#is it so bad to wish for something so cliche

[yioh]

god i just read the most devestatinf manhwa in my life OWNDWHDJDBDJ

[lunarsapphism]

i hope that someday this will all get better

[fuckjod69]

i want to reread gtn and htn but i know it will do irreparable damage to me and my reading pace atm so i’m resisting but my god would it cure me

[luveline]

I NEEEEEED MORE STRIPPER!READER X SPENCER

fem, 1.2k

You and Spencer aren't dating, but he thinks you might be in the before. 

"You're home!" you say, clambering at the door to slip out of your shoes. You throw yourself at him as soon as you're close enough, the salted caramel and sandalwood of your new perfume washing over him. "You're here! I missed you." 

Spencer tries not to blush. He wishes you weren't so close —his hair is lank from two days unwashed, his five o'clock shadow obvious and embarrassing. If you notice anything unappealing about him you don't give the slightest inclination, your arms crossing over his back as you drive your face into his neck. 

"I can't believe how much I missed you, Dr. Reid," you say warmly. 

"I missed you too." Morgan would laugh at him for being this earnest, maybe comment on his lack of charisma, but Spencer doesn't know how else to show that he's interested beyond sincerity. 

You step back but work your hands up his neck and into his hair, raking it away from his cheeks. "That's better. I can see you better now." 

Spencer thought he remembered only horrible things from being a teenager, but he remembers this feeling, sweaty-palmed, heart-racing want. You tilt his head gently one way and then the other like you're following the motion of a wave, fingertips scratching in his hair, the sensation stirring the very pit of his stomach. No trace of tiredness remains on your face, only spritely joy to see him. 

"That feels nice," he confesses. He's not weird about it, more friendly. 

Your aswering grin tells him he nailed the casualness he was aiming for. 

"You've been working hard," you say, tucking his hair behind his ears and dusting down his shoulders, "I can tell. You look tired." 

"You don't. Short shift?" 

"Is it weird that bad weather genuinely keeps people home? I guess they prefer their wives when it's cold." 

"No, really? Who could ever pick the woman they married over you and those silver shorts?" he teases, peeling out of his sweater.

The shirt underneath is rumpled, but he doesn't care about that. Anything to be seen between you has been seen. Spencer has, unquestionably, seen you half naked. You've seen him in his boxers, so you're just about square. "Idiots, all of them." 

You're staying with him again while a security company fits your apartment with the appropriate trappings. Or, that was the initial reason. Spencer went with you to assess after it was done, discovering black mould in the corner of your bedroom and spreading its evil way across the bathroom ceiling. 

What is that? he asked, knowing what it was, hoping you'd at least pretend to be concerned. 

That's fifty bucks off a month, Spence. Don't look so horrified. 

"I missed you," you say for the third time in as many minutes. "And I hoped you'd be home, so I brought Chinese food for two."

You and Spencer change into pyjamas, and it's cliche but whatever, you look beautiful undone —he's not stupid enough to lie to himself about how he feels when you're wearing your little outfits, but he prefers this side of you a thousand times over because you like it better. You wear your prized baseball tee, white with blue sleeves, and a pair of sweatpants pushed up high on one leg while you ice your sore knee. He sits cross legged opposite, jabbing his chopsticks into one of your crispy spring rolls just to watch you gasp. 

"Can I ask you something too personal?" 

You rub down the length of your naked calf, sighing as some of the tension releases. You're more bruise than girl lately, splodges of tender skin patterning the inside. "What don't you know about me, at this point?" you ask. 

Like it's a good thing. Like you're glad for it. 

"Are you making enough money?" he asks. 

You steal back your spring roll, answering him through rice paper and greens, "Kind of. Not tonight, but enough for dinner. I'll be okay." 

"Did you think about it?" 

You shovel through your waxy box of rice, shrugging. "I thought about it, but… it's not realistic. What office would take me? What drug store?" 

"I could loan you the money while you apprentice, and get some experience, you could go back to school–" He says it all in a rush and you still knock him down. 

"It's real sweet of you, Spence, it is, but I couldn't let you do that. That makes me your charity case, and not your friend." 

"What else do you do for the people you care about?" he asks. Let them stay at a job they don't like, even if they're good at it, one that puts them statistically at higher risk for femicide or assault? 

"I wouldn't need a loan, Spencer, I'd need more than you have," you say gently. "I'd have to start my life from scratch. How would I pay rent? You couldn't afford to keep us both." 

"You could stay with me again." 

You shake your head. "You're the best friend I've ever had, which is why I'm saying no." 

He doesn't get what you mean, but you finish your dinner and help him clean up. He more than trusts you to stay here alone while he's on a case, you've honestly left it in better condition than you found it, and he insists you sleep in his bed again while you're here. 

"Don't be silly," you say, throwing a sheet out over the couch. "This is your place. You need to sleep in your own bed." 

The disaster is that it smells like you. Spencer says goodnight to you reluctantly and leaves you on the couch with every throw blanket he owns, climbing into his own bed and pulling the comforter up to his nose. He imagines you here at night, your body wash still clinging to your skin from a late night shower, your hand tucked under his pillow. There are so many things he'd like to give you, if you'd just let him. 

He spends a quiet thirty minutes like that, missing the warmth of your skin and your casual touching, wishing he could offer you the fresh start you desire, even if it meant he wasn't involved. 

The couch springs creak as you toss and turn, the sound finding it's way down the short hall from the living room slash kitchen to his bedroom. Hesitant, Spencer shifts in bed, hitting that one coil in his mattress just right, the twang resounding.  

You appear in his doorway with your borrowed pillows crushed to your chest not long after that. You don't need to ask, Spencer doesn't need to answer. He can't give you everything that you want, but he can give you a quiet, comfortable night next to someone who loves you. 

Ever well-tempered, you slip into the sheets beside him and curl up toward him, your fingertips brushing his side. You don't look at him in the dark, but you mumble sleepily, fingers twitching, "Night, Spence." 

You're out like a light. 

[thecreelhouse]

it’s crazy what you’ll do for a friend

Paring: Steve Harrington x Reader (afab, one gendered term, but otherwise neutral)

WC: 4.5k

Summary: After a long, awful day, you can’t even relax when your go-to stress reliever falls apart, too. Steve, being the good friend he is, offers to help you out.

CW/Tags: hurt/comfort, language, masturbation, FWB, inexperienced reader, soft teasing, oral sex (f receiving)

A/N: I left this open ended, so if you’d like another part please let me know! part two - it felt like love & drugs is up now! title is from daddy issues - the neighbourhood. hope y’all enjoy <3

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It’s raining. Of course it’s raining. How cliche it is for the sky to pour out on one of the roughest days you had in awhile.

Just your luck, you left your umbrella at home. Your car’s in the shop, you missed the bus, leaving you to pull your jacket over your head awkwardly as you try making it home as quickly as possible.

But why would that work out? Nothing else has worked out in your favor today, why not add some more misery as a truck speeds by into a puddle, sending a wave of filthy water splashing onto you. If you weren’t drenched from the rain yet, you’re certainly a drowned rat now.

Somehow, you manage to keep composure and suppress your frustrated yelling; stomping on through the rain, which is now raining sideways— Are you fucking kidding me? — you count the blocks ahead until you’re back home. Two. Just two more blocks. Sure, they’re city blocks, so they stretch farther than the ones you grew up with in your childhood neighborhood, but you got this.

Thankfully, your bad luck decided to give you a breather, allowing you to make the rest of the trip home on foot without further frustration.

Walking down the quiet hallway of your apartment complex, you can feel and hear the squish of water in your shoes as you make your way to your front door. You can’t be bothered to care about the amount of rainwater you must be trudging in.

You’re crossing your fingers in hopes that no one's home, so you can cry and scream in peace; as you unlock the door, your wish is immediately denied.

“God dammit,” You murmur under your breath, stare narrowing at the lights on throughout the apartment. Sounds echo out from the TV, and you hope they’re loud enough to cover the door closing. You kick your shoes off, sighing in relief the overwhelming, squishy sensation on your feet is gone. You begin to shuffle down the hallway to your room, but, of course, you’re spotted.

“Hey! How was your— oh.” Steve’s peering over the couch, smile dropping like a ton of bricks when he sees how miserable you look. “What the hell happened?” He pushes himself over the back of the couch, hurrying over to you, and you throw your hand up in a stop gesture.

“Don’t even come near me, I’m straight up bad luck today.” You grumble, hoping if you joke about it you’ll feel better, but tears of anger just build up instead. “Also, I’m covered in water from god knows where, so you really do not want to be near me right now.”

Steve cautiously comes closer anyway, arms’ length, but still too close for your liking right now, so you step back. He wants to ask if you’re okay, but he knows the answer to that.

 Then he realizes you walked home. “Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve picked you up.” And honestly, you wish you thought to call him. You were just so overwhelmed with how badly today was spiraling, the last thing on your mind was reaching out to your roommate for a ride.

Too exhausted to explain that, you give a weak shrug. “I need to be alone for a bit, okay?”

Steve’s features twist into concern, wanting to help however he can, but he holds himself back; the best way to help is to give you space right now. With a nod and a sigh, he reminds you, “Just, uh, lemme know if you need something.”

You start making your way to your room again, murmuring “Thanks, Steve.” While your mind was elsewhere, you miss the way Steve watches as you head in your room and slam your door, causing him to wince.

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An hour or so after you got home, you lay on your bed in your robe, not bothering to change into pajamas after showering just yet; you were just content you’d be relaxing the rest of the night.

And what better way to relax than getting yourself off after such a terrible day?

Opening the drawer of your nightstand, you grab your vibrator, focusing on the sounds outside your door. Whatever movie Steve had on seemed loud enough that you could hear the dialogue float down the hall. It was also loud enough where you could get away with breathy moans and small whimpers, so that was good enough for you to continue.

With a flick of a switch, your wand- a much cheaper, smaller version of the original- buzzes to life. Eagerly, you untie your robe and let it fall open, teasing along down your body with the vibrator before reaching where you needed it most.

Instantly, your hips bucked as the wand brushes up ever so slightly against your clit, jaw falling as your eyes flutter shut; the pent up tension from the day already begins to leave your body as pleasure consumes your thoughts.

“Oh, fuck,” You murmur, hushed enough that Steve can’t hear you in the other room. With one hand, you toy and tease your core as slick coats your folds, while the other comes back to your chest, pinching and pulling lightly at your nipple.

Effortlessly, your mind wanders to Steve touching you; this is normal lately, but you don’t have feelings for him. Not really. If anything, you just think he’s attractive, but you wouldn’t want anything with commitments. That’s assuming he feels the same way, which you’re certain he doesn’t, and that’s totally cool.

Who doesn’t think about their roommates when they touch themselves, anyway? 

In your mind, Steve’s hands are where yours are, nothing wild, just imagining how caring and gentle his touch would be. You’ve also thought before about how rough he could be, too. Nothing wrong with fantasizing about either, right?

Sometimes when you come close to finishing quickly, you edge or overstimulate yourself. You could feel the high within reach, toes curling as your back arches as you imagine him praising you with a typical “good girl”, encouraging you to keep going, to keep the toy against you after you cum. Brows knitting together, your mouth falls into an ‘o’ shape, breaths shallow while you’re needy for release.

You’re right there, just on the edge— The wand buzzes to a halt without warning. Your eyes fly open, pulling the toy back to your view as your chest heaves, orgasm fading away. Desperate, you flick the switch a few times, hoping it’d turn on again, but nothing happens.

 “No, no, no,” You can feel the tension build up again, rageful tears ready to burst in record time. Normally, you’d just be annoyed by your vibrator dying just before you climax, but after today, this is the final straw. As you dump the batteries out, you wonder when the last time you changed them was. You can’t remember. Figures.

Batteries. We have some in the junk drawer of the kitchen. You’re quick to tie your robe closed before darting down the hall. The movie’s still playing as you pass the living room, but Steve’s in the kitchen. Oh, come the fuck on.

Ignoring him as he searches the fridge for a snack, you round the island counter, making a beeline for the junk drawer. Yanking it open, Steve spins around, looking perplexed. 

 “What’s up?”

“Not now, Steve.” You feel bad, but you’re desperate to get off. You were so fucking close, and that high is long gone now, but you just need to quiet your mind before the stress gets to you again. You’re tearing the drawer apart, pulling out old pens and half used notepads, rubber bands, a broken bottle opener- seriously? - spare string light bulbs, bookmarks, a pack of candy corn— who the fuck put this here? Ew.

Focused, you don’t notice Steve slide next to you, leaning against the counter. “What are you looking for?”

“Batteries. We had some, didn’t we? I swear we still had some left from that old pack.” You’re frantic, voice picking up speed and pitch the longer you fight off the tears. “We usually keep ‘em in this drawer right?”

 “Oh, I used the last few for my Walkman, I’m sorry. I’ll grab some more tomorrow—”

That shouldn’t be a big deal, but right now it’s the biggest deal in the world. “You what?”

“… I… used them?” Steve’s slightly afraid to answer, but still completely confused as to why you’re so wound up. His eyes flicker down to your fists, fingernails digging into your palms as they ball up, trying to keep your anger at bay. “Bu- but I can go get more! I’ll go right now.” He’s rushing for his raincoat and shoes, but guilt floods through you.

“Steve, don’t do that, it’s still pouring out.” You sigh, fists loosening up before you tug your robe closed tighter. “You don’t have to, I can— fuck. I can go tonight, it’s not a big deal.” The thought of getting dressed again and braving the storm makes you wonder just how desperate you are to get off. How pathetic.

Steve pauses in the doorway, hanging his coat back up. “It seems like a pretty big deal to you. What’s going on?” He makes his way back to you, and you’re pouting, arms crossed while you look away, hoping he doesn’t notice the way you’ve been trying so damn hard to keep the dam of tears from breaking.

“It’s— god, it’s so fucking stupid. I’m just overwhelmed by how terrible today was. Like, every fucking thing had to go wrong, and this is so dumb, who gets upset over batteries?! Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with me?” You don’t mean to start rambling, but once it starts, you can’t stop it. “Work was a nightmare, my car’s still getting worked on, this rain is horrible and my umbrella was here. Being soaked in street water has me grossed out still, and now that I’m home, I can’t even relax, all because of… batteries? Oh my god.”

Saying it all out loud helps a little, but it also makes you realize how deep today got under your skin. You leave out the part about not being able to cum, but that’s not something you want to admit to.

“That… sounds really overwhelming.” Steve gives empathy, but he’s not sure what else to say beyond that. So, he asks, “Are you sure you don’t want me to run out and get batteries?”

“Uh, no it’s totally fine, Steve. That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be okay.”

“Let me know if you change your mind, okay?” He leaves the offer open, and curiosity gets the best of him. “What did you need them for anyway?”

Your eyes widen, not expecting him to ask. “It’s silly,” trying to shrug it off, Steve, meaning well, persists.

“Hey, whatever it was, it’s okay to be upset about. You had a rough day. M’sorry I used the last few batteries.”

“Steve, it’s okay, really. I’m sorry I got upset, it’s not even the batteries, it’s— it’s nothing some sleep can’t fix.” Shaking your head, you brush it off, embarrassed you let something so meaningless work you up.

“I’m sure there’s something around here we can swap the batteries out so you can use them now, and we can replace them tomorrow.” He starts looking around the kitchen for something battery powered to steal the source form. “What kind were th— ”

He’s too sweet, he won’t let this go unless I tell him.

“Steve, don’t.”

“But if it helps you feel better— ” 

“Steve, stop. Please.”

 “Why?”

It comes out in an unintended outburst, “Because it was for my vibrator! Happy?” Your eyes finally meet his, and the heat rising to your face feels unbearable alongside the embarrassment. “I was— I wanted to blow off some steam, okay? It died while I was… y’know…And I can get myself off with my hand sometimes, but it’s not the same as toys or someone else’s actions. So… yeah.”

A rosy blush creeps along Steve’s face, enough to reach the tips of his ears; you know this never happens unless he’s embarrassed, or caught off guard, and right now, it’s both.

 “Oh. I- shit, I’m sorry for- you didn’t have to tell me.”

