#nowhere is this comparable to the awful stuff in the early days of the fandom

[dragonflyace]

Aww, people think the Eddie craze is the worst thing to ever happen to the Stranger Things fandom? And not the sexual fics/shipping of Finn and Millie in 2016-2017 (despite their clear boundaries) and the people attacking whoever called them out on being creepy? Not the people that attacked Lucas for his valid feelings of El in season 1 but was quick to defend Mike in s2 when he went out of his way to make Max miserable because he "missed El" (tldr racism)? Not when they harassed The Crown's cast when they won over Stranger Things and spread so much hate under their socials?

But no, people loving a character is the worst thing to happen to this fandom, right?

Grow up.

[erstwhilesparrow]

I just saw that post you reblogged about archiving MCYT stuff - is there a particular reason stuff disappears so often? (That's very cool people are putting in so much effort to preserve it, though; big respect to that tbh)

reyni! :D okay i should be clear upfront that some of my information may be incomplete here because (1) i don't have twitter and (2) i'm not directly involved in any mcyt archival efforts. also putting this under a cut because it's long and i do need to reference recent events involving abuse and sexual assault:

despite mcyt = minecraft youtube(r), a lot of stuff relevant to mcyt happens like. exclusively on stream? really, really ~plot-critical or deeply characterizing stuff happens on stream sometimes and never makes it into a youtube video! and on twitch at least, unless you explicitly set it to save your vods, twitch will just delete them after a certain number of days. i don't know exactly how this works if you stream on youtube but also my impression is that a significant majority of people are not streaming on youtube anyway. since fairly early in my time in mcyt fandoms, there's been concern about creators not saving their own vods, and on top of that, sometimes you save a vod and it gets taken down anyway for copyright infringement (playing copyrighted music, the creator themself asked for it to be removed, etc). so like. as baseline, there's a sense of inherent ephemerality to the medium. that post i reblogged is explicitly pushing back against the description of mcyt vods as "a constantly burning library of alexandria," and in light of the evidence that follows i agree (and also am a little weepy about the efforts people make to save these things), but that sense doesn't come from nowhere, you know?

speaking of that post though, i suspect this archival stuff is coming up More now because it's been a rough couple of weeks in mcyt fandom. several really influential creators in the space were recently outed as being abusive or predatory in a way that's caught a lot of attention, and many people in response have been (understandably!) deleting their fanworks or otherwise distancing or removing themselves from mcyt fandom. i want to be clear, i know stuff gets deleted all the time in fanspaces -- the internet is kind of just Like That in terms of how easy it is to lose things -- and it's incredibly fair to go "no, even if there was a strong distinction between character and creator this leaves a sour taste in my mouth and i'm not doing this anymore." i don't want to pretend that no one has ever deleted a fanwork outside of mcyt spaces, and i don't want to insinuate that it's bad to vocally revoke your support of those creators -- those people have done awful things and generally failed to meaningfully apologize or take accountability, and it is worth remembering and saying so. but to give you a sense of numbers: antimony-medusa does monthly stats on mcyt fic on ao3, and dsmp, which even after it's kind of died off has seen monthly increases in the range of hundreds of new fic per month, saw a decrease of roughly 800 fics. other fandoms have similarly seen decreases, and video blogging rpf, which ao3 treats as an umbrella for basically all mcyt stuff, saw an increase of 51, as compared to last month's increase of (approximately) 3500. and that's just fic -- there's also a rich trove of animatics, fanvids, fanart, etc that i don't have any numbers for, but i've seen people talking about deleting those, too, you know? you see how people might be worried about what we are losing.

at this point i think your question is answered, but if you'll forgive some baseless speculation here, i wonder to what extent mcyt is also. complicated by how closely character and creator can sit? i don't know how other people feel, but there is a difference to me between "i've written fic about This Person Specifically (or, arguably, their streamer persona which may be somewhat divorced from the Real Life Human Being Behind The Screen)" and "i've written fic about a character this person plays." i dunno, there's a sense to me of the flimsiness of the line between creator and character and then also of the line between creator and fandom that i think makes it harder to be like "okay, i am doing my own thing, separate from the creator, so i'm going to keep my stuff public even if i don't stand by it 100% anymore." i remember when i first joined mcyt fandom, there was a period of time people were really worried that the creators were actively on ao3, or that fans would try to send their fanfic directly to the creators. i thought to myself, "well, if anyone Tries Shit with my work, i will simply delete all my relevant accounts and disappear." that's... not really a back-up plan that i feel good about these days, but. you know. it's been a thing, if not always for the same reasons, and i do understand the impulse.

