#HOW? That's literally a point of angst in my swap au

[tinapaysmp]

S1E30, Scott's pov: How could I forget the turmoil and the insecurity that came from the Xornoth plot??? Ofc Scott would've blamed himself for his brother's doing! How could I've forgotten that?!

[wickjump]

i think people really sweep dream’s trauma under the rug wayyy too much to focus on nightmare’s. NOT to say his trauma is invalid but Dream definitely had it worse did you know that he wasn’t asleep when he was in stone. for like those 500 years he wasn’t asleep.

like he could sense stuff. think a coma patient who can hear and feel the outside world despite not being able to move or function. sure he probably slept the time away but imagine how traumatizing.

AND THEN he had to fight a war in which his BROTHER NOW KILLS PEOPLE and he is desperately trying to save his brother because he knows nightmare isn’t like this, his big brother is sweet and kind and he’d never do something like this, and he just doesn’t understand and he wants his family back, but all his hope repeatedly gets stomped on because his brother tries to kill him and the team he conjured up like on the daily, and dream’s awakening LITERALLY turned nightmare’s one goal into killing him because of his soul that he wants to take to destroy all positivity in the world (sorry chat the balance isn’t real and if anything nigjtmare is the one fucking it up).

NOT TO MENTION that dream is CONSISTENTLY DRAINED because there are BARELY ANY POSITIVE UNIVERSES in the WHOLE MULTIVERSE. think of more than 2 total positive aus out there. classic/swap aus don’t count because undertale is inherently a depressing game and thousands of genocide timelines exist for each and every au of those. if you had any difficulty my point is proven. NOT TO MENTION that dream is IN A LITERAL WAR. MOTHERFUCKER HAS PTSD !!!!! nightmare is the AGGRESSOR!!!!!!!!!!!

and as much as i ADORE fanon in order for me to like truce aus something i need is Dream bawling and shaking and having panic attacks and nightmares and barely being able to look his brother in the eye because he’s terrified of him and he hates it because he just wants to hug his brother but he can’t shake the intense terror that comes with staring at the same tentacles that were sharp and pointed at his chest time and time again, or closing around his neck with the intent of suffocation. and nightmare def has some apologizing to do

orrrr you know. we could,, haha idk,,, mmmm,,,,,, make the,, the ‘nightmare is freed from his corrupted and isn’t 6 purely bc i need him to heal with his brother with no angst about lost childhoods and having to raise your own twin pls and thank you’ more of a,,, a popular trope,,,, idk,,,,,,,,,,,, all im saying is that Dream deserves to cry in his brother’s arms—his brother, the way he remembers him, and they should both get to cry and latch onto each other like they’re terrified the other will disappear the moment they let go, and they just sob over what happened to them both.

[zmediaoutlet]

Survey results time.

At time of downloading the data we got just over 300 responses, which is not bad for a survey that was long and complicated to take! I'm sure my shamelessness helped. Being a survey for a specific crowd, we also didn't get anyone (as far as I could tell) taking the survey in bad faith, which is a legit surprise. Special shout-out to the several people who, when asked to write literally anything to say they understood what was going on, wrote "literally anything"; additional shout-out to the person who wrote "penus and hole" (sic). You get it, anonymous person.

I'm going to share the top results for the questions here, but I'll also include the raw data as a sheet at the end in case anyone wants to actually go through it with a fine-tooth comb. This is not a survey where cute pie charts or graphs would be useful or readable, so get ready for some sweet-ass numbers:

Story Genre

Unsurprisingly, our leaderboard for most favorite story genre in the 'Anytime!' category is as follows:

Hurt/comfort (153 votes)

Angst (142 votes)

PWP (139 votes)

We just like the guys to get the shit beaten out of them, angstily, and then they can feel better by jerking off about it. The ideal evening.

The big loser in genre, with 34 buds flat out saying "not for me", was Dark!fic. That said, Dark!fic also got 112 votes (third highest) for "has to be JUST right," so we can probably take from there that while as a group we don't hate dark content, we have pretty strict definitions for a) what counts as dark, and b) what kind of dark we're willing to take.

Gencest/gen was arguably the most 'eh, idk?' of the genres, with respectable showings in every category from Anytime to No; most people don't hate it, but people aren't really seeking it out either. It's definitely There.

Story Setting

The winner of most 'Anytime!' votes for story setting is close to my heart; the podium is:

Bunker era (142 votes)

Canon-close, codas, etc (129 votes)

Pre-series/weechesters (126 votes)

It feels good to know that canon is on our side. This may help explain why various alternate universe settings didn't do so hot with the respondents -- the least fave according to this survey is an age!swap AU, followed by a raised apart!AU. Writers who are making Sam the big brother who lives in Cleveland while baby Dean lives in Seattle, you keep living your truth, but readers are rearing back.

That being said, while Canon Divergence isn't an overall winner, it has a full 149 votes in the 'Dig it' category; so, while we may generally prefer canon, we're willing to be led on a garden path away from it. We just want canon to be within shouting distance, at least.

Canonical Character Variants

Here's where the survey gets more complex. I've always been interested in how and why people are fandoming about things, and simple 'yes/no' surveys rarely dig into that meat. The point of the superego/ego/id separation is to really interrogate -- hey, do you like to read about (for example) soulless!Sam because you find it interesting on a high-minded level, or because your heart-strings are getting tugged even if you think it's kinda dumb, or just because it makes you so hornt-up you can't think straight? All are valid, and all are possible simultaneously, but it's interesting to prod at to see how the interest is working. You might also just be like, eh, it's fine, or GOD, STOP, and that's fine too. So, with all that said:

Superego winners:

demon powers!Sam (202 votes)

soulless!Sam (177 votes)

blood addict!Sam (160 votes)

Y'all like to really brain about how Sam is fucked up. I get it.

Ego winners:

Trials of Hell!Sam (186 votes)

blood addict!Sam (180 votes)

demon powers!Sam (161 votes)

Still all Sam, and no surprise that his saintly pale sleeplessness is winning the heartstrings battle.

Id winners:

demon!Dean (205 votes)

demon powers!Sam (175 votes)

blood addict!Sam (165 votes)

Again, no surprise: fandom girlies (gn) love their bad boys, lol. Soulless snuck in at #4 here with 163, presumably because working out still wearing a belt was juuuust dorky enough to kick him off the podium; #5 was Smith & Wesson at 162, probably because if they'd been left in that AU for ten more minutes they would have been fucking over the top of Dean Smith's desk. Glad we're all on the same page, there.

The nopes here were an interesting mix. In the full-on No Thank You category we had Michael!Dean and Gadreel!Sam (with 52 and 53 votes respectively) -- it would be interesting to know if that was due to dread of the storyline specifically, or just how No Bad Wrong it felt to have it happening. These two also led the 'meh' category, although they were joined on the podium of bad by Endverse!Dean (128 Meh votes), which frankly shocked me. Y'all aren't into his thigh holster? C'mon now. Sure, he murders his friends without compunction, but -- thigh holster!

Story Tropes

These ones were fascinatingly all over the place, which is exactly why I wanted to do this. Going to just run down the S/E/I podiums real quick, then 'Hard sell', then No --

Superego winners:

Outsider!POV (211)

Someone Finds Out (191)

Mental health issues (190)

Ego winners:

Mutual pining (252)

First time (242) AND Sick/injured (242)

First time in a long time (235)

Id winners:

Jealousy/possessiveness (224)

First time (218)

First time in a long time (180)

Now, part of what's interesting about these is how they fall off in other categories. Outsider POV wins handily at Superego with 211, but then drops all the way down to 92 votes at Id -- which isn't nothing, but clearly it's preferred to have a heckin' think about how other people view the incest relationship, rather than thinking it's just So Hot that people might. Similarly, while people do think it's so so hot for one brother or the other (or both!) to be possessive at 224 votes, when it comes to the superego that drops right down to 134 votes, presumably as the brain wakes up and goes RED FLAG!

Entering the land of no thank you, we shall have two anti-podiums:

Real hard sell:

Infidelity (127)

magic/powers!Dean (125)

Unrequited/no relationship upgrade (110) AND "Carver Edlund" fandom

This is a much more mixed bag. Infidelity and Unrequited are no surprise here, because it Feels Bad, Man; magic!Dean also not really a surprise, given that most of our respondents prefer being closer to canon, and Dean is very much our mundane buddy in the show as presented. (A delightful buddy, but a distinctly nonmagical one.) Carver Edlund fandom makes me laugh mostly because it's such a bananas thing to exist in the show. Sam and Dean reading big bang fics about each other? Collectively we just... don't know what to do with that. Weird.

Squick/No/Maybe one exception:

Permanent character death (140)

Infidelity (108)

Eating disorders (102)

Again, no surprise in the anti-winners of 1 or 2 here, but number 3 surprised me, personally. ED fic used to be a pretty big wedge of common tropes that people would seek out. Perhaps it's gotten less popular over the years? Or perhaps just that the people who like it REALLY like it and so chat about it out loud, while those who don't quietly bury it in sand, lo as a cat does with their leavings.

Most extreme delta in 'general interest' (whether that be S,E, or I) to 'ehh' (whether that be Hard Sell or Squick) is first time. Y'all loooove your first time.

Sexy Tropes, Vol. 1

This is where I really wanted to know if people could pull apart their interests between brain and heart and guts. Hopefully people were honest, as requested. Some of them we know are slight liar answers, because the hits on AO3 tell a story that can't be refuted -- nevertheless, here's what people were willing to admit to.

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Bedsharing (158)

Incest kink (139)

Size kink (133)

your friendly neighborhood survey creator is jumping up and down going 'wooo' that size kink made the podium. also I hope everyone understood that incest kink meant, like, indulging in the incest of it all via 'oh you're so totes my brother and i want to suck your dingle for that reason specifically', but I realize that could've been clearer.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

shameless bottom!Dean stuff (151)

switching (147)

voyeurism (138)

the first one here genuinely surprises me considering what I see getting written most often; is this a case of just not being in the right venn diagrams, or the 'easy sell' just not matching up with what people are being sold? Curiouser and curiouser.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

bad/awkward sex (120)

phone sex (114)

in [drug/alcohol] veritas (110)

edging into awkward town in a few ways here: we don't love these, but we can see how it'd be fun. or not fun, in the case of bad sex.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

always-another-gender!AU (84)

multiple Sams or Deans (73)

genderswap (magic) (72)

so, in general, we prefer to keep the penises around and intact, but just one Sam penis and one Dean penis, please. Here, I'm interested that the volume is much lower than in the top category: maxing out at 84 hard sells compared to 158 bulletproof options means that we're willing to give more of these tropes a chance, even if they're not our faves. How accepting we are!

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

always-another-gender!AU (83)

A/B/O elements (65)

multiple Sams or Deans (51)

strong overlap with the hard sell; and, keeping in mind that people were able to choose multiple options, it's possible that some of those were identical votes. Again, please keep the penises straightforward and only two at a time. A/B/O is interesting here, especially given what we know of how well it does on AO3; while it's a big squick for a lot of people, it also has decently high votes in bulletproof/easy, averaging 82 votes. Mixed bag!

Sexy Tropes Vol. 2, Electric Boogaloo

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Possessive/claiming sex (129)

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (116)

Hair pulling (103)

Let's glance back up at the Id winners in the story tropes above, hmm quietly to ourselves, and move on.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (135)

Hair pulling (130)

Possessive/claiming sex (121)

Well, that's boring. So let's expand so as not to be repetitive:

4. Dub-con (116) 5. Dom/sub (113) AND Underage (113) 6. Knifeplay (107)

There we go. Pretty easy to put all of those into one fic, too.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

Blindfolds (128)

Painplay (116)

Shibari/rope play (112)

We're starting to lose interest as accessories come into play. Interesting to compare D/s and its relative success against painplay -- so, tell him what to do, but don't hit him while you're doing it. Fair enough.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

Fucking machines (94)

Vore (80)

Mommy!kink (77)

Entertaining mix here, haha. General feasibility may be rearing its head here. (Also, for my own entertainment: daddy!kink got 67 Hard Sell votes. People generally prefer to keep it as horizontal incest, not vertical incest.)

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

Feederism (164)

Vore (161)

Extreme underage (157)

No surprises here, although some fans of the nibbly variety of wincest may be disappointed by vore's poor placement. Note also that 'extreme' is in the eye of the beholder; we'll leave aside value judgments, as we have for the whole survey, and note that people are not indulging in a version of underage they find to be personally past the line, or at least are not admitting to that.

At a glance, the closest matchup between bulletproof for some and a squick to others is bloodplay, with just 1 vote separating the two categories: 44 bulletproof, 43 squick. Next time someone tries to tell you that 'everyone' likes or doesn't like something, please take it with an entire shaker full of salt.

Dynamic & Position Preferences

I tried to encourage people not to think too hard about this one and just answer on instinct. Who knows if that worked. But here are some overview takes:

Toppy/dominant: Sam takes the lead here, with 69% of respondents being in the 'Love it!' category. Nice. (217 votes)

Dom Dean earned a respectable 52% of 'Love it!' votes (163).

However, I was also interested to check out the inverse --

subby!Sam: 44 'Very no thank' votes (13%) subby!Dean: 27 'Very no thank' votes (8%)

It's interesting to leap way back up and compare that against 'shameless bottom!Dean stuff' doing so well in the rated E categories. Makes you ponder.

Actual sex position: Frequently switching takes the win here, with 61% of the vote (194 votes). Sam always topping edges out if people must choose, with 144 votes; Dean always topping is our lowest choice, with 112.

Service!topping: this is a fairly niche fic type, but it does still exist -- I guess in a world of bottoms someone's got to actually get up and do something, and it is hilariously an almost perfectly even split:

service!top Sam: 50.17% (151 votes) service!top Dean: 51.50% (155 votes)

A healthy percentage of people said they didn't care about these questions either way, and more power to them. However, they were wildly outvoted by those who did.

Multishipping Time

Our final categories are when other people get their grubby hands on Sam or Dean, either canonically(ish) or in our fandom activities.

Canonical relationships for Sam

Jess wins, quelle surprise. :) 161 people Dug It and who can blame them.

Amelia LOSES, shocking no one: 112 people said Fuck That.

Eileen was definitely a mixed bag; her results, in order, were: Meh: 92; Fuck that: 76; Worse than meh: 66; Dug it: 44.

Canonical(ish) relationships for Dean

Note here: it was too unbalanced if we only went with people Dean officially dated. However, the show leaned hard into a few unrequited male relationships for him, which we included here, and no one sent me hate about it so I guess that was fine.

Benny wins the Love It! category with 129 votes, barely edging out Cassie at 122. Benny is best boy, so that fits.

Cas loses with a full 99 Fuck That votes, which is probably what we'd expect from a wincest survey. That said, he also got 93 Dug It votes, so it's a pretty balanced showing.

Poor Lisa sits firmly at Meh with 148 votes. It's not that we hate you, Lisa; we just don't really know what to do with you. Which is pretty much how the relationship went in the show.

Shipping Sam like FedEx

We returned to the S/E/I model for shipping as we did for tropes, because it means something very different to go 'oh sure, I can see how that would be interesting' vs saying 'I want them to fuck rawnasty and I don't care why they're doing it.' Apologies if I left out your favorite side-ship but, shit, there's only so much time in the day.

So, we return to the podiums:

Superego:

Ruby (132)

Rowena (121)

Cas (102)

Ego:

Rowena (121)

Cas (106)

Ruby (90)

Id:

Ruby (125)

John (121)

Rowena (118)

So that was going on sedately until Dad came in like a hammer. Fascinating. On the other hand:

No:

Lisa (234)

Donna (222)

Claire (219)

Interesting to me that these three are ladies that Sam theoretically could have got up in but people are not into it, regardless. This is slightly different to Dean's 'no' category -- spoilers for three inches of screen space!

Dean, Shipped by UPS

Superego:

John (129)

Benny (115)

Lisa (99)

Ego:

Benny (134)

John (116)

Lisa (102)

Id:

John (147)

Benny (128)

Crowley (114)

Well. That tells a slightly different story, ahem. Enjoy the various tropes that will be applied, Dean! And then we get:

No:

Amelia (245)

Kevin (223)

Gabriel (217)

Comparing to the Sam 'no' above -- these three are slightly more 'traditional' Sam ships, though the wincest shippers are nevertheless not into them for Sam, either. Dean literally never spoke to or saw Amelia on screen, so it'd be a determined shipper who'd make that happen. Not undoable, though!

Conclusion

Syke: there isn't one to be made. This really shows how diverse the taste is in the wincest community, or at least in the wincest community that a) happened to see this survey over the last five days and b) bothered to take it. This particular group leans slightly toward e.g. toppy Sam, or slightly toward switching, but when you look at raw numbers what you see is that at least one person LOVES every single one of these things, and at least one person fucking HATES every single one of these things, and so -- so what? Write what you want. If you see a niche of something that you love where you feel like not enough people are writing or reading, try to fill it. If you're worried "no one" will like it, well -- you're wrong. Someone will. It just needs to get seen by the right people.

That's where fandom comes in, to spread the love even if something isn't bulletproof for us -- reblogging a post to say, 'hey, my mutual made this thing, look at it!' What a joy it'd be if someone saw it and loved it to absolute shattering bits, and then found their little bulletproof community, and happiness was made. What's the point, if we're not making each other happy.

Thanks for participating if you did, and reading all this if you did. Here's a link to a google sheet (read only) with all the tables of raw data if you're interested. I'll post some of the more entertaining fill-in answers later.

s&d shipping survey results: November 1, 2023 - Google Sheets

[flowerslut]

shamefully despite how easily i am influenced i have not made my way through your ao3 catalogue. where would be a good starting point? (licking kink not required but always appreciated)

wow thanks for giving me an excuse to make a compilation of my (shorter) twilight fics that I want more people to read!!!!! ok ok so all my best favorite ones (minus call of the night. we are pretending call of the night does not exist, okay? dont think about it. dont even look at it) are my mid-length ones. now, first and foremost: I am an angst writer, and boy do I love to whump on alice and jasper, so in no particular order, you should read these fun little jalice fics while you wait for me to update roots over the next few weeks/months

North Star

rated: M words: 20,336 chapters: one-shot summary: "He’s the Eye of the South. The god of war. Master of battle and oracle of death. He’s not just the most dangerous weapon the world has ever seen, but he’s a man in love. And combining those two just makes this so much worse. Jasper sees a girl in his head, and he's afraid of what comes next."

thoughts: okay i lied, they are in a particular order. or at least this one is. this is my favorite twilight fic I've written (I think) and I got dramatic as fuck with it. written for jalice week back in 2021, the prompt was "power/ability swap" and you get exactly that: jasper is the psychic, alice is the empath, everything else is the same... or is it? this is also notably the first fic I ever sent to someone (g, obviously) to look over/give corrections to, so that might be why it has fewer stupid grammatical/sentence structure issues than most of my other stuff (minus roots). content warning for physical abuse, implied sexual assault, and mild sexual content. (also on ff.net)

The Almost Quiet

rated: T words: 10,365 chapters: one-shot summary: "He wants to blame loneliness, but maybe this is what was meant for him all along. A long road that leads to a depressing end. Longing after a girl he doesn’t know whose mind is lost."

thoughts: the last line of this fic is my personal favorite one I've written in recently memory! anyways this is an all-human AU, (sort of). in 1920, alice and jasper meet as humans and jasper's job gets much harder after that. this one is far from the best on this list, but it's entertaining, angsty, and has a satisfying ending imo. content warning for forced institutionalization and ableist language. (also on ff.net)

Déjà-rêvé

rated: T words: 6,551 chapters: one-shot summary: "It's nothing Alice had ever seen. It was no vision, no dream. It was only a possibility that had haunted the back of her mind like a nightmare for as long as she'd known what was out there for her to fear. Jasper had never known about this fear until it became their reality."

thoughts: this is the shortest one on this list, and since you like roots, you'll probably like this. its vaguely similar in that it's a whumpy post-breaking dawn AU, but this is only a snippet of an aftermath in which alice loses her power. wrote it for secret santa 2022 and had a BLAST with it. (if you want more whumpy one-shots my ao3 is chock full of whumptober prompts)

No Friend of Mine

rated: T words: 15,199 chapters: one-shot summary: "He contemplates telling Peter about Alice’s visits, but something holds him back from doing it. Perhaps because it doesn’t feel like Alice whenever she’s lying on his bedroom floor, curled in an old blanket that’s too small for him but perfectly sized for her, utterly still and silent even while awake. A part of him feels like it would be a betrayal to reveal this side of her to someone even as close to him as Peter is. After all, Peter is his friend. And Alice is… well, not."

thoughts: I think this fic is severely underrated, but maybe that's because I literally came up with the concept and wrote it over the course of a day and a half or something insane like that, and I think that for a hastily written secret santa gift from 2020, it holds up sooo well. it's an all-human AU where alice is the weird new girl, and like always, jasper is in way over his head. all the cullens get a role, it has the 'fluffiest' moments, and its faaaantastic. content warning for child abuse.

