#it's generously m rated. it could probably be teen but

[vivitalks]

This ain't Earth. It's Purgatory. However monstrous, Dean can't fight the urge to just say what he means. Be who he is. Maybe this is who he is: fighting monsters, loving men. Maybe in this world, it can be.

(laughs nervously and slides this across the table as an offering to the dean/benny/cas community)

[aziraphales-library]

hi! i don't know if this ask has been done before but do you have any comedy fic recs? i've had enough of angst for a bit and i just want to read aziracrow bicker and laugh out loud :))

Hey. We have #humour, #humor, #crack, and #bickering tags, for all your laughing needs. Here are more to add...

Seamstress of Soho by GayDemonicDisaster (M)

Season 2 spoilers! When Mrs. Sandwich spots a suspicious new guy apparently lurking on her turf, the misunderstanding leads to an unlikely friendship between the ‘seamstress’ and a demon. So in episode 6 we see that Mrs. Sandwich is clearly at ease with Crowley and he with her, enough to share a joke together. Combine that with the curious sign on her door which might just be referring to Crowley, and we have a little buddy comedy in the making. I decided to explore the backstory of how they came to know one another between season 1 and the beginning of season 2. While this little comedy is about sex workers, there is NO sex in it, and rated M solely for oblique references to things like contraceptive devices and so on - honestly it could get away with a “teen and up” rating but I like to err on the side of caution.

Pass the Remote, Angel by Mrs_Cake_Is_Here (M)

Aziraphale has returned to Heaven, leaving Crowley a tv binge-watching wreck. However, healing can come from the most unlikeliest of places. While Muriel has been instructed to provide daily reports of the demon’s emotional state, they find that sharing time together, even by watching a scary show, can be the catalyst that builds friendships. And they’d probably both be couch potatoes by now if the Supreme Archangel hadn’t just gone missing.

Christmas Lights by FuzzyGoblin (T)

Christmas Lights is on the agenda at the monthly meeting of the Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Association, but it's not the only thing on Mr Brown's, of Brown's World of Carpets, mind. As he pines for the mysterious bookseller, his efforts are thwarted by the tall ginger goth.

The Book Thieves by ThingsJustHappenSometimes (T)

“Did they steal it? Professional book thieves, probably going around in their car stealing books.” Be careful what you tell an adolescent antichrist who has the ability to warp reality, he might just make things real. - - - Featuring: A confused ineffable duo in ridiculous costumes, a presumed relationship, overpowered magical books, meddling humans, multiple chase scenes, and a generally all around silly action-packed time. - - - [If you like 1920s Costumes, Indiana Jones, Isekai Vibes, and/or That-One-Auction-Heist-Scene from Uncharted 4, you’ll like this story.]

Rattle Those Pots & Pans by Mackaley (M)

“My instructions…” He parted his mouth as he searched for a word. “Instruct that I just get right into it. You all have been brought here tonight because you have one thing in common: you’re all being blackmailed.” A tense hush fell through the room. “You’re all paying what you can afford - in some cases I’m sure more than you can afford - to prevent your secrets from being exposed. And none of you know who is currently blackmailing you.” Gabriel scoffed. “This is ridiculous. I’m an upstanding member of the international finance community - what could I possibly have done to be blackmailed about?” “You’re a member of the international finance community,” Crowley drawled. ----- A Good Omens Clue (1985) AU

through the tides by viperinz (T)

With that thought, Aziraphale takes to asking experts if his feelings are something more or just love for his dearest, most sweetest friend. If he wasn’t sure himself, then surely the experts on the internet will have something for him. Which brings him to the front of his computer, ready to search something up on the search engine he has pulled up. He’s not one to ask too many questions, but he supposes it won’t hurt. He starts typing, and is satisfied with his search of "Am I in love with my best friend?" Straight to the point, and very concise. Aziraphale has no doubt he’ll find what he’s looking for. He presses enter on the keyboard, and a bunch of results flood in. “Oh, dear,” he gasps at the mass amount of answers. Where is he supposed to start?

Aziraphale discovers the wonderful world of online love quizzes and WikiHow, all in the process of wooing and confessing his love to Crowley.

- Mod D

[ghostwriterofthemachine]

A Quick Guide to AO3 Ratings

This is floating around on a few discord servers I am in but my friend requested a tumblr post version of it so ask and ye shall receive, ect.

G: Movie rating G/PG. You could read this out loud to your mother and she wouldn’t bat an eye. Everything that happens could comfortably take place in a primetime sitcom or a Pixar movie.

T: Movie rating PG-13. A CW show. Might deal with more adult themes, but deals with them in a way that wouldn’t seem out of place in something like Teen Wolf or The Flash. Something with a decently described fist fight would probably be T. Something which includes a heavier topic in a non-explicit way, such as a character talking about/experiencing depression, or off-screen abuse, could be safely rated Teen. Implied sex, or sexual humor, probably also makes something rated Teen— again, think CW show. You could also rate something Teen for really, really excessive swearing I guess.

M: Rated R/some NC-17. Deals explicitly and extensively with with heavier topics, or deals with sexual themes without portraying explicit sex. Might engage with commonly sensitive subject matter like suicide, murder, rape, or abuse in a major way. On the flip side, something which focuses a lot on sexual themes but fades to black before the Deed is Done would be rated M. Would this be on an HBO or Stars show instead of on primetime TV? It’s M. Note: many fic-sharing forums/discords will allow general sharing of fics rated M for violence but not those rated M for sexual content, but always double check with mods.

E: Rated X. Has explicit sexual content, or violence and gore on the level of an exploitation horror movie. Said violence and gore are dealt with in detail and often intentionally disturbing. You can also toss many Dead Dove tag fic here; a lot of people will rate more known-squick content (graphic cannibalism, for instance) as E so people can be prepared for it/avoid it as they wish.

[twobruhsinahottub]

“--How are your migraines?”

A Rafael Barba / Rita Calhoun one shot

"--How are your migraines?" She'd asked him, and he almost thought he could hear love peaking through the dripping sarcasm in her voice.

Or:

Rafael has a migraine, Rita is there

Tags:

Rating:

General Audiences

Category:

F/M

Fandom:

Law & Order: SVU

Relationship:

Rafael Barba/Rita Calhoun

Characters:

Rafael BarbaRita Calhoun

Additional Tags:

Hurt/ComfortSick Rafael BarbaHeadaches & MigrainesAlternate Universe - Canon DivergencePost-DivorceHarvard UniversityRita and Rafael's Harvard daysand they were ROOMMATESThere Was Only One Beds17 e2 Criminal Pathology

Warnings: vomiting/nausea, abortion (both only briefly mentioned)

Fic:

"--How are your migraines?" She'd asked him, and he almost thought he could hear love peaking through the dripping sarcasm in her voice. God he hated her. That's what made her so perfect. Rita and Rafael. Enemies from heaven. Soulmates from hell. They had met at opening day at Harvard many years ago now, and it was love/hate at first sight. Rita was the only one in any of his classes to give him a real run for his money, and soon enough the two were sharing a tiny one bedroom apartment 15 minutes away from campus. The arrangement was for them to take turns, with one in the bedroom and the other on the couch, just until they could afford a bigger place. That was never going to last though, with both of them complaining so much when it was their week on the couch that they finally gave in a shared the double bed that took up almost the entire bedroom. It wasn't long before other friends caught on, nagging them about whether they were really just friends, or if something more was going on, because well, they did share a bed after all. Rita was there for him when they first got bad. He'd had migraines since his early teens, but they were always manageable with a few painkillers and a good day's rest. It wasn't until his third year of college that they really got bad. When they began knocking him out for three days straight and he'd have no memory of anything leading up to it. The first time it happened he thought that was it. He was dying. But no, just a bad migraine the ER nurse had told him, after Rita had taken him to the hospital, also thinking he was on death's door. He spent the rest of that night sobbing in between bouts of nausea and vomiting, and begging to sink into the floor and make it all stop. Rita held him that night, rubbing circles on his back and whispering soothing words while she ran her hand through his soft brown hair. Rafael often thought back to that night and how lucky he was to be loved by her, to see that soft, loving side to a woman who is usually so cold and borderline cruel. They spent many more days and nights like that over the course of their friendship, and eventual marriage. Rafael, a heap of tears and pain on the floor and Rita holding him and muttering sweet nothings to him in an attempt to make it all easier. He missed that, especially on days like this. While Rita had clearly been joking, trying to get a rise out of him as she often did, Rafael had a feeling she could see the signs. The aura he had felt that morning should have been a sign to take the day off, but of course, Rafael never took a day off work, ever, and especially not during a case like this. As he looked over the headlines on the papers his ex wife had dumped on his desk he felt the throbbing behind his left eye get worse. Despite taking medication for it before he left for work, the migraine kept getting stronger the longer the day went on. Rafael checked his watch. It hadn't been long enough yet for another dose of codeine, and really, he shouldn't even be taking this much, it probably made the migraines worse rather than better. Without thinking, he raised a hand to his forehead, a vain attempt at soothing the now almost unbearable pain. Rita of course noticed this.