“You and I both know you’d still be looking for damn batteries if I didn’t say something.” You murmur, looking at the floor as you lean against the counter. “I appreciate that you care, Steve, but this isn’t something you can really help with. Unless you’ve got a vibrator of your own you don’t mind sharing.” The last part’s a joke, but Steve clears his throat, looking away.

An awkward silence falls between the two of you, one that’s quiet enough that you can hear the buzzing of the lights overhead, and the whirr of the VCR rewinding whatever tape he had in, finally at its end.

 “I… don’t, but I could still help… if you want.” Steve’s rubbing the back of his neck nervously. You think you misheard him, so you keep quiet, and he takes that as rejection. “But- okay, that was really dumb of me to offer. We can just forget about what I said.”

Glancing at him from where he stands, across from you, leaning against the island counter, he finally looks your way, afraid to say the wrong thing. You tilt your head, daring to ask, “You mean it?”

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” Steve chews on his bottom lip anxiously. 

Your mind goes blank, thinking about his hands on you the way you fantasize, answering with a raspy, pathetic, “Please?” Pushing off the counter, you start to close the gap between the two of you, but Steve meets you halfway, backing you up into your original spot.

“What… What’s off limits?” He has to slow his breathing intentionally, already getting turned on. He’s always wondered what you sound like when someone else plays with you, and he can’t believe he’s about to find out. 

“Nothin’.” You answer casually, and Steve opens his mouth to say something, but only silence comes out. You smirk, “What’d you think I was gonna say?”

He shrugs, “Thought you didn’t have much experience, that's all.”

“I mean… I don’t. Not really. I get too nervous to let most guys near me, you know that. The rest’s all my imagination, unfortunately.” You admit bashfully.

Steve’s hands grab your hips, nudging you onto the counter. “You’re not nervous with me, are you? Be honest.”

 “I- I mean kinda… but not in that way!” You’re rushing to clarify, hands up and waving away any doubt. “I’m just a little nervous, ‘cause you’re my friend. And my roommate. Oh my god, is this gonna make things weird?”

Steve chuckles while shaking his head, “Won’t be weird to me. Friends can fuck around too, y’know.” His voice drops low, hands on your thighs. You push yourself against the cabinets as he parts your legs, stepping between them. He looks down, noticing your exposed skin high on your thigh where your robe falls open. “If it’ll be weird to you, though, we can stop.”

Eyes wide, you shake your head furiously. “Not weird. Absolutely not… maybe a little. But not weird in a bad way.” Steve laughs, one hand sliding higher up your thigh, pushing the material away, exposing your skin.

Tugging the plushy material’s edge, barely covering your bottom half at this point, he asks, ”You’re not wearing anything under this, are you?” 

“No… I was kinda worried about something else other than clothes.” You playfully roll your eyes, and Steve pinches your thigh.

“Smartass.”

“You asked, Stevie.”

Traveling higher, his hand gently holds the side of your face, thumb sweeping along your cheek gently. “You tell me if you don’t like something, or if you want to stop. Got it?”

“Mhm, I got it,” Your voice is small, but clear while you watch Steve’s gaze flicker to your lips, then back to your eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

You answer by closing the gap, kissing Steve softly, lips working in tandem with a slow pace. It’s sweet, even when he parts your lips with his tongue; slow kisses like these always make you squirm, enjoying them but greedy for more.

When Steve pulls back, there’s a thin thread of spit connecting his lips to yours, breaking once he smirks. He kisses along your jawline, down your neck, taking his time between sucking softly and kissing slowly, almost too slow for your liking. His hands fly to your thighs, holding them in place from squirming.

Pulling back to look at you, he asks, “Do you get like this when you touch yourself?” You shake your in response.

“Well, no, this is different than just thinking about you—” You clamp your mouth shut, pursing your lips as your eyes widen. Steve’s smirk breaks into a cocky grin.

“You’re thinking of me while you get off?” His words are laced with a hint of an unnecessary ego boost. “That’s cute.”

“Sh- shut up,” Your breath shudders as he’s back onto your skin, sucking and kissing along your collarbone while slipping the robe off of your shoulders. The cool air along your exposed chest hardens your nipples, and Steve immediately leans down to latch onto the pebbled flesh; his tongue swirls around the sensitive bud, earning the tiniest squeak of a moan.

 “Tell me what you think about when you touch yourself,” Steve murmurs against the swell of your breast, kissing lazily across your chest to switch sides, repeating his motions. 

“Um… oh,” You’re arching your back, pushing your chest into Steve’s face. He keeps a pattern of sucking, biting, licking, and it makes you dizzy. His arm snakes around your side to your back, holding you steady. “I told you wh- what I think about.”

“No, tell me what you think about me doing to you,” Steve clarifies, fingers toying with the nipple he’s not kissing, pinching and rubbing soft, slow circles. A whine leaves your lips, hands tangling into his hair. “Jesus, you’re all hot and bothered just from this?”

“Uh-huh,” You rasp, unaware of how your hips roll forward, the ache between your legs only growing. “And I, um, I dunno.”

“Yes you do, don’t be shy,” Steve’s back to eye level with you, noses touching ever so slightly. Huskily, he asks, “What makes you cum when you think about us?” His hands are agonizingly slow as he starts opening the remainder of your robe, eyes meeting yours to make sure you’re still okay with this. You give a nod as your breath hitches, core clenching around nothing as you hear him whisper “Fuck.” under his breath, eyes taking in every inch of you.

“What?” You’re not self conscious, but you’re very aware this is the first time he’s seeing you completely exposed. Something about that forces your arms to cross over your chest as your legs close, but his firm grip is back on your thighs, pushing them apart. 

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Steve’s words grow muffled as he kisses you, again, refusing to rush things, but you can tell he’s a little needier than the first kiss. You whimper into his mouth, hips grinding yourself against nothing, desperate for friction. He pulls back to watch you writhe, smirking. “C’mon, tell me, babe. Nothing’s gonna happen if you keep those dirty thoughts to yourself.”

Fuck it.

 “I th- think about you teasing me slowly, like you’re doing now, making me wet a- and fucked out before you even really touch me.”

Steve’s biting back a groan while hands travel along your sides, fingertips grazing your skin softly as he reaches your hips, digging his fingers into the plush of your curves. “What else?”

“I like thinking about how, um,” You’re caught off guard by his hands moving closer to your cunt, resting on your thighs as his thumbs rubbing circles into them. He’s dragging it out, enjoying the way your breath shudders and you squeeze your eyes shut to focus. “How good your fingers would feel on me, in me, and how you- you’re— ” you stop yourself, feeling overwhelmed.

 “I’m… what?” Steve’s fingers again inch closer to your heat, causing an airy whimper to escape you. 

You rush it out, hoping it’ll dull embarrassment for you, “I think a lot about how you’d look between my legs.” Looking away from him makes it a tad easier to continue. “Thinking ‘bout how good your mouth would feel on me, but it’s hard to think about sometimes, ‘cause it’s not like I- I’ve got anything to base it on.”

Steve freezes, “Has no one gone down on you before?” You’re looking anywhere but at him, until he grabs your chin, gently pulling your attention his way. “Is that what you’re saying?”

 “Like, I bet it feels good, but yeah, no one’s done it before.” You’re reluctantly admitting, biting your lip anxiously. Steve presses his thumb on your bottom lip, softly pulling it from between your teeth.

 “Can I change that for you?”

 “Oh… I— you want to?”

 “Wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to,” He reminds you. “No pressure, though.”

Enthusiastically, you nod, starting to push off the counter, but Steve again holds you in place. “Shouldn’t we do this somewhere else?”

As Steve drops to his knees, he hooks his arms under your legs, tugging you closer to the edge. He chuckles at your question. “We can do this anywhere you want.” He’s at the perfect level to reach you from here, licking his lips at the sight of your glistening cunt already.

 “Yeah, but like, people eat here.”

 “What do you think I’m doing?” He’s kissing up your leg, laughing against your skin as you roll your eyes.

 “Steve, that was the corniest thing you— oh, fuck.” He presses the softest kiss to your folds, glancing up to make sure you’re okay. From that small action alone, you shiver. He throws one of your legs over his shoulder before licking a slow, broad stripe up your cunt. You moan loudly, throwing your head back at the new sensation, but you slam your head into the cabinet. “Ow!”

Steve can’t help laughing against your skin; one hand of yours cards through his hair, tugging, while the other holds the back of your head. “Stop laughing— f- fuck.” 

“You good? Should we stop?” He asks, leaning away from your core as he glances up at you, making sure you’re alright.

“No, don’t, please don’t,” You babble, pushing him by the back of his head to come closer. Steve takes the hint, picking up where he left off. His tongue swirls and flicks at your clit, making your legs twitch. Once he starts sucking on it, your eyes roll back and you keen while your leg over his shoulder hooks him as close as possible to you.

“Someone’s greedy,” He teases before he buries himself back into you, sucking your clit again before tongue fucking you, making a mess from your arousal and his spit, pooling onto the counter beneath you. Steve slips a finger into you, curling it just right. You buck against him, and you swear he murmurs something like, “Taking me so well, honey.”

 “Steve, I- I don’t wanna cum yet, m’so close.” You plead, and that’s something he hasn’t heard before. He’s used to his partner begging to cum, but this is new.

 “Why not?”

 “I don’t want it to be over so soon,” You whine, grinding against his face and fingers. Steve hums into you, vibrations sending you closer to the edge. “But it feels s- so good.”

Speaking before he can think, Steve is quick to assure you, “This can happen again, y’know.” He’s sucking your clit, rougher this time, and you can’t see much past the tears building in your eyes from how intense the pleasure is. 

“Will it?” You’re panting, legs tensing up around Steve’s head. He slips another finger into you. “Fuck!”

“As long as you’re ‘kay with it,'' an obscene slurp follows his response. “Christ, you taste so good.”

“Uh- huh— ” A strangled moan leaves your lips, fingers curling around his locks before pulling roughly, while Steve doesn’t let up on his ministrations. Something within you snaps, and you’re gone.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes back, keeping your gaze on Steve who returns his to you, while somewhere between a sigh and a whiny moan, you’re crying out for him as heat floods your entire being. “Steve! Fuck!” He doesn’t stop until you physically begin pushing yourself away from him, overstimulated.

“So good, baby. M’so proud of you.” He murmurs into your thigh before standing back up. He leans in towards you, both hands cradling your face, but he stops. “You okay if I kiss you again?” You’re unsure if he asks because he’s worried to overstep a boundary or because his lips are soaked with your release. Either way you nod, tugging him closer by his shirt as you ball the fabric up in your fist. 

The two of you are noisy as you whimper into him, and he grunts when your tongue slips past his lips, tasting yourself in the process. You can only kiss him for so long before you need to pull back to catch your breath as you come down. Your eyes are heavy with the blissful exhaustion only found after an orgasm, while the dopiest smile graces your features. Steve can’t help smiling, too, resting his forehead against yours.

 “Please tell me that was better than the vibrator,” He’s joking, but secretly hoping it was better than the bliss a toy could give you.

 “Uh-huh.” You shudder out as your legs twitch, laughing at the sudden movement. It’s meant to be a joke, but Steve can’t help the way his cock twitches when you say, “You wanna be my new toy? I’ll throw that thing out so fast.” Eyes flicking down to his bulge, you notice the dark spot on his grey sweats, swallowing a moan. “You, uh, you want me to— ”

“Huh? Oh,” Steve looks down, blushing at his mess. “Nah, kinda too late to worry about it now.” He laughs it off but as he locks eyes with you again, he follows it up with, “… Unless that’s an offer for another time.”

This entire time, you’ve been shoving your feelings aside, the ones you thought were just based on superficial attraction, but his comment makes your stomach flip. “Yeah… yeah it is,” You try playing it off cool. “Hey, Stevie?”

Steve’s already grabbing a hand towel to clean you up with, touch gentle and slow. “What’s up, babe?” The pet name gives you butterflies.

“Thank you,” it feels silly to thank him for such a lewd act, but your mind is completely over how your day fell apart. “That… that felt really fucking good.”

Steve smiles warmly at you, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head. Awkwardly, he responds with, “What are friends for?” You push aside how the comment stings your heart a little. Just friends. That’s it, and that’s okay.

… it is okay, right?

[pastel-peach-writes]

Hello!! I love your Korra X readers so I’m just gonna ask if you could do a Korra x Fem!reader (or GN up to you!) with the cliche plot of Reader being injured and not telling anyone until later? Hope you are doing well!!

YURR lets go. I initially wrote this as a fem!reader, but I didn't even use the reader's pronouns in this so, gender neutral reader it is!

Kiss It Better | Korra x Beifong!Reader

╰┈➤ PLOT: With your girlfriend saving the world all the time, you take it as your job to not worry her with your own problems. If you needed help with something, you'd figure it out or get someone else's help. What happens when your "selflessness" nearly costs you an arm?

╰┈➤ WARNING: Injured!Reader, Suggestive Mentions, Cursing, Not Proofread, Beifong!Reader

⍣ ೋ Enjoy!⍣ ೋ

It was a simple fracture. You were training with Bolin and a cluster of Earth hit you too hard in the arm. Bolin apologized and even offered to take you to the infirmary, but you rejected him.

One, you were a Beifong; you don't get hurt. Two, if you go to the infirmary, chances are you'll get a cast or some sort of sling. That'll worry your girlfriend, the Avatar, and with all the duties she had to attend to, your fractured arm was the least of her worries.

"Oh, fuck," you hissed, leaning back into your plush sofa. Typically, the plush cushions and fuzzy fabric would comfort you. The cushions would allow your muscles to relax and for your body to find comfort in the warm snuggles of your girlfriend's blanket. But now, the cushions only make your body hurt worse.

There was no support in the cushions. The plushiness was too plushy and the warm comfort typically found within the blanket was annoying.

"I'm home!" Korra announced. The woman kicked off her boots, put up her short hair, and plopped beside you on the couch.

You groaned, holding your bicep.

Korra tilted her head, raising a brow. "Hey, you okay? Was I too loud or something?"

Time slowed as you forced a laugh out of your chest. If you laughed too hard, your arm would ache. If you didn't laugh enough, Korra would assume something was wrong.

Nothing was wrong. At least, to her knowledge.

"Oh, sorry!" you smiled at her, "I was actually practicing this new joke Mako taught me. I was supposed to make this sound, but I guess I haven't mastered it yet."

"Oh... haha," Korra forced out of her. "No more taking joke suggestions from Mako. He doesn't have a funny bone in his body." The Avatar nestled her head on your chest. She hummed, snuggling into the warmth of your body.

"Right," you chewed on your lip. "I don't know what I was thinking."

-

"One, hit! Two, hit! Three--!"

"Okay!" you howled. You and Bolin have been training for three hours straight now. Something must've inspired Bolin because he's been sending over disks, boulders, and other forms of Earth toward you like there was no tomorrow. While he was losing pounds by sweating alone, your arm was screaming at you.

"Please stop moving me!" "I'm hurt!" "Why do you hate us?!"

You wished you could listen to your body. You really did. But you read somewhere that certain fractures can heal on their own with the proper rest and care.

You thought you could take it easy in training today, but obviously, Bolin had other plans.

"Oh," Bolin smiled, peeling himself away from his boxed stance. "Did I go too far? Sorry. Opal said something last night about guys working out and how she loved watching me train sometimes, so I wanted to work extra hard this practice so I wouldn't feel bad for showing off."

Your chest heaved up and down as the boy spoke. The fire in your arm was excruciating and it was spreading to your shoulders.

You trudged along the training center, going to a lousy bench where your water bottle and workout towel lay. "No, no," you told Bolin, "it's okay. I just need a break. That's all."

Lowering yourself onto the bench, your muscles and all the meat on your body felt like falling off the bone like you were a tenderly cooked piece of chicken. Your thighs ached and shook, like after an endless night with Korra. You took your towel and slung it over your good arm. You carefully opened your water bottle to take a sip.

Bolin followed after, mindlessly yapping about Opal and how pretty she was. Once he sat himself next to you and drank from his water, his eyes bulged out of his head, and water sprayed from his mouth.,

You whipped your head toward him, perplexed. "Oh, my Spirits! What was that?"