The Hunted

rated: T words: 26,664 chapters: 11 summary: "It's not so wise if you try to run."

thoughts: this one is the most self-indulgent (with the most questionable characterization tbh) based on g's post from 2019 that says 'twilight, but when bella slips away from jasper and goes to the ballet studio to meet james, he isn’t there. he waited until everyone split up in the airport, and then went for alice instead. in the ensuing chaos, while everyone is freaking out, victoria grabs bella.' this is the only one on the list I might take a look at in the future to rewrite chunks of, but it's great fun your honor. ignore what anyone else tells you about the ending. but make sure to keep this short sequel/epilogue handy, for... reasons. (also on ff.net)

A Loyal Wife

rated: M words: 21,930 chapters: 5 summary: "Alice is only a Lady because she was forced to be one. She much rather preferred being untitled. Just a constant in this strange family of women. Girls both grown and not, betrothed to the man who protects and spoils them. Quickly the newborns realize that Alice is more weapon than wife, and that suits her just fine."

thoughts: last but certainly not least is my attempt at 'jalice enemies-to-lovers' that I wrote over the course of two days while on vacation. this story has everything: southern wars, a marriage cult, weird power dynamics, and [checks notes] trying to seduce your enemy mid-fight. this is another one of my favorites, and maybe the messiest (affectionate) as far as story content goes (of course, minus roots). content warnings for sexual assault/dubious consent.

[bluegekk0]

i think that this song somehow fits feral pk for some reason in my head and i wanted to share it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SECVGN4Bsgg

Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now?

i imagine that what if feral pale king was still paranoid and anxious that the point that he always isolates himself because he always thinks of his past failures as a king.

Despite that the radiance is defeated and long gone. Feral Pale King has intense fear and trauma so strong that is slowly damaging his mental health. feral pk still thinks that the radiance is watching him and is secretly plot revenge for feral pale king to make him suffer. In feral pk's mind, the radiance is patiently waiting for feral pk to let his guard down. which is the reason why feral pk became feral

and that thought gives pale king so much nightmares even though that the radiance is no longer here in hallownest

imagine an au of this au that feral pk is 10x depressed than before with a sprinkle of more angst. an au where feral pk is still paranoid of the radiance despite the radiance is dead which makes it pointless to be fearful of

an au where hornet tries to help feral pk overcome their depression and trauma

sorry for this long ask, Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now? reminds me of a depressed feral pk hiding in a cave with unwanted thoughts

oh damn this song takes me back ahahahaha thank you for reminding me of it

funnily enough, the way i see him in my head (which i don't really portray in my art much, i'll admit) he is very paranoid. not about the radiance, he's assured that she's gone. in the au, grimm is her half brother, and if there's anyone who could confirm that the radiance is no more, it would be him

instead, he is paranoid about pretty much everything else. in particular about failing everyone yet again, and hurting those close to him. the deaths of all the vessels that he was responsible for have devastated him, and it's the main thing that keeps his mental health in shambles. there are good parts to his new life, and he loves it and wants to experience the happy moments, but every so often he is hit by the reminder of what he did and how much of a failure he is. that, and all of his trauma that he can't process properly. those are the things that fuel his nightmares and constantly stress him out, no matter how happy he might be with his family around

so you're not that far off with your au idea. there is a lot of angst to fpk, and he is very much a depressed, broken man. i suppose the biggest difference is the radiance, even if she's gone in both the actual au, and your idea for the side au. also to the last part, hornet's involvement in his healing in the fpk au is a bit complicated, since she has a lot of her own issues to process and deal with. but they stick together, and that helps both of them in the long run. so i suppose in a way she does end up helping him, with the addition that she also manages to overcome her own issues thanks to him

but yeah, this was a very interesting ask! i really like this idea, it's not something i have considered, but it makes sense and i think it would be interesting to write about. if things went a bit differently with my vision, i could totally see myself going there, i might have actually considered something like that at one point if i remember correctly, though evidently it didn't go past the idea phase. so it's cool to see that someone else reached a similar concept hahaha

"reminds me of a depressed feral pk hiding in a cave with unwanted thoughts" <- i could totally see that even for the "main" fpk au btw. he does that a lot, even if he now swapped a cave for his dirtmouth house bedroom and a burrow made from blankets hah

thanks for the ask again! i don't mind getting longer asks btw, i actually really enjoy reading through them, so i appreciate this! sorry if my response is a bit incoherent, i haven't re-read it before posting. i'm very exhausted after the barbenheimer bomb (figuratively and literally) earlier today and i wanted to respond before going to bed

[local-diavolo-anon]

Sun and Moon angst.

this will be ranting about my au but like

in my Domestic au

how would Sun and Moon feel if at some point, they see the Pizza plex reopen? and everything is the same? and in the adversement they see themselves?

a brand new themselves, with perhaps an improved design and functions, doing their job, as if it were still them?

how would they feel at the realization that their existence, at the eyes of everybody (except reader), is replaceable? i would like to explore in the future the existential dread that bring the knowlede of being a self aware machine in a world where machines are made with a purpose and are not supposed to question it, where once they did, they are deemed defective and dismantled to be replaced because they were not needed to be aware

i want to explore how would they feel at the realization that they spent the whole of their lives knowing who they were and their purpose only because someone literally wrote that into their brains, and once they took the decision of deviating from it, they were effortlessly put aside and forgotten because they were not needed anymore

and now that they took that decision they can never go back to what they once were because now they know, they saw the reality of their existence and they cannot ignore it.

But they aren't human, so they can't go forward either because most humans will only ever see them as a sci-fi-fuckery threat at the worst and a deviant at the best.

all of this to say: hurt comfort parallels of Y/N having a life chrisis (or even a panic attack) over their life choices while sun and moon comfort them, only later for their situation to be swapped with Sun and Moon having a situation like freddy does in sb when he sees all the endos but so much worse, and y/n comforts them

[rainisawriter]

You’re My World (Part 1)

Synopsis: Being a Starless in a world full of soulmates was not easy for Jae, though she often told herself she didn’t need a soulmate. She hated how everyone judged her simply because she didn’t have one. At 16, she was supposed to switch places with her soulmate, but it never came, leaving her wondering if she truly was alone. At 18, the switch finally came and her life was forever changed.

Genre: Soulmate AU, fluff, angst, romance, slice of life

Prompt: Once a year, starting on your 16th birthday, soulmates swap bodies for a day if they have not met yet.

Word Count: 6,071

Point of View: First Person

A/N: I honestly have no feckin’ idea what happened here. I was planning on writing a fic that was 3,000 words at most, but it ended up being 14,479 lmao Haven’t done that in a while, but I guess the prompt was just that good. I also had a character in mind while writing, so that probably helped haha Here is part 1, I hope you enjoy!

This was written for @lunarbuck’s Star-Crossed Lovers writing challenge to celebrate her reaching 2,000 followers ❤

━━━━━━༻September 14th, 15 years old༺━━━━━━

I scowled at the couple standing in the doorway, staring into each other’s eyes giggling dreamily. They were everywhere, carbon copies of star-crossed lovers littered everywhere. It was honestly disgusting. I couldn’t even attend class without bumping into them, too wrapped up in each other to even notice me.

I cleared my throat to get their attention, but the male just rested his hand on the female’s cheek, eyes practically shining like stars. I cleared my throat louder, coughing dramatically.

“I love you so much, Ami. You’re my heart, my soul. Without you, I -” Tears filled his eyes as he brought her hand to his heart. “I would die without you, my love.”

“Oh, Trevor,” she cried, tears filling her own eyes. “I love you, too. You’re the sun to my moon, the peanut to my butter, the -”

“Disgusting to your cringe?” I supplied, lip curling back in disgust.

Her gaze snapped to mine, eyes narrowed. “Mind your own business!”

“You’re literally blocking the doorway so no one can enter. It is my business. Now, move!”

Recognition flashed through her eyes and she smirked, putting her hand on her hip. “Oh, you’re that Starless, aren’t you?”

I managed to hold back my wince, feeling everyone’s eyes turning toward me when they heard what she said. Most of them were looks of pity, others were arrogant smirks. I squared my shoulders and stared her down, refusing to show weakness.

“Yeah, I am. So what? Unlike you, I don’t need another human being in order to survive. I’m not weak like you,” I spat, fists clenching at my sides.

Anger flashed through her eyes as she took a step closer to me, laughing in my face. “You’re right. You’re not weak, Starless, you’re broken.”

“Honey,” Trevor chided, putting his hand on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t make fun of those less fortunate than us.”

She pouted at him. “You’re right. I’m better than that.” Her shoulder bumped mine when she walked away, a smirk on her lips.

Gods, I’m so tempted to wipe that smirk right off her feckin’ face. I could feel everyone still watching me but I tried to ignore it, stomping my way into the classroom. I fell into my desk with a scowl, turning my attention to the window so I didn’t have to see all the happy couples and listen to the bullshit they were spewing.

The sky was dark despite it being early morning, thick dark clouds moving in from the east. Thunder rumbled softly in the distance and I closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths to try and calm myself. I really hope it rains later, I need the peace it always brings me before I end up murdering someone.

“Hey.”

I felt someone nudge my side and I glanced over, seeing my best friend sliding into the desk beside my own. “Mornin’, Haru.”

He frowned, brown eyes scanning my face. He always could read me like a damn book. “What happened?”

“Nothin’,” I muttered, sliding down in my chair.

He quirked a brow, sending me a look akin to a mother who didn’t believe her child. “I’ll buy you a Dr. Pepper at lunch if you tell me.”

“It’s just the usual bullshit,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head. “Feckin’ Amy and her stupid boyfriend blocking the door again.”

“Did you punch her?”

“No.”

“I’m so proud of you -”

“But I wanted to.”

Haru laughed, eyes shimmering with amusement. “Wanting to do something and actually acting on that want are two different things. I’m still proud of you for not choosing violence.”

I rolled my eyes. It’s not like I did it because I wanted to take the moral high ground or anything. I’m weak as hell and I cry easily so even if I did punch her, I knew she would easily overpower me. It would be a double loss for me and I didn’t have the energy to deal with that.

“So, what are your plans for tomorrow?”

“Huh?” I blinked at him dumbly and he sent me a deadpan look. “Nothing. I’m gonna watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote.”

“You’re joking… you forgot your own birthday?

“Uh..”

“Girl, it’s your sixteenth birthday. You’re not the least bit excited about that?”

“Not really,” I frowned, rubbing the back of my head again. “It’s just another day in another year.”

He groaned, head flopping onto his desk. “You’re such a buzzkill.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“No plans, then?”

I shook my head no and he grinned.

“Well then, that just means I get more time with my bestie.”

My brow furrowed. “Don’t you have a date with Dylan tomorrow?”

“Yeah, so?” He quirked a brow at me, propping up his cheek in his palm. “He adores you so when I tell him it’s your birthday and you forgot, he’s going to have a fit.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to come between you two…”

“We’re soulmates, it’s impossible to come between us.”

“Right…”

“Everyone, settle down!” Mrs Smith entered the room, her back slightly hunched as she hobbled over to her desk. “Take out your notebooks, I have a wonderful assignment for you all this morning.”

I dug around in my backpack, tugging the notebook out and setting it on the desk. Though the pages did contain notes, most of them were overshadowed by little doodles of cats holding tacos.

“This morning, I would like you to write a short story about how you met your soulmate.” She lifted her head, peering at me over half-moon spectacles. “Miss McLaughlin, you’re exempt from this assignment as you do not have a soulmate. Feel free to do as you please. You can be dismissed if you’d like.”

All eyes fell on me, the other students stifling their giggles or sending me cocky smirks. Haru frowned, glancing over at me but I quickly looked away, not wanting to see the pity in his eyes. I stuffed the notebook back into my bag and stood up, keeping my head down as I rushed from the room, hearing laughs and whispers following me.

“Settle down!” scolded Mrs. Smith. “And get to work!”

Why the feck did she have to call me out like that? Couldn’t she just have excused me or made up some kind of lie? I mean, everyone already knows but still. I groaned in frustration, picking up my pace as I headed straight for the front door. I honestly didn’t care if I got into trouble for skipping school. I felt like the walls were closing in on me and I just had to get out.

“Jae?”

Shit. I paused, slowly looking over at Mr. Park, the guidance counselor. He was just stepping out of the teacher’s lounge, a cup of steaming coffee in his hands. “Good morning, sir.”

“Is everything alright?” he questioned softly, glancing at the watch on his wrist. “Why aren’t you in class?”

I held back my sigh, forcing a smile. “Mrs. Smith is doing a soulmate assignment and she excused me. I was just going outside to get some air.”

“Oh, I see,” he frowned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. For a moment, he just observed me with those brown eyes of his, feeling as if he was searching my very soul.

As someone who preferred to keep their feelings to themself, I hated the way it felt when he watched me like that. It’s like he could see exactly what I was feeling and thinking. “Well, I should get going. Excuse me.”

“Jae, wait.”

I paused, not looking at him. I could hear him shifting his weight.

“If you ever need someone to talk to, you know you can come to me, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know it’s not easy being a Starless, but -”

“You don’t know shit!” I snapped angrily, immediately regretting it. Mr. Park was a nice man who only wanted to help and I knew I shouldn’t be taking out my frustrations on him. He didn’t deserve it. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize,” he smiled kindly. “You’re right. I don’t understand, but I’d like to try. My door is always open when you’re ready to talk.”

I bowed my head in thanks before rushing out the door. Today was the first day of fall so the air was cooling down, especially with rain on the way. It felt like I could finally breathe again.

I fell onto the bench beneath a large cherry tree, exhaling in frustration. My head fell back, staring at the dark sky between the breaks in the branches. The leaves were only just beginning to change from white and pink to shades of brown and orange. Thunder rumbled overhead, steadily growing louder as rain started to fall softly.

In this world, soulmates are everything.

Most people connect with their soulmates by the age of twelve but there’s a small percentage of the population that never connects with their soulmates. These people are called Starless and they’re looked down on. A person’s worth is measured by whether they have found their soulmate or not. If you’re like me and haven’t found one, then you’re considered to be useless. People look at you funny and they treat you differently.

It’s so stupid. As if someone’s worth can be measured by whether or not they’ve met someone else. It’s a broken, flawed system that should be abolished and yet here we are. Maybe I’m just cynical because I am a Starless. Am I so unlovable that the universe thought I didn’t deserve a soulmate? What a joke.

I don’t need a soulmate. The universe can suck it.

━━━━━━༻❀༺━━━━━━

I pushed the door open to my apartment, listening for any signs of life. I tried to stay out as long as I could, not wanting to be scolded for missing the entire day of classes, but the rain started to come down harder. I had no choice but to head home early.

I ran a hand through my short hair, wiping the water on my pants before clicking my tongue. There was already a puddle of water forming at my feet, dripping from my wet clothes. I headed toward the hall so I could take a shower only to pause when I heard my name.

Curious, I slowly approached the archway that led into the kitchen, pressing my body flat against the wall.

“You have to tell her, man.” It was Blaise, my brother’s best friend and the guy I’ve been living with since I was a kid. When our parents found out I was a Starless at just twelve years old, they felt ashamed of me so they kicked me out of the house. Blaise was eighteen at the time, already living on his own.

He didn’t have to take me in and, honestly, it probably made his life more difficult. What eighteen-year-old wants to raise a child? Especially one that didn’t even belong to them. He really stepped up and I owed him a lot.

“There’s no way I can tell her,” groaned Kevin, sounding distressed. He’s done his best to help raise me since our parents had no interest in me, but he was less mature than Blaise and a few years younger. He wasn’t very good at it, but I can’t fault him for that.

My brow furrowed in confusion. Were they talking about me? I know I heard one of them say my name.

“You have to, Kev. She turns sixteen tomorrow and she needs to know. Think about how scared she’s gonna be the first time it happens.” Blaise’s voice was strained and worried which made my heart pick up speed. He was always level-headed and calm, so hearing him sound so worried made me feel nervous.

I now know they’re talking about me because my birthday is tomorrow. What’s going to happen to me? Is it because I haven’t found my soulmate yet? There’s only been a handful of documented Starless cases, so it’s pretty unknown territory. Oh god… I’m going to die, aren’t I?

I quickly covered my mouth, sliding down the wall until I hit the wooden floor. I scanned my brain for any mention of a Starless dying. From what I can remember, soulmates feed off each other spiritually and emotionally. Alone, they’re like half a person but together, they complete the circle. Do they need each other to live? Didn’t some girl die because she couldn’t find her soulmate?

Wait, no… I think that was some fanfic I read at 3 am instead of studying for finals. Or was it? Shit, why didn’t I pay more attention in Soulmate Studies class?

“An older brother shouldn’t have to have this conversation with his younger sister!”

“Stop being a child, it’s not like it’s the sex talk.”

“It’s almost as bad!”

“Look, your parents aren’t going to do it. That means you have to step up.”

“Can’t you do it? You handled the sex talk brilliantly!”

Blaise heaved a heavy, exasperated sigh. “Only because she already knew half of it from watching Family Guy.”

“You let my sister watch Family Guy?!”

“I couldn’t exactly control what she was watching while I was at work, man. Besides… it saved me from having a very awkward conversation.”

“See? You’ve clearly bonded with her through embarrassment. This should be a walk in the park!”

There was a sudden slam that made me jump in surprise. I peered around the corner, seeing Blaise now standing with his hands on the counter. His eyes were dark, lips twisted in annoyance.

“Stop making up bullshit excuses! Jae was already abandoned by her parents and she probably thinks you’ve abandoned her, too!”

“What? I haven’t – “

“Where have you been, huh? I’ve been looking after her since she was 12, Kevin. In four years, you’ve only visited her a handful of times. You don’t ask about her when we go get drinks. Why are you even here, huh? Just to ask me to do your dirty work for you? I gave up everything to raise that kid!”

Tears stung my eyes but I tried to blink them back, not wanting to cry. I hated it when I cried because it made me feel so damn weak.

Kevin chuckled awkwardly, never having been good in a serious situation. “Come on, man. How hard could it have been? She could already do everything herself.”

“You think raising a kid is just about cooking for them or doing their laundry?” scoffed Blaise. “God, you’ve always been dumb but I didn’t know you were a total dumbass.”

“Hey!”

“I had to quit going to college so I could get another job to buy her clothes and food and school supplies. I neglected my soulmate so many times, having to cancel dates because Jae was sick or just didn’t want to be alone. I’ve had to deal with those stuck-up assholes at the school whenever her grades would slip or she got into a fight. You know I haven’t talked to Karla in over a year?”

My eyes widened in shock. He hasn’t spoken to his soulmate in that long? That’s… not normal and it’s all because of me… When she stopped coming around, I didn’t think anything about it. I never would have guessed that… I squeezed my eyes shut, tears sliding down my cheeks.

God damn it.

I pushed myself up only to slip on the water that had dripped off my clothes. I caught myself on the wall, but the two men stopped speaking and I knew they heard me. I cursed, taking off down the hall for the front door.

“Jae!”

I ignored them, slamming the door shut behind me in the hopes that it would slow them down. The rain was falling hard which made it easy to disappear. Their voices were drowned out by the sound of the thunder so I couldn’t hear how close they were. I just kept running until my lungs burned and my feet hurt.