“Hm” she acknowledged "the case really is worsening them, huh? What a shame it would be if someone were to use that to their advantage in court.”

The sarcastic comment earned her a glare from the prosecutor, and she backed off slightly.

“Really that bad?” She asked, sounding almost sympathetic.

“Mm” Rafael managed to get out, the pain now at a level that would have once had him out for days, luckily though, after decades of pain like this, he had learnt to push through. He knew Rita wouldn't drop it though. Her once snarky expression now replaced with genuine concern. No matter how hard either of them tried, despite their work killing their once happy marriage, they could not for the life of them manage to suppress the undying love they had for one another.

Now, Rafael noticed, Rita was making her way around to Rafael's side of the desk, gently dragging a chair along with her. She placed the chair next to him, and before sitting down, she strode purposefully across the room to close the blinds, knowing from years of dealing with Rafael's migraines that letting in unnecessary light was possibly the worst thing one could do at this moment. On her way back to her seat, Rita also shut off the overhead lights, and watched as Rafael noticeably sighed with relief. She knew it wasn't much, and his pain was still clearly bad, but the darkness would help. Rita sat in the chair next to her ex husband, and gently placed a hand on his back, and subconsciously, she began rubbing circles, just as she used to back in their college days. She hated to admit it, but she did truly love the man, and she knew he felt the same. If only their ambitions hadn't taken priority, and if only they hadn't let work destroy their relationship. Perhaps if Rita hadn't had the abortion those years ago they would be a happy family of three, or even more, right now. Instead of bickering over cases and plea deals they could be bickering over who would do the dishes that night, and ultimately settle on making the kid (or kids) do it instead. Thinking of this imaginary argument and family that she would likely never have, Rita placed her free hand under Rafael's chin, lifting his face to meet hers. The two met eyes, and against both of their better judgments, they leant forward, locking into a tired, but gentle, kiss. As the kiss depended, for just a moment Rafael's pain felt as though it lifted.l, and Rita felt as though that distant dream of being an old married couple with the man she had loved since day one of college, wasn't so distant after all.

[sterek-ao3feed-archive]

The Final Rose

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51814864 by EnduringParadox "The show! What do you think about the show?" Stiles gestured emphatically to the television where The Women Tell All episode was playing. Very slowly, Derek asked, "Do I look like someone who's ever watched a millisecond of The Bachelor?" Stiles scrutinized him for a long moment, taking in Derek's boots, his faded jeans, the t-shirt stretched over his chest, his chiseled jaw. Derek could probably do numbers on The Bachelor. Contestants and viewers alike would think him mysterious and find his general grumpiness endearing. And he'd look infuriatingly good in a suit, all tall, and muscled, and stupidly handsome. Stiles decided to fuck with him. He shook his head and said, "Nah, there's not an ounce of romance in your body." "Excuse me?" --- Stiles starts watching The Bachelor and wants a rose. Derek delivers. Words: 2434, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Derek Hale, Kira Yukimura, Erica Reyes Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Oblivious Stiles Stilinski, Minor Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura, Fluff and Humor, Attempt at Humor, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Derek Hale is a Softie, Love Confessions, Humor read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51814864

[biggsodorcitystories]

Warrior's Missing Eagle Crest -A TUGS Fanfiction

I haven't written anything in an embarrassing amount of time, so this is probably a big pile of doo-doo, but I'm just so proud that this feels like a release of sorts so I had to share!

Fandom:Tugs

Rating: General

Genre: General, Family.

Characters (active): Hercules, Warrior, Susannah (OC)

Charcters (mentioned): Top Hat, Big Mac, Ten Cents, Sunshine, Captain Starr, Sea Rogue, Lillie, Zebedee, Aurora (OC), Silver Penny (OC), Grandma Starr (OC), Bright Dawn (OC), Andrew (OC)

Pairings: Warrior x Susannah, Hercules x Lillie, Big Mac x Top Hat, Bright Dawn x Sea Rogue.

Warnings: Humanised characters, Headcanon that Warrior is the brother of Hercules and Ten Cents, M/M pairing and references to Mpreg, CanonxOC ships, references to abandonment, depression, and angst.

Summary: Hercules accidentally comes across Warrior and Susannah deep in conversation on an evening walk, and hears Susannah ask why Warrior does not have an eagle crest like his brothers. Warrior's response is not what Hercules expected, forcing him to reflect on how his behaviour could have shaped Warrior's thoughts.

This route to Lowtown brought back a lot of memories as Hercules strolled along the path. It felt like another time – another world, even – when he had trotted along at the heels of his beloved aunt, Bright Dawn Starr, and her beau Patrick Teach – known to most as Sea Rogue. In a way, it had been both. His aunt and Sea Rogue had been in their late teens, barely into adulthood, while he had been little more than a toddler and still figuring out coherent speech. But he could still remember how much he had enjoyed the walks, clutching his auntie's hand and thinking up new ways to stop 'Uncle Patch' from holding the other one. Looking around, very little had changed along the riverbank path itself, but he couldn't remember enough about the area to consider how the environment had changed. It had been around twenty-five years since he'd last taken a walk this way.

He'd been twelve when they'd returned to the city, and Hercules had been far too busy in the past decade with supporting his grandfather to rebuild the Starr fleet and their reputation, and helping his mother to recover with the divorce from his father after he ran off with Auntie Dawn, with her raising his new baby brother, Ten Cents, and with...

“Warrior, can I ask you something?”

Hercules stopped in his tracks at the sound of the voice. He immediately recognised it as Susannah Moran – her Liverpudlian accent so like her father, Zebedee's, that it was fairly unique. To the surprise of many, she and Warrior had entered into a courtship that her father had not opposed. It seemed that he had stumbled across one of their dates.

They were sat by the river's edge, with their backs to him, deep in conversation. Part of him was screaming that he shouldn't be eavesdropping on them in this way, and he was about to make his presence known, when Warrior spoke.

“Course you can, Suse. What is it?”

Susannah seemed to be looking at something in front of her.

“How come yous don't have an eagle crest on your hat like your brothers? Don't yous have one?”

Hercules froze. That question had never been asked of him, nor of his brothers to his knowledge, but he knew that it had been whispered throughout the port ever since Ten Cents had received his crest two years before.

“Why is Warrior the 'odd one out' to his brothers..?”

He had an idea what the answer was, but to his shame realised that he'd never heard it from Warrior himself. Though he felt guilty, almost dirty, he kept quiet and listened for Warrior's response.

Warrior sighed, moving to take what Hercules assumed was his hat from Susannah.

“Oh, sure I got one.” He sighed. “Grandma gave us all one on our fifteenth birthday, like a coming of age thingy. She gave one to Aurora and Sunshine the first Christmas after we found out who they were.”

Susannah nodded with no hint of surprise. Hercules wasn't sure how he felt about that, given that it meant she knew more about their family history than he'd like, but was distracted as Warrior continued.

“I've got mine in the box it came in, on my bedside table.”

“Why don't you wear it?”

There was a pause before Warrior replied.

“I...I daren't, Suse. I don't wanna break it or lose it if I 'ave one of me accidents. It...it means too much to me.”

Hercules pulled a face and fought down an urge to scoff. The eagle crests Grandma Starr had given them were heavy, solid things that practically fused to his and Ten Cents' hats, so he wasn't entirely convinced by his brother's reasoning. Hell, Ten Cents had taken a fuel tanker explosion to the face, and his crest had suffered nothing worse than a bit of soot and smoke staining. Warrior's habit of bumping into and tripping over things was unlikely to cause it much harm, if any.

Susannah seemed to be following a similar line of thought.

“Doesn't it mean as much to Hercules and Ten Cents too?” Warrior looked away as he gave a bitter chuckle.

“I'm not sayin it don't...doesn't mean anythin to them. But...I don't think either of them ever saw it as I did when they got theirs.”

Susannah didn't reply, and she sat quietly until Warrior turned back to look at her.

“Yknow 'ow I told you about being fostered by Big Mac and Top 'At when we first moved back here?”

