#purposefully ambiguous

[ultravioletbrit]

“friend” - Jegulus microfic - @into-the-jeggyverse - 245 words

Regulus is standing on James’ front steps nervously fidgeting with the hem of his jumper. He wasn’t really thinking when he decided to come to James’; he didn’t really decide at all, he just started walking and this is where he ended up.

He could have gone to Barty and Evan’s. He could have gone to Pandora. Hell, he could have even gone to Sirius’. But he ended up at James’.

After standing in front of his door for far too long, he finally knocks. His heart immediately starts racing and he turns around to try and get his breathing under control. It’s probably only seconds, but it feels like an eternity before he hears the door open.

“Regulus?” James asks.

Regulus takes a deep breath before turning around. He stares at James and James stares back. Regulus furrows his eyebrows and purses his lips to the side and doesn’t really know what to say as he continues to fidget with his jumper.

“Regulus?” James asks again. “Are you okay?”

Regulus shrugs his shoulders the slightest bit. “I don’t know.” He says and it’s barely a breath.

“Okay… Come here.” James reaches a hand out and Regulus takes it. James slowly pulls him inside and wraps his arms around him, and Regulus melts into the hug. “What’s wrong?” James asks and Regulus shakes his head without lifting it from James’ chest.

“I just needed a friend.” Regulus whispers and James’ arms tighten around him. “And you give the best hugs.”

[tritoch]

this will forever be the funniest moment in final fantasy xiv to me. you are a bright young officer of the globe-spanning evil empire. over the last few months you've watched the entire empire crumble from the edges inward after the former crown prince killed his father and seized the throne so he could redirect the state toward his own occult ends. you have witnessed unbelievable horrors. you had to kill your own family. finally, you get a chance to stand across from the man who caused all this and ask: why? what was it all for?

and he goes, uh, because i wanted to, dipshit? that's literally the only reason anyone does anything? fuck, you're stupid. if you don't believe me ask literally anyone else. or even like an alien. they'll tell you they do whatever they want for the specific reasons they made up. and like that's literally fine we're all just doing what we want for the cool made-up reasons we each picked.

then a teenager roasts him and he vanishes from history forever. you were probably the last of your countrymen to ever see or speak to him, the man who burned down everything you knew and loved for nothing at all. and like the second to last thing he ever said to you, right between imparting his existentialist philosophy and threatening to kill you, was that aliens are real. he didn't even pause, just said "go ask an alien" and went on with his speech like aliens existing was a baseline assumption everyone could agree on.

[allgremlinyaps]

not nearly enough South Pole vacay content imo.

[arqdyke]

speedran a comic for a weeklong challenge! started 30/1, finished 4/2. yay <3 id in alt text!

[televisionenjoyer]

"real people can't queerbait" is in my opinion an insane statement to make regarding a celebrity culture that normalized dating people for PR publicity eons ago.

[anxious-witch]

- Caitlyn Siehl, Literary Sexts: A Collection of Short & Sexy Love Poems

[televisedanime]

Can't keep myself from coming back.

[write-like-wright]

I'm constantly baffled at the lack of character x reader content in this fandom. You could probably argue it's because character x character ships are very popular, but that doesn't really seem like an issue in other fandoms where shipping is also popular.

Everyone in this game is built like an underwear model and breasts boobily down the stairs at any given chance, but it somehow doesn't seem to translate into x reader or x oc fanwork. I don't really see any in the tags since I stopped posting my bs and I don't get why.

Like is it the age of the games? Lack of new fans or general lack of fan interest? Everyone I know in this fandom is horny as hell, and yet no one is channeling that into fics about ******* Blackquill's **** for example and that confounds me.

[sapphuric-acid]

Of course they have blue hair and pronouns

[turntech-fuckedinthehead]

mommy kink dave and big bro kink rose getting confused during sex i beg of thee

This is literally all I could imagine

[celeluwhenfics]

Poll: Is Éomer lying?

At the end of Chapter 3 in pHORSEuasion, Éomer says that he believed that it was Éowyn sitting in the hall with Théoden and Gríma. Rowena accepts that explanation without questioning it, which is a wise choice for her peace of mind and sanity.

But do you the reader think he's telling the truth?

-Yes, he's telling the truth. He only realized that it was Rowena when he came close and he stopped as soon as he was aware of his mistake;

-He's telling a partial truth, he saw that it wasn't Éowyn when he passed the door but he rushed in and yelled anyway (why, do you think?). He only admitted his mistake after the deed was done (why?);

-No, he's lying, he saw Éowyn outside and/or someone (who?) told him Rowena was inside. He entered the hall fully aware of who he would find there, and intending (or not?) to lie about his knowledge of it (again, why?)

