#This accidentally turned into a character study whoops

[griffincastle]

Dear Richtofen

SCIENCE OR DOCTOR SCHUSTER (schuster u too)

[my-little-loverboy]

I had to restart his save since it got corrupted- which means it’s time for a new ref!!

I’ve committed to the fact that this man dresses like an 80s dad in any modern au.

Tries very hard to read as the ideal paladin, good morals, strong sense of justice n what have you. He is unfortunately full of trauma and identity issues, fear of his god is a HUGE THING and breaking his oath accidentally is a perpetual anxiety too.

I’ve also decided he has the shittiest, patchy ass beard. Usually he’s clean shaven bc he doesn’t like having facial hair but he’s not quite adept enough with a dagger to shave with one and tries exactly once to shave (failing miserably, much to Astarion’s entertainment) before giving up until act 3 when he buys himself a new razor.

I really should draw him holding the blood of lathander more but that mf is agonizing to draw man there are, so many layers to it.

I finally remembered to draw his glasses on his ref, yippee.

I’m making him an actual dnd character sheet so I’ll probably attach that once it’s done

I’m side tracked I’m supposed to be talking about his lore huh

Whoops

Anyway, tw for abandoment (passing mention) emotional abuse, death (of a parent + en masse,) mental illness that’s being ignored, chronic pain and illness (also being ignored until he can’t)

His actual like- lore lore is below the break.

Born in the underdark, his mom fucked off with him bc the underdark isn’t a great place to live generally speaking, and she had the means. His dad decided last minute to stay in the underdark.

Taken in by the temple of lathander in elturel bc his mother was chronically ill and not expecting or able to be making this kind of journey on her own with a very small child. Ended up being moved from the temple to a hospital after it was determined that she probably wasn’t getting better.

Charlie ended up being mostly raised by the temple, went to school there and was taught how to read and write + basic math. But spent most of his free time working to pay for his mother’s (and soon his own) medication.

Turns out the of the myriad of issues his mother delt with (migraines, persistent nausea and dizziness, chronic joint issues) were genetic, so by time he hit puberty he was working his ass off to pay for it.

You may ask me “cake, didn’t that aggravate his joint issues?” Yes. Badly. He was not given any other options, the fact that they were alive at all was a godsend (I use the word godsend intentionally, he believes, strongly, that lathander is keeping him alive for some reason beyond his understanding, that is the root of his devotion.)

Did you order mommy issues? Hope so bc he has them in spades. You can only be hear your dying mom say she regrets saving you life as a literal toddler so many times before it starts fucking you up, and she said it (and other delightful(/sarc) things) plenty in the months leading up to when she died.

Shortly after her death, and suddenly needing to work way less (his medication was significantly cheaper than his mothers) he devoted himself to the temple, and was eventually approached bc some kids he went to school with to see if he wanted to join their little class thing. The temple liked to train their folks in groups of 4, in hopes of building strong teams should they choose to stay together.

He agreed, and found out that the temple would pay for his medication in exchange for dedicating himself fully to his training and his studies (and occasionally them using him as a scout, being small, naturally stealthy, and decently quick had its advantages.)

Took his oath with one of the other people he was trained alongside when he was 17, and they were collectively sent to continue their training at the nearby Fort Morninglord.

Things were solid, until he was sent along with a group of seniors to Baldurs Gate as a sort of test to see how he would do on a longer mission before officially joining the Order of the Aster.

He did well, all things considered. Unfortunately between him leaving and returning is when Fort Morninglord got eaten by the shadowfell for some reason. (That’s a canon event btw)

So, with all his friends presumably dead, maybe worse, and all his shit left inside a heavily guarded, very cursed fort. He did the reasonable thing, and fucked right off.

He ended up joining one of the seniors he went to Baldur’s Gate with in going to Waterdeep, while they didn’t particularly need another paladin. The temple of lathander in Waterdeep accepted them both until they were able to find stable employment.

Charlie mainly did small jobs for merchants, working as a guard for high value stuff, moving cargo on/off boats, mostly physical labour. It didn’t pay particularly well, but he could afford a little room above a tavern, and his medication.

That’s where he was, and how he lived for almost 130 years until he got wormed.

May or may not be blindly devoted to Lathander bc of… all that. literally any bad thing to occur to him is swiftly written off as a test of his faith, surprising to damn near everyone he is not one for converting people. (He definitely reads like he would though, it’s the theology special interest, there are few gods he won’t speak extensively on. He just defaults to lathander)

Fr though? Having trouble finding a god to worship? Ask him, he will give you an answer or more accurately- a list.

Yknow when you sprinkle random facts into your characters to make them less flat? Yeah my man collects maps, particularly outdated ones.

The only reason he’s not fucked post-worm is bc it fends off the worst of his usual symptoms. He has conflicted feelings about it (on one hand, being able to put honey in his coffee and not feel like his brain is exploding is nice, on the other, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.)

Post game he is left in a… state. He’s gotten used to life with less pain and is absolutely bedridden for a WHILE bc suddenly he’s being hit with his usual pain n symptoms but he’s not used to it anymore so it’s absolutely destroying him.

[magpies4nights]

huh (Dev log # I'M ON 4?!!?!?!)

Hi guys! It’s me, @magpies4days on a different blog! That’s really the only promise I kept. Whoops. That’s why I don’t do promises. Anyways, since the last time I updated y'all, I passed all my finals and everything that was important. Yep, I passed my finals, which seems miraculous, because I accidentally studied the wrong study guide for my history exam and didn't really sleep enough the night before, and I got a 90 on it, which I'll be honest, that was the lowest grade I've ever gotten on a test in that class, but it's still an A so I won't cry about it. I turned in a really shitty essay too for one of my classes, but it seems that my professor didn’t actually read it because she gave me a 100 (ain’t gonna complain about that). I also procrastinated so hard on my graphic design final that I did it in like 3 hours and finished it 2 minutes before it was late. I still turned it in 5 minutes late because my computer decided it was funny to start acting up. Oh well, I passed that class, even for honor's standards. Normally I would be happy getting a B because I'd get a C and still celebrate but unfortunately I slayed too hard that my GPA was the minimum requirement for the Honor's organization to notice me. That's the Thinker in my Myers Briggs type showing baybee (JK JK I'm an INFP (unfortunately.)). Anyways, I’m on my winter break, and as much as I love getting breaks, god I forgot how much I hate summer and winter breaks. Summer breaks make me depressed because I have nothing to do, and winter breaks make me depressed because it’s literally the worst season of the year (cold weather (I have cold urticaria), dry air, less sun, the position of the sun is weird, and d3 barely does anything).

Anyways, onto the actual dev stuff. I probably should’ve figured this out the moment I started my idea, but I found out that to export my game to Mac, I’d have to have a developer id and pay for it. Which now I understand why most indie devs never upload to Mac. Oh well. (Fun fact: Mac actually has a feature called BootCamp which lets you portion your hard drive to allow you to have a Windows driver (Be wise on your portioning though because it’s permanent). I found this out when I was 16 and trying to download Pizza Tower demos. Totally not saying that so you could play it on your “Mac,” *wink wink*).

I had to switch my dialog stuff from a script I found on the internet, to an add-on that most Godot devs use ( Dialogic). I know. I am awful. However, there is a reason to this, and it’s entirely because I am an idiot. I have experimented with how Godot exports JSONs, and as it turns out, the images nor the audio would load! The text would, but it’s just not the same, especially when the dialog box is supposed to change with the character speaking. While it could be something in my code that is causing this to happen, or I'm forgetting to export something else while checking off all the boxes, it still gives me a headache and I decided it was for the best to switch. I may not be able to code for now, but there may be a day when I can. Hopefully. I had to change the layout of the dialog stuff because Dialogic kinda makes it like a visual novel kinda thing. I decided to torture myself and make everyone have different heights. Don't worry, everyone has relatively normal heights. Except for mayyybe Sleepy Weepy. They're like 6'2 (which may mean there's some cutoff for their sprites).

Aaaaanyways, enough about me suffering about dialog again. I’ve been working on the beginning and ending cutscene so that I can first torture everyone with 5 minutes of dialog in the beginning and then at the end music with text that may give people a hard time reading the lyrics. The animation isn’t done, but the text kinda is??? I’ll have to revise it like I have the past 56 times because my future self is hard to please, and I think everyone is out of character except Xandra.

Yeahhh, that’s about it so far. I made new music while I was being harassed with finals. Take a gander, but with your ears. Or don't, forcing you is unethical.

Top 10 Sleepy Weepy of all time!!!!! (This is doesn't even make it in the honorable mentions)

[nolanrossblog]

Game Hammers

HELLO! This is the first-ever-world-renowned Game Hammers blog. There are 2 Developers on this week's post, they are hopefully going to be on future blogs as well. The developers of this blog will track their progress in the week and whatever difficulties they encountered. The mission of this blog is to create a good environment for learning and exploring. Nolam This week I was working on a witch game, so I started by creating a new unity project with some cubes. I want to set it up to be a 2.5D sort of space, where you can move left and right but also see the depth of scenes, kinda like Tomba. In this project, I set up some core mechanics like wall jumping, ledge grabbing, moving, regular jumping, and some scaffolding for more complicated things like combat.

Here you can see the little block guy finding his way in life. In my progress towards moving, I thought it would suit the game to add a sliding mechanic for rails. So you can like, slide on rails. For this, I turned to splines - which I would later regret. If you don't know what a spline is: it's a bendy line. Bendy lines are very useful but very complicated as well.

This was an attempt at a homemade spline made with the help of chat GPT. It was very rudimentary and I abandoned it after realizing unity has built-in splines. All of this so that I could make a bendy banister. For about 4 days I farted around and wasted my time with this, realizing that it's probably better to just do an easier straight line anyways. Whoops! After that cr*p, I tried to find a new productive avenue - so I went towards making some art.

The game is about a witch who has to clean a house with her broom, and crossing my vision with Flodo's, I was able to come up with a model of the character, after an interesting attempt.

that attempt ended up having cool hands, but they likely are to forever rot on my hard drive. This attempt, however, was much nicer despite having no fingers to speak of.

The character ended up having a poofy outfit that looks very warm on her - which I like a lot. I did lots of new things making this like faces and hair, and have been trying to improve my topology. Yesterday, my parents left on vacation and I am in charge of my 3 siblings. It's going to be a difficult week ahead - going back to school and stuff - so I'm excited to see what progress I can make in school and with modeling and game design. PS. Grammarly on tumblr is booty.

Spebby Hey there! This is the Spebby section of the weekly Game Hammers Blog. Like my compatriots, Nolam and Flodo, I’ll be rattling on about what I’ve been learning and doing this week of my life. It’s midterm season, and I’ve been hard at work on studying up. My focus has mostly been upon Calculus, with a focus on Parametrics, Polar Graphs and Surface Area of Rotation. I’m feeling pretty good about my study actually, I have a pretty good grasp on Integration and Convergence, and this midterm’s topics are pretty similar, so I think I’ll be all good! While studying Polar Graphs, I came across a pattern I particularly like, which I’ve dubbed “The Lotus”. Not a super original name, but I think it fits. I accidentally stumbled across this one, the function that creates it is 4cos(5θ/13). A render of it can be found below.

Outside of Calculus, what else have I been working on? As a stinky Comp-Sci major, I’ve been working on that. I’m still fresh meat. I very much appreciate my CS professor. He’s quite willing to throw us into the deep and push the limits of what our little brains can think of. I’m pretty brash, so I don’t quite give each assignment the thought I probably should. Learning about in-line assembly arguments and how to effectively use them, proper memory management, creating truly class-agnostic functions and how to write fast and efficient code. I find programming quite fulfilling and therapeutic honestly. Making something run faster and figuring out why something wasn’t working quite how I suspected is always quite the reward.

I’ve unfortunately not had much time to work on programming in the lens of game development. Perhaps Nolam has better time management than I do, he always seems to find time to crank out another prototype. Prototyping is quite the art, I’ve never really had to write something from scratch like that, Flodo or Nolam have always beaten me to the bunch in regards to these sorts of things. At some point it’s on my todo list to get cracking with a prototype. I’ve found it frustrating being limited on what I can feasibly do in a project, but to be honest that’s given me some liberty to get the creative juices flowing and try something wacky within my limitations.

Continuing the theme of academics, outside of my STEM major, I’ve been trying to take some interesting humanities classes. Anthropology has been an interest of mine for awhile, at first I thought only Cultural Anthropology would interest me, but Primatology and other Biological Anthropology subdisciplines have proven to be even more interesting to me. Learning about how odd humans are from an evolutionary perspective, and the adaptations that were taken in order to allow for our unique form of movement or perhaps our ancient ancestors, those of Selam, Toumaï and Platyops. Anthropology is such an interesting subject; If you have the ability, enroll in an Anthropology class, they’re super interesting and can teach you a lot about the world and perhaps change your worldview. 

I could go on and on, but I feel it’s best to bring this entry to a close. Be catching you next week. Perhaps we could have a longer chat, no?