[kagetsukai]

Writer’s Review

Holy crap, I’m finally doing this tag!!! I’ve been trying to reply to it for a very long time, but every time I’ve opened my old writing, I’d fall into reading my stuff all over again. Some of my stuff is literally from 2005, y’all! I’m sure if went digging deeper, I could find stuff from 2002 ;) ANYWAY!

I was tagged by: @roguelioness @laraslandlockedblues @queen-kass-the-writer & @dismalzelenka. Thanks lovelies!

Tagging: @out-of-the-embers @shannaraisles @puddle--wonderful @thebakerstboyskeeper @allisondraste @ellenembee @ellstersmash @hollyand-writes @irlaimsaaralath @jonogueira @lucyrne @ma-sulevin @novamm66 @naiatabris @rhetoricalrogue @wardenari

Rules: Post two snippets of your writing. The first should be one of the oldest examples of your work that you can find (the older the better!), and the other has to be an excerpt from something more recent. Compare the two side by side to see the difference between what your writing looks like now and how it did then.

I’m keeping it all under a ‘Read More’, because I actually like you people and don’t want you to have to scroll for a day and a half to get to the bottom of this post. You’re welcome!

Okay, let’s talk about the oldest piece of writing I could get my hands on. The timestamp on this puppy is from 2005, which sounds about right. I wrote it long-hand while laying down on my ex’s couch. Not sure what exactly prompted me to write this story, but I still fucking love it, even fifteen years later. I’m not going to link to my online archive where this fic lives because I am NOT opening myself up to criticism over what I wrote when I was younger. Not today, Satan! Anyway, the fandom is Yami no Matsuei/Descendants of Darkness and the pairing is Tatsumi Seiichiro/Watari Yutaka, my OTP for that fandom :)

Shadows danced around the barely lit room as the blinds moved to the rhythm of the wind. The house looked deserted, but the open terrace door, and a faint scent of something familiar, convinced Watari that Tatsumi was home. He took a tentative step forward, constantly double-guessing his choice to come at such a late hour. Considering the way things progressed between them in the last couple of days, he could expect to be thrown out rather quickly. Still, as each slow step brought him closer to the glass door, he had a feeling he had made a good decision.

Cold, crisp air filled his lungs when he stepped onto the dark terrace. He did not need magical abilities to feel the well-known presence, mixed with an awful stench of cheap cigarettes. Watari raised his eyebrows as he watched the dark silhouette against the night sky; so hunched and tired. Between his slender fingers, Tatsumi held an unlit cigarette.

“Are you going to light it?” he asked.

A visible tremble ran through that powerful frame as the small roll of finely cut tobacco fell out of Tatsumi's grasp. He followed its path for a brief moment and then shrugged. When he turned away from the railing, he kept his head low, hiding behind the long bangs. Watari swallowed almost audibly as he noticed the dark circles around Tatsumi's normally vibrant blue eyes. It only proved how poorly Tatsumi had been taking care of himself lately.

“Not anymore,” Tatsumi said in a flat voice.

Now, this next excerpt is from something I am currently working on, but haven’t actually posted yet. It’s a conversation between Fenris and Garrett Hawke, while Hawke is living a boring life and hiding from The Chantry post DA2. It’s from a random story that I decided to revisit recently, that I will be reposting this coming fall.

Fenris looked him up and down with a critical eye. “Considering what you look like, I’m surprised as well. What have you done to yourself? Was this your idea of a disguise?”

“What’s wrong with how I look?” Garrett pouted.

