#like the specific prompt is still IN the fic so i dont understand why i have to feel like i only have to write about that.

[melioradeluxe]

was feeling super bad for writing a fic of 2250 words (still not fucking finished...) for an event. for a specific prompt but then i remembered. i can do whatever the hell i want

[v3nusxsky]

Id like to use this to request any fic that you have that you want to publish for your own personal needs, because i vaguely remember you mentioning that whenever you dont publish specifically for us first, you feel guilty. I dont want you to feel guilty for writing and publishing for yourself when you feel like you need to, so thats what this request is for. And it has infinite uses, so if you feel bad for posting something nobody requested, i requested it. 😌🫶🏻

- 🪩

Thank you darling this was a self indulgent fic so I felt like this was the perfect one for your request ♥️

Innocent dove 18+

*A/n I had actually planned a cute fluffy update but this one would not leave my head. Something that I hadn't actually planned on writing ever but let's move on. This is an extra post I'll still be posting later on*

Warnings~ corruption k!nk, dominant Larissa sub reader language? F!ngering strap on! Light Degrading? first time! Mommy kink

Prompt~ see ask^^^

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

Larissa Weems, headmistress of Nevermore Academy watched you from afar for years. You intrigued her in a way no one else could. Of course she knew of her staff's personal lives, after all they all spent so much time together it was only natural to work out who was seeing who. Expect for you. Larissa couldn't work out anything about you. And that's what made you even more interesting. Now she knew the basic information, of course she did it was on your file. But anything personal? Not a clue. It was like you locked it away and buried the key. This is what spurred her to try and befriend you. Your dedication to your job was admirable so she started by offering you to her office.

The meeting in the office soon migrated to Larissa coming to you quarters for a class of wine. You began to look forward to those nights. Your first friend of so you thought. Through these meetings Larissa got to know more about you and in return allowed you to know her. One evening on the way to your office with a coffee in hand, a student rushed passed spilling it all down your front. A frustrated sigh left your lips. Today was not your day. Luckily the principles office was a few doors down, this led you to knocking in hopes she could help you. And that she did. She leant you a t-shirt. Not something you imagined the classy women owning but loving how it hung loosely off your frame. Larissa told you to keep it due to it suiting you more than her. And that was how you came to having her shirt. Little did you know Larissa had grown feelings for you that you couldn't even comprehend.

Religion. What a funny thing. You believed you were strong in your faith. But how could you be if you were having the most sinful dreams that you didn't quite understand, about the taller women. Those dreams came to head the one night where you had drank through a little more wine that would be your normal.

Unsure if it was the wine or if it was the tension that had build between you both, Larissa leaned over to your ear and whispered " darling, may I kiss you"

Your face flushed. You'd never been kissed before. Would she find that an odd fact? "I uh I haven't um" you trailed off looking embarrassed. A mischievous glint remained in her eyes as she whispered "I'll be your first then my dear" before she leant in to capture your lips gently. Stunned for a few seconds you just let her kiss you, only then did you gingerly respond moving your lips against hers. You knew this was wrong. Your whole religion frowned upon this. But why did it feel so good? This undeniable feeling of want and desire.

You pulled away, eyes wide with panic, what was god going to thing. You'd have to pray extra hard tonight. Unknowingly in your panicked state you voiced those opinions out loud. "Stay on the ground until your knees hurt, no more praying to a god baby, I'll be your preacher." The blonde women murmured watching your reactions carefully. Delighting in the fact that your eye's darkened with lust for a second.

"La-Larissa? What? Uh this can't it's not right " you mumbled trailing off. This is so confusing after all you want her? But it's not what you've been taught to allow? Sinning was bad. But why did she feel so right?

"Oh my darling, it's more than right. It's perfect. I know you want me Y/n. Your body language practically screams that message. And if this god tells you it's bad what would he say if I admitted my true feelings and desires? Hmm?"

"But my faith is all I have?" You mumbled sounding as if you were questioning yourself.

"Darling your faith is yours. It's up to you to decide what you believe in, but there is nothing wrong with feeling love for anyone. And that's my personal belief. After all doesn't God tell you to love everyone?" She quizzed never removing herself from your personal space.

Maybe it was the wine, you subconsciously followed your deep desires. You launched yourself at her once more. Lips finding hers, the need and desperation evident. Only pulling back when your need for oxygen became apparent. "I want you" you mumbled against her lips, oh if only you knew what you'd just asked for.

Smirking she held your gaze wanting to know you really understood her here. "Darling, you've never done anything like this and believe me I long to be your first but I don't want to pressure you here. I need to know you want this" her tone left no room for any argument. You nodded giving In totally to your own instinct.

"Words my darling" she reminded you in which you quickly responded "please" in a whine you'd never even knew you could create. In a foggy haze you were led back to Larissa's quarters. Almost on autopilot. What were you doing? How could someone have such an effect on you?

You were laid back on the bed, looking up at the older women, her lips moving but the words not really sinking in. "Darling you need to listen to me" was what snapped you back into the reality. This isn't a dream? "You are so innocent my little dove. So here is how this works. I'll help you. Oh baby I'll take you back to church, you'll be mine. All you have to do is be a good girl for me can you do that?" She all but purred out watching as you shivered in excitement before whimpering out a yes.

"Red means stop I want you to say it whenever you don't feel safe or what to stop, it's your first and although i want you as mine doesn't mean I desire to hurt you. Yellow means you have a question or want to change something but not stop completely okay? Yellow will open up the line of communication to allow me to adjust whatever you need. You being comfortable will always be at the top of my list okay dove?" Larissa explained to you wanting you to understand this was all under your control.

"Wh- uh can you- do you get to say them" you mumbled out confused. "Oh my dove I won't need to use them but yes it would extend to me too." She reassured, "now darling can we start?"

"Yes" was all you managed before her lips once again found yours. More demanding this time. Lust finally taking over you both. Wandering hands made quick work of your clothing until you were bare and at her mercy. She watched as you squirmed against her lingering gaze, allowing your insecurities to show. After all this is the first time you'd ever been this vulnerable and on show. Larissa was enjoying watching you squirm for her. "Oh pretty girl, don't be shy you're beautiful baby" was whispered against your skin as she trailed kisses down your neck before making her way to your breast. Only then did she take the perky bud into her lips. The sounds you were making were ones so pure spurring your older women on. You were so innocent and she craved to destroy it.

After lavishing your breasts with attention Larissa dragged her attention south. "What's the colour pretty one?" She murmured against your stomach.

"Gr-een please" was all it took for her to continue her journey. "Pretty one I'm going to baptise in your thighs till I can't breathe." And with that Larissa focused her attention your aching core. Absolutely soaked for her. Of course taking it slowly, wanting to savour the feeling of breaking down your innocence. You're moans of delight we're filling the room as she worked between your thighs. Slowly exploring your soaked folds. Your whimpers and whines of delight following freely as you chased whatever unfamiliar feeling was burning within you. Your thighs shaking as they closed in around her head. All tale tale signs that you were very much enjoying her ministrations. However enjoyable this was the older women craved to see the change in your eyes as she ruined you. That was the one desire and reason why she pulled away from your drenched core. You whimpered out of need and displeasure at the sensation leaving you.

"Rissa? No please I god please I need..." you trailed off not knowing what you needed. "Oh my pretty one you enjoyed that hmm?" Causing you to whimper out and nod in confrontation unable to word what you wanted to say.

"Oh darling don't you worry I'm not done with you. That was just the start my love. Would you like to continue?" She questioned as she walked round her room looking for her chosen item. Once you confirmed that you wanted her only then did Larissa strip down to match your level of clothing. You watched through half lidded eyes, the sight aiding your arousal that was now soaking your thighs.

Larissa quickly adorned her favourite strap on which would pleasure the both of you simultaneously. She delighted in your little scared gasp, eyes blown wide open just looking at the sheer sight of her. "Rissa? That's not gonna fit" you blurted out panic evident in your voice.

"Hush pretty one it will fit you're more than capable of taking all of me. In fact you will take it all bc your my good girl hmm" she all but purred at you hoping to ease some of the tension. You seemed to respond marvellously well to her praise and touch so it was only natural you whined at the good girl part.

Larissa settled herself between your thighs once more. Her hand coming up to hold yours as she lined herself up effectively coating the fake cock in your slickness, watching as you held your breath. You'd heard stories of course. And you heard it would hurt but you were unsure how much? "Darling you need to breathe for me" Larissa reminded you and you took a shaky breath. "Pretty one keep your eyes open I want to see the innocence drain from your beautiful irises as I take you. You'll never belong to anyone but me and we both know you'd love that hmm?" Doing as you were instructed you kept your eyes trained on the women who was now gently slipping into your soaked core. The cry tore from your lips as you felt a stinging burning pain. Tears filled your eyes as you desperately tried to keep them open. Once in Larissa stilled, allowing you adjust to her intrusion and whispering comforting words into your ear. "Such a good girl for me y/n. You're okay darling it won't last long. Such a good girl. You're mine now y/n. I'm so proud of you. That's it baby relax for me"

The pain defused into pleasure causing a loud moan to rip through you. "Mommy oh-" you whined. "Sorry sorry I don't know why I said that oh fuck please I'm sorry" you whimpered out your apologies.

"Oh my pretty baby I know why you said that. And I loved it. Say it again" she growled into your ear.

"Mommy please fuck I don't know what but please" you whined now only feeling the pleasure of being so deliciously filled.

"Such a good slut for mommy" was the final sentence whispered before Larissa withdrew just to the tip before pushing back in. Still mindful that it could still hurt. But if your moans were any indication to go by the painful part was over. You were hers. And who would've knew you had a mommy kink?

There was that feeling again. You found yourself chasing it. The curiosity of not understanding what was happening but knowing whatever it was felt amazing souring you on alongside the moans of the older women. It didn't take Larissa long to have you a whimpering mess below her. The tale tale signs of a climax painfully close were obvious to her yet you had no clue. Begging and pleading for the unknown. "Mommy please fuck god please I need something" you whined causing her to snake her hand between you both and circle your clit. That was all it took to throw you off the edge.  " oh my god o irrumabo mammam i deus larisaa" you all but screamed out at the overwhelming new sensations. (oh fuck mommy i god Larissa) you had switched languages half way through due to the strong waves of pleasure clouding your mind. The perk of being the language professor meant you knew a fair few languages but Latin being one of your favourites, so it wasn't surprising that's what you swapped to. The Latin mixing with your mewls of pleasure is what threw Larissa over the edge alongside you.

Once you'd both calmed down, she slipped out of you causing a whine of discomfort. "Oh my pretty girl did mommy make you sore?" She questioned with a caring tone. You just whimpered in response. Exhaustion clouding your mind. You almost missed when she asked if you needed something. You just reached your arms outwards and did the grabby hands signalling for a cuddle which was happily given. "Rest now pretty one, if your agreeable mommy would like to play with her good girl in a few hours." She whispered pressing light kisses to your head as you snuggled onto her chest. A sleepy hum of agreement was all you managed before sleep claimed you.

Word count ~ 2504

[devondespresso]

1, 25, 81, 94 for the fanfic ask game! <3

KOKO HELLOOOOOOO ad thank you so much for the ask 💕💗💖💞💝 i went a little wild and had to reign it back in a bit and its still pretty long so apologies in advance

(ask game we're talking about is here but i also have questions next to the answers)

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

for the vast majorty of my fics i think i have a pretty good idea of where its going to go, i think because i get the ideas of these cool scenes usually set in act 2 or 3 or i at least the vibe i want from the start and The Point is usually clear the second i put thought into it. currently the only exceptions are 1) this super secret (woooo~~~) ficlet im working on that came from a prompt so i had to spend like 3 or 4 days writing it to properly understand the direction i wanted to take it, and 2) the steve henderson au, which is fucking massive already and it's even bigger in my head stnzgns. that one you obviously know how it ends y'know, it aint the steve henderson au if steve doesnt become a Henderson, but for all the arcs i have along the way it took a while to properly figure out what i doing and how to do that and im just now figuring out what that looks like for the first major arc.

so tldr: usually i know, sometimes i gotta figure it out, but i do need to have it figured out before it can really take shape

25. what’s your revision or rewriting process like?

oof ok so i tried writing this and good fucking god explaining everything i do in editing took up so much space. so this is the short answer for convenience but if anyone wants a long answer im foaming at the mouth to talk about writing stjsnystn (the rest under the cut)

the majority of my process is editing and sometimes first drafts are literally unrecognizable from the final. a lot of how i edit line by line is intuitive/vibes based, and whole scenes/arcs/pacing/flow/theme etc etc is based on a really deconstructed thought process for storytelling, to put it as briefly as i can (because this is one of the parts that got really long) its about The Why of everything going into the story. Picking details or making decisions not based rigidly on formula or trends but instead whats best for the kind of story you want to tell (and then making sure to implement it in a way that actually does that in the story).

for small works i prefer to just change shit as i see it and not worry about doing focused passes through the work, but in the steve Henderson au i literally cannot its too fucking big smhdmyxyn so in that case i do passes that span like whole writing sessions just hyperfocused on this one thing. one of my favorite passes is in-character passes where i pick one person (often dustin bc hes a main character), rewatch them a ton to get in their headspace, and go back and make sure everything they say or do fits them as if they were the sole focus if the story. I'll also do passes to focus just on medical accuracy, passes for a specific character duos to keep their story progressing and consistent, passes for ideas that stay between the lines making sure they stay consistent and understanding how much information im conveying, character's specific mindsets that their arc is about and making sure they dont have any unintentional exceptions, literally if its a thing in the text i probably need to do a pass for it so i know its consistent

also more lighthearted stuff tends to need wayyyy less editing time and its a more balanced half solo half beta process. the easiest was the claudia henderson drabble because it was really just a backstory with an active scene or two all rooted in her outside persective.

also sometimes i just start from scratch halfway through, like mr crayola henderson has one previous half-complete version in my doc fhdlas tho i guess thats how drafts are supposed to work

and this is the tldr im sorry i dont want to cut it down any more just read this one its my favourite fdhaskl

81. if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of writing advice specific to you, what would it be?

honestly i wouldn't have much to tell them. i didn't start writing fanfic until july of last year?? something like that and i started with the steve henderson au. maybe don't write that one about the triggering thing lol.

actually wait no. id tell them its okay to abandon projects (and maybe tell them not to make some purchases dgnxngsyn) but ye i spent a while mourning projects because they felt like they ceased to exist, but i had several screenplay outlines that probably helped me a ton. in my writing and those experiences never leave me so their existence still had a purpose and value

tldr: dont write your very recent triggers silly goose, dont cry over abandoned art

94. do you prefer dialogue or description?

i definitely prefer dialogue, and with it action descriptions because i still think in movie-medium (tho i am getting better at understanding how the FUCK prose works and especially prose pacing oh my god why can't i just hold on an actors face for several seconds of silence gAAH!!). i like saying things without saying them, i like subtly building towards something body language until a snap, i looooove making blocking relevant in a medium where you're not even seeing the movement with your eyes, and i love getting into a characters head so far that each person has a different way to word something or a different detail they focus on or a certain tick that tells the other character whats in their head.

but i struggle with internal monologue sooooooo hard, its a practiced skill im actively working on to write a characters internal logic about something but still keeping it from being too on the nose about whats really going on. like i can do it but i struggle to fill page time with it because exploring ideas at least for me usually leads to the source and thats decidedly not where the characters going! its a tuesday afternoon! they're not unpacking shit they're trying to have a third coffee!! i also struggle finding the best words for the reader to feel the text, like idk man maybe im using the onelook dictionary wrong but it just does not get me what im looking for in under three looks zgnshnsyn

tldr: dialogue and blocking, good description is witchcraft

_

but yee thank you again for the ask dude!! this was so much fucking fun i fucking love talking about writing and the logic process behind everything. thanks anyone seeing this for actually reading this far 💕

[quietwingsinthesky]

For the fanfic asks, 18 and 19?

