#I might write more of this idk

[flieslikeamoron]

For the ask meme, if you're still doing it! I wish you would write a fic where either Eddie or Steve can read the other's mind, or feel their emotions, or are otherwise psychically linked in some way. :)

Hiiiii! At one point I was thinking about writing a soul bond type of thing where the bat bites create a hive mind that Steve and Eddie share. Your ask reminded me of the idea so I wrote a little bit of what that could have been like. Some dicks and stuff behind the cut.

-*-

It’s not that weird.

Sure, it’s a little strange Steve always seems to know when Eddie pulls into the parking lot at Family Video. Even if he’s in the back room, couldn’t possibly have heard the rattle of the van’s rusted muffler. 

And yes, he can tell when Eddie’s hungry. Thirsty. Tired. Can tell without asking if he’s craving a burger or spaghetti. Can tell where Eddie is in a room without looking. Can feel it like a magnet pulling. But he knows when Robin’s hungry just by looking too. Or when she has a crush on someone. He knows when Nancy’s fed up or trying not to laugh. He knows when Dustin’s about to go off on some nerd rant before he starts talking. 

It’s just because they’re friends now. That has to be why he feels so much better when Eddie’s around. Like something he didn’t know was missing clicking into place. That’s friendship, isn’t it? 

It’s not that weird. 

Not compared to all the shit they’ve been through. It’s nice, actually, the way Eddie smiling at him sinks deep into him like sunshine on his skin. The way Eddie’s pacing footsteps or the drumming of his fingers on the counter thumps in a rhythm against Steve’s chest. Even when Eddie’s pissed, it rattles like rain on a tin roof in a way Steve kind of likes. 

It’s just because Steve likes him. It’s not a big deal that he hasn’t felt exactly like this about any of the other people he’s friends with. Any of the people he loves. Different isn’t bad. There’s no reason to mention it. What would he even say? Do you know when I’m thirsty too? Do you feel like a lock turning when you touch me? That does make it sound weird. And what if Eddie says no. What if Eddie has no idea what he’s even talking about. 

No, Steve will just give him a Coke when he knows Eddie wants a Coke. And bask in the smile that gets him. There’s no reason to bring it up. To make it weird.

Until.

It comes out of nowhere, heat building low in his gut when Steve’s in the middle of putting his laundry away. He’s got the phone trapped between his ear and his shoulder, Robin on the other end giving him a play-by-play of her latest not-date with Vicki. He puts the rest of his jeans away, trying to ignore how turned on he is for no apparent reason. But there’s something fucked up about having Robin’s voice in his ear while he’s popping a boner. 

“I gotta go,” he interrupts. “Sorry, I forgot I have to-” He tries to think of something he could be doing that’s not jerking off.

“Am I boring you?”

“No I just-” He stops again. This time because he has the oddest feeling. Almost the feeling of a hand on him. Of fingers pinching into his nipple. It’s never really done much for him, having his nipples played with. But a pulse of heat goes right through his balls. He curls a hand thoughtlessly against his boner, feeling the needy weight of it. “I’ll call you in a sec.” He can hear Robin protesting as he hangs up and tosses the phone aside. 

She calls right back, but he lets it ring. Too busy tugging his pants down. He can’t explain anyway. That he just really needs to get off right now. It’s rude as hell. He doesn’t know why he’s- But he’s so turned on. He’ll make it up to her after he gets this out of his system. 

He tugs his underwear down enough to get his dick out, starting to stroke himself with one hand, the other braced on his dresser. He likes to start slow normally, get himself worked up, but he feels strung tight as if he’s already been at it for a while. He spits in his hand, spreads precome down the shaft. Watching his hand move, the head of his dick red and slick in the circle of his fingers. 

There’s something wrong with his vision, something sort of blurry like a double exposure in a photograph. He blinks. It’s like the almost there of another hand, that’s not his hand. Of a dick that’s not his dick. He can almost feel it ghost against his skin when that hand moves, off rhythm with his. It’s making his dick throb, gut snarled tight with heat. It’s making him dizzy. He closes his eyes, and tries to focus on the slide of his hand. Just his hand. Tries to picture Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool. Perfect boobs and a slo-mo smile. But the picture in his head feels impossible to hold on to. Feels like he can’t- 

And then he’s seeing himself a little hazy and far away like looking through clear water. It’s him pulling himself out of the pool in his swim team speedos. Muscles flexing. Water streaming off him. Hand running through his own wet hair, and a cocky grin on his face. 

And okay, he knows he’s a good-looking guy. But he’s not- His ego isn’t this big. This isn’t the him he sees in the mirror. It’s sort of- Everything a little better than he actually is. The him he wishes he was. 

He didn’t- The shape of it feels wrong inside his head, like it doesn’t fit right. But he’s watching himself sitting down now, at the edge of the pool. And there's someone still in the water. There are hands on his thighs. A mouth on his cock. He can’t see much of the other person but long, dark, wet hair. He can almost feel it, the heat of that mouth on his cock. The sizzle of it through his mind going straight to his balls. And every time he strokes himself it’s like he feels it in his dick, and then he feels it again somehow like an echo throbbing through him. An overwhelming feedback loop of want and need and how good it feels. God. Fuck. I’m gonna come. He is gonna come, but he hears it against the inside of his head, and it doesn’t sound like him. It sounds like-

“Eddie?” he says cautiously. Out loud and in his head too.

He feels a quick stab of shock, fear. It feels like the rest of it. Sort of the wrong shape inside his body, inside his head. That picture of him winks away. And then it’s like he’s got a song stuck in his head, but it’s a heavy metal song he’s never heard before. 

“Eddie?” He thinks it harder. Tries to make it a scream, send it out past the inside of his own head. But the music keeps going, the noise of it so loud he can hardly think past it, can’t hear past it to whatever Eddie’s thinking behind it. That is Eddie behind it though, he’s pretty sure. That was Eddie just now. The things Steve was feeling. That was what Eddie was thinking about while he was getting off. He was thinking about Steve. 

Steve should be more weirded out by that, probably. Knowing he’s starring in Eddie Munson’s wet dreams is a bit of a surprise. He didn’t even know Eddie’s gay. He waits to feel shocked or upset, but outside of being kind of confused how any of this is even happening, he doesn’t seem to mind it. It’s a compliment, really. If that’s the way Eddie sees him. He kind of likes it, actually, in a deep down, self-satisfied way that makes him wonder if he does need to work on his ego after all. 