Susannah gave a nod, which Hercules wasn't entirely shocked by. Strangers to the port would frequently make the assumption that Warrior was the son of Big Mac and Top Hat, which annoyed him almost as much as the looks of surprise when they learned who his real family was. Hercules wished his younger brother wouldn't be so cheerful whenever he corrected someone, and in quiet moments he suspected that Big Mac and Top Hat secretly delighted in the mistake. He couldn't let go of the thought that the couple would like nothing more than to claim Warrior as their own child, as they probably would have done if his mother hadn't claimed Warrior back.

“Oh yeah?” Susannah continued. “Because your Mum needed the break while she was getting back on her feet?”

“Yeah. With my Dad runnin out on us, movin from London, and finding out she were pregnant again. It was a lot to 'andle...an I think I was making it a lot worse with the way I was acting.”

Hercules felt his brows raise at this last remark. He would have sworn that Warrior didn't remember that time.

“My Dad...I don't really remember 'im that well. I were only three when he left, but I do remember 'im lettin me get away with a lot. Then 'e was gone, and suddenly I wasn't allowed to do anythin' any more and kept gettin' into trouble. I do remember not taking it well and I was a little shit to everyone, especially my Mum...”

“You were three years old, Warrior. Three year olds don't behave at the best of times, and your whole world changed overnight.”

“I know, but...I was too much for Mum to 'andle at the time. Hercules tried to help with me, but he was...eleven or twelve? I reckon we both looked and sounded like screaming kids.”

Hercules found himself nodding in agreement as he looked away. No matter how much they wanted to, a pre-teen was no substitute for a parent, even if they weren't hurting from their own trauma as he had been. It was just one of many things he struggled with guilt over, regardless, unable to shake the feeling that he'd failed both his mother and Warrior.

“Mum ended up breaking down. Lucky that Top 'At were with her when she did, an 'e offered to 'ave me for a little while, until she were better. Hercules ended up stayin with our grandparents.”

“Why didn't they take yous too?”

“They offered, more than once. Thing is, Andrew was me best mate even then, an I reckon everyone thought it would do me good if I were close to someone my age instead of with Hercules. Mum kept comin to see me, anyway, tellin me about the new baby an 'ow I was gonna be a big brother an all. At first, it felt like a big sleepover – it was great. Not to mention, Big Mac and Top 'At were doin a lot to undo the behaviours Dad had taught me, though I didn't know at the time. I don't like to think about what I'd have turned out like if they'd not sorted me.

But when the weeks turned into months, and I spent most of Christmas with them instead of my own family...I remember starting to worry. I knew by then that I'd been...naughty while I was at home, and I wondered if I'd been sent away to live with my godparents because of it, like a punishment. I asked them when I was going home again, and they told me it was just until Mum 'ad the new baby.

It were enough for me for a while, even though I knew Hercules was back home, but he was older. I was happy to start – I got to spend every day with Andrew and I loved that. Mum was still coming to visit, and I went to see her and my grandparents, just came back with Big Mac and Top 'At. I reckon it were bothering me, deep down, but I could still treat it like a long sleepover, or an 'oliday and forget about it.”

He paused to give another heavy sigh.

“Then Ten Cents was born. Top 'At took me to see Mum and I got to hold 'im. I remembered being so excited an tellin Mum he could sleep in my room with me, which Mum smiled at and said he was too little to share my room. I went back thinking Mum would come and get me a few days later, but she didn't.

I still went to visit like I 'ad before, but there was no talk of me comin back.”

“Why didn't you ask to come home?”

For a second, Hercules thought that he'd spoken – the question had been echoing through his skull loud enough and he'd been getting more frustrated each time Warrior mentioned wanting to go home. He'd been asking the same questions while Warrior was away – if Warrior had just asked once, maybe their mother would have brought him back where he belonged sooner than she had. He half expected Warrior to hear and turn to see him, which would almost certainly result in another fight between them.

But Warrior's attention remained fixed on Susannah, the one who had actually asked the question. His response was so quiet that Hercules barely made out what he said.

“I was scared to, Suse. I didn't even want to go into my bedroom in case I saw it had been turned into Ten Cents' nursery and all my stuff was gone. I'd been getting' nightmares for weeks about Mum and Hercules tellin me that they didn't love me any more...”

He could hear the tears behind Warrior's voice as he ended the last sentence – as sure as he felt his own stinging his eyes. The frustration of a few seconds ago withered in the face of this new shame. Why was this a revelation to him? Warrior was talking about something that happened seventeen years ago – he should have known long before today that Warrior had felt like this and soothed said fears away.

But Warrior had never told him about them!

He looked up to see Susannah comforting Warrior, her head leaning on his shoulder. He saw his brother wipe his eyes.

“I'm alright.” He said softly, turning his head to kiss the top of her head. “Sorry about dat.”

“It's okay.” She replied. “You got back to your family though, and they didn't send yous away.”

“Yeah...that's a story in itself. When Ten Cents was born and I still didn't get to go home, staying with Big Mac and Top 'At wasn't so fun any more. They'd got me out of the tantrums and bratty stuff, and I knew dat if my real family didn't want me they were all I 'ad left, so I just cried myself to sleep a lot. I wasn't as quiet as I thought, as either they'd hear me or Drew would go down an tell em I was crying and they'd come up and comfort me. They tried their best, but I was sure I was staying with them forever. Then...”

Warrior paused for a second, as if trying to choose his words. Hercules was partly relieved for the respite – every word had felt like an accusing jab to the stomach – but he was fairly confident about where Warrior was going next.

“It turned out that I weren't the only one thinkin' I was stayin' with my foster parents forever. Top 'At an Big Mac have two kids older than Andrew – Joeseph an Heather. I dunno why, an if I'm bein really honest I think I'm best not knowin, but they decided I was stayin with them forever too. Heather decided to start bragging to Hercules about I was her brother now. Hercules got really angry and mouthed off at her. She got upset and Joe stood up for her, which might 'ave gone really badly if he wasn't an ocean-going tug as well.”

Hercules felt his teeth clench in anger, but not at his brother. Since that day, he and Joeseph had been unable to stay in the same room, let alone talk to one another, without it escalating to a fight. Joeseph had only been defending his little sister, but he didn't know why until Heather confessed to her teasing a year later. Her parents had been furious, but the damage had already been done...

“When we managed to break them apart, Mum an Top 'At went away an 'ad a very long talk. I was miserable, an sure dat was it for me. Mum an Hercules would never want me back after the fightin and Mum 'ad fell out with her best friend. But, later dat night Mum came over and said I was comin home the next day. I wanted to be 'appy, but I was frightened dat it was a punishment because of the fight.” He paused to sigh. “My room was still the same with all the stuff I'd left, an Mum helped me put my other things away. She gave me lots of hugs and said she was sorry she adn't brought me back sooner. My grandparents came over an made a fuss of me bein back – especially Grandma – an even Ten Cents seemed to like avin someone to play with. Hercules made a big show of bein glad I was back, but...”

'Made a “big show?!”' I was happy you were back home! Hercules wanted to scream at him, but forced himself to calm down when he heard Warrior speak in response to something Susannah had said.

“Well, it was the way he was with me later...it were like 'e thought I was only actin less spoiled and he was just waitin' for me to drop the act. Every little thing, he'd be there, either fixing what I was already doing or tellin me what to do. To start with, I thought he was tryin to 'elp an I wanted him to see how much better behaved I was now an make 'im proud. But...nothin' I did, nothin I said, were ever good enough for Hercules to stop watchin' me like I was gonna just go back to before. Everyone else seemed so happy with me, but the way Hercules kept treatin me made me worry dat he was the only one who wasn't hidin' the feelins they all 'ad. I felt like they were all waitin for me to make a mistake...so....so they could send me away for good...”

Hercules could barely think as he heard Warrior – his own brother – confess to feeling unwanted because of his behaviour. He wanted to deny it, insist it was just Warrior's imagination that made him believe those things. He even wanted to blame Big Mac and Top Hat, somehow poisoning Warrior's mind against them. It had been their son who Hercules had gotten into the fight with, and their daughter who had caused the fight with her tall tales, so maybe it was revenge against him to create a rift?

But for all his wants, he knew they would be lies. Not the wanting his brother back home, that had been true enough, but what Warrior had said about him watching for a return to form? To his shame, that was completely true.