I doubled over, leaning my arm against an oak tree as I tried to catch my breath. I wasn’t sure how far I had gone. I was at a park, though, empty because of the rain which had slowed by this point. I fell onto the swing, resting my head against the cold chains. There was a dull ache at my temples though that was the least of my worries right now.

There was so much shit going through my mind right now.

I felt guilty about ruining Blaise’s life and for not being the kid that my parents wanted me to be. I feel angry at everyone for judging me just because I’m a Starless and I feel slighted by the fact that the universe made me this way.

“Ugh!” I cried out in frustration, jumping off the swing and starting to pace back and forth. “Stupid parents, stupid brother, stupid fucking universe!” I kicked the metal pole in anger only to cry out in pain, grabbing my foot in my hand. I hopped on one foot for a moment before losing my balance and tumbling to the sandy-colored mulch.

“Oi, are you okay?” Blaise appeared above me, looking down with worry. His honey-colored hair was sticking to his forehead from the rain but his eyeliner was still pristine. Must be waterproof.

“Am I dying?”

He chuckled, offering me his hand. “I’m pretty sure we’d have heard if someone died from kicking a swing.”

I slid my hand into his and he pulled me up easily. “Because I haven’t found my soulmate.”

“Oh,” he frowned, realizing what I was talking about. “Have a seat, kid.”

“You’re too young to be calling me kid, old man,” I tried to smile but it was difficult to do so with all the confusion swirling through me. I did as he asked, settling back on the seat and trying to ignore the throbbing of my big toe.

Blaise settled down beside me with a sigh. “How much did you hear?”

“Most of it, I guess,” I muttered, moving around the mulch with my uninjured foot. “I’m sorry, Blaise…”

“For what?”

“Ruining your life. Most eighteen year old’s won’t even take responsibility for their own kids but you stepped up and raised me. I don’t know where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for you. I’m sorry.”

“Idiot,” he scoffed softly, resting his hand on top of my head. “You have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Neither did you.”

“That’s true. Honestly, I never wanted kids. They seemed like too much trouble and I just never had any desire to have them. Then you came along and, well… I kind of enjoyed having someone to look after. It was terrifying knowing that another human being relied on me for survival, but I don’t regret anything. If I could go back in time, I’d make the same choices.”

“You’re telling me if you could have your life and your soulmate back, you wouldn’t take it? Bullshit.”

He turned his head, ice-blue eyes staring into my own. I’ve never seen him make such a serious expression before. “If it meant losing you, then no, I wouldn’t. Like it or not, you’re my baby sister and you’re stuck with me forever.”

I quickly looked away, not wanting him to see the tears gathering in my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. Honestly, I don’t think I could have spoken even if I did.

His phone started to ring, breaking the silence that had settled over us. “Hello?… yeah, I found her. She’s fine. Well, she may have a broken toe… she kicked a swing… I don’t know, ask her that… right, we’ll be back soon.” He hung up the phone and stood up, stretching his arms above his head. “Come on, kid, let’s get home. Your brother’s waiting.”

I hesitated, not moving from the swing as I rubbed my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie. It only made it worse because I had cat hair stuck to it.

“You’re not dying.”

“Eh?” I lifted my head, catching his eyes.

“You’re not dying,” he repeated with a smile. “I won’t say more than that, though. Kevin wants to be the one to tell you.”

“How’d you talk him into that?”

“He loves you, Jae, he’s just an immature idiot that doesn’t stop to think about shit.”

“Fair.”

“Come on.” Blaise held his hand out to me and I took it, gripping it tightly as we started our walk back home.

I was limping a bit because of my toe but the pain was slowly subsiding. I guess it wasn’t broken, after all. When we got back to the apartment, they let me take a shower and get changed out of my wet clothes before we got down to business.

Blaise left us alone in the living room so he could make dinner and give us a chance to talk. It felt awkward, at least to me, since I’m not very close to Kevin. We don’t like the same things and we’ve never really spent much time together.

Kevin cleared his throat, shifting so he was facing me. “There’s something you need to know. As a Starless… you’re going to switch places with your soulmate.”

I blinked at him dumbly, my brain taking a while to process those words. “I… huh?”

“I have no idea why or how, but the doctor said it. I overheard mom and dad talking about it after you were diagnosed.” He shook his head, running a hand through his brown hair. “All I know is that it starts after you turn sixteen.”

“You’re joking…”

“I mean,” he scratched his cheek, frowning. “There hasn’t been a lot of Starless for them to study so the information is iffy. We can visit the doctor if you want.”

“I don’t have insurance.”

“It can’t be that much to go and get an opinion, right?”

“She’d have to see a Starless specialist,” Blaise appeared in the doorway, tossing a dishtowel over his shoulder. “They charge a hundred bucks just to walk in the door. A lot of them won’t even see you if you don’t have insurance.”

“Oh…”

I slid down the couch, sighing deeply. “This just keeps getting better and better…”

“Hey, don’t worry, sis! We’ll figure this out.” Kevin grinned. “I know this girl at my college who’s currently attending a course on Starless. I bet she can help.”

Blaise scowled, smacking him in the back of the head. “Why the hell didn’t you start with that?”

“You’re so rude,” he scowled, rubbing where he had been hit. “And violent!”

“Call her, idiot.”

“Alright, alright.” Kevin stuck his tongue out at him before pulling out his phone and stepping outside.

“Hey, you.”

I quirked a brow at Blaise.

“Come here, I want you to taste the spaghetti sauce. I feel like it’s missing something.”

I perked up a bit at that since it’s one of my favorite meals. That’s probably why he made it. I smiled softly at him as I followed him into the kitchen. He dipped a spoon in the sauce, holding his hand under it in case any fell off the spoon.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

I blew on it a couple of times before sticking it in my mouth. It tasted heavenly, but – “Needs more garlic.”

He snorted. “I could put a dot of sauce on top of a garlic glove and you’d still say there wasn’t enough garlic.”

“Exactly. I’m glad you understand.”

He shook his head before turning to cut up more garlic. “What do you want to do for your birthday? Anywhere you wanna go?”

“Haru wants me to hang out with him and Dylan. No idea what they have planned. Probably just a movie marathon and binging on snacks.”

“Sounds fun,” he grinned. “You need to get out more.”

“Sounds terrible,” I wrinkled my nose, returning the grin.

“Just don’t do anything reckless. If you end up in jail, I can’t promise to bail you out.”

“Sure.”

“And don’t get yourself killed. Funerals are expensive.”

“Yes, mom.”

Blaise snickered, flicking me lightly on the forehead. “What a good kid.”

Kevin re-entered the kitchen with a smile. “Great news! She’ll see us in the morning before her classes. She’s really interested in meeting you.”

Blaise leaned against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. “Are you sure this chick can be trusted, Kev? You know people go crazy over the Starless.”

“Trust her? Um,” he rubbed the back of his head, glancing at the ceiling in thought. “I mean, I don’t really know her, but she’s the only one I know that can help us.”

“You better watch her.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare leave them alone.”

Kevin pouted, hand on his hip. “Hey, she’s my sister. I know what I’m doing here.”

Blaise sent him an unimpressed look before turning his attention to me. “Jae -“

“Don’t worry, mom, I’ll be careful.”

He looked as if he wanted to scold me but he decided against it, returning his attention to the sauce. “You better.”

━━━━━━༻September 15th, 16 years old༺━━━━━━

I stuffed my hands into the pocket of my hoodie, trying to shove down the nerves that I was feeling as I followed Kevin toward the college’s library. It was super early and I felt exhausted because I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Not for lack of trying, though.

He paused in front of the library doors. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Great, let’s go,” he grinned, grabbing my wrist and tugging me along after him.

The library was huge, the ceiling high above us. There were two floors filled with tall bookshelves and there were two rows of computers on the second floor. The girl we were meeting, Claire, was sitting in the back corner of the first floor, leaning over a bunch of books that were scattered across the table. Her eyes darted from book to book from behind round glasses.

“Morning, Claire,” greeted Kevin, settling down across from her.

She lifted her head, gaze landing on me. “Are you the Starless?”

I hesitantly nodded as I sat down beside my brother. “Jae. My name’s Jae.”

“When were you diagnosed?”

Straight to the point, damn. I don’t know if it’s better or worse to skip the small talk.

Kevin answered for me. “A month and a half after she turned 12.”

Claire tilted her head to the side, watching me closely. She had a calculating, cold gaze that made me feel uncomfortable, especially since she didn’t seem to be blinking. “You’ve just turned sixteen, yes?”

I nodded and Kevin added, “Today actually.”

“Fascinating. Have you felt anything strange?”

“Strange?” my brow furrowed. “Strange how?”

“Sudden headaches or dizziness. Feeling as if you’re not actually inside your body. Rapid mood swings. The desire to sleep even when you’re not tired. Craving foods you don’t like.”

“Uh… no?”

“Are you unsure?”

“No… no, I’m sure. None of that.”

“Fascinating.” She started to scribble in her notebook, her hand flying across the page and her handwriting impossible for me to read.

“So, uh… what’s going to happen to me?”

She paused, slowly lifting her head. “You don’t know?”

I glanced at Kevin and he nodded. “I know something about switching places with my soulmate?”

Claire set her pencil down, folding her hands together before holding them in front of her mouth like an anime villain. “That’s correct. Every Starless that’s been studied thus far has switched places with their soulmate once a year. It begins after both soulmates turn sixteen and continues until the two finally meet.”

I scratched my cheek, frowning at the information. “That sounds a bit… insane. What do you even mean by switch places?”

“Have you seen the movie Freaky Friday? Or the movie Freaky?”

“Yes.” “No.” We chorused.

I quirked a brow at Kevin. “You haven’t seen Freaky Friday? It’s a classic!”

“I’m not a movie person,” he pouted, knocking his shoulder against mine. “Don’t judge me.”

“I am definitely judging you.”

Claire cleared her throat, eyes narrowing at us. “My time is limited, so please refrain from needless conversations.”

Jeez, this chick has a stick up her ass.

“To summarize, when a Starless switches with their soulmate, their souls switch bodies. Their physical form, including their voice, remains the same but their minds change. You won’t have access to your soulmate’s memories and vice versa. You become your soulmate and they become you.”

“How long does this last?” I frowned, rubbing my hands against my basketball shorts nervously.

“Unknown.”

“Eh?”

Claire started to pack away her books. “There aren’t enough studies to know such information. One Starless switched for just a couple of minutes while another was switched for a week. There’s simply not enough data.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and paused. “You should consider donating yourself so they can study you.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “You’re telling me to be a lab rat?”

“Correct. It’s the only way we can gather more data on Starless. Your sacrifice won’t be in vain, I’m sure.”

Gods, I can’t stand this chick. She gives me the creeps and she seems like one of those people who are unable to see a human being behind all her stupid ass data. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

“That’s unfortunate. You should consider being less selfish in the future.” She started to walk away only to pause, looking at Kevin. “If she dies, do let me know.” And then she left the library.

“What a bitch,” I muttered, standing up from my seat.

Kevin rubbed the back of his neck, following me. “Well, at least we got some answers, right?”

“Not really. This whole thing feels pointless.”

He hummed, folding his arms over his chest as he peered at me. “I wonder if I’ll know when you switch. Is there, like, a magic poof or something? Maybe a sound or some colorful smoke? Do your eyes start glowing? Ooo, what if you grow wings?”

I smacked my face with my palm. “We’re not in an anime, bro…”

“That’d be cool, though, right?”

“No.”

“Aww…”

━━━━━━༻❀༺━━━━━━

My leg wouldn’t stop bouncing as I sat on the bench, waiting for Haru and Dylan to arrive. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Claire said. I don’t want to switch with someone I don’t know. I don’t want someone else inside my body, messing with my personal space and dealing with the people I know. It seems like such an invasion of privacy.

Worse, I don’t know when or if it’s gonna happen and how long it will happen. Will I even be aware of it when it happens? When I just blink and then a fucking week has passed and I have no idea what happened?

“Hey.” A hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped up in surprise, eyes wide.

Dylan held his hands up in surrender, blue eyes shimmering with worry behind his glasses. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Damn it, when did I get so jumpy? I put my hand over my heart, willing it to calm down. “It’s okay. I’ve just got a lot on my mind…”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

I almost made a smart comment about switching with my soulmate but I decided against it. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, I just wanted to forget all about this stupid soulmate bullshit and enjoy my birthday. I forced a smile, shaking my head. “Nope, it’s nothing important.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Where’s Haru?”

“He’s running a bit late because he lost his shoe.”

“His shoe?” I quirked a brow, feeling amused. “Just the one?”

Dylan nodded with a chuckle. “The left one, if I recall correctly. I’m sure the cat hid it, but he refuses to accept his baby would do such a thing.”

“Baby,” I snorted. “That cat is a demon.”

“A demon who has his owner wrapped around his finger.”

“That’s the dream.”

Dylan laughed, throwing his arm around my neck. “Happy birthday, Jae.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, hugging his waist. “I’m sorry if I ruined your date day.”

“You could never. We can go on a date any day, but your birthday only comes once a year.”

I smiled genuinely this time, leaning into him. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Should we grab some boba while we wait? It might be a while.”

“Hell yeah. It’s been weeks since I last had boba. I need my fix.”

We were able to order our drinks and get through half of them before Haru finally showed up, looking disheveled and out of breath. He flopped into the seat across from us, huffing dramatically.

“I’m guessing you found your shoe?” I quirked a brow, hiding my amused smile behind my drink.

“You told her?” scowled Haru. “I told you not to tell her!”

“You said no such thing, love,” replied Dylan, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Are you sure? I definitely said it in my head,” he pouted, taking the drink from his soulmate. “So, you skipped school yesterday and today. Mind telling me where you were, young lady?”

I hesitated, moving the straw around in my drink. I wanted to tell him and I knew I would eventually because I told him everything, but… I didn’t want to tell him now. I’ve been agonizing over this for too long already. I just want to forget about it and be normal for a day.

Dylan seemed to sense my reluctance, clearing his throat. “We can get the details about that tomorrow. For now, let’s just enjoy the day, okay?”

I sent him a grateful smile which he returned with a pat on my knee.

Haru clicked his tongue. “Fine~ but you’re telling me everything tomorrow!”

“Deal.”

━━━━━━༻February 20th, 18 years old༺━━━━━━

The years passed by slowly, filled with anxiety as I waited for the switch to happen but it never did. Aside from those judging me for being a Starless, my days passed by uneventfully. I was now in my senior year of high school, just a few months shy of being released out into the world.

I’ve finally come to accept that I’m a Starless who probably won’t ever find her soulmate and I was okay with that. I had Blaise, Kevin, Haru, and Dylan. They were all I needed in my life. We’re family and, even though they will go their own way with their soulmates, we will always be family.

I stifled a yawn as I walked down the sidewalk, wanting nothing more than to return home and crawl back into bed.

Haru sent me a look that clearly said, ‘I’m judging you.’ “I told you not to stay up all night.”

“I didn’t stay up all night,” I defended myself with a huff. “I only stayed up until three.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Shaddup,” I yawned again, rubbing at my eye. There was a strange tugging sensation at the back of my skull and I felt as if the world started to spin. “What the fu-” The was a sudden pain in my gut and I stumbled backward, hitting the ground hard.

“Ahahahaha, not so tough now, huh?!”

I coughed, clutching my stomach as I looked up at the source of the voice. He was feckin’ huge, towering over me with gravity-defying blonde hair and a scarred face only a mother could love. And he was speaking… Japanese? Wait, I’m not fluent in Japanese. “You fucking… punched me!”

“Well, duh,” he rolled his eyes. “That’s what you do in a fight, dumbass.”

“The hell do you mean, in a fight? I wasn’t even -” The words died in my throat as I took in my surroundings. I wasn’t on the sidewalk heading to school in the morning, I was in a scrapyard at night surrounded by guys who were screaming and yelling as they traded blows. “What the hell is happening?” I muttered, bringing my hand up to my head only to pause at the strange sensation I felt there. What the… are these dreads? I don’t have dreads!

But dread is exactly what filled me as my brain started to piece everything together. We switched. I was in my soulmate’s body!

━━━━━━༻❀༺━━━━━━

Read part 2 here.

[bookpersonmaryj]

Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

1.ooof okay so I have A Lot of current projects, but the one that I've been working on the most over the last week is probably the tma chatfic (working title, I'll have to come up with something better at some point).

it's, well, a chatfic, which you can probably guess from the title, but more specifically: (spoiler warning for the magnus archives here!!!) basically, all the avatars have a groupchat and Annabelle Cane adds Jon at some point after he gets promoted, because they all think he's Aware of serving an eldritch fear entity and are Surprised when he is clueless as to what the hell they're all talking about

i've been writing on it for over at least... two years i think? and a few days ago edited the bits i wrote separately to fit into the bit that's more story-like, at which point i discovered that i'm at 95 pages??? somehow??? so yea there's progress, despite there being literally no plot besides Jon Finds Out About The Entities And Has A Few Breakdowns.

what i love about it: Everyone Is Queer (because i was figuring out my gender at the time and thought i was just being supportive to trans/nb people and not relating that stuff to myself) and There Is No Angst (okay that's a lie, there's a bit angst, but mostly it's really entertaining and not angsty) and I have so much fun writing the characters???

pretty sure a lot of the characters are OOC but I don't really care, it's far too funny to have the avatars bully Jon for having a crush on Martin (yes this fic is also jonmartin with jon getting over his denial Very Quickly during what constitutes as s1)

honorable mentions here to the other fics i'm working on right now: the doctor who bodyswap au we all needed after potd where they Actually Bodyswap, the doctor who fic where some evil scientist tries to use regeneration energy for their own gain (it is as angsty as it sounds, yes), the tua fanfic where klaus refuses to let luther lock up viktor in that creepy basement in s1 (with added nb klaus and trans viktor because yes!), the sandman fanfic where dream loses the ability to speak after being locked up in a glass bowl for centuries (called 'cat got your tongue' because I Am Hilarious), and the ouat fanfic that's purely self-indulgent because i have a I Could Fix Her mentality when it comes to Regina (not just because of that but it's definitely part of it...)

4. mhhhh let's see!

There’s something going wrong in her mind, something is wrong with this whole regeneration, of course it is, forced regenerations aren't ever simple, but this is more than that, because she just let the Master leave with Yaz, with her TARDIS, and that’s not what the Doctor does, that’s not-

Is that still who she is? Is she still the Doctor now?

Yaz didn’t notice. The Master didn’t say anything, didn’t even gloat, didn’t even- And she’s not acting like the Doctor should, so what-?

She curls around herself, feeling unmoored when it’s different than before, the Master’s body – hers now – new and ill-fitting like putting on a glove that’s too small, or maybe it’s too big, or possibly both, somehow.

this is from my doctor who bodyswap fic, and i really liked this bit, because thirteen is questioning her own sense of self, after gallifrey, after techteun, after getting swapped into a body that isn't hers, and i just think that's a really neat concept to explore

actually, have some more of that fic, cause there are several lines i really like:

“Wait wait wait, can’t we talk about this?” she yelps, ducking behind machinery and twisting out of the way of more shots.

“The Cyberium is destroyed. You have destroyed the Cyberium. You will be deleted.”

They’re advancing on her, and she doesn’t have her sonic on her, it’s in her coat pocket, stupid Doctor, stupid Master, means she’s defenceless, means-

Except, she reaches into her pockets out of instinct, and there’s something in there.

“I don’t-” The words get stuck in her throat because they’re so untrue, doesn’t she want to do this, and it’s different now, this is a step she’s not been prepared to take, is she really going to do this?

“Stand down. You will be deleted.”

Yeah, right.

Them or her. Them or Earth.

The decision, in the end, is far too easy.

And then the Doctor stares at the tiny Cybermen, the Master’s TCE still raised, and something in her mind is spinning wildly out of reach, something has changed and she doesn’t quite know what it is, or if it can be reversed.

thirteen making master decisions instead of doctor decisions! love to see her make Bad choices

“I see you had time to change.”