Hi Stel!

[questions are here]

18. oh, gosh. hard choice. hard choice. uhm. I always gush about how much I loved writing 'it would have buried you' so I feel like I should give the spotlight to one of my other favorites, which is Another Night (it doesn't get easy). It's full of lines that I fucking love, and I have no idea where they came from or why they ended up in a FNAF fic of all things, but. specifically right now, I'm thinking of the line, "Your father, the walking blasphemy, can see you now." which is really just. the culmination of the whole fic's point for being, really. And I really loved narrating that line too, alskdjalskjd i dont know if you can tell listening to the podfic, I savored that damn thing.

19. Okay okay small teaser let's see what I've got here. hm. So there's another prompt I'm working on in bits and pieces asking for something between Sam and Lucifer, specifically during the era where Lucifer is possessing Castiel, which. Fascinating challenge to me (<- dislikes casifer greatly) and I am up for it. So here's a little bit of it.

tw for lucifer being a creepy dude and doing shit he should not be doing to sam while he's asleep. nothing terrible but he is being. So Weird.

Sam is smarter than this. He should know he's not safe here, not even in this hole in the ground. Does he really sleep here, night after night, without anything protecting him? Lucifer strokes Sam's cheek, feels his sleeping exhales against this vessel's wrist. Not anymore. Lucifer has taken care of everything. Sam's room is warded against any being that might wish him harm, and all of it is scratched so subtly into the walls by Castiel's guided nails that he won't even notice the difference.

That's alright. He doesn't have to know that Lucifer is watching over him. He never knew about Azazel's gang guiding him, not until their jobs were long over and he had been shaped into Lucifer's true vessel. Those demons even made the perfect present for him when he accepted Lucifer into his heart and bloodied hands.

Someday, Sam is going to understand that Lucifer doesn’t give so much to just anyone.

He has another gift for Sam, beyond the protective wards on the walls and his company behind Castiel's face. He kisses Sam's forehead and lets grace curl inside his mind, locking him into the deep slumber Lucifer walked in on. Sam's face is so relaxed when he's asleep. Gently, Lucifer's thumb glides down the side of his face to his lips. They part with barely a hint of pressure. Lucifer smiles.

His wings rise around him and Sam, light sent dancing over his true vessel's skin. (Beneath them, Castiel's worn-out rags of bone and feather drag along the floor, forgotten.) Lucifer reaches between his feathers, seeking. Grace sparks under his fingers, and the sensation is calming. He's almost tempted to sit here a while over Sam's prone body and preen, letting the loose feathers glide down to rest over Sam. Another time, maybe. For now, he has purpose, and he takes hold of a feather still intimately connected to his own power. It's a living part of him, and he pulls it out. The pain is awful. Lucifer bows over Sam, stifling a scream against his neck.

Sam doesn't wake. Lucifer rubs Castiel's throat. This vessel doesn't fit right. Even its vocal cords vibrate wrong. He hates it, and with Sam so close, right there, one word away from letting Lucifer taste the euphoria of being inside him again... But he is so stubborn. Lucifer wouldn't love him otherwise.

For now, he takes the feather between his fingers, sparking and glowing and connected to him, even though it’s been cut off. He can feel it. He can track it.

He wouldn't have to do this if Castiel hadn't tried to hide Sam from him. As if he was allowed to write runes into Sam's ribs without Lucifer's permission. Lucifer can't even erase them. Loathe as he is to admit it, they're effective at keeping every other angel away from his vessel, too.

Here's a simpler solution. He opens Sam's mouth wider, and he drops the small feather inside.

[a-libra-writes]

hi! I hope this is okay to ask, if not that’s okay too^^

I’m a (fanfic) writer also! I love writing but I often struggle with coming up with ideas. I dont have a big following on tumblr (I dont publish my works here), which makes it difficult because I can’t really take reader requests.

I was wondering if you have any tips for coming up with writing topics when you’re stumped? Thank you, I really look up to your work.

Oh this is a fun message!! Ok sorry if i ramble, but i love talking about writing and craft! Im also gonna reblog a specific post of writing advice and encouragement that i adore.

I'd start with what's your favorite sort if fic to write - is it classic multi-chapter fics, oneshots, head canons? Which ones really stood out to you - what were their tropes, tags, the characters? Now, which of those you kind of liked, but something felt off? Was it the prompt, something in the plot, something in the characterization? And which ones peeved you so much you just had to click off - what about those annoyed you?

This will help you visualize what you look for in fanfic, and what sort of scenarios and characterization click with you. If you're writing a single character, that's much easier to work with than say, 10 (or 30~40 .... word to aspiring and new writing blogs ....... maybe give yourself a character limit orz........)

You'll find some characters come naturally to you, wether because they're your favorite or a character archtype you just "get". Some you'll love but still struggle with - I remember being so worried with writing Roose and Tywin from ASOIAF, because they're subtle and more complex. And honestly, I don't like my early work with them ... but I kept at it. You gotta keep at it. Now I'm pretty confident in writing them; it took a while to get there!

((Also I think all writers in general should consider what their strengths and flaws are - this can be hard to pin down objectively, especially after staring at your own work for hours! Think what your favorite parts of writing are. Which parts in your story are giving you that rush of excitement, and why? Which parts are you dreading to work on?))

I think some topics/scenes will jump at you and beg to be written, but it's annoying when you want to write your fav and you're drawing a blank. While requests can be great for this - I've gotten so many delightful ones - you also need to draw from your own creative well. So, how?

Reading other fic is a great inspiration. Don't be afraid to say someone directly inspired you - link to them and mention them! - and build off that. As I said earlier, what if you read a fic that had a great plot or scenario, buuuut you would've done something different? "What if" is a great starter. If you're writing reader insert stuff like this blog, draw from your own experiences in life. Or maybe there was something in the show/book/movie/etc that you really wanted to see, but it didn't happen. What if this character didn't die? What if this major event went differently? "What if" is the basis of all fanfic - besides smooching, that is.

(You can also take a prompt you read in one fandom fic and apply it to another! "Oh i love this reader insert story from Show A, how would my blorbos from Movie B respond in the same situation?")

And on that note, sometimes it's fun to write what personally comforts you and what's your personal fantasy. Requests revolving around family life and kids are easy because I love that shit, and it's something I'd think up on my own without prompting. Lists are great for this - what do you like to write best? What scenarios or characters are you curious about exploring? Brainstorm and make notes! Daydream! Discuss with other fandom friends! You don't have to sit down and chunk out a complete 2.5k+ word fic for every idea. Sometimes just the notes and brainstorming is enough, sometimes you'll wanna explore further.

I feel like most writers will understand that feeling when an idea just grabs them and they have to pursue it. Requests and suggestions are all well and good, but at the end of the day, write what grabs you. That's what you'll put your heart into and feel proud of. It may stay a 300 word drabble or sprawl into multiple chapters of madness, or fall somewhere in between - it's your fic!

[cream-stew]

I just found your blog through an itto ask and HHMNMM THANK YOU for not just writing for all genders (not just fem!reader) and also mentioning that sub/dom and top/bottom arent interchangable cus its lowkey a petpeeve of mine lmao.

I do have 3 questions about your rules though.

1. Do you only write hc's or do you also write blurbs/drabbles or mini fics kinda things?

2. You have breeding in your "might write" list, are there any specific ways you DO or DONT write it? Like for example if its like "the concept is fine, but actual pregnancy stuff no" then we can make sure to not include that kinda thing ya know? Or is it really a case by case basis? If you'd rather not say thats also fine btw!!

3. Are you comfortable writing about/including things like disabled or trans reader? Dont get me wrong, I 100% understand if you dont bcus I know it can be something very hard to get right in writing, and I know how some people can be online so if you dont write that, thats totally understandable.

hi thank you for asking!

1. it honestly depends on how inspired a prompt makes me or if the requester specifies something about it! I usually try to keep things short and easy on purpose so I can get to everyone in a timely manner, but I'm definitely open to writing in other styles

2. yeah pregnancy is absolutely a big no for me, but it still depends even apart from that. genuinely idk how to explain this but sometimes the wording of a request will put me off from writing it, but I have no idea why that happens, so I can't try to prevent that... definitely no hard feelings if that happens btw so like, feel free to try and request anyways🤝

3. (saw your other ask about finding a partial reply already after scrolling my blog but I just wanna reply again to be clear/in case someone else was wondering and didn't see the other ask) I will write about that! my only condition is that the requester is very specific about it bc I don't wanna accidentally make them uncomfortable !

lmk if you have other questions✌️

[first-only]

You know, knowing that the majority of the world does not/ has not read fanfiction is such a weird thing to me. And I don't mean that in a 'why aren't people more like me?' or a 'those people are weird' kinda way

I guess it's just cause fanfic is something that is very important to me, and is something that has made me happy, it's one of my core interest. This isn't just related to fic, all of my interests are like that. Whenever I see someone who has no interest in art, or writing, or thinking up stories, it kinda of boggles my mind a bit. And I think it's because I, myself, could not imagine being happy without those doing those hobbies and interests. But other people aren't me, and that is fine! People have a wide range of interests, and what makes someone happy won't be the same as some other people. People are different, and that is a good thing

It is still something that's a bit hard to wrap my head around (which is fine, as long as I don't act like an ass to people who have different interests) but I'm trying my best

right on, anon! brains work weird sometimes but we do reign them in lol

this is actually a very interesting view to me (but valid! very valid!), because when i was like getting into fanfiction and fandom in general it really wasnt that popularized ya know? like very few people knew this niche interest and social group existed, and there was this intra-culture view that all this is sort of a secret, that this is 'our space', its 'just for us'. (taken as a mantra from rpf ofc which is a good practice). so i never expected anyone i didnt meet in such spaces specifically to even /know/ they exist, let alone enjoy them. ive had this situation with a friend with whom we'd been friends for like over 2 years when i casually (accidentally maybe i dont remember anymore) mentioned fic and they literally jumped out of their chair like YOU KNOW WHAT FANFICTION IS?!?! it's still hilarious, we were actual friends for /two years/ and we never revealed our Secret Society cards to each other lol. but yes as it /is/ getting more popular now its more understandable to assume people would've at least heard about it, but still many people and places where its not that much of a thing! that and a lot of people dismiss it as 'cringy' and worthless and obsessed fangirl work which. wig ig lol. and even in more fandom-adjacent circles you'd see people /surprised/ when a fic is actually good bc they never gave fandom a chance, and just dismissed it as a cringy hobby (which is also fine but no need to be patronizing ya know). Personal experiences will shape the way you think of things

as for weird brain refusing to understand rational concepts - i had this meet up with reality when i studied coding. i was in a novice class with a lot of other people and some of them just... didnt get it. not necessarily the problems themselves, but like.. the essential idea of /how code works/. it was very weird to me. they insisted i must have previous experience to catch on that quickly, and well i did, but they were stumbling at the first steps, something that never gave me pause. i was really really shocked then, i just couldnt believe people couldnt grasp a basic function, and i realized i was coming off as a bit patronizing myself. it got to me that i was expecting more of people that just didnt have the perspective that i did. that prompted a whole discussion on How People Think, because it was obvious that these people not getting code were definitely not stupid, this was just a way of thinking that didnt agree with the way their thought process worked as whole. so in this discussion a lot of friends shared a bit of the insides of their minds and it was fascinating - i tend to think with words and images, visuals appearing along with a strong internal monologue. but my friends shared about thinking in concepts, in feelings, with no imagery at all, by association and memory alone. when asked to describe how we think of a specific object we all described the thought process differently ("i think of where it is now" "i think of who it belongs to" "i think of what it would be like to touch it" "i think of what color and shape it is" "i think of what personality it would have" "i think of how i feel about it" etc etc). so what im saying is.. brains weird. brains different. dont punish yourself for your brain deciding that an experience has to be universal if its so helpful to it personally. as long as you realize that emotions and actions and needs and rational decisions are different, albeit connected, all's good. brains man.

[uwu-shinsou]

First,,,, CONGRATS ON 500 BB!! YOU DESERVED IT!! And uhhh if it's not much a bother can I request Shinsou Hitoshi with 6 and 13 (if it's alright! If youre not comfortable with doing it you can do whatever youre comfortable with, I care abt your well being more than the fic that Im requesting) and I dont really uh care if its hc or a drabble or smth cuz im inlove with anything and everything that you make! Again congrats! Have a nice day :))

Title: Whatever You Say

Prompt: Accidental Text, Hate-to-Love

Warning(s): Mild language

Pairing: Shinsou Hitoshi X Gender Neutral!Reader

Genre: Drabble, working through feelings

Word Count: 1.3K

A/N: THANK YOU ISSA!! 🥺💖I’m so glad you requested!! Bc I’m trying to keep these shorter like “drabbles” I had a hard time doing like,, full on hate to love so this is more like resentment to friends with implications of hidden feelings?? AHAHA but uhhh yeah, I hope you all enjoy 🥺and in case you missed it, my last year of college has started, so I will be updating less frequently, but I will still be around and writing and vibing!🤗

500 Event Masterlist

✿ .✿ .✿ .✿ .✿

Oh shit.

You flew down the hall, bursting into Kaminari’s bedroom without knocking. The blonde sat up quickly at your intrusion, but relaxed slightly upon seeing it was you.

“What’s up speed racer?” He joked, folding his legs up to make room for you on the bed. You walked up to the side of the bed, dropping your knees on the edge and falling forward face-down onto the covers.

“I messed up, Denki,” You groaned, rolling over onto your back and staring at the ceiling. “I sent a text to Shinsou-”

He let out a little snort. “Now that’s unusual.”

“Yeah,” You agreed. “Because it was a text that was not meant for him.” 

“It couldn’t have been that bad, right?” He asked, now a little nervous. You couldn’t blame him. You and Kaminari had clicked instantly at the beginning of your first year at U.A., and now you’d pretty much consider him your best friend, and you his. But come the end of first year, with the trial and following announcement that Shinsou Hitoshi, general ed student, would be transfering into the hero course- and more specifically- your class, Kaminari Denki had seemed to collect himself yet another best friend. 

And you had made your first rival.

You hadn’t wanted to. But when you had first heard about Shinsou’s quirk, people couldn’t help but compare it to yours. As long as you maintained skin to skin contact, you could command another person to do anything that you wanted. Paired with your athletic background (which started when you were young, at the insistence of your parents that it’d “prepare you for hero training”) you were clearly the superior “mind control” student. You didn’t understand why another one was needed in the hero course. Wasn’t he just fine being in the general course?

But of course he had to join class 2A, become Aizawa’s favorite, and start to steal the attention of your best friend.

But Kaminari was his own person, and he made his own choices about when he hung out with the two of you. It really wasn’t fair to put him in the middle of your mess of feelings. And even though he was Shinsou’s friend, you knew he would keep your secrets.

You turned onto your side to look at him. “Here just- read this.” You shoved your phone at him. He took it in his hand, his face contorting into a grimace as he read your mistake once, twice, three times.

“...Why the hell did you send him this?” You slapped your hands against your face in embarrassment and despair. He mockingly cleared his throat. “‘Can you believe purple hair beat me in today’s exercise? Why does he have to basically have my quirk? If he wasn’t so hot I’d be really pissed.’” Kaminari let out a whistle. “Wow, now there is a lot to unpack here, hun.”

