#this comic is way longer than first planned lmao

[dingledraw]

Playing Pretend: a Good Omens comic (Part 1/5)

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[undertheorangetree]

Urgency

Summary: Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Warnings: MDNI 18+ NSFW. Female reader. Possessive/jealous sex. Against a wall lmao. Vaginal fingering. Mild exhibitionism. Reader is purposely riling him up. He calls her a whore but in a fun way.

Author’s Note: You can find the full fic on AO3 the link is below plz feel free to let me know what you think :))

The queen had spared no expense on her son’s nameday, that much is clear the moment she walks into the hall. Perhaps Prince Aegon had been involved in his own party planning as well, as there are flagons upon flagons of wine, ale, cider, and even a few vials of absinthe lining the walls of the great hall alongside all the mountains of food. It is the first party that she has experienced since marrying Prince Aemond six moons passed and she doubts she will ever see anything so extravagant ever again. She does not think even her wedding compared to this, with all the finery and gold and jewels that seem to be everywhere her turns.

She too had done her best to dress up for the occasion. She had been gifted a beautiful Lysene gown two moons ago, a pretty blue thing made of silk and chiffon, full of layers and very low cut. It showed off far more of her breast than she is used to and is too thin to wear a shift beneath. She had been unsure about it at first but now that she stood amongst all the lords and ladies of the court, she feels as though she fits right in. And besides, she has other plans for this gown besides simple fashion.

Her husband has been ignoring her. She does not know if he truly noticed it himself, but she had seen little and less of him these past few weeks. Running countless errands with the excuse of duty, squeezing in training and dragonriding whenever he is given space enough to breath. She thinks she has only really seen him when he collapses in their bed at night, pressing a tired kiss to her cheek before falling asleep just as his head hits the pillow. There has been no time allotted for her and though she does not blame him for it- she had noticed rather quickly that he has a tendency to be very one track minded- she will not allow for it to stand any longer.

So she had decided to wear her new blue dress to show him just what he has been missing out on. To remind him that his wife is young and beautiful and here and needed more from him than a half mumbled goodnight.

And, much to her delight, he seems to notice immediately. She watches elated as his eye widens almost comically at her approach, roving over her as if he can’t quite believe that she’s real. It is not difficult to ignore him as he has her, instead making her way to stand before Aegon. She wishes him a happy nameday, endures the drunken, lazy smile he gives her as he assures her it is a very happy day indeed, before skirting around the table to sit by Aemond’s side. She does not deign to look at him, staring straight ahead at the crowd before them, and lets out a heavy sigh. His eye had been boring into the side of her face but it darts down then, watches as her breasts rise and fall with her breath, and she suppresses the urge to look too smug.

Aemond has always been good at keeping himself composed and so she expected him to have more resolve, to sit and stare for only the Gods know how long while he quietly seethed. So she is almost surprised when she feels his hand close around the back of her chair, leaning in close only a few moments after she has sat down.

“What are you wearing?” he manages to ask, grit out between clenched teeth.

She smiles, doing what she can to seem oblivious as she turns to look at him, head tilted. “Do you like it? I wasn’t sure which one to wear but my maid and I narrowed it down to this and the purple dress from Qarth. Do you remember it? Should I have worn that one instead?”

The question is rhetorical, as he knows very well which dress she is talking about. An ambassador from the Free Cities had arrived with a whole host of gifts for the royal family, including two massive crates filled with dresses for herself and Helaena. The pretty Lysene dress she wore now had been among them, along with gowns from Bravvos, Meereen, Essos, and the like. She had forced Aemond to sit and watch as she tried them all on, the latest fashions from all over the eastern world. The purple Qartheen dress had been particularly memorable to him as there was only enough fabric in the bodice to cover one breast, the other bared entirely. He had deemed the show over at that point and had fucked her against the wall to show his appreciation for the gown.

She bites her lip to suppress a grin when his face flushes red at the memory, his knuckles gone white around the knife’s handle in his hand. She swears she can hear the wood creak under his grip on her seat as well and doesn’t think she would be surprised if it cracked under his hand.

Her head cocks in the opposite direction as she hums, wordless encouragement to answer her previous question, but she isn’t entirely sure he is listening to her anymore. His eye has darted down again, tracing along the lines of her gown and she indulges him, pushing her chest out a little farther. It is almost funny, how she has reduced him to this. He almost reminds her of Aegon in this moment, a comparison she knows he would loathe. And though it is unkind and she knows that she should keep her torture confined to this alone, she want to see how far she can push him. It has been weeks-three, to be exact- since they had an intimate moment alone together and her patience for abstinence has worn thin. If this is her moment to ensure that her husband’s attention is on her entirely, then she is going to leap at it.

She does not have to wait long for her first opportunity to present itself. Lord Erwin Lannister, some second or third cousin off the main branch of the family tree, has come forward to offer good tidings and the moment he is done with Aegon, he sets his sights on her. Despite the fact that Aemond is practically limp across her lap, little Lord Lannister approaches with his head held high, offering them both a polite bow. The way he takes in her gown, however, is anything but polite, eyes hungry as he stares.

