#Pardon the length of it.

[akiacia]

black ties and other fancy matters

[ms0milk]

drive me like a madness, to the sea

bkg x water quirk!oc

"Fluorescent lights, hallway must, caramel and big brown eyes, melting together and at this rate forever waiting on the wrong side of a the party."

this piece was sponsored by the inimitable @ltadoriyuujl for the @ficsforgaza initiative! thank you sm for trusting me with your lovely Anika and for all your patience and guidance. cw seven min/heaven shenanigans including makeout + heavy petting, clothed grinding, manhandling, quirk use, brief description of alcohol use, aggressive banter, and implied audience. stevie nicks. one (1) miserable stint in a sweaty hallway and approximately thirty balloons. 5.9k

Sometimes just touching pages in a book, leafing through chapters, is too much. Damp hands on dry paper– they jump and rub, grate like running fingers between bricks to test how smooth they'll get. Katsuki regrets the paper gift bag he picked, slowly deteriorating in his fist and tries not to linger on the drag of class textbooks or crisp study planners as he pulls a little moleskine from his pocket.

Jun 9

Mina’s, 9pm.

6-1-63-802.

He clamps the A5 shut with his free hand and shoves it back into the depths of the hoodie he shouldn’t have worn. It’s the 1st. It’s 9:30, apartment 802. Why the fuck isn’t anyone answering the door?

The celebration in Mina’s new place thumps like caught fish and Katsuki tries to find new things to notice about the sweltering hallway, no windows, cobwebs under sprinklers, someone rattling around in the elevator a few stories down, and the errant blinking of a security camera, instead of blasting the door off its hinges. He shakes a stray blond strand from the sweat on his forehead and prays Mina can at least afford a box fan after scrounging the last few cents of the security deposit for this place from their penniless friends.

Katsuki doesn’t mind being sweaty. He doesn’t love being stranded in stuffy hallways, but he doesn’t hate the noise at these things; he mostly just hates the laundryproof reek of liquor and cigs but he’s not tapping holes in carpet for fun. Soon a distant dam will break and the floodwater hero he has no chance of outswimming will be perched on the opposite end of a loveseat six asses over capacity. She’ll be here, Anika, inevitable, thunderstorm. Sure, he doesn’t mind sweat but it’s her job to take note of wet things and he hates just how much it puts him at her mercy.

Before he can fish out his phone again to call someone inside, a bell kills the peace of the hallway and the muffled tumult of the elevator shaft bursts when its doors ding first and open, spitting out thirty-some balloons and a voice like high tide.

“Dynamight?”

He doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s her but a choir of two dozen rubbing, kissing, squeaking rubber hellions makes the hair on his arms stand up so fast that he instinctively spins to bear his teeth to it.

“What the fuck?”

Anika, as if summoned by his own dread, struggles through the elevator frame and down the hall in the same black jeans she’s worn all spring and a too-big leather jacket that does nothing to help her manage her cargo. She shakes her head in an attempt to calm some static, “Fuck what? These?” and tips up to the balloons with her chin. 

“How are you showing up late with the decorations?”

“You’re just as late as I am.” Anika grunts, shrugging a purse back up her shoulder and dragging her supplies towards the door.

“Sans party essentials.”

She doesn't look like she just got off overtime but contrary to popular belief Katsuki doesn’t have the group chat muted: picking up a shift that afternoon but I’ll be there! Blah, blah. Plus, he knows that charcoal residue. She plays it off as eyeliner when she doesn’t have time to wash her face well in the agency showers. It’s gotta be on purpose, little things he knows she could fix but leave just to make him insane. A pencil with squeaky lead, the half dead hem of her uniform skirt– knocking a water glass over shared notes and leaving the paper dry but misshapen when her quirk sucks it all out again.

Anika doesn’t look like a tsunami, ambling closer in the tight space with a litany of balloons in tow and increasingly irritated he isn’t coming to meet her. She doesn’t look like the hero that apprehended a villain with their tears this afternoon and she certainly doesn’t look like a girl whose slender hands have ever knocked him unconscious. She’s grinning, practically growling through her latex bouquet when she finally manages the journey to Mina’s door and lets her bag drop off her shoulder to the doormat. She rolls her head towards him theatrically, “my hero.”

“Spare me,” Katsuki grimaces. He stares ahead and has entirely forgotten what he’s doing in the hallway besides bracing for a fist fight or doing his best to keep his head above her spicy summer perfume.

“You see my catch today?”

He considers and then grunts, fingering the binding on his notebook to give the hand in his pocket something to do instead of, again, breaking and entering. He did. Balloon static pours off Anika’s chest in waves and the cloy of it at the fuzz on his cheek almost makes him turn to face her. Like the hallway couldn’t get any stuffier. Earth would be too cramped if they were the last things on it.

“That why you’re late?”

She at least has the courtesy in this hell hall to push her ballooned fist away before leaning in close like she might have a secret to tell, “Gimme some credit Dynamight,” and, bad omen, he can taste the smile in her voice before he hears it, “or am I making you nervous?”

Everyday is the day that he met her, transfer student, water quirk, a poor matchup in his sparring class– every conversation or study session or close proximity since that day, has been the sudden agony of his defense peeled off of him like a skinned animal. He never considered how it might feel to have the life pulled from his pores, but her quirk makes it easy and the second she shows up he starts overheating. Is it that obvious? What else can he do but tilt his chin down to finally spare her a glance after so many weeks apart?

It’s a mess. Just a painters wash of freckles on cider brown cheeks and mischief close enough to bite. Anika was not built to treat him gently. Her hair, short, spikes like his with static and tickles the sleeve of his jacket as she waits for him to finally admit that she’s right. She presses closer, predator, purring on his shoulder. Fluorescent lights, hallway must, caramel and big brown eyes, melting together and at this rate forever waiting on the wrong side of a the party.

He rolls his eyes but doesn’t turn away and hopes a few of his teeth are still bared, “What am I supposed to be nervous about, huh? Your nine-week plateau at #12?”

But Anika is not like him. For all her attitude she doesn’t explode off the battlefield and he knows this won’t be the thing that suddenly makes her do anything besides draw the damp off her brow with the trace of a fingernail. She leans away, jostling giggling balloons, “That’s number seven to you.”

A single afternoon jump from twelve to seven should make #3 Katsuki shudder but he’d have to be brain dead to let his heart beat that fast in this heat. Anika, hurricane, bends to collect her purse and knocks on Mina’s door as she rises,

“And what’s in your bag?—or—wait,” and grins. She bats her black lashes up, up, sweat pearling at her temples and in wild baby hairs, “about-to-be-clutch. I know you’re melting that dumb paper handle.”

The inside of kiln is actually a very nice place to be, he concedes. It’s a place Katsuki knows he can’t truly destroy anything. He can’t get hotter than white fire and he could never be more destructive than her, so what could possibly go wrong in a firing oven? What could he do, explode? Cure a porcelain vase or two? She’ll flood the whole hallway, she’ll drown all the guests, there’s nothing he could do to break her. He is melting the paper handles. What here makes him angrier, the fact that she’s right or that he’s smirking too? Albeit, over a frown.

