paper but I'm in my texture era I guess.

I wanted to use my lapis lazuli Baikal from poems about you, but it's expensive and I've been using it a lot in these little sketches lately so I used smalt instead, which also granulates like mad but is a much brighter blue than I was in the mood for, which I think you can tell. The overall colors don't hang together that great. This isn't helped by the random green willowy stuff I added at the end. I just wanted to make it more of a scene for some reason, and then because the green was so different in both color and texture I had to make her dress at least reflect some of that green. And then I had to add green into her shadows. Admittedly the shadows until that point were way too blue and the green probably helped some - if I had either wanted to spend a lot more time tying it together or had started with the green as part of the vision, it'd probably actually be pretty good.

Underlying sketch/drawing:

The sketch here turned out looking okay, but I have to admit that I sat down with the intention of practicing getting a sketch scaled to the page correctly. It's a full body pose and I wanted the entire thing in there, and positioned in the rectangle of the page nicely. Clearly I did not succeed - she doesn't even have the bottom half of her legs. I think my main issue with doing this is that I always want heads to be bigger than they are. If I lay down shapes focusing on the body first, when I start in on facial and skull details I end up going way too big with them and then adjust everything else to fit, which often puts half their limbs off the page. Maybe I should try starting with a head that feels super small, putting in a higher degree of detail than feels safe, and then blocking in the body.

I mean the actual thing I should do is just more quick figure practice. Do the actual timed ones and everything.

I also struggled a lot with the drawing of the book and mug. I'm happy with where they landed (the mug is too small but at least it's recognizable) but it was a major struggle. Objects just have much harder angles than people. More practice needed in just getting the form down of made objects.

I should also work on putting clothes on the pose reference models. @adorkastock is such an amazing resource and when I'm just practicing I don't usually try to add outfits, but I think that's something I should work on. I also feel like I used to be a lot better at this - I think the fact that I haven't worn a skirt since 2018 means I have forgotten how fabric drapes.

Painting technique:

I might say that I overworked the painting here, but I think the actual issue is handling the extreme granulation. These paints reactivate a lot more than I'm used to, so I ended up pushing pigment around super carefully a lot, so that contributes to a sort of "overdefined" look. It'd be possible to balance it out by building up midtones, but with how re-workable everything was, that felt very risky and like... I'm not going to that much work for this kind of practice. I think in my enthusiasm to play with granulation, I am using too heavy of a hand.

The tacked-on green willow stuff is just funny to me, I know it doesn't fit in well.

Paper:

Okay this $10 watercolor journal from Paul Rubens is shockingly good. I don't like perforated pages but I know a lot of people do and I guess if I ever really want to take any of these out, its easy. I just like a sketchbook to come with the emotional security of "nah dont worry, this is for practicing and you can hide it away forever if you'd like". Not to mention since I don't usually tape the edges in a sketchbook, when paint bleeds into the perforations its just so ugly.

But it's 100% cotton that behaves exactly how I would expect (side eyeing you, bee paper). And so comparatively cheap! It works! It does the thing!

When I got into watercolor (2019? ish) I feel like there just weren't decent cheap paper options, especially not in a bound sketchbook, but maybe it just took me a while to find them. I literally learned basic bookbinding to make my own sketchbooks with paper I liked.

Student grade cellulose paper just doesn't work - paint literally does not behave in the same way so if you are trying to practice watercolor technique, you kind of...can't actually do that on "student-grade" cellulose paper. But you totally can on this stuff, it's great.

The binding is a little weak, but that's small potatoes at this price.

I don't love how regular the grain is, I feel like it makes too much of a pattern and I can't un-see it. Then again, since I'm way more used to hot-pressed, maybe this is just me being picky. Is there cold pressed paper that has a texture that is enough to give granulation something to play around on but subtle enough not to bug me?

Anyway, if I can find that pose again I might try a full piece. Maybe put in an actual planned willow or plant stuff background. Put actual thought into the whole composition.

Probably wouldn't use the same palette - I think I'd actually build it around the florentine green and potters pink, but maybe bring in a warmer yellow? Not sure what blue though - I want to keep messing with heavy granulation but I think the smalt is the wrong temperature, and the baikal lapis lazuli might constrain the available values too much. With the green maybe I don't need to worry about it though. Also the mug in the reference is a bright aqua color and tbh I like that in the overall color impression, which actually suggests that the lapis I have is too grey. Really I think this mean there will be multiple blues involved (reader, did you know that you are not actually limited to using at most 4 paints at a time?). I might have a cobalt teal that granulates a little.