He feels vaguely guilty that he accidentally ruined the guy’s jerk off session. He looks down at his hand on his dick. He’s not sure if he should finish now. It’s like stolen valor or something. Is he even horny or was he just piggy-backing? However he got here, he’s still pretty close. He gives himself a couple careful strokes. Can Eddie feel that? Or was it just a one way connection? He heard it when Steve thought his name though. The heavy metal is still fucking blasting, so maybe he can’t hear or feel Steve past that just like Steve can’t hear him. He doesn’t know if he should risk it though. 

It’s pretty fucking weird.

The kind of weird he can’t ignore. 

He takes a cold shower, the heavy metal stuck in his head starting to give him a headache. Could you turn it down a little? he tries thinking. If it gets through to Eddie, he ignores it. Steve tries to figure out if there’s a way to turn down the volume on his end. Putting his fingers in his ears doesn’t help. He tries counting backward from a hundred and that seems like it does something, sort of. But as soon as he stops counting he can hear the music just as loud. Maybe Eddie will turn it off on his own if Steve gives him a little time to stop freaking out. 

He’s got to be freaking out. Having the dude you’re jerking off about pop up in your head has to be the nightmare scenario of all time. But how is Steve supposed to tell him it’s cool if he won’t stop putting up a wall of sound?

Or maybe Steve could try something a little less direct than whatever this head to head connection is. He tries calling Eddie’s trailer. No answer. He tries the walkie. No answer.

He wonders if Eddie can tell he’s pulling into the trailer park like Steve can always tell when he’s pulling up the street to Steve’s house. Steve can feel it. That magnet tug as he walks up the stairs. That feeling just underneath his breast bone that always seems to orient toward Eddie like a compass pointing north. He wonders if Eddie can feel that too. 

But maybe he can’t, because he looks shocked when he opens the door. Wide-eyed for just a second. The music breaks apart in Steve’s head enough that he can feel fear, just for a second. Less than that. Barely long enough to notice if he hadn’t been paying attention. And then the music starts up again, and whatever Eddie’s feeling is hidden behind it. Behind the easy laugh as he reaches out to thump Steve on the chest with the back of his hand like normal. Says, “You couldn’t call?” like Steve didn’t. Says, “You’re lucky I don’t have a life,” and tugs Steve in through the doorway. Like normal. 

For a moment Steve thinks maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he’s making up weird shit and thinking he and Eddie have some kind of psychic connection and hearing things that aren’t there and seeing things that aren’t there. Maybe none of it is real. And there’s nothing weird here except him.

But there’s music in his head. And he doesn’t know this song.

[syoish-aot]

"I Found You" - Part 1

I can't stop thinking about this really obscure reader/eren idea so hear me out:

post canon (sort of???)

reader/eren

reverse isekai & memory loss

not smut (sorry)

word count: 690

*********

The last thing Eren remembers is the chaste press of Mikasa's lips against his as the world fades away into nothing.

The first thing Eren feels is the ticklish brush of your lips against his as the world comes back into view.

He died. He knows he died because that was the whole damn point of almost destroying the world. Almost killing everyone so his friends have someone to stop and they can be seen as heroes instead of devils.

It was his plan all along. The only plan that made sense. And he'd succeeded, he knew he had succeeded so-...

So why is he still alive?

Eren doesn't want to open his eyes, so he doesn't.

Instead, he lays there against the bed- a bed so much softer than one he'd ever had the pleasure of laying against, especially after years and years of fighting.

Eren can't remember the last time he didn't wake up sore- probably not since he was a little kid, ignorant to the truth of the world.

But right now he's not sore. Right now he's in a soft bed and the lips that had been against his had long since faded into a shuffling at the other side of the room.

Was it Mikasa? Would he open his eyes and be in that cabin he had created, just for the two of them?

If he didn't open his eyes then he could pretend that's what it was. If he didn't open his eyes he could be anywhere.

But then-

"Eren." You laugh softly, from the other side of the room.

It's not a voice he recognizes.

You look over at your boyfriend, who's still laying shirtless in bed even though it's well past eleven. It might be a Saturday, but the two of you had plans and you'd agreed the night before that you would not give them up to spend the whole day lazing around your apartment wrapped up in each other (as wonderful as that sounds right now, especially with how dreamy he looks with his face relaxed in blissful peace and his hair splayed out across the pillo- No no no no no- NO DISTRACTIONS!)

You see his eyelids twitch, meaning he’s awake but he’s purposefully trying to pretend to be asleep.

That jerk.

You figure he can have another few minutes though so you turn back to the mirror in front of you and put in your earrings. Then, you stand back and flatten out your cocktail dress. 

It’s a simple dress, but one of your favourites. Form fitting and long sleeved with soft dark blue fabric that cuts off mid thigh. It makes you feel mature, which is something you should probably already feel in your mid twenties but-... but honestly you normally feel more like a teenager playing pretend. 

Speaking of playing pretend: 

“Eren, seriously.” You laugh again as you cross the room. “We have to leave in forty five minutes and you need to take a shower.” You say as you crawl back into bed and straddle him, your thighs against his hips. You lean forwards, placing your hands against the pillow on either side of his head and lean down so your lips can ghost over the shell of his ear. “When we get back home we can do that thing you like~ and if you get up now I’ll even let you-”

Suddenly you’re flipped.

Eren has you pinned against the mattress with your hand painfully pressed against your back. 

“E-Eren!” You exclaim as your shoulder strains, wrist no doubt bruising against his tight grip. 

He’s done this to you before- playfully, with less strain against your arm and when you’re in the mood to get a little freaky but right now this- this isn’t that. This is something else.

And that’s confirmed when he finally speaks, adding a slight pressure to your arm which has you hissing in pain:

“Who the hell are you?” He demands in a tone that you don’t recognize. 

It’s your boyfriend behind you, you know it’s your boyfriend behind you.

But at the same time, it’s a total stranger.

(edit: I continued this...

PART 2 -> )

[legolambi]

say it with me melvik pre series toxic situationship

[egophiliac]

Final manifestations for Book 7?

I'm trying REALLY hard not to build up any solid expectations, because I wanna go in ~fresh~! they're already so far away from anything I thought would happen (not in a bad way, I'm just accepting that I'm on Miss Yana's Wild Ride at this point and we're seeing this thing through 'til the end, by gum). so it's nothing too major, but:

they've been handing new crying expressions out like candy lately, I want to see some delicious Malleus tears.

honestly I want everyone to cry buckets. their tears sustain me. the more Silver angst specifically I get the happier I am.

SILVER!!!! 👏 VANROUGE!!!! 👏

just let him have this. the poor boy's been through so much. let him have his big "I'm proud of you, son" moment with Lilia.