“Well?”

He growls something in response, not important. A curled lip suits her, cocky like a feral cat. His friends get crinkle-eyed smiles and pats on the shoulder. They got to link arms with her on the way to class and they get to hold her hands during hospital stays where she coos and kisses them better. Katsuki gets this, an exclusively mischievous shimmer like glass on the backs of her dark eyes. She’s swimming in that stupid leather jacket. “Well what.”

“Were you gonna knock or are we starting a rival party in the hallway?” Anika adjusts grips on her purse and decorations and wipes at her forehead. Where her fingers graze, sweat pills and pulls gently behind them off of her skin and patters to the floor where she directs it, but the balloons don’t love being jostled and Katsuki continues to hate the sounds they make.

He winces, “already tried.”

“And?”

“Music’s too loud.”

“Perfect, I’ll start setting up out here.”

“I sent a text,” he rolls his eyes and again lets the silence of the hallway descend as he rotates rankings and pearls in his mind.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

What’s wrong with him today. Hm. What? “Eh?” Katsuki blinks himself back into the hallway, back beside her and two dozen balloons, back in her perfume, back caught in a trap, looking, watching the shapes her eyebrows can make when she isn’t glaring—

Anika frowns, “you’re being a freak.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fuck you, what’s your problem? You’re extra quiet, get hurt on patrol?”

It’s time for this door to lose some hinges. Katsuki lets his phone drop back into the soup of his pocket lest it catches a loose spark and leans back, “I’m fucking tired— unlike the rest of you shits, I catch more than one villain a day.”

But it’s not enough, it’s not thrilling, he’s no longer interesting and Anika tucks a charged piece of hair as far behind her ear as it’ll reach before turning away. She knocks again and the vibrations of Mina’s party fill the silence.

“Whatever.”

The balloons are no longer charming and Katsuki’s losing his grip on his bag. He’s drowning, side by side and not trying to tread in the miserable hallway beside her.

Anika pinches her purse on her shoulder with her chin and fishes her phone from its depths while droplets of sweat pluck themselves from her skin to fall in a pretty ring around her. Irritated or glowing with joy, Anika always looks the same. Face of a hero, Katsuki supposes, even stranded in his company. She concentrates constantly, more with the bridge of her nose than anything else, crinkled asymmetrically between her eyes. She watches wet things and she is never wrong.

“Fucking Hanta—” she growls and pulls her phone away from her cheek to dial another number. “If you don’t—” But she doesn’t get to finish.

Katsuki’s hand jumps damp from his pocket and flies for red balloon strings as he turns. Anika startles, propelling her balloons even faster towards the spiked sprinklers above, half dropping her phone, and fully dropping the the sweat from her brow into an eye. The first pop is horrid in the silence. Like Katsuki’s heart could beat any faster. He jerks the bundle of strings down from the stucco ceiling and flies so much closer to her than he meant to, faces mirrored in sickly light— pop! The second comes quickly, worse, but not so much worse than the third— Pop pop! Four more bursts rattle the sticky hallway and Katsuki winces every time, but Anika only stares, one hand on her eye and the other still holding an ever-wilting and only partially floating bouquet, through the noise above them.

Mina’s door soars open, purple lights, music, burnt pizza, and he and Anika both turn, tucked into one another. Her hunched and biting back laughter and Katsuki grimacing, mid lunge for party decorations.

Kaminari grins as Katsuki’s bag fails— rips right off its soaked handle, plops to floor— and leans against the door he opened.

“Bombsquad’s here.”

Katsuki perches at the edge of the kitchen only just barely still in Anika’s field of vision. He’s miserable, obviously, and nursing his headache with a beer.

“Drinking it would help more.”

He glares before the words even leave her mouth, to his group of friends and Anika perched among them, sprawled out on Mina’s unfurnished floor. He grips the asahi pressed to his forehead a little too hard and its uncracked tab wheezes with pressure. He’s already finished two. Anika knows better than anyone what a lightweight he is and how much he hates it— how much he hates a lot of things these days.

Mina, Sero, Kirishima, Uraraka, Momo, Kaminari and some kids from old class-B cluster in the living room where a sofa should go and more importantly, in the crosswind between two windows. There’s a fire escape Katsuki keeps eyeing from his storm cloud, but Shinsou’s been out there smoking with half-n-half for the past hour. Drinks splash, groups laugh, and music floods the little one-bedroom in waves from genkan to linen closet. Anika slipped her phone in the aux line up when her friends finally pulled themselves away from go-fish long enough to let her and Katsuki in. It’s been a little less Party Rock Anthem On Repeat and slightly more Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits since. Smells like school. She lets Mina pull her in by the shoulder while she fills a smitten Kirishima in on details from her sidekick gig and an apparently psychic new neighbor.

Parties after work are like falling asleep in her parents’ backseat. The white noise of people she loves, though, there are fewer mcguyvered margaritas on family roadtrips. “Be right back,” Anika smiles into her friend's ear and kisses her cheek before rising on a mission for ice. Everyone’s distracted today. Maybe it’s the heat.

Katsuki growls at anyone who walks past and almost gave Deku a heart attack when he came out of the bathroom, so much so he splashed the blond with freshly washed hands and got kicked into the fridge.

“Can I reach for the freezer or am I gonna get a black eye?”

“Try me.”

Katsuki doesn’t crack as she approaches, but still moves to let her close. 

“You know,” she coos and breaks the seal on crisp frozen air, “When a puppy’s too aggressive you’re supposed to play with their paws.”

“You fucking drunk?”

Anika smiles into the artificial breeze and directs six ice cubes out of their tray with a finger. Even Dynamight, elven in his rage, can’t be bothered to quip or fight today. Can’t even be bothered to go home. What planet did everyone ship off to without her? They can’t let guests in, can’t check their phones, can’t mix a decent drink or queue any good music— Why’d Mina throw this party anyway? Graduation was ages ago. Why did she need balloons twenty minutes before this was all supposed to start? Katsuki simmers beside her, resting his hips on the rounded edge of the counter.

“You feeling particularly territorial?” She drags an ice cube over the back of his hand as she closes the door and ducks slightly to avoid recoil. His forehead beer shrieks with more pressure but neither ice nor punches fly.

“M’not your dog.”

“Not with that attitude you’re not.” She plucks a floater from the counter and dumps it in the sink behind them. He’s got no bark today, nothing’s made him bite.

Katsuki glares over his shoulder into the small sea of people chattering and setting games up on the floor. He glows. Fairy lights fizzle at the base of his neck where sweat stains the ripple of back muscles and his cotton t-shirt. Every part of him is heavy and polished. He is intentional even with his back turned. A skull hoodie hangs in the entryway and Anika can pick out his shoes from thirty others because of how particularly he lays them together. She lifts her hips over the counter to sit. He’ll let her closer. He always does even if only to get in striking range.

“You’re soaked, short-fuse.”

“First day with eyes?”