He had resented his younger brother for automatically getting all his father's attention and favour, to the point that he'd been shocked that he'd not been taken by their father and Auntie Dawn when they left. In the weeks that followed, he'd seen their father's actions in everything Warrior had done, with every tantrum feeling like just another act of mockery from the man. He shouldn't have held his brother, who was barely more than a toddler, accountable, but he'd been twelve years old and full of pain. When Warrior had been sent to Big Mac and Top Hat, a tiny part of him had been relieved to be getting a break and having his grandparents' full attention. Maybe in some darker moments, in those early days of sorting his feelings, he'd entertained some private thoughts about how it might be better for Warrior to stay away. He'd caught them and buried them away, horrified by them. When Warrior had stayed away they had often danced back into his memories like an accusation. Once again, they were trying to resurface...

Because it had been so much easier if he treated Warrior like he needed to be constantly watched, to ignore his guilt by transferring it to his brother. It had been noticed too – his mother, grandparents, O.J, even Ten Cents had tried speaking to him about the way he treated Warrior. They'd never approached him, but Big Mac and Top Hat had often flashed disappointed glances in his direction when Warrior had fled to them after yet another argument. If they really did want to steal Warrior away, Hercules was doing them a huge favour.

“Yeah, I spent a lot of time with Big Mac an' Top At. Dey never made me feel like I 'ad to walk on eggshells, so I went over just for the peace. Even after they adoped Maggie, I was welcome any time. Mum and my grandparents would try an get me to stay 'ome more, an I'd try to, but it just got too much sometimes. Some days, I'd barely get through the door before it started...dat's one of the reasons I did the Fire Tug training, to get away from the fleet an do somethin different. The Fire Chief 'ad nothin but good things to say 'bout me, so Hercules couldn't pick at me about it.”

Hercules had been impressed with Warrior's dedication to becoming a certified Fire Tug – he'd been stupidly proud of how much the Fire Chief had praised Warrior.

But like many things, he'd never expressed these feelings out loud...

“When I were seven, Hercules turned fifteen and Grandma came in with this little box. She called 'im away for a minute, an' when they came back, 'e was holding the eagle crest. I remember thinkin it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, and Ten Cents – 'e was three – was asking Grandma if 'e could have one like it. Grandma said we would both be getting' our own on our fifteenth birthdays, because it were a tradition. She specifically said I'd be getting mine first, because I were older and it was fair, but I became convinced dat she'd only said it to calm Ten Cents down and thought I'd forget. I was so sure as I got older that my fifteenth birthday would come an' dere wouldn't be a crest for me...right up until I opened the box and saw it.”

“What happened? Your gran must have seen you were surprised when she gave it to you.”

“I...burst into tears right in front of her – she was horrified!” Warrior chuckled. “She even looked in the box to make sure it was in dere before she gave me a hug. She's the only one in the family I ever told about 'ow I was feelin because I just blurted everythin out right in front of her. We spent so long away from everyone Mum came lookin for us. I'd calmed down by dat time an we were just getting ready to come back, so Mum didn't see me upset. I think Grandma must have said somethin afterwards, because suddenly Mum was giving me a lot of hugs – I think she might 'ave been hurt I didn't tell her myself. “

“What about Hercules?”

Nobody had said anything to Hercules, but after Warrior's fifteenth birthday, his grandparents had pulled him up about being so hard on Warrior a couple of times. He'd listened to them – or he'd thought he had – but it had never occurred to him to wonder why.

“I mean, things aren't as bad as they were between him an me, but...I still feel like Ten Cents is the only thing keepin us from arguing a lot of the time. I know he gets confused about it all, but I think he's decided it's better not to know. Besides, I reckon he's 'had a bit more to worry about after what nearly 'appened with Sunshine.”

Sunshine, and his twin sister Aurora, had both been given their own crests the previous Christmas. Their sister had fashioned hers into a pendant, and wore it out as a necklace more than as a crest, and Sunshine only wore his on special occsions, claiming the weight gave him a headache after a few hours. That had never bothered Hercules anywhere near as much as Warrrior not wearing his had, and he realised with a sudden shame that he knew how his other three siblings - two of whom he had only known about for little over a year – felt about their crests before now, but not Warrior.

“Warrior...” Hercules took a step back to hide behind a bush as Susannah turned to look at Warrior straight on. The last thing he needed was for her to spot him now, after he had eavesdropped on this conversation.

“I know it's not my place, but I think yous need to tell Hercules these things. I'd be horrified if any of my brothers or my sister felt this way about me, and...I think he would too, if he'd heard us talking.”

Warrior sighed, and hung his head.

“I reckon 'e would too, Suse. Things 'ave gotten a bit better since everything went down last year, cos I think Hercules realised 'e could actually talk to me a bit. We talked a lot about our father, but...I don't know if I can bring the conversation up without starting another argument and goin back to square one...”

Hercules backed away slowly, relieved to see that neither of them were making a move to get up, and turned to leave.

He had a lot to think about...

[ao3feed-fengqing]

This Home Built Just For Us

by summerdays_winternights When Xie Lian is cursed and turned into a seven year old, Feng Xin and Mu Qing are in charge of babysitting. Nothing could possibly go wrong, Xie Lian definitely doesn't end up on a roof, and there's no way the two generals will finally confess their feelings to each other.... He gives Mu Qing a big, toothy grin. “You’re pretty. Will you be my friend?” Mu Qing huffs and sheathes Zhanmadao, Xie Lian following the movement with wonder. If Feng Xin wasn’t freaking out at the moment, he’d probably laugh about his friend’s love of weapons even as a child. Mu Qing walks over and crouches down to be eye level with Xie Lian. “We’re already friends, Your Highness. I’m Mu Qing.” Words: 8508, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Fēng Xìn (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Mù Qíng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Huā Chéng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú) Relationships: Fēng Xìn/Mù Qíng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Background HuaLian - Relationship Additional Tags: Curses, Xie Lian gets turned into a child, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, i was give free reign of fx's backstory and you all must suffer the consequences, xie lian is a chaos child, Getting Together, Xianle Trio Reconciliation, they're friends your honor!! via https://ift.tt/35GD0tz

[snapeingturtle]

Rating some of the Marauders era / snera™️ ships (ships involving ppl the Marauders and Severus went to school with) I've been exposed to because I'm drunk and feeling spicy. Romantic ships only, I have different opinions on the brotps. I could talk about this all night but I chose not to make a long post.

Disclaimer: this is heavily influenced by headcanons I've convinced myself are canon and generally my opinions. Not in order from best to worst because I am drunk and I'm not proofreading this.

Prongsfoot/Starbucks/James x Sirius 10/10. James is just as inobservant as Harry. Of course he didn't notice that Sirius had a crush on him. James didn't even notice he himself was into Sirius. Love it.

Jily/James x Lily 2/10. In my heart Lily is a lesbian. Jily has some potential as a comphet storyline where they're both actually gay and think of each other as the man/woman they're supposed to like. Other than that it's a no from me.

Wolfstar/Remus x Sirius 1/10. Unpopular opinion again, I know. I see Remus having a one-sided crush on Sirius before the prank, but honestly I'm a Ronks stan because I can project my insecurities on Remus and have been in love with Tonks for years and I hate the idea of them being in a relationship with anyone else but each other. Plus, I really don't see Sirius committing and definitely not to Remus. Sirius is a bachelor for life and I identity with that. Another reason to dismiss this ship.

Snily/Severus x Lily 1/10. The only reason I don't rate this at 0 is because they're one of my favourite brotps. She's gay and not his type, they're sister souls, just look at the doe patronuses, they found security in each other like does in a herd etc. and I hate it when people say there were romantic feelings involved. I could accept this with fem!Snape though.

Starchaser (wtf is this name)/Jegulus/James x Regulus 4/10. I think it's funny to have James falling in love with his best friend's brother. I don't have any negative feelings about the ship itself. HOWEVER. As someone who has been exposed to Jegulus content despite not looking for it and Snily content despite not looking for it. Jegulus feels like m/m Snily for people who hate Snape. The content (I've seen) has the same vibe and I cannot get over that.

Remus x Lily 3/10. If I were able to see Lily as not a lesbian I would love this, not as an endgame thing but more as a teen romance that ended on ok terms before they both moved on. No strong feeling about this tbh.

Snegulus/Severus x Regulus 4/10. They're definitely not in love but they're both sluts so they probably fucked and it was probably hot. That's all.

Lily x Mary MacDonald 3/10. I would consider this as another one-sided crush situation. Mary is the token straight in their dorm and that's unfortunate for Lily.