"What happened to your arm?" the boy exclaimed. He pointed at the swollen and bruised skin. Your rotator cuff was a deep purple with blue specs. He couldn't see it, but the bruising gave a pulsing sensation.

You scoffed and went for another sip of water. "Nothing. Just bumped into a pole."

"What kind of pole hit you like that?" he exclaimed again, now out of his seat. His green eyes were now filled with fear; his body trembled with worry.

You tried to shrug, but since your hurt arm was alarmingly tough and sore, only your good arm moved. "I don't know," you mumbled. "It was a while ago, I think. I can't really remember."

"Well, you have to at least let a nurse or someone qualified check you out! This looks bad, Beifong. No pole could've done this."

"Bolin," you rose to your feet. "I'm fine. Don't make me say it again." You didn't let Bolin get another word in as you gathered your things. "And Bolin, don't mention this to anyone."

-

Bolin can't keep a secret and honestly, it's your fault for telling him to keep one. You're his friend and Bolin doesn't believe in keeping his friends in danger. You need medical attention, even if you are too stubborn to admit it.

Immediately after practice, he ran to Mako who ran to Asami who told Korra.

When she first heard the news, Korra had mixed emotions. She was vexed because she didn't notice your pain and you didn't tell her, yet worried about the extremity of your injury. Could your arm fall off? What if the injury was actually worse underneath?

The Krew discussed your injury and how to intervene in your careless ways of living. There was a plan where they tricked you into going to the hospital, another where they took you out to dinner and would finesse you into spilling your guts, and then there's the plan they actually went through; the plan that made the most sense.

Korra was to go home with a smile on her face, cuddle and kiss on you for a while, and then ease into the conversation of training and injuries.

Mako thought the subtle conversation topic would force you to talk about your injury without actually forcing you.

Well, it's been two fucking hours of medical talk and Korra wasn't getting anywhere.

The two of you were cuddling on your bed, legs entangled with each other and her arms around your waist. She had her head on your good arm and from the corner of her eye, she could see the black and blue bruising that was growing to your neck.

Your pajamas acted as a pathetic way to hide it.

Korra was done playing the nice game. She had Asami in her head telling her to play the nice game and to ease into it. (She also had Mako claiming that Korra was unable to play the "nice-and-ease-into-it" game, but what Mako doesn't know won't kill him).

"Bolin told me," Korra spoke, her eyes fixated on the wall in front of you two.

You hummed, keeping your eyes closed. The ache and burn on your arm weren't as bad anymore. You also read somewhere that heat would inflame the injury more so after a quick lukewarm shower, you iced. You iced and replaced the ice for hours until Korra came home.

You were missing that ice right about now.

"Told you what?"

"That you have a disgusting bruise on your shoulder." Okay, so Bolin didn't describe it as disgusting, but what you don't know won't kill you either.

You snickered. "I ran into a pole, okay? It's not the big of a deal."

"Then why are you lying to me?" Korra pulled herself off of your chest. With delicate fingers, the Avater peeled the soft fabric off your shoulders.

The subtle movement of the fabric made you wince and the natural instinct was to push Korra away, so, you did. You pushed on her stomach to move her away from you. "Korra, don't."

"Oh, what are you gonna do?" she scoffed. Korra sat on her knees, shoulders squared to you and arms crossed over her chest. "Threaten me? You saw how that worked out with Bolin, nice move by the way." Korra's words were stern and leaning towards the angry side of things. Her nose scrunched while her nostrils flared. She was also gripping her arms so hard, her grip made marks.

"I didn't threaten him," you claimed.

"So, what would you call it? Being a bad friend? Telling him to keep your health a secret knowing damn well it's on the line?"

"My health is not on the line!" You've sat up from the bed now. Your bad arm rested on a mound of pillows and your good arm held it for support. "It's a tiny injury, sprain if you wanna go that far."

"That's rich," Korra scoffed. She shook her head, getting off the bed. "You can barely talk to me without the corner of your mouthing ticking from the pain. I can barely put my hands on your shirt and you can barely sit on the couch without groaning in pain."

You suddenly found interest in the ceiling. You took note of the texture and the color. You would find any new fact you could about this ceiling if it meant you could avoid Korra's burning gaze and her rising anger.

This is why you didn't want to tell her in the first place. She's worried about everyone else and for once, you wanted to be someone she doesn't have to worry about. But now she's here, yelling at you because she cares. Because you didn't tell her.

"I didn't want you to worry about me too," you mumbled. Your gaze dropped to the comforter. "You have so much on your plate, I wanted to ease the load. You shouldn't be stressed about me, you're the Avatar. You have more people to worry about."

Watching you struggle to look her in the eye, Korra sat herself on the bed. She put a soft hand on the mound of your knee, using her thumb to soothe the skin. "Hey," she spoke. "I am your girlfriend first and the Avatar second. I will always worry about you. You deserved to be worried about and cared for."

You swallowed thickly. The back of your throat scratched like you had a cold yet your mouth was eager to say something back. Your brain couldn't think of any words to say.

"Your struggles and problems aren't inferior to me. I want you to come to me with your troubles, not because I'm the Avatar, but because I'm your girlfriend. It's my job to care for you, to heal you when you're sick, and to pick you up when you're down. Master of the Elements or not, that's my job and it's yours too," she sighed. "So, please, for the first time, tell me what's wrong and what I can do to help you."

The moment your eyes locked with hers, a flood broke through you. You wept as you told her what was wrong with your arm and how long you've tried to sustain this injury, four days.

Korra could kick herself over and over again for not noticing how much pain you were in, but you were a good pretender. In some way, she had Bolin and Opal to thank. Without Bolin's sudden desire to train extra hard, you wouldn't be forced to stop pretending.

But instead of wallowing in self-pity and throwing a really weird party for the couple in her head, she comforted you. She pulled you to her chest and held you as tightly as she could without hurting you further.

The two of you stayed like that, you in her arms, for a while. You didn't take notice of the time spent in the position. You two focused on each other's breathing and warmth.

And finally, for the first time in a long time, you let Korra take care of you.

WC: 2,071

[pearl-tarotist]

☽˚｡How will your future spouse know you're their special person? ☽˚｡⋆.

As the second PAC of my collection "cliche moments with your fs", this tarot reading tries to describe the moment where your FS knows you are the person they want to spend their life with.

P1-P2-P3

01.

For some of you, your fs will realize you are their special person when they start thinking of you as family. It will happen gradually and naturally, little by little you have conquered a piece of their brain and heart.

A main scenario that appears on the cards is that they will realise you are their person when they keep picturing you as the mother of their children. They suddenly thought of it and they were like "God, Y/N is just…so perfect and good", with adoration in their eyes. They believe you are naturally nurturing and warm. From that day on, they will want to deepen their relationship with you and take care of you even more. It's a serious decision that they make, a realisation and a promise at the same time. It's possible that one day they have forgotten their jacket and you will go and get them for them or that they have hurt themselves with a wall or something and you kiss their hand and tell them it's okay. The fact that you keep taking care of them makes their heart beat faster and makes their chest warm. And at the same it makes them get protective and selfish about you because "no one deserves the attention of someone as pure and good as you". They truly see you as a wish fulfilment. Another scenario I got was a woman laughing at a beach and their partner being absolute smitten by said woman.

Channelled messages:

Russian, english, french, love at first sight, soft kisses, hand holding, red clothes, office work, 20s, office chairs, black and brown hair, Lana del Rey, fairy tales and authors (books).

02.

This scenario starts with a fs that's apathetic, hard working, cold (lacking warm) and that's not interested in love. Do not get me wrong because they are not bad people, it's just that they are a candle that has been extinguished for a long time and now warmness does not come easily to them. With the king of swords, they are lost in their work and their logical sense, they are a soul focused on getting their business at the right position. They see love as something distant and that they cannot have, even when they just have to extent their hand and take that "cup full of love" that's presented to them. I think they do not know how to take those steps as no one has taught them. Kind of making themselves a victim there. But, once you are in their life, you could be a really funny person and a positive presence that brightens their day. One specific scenario is that they could not have laughed in a long time and when they are speaking to you, you make them laugh... and they suddenly realize that they just smile around you and that their checks had been deprived of laugh until you arrived. It's as if their world was black and white until you came along. I'm sure that they did not even realize their romantic feelings for you at the time but they knew that they wanted you in their life, for sure. They will become quite interested in your privat life and always wait to see you. I am sensing an office love in this pile with a grumpy co-worker but it's a general reading so just take this if resonates.

Channelled messages:

Meeting in bright rooms, a place with windows, Excel and numbers, Rome and Italy, vintage clothing, Crimson Peak (movie), The hunger games (book), Azul by Rubén Dario, Studio Ghibli, Romanticism.

03.

The first card that you got was the lovers so they realize you are their person, probably, the first time they see you, and as typical as it sounds, you both are struck by cupid's arrows. (This is prominent for those who have blond hair) They will like your hair and smile, they will randomly think that your hands are soft and a bit cold. They will think about your smile for days on and if you were wearing thigh clothing...well, let's say you have a nice chest. I think you both were introduced by an acquaintance, an old (in thier 40s-50s) man or woman in the street or at your work. However, it's not that easy because your future spouse is extremely nervous around you, it's that new crush energy where they are smitten by you. I think they have trust issues and they had their heart broken in the past and they keep trying to surpass all of those paralizing feeling while meeting and getting to know you better without giving you any signal that they are extremely interested. They will put effort to beat their own fears for a chance to meet you, I think their friends will support them while they get to know you.

Channelled messages:

Romeo and Juliet, yellow, the moon, orchids, Ireland, the police, 10 things I hate about you, the sea, Greece, bulls and butterflies.

[coralinnii]

I have a request for the villainess AU. For Ace and Deuce, what if it was a love triangle between the MC? I just can’t imagine them being separated because them fighting over the Mc is much funnier!

❋ Being Reincarnated into a New World as the Bad Guy ❋

↳ Love Triangle scenario(?)

feat: Ace and Deuce

genre: humour, budding romance, friends-to-something more?

note: part of the “Reincarnated into a New World as the Bad Guy” series or the Villain/ess au, part of the 2.7k followers event, references to other villain/ess au works (specifically Riddle ver.), Ace + Deuce + reader are old enough to drink, no pronouns used with reader, minor mention of death

I don’t usually do the love triangle trope because real life ones hurt alot and it brings up some bad memories, but I’ll consider it for this, just for y’all~ I genuinely tried but rather than a love triangle, I may have accidentally created a… (seriously was not my intention)

Villain/ess au Series Masterlist

2.7K Followers Writing Event

Before the oath of the sword, the three of you made an oath of your own. One of unquestioned trust and camaraderie. No matter where the string of fate would take either of you, the promise made one drunken night between you, Ace, and Deuce was stronger.

That night was fuelled with unrestrained emotions, with shouting and tears, most coming from you. Especially when you awoke one day with strange visions flooded your dreams, vivid images that spoke of a horrible future for you.

Memories of a strange novel, one that eerily resembles your current world down to each royal family member and even your friends’ lives. But while a hero’s glory awaits your dearest ones, you were left as a tragic minor antagonist.

A mere childhood friend of Ace and Deuce, you became jealous of a former baron’s daughter suddenly turned Queen when she grew close to your friends as her knight escorts. You turned to petty acts in response, spewing nasty rumours among the townfolks of the new Queen but like an angelic protagonist, she revealed your misdeeds but forgave you for your childish taunts. Nevertheless, you lost the respect of your only friends and you were left behind.

But despite the Queen’s pardon, King Riddle heard of your disgraceful behaviour against his beloved and called for your immediate execution, which became the final push for Ace and Deuce to join in the Queen’s rebellion against her own tyrannical husband. Because that’s all you were, a mere catalyst for the story to continue on.

You couldn’t imagine yourself turning into a cliche bully and admittedly, the idea of your untimely demise left you shaking in fear on occasion. But the worst of your premonitory dreams was the predicted end of your friendship.

The looks of disgust and disappointment that painted Ace’s and Deuce’s face seared into your mind, your heart shattering like glass at their wishes to never see you again. The fear of abandonment stings you like a crack in your heart which never healed, it scared you to the point that the moment you saw them happily enjoying the night, you drunkenly cried out.

“I love you so much, please don’t leave me.”

Unceremoniously, your body slumped onto the tavern’s table as you blacked out into an alcoholic slumber. How evil of you, conveniently unable to explain what you meant by your slurred confession, or to whom you were referring to.

Ace and Deuce were visibly distracted during their knight training the morning after, one of the few times that they must separate from you. Your words looping over and over in their heads like an endless echo. Your voice pleaded so sincerely with tears cascading down your cheeks.

“What should we do, Ace?” Deuce broke the awkward silence during their water break, finally taking a step to mention the elephant in the room. Your words that resembled a wistful confession struck him with worry (and a hint of budding hope). But unlike him, Ace was quick to look for possible excuses for your actions.

“Don’t be dumb. It was probably just the alcohol talking. Don’t you remember how much we all drank?” The reddish hue of Ace’s cheeks however betrayed his true emotions. In truth, he was just as frazzled by your words as Deuce was. He kept trying to convince himself that you meant nothing by it, to not get his hopes up. But the little devil on his shoulder whispers in his ear, “but what if you did mean something by it?”

Since then, you felt that your time spent with the duo increased since your last outing. Instead of staying back in the knight’s barracks right after training, Ace and Deuce visited your hometown more often that was not the most convenient travel destination. You felt at least one pair of eyes, either sea blue or rose red or both, watching you before turning away when you tried to catch their gaze.

But it seems that some people did noticed something different with the two young men, specifically their family. Deuce’s mother would smile knowingly at you whenever you drop by to offer some assistance in her business, occasionally mentioning how much her son has grown. Funnily enough, Ace’s older brother mentioned something similar about the redhead, though it was more laced with a teasing tone than one of filial affection.

But you weren’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. You enjoyed the frequent visits of your best friends, especially knowing they will be even busier when the announcement of a new royal member would take your precious moments with them. Rumours were spread about the town of a mysterious figure locked in a tower which were not part of your memories, but your wary heart kept you mindful of the possible news regarding the imperial family.

Your worries intensified when Ace and Deuce announced their new task once dawn breaks, they were to escort the newest addition to the royal family back to the palace. In an attempt to quell your unease, you made an embarrassing request.

“You want to do what?” A bright red hue on Deuce’s face heavily contrasted with his raven blue hair, but you were no position to tease him as you could assume that your embarrassed complexion was no better. “Y-You mean…you…and us…”

The three of you lost track of time chatting and goofing off in your quarters and didn’t realize how the sun has long gone to rest for the night. Instead of returning to their own home, you asked if the two knights were willing to stay over the night, like in your younger days. Back when you three were more used to wooden swords than ones of steel, when your only worry was if your parents were going to cook your favourites that night.

Back when you three shared the same bed together.

“It’s not that crazy of a request…” you pouted but you supposed it was rather absurd to ask your friends, who old enough to be considered men, something so childish. Perhaps those carefree days are truly long gone.

“I’m not opposed to it” Ace gave his signature cheeky smile as he naturally wrapped his arm around your shoulder, slightly leaning his weight onto you. “If you just can’t help but miss our company, we can have a good ol’ slumber party. Just like old times~”

You’re starting to reconsider your request.

But Ace wasn’t done. “Well, it’s not exactly like old times. We’re definitely bigger than back when we were kids”

The redhead was obviously right. The three of you were nothing like the tiny versions of you in the past, and your best friends have certainly bulked up since they started their journey into knighthood. You tried your best but you couldn’t help but gaze in appreciation of the hard work the two of them did to build the stamina and muscles to protect their kingdom, respectfully of course.

“I doubt that all three of us can fit on your teeny little bed.” the scarlet-eyed knight exaggerated his point by squinting his fingers to describe your bed. “I guess Deucey’s just gonna have to go home for tonight.”

“Hey, wait a minute! Why me?!” Deuce snapped out from his flustered daze to glare at Ace, pulling his shaggy-haired companion by the neck of his shirt. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”

Ace remained unperturbed, too used to the blunette’s burst of anger “It’s nothing personal, buddy. But you grind your teeth real loud at night. How is any of us gonna get any sleep?”

“Well you’re a pain to wake up in the morning!” Deuce angrily countered. “Don’t make it our problem to get your ass up tomorrow.”