Can he feel her eyes tracing his throat? His waist is so narrow compared to his shoulders that the hem of his shirt hangs slightly over his jeans, a black belt hugging milk skin in Mina’s obnoxious colored strip lights. Katsuki reeks of caramel. He finally turns back around. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Anika pretends like she hasn’t been watching and flicks the tap water on to fill her cup, “Like what?”

“Like you’re starving. I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re fucking delusional,” she huffs, nursing water, “You’re the mutt here not me. And I’ve been eating, unlike someone whose too focused on looking cool to join the goddamned party.”

“Not in the mood.”

“When are you ever.”

Katsuki’s beer finally cracks when he drops it on the counter. The two heroes hiss without a/c in an apartment they don’t realize is watching them. Always a fist fight, he is always just one wrong look away from snapping or bursting but never storming away and today is no different even if he tries to feign disinterest. He can’t pretend forever in their kiln for two. She’ll wash away the clay.

“Not starving like a dog you fuck, starving like the ocean. You’re breathing all my goddamned air so go back to your wasted friends.”

“I’m keeping one company right now.”

His jaw puffs as he grinds his teeth, “Just leave me alone.”

“You’re avoiding me.”

“Bump up a few ranks and suddenly you think you’re the people’s fucking princess—”

“Oi—”

“—you’re not the center of the universe tsunami.”

“Why’d you even come if you’re just gonna sulk in here away from everyone?”

“I’m doing an infinitely shittier and shittier friend a fucking favor being here and putting up with interrogation practice from the worst bad cop in the country wasn’t part of our agreement.”

Katsuki’s asahi sits four good steps behind him for how far he’s leaned into his frustration and Anika’s legs part to accommodate him at the sticky lip of the counter. His white knuckles go pink. It’s been two weeks since she’s seen him outside of a television screen and nine since they’ve been alone. Finals and a nasty burglary at their internship agency. The last two awake in a 3A study session and the first awake on the last day of school. Catching the sunrise, they’d both lied.

“You’re beating the shit out of anyone that comes into the kitchen, just go home if you hate it here so badly.”

“I can think of something,” he growls, closer, “that’ll make me hate it less.”

“m’not letting you kick Deku again.”`

He stops short of shouting but it’s too late to hide from her now. He forgot he was trying. “You got your ice now git, back out to sea or wherever the fuck you stir shit for a living.” Stevie fucking Nicks moans somewhere in the thrum of their friends and their friends and those friends’ terrible mixology skills as clear liquor stings every nose in the room and both of the kitchen monsters pretend like their ears aren’t hot with drink. From another party, another planet, Katsuki bobs under her spice just once, glaring— how could he not, she’s one breath away pressed back into the counter between his arms and curling her own fingers over his without looking away.

“Still soaked,” Anika hisses and a door slams somewhere as Katsuki snatches her wrist with Dynamight strength to keep her quirk from killing him.

Sparring with her is suicidal, the only way to win is in close quarters after Katsuki has enough ammunition hidden to hold her tight and detonate. He’s knocked them both unconscious fourteen times. She’s won conscious twice and tonight might make three because Anika’s grin explodes cheshire with her back on kitchen tiles and a dripping hand crushed at the wrist.

It hurts when she wants it to, when the sweat leaves too quickly or explodes while she’s stealing it. She can be gentle. She is gentle with him, the water fell off of his knuckles as if he wanted it to and floats in pools like the tide on her palm.

“Have it back,” she purrs and before she can flex her fingers, before Katsuki can lunge, someone whistles from the living room.

“You’re up, bombsquad.”

Suddenly the apartment is infinitely larger than it should be, stretching and winding with two bad tempers at one end and the rest of their old classmates ogling at the other, fingers on their noses. Shinsou pokes a head through the window and all the sweat drops from Anika’s hand to the floor.

The linen closet, the walk-in beside the bedroom door, hangs open in white light with Momo and Jiro scurrying out to much fanfare. Uraraka must have been the one who slammed the door open because she stands beside it now bashfully checking the wall behind it for holes.

“Nose went, sorry guys.”

Katsuki backs off before Anika can kick him and more quickly than he’s moved all night, reaches for his hoodie.

“Not so fast Kats!” Kirishima grins. He’s humoring Kaminari’s burnt pizza with one hand and rubbing his nose with the other on a makeshift cardboard stool beside the window. Doing a favor for a friend, huh? Anika slips off the counter when she understands, finally understands the whole weird evening. Shitty margaritas keep her from exploding and in fact help her reach out for a rapidly escaping Dynamight. “Katsuki!” Kirishima whines again, “Please!”

“I told you he wouldn’t!”

“Leave them alone,” Momo tries to soothe but Jiro covers her mouth and kisses the back of her palm.

“Hey,” Anika whispers because she knows if it’s anyone, he can hear her through white noise, even tossing on a jacket and kicking on his shoes. The crowd boos and she presses closer “Katsuki.”

“Fuck off! M’not playing juvenile drinking games.”

“Thought you weren’t drunk,” she pushes just a little too far and resists flinching when the hero jolts back around, crackling, snarling. Her hand lands on his chest instead of an arm when he pressed in and the force pushes her back.

“You knew. Fuck ev—!”

“I didn’t Kats—“

“Going home.”

“I’m—” she doesn’t want that, “I shouldn’t have teased—” and grips the fabric over his heart just a little bit tighter so he won’t leave without a fight. “It was too much. Can I just talk to you for a minute?”

“Seven minutes!” someone hollers from the living room and then wheezes from a blow to the head.

“Whatever, can we just talk for seven minutes? God knows when I'll see you after tonight.”

Katsuki’s frozen mid-hoodie to glare, hunched; damp little hands on his chest where he can’t hide his heartbeat. Anika wipes a running pearl from the curve Katsuki’s collarbone. No quirk this time. It’s faint but Sero murmurs into a bad drink, “Scared she’s gonna steal his secrets or sumthin and take his precious ranking.” There are some grumbles, nods, and Shinsou snorts and ducks his head back out. Right, suicide.

"Start the timer,” Dynamight growls.

It takes four seconds for Katsuki’s hoodie to hit the back wall (and whip Denki with the zipper) and for the kitchen monsters to cross the humming room towards the linen closet. “Seven,” he spits to the closest onlooker, Uraraka, who startles and juggles her phone in her hands a few times before getting a hold of herself. Katsuki slams the door behind his company without looking back and there’s an unspoken consensus that this wouldn’t have been such an excellent idea sober.

It wouldn’t have happened sober, it barely happened tipsy and Anika tries to gauge the difference between gin and water in her veins before fumbling for the lights. Immediately, the skin between her thighs is damp. The heat of such a tight space would be unbearable if it weren’t for a little stained glass window and the crosswind from under the door, but still, she considers in the dark, it’s miserable. Momo’s bodysuit was stained gray from sweat and Jiro wasn’t just pink from a kiss or two.

“They’re trying to kill us,” she huffs, and cracks the little window before pulling on the light. Katsuki beats her to it.

He’s a dick but he’s not belligerent, and more than anything he’s made to be a hero. He made himself to save people, his parents made him to love him and his friends love to have him. Anika loves to have him. Even if he takes up all the room in this box with his overworked chest and red glare, it shouldn’t matter how weird he’s acting and she shouldn’t be so childish.