The words spark memory, and the Doctor raises a brow at him, lifts her arms in a mockery of presenting the new clothes, and replies: “I always dress for the occasion.”

Is that amusement in his eyes or is she imagining it?

She lets her arms drop, crosses them over her chest again, considers him. It’s strange to stare at her own face and have it look back, except those eyes aren't hers, those eyes have always been his, she’d know them anywhere.

what's more 'master' than changing your outfit for the Drama of it?

yeah, I don't know where this story is going, but the second i've finished it i'll upload it! ^-^

EDIT: just found the Actual scene i wanted to share but got distracted from looking for, this is from my other dw fanfic where someone wants to take regeneration energy

All his attention is on the Doctor, beautifully bathed in gold, brimming with light and life, the force of a nuclear explosion coiling inside her, infecting her surroundings, leaking into the air and causing everything in her path to self-destruct.

i adore writing thirteen as incredibly destructive force of nature ^-^

that's all, carry on!

6. good question... I have a lot of fun writing the thirteenth doctor, but honestly? it's Klaus Hargreeves from the umbrella academy. i just can't seem to stop writing Klaus, especially nonbinary he/they Klaus who figures out their powers and chills with Benny while his siblings are ignoring the both of them. (this probably says Something about me but I Do Not See)

(honorable mention to my ouat self-insert which i Cannot write anymore because i started writing her before i figured out that i am not, in fact, cis, and now i'm having trouble identifying with the person that used to be me)

8. mhhh... in terms of Queer things yes, i read and write both of those things.

i do think i Write far more angst than i Read angst.

also, this question depends entirely on whether it's meant as reading books or reading fanfiction, because obviously i read the sort of fanfictions that i also write, and i guess yeah, i do also read the books that are sort of close to the sort of fanfiction vibes i like to read / write

13. yes i do! mostly just fanfictions, nothing 'original' just yet (i am working on it though!).

the ao3 link to my published fics is here, and there's also a German self-insert ouat fanfic on a German fanfic site, but uhhh that's sort of Very Unfinished and was started when i was still in school sooo... (i am planning on rewriting it at some point, and will try to finish it as well...).

as to the rest: there are... several projects that i've kept to myself, yes. i've taken my three (?) finished harry potter fics off the internet for now because i don't feel comfortable having them up with the way jk is behaving, and i won't post any of the ones i'm still writing on (i'm mostly just writing on them because if i have an idea i need it Out).

i also have A LOT of fanfics that are simply not finished yet, and because i know that i will not be able to stick to a posting/writing schedule i'd rather finish them before posting them, they'll stay on my laptop for now.

I am also working on a superhero book, but I've had to change a few of the original ideas i had because they don't really fit with the rest of the vibe of the book anymore, so i don't know when that's gonna be finished, if at all...

25. tough question... I have a lot of fun writing something with a twist, like, I as the writer am aware of a piece of information about the story/character I am writing that the reader is Not aware of but i am layering little hints into the story, and at some point i have a Reveal of the thing. i wasn't aware that this was something i did for a bit, until someone (you, dimitri, very specifically you) pointed it out in one of my fics and i realized that i Liked doing things like that actually, so yea!

also uhh i guess i really like how i can sort of work through some of my problems by projecting them onto characters? it helps sometimes...

i also enjoy writing something, and then having an idea, and suddenly the story is going in a wildly different direction as before, and i didn't anticipate it but i actually like this new direction, so i just roll with it. it's nice that writing is... alive, in a way.

wow, i wrote far more than i expected. thank you for asking these questions @rearranging-deck-chairs I had a lot of fun answering!

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

for the fanfic asks: 4, 5, 6!! <3<3<3<3

4. How do you choose which fics to write?

Almost all my fics are requests or prompts I got at one point through tumblr or more recently exchange fics, that come with their own prompts. And then I also have a few haphazard docs filled with various ideas.

So what to write tends to depend a lot on if something’s time sensitive, ie, exchange stuff. Otherwise I have more or less a queue of stuff I want to seriously work on. Otherwise I have like two/three high priority projects at any given time. And then everything else is just on a whim lol, which is why I still have some WIPs from like 2018 that I keep telling myself I’m going to work on again.

5. How many wips do you have?  What fandoms/pairings are they for?

Too many! Ignoring like tumblr drabble prompts from a million years ago (that I will get to!!) I have about fifteen main main WIPs. It’s literally all either Hellsing or Grishaverse, and like one Devilman Crybaby one shot idea. But for the sake of brevity, let’s go over like five. The first three of which I have posted some of, but the latter two only exist in my drafts lol

Grishaverse multi chapter time loop AU, which is literally just an excuse to write both post canon fix it break it fic, and also “what if early canon had even more grooming and manipulation from the villain” at the same time. And omg I am. over 50k words into this one 😭😭

Hellsing multi chapter roleswap AU, basically swapping the two fmcs in the series, the bleeding heart ingenue fledgling vampire and her like ice bitch vampire hunter boss in charge of everything. This is both a pre canon fill in the blanks and, when I get there, and basically a canon rewrite. Also they are absolutely going to kiss.

Grishaverse AU in drabbles, I haven’t written a lot for this one yet actually but it’s a priority. Basically the first book in this series has a dramatic villain reveal (as much of a reveal as it can be when the villain in question wears all black, goes by the darkling, and his entire thing is having terrifying shadow magic) and this is basically like what if that reveal didn’t at that point, and things were normal for longer and the protagonist had way more skin in the game by the time she realized he’s fucking insane

Hellsing multichapter multiverse AU, SO Hellsing is like Dracula fanfic in itself and a big thing is that when Mina eventually died, bc she was partially turned into a vampire, her remains are useful to the antagonists in the Mad Sciencetastic pursuit of creating of like artificial vampires? And the fic is about the Hellsing gang stealing her remains back from the other organization. But it’s mad haunted and an anchor to other timelines. (At one point my blorbo Van Helsing gets briefly resurrected to help fix all the shit going on lol)

Hellsing pre canon AU, so in canon we get introduced to Alucard-who-is-actually-Dracula waking up from a twenty year long nap and first meeting his like teenage vampire hunter boss who is a descendant of Van Helsing, in like a single scene. And then there’s a ten year time skip to when the real story starts. So this one is set during that missing ten years but canon divergent in that her own asshole father isn’t dead yet and also Alucard was never imprisoned. I just love really shitty family dynamics 🤷‍♀️

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

Grishaverse time loop fic nikolina angst!

Fanfic Ask Game

[aeymii]

Yeah, that AU would probably be one of the verses with one of the most stable relationships between Mikan and Nagito, due to the different circumstances. Wouldn't be anything like the unpleasantness of Chapter 3's trial in the main verse thanks to Mikan never developing an obsessive love for Junko, and the survivors becoming closer. Could be a very affectionate platonic relationship. Or romantic if you want to go there. And I'd like to think her and Hiyoko are on better terms too.

Even though I said their ship is "Insert preferred ship here", I do also like to muse about the idea of Protag!Nagito being in a relationship with the doppelganger of main Nagito's love interest. And it becoming a source of angst and development.

Like to use Komazumi for example, the first encounter could involve the survivors of the class swap verse traveling to the main verse and meet up with its Remnants (also Nagiko who's just chilling on the island). Lots of high emotions from seeing living variants of their deceased classmates, with the same being true for Makoto and co. visiting their Remnant counterparts. And after a bunch of interactions, Nagito, Mahiru, and the main Class 77 starts to pick up on some vibes from Protag!Nagito and Survivor!Mahiru. And then doing a double-take and realizing "Holy shit, are you two...a thing?"

The idea of his "lucky bastard" counterpart being in a stable relationship (with the doppelganger of someone he might have feelings for no less), becomes another source of envy for main Nagito. Feeling at this point that he neither can nor should be in any relationship like that. But the gradual humanization of his protag counterpart through learning about the dude's various flaws and mistakes (and their "sister" trolling him a bit), and the acceptance of him as his "precocious twin brother", eventually helps him come round to the idea that maybe it's okay for him to love again too. And seeing how happy and at ease her other self is, Mahiru starts to wonder if maybe the two of them actually could work as a couple.

Lol they hate eachother, her thinking he weird, he pushing her out of the way to hold hands with Makoto, YAYYY THEY CLOSE, I like that!! My two children getting along for once and having a stable bond with eachother! This survivor group is just amazing!!!!

Hmm I personally prefer platonic Komamiki because I like seeing them be besties and interacting hehe- survivors getting a close bond like found family is everything to me 💕💕

Ohhhhhh him getting somewhere with mains partner?? That's interesting ‼️‼️ ohhh they meet up with the mainverse!! AND NAGIKO IS JUST CHILLING IN DA BACK AHAHAHA!! OOOOO THE EMOTIONS THE MIXED FEELINGGGGSS GIMME DA JUICY ANGST!!!! They sense SOMETHING AHAHAH KNEW IT LOL, Even the gang knows ahahhaha, their romance meter has picked up on some particularly high energy around the two ehehehheeheh

BRO STOLE HIS LOVE INTEREST?! NAHH THAT'S WILDDDDD 🗣️🗣️ He should've made a move when he had da chance and NOW his literal universal counterpart is making out with his partner AHAHAHHA he got no one for real, that sheet brutal 💀💀 NO WONDER HE JEALOUS, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE MY GUY LOL!! Oh ohhhh this is some development!!!! AND THE TROLLING HAHA- Yayyy love saves all and they get character development<3

[one-pissed-off-child]

Rating Ecanto AUs

because I'm toxic

Anti-madricest bug spray go brrrr

Papa Bruno Au: 4/10

I love the guy but there's absolutely no way Bruno is mentally stable enough to raise a child. And there's no beating Julieta besides. He's definitely more of a cool uncle

Also it ruins the rule of Threes

Papa of Two Au: 0/10

Same grievances as the Papa Bruno Au except worse because it ignores Camilo's afro-latino heritage. Not sexy

Mirabel Dies Au: 9/10

Can be wonderfully heart-wrenching when done correctly. Bonus points if the death comes so suddenly that the family barely has time to process

Shoutout to open your eyes(for the fireworks) for being my favorite version of this.

Bruno kidnaps Mirabel Au: -20/10

Same problems as Papa Bruno but 100× worse because it's creepy asf.

Imagine being stolen from your loving parents at five years old and forced to live on the run. Idc what his intentions are this is insane. Who decided this was a good idea?

Mirabel Runs Away Au: 5/10

Honestly my rating for this can go higher or lower depending on how it's written. Can be very bittersweet but has a tendency to make Mira ooc

Mama Mirabel Au: 2/10

(This is the one were Mira acts as Antonio's parental figure)

The only thing not ooc about this au is Mirabel and Antonio's relationship (which I always love) Definitely don't appreciate the implication that Pepa and Felix were anything less than attentive and loving parents. They literally have two kids already.

Also not a fan of how it romanticizes the parentification of a 15 y/o.

Tainted Miracle Au: 8/10

NO comfort ONLY hurt fuck you.

Has nothing I look for in an Encanto au. Almost everyone is a monster, absolutely no family feels, sad times everyday all the time. It's great totally recommend. Head over to @c-rose2081 to check it out.

Avoid if you're prone to angst induced heart attacks

Flightless Au: 15/10

Also by @c-rose2081

Has EVERYTHING I look for in an Encanto au. All the family feels and fluff. So soft so sweet love so much.

Power Swap Au: 6/10

There are a couple different versions of this au and honestly none of them have been written all that great so this is the rating for now. I really do like the concept though. Just not the execution

The art for this is always spectacular though

Role Swap Au: 9/10

I haven't seen anything written for this au but all the concept art is phenomenal.

Villain Bruno/Mirabel Au: 5/10

Again, my rating for this fluctuates largely depending on how it's done. Tainted is a great example of this Au. It sets up the motivation of the characters and has the worldbuilding to back it up. We know exactly how the Madrigal's came to be the way they are. Everyone is ooc but there's a solid reason for it

Other versions of this try to frame it in way that makes it as close to canon as possible with the twist that Bruno snd Mirabel are just less forgiving which honestly just makes them seem like moody edgelords lashing out (idc what anyone says being ignored sometimes is NOT a good reason to go evil).

Proper setup is key for this Au

And that's it

[lilyclawthorne]

Hello i have offers for the kidnapping au

Agustín naturally feeling like it's his fault, and you know Alma doesn't love him too much so she definitely lets him hear that, then Félix snaps on him (on accident obviously because he's just upset) and him just being like. "Fuck it" and being completely reckless and not even trying to keep himself safe, just to save the triplets, and at "the moment of truth" instead of being clumsy he just. Freezes. Because he messed up in getting them kidnapped, he messed up in helping his mother in law, he messed up in helping Félix on the rescue mission, and he's suddenly so horrified to mess up again that he legitimately can't move to save his life.

But consider, when the rescue does happen one of the kidnappers going to shot someone and everyone is unable to act because if they do anything the person being aimed at will be shot on the spot (I'm thinking Félix perhaps because Agustín got their plan failing earlier) and he shoots and... Nothing happens. Kidnapper looks around in bewilderment and Agustín holds up the thingie that holds the bullets like "yeah, no" and now it's kidnappers with no guns vs. kids with superpowers and my man gets redemption arc

Like i also imagine he's the only one around actually knowing how to use a gun from the Encanto, he really didn't want to because it's accident prone Agustín, he knows he'll fuck up, but after Félix snaps at him he just hopes he'll fuck up in a self destructive way and not outwards thus going in for solo gun rescue instead of using his brain (because he probably knows that ideally no one should go alone, i don't think he would go in gun swinging as a first option. I think he'd be this reckless and stupid only after things pile up, over and over again being blamed by others and by himself into thinking his own safety isn't important)

Like idk he's clumsy, not dumb, i think he needs to be severely hurt to go make such a dumb decision like going in alone with a weapon he barely can handle

I’m gonna answer all of your asks in one go and just gonna put a read more

Agustín is almost certainly going to feel a LOT of misplaced guilt. Emotions are gonna be running REAL high and there’s a lot of anger and blame that people are looking to put on someone and he’s an easy target. (I also imagine Mirabel can empathize with him at some point in the middle of all this, feeling like is your fault the family is hurting and she would try very hard to help him understand he’s not at fault, but it’s never that easy is it?)

I do like the idea that he’d get impulsive and actually be the one to go first. It’s a more reckless and in the moment decision, that could better lead to the rest of the chaos and angst that follows.

I also love the idea of badass city boy Agustín having removed the bullets. Only one in the family who can work a gun, and completely unsuspected that he could swap something like that because of how clumsy he is.

I feel like at this point is where Félix would get a little impulsive, he’s probably been making a plan already but now another person is gone and could get killed so he’s rushing to find Agustín before he gets too far away, partially to back him up, partially because he regrets what he said already.

I kinda hate Alma getting nasty like that, like at this rate we’re gonna break casita again. But also emotions are running high and it’s not surprising people would lash out instead of addressing their own emotions.

I could see Dolores telling the other grandkids what she heard, and them trying to find a way to comfort him because honestly I think they’d be a little better at understanding not to immediately place blame. I mean this man literally went through a whole other trauma by witnessing them getting taken, and that’s not his fault. But by the time they try and find him and reach out, he’s gone.

I also really think if Alma said those things to him, and after everything happens, that if Julieta would find out she’d be very upset with her mother, and would have a hard time forgiving her afterwards. I imagine none of the triplets would blame him when this is all over

[chaoticminhos]

priceless

priceless; adjective; so precious that its value cannot be determined.

pairing: bang chan x reader

genre: angst, fluff, enemies to lovers, rich kid! bang chan au

warnings: none, lowkey sugar daddy channie but nothing is sexual

word count: 14.3k (oh my god)

a/n: this is a super long one, i’m sorry! i got a bit carried away 

christopher bang. chris. bang chan. he was a boy with the whole world at his fingertips, diligent and hardworking. the kind of boy you could bring home and your mother would adore him. your father couldn’t dream of a better boy to date his daughter. 

at least, that’s how everyone else would describe him. but you? no, to you, he was nothing but an arrogant asshole.

he flaunted the trophies and medals he won from swimming like they made him the most important man alive. he never missed a chance to point out that he was top of the class, even with being in sports. he could handle it all, such a balanced and sturdy young man, all of his teachers said.

people called him modest, but you couldn’t see it. not even a peak coming out from under the obnoxious fancy shirts he wore to school every day just to show that he had enough money to own that many different name brand clothes. your school didn’t even have a strict dress code, who the hell in their right mind would wear button up and dress pants in place of hoodies and sweats? a fucking prick who needs to prove in every way possible that he is better than everyone else, that’s who. he was mister fucking perfect and he never, not for one second, let you forget that.

you begrudgingly stepped into your first hour class and made your way to your assigned seat, groaning at the fact that in just a few minutes, the school bell would ring and you’d be forced to sit right next to chan for the whole 45 minutes the class lasted.

honestly, you thought your teacher was fucking insane for placing you and chris next to each other. and in a corner spot, no less! chris was pinned in between you and the wall, the only person other than you in direct line of contact for him being the two seated ahead of you. but that didn’t stop chan, no, he yelled over you to his friends as if you weren’t even there and it pissed you off. you’d offered to swap seats so you wouldn’t have to deal with his yelling over you, but he denied, saying that he didn’t want to get in trouble with the teacher.

“they’re assigned seats, y/n,” he’d said, “the whole point is we can’t just swap.”

students filtered in and, per usual, chan was one of the last to enter. he was almost always just on the edge of being late to the first hour, him and his friend hyunjin. they had before school swim practice and apparently it would kill their coach to let them off 10 minutes earlier so they wouldn’t be late to class. it didn’t matter though, the teacher waited for them every day. god forbid golden boys chris and hyunjin miss the first minute of class.

chan walked behind you to his seat, bumping into the back of your chair as he passed. asshole. there was plenty of room for him to get past you easily, he didn’t need to shove your chair.

the teacher began class just as chan plopped his bag onto your shared table, the straps from it falling across your notebook on your side of the table.

you brushed them off, pushing his bag further away from you. he sent you a look and threw his hands up in the air like you’d just ruined his bag.

“what’s your problem today?”

you looked up at him, breath slightly catching at his damp hair. he showed up to class like this every single day, with his hair pressed to his forehead and his shirt pressed close to his body, still damp from the pool and showering off, but that didn’t change the fact that every single day, he still took your breath away.

as much as you hated him, he was strikingly attractive. it’s a shame that people can’t have both good looks and a good personality. 

you put a forced smile on your face, “same as always, bang. you.”

your argument was cut short by your teacher sending a small glare towards you, a silent order to be quiet.

that’s another thing that pissed you off. he had started the conversation, but you were always the one who got in trouble for talking. not once did the teacher scold him for talking in class, only you.

“you’ll be working with your table partners today--“

you didn’t even bother to listen to the rest, groaning and putting your head in your arms on the desk. you had requested not to always be partners with your desk mate, stating that you and chan didn’t get along that well, but your teacher insisted.

“chris is a wonderful person to be partnered with, y/n.”

and of course chan wouldn’t back you up on the request of different partners. he didn’t want to be your partner in everything, god no, but it simply wouldn’t look good for him if he complained about another student.

you looked back up when chan snapped his fingers right next to your ear, causing you to jolt up and send a glare at him. he pointed to the paper that your teacher had placed on your desk.

“we’re supposed to brainstorm together.”

“can’t we just do it separately and say we talked the questions through?”

he put a fake pout on his face, “you don’t wanna share your ideas with me?”

a grin spread across his face as your jaw clenched in frustration. 

“i don’t want to interact with you, period.”

“i'm just as excited as you are--“

he was cut off by the sound of your stomach growling. you groaned, you hadn’t had time to get dinner yesterday and you couldn’t afford to buy breakfast this morning.

“someone’s hungry.”

“i didn’t have breakfast.”

“why, slept in?”

“couldn’t afford it.” you mumbled, not thinking much of your words, just letting them fall from your lips.

he laughed lightly, “couldn’t afford breakfast?”

your eyes slowly lifted from the paper to his face, casual mood from just seconds before long gone.