You watched your best friends bicker and argue, as if you didn’t already know of their terrible sleeping habits. Sure, Deuce grinds his teeth but you always tried to gently soothe his jaw hoping to relax him. Ace may sleep like the dead but his cute little pout every time he finally wakes up makes the effort all worth it to you.

They were idiots, but they were your idiots.

“Will you both stop fighting already?” Ace and Deuce immediately paused as your voice caught their attention, like it always does. “No one’s gotta leave. My bed is not that small, you know?”

To prove your point, you took each of the boy’s hand and led them without issue. For someone as tall and built as them, they were so easy to pull and push as you please. Carefully, you pressed your hands against their chest to push them backwards onto your bed. You then crawled onto the bed yourself between Ace and Deuce, the men automatically shifting their bodies to make space for you.

Satisfied, you laid onto your back and you took the hand of both men, each of your hand snuggly holding their warm, calloused ones. You smiled brightly at the fuzzy feelings of nostalgia bubbling in you, pressing your joining hands to your chest, atop of your beating heart.

“See, no one needs to leave.” your bright eyes looked up to your favourite people, cheeky joy evident in your gaze.

A rare occurrence, the two chatty troublemakers were left speechless. In their defence, they were too busy trying to contain the burst of happiness in their hearts to reply back to you, barely pushing the redness of their cheeks at bay.

[goldsbitch]

That one call overseas

part 7 to That one Christmas flight

summary: Now that we don't talk.

warning: pure angst this time, cheesy af, swear words I guess, cliche probably, typos most definitely

The hole Y/N dug for herself was getting deeper with each day of no contact with Lando. Gone was her ability to contain her emotions within herself. Her friends were getting concerned. Their ever so calm and easy going friend turned into an impulsive, unreliable and even slightly rude menace.

Teresa was the one who kept patience with her in the worst days, as only the best of friends do. When Y/N got kicked out of a bar for the first time in her life for her comments in lousy bad Italian on a random couple in the late hours of their Friday night, Teresa walked her home and screamed Hits Different with her at the top of their lungs to ease the atmosphere. And once they were home, she listened to Y/N rant about how she would never ever call the asshole who does not even bother to text her again. Teresa also stopped her from throwing his hoodie away, knowing that the following morning would hurt just a little more.

When Y/N woke up the following noon, she took a hard look in the mirror. This was getting ridiculous. She swore to herself and all of her roommates that no more alcohol and no more Lando desperation. It's a crush - it'll pass. One day this will be a nice story to tell the kids she'll have with some Antonio, the accountant or Ignacio, the lawyer. Not Lando, the racer - and that was ok.

//

Lando was off to Montreal and things could not be more busy for him. New updates to test, again, as his frustration grew. He only wished to be finally at the top podium, which seemed to always slip in between his hands. His mind, of course, was clouded by the thoughts of Y/N. At first he thought ashamed of himself for not reaching out and appearing like an asshole - but he somewhat expected her to break the silence. He started to second guess every aspect of the time they shared together. Perhaps she did not have as great time as he had, perhaps he acted like an asshole, or perhaps he just was not good enough for those who were not under the F1 charm spell. Not good enough for her. He finally resorted into doing something he tries to avoid as much as possible - looked at the fan pages and comments to boost his ego up. It only led to him feeling more shameful and pathetic than when he started. He kept her necklace and brought it with him. For all it was worth, he had an amazing memory to look back at, no matter how delusional he felt doing that.

The paddock was a great place to be at when searching for a distraction, so he made sure to spend as little time as possible alone and surrounded himself with people. He even walked to the stands often than he usually would, searching fans and giving photos out, smiling a little to extra on all the girls who looked remotely close to Y/N. Who knows, he might pick up someone like that at the end of Montreal ride. Why not. Nobody was stopping him.

He went to the race with all he had, fully prepped and focused. However, red flags, poor strategy choice had him finishing way below the targeted place. To his luck, Oscar was on a roll of luck and finished way better compared to Lando - and of course that everyone compared. Debrief meetings like that drown the soul more than usually.

Influx of all the journalists was overwhelming that day. The interview fatigue hit hard and after few of those, Lando felt that based on the questions he was asked, everyone thought of this race like a massive fail for him. His own answers continually worsened.

"Why do you think this week has ended the way it did?" asked one of the more prominent interviewers.

"Well, you know how it is. Sometimes the week just does not go the way you'd wish, even if last weekend it seemed like we're on a track to something good. One things affects the other and getting out of that rut is challenging."

"Are you talking about the updates, or something different?"

"Yeah, something like that. But as they say, when life gives you lemons, right. Make lemonade...or limoncello for a rainy day, ey?"

"Well, we hope to see the cheerful Lando soon and ideally at a podium too!" Lando knew the interviewer was only doing his job and technically she was not doing anything wrong, but he could not help and for a split second let his face do a look, that was certainly not appropriate for someone who was so used to media and knew he had to be smart around them.

He was in no mood to watch a celebration of Oscar or to get wrapped up in the post race chaos. Once he felt free to leave, he did, putting his phone on don't disturbe mode and went for a walk around the city with his headphones on, to dwelve in some sad tunes and solitude of his own thoughts.

//

Y/N asked Teresa to punch her anytime she looked like she was about to search Lando news. Her roommate refused to do that as it would be a full time job, but did help her set up some tags to block. Saturday was a success, however once Sunday evening and race time rolled in, Y/N knew she was absolutely not ready to try and ignore it. So instead they made a girls evening in about it. The idea was to replace real memories with Lando for race watching and distance him. They were trying... So they sat together with their study books to combine distractions. Y/N was explaining the race rules, avoiding any personal remarks about Lando. To her own disappointment, he was not featured a lot as there was not much really going on for him during the race. But maybe it was for the best. It really felt alienating, seeing his face on the screen, a character in the story of F1, so far removed from the unfiltered smiling face she had burned in her memory. The mood in the apartment was calm, maybe a little mellow. There was a weird calmness in Y/N, as she knew for a fact that he was busy. Knowing that she will definitely not get any text and that he was not ignoring her was soothing for the soul, even if for just few hours. At the end, the girls had way better time than expected, Teresa taking the initiative to comment on all the rest of the drivers and ranking them based on looks and vibes. She became a Leclerc girl all the way in.

"Right, that's my cue to go to the bathroom," Y/N stood up as the post race interviews rolled in. That would be too much at the moment.

"Love the drama vibes you give off. I'll watch it and let you know if there was anything alarming," Teresa assured her.

"Doubt that," was the bitter response she received back.

Once Y/N came back, she returned to her friend sitting with a puzzled look.

"What?!" all the pent up emotions took the stage, all the hard worked stillness gone as if it was a dream.

Teresa sat in silence, looking bluntly at the screen.

"What??!" Y/N repeated impatiently. "Ugh, forget this charade. I'll just watch it." This all felt like she had passed the test, but hadn't learned the lesson at all.

"Yeah, maybe you should. Interesting, his voice is higher that I imagined," Teresa replied as Y/N became to rewind the stream. They sat in silence, as they watched post race Lando in his tiredness, obvious annoyance and visible dark circles under his eyes. A shock went through Y/N at the word limoncello.

"Y/N, it must a coincidence. He's just been to Italy, so the connection was there...means probably nothing," Teresa said quietly as she watched her bewildered friend.

"Limoncello. Name a more Italian drink...What the fuck?? Is he joking right now? What is this?"

"Y/N, he has no idea you're watching, remember?"

"Yeah, I don't care about that. Makes it even worse actually." She replayed his interview once again.

"Ok, that's it - I'm taking this away from you," Teresa ordered after she saw Y/N going for a third round of the interview. "Do you wanna talk about it, talk it through?" So they went on to the kitchen, cooked some pasta while Y/N went on a rant where she let all her thoughts let loose.

//

"Honestly, fuck him. I don't need the mess he brings into my life. I can find great sex on every corner in this city!"

"Yeah, you go girl!"

"You know what, I'm gonna call him!" Y/N turned directions again for 17th time that day.

"Yeah, I kind of thought you would," Teresa sighed tiredly. "And I think you should, the worst thing you might get is a peace of mind...eventually."

"Yeah, I'm gonna do it! Now!"

She dialed his number. The phone rang for the first time. The second and third. With the seventh dial, she hung up. The girls looked at each and Teresa went for a hug.

"He might be busy with some racing stuff?" Teresa said in a tone which suggested that she herself had a hard time believing.

"I'm so stupid," Y/N whispered.

//

Of course he would miss it. Obviously. Because that just what seems to follow him and this girl around. It was deep evening over at her timezone, but still ok for a late night talk. He called back. What was he even planning on saying? He had no idea. When she did not pick up, he called for a second time. She picked up his facetime call and to say his heart skipped a beat would be an understatement. His heart triple jumped. A face appeared in low light. She smiled.

"Hey you," he opened with. The word honey almost slipped his tongue, but he was not sure how it would be received on the other side of the line.

She waved and gestured him to be silent. Lando was bewildered.

"Where are you?" he whispered, trying to unsucesfully figure out from her background. Again, he was met with a shush. Well, this will be real fun, Lando thought, slightly annoyed.

"Wait, you have me in your earbuds...so you need to be silent, not me!" Y/N frowned and nodded. She got up from where she was sitting and started walking.

"Well, since I have some guaranteed no interruption time, let me fill your ears with a story! There once was a beautiful girl, who talked so much and was so obnoxious that the city decided to ban her from speaking. Luckily, she found the most handsome guy in the town to keep her company with his wit, charm and great looks. To reward him for his services she sent him-"

"Ok, you can STOP now," she exclaimed, as she walked down the stairs.

"Where the fuck are you at this hour, young lady. Someone should seriously keep an eye on you!"

"Yeah, well, I sometimes think the same - and then I'm suddenly sitting in some random hotel room hundreds of miles away from where I was supposed to be," she winked at him. "No, I was at the church."

"Oh...you religious? Wait, are the churches still open?"

"Yes, silly. It's Italy, one always is. And no, I'm not religious per say."

"Oh, well then it makes perfect sense that you're hanging out in churches at midnight, yes."

"Yeah, you know. One gets bored."

"Ok, weirdo," Lando laughed.

"No, I like to go there to clear my head. There is some magic in the architecture and in the old walls," she explained. She really did go to get her head clear, to think it out. "Oh, and one day, I'd like to fuck in like a really old building. Not church exactly, but like I dunno. Our university halls are making me super hot sometimes." She had no idea why this was the first thing she'd pick as a topic. God, she felt lame.

"Well, that would be a hard thing to decline, if you're offering."

"Cheeky as ever, are we?"

"Obviously. So, tell me. Whats up? It's nice to see you by the way. I wanted to tell you that before you shushed me down so politely."

"Aw, nice to see you too, man." Lando would prefer to be called differently. "Some school stuff, completely blew my Monday's presentation, so that was fun."

"You should have studied in the weekend, hmm!"

"Yes! I should have," she had a hard time keeping the smiles in, "Anyway, otherwise it's been pretty much a lot of nothing."

"So you called me because you're bored and not because you wanted to talk to me?" He knew he was pushing it. But desperate times... She hesitated and shot him a strange look he could not decipher.

"Did you know we also have leaning tower here in Bologna?" Y/N panned the phone to show him one of the two towers in the city centre. She was walking around with no apparent destination. "Have you been here?"

Lando smiled weakly. There was a strange frustration regarding the distance he felt towards her. Not the physical miles. "Yeah, I've been there once." His Bologna trip was not exactly a great memory. Maybe this call had been a mistake. The last thing he needed now was to feel strange. He showed her the park he had been walking in.

"I'm in Montreal! Have you been?" Y/N also felt some strange vibes coming through this dry conversation

"No, but sounds fun."

"Not really. There has been a lot of pressure at me lately. I'm starting to hate it. Can't say it to anyone, nobody seems to get it." He looked off to Y/N from the start of the phone call. She took few breaths to triple check that she really wanted to break the elephant in the room. It somehow seemed like a "now or never" situation.

"Saw the race today." Lando paused. He suddenly felt the most vulnerable he had ever felt with her. Did she know him from the first moment? Was she lying? He had a hard time gathering out a response. She felt that, so she started blabbering. The cat was out of the bag, so what the hell.

"I broke our rule after we met. Not immediately! But I just...it felt nice meeting you. And I had no idea about racing beforehand. I overheard your name once and I was like "there can't have been two sets of parents naming their child Lando in this century". She looked at his puzzled face. "I'm sorry." Range of emotions floated through Lando, who was particularly sensitive today. It was only a matter of time when she'd find out who he was, he knew the day had to come at some point. But there was a part of him that wanted him to be the one to tell her. To tell his side of the story first, before she could get it elsewhere. He only had to trust her that she wasn't lying from the start. Very few people liked him for him and not "the racer Lando Norris".

But then again, who was he judge? He practically stalked her down - no, not practically, he actually tracked her down. Why did he do that? Because he was wonderstuck too. He liked her. So that meant that she liked him too. Sense of pride took over.

"Don't say sorry. You look too cute doing that," se said feeling braver now and less like a teenager with a crush. "Nah, it's ok. Wanted to spare you of the NDA, but I guess too late now." The more he came to terms with the fact he was not an enigma anymore, the more confident he became. "I mean, I was the one to find you even though you're not exactly famous, so..."

"Yeah!" she said as if she forgot that. "See, bordeline creepy," she laughed, obviously feeling relieved that he hadn't hung up the phone. "But, it's you, so I guess cute?"

"I'd say it's a little problematic on both parts, so we're even, honey."

She laughed. The looks they shared were a little more intimate than their previous looks. A sense of warmth washed over Y/N.

"It's funny. Do you know when I was in Bologna?"

"Ha, I do actually. My friends saw you at a bar."

"Yes...That's not exactly a coincidence. I wanted to "bump" into you accidentally."

She bit her lip down and closed her eyes. Took a deep breath and replied: "Do you know what was also a massive fail?"

He shook his head.

"I was at Imola. I wanted to "bump" into you accidentally."

Silence followed, as the two idiots took the new information in. Butterflies flying all over Bologna and Montreal.

"I think it's time we stopped dancing around and start being clear with each other or we'll start to look really stupid," Lando stated after a moment.

"Agree, Lando."

"Great, Y/N. I want to see you again soon."

"Me too."

They talked for another hour. Chatting lightly around about this and that, heart racing, not pushing more boundaries anymore that night, as the leap felt big enough to hardly swallow for them at the time. Y/N had final exams so the next weekend was a no go for her. But they agreed she'll come over to Spain, as he calendar was clear until the summer. Apart from seeing each other, confidentiality was a big thing for both of them. They barely knew each other, even if it had felt differently every time they talked.

Y/N was unable to relax that night, as the line "I can't wait to kiss you again," which Lando said instead of a goodbye, burned in her mind with the brightest of all flames. Some people were never destined to be friends.

part 8

__________________________________________________

Tagged all those who like to suffer: @prudyhoo @anuksunamon @sagestack @esquerkaren @ushygushybaby @ilove-tswizzle @thehufflepuffavenger1  @superlegend216 @mehrmonga @lovely-blackinnon @mylifeihate1029 @lausdigitaldiary @tswizzleismother @goldenharrysworld @llando4norris @classiclitfreak  @ophcelia @leclerc13 @starmanv @k4r1402 @biitch-with-wifi @drunk-teens-doing-drugs 

[babyleostuff]

Hi sweetheart💙 how are you? Wish you a great day💙 I recently read the Jeonghan as your boyfriend and it's so adorable, can you make one for Wonwoo? Thank you💙

so happy to hear you enjoyed it love <3 here's a Wonwoo one and have a great day as well!