I'm 100% expecting Grim's arc (and probably whatever's going on with Crowley) to be its own episode, but a nice hook to leave us hanging on would be good!

a nice hook though, please, I don't think I can take another "Grim is attacking us! now wait eight months to find out what happens :)" cliffhanger...

some Meleanor? as a treat? just a little bit, a tiny quick flashback or something, please Twst I just, I just want to see her again. let her have a little ghost cameo like Dawnathan Knight got. Lilia and his kids are all having their big group hug or whatever and she can gently fade in to be all like

(turning asks off until I'm done playing, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE Y'ALL)

[superbat-lmao]

Jason travels to an alternate universe where Bruce only cares about being Batman. He took in each of his kids to serve the mission, not be his children.

Now, faced with alternate versions of his family, Jason has to grapple with the fact that his Bruce does care, that he is his father. Because the man in front of him now, trying to send him home, isn’t even close.

[luli-lads]

(No spoilers) Kissing Zayne, that's it. Because a lot of us need a little comfort right now.

You hold his hand in yours and guide him to sit on the sofa, where he sighs at the prospect of rest, his eyes looking up at you expectantly.

His hand lingers on yours, unsure if you're going to move away, but not bold enough to pull you closer.

Without letting him dwell on it, you sit on his lap and bring his hand to your face, nuzzling it and pressing small kisses to his palm and fingers. A gentle smile soothes his features.

The kisses trail further, to his arm, on each scar, and you feel his fingertips caress your hair.

You close your eyes and lean against his touch, letting him play with your hair for as long as he wants. When you open them, the expression on his face is one of adoration.

"I love you," you affirm, the atmospheric quiet.

He blinks. It's not like you've never told him before, but it still surprises him each time.

His hands move down and encircle your waist, pulling you closer in his lap. Any coldness remaining on his skin is long gone now.

"I love you," he echoes, "I'm happy I get to tell you, every single time."

You smile and wrap your arms around his neck, hugging him. Like gathering loose snow and pressing it tight to create the pieces of a snowman, you've learned how to pick up each part of Zayne and see the full picture, here in your arms, hugging you back.

Far from done, you kiss where your lips can reach, his ear, his neck, slowly pulling back with each kiss, his jaw, his cheek - the other, his eyelashes, the space where his eyebrows furrow...

His chest rises and falls deeply, as if each kiss was taking away a burden from him. His hands move up to cup your face.

You pull back slightly to look at him, his eyes wandering across your face, a hint of a cheeky smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

"You forgot one spot," he points out.

"I was saving the best for last," you boop his nose, making him let out a soft chuckle.

He leans in tentatively and you follow, pressing your lips to his. It's sweet and silk-soft. That doesn't last, since Zayne loves kissing, kissing you, but neither of you care. He deepens the kiss, humming once you mirror his movements.

And this moment, holding him just as he holds you, is everything he could've ever asked for. How lucky that it won't stay a hopeless wish anymore, since you plan to share this warmth with him every day.

[raincoatpng]

I keep drawing characters napping because I can't sleep properly myself and I'm in desperate need of several days (weeks. months. years.) of rest✌️

colouring this was a pain I'm not used to working with this palette auhghh... but oh well this wasn't supposed to be super polished anyway

[idiopath-fic-smile]

this one goes out to all my Singin' in the Rain ot3 truthers—

Cosmo Brown had always known it would end like this.

Cosmo was a lot of things—in fact, you could argue he was too many—but he wasn’t dumb.

From the early years, when Cosmo and Don were just kids playing for pennies in pool halls, to their stint dodging rotten vegetables on Vaudeville stages across the very backwaters of America’s backwaters, to their first real breath of success in Hollywood (and then the second and the third and the fourth), Cosmo would catch a glimpse of his handsome, charismatic friend from the corner of his eye—a flash of dark hair, that perfect tooth powder ad smile—and know that for all Don’s protestations, someday the guy was gonna meet a wonderful girl and get married, settle down, and very gently slip off to the far edge of Cosmo’s life.

So yes, Cosmo had seen Kathy Selden coming. Not the details, not her sense of humor or her musical little laugh or the madcap way she really threw herself into dancing with them around Don’s place at 1:30 in the morning—and okay, certainly not the part at the beginning where she had jumped out of a cake at a party, but he thought a fella could be excused for not correctly divining that. 

The general outline of the thing, though, how Don’s eyes followed her around a room...he had been preparing for Don to propose to Kathy ever since she’d tried to throw a pie at Don’s face. And when the happy day came, Cosmo had been ready with his best man suit, his best man speech, a slightly updated version of “Here Comes the Bride” that’d had Don and Kathy laughing all the way down the aisle.

Don and Kathy would buy a house together. They would have a swimming pool and a dog and then inevitably, a small parade of adorable little snot-nosed kids who would call him Uncle Cosmo, and they would spend less and less time with him, not on purpose but busy with the rest of their lives, and ultimately Cosmo would learn to make his peace with it because he’d have no other choice and he would have to try to move on and not live too much in his memories. He could picture it so clearly, he figured if the songwriting gig with Monumental didn’t pan out, he could always return to the backwater circuit with a new act: The Amazing Cosmo of the Cosmos—ladies and gentlemen, he sees the future, he reads the stars, he silently pines for his best married pal and all the while tap dancing!

Don and Kathy inviting him along on their honeymoon, though—that part was a surprise.

“What?” said Cosmo, hands frozen over the piano keys. He’d been busy with a brand-new assignment; on the heels of The Dancing Cavalier, offers were pouring in and he’d taken the first one scoring a movie that didn’t star anyone he was secretly in love with.

Don had looked a little wounded when Cosmo broke the news last week, but a guy had to start making his own way in the world. Besides, orchestrating layers of strings to swell as the camera zoomed in on Don and Kathy blissfully locking lips in radiant monochrome, oblivious to the rest of the world—well, Cosmo knew that dance, he had mastered the footwork, and he didn’t especially feel like a reprise.

It wasn’t lost on him that Kathy had dropped by his rehearsal space alone today. Of course, he had no idea what this meant—he didn’t think it was about the new job; Don didn’t tend to stay sore at him for that long—but Kathy was acting perfectly natural, and so probably the smart thing was to follow her lead.

“It’s a two-week transatlantic cruise,” she said now, gracefully dropping beside him on the piano bench. “We thought it would be nice to see Europe, take in the sights, get away from all the cameras.”

“Ah yes, such a wallflower, our dear Don,” said Cosmo solemnly. “Besieged on all sides by the love of his public, a tragedy of our times, up there with Lear! Hamlet! Caesar! The one with all the Greeks and the giant wooden horse, nay, nay, neigh.” He played a tragic little trill, for effect. Kathy huffed a laugh and smacked his arm.