“not everyone was born on a pile of money, chan.”

“sorry, it was just a question.”

it wasn’t even 9 am and you already wanted to rip his head off.

“fucking forget about it, let’s just get this done so you can fuck off.”

he nodded in agreement, pressing his lips tightly together to bite back a response before reading out the first question before stating his opinions on the matter.

he didn’t bother you much more for the rest of the class period, just focusing on the work ahead of you two. he didn’t bring the breakfast issue up again, which honestly surprised you. it had obviously gotten a rise from you, you expected him to milk that for as long as possible.

you didn’t see him again until lunch, where your eyes were glued to the back of his head as you angrily went over the start of your day to your best friends.

“he fucking made fun of me for not having money.”

“he’s such a prick.” sooyeon said through a mouthful of chips, turning to show one of her friends something on her phone. she wasn’t really listening. she never did when it came to you complaining about chan.

sooyeon was your best friend along with jisung, but she has lots of friends other than the two of you. she was an easy person to be around, you understood why everyone liked her:

“i agree,” jisung said as he sat himself down next to you, “i don’t get why you’re so obsessed with him when i’m literally right here.”

you hit his arm, causing his tray to shake as he set it on the table, some of the chocolate pudding falling onto the table.

“i am not obsessed with him, jisung! it’s just hard not to think about him so much when he makes it a point to be a cock every single fucking time we interact.”

jisung ignored your reply, scooping up the pudding you caused him to spill and plopping it onto an empty place on your tray.

you moved to shove him again, but he instinctively reached his hands to your arms to stop you, coating your sleeve with the pudding that he had yet to clean off of his hand.

“jisung!” you shouted, unable to keep a smile from breaking out on your face. there was no real reason to be mad, it would wash out, but you wanted to give him a hard time for it anyway.

“you ruined my favorite sweatshirt!”

you grabbed his wrist, pressing his still dirty hand against the chest of his own hoodie, giving it a stain to match the one on your arm.

“what the fuck?” he called through a loud laugh.

“it’s payback, you dickhead.”

he wiped his hand off on a napkin before standing up and motioning for you to do the same. he packed the apple and chips from his lunch into his bag for later tossed out the rest.

“you are so lucky i have extra clothes in my gym locker.”

you followed him as he started through the cafeteria, “i’m lucky? you’re the one who got pudding on me first!”

“i don’t recall that ever happening. obviously it got on you when you were brutally attacking me.”

you hit him again, laughing as he led you out of the food court and to the gyms.

you hadn’t realized, but you’d walked right past chan and his friends as you were leaving. he observed the interaction between you and jisung and let out a nose laugh at the childishness of it.

he got up and tossed his tray. he’d heard jisung mention the locker room and it reminded him he needed to grab his math textbook from there, he’d left it there after practice that morning.

chan expected you to be in the girls locker room changing or waiting outside of the boys locker room for jisung to bring you a clean shirt, so he thought nothing of stepping into the locker room himself. what he did not expect was to be met face to face with you as you slipped one of jisungs hoodies over your head, chans eyes barely catching the bottom of your bra as you pulled the cloth down.

jisung was still shirtless, digging through his locker for a shirt that didn’t have pudding on it and didn’t smell distinctly of sweaty boy. he looked up upon hearing the door open, nodding to chan as he entered.

he didn’t acknowledge jisung, instead keeping his attention on you.

“you do know this is the boys locker room, right?”

your eyes widened in mock surprise, “really? i thought this was the music department. no wonder there’s no piano.”

he huffed as he walked past you and to his own locker where his book was sat on the bench beside it.

“why are you in here, anyway?” he continued.

“jisung is a dumbass.”

the boy in question turned to you as he slipped his own sweatshirt over his head, “you’re being quite an asshole to me considering i just gave you the one actually clean sweatshirt i had on hand.”

“maybe if you hadn’t gotten pudding on the one i was wearing i wouldn’t need to steal yours.”

chan cut in, “don’t you have your own clothes to change into?”

jisung responded for you, “she doesn’t have gym.”

chan nodded, “not surprised by that.”

he’d mumbled it, but you heard. first he’d made fun of your economic status, now he was going to take a jab at your body?

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

you took a step towards him and he put his hands up in defense, “you don’t seem like the sporty type.” 

your eyes narrowed and he seemed to get what you had been thinking.

“no, oh my god! i’m not that low.”

you scoffed, “but you’re low enough to tease someone for being poor? come on jisung.”

you bundled your dirty sweatshirt into your arms and swung your bag over your shoulder before leaving the locker room with jisung hot on your trail.

when you entered your first class the next day, you were met with a plastic wrapped muffin sitting on the table of your spot. 

you figured someone had forgotten it there from the day before and no one had noticed to move it. you inspected the wrapper, it was still fully sealed. deciding whoever left it there probably forgot about it and remembering you hadn’t been able to get breakfast that morning either, you unwrapped the muffin and took a bite.

and damn, muffins hit different when they’re the first thing you’ve eaten since dinner time the night before.

you were about halfway done with the tasty treat when chan found his way to his spot beside you. he was wearing a plain white button up that day. water droplets from his hair had fallen onto his shoulder and collar, making small see through patches across his collar bones. you caught yourself staring before he did, thankfully.

he pointed to the muffin in your hand, “you got yourself breakfast this morning.”

you nodded, providing no verbal response, just taking another bite of the muffin.

the bell rang and the teacher clapped to get the classes attention, stating that you’d be continuing the discussion activity you and your partner had started the day before.

you looked over to chan with wide eyes. it was supposed to take two days? the two of you had gone through most of the questions the day before.

“did we miss something?” he started, reaching across the table to drag your paper closer to him so he could see it. you sighed, he had his own sheet. it would have taken literally five seconds for him to get his own instead of hijacking yours.

“i think my brain is just too good for her assignments.” you shrugged as you took the final bite of your muffin, crumpling the wrapper in your hand.

“your brain? please,” he leaned back in his chair, turning his body towards you, “i’m obviously the powerhouse of this duo.”

you raised your eyebrows with a smile, “then what am i? the hot eye candy?”

he pretended to think for a moment, “no, i think that one's me too...”

your smile grew, the words were teasing but not in a bad way. you could not believe you were having a civil conversation with bang chan, let alone an almost friendly argument.

you tossed the rolled up muffin wrapper at him, hitting him right in the cheek. he scrunched his nose, “you’re fucking terrible.”

the words weren’t anything different from what you would expect him to say to you, but the tone was lighter than usual. almost playful. still, they seemed to snap you into reality. bang chan was not your friend.

you reached to the paper he’d taken from you and glanced at the last few questions, pointing  to the next in line and reading it aloud.

“is it unethical for heinz to steal the pills for his dying wife?” (look up the heinz moral debate if you don’t know what i’m referring to)

he thought for a moment before responding.

“no.”

“why?” you prompted him to continue.

“it says he tried every ethical and legal way, he has no other choice. he doesn’t have the money to pay for the pills, stealing is the only option he has left.”

you nodded, making a slightly surprised face.

“what?”

“nothing. i just took you for the kind of person to be all, i don’t know, fuck the poor.”

you scanned his face and he looked almost offended at your remark.

“of course not, everyone deserves the same opportunities when it comes to things like this.”

the rest of the hour went the same, pleasant way. you had to keep reminding yourself every couple of minutes that he was not your friend. he was being oddly pleasant to be around that day, but he was still an arrogant prick.

you were met with another muffin on your spot the next morning. and the morning after that. and the one after that, too. and the next one, and so on. it became clear to you within the first few days that it couldn’t be a coincidence, someone was leaving muffins there for you every morning. you found it kinda weird at first, considering you couldn’t think of who could be doing it. if it was jisung or sooyeon they would just hand it to you, they wouldn’t go through the trouble of sneaking into the ethics classroom before school started to put a muffin on your spot. neither of them even got to the school in time to do that. but after a while, you just accepted it. you appreciated the little snack every morning, it gave you something to go to school for and it assured you that you’d be able to eat something, even if you were short on money.

after a while, you stopped finding it weird and started to find it cute and endearing.

jisung and sooyeon were convinced it was a secret admirer, that someone had a crush on you and didn’t know how to show it. you didn’t believe that idea, no one even knew you even existed other than the two of them and a couple other friends. still, you honestly couldn’t think of another reason. 

either way, it changed your first period class from being something to dread because of the boy seated next to you into something to look forward to. that, and chris had been more bearable. he was still an obnoxious asshole and he didn’t deserve half of the positive attention he constantly had, but not every conversation with him was full of angry words and snappy remarks anymore. you were starting to realize that maybe some of the things he did weren’t really mean or annoying and it was just you finding different excuses to be mad at him, but you’d never admit that out loud.

 you still didn’t call him a friend, and he didn’t call you one either. he would probably be embarrassed to call someone like you his friend. he still annoyed the living hell out of you, but you couldn’t make yourself have an undying hatred for him anymore. just a strong disliking. 

but he was not your friend. he was still the same dickhead he had been the whole time you’d been in school with him. he wasn’t a nice person.

you still didn’t like him. 

you seemed to repeat that to yourself quite a lot.

you smiled as you picked up the muffin from the table, you’d lost count of how many had been left for you by now. you unwrapped it and started eating, you’d stopped checking the wrappers for holes after the first few. it was silly, but you trusted whoever was leaving them for you.

hyunjin and chan walked into the room just as the bell went off. chan was laughing at something hyunjin said, his dimples showing. they’re something you’d grew to really like about him. you didn’t even know he had dimples before, he never smiled at you up until a couple weeks ago.

the teacher waited for them to reach their spots before beginning the lecture, talking for a while about something or another. you didn’t really pay attention, zoning out as you finished your muffin and tossed the wrapper at chan like you’d made a habit of doing with every wrapper you had.

it was funny, you thought. every single day, even though he complained about it, he would pick up the wrapper from wherever it landed and deliver it to the trash himself. he tried to make you do it originally, but you refused.

“you’ll be working with the same partner you’ve had all semester. i have rubrics up here if anyone wants a paper copy.”

you tuned in to the last bit of what your teacher said, catching on that she was assigning another partner project, and your partner would be the same as always- chan.

both of you pulled out your laptops and pulled up the work. neither of you complained about always being partners anymore, the same argument over and over again did no one good. plus, it’s not like he was the worst partner to have. because of his position as golden boy, he always did good on his work, assuring you that you’d have a partner that would do their share.

the project consisted of you drawing a topic from a hat the teacher passed around and finding the other group with that topic. you would be debating against that group on whatever topic you and chan had drawn. 

chan let you be the one to draw from the hat and you drew ‘the morality of euthanasia (anti)’ 

you laughed at it, “kill the old, eat the rich.”

chan raised an eyebrow at you, laughing at your response.

“we’re supposed to be against it. don’t kill the old, no eating the rich.”

“you’re just saying that because you don’t want to be eaten.”

“oh, you got me. i don’t want to be cannibalized, how dare i.”

you were paired to debate against two boys, kim seungmin and lee felix. they were chans friends. they didn’t swim with him, but they sat with him at lunch and hung out with him a lot, you’d saw them around him enough to get that.

you spent the rest of the period doing general research on the topic. it wasn’t biased, so you were able to work with seungmin and felix on it, too. they were actually pretty fun to be around. you expected them to be stuck up and bratty like chan, but they weren’t. seungmin was really sweet and felix was super funny.

“i’m telling you, eat the rich.” felix spoke.

“that’s what i’ve been saying!” you called out, reaching your hand out to give him a high five.

“felix, you’re literally rich.” chan pointed out.

“no, channie, my parents are rich. i am simply living off of their rich people money.”

you checked the clock, realizing class would be ending in a few minutes. you packed your things back into your bag before turning to chan.

“she said we’d need to work outside of class. does the library after school work?”

he sharply inhaled, “i have practice and by the time it’s over the library will be closed. if you’re okay with waiting we can go to my house after practice?”

you were slightly taken aback by the request.

“uh, sure.”

“you can watch practice if you want, or even just sit in the pool room doing homework or playing on your phone or something and then i can give you a lift to my place.”

that solved the issue of finding a ride there and you figured he couldn’t live too far, you’d be able to walk home, so you agreed.

the last bell rang and you lifted yourself from your chair and headed to the hallway, meeting jisung and sooyeon by their lockers.

jisung raised his keys, “ready to go?”

“actually, i’m staying to work on a project with chan, i forgot to tell you.”

“you’re getting awfully close with him recently.” sooyeon teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

you would have hushed her just as you did every time she even dared to mention you and chan becoming closer, but jisung cut you off.

“here?”

“no, at his house.”

“do you have a ride there and home?”

“yeah,” you started, “he’s driving me there and i can just walk home.”

“walk?” jisung frowned, “how far away is his place from yours?”

you shrugged, “can’t be that far.”

he shook his head, “not happening. text me his address and i’ll take you home when you’re done.”

there was no point in arguing with him. he got super protective over you and sooyeon when it came to stuff like this. he said it wasn’t safe for you to walk home alone, that’s the whole reason he drove you and sooyeon home every day. 

you barely had time to promise jisung you’d let him drive you home before someone was calling your name from down the hallway.

“y/n! chan said you’re watching practice?”

you looked at the source of the voice, hwang hyunjin. since when did he talk to you? or even know your name?

“yeah,” you replied, “i’m coming.”

you waved goodbye to your friends before jogging to meet hyunjin at the end of the hallway, letting him lead you to the practice rooms. you’d been in them before, you went to a fair share of sports games and meets, but it felt weird being in it with it so empty, especially alone with a boy you’d barely ever talked to. he noticed the tension.

“sorry, i’m hyunjin. chan’s been mentioning you a lot lately so i figured i should make myself present.”

“oh,” you laughed, “it’s not a big deal. we aren’t really close or anything.”

hyunjin raised his eyebrows and a smirk played at his lips, “so you’re not dating or anything like that?”

your face flushed red, “god, no. i don’t have a boyfriend.”

his smile grew, “good to know.”

your face grew even more red as the door to the locker room opened and chan stepped out. 

“stop flirting with y/n and go get changed.”

hyunjin turned to him, “you seem to have forgotten that i am the captain of this team and i do not take orders from you.”

he punctuated the last word with a finger to chans chest as he passed him and entered the room to get ready for practice.

“how’d you know he was flirting?” you laughed.

“it’s all he does.”

chan stepping closer to you in his shirtless form did nothing for your blushed face. he was actually in more than he would be during meets, considering it was just a practice so he was allowed to wear swim trunks, but it was still a lot more of him, or any boy for that matter, than you were used to seeing.

to your dismay, he noticed how your eyes avoided him as he stepped closer to you.

“what, not used to shirtless boys?” he teased.

“unless it’s jisung, no.” you replied, eyes trained on the pool behind him.

he raised an eyebrow, “i thought you said you two weren’t a thing?”

“we’re not. he just has stupid high body heat and strips randomly in the middle of movie nights.”

he nodded, taking a step closer to you.

“you’re so flustered when it’s just me out here, are you gonna be able to handle the whole team?”

you stepped back, “i’ve watched swim meets before chan, it’s fine. it’s just weird because we’re alone right now.”

as if on cue, the door swung open and the boys streamed out of the locker room, hyunjin last. you didn’t really recognize anyone on the team but chan and hyunjin. they made their way to the edge of the pool and chan jogged to join them, pointing at the stands near the pool for you to sit down at.

the boys started to warm up and a small crowd of girls built up on the bleachers around you. none of them seemed to notice you until the coach entered and scanned the small crowd.

“you’re new a new addition.” he pointed out.

you were gonna reply that you were just there for the one day when chan cut in for you with a smile on his face, “i invited her, coach.”

the coach looked in between you and chan with a small smile. 

“oh, you did?”

you didn’t know what it meant but his words had been laced with a teasing tone and it made yours cheeks heat up. did it matter that chan had invited you and you hadn’t just randomly showed up?

apparently it did. you got a tap on your shoulder and you turned around to face the person who did it.

“did chan really invite you specifically to watch?”

“i mean, yeah.” you began, “i’m going to his place after so he said i could just wait here.”

her eyes widened, “he invited you to his house?”

you grimaced, this was drawing more attention than you wanted, “it’s nothing like that, we have a project to work on.”

she hummed and nodded, focusing her attention back on the boys.

you thought you’d get bored during the practice and end up scrolling through your phone, but you didn’t. something about the way they moved so fluidly and easily in the water was captivating to watch. your eyes kept mostly to chan, but they drifted to hyunjin a lot, too. watching him, you understood why he was captain. he had such control of his body even under the pressure of the water, it was like it was moving according to what he willed it to.

practice ended and all of the boys jumped out of the pool and grabbed a towel, heading straight for the locker room. everyone but chan. he dried his hair off before slinging the towel around his neck and over his shoulders and walking up to where you were sitting at the bleachers. he leaned against the cold metal as he spoke to you.

“i just need to shower quick and get changed then we can go. i won’t be long.”

you nodded and gave him a soft smile. most of the girls who’d came to watch the boys swim had left already, but the few who hadn’t began whispering after seeing your and chans interaction.

you didn’t know why it was such a big deal, you were his partner for a project. 

high school dynamics always confused you.

after a few minutes of mindlessly scrolling through your phone, chan pushed the door open and stepped out, calling to you to follow him out. he lead you through the school and outside to the parking lot. it didn’t take much for you to find his car, you guessed it was one of the few that looked like they cost more than you were worth. no doubt the other ones belonged to his friends.

to say you were surprised when he jogged ahead of you to open the passenger side door for you would be an understatement. he really had changed a lot from a couple weeks before. or maybe you just started seeing things differently.

he frowned slightly at your confused face as you approached the car.

“what?”

“i didn’t take you for the gentleman type.”

“how would you know? you’ve never gone out with me before.”

you shrugged, he had a point.

he slipped into the driver seat and put the key in the ignition. the startup was so quiet you wouldn’t have even known it was turned on if he hadn’t shifted gears and started to drive. you were so used to clunky old cars like the one your family had or the one jisung drove around in.

speak of the devil, your phone lit up with a message from jisung.

sungie🤢💗: at his place yet?

you: headed there now

sungie🤢💗: address ??

you: one sec

you lifted your eyes from your screen to look at chan, “hey, what’s your address?”

he looked confused, “why?”

“jisungs gonna pick me up when we’re done.”

he glanced at you before training his eyes back onto the road, “no he’s not, i’ll take you home.”

“sung already said he could.”

“i thought it was a given that i’d give you a ride home since i was the one to invite you out?”

you laughed, “since when is that an unspoken rule?”

he shrugged, “it’s just good manners.”

you leaned back into the seat, sending jisung a message than chan was giving you a ride home. 

who knew bang chan even knew what good manners were.

you were right about his house not being far, he was pulling his fancy car into the fancy driveway of his fancy house within just a few minutes. 

although you knew it was normal life for him, you were amazed that he could step into such a pretty house so casually. you felt like if you touched anything, it would shatter.

he slipped off his shoes at the door and you did the same, following him up a large set of stairs and into what you assumed was his bedroom.

you’d expected it to be neat, but it was the exact opposite, clothes tossed randomly on the floor and open chip bags laying around. you laughed at the condition of his room and he pouted as he hurried to try to clean up some of the mess.

“don’t make fun of me, i didn’t expect company.”

“who knew that you, bang chan, were so messy.”

“i’m a high school boy, what did you expect?”

“yeah, but you’re also the pride of the school.”

he huffed, plopping down onto his bed after deciding cleaning was no use, “i’m still just a kid.”

you sat yourself down next to him, pulling your laptop from your bag and opening it. you were immediately faced with the issue of not having wifi connection.

“chan, what’s your wifi password?”