Snucius/Severus x Lucius 8/10. They're not endgame. But they fuck. I refuse to consider Sirius calling Severus Lucius's lapdog anything but calling him his sugar baby. I don't rate this higher because Snucissa is better than just the men.

Lily x Pandora Lovegood 10/10. I don't know if they ever interacted or if they even went to school at the same time but I'm in love with the idea of them together.

Severus x Mulciber 3/10. Another one-sided crush sitch. Snape was infatuated with Mulciber at a certain point, Mulciber (forgot his first name sorry) knew and took advantage of it. That's Snape's slut origin story.

Snupin / Severus x Remus 3/10. They would never date. Doesn't fit my fantasy or the reality of their relationship. But hate-fucking in one of their offices while Remus is employed at Hogwarts? I see that. I dig it.

I also headcanon Dorcas as queer but I don't see her with Lily but I don't have any feelings about that ship in either direction so 3,5/10 maybe?

[sterek-ao3feed]

eventually, probably

Read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/57827584

by Anonymous

The man on the sign is smiling.

That’s what Derek notices first when he passes by the community bulletin board in the library. Not the text, not the horrible font the text is written in. Not even the overabundance of baby-related clip art, like someone couldn’t decide on one so they just used them all. The man is smiling down at the baby in his arms, cradling it gently without a trace of fear on his face. There are no tears, no under-eye bags that could be seen from a mile away.

Are you feeling overwhelmed or lost? You are not alone!

It’s all the motivation he needs to backtrack to the circulation desk to register for the class.

Words: 2747, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Teen Wolf (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Derek Hale, Lydia Martin, Stiles Stilinski

Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale & Lydia Martin

Additional Tags: Single Parent Derek Hale, Kid Fic, Minor Lydia Martin/Jordan Parrish, Alternate Universe

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57827584

[inner-sakura]

the law of equivalent exchange

Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Categories: F/M Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug,  Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Summary: 

In one world, a wish is made.    

Yet for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And a price that must always be paid.  

[’Tuesday, Ladybug thinks, is a very arbitrary day to die.’]

[canon divergent, not season 5 compliant. angst. major character death. author makes questionable use of The Wish mechanics.] 

i wrote this instead of sleeping. it can probably be generously called conceptual.

-x-

Tuesday, Ladybug thinks, is a very arbitrary day to die.

Not that she’d ever given much thought to which day of the week would be her last, per se. But as she lays there, blackness slowly creeping into the edges of her vision, she can’t help but ruminate; her mind flitting from one thought to the next as though trying to cram as much material into as little time as possible.

It’s not like she can do much apart from sit there and think, anyway. She’s completely lost feeling in her legs now, numbness replacing what used to be a world of sensation. Even if she wanted to move, it’s simply not an option anymore.

Besides, she lost the taste for it fairly quickly upon realizing just how painful moving could be when your insides have suddenly become outsides.

So she sits, and she thinks, and she waits to die.

She’s in the process of contemplating the simple majesty of a cloudless blue sky when blackness fills her vision, followed swiftly by gold and green and–

“Oh hey, kitty,” she smiles, and then immediately regrets it when she begins coughing, the greeting aggravating her already angry throat. When she finally stops, her lips are damp, and she doesn’t need to look at Chat’s stricken expression to know that her mask isn’t the only streak of red on her face anymore.

His hands are heartbreakingly gentle as they lift her, cradling her broken body against his trembling chest.

Chat’s voice is so low it’s nearly inaudible.

“No no no no no,” he mutters, the mantra he’s been repeating almost from the moment he landed beside her. The single syllable carries with it a well of desperation far too deep for such a simple two letter word.

“This can’t be happening,” he says, speaking more to himself than to her. Even though her eyes are having a hard time focusing, she can tell when his gaze zeroes in on hers; can feel his resolve crystallizing in the air between them. “Tell me what to do, my Lady. Where’s your Lucky Charm? We have to fix this, please.”

“Gone,” she rasps, the word leaving her with difficulty. “Bro–ken–” Useless now, she wants to add. Monarch made certain of that.

She has to stop there, though, because her vision is going spotty the longer she tries to speak and she has so much she wants to say and so little time left to do it.

Chat lets out a mournful noise like that of a wounded animal, his hands gripping her shoulders desperately.

“No, there has to be another way,” he all but wails, leaning over her until all she can see and feel is black leather and devastation. He presses his forehead to hers, each of his tears burning hot against her clammy skin.

“I’m sorry,” she mouths against his ear, trusting his enhanced hearing to pick up her nearly voiceless plea. I’m sorry that I’m going first. I’m sorry that we couldn’t win.

I’m sorry that I’m leaving you alone.

Chat is openly bawling now, his body wracked with sobs that jostle her in a way that would have probably been painful, if she could feel anything anymore.

But the only thing she’s feeling at this point is increasingly sleepy; her eyelids weighted down with all of the failures she’s experienced in her nearly sixteen years on this planet.

I love you, she wants to tell him, but her throat won’t cooperate, her lungs and vocal cords standing in opposition to each other, denying her even the right to choose her last words.

And so Ladybug dies, wordlessly and anticlimactically, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

-x-

This is one ending.

But in a world of infinite possibility, with thousands of threads woven together to create the tapestry of time, even one slight tug can be enough to unravel the fabric.

Chat Noir, like many holders of the Black Cat Miraculous before him, has never been known for his delicacy, however.

Which means that he doesn’t so much tug on the strands as he shears through them with his claws, reaching through the sea of infinite realities to wrest creation from the jaws of oblivion.

He makes a wish.

And he destroys the world.  

-x-

Tuesday, Ladybug thinks, staring down at the broken body of Monarch, is a very arbitrary day to die.

Although judging by the hour, it is barely Tuesday anymore; the clock on her yoyo inching steadily towards the dawning of a new day.

And a new day has dawned indeed.

For the flood of first responders steadily trickling into the hidden catacombs that lie beneath the Agreste mansion; for the citizens of Paris, asleep in their beds, blissfully unaware of what has taken place in their city tonight.

And for its heroes. Ladybug’s eyes dart to her partner, who remains frozen at her side, his acid green irises fixed unwaveringly on the dead man at his feet.

The police have already questioned them both, their statements written and recorded for posterity. Now all that is left to do is wait for the medical examiner to come and remove the body in the basement.

Or, she should say the bodies, plural. Her eyes flick to the glass case to her right and Ladybug’s stomach turns anew with horror at the sight of the tomb that contains the remains of Adrien’s mother.

For how many people are in the room, there is a remarkable lack of noise; each person moving with the distinct knowledge that they have entered a graveyard and respect must be shown for the dead.

Nevertheless, the work is not quite done.

As the world continues to spin madly on around them, Ladybug turns to her partner, grim-faced and determined.

“We need to find Adrien Agreste,” is what she says.

Chat does not respond, but he follows her silently, out of the grave and into the early morning hours of what will soon become known as the most climactic Wednesday Paris has ever seen.

-x-

This is another ending.

A world, newly forged by the hands of a boy desperate to save a girl.

A world of infinite possibility, with thousands of threads painstakingly woven together by hands more accustomed to destruction than creation.  

Adrien Agreste, unbeknownst to him, lives to realize his father’s dream.

He makes a wish, and saves his love–his Lady, his classmate, his best friend. The other half of his soul residing within a different body.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng lives.

And together they kill his father.