“You know that’s not it,” she said. “Being watched all the time—we can’t always do what we want. It’s rotten.”

Tell me about it, thought Cosmo.

He was sort of seeing a fight choreographer named Archibald, who came from old money and was a “the third” or a “the fifth” but nice enough Cosmo might even forgive him for that. Archibald was trim and athletic, with dark brown hair that was just starting to go gray at the temples and enough discretion that Cosmo didn’t think they’d get caught. The only problem was that he didn’t laugh at Cosmo’s jokes, seemed to just tolerate them.

“What do you two even talk about, then?” Don had asked, when Cosmo had let this slip over drinks the same night he’d explained about the new movie project. (Cosmo had been trying to spend less time with Don and Kathy since the wedding but Don had said, “C’mon, pal, we miss you” and Kathy had laid one hand on his arm and peered up at him with her big green eyes and Cosmo was only one man.)

Cosmo had frowned, because Don hated Archibald, for reasons that were frankly mysterious. Then he’d looked up and grinned a grin he didn’t exactly feel and said,

“Tell you when you’re older,” and then Don had choked on his dry Martini even though Cosmo knew Don knew about Cosmo’s tendencies. It wasn’t something they discussed, and Cosmo had never properly gone with a guy before, but whenever a big-shot producer started complaining about all the degenerate queers in showbiz, Don always sharply steered the conversation someplace else. It was all very gallant and noble and knightly, and someday Don would play King Arthur and Kathy his lady Guinevere—

“Honestly, sometimes it feels as if we’re living in a fishbowl,” said Kathy now, in the present.

“And so your solution is to relocate,” said Cosmo, “to the biggest fishbowl on this here magnificent earth. The mighty ocean!” He struck up a sea shanty. “Oh blow the man down, blow the man down / way ay, blow the man down…”

Not everyone appreciated his musical flights of fancy, but when Cosmo turned, she was leaning with her elbow on the side arm of the piano, watching him with her chin on her hand and laughing. 

“Just for two weeks,” she said. “So, are you coming?”

“With you two,” said Cosmo, just so there could be no misunderstandings. “On your one and only honeymoon.”

“Yes,” said Kathy.

“As what, your first mate?”

“Sure.” She grinned and threw him a quick salute. Cosmo was almost never attracted to women but in this case, he understood the appeal.

He swallowed. “You are aware of that ancient saying, ‘Two’s company and three’s a fast track to divorce court’?”

“You’re hardly a threat to our marriage, Cosmo,” she said, and he agreed, of course, in both directions, even, but it still stung to hear her say it out loud. For want of anything better to do, he gasped, clutched a hand to his chest and reeled backwards so hard, he threw himself off the piano bench, landing in a somersault on the floor.

Kathy spun around fluidly on the bench to face him, pleated skirt whirling a little, heels of her shoes clicking together. 

“Oh, I said that badly,” she said. “I only mean that it’s more fun when you’re around. We have a better time, Don and me both. Remember the night we decided to make Dueling Cavalier a musical?”

“Do I remember the best night of my life?” Cosmo peered up at her from the hardwood. “Why yes, madam, now that you mention it, I believe it might ring a bell or two.”

“The best—” She frowned for a moment, and he remembered then that as a newly married woman, a newly married woman to Don Lockwood, no less, she’d no doubt experienced any number of evenings that blew that one out of the water.

Even besides that, it felt awfully revealing all of a sudden. Cosmo threw an arm over his eyes. He felt naked. He wished he was naked, because that might at least distract from whatever his face was doing.

“So it beats your time with Archibald, then?” said Kathy shrewdly.

Cosmo uncovered his eyes. He forgot, sometimes, that new as Kathy was to the moving pictures business, she was still a city girl, with a city girl’s worldliness. Also, Don had probably told her; that seemed like the kind of second-hand secrets married people shared with each other. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Hardly a topic for mixed company,” he said.

There was a pause.

“So yes,” she said and smiled with a smugness that would’ve been unbecoming were she not as cute as a button.

“What do you and Don have against the poor man anyway?” he groused. “He’s never done so much as sneezed in your direction, and if he did, I’m sure he’d use a handkerchief.”

“For one thing, we know you could do better,” said Kathy, folding her arms.

Cosmo elbowed his way back to sitting, brushing himself off with dignity. “Well, better’s not exactly knocking on my door right now.”

“This town doesn’t have an ounce of sense.” She reached down to offer him a hand up, pulling Cosmo to his feet; she was stronger than she looked. “Listen, two weeks away, it’ll be good for you.”

“What about you two?” Cosmo protested as he reclaimed his spot on the bench, Kathy sliding to make room.

“What about us?” said Kathy with wide eyes.

“Two newlyweds might want some alone time?” he offered weakly.

Kathy shrugged. “I told you, there won’t be reporters or cameras. It’ll be plenty private.”

“What about your matrimonial needs?”

“Which needs?”

His eyes narrowed; she was a terrific actress but suddenly he wasn’t sure he was buying it. Kathy wasn’t dumb either.

“You have to know what I mean. Don’t make me play Cole Porter at you,” said Cosmo. She hesitated, and Cosmo began to pluck out a melody: “Birds do it, bees do it / even educated fleas do it…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Let’s do it,” sang Kathy, finishing the stanza in her lovely alto, “let’s fall in love.”

Cosmo stopped playing.

“I do know,” she said simply, “of course I do, and we’re not worried about it, alright? Listen, do you want to go?”

Cosmo, who had been carefully not asking himself that question, stared down at the piano keys. Did he want to go? He thought back to that night at Don’s, the three of them giddy with excitement and inspiration and sleep deprivation, running through the house, clowning around and dancing with no audience except each other—he hadn’t felt like a hanger-on then, like a third wheel or an extra limb or a chaperone. He’d felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, one note of a perfect chord.

Still.

“I can’t swim,” he said.

“They’ll have lifejackets,” said Kathy.

“I’ll have to work.”

“We’ll bring a piano.”

“All my houseplants will die,” said Cosmo.

“All your houseplants are fake,” she said. This was true, although he wasn’t sure how she knew since she’d never been to his house. She sighed. “Remember the night of that first screening, when you were about to expose Lina and instead of explaining what was happening, Don told me I had to sing, that I didn’t have a choice?”

He winced, thinking of Kathy’s heartbroken, tear-stained face before they’d pulled up the curtain and revealed who was really singing when Lina moved her lips.

