#I didn't even edit this idk what it is

[wanderingblindly]

hi liquid!! suzzzzuka here, on anon bc sideblog functionalities suck lmao.

☰ for the ask game? with let’s say… ybmctg & enemies to lovers?? <3

suzzzzuka darling!!!! hello!!!!! ((also can i just say i was so excited when i saw u were on tumblr after i read your landoscar office AU oh my god))

This is a CHALLENGE but I'm into it, let's go!!!

☰ send a fic and an unrelated trope and I’ll remix it

I have no idea what this is, but I wrote a thousand words of something!! It's almost, in a weird way, a preface to YBMCTG?

Concept: Oscar fucked up their first meeting when he started working at the bar; Lando's held a one-sided grudge ever since, and Oscar has no idea why his coworker hates him so much.

Jenson hadn't warned him about this.

Admittedly, he's not entirely sure what Jenson could have said. 'The talent's hot, by the way. Be cool 'bout it, yeah?' wouldn't have prepared him for this. 'This' being the man sitting dead center at his bar, an aura of otherworldliness emanating from him like a halo. He’s not like anything Oscar’s seen before – not in the streets of his suburban hometown, not in the ungodly boredom of his seminars. He’s something that can only exist here, in the spaces drenched in alcohol and debauchery. 

Oscar’s gaze quickly flicks down to his shoulders, his chest, hardly covered in anything more than fishnets.

The man’s eyes are icy in their intensity, fixated on Oscar's hands as he grips the necks of a couple beers between his fingers, popping the caps efficiently. Before Oscar can open his mouth to ask what he's drinking tonight, he beats him to it. 

"Archers and lemonade, pleeeeease." Oscar's eyes are glued to his lips, stretching into a lazy smile as he leans over the bar. The glossy shine of his lipstick looks dangerous in the dark bar, beckoning to him like a siren's song.

He's quiet for just a beat too long, brain running in every direction besides the sorry excuse for a mixed drink on his to-do list. Oscar moves quickly to compensate, the pours brief and easy. 

"I see you've met our star of the night." Jenson smiles as he slides next to him, grabbing the drink out of Oscar's hand before he can place it in front of him. The musician makes a noise of offense, flashing Oscar a look that makes his stomach churn. He doesn’t know what to do with this, with black-lined eyes clearly asking him for something as his boss sits right there. Another drink? Telling Jenson off? 

“So you’re in the band?” Oscar finally manages to say something, keeping an ear out for his response as a man flags him down for another round of shots. 

“Lead singer, at your service.” He does a faux salute, Oscar notices the broad span of his palm with entirely neutral feelings. 

Oscar slides him another archers and lemonade, hopeful that Jenson is adequately distracted by Sebastian to keep away. “What kind of music? You look very…” Oscar wracks his brain for any band to reference, realizing he’s accidentally put himself on the spot. “KISS.” He hopes they're still relevant to anyone besides his dad.

The singer’s eyes darken as the track shifts, Oscar’s sentence exposed in the moment of dead air.

“Thanks for this,” He hops to his feet, tone flatter and mesmerizing lips tighter than when this all started. Sebastian looks over with a raised brow at the sudden movement. As Oscar opens his mouth to reply, the musician reaches out with a steady head and places his fingers on top of the glass, eyes trained on Oscar’s face.

And pushes.

“Oops.” He faux-winces as the drink spills across the bar, splashing Oscar’s shirt in its force – he jumps for a rag instinctively, grabbing the glass before it can roll and shatter. “Sorry ‘bout that.”  

Someone needs another mezcal old fashioned, someone’s drunkenly calling for sex on the beach, Sebastian is looking at him with a look he doesn’t understand –

And the musician is gone.  

—

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Jenson whispers into Sebastian’s ear, stopped in his tracks by a deceptively strong grasp on his thigh. 

“No, you won’t.” Sebastian smiles, the one that sends a shiver down Jenson’s spine – trouble. “We’ll see what happens.”

—

Maybe this job isn’t working out for him. His bosses are fine, if not a little odd, and the crowds are vaguely well-behaved. Surely it’s no worse than any other bar in London, definitely better than the proper dives closer to campus. 

The main problem is right in front of him, unavoidably sitting in the center of his bar. Again. 

“What d’you mean y’don’t know how to make a hitman?” Lando asks, the heavy black around his eyes making him look vicious in the low, shifting lights. It’s the same conversation they had last week, the week before – Lando asking for a drink Oscar’s pretty positive doesn’t even exist with the confidence of a seasoned mixologist. 

“Tell me what’s in it, and I got it.” Oscar replies, sparing him a glance as he dumps a few glasses into the dishwasher. His glare makes his stomach twist painfully, like being flayed and gutted by someone seeking vengeance – not someone well-acquainted with delicacy. 

He rolls his eyes and yells towards Sebastian, half occupied with whatever concoction Jenson is creating between their two drinks. “Ya gotta hire someone more comp…” He furrows his brows, “good at the job, Seb.”

“He is perfectly competent,” Sebastian calls back, reaching out to pat Oscar’s arm gently.

Ignoring the sting of his invisible wounds, Oscar moves down to figure out what the bickering gaggle of French speakers need. 

—

Can someone be beautiful because they’re mean? Or is it always in spite of it? 

Oscar’s eyes, against his better judgment, gravitate towards the stage. But perhaps that’s just inevitable, eyes following Lando when he’s steps above everyone else, bearing down on them with the sheer force of his presence. 

His voice, usually spitting something acidic and pointed at him from across the bar, is raw – vulnerable – as he grips the microphone with both hands. They envelop it, smothering it, as his lips press against it and he croons out the opening to a ballad.