“it’s super long,” he mumbled as he reached across your lap and took the device from your hands, “i’ll just type it for you.”

you didn’t have the time to scold him for just taking it from you, you were too busy trying to convince yourself that you did not feel butterflies in your stomach when he had gotten that close to you.

you just weren’t used to boys other than jisung being so casual around you, that’s all.

he handed your laptop back to you and rose to his feet, getting up and doing something behind you for a few seconds. you didn’t pay attention, already getting to work on research. 

a few seconds later, you felt the bed dip beside you and chan was pulling his legs onto the bed and sitting with them crossed and his own laptop in his lap, his loose button up he’d worn all day now replaced with a plain black t-shirt. 

your face flushed red when you realized he’d just changed his shirt with you in the room, not that it was a big deal. he was a swimmer and he was used to people seeing him shirtless, it didn’t mean anything to him, but it was still odd for you. 

the two of you worked in silence for about an hour before he fell onto his back, closing his laptop and tossing it onto the bed beside him.

you let out a small laugh, “what?”

“it’s boring.” he groaned, “let’s get food.”

it didn’t take much for him to convince you to ditch schoolwork and get food instead. he led you back down the stairs and into a kitchen that you swore was bigger than your whole house, opening the fridge door and leaning down to look at its contents.

he shut the door and let out an obnoxious groan, “i don’t want any of this,” his eyes locked with your and a grin appeared on his face, “let’s go somewhere for food.”

you gave a skeptical look before a small smile took over your features, “okay.”

he walked up to his room with you and you grabbed your bag before the two of you slipped your shoes on and you hopped back into his car, him rushing ahead to open the door for you once again.

you buckled your seat belt, “where are we going?”

he shrugged, “what are you hungry for?”

“you’re the one who wanted to go out for food.”

“and now i’m asking you to choose.”

you huffed, “i don’t know, anywhere.”

he hummed and nodded his head, “the diner a couple blocks down from the school?”

you perked up at the suggestion, that was your favorite place to eat.

“oh my god, please.”

he laughed at your reaction, pulling the car from his driveway and starting the route to the small diner. as the building came into view, you wondered why chan even knew about this place. he could afford so many more fancy restaurants.

he held the door open and you stepped into the small place with a smile on your face, you hadn’t been able to come here for a while. 

chris let you choose where to sit before grabbing a menu from the stack on the table and shoving it in your direction.

“get whatever you want, i’m paying.”

you tried to object, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. honestly, you didn’t fight too hard, either. it saved you from the trouble of finding the money to pay for it.

you still didn’t want to make him spend a bunch on you, so you decided to just repeat the name of whatever he ordered to make sure you didn’t get anything too expensive. 

he ended up asking for a classic, just chicken strips and fries. you silently thanked him for ordering your favorite meal, repeating the same thing when the waitress asked what you wanted. 

“would you like any sauce with that?” 

you nodded politely, “barbecue, please.”

chan scrunched his nose and made a sound of disgust across the table, “barbecue is gross.”

you tried to hold down a smile as you glared at him, “says the one who ordered ranch! who the fuck eats ranch with chicken?”

“i do.” the waitress giggled, and you jumped. you’d kinda forgotten she was still there.

“oh, i’m sorry!”

she laughed, “it’s okay. what can i get for drinks?”

“i’ll take a chocolate shake, please.” chan answered first.

“i’ll take a chocolate shake, too.”

you folded the menu in front of you, content with your order.

“aw, come on.” chan made a sound of disapproval, “get a different flavor. if you want some chocolate, you can have some of mine.”

you felt a blush creep onto your cheeks, “um, okay, i’ll take strawberry then.”

the waitress clicked her pen shut with a smile, “i’ll have those out as soon as possible.”

you waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again.

“still think you’re fucking gross for eating chicken with ranch.”

he chuckled, pausing for a moment before responding. 

“do you come here a lot?”

you shrugged, “i used to. i don’t too much now though,” you debated telling him the truth, you couldn’t afford to eat out much, but opted not to. you were still upset with him for his response the last time you mentioned your money issues.

“too busy.”

he nodded in understanding.

“what’s your favorite thing on the menu?”

you let out an unamused laugh, and it sounded a lot more harsh than you’d intended it to.

“why are you asking so many questions?”

he frowned, “just friendly conversation.”

you leaned back in your seat, “we’re not friends.”

you could have swore you saw something like hurt flash across his features before you were interrupted by the waitress setting your milkshakes in front of you. 

you took a sip of your strawberry milkshake and any grumpy feelings you had for chan making you order it went out the window. it had been so long since you’d had a strawberry milkshake, or any kind other than chocolate. you always took the safe bet and got a chocolate shake, knowing you liked them, but you’d forgotten how good strawberry was.

you almost regretted snapping at chan as the two of you sat in uncomfortable silence waiting for the food to arrive. luckily, it didn’t take long, considering it was sort of late in the evening and there weren’t many other customers.

you made a gagging sound as the waitress placed a small container of ranch on chans plate.

the playful interaction seemed to give him the confidence to pick up conversation again.

“i used to come here all the time when i was little. me, hyunjin, felix, and seungmin got ice cream here practically every day in the summer.

you hummed in response, taking a bite of your food. the two of you ate in comfortable silence until both of your meals were complete. you shook your head lightly when chan motioned his chocolate shake to you, silently offering you to have a drink. you finished off your own shake with a sigh, leaning back into your seat.

“ready?” chan asked and you nodded in agreement, lifting yourself from your seat to stand.

you followed chan to the counter where he payed, leaving a generous tip for the kind waitress. 

you watched as he opened the car door for you yet again and made a secret promise to yourself to beat him to it next time.

wait, next time?

you shook the thought from your head as you fastened the seatbelt across yourself. 

you gave chan directions to your house and helped him find each turn along the short drive. it wasn’t far, you really could have walked home.

you couldn’t help but feel slight embarrassment as he pulled into your driveway. his car was probably worth more than your entire house. 

you half expected him to make a rude comment about it, but instead he mentioned the small garden you had planted in the front yard, barely visible in the dark. it was lit up by your porch light.

“what do you plant?”

“huh? oh, flowers mostly. i might plant some tomatoes to throw at you though.”

he laughed as you stepped out of his car. he waited until your front door was shut behind you before pulling out of your driveway and making his way home, where he immediately found his bed.

he frowned when he saw two computers on it, you must have forgotten to put yours in your bag before the two of you left to get food.

he packed both of the devices into his school bag before getting ready for bed and crawling under the covers. 

although he knew you’d only agreed to hang out for the project, he was glad you had. it seemed like he was finally breaking your shell of whatever you seemed to have against him.

you were digging through your book bag the next morning, muffin in hand, when chan and hyunjin strolled into the classroom, borderline late as always.

your eyes went to chan as he called your name while making his way towards you, lifting a laptop up in the air.

that’s where your laptop had disappeared to.

“you left it at mine last night.”

you thanked him as he set it in front of you, ignoring the whispers that erupted when chan announced that you’d been at his place the night before. 

everyone in this class of all people should know it was just for the project.

he pulled his own out of his bag and typed in the password, getting right to work.

the class was quiet, no conversation between you and chan really happening other than when he cursed you out for throwing your muffin wrapper at him and as everyone was packing their things moments before the bell rang.

“my house again tonight to go over what we researched?”

you sharply inhaled, “i promised jisung and sooyeon i’d go to the basketball game with them.”

he shot you a skeptical look.

“i already told you i watch sports sometimes.”

“i’ve never seen you at a basketball game.”

“were you looking for me?” you teased.

he shook his head, “i’ve never seen you at swim meets either.”

you stood as the bell sounded, “i go to sports games, chan.”

he put his hands up in defense, “i never said you didn’t! just making observations.”

you hopped back into jisungs car after dropping your bag at your house, scolding sooyeon for stealing the shotgun seat while you were in your house.

the three of you had killed some time driving around in jisungs car and screaming the lyrics to whatever song came on, so the game was due to start in just about 40 minutes. you waited patiently in the like to get tickets, joking around with sooyeon and jisung to pass the time. 

your turn came to purchase tickets.

“$5 a person, please.” the lady handing out tickets smiled sweetly. you assumed she was one of the players mothers.

sooyeon and jisung handed her their money as you checked your pockets for your wallet. where the fuck was it?

“y/n?” jisung questioned.

“i think i left my wallet at my house.” you said.

“i only brought enough for me.” sooyeon chimed in.

“me too.” jisung seconded.

you were getting ready to tell them to enjoy the game without you and tell minho you were sorry you couldn’t make it, that you’d just go home, when someone reached their arm around you, handing a $10 bill to the ticket lady.

“for her and me.”

you knew that voice.

“i don’t want your fucking money, chan.”

he raised an eyebrow, “sweetheart, you’ve been in my house. you know i can spare $5.”

sweetheart? where did that come from?

you huffed, allowing him to lead you out of line to give the people behind you a chance to get their tickets. sooyeon and jisung followed as you stepped into the gym and scanned the bleachers for seats.

“you actually came.” chan started again, “i thought you were just using it as an excuse not to hang out with me.”

“it’s not hanging out, it’s for school.”

“you’re saying you didn’t enjoy the diner yesterday, then?”

you gave him a light shove towards where you noticed hyunjin and felix sat down, “shut up.”

your friends followed you as you made your way up the bleachers and to the highest point, just a few feet from where chan was sat, sitting down in a big opening.

“excuse me,” jisung began, “what diner?”

you shrugged, “we got food after working for a bit, it’s not a big deal.”

“like a date?”

you slapped jisungs arm harder than you probably needed to.

“it was not a date.”

“did he pay?”

“yeah?”

he turned to sooyeon, lowering his voice, “it was totally a date.”

you shoved him again, “jisung, it was not a date!”

your eyes glanced towards where chan was sitting, surprised to see him already looking at you with a smile on his face. 

oh my god, he heard them teasing you about him.

your immediate reaction was to flip chan off, which just made him laugh and turn back to his friends.

“you absolute cock,” you lowered your voice at jisung, “he heard you call it a date.”

he shrugged, “yeah, and he smiled about it.”

you ignored him, turning to face the court where the game would be starting soon.

“i’m just saying,” jisung continued, “would it really be that bad if you liked him?”

you didn’t answer him, keeping your eyes trained to the court and pursing your lips together in annoyance.

you didn’t notice that chan had overhead what jisung asked, something in his stomach dropping when he saw your negative reaction to the question.

he returned his focus to his friends, joining in on whatever conversation felix and hyunjin were on about. he tried to focus on them, but he couldn’t keep you off his mind, stealing glances at you every few minutes and hoping that maybe you’d be looking back.

he’d honestly hoped you’d sit with him during the game. there was enough room where he was seated for you and your friends to join, he didn’t get why you had to sit somewhere else. was he really that unbearable?

the game was just a minute away from halftime, the scores tied. you and everyone else in the crowd were on their feet, cheering on their respective teams. 

you weren’t the biggest when it came to school spirit, but you were friends with a couple of the players. lee minho was someone you’d known for a long time, he’s actually the one who introduced you and jisung. you didn’t know whether to slap him or thank him for bringing the boy into your life, but either way, you always loved seeing the smile on his face when his team won.

minho had the ball in his control with the seconds ticking away at the timer. he passed it to someone else on his team, moving a few feet before they passed it right back to him. he was lined up perfectly for a three point shot.

you glanced at the scoreboard. 10 seconds until halftime. 

he lined himself up to shoot and you cheered him on.

“you got it, min!!”

he released the ball from his hands and it went smoothly through the net just as the buzzer sounded, pausing the game with your team 3 points ahead. 

although the gym may have been too loud for minho to have clearly heard what you said, chan heard it loud and clear. 

min? you must be pretty close with him to call him that nickname, right? but chan had never heard you mention being close with lee minho before, so it couldn’t be anything serious. of course, he thought, with a twinge in his heart, you probably wouldn’t tell him if there was anything going on. as you’d made very clear the day before, you were not friends with him. 

he watched as you rose from your seat and called to minho, stopping him from following the rest of his team to the locker room for a break before the second half.

he turned towards your voice, smiling when he noticed it was you. jisung and sooyeon followed you as you made your way across the gym and to him. 

chan couldn’t hear what was being said from the other side of the gym, but he could see the way minho smiled down at you and wrapped you in his arms. he could see how you didn’t even complain about being pulled into the sweaty hug. if chan dared to hug you in that state, you’d probably kill him right then and there. on second thought, if he hugged you at all you would probably snap his neck.

without really thinking, he stood up and told hyunjin and felix he would be back soon. they exchanged a knowing glance as he crossed the gym to you, locking eyes with minho as he called your name.

he noted minhos arm hung loosely around your shoulders. 

“i’m getting concessions. come with?”

minho raised his eyebrows at you, as if to ask “since when were you and chan close?”

“i don’t have money, chan, you know that.” you deadpanned.

“i know.” he rolled his eyes, “i’m buying.”

you were about to tell him to go on his own when minho spoke up, turning his face to you with his arm still around your shoulders. 

“you go ahead, i should probably join my team.” he removed his arm from you, heading the direction of the locker rooms, “talk more after the game?”

“only if you win.” you teased.

“guess i got something to win for then.” he laughed, turning his back to the four of you.

chan unconsciously clenched his jaw at the interaction, motioning for you to follow him.

“you, too.” he pointed to jisung and sooyeon, “i’ll buy.”

jisung, never one to turn down free food, agreed immediately. you sent a glare in his direction, for all of the complaining you did about him, jisung seemed pretty pro-chan.

while waiting in line, jisung decided to start conversation.

“you’re actually kinda chill, y/n always makes you out to be an asshole.”

you hit jisung and chan let out a small laugh, one that could have easily been taken as amused if you didn’t see the hint of sadness lacing it.

“i can seem that way if you don’t know me.” he glanced at you before returning his eyes to jisung, “she’s getting to know me, though, so hopefully that changes.”

jisung nodded, motioning chan forward where it was your turn to order. 

chan politely asked for just a sofa before stepping aside slightly to let you three order.

in natural jisung fashion, he ordered a soda and two pizza slices. sooyeon stuck with just a soda, and you got a soda and a small pack of m&ms. 

chan payed for all of you before stepping out of line and sliding his wallet back into his pocket.

you all thanked him for paying as you headed back to the gym.

when you entered, he made his way back to his spot beside hyunjin, glancing back to see if you would follow. to his slight surprise, you did. you placed yourself on the bench next to him, jisung and sooyeon following suit.

his plan had worked, you had just sat down beside him willingly.

felix greeted you with a small wave, introducing himself to your friends. hyunjin did the same before a sly grin crossed his features as he pat his lap.

“i have a better seat for you, y/n.”

you reached across chan to playfully hit hyunjin, telling him to stop being a pervert, but neither he nor chan missed the blush on your cheeks at the comment.

you chatted a bit as a group before the alarm sounded, indicating that the game would be starting up again. 

chan smiled in amusement at how into the game you got. he’d notice when you were sat a couple seats away from him, but he noticed it even more so now. he really had been wrong about you not caring about sports.

he watched as you clenched your fists every time the ball got stolen from someone on your team and cussed out the opposing teams members when they shoved one of your boys.

he chuckled as the same thing happened but with someone from your team shoving a boy from the opposing one, but you did not have the same sympathy when one of their teammates fell.

“get up, you’re fine!” you called, eyes following the ball.

you cheered whenever anyone from your team had the ball or scored, but you seemed to cheer a little harder every time it was minho in question. it made sense, you were friends, but chan couldn’t shake the frustrated feeling in his stomach every time you called minho's name.

by the time the game only had a few minutes left, the home team, your team, was up by enough points that it would take a real comeback for the other team to win. 

they knew they had the game in the bag, swapping their normal varsity players like minho out with people who didn’t tend to get as much varsity playing time.

chan half expected you to lose interest in the game now that minho wasn’t on the court, but you remained just as invested as before, cheering on the younger players.

unsurprisingly, when the buzzer sounded, you were up by quite a few points. the whole of your schools team jumped up, congratulating each other on their win. 

as everyone in the crowd rose and made their way out of the gym to head home, you stood, but remained in the gym. 

after sitting with chan, felix, and hyunjin for the past half an hour, it didn’t strike you as odd when they stayed behind with you, sooyeon, and jisung as you waited for minho to shower off and meet you.

“y/n, chan,” felix singled you two out, “how’s that debate coming? pretty sure me and seungmin got this one in the bag.”

you stepped up a level on the bleachers to face felix, motioning between you and chan.

“we’re pretty confident.”

chan laughed, “are we?”

you shot him a glare for breaking your ruse, a laugh erupting from his throat. you took a small step to readjust your position, but your foot slipped off of the edge of the bleacher, causing you to lose balance. as you fell backwards, chan reacted quickly, wrapping his arm around your waist and planting his foot on the bleacher you’d slipped on to secure the both of you from falling.

you’d mentally prepared yourself for the impact, letting out a soft sound of surprise when it never came. chan helped you balance again and loosened his grip on you, keeping one hand on your waist as the other flew up to push your hair out of your face.

“you alright?”

you nodded, violently aware of his hands on your body but not really thinking anything of the interaction until you heard felix and jisung let out snickers.

you brushed chans hands off of you, “what?”

“oh, nothing.” jisung said. 

just then, you heard the door to the locker room open and minho stepped out into the gym, changed out of his basketball attire and into some comfy sweatpants and a plain white shirt.

you hopped off the bleachers to go meet him, chan following immediately beside you.

you missed felix and jisungs snickers behind you, “he’s so whipped.”

minho glanced between you and chan again as you approached him. seriously, when did this happen? the last time he’d heard, you had nothing but dislike for him.

he nodded his head to address you, “dinner and ice cream?” he directed the question towards you, jisung, and sooyeon, turning to the others as an afterthought. 

“you guys are welcome too.”

you smiled and accepted his offer, trying not to show that you really wished he hadn’t invited the other three. more specifically, chan. you still did not like him, you told yourself.

the more those words passed through your mind, the less truth you felt behind them and the more it felt like an empty phrase.

“where to?” jisung questioned as you all headed for the door to the parking lot.

“that diner a couple blocks away?” hyunjin suggested.

chan shook his head, “me and y/n just went there yesterday.”

you shrugged, “i’m fine with going again if you are.”

chan shrugged back, “it’s decided, then.”

you rode with sooyeon in jisungs car, you didn’t know exactly how the others pooled other than chan was driving, you recognized his car behind jisungs.

jisung parked the car and you stepped out, waiting for the others to arrive and join you before entering the small place.

when you did, you were greeted by the same woman who had served you and chan the night before. she looked between the two of you.

“back again? weren’t you just here last night on a little date?”

your face flushed red and you glanced at chan, his was bright red as well.

he started to politely deny but you broke in, “that was not a date.

she shrugged with a teasing smile, “you sure acted like it was.”

your mouth fell agape as you let her lead you to a table big enough to fit all of you, “no one tip her.” you joked, eliciting another laugh from her.

chan was surprised you’d been so calm about denying it, honestly. he’d expected a huge show, you making a point to make sure everyone in the restaurant knew you were not dating him. 

he sat down and you,once again to his surprise, slipped in right beside him.

he frowned, it was like you said one thing but acted out another. you always made a point verbally to tell him and everyone else around you weren’t close but then you did things like that, deliberately choosing to sit next to him when you could have easily waited and positioned yourself between sooyeon and jisung or minho.

minho slid in next to you, jisung and sooyeon after him. felix and hyunjin sat on the other end of chan.

you opened your menu even though you were probably going to order the same thing you always did and a red flag shot off in your mind as your eyes locked with the prices. you’d forgotten you didn’t bring your wallet. you looked at your two friends, either they hadn’t realized their issue yet or just assumed someone else would pay for them.

you folded the menu back up and set it in front of you.

chan raised his eyebrows, “already decided?”

you nodded before softly speaking, “i’m not hungry.”

he frowned, “wanna just get a milkshake or something?”

you shook your head, playing with your hands in your lap.

he nudged you with his shoulder, “hey, my treat. get whatever you want.”

you looked at him with wide eyes, “you’ve already spent so much on me today.”

he waved you off, “$10 is not a lot, sweetheart. plus, i remembered you didn’t have your wallet when i agreed to come. i intended on paying for you anyway.”

you nodded, face flushing at his comment.

you’d be blushing if anyone called you by that nickname, you told yourself.

you made no move to grab the menu again, you would just opt for your usual. 

the waitress arrived and took everyone’s order one by one. you decided to get another strawberry shake. after having the one yesterday, you remembered how good they were. 

a few minutes later everyone’s drinks arrived, the waitress stating that the food would be done shortly. you took a sip from your milkshake before glancing over at chan. 