You winced. “Yeah, that text was supposed to go to Mina, but I mean- fucking hell, I don’t know?” You ran your hands over your face. “I guess I somehow just clicked the wrong contact and instead it went to him! And it’s even worse that he hasn’t responded about it yet.” You’d never outright said to Shinsou that you disliked him, but you had to assume he knew, and felt the same way about you.

“I didn’t know you thought he was hot,” Kaminari said, wiggling his eyebrows. You launched a pillow at him that he ducked. 

“C’mon, anyone with a brain can see that he’s attractive,” You muttered. “It’s the same as Todoroki, or maybe Bakugou if you took away some of the attitude.”

He let out a sigh. “Yeah you’re right.” After a moment of silence he pressed your phone back into your hand. “Anyways, I think the best approach would be to sort it out face to face. Texting can make things too muddled sometimes.”

“Since when did you have so much wisdom?” 

He nudged you with a knee. “Hey, there’s a reason you came running to me.”

“I suppose you’re right.” It’ll probably be really awkward and not fun, but you should try to explain yourself in person.

Which is how you found yourself on the outskirts of the woods by the dorm buildings watching Shinsou workout, your presence still unnoticed as his back was turned to you. Kaminari had directed you here, knowing that his friend often trained here on his own. 

Suddenly he relaxed his stance, speaking without turning around. “What, you got more to say to me than what was in that text?”

You gritted your teeth at his words. What is up with his attitude!? “Yeah, well maybe I do.” You crossed your arms, shifting most of your weight onto one foot.

Shinsou glanced over his shoulder. “Sucks for you, I’m busy.” He reached down to the ground and slung his towel over his shoulder. “Since my quirk is clearly inferior to yours, I need to keep training.” You winced slightly at his words.

“Hey, I never said it like that-”

“Yeah, well you didn’t have to.” He sighed before turning to face you fully. “Look, I get it, you feel like I’m trying to take your spot here at U.A. Well just- don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll stay out of your way.”

As he began walking away, you found yourself stepping after him. “Shinsou, it’s not fair to phrase it that way.”

He stopped and turned to face you once more. “What do you know about ‘not fair’?” Shinsou took a step closer to you. “‘Not fair’ is getting into the general class, only to see someone just like me being praised for their power in the hero course. ‘Not fair’ is working as hard as I can to make my dreams come true, only to find out that I still have to compete against you. ‘Not fair’ is wanting to so desperately hate you for it all, but I can’t. Not when I see your strength, your power, your drive and ambition, and I can’t help but admire it. Admire you.” He let out a soft snort of mock amusement to himself. “I do kind of hate you for that, though.”

You stood there in silence. What do I even say to that? Shinsou watched you warily, waiting for a reaction.

“I don’t hate you, not really,” You said slowly. As good a place to start as any. “Resented you, yes, but hate is a strong word.” As you continued talking, your mouth let more and more words spill out, words you didn’t even know you had wanted to say. “And yeah, I was worried that you’d ‘take my spot’ or whatever, but I think that was the competitive nature of this school getting to me. They support friendly competition between students, but maybe I took that too much to heart.” You toed at the ground, slowly looking up to meet his eyes. “I was worried about you joining our class because I think you have amazing control over your quirk and you’re really talented. You really do have the potential to be an incredible hero. And I think… I’d like it better if we were friends, instead of pitting ourselves against each other.”

As you waited for Shinsou’s response, you started to get antsy. Why do I care so much about what he’s going to say?

Finally he answered. “Alright. Friends is a good place to start.” He held his hand out to you, as if to shake on it. Hesitatingly you reached out, your fingers firmly grasping his. He tightened his grip. “Should we also acknowledge that you said I was hot in your text?”

His words brought on a wave of nerves, and you yanked your hand back as if it were on fire. “That- That was a typo!” He began walking back towards the dorms with you hurrying to catch up to him.

As you matched his stride, he huffed out a laugh and sent you a knowing smile. “Sure, whatever you say.”

[thetriggeredhappy]

Could i request an ace sniper fic? I really like that headcannon, and i dont think i've seen much fic about it

absolutely and hell yeah, anon. aspec sniper is best sniper. went with ace/aro specifically for this one but every iteration of aspec is fair and valid. also the demo-sniper-scout friendship because i love the idea of them hanging out

(no warnings)

-

Lunch break, Hightower. Scout and Demo were the only two who ever consistently visited Sniper in Hightower on account of being the only ones who would ever bother going all the way to wherever he’d posted up for the day, and they were aware of that fact, and so had started a habit of eating lunch up there with him whenever they could. It was a good system. Especially because going to that trouble had the added bonus of privacy, being able to talk about things they didn’t feel like talking about in front of the other mercs. Not that Sniper was particularly talkative—he preferred to listen.

Things they were embarrassed about were a topic, sometimes.

“—and so I’m beatin’ myself up over it, right? Like, yeah I’m barely scrapin’ by on my second senior year and workin’ one job for real and another one under the table and I’ve got sports the rest of the time so of course I can’t pay much attention to her, so figured she’d get annoyed, but I still felt bad right? But then, turns out, buddy from my track team sees her like four days after we break up holdin’ hands with some other guy!” Scout rambled from his place vaguely lounged back against Demo’s arm as both Sniper and Demo ate their respective lunches from their respectively marked tupperwares. None of them remembered who started it, but they tended to sit almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and it had escalated into leaning against each other and a wall and looking out over the field as they talked. “So, like, man, wantin’ to focus on her college stuff and too busy for dating, yeah right.”

“What you get, dating a lass who’s younger than you, lad,” Demo hummed around his mouthful.

“Yeah, yeah. Only a year difference, but man, felt it all at once, huh? Anyways. She got told off by a buddy of mine about it, and we had an argument at some point, but... yeah. That’s the messiest breakup I ever had, probably, just because everyone knew everyone,” Scout trailed off. Silence for a second. “What about you guys?”

“Told you mine,” Demo said, had to pause to finish his mouthful to get the rest out. “Chemistry class, dated three times, she cheated twice.”

“Oh yeah. Jesus, yeah, fuck,” Scout sighed, remembering. “Why’d you put up with that a second time?”

“She was cute,” Demo shrugged, almost dislodging Scout and jostling Sniper a little on accident. “Ah, sorry Mickey.”

“Y’alright,” Sniper assured under his breath.

“Any messy breakup stories for us?” Demo prompted.

Scout tilted his head a little back towards Sniper. “Hey, yeah. I feel like I ramble about relationship stuff like, constantly—“

“You ramble about everything constantly,” Demo teased.

“Eh, fuck you,” Scout said offhandedly, rolling his eyes. “But I talk about that stuff constantly, and Demo brings up stuff sometimes, but you’ve, like, never told us any stories.”

“Not much to tell,” Sniper shrugged simply. “Not my thing. End of story, really.”

“Not your thing?” Scout repeated, audibly confused, sitting up a little bit to look back at Sniper. “What’s that mean?”

“Never much liked dating, relationships, any of that,” Sniper replied without needing to think too deeply about it. “Didn’t care much, that’s all.”

“Thought that was me as well for a while,” Demo said carefully. “Realized I just didn’t have time for it, mostly, between the job and friends and that, so I’d rather wait until I do. Same with you?”

“Nah. Had the time, had the energy, just didn’t like it. Not my speed. Made me uncomfortable, mostly,” Sniper murmured, itching idly under his hat. “Went out with a few sheilas from around, they’d either properly like me or not, and... I just never liked them much. Mostly went because I didn’t know what else to do. Thought I was turning down too many chances, something like that. But then I figured out, nah. Just skip the whole thing.”

“Wait, for like, dating? Or for one-night stands?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Both. Or, er, neither. Wanted nothing to do with either.” Sniper pulled his hat back on straight. “Figured for a minute in my, er... must’ve been mid-twenties? Figured maybe my problem was just that I was into blokes instead, but nah. Just as bad. Just as... nothing, really. So I stopped bothering with forcing it.”

“Good on you,” Demo said appraisingly, jostling him cheerfully, and the corner of Sniper’s mouth quirked up a little.

“Nothing, huh?” Scout repeated, musing aloud. “What, so... like, how people will go on a first date and just never try and call each other again? Just, no sparks? But for everyone?”

“Presumably. Don’t have a frame of reference for what those sparks are like,” he said, then sat up a little a moment later. “No, wait, I know I’ve felt, er... felt something similar. Not sparks, the, er, the nervousness. Then I realized that wasn’t a romance sort of thing, it was me being, er... jealous, and intimidated, and just thinking they were good-looking objectively. Happened with a few blokes, s’why I thought I’d try men for a while. Didn’t last, not past properly meeting them. That’s all, really.”

A nod of understanding from Demo, a general sort of ‘huh’ noise from Scout. A pause. “Would you ever do the, er... marriage of convenience, then? No risk of it getting messy,” Demo joked.

“Nah,” Sniper said, laughing a little. “Nah. Thought about maybe trying it for citizenship at some point, but only on paper. I don’t tend to stay places too long. S’why I like this job.”

“Man, I’m kinda jealous,” Scout huffed. “It’d kick ass to not have to deal with crushes and shit.”

“Eh. Sometimes I’m curious, what it must feel like,” Sniper admitted. “Wouldn’t change it, it’s just... interesting to imagine. I like romance novels.”

“Really?” both Demo and Scout asked, sitting up and looking at him, and he huffed a laugh.

“Can’t be that hard to believe. Liked Jane Austen later on in school, kept reading more. They’re... I liked fantasy when I was young, it feels like that. Adjacent. And I know what love is, I’ve got parents I love, had pets, had relatives who were essentially siblings, it’s just something different from the sort I know about. S’pose it’s, er... just strange sometimes, nice to laugh at the characters for being so ridiculous about things.”

“Don’t tell me you pick up novels from the dimestore, Mickey,” Demo said disapprovingly. “Or those dry historical ones. Tell me it’s all good, not just the same few stories recycled.”

“Only if I’m particularly bored,” Sniper admitted, and Demo made a sound of vague disgust. “And I don’t read much, besides. Have other hobbies.”

“Is it the same thing with why you don’t talk to the rest of us guys much?” Scout cut in, speaking for the first time in a bit. “Just don’t feel it? Not a thing on your radar?”

“Nah. That’s because I’m just not the talkative type. I like you lot plenty, it’s why I go sulk in the base with you all quietly, if I didn’t like you then you’d never see me,” Sniper replied. “If anything, I think it means I appreciate you all more. Less worrying about balancing things, all that.”

“That’s fair,” Scout said, settling back down, nodding vaguely. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

A pause between the three of them. “So I don’t have any particularly interesting breakup stories,” he added. “But I’ve got farm stories, if you’d like.”

“Obviously!” Demo laughed at the same time that Scout chimed an emphatic “Fuck yeah!”, and Sniper rolled into a story about how particularly dumb sheep are as farm animals, and that was the end of that discussion.

[ghostofskywalker]

i need advice, i am a pretty sporadic writer (i was in your fic exchange last fall, under the name ithehellisbucky, its my side blog) i write every day for a week and pump out three stories, and then i get 4 notes total and go radio silent for 5 months. i have done this many times with between 500- 6k words per fic. i never got any recognition, and as much as i didnt want to pressure anyone into anything my main reason for writing is to create a world to feel safe in, and when no one joins you in your world, you feel really lonely. i have pretty bad mental health issues, so i often switch from fandom to fandom (but i loop back around a bunch and am very committed) and i am in need of reassurance. im gonna finish up a request i got a while ago, and then im gonna go work on a series i wrote the first part of. so, my questions are:

should i publish under my main blog with a large following that i dont really want to be the same as my writing, or should i go back to my highly refined side writing blog that gave me 0 notes for 5000 words and 30 followers

how can i help myself write

how can i write better

and how can i grow my following

sorry for the intensity, i just need to ask someone :)

hi again! don’t feel bad, i totally understand needing someone to talk to 💕 i think the best way for me to answer is to just tackle your questions, i’ll do that first 

i’ve gotten a similar question before, so i’ll also link that if you want to take a look :)

although i prefer a sideblog specifically for my xreader fics, i can understand why it’s not always the best idea. it’s kinda hard to get to know your mutuals, and replying to comments is always a bit awkward if the person doesn’t know your main blog. what you could do is post the fic to your sideblog and then reblog it to your main, that’s what i did for my first couple fics. this way if anyone follows your main and they also read the type of fic you’re posting to your sideblog, they might drop in and follow it if they already follow your other blog. or, you could make an entirely new blog and start completely fresh.

i would say the best way to get myself to write is to find like random prompt list on here and write from that. sometimes when i see people reblog prompt lists i’ll skim over them and i’ll be like “oh that prompt might work with bucky,” so if there’s a prompt that catches your eye just write it! 

i’ve found that getting more comfortable writing allows me to both write more and improve my writing skills. i’m definitely not the person to talk to about time management though, i’ve been telling myself i need to take a break from writing since last october and i still sit down to try to write nearly every day like a monkey dancing for spare change at a carnival

as far as growing your following, the only thing i can think of is time. if your fics aren’t getting any notes, check to see if they made it into the tags immediately after you post, because tumblr has a notorious habit of not putting fics in the tags, and that stacks the system against new writers big time. other than that, events are a good way to get your name out :) i’m still running exchanges, but i’m doing them through tumblr rather than ao3 now because it’s a lot easier for everyone, and there’s just more people on here. also writing challenges are great, because those are normally done for high follower counts, so when the challenge runner reblogs your fic, more people will see it. you could also do one of those posts that’s like “i’m looking for mutuals” and then tag all the characters you write in the tags so people can find you! 

also, another thing i discovered is that people don’t necessarily want 5k+ word fics. i’ve found that anywhere from 1k to 2.5k is a nice sweetspot for my writing. don’t freak out about your writing being too short, and as long as you like what you put out, other people will too. 

also finding other writers who are in the same boat as you helps so much! a lot of tumblr (whether people want to admit it or not) is give and take, so if you find some people and you all reblog and hype each other up, it just benefits everyone :) 

i hope this helped! if you have other questions i’m here 💕

[katsukikitten]

So the anniversary of my dad’s death is coming up and I’m in desperate need of a comfort fic or headcanon (idc) where Bakugo finds out s/o’s parent died when they were a kid and they have really bad depression because of it. sry if it’s really specific

Anon I'm sorry to hear of your dad's passing. I'm not sure of your faith and I'm sure you hear this all the time but I believe your dad is looking down on you wanting nothing but the best for you. The dead are always with us, whether it be their souls silently guiding us or in our hearts with their memories. Here is something that will hopefully ease a bit of your pain dear. My dms are always open okay?

Anniversary.

Something was wrong.

Really wrong as your demonor increasingly worsened around the same time of the year.

For the third year in a row.

The ash blonde leans a muscular shoulder in the jam of the door, watching your form curled in on itself beneath the blankets. Stunning eyes staring at your phone as you idly scroll.

Bakugou would say more like staring through your phone as your eyes seem to focus on nothing really at all. The sparkle of joy that sat there was dulled, diminished almost and always around this time of the year.

He just couldn't wrap his head around it despite knowing you so intimately. He was sure he knew everything there was to know about you, from the way your lips curled upward when he said your name in soft tones or when you saw cute baby animals to the way heartfelt family movies had tears running down your cheeks faster than he could react.

Because you surely knew everything about him.

He wasn't sure how to approach this delicate situation.

His heart pounds as he thinks of all the ways his gruff attitude was sure to fuck it all up. Grinding his teeth he leans away from the door shutting it softly as he thinks of the only thing to do.

His thumb hovers over a certain contact in his phone, thinking to call your mother.

But what if...what if that makes the situation even worse? Wouldn't that just make his in law worry?

And worry more that he was a bad husband? Sure the two of you had been dating only a year and a half before he popped the question.