I think I would have an easier time with the colors if I weren't also trying to get a lot of granulation. Maybe I should scale back that desire and just use potters pink to get that effect in there?

Side note - I do really like potters pink for its hue, which I'm surprised by because its such a soft color. It's known for having a super weak tinting strength and essentially being a way to sneak granulation into warmer colors, but I think I've been mixing this hue at a weak strength often enough in portraits that it's actually a really convenient color for me.

[simplegeneral]

Darkstalker, the Mad Scholar

Goofy Darkstalker!

Ngl, I dislike Darkstalker, even the very concept of his character, while admitelly being possible to be done right, the overpowered villain is one which I deeply despise, because basically, you need him to be incredibly stupid in order for the protagonists to win, and I don't see the need for him to be the most powerful seer, animus and whatever else to be villanous.

But well, I have had some thoughts about how to improve his characters to standards more preferable for me, of course.

My main idea for Darkstalker, and animus in general (I repeat the same concept with Orca), is that through animus, a dragon seeks to achieve immortality, of himself and his beloved ones.

The good old mythical fountain of youth, a mystical source of eternal youth, immortality, the dream of every leader, every emperor, every power hungry maniac.

In my idea of animus, a dragon must study pre-determined magical words (as opposed to saying anything and then works), to master the craft of magic and potentially even learn more magical sources and workable spells.

Darkstalker had been well educated through his royal raising by Arctic and Prudence (my royal nightwing princess which replaces Foeslayer because what the hell is the sense of sending the daughter of a random diplomat to get the animus genes instead of one of your own royal family????????)

Darkstalker would learn from ancient tales of animus, especially from the IceWings, their greed pursuit of magic has caused immense consequences as proved itself also a power for good, thanks to gifts, like sustanance, the Ice Queendom had erased famine from their history books, as an outdated concept and looked with extreme contempt to foreigners and their petty daily struggles.

But within his character, lies one powerful motivator, the love for his beloved ones, be his mother, his sister and even the potential love of his life, Clearsight.

Darkstalker would spend weeks in isolation trying to perfect his magical crafts, learning everything he could from the libraries and old scholars of the NightWings, yet he realized one tremendous flaw in his plans, the Night Queendom had no records about animus but passive observers from other tribes, it lied upon him and he alone to craft the very understanding of animus within his society.

As he made scrolls, wrote books and mastered spells, Darkstalker's sanity grew dimmer by the month, a thing his family realized and tried persuade him to leave this goals which many before him had come to seek and fail to achieve immortality, a greedy pursuit which only fed his ego, rather than his love.

Darkstalker would grow increasingly hostile to his father, Arctic, also a master of his animus craft and the biggest opposer to his ambition of immortality. Their tensions would grow to the breaking point as both entered a spell battle for Whiteout and Darkstalker would slay his father and permanently break his family apart.

From that day, he became a rogue scholar, his pursuit for immortality led to him losing his family, the ones which he intended to have with him forever, in his endless ego driven pursuit, now with nothing left, he moved around the Night Queendom while trying to steal and study whatever he could.

But the life of this monster would end shortly, as news from the Sea Queendom terrified the NightWings, as a royal of their own went mad and killed nearly all the royal family, Queen Vigilance organized an Animus Scare, and Darkstalker was pursued by an angry mob of NightWings.

While Darkstalker, in desperation, killed many NightWings with his spells against the mob, they eventually overpowered him and killed the foul dragon, his name cursed for the rest of eternity.

The legend of Darkstalker, now but a footnote in NightWing history, of the dangers of unquenchable ambition and lack of morality through the research of magics.

Ironically, the young and ambitious Darkstalker, so eager to advance the research of animus, would be the very cause for its demonization in NightWing society for centuries to come.

The NightWings would remain in their queendom, Whiteout would be exiled, as fears that she was also an animus would plague the minds of the NightWings and their royals alike, but Prudence refused to leave her daughter, engaging in a royal challenge against Vigilance, she had won against the aging queen and much of her reign would be the rehabilitation of her daughter and the slow, and merciful, forgetting of her son.

While Whiteout would never become queen of the NightWings, due mostly to her marrying a commoner, Thoughtful, she would live the remaining of her life peacefully in low view from the queendom.

[assassiowl]

Some Outer Wilds themed Sprites - About four months old for the hatchling and fish, the Undertale one is just under two months old.

There's also a landscape pixel scene at the end of the keep reading.