[measureyourlifeincake]

interview with the vampire is wild because it'll have you looking at the protag's two main love interests like "this one is an absolute piece of shit motherfucker and i want him decapitated and set aflame but this one is my beautiful babygirl who can do wrong" and they're both objectively terrible and abusive

[the-great-lolita]

So many of the age headcanon posts keep saying that Papyrus's Undernet username 'implies that he is in his early 20's'- mf his username is CoolSkeleton95, that has literally nothing to do with being 20 lmfao

[yiptsu]

hypothetically, if Nightmare wanted to brag about his gang to someone and show off one of the members, who would that be?

pls also reblog for sample size or whatever :3

[itsalwaysforyou]

the black sky and all those lights

a silly little something i wrote for jalentines!!

When Mal opens the dormitory door, Jay is standing in the hallway in his workout gear, hair tied up in a bun. He’s already grinning in that way he does when he wins a fight. Mal rolls her eyes at him. Grabbing her bag, she says bye to Evie, and joins Jay in the corridor. 

She scowls as they walk, her workout clothes tight on her skin. Jay had insisted they’d do things properly, and not in their usual leather. 

The hallways are decorated for Valentine’s Day, making Auradon Prep even more gaudy and colourful as usual. Pink and red hearts plastered across the walls, boasting the abundance of love here in Auradon. Jay’s had a thousand notes in his locker. Mal’s had none. Every morning, she watches Jay approach his locker like he would a target on the Isle. Weight forward, shoulders squared; ready to fight if needs be. And the paper falls to the floor like blood, only sickly pastel. Scrawled glittery gel pen. Words confessing passionate love, or asking him on dates, or doodles of hearts. Jay smiles the whole time. Greets and winks at girls. Scrunches those notes up in a fist. 

“Everywhere looks disgusting,” Mal says as they approach the sports hall. Heart-shaped bunting crests the doors.

Jay holds the door open for her. “It’s fun.”

“You would think that.”

The sports hall is mercifully free of décor. They drop their bags in the corner and begin to warm up, another stupid practice Jay insists on. His top rides up as he side-stretches. Isle rule: never show skin, especially to the enemy. Except, Jay loved to parade around in those stupid sleeveless vests. She’s yelled at him plenty of times about it—Are you insane? You’re a walking target. He would just grin and say, they’ll have to catch me first.

Jay laughs as he grabs the practice swords from their stands. “Here.” 

He throws it, and Mal catches. The weight in her hand is familiar. Already, her pulse is thrumming faster, and maybe if she closes her eyes she’ll be back on the docks, with the wind ripping at her hair, and the salt stinging her nose, and half a dozen of Uma’s crew jeering over the clanging of swords. 

Jay chucks her a mask too, before attaching one to his own face. The mesh turns her vision slightly hazy.

“Ready?” Jay asks.

Mal’s watched fencing practise a few times, mostly as an excuse not to do homework and instead watch her boys wipe the floor with all those prissy Auradon princes. Coach Jenkins appointed Jay captain of the team a few months ago, a role he takes more seriously than she’s ever seen him take anything. 

“Rassembler! Salute! Lower the point. Masks down. En guarde!”

Mal lunges first, which Jay clearly anticipates, parrying her blow. He circles. Strikes. Mal blocks it. He’s quick. Reflexes honed to a sword’s point; learned by practise and theory. Mal lashes out again, just catching his free arm before he jerks away. She grins underneath her mask. Her breath comes quicker. Jay’s blade arcs down, hitting her chest. Mal swats his blade away. She hears him laugh. She growls. Strike. Parry. Strike. Block. Strike. Jay lands another hit. Their shoes squeak against the linoleum floor. 

“Come on, Mal,” Jay teases. 

Mal lunges like a cat on its prey. Jay’s blade grates against hers like steel against flint. Jay may be quick but Mal’s smaller, and she weaves her way through Jay’s blade until they both have the sword’s point angled at each other’s chests. 

They’re both panting. Jay lowers his sword first. Takes off his mask. 

“You came in clutch at the end,” he says. 

Mal huffs, wiggling the mask off her face and wiping her forehead with a sleeve. “You actually get training.”

“And now I’m training you!” 

His hair has loosened during the sparring, spilling out at the seams. He unties the bun; flips his hair down and shakes it out. In this late-afternoon light, his hair could be made of gold. Hair longer than Mal’s ever had. 

He pulls his hair back into its bun, deft fingers making quick work. When he straightens back up again, his face is slightly flushed from the match. 

And Mal looks at this boy she’s known most of her life; this face and these hands; a boy that has held her at the end of the world and the start of a new one. And she snatches back down her mask. 

“Again,” she says, lifting up her sword. 

She’s swinging before Jay’s even had the chance to pull his own mask back down. Her blade slices against his chest, and she hears the breath escape from his lungs. 

“Fuck!’