“Yes, and I feel just awful about it.”

“Well, Don doesn’t,” said Kathy. “Because he knew it would take too long to convince me to do something that mean to her.”

“Mean?” Cosmo echoed. “She tried to trap you in a lifelong contract and steal your voice. A common sea witch wouldn’t stoop so low.”

“But there wasn’t time,” she pressed. “And anyway, he knew how it would end.”

“What’s your point?”

“We already bought your tickets,” said Kathy.

Cosmo gaped at her.

“We’ve cleared the trip with everyone at Monumental and anyway, like I said, we’ll have a piano on the boat.”

Distantly, he was aware his mouth was still hanging open. Kathy reached over with one light finger under his chin and gently closed it. 

“That’s better,” she said, folding her hands daintily in her lap. It was around this time she seemed to realize it wasn’t some routine, that Cosmo really was well and truly stunned. “Of course, nobody is going to force you to go with us if you truly don’t want to,” she said into the silence.

“These tickets,” he said at last, “are they refundable?”

“Gosh,” said Kathy easily, “I can’t imagine they are, no.”

The thing was, none of them were hurting for money or work anymore, so the fact that Don and Kathy might be out even a few hundred dollars didn’t catch at him the way it might’ve some years earlier. No, the thought that really seized his imagination was the mental image of Don and Kathy planning this together, Don and Kathy discussing the matter with each other, maybe over breakfast—toast and coffee in their dressing gowns, so sure it was the right thing to do that they’d decided to just go ahead and make preparations: oh and a ticket for Cosmo, of course.

He could do it, he realized. He could go. He wanted to go. It was foolish, but Cosmo was an entertainer; he’d been doing foolish things in front of a roomful of witnesses since he was in shortpants.

“I’ll pack tonight,” he said.

“Perfect!” Kathy hopped off the bench and straightened out her dress. “And bring something nice to wear at dinner for a night or two; it doesn’t need to be black-tie formal, a good suit will do.”

He nodded. “I shall leave the top hat and monocle at home. Two weeks, you say?”

“Yes, and another half-day on either side flying to the harbor and back.” She reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “The itinerary,” she said. “Don and I are so glad you’ll be coming.”

“Uh-huh,” said Cosmo. “Say, where is that fella, anyway? What’s the big idea, can’t even stick around to ask his best pal to his own honeymoon?”

“He’s planning the trip,” said Kathy brightly. “Last-minute details. Anyway, he thought you and I should have a chat, one on one. He thought it might help.”

He blinked. “Help what?”

“Help us,” she said.

It was all starting to feel like a farce, like one of those old Vaudeville acts with a lot of fast talking.

“Did it?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Kathy warmly. She turned and began to walk towards the door. “See you at the airport tomorrow. Six AM sharp.”

“Six AM,” he said, and then, foolishly, “You know, I can see why he likes you.”

Kathy dimpled. “Oh, likewise!” She tossed him another smile and then she was heading out of sight down the hallway, shoes clacking rhythmically on the tile.

“Well,” said Cosmo to no one. He felt pole-axed, he decided. He wasn’t sure he had ever felt pole-axed in his life before, but there was no other word for it.

He played a chord, then another chord, then a few more.

“Pole-axed,” he sang, “out of whack, when you are near there’s only one drawback: I can’t be clever, no I lack the knack, Darling, I’m pole-axed, out of whack around you!”

It wasn’t exactly Cole Porter, but he’d take it, he thought, reaching for his pen. There was still an hour or two left before he’d need to race traffic home and dig out his suitcase. Apparently, he had early morning plans.

(ETA: if you didn't see, there is now a second part here!)

(ETA THE SECOND: the whole finished thing is now here!

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[a-most-beloved-fool]

Kira has a nightmare, one night when she's staying at the O'Brien's. Miles and Keiko, sleeping in the other room, don't hear her get up - but Molly does.

And Molly, being clever and kind, knows exactly what to do when someone has a nightmare. (Or, at least, she knows what her parents always do for her.) So she sits Kira down and brings her a glass of warm milk, and sits by her side as she drinks it.

Then, she takes Kira by the hand and leads her - to her parents bedroom. "I always sleep with mommy and daddy after a nightmare," she explains, when Kira stops outside the door. "It helps! Mommy chases the scary things away. And Daddy is warm."

"Molly," Kira says quietly, a little embarrassed, "I don't think your parents want me in their bed. Even if I did have a nightmare."

"No, they won't mind!" Molly assures.

Then, of course, Miles wakes up.

"Molly?" he asks, voice rough with sleep. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"No, but Miss Kira did!"

And now Keiko's awake, too, sitting up and saying, "Nerys? Are you alright?"

Mortified, Kira says, "Yes, I'm fine, I was just - on my way back to bed. Molly brought me here. I'm - sorry for waking you. I'll just be-"

"You can stay, if you want," Miles offers.

Kira doesn't quite think she heard him right. "What?"

"You can sleep here, if you think it might help," Keiko says.

"Or even if you don't!" Miles adds.

Kira opens her mouth, then closes it again. "I, uh-"

Keiko gets up, and takes Kira, gently, by the hand. Her palm is soft, Kira can't help but notice.

"Brr, it's freezing out here!" Keiko says, tugging Kira along. "You'd better get in before you catch your death of cold. Miles is practically a furnace, so you'll be nice and warm with us."

"And, Molly, you'd best go back to bed, too. You've got school in the morning," Miles says, as Keiko bundles Kira into the bed between them.

As Molly makes her way out, Keiko swings a lazy arm over Kira's back. "Sleep," she hums. "We'll be here in the morning."

Kira, feeling warm and cared for and more than a little overwhelmed, does.