“does the offer still stand from yesterday?”

he frowned and you gestured to the milkshake, indicating you wanted a sip.

he nodded, pushing it in your direction. you took a drink of the chocolate milkshake and then frowned a little, taking a sip of your strawberry one before tasting the chocolate again.

chan laughed, “what are you doing?”

“deciding which one i like more.”

he chuckled, reaching for your shake and doing the same.

“i think they’re pretty equal. both good in different ways.”

you agreed, saying they both had their own charms.

the waitress finally brought the food out and you had to bite back a remark as she set the ranch down on chans plate again. he noticed the look on your face as you eyed the sauce.

“are you going to fight me about my ranch again?”

you were going to reply, but minho cut in.

“i’m sorry y/n, do you have a problem with ranch?”

you looked between the two, “yes, actually, i do. who the hell eats it with chicken?”

the rest of the table caught wind of the conversation and joined in.

felix pointed at your plate, “barbecue all the way.”

jisung and hyunjin agreed, sooyeon stating that she liked both.

“okay,” jisung prompted, “but which ones better?”

“i swear to god if you say ranch we’re replacing you with felix.”

hyunjin pouted in faux hurt, “why not me?”

you shrugged, “or maybe hyunjin, i don’t know yet. we’ll hold a challenge to decide.”

she laughed, “not necessary, i’ll keep my spot. i gotta say barbecue over ranch.”

minho and chan groaned, they were heavily outnumbered. 

“her opinion doesn’t count,” chan grumbled, “she’s not even eating chicken right now.”

you laughed and for a moment chan thought he was in a dream. the way your lips curled into a smile and your eyes shined while you laughed made his stomach do flips, the fact that he was the one causing your laughter just making it all the much better.

the meal was pleasant, fun and casual conversation flowing between everyone as you ate. the time to pay came and the waitress approached the table again, gathering the empty plates and glasses.

“how should i split the bill?”

chan spoke up first, gesturing between you and him.

“we’re together.”

felix scanned the table, “anyone need someone to cover them?”

both jisung and sooyeon timidly raised their hands, felix telling the waitress to but then on his tab. hyunjin and minho both payed their own.

as you all got out of your seats and headed for the door, jisung spoke to you.

“y/n, we should hang out with your rich friends more.”

chan heard the words leave jisungs mouth and prepared himself for your reply, but you didn’t say anything along the lines of what he’d expected. you would have. in fact, the words were just at the tip of your tongue.

��they’re not my friends, jisung.”

but as they almost left your lips, they didn’t taste right. 

instead, you gave a small laugh, “or you could get a job and use your own money.”

“nah,” he waved a hand in dismissal, “who would drive you around then?”

you waved everyone goodbye as you hopped into the back of jisungs car, letting sooyeon take the front seat because you knew you’d be getting dropped off first anyway. 

a week went by and it was finally time for the debates to start. each debate would take an entire class period, so you and chan didn’t have to go until the thursday of the week. you ate your muffin as quickly as you could, silently pouting to yourself that you would have to throw your own wrapper away today without even having thrown it as chan. what a waste.

you’d dressed up a little bit more than normal being that you knew it impacted your grade. you stood at the front of the room with felix and seungmin waiting for chan to arrive so you could begin. 

he and hyunjin entered the room seconds before the bell rang, chan not even bothering to go to his seat to put his bag down, just laying it near the door.

you let out a small laugh at the way you, seungmin, and felix were dressed so much nicer than normal, but chan looked just as he did every day.

“you look nice.” was the first thing chan said to you.

you thanked him just as the teacher introduced who would be debating and where each team stood on the topic.

you and chan were set to give the first opening statement, which you’d both agreed you would say. but as the teacher gave the good to go, you found the words stuck in your throat.

chan noticed your nervousness, gently placing a hand on the small of your back and rubbing soothing circles with his finger.

if you’d been told a few weeks ago that chans hand on you like that would calm your nerves, you would have punched whoever said it in the face.

but now, as you focused on the way his hand felt against your back through the thin fabric of your outfit, you felt the anxiety lessen slightly. it was still there obviously, but you were able to get the words past your lips with a tone that made it sound like you were confident. 

chans hand remained on your back until the opposite team's opening statement was completed and it was his turn to speak, getting into your first argument. 

he’d taken a chance by touching you, but now he was glad he had. regardless of what you said, the way you reacted to his touch proved to him that you didn’t hate him. at least not as much as you claimed to.

the debate was rounded off and there were still a few minutes left of class. there would be no actual decided winner, just a grade to mark how well your teacher deemed your performance. 

still, that didn’t stop you from arguing with felix that you’d obviously beat him and seungmin.

“we demolished you, lix.”

“you so did not,” he laughed back, “we actually had to go easy on your guys because we felt bad.”

the four of you argued playfully until the bell rang, releasing you to your next class. chan stopped you just outside the door.

“hey, y/n?”

you turned to him, humming to acknowledge you’d heard him.

“i’ve got a meet tonight, do you wanna come?”

you were taken aback by the question.

“oh, um, where is it?”

“it’s home,” he replied, “just a couple hours after school gets over, so you could probably just wait here if you wanted, we’re not really going to be practicing anyway.”

“i’d have to see if jisung can give me a ride to my house so i can pick up my wallet...”

“no need!” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small card, “use this.”

you frowned slightly at the piece of plastic, it was his fan pass, a free ticket for one person of each swim team members choice to get into every meet for free. each person only got one a season for the sake of still gaining profit, and chan was giving his to you?

you hesitantly took it from his hand, sliding it into your own pocket.

“are you sure?”

“yeah!” he beamed, “you’re the only one i could really think of who i’d want to have it.”

you felt your heart swell at his words, watching as he turned from you and headed to his next class. 

you couldn’t fight the stupid grin from climbing onto your face and the giddy feeling in your stomach. chan wanted you at his games, more than anyone else. enough to give you his fan pass to make it easier for you to afford to come.

your heart did a summersault before dropping in realization.

you had been so focused on making sure you didn’t have any platonic feelings for him that you’d completely ignored the possibility of a different kind of feeling.

you had fallen for bang chan.

you didn’t mention your realization to anyone, not even jisung or sooyeon. the only mention of going to the swim meet was when you asked them if they wanted to go with you. sooyeon had to go to work, but jisung said he’d try to make it, letting you know minho would be there even if he himself couldn’t go.

they all went home to drop their stuff off before the meet, but you denied jisungs offer to give you a ride home. instead, you headed to where you the boys would be, as chan put it, not really practicing.

you entered the pool room and saw that he was not joking around, they really weren’t practicing. they weren’t even in swim gear, all just sitting in a circle on the concrete next to the pool and chatting. you noticed a pile of backpacks near the door and you added yours to it before stepping in further. 

you weren’t sure whether to approach them or not, they didn’t seem to be doing anything serious, would it be okay for you to join them?

as if reading your mind, chan called you over to sit beside him, sliding closer to one of his teammates you didn’t know the name of to make room for you.

“who’s this?” one of his teammates asked with a curious smile.

“his girlfriend.” hyunjin piped up, earning a chorus of cheers from the rest of the teams. your face flushed red and chan waved his arms to calm everyone down, “y/n is not my girlfriend.”

you swallowed thickly, just a week ago you would have jumped to agree with those words, but now they made your stomach hurt. when did this change even happen? you couldn’t pinpoint it.

he noticed your discomfort, placing a hand on your knee to calm you down, hoping you would have the same positive reaction to his touch that you had that morning.

noticing the action, one of his teammates spoke up.

“not your girlfriend my ass.”

instead of responding to his teammate, chan directed his attention towards you.

“the meet starts in about two hours. i’ve gotta go in one to get ready, do you have someone to wait with you so you’re not alone?

you nodded, “i know minho is for sure coming, jisung might too.”

he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of minho coming, but at least he knew you wouldn’t be sitting alone.

you thought it would be awkward sitting with chans swim team for an hour, especially considering how much they’d already teased you, but it was actually pleasant.

the group of you talked about random stuff, laughing and joking around. you’d even learned some of their names. jeongin and changbin were the two you spoke to most, aside from chan and hyunjin.

the time came when they had to go prepare for the meet and get changed and you waved them all goodbye, pulling out your phone to text minho and ask if he’d gotten to the school yet. 

he responded almost immediately that he had just parked and would be in in a few minutes. you walked out to greet him by the ticket booth where there was already a line forming.

you slipped into line beside him and started casual conversation. 

“do you come to sports stuff alone a lot?” you asked, referring to the fact that if you hadn’t been asked to come he would have been sitting alone.

he shrugged, “i guess. you don’t need someone with you to enjoy a sport.” he send a wink your way as he lightly pushed you with his shoulder, “everything is more fun with you, though.”

you laughed, stepping ahead to show the woman taking money the pass chan had given you. before you could get it out of your pocket, minho was thrusting a $10 bill to the ticket taker.

you stopped him, pulling the card from your pocket and showing it to both him and the ticket taker.

“i’ve got this, you don’t need to pay for me.”

he furrowed his brows in confusion, “chan gave you his fan pass?”

you nodded, a blush forming on your cheeks.

he nodded, swapping the $10 for a $5 bill to avoid getting unnecessary change.

you walked into the room and caught sight of your backpack. it was alone on the floor now, all of the boys had taken theirs with them when they went to get changed. you moved to pick it up, pausing when you noticed a sticky note on top of it.

paper clipped under the note was a small amount of cash, and scribbled across the piece of paper was a small note. you knew the handwriting right away, you’d been forced into too many ethics projects with chan not to recognize his handwriting by now.

“forgot to give you this! for if you get hungry :)”

you didn’t notice the smile on your face until minho commented on it.

“what, he’s your sugar daddy now?”

you shoved him lightly, laughing at his joke.

you swung the bag over your shoulder and pocketed the money along with the note (it was cute, you wanted to keep it).

being there so early, it was quite easy to find a good spot. chan had told you which lanes and pools he’d be racing in so you knew where to sit to be able to see him, too.

deciding to finally ask what changed between you two, minho spoke up.

“didn’t you hate him like less than a month ago? and now you have his fan pass?”

you shrugged, “he got less annoying. started acting like a normal person instead of an asshole.”

minho frowned, “he seems the same to me.”

you shrugged, “he probably acts different around different people.”

“so,” he continued, “are you two like...”

you shook your head as your face flushed pink.

“no, no. he just didn’t have anyone else to give the pass to.”

minho raised his eyebrows but hummed and accepted your answer anyway.

you hadn’t noticed time ticking by and the area growing more crowded as you talked until a man stood on a high platform near the center pool with a microphone in his hand began to speak, welcoming everyone to the meet.

the races began and chan wasn’t in any of the starting line ups, but hyunjin was. being the only other person you really knew, you focused on him. 

watching swim was different than watching a lot of other sports, but you enjoyed it anyway. there was no fighting for a ball or scoring goals, no ball to follow, but it was just as entertaining to watch the way the water worked with every swimmer.

you were still amazed with hyunjin’s movements. you weren’t surprised in the slightest when his race ended with him being the first to complete the set. 

as much as you found hyunjin interesting to watch, you couldn’t help but be happy as the first round ended and the second began, the first chan would be competing in.

you watched as he stepped out to the edge of the pool, scanning the crowd for you. he smiled and sent a small wave in your direction before getting into position to dive.

you ended up not using any of the money chan had given you for drinks and snacks, not even when minho got up to go get some food of his own. you stayed planted in your seat the whole time matches were occurring, always either trained on hyunjin or chan. there were the occasional time that neither of them were racing in any of the pools, but it wasn’t often and rounds were never long enough for you to leave without missing anything.

at the end of the night, the added up scores were close, but chan’s team had won. you weren’t as caught up on the scoring system of swimming as you were of other sports, but you didn’t need to know. the announcer let out the final scores of each team, your schools team coming out on top.

people stood and began to leave as the swimmers began towards the locker rooms and the team managers started cleaning up the pool area and covering the pools again.

chan waited for you before leaving to change, allowing you to congratulate him on the win.

minho said a quick goodbye, stating he had to get home and do some work before it got too late, leaving you and chan alone.

before really realizing what you were doing, you wrapped your arms around chan and held him in a tight hug. he faltered for a moment before wrapping his arms securely around you, holding you close to him. you moved to pull away, but he kept you locked in his arms.

“chan, let me go! you’re still soaked!”

“you hugged me first, you asked for this!”

your hands found his chest as you planted your palms there and pushed him away from you, suddenly very aware of the way his bare chest felt under your hands.

you retracted your hands from his body, wiping them on your pants to dry them off.

ignoring your thudding heart, you spoke.

“now i smell like chlorine.”

a sly smile spread across his face, “no, now you smell like me.”

you blushed and he took a step closer to you, closing the distance between the two of you and holding your elbows as he kept you close to him.

“thank you for coming.”

you smiled up at him and teased, “i only came because you asked me to. i really hated it.”

he gasped in faux hurt, “you mean to say you didn’t enjoy watching me shirtless for three hours?”

you shook your head, “hyunjin looked pretty good though.”

he chuckled and you felt his grip on your arms loosen as he moved one of his hands to your face, cupping your cheek. 

the next thing you knew his lips were on yours and for some reason, that didn’t upset you in the slightest. you kissed him back, his lips were so soft for someone who spent half of their time in chlorine soaked water.

he pulled away and scanned your face for any sign of discomfort, a big smile covering his face when he found none.

“i’m not going to lie,” he chuckled, “i kind of thought you’d punch me when i did that.”

you laughed, raising your eyebrows, “i still have time to.”

he removed his hands from you and held them up in defense, taking a step back from you. you laughed even more at his reaction, surprising the both of you and closing the gap, hands going to his neck as you pulled him down into another kiss. 

the moment was cut short as the locker room flew open and hyunjin stepped out, pausing in the door when he saw the scene taking place in front of him.

a smile crept onto his features and he spoke with a teasing tone, “i thought she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

you both laughed softly before chan responded, “she wasn’t.”

“is she now?” hyunjin prompted.

chan looked at you with his brows raised as if to ask “i don’t know, are you?”

ignoring the furious blush across your cheeks, you replied, “i mean, yeah.”

hyunjin clapped just hands loudly, “fucking finally.”

“language, hwang!” the coach called from across the large room.

“my bad,” he yelled back before directing his words towards chan, “you should get changed.”

chan nodded, sending one last smile in your direction before walking into the locker room and leaving you and hyunjin.

“when you realize i’m way hotter than chan, give me a call.” he sent a teasing wink in your direction and you laughed as he left the room, leaving you alone. 

you waited patiently for chan to come back from the locker room, scrolling through your phone. you debated texting your friends the new update, but you figured you’d just tell them the next day. 

despite being the last to go into the locker room, chan was not the last out. he came back to you just a few minutes after leaving.

he held his keys up, signaling it was time to go. you followed him to his car, letting him pull open the door for you. you slipped in as quickly as possible, slamming the door shut behind you and pressing the button to lock the doors. 

chan sent a small glare in your direction, but you could see the smile threatening to poke through.

he held up his key fob, clicking his own button to unlock the doors. he made a move to open the drivers side door and pulled on the handle just as you clicked the lock again. you repeated this a few times before letting out a loud laugh and finally allowing him to get into his car, tossing his things into the back seat.

“we’ve literally been dating for less than an hour and you’re already terrorizing me.” he grumbled.

he paused for a moment before continuing, “straight home or are you hungry?”

you shrugged, “whatever you want.”

he nodded, pulling the car out of the parking spot, “food it is.”

he didn’t bother to ask what restaurant you wanted, heading to the same little diner a few blocks away he’d taken you to before.

you laughed as you entered the diner to see the same waitress that had served you the last two times you were there.

“do you ever go home?”

she laughed, “do you two ever eat anywhere other than here?”

“touché.”

you chose your spot before ordering almost immediately, you’d learned that chan also tended to stick with the same choice every time.

“hey,” chan called to the waitress before she could walk away, “guess what?”

“what, dear?”

chan reached across the table and grabbed your hand, “it’s an official date this time.”

she broke into a big smile, “i knew it was only a matter of time.”

you sat down at your spot the next morning with a pout on your face. for the first time in about a month, there was no muffin on your spot. 

it wasn’t like whoever put them there was obligated to give you one every morning, but you’d gotten so used to it.

you looked ahead at who would be debating today, you couldn’t recall any of their names. 

chan walked through the door earlier than normal due to the fact that there hadn’t been practice that morning because of the meet the night before. you smiled at him as he approached your table, but the smile dropped into a look of confusion as he placed a muffin ahead of you before slipping behind you.

he sat down, “morning, baby.”

when you didn’t respond, a concerned look crossed his features.

“what’s wrong?”

you held up the muffin, “you’ve been giving me these?”

he shrugged, “yeah. i remembered you saying you didn’t always get breakfast.”

as he smiled at you something clicked in your brain.

minhos words from the night before repeated themselves in your head.

“he seems the same to me.”

that’s because he was the same. that was it, he hadn’t changed. he never stopped being an asshole, he just never was one in the first place. he wasn’t ever a prick, you just had your heart set so strongly on hating him that you saw everything he did in the worst way possible. the things he used to do that annoyed you were now things you grew fond of. the way he bumped your chair sometimes in the morning used to make you livid, but now it brought a smile to your face. you used to want to rip his head off when he hummed while working, but you adored the sound now, even going so far as to not put in headphones so you could hear him. he was the same boy he’d always been.

he didn’t change, the way you saw him did. 

but just as quickly as these became things you loved about him, they fell right back into being annoying habits.

[other-cullen-ficrecs]

MLM!Cullen Fic Rec List

Inspired by this post. Here is my fic rec list of some of my favorite fics with queer Cullen. Happy Pride :)  🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈

Cullen/Dorian

Only True in Fairy Tales by Dragonflies_and_Katydids

Summary:  In which Dorian is a special forces operative, Bull is his partner, and Cullen is the guy they're sent to rescue. Hijinks ensue. // Words: 110150

Modern AU. Dragonflies_and_Katydids makes me read the weirdest stuff. But their work is always captivating. The more ridiculous set up the better outcome, I promise. This one is both ridiculous and absolutely perfect. And somehow one of the very few modern au fics in which Cullen's lyrium addiction is well transfered without making it literal.

Fashionably Late by tsurai

For the tumblr prompt: Cullen/Dorian Soulmates AU? <3 "Maker’s breath, this is absolutely the worst timing, he thinks distantly." // Words: 1038

This is but a tiny thing but I'm a sucker for a soulmate AU. Would I love it more if it was 150,000 words? Yes. But I'm just greedy.

COLD HANDS, WARM HEART by spicyshimmy, stonelions

Summary: Cullen and Dorian's friendship deepens. Cullen is a romantic. Dorian is literally cold. Cullen is no longer certain what he would consider surprising. Mages and Templars working in perfect cooperation, perhaps. Evil and corruption disappearing into the ground along with the blight, blood magic falling so far out of favor it ceased to be. A united Thedas: that would be a surprise. // Words: 25369

I think this is most recced Cullrian fic and for a good reason. Slow burn, drama, all the delights. 

Light In This Darken'd Time Breaks by RamonaDecember

Summary: Cullen wouldn't say he hates mages, not anymore, but he can't see himself ever trusting one again. Dorian is no exception. The mage is off-color, self-important, and all together too much for Cullen to deal with. So why is it that every time Cullen is at his lowest, Dorian seems to be the only person by his side? // Words: 121289

Slow burn with 121289 words, what more do you want?

Cullen/Bull

Jump In by Dragonflies_and_Katydids

Summary: In which Cullen is almost terminally awkward, Bull and Dorian are literally brothers (because why not?), and Bull tries really hard to be good. Or: In which Dorian tries to set up his brother and his roommate, if he can avoid killing them for being so clueless. (You might get cavities from reading it. Don't say I didn't warn you.) // Words: 33700

What did I say about Dragonflies_and_Katydids and ridiculous premises? But if you're as delighted with awkward Cullen as am I - enjoy.