“Short-fuse,” she sighs, and turns. Apologies suck, but she’s not a student anymore, she’s not a intern, she’s not even in college, she’s a hero, they’re grown they’re busy, and she’ll devolve forever into immature goads cos he’ll let her. They don’t have enough time anymore to be kids or be close or pretend. “Katsuki—”

He sighs too, and dips too far down for her to stop him, eyes closed, to brush his lips over hers. His exhale tastes like hops, warm oats in the second Anika gives herself to think before she raises a startled hand and swings, claps it perfect center, into Katsuki’s cheek. The whole affair is noisy like they’re two crabs boxing in a paper bag. He stumbles into a towel rack, clutching his face, Anika holding her own and both of them staring, both of them slack jawed, as someone turns her music down outside.

“What the fuck!” She squeals after getting a grip on the windowsill behind her.

He can’t back up any farther than the doorframe and with his back on wood Katsuki, barks “I could say the same!” holding tight to his red face.

“I— I was trying to a apologize first!”

“First?! You were gonna kiss me anyway but when I beat you to it I get a concussion!”

“No— well, wait— apologize before you, you could—!” 

“Could what!”

“I was gonna explain!”

“You hadn’t even done a fucking thing yet what would you have explained?!”

“You— no, explain myself!” Seven minutes is an awfully long time Anika stares, fingers to her lips. She hadn’t thought about what to do after apologizing, or how badly she needed to kiss him. Needs to kiss him. “I was— I just, miss you.”

Katsuki howls before freezing, before his face drops from harsh lines to one smooth stare.

“I haven’t seen you! I don’t get to see you, at home, at work, and when I finally do you won’t even talk to me. You won’t—” Anika swallows and tilts her head side to side before trying to look back up. She fingers a short piece of hair by her ear, “You don’t like parties, you don’t like anyone but Kirishima I don’t know how I’m supposed to see you anymore and I finally get the chance and I act like a second-year, I— you— you were lying. I knew something was wrong— or you were thinking about something or— er— and I was just so excited you actually came, I would talk to you about anything, you could told me about paint drying, but you’ve been acting so weird all night and I just,” Anika heaves, her hand falls from her mouth and takes up the job of a fist, “I’m sorry.”

Katsuki flinches, slightly more wide eyed than sobriety would usually allow him, a foot or two away from one of his favorite people and the cling of her summer perfume. “You’re not an idiot,” he sighs.

“You’re not listening!”

“I’m always listening.”

“You’re never getting a fucking apology from me again.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Gun to my head.”

“I never want another, don’t apologize.” This closet is not up to code so Katsuki moves slowly to avoid splinters and another blow to the head.

“I shouldn’t have used my quirk,” Anika sneers, “I’m sorry.”

“Stop it.”

She pushes off the back wall, “M’sorry for teasing you about that dumb paper bag,” freckles and sweat mixing. She has never been wrong.

“Anika.”

“I’m sorry you’re stuck in here with me.”

Every thought is one inch closer, “I’m not.” Until Katsuki can lift his hands just and inch and her jaw is there waiting to fit perfectly into them.

“It’s your turn.”

“I’m not sorry.”

She sucks her teeth but lets him closer.

“I’m not sorry I kissed you, I’m not sorry we’re fighting—”

Her freckles shift with her cheeks and she wets her lips, “It’s hard unless we’re fighting, huh?”

“I like fighting with you,” he bites, hint of a smile, like he couldn’t possibly get the thought out fast enough. “I just, I don’t know how anymore. We don’t live together, we don't work together—”

Anika smiles back, “How long?”

“Two years.”

“How long left?”

“Five minutes.”

It’s enough, she traces the back of his clammy neck and dips into a kiss.

Katsuki did his homework in the common room on nights Anika made dinner. He didn’t say anything when she clipped her hair short, though she only got compliments if he was somewhere in the room. He was always in the room, the first hero to respond to a call for backup, the last person home after a drunk night out, grumpy but inevitably the one you know will answer a text when someone can’t walk on their own.

She always imagined him more timid than this, to kiss, a nerd too nervous to hold hands, but Katsuki presses as deeply as she’ll let him and they both fumble towards a wall. Four legs tangled, he holds the back of her head away from wood and glass and bites a lip to keep her close. Anika wraps her fingers in his tshirt to stay standing, suckling, kneading, begging for him to lose slightly more composure and make some noise for her. A tongue across his teeth gets her what she wants. Katsuki grabs her wrists and throws them over his shoulders so she has something to hold when he hoists her off her feet and onto the top of the step ladder.

“y’move too much,” he growls knowing she can’t hear him, knowing he might not have even said anything and melting a little when her tongue slips gently under his. He has to cup her cheeks to keep from falling over. He’s not close enough. Anika pulls him the only place he can still move, crumbling on top of her and poised on the steps of a shitty metal stool. He fits between her legs like a puzzle and she gasps into his mouth when he rolls too deep.

“Bad sound?” he startles and settles again when Anika shakes her head with her hands in his hair. Not bad, not drunk, not gentle, she wants to watch him fall apart but she’ll cherish a dark closet on a sticky night if that’s the best the universe can do on such short notice. He holds his weight as much off of her as he can in the tight space and the subtlety of his strength gets steam trickling from her ears.

He drags a thumb over the swell of her lip to catch his breath in the heat but she shudders and chases his hand with her tongue. God, if he was clammy before. Anika clutches his shirt and his wrist and for more than a second Katsuki skewers commons sense to the wall. She sucks just hard enough to pull the tip of his thumb past her lips. Too hot, it’s too hot, Katsuki is soaked, sweat floods the swell of his chest and drips between his knuckles. He doesn’t need to see to know what kind of face she’s making as she takes his fingers in her mouth and the thought stalls him just long enough— wet, swirling— to— tight— whimper. Katsuki snatches her jaw with his fist and buries his face in the damp of her neck. Salty, she trembles when he kisses her there and makes a frazzled sound when he growls.

“Don’t,” he groans with slightly more sense, “my quirk—"

“I’m waterproof.”

“Y’rnot bombproof.”

“Well don’t light a candle,” she grins into the dim and him with her, dragging his lips from her ear to her throat and sinking his teeth into the pulse of her perfume.

He likes the sound she makes when he bites even more so he does it again. Again, he pulls the fragile skin between his lips and soothes over the welts he makes with his tongue when her fingers start to dance on his chest. Between her lips and her collar bone he rises to kiss her and falls to bruise her on the path that makes her breathe loudest and when she finally has to cover her mouth he pauses and kneads harder. How quickly would her breasts warm in his fingers? How quickly would she—

“Katsuki,” Anika huffs above him and his eyes dart to hers, glowing black in the moonlight. “How long?”

“Don’t care.”

