#just tagging a few that are mention

[oofouchstovehot]

(Very very sorry. I had to ramble a little about worldbuilding. It got out of hand.)

Nothing against the sans hyper fixation, i get it, i have it too.

but like... does anyone else wish there'd be a little more focus on other characters when it came to aus?

(BEAR WITH ME MY KNOWLEDGE COULD BE OUTDATED IF SOMETHING DOESN'T MAKE SENSE)

Like. For this huge clusterfuck of Sanses fighting other Sanses. A lot of them have home worlds right? Do they bring friends? Do they fight in the multiverse to protect them? Do they try to hide what they do? Is it just skeletons fighting in Dream and Nightmare's Groups or are there also Undynes popping up for backup? Is there a Toriel who Dream crashes with often? Someone other than Sans who is the only survivor of a destabilized world. Maybe there's a reason Sanses are most likely to survive? Is it chance? Is it the role he plays in most worlds? Is it a meta thing like Ink's relationship with Creators? Does Sans have some kind of cosmic plot armor due to our favor of him? Do the people who's world was destroyed, or destabilized, or kicked them out and have to live in the omega timeline, or crash with an alternate them, or live at Nightmare's Hideout-Castle-Thing jealous of characters with a home to return to when their job is done? Can we get Deltarune involved please?

Idk... The purely Sans groups are fun but surely there are more people helping the Stars and crashing with Nightmare's gang. I mean, mf has a castle. And Dream's cause seems to be pretty widespread.... Would Dust be chill enough with Kris to have them on the team? Would they pull the !#?@ Squad along or would Ralsei and/or Noel convince them to help Dream. Would they split in two? Are there people who's aus are perfectly fine but they decided to leave either because they were passionate enough for a cause, working off-world as a trade-off for protection or resources(like... food?) back home, or just- didn't like their universe at all? Susie and Noel fight on different sides but when SwapFell!Alphys helps booster Susie up into the castle so they can talk, nobody says a word. Underfell residents are even more cautious of eachother then before they were attacked since half of them now work for Nightmare and the others just want to get by? (Do Dream and Nightmare even look like Sans? Maybe they used to? Maybe they're a weird combination of Sans and Papyrus? It would make sense, they're twins afterall, but Sans and Papyrus come in Pair and don't look the same. Are they like Deltarune, perhaps? Technically the same person as Sans but with a role so twisted and different from the source that all resemblance is purely surface level? Doesn't that happen often? Nobody can really recognize faces anymore. Are you sure that's not normal? I think you're seeing things. Their auras do cause hallucinations on occasion. I'm sure they're normal. Just like Ink!)

Does Nightmare strategically pair up his soldiers so they're only fighting alongside different versions of themself in order to avoid bias from those who lost family? That's why the "Bad Sanses" are most infamous, perhaps? Because Nightmare looks most like them and therefore chooses Sanses as his closest thralls? But what about switched around Au's where someone who definitely looked like you is also definitely the guy would would've killed your family? What do you do about that? How do the Humans get on having all that DT in a space? Does the Most Determined Person change often? How do they interact with Killer?

What do Papyri think of short skeletons in scarves and hoodies, weighed down by an eternal grief and exhaustion carried in bags under their eye sockets? What do they think of the dust on that shady one's sleeves? And the way he's distracted by the nothing over his shoulder? What do Mutt and Red think of each other? What does Edge think of Mutt? Is it disturbing? Do they wonder what could've possibly changed to get where they are other than age? Is Paprika the Oldest? How old is Stretch? Edge made it into the Guard? Didn't Blue mention he was a teenager? How many kids have been mistaken for adults? How many lied? Is he okay? How does he possibly keep up with people like Ink and Dream? He kinda scares me. Do you think I could do that? What happened to Disbelief? Swapfell is surprisingly energetic. Edge, Paprika, do you need a Dentist? I know an Undyne-

[emmavakarian-theirin]

was playing around with flycam and discovered that tav doesn't spawn during the first shot of his act 3 romance scene, and thought it was a nice visual given how he tells you in that same scene he use to create this for himself, so i thought i'd take wallpaper-styled shots for you guys to use as wallpapers/icons if you wanted

4K versions here :)

unmodded version as per requests:

[cradle-of-darkness]

live laugh lori

[beinganegg]

Very belated Isabeau birthday comic

[malaierba]

Thoughts on Toshiro’s eating behavior, restrictive ed/disordered eating habits, and ARFID (obvious warnings apply).