WONWOO AS YOUR BOYFRIEND

genre | a lot of fluff

author's note | if you want me to write this with any other member, let me know <3

𓆩♡𓆪 so incredibly in love with you

𓆩♡𓆪 anyone that looks at him can practically see his heart eyes for you

𓆩♡𓆪 if the boys see him smiling at his phone, they know he’s texting you 

𓆩♡𓆪 his aura when he’s with you is all rainbows and hearts (it’s almost sickening)

𓆩♡𓆪 but he couldn't be more grateful for finding you and pulling your hot ass 

𓆩♡𓆪 because come on, look at you 

𓆩♡𓆪 he is your comfort person and the first soul you turn to when you’re having a hard time 

𓆩♡𓆪 his kisses are gentle and loving, but the also carry a sense of passion

𓆩♡𓆪 because he is not always able to be next to you due to his job, he wants to convey his feeling for you through his actions

𓆩♡𓆪  when he has any free time from schedules he wants to spend every second with you 

𓆩♡𓆪 probably at home too

𓆩♡𓆪 when he doesn’t have to pretend to be anyone else and doesn’t have to worry about cameras rolling all the time 

𓆩♡𓆪 he can just be Wonwoo 

𓆩♡𓆪 will read to you when you’re tired (will read to you even when you’re NOT tired) 

𓆩♡𓆪 besides reading, he loves trying out new creative pastimes with you 

𓆩♡𓆪 like baking, which didn’t end THAT well (your kitchen almost burned down, but that’s beside the point) 

𓆩♡𓆪 or trying to plant different flowers and take care of them (which didn’t end well either, as both of you forgot to water them after like a week) 

𓆩♡𓆪 a cliche, but he adores taking photos of you 

𓆩♡𓆪 even if you’re a shy person and don’t necessarily like having pictures taken, he’ll make you feel like the most beautiful creature in the world (which you are) 

𓆩♡𓆪 will not let you doubt yourself, not for a second, because the person on the photos he takes is all he ever needs in his life 

𓆩♡𓆪 the best person to take your candid photos 

𓆩♡𓆪 you’re probably not even aware, but he has a whole album dedicated to you 

𓆩♡𓆪 looks through the albums when he’s away, because he misses you so much 

𓆩♡𓆪 but he doesn’t want to seem clingy, so he won’t ever tell you about it 

𓆩♡𓆪 will always stand up for you, if someone makes you uncomfortable or sad 

𓆩♡𓆪 because one thing he absolutely cannot stand is his love being sad cuz of other people being mean

𓆩♡𓆪 another cliche, but video gaming

𓆩♡𓆪 even if you’re not that into it, he’ll try to warm you up to the idea 

𓆩♡𓆪 and teach you gaming to some extent 

𓆩♡𓆪 even if you suck, it doesn’t really matter to him, because you’re spending quality time together 

𓆩♡𓆪 and probably laughing your asses of, because you’re so bad at it

𓆩♡𓆪 gives you small kisses when you get something right or survive a level 

𓆩♡𓆪 but if you’re good, he’ll become SO competitive 

𓆩♡𓆪 does not go easy on you, he does everything he can in order to win 

𓆩♡𓆪 late night cuddles are his favourite

𓆩♡𓆪 you lay in each others arms, your head on his chest and an arm draped across his middle 

𓆩♡𓆪 he has an arm around your waist and his hand pats your head gently 

𓆩♡𓆪 you talk in a hushed tone, share your worries or discuss the most random topics 

𓆩♡𓆪 it really doesn’t matter because you’re together 

𓆩♡𓆪 and that’s what he misses the most when he’s away on tour 

𓆩♡𓆪 your calming presence by his side 

𓆩♡𓆪 but he is always just one phone call away and always lets you know that you can call him anytime 

𓆩♡𓆪 because you are the most important thing in his life and he’d do anything for you

your messages &lt;3

[beanmachine69]

Brothers' Beloved Bestfriend | Daniel Ricciardo (part iii)

part i

part ii

You chose not to wear the red dress, but that didn’t stop Daniel from stealing glances at you the whole night, sifting through guests any chance he could to talk to you before your brother swept him away. The guest list was more than you had anticipated, so when you retired to your room after everyone had left, you were uncertain whether you could keep your exhaustion at bay to stay awake and talk to Daniel. Obviously those thoughts and struggles were thrown out the window when you heard your bedroom door quietly open as he snuck in, closing the door behind himself and pausing at the entrance, watching you finish your skincare routine.

“Finally.” You replied, passing him a smile as he made his way to your bed. 

“What, couldn’t wait any longer to see me again?” He laughed.

You rolled your eyes before joining him in bed, getting flashbacks to how it had felt the first night he was in your room. This felt like a strangely domesticated moment though, you’d shared several sweet moments with him over the course of the years you had known him, but this felt intimate, and domesticated. Crawling into bed and under the covers with him waiting for you on the side of the bed he knew you didn’t sleep on felt odd- not in a bad way, but more in a different and kind of adorable way.

Your crush on Daniel had started as the same old cliche crush; you liked your older brothers’ best friend, but it had grown into something much more in the past few years, and as confusing as it was, you were still glad you two were cuddling next to each other. He had always been the type of person to go through the effort of completely understanding and knowing the people around him; he was a comforting soul to many and though you’d always felt comfortable around him, this was different, it was far more intimate than you could have ever wished for. You’d of course be lying if you claimed you didn’t wish for this, that you didn’t think about it every time your hugs lingered a moment too long or every time he’d lean just a little too close. Daniel always felt like the man you would feel safe around, and now that he had his arms wrapped around you and your face buried in his chest, listening to his heart beat, you felt safer than you could have imagined. 

The dreaded conversation wasn’t brought up for a while, initially you two talked about the event, the food, the people, the interactions and eventually you two managed to transgress into a completely different conversation about life and the struggles the two of you had faced as individuals- not once did the conversation feel forced and not once did it feel like he was trying to make a segway into the intended topic. It wasn’t till you looked up at him during an extended few minutes of silence, only to have him be looking back at you, his smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

“Your forehead is at the perfect spot.” He said, inching closer to give you a kiss. 

You smiled at the gesture, it was sweet and made you feel warm on the inside.

“I’m sorry, I should have expressed my feelings better.” Daniel said, breaking the comfortable silence with words that felt heavier than they should have. 

“Wait wait wait wait, what are you apologizing for? If anyone should be apologizing right now, it should be me; I’m the one who cut you off when I should have talked to you about my fears.” You replied, plummeting directly into the core of the matter, pulling away to look at his face better, you propped your head up on your arm for better comfort. Daniel mirrored your posture, propping his head on his arm, and reaching out with his other hand to hold yours. 

“No, no, I thought about it a lot and I feel awful for how I came onto you-” You saw his face flinch when he registered the last few words and bit back a chuckle, “Uh, I was much older than you and still am, and it was your first summer back from college and all, and really I should have had a better conversation but we were both kinda drunk and it felt like oh y’know it’s now or never and-”

“Danny.” You interrupted him, squeezing his hand a bit tighter as a form of bodily punctuation.

He didn’t reply to you, his gaze met yours and for a moment you swore you would start crying. You’d known these past few days that your feelings for him had resurfaced, but every passing moment felt like those feelings hadn’t resurfaced, but instead had never left, they had existed for longer than you’d like to admit and no matter how much you’d lie and say it was momentary or what-not, they were real and had been existing longer than you’d acknowledge. Hearing him ramble hurt you, it was the saddest possible confirmation of his pre-existing and lasting feelings for you and though that fact should have brought comfort, his expression of that fact brought a great discomfort. You’d always known Daniel to be a man capable of expressing his thoughts and using his words, but at that moment, the way his words fell out of his mouth with his eyes darting and looking anywhere but yours made you regret any decision you thought to be correct. 

“Dan, stop apologizing, whatever happened that night happened and I don’t regret what we did. Do you?” 

“God, not at all.” Daniel replied, brows furrowing slightly as he lost grip of the direction of the conversation.

“Yeah, so the problem wasn’t the fact that we had sex. I just freaked out because I’ve had this crush on you for so long and I didn’t think anything would happen except then it did and it scared the shit out of me because I didn’t know what my family would say and I somehow convinced myself that you didn’t like me like that and that that night was just a fling and yes, before you say it, we did have a conversation during and after about our feelings but I don’t know I guess it felt too good to be true?” 

You had spewed out a lot, most of which Daniel already knew, but the last bit of your statement completely threw him for a loop and momentarily disabled his brain for a response. In the two years he had to think over the matter, not once did he suspect that you would ever think he’d use you as a stupid drunk one-nightstand. Excluding guilt, all emotions Daniel felt towards you were inter-linked to great degrees with immense respect and genuine adoration for you- the idea of you seeing yourself as a silly drunken decision blew his mind. The emotions he felt were not verbally expressed, he was trying his best to untangle his thoughts while you read his expressions and said the first few words that came to mind. 

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? Listen, I’m really sorry for ghosting you, it just became too much and I got so scared y’know like with my brother and my family, and your career and my college and-” 

“Shut up.” He interrupted, confusion dissolving off his face.

He moved faster than you could question, pulling your face into his for a kiss. It wasn’t breath-taking or anything, but it truly was a long enough kiss to shut you up, for your train of thought to be completely derailed and for you to be distracted by his lips gently moving against yours as his hand let go of yours and moved to cup your face, thumb slowly stroking your cheek.

“I would never, ever look at you like that.” He said, face a few inches away from yours.

“Like what?” You asked, looking up at him.

“Like you’re worth letting go of, ever.” He whispered, scared of saying those words too loud. 

Daniel had never admitted this to anyone, mainly because he couldn’t; the only person who knew the both of you was your brother and that wasn’t particularly a conversation he’d like to have earlier on, except now he was sure he didn’t care about what your brother had to say or what your family had to say- all he cared about was the fact that he wasn’t going to let any silly thought hold him back, nor was he willing to mess up and risk the chance of losing you again. 

“Danny..” You tried to say something apart from his name, but failure was inevitable, you had never admitted this earlier and having to hear the confirmation of your unspoken fear and conclusionary reason for the cut-off brought you immense comfort. “I’m sorry for running away from you Danny.” 

“I understand, I really do, please don’t beat yourself over it baby, I get it, I really really do.” He comforted you, as he pulled your head into his chest kissing the top of it as he felt you relax. 

It truly felt like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders, it felt like the two years you had spent thinking about him and all that could have been were useless and in the moment they felt sillier than they were. The time for the actions and confessions just wasn’t right and deep down inside the both of you had known it then and knew it now too. 

The Enchante merch he was wearing felt soft against your skin, the supple fabric against our face felt comforting, his hand stroking your back felt comforting, the way you could feel his breath felt comforting- it all felt like a reward for the two years of discomfort. 

“Y’know,” Daniel said, interrupting the one-sided conversation you were having with his heartbeat, “I don’t think your brothers’ going to be very surprised when we come clean about all this.” 

“Hm? Why’re you so sure, did he say something?” You asked, confused with the random mention of your brother.

“Uh, no, but I think he’s seen me staring way too many times.” He laughed, “I mean the guys not an idiot.” 

“I don’t think he’ll be too mad, I mean yeah he’d be mad at first, but it’s you and he trusts you, I don’t think he’d have an objection to us dating.” 

“So, what I’m hearing is that we’re dating? Gee babe, lemme at least buy you dinner first.” Daniel laughed, a sound of joy that vibrated through his chest, which you slapped lightly as a response to the teasing.

“I mean- I don’t know, that’s not what I-” You got flustered, suddenly completely unsure of a response. 

“Baby, baby, I’m joking, we’re dating that's for sure, I don’t think I wanna put that for later again.”   

“Oh cut it out Ricciardo.” You mumbled, smiling at his stupid joke. 

He hummed in response, holding onto you tighter as the thought settled in his head, he had hoped for this despite his ‘better’ judgment and now it was happening. You were in his arms, body completely slack against his with your breath slowing down as he felt your body drift off to sleep. 

-

-

-

-

A/N: I'M BACKKK!!! after eid and a major depressive episode, I have returned to provide the finale of my Danny fic, I'm sorry if it's short, hope yall like it, as usual inbox is open for criticism and asks! Love you all<3

[cranberrv]

⪩⪨ dating johnny cade headcanons

a/n : i hate this, i’m so sorry this took me all of 15 minutes but i needed to post something !!!!! maybe ill make a better version sometime, stay tuned <3 requests open btw (not proofread not proofread ignore any mistakes lovely)

- you’re his saviour

- you know the saying, ‘when you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light?’

- you’re his light

- if he’s having a bad day or his parents have kicked him out again, guess who he’s going to?

- not even to talk about it, just to be surrounded by this warmth that makes him forget about all his problems

- unlike dallas, he loves hugs and cuddling all. the. time.

- well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. he hates cuddling in front of the gang. the gang will just tease him but his relationship with you is something he doesn’t wanna be teased about

- he doesn’t like big gestures

- he’s not the type to write you a poem (ponyboy cough cough) and he’s not the type to buy you cliche gifts like chocolate and flowers

- he does things that mean something, like a necklace with your favourite flower on it, a shirt of a band you two like listening to together

- one of his favourite pastimes is listening to music w you actually!

- i like to think johnny really likes music, like elvis and van morrison

- he’ll always buy new cassettes to listen to with you

- he wishes he could take you to concerts, but he’s too broke for that :(

- ugh i should probably move on but imagine spooning with johnny on your bed listening to music that’s adorable

- if he sees you laughing with a guy he doesn’t know or trust, he’ll feel a mix of jealous and insecure

- he doesn’t act on his jealousy, he just patiently waits until it’s his turn to talk to you

- if you bring up that he’s acting up, he’s not gonna talk about it, denying it

- “nah man idk what you mean, im fine”

- you guys argue occasionally, but only about things that really matter

- he doesn’t want you talking to socs, or you don’t want him to live with his parents anymore

- it’s a reasonable and patient conversation over an argument in his mind

- he has never made you cry and never will, or else he’ll cry

- sitting in the lot gazing up at the stars is his idea of a date. pointing out the moon and making a wish on the first star. smoking cigarettes and sitting back on the cheap fabric of some old thrown-out furniture

- him wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you closer to him, the two of you falling asleep under the stars

- sometimes you’ll catch him just staring at you. not in a creepy or weird way, just admiring.

- noticing his shoulders relax when he’s in a poor mood but then suddenly you come around is your favourite feeling

- he makes you feel so special, like you’re worth a million bucks

- he practically worships the ground you walk on (and vice versa!)

- puppy love

- you two like each other soooo much and it’s so obvious

- sometimes he gets a little insecure around the gang or socs, not being all mushy (not like he usually is anyway)

- he’s usually more reserved, saving the cuddling and gifts for alone time

- anyway you two are in love probably and it’s really cute

- sorry lovely this was rly rushed :( ill post a better version soon 💋

[public-trans-it]

i would love to hear your dark spore rant. i didnt even know spore had a sequel.

Oh anon. Poor sweet anon. I’m so sorry.

So, the thing about Darkspore is…

… it was a really REALLY… mediocre game.

Like, the moment to moment gameplay was… fine. Just fine. Not incredible. But not BAD! Really, it only had two major flaws:

The first, it was buggy as hell. One particularly nasty bug was present in the games launcher, and on certain systems the game would fail to install at all. They were unable to ever fix this bug, which I speculate was a major reason the game was abandoned by the devs so quickly and lead to it being taken down from every major digital distribution site. You could still install and play it if you already bought it though! If… it actually installed for you.

Which leads us to the second flaw. It’s right there on the box.

“Internet connection required”

The game has Always Online DRM. All the levels, enemies, loot, your entire account, was all stored server side. And servers are expensive. So, when the games bugs became unwieldy and not worth fixing, and they took it offline… it became a money sink. It was a game generating ZERO revenue, but had huge server maintenance costs. So eventually, they just shut down the servers.

It is now very difficult to obtain the game, requiring you to buy one of the few unopened physical copies remaining. And even once you do have it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to play. There is a project called Resurrection Capsule in the works, some fans trying to create a private server for it. But with so much info stored server side, they basically have to recreate entire subsystems from scratch. It’s… not going very fast, and to my knowledge hasn’t been touched in over a year.

Story

The story of the game is pretty basic. A progenitor race of alien super-scientists create a new, synthetic form of DNA, called Exponential-DNA, or E-DNA. This rapidly mutates to create new life, and can be guided to create specific, specialized organisms, condensing thousands of years of evolution to a few hours. It can also be injected into existing creatures to alter them and make them more powerful. However it also linked everything affected by it into a hivemind. So it was outlawed. The creator of it decided to respond by creating a E-DNA virus, called The Darkspore, infecting himself with it, and spreading it across the galaxy and conquering it, wiping out his own race.