She drags her fingers over his forehead and claws through the front of his hair without another word. Her nails are heaven on his scalp. As much as he hates to look away, his eyes roll and she swallows, sinking off the steps and into the crook of his neck. Better, her lips are better than her nails and when her hair tickles his chin it’s all Katsuki can do not to dissolve around her. Anika works gingerly and she pulls the collar of his shirt down to reach the parts of him she wants. His ear, throat, the vibrating skin above his heart, all bloom in pink bruises while her nails rake his shoulder. He manages to drag his hands up her waist and bite his own tongue to stay quiet, but hardly more than that. Melt into her lips when she lets him. They sink together into a spot between stacked towels and a previously functional laundry horse and forget for the next however long that there will be things to talk about in the world outside of Mina’s linen closet. Forget sleep, forget work and shitty apartments, forget clothes— Katsuki's hands glide over wet skin and under the hem of Anika’s top. Every inch closer is the drum of her heart and her clumsy desperate fingers tugging at his belt loops in gasps caught between their lips.

“Alright, jesus!” Mina’s pop pink voice shrills in a sudden wash of light and fresh air and her kitchen monsters startle on the floor. “Party foul! No fucking in the closet.” Katsuki’s hoodie sails over Mina’s shoulder from the crowd and onto Anika’s head.

His tshirt is a v-neck in four different places and Anika’s hair spikes in every direction but the one that she styled it in after work. Black charcoal is smudged on all fours walls, on every clean sheet on the shelf, drips in streaks and fingerprints over the bruises at both of their throats and generally illustrates the whole incriminating scene.

“Happy?” Mina’s overliquored drink rolls her eyes for her and she turns back around to the stunned crowd, spilling a little onto Sero, “everyone happy? Can we please have normal parties now? One’s that don’t gamble with my security deposit.” She turns again, overshooting it, ignoring the hands Kirishima hovers right over the spot her head would land if she tipped over, “And you two, did we fix you or was was this a terrible idea?”

Katsuki blinks up. Anika tightens her lips and Shinsou pretends not to watch through the window but smiles nonetheless in a puff of smoke on the fire escape.

[kingdomoftyto]

So I had a new idea for one of those too-ambitious-to-ever-actually-write fics.

I had the thought today that Simon is the only really good father figure in the entire series. Even Jake, who tries his best, kind of sucks at being a dad, and it's only because the pups are so self-sufficient that they all turn out okay. Likewise, the writing is, imo, too forgiving to Joshua for some of the tough love crap he pulled on Finn. Obviously he's nowhere near as bad a father as Martin or Hunson, but the bar is so low it's on the ground.

So it's a shame Simon, who obviously very much wants to be a dad, and who has proven to be pretty good at it even if he's made his own share of mistakes, only returns to sanity when Finn is practically an adult. They're good friends, but the window was basically already closed on him being any kind of significant parental influence in Finn's life.

Then I thought, wait. There's no rules in fanfic. I can imagine whatever what-if scenario I want!!!!!

AU where Simon is Finn's adopted dad:

In this AU, Simon is cured (or perhaps only partially cured?) not long before Finn arrives in Ooo. The HOW may or may not be relevant to the story, but he's back to himself or at least as sane as he was when he was traveling with little Marcy.

When Margaret and Joshua find baby Finn, they do a bit of investigating and find out that there's another human who lives nearby, and they go to confront him in case he was the one who abandoned the baby. Simon is of course stricken at the accusation, but the misunderstanding is cleared up and, of course, eventually it's decided that he'll take care of Finn. (I picture the dogs being reluctant to part with him at first, but then Simon overhears that they're demon hunters and is like OH ACTUALLY I'D BE GLAD TO TAKE HIM IN, IN FACT I INSIST! I HAVE A LOVELY--and safe!--HOME HAHA... MAYBE YOU AND THE TWINS CAN VISIT HIM SOMETIMES THOUGH. WON'T THAT BE NICE)

Anyway I don't know exactly where it'd go from there but there's so much you could do with this AU

Obviously Finn and Jake are still best friends even though they're not actual brothers, because they're, like, literally canonically soulmates. And being around the dog family would be more than enough for Finn to pick up his same old reckless adventurer tendencies as before, despite Simon's best efforts to keep him out of trouble. This would be one of the biggest sources of conflict between them.

Marceline would of course be Finn's cool older sister figure. Getting Simon back early would have some serious effects on Marcy's character development, though exactly how that would play out would probably depend on the circumstances of his cure (and also how involved Bonnie is in the whole situation).

(I have a scene in my head where a really young Finn asks Simon why Marcy calls him by name instead of "Dad", and Simon needs to take a Moment to process the ensuing emotions.)

Maybe the fic could explore right after Finn is adopted, when Simon and the dogs are still trying to figure out where he came from. (They all become friends in the process, which facilitates more playdates for their kids later on.) Considering Finn appeared to be abandoned, the dogs would be fairly happy to move on and let his presumably awful birth parents just get bent and rot. Simon, although surprised other humans still exist somewhere, can't deny he feels similarly. But, the bear hat sparks something in Simon's memory, and when he brings it up to Marceline she remembers the ship she'd saved all those years ago. They make the connection and realize humans must have settled somewhere across the sea. Depending on what kind of fic you want it to be, they may or may not act on this epiphany right away.

Even if they save the islands for later, I think Simon--an anthropologist at heart--would recognize the importance of keeping something as culturally important as Finn's hat, if only to remind him of his heritage later. But even if he stored it somewhere, little toddler Finn would repeatedly dig it out of the closet and insist on wearing it, until Simon acquiesced that it was just going to be Finn's thing. Like Hambo and a security blanket all wrapped in one. With another human around to model himself on, though, I think Finn would eventually stop wearing it as an actual hat all the time and instead maybe just drape it over his shoulders like a hood or capelet.

I imagine Simon would insist on some sort of homeschooling for Finn, at least part of the time, because I just can't picture Candy Kingdom schools being up to his standards, let alone anywhere else in Ooo, lmao. Plus this way he'd be able to teach Finn about human history and culture without worrying about the truth getting mixed up or lost to time. For the most part, though, Finn would haaaaate formal education, which Simon would find baffling, as a lifelong nerd academic who surrounded himself with fellow nerds academics.

So yeah, as Finn grows and it becomes clear he's not cut out for academia like his old man, Simon has to accept that the world they live in is not the same as the one he was raised in himself, and that it might actually be prudent for Finn to learn to use a sword, if only to protect himself. He reluctantly eases up on the curfews and restrictions and gradually allows Finn more freedom to go on adventures with Jake, though he's a nervous wreck every time.

(Maybe Finn convinces him to come along sometimes to prove that it's safe, and Simon actually develops some dungeoneering skills too, in this AU? 👀 As a bonus, we get more scenes like that "I was quite the outdoorsman in my day!" moment in F&C where Simon gets to show off that he WAS a little bit of an adventurer back before the War. Optionally add Marceline on these adventures, too!)

As for The Betty Situation, it could range from "she simply died a thousand years ago and Simon has no choice but to grieve and move on for his new family's sake" to "the way he's cured in this AU plays out similarly to the episode 'Betty' except something goes wrong and now she's on Mars/trapped in a time bubble/whatever and Simon has been lowkey desperately searching for her in all his spare time when not actively taking care of Finn."