Goosebumps break out across his skin as the bass creeps in, lifting Lando’s voice up like a prayer over the crowd. 

The lights, flashing their usual pattern of red blue red blue, reflect against the summer-bleached gold in his unruly curls – another halo. 

—

“KISS doesn’t do it like that, do they?” Lando says, rough voice almost haughty as he sits down in his seat – black shirt completely unbuttoned, chest glistening with sweat and metal. 

He puts a glass of water in front of Lando immediately, dropping in a black straw. “Uh, I guess?” Oscar replies, not entirely sure where Lando’s going with this. But he’s being less abrasive than usual, the glare in his eyes a bit less pointed. “Don’t really know KISS all that well, mate.”

Lando stares at him, narrowed eyes blowing wide. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Oscar pauses, hands freezing around the martini shaker he’d grabbed for the girl to Lando’s left. “No?”

“You don’t know KISS.” He doesn’t say it as a question. Like there’s some connection Oscar isn’t making, some red thread on a corkboard he can’t connect, Oscar looks at him in confusion. 

“...No?” Oscar’s stopped moving all together now, other patrons temporarily forgotten as he watches the range of expressions dance across Lando’s face. Surprise, maybe? Something like shock. “Why?”

“I… hate them.” Lando says simply – if not a little absentmindedly. “Sorry about, um. Well.” He puts down his glass, hand visibly shaking; before Oscar can ask if he’s ok, ask what he’s even talking about, Lando stumbles off his barstool and paces over towards Sebastian. 

He watches as Sebastian laughs, clapping Lando on the shoulder and waving cheerily towards the bar. Oscar flashes a weak wave back, uncertain, before noticing that Lando’s looking over as well – his face is red. Not just from the lights. But his cheeks, down his neck, the exposed planes of his chest, they’re red. 

Oscar flushes, too. 

Maybe if he’s sorry…

[goldenpinof]

how the night changes, or something

[thelastdayalive]

[x]

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

She

[lutavero]

For Maddie @reyesstrand, I was your Tarlos Secret Santa this year! 🎄🎄🎅🎅 I was so elated when I got your name in the assignment email, it was so much fun to create for you! I debated on what kind of set to make for you exactly, but then this au just wouldn't leave me alone, for months by now!! And now, at last, I had an excuse to write it down. :'D

I found life (I found you)

Their first meeting is the furthest thing from the romantic ideals most people have in this city.

See, if your city is teeming with superheroes, you for sure wouldn’t be able to help yourself and imagine more and more cliché and romantic encounters. Getting rescued from a supervillain, flying through the air while held oh so close after said rescue mission, getting flirted with by the kind and selfless masked vigilante, maybe even getting a hand kiss in front of the reporters… you possibly imagined it all before even if you’d be ashamed to admit it to anyone.

No, the way TK meets Striker is the complete opposite of these dream scenarios.

♦♦

A Tarlos vigilante!AU,

[Read the rest on AO3.]

[camelotsheart]

did i spend three hours learning how to use audacity because i couldn’t get the idea of a merthur song duet out of my head? maybe. was i unable to edit the whole song because the rest of it was too complicated? maybe. but at least i have a physical example of the concept now even if its super messy. i can finally sleep in peace

(merlin’s voice is from the james arthur cover and arthur’s voice is from the stephen scaccia cover)

[gideonisms]

See I think if I'd been born a guy I wouldn't be this pathologically avoidant trying to plan my career because there are plenty of situations you can find as a cis man where you just Do Tasks in awkward silence and you can get to those as a woman but you have to go through the rings of hell socializing first and then besides, a lot of those jobs already have so many men that you stand out when the whole point was you Don't want to do that

[icewindandboringhorror]

Baby boy brother birthday photos from last year that I just realized I never uploaded!

[mangle-my-mind]

uh oh they're starting to make choices in an adaptation of a book that I am not agreeing with!

[svtskneecaps]

i feel like mariana learning about the horrors would go a lot like missa learning about the horrors except missa had a philza and mariana has roier. so. he's fucked.

[bas-writes]

Someone got so triggered that I'm considering making some extra money (or rather by that their unsolicited advice wasn't met with a ritual buttlicking on my side ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) that they ran to rant on me on their blog, to rant how bad making money on hobbies is because capitalism, #eaththerich, and endangering community...I guess?

Vile me, looking on semi-empty stomach at 5.54pln left on my account week before next payment, wondering how I can squeeze a few bucks extra because through next few months when I have even more medical treatment spendings.

Vile me, being a writer. Maybe it would be forgiven to me if I were a craft maker or artist. After all, no one says a word on merch or art commission, or fanzines... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, if making money on fics is too much of a "black market" for you & you don't like seeing your favorite writers struggling, many of them have a ko-fi! So do I! Tips are legal, safe, and make everyone happy! ❤

[hella1975]

not someone commenting on tams to tell me to update taob. what if you fucked off forever

[leafy-m]

My stupid story is 20k now how I do make it stop 😵

[queenlucythevaliant]

I'm watching Star Wars with my roommate, she hasn't seen any of it and she is completely unspoiled I am LIVING

[oncillaphoenix]

weirdly elated to discover that N does, in fact, mention his sisters Literally Ever

[ullybug]

too stressed about irl stuff to stress about the games in a real way but. that stress is manifesting as a truly deranged desire to make a swaymark edit of dilaudid by the mountain goats (off of sunset tree) which is just. not a song that has anything to do with them at all unless you are me and keep hearing about how they definitely will be trading one of them away when the cap goes up (?) during the offseason. and then the song about taking the freedom that you have to love someone recklessly in an otherwise crushingly hopeless situation that you know ends in parting ways permanently is very much about swaymark.