You play as another member of that race, who has been in hibernation for 1000 years while that was going down. Your ship AI has woken you up because it has managed to stabilize E-DNA and also keep it disconnected from the hivemind, and needs you to go kill the guy who took over the galaxy. That is how the game starts.

…

And how the story ends. There is not really any more story past that part. You get a cutscene describing each of the games 6 planets the first time you visit it, and a final “Hey you won!” cutscene after killing the final boss which ends with the cliche “implication the villain isn’t really dead” trope, and… that’s it. That’s the entire story. Not really the selling point of this game. Its not even entirely clear if it takes place in the same universe as Spore! It’s just set dressing for “Run through these 24 levels and beat everything up”

Gameplay

Darkspore was created by Maxis. This alone was HUGE. This was a team of developers who only really made lifesims like The Sims and Sim City, taking a stab at making a diablolike game.

And I GENUINELY BELIEVE every single studio out there needs to do shit like this. Designing for something so outside your wheelhouse creates SOOOOO much innovation so quickly. You get fresh new ideas injected into the genre so quickly. The final product won’t be good! You don’t have any damn experience in the genre! But it will create something unique beautiful, and god damn I wish we lived in a world where that alone was enough and devs weren’t focused on chasing profits instead.

Genesis

Genesis is just a fancy way of saying ‘Element’. There are 5 of them: Plasma (fire and lightning), Bio (plants and animals), Cyber (machines), Necro (death and fear), and Quantum (space and time) and the way they interact is… certainly a choice I guess. Each Darkspore you face has a genesis it falls into, and each of your heroes has one as well. If your Genesis matches that of the darkspore you are fighting at the moment, you take double damage and they take half damage. If they don’t match, all damage both ways is neutral.

The system itself is kinda mediocre. The biggest part of it, however, is the Variant Skills. Each Genesis has 4 unique skills tied to it that represent the common elements of that type.

Heroes

There are 25 heroes in the game, which each have one Genesis and one Class (Sentinel which are the tanks, Ravagers which are the DPS, and Tempest which are the Casters/Support)

Each hero has 4 total variants, with the first one you unlock being Alpha, and as you level up your account (heroes do not have their own levels) you eventually can purchase their Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, with each variant having slightly different stats, and a different one of their Genesis’ 4 variant abilities.

Each hero has a unique basic attack, which USUALLY has a little extra to it. For example Sage shoots a bolt that hurts enemies it hits, but heals allies it hits. Zrin alternates between two different punches, one of which has a short duration DoT and the other of which has a 10% stun chance. Stuff like that.

They also have a passive effect that is always active while you are playing them. Collect a soul from each enemy killed for a 5% damage boost, 10% damage bonus when attacking from behind, a stacking defense buff every time you take damage, stuff like that.

Finally, a character has 2 unique abilities. One that is unique to them and can only be used while you are playing that hero, and a second ability that is everyone in the squad can use if that hero is present.

Squad Decks

Which brings me to the first rant and something I am SO AUTISTIC ABOUT (positive). SQUADS. The game had you craft Squad Decks, collections of 3 heroes that you can swap between during your missions, for a total of 883.2k squad combinations (I think my math might be off on that). Swapping between them is on a cooldown of about 10 seconds, but otherwise is don’t instantaneously and as often as you want without penalty. You always have 5 abilities active:

- The unique ability of your active hero

- The Genesis ability of your active heroes variant

- Hero 1’s Squad ability

- Hero 2’s Squad ability

- Hero 3’s squad ability

The first two abilities change out every time you swap heroes, but the last 3 are fixed. So you have 3 abilities that you always have access to, and 6 abilities that are paired up and you can swap between which pair of those abilities is active.

Your heroes do NOT share a health/energy pool, but DO share healing pickups. Any time you pick up a health or energy restoration pickup, it refills a chunk of the respective health pool of your currently active hero, and a smaller chunk of each of your inactive heroes in the squad.

So the core loop of moment to moment gameplay becomes swapping situationally between heroes both offensively and defensively, to get access to your other heroes skills and also to mitigate damage from enemies based on their genesis or control where your healing is directed.

Loot

Loot in Darkspore is fairly standard for your average Diablolike. Item drops have 4 tiers: Common (Item Level=Account Level-5), Uncommon (Item Level=Account Level), Rarified (Item Level=Account Level+5), and Purified (Item Level=Account Level+10)

Items of higher tiers have more chances to roll on a table to gain beneficial modifiers.

Each item fell into one of a few different categories: Weapon, Hands, Feet, Offensive, Defensive, or Utility.

Each hero has one of each slot, plus an additional slot based on their class. Ravagers have an extra Offense slot, Sentinels have an extra Defense slot, and Tempests have an extra Utility slot. Any hero can equip any item you gain, with the exception of Weapons that are hero specific. Some heroes also lack Hands or Feet, in which case their weapon has extra stats and can get the same modifiers as hands and feet can.

The items you equip can then be added onto the Hero in the Hero Editor. The Hero Editor is often equated to the Creature Editor in Spore, which is BULLSHIT and was a pet peeve of mine the ENTIRE DAMN TIME THE FAME WAS LIVE. This is a FALSE EQUIVALENCE. It uses the outfit editor from the Tribal/Civilization phases of Spore instead. Importantly: this means you cannot alter the overall silhouette of your hero. It will always maintain the same basic profile and animations. However you can freely place the extra parts you equip anywhere on its body, and can also place multiple copies of them.

Additionally, old parts can have their stats stripped, converting them into ‘Detail’ parts with no stats, of which you can equip 6 different parts, each of which you can include 10 copies of on your hero. So you could get some pretty cool looks from it!

However all this loot is garbage and you likely would not use most of it outside of appearance. Which brings me to…

Cash-out Loot

Usually if you mention the word ‘cash’ in any sentence involving a game published by EA, it would be a call for concern. Luckily this isn’t that! It’s just gambling! Everything is fine!

The main progression in Darkspore comes from gear, and the best gear comes from how good your ships engines are. These come from account upgrades as you level up your account, determining how many levels you can do in a row. Every time you complete a level, you are given an option: Keep going, or ‘cash out’ and get a guaranteed piece of Uncommon gear, with a 10% chance of it becoming Rarified, as well as all the gear you picked up in the level.

If you choose to keep going, you have to complete the next level. If you die, you lose ALL the gear you picked up, including that guaranteed piece. If you make it to the end, you are given another choice: Risk it all again and go on to the next level, or stop here and get your TWO pieces of guaranteed uncommon loot, which each now have a 20% chance of becoming rarified and a 5% chance of becoming purified.

You can only go another of levels equal to the number of Engine Upgrades you have earned by leveling up your account. So at first, after the second level you HAVE to cash out. As you progress you can start to do many more levels at a time, getting a dozen pieces of gear that are practically guaranteed to be the highest rank.

But of course you have to play these levels in order, and you don’t get a chance to upgrade your character with all the cool new loot you found on the way, so you can’t just jump straight into this. You have to slowly build up to being able to push yourself this much, and once you can, you have a readily available source of some of the best gear in the game.

And that ties into my absolute favorite system of Darkspore:

Catalysts

Many diablolikes have a mechanic called ‘Sockets’. The gear you equip has its own type of equipment slot, and you put gems in there that give you small bonuses. Every game does it a little differently, but it’s kind of a staple of the series.

Darkspore uses a similar system, but utilizes it VERY differently. While you are running levels, enemies will rarely drop Catalysts instead of loot. These come in 5 colors: Purple (boosts your base stats), Red (boosts offensive secondary stats like damage or attack speed), Blue (boosts defensive secondary stats like health regen or damage resistance), Green (boosts utility secondary stats like movement speed or lifesteal), and Rainbow (can contain any of the bonuses of the previous categories) They also come in two sizes: Big and Small. This determines how big the bonus from them is.

You have a 3x3 grid on your HUD that the catalysts you collect go into. You can rearrange them however you want, and if you create a line of 3 of the same color (Rainbow is a wildcard and matches with all of them), it will double the bonus of all Catalysts in that line. This stacks, meaning if you create multiple lines over a single catalyst it could get a x3, x4, or even x5 bonus if it’s the center piece of the grid and forms a line in every direction.

However, you can’t save Catalysts. You can equip it to the grid or drop it on the ground and move on. That’s it. You have to decide now. Do you keep that Big Purple you have for the big buff to your most important stat, or do you trade it for that Small Rainbow for a mediocre stat you just found that you can plug in the middle and double everything else in your grid?

“Surely that only matters early game, and once you have good catalysts you don’t swap them out that much, right?” I hear the diablolike veterans asking, because that is how socketing works in most of those games. And normally you would be right. Except for one major change: All your catalysts only last until the end of your run. When you get to the cash out screen, and choose to keep going? You keep them. But if you choose to cash out, or if you ever die, your catalysts all vanish. Every new run you have to go through and collect them again, which results in you playing your heroes in new ways and adopting new strategies based on what catalysts drop for you each run.

It’s an INCREDIBLE easy to learn system that adds SO MUCH depth and replayability to the game. I love it so incredibly much. Each mechanic flows elegantly into the the next. The catalysts help you do better runs which gets you better gear which upgrades your heroes which lets you do better runs, the entire spiral being locked into your account level to give a quantifiable metric of how far this spiral is gone. It was so good!

And now, it’s gone forever.

Man that sure was a long post. Friends have heard me go on this rant SO many times. Thank god I never got into a second mediocre game filled with novel innovations that are ultimately lost to time and can never be experienced again due to Always Online DRM making it unplayable. Can you imagine if I didn’t learn my lesson and did that a second time? Ha!

… I never did that again. Right?

… right?

…

HEX: Shards of Fate

Hex was a digital TCG legal battle with TCG elements created by Cryptozoic. It was originally put up on Kickstarter, advertised as a digital card game with both PvE and PvP modes, a unique focus on the design space opened up by being a digital game, and gameplay damn near identical to Magic: The Gathering.

The thinly veiled truth was that this game was never meant to succeed. They had hoped it would, and it would be great if it did, but I’m fairly certain that was always a secondary objective. The first objective was to get sued by Wizards of the Coast over the similarities to Magic: The Gathering.

Now, that might sound strange to an outsider, but to anyone in the industry, they are probably nodding along and going “Yeah that tracks actually.”

You see, Wizards of the Coast is… bad. Really bad. They do everything in their power to choke the life out of the industry and have resorted to a lot of questionable tactics to do so. One of these is against anyone who develops any form of trading card game. You see, WotC has a patent on booster packs, customizable decks of cards, and turning cards sideways.

Literally.

U.S. Patent No 5,662,332 (A)

It is not a coincidence that the second two biggest names in TCGs don’t involve turning your cards sideways. Konami contested that Yugioh was different enough to not violate the patent.

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Nintendo actually hired WotC to design the Pokémon TCG to NOT violate the patent in return for WotC getting to distribute the first few sets. WotC gladly accepted, distributed the game, got their cut of the sales, and as soon as that was over….

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Every single other game out there ended up paying royalties to WotC. Because the cut of the sales to WotC was cheaper than going to court even if you won. WotC had their fingers in every pie, but was smart enough to make sure not to piss people off so much that refusal was ever a viable option.

Cryptozoic was a company that, at the time, was making several licensed TCGs. The big one that jumps out was the World of Warcraft TCG, which they were in charge of (though it was originally made by Upper Deck). Cryptozoic was begrudgingly paying royalties because having the WoWTCG license was too good and they didn’t want to give that up. Then Hearthstone happened and Cryptozoic was going to lose the WoWTCG license as it got discontinued.

So Cryptozoic set up their new game, Hex, specifically to bait WotC into suing them, so they could get the patent overturned.

See, the patent isn’t actually valid. You cannot patent a game mechanic. There are certainly aspects of the patent that ARE valid and CAN be enforced, but the parts about mechanics can’t actually be enforced. WotC uses it because people can’t contest it, but if it actually was used in court it would get overturned VERY easily, and WotC would be declawed.

So Cryptozoic created a game that was a clone of MtG, used a Kickstarter to build up a large amount of legal funds, and got sued by WotC! Yes! Exactly what they wanted!

… and then they settled out of court.

Sigh.

I guess I’ll talk about the game now.

Lore

The lore of the game was solid. Pretty typical fantasy setting. Humans and elves and sort of racist orcs (better than most other orcs I’ve seen at least) and extremely racist tribal coyote people make up the good guys. Undead, spider-orcs, dwarves, and also pretty racist samurai rabbit people make up the bad guys.

There are two types of magic in the world: Blood magic and Wild magic. Elves are adept at wild magic. Shin’hare (the rabbit people) are adept at wild magic as well. The Shin’hare tried to take over the world, forcing the Orcs, Humans, Elves, and Cyotle to ally together to drive them underground into the underworld.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this. The Vennen taught the Shin’hare how to sacrifice their young for more power.

The two then allied with the Dwarves, a genderless race of sentient stone statues who excel at creating machinery, and who believe the world itself is a giant machine. Specifically, a weapon of mass destruction, and they are trying to set it off. They believe blowing people the fuck up to be their natural calling.

The underworld and overworld forces go back and forth a bit, with the Elves doing a large chunk of the work as the only overworld race that can use magic.

Then Hex happened. Hex is a massive meteor made up of Diamond, Emerald, and Sapphire. Hex punched clean through the world, scattering gems all across it, before stabilizing in orbit on the other side, becoming the worlds moon.

These gems were incredibly magical, allowing every race to now use magic. Diamonds were restorative, bringing life to things. Rubies were extremely destructive and burned bright and hot and quickly. Sapphire allowed finesse manipulation and control over water. These

Yes this is just the MtG color pie.

Eventually, humanity stumbled into one of their old crypts that was very close to the impact site of Hex, and found it CRAWLING with undead. They were taking the Diamonds from Hex and putting them into the eye sockets of human corpses, causing those corpses to reanimate. These were NOT actually undead, but an alien consciousness that existed within the gems that were using human corpses as a host.

The Necrotic sought a peaceful and symbiotic relationship with humanity as thanks for the use of the bodies. Humanity responded by getting really pissed off that the Necrotic were grave robbing, and went to war over it. Eventually the Necrotic retreated deep into the underworld and allied with the other races instead, eventually helping the Shin’hare with a second attack on the surface.

The lore has a lot more depth than that, but that’s the basic. I liked it a lot. The Orcs being good guys who just really liked tests of strength was a refreshing take on orcs. I liked them a lot. The extremely racist caricature that made up the Cyotle and the Shin’hare? Less so.

Digital Design Space

As for the actual gameplay… it was MtG. Like, almost 1:1.

Like…

Seriously.

Shards work similarly to Lands, with there being 5 basic shards, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Wild, and Blood. You can only play one Shard per turn and when you do you get 1/1 Resource. 1 resource to spend on this turn, and 1 permanent resource. You spend that resource to play a card that costs 1, and you go down to 0/1 resources. Start of your turn, you would go back up to 1/1 resource.

Pretty straight forward stuff. Resources are a card type like in MtG, but once it’s played it acts as a perpetual resource like the Mana in Hearthstone, with no need to care about where the resource is coming from.

… wait a second though, this is a MtG clone. It uses the color pie. Caring where those resources come from is KIND OF a big deal in MtG.

Which is the first really cool difference between Hex and MtG! THRESHOLD! Each time you play a shard you gain 1 threshold in that color. To play a card, you have to have at least as many threshold as are displayed below its cost. See that purple dot below Murder? That means you need 1 blood threshold to play it.

Threshold is NOT consumed when you play a card, which DRASTICALLY alters deckbuilding and how feasible multi-color decks are.

For example, in MtG, if you had 4 swamps and 1 mountain in play, and 5 cards in hand that all cost R…. You can play 1 whole card this turn.

In Hex, if you have 4 Blood and 1 Ruby, and have 5 cards that all cost 1 and have a single Ruby threshold, you can play your entire hand that turn. This made it incredibly viable to splash colors in relatively smaller amounts. It also opened up cool new design space, like cards that cost 1 but still required 3 threshold in a color. Or cards that require 1 threshold of every type to activate a bonus effect (very common among Necrotic) or… for sockets!

HEY WE ARE COMING FULL CIRCLE!