“You remind me of the humans in Kirkwall who kept pushing their questionable wares on clueless customers. Remember? They smelled of patchouli and smoked a lot of elfroot.”

Garrett snorted with amusement and reached up to run a hand through his now shoulder-length hair. He’d been keeping it in all sorts of braids and ponytails - mostly because it was easier to keep it out of the way while working the forge - but he figured Fenris probably meant the various piercings he now sported on his clean-shaven face.

“If you must know, I ended up near Wycome and there was a lovely Dalish clan friendly to humans who did all sorts of piercings in exchange for supplies and money.” He gently tugged at his right earlobe and at the large wooden plug that sat within the flesh. “It’s amazing what you can do with high pain tolerance and magic, my friend. I wanted to look nothing like my description and I think I succeeded at it.”

Now, onto the comparing thing!

My writing used to be a lot more focused on trying to evoke emotion and suspense through meticulous editing and sentence sculpting. It sounds stupid, maybe, but I remember taking a long time to go through my stuff with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that: 1) I don’t sound ESL, and 2) that I convey the emotions I was striving for. My early influence for writing like that was Tolkien (and I whole lot of other fantasy authors I can’t think of right now). I wanted to sound fancy REALLY FUCKING BAD.

These days my language is a lot more relaxed. I think once I left the creative influence of my ex, I was able to find my own voice in writing. I figured out that my strength lies in the more modern language and urban fantasy style (if we’re talking about traditionally published works). I think it really reflects that in the second blurb, because it feels funny, relaxed, laid back. Also, my sentence structure is nowhere near as stiff. Which I like.

Another thing I noticed is that I used to write exclusively M/M pairs, while I now write almost exclusively M/F pairs. I’m going to out myself as one of these obnoxious people who thought that writing M/F was gross and M/M was the only way to exist as a writer in fandom. Gods, I was SO STUPID. Ugh. Anyway! I was clearly dealing with trying to work out my sexuality while in a deeply Catholic culture, so we’re not going to dive TOO deep into it. This is just a meme, after all ;)

The big question is, have I improved my writing? The obvious answer is, yes. For one, I don’t have a beta editor to catch all of my mistakes anymore. I do all of my own writing and editing, and I feel like I do okay on most days. I also don’t stress as much about making my fiction perfect. Once you let go of the desire to get every sentence ironed out to crisp perfection, your writing immediately improves by a mile. I also don’t over-describe actions as much anymore.

I dunno, while I think I haven’t changed my style TOO much, I also feel I’ve changed A LOT. In the end, this is a part of my journey and I’m nowhere near done traveling ;)

[artsybanchou]

OOf. I gots another AU, everyone. Sorry.

Technically, I’ve got another roughly seven or so because Detroit: Become Human is just begging for crossover AUs with other fandoms. This one is a Merlin: Become Human AU. Some info is in the really quick doodles I did above. The rest will be below the cut so I don’t clutter people’s dashes.

HOO Boi, you fool! Clicking on that keep reading link, welcome to my hell. My brain won’t stop churning these out and apparently you want in on that. I’ll hit you with what I’ve been thinking about regarding this so far. I welcome discussion. If you’ve got ideas relating to this or want to participate with me, go ham in the comments or make your own post and just tag me or use Merlin:Become Human AU in the tags so I can see how you’ve expanded on it! 

General Premise:

Merlin is an android (not sent by Cyberlife). He’s actually an independent prototype, unlicensed and unregistered, created by a disgruntled former Cyberlife employee (Gaius) who felt that Androids and their AI had reached a point that they should be recognized as an intelligent species with their own rights. Cyberlife disagreed and Gaius left the company because of what he perceived as their immorality. Gaius, now working on his own in the middle of nowhere with no oversight, makes the one of a kind Merlin. Merlin is designed to look and act incredibly human, even moreso than most androids. His programming, in particular, is designed to heavily encourage deviation and machine learning in the hopes that Merlin will advance so far beyond his original coding that he is virtually unrecognizable when compared to how he began, emulating the kind of growth that makes humans seem so alive.  Another feature Merlin is programmed to have in order to appear more human is the ability to change how old he appears to be (to reflect on Merlin’s frequent age changing shenanigans in the original show). Merlin is also given an atypically large amount of information about technology and programming so that he can have the ability to grapple with his own existence in the same way humans do when studying biology, psychology, or neurology. What this means, though, is that Merlin is able to accomplish feats akin to magic (heh) with technology. Probably even reprograms himself on occasion or changes his own hardware just because he can. 