[lycandrophile]

it's silly but the biggest reason why im not into t yet is bc im so afraid of losing my hair. do you have any solutions/tips for it?

first of all, i don’t think it’s silly — it’s natural to be worried when hair loss is talked about by so many people as like…one of the worst results of aging for men. listening to my dad talk about how much he hates balding definitely did not make me feel particularly good about the knowledge that i may very well be joining him someday. i’m not saying the fear is right, because i don’t think hair loss is something awful that we should avoid at all costs, but it’s an understandable fear given the beauty standards we’re working with, and it’s one that a lot of us (myself included) feel.

one thing that’s helped me is just…paying more attention to the guys that i interact with on a daily basis. i’ve learned two things from it: 1) hair loss is super fucking common. i’d say it’s much harder to find an adult man who isn’t balding at all than it is to find one who’s completely bald. and 2) if you forget everything you’ve been told about how bad hair loss is, you’ll realize that quite frankly, every single one of those guys looks totally fucking fine. it doesn’t ruin their appearance and make them ugly, it looks totally natural and isn’t really even something you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. we put so much weight on it but it’s really just not that big of a deal. i’ll hear my parents talk shit about men in my family who are losing their hair when i didn’t even notice a difference last time i saw them. it’s one of those things (like so many other appearance-related things) that you really only notice at all because you’ve been taught that you’re supposed to care about it.

this isn’t something i’ve done personally, but if you really want to desensitize yourself to the idea of it, embrace the time-honored queer tradition of just shaving your whole damn head! find out what you’d look like without hair, find out how you feel about it and what you can do that makes you feel good about your appearance without hair, test the waters while it’s still a temporary change and not something permanent. that way, it won’t feel like this big scary unknown, and you’ll actually have a frame of reference for your feelings about how you look without hair rather than accepting the societal assumption that you’ll inevitably hate it. if you don’t want to actually shave your head, you could also just fuck around with bald filters or photoshop and see what happens.

oh, and if you’re attracted to men, keep an eye out for guys who are bald or balding and also hot as fuck. in my experience, there’s no insecurity or potential future insecurity that being gay for other men hasn’t helped me with. just off the top of my head, i can think of a couple actors who i think are absolutely fucking gorgeous who have helped me get over my fears about losing my hair. despite what our anti-aging-obsessed world might want you to think, there is no such thing as a physical feature that automatically makes someone less attractive, and while making attractiveness less of a priority in your life is good, it can’t hurt to also give yourself some proof that actually, you might lose your hair and look hot as hell doing it.

basically, entertain the possibility that it won’t be a bad thing at all! whether that’s just because it turns out to be a neutral thing for you or because you end up actually liking it, it’s not an inherently bad thing. i’ve ended up liking a lot of things that were “supposed to” be bad effects of t — i love the weight i’ve gained and the new shape it gives my body, i get a lot of gender euphoria from the fact that my acne is now on parts of my face that i saw a lot of guys in high school get it and i’m not complaining about the scars i get from it either because i’ve always liked the added texture that acne scars give my skin, and so on. i think there’s a lot of joy to be had in the changes we’re taught to fear, once we look past that conditioning and actually explore how we feel about it.

but if it’s something you really don’t want and you just want to improve your chances of not having to deal with it, it’s not like there’s nothing you can do! products like finasteride (oral) and minoxidil (usually topical but i think there might also be oral versions) are pretty commonly used among trans guys, for the purpose of avoiding hair loss and for other reasons, and there are plenty of other anti-hair loss products out there (though i don’t know how effective any one of them might be). if it’s a big enough deal for you, you can just decide that you’ll go off of t if/when you start noticing signs of it, since no longer having higher t levels would stop the process in its tracks. and if you don’t find prevention options that work for you so it ends up happening, you can always explore different hair styles (judging by the pattern of hair loss i see in my family, i suspect that keeping my hair long would make it less obvious if i started losing mine), find your preferred method of covering it when you don’t feel good about it (personally i love a good beanie generally and would probably wear them a lot more if i didn’t have hair to worry about because my main complaint is the way they press my hair onto my neck), or just shave it all off if you don’t like the look of the partial balding but don’t mind a shaved head. the point being — you have options!

at the end of the day, whether you go on t or not, you’re going to see your body change as you age in ways that aren’t always going to be attractive to others or aesthetically pleasing to you. that’s just the reality of having a body. even if you never went on t, you’d get older and you might see your hair thin out even if you don’t bald, you’ll see your skin start to wrinkle and sag in places that used to be smooth, your metabolism might slow or your body fat might start to gather in new places; hell, you might lose your hair for a totally different reason and end up in the same place but without the benefits of having been on t that whole time. life is full of bodily changes like that. transphobes will fearmonger about the permanent changes of testosterone all day long but the truth is, there is no escaping permanent bodily changes. whether or not you go on t, your body now isn’t the same as it will be in 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years, just like it isn’t the same as it was at any point in your life before now. our bodies are never supposed to stop growing and aging and changing throughout our lives. there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll love every single change our bodies go through, but that’s okay! there are so many things in life that are more important than the way our bodies look. even if you go on t and lose your hair and don’t like how it looks, your life won’t be ruined; plenty of other things will bring you joy and more than make up for the insecurities.

just think about the gender euphoria and relief from dysphoria that t could give you. would losing your hair be bad enough to outweigh all of that? or is it just the pressure of a society that decided balding is bad that’s making you fear one single change despite how much joy you could have if you let that fear go? only you can decide if going on t is worth the potential downsides for you, but i suspect that for most of us, the benefits of going on t far outweigh the possibility of side effects like hair loss happening down the line.

[ollylotl]

my friend's here.

[lost-the-narrative]

AU where the Stan twins don't have a falling out and instead go to West Coast Tech together, because there is no way that Stanley isn't some kind of nerd.

Like, the man kept his car in pristine condition (aside from the mess inside) for years, outsmarted the government and ran a successful business for thirty years, and was able to learn all the bullshit physics and mechanics and shit to rebuild the portal. And you're gonna try and tell me he isn't smart??? Bullshit!

Sure, Stan isn't an academic genius like Ford, but if you explain it in simpler terms, and let him practice applying the concepts, then he picks things up scarily fast. He's a lot better with the hands-on type of learning, not with all the lectures and theory stuff like Ford is into.

So when he goes to yell at Ford's project, he notices that the screw falls out. And when he tries to put it back, the gears in his head get turning, and he realizes how incredibly unstable this thing is. SO he goes to get Ford and they fix it up together and stuff.

I talk about this like I haven't already written up over a thousand words just explaining this AU in my google docs.

Like I literally have a name for it and everything, this is only a taste of what I've got. A mere fraction of my power.

follow-up post here

[moonsglare]

every day, once a year, yelan takes a day off.

this is written directly into her contract with the tianquan. there are no exceptions, no special arrangements. on this singular day, yelan does not belong to the qixing; on this singular day, her leash and collar are abandoned, and she has free reign to do as she pleases.

what does she do? well, prepare for your anniversary, of course.

she hops out of bed, cleans up, tugs her jacket on and then slips out the door with the clink of her jade bracelet. it’s a clear day, and yelan tilts her head to the sky briefly, letting the golden sunrays warm her face almost like an embrace. you were never really a morning person, but the sun on your skin always suited you. she’d have to drag you out of bed to see it, but it was always well worth your grumbling in the end when you finally cave and offer her a smile which she would then steal with a kiss.