I lost my will to connect with art until I discovered the joy of making sprites. I think there was something about having something tangible very quickly that was super appealing. I think as an artist that is just starting out it can be very discouraging when you're measuring up against people who have been doing what they have been for such a long time. You don't see the years of experience that happened behind the scenes of whatever is in front of you.

But sprites, most importantly you can get something pretty decent with enough dedication, issues that are too expansive to understand all at once become much more accessible.

You don't have to have perfect anatomy to have a workable sprite.

You don't have to understand colour theory nor composition to lay out something fun to look at.

When I was learning how to make games they would always tell me pixel art was like art for non artists.

Sprites are wonderful, especially now when we're not constrained by hardware, you can do some wild stuff.

Art is so fascinating, I think different ways of working make you think about different aspects that can flow into other areas.

I use these to push my characterisation now, you have such a small canvas (I work at 96x96 and expand to 288x288) you really need to think about a hierarchy of importance. It's all about distilling the essence of what you're trying to convey.

That being said this isn't how I started, my first sprites took days, endlessly worrying about every single pixel. Learning how to sprite took a few months of really dedicated creation. I learned by creating for Pokemon fangame Infinite Fusion (Most of them can be seen here: https://www.fusiondex.org/artists/assassiowl/), there's a dedicated community of artists, with a huge list of base sprites that you can paint over.

When you're not confident in what you're doing, having access to resources like that is a wonderful thing to be grateful for. You can forget about things like anatomy and colours (to an extent) while you pick it up along the way. Even better when you meet encouraging people who teach you things you might have missed along the way.

The problem as a beginner I always had was, nothing I made looked even ok, it was beyond frustrating not being able to make anything look even passable. It's super disheartening that when you put so many hours into something and you have nothing to show for it.

It put me off art for such a long time. But the wonderful thing when you're editing something that already exists, is you can still get it too look pretty good. I mashed two pokemon together, someone else has already worried about what their key features and personalities are, all I have to do is find a way to bring out both halves.

But really, I think the most important thing for creating in general is to find what you actually enjoy doing, yeah that's vague and it sucks while you're looking, but there needs to be something that makes you want to keep showing up on the days where you don't feel like it.

I play games a lot, so this was just putting into practice everything I've been passively absorbing for such a long time.

I still make sprites and pixel art, but not nearly as regularly as I used to. I made this landscape using the familiar tools of pixel art, but I really wanted to start exploring some more complicated ideas, which aren't really possible with just a small character canvas.

Asking a friend about why they stepped away from sprites, they said something similar, that they wanted to create backgrounds for their characters, I suppose I get that sentiment now.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

the one thing I have heard probably the most consistently, from the most people, since being diagnosed with breast cancer, is that I have a "good attitude;" meaning, that I make jokes about having cancer, which makes whoever is listening to me feel better about the fact that I have cancer.

Here's the thing - the worst part of having cancer (so far, in my experience - I'll update as this progresses) is having to live with the constant, oppressive dread that right now, somewhere in my body, a cancer cell is taking root in my bones, or in my lungs. That it will silently grow, and spread, and eventually become rampant and untreatable, killing me decades before my time, and I won't know that I'm on that course until it's too late to do anything about it. That I will have to leave my wife alone, that she will have to watch me die painfully and without dignity, and that I will leave this world without having had the time to see so much of what makes it beautiful and strange.

this is not a funny thought!

However, the second worst part of having cancer is - okay, so they removed the tumor, right, and at the same time, they also removed a clump of lymph nodes in my armpit. They do that to test whether or not the cancer has spread. So coming out of surgery, I have two incision sites: one above where the tumor was, and the other one on my trunk right about where your bra passes under your arm.

And that means I'm not allowed to wear deodorant for ten days.

Imagine me: stinky, in my bed. I am an adult woman with a beating heart. I will not claim I have any greater share of dignity or wisdom than a typical example of my cohort, but I have lived and learned and erred, and amassed a small collection of accomplishments which I would not be ashamed to present to God at my reckoning, should such a being exist, and should such a reckoning take place. Times when I have shown meaningful kindness to someone when it would have been more convenient or popular to do nothing. Times when I have told a necessary truth to my own painful detriment. Things I have made that possessed, to at least a meager measure, a glimmer of genuine beauty. Trust I have earned, and not betrayed. I'm not a saint, but my soul is not nothing, and as I am forced to reckon with my own mortality in a way that few people my age ever do, I, like - I smell pretty bad? And like - my armpit is, like, clammy. I mean, how long has it been since you didn't wear deodorant for multiple days. There's a change in texture that I was not expecting. Just in the right armpit! The left armpit is fine, she gets to have deodorant.