Remember how I mentioned Diablolike games having sockets, but how Darkspore didn’t use it? Well Hex DOES. There was a pair of keywords called Socketable Major and Socketable Minor. Each set, there would be 10 gems (two of each color) that rotated out for Socketable cards. Cards with Major sockets could equip any gem, while minor sockets could only equip half of them. So for example the current rotation might have the Sapphire gems be “While you have at least 1 Sapphire Threshold, this card has Flying” for its Minor gem, and “When you play this card, if you have at least 3 Sapphire Threshold, target player draws 3 cards”

You chose which gem was in each Socketable card during deckbuilding. Different copies of the same card could have different gems equipped, or you could have the same gem equipped across multiple different cards. It was basically a way to go “This card was designed to be splashed in other color decks. You pick what that other color is.”

It opened up a lot of design space! This was something Hex did VERY well. They knew they were making a MtG clone, but they weren’t beholden to the same restrictions a physical card game did, and they THRIVED in those areas.

For example, REPLICATORS GAMBIT, a one cost card that creates six copies of a troop (read: creature) that just… could not exist in MtG.

Another example of this was in my favorite archetype in Hex: Mill. Now, I’m not normally a blue player. I’m not a big fan of the ‘you don’t get to play the game’ archetype. Even mill isn’t really my thing. But the way it worked in HexTCG? God I loved it. I wish I could see my opponents faces as they reached a trembling hand out to their bloated, grotesque deck, a cruel mockery of what it once was. They had started the match with only 60 cards, but now it held twice that number. Knowing every draw was more likely to bring their own skittering death out.

…

Maybe I should back up a bit.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this.

Vennen are, in MtG terms, tribal Blue/Black with a focus on control. Specifically an aggressive form of control. Your wincon is still ‘beat your opponent to death’, but the means by which you do it is… spiders.

Lots of Vennen cards work by still allowing your opponent to do the thing that you blocked, but it now creates Spider Eggs in their deck. Lock down a creature as it enters play with ‘Everytime this creature becomes tapped, shuffle 3 spider eggs into your deck’ or ‘Whenever an opponent draws a third card this turn add a spider egg to their deck’ or ‘When this creature is destroyed add a spider egg to your opponent’s deck’ and when they DRAW a spider egg… well… the effect of a spider egg is more or less ‘When this card enters your hand or graveyard, draw/discard another card into that zone and destroy this one. Your opponent creates a Spiderling and puts it in play. “

Spiderlings are 1/1 Unblockable creatures.

The Vennen win con is to just fill your opponent with spiders and then shred them apart once the spiders start hatching. It was a DELIGHTFUL playstyle.

PvE

Hex also features a fairly robust PvE mode with a point crawl encounter map that was quite delightful. There were cards unique to PvE, but all PvP cards were also legal in PvE. In general, all your staples came from PvP and were the same core staples everyone uses to win (they were very generous with handing out common/uncommon PvP cards in the single player mode, which in turn also made Pauper a very popular format), however you also had PvE cards which made up your win cons. PvE cards weren’t balanced as tightly, and allowed to just be dumb overpowered bullshit just because it’s fun to use dumb overpowered bullshit sometimes!

There were also equipment slots that would modify the cards in your deck, turning PvP cards into PvE cards. For example, Replicators Gambit made it so that EVERY copy of that card gained that text.

PvE started with character creation. You would create a character that was one of the 8 races, and one of 6 3 different classes. Warrior, Cleric, or Ranger. I think there was a late update that added Mage but I don’t recall too clearly, and it isn’t document online anymore as far as I can tell!

Each class had a unique talent tree that you could customize and change how you played. Your race determined what colors you could play, and your level determined how many of each rarity you could play.

I played a Vennen Cleric. Cleric’s whole thing was that you would gain Blessings, 0 cost cards that would rise in your deck each turn, and could be played to draw a card as well as additional effects based on your build. My blessings put more eggs in the enemy deck, to the surprise of no one.

As you went from encounter to encounter you would earn new cards to modify your deck, swapping decks between fights. Then there were dungeons, long laborious streaks of a dozen or so encounters, with branching paths and decisions to be made, earning you tons of new packs and equipment and experience to boost your character. One especially fun encounter was crossing a desert with a pack of… I think it was gnomes? There were 20 of them that needed rescuing. The way you rescued them was putting them in your deck, and then leaving the desert through a single combat encounter. Except they were AWFUL. Like 3 cost vanilla 1/1’s level of awful. The more you had in your deck, the harder the encounter became. It was a really nice way to portray the logistical challenge of trying to fight while protecting all these useless tagalongs.

There were plans to even introduce Raids, 3v1 PvE encounters, but they fizzled out as the game got sunset.

The game was good. REALLY good. It relished in the digital design space in a way I haven’t quite seen since then. A few games, like Legends of Runeterra, have come close, but always fall short, and that’s so sad! I DESPERATELY want to play a TCG with this level of customization again!

Luckily that was the end of it. I finally learned the error of my ways, never touched anything ‘always online’ again, and now can live a life without regrets! … except Legends of Runeterra a little bit like I mentioned above but THATS IT! There are no other always online games I have regrets about!

…

ToonTown Online

Okay no, not seriously. I’ve never played toontown. But honestly it looked kinda silly and like a shitpost in video game form. I think it would have been fun to try at some point with a few friends. Not seriously, just to screw around in for a bit.

Never going to get that chance. Just like nearly everyone reading this will never get to play two of my biggest influences that shaped how I think about game design.

Always Online DRM is an insidious beast. It doesn’t just kill games, it kills *archival*. All we have left of these games is a relatively small number of gameplay videos. I was planning on having a lot more pictures in this post of all the interface elements I was talking about as I talked about them, but there just… aren’t any good pictures of them. Even these details are based on my own memory cross referenced with a couple of wikis, and even those were sparse.

Some games can’t feasibly avoid Always Online. MMO’s are a big example. But by adding it into a game that has a single player experience involved, and not making that single player experience a standalone thing on its own, you are destroying any hope that your game will be remembered. It will fade into obscurity. There will never be a cult revival. Your work will be discarded and forgotten and it’s… so incredibly sad to see.

I jokingly titled this section being about ToonTown, but really this section is about Kingdom Hearts: Union X. It was a mediocre and disgustingly predatory gacha. It was horribly managed with horrible issues around localization and it was just… a mess. But it was part of the world of Kingdom Hearts, and it’s story was important and mattered.

The game is no longer playable, but it’s also not entirely lost. The devs created a new version of it, as a gallery to view the cutscenes. The single-player side mode, Dark Road, is also included. The devs didn’t have to do this. They could have gone the same route as Darkspore and HexTCG, and had their work be forgotten. They chose to save it. Not in full, but at least the parts the deemed important.

It also makes me wonder how much this happens in other mediums. Ludology is a pretty new field, and it rarely goes into specific games and their impact on the medium, mostly just focusing on the impacts they have on humanity, rather than the mechanics themselves as these beautiful pieces of art. And it makes me wonder how often this happens with say… film critics. Are there any indie film makers who are deep in the paint of indie films and critique of not just the films themselves, but the very techniques being used, just sitting there going “It’s so upsetting that this big studio managed to do something this beautiful and all of us in the scene recognize it’s beauty, but no one else seems to, and now it’s gone?”

… as I’m writing this I actually realize that this does happen there. It’s how I found out about what became my favorite film of all time, The Man From Earth. It’s a small film that flopped horribly in theaters, and only gained any attention by being pirated by a lot by indies who wanted to talk about it. It’s a good movie, highly recommend. Not for everyone though.

I don’t know. I’m sure I had a point with all this but… seeing it happen again and again and now with streaming services taking stuff down it’s just… I can’t help but seeing not just more and more games, but more and more of EVERY artistic medium ending up in this area. How many digital artists entire portfolios have vanished off the face of the earth because their tumblr got deactivated? How many movies are going to be gone forever when Netflix eventually goes out of business? We can’t even rely on piracy! Many old pieces of media is just lost forever. Just ask the Doctor Who fandom. They probably know more about that than anyone else at this point.

But mostly I just really wish more developers would consider what parts of their games are important, and what kind of legacy they want to leave, instead of just what will generate a short burst of profit, with no care for what happens after.

… I should start doing video essays with how long this got. It’s like some kind of text based video essay. A text essay. Those are a new thing I just invented.

[bellewintersroe]

Daniel Ricciardo x HornerDaughter! Reader

Part 9 oooo couldn’t leave you guys hanging but I’ve been away the past week sorry for the long wait! No smut in this chapter, but pure tension and angst, mentions of heartbreak& sadness (obviously). Mentions of Panic attack.

After Daniel attends his first race back into AlphaTauri, she finds herself spending less and less time around him. She finds it necessary, but uncomfortably painful. When the two do bump into one another there’s, of course, a thick tension between the pair. Could things get anymore awkward? Possibly not, both of them know the feelings have not changed, and with Daniel’s previous admission out in the open, she’s tormented to the point of publicly breaking down.

After the most relentless few days had passed, y/n was awkwardly watching Daniel from the sidelines whilst he raced with Alpha Tauri. There was a semi relief/ semi disappointment that she was spending less time with him, a constant pain lingered deep in her chest and she felt as though somebody had sucked the life from her. She never believed she’d do the cliche thing of not eating, barely sleeping, crying into the pillow- but god, she was a wreck over a man she’d spent not even that much time with. To her, Daniel was the one that got away. Or- well, he wanted to…

She didn’t congratulate him after the race, she didn’t even see him, ensuring she was away from the grid the whole time. Her family picked up on it, so the next few days she endured the most awkward, tension filled appearance at a test drive, constantly on edge that Daniel would be around any corner. Of course he wasn’t. Daniel was just trying to keep his head focused on driving- his happy place. The minute he stepped out of the car he knew he’d be unconsciously searching for her, only for her not to be there. Maybe he would catch a glimpse at the back of her head, craning his neck to watch a little longer before she disappeared. She didn’t look good either. Not that she looked bad, but she looked tired, her lips were constantly tugged downwards and Daniel swore he hadn’t seen her smile in days. Truth be told he despised himself, what he did, what he said. He’d made a huge fucking mistake and now he wished all her pain would translate onto him- he wasn’t sure if he could carry anymore than what he was feeling, but he’d sure rather it be his pain than hers. On one mild Thursday in Belgium, she’d finally made an appearance with Kelly and P, down into the grid to have an explore. Kelly wasn’t stupid, she knew something was going on but couldn’t press. Y/n had always loved spending time with Penelope, practically seeing her grow up, so she was bound to put a smile on her face. And she did.

“Are you coming to my birthday?” The small girl questioned up, “I am.” Y/n smiled, “and I’ve got a surprise present for you as well.” She squeezed her hand as P giddily jumped around.

“Did you hear that, P, more presents?!” Kelly smiled down to her young one who bounced around excitedly. Y/n wished she could momentarily be that young and happy again- a depressing thought she quickly shook away, cringing at her dimness. At some point, she’d zoned out, not realising that Max and Daniel now stood right in front of them- her. Daniel, and her- fuck.

She could feel the gasp that got caught in her throat, trapping the lump that rose from her chest. Fuck. They shared not even a second of eye contact before she tore her eyes away, back onto the floor ahead of them. “You alright, y/n/n? I haven’t seen you in a few days.” Max spoke, giving her a quick hug. Daniel stood there awkwardly, the tension rising in his body as he fumbled with his hat, something he always did when he was nervous. “I’m good, are you.” Good. Ha, that was definitely a lie, she’d slept a grand total of 26 minutes last night, now she was running on absolutely nothing but water and a few bites of a sandwich she couldn’t bare to stomach. She offered no explanation of her absence, Daniel would know exactly where she was and why she’d been MIA.

“Great, yeah.” Max shuffled, feeling a little awkward at her clearly forced smile. Their conversation fell flat, unusually. Normally she’d be full of life and chatter, but now she just seemed to fall flat. Daniel’s eyes gazed over her, watching her with the saddest eyes as she hugged her jumper tighter around her frame. She seemed upset, blinking rapidly and breathing a little faster than normal. Daniel’s eyes constantly broke from the conversation between Max, Kelly and, P, onto the girl ahead of him.

Of course, she was having a breakdown mid conversation. Something as small as a picture of Daniel coming up made her tear up, now he was right in front of her, the devastation she’d been bottling up, mixed with the pure physical and mental exhaustion had caught up on her. She was working herself up beyond repair, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill. Fuck.

“I’ll just be two minutes.” Deciding she couldn’t stay there much longer, she politely excused herself, rushing off into the distance. Space, now, and fast. Y/n felt the tears practically explode from her eyes and begin pouring her face as she hurried to find a bathroom. It was all very dramatic.

She wasn’t quick enough. Not when a voice came hurrying after her. Daniel knew he couldn’t just stand and watch her run away like that. It was his wrongdoing, and although chasing after her would probably only make things worse, he couldn’t leave her upset, he wanted to at least try.

“Y/n.” He sighed as she spun around, startled by the Australian voice. He was the last person she expected. “Daniel, I’m sorry, just-“ her hand waved in a gesture for him to leave as she struggled to blubber out anymore words. Her breathing was shallow and she could feel the furious racing over her heart against her chest. Not a panic attack. Fuck, she hated these things, how quickly she’d lost her breath, how panicked she felt, and now it was happening in front of Daniel.

“Hey, hey. Just breathe deep for me.” Daniel stepped closer, recognising her laboured breathing as a panic attack. It felt like he’d just been kicked in the gut watching her this distressed. She paused, attempting to soothe her breathing to stop the attack quicker than it started.

Unable to prevent it, he reached over, placing a hand on an upper back, a gentle gesture to provide the comfort she needed. She needed- but she didn’t want. “I’m- I’m fine, Daniel.” She gasped, the whimper in her tone not convincing as he watched down to her, his chest knotting harshly.

“You’re not. Just take a minute, it’s okay.” The soothing of his hand over her smaller back soothed her. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, feeling Daniel’s touch was the best thing she’d felt in days. Her lips blubbered as she wiped at her eyes desperately. There was a couple more moments of her shallow breathing, a minute, five minutes? She didn’t know, all she knew was that Daniel was right there, comforting her through something she’d regret later.

“Sorry.” She exhaled, slowing her breathing as much as she possibly could until she was in control over her body again. “Sorry.” She repeated, becoming aware of her surroundings. Her hand dropped from her forehead and everything became visible again. Daniel was there, he’d just seen her having a literal panic attack. Fuck.

“Don’t be sorry.” He looked so sad, so startled and concerned. She could hardly meet his eye. “Don’t be sorry, y/n, are you ok-“ before Daniel could even finish, she was assuring him, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” “You’re not…” Daniel sighed as she wiped at her teary eyes. “I’m sorry.” He then muttered, watching the downwards pull of her lips. “I’m so sorry…” she was crying now, properly, something Daniel couldn’t bare. He thought he might cry too as he blinked away harshly at the tears that filled his eyes. He wanted to give her a hug, but he thought that was overstepping a boundary completely.

“It’s fine.” She repeated, voice hitched and unconvincing. “I just- I need to go.” She waved into the distance. “Let me drive you back-“ “No. It’s fine.” She had already set off walking, stupid idea, walking through the unknown streets of Belgium with tear stains drenching her face. “Y/n, you’re not walking back alone.” Daniel put his foot down, sighing in a way she found it difficult to say no to.

The whole car ride back was silent apart from her occasional sniffle, it was awkward to say the least. Daniels chest was heavy with wanted conversation, with a need for her, but it just wasn’t the right time. He should’ve never told her he loved her, he knew he’d probably hurt her feelings way more by admitting that.

Pulling up outside the hotel, she couldn’t be quicker than to unbuckle her seatbelt, an odd sense of longing stabbing at her heart when she stole a singular glance at Daniel. It was the most she’d look at him all day. a

“Thank you, Daniel.” She whispered, his breath hitching as all he could do was watch her walk away. She could see the sadness in his eyes, but averted her gaze. The quicker she was out of that car, the quicker she could rid of those dread awful feelings she got around him. If only a girl could control her feelings, wouldn’t that be life changing, huh?

