#brendalpancake

[rubyofhouserocks]

figayda - the kids are all right (right)

(reposting for formatting reasons)

hi, this is an adorable prompt and was really fun to write. thank you!

ao3 link here

“You want me to teach you how to flirt?”

“Yes. Did you not hear me? Should I speak louder?” Ayda asks, raising her voice slightly.

“No, love, I’m just surprised is all,” Garthy says from where they’re lounging in the Gold Gardens. “After all, it’s not every day your parent-slash-child asks you for love advice. Ah,” Garthy sighs, “they raise you, die, then reincarnate and grow up so fast.”

“Please,” Ayda says, and though her level tone does not betray her, Garthy can tell that she is practically begging, “it is imperative that I learn this skill as quickly as possible.”

“Why’s that?”

“Fig will be arriving in Leviathan shortly,” she responds, hands fidgeting with the scroll that she is holding.

“Fig? The little tiefling girl who runs around with the Bad Kids?” This might be more challenging than Garthy originally assumed; if they remember correctly, Fig was pretty charismatic. She was probably rather experienced at flirting.

“Yes, she is extremely attractive, and I would like to be in a relationship with her.”

“Okay, well, you don’t wanna come on too strong, yeah?” Garthy says, gesturing vaguely with the bottle of mead in between their fingers. “Compliments are nice and all, but you don’t want to overdo it.”

“Is it weird or strange to compliment someone a lot?” Ayda looks nervous, and Garthy suddenly wishes that they could find every person who had ever made her feel bad about herself and personally kick them in the groin.

“No, no, compliments are very kind and wonderful, but flirting is about the chase, all right? It’s supposed to be a back-and-forth, like a dance. If you spend the whole time complimenting the person it’s hard to sustain any…” Garthy gestures with the bottle again, trying to convey the delicate communicative interplay of romantic repartee. It doesn’t quite come across. “Tension.”

“Duly noted. How, specifically, does one build that ‘tension’?” Ayda does not physically do air quotes around the word, but it’s evident enough in her tone.

Garthy thinks about it for a moment. The art of flirting is such a context-dependent one, but they also want to give Ayda actionable instructions. Eventually, they say, “if you can find a way to challenge her somehow, engage her in a little banter or maybe a friendly competition or some such, that can help build that tension you’re looking for.”

“And what do you do once the tension has been established?”

“Well, then you can start getting a little more physical, maybe put a hand on her arm, y’know?” Garthy says, waving the bottle rather dramatically now.

“Got it. I should keep the compliments to a minimum, challenge her to a friendly competition, and then touch her on the arm,” Ayda nods, committing the steps to memory like she’s reading an instruction manual.

“That’s about it, yeah,” Garthy replies, taking a sip of the mead to punctuate the thought.

Just then, the tiefling in question walks into the room.

“Hey Ayda, you look really nice today,” Fig says, voice bright and sincere. Garthy clears their throat. “Oh, and um, hi Garthy.”

“Hello, Fig,” Ayda says, and then opens her mouth as though to say something else. She quickly shuts it again, and Garthy imagines that she had intended to say something effusively kind back to Fig. Garthy maybe should have specified that it’s fine to return compliments, now that they think of it, but they figure that it won’t hurt her to play it cool.

“I’m really excited to visit the library,” Fig continues, not deterred in the slightest by Ayda’s terse greeting. “I can’t believe you’ve worked on it for so long. It’s really amazing.”

“You know, if we were to race to the library, I would probably get there first,” Ayda says matter-of-factly, despite it being a complete non-sequitur. Garthy’s heart clenches at how uniquely Ayda her attempt at following their advice is, all sweet and awkward and heartfelt, and they are filled with renewed affection for the girl. Sure, it might not be the smoothest flirting they’ve ever seen, but Garthy thinks teaching Ayda coy smiles and playful tones would have been above their paygrade.

The only question, then, is whether the advice that Garthy did give her is working; they watch Fig to gauge her reaction to Ayda’s challenge, and they see her frown momentarily, confused. It only lasts an instant, however, before a beaming smile graces Fig’s lips.

“I bet you would, since you’ve got those dope-ass wings and everything—you’re probably, like, built for speed. It’d be cool as hell to see you in action, too.” Then, Fig coughs and looks away nervously, “I mean, everything you do is cool, so…”

Fig’s outpouring of compliments flusters Ayda so much that she accidentally singes the edges of the scroll in her hand.