Jay’s blocking her hits in no time. Mal grits her teeth. A boy who’s inhabited every place she’s ever been. The shadow along the street; a fixed point on the rooftops. Those long, quick fingers that know their way around bandage; around open flesh; around her own hands. Like a comet to Earth. Like an eclipse. Totally consuming. 

And here, where the sun shines brighter than they could have ever dreamed, she is left blistering. Those girls that fawn over Jay, professing their love with the same ease that Mal can hold a dagger to a throat. Jay’s clicking tongue, and that low fry to his voice when he’s chatting someone up. Everything is always so easy to him. He can wrap anyone around his finger with a wink. 

His blade slams into her stomach. Mal pants, the budding pain in her side clearing her head. Jay’s standing above her like some heavenly deity. 

“Best of four?” he offers.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“C’mon. Let’s take a break.”

Jay drops his sword and grabs his water bottle from his bag. Mal joins him, still gripping her sword, gulping down her water like a man in a desert. 

“We should do this again soon,” Jay says. 

“Tomorrow?”

“It’s the Valentine’s Ball tomorrow.”

Mal snorts. “Yeah, and?”

“I was gonna go.”

His words are coming too slow; too considered. Like when he used to talk about his dad, or a particularly bad Barge Day. Rehearsed. A guard dog who’s smelled danger, prowling at the sidelines. 

Mal presents her blade. “En guarde!” she shouts, and Jay ducks her swing before scrambling over to his own sword. 

“Really, Mal? Another sneak attack?”

“I’m keeping you on your toes.”

They waltz around the sports hall, the blades clashing and slicing and singing.

“We all agreed we weren’t going to go to the Ball,” Mal says, jabbing at Jay.

“We never agreed anything.”

Jay lands a blow. They are at the dockyard, with its rotting wooden pier and dead fish stench. The screeching of metal; the shouting; Mal’s heart hammering like the tide. Blood, and life. The roar in her ears. A dragon’s call. Body moving without a thought, as quick as a lightning strike. Not having to look behind her because she knows Jay is there.

“Exactly!” she says. “Why would we want to go to some stuffy Auradon ball?” Jay tries to say something but she ignores him. “Why would we care about Valentine’s Day? It’s corny, and over-commercialised, and a stupid excuse to make everything about love.”

Jay has her backed up against a wall. With no time to mount his mask, his lips are slightly parted, and his hair is escaping from his bun again. He looks just like he did on the Isle; none of his perfect prince act that fools Auradon. His sword hovers above her throat. 

“Do you yield?” His voice is low.

Mal stares at him. Those eyes that have seen every part of her. All the blood; every smile; her pale skin in the dark Isle nights. The boy that has beheld her every action; weighed it all against his own understanding of the world, and decided that they slot together as easily as a bullet in a pistol.

“Who are you going with to the Ball?” Mal asks. She’s still clutching her sword. She could claim the upper hand, if she really wanted.

A grin creeps across Jay’s face. All those notes and heart-shaped lollipops. The giggling girls at his locker. He could pick any one of them. All of them so beautiful, in their sunset-coloured dresses. He could have anything he wanted.

“Well,” Jay says. “I was going to ask you.”

The sword’s point makes sure they keep their distance. Never too close. All touches so light; so fleeting, as if you could’ve mistaken them for a dream. As if you could’ve imagined the whole thing. All those nights in the hideout where the barrier of the body seemed thin, and the world became so small: just two kids who wouldn’t even dare knock knees. 

So Mal shakes it all away with a laugh. “I’m not going to the Valentine’s Ball.”

Jay lowers his blade. Neither of them move. “Not even with me?” 

“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other girls who actually want to go with you.”

“I want to go with you.”

His words echo through the empty hall. His word is as steadfast as ever, the only opinion Mal will ever trust. Compass, anchor: Jay does it all. 

Heralded here, Mal as real as the vast sky outside. Here, in his gaze, held aloft by trust where there shouldn’t be and compassion where there shouldn’t be and understanding where there shouldn’t be. A home for all her broken bones. 

Mal’s lips unfurl into a smile. This ache in her chest. In her throat. Jay always being able to disarm her. Jay in every place she’s ever been. Jay as her shadow; her skin; her second self. A reflection in the mirror. The line of separation is nonexistent. Like the sun, like the moon: one cannot exist without the other.

[pickyperkypenguin]

i've just listened to the black tapes podcast (2015-2017) and i kind of really liked it for what it did with the genre

also, apparently, the last episode went through the fandom like a bulldozer: i went through some discussions out of curiosity and seen that most people were screaming how this was the most unsatisfying ending they've ever encountered and also the implied romantic potential (or, some said, insta-romance) was just an insult to an injury

meanwhile, i: finally some fucking sane ending to a podcast like that

also... if one thinks what transpired between alex and richard was an acute case of insta-romance and overwhelming in its magnitude... i would suggest reading a book/consuming a medium that contains actual romantic story. no, mrvel movies do not count