But the moment you soothed the ever hot rage beneath his veins into a small murmur was the moment he knew you were the one.

The other half that he so desperately needed, wanted.

And he wanted to be that for you. To soothe the best he could, to help crush that little demon that sat on your shoulder.

He changes his mind last minute calling an old friend of both his and yours.

"Katsuki! You never call."

"Oi Eiji. I need to ask you something..." His voice comes out harsher than normal still it does not phase the ruby haired man. Long since used to the thorny exterior. He waits patiently for the question to come and when it doesn't Kirishima gives the call his full attention.

"Something's.....wrong?" His gentle giant friend prompts carefully, practically seeing the heated flush creeping up his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

"Yes, with Y/N." He finally sighs out, silently admitting he cannot help you. That he doesn't fucking know HOW to help you. Adding already to the pain of seeing you so....hollow.

"Ah, are they feeling down? It would make sense considering the date." Kirishima says softly, eyes going to the calendar to confirm his theory. Bakugou goes rigid, silently counting to five to ease the malice in his voice.

To no avail.

"What do you mean considering the date?" Kirishima fight back a flinch even over the phone and it dawns on him that maybe you haven't told Bakugou what happened.

"Ah, well..." The red head briefly wages an internal war, was it manly to tell *your* story for you?

Was it right?

Clearly at this point Kiri figured it was probably too hard for you to do so and if the show were on the other foot. If his partner was calling you for better insight to help he'd hope beyond hope you'd tell them for him.

Because he would want nothing more than the comfort from someone he loved the most.

And he figured the same for you.

"Their father passed around this time..." If Kirishima says anything more Bakugou cannot hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. Madder than hell that he did not know.

And not because you didn't tell him, oh no.

Its because he was too stupid to figure it out. To fucking put two and two together.

Finally a word catches Bakugou's attention again before he says a brief thanks hanging up well before the good byes.

It does not take him long to find what he is looking for.

He takes heated steps to your shared bedroom, waltzing through the door with a hammering heart.

"Get up." He bites, pulling the shell of your cocoon away. You whine in protest wanting nothing more than to melt into the mattress until you've become nothing more than stuffing and springs.

But the hot head will not allow it as he bites out another warning. Lying out a quick outfit for you to change into.

Slowly you gather the strength to slip on pants and a shirt over you head. Hair going in every which direction but you do not care.

Or even notice as the weight of the world presses into your shoulders causing them to slump, your chest tight as something gnaws at your slowly dying heart.

Your eyes water as you stare at the back of the man who you so deeply adore.

One day he will be met the same fate, everyone will and the thought of it alone has your knees weak.

Wobbling once more from the weight before you fall to sit on the bed.

Scarlet embers pierce your skin from over his shoulder as he finally finds your brush. Crawling on the bed behind you to tame your unkempt hair. After a few moments he is satisfied with his work of your gorgeous locks finally in the order you like them to be in.

The texture bringing about a bitter sweet feeling on his tongue. You make him so happy and he cannot fathom why you would have kept something so big from him.

But he couldn't fault you for it either. He eases off the bed, hinting for you to follow and when you dont he grabs onto your wrist a yanking you to your feet.

Moving you through the house as you watch him gather odd items. Long spicy sticks and flowers before he slides on his steel toes boots. Glaring at your shoes. You follow easily, slipping them on your feet at the two of you walk what feels like aimlessly for an hour or so.

That is until he makes the last turn making sense of those odd items. Of the incense, of the lillies. You stop dead in your tracks but Bakugou rounds back. Slipping his strong arm around your waist. Pulling you to him as he gently guides you forward.

You cling to him desperately, unsure of how he knows where to go.

Of what row he's in.

But somehow he does. Somehow he figured out the one thing you could never really speak about.

He eyes you to gauge your stability before he rolls up his sleeves, dipping the ladle into a small bucket of water dumping it on the dusty grave.

Shock settles in your bones as you watch taunt muscles scrub away accidental neglect with understanding eyes. Sure to make sure every character was untarnished, the stone polished so nicely you could see the reflection of his burning red eyes.

Of the two suns that always rise even on your darkest days.

A small pop comes from his finger tips before smoke trundles into the air in gray waves and with it the smell of spice and sandalwood. He sets the lillies down for his offering, unsure of what else this great man liked.

Having this been the first time he met him.

You watch as a prideful man places his hands together, bowing his head before his velvety rough voice breaks the silence.

"Thank you."

The building tears burst, spilling over your flushed cheeks like a child. He notices, pulling you to him as he supports you. Nodding towards the grave so you can pay your respects.

And you do, as you cling so desperately to his black shirt. Heart bursting and breaking all at once over this normally rough man.

Doing his best to comfort you during a time so dark you could barely find the will to breath.

But somehow standing here, looking over your father's now shining grave brought a little comfort to you. Pressing your fingers agaisnt the cool stone you almost think you feel his gaze at your back. Hairs sticking up on the base of your neck.

The two of you stand there until the heavily scented stuck burns out, Bakugou silently offers you another. You nod as popping fingers ignite before carefully passing it along to you.

You set it in the burner, stepping back as he wraps his large arms around you. Head resting atop of yours as the sun slowly begins to dip beneath the horizon.

Painting everything in stunning pinks, oranges, and reds.

His lips press to your ear in a kiss softly before he speaks.

"We can leave when you're ready and we can come back whenever you'd like."

Nails bite into strong forearms, somehow things will eventually be okay.

They will eventually be better and in your hearts of hearts you know his soul is resting easy.

Smiling down at you with pride wanting nothing more than for you to live life to the fullest.

And to live on for him.

[certifiedceraunophile]

Hello! I’m your Klaroline Swap gifter👀 I am sorry it's taken me this long to reach out but I've finally gotten to it! I am excited to be writing for you and wanted to ask a few questions about your gift. Wanted to know about your all-time favorite tropes and side pairings? Any Caroline friendships you like? Any tropes or pairings you don't like? Any pet peeves with KC fic? Any smut preferences? Anything you especially want to see or any info you'd like me to know? Hope you have a great day!💖

Heyyy!! Thank you for sending me this ask, and please don't apologize, it’s all good 💖 I hope you're having a great day too! So I’ll just jump in and answer all your questions ✌🏾✨

I am so so sorry it got this long, like so long, I really tried to condense it, but I have no concept of short and concise so now I have to put this below a cut 😭🙃😭

All time favourite tropes:

[see here's the thing I dont exactly *know* what tropes are so I'm just gonna yeet a bunch of HIGHLY specific prompt-thingies that make me tingle at you and you can do w them what you wish- like take out certain parts you want to use, or base other tropes off of them anything you wish really, even if you choose to ignore all of them I won't be holding it against you dw!]

Ok so I love love the "I was just captured by the bad guys and very harshly uh demanded to sell you out, but I didnt, bc even though I might posture like you’re the scourge of the earth and would gladly see you dead, I in fact, do not want you dead and will therefore not be selling you out and will handle mild -emphasis on mild please do not hurt either of my babies too much- torture instead and oops! look at that, you just overheard this exact exchange where I stand my ground and refuse to betray you, and now you’ve gone feral over your loyalty kink and are spouting promises of never letting go of me, which honestly I cannot bring myself to be mad at."

I love love love the forced bedsharing trope which then leads to accidental cuddling, where one party [caroline] is just very very annoyed that their body sought the warmth of a cockroach fucknugget being [klaus] and the fucknugget party is just very very smug about being the other party's personal space heater, and nuzzles them and cuddles tighter and asdfghjkl I'm getting tingly just thinking about it, and like says w a husky sleepy voice “don't move” and cuddles closer. jfc please I’m a basic bitch with very basic wants.

I absolutely LOVE the "we work on opposite enemy sides, but now we have to band together to defeat one common enemy and honestly I am NOT glad that I constantly wanna throw you against a wall, and not all reasons for said wall-throwing are strictly to inflict violence on you."

I also LOVE the "fuck youre bleeding/hurt/injured and fucking hell I dont know why my hands are shaking while I attend to your wounds but god it is, and now I'm not sure exactly how deep you've furrowed into my heart and stuck yourself there like a dickheaded leech."

Now I feel like I have given you many tropes, but I also feel like i didnt in fact help you at all, bc I'm not sure these are uh tropes?? but anyway those are some highly specific...scenes?? I have a very deep bias for

[you obviously dont HAVE to write ANY of them if you dont want to]

And also if I had to give you a clear cut trope to follow, I absolutely LOVE the enemies-to tentative allies-to lovers trope, in which one party is just working really really hard to get to the lovers part, and the other is working really really hard not to get to the lovers part, but caves later on, bc really the fucker grows on you. [Featuring Klaus as the "high key besotted already pursuing Caroline"-person, and Caroline is the "I am very very annoyed w this wooing, but I am more annoyed this wooing is working"-person. And also, I like my Klaus E V I L, But really really really *soft* for Caroline.]

Also if by tropes you meant settings, Like AU's, literally anything works, I have a personal bias for Crime AU's when it comes to enemies to lovers, and Canon is the ultimate enemies to lovers AU, but honestly you can use which ever one you want, I am not entirely sure myself if I have a specific preference here, AH, Fantasy, Supernatural, Scifi, it's all good.

[I however am not extremely fond of Historical Settings]

Again you are not required to follow any of these tropes at all if you don't wish to, I just require you to have a lot of fun writing and love the beauty you write yourself first!

Side pairings:

Ok I LOVE me some Kennett [kol + bonnie] but I also LOVEEE kolenzo [Kol and Enzo], I also am extremely just *heart eyes* at Bonenzo [Bonnie + enzo], but I absolutely DIE for Kennettzo [which is OT3 of Kol Bonnie and Enzo]

Kalijah is also a-ok w me, and I feel like I dont have any other side pairings I'd like die to see I guess. If you choose not to go with these side pairings its perfectly alright.

Caroline Friendships:

Ok this I can answer without rambling like an idiot, I love love love love :

Bonnie + Caroline [like i love this so much it physically hurts me, they both deserve so so so much better]

Kol + Caroline [I will literally touch a frog, and I have a phobia of frogs, to have one full conversation w these two idiots]

Enzo + Caroline [Honestly enzoline brotp makes me wanna sob happy tears bc they are so perfect together]

Katherine + Caroline + Rebekah [bad bitch meets head bitch meets super bitch, what could possibly go wrong]

Tropes and Pairings I dont like:

NOTPS:

Kolvina, stebekah, delena, stelena, datherine, steferine, Haylijah, Marcel+Rebekah, Matt+Rebekah, Bamon, Kai+bonnie, beremy.

And I think that's about it? mostly I just hate elena stefan damon and hayley and I am not fond of them w anyone, I hate all canon Rebekah relationships, and I dont like seeing Bonnie with anyone other than enzo or kol.

Tropes:

I am totally not fond of the Kill Liz for plot reasons trope, like seriously killing Caroline's mom is not ok w me, but I am totes fine if she's like already dead as part of Caroline's backstory, just don't show me Liz dying in the story as a part of the plot.

Any form of sire-bond-y or like sire-bond adjacent or like any form of deal/bargain/agreement that gives Klaus even a tiniest bit of power over Caroline's free will and choices, is just not for me, like at all, no matter how well it's done, I can't stand it.

not fond of any form of prisoner/hostage tropes, like klaus kidnapping caroline or caroline kidnapping klaus and holding each other hostage and stuff like that.

Death as a plot point doesnt work for me? and really I'd prefer if there were no major character deaths at all.

Friends to lovers trope is not for me, childhood friends to lovers trope is definitely not for me.

I don't like any sort of redemption arc really, anything that starts with Klaus as a “bad” dude and ends with him being a relatively “good” dude is not for me.

Any form of infidelity, like ofc especially in between Klaus and Caroline is just [shudder] hard pass, but like I also hate it when Caroline or Klaus cheat on anybody at all.

Also all the tropes and like themes I'm not comfy w that I mentioned in my original Gift Request still stand.

KC Pairing Pet peeves

ok This I can answer easily bc I have like a FEW,

I hate a woobified Klaus so much, like so much, I hate all TO!Klaus characterizations but this one is the worst, absolutely not here for it, I am not here to feel sorry for this mf I want to feel really deliriously GIDDY at how evil he is and how whipped he is for Caroline, but like concentrating on Klaus's manpain is not something I really wanna read.

Caroline excusing Klaus's bullshit, or like being a push over-y “it's ok, I understand why you did it” person is not for me, bc she never was one to begin w, she never did rationalize or justify Klaus's behaviour, she always held him accountable and told him what a difficult son of a bitch he is every chance she got.

I don't like arcs where Caroline is Klaus's redemption? like Caroline bringing Klaus into the "light" or whatever I am not here for it, like at all, I like Klaus staying evil while being endlessly in love with Caroline, and Caroline being able to be w a man she knows is a selfish evil ruthless grade A asshole, but will literally also choke himself to death for Caroline, cuz the man is whipped as fuck.

I also absolutely am not a fan of arcs where like Caroline remains "pure" or whatever, like that's just not for me, I am totally fine, actually MORE than fine for ruthless Caroline who is willing to do deplorable shit to get to her goal and protect her people, like Caroline being extremely almost evilly pragmatic just gives me a boner, and pretty sure gives Klaus one too. Klaus "protecting" Caroline's so called innocence is uh off putting for me personally. And her remaining this pure white light princess of good and Klaus being attracted to the *good* in her is um, nope.

Smutty Preferences

Honestly I’m very easy when it comes to smut [and u totally dont have to write me any if you dont want to]

I do not like:

non con/dub con, anal sex, Strict and/or elaborate Bdsm themes, [light undertones are ok], drunk sex, sex that’s basically infidellity [like caroline/klaus cheating on someone else w each other] , gagging, choking, Extremely rough emotionless sex, sex as a bargain, or as a part of a bargain.

Smut preferences:

I like reading oral sex, especially Klaus going down on Caroline

light bondage like being tied up [either Klaus/Caroline I enjoy both]

Sex toys are really really good, like love reading Klaus using one on Caroline, or Caroline using one on herself and Klaus watching

I do have a special love for praise kink, especially Klaus being really just in awe of Caroline during the do and expressing it uninhibitedly

Dirty Talk is GREAT

I enjoy both Klaus and Caroline in a dominant role, but I usually love it when both of them share the dominance equally, I’m just not into “Yes master” and “Yes mistress” level of dominance. I guess the word I’m looking for is Vanilla dominance lmao.

Bloodplay is also great if they're vampires.

And Klaus and Caroline leaving marks on each other is *swoon*.

I love reading possessive!klaus and possessive!caroline in equal measure so really your choice.

Hot and Dirty sex with a an undercurrent of emotion and devotion, want and need and all that nice stuff is great!

But I do have a list of words I’m not really a big fan of coming across when I’m reading smut:

Any word for vagina that’s not wetness, or folds or lips, is squicky, cunt is not a problem, pussy however is squick.

Clit is clit; little nub, bundle of nerves, all of that makes the med student in me really anxious lmao.

Any word for Cock that’s not cock is squick.

Juices, cream, semen are squicky, I just prefer come or release.

Ok these are seemingly innocent words but moist, engorged, gaping, drooling, sopping are not words I like seeing in context of smut.

So yeah that’s about it, I know hi, it’s been what, eleventy bajillion years since the beginning of this ask, I am so so so sorry for being this difficult, and really, LIKE SERIOUSLY, except for my squicks you are more than welcome to just skip past everything else, since I’m not really that hard to please, as long as the no-no’s are not there in what I read and the dynamic I asked for is even just vaguely followed I will be really really really happy and really I just want you to have fun writing whatever you feel like cooking up, I’m superrrr excited to see your interpretation of my request!!!