“Oh,” Ayda says, jaw clenched against some emotion, “that is really nice to hear. Especially coming from you, because…” She stops mid-sentence as she seems to remember Garthy’s advice. “I mean, yes. I am very cool and would definitely beat you in a race.”

It is clearly causing her physical pain not to return the praise.

As Fig and Ayda trail awkwardly into silence, Garthy realizes that it is possible that they have miscalculated the situation entirely. When Ayda reaches out a hand to touch Fig’s arm despite the very-much-not-romantic tension in the room, Garthy realizes that it is possible that they do not know anything about romance at all, because their advice was kind of terrible.

“Fig, darling, would you excuse us for a moment?” Garthy asks, a hand placed lightly on Ayda’s shoulder to steer her into the next room.

“What’s wrong? I was about to touch Fig on the arm.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I pulled you out,” Garthy says, scrubbing their palm against their forehead. “Look, forget everything I told you, all right?”

“I do not understand. I followed your advice to the letter,” Ayda frowns, brow furrowed.

“No, lovey, you did great, okay?” Garthy reassures her. “I just don’t think my advice will help you all that much. Listen,” they nod at Fig, who seems to have difficulty sitting still as she waits for Garthy and Ayda’s return. Her eyes keep not-so-surreptitiously sliding over to Ayda every couple of seconds before quickly glancing elsewhere. “I think your best bet is to tell Fig how you feel, honest and straightforward-like.”

Ayda frowns. “Garthy, I would never question the validity of your wisdom, but I do not see how that is different to my behavior in any of my interactions with Fig, save for just now.”

“Yeah, love, that’s sort of the point,” Garthy says. “Fig has said about fifty words to you, and nearly all of them have been about how wonderful you are. I think the rest might have just been prepositions.” They squeeze Ayda’s shoulder. “Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything that will make that girl like you more than you just being yourself.”

“Oh,” Ayda says. “That is…very relieving to hear.” She nods once, determined, and strides back into the room with Fig.

“Fig,” Garthy hears her say, “I think you are incredible in every conceivable way. I would like it very much if you would hold my hand as we walk to the library.”

Garthy sees a face-splitting grin form on Fig’s face as she reaches her hand toward Ayda. Fingers intertwined, the pair leave the Gold Gardens and head toward the library.

“Well then,” Garthy says to themselves, “let’s see if Ayda’s strategy works on the celestial down at the bar.”

[reluming]

I know you just said you take prompts for fantasy high, would you be able to do anything figayda related? I love all you writing!!

sure! i love figayda but i just haven’t had any ideas for stories about them that have really hooked me, and also there are some brilliant writers out there writing all my dream figayda fics already (i am ALWAYS thinking about caught up in the motion (backtrack, and do it again) by whyyesitscar and Still life with oranges by piggy09, two truly astonishingly beautiful fics 💘), BUT if you have any specific prompts i would love to hear them! :)

[thulkwarrior]

I’m so thrilled your back on tumblr and feeling better mentally!!!! Yay!!! I absolutely love the content you create!!! 💕💕

thank you so much!!! and don't you worry the content will be back soon 💗💗💗💗

[pikapegasus]

Could you write a Starmora fanfic taking place during infinity war, but once Thanos takes away Gamora, Peter rescues her

folks,,,, i have,,,, so many prompts in my inbox rn,,, a lot from last year even,,,,, and i’ve procrastinated on them and i am So Sorry but i just. needed to write this iw fic. bc of the Feels

iw spoilers ahead!!!! read at your own risk!!

“Mantis. Ineed you to listen to me very carefully.”

As Nebula’s voice sounds through the intercom on the Benatar, Mantisturns in her seat to face Peter, who’s frozen mid-pace at her words.

He’s holding the Godslayer, hasn’t let go of it since back there. His grasp tightens ever soslightly as Nebula continues—

“Meet me onVormir.”

Gamora laughs, despite the tears in her eyes, because this is it, this is how he loses, finally after allthese years of death disguised as mercy and he disguised as a savior, topeoples who didn’t need him, to her ownpeople, who she knows weren’t starving or poor or struggling, but were just toopowerful of a threat when they refused to swear their loyalty to him.

She laughs, despite the chill in her bones from the snow fallingaround them in minute specks, a weather phenomenon that only became beautiful andfun after her family—her new family—hadmade it a point to play in it whenever they came across it.

She laughs, despite the look on Thanos’ face, the tears in his eyes, which suggest that she is theone who is in the wrong here, not him—but her.