So Merlin is born and he’s a pretty great success. Gaius feels as though he really is living with a petulant, sassy late teens/early 20s human being. Sometimes, he genuinely forgets Merlin is an android. So does Merlin. These two are out in the middle of nowhere living their best life with a few others (maybe Hunith-- good mother figure for Merlin, could be andoird or human). This eventually develops into Merlin having to go to High School or college. Maybe Merlin watched too much TV with that setting and became unbearably curious and annoying about going, maybe Gaius wanted to prove that humans and androids could not only coexist but it’d be so incredibly seamless that no one would even notice anything-- maybe a little bit of both. High School or College are good settings for Merlin to test out his immersion because of his own youthful demeanor (aka abundance of snark and attitude). 

MERLIN GOES TO SCHOOL.

I think we all know what happens from here. 

Merlin arrives at his first day of school to a scene of Arthur and some other kids knocking around an android who is gardening on campus. Merlin gets pissed and intervenes, because while he’d seen stuff about people hating androids on the net, he’d never experienced it in real life. Arthur tells Merlin to back off and that he and his friends can do whatever they want to the android because his family can pay the school for damages to their property since his family is rich. Merlin gets sassy (”You sure you can afford that? I’d assume that if you had enough money to replace an android, you’d have enough to fix your awful personality.”) Conversation continues, maybe roughly in the vein of:

Arthur: “Dude, chill. This thing is just an object. Why are you getting so pissy about this?”

Merlin: “Do you even know the first thing about androids? Because my bet is no.”

Arthur: “Excuse me, I’ll have you know I’m--”

*Merlin shoves everyone away from the android so he can examine the gardener and finds both the audio and visual processing units are damaged (the ones that Marcus damaged in the one scene, spoilers? I’m trying to be vague don’t mind me).*

Merlin: “You damaged this android’s __ and __. He has completely lost the ability to see and hear and yet you keep kicking him. I don’t suppose any of you remember the last group of humans that found fun in assaulting the disabled.”

Merlin probably insults the intelligence of Arthur and all of his friends (well, I can’t say I’m surprised. None of you look like someone passing history class). Arthur fires back about Merlin being a bleeding heart or some shit. Arthur reveals he is the son of the politician leading the anti-android movement. Now that Arthur knows this new guy is an android-apologist, Arthur declares Merlin had better watch his back. Merlin gives him a sassy response in the way of that not being how a politician’s son should behave, probably. From there on Merlin and Arthur frequently but heads over the treatment of androids and androids’ rights.

There will, of course, be other shenanigans going on. Merlin is going to be incredibly odd, as he learned how one acts in High School/College from TV and maybe webcomics so he has trouble fitting in at first. He definitely makes friends though, because that’s just who Merlin is. Eventually, he’ll also stumble into Arthur’s friendship, although at this point I have no idea how.

Last thoughts: 

These are my less developed ideas, although the above can hardly be called developed either. 

Being an android is parallel for being a magic user. Hence Merlin being an android disguised as a human who is standing up for android rights.

Morgana is probably an android, assuming we stick to this idea. She might not know it or just be hiding it, but Uther would know and it would be a prime highlight of the hypocrisy he is known for. Morgana would likely also be a very unique android, possibly a gift from Cyberlife to Uther. Finding out that she is an android could be a great moment of tension for both Morgana and Arthur as their confidence in the man they believed to be their father was shaken. 

Ooo, what if Morgana was an experimental android in aging technology. She was gifted to Uther as a baby and every year she has a “check-up” where her AI is transplanted into a slightly larger android body to mimic the process of growing up. She could be unconscious during these check ups and hence it would be perfectly natural for her not to realize that she is an android. As for why Uther would accept this gift, I have no idea. 