[Also Please please send me another ask clarifying you got my answer and also telling me I haven't frightened you with this long ass rambling list of okay’s and no-no’s bc honestly I am just anxiously debating if I should answer this ask like this or yeet half of it and vaguely rewrite the answer.]

Hope you have a great day lovely!! I am once again sorry for being this difficult. ✨💖🤝🏾

[taikeero-lecoredier]

i literally feel like I’m getting punished for being such a procrastinator

Back in 2017,I had such an overflowing energy to discuss septic egos/ mark egos ideas and stories with my friend.And because I was such a procrastinator,i never ended up drawing or making fanfics out of those storied,despite me saying stuff like “oh i should draw that”I feel like I missed so many opportunities,and this year,despite me saying I’d create more (which I still intend to do) i feel like..I’m too late.The community seems to be tearing itself from the inside,people dont want to be associated with Sean anymore (i dont wanna go into the specifics again,and honestly,i cant blame them for wanting to do that) and so many people recently would rather turn their versions of the egos into ocs rather than keep them as egos on their own (which,again,i understand,as its a different sort of outlet to use your creativity flow,so all the more power to you,im not making this post to bash people turning the egos into ocs,itd be so fucking ridiculous)But I cant help but feel so distressed by all of this.Because before,people weren’t turning away like that en masse. Like many people,I also ask myself this question.What hapenned?Why is this happening? I’d rather see people saying they lost interest and move on,rather than leaving because they resent Sean,or JSE stuff in general.It would be such a better ending to this. And now,that im planning on thinking off art events to let people go wild with their creativity with the JSE egos,people are leaving. And..it hurts.And i regret so much not starting interacting more with people sooner. I feel guilty. I’m not planning on leaving or disconnecting myself form the septic egos myself anytime soon,but its just so painful to watch. I’ll never regret joining the fandom,because through this,I was able to meet some of my best friends. (You know who you are,and I love you guys so much) It just stings so much that,a place that used to be so warm,and welcoming,and full or fun stuff is turning up like this,because of multiple factors. And I have the bad(???) habit to try and reassure EVERYONE I come across being sad regarding this situation that “hey,maybe its just a bad moment!Maybe things are super shitty right now,but since things can’t stay the same forever,surelly that must mean there’s still hope,right?” Right? But people can only stay hopeful for so long.And who can blame them? Im just..so sad,and tired. And now that i’m kicking myself in the butt so I can actually do something with the egos,and that i’m seeing what’s happening with the fandom,its like I’m being told: “Aha!Too late!You waited for too long to get moving and do something with your ideas,and now everyone is leaving because of those bad stuff happening!Its your fault for not starting to draw or write seriously earlier!!Too bad!!You should have created when things were good and stable before!Sucker” Thats literally what i’m feeling right now,and its literally eating me away. I feel a bit bad making this post after I just talked to my friends about this,and they already gave me advice,like stop going in the jse tag,and other things,but.. ... I hate making people worry because of stuff I feel,but If i keep bottling things up,its just gonna explode at some point. Im sorry for posting this in the main tag,but ..I just..I just want for those who are unaware to.. be aware of what’s happening. I really,really want people to understand. Some people don’t understand why people are upset toward Sean.Or why they’re unhappy with the community. Its simply because people who brought up genuine concerns are sometimes being bashed by others who can’t stand seeing negavitity,despite being in their right to speak about those issues in a civil manner. People who speak up get unfairly placed in the same category of those “hateful tea blogs” who treat people who still have hope in Sean/are still in the fandom as the literal devil. (and other stuff,but Im too done to talk about these blogs in depths) For a fandom that was so accepting,encouraging,and welcoming?It feels bad to see so what’s happening.I feel bad. I feel even more bad when i remember that one person,who was such a sweetheart,and so creative with the egos.What would she think of this situation if she were still here? Would she have stayed regardless?Would have she turned her versions of the egos into ocs?Would she have resented Sean and left completely?Or would she have made some uplifting and hopeful posts? I dont know.I’ll never know. i miss her. I miss the old times. ... So please..We can’t rely on jack to make everything all better in the community,it seems.So.. Please. Let people who are worried speak up in peace.Don’t put them in the same basket as those who shit on jse fans and put down sean just for the sake of putting him down. Let them speak. And please,don’t pull the “If you dont like Sean anymore than fucking leave/stop watching him if you dont like the content” when they’re literally calmly saying “Hey i dont like [x] thing Sean did recently.I’d like for him to adress this tbh!” This. This would be the first step toward a better future for the community,if you stopped doing this. Please stop driving nice people away from the fandom by doing this. Please. I want 2020 to be a good year. People should be allowed to criticize things Sean does respectfully.it does not equal hate automatically. ..This is starting to be long. So i’ll just end by saying..For those who wish to stay regardless of this amdness..Don’t hesiate to send me asks okay?..I want to keep enjoying the egos.And seeing people’s creations.I will always give feedback and reblog if i see an edit,fic,art,etc,that i like. I will get that prompt list done.I swear.In the meantime..Stay safe,keep creating and..

Be civil.

[halorocks1214]

the law of action

AO3 Link

Word Count: 10100

Summary: The Law of Action must be applied in order for us to manifest things on earth. Therefore, we must engage in actions that support our thoughts, dreams, emotions, and words

Previous Parts (in order): Alan | You are here! | Virgil | Scott | Gordon

these just keep getting longer fellas i dont understand how thats possible but it is. ALSO: REMEMBER IN ATTRACTION WHEN I MENTIONED THAT THESE WERE BEING WRITTEN OUT OF ORDER. HA, UH, KIND OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT I GUESS. but its here! johns pov chapter! im pretty satisfied with it, albeit a few kinks i wasnt really able to work out, so i hope you enjoy it too!

thanks again to @gumnut-logic for the prompts! "Where?" and lightning were this fic's choices. sad to see the last ones go away, but this was still a blast so thank you once more! also, just because the prompts are gone doesnt mean this series will be too ;3

Anger was a rare emotion for John Tracy.

It had to be. When dealing with the cold hard truth of data telling them something wasn't possible or dealing with annoying people who thought they knew better than him or dealing with people panicking in his ear because nobody expected the aftershock of an earthquake to be that bad, he didn’t have a choice. There were a lot of deals in life that had to be made and someone needed to play peacemaker, even if it wasn’t deserved.

It was true that he got the least angry out of his siblings, even compared to Virgil. Virgil might not get necessarily violent like Scott did, or threw caution to the wind like Gordon, or, hell, pulled off whatever John does when someone somehow manages puts him in a bad mood, but Virgil did get angry quite a lot. He just didn’t have as many blatant ways of showing it. John, on the other hand, didn’t have a lot of ticks. Pet peeves, definitely, John was no stranger to annoyance (especially with siblings like his), but not outright anger.

That didn’t mean he never got angry. He was Tracy born and bred, so that meant one the few ticks he did have surrounded the topic of family.

Specifically, his family being threatened.

John wished he was the youngest sometimes. That meant he could say things like let Scott punch the idiot already, he’d be doing the world a favor, and not get lambasted for the immature response. It also meant he could throw tantrums to hell and back and not feel like a total loser.

Like right now for example.

“EOS, I swear, if you don’t open the elevator door for me--”

“No, I won’t.”

Unbelievable.

Groaning and rubbing his face, his hands found their way up to his forehead and through his hair, holding his bangs out of his eyes for a moment. His eyes had many emotions in them, the most blatant being this shit cannot be happening right now, “EOS, do you know you’re amazing? I don’t think I’ve said that enough.”

EOS whirled for a moment, “John, I’ve seen that grin on Gordon. I cannot believe you would stoop that low.”

The grin she pointed out fell flat off his face, “Yeah, okay, you’re right about that--”

“Like I always am.”

“--So thank you,” John was going to strangle whoever defined sass so thoroughly in the dictionary. It left a bad example, “For the reminder, but seriously, I need to get up to ‘Five. It’s… important.”

It’s been a week since Alan was taken.

They’ve exhausted all options.

The only thing that could possibly get him back to them had to be International Rescue’s resources.

But EOS over here wasn’t getting the memo. Her words had that hint of childish innocence behind it. In that way that said there was no innocence whatsoever and she knew exactly what she was doing, the little shit, “John, do you really need to, or do you want to?”

There’s the inflection that John taught her. An inhale through the nose and… Uuuugghh, “EOS, I know the difference between needs and wants, this is definitely a need.”

Another lens blink, another moment of disbelief, “It seems like you have a lot of needs, John Tracy.”

John grimaced and ground his jaw together, mumbling his grievances with the current situation, “Yeah, well, if there’s any trait I truly share with my siblings, it’s that we’re all high maintenance.” His next words were more clear and designed to get the point across, “EOS, I’m not kidding, unlock the door.”

EOS stood her ground, “John, you going up there is one of the most detrimental things to you’re health at the current moment. I won’t let you.”

John threw his hands into the air, “EOS, there’s are whole lotta things that are currently detrimental to my health currently happening, one more thing won’t hurt.”

EOS lens shuttered again and John felt like it was nails on a chalkboard, “You have a point, but I’ve seen you with Scott when he’s in a similar mood. Don’t you tell him he needs to take a moment and think when he gets like this?”

John groaned as quietly as possible. Not too loud, but loud enough that EOS hopefully got the point, “Yes, I do, but I’m not Scott. We are two very different people, you have pointed this out numerous times. We have different ways of handling things, this, and ‘Five is exactly how I can fix this problem.”

That was not how he should’ve worded that. Her lights flickered in sympathy, sympathy, and he knew she finally figured out what John was trying to get at, “John, there may still be a lot I have to learn, but at least I understand--”

“No, EOS!” John snapped before he could help himself. Before she could finish explaining her point of view that was most likely right, but his desperate brain didn’t want to hear it. His brain that was running on zero energy telling him this was taking too long, fix that, “You can’t understand!”

Just like that, John was reminded of why he hated getting angry.

As soon as the words left his mouth, so did the air in his lungs. Through sheer will and determination, the only thing that didn’t leave his body was the little amounts of food he ate over the past seven days, though it really wanted to. He became very pale, and EOS could detect the not-so-trace amounts of fear that fell over his eyes.

Dammit, you idiot. Months upon that past year of work were now going to go down the drain because you blew your lid just this once! First, the call with Alan, now telling the one thing that could kill you in your sleep she’ll never essentially be good enough was--

“I know, John.”

His food came back with a vengeance, but he was bullheaded as hell, and he already caused enough damage. The last thing anyone needed was to clean up vomit. It would’ve been nicer if she got angry at him. He could handle being thrown out into space. He couldn’t handle EOS admitting he was right, least of all over blatantly cruel words.

He channeled the energy his stomach wanted to use into weak words, “E-EOS, I…” What the hell was he supposed to say? Sorry surely wasn’t going to fucking cut it.

Well, whatever he wanted to cut didn’t come up, as EOS continued as if John wasn’t the worst thing on the planet, “I’ve been doing some reading. I understand that I’ll never really understand certain human-based things like you do. You, humans, have gotten close, me being one of the better examples, as long as that’s not considered bragging, but even I’m not at that level yet. But I do at least know you and your habits. I put up with them on a daily basis.”

Because if there’s anything else John needed to fail this week, it was the one promise he made to her. His promise to keep her safe, to make sure she wasn’t treated like a mindless robot by some crazy scientists ready and willing to cut her circuitry wide open like a middle-school science project. While he would never even get close to being a quote-on-quote crazy scientist, never in a million light-years, he surely didn’t follow that middle part of his promise, “EOS, listen, I--”

“Please, John,” and now she was pleading, thinking he was going to ask to use the elevator again. Thinking he wasn’t going to give up, even after all of that. John might’ve laughed if it wasn’t his fucking fault, “I’ll help look for more options if it means you’ll stay here for a little while longer. You should stay with your family. I know how they affect you in those positive ways that you currently need.”

John was abruptly aware of his heavy, almost wheeze-like breathing. If he wasn’t careful, it could delve into one whopper panic attack, which would be so great right now, “Y-Yeah, okay. They probably won’t understand the effects of gravity over an elongated period of time like I do, so I can stay and help with that, at least. Thank you.”

As John turned around, he heard EOS whisper to herself. He could blearily tell it was actually fondness that filled her vocal waves for once, but it still stung regardless, “Idiot.”

Yeah, he really was, wasn’t he.

As he helped look over his Dad’s med-scan with Virgil, when Virgil went looking for something on the other side of the room, his father whispered, “I know this is a bad question right about now, but, is there anything we can do for you? Maybe even I? You look dead on your feet.”

John could only reply to the first half of his father’s statement with a meek, “I don’t know anymore.”

---

16-year-old John Tracy was seated atop his roof, making sure he got the perfect view of the Big-Dipper.

He was hoping to spot a more exciting constellation when he first used his new telescope, but dangit! He was just so excited to get cracking right away! He just got back from his birthday party, Alan and Gordon snoozing in their rooms while Scott and Virgil secretly finished off the cake. That was okay. John was too busy focusing on his new expensive toy to worry about having any more sweets.

His dad could pull some strings when it counted.

Newest model. The only other people who have this baby are scientists at NASA. Happy birthday, John. Sorry I didn’t get you a car like Scott.

Fuck cool cars. John would be on cloud 9 for days with this thing. Scott would call him a nerd for it. Jokes on Scott, he couldn’t zoom about 10 thousand miles into space now, could he?

Right as he nailed it, the world shook. Large arms snaked around his waist and he involuntarily found himself giggling at the contact. As soon as those limbs let go, he blushed at his reaction and cleared his throat. Suddenly, the arms were an entire body sitting down right next to him, speaking with their ever-comforting burly voice, “Hiya, son, I see you just couldn’t wait, huh?”

Rolling his eyes, John turned back into his serious, analytical self once more, “Yup, this thing’s crazy. I’m glad I got out here as quickly as I did.”

Jeff simply grinned. John was always reserved, but Jeff was a good translator for all of his sons, and he could tell that John meant this is one of the best things in my life holy crap, “That’s great to hear. The look on your face when I brought this out of the closet was certainly good enough to last me a few lifetimes.”

John snorted, “I bet it was. I heard Gordon joking about it with Alan. I don’t think I need to see any pictures anymore. I have a pretty good mental image of what I looked like.”

Jeff smiled and sighed, “No kidding. “Like a goldfish with a broken jaw.” Not the most eloquent, that Gordon is.”

Laughter rang out throughout the roof, followed by a few moments of silence. Not awkward, but not really welcomed on John’s part either, “Do you…” Stop it, John, you’re asking for too much, “Nevermind, it’s dumb.”

Jeff tilted an eyebrow, “Oh, is it? I guess you would know if something were smart or dumb, so I trust your judgment.”

Dangit, Dad, why are you so manipulative, and why are you so good at it, “I don’t know. I’ve established I wanted to be an astronaut, right?”

Jeff nodded, “Mmhmm.”

John, for some reason, felt like he needed to tread carefully, “You are also an astronaut. If there was any way for you to be able to… could you… could you come up with me the first time?”

Jeff blinked in shock, and before his son could register that as disapproval, “Huh, well, that’s certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Sure, I don’t see why not.”

Now it was John’s turn to blink, his mouth gaped, “Wait, what? Are you serious? Aren’t there rules for this kind of stuff?”

Jeff shrugged, his shoulders clearly saying rules shmules, “I’m also one of the biggest entrepreneurs on the planet itself, and one of the most renowned ex-astronauts there are. You would not believe the lengths people are willing to go to kiss my ass. Would you feel better if I pinky promised?”

John’s nose scrunched, “You can never truly promise anything, you know.”