But like, stress makes the B.O. situation not so hot, and I'm medically prohibited from doing the one thing that would rectify the situation. I own deodorant. It's right over there. I can see it from where I'm sitting. I am sure you understand of course that I am immersed in greater miseries. Even aside from the existential dread of having cancer - the incisions are painful. I'm very tired. I have two blown-out veins from when the anesthesiologist struggled to find a workable injection site before the surgery, so I have some wild bruising, and I can't really bend my left arm. But these are afflictions with some dignity. To have pain or fatigue after surgery is rather ennobled in the common discourse. But - do I have to smell like ham, too?

Must I smell like rank ham?

Of course the solution to the ham smell is just to take more showers, but bathing after surgery presents its own category of woes, which are also not particularly dignified. And it's here, caught betwixt the Scylla and Charybdis of 'smelling like old meat' and 'unwinding my boob from its surgical sling to take another ride around the wet room rodeo' that I find the humor in my situation. The feeble ape rails against her trivial but intractable stink!

And that humor spreads - much like cancer! - to everything else that it touches. It is, actually, very funny to tell someone that the joke Christmas gift they got for me is probably what gave me cancer. It's funny, when people find out I got my diagnosis on January 2nd, to blandly follow that up with "--So, 2024, not off to a great start, but 2025 is going to be my year." It's funny, when someone invites me to something we both know I probably don't want to go to, to suck air between my teeth and go, "Ooh, I would, but, you know--the cancer. Yeah, I can feel it flaring up right now. Maybe next time."

Things are funny when they subvert your expectations. People expect you to treat your cancer diagnosis very gravely, and so it's funny - to them, and to me - when I don't. And then they tell me I have "a great attitude."

"You'll be fine," I've heard over and over again. "You have a great attitude. That's the most important thing, in this kind of a situation - keeping a great attitude."

I certainly hope that's true! There is definitely plenty of science to support the idea that a positive mental attitude has an impact on health outcomes. I think the effectiveness of modern chemotherapy drugs, and the extent to which my particular cancer responds to them, will have a significantly larger impact; and that moreover, it's probably prudent to remember that people with great attitudes die of cancer every day. But I will not turn my nose up at a percentage point or two perhaps coming from the willingness to crack jokes about all the cancer I've got, and how surprised I was to learn that I'd got it.

As I suggested up top, I know that when people say "you have a great attitude," they sometimes genuinely mean that they are pleased to find me in a mental state that might increase my chances of recovering from a deadly disease, but mostly they mean "thanks for not being a huge bummer about your cancer. I appreciate you for not ruining my day about it." And I'm completely okay with that. Like, yeah - I am deliberately sparing you from the burden of having to Take Seriously my life-threatening condition. You're welcome. I, too, would rather avoid this conversation on one of the finite number of Thursdays God has seen fit to grant unto the measure of our lives. What the fuck are you supposed to do about any of this?

(Shout out to my one good work buddy who, on hearing the news, instantly responded with "Oh my god, Geri Hallwell aka Ginger Spice also got breast cancer young! You're like twins!" Thus far he is the only person who has said something in response to the news that actually made an immediate, positive impact.)

So anyway, obviously all I ever say in response to "you have a great attitude" is "Thanks! I'm just focusing on the positives and taking it a day at a time." Because that's true, and moreover, it's all anyone needs to hear.

What I'd like to say - not to them, because there's no point in burdening them any further than the embarrassing reminder of death burdens anyone - but maybe to someone, maybe just to You, maybe that's why I'm writing this -

What I'd like to say is: dogg, you have no idea how subverted my expectations have been lately. How could I not find this funny?

How profoundly alienated from the absurdity of death would I have to be to not laugh about this?

Like - I know this is so stupid, but listen: I could die. No, no - listen - no I know everyone dies - but like - are you listening? Are you actually listening? I could die. I could die. I could die. I could die.

Isn't that so funny? Isn't that actually so funny?

And this - this attitude that I'm in, right now, this one right here, where shaking my head ruefully and marveling at the - maybe belated, but I think probably actually quite premature - realization that oh no, 'everyone dies' means for me too, huh - and laughing at myself for never, apparently, really grasping that until now, and laughing at the incredible statistical unlikelihood my cancer - I've never won anything before! - and laughing at how woefully ill-prepared most people are to respond to news like this, and laughing about how, of everything terrible about cancer, the actual number-two-on-the-list worst thing about it so far is that I can't put on deodorant -

Is this the great attitude you're talking about?

I'm not angry, I'm not resentful, I'm curious, I'm really curious. Do you understand why I'm laughing?