[weebswrites]

Heya! Hope you're doing good 💕

Could I request some hcs where mc and her demon are basically cuddling in bed falling asleep she has this thing that her arms involuntarily move/twitch/squeeze when she's in a light sleep?�� So she like slaps the bro in the face or squeezes/scratches them or smth totally without meaning to.

Thank you x

The Demon Bros & A Sleep Twitching MC

A/N: I actually twitch in my sleep all the time lol so I really like this prompt

Lucifer

• If any of you watch Haikyuu (which you should) I like to think sometimes he sleeps like Kageyama did on the bus at the end of season two. Just

• So the man already tensely sleeping after passing out after an exhausting day and then he suddenly gets kicked in the leg?

• "MC!" he jolts awake, waking you up as well

• "Huh?" you're about 13% awake and have absolutely no idea what's going on

• "You just kicked me?" you could hear the irritation in his voice, and probably should have been more scared than you were, but you just laughed a bit and explained that you had always twitched in your sleep in some form or another

• "Well that would have been nice to know before I invited you to spend the night" he joked but In his 'i'm-big-scary-lucifer' voice

• You fake pout and say you'll leave, but he wraps his arms around you and insists that even if you kick him a thousand times in his sleep he still wants you to stay

• Soon your muscle spasms become a comforting reminder of your presence to him as he's relaxing or falling asleep

Mammon

• I've decided to give each bro a Karasuno sleep comparison so. Here's Mammon as Yamaguchi. He definitely drools / sleeps with his mouth open

• He's also a light sleeper, so the times when your whole body will jerk or you flail a limb, he wakes up

• The first few times he doesn't piece together it was your movements that woke him up, he figured it was just him naturally waking up at his brothers being loud or something of the sort

• But when he realizes that you're twitching in your sleep and that's why he woke up, it makes more sense

• He's worried at first that you're having a seizure or some medical problem, so he shakes you awake and asks if you're okay

• "Yes??? I think so??" you reply, very confused on the sudden awakening

• "You were spasming and I didn't know what to do" he explained, and it all falls into place. You explain that you twitch in your sleep a lot, and not to worry if it happens (and you apologize for waking up, even though you know he doesn't really mind)

Leviathan

• Okay he's definitely Tanaka

• He just. sleeps.

• Like, we all know he doesn't sleep much. But when he does sleep (mostly when MC barges into his room every night before they go to bed and demands that Levi follows suit within the hour) his circadian rhythm is actually pretty healthy

• So he doesn't notice your twitching for a while, but one night when he's in ~light sleep~ and suddenly gets punched in the bicep. he has noticed

• He doesn't wake you up about it, but watches over you for a bit to make sure it was normal and not too serious

• He thought about giving you space so you were comfortable but remembered you said you were most comfortable in his arms and he wasn't about to turn down that offer

• Tries to casually bring it up the next morning but you see right though his tactic

• "Did I wake you up? My bad, I didn't think it was that intense anymore"

• He reassures you that it wasn't and that he didn't mind it, and always made sure you knew it didn't bother him at all

Satan

• Sugawara. Next question.

• He falls asleep reading a lot (especially at night), so you've gotten in the habit of checking the library on your way to bed to make sure Satan doesn't end up sleeping in a chair. You don't want his neck to be sore!

• A lot of the times he'll pull you into bed with him, and the two of you fall asleep almost instantly together

• He's a pretty heavy sleeper, but your full body twitches and kicks sometimes wake him up

• He can fall back asleep pretty quickly, but notes to ask you why he got kicked in the stomach In the middle of the night

• You explain that you twitch in your sleep a lot to him, and he instantly thinks of a character in a book he read a few hundred years ago who did that

• He gets distracted by telling you about the book and honestly forgets you twitch in your sleep at all until you're getting in bed together that night

• "Don't worry about waking me up or anything, I promise I don't mind. It's kind of comforting, actually. Reminds me you're still alive" he teases, and you're grateful that he's so understanding

Asmodeus

• Daichi. A natural beauty sleeping

• LMAO I almost wrote this hc abt Daichi instead of Asmo whoops

• Anyways. Asmo is very in control of when he falls asleep because of his skincare routine. He never wants to accidentally fall asleep with a facemask on or anything

• When you spend the night for the first time you curl into his arms and almost instantly fall asleep, and he holds you as he studies the way your breathing slowly matches his

• He notices little muscle spasms too, but doesn't think much of them until he's kicked in the leg

• He bites his tongue to not wake you up, but definitely thinks his poor leg will be bruised tomorrow morning

• When you both wake up the next morning you notice a small bruise on his leg and ask how he got it, and you feel so bad that it was from you !

• He kisses your forehead and reassures you that if he was going to be bruised from anyone it was only allowed to be you

Beelzebub

• Man just slumps over and is out for Hours

• He takes more naps than you expected, but since he's twins with Belphie you suppose you can't be ~that~ surprised

• One night the two of you are watching a movie late, and you fall asleep leaning against his chest. After a bit your muscles start twitching like usual

• He doesn't notice at first since he's relatively engrossed in the movie (and the snacks. okay mostly the snacks) but when your body jerks and fist smacks his thigh, he notices

• He was impressed with your strength

• Moves the snacks to the chair beside the two of you and pulls you in closer to him, reclining the chair so it was more of a bed and holding you tight against him

• Big muscle man is not bothered by your kicks at all, so the two of you sleep perfectly together, and only acknowledges your twitching when you bring it up (makes sure you know he hardly notices it)

Belphegor

• Noya. Somethin about it just feels right

• We all know Belphie sleeps a lot, so he's basically impossible to wake up

• Something he hasn't encountered, though, is getting roughly kicked in the middle of the night. Congrats, MC! You have successfully woken up the Avatar of Sloth

• He's more surprised that he was woken up than that it was by you. He noticed your twitching almost immediately when the two of you started taking naps together, and it didn't bother him at all

• The kick was a bit more intrusive, but it was you after all, so he figured he'd make an exception

• Did he half sarcastically guilt you for it the next morning? Yes. But he made sure you knew he didn't really mind

--------------------

Here's the picture as a whole with each demon bro labeled lol. I had too much fun with this

anyways stream butter by bts (youtube link provided hehe)

[maxwell-grant]

Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s). 

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth? 

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914). 

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.” 

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.” 

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day. 

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth. 

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm. 

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC. 

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course. 

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.

[himbo-beel]

hmm could you do a headcanon (or whatever fits) where the mc manages to blow a hole through the house of lamentation (the cause could be literally anything) and the bros react? (if you do the side characters can you add them too? sorry if this is too much 👉👈🥺

It’s not too much! In fact, thank you sending this! I’ve never done headcannon requests before so I’m sorry if it’s a little short. 

--

THE BROTHERS REACT TO AN MC WHO BLOWS A HOLE THROUGH THE HOUSE OF LAMENTATION

Lucifer: 

Hear’s a bang and he’s already expecting to hang Mammon from the ceiling

Has everything ready, already has his name on the tip of his tongue as he comes marching down the hall

404 error Lucifer does not compute as he sees MC of all people standing in front of a giant hole in the wall

He’s standing there so very still, not even blinking, waiting for the migraine to start

He has so much work to do and now he has to fix a wall too??? He thought they were better than this 

“My study, 5 minutes, do not be late.”

Storms off because now he has to think of a punishment for MC. He’s used to punishing his brothers but MC? Pride and joy of Diavolo’s exchange program MC?? He’s never thought they’d cause a problem like this before. Congrats, you’ve managed to somehow impress the Avatar of Pride, but not in a good way.

You have to walk Cerberus now. Daily. Good luck. 

Mammon:

“Mammon made me do it”

“MC!”

It’s true though, Mammon made MC do it. But MC were the one that introduced Mammon to house flipping when he mentioned wanting to start another gig

He didn’t think MC would go along with it though!!!

Mammon is still impressed that you managed to knock almost all of the wall down in one go. 

So now there’s a hole outside of the common room but at least the view of the Devildom is nice

The breeze is...lovely...okay Lucifer isn’t having it. 

Mammon does end up taking the fall though because what else is he going to do when MC makes those big eyes at him? He has to protect them dammit and it’s not like this is the first, or last, time he’s going to be blamed for something

MC better make it up to him. Work an extra shift at Hell’s Kitchen and give him some cash and he’s quick to forgive them. Even quicker to come up with another remodeling scheme

Leviathan:

He wouldn’t open up his door and, frankly, the passwords to get him to were getting a little too long and a little too tiring. 

Bing bam boom and a little magic and WOOSH there goes the door whoops

Levi barely hears it over the game blasting in his headphones. Turns to find the source of the noise and this boy is losing it

He’s torn between being angry that MC’s blasted their way in and being downright panicked now that his safe space is open to the world. 

The game is forgotten, he’s in his demon form and curled up in the tub yelling about the light leeching in

MC hangs up a curtain while the door is getting fixed

The passwords remain very long and very tiring but they’re easier than spending a few days calming Levi down

Asmodeus:

Asmo said the water temperatures for demons were much higher than a human could tolerate and they wanted to see how high that could go

It was for, uh, science. And, for science, they turned the hot water knob as far as it would go. Too far.

The pipe burst and blew a hole through the bathroom. 

Normally Asmo would be very pleased to see a half naked MC but all this hot water and plaster just exploded all over and his hair is RUINED

At least they had some experience with calming Levi down - a panicked Asmo is difficult to cool down when there’s a million things that he needs to have perfected 

By the time the room is fixed MC’s become an expert at following Asmo’s skin and hair care routine because everything got moved to their room and he expects them to help him with it all. 

He might ‘forget’ one or two of MC’s favorite smelling lotions in their room when he finally brings it back

Satan:

He’s helping MC with their spellcasting homework

It’s protective spellcasting and it goes just about as well as every other spell MC has tried - as in, it goes horribly horribly wrong

Half the wall and all of the books stacking in front of it are now in bits and pieces. As is Satan’s sanity

Honestly, he should have seen this coming

Before MC can try to blast Satan away before his claws get to you Satan is smashing another hole in the wall in his anger at his books being destroyed. 

The first hole doesn’t seem like such a problem anymore. 

Better call someone to come calm him down before a third wall comes down. Or worse. 

Beelzebub:

It’s the middle of the night and MC knows Beel is coming down soon for his late night fridge binge

Lucifer has everyone on rotation for making sure he doesn’t clear out the kitchen and tonight’s their shift but MC has a plan: make something good enough for Beel to leave the fridge alone!

Through magic

They ready their spell over your cake and instead of getting one giant cake they made - get ready for it - a hole in the floor. 

“Solomon said this spell was supposed to make any cooking taste better”

Beel is so confused. Why are they asking Solomon of all people for help with cooking? Why is the floor missing?

He can’t make it to the fridge, though, so MC did...their...job?

But MC can’t make it back to the rest of the house now.

Someone will have to come get them in the morning

Belphegor:

Belphie was skipping classes and was so ready for the extra nap time

Didn’t think anyone else was home and snuggled down in all his blankets and pillows. Thought he was dreaming when the walls starting shaking 

It was suddenly....very cold

But he doesn’t investigate, he’s too comfy. Just wraps himself up tighter and goes to sleep

Wakes up hours later to yelling

MC busted a hole in the attic! Turns out some of the spell put on the stairs still lingered and was accidentally triggered when MC tried to climb up them. With all the pacts the magic went overboard and now some stairs are missing including a good part of the wall

Belphie couldn’t care less he’s comfy right where he is. As long as everyone shuts up soon, he doesn’t care what kind of punishment you get. 

Undatables:

Diavolo and Barbatos are both marveling at the amount of damage you managed to cause to the House of Lamentation. One human! So many holes! How very impressive! What else have you been hiding MC? Barbatos smiles at you oddly. He knows what MC is hiding.

Simeon prays for the brothers’ patience with you. He knows how hypocritical these demons can be. Offers to talk to Lucifer about lessening your punishment

Solomon helps you spackle the walls back together. Some of this is his fault after all. He suggests using magic to fix it faster. There are seven ‘NO’S’ shouted at him. 

Special Mention:

Luke bakes cakes for you when you get tired of all the hard work of repairing your messes. He thinks its about time some certain demons get a taste of their own medicine. 

[westywrites]

Find the Word tag

Ah, it's been too long since I've had the time to do one of these. This is by far my favourite tag game.

Thanks to @deciphered-narrator who tagged me to find: breathe, burn, brave, build, beautiful

Breathe (appears 20 times in The Corvine - this is from chp 1)

“Here, lammetjie.” Mevrou Geheim placed a soft handkerchief in his hand. The dark purple material felt cool to the touch and smooth as water. “Breathe with me.”

Burn (appears 66 times in The Corvine - this is from chp 10)

“What are you doing?” she asked, rage burning inside her. The pressure in her head and chest turned into heat. She was trapped. Her nightmares writhed in her mind. All she wanted was to leave, but she couldn’t go. “What is this?”

Brave (appears 11 times in The Corvine - this is from chp 21)

But he was just some kid, no one special. He wasn’t well-studied, or particularly intelligent, or brave like Avenir and bold like Lennox. What good was what he thought?

Build (appears 3 times, built another 10 - this is also from chp 1)

That could only mean one thing. “Stardust?”