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@mccall-muffin @benbarneslut @dinodumbass @allabouthappiness @ricciardhoe-3 @headinthecloudssblog

[softshuji]

Izana has never done this before.

Not the shopping, not the pushing the trolley, and definitely not the preparations for a new home. And if you asked him perhaps two years ago, you'd never have seen him dead pushing a silver trolley packed to the brim with food and homeware, clicking his tongue in faux annoyance when you wander off to look at something else, his hand now cold with the breeze that comes from the absence of yours in it.

And maybe, just maybe, he'll stop to look at a small coffee press, a frying pan set, a chopping board that somehow he can envision hung up on the wall in the kitchen, and he'll take it down to look at it- as if it's fascinating, as if it's all so new. Truth be told, his nerves are fried from the anxiety, all these new things you're exploring together, all of the newness and novelty that seems so foreign and so welcoming at the same time. Maybe it's the stress of moving that has him jittery, the first time you'll be sleeping under the same roof for longer than a night- or maybe it's you, and his willingness to not be a disappointment, to live up to something he knows you would want of him, even if you never mention it.

Because truth be told again- you never do and he wishes sometimes you would. Mention when you're angry, upset, disappointed in him- more willing to chastise him. He would feel less guilty perhaps of being so in love with you.

'Hey,' you say now, handing him a set of small white towels and holding up a set of very extremely cliché "his" and "her" cream and grey bathrobes. 'What do you think? Cute right?'

He raises an eyebrow quizzically, steering to the side of the walkway to rearrange the contents of the trolley, the white towels now primly stacked on top of the sealed set of pink and blue mugs and plates, daisies painted onto the ceramic because 'they're cute Izana! Can we please get them?' and he never has the heart to say no to you like that, and any other time too, when you're always so diligent and good to him- in all the ways he asks and even those he doesn't either.

'"His and Hers" is kind of typical isn't it?' he says and scrunches his nose, in the way you like and he knows you like, even though he's already decided that maybe matching bathrobes is not such a bad idea anyways. He is yours and you are his after all. Cliche things suddenly seem a lot less of an issue with you.

You tut under your breath and move to lift them on top of the towels anyway. 'You are no fun sometimes,' you say with mirth and tuck the matching bathrobes underneath the towels and a pair of fluffy white slippers now sitting neatly on top.

You move to hold his arm then, your gloved hands now intertwined again, a soft smile gracing him that he tries to return, albeit awkwardly, setting for a squeeze of your hand while he pushes the trolley on. You rest a hand on your tummy then, over your coat, your cheeks puffed with the effort to keep up and he slows to a gentle walk, fishing the water bottle from your handbag slung over his other shoulder and handing it to you while he runs his thumb over the wedding ring on your finger.

You like that it's this easy, that it's so natural like this, that almost two years later, you have no qualms or reservations about your decision to marry. It has not been easy and he was always open about that fact- that he was dangerous in the entirety of him, that your relationship would be unconventional to say the least. But you find that loving him is as easy as breathing, easier in fact- and you wish he knew it more, wish you were more able to be honest about how much he's changed you, for better or for worse that is. You had not considered happiness to be on the cards previously. But maybe with him it's a possibility.

'Are you alright love?' he says, a hand now rubbing at your back, eyes furrowed in concern, a tilt of his neck to watch you dab at your lips with the corner of a tissue.

'i'm okay,' you say with a hand on his wrist, a dizzying wave that passes as quickly as it comes, and him coming back into focus again, murmuring praise against the shell of your ear, hair tucked behind and gently moved free of your neck.

'We can go home if you want to.'

'No, it's okay. I'm having fun 'Zana, I don't want to go home just yet.' And you manage a watery and placating smile that he returns easier this time, adjusting your coat with a squeeze of your hand that he lifts to his mouth to press a subtle kiss to.

You move on, products here and there, a murmur of assent or a shake of his head that you roll your eyes at- especially when you take it anyway and he sighs, a playful chuckle as he bends to rearrange the order of the trolley as he follows you ambling down the aisle.

'Oh I just remembered, the coffee table!' you exclaim, your hands coming together in surprise.

'Hm?'

'We need a new one. The last one was too small remember?'

He backs up, cranes his neck around the corner towards the home appliances section, the frown melting when he sees them on the far side of the department store. 'I think they're over there Love.'

And you walk together, slowly, an arm around his, your hand squeezing at his bicep with a girlish giggle, a flippant comment about how he looks 'so sexy and hot today' that he hates to admit still makes him flush this many years later.

Or maybe he doesn't hate it and just likes to pretend to. Because when he thinks about it really- the future in which the two of you are not together, the future in which you go through these motions with someone who isn't him, sharing a bed, sharing a home, a baby with a man who isn't him, and the sweat breaks out instinctively across his forehead with a anxious thump of his heart against his ribs. He likes that you're his, that for all his faults, he has this one saving grace, an angel maybe, all for himself.

'How's this one?' you say, gingerly touching the mahogany wood, a dusting of shiny gloss that you catch your reflection in- a scarf pulled up to your neck and a hand on your tummy, hand gliding along the gilded edges.

He comes up behind you, the swing of his hair kissing at your earlobe. 'Mhm it's nice, but not sturdy enough.'

You turn, a quizzical frown, a softened pout. 'Not sturdy enough? What do you mean?'

And he kisses your cheek, discretely, a brush of dry and soft lips against the apple of your cheek, a little cold, a little pallid to the touch. 'I think you know what that means don't you love?'

He watches the realisation settle across your eyes, your jaw slackened and a teasing smirk pulling at the corner of your upturned lips, the blossom of heat now licking at your neck as it always does when his voice drops with subtle innuendo. 'You're a very bad man Izana.'

'I've definitely heard worse.'

And you shake your head, a smile fighting across your lips, a squeeze of his hand as you move on and you love him like this. So carefree, so natural, so in his element here where the claws of the world can no longer touch him, where everything feels right and a little less scary.

Where he is yours as he always is.

Reblogs appreciated!

Bye I was feeling sad so :// I love my pookie

[dannyphantom1234]

Reborn as Dan Phantom.

A fan of the show is reborn as Dan, the evil version of Danny just as he was created— but what no one knew was a fangirl had taken over the body and knew just what to do to help her family that would suffer what she just went through unless she did something to help. So— she creeped towards Clockwork, stole the time medallion, went to the timeline of the original, and immediately took over as big brother figure to help these poor children from suffering the future they would have to endure alone without adult supervision.

She— now he— didn’t care for gender, and just wanted to help and protect his new(ish) family from bad people. What he didn’t know was he was also thrown alongside the dc universe, which was an awesome discovery on his part later on.

Dan— or Dante— as he wished to be called, came to the group with sorrow in his heart as he explained what would happen in the future if Danny cheated on his test, not that it was anyone’s fault but fates. He explained how no one was at fault and it could all be avoided if he could help it.

He took over the ghost fights, and had a long talk with Clockwork about what would happen and his real purpose for being there.

His original timeline was obviously erased, and the only reason he survived was because of the medallion, so later he had to go through ghost magic and make himself his own person, gained a whole butt load of tattoos intertwined with ghost time magic and becomes the next king of the infinite realms after defeating the old guy easily after seeing him beat up his little bro.

Dante became king instead of Danny and took over all the overloaded paperwork along the way.

What he didn’t know, was that he would be summoned because of his status. He really thought the fan fictions were just exaggerating what would happen if he was ever given the position and power. Well, it was all true from what he read.

(I’m making this a Dante/King Phantom x Jason Todd/Red Hood).

He made an actual legal identity for himself with the help of Technus and Tucker, who became better pals after they set aside the fact that they attacked each other at some point or another.

Danny became a little brother to him, Jazz became his little sister who likes to treat him as if he were still Danny at times, and Danielle became his daughter.

Dante legally adopted Dani after they got his papers in order, and made her an identity as well. Elle was much younger than he remembered, but then again, she was deaged recently and just came back into contact with the group, who couldn’t take care of her because they were still children as well.

Vlad was still a little evil but leveled out after a huge diabolical involving Maddie, their so called mother.

Madeline Fenton had thought her son and daughter conspired with the ghosts and attacked them in their own home, Danny was greatly injured with multiple blast wounds and Jazz suffered a concussion while trying to push him out of the target zones.

Jack had football tackled Madeline and the rest was history.

Vlad had fallen out of love with her after seeing what she did to her own children, and instead got his head out of his butt and realized he was in love with Jack all along.

Jack divorced Madeline, took custody of his kids and decided they should move, all while Vlad made plans to take down GIW with Team Phantom.

Jack and Vlad met him and decided to emotionally adopt Dante as well in their messed up family.

Dante got a job as a mechanic and started his own business in Gotham. Very cliche from all the fanfics he read in his past life but he wanted to do something he knew and loved. He loved fixing things and his side job as the king of the infinite realms was basically being like a father to ghost children while scolding those who thought it was a good idea to attack innocent mortals.

He mainly spent his time raising Danielle. Giving her everything she deserves and making her happy now that his family was safe.

He was randomly summoned by the Justice League who were ready to full on attack him until they saw him reading to his child, not realizing he was summoned until someone cleared their throat. He was literally in his own little bubble, reading his two year old daughter a storybook while holding her against his chest as he floated above the ground, laid back in a relaxed position.

How it would go:

I looked up from the book after feeling a sudden shift in my surroundings, seeing multiple very brightly dressed people in front of me. I glared, shifting completely into my ghost king form while holding my daughter close to my chest. The storybook I was reading had disappeared into a pocket dimension for later, as I had to deal with this madness.

“Who in their right minds would summon the Ghost King? I literally burnt all those summoning books to ash.” I grumbled, and looked down to see Elle had slightly woken up at the sound of my deep voice.

“Dada?” She mumbled, rubbing her right eye as she sat up from my chest.

“It’s alright, Elle,” I rumbled, kissing her forehead as she plopped back down to take her nap again at my reassurance. “We can finish reading time later today.” I murmured to her as she went back to snoozing.

“What do you want, mortals?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Why does the ghost king have a child? And how in the hell are you not attacking us as the books state?” Zatanna asked, looking on at me in shock.

“You willingly want to be attacked after summoning me? That’s idiotic. “ I state, looking bored with their conversation. I still held Elle close, not answering their questions about my child just yet.

“No, a bloody idiot summoned you just as we defeated him as a last defense!” Constantine spat out, looking hysterical.

“Well, sorry to break the news, coward, but the last king was defeated by me after trying to take over the world, he is now locked away in forever sleep until we can find a way to get rid of him completely.” I explained to the coward looking at me in shock on the ground, bruises across his face and the usual weird looking villain costume on him.

I looked around for a quick second before stopping at the Batfam. Who were all here in a more relaxed formation seeing a child in my arms. My favorite fandom family in my last life.

I looked them over before spotting the Red Hood, my celebrity crush I had on him was no secret to my family, but they had no room to judge for themselves.

His aura admitted contaminated ectoplasm, and I knew I had to heal him sometime in the future.

“May I ask what your goals are? And who is this child?” Superman spoke up after a moment of digesting my information about my new position.

“I protect both living and the undead. I don’t have a world ending goal in mind, just to raise my daughter and give her the life she deserves.” I said, looking down at my daughter with a small smile that would be unnoticeable to most.

I looked back up to see the large group had softened at my words and I was about to ask a question about Red Hood, when my daughter suddenly decided this was taking too long and too much noise for her to take a nap.

“Dada! Where puppy?” She demanded answers, smacking the side of my face with her chubby hands, as I floated there, unmoving with an emotionless face towards the group.

“Cujo is with the twerp, remember? He will come by later for playtime.” I answered, which was slightly muffled as she squished my cheeks together and smiled at me happily.

“Dada! Fishh—“ she squealed out, looking happy with herself as she giggled at my face.

“You gremlin—“ I muttered out, tickling her sides as she squeaked, her flying out of my arms and turning into her young ghost form, looking ready to play.

“Playtime?” She asked, bouncing a little in the air, clapping her hands a little.

“Not yet, blob ghost. We need to head back home for snack time.” I explained, crossing my arms as she pouted, my arm muscles bulged a bit as I crossed them, and I still always forget the fact that I’m taller than most, alongside bigger. In my past life, I was a stick of a girl that had spaghetti arms, much different for sure.

Her pouting turned into the famous puppy eyes, and I turned back to the group to avoid them, only to see amused faces all around.

“Do you guys need anything before we head back? I’m sure you don’t want to deal with a Princess tantrum.” I rumbled out, looking on in disinterest as Elle decided to hug the side of my face like an octopus. She probably still had the puppy eyes on.

“You have an adorable daughter!” Princess Diana exclaimed soon after I was finished speaking. “How old is she?” She asked, looking at me curiously as I lowered myself to the ground, Elle now floating behind my head as she played with my low ponytail.

“She is now two years old.” I answered, swiftly nabbing Elle from behind me while reaching the back of my head. I lowered my arms to see I had her upside down now, her hanging like a sack of potatoes as she giggled.

“Dada!” Elle exclaimed, waving her arms around her in glee as she looked up at me.

“You don’t feel like a ghost completely… neither does she, what are you exactly?” Constantine asked, waving his hand at me in confusion.

“I don’t know if I can trust you with that information, Constantine.” I growled a little, glaring at him as he stepped forward while Elle hid behind me.

“Hey now! Let’s calm down, no one needs to start anything!” Nightwing stepped in front of the glaring Constantine who looked more and more like a bug the longer I looked at him.

“There isn’t anything to start, really. His soul is in shreds at the moment, not very powerful compared to my kind anyway.” I stated, crossing my arms once again as Elle peaked out from over my shoulder.

“Now, I need to speak with a Mr. Red Hood.” I said, looking on at the Batfam who tensed at my words.

“Why?” Batman growled out, stepping in front of the confused Red Hood.

“To heal him, of course.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I heard sounds of confusion from everyone else.

“His ectoplasm is very corrupted. He has the ghost flu, in which case makes my kind very moody and in need of pure ectoplasm to filter it and his emotions.” I briefly explained, unpinching my nose as I looked up from the ground. Willing my headache away for now.

“So his pit madness is basically the ghost flu?” Red Robin murmurs out hysterically, almost giggling in disbelief.

“Yes, I have heard of his haunt, Crime Alley, that being under his protection, I have never stepped foot on his property because I didn’t want to seem like a threat to a sick person who can’t control themselves completely with such a sickness.” I explained myself a bit nervously, rubbing the back of my neck a little with my right hand as Elle now sat on my left shoulder, swinging her legs.

“Wow, the ghost king is a dork…” I heard Spoiler mutter to Orphan, who nodded in agreement.

I huffed, crossing my arms and floated once again. “I can come back another time. I just wished to help a little. My doctor can probably fix him quicker than I, but I know what to do as I have studied under him for more than over a year now.” I informed them.

“So the pit madness can go away…?” Red Hood asked, stepping from around Batman to speak to me clearly.

“I’m unsure of what this “Pit Madness” is, but yes, I can heal you and make sure you properly get the help you need from your emotional roller coaster sickness.” I said, looking down at him as he took a few more steps to me, his family following behind him.

“Well, when can you fix me?” He asked, his voice modifier cutting all emotions from his voice, but I can clearly feel his emotions bursting from his almost formed core. It seems this sickness had stopped him from forming his core completely and left him sick for many years.

I could feel his hope, his rage and especially his bursts of want for some reason.

“I can fix you right now, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted privacy or not. It’s very…. Intimate. I can take you somewhere private if you would like?” I rumbled out, the burst of want came out more clearly, and I could tell Red Hood was clearly not expecting that word choice.

“Take me anytime—“ I could clearly hear his muttered out answer behind his helmet with my enhanced hearing, but I don’t know if I was supposed to hear that.

“Nope! Little Wing— you are not going with the ghost king—“ Nightwing suddenly yelled out, the whites of his mask bigger as Spoiler, Red Robin, and Signal burst into loud laughter. Batman sighed loudly in disappointment. Robin just “Tt” and sighed alongside his father, looking like a mini bat. Orphan just smiled at me.

“By intimate, I mean having a look at your soul, I will essentially have to take a closer look at that and cure you.” I fixed my words, making it seem as if I didn’t hear anything and I could feel a little disappointment coming from Red Hood but he nodded at my explanation.