.........God.

I WISH I had the discipline to write this into a proper fic. I WISH I wasn't so chronically indecisive and that I could at least pick a direction for it to go in, lmAO. I couldn't stop thinking about it all day today, ugh, I had to at least toss it out into the ether and share the concept. Please feel free to steal any or all of it and also to send me asks rambling about this show and these characters please god I'm going to lose my mind before the finale on Thursday

[a-girl-named-angel]

I Know Those Eyes (Closed)

@paragonofvirtue

Whether it was an act of bravery or pure stupidity, Angel had no clue. But one thing was certain, the gloom that consumed the land was growing and was treating to come to destroy her home village. She had heard rumors of the source if the destruction, this “Demon King” was currently in the village in search to rebuild his army. So that’s where she’d go.

Packing what little they could spare, and mounting her companion Orion, the you Hylian woman left promising to return of good news, stop the gloom entirely, or die trying.

The trek across Hyrule was easy enough. Familiar turf, easy access to resupply. But once she found herself at the border of the desert. She felt an uneasy feeling in her stomach. This was it. But she had no other choice and they moved onward.

Despite moving in the cool of night, Angel found herself depleting of her supplies and with no grass or water for miles, what little she had, she gave to Orion. He carried her this far after all. She could bear the hunger pains.

Unfortunately, the dehydration, she could not bear with and would find herself passed out underneath a large stone. Dragging her in the direction of the shade and huddling her for warmth at night, Orion did the best he could to try and wake her. But to no avail.

That was till she showed up.

She was simply on route for finding fruits for her stand but when she found the passed out Hylian and deer like mount lying beside her. No one came out this far, much less a Hylian due to the risk of their King returning. But, she couldn’t leave the two to die. So, after a gentle convincing with some extra fruit for the deer, Nisiki picked up the burnt thin thing and placed her in her cart. Hiding her under a blanket.

It was hard to convince the other about the creature but the story about it simply being spooked from its heard seemed to work for now and was taken in. But the transfer of the outsider to her home was a whole other ordeal. But not an impossible one.

After a gentle cleaning, thorough skincare treatment to help with her burns, and a gentle helpful drink of water, she let the outsider rest. Hoping she would wake.

She would pretty soon and after the shock wore down, the two would become fond friends as Angel recovered. That was all about to change however. And it would change for the worse when the guards bursted in out of nowhere and took Angel and Nisiki to the throne room to be questioned by the King himself.

Angel on her knees, bowed low to the floor, trying hard to avoid his gaze as her friend did her best to defend her and explain the situation when asked.

[bucketkicked]

@lightning-arias gets a plotted starter !

Irene’s languidly leaning on her umbrella, arm simply propped upon the handle as the tip stands balanced on the ground. She was waiting for her client to appear, her usual cigarette smoking between her lips as she looked down briefly to check her watch. Her brows furrow upon seeing the time. They were late, which was unusual for them, but even then, the reaper heaved a sigh before hearing shouting, the screeching of tires, and—wait, where were they?

It sounded as if they called for Irene, but upon second glance towards the road when she moved to act, there was no accident, no injured person to be found. She pauses, glances around, and slowly pulls her cigarette from her lips, putting it out nearby and tossing it in the garbage. To say she was shocked was an understatement, as it would’ve taken far more than normal human reflexes to save their client, which she could’ve done if she wasn’t so distracted.

Instead of kicking herself for the potential accident, she pushes her sunglasses back up the bridge of her nose. Standing around looking flabbergasted wasn’t her style, anyways, but that’s when she realizes something, or rather, someone alongside their now quite shaken client. “Hmm. Curious,” she lets out, rotating her umbrella up onto her shoulder, “you’re quick, aren’t you?”

She’s addressing the other person, looking them up and down. The reaper can only assume they were a hero of sorts, at least someone that wasn’t human. Something about them didn’t feel human to her, but she proceeded to chat them up anyways. “I must thank you, anyways, for being so watchful. Usually, I wouldn’t be so careless; I’m not sure what got into me.” With that, Irene places a comforting hand onto her client’s shoulder, guiding them towards a nearby bench.

She’d return to them eventually, but this hero caught her attention. “You,” she calls out, pointing their direction with her umbrella, “if you don’t mind me asking…how’d you do it?”

[dee-voss]

Milk in the fridge. Bread on the shelf. Then he'd deal with the state of the goddamn house. Which was about what he'd figured, when his head spun in the general direction of his creaking, paint-peeling inheritance during those long, long flights across the whole fucking Pacific. Which wasn't often. His attention had been all kinds of elsewhere.

A little like it was now, as he made his way through the aisles. Same as he had since he was a kid, all that lawnmowing and house-painting cash in hand. He'd caught a couple stares, back then. There were more, today. And Dee, harder than ever, set his jaw and threw them back. Until they slipped away.

To somebody else, soon enough. The way stares always seemed to.

It wasn't curiosity that snapped his head up after whoever'd just darted out of Crawford's, dark curls bouncing in the high morning sun as she swerved around the corner. Nobody followed; nobody but him, his basket left behind. There'd just been something about it, how she broke through the weekday crowd and went. Over - not nothing. Nobody ran, like that, from nothing. His dad hadn't, anyway. The boys hadn't. No.

Once he'd blinked the brightness of the day out of his eyes, he headed for a couple rustling palms, a burst of bougainvillea, and a stranger who'd clenched up like a frantic fist at the edge of the parking lot. "Hey, hey," Dee started, softly, around that stubborn rasp in his throat. He took a lean against the edge of the planter she'd hunkered down by - not blocking her in, careful about that. Leaving all kinds of space. Just sparing her a couple more stares, hopefully.

"Hell of a Monday, huh?" Deliberately slow and steady, he fished out a smoke and Baker's old lighter. "You're all good, here. Right here." A few snaps and the flame caught; Dee took a measured drag, full as he could. Then blew a long billow over his shoulder. An invitation to follow along. In. Out. A breath at a time. "There anything that'll help? Water? One of these?" He circled that cigarette in the already warmish summer air, asking everything in that same unhurried, easy sorta way. "Or just a minute?" In. Out. "Got all the minutes you need, man."

@nourfk

[mummiform]

@thesafaribaggirl-returns | a plotted starter !

Tut was extra bored this evening, grumbling to himself as he lay in his sarcophagus, waiting for the remaining guests to leave the area. Then, and only then, could he peek out and have some real fun. Eventually, they all managed to go their separate ways, and upon hearing silence, the boy shoves the top of the sarcophagus enough to the side so that he can check if the way was clear. It certainly was, and so he pushes it more, enough for him to pop out and stretch his legs.

Of course, he takes his Scepter of Was with him, hoping that its magic would help cure some of his dreaded boredom. He yawns and stretches for a few seconds before he decides to twirl it around, thinking of what he could do. “Aha!” He exclaims, figuring out his entertainment for the night. The mummy decides to play fight, pretending that there’s enemies abound. The scepter produced harmless blasts into the air, making his imaginary foes disappear.