She nodded. She had agreed after all. Not just to use magic to help them, but to give them magic of their own. Stardust… the legends said it was harvested directly from the stars in the space between realms. That small, silky pouch held everything his dreams were built on.

Beautiful (appears 29 times - this is from chp 28)

But somehow, in the time she was gone, the leaves had all changed colours. The forest looked like it had been painted over in shades of fire that rippled in the wind. She wished she could show it to Avenir, tell her that flames could be beautiful.

Given that one of the main characters has the ability to summon and control fire, I'm not at all surprised "burnt" was the word that showed up the most haha

also, while doing this, I found that I accidentally repeated the same sentiment almost word for word in chp 5 and chp 21... whoops. Maybe I should do it once more on purpose and make it a motif?

I will tag @starlitesymphony @ratracechronicler @kaiusvnoir @mecharose to find the words: mist, missed, mystery, mountain, and mundane (continuing the theme of alliteration from the words I was given ^u^). No pressure at all! Just for fun

[rowdeyclown]

i want to hear about your pokemon ideas!

oh man this is a dangerous question bc i am about to go OFF so i'll just leave this in a read more. also keep in mind i have only played platinum, moon/ultra moon, sword, and a little bit of red and lets go eevee, so if i accidentally steal something from another game whoops. also i do have a lot of inspiration from the games i played here anyway since i am less knowledgeable abt pokemon than most people but anyway here we go

setting: several years prior to the start of the game, as low as 18 or high as 100 years (i have specific reasons for that) this region was very prosperous with many young people moving in all the time to get a headstart on a successful life. the region is known for being nearly a perfect circle and there are 18 areas of the region, each corresponding to a different type. dead center is normal type, maybe i'll make a map later if i get more interested. by the time the story takes place however, the region has become uninhabitable and anyone who didn't evacuate died. for now im calling it Ebril

legendary: part of what once made ebril so prosperous was the presence of their legendary. idk the exact type of creature it is but it was worshipped as a god and protected the land. however an unknown sickness fell over it and it let out an explosion of energy across the whole region that turned each area into a hellscape. for example, the water region completely flooded over; the grass region sprouted dangerous plants everywhere that so much as touching them could kill a person; the fire region literally just lit up on fire and hasn't burned out, and so on. not only this but the air of the whole place is toxic, though the poison air is like 5 times worse. after this explosion the legendary disappeared, and ebril was completely abandoned. it's later revealed that the legendary has died.

characters: at the start of the game there are few people in the region. in fact there are exactly 4, and they all flew in from different regions.

the leader is one Professor Pine, a young professor from wherever the fuck probably new york with ancestors from ebril. she's always been fascinated with the region and decided to start figuring out a way to fix the place and make it habitable again. with her studies she figures out there's a chance to save it and so she contacts the professors of all regions with the request to help, though only 3 other people were sent in to help due to the dangers of this journey.

the player character(s) are both present in the game, a pair of twins named Jade and Grey. their names are puns on the word jaded and the phrase old and gray. the twins hail from kanto, the region the first games took place in iirc, and the player character u choose went on a pokemon journey at age 10. at present time they are anywhere around 18-20 bc theres no way any reasonable person is gonna let a minor into this apocalyptic region. the twin you don't choose at age 10 rather than taking a pokemon journey started working as an assistant to Professor Oak, and as an adult starts studying to become the next professor. the twin you choose had their journey and got all the way through until the elite 4 which they never beat, and for several years in frustration swore off battling. eventually they couldn't resist the call to the world of pokemon they used to love and they start working as an assistant alongside their twin. when Oak is contacted by Pine he initially refuses to help, but the twins find out and volunteer to go. Oak doesn't want them to but in the end he doesn't stop them.

the fourth member of the expedition is the former champion of some region who just got knocked off their throne by some 10 year old. they serve as the rival of this game. like the twins they found out about this expedition and with nothing better to do they decided to join in just to Feel Something. unlike the twins they never told anyone they were going.

starters: at the beginning the starter is actually either charizard, venusaur, or wartortle. after all this is kanto and the player did go on the journey. the twin has the pokemon that is weak to the player and the rival has the type that is strong against it. however Pine advises against bringing the actual starters bc the environment might be dangerous. however, as someone with ancestors from ebril, she does happen to have some baby pokemon native to the region, of course of the classic typings. seeing as how none of the pokemon in the region were much affected by the changes in atmosphere so she knows it's safe to bring them.

story: the expedition starts when Pine through remote studies discovers an energy wave coming from the center of ebril, one she hypothesizes is similar to the energy that destroyed the region in the first place. at this point in time no one knows the original legendary has died, but this leads Pine to wonder if the legendary is gathering the energy after their sickness and thinks maybe it has the power to reverse the damage. she develops hazmat suits that should be able to endure most of the terrain of the land but isn't 100% sure on their durability. with all the preparations she can do, Pine and co set out to land in the dead center of ebril

once there they discover a giant crater right at the center, and at the bottom is an egg. the egg is the source of the energy wave, and they think maybe it houses a baby legendary. the player character is the first to approach the egg and the moment they get near it, the egg hatches, revealing a baby pokemon. it bears a resemblance to the legendary so they assume it is indeed the child of the former legendary, and also it's fucking adorable. whenever i picture it i think of kubfu or toxel bc theyre both Baby so it definitely is shaped similarly. after study its found that surprisingly, this baby is normal type. they're confused because while there are conflicting accounts on what the legendary's typing was, there's an agreement that it's something like psychic or fairy or dragon. however, once the baby is right next to the starter of the player, it suddenly changes to the same type. they experiment with the other starters and find that the baby pokemon does change type depending on its environment, but cannot be more than one type at a time. it defaults to normal if its kept in a neutral environment away from other pokemon. basically it's kinda like silvally

and so they're all in the direct center of ebril which represents normal type and thus the only thing wrong with it is the toxic atmosphere, however Pine theorizes that the baby has the ability to fix areas due to the type changing. she comes up with two hypotheses: either bringing the baby into say the water area will turn it into a water type and it will be able to fix the place with the typing, or if you enter the water area while the baby is a type that is strong against water like grass or electric that can help overpower it and thus reverse the damage of the area. they don't have a fighting type with them so they can't test this theory about weaknesses right in the area they're in so they can only test the first theory, and of course it doesn't work out. and so the first part of the journey starts

each member of the expedition is given a role. Pine remains at base camp and does research there, the twin ventures out to observe the pokemon and how they've changed since the apocalypse, the rival does something or other idk i havent thought abt that, and the player takes the baby to try to heal each area. the first area visited is of course the area that is weak to their starter, so grass if it was fire, fire if it was water, and water if it was grass. these three areas surround the center of course so it works out. and just like Pine hypothesized, when the baby is the strong type in this area the surrounding radius of it and thus the player is completely safe.

in the journey the player discovers healing spots that work as a pokemon center, these spots are named an oasis. the player also encounters some of the wild pokemon which have grown feral and dangerous over time, so they're unable to catch them at the moment. some point in their journey they discover some other spot similar to an oasis, however it emits a strong energy similar to what the baby emits but on a higher scale, and when the baby is placed in the spot the whole area returns to the way it used to be. and so that becomes the goal: to travel to each area with the baby and fix them with this power spot. also every time the baby sits in a power spot it gains the ability to change to the typing of the area at will. also i should mention the baby is carried around in one of those baby backpacks bc i think that would be adorable.

the world is more or less completely open, the player can travel to any area as long as long as they're wearing a hazmat suit, but the area can only be fixed if the baby has been in an area that is strong to another area and so on.

and yeah thats abt what ive got, i havent thought too hard abt stuff like an evil team or whatever but maybe i will one day who knows. thanks for asking and if u read all the way to the end thank u!

[breadthecat]

All of MY kindergarten AUs

Here is a thorough list of all of my kindergarten aus. I tried to order them in a mix of most popular and most detailed. As gamer is sorta popular, however it’s not as fleshed out as some of my other aus. Many of the aus on the top have a lot more to them. Also, please don’t copy them, I put a lot of time into these (It’s chill if it’s a similar concept but don’t just rip entire specific details straight from my aus).

Watch, I probably still forgot some. There’s 17 in all.

—

Teen Punk - an au where Felix and Lily go through a punk phase in high school, at the surface level. The au spans much further then that, however, even post college years. Lily remembers the resets, which really fucks up her life and perspective of everything, the root of her hatred of Nugget and Protag. Ted and Felix actually get along because they grow out of that phase in late elementary school/early middle school. It’s the token Lily x Felix au, and it’s co-created by @randomguygoesviral . That being said, it’s a lot angstier then it first seems :)

Teen Punk Spin-off - an alternate universe where the high school functions similarly to the Kindergarten game. Meaning the protag has a route where he kills Lily and Felix. He kills Lily by tricking her into a room with toxic gas. After lily dies, Felix rushes in an refuses to leave her, eventually succumbing to the gas as well. Despite that brief description, it’s a really hard route to complete and doesn’t feel very rewarding when you do.

Void Lily - Lily remembers the resets, which wasn’t supposed to happen in her universe. This causes her world to collapse and traps her into a white abyss, the void. She slowly grows distant from her other lily counterparts, seeing herself as a separate entity. She uses a wide verity of names, eventually adopting the name Vivi. She discovers how to communicate and eventually hop worlds(aus). Due to her time in the void, she appears around 12 years old but is closer to 20. She was the first and original void based/“omnipresent” au in the fandom.

(Putting the rest under a read more)

Gamer - Billy, Monty, and Cindy are gamers and are dating. Billy is a fairly popular YouTube gamer known for being soft, a good singing voice, and having bright pink hair. Monty and Cindy eventually get roped in. Lily and Billy are on very bad terms. As implied, it takes place during high school years. Outside of crackships, the plot involves games leaking into reality and getting fun abilities from it. I’ve managed to only barely work on the plot

Affinity - if you have a near death experience but aren’t afraid, there is a chance you can develop a super power. This is what happens to Felix, Ted, Lily, and Billy (and maybe some others). Felix and Ted manage to keep these newfound powers hidden for years before their parents find out and disown them, trying to turn them in for study. They get taken in by Danner (Dadner). Unfortunately they don’t escape forever :)

Worst Heir - (TW SUICIDE) Felix grows up feeling like he’s truly a monster and never has done anything good in his life, and decides to “amend” that. Felix doesn’t pass on as expected, having to watch how devastated Ted is. Also some ghost shenanigans.

Soulless - Everyone is supposed to have a soul, a driving force that keeps them going. Without it, you lack empathy, motivation, and warmth, and can eventually result in death. Around the events of Kindergarten 2, the small flicker of a soul Felix had goes out. This is the cause of his cold nature, and leads to him slowly become ill and almost dying. Ted catches on that something is genuinely wrong but is only able to convince his parents when Felix is on the brink of death.

Chosen Ones - each of the kg characters are drawn to a different magic stone that gives them a special power. The pull of the stone is unbreakable, even to the extent that Carla and Monty inadvertently rob a museum for theirs.

Evil Clone - during Billy’s capture, the principle makes a clone of Billy in order to thwart the protagonist. There’s also made clones of the slime trio, however they are imperfect.

Pkm Blessing - a Pokémon au where legendary Pokémon have the ability to gift a trainer with the ability to understand Pokémon, but they can only choose one. Felix is chosen by Mew. Ted also sorta kinda joins the evil group, whoops

Linked - Agnes gives Ted and Felix a telepathic link to eachother to force them to get along. It works, but also brings a lot of pain.

The Remembrance - everyone suddenly remembers all the past routes and takes it very very poorly. Ted repeatedly pummels Felix to death, Cindy and Monty harassed and kill the Janitor, lily and Billy do not take kindly to the monstermon ending. The slime trio and the hall monitors hide away from the chaos

Split - Felix gets separated from his family at a train station and gets horribly lost. Jerome and his mom take him in. Felix developed pretty severe abandonment issues. kindergarten 2 doesn’t happen. Felix really likes the story of the ugly duckling

Fairytale - all the characters are mythical creatures or based in a fairytale setting. All of them know eachother in some way. Lily, due to her “unladylike” attitude, is cursed by a witch and put into a sleeping beauty esc sleep. Due to a magical link with her twin, Billy also risks falling into a permanent sleep too any time he rests. This au actually has an ask blog that never finished its story, but I posted the entire story line there.

Angel of Death - The monstermon ending backfires and gives lily demonic powers to use for evil.

Spoiled - Felix gives lily lots of gifts and spoils her. Rich kid stuff, but wholesome

Deity - lily and Billy are nature deities. Felix accidentally gets Lily’s attention, and if he’s not careful, she would straight up murder someone for him.

[jadekitty777]

On Your Six, Chapter 1

Okay first of all, did we all coincide the Taiqrow Week with Father’s Day... accidentally? Because that’s secretly genius. 

Secondly, whoops we’re also meshing with Qrowin week - hope y’all are okay to share!

Finally, let’s get down to business. Hi y’all, hope you haven’t missed me too much. Hopefully I can make up for my silence with this absolute beast of a fanfic. This is going to be a single, interconnected story matching the prompts of the entire week. I hope those of you who choose to read it, will enjoy it!