“No,” she says, a quiver in her voice she is certain is not from thecold, “this isn’t love.”

The words repeat in her mind like a mantra, a prayer, an intangibleobject she can only hope to hold onto when he reaches for her, with the words, “I’msorry, little one.”

It’s a disguise, another one, selfishness and greed and hatred allhidden under the veil of sadness and grief, and she so badly wants to make him understand that this can’t be love if heis willing to sacrifice her, because he’s a psychopathand because she knows what real loveis, and this—

This is far from it.

She reaches for the double-sided dagger that boasts balance in a worldof anything but, and tries to end things herself, images of Nebula and Peterand Groot and Rocket and Drax and Kraglin and the people of Xandar and everystar in the galaxy burning in her eyes via tears, but the sweet release of theblade embedded in her midsection never comes.

Instead, it’s the magic of the Stones stopping her hands and spiritingthe dagger away, and it takes all her willpower to not fall to her knees inthat moment.

He grabs her arm roughly, dragging her back toward the cliff edge.

She screams, she fights, she thrashes her limbs out wildly.

The red-faced man, keeper of the stone, watches on in intriguedsilence, and she vows to kill him if she could.

Looking to Thanos, her insides burn with the vow she’d made to herselflong ago—to kill him, too.

She thinks—why did she ever run away from Thanos if this was going tobe her ending either way?

She thinks—why did she let herself believe that there was a happyending out there for her at all, after leaving his side?

She thinks—her family did not die for this.

One moment there’s snow beneath her boots, the next there is nothingbut air.

Her stomach flip flops in that way it does when Peter or Rocket flythe ship poorly, usually caught up in bickering. Her hair flies up around herin that way it does when she fights. Her arms reach for nothing in that they dowhen she wakes up flailing after a nightmare, only to be immediately greeted byPeter’s calm smile.

Her tears fall the wrong way—up instead of down—and it takeseverything in her power to not think about how Thanos, standing above her andcrying and clenching his Infinity Gauntlet-clad fist, is the last thing shewill see in this life.

It’s a cruel, cruel way to go.

Until it’s not.

Until her last image will actually be Thanos turning, surprised, assomeone attacks him from behind, the familiar sound of cybernetics whirring andmetal meeting flesh.

A background sound grows closer and closer—a rocket.

But it’s too late, it’s all toolate, until—

Warmth hits her, arms wrapping around her shivering frame, her hairblinding her no matter how hard she tries to look up and identify who caughther even though she knows exactly who it is.

“Gamora,” comes the catcher’schoked sob, as he holds her more closely and flies up, farther and farther awayfrom the rock that’d almost been her deathbed.

Her fingers dig into his leather jacket like it’s the one thingholding her back from death itself, and she tries to remember how to breathe,pushing her face into his chest as the air attacks her still-functioning lungs,because she’s alive and her body had been convinced it would be dead.

The ground below them is now far, far away and they’re almost levelwith the cliff that no longer has the red-faced man she’d sworn to kill, buthas her sister fighting Thanos directly with a charged sword and Drax yellingout battle cries and Mantis just shooting her blaster from afar with her comfortablyfamiliar, poor aim.

Gamora’s tears resume falling down instead of up, and Peter’s armstighten around her.

“Guardians!” Peter calls, and for the briefest moment Thanos is incapacitated,everyone falls back as quickly as they can, all with aerorigs strapped to theirchests and a wild desperation in their eyes.

It’s the last thing Gamora sees before Peter turns away from Thanosand the cliff, speeding off into the horizon.

She settles for staring up at the bottom of his chin instead, justhoping and praying this is all real.

 They board the Benatar first, everyone following closely behind.Nebula runs to the ship’s controls to get them up into the air and anywhere butVormir while Mantis and Drax take the other seats.

Peter, though—he slides down to the floor, still holding her, and nowthat the sound of wind gushing past her ears is absent, she hears his softcries, feels one of his tears fall from his face to hers, but still can’t findher voice or words.

She manages to reach a shaky hand to his cheek and wipe away the nexttear, like he’d done to her not so long ago, before they were seemingly worldsapart, and he just holds her more closely to his chest.

They almost slide across the floor when Nebula gets them up into theair, but Peter holds onto the nearest stable object to keep them in place. Gamorawatches him quietly, and he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and she figures it can be for an abundanceof things—losing her to Thanos, not being able to fulfill his promise, watchingher biggest fears nearly come to fruition.