“ugh, yelan—“ you giggled, your hands on her chest gently pushing her back. your bracelet was cool against her skin, and the matching one on her own wrist hummed. she nosed along your jaw, pressing more and more kisses until she reached your neck. playfulness turned into something a little more heated, and her blood sang at the sigh she pulled from your lips. emerald eyes flicked up to you, teasing, challenging, and you managed a wry huff before tangling your fingers in her hair and tugging her back to properly kiss her again. it stung, beautifully, but yelan grinned all the way."

she shakes herself out of the memory, and steps into the busy street. liyue’s morning scene has always been crowded, and she blends into the throng with practiced ease. she follows the flow of the crowd down the wharf until she reaches the shop she’s looking for—a florist, tucked snugly between two other stores on the higher levels of the shopping district.

the owner, a midde-aged woman, looks up from tending to her orchids to smile at her. her eyes crease with familiarity at the sight of yelan as the spy steps into her store, fingers brushing the petals of a few flowers. the woman rounds the counter, and rummages in the storage for a few moments.

“the usual, i take it?” she asks, and yelan nods, leaning against the counter and tapping her fingers over the grainy wood. the shop hasn’t changed much, if at all, since she last came here with you.

you leaned down by a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, lips curving upward into a smile as you breathed in the soft, floral scent. yelan looked curiously over your shoulder, a hand casually resting on your hip. she asked if it was your favorite flower—you nodded, your other hand rising to just as casually cup her face from over your shoulder. “they’re quite pretty, aren’t they?” you hummed, and yelan took a moment to ponder the question. in the end, she said they were nowhere near as pretty as you, and took the light smack you delivered to her shoulder with an easy laugh.

the florist clears her throat, coaxing her out of the memory. yelan recieves the bouquet—white chrysanthemums—with a smile, settling it in the crook of her arm. the woman’s expression is measured, but there’s a slight waver to her tone when she speaks. if yelan really had to name it, it sounds close to… pity.

“yelan—“ she begins, but she only flashes the woman a signature grin, before slipping out the door as quickly as she came. she has other things to get, after all, and the clock is always ticking.

(or maybe her clock stopped ticking a long time ago and all this is just extra. maybe it cracked when the rocks fell and the earth buried—)

she dissolves back into the crowd as she heads to her next destination: wanmin restaurant. she can smell the chili in the air as she makes her way down the street again, a sharpness only wanmin seems to be able to make. when she gets there, xiangling is boisterously calling out orders while her father toils away in the kitchen, with guoba tirelessly maintaining the roaring fire for his wok. when she sees her, xiangling’s grin only widens, and she waves her over enthusiastically.

“miss yelan! welcome, welcome,” the young chef says cheerily. “here for another batch of dried chillies?”

yelan chuckles, shaking her head. “no, not this time. i’m here for a few rice buns. with a sweet filling, preferably.”

“ooh,” xiangling coos, nodding. “are you planning to go on an expedition? rice buns are both portable and satiating.”

“you could say that,” yelan says vaguely. the little chef is right, in a way, since she’ll have to hike a little to get to your spot—but really, it’s because rice buns have always been a comfort food of sorts for you.

“how can you not like them?” you asked defensively as you trudged along with her behind the group. there was a slight smear of filling on the corner of your lip, and your expression scrunched up a little more as she wiped it off. her jade bracelet was cool against your heated cheeks. yelan only shook her head, teasingly remarking that spice was a much greater wake-up call than sweets. you huffed at that, taking another bite of your rice bun. “not all of us are masochists, lan’er,” you grumbled, and yelan laughed softly. her nimble fingers encircled your wrist, tugging you closer so she could take a quick bite of your bun. it was sweet, sweeter than she’d like, but maybe that was because you were there. and somehow, that made it good.

yelan pulls herself out of yet another memory when xiangling deposits the bag of warm rice buns into her hands. they’re freshly steamed, and the scent of warm buns fill her senses. she thanks the chef, and disappears much the same way she came before the young lady can get even so much as a word in. in the back of her mind, she can almost hear you chastise her for it.

(she always hears you in the back of her mind. if not, where else—)

there’s only one thing left on her list, and it’s incense. it’s late in the morning now, so the crowds have thinned out—and without her cover, yelan takes to back alleys and rooftops instead. she sighs, relieved almost, as she slips into the shimmering, reflective cover of hydro, darting like a minnow between buildings like rocks, barely a blur in the eyes of anyone nearby. the secrecy isn’t strictly necessary for what she’s doing now, but she’s been so used to being unseen that being in the open feels… unsafe.

it doesn’t take her that long to reach wangsheng funeral parlor. the young lady running the parlor isn’t in today—instead, it’s her ‘assistant’, the elegant man shrouded in such thick mystery that neither her nor ningguang has been able to pierce. he greets her with a solemn expression, no doubt because director hu has told him the reason for her visit. “incense?” he asks again anyway to confirm, his voice low and soft. yelan nods absently, her nose stinging slightly from the intense scent permeating the parlor.

she watches as the man disappears into the back of the parlor for a moment, before he reappears with a delicately wrapped packet of incense sticks. she slides a pouch of mora his way, which he takes wordlessly. she tucks the packet into her little pocket dimension, then turns on her heel to leave. just as she exits the door, he calls out to her.

“safe travels.”

she doesn’t deign him with a response.

her feet take her out and away from the city, down the familiar path to the bleeding wound in the earth—the chasm. the land goes from valleys to large, curling momuments of rock, carved by the force of a falling star. she feels that familiar tug in her chest, the voice that calls to her, that tells her to forsake the surface as her ancestor once did. she listened to it, once. and—

“go,” you whispered, pushing her away. half of you was buried under rock, and she could only see one of your eyes; the other was forced shut by the blood that trickled down your face. yelan nearly screamed herself hoarse, but you grabbed her face and kissed her. it tasted like salt, and her heart lurched at the wrongness. your kisses had always been sweet. you slipped your bracelet onto her wrist, then pushed her again, and then the earth heaved and groaned, and it was the last she ever saw of you—

she turns her head and rips herself out of the memory and the temptation; she has other, more important places to be today. she has other days to chase down her demons. she skirts the side of the chasm, slowly ascending to the top. she passes by the memorial to the millelith, and leaves a rice bun and a few sticks of incense as an offering. they too, deserve to be remembered after all.