His father chuckled, used to his son’s antics. John was reserved, remember, “Well, you boys always credited me with doing the impossible.”

John continued challenging him, “When we were all less than 10, yeah, sure. I think Alan still thinks you can breathe in space. You. Specifically. No one else. I think he said you only wore the helmet to “protect your secret so the evil movie scientists don’t take you away.””

Chuckles turned into laughter and a clap on John’s shoulder, “Well, glad to see I still got the magic touch at least.” That same arm that playfully smacked him was now wrapped around his shoulders, “Just you wait, Johnny boy, if I can’t get on that ship with you, then you bet your ass I’ll at least be the loudest one cheering in the crowd.”

Then, suddenly, John was right, like he always was.

A promise that never should have been made: broken. A wish never fulfilled.

Dad was swallowed up by the very thing John loved.

No more space stories, no more fun moon facts, there was a void in John’s life as big as the galaxy itself, and he wasn’t sure how to walk around it, or God forbid even into it.

He tried to be the healthy sibling about it. He tried so hard. Getting through high school quicker than most so he could just worry about his family. Scott and Grandma were doing their best, and in so many ways, it was enough, but even they couldn’t bear all of the stress themselves.

But then his high school graduation came and Grandma gave him one of the biggest hugs of his and her life and he realized that he would never get one from his father again. His mom leaving this world was already bad enough, but at least his dad was there and knew how to fill in the gap after years and years of his marriage with her. You didn’t marry a woman like Lucille Tracy and not fundamentally understand how the gears in her brain turned lest you were truly insane. Maybe Dad was. Certainly would explain a lot of things from John’s perspective. Certainly would explain why she married him in the first place. Crazy attracts crazy.

Regardless, the one thing closest to his mom’s warmth and care was gone, and if he spent the night of his graduation party quietly sobbing his eyes out while the others slept, well, then he was glad they kept snoring.

Try as he might, he became just as unhealthy and unbalanced as the rest of his family, but he was more subtle about it. His self-destructive ways weren’t bad if other people had them, but when it came to him, oh, he knew it was the worst thing he could do in terms of recovery. That’s probably why the rest of the family didn’t notice (Good). John was smart, he would know better. Yes, he did, which is exactly why he dived headfirst right into it all.

Focusing on college, getting up into the star-filled void closer to his dead relatives as quickly as possible, focusing on the here-and-now to make sure this shit didn’t happen again. Making sure no family went through what theirs did.

And maybe that’s why, why he couldn’t handle the touch of others wanting to comfort him. Because it reminded him too much of what they used to have, of what they used to be. Too many hugs and kisses from others might wash away what his mom’s and dad’s felt like, and out of all the things they could potentially lose from this, those were the worst possible ones.

John was a Tracy, which meant he was stubborn.

He wasn’t going to lose the last few things he remembered about his parents if he could help it.

---

It had been just under a month, and John finally got what he wanted.

And it wasn’t working like he thought it would, if at all.

He’s been on ‘Five for three days, and for just a fleeting moment, it washed away any uncertainty. He felt back in control, if only minorly, and he held the world at his fingertips once more. Too bad the world he wanted to fix was so far away it felt like it was on the other side of the frickin solar system itself.

He promised his family four days at most. Please, just one chance. We won’t know unless we try. He wasn’t sure what cracked them first, them coming upon dead end after dead end, them finally seeing reason behind John’s argument, or if they just got annoyed with the space monitor after endless nagging and relented like tired parents.

The tiny part of John’s mind that still allowed him to joke kinda hoped it was the third option. “Easy child”, pfft. John’ll show them.

Right, right, a clear head, the most focused of IR, he can’t get unfocused or go too far off track. He’s saved many lives throughout his life, all of them thanks to his level head, but right now, he was arguably saving the most important life of all, so that meant he had even more incentive to stay focused.

In fact, he was so focused, he jumped at the sudden, feminine voice filling the room, “John, I found another article I think you would like to see about most common places criminals… John?”

Crap, he was halfway into the fetal position. Slowly uncurling, John nodded, “Oh, thank you, EOS. I’ll start reading it shortly.”

The noise of her lens adjusting sounded throughout ‘Five again, “Of course. Let me know if you would like me to start searching for a different topic, though. There has to be a limit to how many “You wouldn’t believe this” articles one can take, and I think I’m finding it really quickly.”

For the next few seconds, John was suddenly filled with a rush of determination he had been trying to get after their little confrontation in front of a locked elevator door to ‘Five.

She had been helping him out so much the past couple of weeks. Running unnecessary tests for him, searching parts of the web only she could search without getting tracked by some secret mafia, letting him know it was okay if he couldn’t get everything right the first time when two months ago she snapped at him for getting a simple algebra equation wrong due to lack of sleep. She had been especially patient with him recently, even after their little spat in the hangar, and John wasn’t sure how to process it. A tiny part wanted to resort to anger again because he clearly didn’t deserve her, but the more prevalent parts preferred something like depression or even apathy.

She had been making sure his world didn’t spin off its axis, and John couldn’t even tell her sorry until now.

“EOS, I’m sorry.”

She stopped moving, turned around and let her lights blink yellow for only a moment, “For what, John?”

The man in question waved his hands around in front of his face, lost, confusing her more. With a sigh, he explained, “For a lot of things, but mainly from a few weeks back when we had that argument. I said something that wasn’t okay, and I didn’t have the balls to own up to it until now. So, I’m sorry. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have even been near.”

For a little bit, it was quiet. John waited as the A.I. contemplated his words. Then, she spoke her judgment, “Well, I know you are. You haven’t exactly been working off your butt over nothing, right? Plus, reliable sources say one of the ways guilt manifests is anger. I’ve seen that with the rest of your family. It would make sense yours would too.”

John blinked. Part of him was expecting her to not fully understand why he was apologizing, but the other wanted her to just so he could get over this, just so he could let go of even just the teeniest amount of guilt he had, “EOS, anger isn’t a valid excuse. What I said was wrong. I don’t believe those words and you shouldn’t either. The whole point of this partnership is to show you that there’s more to life than just calculations and probabilities. It’s kind of hard to see that when the one person who promised to be different went and screwed it up anyway.”

John hoped EOS was at least questioning things now instead of letting his words go in one ear and out the other. Her next words said she was doing exactly the latter, “Okay. I don’t disagree with you, John, but I don’t know why you’re so hooked on this. I understand. We don’t have to worry about this unnecessarily anymore.”

Yes, you do understand. That’s the fucking point.

They weren’t getting anywhere, yet John didn’t even have the energy to groan in annoyance. He could even get his eyebrow to twitch.

All he could do was simply lean his head back against the wall and let his hair stick up against it like static electricity was flowing through it. The real reason it was sticking up was probably due to a mixture of Zero-Gs and grease from all of the showering he hasn’t been doing, however. His eyes had deep rings around them, and for a second, EOS thought about how relative age could be as a number while John softly spoke, “The Hood was an angry man, too, you know. He felt slighted by our family and wanted us to feel the same. It still doesn’t make what he did right.”

EOS thought about his words before coming to a logical conclusion, “Well, that’s certainly a leap in logic. There’s a big gap between simply yelling because you’re annoyed and literal kidnapping. One gives people a sour mood, the other gives them a significant amount of jail--”

“Yes, EOS, I’m aware of that,” John brought his hand to his face, but underneath it was a grin, telling the world that he was feeling fond exasperation more than anything. EOS was more obtuse than him sometimes. It was one of the few things of himself he wished she didn’t copy so easily. He sighed and brought his hand back down, “I’m just... putting things into perspective. I want you to see why my words were wrong. It would make me feel better if you did.”

EOS hung still, letting John’s admission roll over her wiring like a wave of electricity, “You have a lot of needs and wants. What takes precedent?”

More inflection. This time, John welcomed it. It gave him something to stand on. John wanted a lot of things. Alan to be home safe and sound, Dad to have not disappeared for nearly a decade, for his brothers to stop slowly killing themselves, for himself to stop, but the needs of the many, even the needs of one, outweigh the wants of a singular man like him, but, “Well, needs obviously, they’re necessary, however… it’s okay to be selfish every once in a blue moon. It doesn’t make you inherently bad.”

It was advice he parroted many-a-times to his family, some of them more often than others, seldom to himself if at all.

Scott, it’s okay if you have to tell them you can’t make this business conference.

Virgil, you can count inventory in the morning. You didn’t get any sleep last night either.

Gordon, if you can’t smile for a day or two, that doesn’t make you a bad person.

Kayo, you don’t have to patrol every night. We have security cams for a reason.

Alan, I know we tease you, but you missing a chore or two isn’t the end of the world.

Grandma, you already do enough for us, you barely cooking for us is the least of our worries.

That last one might be more for the rest of his family than not, but hey, two birds and one stone. Keeping his back against the wall, John stood up straighter against it, face suddenly serious, “In fact, wanting to be selfish is one of the best ways to tell that you’re human. You can’t escape it. It only becomes bad when you end up only being that.”

EOS sat in silence, her lens flickering in that way it always does when she was signifying she was about to pass judgment like a Goddess, which she seemed to be doing a lot more recently, “Well then… If I’m allowed one moment of self-reprieve, I suppose I should say that those words did… hurt.”

John grimaced despite very much understanding that he deserved it. The return of the inflection didn’t exactly help. Pushing himself away from the wall, he felt the metaphorical weight fall off his shoulders, “Yes, they did, and while they weren’t okay, it is okay to say that they weren’t. I still am very sorry.”

EOS adjusted her camera, probably to stall for time, “I know you are, John. I still forgive you, but am I correct in assuming I’m allowed some time to… recover isn’t the word I’m looking for, but--”

“Yes, EOS,” John helped her explain her own point, “Recover is a good word. You’re allowed that if you want it.”

John wasn’t sure how, but it seemed like EOS visibly relaxed, “Thank you, then, for letting me do that. This.”

For some reason, John did too, “Of course.”

It was a soft kind of awkward silence, where both parties had something on their mind but they weren’t entirely sure if they wanted to say it out loud. This is why EOS appreciated John more than the others, he simply let silence be silence. It allowed her time to think, unlike how Scott and Virgil kept asking questions, or how that awful duo made noises and messes only to have a chance at making people laugh. As if that was the most important thing they needed to do.

The nights the youngest called John were endless with his constant babbling that tended to grate her circuit boards. The only reason she let it happen was that John seemed to loosen up at the interaction. He became less weary, less worried-filled. He seemed to greatly enjoy the audial presence of Alan Tracy, let alone the way he lit up when the youngest actually showed up in person. It was just unfortunate that it seemed like the kid could never keep his mouth shut.

Then again… from what John said, the whole reason there wasn’t any more Alan was because he did keep it shut. At the worst moment possible. Now there wouldn’t be any more babbling period. Alan was gone, and the whole family was suffering from the new silence. EOS reasoned it was from the general idea of forced silence instead of just freely being able to leave the room or being able to tell him to quiet down, but maybe it was more than that. She could make another list of options to consider.

Plus, it was weird to think about a future where all of those video game walkthroughs she was forced to save would never be used again. John insisted that they weren’t just wastes of megabytes, so...

Hmm.

“Could you…” EOS trailed off, and before John could comprehend the unusual behavior of the A.I., she started speaking again, “Could you tell me more about Alan? I’m starting to think I judged him rather harshly.”

John took a moment to register her words and promptly snorted, “Well, most of your assumptions about him aren’t entirely unfounded, but that’s one of the joys of being an older sibling, I guess. Surprises around every corner,” there was regret in her voice and John knew he had to treat this as gently as he would a newborn child otherwise he would never hear it again.

EOS flickered, “I thought you didn’t like surprises.”

Uh, “Well, not usually, but there are a few from time to time that I could look back on and call them… quaint, in a sense.” Suddenly, a memory resurfaced, and John found himself grinning like he was doped up on nitrous oxide, “Yeah, they can have good surprises occasionally…”

It was a week before his next rotation. Scott would be back home in about three days, which allowed the second born to actually have a few moments with his only older brother. He was looking forward to it just as much as Scott was. Right now, though, he had to make sure he got the right angle.

Right as he did, he heard the soft pitter-patter of footsteps come up the ladder, and when he turned around, he was met with a bundle of freckles, “Oh, hey Alan.”

Hi, Johnny, the kid squirmed out, Is it okay if I sit next to you?

At first, a list of things wanted to fill John’s head. You look dead on your feet, you should be asleep, you have a lot going on this week so why are you wasting sleep? but instead of any of those filling the void that was his brain, John simply nodded, “Yeah, sure, come pop a squat, Sprout.”

John looked away right before he could watch Alan’s nose wrinkle in displeasure. Despite the usage of the nickname (that Alan secretly liked, don’t think you could pull that wool over our eyes, little bro), the kid still toddled over and flopped himself down right next to his older brother. Sighing, the kid leaned his head on John’s arm and absentmindedly stared out into space, both figuratively and literally. Satisfied his brother was comfy, John went back to his current objective.

As John examined the night sky, he also carefully looked over Alan out of the corner of his eye. Every bruise that John could see was finally dulling out into that familiar greyish-yellow as bruises do, and the sight was enough to calm any negative emotion being created from the reminder. John refocused on his telescope to help as well.

The kid had been through one hell of a week, bullies being their typical selves. Every Tracy outside of Scott and Gordon had their fair share of their own experiences with nasty people, and it wasn’t even the first time they’ve left their special kind of blue-and-black marks, but seeing it on Alan was… worse, somehow. Virgil had unsavory anonymous notes at ‘best’, and John knew first hand that their hits bruised more than just physical skin. So to see Alan get the same treatment and not say anything...

John was starting to understand why his older brother greyed so easily.

Speaking of which, Scott was pretty peeved at the idea of not being there for Alan. Because of this, John made sure to be the sole one to call him and inform him of the awful news while the older brother was out at his designated Air Force base. John wanted to see with his own two eyes that Scott wouldn’t do anything rash and made himself liable to be put on some kind of list.

You would think he wouldn’t be that stupid, but the Tracys are known for breaking expectations over their sweet, sweet kneecaps.

(“Scott, you’re not going to steal an Air Force jet just to come and beat up some dumb kids.”

“Watch me.”

“They’re only a year older than Alan.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose, “Listen, we already scarred them enough as it is, let alone their expulsions. Grandma’s threats to the adults were liable for a government-mandated therapist, Virgil just being there had them running for the hills, the computer I was sporting sent chills down their spines and throughout the hallways, and that’s not even to mention Gordon’s threats to the kids themselves. Seriously, where would a 15-year-old even get the tools to do that?”

Scott visibly relaxed at John’s point, but he still sat a little taut, not fully accepting the idea of people being cruel enough to hurt a literal ray of sunshine, “Fine, fine, I still want to talk to the kid over a call at some point. He was the one who dealt with those idiots.”

John’s shoulders deflated, “Yeah, you got me there. He’ll be back with Virgil and Gordon soon enough, you can see him then.”

Scott smiled in a way that washed away the greys in his hair, if only for a moment, “Awesome, I--”

John wasn’t completely done, “But I’m going to be with Alan while you talk to him. I don’t trust you to not be in search-and-destroy mode, and the last thing Alan needs is an angry you with no buffer. Besides, I’m pretty sure we have the same questions. I can play the angsty-Scott translator tonight. Usual fee, 10 bucks each word.”

The groan that managed to fill the whole house despite the tiny speakers was one John would never forget.)

Too lost in thought, John didn’t catch Alan’s movements at first. Leaning away from his telescope, John focused on Alan, “Sorry, Allie, did you say something?”

The child simply shrugged and smushed his chubby cheeks against John’s side, shaking his head, followed by his hands, I just wanted to see what you were doing.