Day 1: Tattoos for @taiqrowweek

Rating: T for this chapter, M for overrall

Words: 2.3k

Summary: Qrow was what most of society would call a small-town criminal. But to those oppressed, he hoped only to be a healer. In an effort to make a change in the world, he moves from kingdom to kingdom, searching for branded omegas in need. His goal? To turn the derogatory words the reformatories forced them to bear on their skin into works of art.

Then one day, his past catches up to him in the form of Taiyang, his former best friend, with a brand of his own stained onto his skin and a plea for help in his eyes. Qrow has no choice but to answer, even if it means he’d have to face his mistakes once and for all.

[An ABO-style universe in a modern-day style Remnant. No Grimm, because people are the real monsters in this one]

Ao3 Link: On Your Marks

~

The day Taiyang walked into his shop, before even a single word was spoken, he knew.

It wasn’t from any particular mannerism. Everyone’s body language was different. A chattering mouth. Averted eyes. A tapping foot. A drooped posture. In the short time Qrow had been doing this, he’d learned no single action could encapsulate the variety in which people expressed their shame.

Yet, not a single one could escape the stench. It was a foul thing. Sharp and smokey, like a tire fire on a junkyard, it lacquered over an omega’s scent so completely that it was near impossible to catch a whiff of the true smell that was originally there.

Even now, as Qrow inspected the damage upon his former friend’s bare back, mere inches away from the man’s scent glands, he couldn’t pick out a hint of the sunflowers and fresh soil that was Tai. Nothing left except the reek of burnt rubber and dishonor.

He didn’t call attention to it, just like he didn’t call attention to the shake in his friend’s shoulders as he placed a hand over the first mark. “This is extensive.”

“I know. But, I didn’t know who else to turn to.” Even as he turned his head to look at him, Tai hunched over a bit, and the brand seared across his shoulder blades stretched with the movement. “You’ll help me, right?”

Qrow’s eyes flitted between watery eyes and stained skin where the word SLUT, all in caps like some mockery of a grand declaration, taunted his every decision since their falling out and left the taste of bile on his tongue.

“Of course.” He promised.

~

It was widely thought that it was a farmer that first came up with branding back during the Early Modern period. Having been “inspired” by the tagging of the cattle which kept them in order, the alpha decided to do the same to omegas, ascertained the same outcome would follow. The practice was later adopted by prisons and other corrective facilities. Back then, it was merely a way of keeping track of those who had been in and out of the system by searing the skin with an iron that had the center’s insignia on it.

Advancements to the printing press and mail systems did away with that particular need, but while the jails abolished the practice, reformatories did not, releasing studies that claimed the procedure resulted in more ‘proper’ and ‘desired’ behaviors in omegas and were absolutely critical to full rehabilitation.  Despite newer evidence showing these original claims were likely falsified simply for convenience and often actually had a devastating effect on an omega’s psyche, the three-century long old policy had yet to be abolished from the system.

The most the outcries had done the past few decades was change the method on which the ‘brand’ was applied. Instead of an iron, it was done with a tattoo needle and instead of an insignia, it became a single word that was like a permanent reminder of what landed the omega in the facility to begin with. The stench was caused by the use of the chemically enhanced ink that made it impossible for laser technology to fully remove.

In short, if an omega wanted the mark gone, their only choice was to cut out their own skin. Most, like his mother, accidentally killed themselves trying.

Which led to where Qrow was today, trying to shake things up in the only way he knew how. So, he jumped off society’s grid, took up a needle and his drawing skills, and turned the marks into works of art. More importantly, he gave the omegas who came to his door a way to recover and take back their lives.

He just never thought Tai would be one of them.

Once he’d taken the pictures he needed and Tai’s shirt was back on, things were relaxed enough he could brew some tea. As he handed the other man his cup, Qrow finally asked, “So, how’d you find me?”

“Wasn’t that hard.” He replied, fingers wrapping around the porcelain. “The omegas back at the reformatory would whisper before bed. It didn’t take me long to figure out they were talking about you.”

Qrow froze, trying to hide his trepidation. “Oh? They say my name?”

Tai snorted. “Not your name, but a name.” His expression turned cheeky. “Don’t worry though. Only someone who knows Harbinger used to be your Relics & Wyverns character could put the pieces together.”

“Ah, can it!” He barked as a flush worked its way up his neck. Still, tension drained from him. While there were no laws that specifically stated what an omega was required to do with their mark after their rehabilitation was complete, if he was caught tampering with it for them, he knew the courts could claim he was willfully interfering with a person’s emotional stability. Might even get him on a few counts of practicing mental health care without a license too.

Still, he didn’t particularly want to be sent to the slammer, which was why he worked so hard to keep to the underground. Never told anyone his name. Moved often. Kept minimal contact with clients. Whatever it took to make sure only the people who needed to find him could.

“I’m glad that you’re doing alright for yourself.” Tai said, giving a cursory glance to the shoddy working space that doubled as his apartment. Beyond his tattoo kit, he rarely took much with him when he relocated. Sometimes he got lucky on the accommodations and the place would already be partially furnished, other times he had to make do with what he could afford from the nearest thrift store.

This place was one of those latter times. He had a mattress on the torn up box spring with a chipped nightstand beside it, a circular, rickey table with two chairs for the dining room, a fairly barren kitchen area, and a slightly beat-up leather recliner for the clients.

It wasn’t hard to see Tai was really reaching as he said, “Your place is… nice?”

It was Qrow’s turn to snort. “At least be honest and tell me I live in a shithole.”

“I was not going to – okay, yeah it is kind of a shithole. But, you’re eating okay and everything, right?”

What an omega. “Yes mom, I’m getting my three squares a day and I’m even brushing my teeth before bed.” He lent back, the plastic chair creaking underneath as he did so. “But you didn’t exactly come here to critique my living conditions. Think there’s a lot more important stuff to talk about, don’t you?”

Suddenly, the tea was much more interesting than his face. “Yeah. Right. Um, guess there’s a lot to catch you up on, huh? You don’t even know about-”

“Whoa, hold up a sec.” He quickly interrupted. “Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t ask for any of my clients’ stories unless they feel like sharing. Some do, some don’t. But my help doesn’t come with any strings attached.” He met his gaze, stressing the next part carefully, “Even if they’re friends, okay?”

Tai still seemed to hesitate. “But, don’t you want to know about Yang?”

Of course, he did. He had about a thousand and one questions whirling through his head. But that didn’t matter right now. “You ready to talk about her?”

For the second time that day, tears shimmered in Tai’s eyes. He looked away quickly, saying nothing.

Yeah. He figured as much.

“Then no.” Qrow cleared his throat some. “Besides, I’m still a total disaster when it comes to handling people when they cry.”

That one, at least, earned him a weak chuckle.

“Some things never change?” Tai said with a sniff, rubbing the corner of his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“If it ain’t broke…” He shrugged. “Anyways, what I meant was, how do you want to change up that lil’ blemish a’yours?”

“I, uh, I don’t know. What do you normally do?”

“Turn it into a single design. But, I’ve never had to work on one so large before. That thing’s taking up about half of your back. Still doable, just… more difficult.” It was easy to busy his designs enough the word got lost under all the rest. Working on a scale of this size though, there weren’t many things he could think of that would both look nice and cover up the word. “Not to mention, we’ll have to take a lot of breaks, so your skin can heal.”

“How long do you think it would take?”

“Well, with three weeks between each session and the scale and details… probably nine to twelve months?”

Tai’s face fell. “Oh.”

“Something wrong?”

“Oh, no I mean…” He sighed. “I was just, kind of hoping it would be done before October, is all. Before the kids come home.”

Kids?!

As in plural?!

Qrow had to bite his tongue to physically stop himself from breaking his own rule. Took a deep, steadying breath.

Okay. That was six months away. There was no way. Unless…

“Well, we could make it four separate designs. One for each letter. That way I could work on one side and then the other while it’s healing. If we meet every week, should be doable. Gonna be some long hours under the needle for you though.”

Tai lit up just like the sun he was named after. “I can handle it. I’ll do anything. Oh-! We could even make it four dragons, couldn’t we?”

Qrow barked out a laugh. “I mean yeah, if that’s what you want. Give me your scroll deets. I’ll work up some designs over the next few days and send them to you.” As he pulled out his device to input the information, he added, “We gotta work out a schedule too. What days are RO?”

“She visits on Tuesdays and Saturdays right now. It’ll go down to once a week pretty soon. I’m also TA-ing at Sanctum Middle, so weekdays are pretty full.”

It was all par for the course. Even after doing time at the reformatory, omegas still had to have frequent visits from their rehabilitation officer, to make sure they were keeping a steady job and homelife. That meant good evaluations from his superiors and a living space that looked like not even a speck of dust had had a chance to touch down. This was especially important for omegas like Tai, who would have to fight for every top mark he got. If he failed to, the RO would claim he was still unfit to raise his own children and keep them in the fostering system.

Qrow knew that was the reason for the six-month time limit. He had no doubt that once Tai was out of parole and had his pups back, he’d be hightailing it out of the kingdom. But for the RO to still be visiting at that frequency… “Did you come looking for me right after you got out?”

“I-” The tea had become interesting again. And cold. “Yeah. I knew you were working out of Mistral, and Atlas allows for transfers to Argus.”

At this rate, his tongue was probably going to have indents from his incisors. Once he knew he wasn’t going to start prying or, worse yet, shouting at Tai - because really how stupid could he be?! – he opened his mouth and said, “So, Sundays then?”

For the first time in nearly six years, Tai smiled at him. “Sounds perfect.”

~

For the next few days, Qrow did nothing but draw. Whether it was with a buzzing needle or a pencil, his hand was rarely empty. Even as he downed his morning coffee or spun his suppertime noodles onto his fork, his other hand was moving over a sheet of paper, his muse on overdrive as he tried to pick out the perfect designs for each letter. By nightfall, he was sending at least half a dozen pages full of sketches to Tai, then checking his phone every five minutes as he impatiently anticipated his reply.

It didn’t actually matter where they started, because once they decided on which letter was going first, Qrow’s focus would narrow to the second one over. The tricky thing was, Tai had always been the type who was simple to please – well before a reformatory could ever drill that lesson into him. Even when they were young, whether it was a question of what game they wanted to play or what food they wanted to eat, Tai would almost always just grin and say ‘whatever you want’. Which meant, every sketch was perfect and Qrow had to work twice as hard to actually find something he truly fell in love with.

He knew he finally struck gold for S when Tai figured out how to use the circling tool on his scroll and sent the shot back with an exuberantly loud ‘THIS ONE’, followed by a horrendous amount of exclamation points.

Qrow had never felt prouder.

It was a small effort to resketch the piece in full and line it. Adding color was more challenging, as he had to balance what looked nice with the limitations of his inks. But leaving it without was absolutely not an option. Not for someone who used to decorate his walls with paintings of tropical beaches and autumn-locked forests and had had a Crayola box spectrum of begonias sitting on his windowsill in his childhood room. Tai was a man who radiated a rainbow both in his life and in his heart. To try to dull that by leaving him in nothing but blacks and grays was a crime Qrow wasn’t willing to commit.

Besides, the design wouldn’t translate well without it.

So, he kept working at it until he knew it was just right. When the omega’s excitement only seemed to grow, he knew his labor was over.

[dontcallmecarrie]

My AUs, Fics, and Everything In Between

[Apologies in advance for the long post, but hopefully this will cooperate with mobile and make sure everyone’s on the same page.]

Just as a general PSA, I have quite a few AUs going on. Not all of them are full-blown fics, but they all have their own tag for if I ever have the time and energy to get around to writing it. The outline for said AU contains major spoilers for the ending of said hypothetical fic if you’re a stickler for that sort of thing [apologies in advance— sometimes I stick to them when writing, sometimes I don’t]. You’ll also notice some overall trends, such as my being bitter about the MCU’s writing from Phase 2 onwards, the MCU’s tendency to fridge moms, and the staggeringly wasted potential of Star Wars’ sequel trilogy.

Format is as follows: Outline, general description, status, link to fic [if applicable], tag on tumblr

Marvel Cinematic Universe:

The War is Far From Over Now: in which it’s Tony’s self-awareness, rather than self-confidence and/or support system, that became a cryptid sometime during Phase II. aka the Accidental World Domination AU Complete: fic on AO3, behind-the-scenes stuff on tumblr

sidefic on AO3 here, and tag for cracky post-fic thought exercises here.

Moments of a Dying World: a tragedy in which rocks fall, everyone dies, and Thanos is vaguely impressed by the carnage. Complete. fic on AO3, tag on tumblr

The Fix-It Version [I Probably Won’t Be Writing Because I Can’t Do Romance To Save My Life], aka the Inception-y Romance AU: in which it was all just a dream, which is actually far less comforting than what it sounds like. What you see is what I have— don’t really have a name for this AU, this is the tag I have for it meanwhile

Whisper of Every Waking Hour: the Hanahaki AU. Complete: fic on AO3, what I have on tumblr [including several alternate endings]

Welcome To The Family: in which Natasha is a far better friend [or, my attempt at a character study for one of the female characters whose writing got butchered] WIP: fic on AO3, tag on tumblr

By Myself But Not Alone: in which time travel occurs, and fixits abound…now if only the butterfly effect weren’t a thing. aka the time travel tire fire AU WIP: fic on AO3, what I have for it on tumblr

By Dawn’s Early Light: the one where Maria Stark née Carbonell burns empires with a smile, and things go sideways from there. WIP: fic on AO3, what I have for it on tumblr. 

note: this AU’s my go-to for when I’m dealing with writer’s block, by which I mean that there’s some experimental concepts that may or may not be considered canon to the fic. Heed the tags.