Tut’s last enemy was the biggest one, but he faced it without fear, pointing the scepter its way and doing a larger blast to match its size. However, instead of disappearing, it seemed to create a hole in the air, some sort of portal. It leaves the boy scratching his head, but nonetheless, his curiosity takes over and he approaches it. Sticking his head through it, he stares in awe and takes in his new sights. Unfortunately, the mummy leaned too far into the portal, causing him to tumble in through it.

“Woah!” He crashes to the ground, rubbing his head as he takes a better look around. He’s almost too scared to wander around, hoping there’s someone nearby who could explain where he is. “What is this place?”

[ethike]

@freakarus cont. from here !

“Oh. Oh!”

When Violet directs her gaze to where his previously was, an unbothered chuckle leaves her. Of course she was worried about him, but there was a certain humor to the situation, at least to her. “Wow, I am… I am so sorry. Didn’t mean to leave that out and about, silly me! Geez, I really should’ve put that on some ice, huh?” She keeps her good wits about her, giving an apologetic smile before taking the limb in her hand. It was a hand attached to a forearm, anatomically correct, but still eerily unattached to an actual human.

“It’s just a little replacement is all. But it’s no good now, I suppose…,” she explains, absentmindedly waving it around as she speaks. Then, she gets an idea. “Say, you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand, huh? Get it? Hand?” She waves her empty hand dismissively, deciding the pun was easily understood enough. She cocks her head, examining him from their distance. “You’re looking awfully pale, from what I can tell. If you can help me rid of it, I’ll get you a Sprite, or peppermint, or something.” Therapy, even.

“How about you be a dear and fetch me my biohazard bin? You won’t have to look at it a moment longer!” Hiding the limb behind her back, she smiles softly, as if it’d help coax the poor thing into helping. “I’ll truly rid of it once we’re done here. I’d hate for you to have to witness more than you want to.” It was perhaps a bit too late for that, but she’d hate to scare him off. She could always use help around the lab, or at least someone not too scared to give her the time of day. “It’s in the next room over,” she instructs, “you’ll see it, it’s a bright red. I promise this will all be worth it!”

[nerdydowntherabbithole]

At the moment your fic is at the same average word count as a YA novel. I’d like to congratulate you on that! 60,500+ words is no small feat!

EXCUSE ME IT'S FUCKING WHAT

[whatudowhennooneseesyou]

Hello!

I've risen from the dead lmfao Life was extremely hectic lately but I'm back!

How have you been? I'll send later my replies to the last replies 💕

In the meantime I would love to hear all of your stories to be honest but to start maybe the story of how you almost lost your virginity twice?

Also option a and b made my blood boil to the max 🙃

-🐇

Baby!! You're back! I'm glad you're doing so well! I hope you're happy and healthy!

I'm doing okay, I finished my last class ever and I graduate from uni in March so I'm just focused on working, resting and getting my health back together.

I wish I could say option a & b happened only that time but they haven't, it's happened more times after haha.

Okay! Story time.

The first time happened when I was 17 and it was with one of my close guy friends at the time.

I was having a sleepover at his house and we were sleeping in the same bed (as we had numerous times before).

He was really upset the day because he had just found out that his girlfriend had been cheating on him and he broke up with her.

While we were in bed, he asked if he could hold me because he just wanted to feel better to which I said yeah, of course.

He started rubbing my back and hips and I turned around and said 'do you want too?' and I told him I was a virgin and he was like 'are you sure you want to do this?' and I trusted him at the time, we were really close and I felt really safe around him because we had been friends for years.

His mum was asleep in the other room so we had to be really quiet and I remember we quickly got our clothes off.

I remember him being really gentle and he was softly kissing my neck and chest and as things were about to move forward.

He couldn't get it up, he just couldn't get hard and I tried to help him and nothing worked because he just was too upset and sad over the break-up.

So I said well let's stop and we got our clothes back on and then we just fell asleep.

I woke up to find that half-way, he had woken up and gone to sleep out on the couch for the rest of the night.

And I remember waking up in the empty bed and thinking:

'This must be what one-night-stands feel like'.

And that was the moment I realised I could never do one-night-stands.

He stopped speaking to me after that and at the time, I thought it was because I wasn't physically attractive enough for him but now that I'm older, I could see he was probably embarrassed.

The Second Time:

The second time happened when I was 21 with a guy I met from uni, we were friends for a couple of months before he asked me out on a date and I said yes.

I remember he took me out to Mexican and we went out for a festival in the city, I'm 24 and I haven't been on an official date since with him.

Anyway, about a month in to us dating, I went over to his house.

I travelled 3 hours to meet him at his house and I remember I dressed up all pretty for him, I wore a navy blue babydoll dress with frangipani flowers on it.

When I went to his house, he had made me a batch of brownies which I thought (and still think) was really cute.

We had the whole entire house to ourselves and we started making out and he took me to his bedroom and we were both virgins at the time, I still am but idk if he is.

This was our 4th date together and at the time, I felt safe with him and I just really wanted to experience what sex was like and I did feel emotionally connected to him and I trusted him in the moment.

And things started to get heated and we were both undressed and as we were about to do the devil's tango.

He couldn't get it up, he was too nervous and again, I tried to help him but nothing was happening.

He kept trying to reassure me that it wasn't me, that he was too nervous, he didn't know why nothing was happening and again, I said it was all fine and we stopped.

I have to say though, he was really giving and gentle with his touches and words (both times were like that) and I think if everything went well, I wouldn't have regretted it both times.

He stopped talking to me after and 7 days later, he ended it.

He had some shitty excuse about how he thought we weren't emotionally compatible and that we could still be friends 🙄.

Now that I have a better perspective, he was also too embarrassed that he couldn't perform and he just found it too awkward to speak for me again.

I haven't spoken to him since and that was 3 years ago.

And that was the last romantic encounter I've had thus far, I haven't kissed anyone else since that moment.

I just hope my technique works and I won't be an awful kisser for the next person, it's been awhile 🤣🤣.

I have asked out guys since that encounter but all have rejected my offer, the last guy I asked out was in January and since then I've completely stopped.

I haven't even developed a crush or an infatuation with anyone since January.

Oh fuck, it was so awkward.

The last time I asked a dude out and got rejected:

He was also a friend I had known for about 3 years and we had a few classes together at uni.

We reunited at a bar with other people in December of last year and we had great banter and a connection and at the end of the night, he hugged me and said that he found me interesting.

So me thinking, okay there's something here, the week after I was like 'Hey, do you want to meet up for lunch, just one on one?' to which he said yes.

So, the day off. I also got dressed up for him, I wore a dress with stockings and boots and wore my expensive perfume.

We had lunch and again, the connection was great.

So, at the end of the lunch, I said 'Oh, do you mind if I grab your number and we could talk more?'

To which he said, 'Ahh. To be honest Ruby, I just don't find you attractive in 'that way'.

And I responded 'Oh, in what way?'

And then he said 'Oh, I think you're pretty, I just don't find you attractive like how partners would feel towards each other'.

To which then I figured out that he was saying he wasn't sexually attracted toward me without saying he was sexually attracted towards me.