Been thinking about how Toshiro’s eating is described in the manga. Especially when you consider the context within which he snaps — which is jokingly referred to as “he has hangry”. Interestingly enough, emotional deregulation IS a common symptom of EDs. That, alongside all the symptoms that Ryoko Koi chooses to illustrate in him… it’s done too accurately for it to be dismissed as him simply choosing not to eat and starve, as if it were that easy.

Basically, I think Toshiro’s inability to eat is ARFID-coded, and that’s symbolism in itself. I also think food is one of the few areas in his life where he exerts control effectively.

Assuming that he was under the influence of the dungeon (not necessary for this analysis to work tbh), his behavior is a quite accurate depiction of how desire works for people who are chronic ascetics in general, and ED'd in particular:

According to Maizuru, he’s a person who's denied themselves all their life (“saving Falyn was his first selfish request“),

Who seems to only experience a sort of self-agency when it's linked to deprivation (not really eating food from anyone who wasn’t Maizuru as a child, turning down her food as an adult even though he’s otherwise easy to pull around),

Who's actively reaching towards something for the first time in their lives (so he doesn’t know how to work towards it without burning himself out).

A common trigger (perhaps the main one) in EDs is the desire for control. The logic often goes, what's easier to control than what you eat? what do you own more fully than your body? It tracks in Toshiro’s case: when he is picky that's one thing he can fully control, no one could force him to eat not when he was a child nor as an adult. Toshiro's “whims” are most indulged when he restricts or rejects food, rather than when he reaches for it.

The reason why I’m getting ARFID vibes from him is Maizuru’s wording. On the screenshot I shared, she said “he never ate much, but he ate plenty of what I made”, making it sound like he’d try stuff made by other people, but in the end, Maizuru was the only one who could tailor it to his tastes the best (and made it with love). Rather than fighting him or forcing him, he worked with him, which is the best course of action for parents with kids who are being picky eaters.

There’s also the wording used by Maizuru: I think he's ARFID and perhaps ortho coded, or some other restrictive ED. Here we have to note that EDs aren't exclusively or even always about weight, weight is often a secondary effect of the behaviors that are motivated by the ED. In layman terms, they're eating disorders not weight disorders.

With the established, I do see a narrative relevance to giving Toshiro this type of relationship with food:

It sets him in obvious opposition to Laios: You need to eat and take care of yourself to succeed, neglecting yourself equals not taking your goals seriously vs. I’ll sacrifice everything recklessly, myself included, in the pursuit of my goals.

Tangentially related but lol, can’t help but think of Laios getting SO mad when Toshiro’s reaction to his plan (admittedly thought of on the spot) to get back Falyn is “you aren’t even EATING” which, SO fair, you can strategize and make detailed long term plans all you want, but as they say the secret to your future lies within your daily habits.

It makes him a mirror of Falyn, her passiveness reflecting Toshiro’s own. Falyn explicitly says at the end of her adventure, while she’s turning down Toshiro’s marriage proposal, “I’ve always wanted to travel; I’ve always just done what my bother and Marcille want, I want to try doing what I want now”, which is reminiscent of Maizuru saying “He was always such a well-behaved, reasonable boy, so much so that it worried me sometimes. The only time he ever made a personal request was for this task” <- person disconnected from their desires. (More on this idea here, I love it as a narrative choice).

And then (here’s where I get suppositional). It could be an extrapolation of the way his upbringing has permeated so deep within himself that he overtly controls what he eats even under normal circumstances. This extreme exertion of self-control, this constant self-monitoring, would be unsurprising in the guy who’s a little too good at following social scripts and masking (fun fact, did you know that ARFID is often co-morbid with autism?).