An Old Acquaintance Severed: in which Tony does meet up with Aldrich Kilian, but creates a monster anyway. What you see is what I have— don't have much other than a name for this AU, doesn’t actually have a tag yet, whoops

Ere The World Falls: my attempt to mix Norse mythology and the MCU in a way that doesn’t give me a headache. WIP: fic on AO3, tag on tumblr

Fire At Will: in which Civil War sees a roster change with far-reaching consequences. Just an idea, don’t have much for it otherwise. tag doesn’t have much, anyway.

All It Takes Is A Spark: more of a concept than anything else, really. In which Tony’s Mexican-American, and...it shouldn’t change anything. In the great scheme of things, it doesn’t matter what his mother tongue was. [Except for the way it really, really does.] no fic idea, don’t have anything going for it other than the tag.

Watch The Power Fold: Obadiah Stane was a huge influence in Tony’s life. How about we dial that up a notch? [just a thought exercise currently.]

bonus fixit that turned into its own AU here, feat. Nick Fury taking Obadiah’s place and Tony becoming the spitting image of his father in more ways than one. Going to need to rename one of these if I ever get around to writing it— I’m currently using the same tag for both

Live Through The Rain: crossover in which Maria Stark’s hometown was Night Vale. Cue butterfly effect. Complete: fic on AO3, tag on tumblr

Just Hide Behind Your Pride: Howard’s perspective of this AU. [Hint: he’s pretty damn oblivious.] Complete: fic on AO3, tag on tumblr

Only The Names Change: Tony-centric sequel to LTTR, picks up from where it left off and slated to go up to the first Avengers movie. Currently just a concept, though the tag has some ideas I’m playing with

Walking In The Footsteps: the Stark Family Reunion, which goes as well as can be expected. Also currently just a concept— tag’s mostly just me spitballing ideas

No Hero [Downward Descending]: Justin Hammer’s name wasn’t always Justin Hammer. He doesn’t really remember what it was anymore, but he knows that much. Started out a cracky thought exercise, now is something else entirely, tag on tumblr, what’s been crossposted to AO3

Dandelion -Wishes Brought To You-

Under the Same Sky: in which I, lowkey bitter about some things that went down in the game, decide to take a stab at how I would’ve written a Wizard route. Meant to be a mix of mystery and romcom tropes, in between the identity crises and questioning about one’s purpose in life that Dandelion specializes in. I...should post a fic idea, shouldn’t I? Even if it’s super-mega-spoilery for the entire AU. fic on AO3, tag on tumblr that I don’t really use

Summer is Here Again: prequel to Under The Same Sky, answer to the questions raised in the main fic... and that’s about the only thing they have in common, because UtSS is a romantic mystery and this is straight-up psychological horror and tragedy. posted to AO3, don’t really have a tag for it

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy:

The Rise of Darth Calamity/The Man Who Sold The World: the one where Ben Organa Solo inherits his grandparents’ social justice rants instead of any murderous tendencies. WIP: fic on AO3, my rambling about it on tumblr

Darth Calamity’s the main AU, but I also have the idea for a remix that has 100% less angst and 200% more shenanigans, thus the reason most of it’s also tagged with ‘The Man Who Sold The World’.

also, because I am fueled by equal parts caffeine and Spite™, the tag ‘in which Darth Calamity meets canon and absolutely no one is happy’. Is it petty? Yes. Do I care? I sat through the The Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker was the last movie I ever watched in theaters and finally discovered something I despised as much as MCU’s Civil War, does it look like I care?

Misc:

Blurred Lines: a Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover, wherein Martha Jones replaces John Watson. Cue divergences. [outline’s not posted, on the basis that it is a mess because it’s the very first fic I ever came up with] WIP: fic on AO3, what I have on tumblr

Twilight/Welcome to Night Vale crossover: In which Bella hails not from Phoenix, Arizona, but from a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead on a regular basis. What you see is what I have, and I don’t really feel inspired to poke at it anymore. Doesn’t even have a tag, other than Twilight

About me:

shit keeps going down in my life, don’t ask me to update faster because that will kill any motivation I have for just about any given WIP. 

My AO3 

My FFN [...that I haven’t touched in years, because my writing style does not mesh with that website’s formatting]

My Dreamwidth [...that I also don’t touch and use it solely for archival purposes, because if I lose everything I ever wrote here I would not be a happy camper]

[national-nobody-writes]

2020 Creator Wrap

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

I was tagged by the oh so talented @irolltwenties!

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I’m not a particularly prolific writer (WIPs for days, but completed projects? Not so much). Somehow in this hell year though, I did manage to complete more fics than in any previous year for a total of seven new works (~49k words, all on ao3), plus a chunky chap of a long running WIP (~20k words) so I’m actually pretty damn proud of myself! I also made some new fandom friends in 2020 which has easily been one of the biggest delights of the year & has definitely helped my creative momentum, so ty all for that. <3

Counting down from 5, here are my favs:

5. Downtime

I have endless love for JayRoy and it felt so good to finally finish something for them for once this year! All of my past WIPs primarily focused on them ended up firmly in my graveyard folder, including the fic that this one shot was originally meant to be connected to. I liked the way this turned out well enough to clean it up and post it on its own though, so at least now I can say that I have something published for them at last.

(Also it got me back into the JayRoy headspace enough to outline a whole YJ/Earth16 JayRoy fic that I’m excited to start drafting in 2021, so we’ll see where that goes...)

2.3k NSFW; A mix of playful sweet and roughness, just like them.

4. Mirror Image

Bluepulse Week really saved me this year in terms of forcing me to just write, damn it! Did I finish all the prompts this year? Nope. Did it get me to complete a handful of fics that I ended up really loving? Yes. This was one of them.

This fic zoomed into existence entirely out of necessity as an alt idea to a prompt that I had a much longer idea for, but didn’t have time to complete. It then got a positive enough reception that I decided to turn it from a crack-adjacent, passable one-shot to a slightly more developed two-shot by request of one of my commenters. Really, it was writing that second chapter that ended up endearing the fic to me.

6.3k Humor, time travel shenanigans & accidental dating. This fic is the sweetness of teenage crushes, the confusing mess of discovering your sexuality, & laughter with your best friend.

3. Soft Wesper One Shots

Would you look at that, another nsfw piece. Could it be that I’m starting to get to the point where I can look back at completed nsfw fics without cringing terribly? Love that for me.

This fic took me by surprise, tbh. I wouldn’t consider myself a part of the grisaverse fandom (I’m utterly ambivalent toward the OG trilogy & have no plans to read them), but I did fall deeply in love with the whole Six of Crows gang earlier this year to the point of having quite the book hangover afterward, unable to pick up anything else except related fanfic for a couple weeks straight. These fluffy, nsfw scenes were born out of that, and I was pleasantly surprised to see such a positive response to them in the comments. The whole SoC gang has my heart, but the dynamic between Jesper and Wylan in particular got my writing fingers itching.

3.7k Domestic, post-canon fluff & tender sex with flirty Jesper & blushing Wylan abound.

2. Stick With Me

Ohh, I still get warm fuzzies thinking about this fic! If I’m only low-key proud of the first three on this list, this is one I’m legitimately very proud of. I had this idea on the docket already from a convo with @ivyxwrites early this year (or maybe last year? who knows, time means nothing anymore) but used Bluepulse Week as the excuse to finally get started, and I ended up adoring the process of writing it far more than I anticipated.

As much as I love planning out meticulously crafted, plotty stories, sometimes all you want to do is pick some well-loved tropes out of a hat instead and run with them (in this case: stuck in a cabin, only one bed, & heated argument leading to confession). It was freeing to just mess around and have fun with this fic, knowing pretty much right from the get-go how I wanted it to unfold and seeing it so vividly in my mind. It also probably helped that I was writing it for Ivy; it’s much easier for me to stay motivated when creating directly for my friends.

Finishing this was also such a serotonin-filled burst of pure victory for me since, as previously stated, I’m terrible at finishing projects--particularly multi-chap fics, particularly within a decent timeframe.

25.5k A showcase of the essence of what I love about the best friends-to-lovers dynamic. Part character study, part wires getting crossed & uncrossed, and whole idiots to lovers. This fic is the warmth in the pit of your stomach from a yearning made real & the sudden clarity of realizing what you were looking for had already been there all along.

1. The Rest Pt 1: Delicate (Remember Me Chap 4)

Oh, Remember Me. Of everything I’ve ever written, this story remains the one I’m most proud of and certainly the closest to my heart (not to mention the longest running, whoops). The first iteration of the beginning of this story was actually drafted back in 2017, but I walked away from it for a couple of years before deciding to dust it off and try again. It has spiraled into something far bigger in scope than I originally planned for, but I’ve come to love the path it’s led me down so far, and finishing this whopping 20k chunkster of a chapter was like breathing a huge (if temporary) sigh of relief.

This chap was particularly cathartic to write because it allowed for a number of convos between the boys that had really needed to happen, and was finally the ‘getting together’ moment the fic had been building toward for a while. It’s also so sappy I could die, but I will not be apologizing for that, lol. I was really hoping to get Chap 5 up this year as well, but y’know. Sometimes things just don’t work out like you plan for and that’s okay. 

Chap 5 does have 17k done already (with prob another 5-8k still to go) & I’m itching to share it, but no sense in rushing if the end result would suffer for it. Luckily, everyone in comments has been kind enough to beat me over the head with ‘take your time, we don’t mind/we’ll still be here!!!’ which I’m immensely grateful for. So, at least the pressure to hurry up and get it done is purely self-inflicted.

Of all my works, this fic has not only gotten the most passionate responses, but has also been the main gateway for me to interact with other bluepulse creators, which has been a real joy. Nothing brightens my day like the essays people leave me over there from time to time after discovering the fic. That kind of engagement is the highest praise, & responding is very self indulgent fun for me (bc, clearly, I could go on and on about this fic & YJ in general forever).

54.8k total so far (WIP). Bart & Jaime’s relationship journey from beginning to ‘current day’ (aka the moment the fic begins), using amnesia/memory restoration as a framing device. The high highs and low lows of first love, navigating a 3 yr age difference, and the long, winding road from best friends to lovers as the years roll on. Slow-burn-adjacent (in terms of both the boys’ relationship to each other and reader’s relationship to the fic bc of how long I take between goddamn updates).

Tagging @ivyxwrites, @incorrectbatfam, @paintingwithdarkness, @bluepulsebluepulse

[fanfic-inator795]

Oneshot: Movies and Mermaids

((Have some Mikey and Draxum bonding *throws confetti*))

It wasn’t as if Draxum had any genuine interest in human culture, certainly not! He could care less! ...Though, his obvious lack of caring didn’t prevent certain annoyances.

Like how he would be sometimes be completely lost in certain conversations. A member of the faculty at the high school would ask if he had seen the latest film in theaters and if he liked it better than the remake, or how his fellow lunch servers would reference certain shows and encourage him to watch them as well - Gladys especially seemed entranced with a show regarding doctors all dating each other in-between doing their actual jobs, for whatever reason.

The rest of the city seemed to only aggravate him more. From displays and the videos that would play on the large screens on towers, to the advertisements he saw on the television box or in magazines. It just seemed like everything he saw in human culture was a reference to something or someone - a laundry list of names and shows and movies and jokes and even what were supposedly ‘simple’ concepts like technology and brands and lingo and-!

After over two months of living on the surface, Draxum had reached his limit. He was tired of constantly being confused. He was tired of constantly missing or misunderstanding the references.

He was tired of being reminded that this was not his world, that he was still a yokai in human clothing.

So naturally, as a man of science, Draxum thought it only made sense to start with some research. Granted there was an entire pantheon that he would have to go through, and without the power of the ‘internet’ and a television box that only had five channels, it would be a incredibly slow process... At the very least, O’Neil had said that she would help him get a human library card when they both had a free afternoon. 

In the meantime, Michelangelo had plenty of ‘reference material’, and even with the insistence that this was all for education and NOT entertainment, Draxum figured it was as good of a starting point as any, considering how much the humans seemed to admire their on-screen stories and their film stars. (No wonder Lou Jitsu was just as popular as an actor as he was as a warrior...)

It was late Friday night when Mikey showed up to Draxum’s apartment with a backpack full of movies of all different genres and formats and a VHS/DVD combo player tucked under his arm. “Good thing Donnie found this thing a few years ago, huh?” he said as he hooked it up.

Draxum didn’t bother replying. Instead, he was focusing on his choices for that evening - as well as for the rest of the week, since Mikey said he could borrow them as long as he needed to - pulling out each tape or DVD case and examining it carefully. Quite a few of them looked like they were for children, which he probably should have expected, though he didn’t dismiss them immediately.