-x-

[ao3feed-itafushi]

if you wanna hold me take me fill me with your magic

by ninjnerd_Anaklusmos "You could come with me," Toge had said, eyes imploring. Yuuta thumbed at his bracelet, nail catching in the divot of a capital t. It had really started to sink in that he would probably never see him again. He missed those eyes, sharp and keen, a shade of twilight he wished he could capture forever. He wished he had more time with him, rather than a fleeting moment in the span of their lives. --- Yuuta had been so generous to him, so kind, and Toge had no way to return to same kindness to him. He had made him upset, if anything, the way his expression had fallen when he realized he would likely never see Toge again. Toge swallowed, heart heavy. He missed him. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, dragging over his book with a newfound surge of purpose. He would find what had cursed Yuuta, and find a way to break that curse. It was only a fair trade, since Yuuta had saved his life. otherwise known as the magic au no one asked for, with a healthy dose of royal politics and forbidden magic involved. Words: 3960, Chapters: 1/20, Language: English Fandoms: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/F, Gen, M/M Characters: Inumaki Toge, Okkotsu Yuuta, Fushiguro Megumi, Itadori Yuuji, Gojo Satoru, Getou Suguru, Zenin Maki, Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna, Ieiri Shoko, Panda (Jujutsu Kaisen), Hakari Kinji, Hoshi Kirara, Uraume (Jujutsu Kaisen), Kugisaki Nobara, Orimoto Rika Relationships: Inumaki Toge/Okkotsu Yuuta, Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji, Hakari Kinji/Hoshi Kirara, Getou Suguru/Gojo Satoru, Kugisaki Nobara/Zenin Maki Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - No Curses (Jujutsu Kaisen), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Magic, Inumaki Toge-centric, Okkotsu Yuuta-centric, Politics, Pre-War, Mages, Royalty, First Meetings, First Kiss, Marriage Proposal, Political Alliances, Guards, Secret Relationship, Family Secrets, Angst and Feels, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, There Was Only One Bed, Holding Hands, Mutual Pining, Demonic Possession, Dark Magic, POV Inumaki Toge, POV Okkotsu Yuuta, POV Fushiguro Megumi, POV Itadori Yuuji, Inumaki Toge Needs a Hug, Soft Inumaki Toge, Okkotsu Yuuta Needs a Hug, Soft Okkotsu Yuuta, Protective Okkotsu Yuuta, Zenin Maki is Bad at Feelings, Badass Zenin Maki, Gojo Satoru Adopts Fushiguro Megumi and Tsumiki, Gojo Satoru is a Little Shit, Parental Getou Suguru, Trans Fushiguro Megumi, Fushiguro Megumi Loves Itadori Yuuji, Itadori Yuuji Loves Fushiguro Megumi, Fushiguro Megumi is So Done, Itadori Yuuji is a Ray of Sunshine, Itadori Yuuji is Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna's Vessel, Protective Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna, Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna is a Little Shit, Zenin Clan Drama (Jujutsu Kaisen), Fushiguro Megumi & Itadori Yuuji & Kugisaki Nobara Friendship, Inumaki Toge & Okkotsu Yuuta & Panda & Zenin Maki Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added from AO3 works tagged 'Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji' https://ift.tt/ATtrXJM

[ladylilithprime]

In Sickness

Series: Fluffy Faerie Tales

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairing: Sastimmy/Jamstiel (Jimmy Novak/Sam Winchester/Castiel)

Rating: General to Teen and Up

Tags/Warnings: Half-Fae Sam Winchester, Jimmy and Castiel Are Twins, Sam Winchester Is Jack Kline's Adopted Father, Brief Allusions to Canon-Typical Violence, Sickfic, Castiel Hates Being Sick, Sam Has A Magical Twin

Summary: Living in a magically integrated community had its perks. Unfortunately, immunity from illness was not one of them. Luckily, Cas's half-faerie boyfriend is willing to come stay with him and Jimmy to help take care of him, which leads to a few unexpected revelations about Sam... like the fact that he technically has his own magical twin.

For: @fluffyfebruary challenge!

Prompt: Day 20: Partners

Read on AO3

LIVING IN A magically integrated area had several benefits. The security systems for businesses and homes were backed up by magical wards and some particularly powerful locals whom nobody with any sense wanted to risk making angry. The beaches were protected and patrolled by selkies and merfolk who didn't mind saving the occasional human tourist so long as they didn't litter or try to run off with somebody's pelt. The weather tended to stay reasonably decent unless it was unavoidable, and there was plenty of warning before anything major hit the town.

Unfortunately, being in a magically integrated area couldn't do too much about the spread of diseases. It wasn't just human illnesses, either. Dragons, selkies, dwarves, and merfolk all had their own particular infirmities, seasonal and otherwise. In fact, it was more likely that various illnesses could run the risk of crossing the species barrier, leaving people who might have otherwise been perfectly fine suffering some magically mutated malady.

"It's the flu," Sam sighed as he gently adjusted the blanket covering his boyfriend's legs. "Nothing magical or strange about it aside from you somehow catching the variant we all didn't get vaccinated for."

"Are you sure?" Cas pressed around the congestion in his sinuses. He hated how much he sounded like a whiny child, dismayed at how being ill could reduce him to this even after so many years.

"I'm quite sure," Sam said, handing Cas a tissue. "Dr Argall didn't find anything unusual in her tests, and Adam assured us that the sample we sent came back positive for just influenza."

Adam had actually laughed at them when they had called with the request until a sneezing and tearful Cas had choked out his worries about Sam or Jack catching something horribly mutated that their human blood would make them vulnerable to from having been in him. He hadn't apologized for laughing, but he had at least taken Cas's concern and their request a bit more seriously. That his testing had come back negative for unknown pathogens had helped settle Cas's mind... at the time.

"Don' wanna get you sick," he muttered, blowing his nose obediently. "Y'got th'cafe an' Jack... don' wan' Jack t'get sick...."

"And that's why Jack is staying with Donna and Amelia and Matt for the weekend," Sam reminded him patiently. "He'll probably have a hand-drawn get well soon card all ready for me to bring to you after work tomorrow."

"'M missi'g work," Cas grumbled, scowling at the blanket and decidedly not pouting.

"Jimmy's got the baking covered for now, even though we both know you're better at it," Sam said, unperturbed. "And I have it on good authority that your boss approved your sick leave and wants you to rest and recover at your own pace." He paused, and Cas could hear the smile in his voice when he added, "Consider this proper exchange for when you took care of me after the alicorns."

And it really was that easy for Sam, Cas knew. As a faerie of the Summer Court, Sam tended to calculate the balance of debt on a longer time scale than immediate transactions while being very humanly coy about the exact balance. Or maybe that was a faerie thing, too. Cas knew that Jimmy had asked Mary about it and she had been only moderately helpful in explaining, something about Sam being "more human in his heart, but more faerie in his nature" that didn't make a whole lot of sense at the time.

Thinking about it just brought up another nagging feeling of unbalanced debt. "S'rry..."

"For what?" Sam asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

Cas shrunk down into the couch nest. "Dean..."

Silence, and then Sam let out a long, heavy sigh. "Dean is responsible for his own behavior and, therefore, the consequences of that behavior. His choices are in no way your fault or responsibility." Another moment of silence, and then Sam settled down into the nest against Cas's side. "Honestly, I was sort of expecting him to take things badly. Not to the degree he did, that was an unpleasant surprise, but Dean has never reacted well to someone other than him taking care of me when I'm hurt. Bad enough for him when it was just my twin."

"Twin?" Cas nearly jolted upright, only to collapse back from dizziness. Cool hands gently pressed him back down into the cushions, faintly callused fingers stroking back his hair, and he blearily looked up towards Sam's face.

"It's not the same as you and Jimmy," Sam said gently, his eyes lowered to stare pensively at the blanket to give Cas the space to study his expression. "We aren't in separate bodies having wholly separate experiences. Calling him my twin is just sort of more accurate to faerie standards than calling him an alter or split personality. Emotionally speaking, he's much younger than I am, and he tends to prefer to sleep much more than I do."

"Will you tell us about him?" That was Jimmy, either drawn from the kitchen by Cas's exclamation or simply bringing the bowl of soup he held at the right time. The soup was handed to Cas, and Jimmy took up a position on the other side from Sam where Cas could reach his hand if he needed. "If he's a part of you, then we'd like to know... and if any humans out there can understand magically created twins...."

"Point," Sam chuckled softly. "Alright. You both know I was in the military back in the faerie realms. When I was about eight hundred and sixty years old, there was a skirmish near the borderlands and a rift opened up. I kept my unit as safe as possible, but the rift was into a Hell dimension and several of us were dragged through before it sealed.

"That's when my twin was born, in the fires of that hell dimension," he murmured. Cas exchanged a glance with Jimmy, then reached out and took their boyfriend's hand gently. Sam smiled softly and stroked over Cas's hand with his thumb. "He spent more time awake there than I did, fighting off the demons that threatened our people, killed a number of them... lost all but two of my people when we finally rushed their high command and my twin, uh, basically took over rulership." He ducked his head a bit sheepishly. "So technically speaking I'm King of Hell, albeit more like my twin and I are jointly a king of a hell. Crowley, I think you met him in passing a few times? He's essentially our regent. Dean doesn't know exactly how long I was there, because of the way time worked differently between the various dimensions, and the two survivors, my twin, and I all agreed that he didn't need to know. When his forces busted through, we had all visibly aged, but perks of faerie genetics meant he couldn't tell how much. He assumed it was a hundred and fifty years, and none of us corrected him."

"But it was much longer?" Jimmy asked.