I often think of him in this scene, where he seems to be telling Senshi that he’s had enough / he doesn’t want something (featuring the other Weird With Food character, my beloved Kabru, maybe trying to help him? or maybe hassling him too lol):

Looks like some habits are hard to break. But, Laios does get through to him when he kicks his ass, and Falyn seems to have reached him too with his words, so perhaps there’s hope.

Look at him forcing himself to eat a burger while holding so much distaste in his heart. Did he and Laios order for each other? At least Laios seems to like his meal.

[dammarchy211]

THE COMMITTEE FOR RAPACIOUS INTERLOPERS AND MANIACAL ESPERS !

drawing dump I definitely can’t fit all of them in but here’s most of em lol. Neo Cortez the founder and Head of C.R.I.M.E. Got a complete redo which I actually Like now so’ll probably expand on him more

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

i know some people may see this and disagree, but honestly, i don’t care- lip was not at all at fault for not calling the cops on kash and some people need to stop acting like he was evil for not doing so. while i do think he should’ve, my main issue with it is that we always acknowledge that ian was a child at the time, but never seem to mention lip’s only a year older. the person who should’ve called the cops was linda, the adult who instead of placing the blame on kash, placed it on ian. and with ned, it should’ve been fiona or jimmy-steve, also adults, and in fiona’s case, an adult who had a parental role in ian’s life (even if she wasn’t yet legal guardian) and instead brushed the situation off as “just sex” and dumbed it down to it all being about ned being gay. lip knew it was wrong and was extremely upset both times it happened, and expressed his guilt for not calling the cops on kash. would it have been good if lip had called and kash was arrested? absolutely. but do i think he was obligated to as a child and bad for not calling? no. that should’ve never happened in the first place and while i understand where people are coming from when they express their disappointment with lip for not doing anything about it, i still don’t feel like lip was the one who should’ve been forced to handle that situation. leave that to the adults.

[imerian]

My (very old) loscar brooch (?) that i just now made doodles for

More pictures under cut

[ask-the-totally-real-peppino]

Happy Holidays to Pep and the gang!

Pep: "..."

Pep: "Mrrp!"

Pep: "Niaga uoy ees ot deticxe ma I!!! Syadiloh yppah!!! Sdneirf olleh!!!"

Pep: "Kool emoc! Enoyreve rof staert gnikam yad lla ysub neeb ev'ew!"

Pep: "Olleh yas sdneirf ruo! Kcirb ,kool kool!"

Brick: *happy greeting squeak!*

Pep: "Enoyreve rof eikooc a edam ew! Kool!"

Pep: "Sdneirf, uoy rof tsuj eno laiceps a s'ereht dna!"

(Happy holidays to you too! Everyone can't be here right now, but I hope you guys enjoy a little bonus post for now, hehe)

[levemetal]

Have some various OG!Shangjiu brainrot + OG!Shang Qinghua design from my side - I do like to imagine he's quite different from Airplane.

I love rareships even if they're a pain cause there is like 0 content. Guess I have to do it myself then.

Disorganized OG SQH thoughts under cut

If we can believe Airplane on SQH, his upbringing wasn't too terrible nor all that great, probably some "disposable" son in a family, starting as outer disciple on An Ding. Presumably he runs into the inadvertent ambush by Mobei-Jun, and is similarly thrown to die by his fellow disciples. Assuming this happens as such in the OG timeline, it's easy to see why SQH would have no qualms betraying the sect. Overall tho, I imagine he was ambitious even before MBJ to fight his way up the ranks regardless of the cost. I don't imagine him to be afraid to climb over corpses, if only to secure himself a place as peak lord. I could see him having a bit of a two-sidedness to him kinda like NHS. Pretend to be demure and harmless/weak to get what he wants and not draw attention since everyone assumes him incompetent outside of his work as lord of paperwork, but a lot more ruthless and unfriendly on the inside. He doesn't particularly care for his fellow peak lords and thus is willing to sell the secrets to MBJ in exchange for his life Cold and calculating, ruthless, A grade actor, two faced, rude but repays debts (like mbj leaving him alive and therefore doing stuff for him; I think he'd be aware that he's hopelessly outmatched against mbj so is this technically coercion??)