“Don’t worry,” he heard Mikey said, “I remembered what you said. All of these are super popular ‘staples of human culture’ that practically everyone’s seen.”

“Good,” Draxum mumbled, putting aside a movie about a boat next to a movie about a boy gardener who wore a cloak and was apparently very harry. Picking up the next one, his expression flattened a bit at the cover. “This one you can take back, I don’t need to watch it.”

“Huh? Why- ohhh.” The box turtle chuckled as he took the tape, smiling at the younger version of his dad on the box. “Sorry, guess that one accidentally got slipped in there. Though to be fair, ‘Jitsu for Justice’ is a total classic.”

“Irrelevant,” Draxum huffed, “I have no desire to watch ANY of Lou Jitsu’s films, no matter how popular they may be. Once was more than enough...”

“Alright alright, I’ll- wait,” Mikey paused, “so you DID watch his movies?”

“Er, I- Not because I actually wanted to!” Draxum told him, “It was for research!” Mikey gave him a flat look. “He had stopped fighting in the Battle Nexus and I needed to study his moves! I-I didn’t enjoy doing it, if that’s what you’re implying! His movies were still ridiculous and completely unenjoyable! I would never actually-”

“Whatever you say, man,” Mikey shrugged, ignoring the Baron’s growls at being interrupted, “Though, how’d you watch ‘em anyway? I didn’t think that TV was that big of a thing down there?”

“I used my viewing orb to summon and display them, obviously,” Draxum told him, “Most yokai have them for when they need them, and they’re much more useful and clearer than any television box.”

“If you say so...” “Hmph.” With that settled, Draxum went back to digging through the bag of movies. It didn’t take long for another video to catch his eye, this one in a plastic case rather than a cardboard one, with a picture of a happy mermaid and an equally happy human plastered on it.

“Awwww!” Mikey said suddenly, “That was April’s favorite movie when she was little! Which meant it was one of the first movies she brought over to share with us! Heh, guess we borrowed it so often we forgot to give it back, whoops. But it’s a really good movie! See, there’s this mermaid who wants to live on land as a human, and she’s friends with a crab and-”

Draxum had begun to tune the turtle out as he continued to stare at the VHS case. Mermaids weren’t too common in the Hidden City itself, though that didn’t mean they weren’t there at all. The city was next to water, after all, and some would live on the shore or become part of an air-boat crew - and they certainly didn’t look like this.

He felt his thoughts start to swirl, becoming just as mixed as his emotions as a grimace began to form on his face. On one hand, Draxum supposed he should’ve been grateful that the humans were portraying a yokai positively - as cute and friendly instead of vicious creature that lived to drown humans. 

Centuries ago, before the Great Migration underground, Draxum had heard that and many other similar claims about his people... Baseless claims meant to justify hunts and attacking on sight...

On the other hand, did humans only see them as ‘harmless’ when used for entertainment purposes? Did they only approve of yokai existing when they only existed in fiction, where they could be used however humans saw fit? 

He was briefly reminded of the creatures - the ‘poke-o-mon’ - that he would occasionally see on shirts or on phones, creatures not directly based on yokai, but similar enough. He had to wonder how much other human entertainment was based on so-called fictional creatures and monsters that they never would have even smiled at before.

“-xum... Hey, Drax?” Mikey poked his bicep, making Draxum flinch. “You okay, bud-?”

“Fine,” Draxum snapped, though there was a little actual bite to it, “Just surprised that humans would portray a yokai so positively, even in fiction.”

“Most humans do think they’re just fiction,” Mikey told him. After a moment, his tone became a bit gentler, thinking back to certain points brought up by his father and April. “Though, I can still sorta see why that would feel weird or kinda insulting, seeing a fake version of yourself or your people and not knowin’ how they’d react to the real you, wondering if they would only like the fake you. That probably doesn’t feel the greatest... and I’m really sorry about that.”

Draxum blinked. He stared at the turtle for a few seconds before finally replying with, “You’re a lot more introspective than I would have thought.”

“I get that a lot,” Mikey grinned, “But hey, they don’t call me Dr. Feelings for nothing. So, did you wanna keep this one then, or- I mean, I can understand if-”

Draxum stopped him, looking at the tape again. “...I am admittedly curious,” he said, “You did say this was a movie humans watch as children.” Studying a species’ influences during adolescence could prove to be pretty useful in understanding the adults. “And besides, if the portrayal is truly offensive, I can always send a complaint to this ‘Walt Disney’ and demand certain edits.”

“Riiiiight, though I don’t think you’ll be too mad at this one,” Mikey told him, “Ariel is a great character, and all the other mermaids in the movie aren’t portrayed as jerks or anything. ...Well, one guy kinda is but, uh-”

“Let’s just watch it already,” Draxum told him, shoving the tape into his hand, “The sooner we start it, the sooner I can gauge whether or not it’s actually worth watching.”

Mikey smirked a little. “Heh, alright.” Opening the case, he pushed the tape in while Draxum went over to the couch they had gotten him at the thrift store, briefly checking it for bugs or lumps before sitting down. “Good thing it’s already rewound.”

The only annoying thing about that was that they had to sit through previews, though Mikey used that time to cook up some popcorn kernels that he had snagged on the way out of the Lair, easily cooking it using a pan and the stove top. (No one trusted Draxum with a microwave after That One Time.)

By the time he finished, the movie’s title had just faded onto the screen. Mikey smiled widely, the nostalgia from the music and the memories he had with the movie sending slight shivers up his shell. 

Draxum, meanwhile, was watching the film intently, taking in every detail. The mermaids in the film were still completely different than actual mermaids, but at least they weren’t an insulting caricature (even if they were a bit too human-like for his liking).

As it turned out, the main mermaid character was not only a bit of a collector and explorer, but also a human fanatic. “Ugh,” Draxum grumbled as he grabbed a couple more pieces of the puffed-up corn-snack. Mikey gave him a bit of a look, but he ignored it. Just because he had been able to find a bit of common ground and comradery with his fellow lunch servers didn’t mean he was willing to give ALL humans a pass.

At least the mermaid’s father seemed to have some common sense. In fact, Draxum found himself nodding in agreement with nearly every scene the mer-king was in. ...Up until a certain point, at least.

Mikey winced a bit as the scene began. He resisted the urge to go into his shell like he always had when he was little, but he did sink a little in his seat as Triton stepped out of the shadows. When he noticed Draxum glancing over at him, Mikey simply mumbled, “I always hate this scene...”

A couple minutes and a destroyed grotto later, and Draxum could sort of see what Mikey meant, understanding how Triton’s act might have been “harsh”, as the orange-wearing turtle would’ve put it.

As the movie moved onto the next seen, Mikey relaxed a little, though a frown remained on his face... However, his expression of sadness soon became one of confusion as he felt a hand pat the top of his head.

“Uh... there, there,” Draxum mumbled, giving Mikey one more head-pat before retracting his hand. It was awkward as all heck, they both knew it, but seeing the sheepman somewhat care about his feelings still made Mikey smile.

It didn’t take much longer for Ursula to make her appearance, and as soon as the Sea Witch began talking of deals and trades, Draxum gave a small smirk of his own.

“What?” Mikey asked, tilting his head a bit.

“I didn’t realize Big Mama was in this movie.”

Mikey snorted at that. “So what, you tell jokes now?”

The sheep-man shrugged as he grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Just making an observation,” he said simply. As the scene went on though, his mind made another small connection - Ursula’s two eels reminding him of his own pair of pets, even if Flotsam and Jetsam were much more confident than his former goyles.

Even so, the reminder made his chest ache a little... Not in sadness, mind you, or because he actually missed them. No, clearly his chest ached for a completely different reason that he was sure he’d think of later.

Once the little mermaid made the contract and silenced herself, the film very much became a literal ‘fish out of water’ story, complete with plenty of amusing moments featuring misunderstandings and an over-abundance of cuteness, as well as another musical number. Thankfully, before things became too saccharine, Ursula launched the second half of her plan to rule the seas.

After that, the movie moved pretty quickly through its third act. Draxum was a bit annoyed at the human prince being the one to ultimately save the day in the end, but overall he could agree that the ending was a pretty happy one.

As the credits rolled, Mikey looked at him with eyes wide. “Sooooo, what do you think?”

Draxum cupped his chin in thought, staying silent for a few moments before finally speaking. “...If the king’s trident had the power of transformation, why didn’t he just turn the prince into a merman?”

Mikey’s face fell. “...That’s what you got out of it?”

“It’s a valid question!” Draxum argued, “Why should she have to be the one to transform?”

“Because she wasn’t just after the guy!” Mikey told him, resisting the urge to facepalm, “You saw her collection and heard her song, she wanted to be human! She was tired of bein’ stuck in the same ocean and wanted something new - something she thought was cool!”

“Hmph, I suppose that’s true... Plus, she still has the option to turn back into a mermaid later on thanks to her father’s power, so at least there’s that.”

The box turtle slumped back on the couch, disappointed though maybe not too surprised. “I guess that means you didn’t really like it, huh?”

There was a long moment of silence. “I didn’t completely agree with the ending but... the film overall wasn’t too bad,” Draxum conceded, “Not as bad as I thought it’d be, at least?”

“...You really mean that?” Mikey asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t waste my time lying about something as trivial as animated human-entertainment,” Draxum replied, “And... there were high production values. Characters were mostly understandable, and it was... cute. Not too annoying or insufferable. Even if it was still slightly inaccurate to actual mermaids and mermen.”

“...You know what, I’ll take it. And I’m glad you enjoyed the movie, and not just for my sake.” With a bit of a ‘whup’, Mikey sat up and tucked his legs under his body in a sort of lotus position. “Though, now I’m kinda curious. What’d the movie get wrong, and what else can you tell me about merpeople? I only ever saw one, on Hueso’s brother’s ship, but that was only for like a second.”

This time, it was Draxum’s turn to give him a look. “Really... The child who’s always pushing me to ‘embrace humans’ and hide my ‘mystic stuff’ is asking me to teach him about a member of Yokaikind?”

“Hey, I only to tell you to hide your mystic stuff so you don’t get yourself evicted, fired or arrested,” Mikey retorted, “I’m not the one goin’ around mutatin’ kids and/or lunches and making giant stone heads angry.”

“...Fair enough,” Draxum said, only slightly reluctant.

“But as far as I can figure, there’s no harm in just talking about mystic stuff. And as for my actual interest... Yeah, I really do wanna know.” Unable to help himself, Mikey directed his gaze towards the floor - down towards the Hidden City that he knew was there. That he only now knew was there. 

He wouldn’t have traded his life with his dad in the sewers of NYC for anything, but he would’ve been lying if he said there wasn’t a small part of him that wondered what it would’ve been like to grow up around people that looked like him in a city full of magic.

“We protect humans, but we don’t like only humans, you know,” Mikey continued, “We’ve got other mutant friends, and yokai friends too.” His smile softened. “Senor Hueso and Sunita and the chefs I’ve met at Run of the Mill, they’re all so amazing. And I’ve only seen, like, a fraction of the Hidden City but I know that’s amazing too, and I just... This city - the surface - is always gonna be my home, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the other city or wonder about it.” 

He finally looked back at Draxum, his eyes firm. “So yeah... I wanna know.”

There was another moment of silence between them, though within it, the slightest bit of connection was formed. Small and fragile, but no less noticeable.

“...Fine,” Draxum finally agreed, “But pay attention, I don’t want to repeat myself later. First off, no merperson has the same skin tone as a human. They range between greens, blues and grays to help blend in with oceans. Their eyes are also much wider than a human’s to help them hunt.”

“Makes sense to me!” Mikey smiled, leaning back on his hands a little, though looking no less attentive. Even when the TV turned to quiet static, he kept his focus right on Draxum - a gesture the former warrior-scientist certainly appreciated, even if he didn’t say so outright.

“Merpeople are also able to survive outside of water. While mobility becomes an issue depending on how often they’re moving or traveling, they have no issues living on land - hence why some take to living on air-boats as a sort of compromise, plus it helps them travel across bodies of water in a shorter amount of time. They also don’t eat humans, despite the lies told about them, though they can be territorial when they are in the water - although you can’t blame them, especially if fish start to become scarce. Furthermore-”

It was sort of nice... Sure, Mikey had plenty he wanted to show and teach Draxum about humankind - and if all went well, then maybe there was a chance of Draxum having a change of heart. Maybe their technical creator wasn’t totally evil, and maybe one day, he really would be a better person and would understand what he and his family already knew. Mikey certainly hoped that would end up being the case...

But, in the meantime, maybe Mikey would end up learning a little from Draxum too. And honestly, as long as it wasn’t lecture series about ‘effectively destroying humans’ or anything like that, the orange turtle didn’t see anything wrong with that at all.

THE END

[magpiemorality]

Cheerleader Patton, could be college or a sports club, and Either bad boy/ on the sports team Remus, or Bad boy/"entrepreneur"/tries to know everything about everyone Deceit. if he has like a full on criminal empire or cheats test or etc it's up to you. If it's okay, I would either have a prompt where they both like Patton or one with Remus and one with Deceit, if that's okay ofc?