Dragons from Stars in an Empty Sky by Midna_Ronoa

Summary: The one in which Bull takes Cullen dragon-hunting. // Words: 10423

Fluff and smut and dragons!

Stuck on the Puzzle by thespectaclesofthor

Summary: Once, back in Kirkwall, Cullen had an arrangement with a member of the city guard that satisfied his needs. But time changed all things, and he despaired of ever finding a similar arrangement again - that was, until he met The Iron Bull. Problem being that Bull seemed to care far more about sorting out the nitty-gritty of such an arrangement than Cullen ever has. // Words: 235586

No fic rec lists that can involve Bullen canot do without Stuck on the Puzzle. If you haven't read it - please give it a try. As far as I'm concerned - the best fic in the fandom. And definately one of the best fics in general. <3

Cullen/Dorian/Bull

Exit Light by Dragonflies_and_Katydids

Summary: In which Cullen is suicidally depressed, Dorian is a high-functioning alcoholic, and Bull just wants them both to be happy, except when he wants to crack their heads together for being emotionally stunted idiots. // Words: 77427

This premise is actually very close to canon, compared to some other stories by the same author recced here. The angst? Delightful. The smut? Delicious. The exploration of issues? Delectable! Cheff kisses all around.

to burn cool and collected by toomanyhometowns

Summary: Dorian hums. "Here is the function of the spell: Upon invocationne, ye caster's spyryt shal sterte to ye form of whomsoever mofte recently achieved releafe by hys hande." He taps the page in punctuation and looks back up. "And then there's a lot of text about the vast joys we may experience together, et cetera, et cetera." // Words: 16121

Ok, this list shows more than anything that my main delight is issues and angst wrapped in with porn. Anyway - cracky premise (body swap!), and angsty, sexy outcome.

Hold by queeniegalore

Summary: Everyone knows Cullen doesn't trust magic. But he trusts Dorian and Bull, so maybe they can make this work. // Words: 6654

Issues? Trauma? Kink? I'm a one trick pony when it comes to recs.

Cullen/Cole

Okay now that we’ve gotten the obvious out, let’s enjoy the trully unexpected enjoyment.

Into The Light (Cole/Cullen Ficlets) by Sinister_Kid

Summary: A series of what I hope are tasteful Cole/Cullen fics that don't exploit or overly sexualize Cole's developing character. Based on a prompt I filled out of boredom in which I imagined the spirit actually hearing someone's pain like a physical noise in his ears that caused discomfort. Explores the option of making Cole more human, with my own original take on how that affects him as a character, and depicts Cole developing romantic feelings for the Commander as he discovers what it means to be human. // Words: 20454

I admit I don't often read Cole shippy fics but this one stays true to the info in the summary and it is careful and tasteful. Also Cullen learning to speak with Cole properly - <333

Cullen/Varric

Verse & Volley Triptych by boycoffin

Summary: POSSIBLE TITLES: This Shit Was Even Weirder: A Surprisingly Not-Doomed Romance In The Shadow of the Apocalypse The Commander and the Rogue already taken, Antivan maritime smut with an elf girl in it How The Hell I Ended Up With That Guy: A Tale for The People Who Keep Asking Me About It In Bars The Short and Curlies that's just terrible Love Among the tropey garbage A Tale of Two Names pretentious and unclear The Penman's Paramour Memoirs of a Moron (That He's Going to Regret Publishing and Will Never Hear The End Of for As Long As He Lives) // Words: 133354

One of the very few fics in which I can not only accept but love 1st person POV. Crack. Slow-burn. Pennames. Lovable OCs. DELICIOUS. Also a fic that made me start this blog, so love all around.

Cullen/Krem

Last but not least, my delightful fave (maybe, possibly, probably) and involving a shameless self-plug because it’s the month of pride.

Swordplay by orphan_account

Summary: The Bull's Chargers are undisciplined, untested, and unprofessional; but Cullen can't stop thinking about their lieutenant. // Words: 3910

I have a soft spot for whoever Krem being shipped with not knowing he's trans at first. But also oblivious, pining Cullen <3

If you have been starving, a creature of bone by missivesfromghosts

Summary: Cullen is content with where he is. He has a life and a purpose. He’s doing the Maker’s work and he’s cut the Chantry’s leash on him. He barely thinks about the fact that he’s trans anymore. The last person who knew he was born anything different, barring his sister Mia, died during the Blight. This works for him. That is, until he starts falling for Krem. // Words: 769

A tiny thing but I have a soft spot for the idea. Also what's better than a ship with trans character? A ship with two trans characters. Keep that in mind for further recs actually.

Sweet, Merciful Andraste by Tainaron

Summary: PWP. Honestly, Cullen should invest in walls and a ceiling that don't have holes if he's going to keep having such loud sex. Pure, unapologetic smut between trans men who love each other. // Words: 4187

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  What more do you want from me? Sometimes porn is just porn. Enjoy.

Champions of the Just by Tainaron

Summary: En route to Griffin Wing Keep before the battle of Adamant, Cullen falls prey to an injury that reveals a shameful secret about his trauma with magic. As Cullen struggles with his past, his duty to the Inquisition, and his love life, he becomes increasingly uncertain if he’s the target of an assassination attempt or just his own personal demons. // Words: 67885

Well, I also have some plottier and angstier fics in my rec disposal. This one actually explores the problems Krem and Cullen could encounter in their relationship and all within the canon plot line. Plus bonus points of Cullen actually interacting with other Chargers.

cabbage: a love story by psikeval

Summary: Krem’s grin fades into a quiet smirk, his eyes warm and amused, and Cullen does not forget how to move his legs because he is a grown man, a leader of soldiers, commander of the Inquisition’s army. He breaks the silence by coughing loudly, because he is also an imbecile. // Words: 18932

Creme de la creme of Krem/Cullen fics <3 Fluff, crack, porn <3 This delightful series has it all! 

[seelestia]

yesyes a thousand times better--

omg wait. pause. halt. an idea just hit me.

genshin hp!au. rex lapis as the headmaster of liyue schools of wizardry. he disappears after being in the position for thousands of years, and everyone is scrambling over trying to look for him or someone to take over his position. meanwhile, a handsome professor gets admitted into the school to assist in the lack of manpower (the previous headmaster used to teach all sorts of subjects himself but now that he's gone the school is literally lacking teachers), and he seems to be very knowledgeable in all things.... plus, he gives off the same vibes as the previous headmaster too.... hmmm..... *finger snap* could it be??? rex lapis' son???? that has to be it, right?! you, a fellow professor, are determined to get the truth behind this! everyone tells you you're crazy but no, you know this man has got to know something about the headmaster's disappearance! zhongli is very thoroughly amused and decides to entertain you. but jokes on him because he didn't count falling for this stubborn but endearing teacher. 

hehehehehe you changed your theme i see. very very pretty!!! loving the soft aesthetics and ayato on the headers + icon!! heizou theme, you will be missed, sorry but ayato's taking over for now!!!

to be fair i'm not as good in photography, it's just bc hubby is so handsome the picture turned out great slkdsldklskd I WILL for sure lolol it sounds like it's gonna be fun (fingers crossed i don't die too much)

right!! sheesh he acts as if he didn't fanboy over the pretty mercenary lady (she is super pretty tho)... lol do what your heart tells you to do, sweetie!!! al haitham would be good too, i'm sure. and even if he's not, he's a total eye candy soooo win-win situation lmao

we'll see, we'll see~ hehe~

i'm happy collei likes me enough to come home so many times but also. sheesh. she's a testament of how stubborn zhongli is ;w; IT IS VERY FANCY indeed!! i'm gonna start leaving zhongli there whenever i log off. i'm sure he needs a change of pace from always sitting on third-round-knockout lol

gosh, imagine sitting in a fine dining establishment with zhongli, in some fancy restaurant high in the sky overlooking the city. live jazz music playing in the background, sipping osmanthus tea while talking and enjoying each other's presence..... sighhhhh

gosh i have been benching kazuha since sumeru bc i added zhongli to the party and i wanted at least 1 dendro character for convenience. i can't swap out xiao bc he's my main dps, and shinobu is essential cause she's healing xiao every time he does his burst....... 'zuha i'm so sorry ;w; random thought: if zhongli has his shield and he does plunge attack shouldn't he basically be immune to the damage also?????

*announcer voice* welcome to sumeru! here we have: the spiderman zipline, very convenient, makes you feel like a spiderman, zipping around the map with ease! weird t-rex monstrosity which might eat you alive! cliffs to climb, slip, and fall to your deaths! how exciting! heart-pounding! book a tour with us now! 1-800-rex-lapis-holdsmyheart! #notascam #realnotclickbait

can you blame me tho angst is so *chefs kiss* when written perfectly!! i still remember that fic, hhhhh so beautiful and heart-wrenching </3 don't you love it when your faves suffer heehee

YES, I HAVE BEEN HALTED AND PAUSED AND AM LISTENING INTENTLY. genshin hp!au, but it's zhongli doing the liyue trial all over again and the reader always has the sherlock holmes sixth sense. (a student from house slytherin, shikanoin heizou is the only one to share your sentiment.)

something about this man is enigmatically off and... familiar. oh, but you've never been the type to rest well until you've uncovered the truth! you'd scrutinize him up and down at any chance you get, either unintentionally or not; when he is in the great hall, when he gives a speech, when he talks with students and other teachers alike — to the point your own colleague, ganyu has to snap you out of it. zhongli, on the other hand, finds your tenacity quite charming. after all, he is the very own truth lying behind the walls of deception you seek to destroy, so will you? will you be the one to break them? the stubborn endearing x calm endeared trope is SOOOO <3 (it's zhongrin in a nutshell /j)

nyehehe, ty! how do you feel as the person who gave me the last push? 🎤 (/j) i saw the header on pinterest and i SWOONED. the white + soft blue palette just immediately comes to mind! aha, now that theme has been made reality thanks to you >:)

nahhh, the model may be the subject of beauty in the picture but the lighting and angle are things decided by the one behind the camera, me thinks! ;D hoping i win the 50/50 with alhaitham because i did not expect to get c1 kazuha when pulling for heizou cons last time <//3

the bgm in the tavern literally makes me wanna have a slow dance??? it's fitting to have zhongli greet you when the bgm plays, hehe <3 THE PORT ORMOS BMG THO. WHY DOES IT SLAP SO HARD. (/lh) but liyue bgm's still and always have a soft spot in my heart, especially 'foxes at play'! speaking of, what is your favorite bgm from liyue, rin jie??? >:) liyue is your nation, after all~

when sumeru dropped, everyone rushed to get collei which is understandable because it's a free character of a new element !! i just utilize the dendrogram, so i keep my team per usual: it's currently ganyu, kazuha, heizou and klee for better exploration! but i switch out ganyu for kokomi when i clear out a withered zone <//3 but collei is in my teapot now since thoma already reached friendship lvl 10 and she's so nice :( <3

THAT RANDOM THOUGHT, HELP. iirc, in his second story quest when we encountered the possessed miners, his shield is naturally lateral and doesn't protect the head so if we ask him to extend his shield into a cylinder, maybe it'd work??? 🤔

the numbers look like an invitation to a marriage to me. (/j) and rin jie, i am still an avid member of ruin machines slander club but i have unsealed the t-rex monstrosity once out of pure curiosity.... 0/10, do not recommend. all that moving around and having to defeat said monstrosity for an exquisite chest 🕳️🚶 ruin hunters are definitely worse tho fjejskksk #ruinhuntersdonotslay

a beautiful kind of pain <//3 you really chose violence that day and that was the first request i received too. so, you can imagine the way my jaw dropped 😭 (/pos) but your request was the first ever angst content on this blog! so, the balance was well-needed and plus, your request was actually one of my favs to write too (it got a special mark on my masterlist) <3 my faves suffering??? *nervously reaches out to ayato and heizou* both of them are people who hide their weaknesses, so to see them break... IS NOT VV GOOD FOR MY HEART 🏃 but for starlight anon, i shall take a headfirst dive! 🤝

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

I was going to actually post this before asks closed (didn’t get the chance), but Teddy Bear Anon, you are one of my favorite people and a magnificent creature. You get my vibe. 

About Bad canonically being Sapnap’s dad I feel like that has so much extra angst potential when we consider the rest of the found family. Like. Sapnap, Tommy, and Fundy all have dads who started with the best of intentions but for one reason or another ended up slowly becoming a danger to them. I imagine Tommy and Fundy one day showing up with a cake and telling Sapnap “We regretfully welcome you to the shit dad club” and Sapnap is torn between being upset still and laughing over the absurdity of the situation.

Bonus points if Tommy made the cake using a recipe book that Niki gave him, the last gift Niki ever gave to Tommy. Tommy was originally a really bad cook/baker but after the egg really started to take over he went full survivalist. Leaning to cook was necessary but learning to bake was something he did as a way to raise everyone’s spirits. He’s never gotten the flavor quite to match with Niki’s perfectly but everyone agrees he’s gotten pretty decent in terms of skills. He and Fundy in particular will sometimes just spend an entire day in silence baking and then quietly eat their creations while reflecting on the friends they’ve made and lost over the course of L'manberg’s lifetime. When the group got back to the past and Niki made cookies for Tommy and Fundy the pair very nearly started crying.

Tommy is in an interesting position as a character since he did commit a lot of minor crimes and acted as a general nuisance but he was also still a child. (A very traumatized one considering I canonize SMP Earth with its unlimited lives but even more wars. Including against God. Tommy fought God just let me have this.) He acknowledges the moments when he went over the line and has tried to apologize. In particular at some point before the egg fully takes over he pulls aside Jack and tells him that he’s sorry for the way he acted when he was still in exile, taking one of Jack’s lives and all. Jack and Niki in particular are an interesting subject to address and a painful one for immune!Tommy to think about when he sees younger Niki because the three never fully tossed out the hatchet but it was obvious in the eyes of someone like Sam that both of them were growing more and more hesitant to hurt Tommy. It was made worse by the fact neither were even marginally immune, and it didn’t take long for the egg to get to them.

He never stopped being chaotic. Tommy at his core is just that kind of person. He did, however, grow up enough to act in a more mature manner. Started to recognize what’s too much. In particular he became a lot less violent and willing to lash out after Sam Nook in essence reparented him. He’s still an absolute wild card of a person, which in the eyes of Sam and Sapnap is a good thing. For this au I think we should actually address Tommy having severe ptsd and during the building of his hotel/the early days of the egg before it becomes a noticeable threat it shows. He’s a lot more subdued. Shows of aggression all carry a kind of desperation and his typical jokes feel flat. Lashing out at people slowly becomes more of a defense mechanism to see if someone’s going to leave or betray him, to test the limits of how nice they’re willing to be. After all, nice people have only ever been nice to Tommy when they wanted something from him. His eyes, especially after L'manberg is blow sky high, are well and truly gray. The first time Tommy genuinely laughs after filling Sapnap’s room with chickens is considered celebration worthy to them. His pranks take on a more hermitcraft-esque feel to them which honestly makes them more funny.

By the time they get to the past Tommy has recovered, but he still carries the kind of maturity that like Teddy Bear mentioned is reminiscent of age swap Tommy. When he gets especially stressed though, Immune!Tommy will slip into moments where he acts as tired and done with the world as age swap Tommy. With that said, most of the time he just acts like a more mature Tommy. Nothing could ever completely erase his unique vibe which Ranboo has gone on record as describing “Willing to fight God deaf, blind, and backwards just to prove a point." 

Immune Fundy and Tommy get on really well once Fundy manages to catch up with the rest of the group. It gets to the point where everyone from the past is kinda shocked since smp Fundy and Tommy do not get along. At all. Literally the first night Fundy’s back someone goes to wake them up and they find Fundy asleep on top of Tommy which is a wild experience since this Tommy is a goliath who often refuses to take off his full Netherite max enchant armor. He really becomes a "looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll” kinda mans.

Also, yeah, this is Dream’s retirement arc. He is literally just sitting in the corner watching Tommy dote on his younger self and Tubbo before completely pile driving two of the most powerful people on the server straight into the dirt. At some point Tommy sits down with past Punz. He tells this Punz that their Punz died protecting him and Tubbo and that Tommy never got to properly thank their Punz so he’s going to thank this Punz. Tommy then gives Punz an entire stack of Netherite. If we’re gonna go ahead and agree on Phoenix Tommy then Tommy is fire proof, meaning he probably spent a large amount of time in the nether to avoid the egg crew and get rare supplies. Meaning he also probably did a lot of mining just to distract himself and it resulted in him being loaded. Tommy used to have a fear of tnt and explosives but he seems like the type of mad lad to say “exposure therapy” and make a massive cavern in the underbelly of the nether.

I think it would also be really interesting to dedicate like, a couple of chapters to other people’s perspectives. I kind of want to set the time they arrive in the past partway through the Pogtopia arc since I like mildly unhinged but not completely gone Wilbur. Plus then it also makes more sense for Techno to be there. Just prefer the aesthetic really. I want to have Wilbur see this version of Tommy and come to a sudden “oh” moment. I want to have a moment where Tubbo looks between his Tommy and this new Tommy, seeing himself nowhere to be found, and has enough what the fuck moments to become aggressively protective of his own Tommy. Especially if immune!Tommy ever admits to the past Tubbo why he is the way he is, what he faced under the thumb of the people he trusted. Which, out of everyone on the server, Tubbo would be the first one from the past to actively learn. 

I am fully on board with Tommy knowing how to sew. That should just automatically be canon in literally ever AU. Tommy for all intents and purposes is still Phil’s child for me. Survival runs in the family the same way that chaos does, so he’s got a ton of basic survival skills that he just doesn’t show off because it’s still Tommy. He would have been completely fine in exile if it wasn’t for Dream. Whenever someone ruins their clothes in the Immune group they automatically go to Tommy and at first the past versions are very confused (except for past Tommy and Tubbo obviously) and then Tommy’s just “Sapnap this is beyond ruined it can’t be saved, let me make you something new” and within a couple days he makes Sapnap a completely new outfit. Like maybe Sapnap fell into a lava pool because Blaze Sapnap Supremacy and his clothes are beyond saving and everyone is beyond baffled when Tommy just acts like this is a weekly occurrence. He’s memorized Sapnap’s measurements and style tastes and already had a new outfit in the works for him that Sapnap immediately adores upon it being presented to him. It takes about a week for past Eret to learn that Tommy stress sews new clothing and he cannot think of a better model. Eret has never had such a full closet. Eret has everything from three piece suits to ball gowns now. Eret lives in terror of the days where Tommy disappears god knows where with Fundy and the two reappear with a new wardrobe for the entire god damn server. 

Speaking of disappearing I really like the idea of part phoenix and part tanuki Tommy for a couple reasons. Being a Tanuki he’d have access to enough magic to hide his hybrid traits, which if they’ve been present for long enough would be a necessity to him. Additionally think about Fundy and Tommy building a den under Church Prime that slowly turns into a maze. Think about it. It starts off simple and then they both start digging more and it gets deeper and deeper and more complicate and the two just refer to it as their den and the only ones who are fully aware of the connotations of that word are Sam, Sapnap, and Ranboo who remember the absolute hell that was trying to navigate the original. Just Fundy and Tommy bonding over the fact they are literally the only creatures on this server that have this catacomb memorized and at the end of the catacomb is their saferoom which connects to rail way that the two spent a month straight on. It goes at least 25k blocks from spawn and it’s a final emergency resort in case they can’t stop the egg and the Immunes needs to regroup and essentially try again (if they keep bringing their younger selves with them then hopefully they’ll finally get an army large enough to stop this, but everyone really hopes it doesn’t come to that.)

I’m working on the first chapter of my fic right now actually if I’m gonna be honest and phoenix Tommy is absolutely without question canon to it but I’ve still been going back and forth on if I want him to be part tanuki as well or just blessed/favored by one like Teddy Bear mentioned. I’m also tucking away the whole thing about the magma blood for later use. Phoenix Tommy just makes sense. They used to call him Zombie Kid for a reason back on SMP Earth, he just literally does not die ever unless he decides he does.

~Snapdragon & Firefly