And then a month later, I was invited to a party and he was there.

And he was just flirting all over this girl and hugging her and dancing with her.

Which I mean, yeah it kinda hurt but I was talking to other people and having fun.

And I didn't get drunk but this girl got absolutely smashed, like she was slurring her speech and ended up throwing up over the balcony.

And after this happened, I was smoking a cigarette and he walked over to me and I was like 'Oh, how come you're here?' to which he responded,

'Oh the other girl I was talking too got really drunk and I can't speak to her properly and you're not drunk so I thought maybe I just start talking to you.'

And that immediately turned me off him because I just felt like I was a back-up and second-best.

And then a month after that, they started dating.

Idk if they're still dating now, I haven't spoken to him since then. (Bro, I'm watching Bang Chan's live and I'm pretty sure he pretended to kiss our forehead.)

I feel that last encounter just really did it for me, there's only so many rejections that you take before you just give up.

And it's hard because I just don't know why opportunities for romantic relationships haven't entered my life.

Like, men just haven't wanted to be in a relationship with me and you can't even say 'oh, you just need to put yourself out there' because clearly I have.

And I mean, it's been 3 years since that last encounter and I haven't kissed anyone, I haven't received any offers that I've rejected and no one has shown any romantic interest in me.

And I just wish I knew what it is I'm lacking so I can improve myself and grow as a person in that area.

@muselin @cherry-0420 what do you think about this?

[kenobion]

I got some new clothes and they are so cozy (he/they)

[seawing-vibes]

5, 6, 8 😋

5. Anything you haven’t drawn yet but want to?

So much !!! there is so much I want to draw!! I have been dying to draw my idea of "the Great Ice Dragon". It would be a vertical piece focused in a taiga, the Great Ice Dragon would be almost blending into the landscape, unclear of where the trees end and the horns start. One of those things where you only notice the dragon after looking at it for a second. I've been trying to compose that piece forever but haven't been able to do it in a way that's satisfying to me,, But aside from that I plan to do more icon & expression work and finish up my Drawing Every Seawing Prince project ,, It's v frustrating because I have a lot I want to do but no time...

6. Which artists inspire you right now?

OUG UH. Good question,, I mean for my artwork Overall right now Hieronymus Bosch's landscape works are a big inspo for my set designs (for context I am a theater student pfbh, in the Staging Unit rn) and landscape paintings! And with dragon & character art I'm honestly taking a lot of inspo from artists like @/cinnamon-flame (beautiful use of color and shading just. so cool) and @/liliumaa (Have you seen their designs ??? the amazing depiction of emotion in their work?? so good!!), I know there's more but those are the first two to come to mind pfbh!! very talented artists <33

8. What do you like most about your own work?

Ough . UH ! GOOD QUESTION! I don't really know? I definitely like how I depict face shapes sometimes! And my wing anatomy has definitely been improving in a way I enjoy! But I definitely have a ways to go until I'm fully comfortable with my own work oug

thank you for asking me questions Qualsly <333 now get out.

[orcelito]

Anyways I love futago siblings bc of the inherent drama to it & the complexity of feelings involved in it. And also I want futaba to suplex akechi in a sibling kind of way. It's not that complicated

[sifonie]

part of being human is making mistakes, which is something that barton was (unfortunately) reminded of in a rather inopportune way today. for sibyl had warned him that sometimes their coffee machine was a little screwy — and so you had to hit it to get it to work. but barton might have gone a little overboard with that. because it ended up with a loud 'crack' in the water reservoir after he got frustrated when it didn't work for the fourth time and smacked it down on the table. the doctor just hoped they didn't hear that from the other room as he let out a barely audible and incredulous laugh, ❝ oh, my god. did i just break it... ❞

barton started to think about all of the bad things that sibyl usually did when they were angry and, in his mind, chose life then; which basically meant that he was trying to very quietly sneak out the door. and i swear to god he looked like all of those cartoon characters trying to sneak up on someone while doing it, ❝ ahh, you know what? i'm just gonna leave. sometimes you've just got to say 'tragic' and move on, right? ❞ barton couldn't die yet: he had to survive to see the next season of the last of us, whenever the hell they were going to release it.

Oh, they heard it.

Sibyl quietly slinks over to his direction, catching him in the act of trying to leave. A loud clearing of the throat, a strained smile. “Barton!” They call out in a sing-song voice, “Darling, dearest…” Dead.

“You weren’t trying to hide from whatever you broke in there, were you?” They give their best puppy dog eyes to get the truth out of him, knowing damn well what the answer was. Oh, they could just kill someone without their cup of coffee in the morning! “I trusted you with my coffee maker, didn’t I? Is that what it was? I heard something, and I’m just oh so concerned…but maybe there’s a silver lining to this! You buy me a new coffee maker and I don’t throw you out a window! How’s that?”

They bat their lashes as if it was the most innocent utterance they’ve ever given.

[straysomethinginthewoods]

" sit down before you fall down. "

"Eheh, and who're you tellin' me what t'do?" That truck hit hard, but she didn't survive this long by sitting down and accepting fate. "I'll live. If it don't kill me on the spot, it didn't do enough." She's dazed and hurting something awful, but she'll be damned if she lets her guard down now.

[bucketkicked]

as barton was heading towards the alleyway that he had found this strange object in, all he could think of was how relieved he'd be once it was off his hands — for barton didn't even know why he picked up what looked like just a normal piece of jewelry ( i was thinking that perhaps, in the smaller form it takes on, the net looks a little bit like jewelry? IDK i just thought it'd be a kind of interesting idea, but you don't have to use it if you don't want to (': ) in the first place. just that something possessed him to, once he saw the gleam of the metal sticking out amongst its dull surroundings. though ever since he brought it home and started to tinker with it to see what exactly was going on with it... barton had been having even more horrific nightmares than usual, one after the over. and so he resolved to get rid of it while he still could.

and that meant throwing it in the trash for barton, somewhere far away from him. he had just started to pull it out from his jacket pocket when he heard someone's boot 'clack' on the entrance of the alleyway however. after a bit of consideration, barton decided to assume the worst and reached into his own boot to pull out his knife; spinning on his heel to greet whoever this was. the first thing he noticed was that it was a woman and that there were no visible weapons on her. barton wasn't about to take any chances, though, so he hid the knife behind his back as he spoke to this newly arrived stranger, ❝ uhh... excuse me, do you need something? ❞ (for irene!! here's a mini starter based on what we were talking about in disc, tehe)

“Indeed I do.”

One of Irene’s hands slip from its home in her pants pocket and holds itself out. “You have something of mine,” she continues, approaching closer, “I’d like to have it back, please, as I’ve gone through the trouble of tracking you down for it. I’m sure you’ve found that it serves no purpose to you.”

A net for souls. An important piece of equipment, as important as the scythe a reaper carries. Without it, souls would get lost, ghosts would be made, and it would just cause more problems than good. She simply stares at him behind her tinted lenses, patiently waiting. “You know exactly what I’m speaking of, too. I’m not going to harm you, but I do need it back. I’m not here for a confrontation.”