Well how could I not combine these all together? 

Unreliable narrators abound! Intruality! Moceit! College AU! :)))

AO3

***

Patton Sanders was the prettiest boy in the whole college. Actually if Remus had anything to say about it- the whole town. Maybe the whole world, but he didn’t have enough data on that yet. 

Remus was not the prettiest boy in the school. Or, second prettiest, because Patton’s status was uncontestable. Either way; Remus was barely a contender. He was always covered in bumps and cuts and bruises from fighting; he was steadily adding piercings wherever he could; his nose had long since gone crooked from a previous break; and he hadn’t quite got the hang of hairbrushes. It didn’t help that he was an avid football player, and so was unfortunately often in a state of disarray after practice, even though he was really careful to shower each time, honest! 

They were nearing the end of first semester of junior year, when one morning Remus made the decision that he was going to ask Patton Sanders out. It was a decision prompted only partially by the way Patton was currently floating gracefully down the gymnasium hallway for cheer practice, bestowing godly smiles here, there, and everywhere to grateful mortals. Remus felt his knees go a bit weak. 

He was knocked from his thoughts when someone smacked the back of his head, and he startled to realise that he’d frozen dead in the middle of bounding down the hallway with his friends, roughhousing their way to the changing rooms. “Where’s your head at, Duke?!” Toby cackled, and Remus shoved him away with an eye roll. 

“Nunya, October, get away,” Remus said, still gazing after the pretty cheerleader. His lovesick sigh was far too loud and Toby wasn’t stupid. The look on his face set off warning bells in Remus’s head. “Shit. You saw nothing. Nothing!” He smacked Toby on the ass with a whoop and they chased each other off to practice. 

Conveniently, for a certain cheerleader at least, he missed the way Patton turned to look, drawn by the commotion. And more importantly he missed the way Patton’s eyes swept over him quickly, as he bit his lip. 

***

Dexter O’Reilly (currently trying to go by ‘Deceit’, but that wasn’t catching on) was a busy young man. He had a double course load this year thanks to a light one in sophomore; a budding mostly-illegal gossip mill business plus bonus popular college secrets blog; and a very troubling crush on Patton Sanders. 

It was troubling for several reasons. Firstly; it was widely known that one of the footballers was harbouring a crush of his own, and that would definitely beat out his own feeble suit in the battle for Patton’s heart. Secondly; Patton was quite vocal about his distate for Dex’s (not that he knew it was his, luckily) secrets blog, citing the unpleasantness it always stirred up as his main reason. And thirdly; Dex was cultivating an aura of cool, calm suaveness. Going repeatedly tongue-tied and red in the presence of Patton Sanders actively worked against that image. 

He had spent Winter break at college this year, so he wouldn’t have to leave his business for too long, and so he could earn some cash on the side to save up for some kind of character defining statement piece. He was thinking gloves, or a cane- something retro and vaguely threatening… 

Everything would have been fine if Patton hadn’t also stayed over break. Because, really, there were only so many times you could accidentally end up having conversations while you were working in the cafe he liked to frequent while he studied, before the crush grew and you started to wonder if you were actually in with a chance. And there were only so many times you could look over at your crush while you were sitting with him on your break (after he offered and bought you a drink) and find him glancing away with a blush and a shy smile, before you started to dream about reaching out and touching his freckled cheek, tugging him a little closer, holding his hand… silly stuff like that. 

Patton did whisk off for Christmas and New Year, but he was back on the first and all too soon classes were resuming and their closeness was in peril. Dex… never quite managed to say anything important, and he hoped he didn’t imagine the slightly sad way Patton had said bye after Dex’s last seasonal shift at the cafe. 

What he hadn’t said was “I hope I see you during the semester”. What he hadn’t said was “I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you and I love you will you marry me”, but honestly to Dex those two statements were equally as unimaginable. 

And then it was back to business as usual. Dex was back to his important business of spreading the truth; Patton was back to being beloved of basically everyone and an untouchable tier one cheerleader; and although Dex didn’t know it and definitely didn’t care- Remus Duke was about to change their lives forever. 

***

(end of part one?) 

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

[sunnytumbies]

I'm somewhat confident that Amy's stress baking enables one or more of the other characters to then Stress Eat the baking, which could lead to Tummy Fic (tell me if I'm right and also you don't have anon asks turned on. c; might get more asks if you hit that switch!)

Whoops! Anons, you are now free to enter–sorry bout that! 

So, funny story: Tiny, you are right–you are so right, in fact, that I decided to write a lil fill for this! I had like 500 words written and then accidentally closed the tab :’), and for whatever reason my response was even more determined writing to finish it. Long story short, it’s now a /4391 word monster/ that I’m not even all that proud of, but I’m posting it anyway! It’s gonna be confusing & maybe a headache for me later because this is happening later in the story than the first “major story event” fic I’ll be posting but...here we are.

Content warning: this fic involves dysphoria, mentions of menstruation, self-loathing, and binge eating as a response to stress. Please be mindful should you choose to read!

___________________________________________________________

Amy hums lightly to herself, dusting the last of the madeleines with powdered sugar, breathing in the comforting aromas, honey and lemon mingling with cinnamon and apple, almond and vanilla, chocolate and bread. She can’t pretend that this was a good decision, can’t act like she would not have possibly benefit more from a day of studying than a day of baking, but the knots in her chest have finally started to loosen, and it’s hard to take that as anything but a win. She plates the madeleines and slides them into the last remaining patch of free space on the L-shaped countertop, clutching the notebook that belonged to her mother close to her chest. 

It’s not that Amy only ever bakes French desserts. She adores the challenge of baklava with its stubborn phyllo dough, loves the thrill and the spectacle of a good Baked Alaska; it’s just that sometimes, she needs to hear her mother’s voice in the only way she knows how–baking the way Maman taught her, dutifully reading the advice scrawled in the margins of her recipe notebook in eccentric cursive, cleaning as she cooks (”Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir, Amelie,” she’ll find herself muttering at times in a poor imitation of her mother. It translates to “It is better to prevent than to heal,” which she thinks is sort of intense as far as wisdom about cleanliness goes, but then, she’s never forgotten it). Professors will likely always butcher her last name, flattening the syllables into something harsh and ugly; classmates will continue to express their envy at the ease with which they assume she sails through her foreign language requirement, oblivious to the unique heartache of struggling to write in a language that flows from her lips with more ease than English sometimes; but no one can take this from her, her mother’s recipes in her mother’s own words, the familiar tastes and smells of home. 

It started with the croissants, shaping the dough she’d prepped earlier this week in preparation to make pains au chocolat--she can’t stop her lips from quirking up in a small, proud smile, now, looking at how perfectly they rose, how flaky the croissants are, how tantalizingly the smell of chocolate and freshly-baked bread is wafting off of them, how they glisten with brushed-on butter. But when her eyes glanced over the mostly-full bottle of fruity olive oil in the pantry, how could she resist whipping up a lemon curd tart, with its buttery almond crust and rich lemon custard filling? And it would have simply been silly to waste the lemon zest she had leftover from the tart--not when she could make the madeleines, tiny delicious cakes sweetened with honey and brown sugar, the tang of the lemon zest cutting through the sweetness in the most delicious way, complimented by the dusting of powdered sugar. Then, she thought, that was an awful lot of citrus--she simply had to offset it with a quick apple mille-feuille, the autumnal scent of roasted apples, maple syrup, and apple brandy making her wistful for October. But wait--no mille-feuille was complete without the bourbon whipped cream on top, and shouldn’t poor lactose intolerant Cal have plenty of options too? Besides, a simple spiced bread wouldn’t take too long, and the mixture of star anise, ginger, and cinnamon, sweetened with honey and rife with dried apricots and plums, would be sure to make a delicious sweet toast for breakfast.

Even still, it wasn’t truly over until she noticed that several cartons of eggs--which she, for obvious reasons, tended to buy in bulk--were set to expire soon, and it would certainly be foolish to waste so much money--really, she hardly had a choice! She made chocolate macarons with orange ganache, a cherry buttermilk clafoutis; she made kouign-amann, with its buttery dough and sugary crust, and, in a desperate bid to eat through the eggs, another batch of macarons, this time with raspberry-rose buttercream. Struck with a flash of inspiration, she used the egg yolks she’d set aside while whipping the whites into stiff peaks fit for a meringue to make toasted-flour sablé, a sort of moist little sugar cookie, and while she was at it threw in a batch of snickerdoodles--cookies were easy to both make and get rid of in bulk, and besides, they were Cal’s favorite. Lastly, she decided to tackle a chocolate pound cake--quatre-quarts au chocolat de juliette, her mother’s handwriting rebuked her, along with an all-caps reminder to bake it in a bain-marie, PAS au four!!!!!. It made Amy laugh a little, but she couldn’t deny that the water-bath made for a much richer, much more moist final product than the oven. 

She feels a brief rush of shame, looking over it all--it’s truly an improbable amount of baking she’s done, here--but her heart is full, her back aching in a satisfying, productive way. If nothing else, she’s made the house smell like home and has ensured that anyone who enters can leave full and satisfied. Finally, she removes her apron and checks her watch--perfect. She has about half an hour to get to work for her 8pm-midnight shift, a fairly non-intensive desk position at one of the campus libraries, and she’ll more likely than not have enough free time to look over her chemistry notes. As for the baked goods, she opts to leave them out, but takes a few moments to write out sticky notes (“dairy free! Come right in, Cal!”; “full of dairy! Cals beware!”), and smiles gently as she thinks of Cal coming home to a warm kitchen and plenty to eat. “That boy is too damn skinny,” she mumbles to herself fondly, and flicks off the kitchen light, leaving the one above the oven on to bathe the kitchen in a warm, welcoming glow. 

Cal is not having a good day. 

He shivers as another gust of wind blows what feels like through him, making his teeth chatter as he attempts to sink even lower into his hoodie. The slumping motion does not agree with his cramping lower belly, and he groans, straightening back up with an arm looped around his stomach. 

Any day at this time of month for him is a difficult one. He knows for a fact that he “passes,” but he still feels uncomfortably seen, feels like he has to hide himself from view as much as possible. It certainly doesn’t help that his skin hurts, that his belly bloats and his bound chest becomes sore, that despite the fact that he no longer bleeds, he gets all the associated symptoms, yeah, thanks for that, genetics. Even so, Cal isn’t new to this, exactly, and he can deal with the cramping, can even handle the accompanying dysphoria like a champ, but today has been extraordinarily awful. He couldn’t sleep last night, feeling in turns too hot and too cold, and barely made it to his bio class this morning; all the coffee machines were down in the dining hall, meaning his eyes were burning with exhaustion by the time he was halfway through bio, let alone his other two classes of the day; perhaps most damning at all, the paper he’s been counting on being due next week is actually due this week, causing him to spend an extra few hours in the library after class, barely awake, forcing himself to get something, anything onto the page; and, the cherry on top of it all, he missed the last bus home, hence tramping home now in the dark and the rain. More than one car has splashed him as it’s passed, and his jeans are practically soaked through. 

He’s cold, he’s exhausted, he barely even made a dent in the paper, and his fucking stomach hurts, the cramps now joined by an anxious knot; as much as he wants to take comfort from the fact that he can see the apartment complex getting steadily closer, he also knows that he’s going to be home alone, and something about that just does not sit well with him at the moment that Cal doesn’t want to analyze, thank you very much. 

He shivers his way up the stairs leading to the apartment, down the exceedingly long corridor, through the front door, and is almost immediately assailed by both a rush of welcome warmth and a rush of smells so delicious and overpowering that he knows immediately that today was a stress-baking day for Amy. Something drains out of Cal then, equal parts tension and restraint, the anxious buzzing of his thoughts thrown off by the sheer number of baked goods spread across the counter top. He lets his backpack fall to the floor with a thud. His stomach rumbles--he ate today, but not well--and he sort of knows he’s doomed when he catches the scent of chocolate, as well as when his eyes land on a plate of snickerdoodles (which very much does not make a lump rise in his throat, okay, it’s whatever, it doesn’t  matter, Amy made his favorite cookie for him in the middle of her own stress-fueled baking marathon, it’s whatever). Amy will be home soon. Quincy, too, at some point. He’ll be fine. He just needs to do what he can until then, and there’s no shortage of snacks to keep him busy while he waits. 