She wants to say she’s sorry, too. She wants to say he has nothing toapologize for. She wants to say she loves him again.

Instead, all she says is, voice no louder than a whisper, “Next time,I’ll go right.”

And he laughs through a fresh wave of tears, and she thinks that,maybe, there is hope for the universe.

[tacogrande]

What is your favorite version of Klaine like relationship status, location, age, etc.?

OHHHH GOOD QUESTION!! *__*

my FAVE version is, oddly enough: season 6 klaine! i HATE the plot and season, but i love that they’re well into their 20′s and out of highschoOL. it’s nice that we got to see kurt and blaine become adults, i actually really like it when shows show students graduating and actually follow them into adulthood! (mmuch like 90210 )

i just wish they stayed in NYC (without rachel) and took more time before getting back together. another unpopular opinion but i prefer kurt and blaine broken up!  they eventually get together but i wanted it to take more time so that they could learn to be individuals. i never liked how the whole ‘soulmate/highschool sweetheart’ shit was hyped up, bc i personally HATE the idea of marrying yer highshool s/o and NEVER broke up with for more than a weeK LOL

[tacogrande]

Hi, again! Sorry, I know I just asked you a question, but I love your content and art style so much! I especially love the way you draw and characterize Blaine. Do you have any favorite headcanons, particularly ones involving klaine?

OHHH!! im always a sucker for klaine questions! *__* b 

thank u! and i think my absolute fave headcanon for klaine is that they dont really know basic shit abt each otheR. while kurt and mercedes know eVERYTHHING!

for example, mercedes would always tell kurt that the oven/stove is off before heading out! bc she knows if she doesn’t he’ll walk all the way back 2 turn it off in fear that they might burn th apartment doWN. but blaine would probably not even kno that kurt’s fave color is periwinkle or somETHIN

IT’S SILLY but i always like thinking about that! i think there’s always pressure to know every little thing about your s/o, but it’s really fun to figure out new things abt em everyday! and i think that’s kurt and blaine. one morning blaine would be eating a pineapple and kurt would be like ‘u liKE THOSE??’ LOL

[tacogrande]

I just read about your favorite klaine scenes (totally agree btw) and immediately watched dancing queen, but I couldn’t find the dip anywhere. 😭

OMG IF I WASNT SO TIRED I’D SHOW IT 2 U.. BUT BUDDY, IT’SOS FUCKIN GOOD! it’s for liek 5 seconds but a GOOD 5 secONDS

[tacogrande]

First of all, I absolutely love your art and you are a total inspiration to me. Second of all, do you watch b99 and if so could you please do some Kevin and Raymond fanart?

i do like b99 i haven’t caugh tup yet tho! but im not takin requests at the moment sorry! > 0

[thulkwarrior]

Endgame Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!! Endgame Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what did you think of bruce and hulk permanently combining?

ENDGAME SPOILERS

heres the thing,

before going into endgame i literally said "please don't try and do professor hulk", and lo and behold, they did professor hulk(or at least a take on him)

despite this though, he grew on me. a lot. i really enjoyed him.

but that doesn't erase the fact that i think it was an incredibly lazy move. the russos realised that they fucked up with the whole 'hulk is too afraid to come out and fight despite the fact that hulk's sole purpose is literally to keep bruce alive' narrative and they needed to quickly fix it, so they were like... 'what is something from the comics that fixes our problem without us having to give any development or explaination? professor hulk!'

they completely abandoned the smidgen of development bruce and hulk ever got in favour of comedy and convenience.

not to mention, this quite literally kills hulk!!! i know in the comics hulk is still inside professor hulk and can come out again if he gets angry enough, but they made no indication that mcu prof hulk could do this! so they just killed him off! i mean, hulk got more development than bruce! and now he's gone!

so while i really did fall in love with prof hulk in endgame (i credit mark for that entirely), i'm unhappy with the fact that they went in that direction when they clearly weren't willing to put in the effort to make him a good character at all.

unless i get a request to, idk if i'm ever going to write prof hulk stuff? mostly because i feel like i've fine tuned my characterisation of bruce, hulk and thor to a degree that i'm pretty happy with that i wouldn't even know where to begin with this new character that not even the russos bothered to establish a personality for.

this was such an unnecessarily long answer lol!!

[thulkwarrior]

Do you have any of that good, pure thorhulk content (perferably established relationship)?

i'm using this as an opportunity to plug some of my older works 👀👀

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15417645

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15630342