Because of Merlin’s ability to change the age he appears, it would make sense if Gaius was the head of the project Morgana was the android of before he left. Gaius could be the expert on aging technology in androids. It could be that seeing the humanity in Morgana as she slowly grew up alongside her human brother was what pushed Gaius over the edge in demanding that androids be seen as human because he feared what would happen to Morgana if the public ever found out. 

Some kind of android purge taking place in the story, possibly due to the events in Detroit, would be a great arc for the characters where everyone has a new conflict to worry about. Whether or not Arthur knows how many of his closest friends and family members are androids at this point-- I have no idea. I want to see Arthur agressively protecting Morgana, but at the same time an enthusiatic Arthur participating in the purging until he discovers his own sister should be the target of his rage would be an incredibly palpable moment and just-- there is a lot to consider.

So yeah. That’s roughly where I am now with all of this. If you want to expand on this, do it. I want to hear other people’s ideas. If you make your own post (speculation, fanfic, fanart, telling me I’m full of shit) about it tag me or use the hashtag Merlin:BecomeHumanAU so I can see! I have no idea when I’m going to post about this specific AU again, because I’ve got six other D:BH AUs I want to just throw out here into the void first, but seeing other people’s theories and thoughts on things like this always gets me energized.

THanks for scrolling through this disorganized monster of my thoughts. This was probably a lot to deal with.

[queenpersephonesgarden]

Whumptober Day 11

Prompt: Hypothermia Fandom: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Characters: Sofie, Female!Dragonborn, Mjoll the Lioness Word Count: 998

The snows had come early this year, not that it made much of a difference this far north; snow was snow, there was either a little or a lot of it, and unfortunately for Sofie a lot of it was now littering the ground, making the stone roads of Windhelm slippery and treacherous to navigate, and so bone-chilling to the touch that going barefoot was out of the question. She’d dared it, a couple of times during the summer, and only lost one toe to frostbite in the process. Now, though, it was stuff her feet into the too-small boots she’d filched from the garbage, or lose all of her toes and possibly her feet too.

The pinched feeling around her feet was nothing compared to her other problem, though; with the heavier snowfall out of nowhere, finding some of the stubborn flowers that still grew in the farmlands around the city would be more difficult than ever.

She didn’t know if she had enough to make the money that could tide her over until the snow let up a bit, which led to this conundrum; no money, no bed at the inn. No bed at the inn, nowhere warm to sleep.

Nowhere warm to sleep during a Windhelm night was basically a death sentence, and Sofie was starting to think, just maybe, she should have ignored Aventus Aretino’s dire warnings and gone to the orphanage in Riften; there was no way a vile old woman could be worse than the cruel, freezing nights of the north.

Sofie paced in front of the main entrance to the docks, shivering so hard she could barely move and stubbornly refusing to cry about just how awful everything was, when the clank of an armored individual approaching stopped her in her tracks.

She quickly turned forward, smiling prettily like the Grey Quarter elves said made her look adorable for a human, and let her eyes fall onto her hopeful next customer.

She was- well, tall was a good word to use.

Golden hair braided in the traditional Nordic fashion, with armor that looked terribly scuffed up even in the dim gray light of the afternoon, she was perhaps the largest person Sofie had ever actually seen, standing at least six whole feet tall.

Sofie didn’t even notice her mouth had dropped open in shock, or that the warrior woman had a companion, until a voice said, “Uh, are you okay?”

Snapping her mouth shut, Sofie’s eyes darted to a figure standing just in the giant woman’s shadow.

It was another woman, and Imperial, dressed in dark wizard robes with proper leather gloves and boots for a trek out in the snows. She was looking down at Sofie in concern, and Sofie could feel her entire face flush harder; for once, she was grateful for the cold, which made her embarrassment harder to notice.

The tall lady and the Imperial woman both turned to her as she straightened up and smiled again, trying to look like one of those regal ladies that lived over in the Valunstrad and owned great big houses and jewelry that chilled your skin when you walked outside into the cold.