"Upwards of five hundred that I'm aware of," Sam admitted with a wince. "Probably longer. There are chunks of time missing from my memory where my twin was in control and had me buried deeper down to protect me. He was in control when Dean busted through, and... well, the fact that my twin exists at all made him furious, because he's proof that Dean wasn't there to protect me. So he sleeps and only really comes out when I'm in mortal peril. Because I'm less quick to attack than he is, more likely to defend or negotiate than simply... execute."

Silence descended once more as Cas and Jimmy processed this information, broken by Cas needing to blow his nose again. It did somewhat explain Dean's blow-up, even though it didn't excuse it. And it also explained the weirdly irreverent deference Crowley showed Sam whenever he dropped by with the monthly supplies of--

"Tha's why th'cafe gets such a good deal on th'hellfire roast coffee beans and other demonic byproducts?" Cas asked.

"Sure is," Sam nodded. "Yearly tithe, but because of the time difference Crowley brings it by once a month by our reckoning. I have similar deals with other realms to get certain ingredients at a discount."

"Useful," Jimmy hummed. He exchanged another glance with Cas. "Is there a way to tell the two of you apart when you, er...?"

"Swap?" Sam supplied. He shrugged. "I mean, we use different glamour sets due to our different personalities and respective responsibilities... my twin took to the whole 'ruler of a hell dimension' role and tailored his glamour accordingly. Yellow glowing eyes, gold-tipped black horns, black warding marks, claws, articulated bat wings for the intimidation factor...."

"That sounds seriously badass," Jimmy breathed as Cas nodded. Sam's cheeks turned pink, and Cas wondered if he was actually blushing or if he was altering his glamour to make it look like he was. Jimmy must have been thinking something similar, because he said, "I have more questions about how your glamours work if you don't mind explaining sometime, but we wouldn't be opposed to meeting your twin if he wakes up while you're with us."

"Surprised he didn' wake up with th'alicorns," Cas mumbled, blowing his nose again and screwing up the tissue to toss at the trash can.

"Oh, he did," Sam admitted with a grimace. "I asked him to stay back because... well, you two were already having a rough night without adding my semi-demonic and bad-tempered twin into the mix. We might want to have a more controlled and deliberate first meeting if you really want to."

"He's your partner in ruling your hell dimension," Jimmy pointed out with a shrug. "We're your romantic partners. It seems like a good idea that we all know each other."

"But not until I'm not sick," Cas said, sniffling even as he winked. "Don' wanna be mistaken for a threat to your health."

[roosterbox]

Fic Rec Friday 6/23/23

Title: My Apologies Your Father is An Incompetent Bastard

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: M/M

Fandom: Inception (2010)

Relationship: Arthur/Eames (Inception)

Characters: Arthur (Inception), Eames (Inception)

Additional Tags: Mpreg, Kink Meme

Summary: Arthur and Eames are on the run from a job gone wrong when Arthur goes into labor.

———

Ah, mpreg. Probably the strangest trope I love. But this has always been so - when I started reading fic, it was a much more rare plot to see (and of course ABO wasn’t a twinkle in someone’s eye yet), but every time I found it, I loved it. These days I like to joke that mpreg is the gateway drug to get me to like a ship, which to be fair… is accurate. I could probably list off several ships that I was indifferent towards at best before stumbling upon a cute mpreg fic. But today, I’m talking about a ship I already loved, that just so happened to have a great mpreg fic written for it.

The characterization in this story is spot on. Arthur and Eames still feel close enough to their canon counterparts, but with a unique artistic flair, which I always appreciate (with how little actual canon there is for them, you kinda have to get creative). One aspect that rings so true is the state of their relationship, and how they both feel about it. More than one person has compared their canon dynamic to bitter exes who may or may not reconcile by the end of the movie, and that feeling comes across in this story very well.

I think Arthur’s characterization is my favorite. Eames is of course as amiable and jocular as always, but Arthur is much more bitter. And angry. Which is understandable given the, ahem, “state” he was left in by Eames. But there’s also a silly side to him, such as him refusing to acknowledge that he’s in labor because if he doesn’t acknowledge it, it isn’t happening, right? Oh Arthur - honey bear, boo child - that’s not how that works, lol.

As stated by the little preview I gave last week, the fact that the pregnancy isn’t explained is another thing I love. Oh sure, we know HOW Arthur got pregnant (you see, when a Forger and a Point Man love each other very much…), but just how men in general can get pregnant is open to interpretation; you’re left to draw your own conclusions, which I greatly appreciate. Same with the birth itself - how exactly the child came out of Arthur and into the world is not super elaborated upon, other than, obviously, it was a natural birth. Fill in the blanks as you see fit.

And, of course, happy ending. Maybe a bit ambiguous (there is still danger afoot), but for at least a moment, they can just exist as a family of three. It’s very sweet.

Last note, for one of my all-time favorite lines in any Inception fic ever:

Sometimes (most of the time) Arthur just really wanted to punch Eames in the nuts.

Beautiful.

———

Next Week: How about some Cherik again? And this one is a nice little non-mutant AU, featuring paralyzed soldier!Charles and catatonic Holocaust survivor!Erik. It hurts before it gets better, but the hurt is so good.

Until next time!

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

ok so i spent yesterday looking through and collecting data from ao3's rpf (real person fanfiction) collection (for no reason other than 'i was intrigued' lol...)

and i thought i'd go through some of the interesting finds!

(this is probably interesting to nobody but me but hey when has that ever stopped me lol!)

starting with a disclaimer that this is a judgement free zone! i may make a few jokes about things from time to time on here, but i am firmly of the 'ship and let ship' mindset so no hate meant in any of this at all lol <3

first interesting fact is that kpop is the highest rpf tag (with over 650k works!!), bts are obviously the boy group with the most fics, with twice being the highest girl group!

speaking of girls... so for every category i tried to find what the top f/f ship was and for a couple of the tags (most notably actors and music), the top f/f ships were actually male characters (which confused me until i saw the additional tags were genderbend and genderswap lol)... there are also a lot of fandoms where the top characters when you take out m/m ships is actually original female characters (or reader)!

unsurprisingly, taylor swift is the solo artist with the most fics written about her (many shipping her with various celebs, both men and women), but what i found interesting is that there are 140 of her songs and albums that are featured in fics, which is more than any other musician's work (even hozier lol!)

other music tag info is one direction as the non-kpop band with the most fics, with larry stylinson being the top ship (no one is shocked at this) and the highest rating being explicit! which is a bit surprising since most of these fandoms have either general or teen and up ratings as the top one... the only other umbrella rpf fandom that has explicit as the top rating is actors... oh and porn (duh)

my chemical romance deserve a mention as the band with the most fics under the rock music tag (and in the bandom tag), with gerard as the top character (good for them!)! queen also rank pretty highly, with a lot of the fics being specifically linked to the 2018 film bohemian rhapsody rather than specifically the band themselves (so it's like... rpf of rpf lol?)

i think the beatles are the oldest band/musician to have a lot of rpf about them but it's honestly a little hard to tell so don't quote me on this... they are also at the top of the 60's music scene, where the rolling stones take 2nd lol...

the rpf section that i went into the most blind was the sports tag, since my knowledge of sports is .......... yeh that's about all i know lol

men's football and hockey have a similar number of fics each (a little over 30k), though the top character in the sports tag is max verstappen who is actually a racing driver so ??? confused noises lol

anyway idrc about the men (this is a joke ofc @ men i love you), what i DO care about is that women's football (and this is specifically the soccer kind not the american lol) has the highest femslash fics, and i looked up tobin heath (who was the top character in this section) and lemme just say that i Get it lol...

wwe and formula 1 are some other sports that have a significant number of fics in the, filled with people i've never heard of before pfft... i will say that most of the sports have general as their top rating, except for hockey which has explicit (i feel like theirs some kinda joke i could make here about playing with sticks but i'm not gonna lol... especially since most sports already play with balls so?)

anyway enough about sports lol, let's return to something i'm much more comfortable with: youtubers!

youtube is actually the 2nd most written about category (next to kpop, with nearly 280k fics) with minecraft youtubers (the top character being tommyinnit) being the most written about!

what i found most fascinating about this is that 8 out of the 10 top ships in this tag are platonic (and 1 is actually just the 'no romantic relationships' tag lol... the top ship overall is still a slash pairing, but it's still interesting that such a big fandom has mainly platonic pairings!)