Anyway with SJ probably an enemy/rivals to lovers situation starting with a spiderman pointing meme game of "I know what you are" and ending in "everyone sucks - I agree" and watching the world burn together or something it's all still vague in my head

[rox-of-iu]

ayoo guess who finally sat down and caught up with cultivate B)

is me. so you know what that means.

spoiler warning for cultivate ch 30-37

there was actually.... more things i wanted to draw but I already did so many I had to physically restrain myself hfsjkkdh anyway yes can you tell i love this fic very much

yet once again. cultivate by the wonderful @neonghostcat

[wickedwitchofthesouth]

I am still thinking about Castiel walking out on Dean during the divorce arc... After he apologized, after he held his tounge because I fucking know cas would have had some shit to say after Dean got Jack killed (and yes he did. nothing will ever change my mind on that)

But mostly I'm thinking about what was going through castiels head when he left. What emotions was he feeling? I'm sure he was sad, devastated even. But I wonder if he felt some tiny, distant, and undoubtedly dreadful inkling of relief at the thought of never seeing Dean again. Not because he was angry with Dean (which he had every right to be) but because not seeing Dean would have meant that he wouldn't be able to achieve true happiness

And not achieving true happiness at that point would have meant the empty leaving him alone, which would have in turn meant getting to live longer.

It would have meant getting to feel Dean's presence on earth for longer. It would have meant getting to admire humanity for longer. It would have meant getting to love Dean for longer

Even if it meant he would have only loved him from a far, Cas would be okay with that. He wouldn't be happy but atleast he'd be alive

Because god, at least he could still love him.

Maybe Cas left because he didn't want to be forgiven. Maybe he knew that forgiveness would leave him crawling back for more.

And the deal he'd made had bound his wrists in chains that read "more is less"

[danwhobrowses]

So there was a Callowmoore question on 4SD which has got people talking and since nobody will ask me about it I'm gonna get it out of my brain anyway.

For someone on 4SD as frequently as Taliesin, Callowmoore questions are rare and I think that partly comes from us fans not wanting to try and steer him but also because his answers tend to be complicated. He's quite plain with other stuff, but a lot also gets offered into interpretation when it comes to Ashton and Fearne.

And granted, we Callowmoores would love for him to pull a Liam and just up and say Ashton has feelings for her, but I think we all know that's not Tal's way; aside from the nuggets of wisdom, killer one-liners and unique homebrews, we tend to love Tal's characters for their actions and expressions, some of which subtle and rewarding to those paying attention. For this reason I have had to mull over this one minute answer for most of my day and figure out what I think he means by it, like blue curtains in a book.

To note though, 'I think' is the operative term, but I also don't believe that Tal has left Callowmoore better or worse by his response.

One of the interesting things I want to point out is that my interpretations are observing the divide between Taliesin's words and his roleplaying; it is not to say that Tal is being dishonest in his answers, but I also see it as the answers are what Ashton thinks and his roleplay is how they feel.

So no, Ashton isn't 'precious' about Fearne wandering off when sleeping beside each other, if she said no or came back safely it wouldn't have bothered them, and it's fair for Ashton to have preferred Fearne to have woke them up. And yet that doesn't deny the reaction Ashton had waking up to find her gone and fearing that she's in danger, and not there to help her; the panic, the anger, the impatience are all clear and instinctive reactions Ashton is having that imply that her being with them is important. They're not precious about Fearne waking up and leaving the bed before they wake, and yet they'll still smile upon waking and finding that she's still there.