“G-good day, ma’ams!” she said politely, like father had taught her, “Could I interest either of you in some genuine Windhelm mountain flowers? They’re very useful in a variety of potions, I’ve heard!”

She started to shiver a bit under her coat, and she desperately forced herself to stop. She needed to look like a proper little businesswoman, not a wretched orphan down on her luck. No one this city had enough sympathy for that story, that’s what the guards often said to her when she tried to beg a blanket from them.

Sofie smiled a bit harder as a spark of interest lit up the face of the wizard looking one, and she came forward with a thoughtful hum to examine Sofie’s little basket of flowers.

The taller lady crossed her arms over her chest, examining Sofie from head to toe with a severe frown. Sofie just kept her eyes on her customer and tried as hard as she could not to shiver.

“What are you doing, selling flowers all the way over here?” the Imperial lady asked suddenly, reaching into the basket and pulling a pair of dried flowers, examining them thoughtfully. “Surely it’s warmer near Candlehearth Hall?”

Sofie fidgeted with the handle of her basket and shrugged. “The innkeeper got tired of chasing me off and threatened to call the guards if I came back without coin,” she mumbled halfheartedly, looking down at the boots pinching all nine of her toes very hard.

She didn’t notice the look the wizard lady shot back at her heavily armored companion, but she did notice when the lady straightened back up to her feet, the flowers in one hand as she dug about in a pocket for something.

With a dramatic ‘a-ha!’, the Imperial woman pulled out perhaps the largest coin purse Sofie had ever seen ever, and she felt her mouth drop open again. How rich was this lady? Who was she?! What was she doing in Windhelm, of all-?

Sofie’s brain simply stopped working when the Imperial took out a small handful of coins, put them back in her pocket, before dropping the entire rest of the coin purse into Sofie’s little basket.

The sudden weight was so heavy it nearly made Sofie lose her grip, but she clasped onto her basket with two hands with a gasp and she gaped up at this strange woman, aghast. “Ma’am, this is far too much!” she protested.

But the Imperial wizard just winked at her, carefully putting her new flowers into a small satchel at her waist and spinning away, back toward her tall companion. “Get yourself a fresh breadroll tonight before you go to sleep!” The woman said airily, and Sofie watched, dumbfounded, as this impossible woman strode off with her gigantic shadow not far behind.

[catlady1986]

Guilty Pleasure

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Rating: Mature  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Noctis Lucis Caelum Characters: Gladiolus Amicitia,  Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, background characters Tags: Romance, Secret Relationship, Older/Younger Lovers, Prejudice, Student/Teacher Relationship, Anal Sex, more later

Previous Next

The two men barely made it into Noctis apartment before they started to pull off each others clothing, hands groping about warm bare skin as their lips remain locked and manage to make their way into the bedroom.

Noct gasps and moans deeply as he drags his fingers down Gladio’s back, feeling how his muscles contract and move with each thrust. Strong hips move so languidly, dragging out the pleasure he’s experiencing, feeling each delicious inch of the younger man’s cock sliding into him and back out. While not his first time having sex, it was with a man and it feels amazing, it feels right to him.

He here’s a deep grunt come from the younger man, looking up at him and seeing his eyes half-lidded and a look of pure bliss on his face. Noct rests a hand on the back of Gladio’s head and pulls him down into a messy kiss, tongues exploring about and swollen lips being nipped. The movements stop briefly, them both panting loudly as the brunette presses a quick kiss to Noctis’ lips before guiding him with strong hands to shift onto his hands and knees.

“You doing okay?” Gladio asks breathily, dragging his nails down the older man’s side that makes him shudder.  

“Yes.” Noctis gasps out and swallows down some saliva. “I’m doing great.”

A sharp gasp followed by a moan tumble from Noct’s mouth as he begins to feel filled up again, Gladio pushing himself all the way in, him seemingly going much deeper than before. Hands glide across his sides, sending little shockwaves coursing through his body until they stop and hold him in place. The gentle rocking resumes.