Ah, that made sense. Alan had been continuously signing for the past year because of the obvious, so John rolled with the punches. It was always funny when they talked about these years in the future. Alan talked, Alan said, Alan brought up: it was always metaphorical, and nobody could believe them when they said Alan was fluent in ASL, let alone because he could actually go half a day without talking.

It was ironic because even with no words, Alan still managed to be the loudest thing on the planet. His hands always screamed with excitement whenever he felt like ‘talking’, and no brother ever felt like shutting him up. Especially when it was so easy for Alan to simply not shake his hands to hide the fact that he was in trouble--

Right, don’t go there. John shook his head to bring himself out of his thoughts and replied to the non-verbal admission, “Just looking at the stars. Recording their coordinates and whatnot.”

A small gasp had John jerking immediately away from his scope to see Alan suddenly very worried, maybe even fearful, But won’t you lose your eyes?!

Aha, what? “Allie, you’re going to have to give me more than that.”

John almost didn’t catch what Alan was trying to explain with the way he frantically shook his hands even faster than before, Mrs. Gatsen explained to us that the sun was a star too, but we’re not allowed to look at it for too long because it’ll steal our eyes! I don’t want you to lose your eyes, Johnny!

Ohoho, the part of John’s brain that was all about the smartsy stuff was gearing up to have a full-blown seminar of sorts, but the way the kid seemed so sincere in his worry, in his fear, John felt partially bad for giggling instead, “Oh, Allie, no. Here,” John was activating his inner Virgil and Scott with the way he grabbed the youngster and placed him in his lap, “Yes, the sun is a star, but there are many kinds of stars. Most of which don’t hurt your eyes. Take a look.”

Alan gave one last sentimental look at John, who nodded again just to reassure the blonde before the boy gulped and put his eye against the tool like Johnny did. This time, the gasp that came from him was more magical, more child-like, as it always should be. John watched on as the kid became stuck to his telescope like glue.

Suddenly, Alan leaned back into John, somewhat knocking the wind out of him. Honestly, now that he was thinking about it, John realized he was pushing it by letting Alan sit next to him in terms of his personal comfort zone. He loved Allie just as much as the rest of the family, but letting them in, letting them get close, was veering dangerously close to that specific ‘hug’ territory like he and his parents had.

Before John could explain that in a child-friendly way, and hopefully in a way where the too-smart-for-his-own-good kid couldn’t pick up on the hidden message, Alan looked him directly in the eyes and confidently signed his wants, Can we do this more often? Can we?

Just like that, John’s mind blanked. Alan wanted to do something with him. Not swim with Gordon, not music with Virgil, not do, well, anything with Scott, Allie found something that he would like to do with John.

Huh, interesting, “Yeah, sure. If we can’t do it in the next week, then the first thing we’ll do when I come down is stargaze, because that’s what it’s called: stargazing.”

Alan started gripping his arm tighter and leaned more into his chest, nodding vigorously at the news and looking back to the sky with newfound wonder. Letting Alan be, abruptly forgetting his grievances with things like touch, John went back to his telescope. After another minute or so, John reached a point where he needed both sides of his body, except it looked like one of them was going to be kept immobile unless the spaceman said something to Alan.

John tried doing just that, just without looking away from his device, “Hey, Allie, I don’t mind the sitting-in-my-lap and stuff, but I do need my arm back to--”

Snoring.

Oh.

Jerking his head to physically look at his sibling, John found Alan passed out and squeezing his arm like a freckled koala bear. The ginger flinched a little bit at the drool dripping onto his sleeve, but the way Allie melted into him made him-- actually, he was very suddenly aware that this whole night he hadn’t really been thinking at all, and that thought made him continue to stare mindlessly at the dozing brother.

He always thought about, well, everything. What he was going to say, what he planned to do tomorrow, about what the future held now that they were down their second and last parent. If he didn’t think about it beforehand, he rarely did it. He had to make sure he went through all of his options before haphazardly jumping into the pits of hell.

Yet the way his younger brother looked at him like he was the world himself tonight made John throw all of his training to be as cautious as possible out the window in a need to comfort and care for the small thing in front of him.

It was shocking to his mind, yet he didn’t resent just being able to do without worrying too much. Was this how smother complexes started? Did he ever drool on Scott’s arm? Still staring at Alan, John’s mind continued to be robotic as he simply let his younger brother be and went back to his telescope. Alan had been needing to get a little more sleep lately anyway.

Yeah, it was fine. He could figure out how to follow up on his words later. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out a way to squeeze Alan into some of his already-planned stargazing nights while making sure the kid still got sleep. Also, John’s used telescopes wearing a cast and sling before, he might prefer two arms, but he has been okay with only one.

If Grandma yelled at John for spending too much time on the roof again, well, she would have to get over it. Alan got an extra hour of sleep and that was all that mattered.

EOS watched as John finished the story. Once he was done, he continued to be quiet while grinning at nothing. All he was doing was simply staring at the floor… It was slightly creepy, and EOS cleared her nonexistent throat, “Huh, I didn’t realize he got a lot of his interests from you. Maybe… maybe you could show me why he did. He can too. More perspectives always get more data.”

John blinked and was immediately taken out of his trance. He brought his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, “Yeah, he-- wait, what?”

EOS sighed. This is another reason why she snapped him out of it; his inability to listen to someone right in front of him. She simplified her words, “If Alan comes back, can you two take me stargazing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen what the stars look like down there, or, at least, I never looked at them long enough to understand what you all find to be so fascinating about them.”

John blinked a few more times with his mouth slightly gaped. He looked around nervously before bringing his turquoise eyes to look EOS directly in the middle of her camera, “Yeah, sure, EOS. When Alan gets back, that’s the first thing we’ll do.”

EOS didn’t mention anything about the correction of if to when, “Thank you, John, I would like that very much.”

John nodded and floated back to his tech, “Of course. Now then, we’ve got work to do. I’ve been meaning to stargaze recently anyway.”

He still had one more day up here.

And a baby brother who needed saving.

How hard could it be?

---

Very.

Growling in frustration, he thumped his fist against the wall next to him rather harshly.

Not enough to leave any kind of mark or dent, but enough for him to focus on the tiny amount of pain it gave him. He vaguely heard EOS’s lens flare at the sudden noise, but he was a little too focused on why he felt the need to hit his girl.

It was the end of the last day, and he didn’t make it any further like he thought he would.

Some bleak part of his mind was hoped, prayed that his girl would have the tools to find their baby brother. He was willing to bend her entire satellite to be able to reach the far ends of the galaxy if he had to, but even he had to concede that she wasn’t enough. The Hood wasn’t dumb, unfortunately, and he wasn’t going to go easy on them. That is if he was even going “to go” on them to start with.

While it wasn’t the first time he failed spectacularly, this failure certainly hurt the worst.

Half of him wanted to curl up into a ball and forget everything for a moment (or maybe forever), but the other half won out in terms of what his body contorted into. Instead of curling up like a prickly hedgehog, he leaned backward to be floating with his back to the ground and his face to the ceiling with his face in his hands. Meanwhile, EOS silently gazed from her camera in the corner. Watching John struggle this way was… new, and it twisted her wires in a way she wasn’t sure she could describe.

EOS watched him mumble something. Huh, peculiar as ever. Adjusting her camera, she tried small talk, “What was that, John?”

Still mumbles, but more intelligible, “... I need to drop the ‘s’.”

A flicker of yellow, nothing but pure confusion for once in her robotic life, “The ‘s’ of what?”

Suddenly, the astronaut was standing (well, floating) upright with a look of disdain, but EOS could see that it wasn’t meant for her, “Of ‘she’. It’s not ‘Five’s fault, God, it never is, but maybe… maybe it’s mine.”

All of her programs should allow her to say something. Anything, sugarcoated or not, would be beneficial to this seemingly one-sided conversation, but this was the moment she learned that humans could be faster than computers since John steamrolled right to the point without hesitation, “He wasn’t good enough sounds better. Nothing I’m doing is getting any results. I gave my family false hope that I would find something and now I have to go to them and essentially break them. They were already barely holding it together as it was, but when the “smart one” in their family says there’s nothing he can do…”

She found herself going against the logical part of her program-- because despite the idiot John Tracy could be, when he made an argument that had any kind of evidence you never could go against it-- the first time in, well, ever, in an attempt to comfort her partner, “John… I think you’re grasping at straws here.”

He looked up from the floor, and EOS had to shrink her lens at the sight of unshed tears in his eyes, “Who was the one that called him?! Me! He was standing there only a few rooms over, probably terrified out of his mind, and I didn’t know. I let him slip between our fingers because I was so caught up in the moment and I hate myself for it.”

EOS found herself speechless for once, and the few droplets of tears that floated in front of John’s face didn’t help. She had been trying her best recently, especially recently, to understand the fluctuations of human emotion, and she was pretty sure she had decent tabs on at least John nowadays, but this was something unexpected, a thing her programming never really liked to deal with. It involved lots of new calculations and new sims, why, it made things seconds longer when they didn’t have the time to deal with it!

Her electronic voice box made a noise with the intent to say something, as she thought she finally had the time to deal with it, but just her luck, more unexpected things made her reapproach the issue at hand, “John, look out! The Chaos Crew!”

Blinking out of his self-deprecation train, John was uncharacteristically panicking, “What, where?” After doing a full 180, John eventually saw one of his comm radios with the familiar pink symbol floating above it.

John’s pupils shrunk and his eyebrows tilted downward in that unfamiliar emotion: anger.

Fuck this.

The mood change was as fast as the speed of lightning. John practically flung himself to the communication device on something akin to a warpath. No longer regretful or depressed, John was filled to the brim with fury at the sight of one of the men that was a constant thorn in the Tracy family’s side, “What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you--”

“Wait wait wait!” Fuse pleaded, making John momentarily pause enough to listen, “I’m not good at this like my sister is, so this connection is going to drop soon. I need you to reopen the line yourself so I can explain what I’m here for! Trust me, I swear I’m not--”

Zip.

Blinking at the lack of noise, John slowly turned his head to look at his A.I. to get her opinion on the matter. It wasn’t a positive one, that’s for sure. Her dots were bright red, and for the first time in a while, he found himself flinching at the sight and sound of her, “It wouldn’t take much of me to get rid of the nuisance, you know.”

Taking a few deep breaths, John shook his head, “No, EOS, give me a sec. Don’t send him careening into space.”

Yet.

With shaky hands, John did as Fuse begged and found the comm line the guy haphazardly threw together. Right as Fuse jumped at the sight of one of the Tracys actually hearing him out, John’s voice spoke coldly, “You have five minutes. Go.”

Fuse gulped, “W-Well, I suppose the first thing to do would be to apologize. I’ve caused a lot of messes for you and your family-- heh, ‘messes’ probably doesn’t even come close to explaining what I did-- and I realize that now, so I want to--”

Ah, that tactic. The one where they try so desperately to seem like they were repentant. John wasn’t familiar with it, but Scott sure was. Shady business owners trying to shy away from their consequences made the eldest very aware of how slimy those in power could be. Scott complained about it a lot, so John made sure to always remember it just in case he ever ran into it himself.

Preplanning wins again in the Tracy household. You should listen to John’s advice more, Gordon, “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” John muttered mostly to himself and moved in a way that signified something was going to happen.

Fuse sputtered and stopped immediately. Crap, he was going about this wrong. These were all things he was suddenly genuine about, he really was, but the Tracys didn’t want useless apologies at the moment, and he understood that. Hopefully, he didn’t understand it too late. Right before John could do anything to him or give any kind of command to his satellite, Fuse blurted the information he should’ve said the first place, “I know where he is!”

John felt like the Earth flew right off its axis.

Everything froze, including EOS. His hand was out in front of him for some reason, probably subconsciously reaching for some kind of button, as he absentmindedly listened to the whirl of ‘Five and his brain fully processed what Fuse was promising, “... What?”

John was keenly aware that sounding so weak, so hopeful, was something that Fuse could spinelessly abuse if the man wanted to, but John had a good lie detector. The words that fumbled out of half The Chaos Crew’s mouth were sounding good, great, and John could tell that he wasn’t bullshitting anything, “I know where he’s keeping your bro. I mean… shit, what The Hood did wasn’t right, maybe it never was, but I know this specifically is--” a break in his speech in an attempt to words things better. Fuse failed, “Bad. I just…”

John’s head involuntarily tilted at the way Fuse trailed off. For once in his life, John was at a loss. This was highly uncharacteristic from what John had seen of The Chaos Crew, and the astronaut was so flabbergasted he couldn’t even begin to come up with any possible ulterior motive behind Fuse’s actions at the moment.

Suddenly, Fuse looked back up with big eyes, almost reminding John of Alan a little bit. Not in the obvious ways, because Fuse was on the verge of seven feet tall and built like a truck whereas Alan was the teeniest thing on the planet, but… John could see similar traits of innocence in them. The eyes of someone desperately clinging onto the last few shreds of hope they had, but still ready to do what's right because of it. Because even if the light at the end of the tunnel was small it was still worth fighting for.

Fuse, seeing that John wasn’t going to say anything, bit the bullet, “I don’t know, call it selfish, call it smart, but if The Hood is willing to do something like this to someone so young, I… I don’t want to be apart of it. I can’t give any information about my sister, I’m no snitch, but I want out, even if it means spending the rest of my days in a GDF cell.”

John was suddenly aware of a burning question, “Wait, how old are you, Fuse?”

A tired sigh, aging Fuse to something that was probably three times what he was going to say, “I turn 20 in two weeks.”

John sharply inhaled, “Jesus, I… I didn’t realize you were that young.”

A lot of things made sense quickly and abruptly like they always do for the ginger.

If The Hood was willing to do this to someone so young, that didn’t stop him from doing this to someone like Fuse. The logical conclusion the now ‘ex-villain’ made probably danced the wildest jig in his head, and before anyone could clap their hands, he got as far away as possible. John wouldn’t be surprised if The Hood made idle threats for not following orders or for “being stupid”, so Fuse had every right to feel threatened.

Jeez, he was probably terrified at the implication. A dark, buried part of John selfishly thought good, it sucks you had to learn the hard way, but now you see why we all hate him, but the first thing that came to his mind was something unexpected yet expected all the same.

John was reminded of Alan again.

Except Alan had four older brothers to run to when the monsters got too big or too frightening.

…

Scott was going to kill him, “Park her over on the left and come in. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Bring inside whatever you think will help.”

EOS’s shrill John! ringed throughout the room, yet it was overruled swiftly. Fuse’s mouth was wide open, “For real?”

John couldn’t tell if he was losing the knots in his stomach or forming completely new ones, “Yes. Don’t do anything funny, though. I have eyes everywhere.”

Fuse gulped again, yet he was very business-like with his next words, “Of course.”

The line cut a millisecond before John wanted it to. John knew exactly why, “Listen, EOS--”

EOS was suddenly in his face, and it spoke miles at how far she’s come that she wasn’t blaring any alarms in anger, “No, you listen, John Tracy. I cannot believe the level of ignorance you are displaying!”

Gordon always joked about her being his daughter, but right now, John’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the feeling of being scolded by an overbearing mother, “I get this may seem like I’ve lost it--” jokes on EOS, who says he hasn’t at this point? “Listen, there’s nothing else left to go off of, and I know this makes me look like a crazy man desperate for information that might not even be there, but--”

“No buts!” EOS shrieked, “You told me that if you followed a sentence with a “but” that what you were about to say shouldn’t even be considered an option! What is making you throw all of my training out the window?!”