The 'Adventurers with Benefits' is one of two comments I can see being used maliciously against shippers, but it's worth reminding that on the last Callowmoore question Tal was asked, he mentioned that Ashton doesn't believe that someone would love them. Ashton feels unlovable, and yet they still ask for intimacy with Fearne, leaning further into their connection but also not pressuring her into commitment. It's also worth pointing out that this is still a slow burn, even Jester questioned whether her feelings for Fjord were legitimate or a romanticized fantasy at one point, and Ashton is not privy to Fearne's feelings for them. Ashton frames it as Adventurers with Benefits because they don't allow themselves to entertain the idea of Fearne reciprocating feelings for them, and yet their impulse to kiss her before absorbing the shard, to frequently engage in physical contact at a growing rate, to playfully steal and share each other's clothing, the desire to defend her from harm or anyone that might have ulterior motives, and to willingly do anything and everything just for her to smile in their direction again, that paints more of a picture than just benefits.

Which finally gets us to Ashton's theory of love. Tal mentions that Ashton believes that love is 'wanting to trust somebody, but not trusting them'. Immediately: No, haters, I don't think this means Ashton doesn't trust Fearne, nor do I think it means that Ashton trusts Fearne so they don't love her. Ashton trusts all the Hells (well, maybe not Braius since they just met), but Fearne is special to them in a different way, they've already platonically said that they loved her when they first were using their titan forms. In addition, this could be an elaboration of the last time Tal brought up Ashton's opinion of Love on the post-shard Callowmoore question: 'love is ignorance and adorableness'. This is another thing that can develop, elaborate and/or change over time, but at the current moment Ashton's interpretation of love can come from environment; Imogen wants to trust Laudna but can't wholly trust her given Delilah, but even Ashton can see that they love each other. Tal also mentioned that Ashton is not very experienced in relationships - which kinda plays into my belief that Ashton and Fearne, while have had relationships, haven't had deep romantic feelings or proper intimacy before, which makes them discovering it with each other more special - so their understanding of love can only exist on what they assume it's like.

And yet what if you reworded the phrase in the same spirit? 'Love is trusting someone wholeheartedly even with nothing to reassure it', there have been many a time something looked to go south and faith was put in another anyway; the shard may be a bad example because it did go wrong but even though the red flags were there Ashton upon completing the process said 'thank you for trusting me', when Fearne took the shard Ashton was a bag full of panic their experience meant they couldn't trust that the shard wouldn't be just as bad for Fearne, and yet they still wanted to trust that Fearne would succeed. Ashton couldn't trust that whenever Fearne was wild shaped, cornered by Otohan, or taken away by Ira on Ruidus that she'd come back safe, and yet still wanted to trust that she would, Ashton couldn't confirm that Fearne wasn't a Doppelganger in Nanna Mori's trust trial - even when FCG and Imogen suspected it was her - and yet they still wanted to trust that it was her. Ashton's view on love may not be entirely right but it's not entirely wrong either, what is blind faith if not ignorant and adorable? Even with their interpretation, Ashton has put plenty of faith in Fearne even when the risk was high.

In conclusion, Ashton's behaviour towards Fearne do often imply a complexity rather than a discrepancy to Tal's 4SD statements, that maybe Ashton's emotions and subconscious are not in sync with their self-doubt driven thoughts, perhaps it is the way Ashton tempers their feelings to try and not get hurt by them or cause Fearne to get hurt by them again. Ashton's apology to her post-shard made a point of noting how she means a lot to them, and how hurting her was one of the worst things they have done, and as they work towards self-improvement and self-discovery, there will likely be a point where self-realisation comes into play too, and they can understand why what they're thinking differs to how they're feeling.

Again, this is all interpretation, speculation and observation, one that like the core statements doesn't add or subtract but fills in some gaps either way. Ashton's feelings are a complicated matter, which is likely why Tal entices and creates such speculation with a complicated answer. Right now Ashton clearly does care for Fearne and share a special relationship that's regrowing after suffering tension, loss and fear, blooming back into trust, joy and comfort, but save 5 Disney Greek Muses backing him up in a Gospel song they're not just gonna out and say they're in love

And Yet...

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[incorrect-fnaf-quotes]

With Plushtrap being in the Dr. Scraptrap AU, there’s just a quick little thing that I wanted to mention—so that I wouldn’t end up forgetting later.

Plushtrap goes by He/They/She.

[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”