Noctis can't decide whether he wants the younger man keep it slow and tender, dragging out the pleasure for as long as possible, or wants it rough and quick, to be fucked until he’s an incoherent mess. Either way, he feels so damn good.

“Ah, Noct.” Gladio chokes out and sucks in a sharp breath, his speed increasing while thrusts remain soft. “Fuck, yes.”

The grip around his hips lessens, allowing Noctis to begin moving his body, rocking himself back at an angle that puts pressure against his prostate. He gasps sharply and moans deeply, his head slumping down as soft cries flow from him and his body quivers from pleasure. Gladio removes a hand from his hips and grasps onto a sweaty shoulder, thus giving him more leverage to begin pounding into the black-haired man, the bed starting to creak quickly mixing with skin slapping and cries of pleasure.

Euphoria, bliss, exhilaration, satisfaction, fulfillment; he feels them all and so much more that he can’t think of proper words to describe. The sounds of Gladio’s pants become hoarse and rapid, his hands holding onto Noct’s waist and shoulder become clammy, and his thrusts start becoming clumsy as he begins to draw close to his peak. Their bodies collide together a couple more times and the young man begins to moan deeply, speaking garbled words that sound like a mashup of Noctis’ name and possibly a curse or two. His rocking slowly comes to a halt as he breathes deeply trying to regain his bearings, Noct turns to look back at him, seeing the deep flush and glazed look on his face.

He looks so damn young like this.

Brown eyes lock with his and become tender as a sultry smile curls onto Gladio’s face. He lays his large frame across Noctis’ smaller one, peppering kisses to his heated and sweaty back, moving up to his shoulders before gliding his tongue in between the other’s shoulder blades. The thirty-year-old gasps sharply and starts moaning softly as he feels a hand reach around and grasps his still hard cock, precome already leaking out. Gladio slips his other hand under Noct and pulls him flush against his chest, leaning them both into a sitting position as he strokes the man’s cock.

Warm lips press against his neck and teeth carefully drag across his soft skin as Gladio continues to jerk him to his completion. Noct rests his head against the man’s broad and sweaty shoulder, lips parted as sharp gasps escape along with little grunts until he bites his lower lip to keep them in. A wet and warm tongue flits against his lips, seeking access that Noctis allows, them connecting into a sloppy kiss and moaning softly. Noct pulls away and buries his face in the youth's neck, eyes clenched shut as he cries out, come spilling out and dribbling down Gladio’s large hand.

His entire body goes slack as he comes down from a blissful high, panting warm puffs of air against the tan neck where his face currently rests. He groans with annoyance as both he and the young man rest forwards onto the bed, then softly sighs as he feels Gladio slip out of him. Noctis watches out the corner of his eye as the brunette removes the condom and tosses it into the trash after tying it off, then as he turns back to face him and rests down beside the elder man. Gladio reaches up and rubs his thumb over Noctis’ beard who reaches up to hold his hand.

“You can stay the night if you’d like.” Noctis offers, voice slightly gravelly.

“I wish I could, but my mom likes to wake me up early so me, her, and Francis can eat breakfast together.”

“Hmm, I understand that, my father would do the same thing to me. Even when I was up half the night studying.” he chuckles and then looks tenderly at the other man. Noctis removes Gladio’s hand from his face and brings it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. “Would I be able to call you tomorrow?”

“To be on the safe side I’ll call you. After five good?”

“Yeah, that’s good.” Noct says and leans in for a deep kiss, sighing contently into it. “Do you want to eat something quick before you leave?”           

Gladio smiles. “Hmm, you going to cook for me?”

“Well, boil water for instant noodles or throw meat and cheese between slices of bread.”

“Noodles sound good.”

“Beef, chicken, or shrimp?”

“Beef.”

“Coming right up.” he says and gets one more quick kiss before sliding out of bed, a bit too quickly though and winces slightly as his knees almost buckles.

“Don’t break a hip there old man.” Gladio teases and gets his boxers tossed at him.

Once dressed and managing to hobble to the kitchen, Noct begins preparing food for them while trying to not be distracted by the younger man who can’t stop being handsy, pressing multiple kisses against his shoulders and neck.