(she wonders if anyone else comes out here to remember them. she wonders who will come when she’s gone for—)

it takes her a while, but eventually, she reaches the highest point in the chasm. the sun has traveled across the sky by this point, the afternoon heat mellowing out into a slightly cooler evening warmth. the sky is alive with shades of gold when she finally stops, drawing to a halt right before a smooth stone, standing upright from the earth like a silent vigil. she kneels before it, producing three sticks on incense and inserting them into the censer before the stone and lighting them. she sets a rice bun on the plate by the stone, and saves one for herself. the bouquet of white chrysanthemums, she lays on top of the stone.

yelan takes a bite of her rice bun, letting the sweetness settle on her tongue, as the floral scent mixes with the incense, filling her lungs and settling on her shoulders. she tilts her head to the sun, and the warmth feels almost like an embrace. and when she closes her eyes, the wind in her hair feels almost like a caress. when she opens them again, she lets them rest on the stone—the headstone, and she offers it a smile.

sitting on the edge of the cliff, your legs swinging, you smiled at her, nearly blindingly bright like the golden hour. your pinkies were twined together, your shoulders flush with hers. there was a bouquet of white chrysanthemums on your lap, and just a few crumbs on the corner of your lips. your voice carried in the wind when you spoke.

“happy anniversary, yelan.”

“happy anniversary, sweetheart,” she whispers. the wind carries her voice as well, and she hopes you hear it, wherever you are now. one day, she’ll join you, but for now she takes another bite of her rice bun and breathes in the scent of incense and chrysanthemums.

[v-poreons]

OCposting..... This is Coven :3 she's a witch who specializes in luck magic! I need to post her so I can yap about her more, she's rotating in my brain at top speed

(Also her bf belongs to @oodliedoodlies hiiii hiiiiiiii hi hi hi)

[llolianarchives]

The Prefect and The Draconia

A short overview of the Ramshackle prefect and their strange (but kind) horned fellow friend: as seen through the eyes of outsiders.

(A/N: #Malleyuu notes with an OC but feel free to project. We're all delulu here ╮⁠(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠╭ )

His Henchman is crazy.

Or at least, that's what Grim thinks when he's woken up at sunrise to Yue's bizarre ramblings. Something about the time being 1 AM, then fireflies at night, and a tall, horned figure – is what he takes from their babble amidst his own groans and pleas to return to sleep. He'd think them delirious from slumber, mumbling about another dream, if it weren't for the way Yue's eyes sparkled with genuine interest. Grim yields, in the end, for one of the many things he's learned about his reliable servant is that they can be awfully enthusiastic when it comes to this world's curiosities.

“He told me to call him whatever I want,” Yue continues, ruffling Grim's fur dry with a clean rag. Before he could insert magnificent ideas of his own, they beat him to it with a soft smile on their lips.

“I'm thinking of naming him Nyx: the personification of the night. What do you think?”

“What? Because he only shows up at night?” Like some wacky cryptid.

“Yup.”

He hears his henchman forgo the brush, letting it clatter loudly against the table.

“Hm... Nyx, huh...” Grim falls into thought, testing the name on his tongue like premium quality tuna. He doesn't even notice how Yue ties the striped ribbon around his neck. Triumphant, he turns to them with a grin.

“That's not half-bad, Henchman! It's cool and mysterious. Not as cool and mysterious as me, of course, but I'd say it's a close second!”

“Naturally. I wouldn't dare bestow a name mightier than the Great Grim's.”

Despite the stream of praise his henchman delivers (which he pleasantly basks in), Yue eventually derails, returning to speak of the horned man yet again. What Grim's superior brain gathers is this: One, this Nyx guy is super weird. Two, Yue's interest has been piqued like no other before.

He'll demand some omurice as payment for his counsel later on.

. . .

Malleus has made a friend.

The news was dropped onto Lilia's lap rather unceremoniously when one night, the Young Lord—having just returned from another evening excursion, went to sit with him in the Diasomnia lounge. This time, however, the quaintest of smiles adorned his face... It was an unusual sight but certainly not unwelcome. And much like any doting parent, his curiosity led him to ask.

Malleus had replied with a question of his own.

"Lilia, do you know of the Prefect that resides in Ramshackle Dorm?"

"Yue? Why yes, of course. I've spoken to them once or twice. They made quite a show during the Ceremony."

Yue— Lilia soon comes to learn— is completely unaware of Malleus's identity as a prince and a figure of authority, of power. As such, they bear no fear for him, even going so far as to bestow him a pet name, of all things.

(“Nyx? As in the night spirit? How fitting.")

Thus began the pattern of Lilia covering for Malleus's nighttime absence, not daring to ask nor scold when the prince would return in strange and stranger states.

When he would return to the dormitory partially caked with dirt and mud (a consequence of helping the prefect with their little garden of life.) Or when he would return with a box of homemade cake, a pretty stone from their walks, a drawing of him supposedly made by the prefect's beast, and with inquiries of the complexities of human nature.

Sometimes, Lilia can't help but feel a bit guilty, constantly boring witness to Silver and Sebek's searches into the night.

Yet that sliver of guilt fades, in the end, when Malleus smiles more often than before, when he approaches Lilia in the winter with the request of delivering a Holiday Card.

As he watches the magicless human rush into their abode, card in hand, ghosts and Grim awaiting their entrance...

he has never felt prouder and more grateful for fate.

. . .

From a distance, Vil watches.

He watches as the feared Briar Prince lets a small, feeble human talk his ear off, calm and unresisting, a hand on his chin as he ponders along Yue's barrage of words. He gives the prefect full reign of the conversation. He lets himself be taken away by their stories and details. He lets them speak, which they do.

Just after the horrors, highs, lows, and thrills of the VDC, the two chat as if nothing even happened. The onslaught of it all feels like a fever dream to Vil. First, the mental toll of overblotting, then their loss to RSA's nursery rhyme performance, and now the shocking reveal of Yue (innocent, bold, mundane little Yue) and Malleus Draconia's relationship.

He isn't even sure what to make of it. They're clearly friends, yet Vil can't bring himself to chalk it up to just that. His years and years of showbiz cinema has taught him the ins and outs of body language. He watches. He sees:

There's the smiles on both their faces; cheeks raised taut, dimples carved with genuine laughter. There's that glimmer in Yue's eyes and the odd tenderness of Malleus's own, both gazes locked onto one another with an undisturbed focus. There's the fact that Yue had given him an invitation to the VDC, or that Malleus had fixed the stage partially to show off to the magicless human, or that their hands are currently mere centimeters away from each other.

In the end, Vil averts his gaze, weariness crashing into him all at once and he feels a pair of hands grasp onto his shoulders, keeping him standing. Rook smiles, gentle, knowing, annoying. Vil resigns to his whims and lets his Huntsman guide him back to the Pomefiore Dorm, the chatter of Yue and Malleus and everyone else fading away.