John’s mouth became very dry. This conversation was taking a very different turn, “Wait, EOS, why is this all about you suddenly--”

John was starting to regret giving her more mobility at the sight of her jamming her camera directly in his face even more, “It’s not just about me! This affects you too! You said you always based your decisions on the here-and-now, so I should too, so why am I the only one doing so?! You’ve seen what he’s capable of!”

John’s mind tended to be made of gears, and all of them began spinning at the same time. Dammit, he didn’t pick up on this because he didn’t even consider it a factor: EOS being scared. Hell, it wasn't even considered because the last time he remembered her being this scared was when she thought he was a threat during the first time they met (was it really that long ago?). She was scared that Fuse was going to hurt John like he hurt the rest of the astronaut’s family. Like he hurt Gordon.

The only difference is that nobody could get to John like they did Gordon, so that left the ginger at an impasse if the small chance that Fuse was here to hurt him came true.

John found it very hard to breathe all of a sudden. Closing his eyes and struggling to get enough air in, he realized a fundamental problem. EOS was based on data and things that have been recorded, and so far, the only things recorded about Fuse was that he was hellbent on hurting the Tracy family, a family that John was apart of.

She didn’t know any other way to feel about the guy, she didn’t have any other example.

John would love to be that way too, honestly, to just focus on the data. Numbers never tended to be wrong, and the idea of being a simple number-crunching bot would make life a shit-ton easier, but he can’t. He’s human. One that’s very much willing to go against the numbers and probabilities if it meant helping his family.

A rarity for John, to follow his gut and nothing else, but at the end of the day, he was a Tracy, and following his gut was as familiar to him as it was to name all of the immediate constellations in the summer’s nighttime sky, “EOS, I know it’ll be hard to believe me, hell, I’m having trouble believing myself, but Fuse isn’t here to hurt me. The here-and-now is different for reasons I don’t have enough time to properly explain, okay? If there’s anything to believe, believe in the trust you have in me to make the right decision like I always do.”

EOS made no noise, not even a flicker of her lens. He expected her usual sass, something along the lines of, Who says I trust you, moron? but what he got punched away what little air he managed to collect, “... Do you promise?”

That was the million-dollar question. Of course, he couldn’t. He didn’t like making promises after the age of 12. Too many probabilities, too many what-ifs, made promises somewhat of a theoretical impossibility. But just like that night on the roof with Alan, John was able to not think, “I promise, EOS. You wanted to go stargazing with me and Alan, right? Fuse might be able to let us do that again.”

‘Family’ was a Wild Card. Nothing was possible, yet everything was at the same time when it came down to it. ‘Family’ was what made Scott go from day to day without keeling over. ‘Family’ was what got Virgil to sleep at night when he just couldn’t by himself. ‘Family’ was how Gordon managed to keep smiling and joking despite everything in the world trying to make him stop. Hell, ‘Family’ was how their father kicked the word impossible right in the groin and live.

‘Family’ might have been why Alan was stuck in such a shitty situation, but it was also the reason the kid was willing and able to go that far in the first place. He learned that selflessness from his ‘Family’, after all.

John was intent to use that fact to the fullest.

EOS’s lights blinked in contemplation before she quietly spoke once more, “Do I have permission to shock him if he makes even the slightest suspicious movement?”

John rolled his eyes yet grinned all the same, “Sure, only just a little voltage, though. Right in the ass. Would be a nice pick-me-up after all of this.”

Well, despite the year they’ve had, John wasn’t aware EOS could snort. Another sign things might be going right for once.

The door swwwshed open and Fuse floated into where the two hyper-intelligent beings were hanging about and got straight to the point, “Thank you. I hope… I hope I don’t let you down.”

John found himself light as air, and it wasn’t just the zero-gravity this time, “Sounds good. Let’s get cracking.”

While the first thing he did back on Earth was scare his father and his immediate younger brother shitless, the way they and the rest of the family lit up at the plan he and Fuse came up with (after making sure nobody killed the dude, which was surprisingly more difficult than expected, and boy was it expected) made it all worth it.

Well, maybe the sight of Fuse occasionally jumping and yelping at a strange pinch in his bottom with no known cause was worth it too. John wouldn’t tell his brothers that, though, he was the responsible one, remember?

You always made me look at things differently, EOS. Thank you.

[gontagokuhara]

“hey connor, what the hell is happening with jump?

+aka, for those of you looking for answers.

fair warning this is a very long story, and it isn't a very nice one. for the sake of not being a huge asshole, i'll refrain from mentioning the other party by name/url/ao3 handle/whatever, because i'd rather not send the dogs after this person like they were for me.

and to those of you who have been following me since mid-to-late august (around when this whole thing started) (and, coincidentally, when jump became the most popular fic in the dear evan hansen tag on ao3, but we'll ignore that little detail), you might know who the other person is in this whole situation. i know most of my friends do, and for my friends and otherwise please don't go after this person. don't reblog with their name or fic title or whatever, because the point of this post is to serve as an explanation for why jump is going down, not start a manhunt for this other person.

i digress.

around mid-august, i began receiving comments and a few asks regarding a chapter of jump (28, to be specific). in essence, they were saying that i had "ripped off" a certain plot point of a certain fic, which. to be honest i didn't think a whole lot of? because the messages i received didn't say anything about what i had ripped off, just that i had done it.

it came to a point where i messaged the author of this other fic and briefly explained the situation, and made my case. i got a response sometime the next day and it wasn't one i was hoping for.

which, of course, i've accepted that at this point - people think i did plagiarize. the author of the other work thinks that i did. i know that i didn't, but i need to acknowledge and accept that a lot of people think i did.

what i didn't accept was the "term" i was given - to put a note on the chapter in question crediting this author for the "original idea."

which, you know, was offensive to me - because jump had always been my idea. despite what was being said, i knew that i hadn't read the sections of the other fic that i was accused of stealing, before i had published my own chapter. so i couldn't have taken the idea, if that makes sense?

i didn't respond to the other author's message, and that was wrong of me. i know that that was shitty of me to not offer a response, and there isn't really an excuse for that? but it happened, and it was shitty, but.

for the most part, things quieted down for a bit when i posted chapter 29, and i rather naively assumed that things had permanently gone quiet. i'd made an incredibly long statement in the end notes of the chapter, and i said that if anyone wanted to say anything further they could feel free to pm me, because it was counterproductive to yell arguments at each other through my inbox. funnily enough, no one took that offer and messaged me, but i can't say i'm surprised. without the shield of anon, people tend to not disagree so violently.

after 30 got posted, however, things sort of exploded.

immediately people took it upon themselves to leave nasty comments and asks in my inbox, which hurt but at this point i had come to expect it from the whole situation.

sometime after that, the callout was posted.

which, of course, made me freak the fuck out.

what was worse was that i found it on accident; someone reblogged a post of mine with something nasty and i was confused so i checked their blog, and. well.

it had the title of my fic all over it, it was in the main tags, and i knew immediately when asks started piling up that none of them were going to be good. and they weren't. i haven't gotten death threats a whole lot, but that day was definitely a peak in me receiving them.

there was.....a lot in the callout, and it took me a good few hours to get myself to a state where i could read it without freaking out again.

this was early on in the post, where i was accused of shot for shot rewriting sections of a certain chapter of this other fic, when, again, i hadn't read it until chapter 28 was posted and chapter 30 was long since drafted and in the process of being written, but. (the bit of the sentence that is cut off reads "however, as the author of [fic], chapters 28 and 30 read like-")

note how no proof of this is provided, or anything beyond the chapter numbers.

this next bit is from the pm i received from them, and it's interesting in how it reflects the author's...i dont know how to describe it. i suppose arrogance is the best word i can find? for them to insinuate that their work is so well known enough that even if people haven't read it, they'd know about it.

(cut off sentence: “at the very least, the final chapters of [fic] are pretty-”)

the same sentiment is reflected here, in the callout.

the callout also points out that there's no indication of where i got the plot for jump, and that's because i made up the plot. the idea to kickstart the story i got from a prompt blog (here, if you're interested) and it states very explicitly in its terms of submission (here) that anyone submitting an idea for a prompt gives full permission to anyone to use it, credit unnecessary.

so that isn't exactly a 'gotcha!' point.

the last bits of the callout talk about me being rude to fans and making vague posts on tumblr, which. no proof provided so i, again, have no idea what they constitute as rude or vague.

it was.....a lot. and i had no idea what to do. i was scared, and i didn't know how to deal with having the fans of some 26 year old coming after me like that. i shut off anon, and i took a break of a day or so from tumblr, and that was pretty much that?

until two weeks ago, when i received this email from archive of our own:

so, things had obviously escalated. things had moved from calling me out publicly, to moving to get my work deleted. it messed me up pretty bad, and for a while i was freaking out.

after a day or so, a few of my close friends (one of which who has had prolonged access to both the jump writing document and the planning document) and i emailed ao3 with our appeals. i don't currently have copies of my friends' appeals, and all that is in mine was essentially what i've said publicly, with a few mentions of previous incidents. after a two week wait period as they reviewed my appeal, i received this email last night:

it strikes me how again, it's said that i shot for shot (or rather, replaced synonyms and the like) took this fic, but then again i'm not given specific instances, and then in the same paragraph it mentions that "whether you intentionally plagiarized or did it subconsciously after reading their fic, you are still responsible for the content." i don't understand how i could have taken scenes one by one and replaced synonyms, but also "subconsciously" plagiarize?

and, better yet, how can i plagiarize something i hadn't read until after the accused chapter was posted?

let me just say that i don't know for certain it was the author that made the complaint, but i would bet a whole lot on that possibility. even if it wasn't them who made the claim, they have to be notified because it involves their work. so.

and that's essentially where we're at now. jump is being deleted on november 10th, one way or another. and i am so, so angry.

i understand wanting to protect one's work. it's the reason i've maintained my innocence, and appealed to ao3. i want to protect my work from accusations i know aren't true.

but to have something i've worked so hard on for nearly seven months ripped from my hands? it's not fair. it's quite honestly bullshit.

this isn't meant to convince any of you one way or another of what happened, because you can all think for yourselves. whether you believe me or not, at this point it doesn't matter, because jump has already been sentenced to its fate.

but i know what i did and didn't do. i wouldn't still be fighting this if i wasn't sure of my innocence.

i'm angry. i'm going to be angry for a long time. this whole situation has made me fucking hate even looking at my writing anymore. what would possess someone to go so far as to get my work deleted, i don't really know.

as the author has stated, no one really "owns" fanfiction. so what gives them the right to take my work away from me? my accomplishments?

i hold no ill will towards the other author, but i hate this situation and i hate what they've done. i hate that there is someone in their mid twenties out there who has taken it upon themselves to take away a 17 year old's passion project.

am i bitter? yes. and i'm not apologetic for it. i didn't plagiarize anyone in regards to jump, plain and simple. no matter what anyone else says, i know the truth, and the people i care about know the truth, and i can't do a thing about anyone else, so it doesn't really matter.

a few friends have asked for me to make jump available by other means, and i'm considering it. because even though the hits and comments will be deleted, as its always been, jump has been for my own enjoyment. for me to tell a story i think needed to be told. and just because it's being cut short doesn't mean it still isn't worth telling.

if i do make it available elsewhere, i'll let people know. but this is where i leave you for now.

like i said in the beginning of this stupidly long post, please don't go off and attack this author. i'm angry, but taking it out on them will do nothing. it will only make things worse. jump is being deleted, and no amount of nastiness will change that. so we may as all just be nice.

if any of you have anymore questions, feel free to message me or send me an ask. anything general or non-specific i'll answer in asks, but if you have anything you'd like clarification on in regards to specifics, please message me privately.

and. um. i guess that's it?

thanks for reading. i’m sorry. i wish they hadn’t taken it this far.

[calumcest]

they got so many films out of that bc they kept adding ridiculous stuff like magic (? i think there was some magic in like part 4) and vampires 😅 and amazing i hope you know you have gotten yourself into endless requests of this verse now whenever you post a prompt list 🙃 oh i feel that though like german makes it incredibly difficult to be funny/communicate in general. maybe that's where the stereotype that germans don't have humor comes from. our language fucked it up (1/5)

wondering whether if i put some text before the read more it actually works 

(2/5) KÖNNTE MAN MIR DIE BUTTER REICHEN i'm screaming this is so funny mainly bc it's so true that's such a STRUGGLE like who the fuck thought that was a good idea. i had to write my deutsch abi about this btw we had to discuss whether du/sie should be removed and i never had stronger opinions about a topic so that was fun to write 😅 oooh alright 🙈 but very true since we started talking about the disgusting overuse of verbs in german i keep noticing it and it's just too much.

(3/5) i don't understand that at all i love your accent so much really. maybe particularly bc it sounds a little harsh? idk i like it and i could compliment it for days 😅 your friends apparently don't have taste 🤷‍♀️ & i am very interested to find out what your oma says bc kinesisch has been haunting me ever since i heard it for the first time. also i would love to hear her reaction to you just calling and being like "oma hallo sag mal bitte china"

(4/5) since the acoustic version of stand by me practically slapped me in the face with being so amazing i'll be sure to listen to that live album thank you for educating me about oasis. do you have other oasis recs that are not like the basics? & helen don't play with my feelings like that you don't understand how soft i am for soulmate lashton and how much i miss them. though i saw you said you're feeling a bit uninspired with them which is so scary to me bc of the trauma from your other fics

(5/5) oh i have a question about them tho that i'm sure i could find the answer to if i just reread the fic but then i'd miss them more so: what do ash and luke look like in that verse? bc if i remember correctly (which i'm not sure about forgive me if i'm wrong please) they were originally dating up to the age they are now (so 24/26) and are two years older in present time of the fic? so they could look very differently technically. just wondering if you had specific looks in mind -spoiler twin

HELLO WHAT I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THE VAMPIRES???S DFKJWEFKHBWEHR however i did rediscover my dwk dvds...perhaps i will have to give them a cheeky watch...see if i can actually piece together any of the plot...also skdfjnskhjdf listen germans have such a fucking good sense of humour you just have to undersand it german memes are some of the funniest ive ever seen also something that i cant explain to british people but one of the funniest things germans do meme-wise is when they literally translate english? so when they’ll be like manchmal tut es so sein wie das or something idk why but its SO funny to me also the memes where they deconstruct the words to what they actually mean like this one or this one i dont konw why but they SEND ME 

SDJNFSKJDNF OKAY LISTEN I KNOW i’m so glad you’re on the same page its just so stressful like when i was working at a school last year people would introduce themselves to me by their first name and then still siez me and i’d be like ?!?!?!? this is not what i was taught ?!?!?!? 

omg please...youre so cute i cant believe u like it skdjfbwehbf my abrasive little south london accent has rights with one person on the planet and that is good enough for me <3 also i will literally ask her the next time i speak to her if she says kina i’m actually going to disown her so stay tuned for possible family drama

OKAY!! i have a lot of oasis recs let me make a separate post so you can see ok this is the playlist that started off intending to be a britpop playlist but just devolved into oasis/noel/liam so theres a few non-oasis songs on here but i have categorised them all for you also the slide away acoustic is so good isnt it!!! other favourites off that album are half the world away acoustic there is a light and importance of being idle acoustic too but honestly all of it is brilliant noel can do no wrong in my eyes 

okay listen i actually wrote another chapter of soulmate au but i hate it i’m trying to work up the courage to look over it so i can edit it into something thats acceptable to post but just know there is another chapter out there fear not <3 also that is actually a good question i hadnt really put too much thought into it i think ashton looks like current ashton in my head iirc he has got the black hair i think in the first restaurant scene i imagined him as that pictureo f him in the lace shirt and luke just looks like current luke all i ever think about is their hair sjdkfnwkhefb luke has curly hair and ashtons in black hair mode thats all i can tell u i apologise i have no brain cells or creativity