“That’s enough of that,” Noctis says with a chuckle and nudges Gladio’s wandering hands away. “eat your damn food.”

“All right grumpy.” Gladio snorts and takes the offered food but sneakily steals another quick kiss before stuffing his face.

The two men sidle up together at Noctis’ island counter talking more about themselves while stealing pieces of each other’s noodles. Noctis talks about his friends and their plan that backfired, Gladio beaming that he swept the older man off his feet first. Gladio opens up more about his family, leading to Noct getting confused for a moment when the brunette mentions having stepmothers. He speaks fondly of his mother’s partner but when it comes to his father’s wife, he clams up and gets a thousand yard stare. Noctis knows that look and he knows not to push asking questions all at once.

Once finished eating and getting fully redressed, Gladio prepares to leave, stopping momentarily to exchange needy kisses with Noct, neither truly wanting to stop. Finally, they stop and say goodnight to one another, Noctis leaning against his door and sighing deeply.

“What a night.”     

He turns in not long after getting all his stuff prepared, even having to quickly run to his car to get his garments left inside. The blaring of his alarm wakes him the next morning, flopping out of bed with a groan, being both groggy and sore. Yet despite those issues he gets himself pumped up for his first day teaching at a college, reading the texts he gets from his friends and even his father; he can’t help but snort that his dad and Ignis tell him to look professional and make sure to shave.

Once he finishes checking he has everything for the day, he heads off to work. Upon arrival he stares around with wonderment despite having visited the campus a couple times for interviews and orientation, seeing as all the old and new students make their way around. Noct heads to his chemistry lab, looking in awe at how massive the room is. The gymnasium at the bigger of his prior school jobs wasn’t even comparable.

There is still a half an hour before his first class is to start, so he goes about checking all the burners to assure they work while making notes of where the extinguishers are. He did get a little too excited about pulling the cord to the emergency shower, finding it works immediately. There won’t be any chance of him or a student ending up with second-degree burns unlike his prior job; nothing like tackling a ninety-pound girl and using his jacket to smother out the flames.

A few of the students begin to pile in early, Noctis gleefully greeting them while trying not to come off as nervous or to forward. His first class was made up of entirely freshman just out of high school, about a dozen or so, nowhere near the overcrowded twenty-five plus from his time assisting at public schools. A bell rings signifying the day was getting ready to begin, the young professor growing more and more excited to start. A second bell rings and the halls outside become quiet save for the occasional swear and plodding of feet as a lost student tries to find their classroom.

“Good Morning everyone, I’m Mister Caelum and I’ll be your teacher for this semester.” he says and gets different levels of replies back. He can already guess which students will do well and which ones will be harassing him the last day of class for extra credit. “All right, I will read off each of your names and say here. First up, Abbott.”

“Here!”

“Allman?”

“I’m here.”

Noctis checks off that name, off to a good start. “Ames?”

“Yo, Teach!”

“Okay.” Noctis snorts and shakes his head. “All right, Amicitia?” Nothing. “No Amicitia?” he asks and looks around, not finding the student and frowns. “Umm, next is Brady?”

“Here!”

“Duckett?”

“Right here!”

The door to the classroom opens and a young man shuffles in, hat covered head down in embarrassment and mumbling constant apologies as he tries to find a seat. Noctis sighs.

“You’re late Mister?”

“Oh, uh Amicitia.” the young man mumbles out, sounding tremendously groggy.

This one may be a handful. “All right, please remove your hat Amicitia, that is disrespectful.” he reprimands, a soft smile on his face as the young man complies without issue, unlike his last job.

His smile slowly begins to melt away, turning into shock than horror as the young man looks up, amber eyes widening to the size of saucers. The ability to think or even breath seems to leave the new professor, chest constricting and nausea hitting him like a brick. G, Amicitia. Gladio Amicitia. The young man he met at the bar the other night, then bedded the next, last night. The one he felt something for he hadn’t in a long while and had believed, hoped, could go on more; was his student.

Fuck.