Shocking no one less than him, Cal has many, many regrets, and at least half of them are baked goods he has put into his body over the last hour. He whimpers a little, oh-so-gently palming his belly, which has distressingly little give even when he ventures to apply a little more pressure with his fingertips. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this bloated, heavy with food and swollen with almond milk, and he’d be lying if he said he’s not fighting tears, beyond ashamed to be in this state: slumped sitting on the floor, back supported by the side of the counter, shirt riding up to expose the pink flesh of his belly. He has to swallow thickly a few times, imagining the sugary sludge that’s surely squelching through his insides right now, trying to force back a dangerous burp that squeezes out anyway and leaves the taste of honey and cinnamon in the back of his mouth. He tried to be good, and that’s maybe what sucks the most. He started with a few snickerdoodles, ostensibly the only dessert on the counter that had been made for him, unable to hold back a little groan of pleasure at the taste, buttery and comforting and complemented perfectly by the crunch of cinnamon and sugar. He had four before pouring himself a tall glass of almond milk, chasing a few more cookies with it before deciding to investigate the irresistible scent of chocolate wafting from the plate of croissants. The chocolate might be a bit much for his lactose intolerance, he decided, and opted for two thick slices of the spiced bread instead, toasted and slathered with ghee. He swore they tasted like fall, like tramping through leaves and Halloween costumes when he was young. Something about filling his stomach after being so hungry and uncomfortable all day, recklessly, indulgently, eased the tightness of his chest, until he could scarcely even feel the chill from his still-damp jeans. 

He had already begun to feel rather full, but his interest was still piqued by the croissants, and he hadn’t even tried the little sugary-looking roll things, or the macaroons, or the cake--Cal squeezes his eyes shut, now, swallowing hard, struggling to even think about how much he’s eaten, but unable to completely erase the contrast from his mind between the overflowing countertop when he first arrived and the countertop now, an alarmingly high number of the cluttered plates more empty than not. All that really matters, he guesses, is that at some point filling his tummy began to hurt more than help, and he kept doing it anyway, and now his cramps have merely been replaced with sickly twinges and upset burbles. 

He tries to take a deep breath, which hitches as an ominous gurgle bubbles from the top to the bottom of his packed belly, and the tears he’s been clamping down on start to roll down his cheeks. He can’t do this, not alone, at least, and Amy’s shift still has 3 hours to go--they must have just barely missed each other. Part of him knows that he will probably feel worlds better if he simply allows himself to throw up, but he can’t handle that, not right now. He cradles his aching stomach for a moment, one trembling hand cupped under his lower belly, bloated and hot, and one resting on the hard little bloat of his tummy, even that feather-light touch ushering up a series of strained burps. After another moment of feeling his stomach contents swirl and slosh uncomfortably inside him, the nausea and misery outweigh his pride, and he hesitantly lets go of his aching stomach, swiping at his tears and pulling out his phone. 

I...fucked up, he texts her, and sends it before he can think twice about it. She replies almost instantly, one of his favorite things about Amy: ?????????????And a moment later, while he’s still figuring out where to begin: everything okay, honey?

The fragile control Cal has over his emotions abruptly slips at that, and he lets out a choked sob, swallowing hard when the motion upsets his tummy further. It hurts so fucking much, but Amy, Amy who bakes his favorites even in the middle of her own mini-crisis, Amy who takes the time to write adorable little sticky notes oriented around Cal’s dietary restrictions, Amy who calls everyone in the world honey because she cares about everyone in the goddamn world, Amy the literal human ball of sunshine--just, fucking Amy, okay? 

Yeah. I mean. I’m safe, but I’m not okay. I… Cal doubles over as a cramp twists deep in his belly, panting a little. Maybe it would be easier to just let himself be sick. You baked...a lot. I had a bad day. 

:((((( did u see my notes???? what’s going on??????

Cal has to blink hard against the tears at that, a new layer of guilt joining the anxiety and the shame of all he’s eaten. Stress-baking or not, this all had to have taken Amy a few hours, and he’d eaten right through a fair amount of almost everything. 

I’m sorry. I did see your notes. It’s not lactose, I just ate a /lot/ and I feel sick and I don’t know what to do 

A moment later, his phone buzzes with a call. It’s Amy, of course. 

“H-hey,” he manages, sniffing, and then hiccups just before a deep burp gurgles up from his churning belly, clamping a hand over his mouth for a moment as his gorge rises with it. 

“Cal, honey,” Amy says, sounding so fucking sad for him. It’s not like she’s never seen the fallout of his stress-binging before. “How much did you eat?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cal says hoarsely, his throat burning from stubbornly swallowing back stomach acid. “I’m just nauseous and sick and--and—” He falters, feeling like a child. “And I just really had a bad day, like a really bad day, Amy, and I know your day wasn’t so good either or you wouldn’t be stress-baking but I just, I’m so fucking tired, and my paper is due and—” He gags, suddenly, and has to take a moment to collect himself, hyper-aware of Amy’s concerned silence on the other end of the line-- “and I can’t do this alone,” he finally manages, voice cracking, and it is only the knowledge that openly weeping would send him over the edge right now that keeps him from dissolving into exhausted tears. 

“I’m so sorry, Cal. I wish I could be there,” Amy murmurs soothingly, and it’s almost, almost like she’s there. “If I could leave work I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I’m going to call Quincy for you, okay?” 

Cal’s heart squeezes at that, half-anxiety, half-hope, and maybe something else, too, a deep sense of being known--Amy knows that Cal knows that she can’t leave work. Amy knows that there’s only one other person that he’d want. Amy knows that he can’t--because of anxiety, because of what he sees as a low stakes problem relative to Quincy’s very high-stakes life, because, because, because--reach out to him himself when he’s like this. “Okay,” he whispers, and hope she hears the gratitude in it. 

“Of course,” she says, so warmly that it makes Cal’s heart ache a little. “Hang in there, okay? Try to stay calm for me. I’ll let you know when he’s coming.” 

“Love you,” he mumbles, and lets his phone clatter to the floor as soon as he hears the beep that means she’s hung up, clutching at his belly, feeling his stomach lurch and rumble. He’s so fucking full. He’s such a fucking idiot. 

Some time later, Quincy comes for him. 

Cal startles when the door creaks open, then whimpers a little at the resulting complaints of his stomach. There’s just so much pressure, his stomach tight and hot as though nothing is moving at all, though with all that he feels burbling against his palm, that can’t possibly be true. Quincy looks a little frantic in the doorway before his eyes come to rest on Cal, still curled up pitifully on the floor, both hands pressed gently against his bloated stomach. 

“Oh—” Quincy breathes, shutting the door behind him, crossing the space between them in an instant and crouching in front of Cal. “God, Cal, Amy scared me half to death. Are you alright?” 

“I’m—” Cal has to stop and breathe, composing himself as a wave of nausea crashes over him, his stomach squelching unpleasantly. All at once, he realizes that he’s no longer alone, that perhaps even if he should keep suppressing everything, he no longer wants to, and he no longer cares if he’s sick, he just wants to feel better, wants to be in his bed, wants to be warm and comfortable and safe--all at once, he’s doubling over his own lap, sobbing his heart out, barely even registering the flicker of amusement he’d ordinarily feel at Quincy’s eyes going comically round behind his glasses. His stomach aches, pain ringing throughout his abdomen at the movement, and before he can process much more than that a warm palm folds itself over his distended stomach, firmly enough to quiet the cramping there, but lightly enough to keep from exacerbating the nausea.

  “Cal,” Quincy says, in that low, soothing voice of his, “I am so sorry that you’re hurting, and I’m going to make that go away, but to get you feeling better, I have to get you off the floor. I can’t imagine that you are ready to move just now?”

  “No,” Cal breathes, his usual shyness dominated by hours of physical discomfort. “Please, just—” Tears dribble down his cheeks, his lack of sleep and general exhaustion beginning to catch up with him. 

Quincy seems to hear him anyway. “Okay, hey, heyheyhey, okay, that is perfectly fine. I’m here, alright? I’m here to help you feel better.” 

Ever so gently, Quincy eases himself behind Cal, so that his back is supported by Quincy’s chest rather than the hard base of the kitchen counter. Equally gently, his arms wind around Cal’s waist, both hands coming to rest on his abused stomach. He applies pressure to the bloated space between Cal’s navel and his ribs, rubbing in broad, gentle strokes, almost immediately ushering up a deep belch that has Cal going slack with the smallest but most welcome measure of relief. Quincy is so damn warm, and his rough palm is heaven where it rests on his lower belly, supporting the bloat from below to take the strain off of his overfull stomach. His other hand moves from that space in the middle of his abdomen to his stomach, the noticeable overfull bulge where the organ ought to be, rubbing in gentle circles. The pressure is almost too much and Cal shifts to tell him so, succeeding only in ushering up several more rumbling belches, one right after the other, left gasping with the relief of it. He is still painfully aware of how full he is, packed utterly to the brim with food, but the release of trapped air is so needed and so lovely. 

Quincy holds him like this for a while, coaxing up the occasional belch, paying extra attention to the twinges that make Cal groan with nausea. Cal finds his eyes watering again, this time with sheer gratitude for his dearest friends, for their kindness, for the quiet lack of judgement Quincy exhibits as he rubs his aching tummy. Eventually, Cal feels like he might be able to move without throwing up, and Quincy supports his weight with an arm around his waist as they make their way to Cal’s bedroom. 

“I’ll be right back,” Quincy says after depositing Cal on the bed gently. “Amy said you’d want a hoodie and some shorts. How did she do?”  

Cal smiles a little sadly, having trouble finding his voice, and Quincy barely misses a beat, busying himself retrieving one of Cal’s biggest hoodies and a soft pair of pajama shorts. “Either way, let’s give it a try. You should probably take your binder off--all that squeezing can’t be helping, and no wonder you’re shivering in those wet jeans!” He ducks into Cal’s bathroom for a moment, filling up the cup next to the sink with cold water from the tap, and offers it to Cal, making sure his shaking hands don’t cause a spill before he lets go. “Try to take some sips of that, okay? Trust me. We need to break up all that sugar.” 

Cal can’t argue with that, nodding, and waits until Quincy lets the door swing mostly-shut behind him, taking the deepest breath he can manage. His stomach twinges as he bends over to put the water on his nightstand and lifts his arms to pull off his shirt. wriggling out of his binder, and he pants for a moment as the sudden release of pressure on his stomach causes the nausea to flare before it thankfully passes again. He puts on the hoodie, immediately comforted by the billowing fabric, and wriggles out of his jeans and into the pajama shorts as quickly as he can manage, forcing himself to take a measured sip of water. His stomach tightens around it, and he swallows hard. 

“Hey,” Quincy says softly, knocking twice on the slightly-ajar door before pushing it completely open with his elbow. His hands are occupied with a tv tray, carrying a heating pad and a steaming mug of tea.  “Don’t force it. You’re still very full.” 

“Y-yeah,” Cal manages, finding his voice. “Tummy really hurts.” 

“I know,” Quincy murmurs apologetically, offering Cal the heating pad. Cal practically melts when the heat makes contact with his sore belly, instantly beginning to soothe his cramping muscles, even working its magic on the fullness, just a little. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Cal. I know you’re very full, but when you can, you should try to drink some water and this tea. It’s peppermint, so it should help with the nausea.” 

Flicking off the overheard light in lieu of Cal’s carefully-hung string lights, Quincy leaves the mug of tea on the bedside table closest to Cal, spreading the quilt at the foot of the bed over him, and Cal instinctively lets his head drop onto Quincy’s shoulder when he climbs onto the bed beside him. 

Cal nearly weeps again when Quincy reaches  for his bloated tummy without being asked, resuming a soothing pattern, rubbing wide, sweeping circles over his abdomen, applying pressure to the bloated place beneath his ribs, to his tense sides, to the hard knot of his stomach. Each instance of carefully-applied pressure coaxes up a series of rumbling belches that Cal didn’t realize he was holding in, eventually freeing up enough room for him to sip at the tea. 

“Amy will be home soon,” Quincy says after several moments. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like an idiot who stuffed my face with sweets all afternoon,” Cal mumbles, still wrestling with guilt, and Quincy frowns as his belly emits an audible squelch, smoothing a hand over it in slow arcs. Cal drinks a bit more deeply at the tea, unable to withhold a sigh of relief as it begins to fill the burbly places in his tummy, blissfully soothing the ache. 

“You aren’t an idiot, Cal,” Quincy says sincerely. “Amy says this sometimes happens when you get overwhelmed. You’re overwhelmed.” 

Something about the sincerity in his voice makes something big and terrifying shift in Cal’s chest, and he abruptly puts down the mug of tea in favor of hiding his face in Quincy’s chest, narrow frame wracked with tired sobs. He dimly registers that at least his stomach doesn’t react poorly to the movement. “I am,” he manages eventually, as Quincy gently shushes him, stroking his belly as though to keep it calm. “I am so exhausted, Quince.” 

“So rest,” Quincy says simply, “at least for now. And when Amy gets here, we’ll talk about what we’re going to do next. Okay?” 

Cal sniffs, nodding, still hiding his face, and Quincy lets him, simply bringing his arms around him, smoothing his hands over Cal’s back. Against all odds, particularly the still-overpowering sense of fullness, Cal feels his eyelids drooping. All of a sudden, everything has caught up with him, and he can barely form a coherent thought. It has been a day, his belly is now more warm than upset, and Quincy is a very, very comfortable pillow. 

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Quincy says, and Cal feels the rumble of his chest as he gives a low chuckle, too far gone at this point to respond. He’s going to have a lot to explain when he wakes up, but for now…

For now, Cal lays with his head on Quincy’s shoulder, arms looped around his neck, and Quincy pulls the quilt up around them. “I’ve got you,” Quincy murmurs, and the next thing Cal knows is blessed sleep.