also even though the phandom have nowhere near the amount of fics as minecraft youtube, i found it kinda funny that there are (as of writing this) only 95 more fics featuring dan than phil (essentially saying that literally nearly 99% of the fics feature the both of them lol... phandom really said 'co-dependency' and i respect that lol)

moving on to actors, which i expected to have a lot more fics than it does given a lot of rpf involves the actors of characters in popular fictional ships (i mean there are still a lot, over 130k lol...) and supernatural takes the crown of having the most fics of this category! j2 is the top ship, though the 3rd top ship in the actors tag is actually tom hiddleston x original female character! i think because of this british actors are the highest subsection of actors, followed by chinese actors!

i think i did expect the chinese actors to have more fics, but i'm guessing the smaller number is because of the whole xiao zhan ao3 drama from a few years ago... wang yibo x xiao zhan still make up the most popular ship, plus there are plenty of other c-dramas and other chinese shows that have a big number of fics that don't fall under the chinese actor umbrella tag (so the number probably would be a lot larger if i went through and counted them... but i'm not gonna)... similar thing with thai actors, which only has a couple thousand fics in the tag, but there are a whole lot more fics dedicated to rpf of specific actors on specific shows (from a quick glance i think tharntype and kinnporsche are a couple of the highest fandoms? but i didn't go through everything cos i'd already been doing this for a few hours and i was getting sleeeeeby lol...)

one thing that intrigued me was the british comedy category (which is the top comedy category lol! we did it lads we finally came top with something!), where would i lie to you and taskmaster were the top fandoms! david mitchell was the top character and, kinda bizarrely imo, david x charlie brooker was the top ship (i feel like i'm missing some kinda big thing in the british comedy fandom ngl lol... but like really? you ship david with charlie brooker when robert webb, his actual comedy partney, is RIGHT there? or even lee mack i'm ??? ok ok i'm getting off topic pfft...)

oh greg davies and alex horne are also a popular ship in this category ofc (though they have less than 1000 fics lol!)

the final umbrella category of rpf that i could find was historical, which is the tag with the least amount of fics (under 20k), with alexander hamilton and various other american specific historical figures making up the bulk of the popular historical fics (these are mainly tired to the musical hamilton btw)!

the top characters and ship when narrowed down to just the f/f of the historical tag is mostly original female characters btw!

there are also fics of other public figures, like politics, porn, journalists and chefs, and probably the most intriguing facts i found from this section are that hillary clinton is the most popular character in the 21st century us politics section, joe biden and donald trump are the 4th most popular ship (with the reoccurring additional tag of 'crack fic' lol), and though it isn't in the top stats, when i went into the pundit and journalist tag the first few fics to pop up were ben shapiro x matt walsh explicit stuff which was... uh... interesting lol

final thing i'll note is that i stuck mainly to ao3 for this because though i know places like wattpad have a large rpf collection too, but it's so bloody HARD to find data about fics on that site pfft... though i think one thing that would be shown by looking into wattpad's rpf community is that whereas ao3 has a lot of shipping content (obviously), wattpad has a lot more reader x celebrity (but like take this with a pinch of salt since i've not actually done the research for this part pfft...)

anyway i hope you (all 0 of you) enjoyed this rambling take on the data i found on ao3's rpf collection lol!

i know people get really weird around rpf, but i just genuinely find it SO interesting how diverse the range of stuff people write about!

[sterek-ao3feed-archive]

you know you know my skin too well

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51736864 by Viwrit3r 'Oh, shit,' Stiles says, because what else do you say when the extremely handsome, probably unstable son of Alpha of the Hale pack - who possibly hates all humans, that part was unclear - is apparently your soulmate? Or, Stiles has made it to eighteen, survived as the squishy human in the pack of werewolves, and watched that same pack - led by his best friend - turn into something steady and stable. A treaty with their neighbours, the famed Hale pack, is a good thing. A really good thing. And a visit to their territory to solidify it is a perfect oppourtunity for the McCall Pack to better get to know their new allies. Stiles is sure there's absolutely no way anything could go wrong. Right? Words: 2691, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M, M/M Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Peter Hale, Cora Hale, Talia Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Lydia Martin, Isaac Lahey, Derek Hale Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore Additional Tags: Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Pack Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, but also not canon divergence, more like I shook the canon and this fell out, Pack Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, as slow burn as soulmates can be, Alternate Universe, Magic, Forests, like a lot of forests, did i mention the forests read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51736864

[someidiotwithalaptop]

Block by rating, category, completeness, etc.

Alright. So we've got a lot of stuff we can do, but we're still missing some of the abilities the Ao3 filter has. A few of them, like language, number of kudos/bookmarks/chapters, etc., are as far as I'm aware completely impossible to target using CSS. This is because they're stored in text instead of in specific classes.

But, a lot of them—like ratings, categories, completeness, and whether or not a fic has a summary (which afaik isn't filterable normally)—can be targeted with CSS code!

Let's start with ratings, because this one is really nice to be able to include in tag filters. Say there's a tag, uhh, let's call it "TotallyInnocentTag," which is a common phrase that gets tagged in a lot of things that are not nsfw... but is also a very specific kink that you don't have and don't want to read.

Well, we can grab fics by rating like this: .blurb:has(span.rating-rating) {   display: none !important; }

Where we replace rating with: rating-general-audience rating-teen rating-mature rating-explicit rating-notrated For whichever rating we want to use.

This could be used to straight-up block all explicit fics, if you don't like to read them and don't want to see summaries for them:

.blurb:has(span.rating-explicit) {   display: none !important; }

But it's also very useful for chaining together with tag selectors. For our earlier example, to block only explicit and thus probably kink-related fics tagged with "TotallyInnocentTag", we'd do this:

.blurb:has(span.rating-explicit):has(a[href*="TotallyInnocentTag"]) {   display: none !important; }

Or, if you like a ship called "SpicyShip" only when there's smut, you can do the reverse! Or even include only fics of that ship rated E or M:

.blurb:has(a[href*="SpicyShip"]):not(:has(span.rating-explicit, span.rating-mature)) {   display: none !important; }

Now, on to completeness! Say you like Angst, but only if it has a happy ending. You used a filter to block most angst, but you'd like to make an exception for the tag "Angst with a Happy Ending". The thing is, you actually don't want to start a fic like that unless, you know, the happy ending is already there—you've been burned before by fics that got abandoned before things got better for your blorbos, and now you'd rather just wait for those stories to be completed first.

There are two filters we can use here: ".blurb:has(span.complete-no)" will target incomplete fics, while ".blurb:has(span.complete-yes)" will target completed ones. So our happy ending filter would look like this:

.blurb:has(span.complete-no):has(a[href$="/tags/Angst%20with%20a%20Happy%20Ending/works"]) {   display: none !important; }

(We're a little at the mercy of how people use Ao3 here—the way the site decides completeness isn't the most intuitive thing ever, so people sometimes put, say, 3/3 chapters without the fic being complete because they very reasonably get confused by why they're being asked to list the total number of chapters. (If anyone's new to Ao3 and as baffled by that as I was—if your story is incomplete and you don't know how many total chapters you're going to have, you can leave that field blank and Ao3 will just put a question mark there instead!) Also, whether or not one should mark a fic complete if it's been abandoned is not something there's universal consensus on.)

Alright, cool! But what if you don't exactly mind ships being in a fic, but you don't like romance-focused stories? You can block all but Gen fics like this:

.blurb:not(:has(span.category-gen)) {   display: none !important; }

I will note—a fic gets represented as "multi" as far as CSS classes are concerned if it's tagged with multiple categories, no matter what those categories are. So this filter would block something that has both the "gen" and "f/f" categories, even though the way the filter is set up doesn't seem like it would. (this aside brought to you by the several minutes I spent squinting in confusion at a fic that I thought wouldn't get highlighted)

The categories are: category-none for fics that aren't tagged with any category category-gen for Gen fics category-femslash for F/F category-slash for M/M category-other for Other category-multi for Multi category-het for F/M

Next—summaries! Specifically, does a fic have one or not?

This filter will block any fic that doesn't have a summary:

.blurb:has(ul.required-tags):not(:has(blockquote)) {   display: none !important; }

Note that our friend from earlier, "ul.required-tags", is back because comments and site skins don't have summaries. Or, more to the point, any blockquotes, which is the object that the summaries are stored in.

A similar method also works to block fics that don't have relationship tags: .blurb:has(ul.required-tags):not(:has(.relationships))

character tags: .blurb:has(ul.required-tags):not(:has(.characters))

and freeform tags: .blurb:has(ul.required-tags):not(:has(.freeforms))

Which leads to the filter I like to call, "I have no idea what's going on here":

.blurb:has(ul.required-tags):not(:has(.freeforms, blockquote)) {   display: none !important; }

(Other Ao3 tagblocking things)