“My lady, it would be an honour to have your first dance of the evening, if you would indulge me.”

Aemond’s mouth twists immediately. “I would think that honour should go to the lady’s husband, should it not?”

The confidence Lord Erwin had arrived with falters at her husband’s tone, but she is not about to allow this opportunity to pass her by. Not without putting up some kind of fight.

“But you’ve been so busy, my love,” she laments, pressing a loving hand to his chest. “You should rest. I’m sure my Lord Lannister would be more than happy to dance with me, would you not, my lord?”

“Of course, my lady,” Lord Erwin agrees, likely far faster than he should have.

She graces the young lord with a smile before turning to press a kiss to Aemond’s cheek. She flits away quickly, standing and joining Lord Erwin on the floor. It takes everything in her not to look back at him, not to revel in the way he is surely seething at the loss of her attention.

Luck continues to be on her side, as the dance the musicians are playing requires her to stand quite close to Lord Erwin. The dance is one she knows well, so she does not need to think as she follows the steps. Instead, she dares to glance toward Aemond as she dances around the young lord, hardly paying him any mind as she watches her husband. She does not think Lord Erwin minds, as he is staring at her chest so single mindedly she does not think he would hear her should she speak to him. Aemond’s gaze is even more intense. His eye is trained on her as if he cannot bare to turn away, his mouth twisted and face drawn in a way she can’t quite describe. She recognizes the rage in his eye when it shifts from her to Lord Erwin, face hardening further, and she turns to face her partner.

“Are you enjoying the fete, my lord?” She asks, keeping her voice low so that there is no risk of Aemond hearing.

Despite his initial confidence, he looks almost shocked that she is speaking to him now and has to take a moment before responding, likely trying to decipher what it is she has just said. “Yes, my lady. Are you?”

She presses a little closer to him as the dance requires, eyes darting up to catch sight of Aemond and his clenched jaw before she turns back to the young lord and smiles. “Oh, yes. I am enjoying it immensely.”

She dances four more dances with separate partners before Lord Erwin returns, his confidence returning now that he believes Aemond will not be storming in to throw him aside. And Aemond does not turn away from her the entire time, his eye boring into her so fiercely she thinks it would cause anyone else to shy away. But not her. Instead, it takes everything in her to keep her smirk at bay, chest light as pride bursts through her.

“If I may be so bold, my lady, you look particularly beautiful this evening. Is this a new dress?” Lord Erwin asks, eyes once again locked on her chest.

“It is, my lord. Thank you. It is my husband’s favourite, I think.”

Though Lord Erwin opens his mouth to respond, a voice cuts him off before he can, a rough hand clasping around her elbow. “We’re going to retire for the evening.”

Lord Erwin is forgotten immediately as she turns toward her husband, smiling politely. “We have barely been here an hour, husband. Surely it is poor manners to leave so soon.”

“We’re leaving,” he repeats, much more stern this time.

Read the rest here :)

[habken]

Looking at your fem Bakudeku stuff, I have made a head cannon: Bakugo either doesn’t care about her hair or does. Either way, she wears it her own way and doesn’t like people messing with it.

Except Izuku. Izuku wears her hair in little pig tails and always asks to put Katsukis hair up like that. She puts little All Might clips in.

YEAHH !! Good headcanons ! I have so many thoughts about their hair to be honest, if I share them all it's just gonna be word vomit on a page lmao, but hair is super important to me! Here are some other sketches I did :) !!

I like the idea of Deku having long-ish hair up to junior high, and cutting it before UA! (I had a mini comic planned with her getting gum stuck in her hair right before the first day of school ohshc style and bakugou helping her cut it out, but I don't think I'll ever get around to actually making it)

I also imagine she's got a bunch of fun hair accessories! (like you said, she's definitely got all might hair clips, probably a whole stash lmao) The clips I drew Bakugou in on this post were a gift from Deku :') and I really like the idea of Deku putting her hair in a half-up/half-down style similar to her mom !

In my mind Bakugou wouldn't care too much about the way her hair looks, but also she really does actually cause she hates the "wow you look just like your mom!" comments lmao. I can see her doing her best to style it differently or keep it longer/shorter, just to stop some of the comparisons.

Aside from that, I think she'd also probably want to keep it out of her face, putting it into ponytails or pinning it back, especially when the class is training or she's out on a work study. Nothing worse than blasting off and getting a mouthful of hair </3

And yeah, I just really love the idea of them playing with each other's hair! Braiding it, brushing it, chatting about their day as they use a million goofy hair clips, I need it so bad

[gaycrittercentral]

YESS WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE THE FANKIDS ‼️

Hhhhdhdgshgd I’m very shy abt them but I’m gonna be brave since a couple of y’all were curious!! :’> here they are!!

There’s four of em and their names are Maisie, Lacey (short for Shoelace), Crowbar and Junior. They were born tiny, hairless and wrinkly and developed the ability to zoom around and track smells before they managed to open their eyes so they start terrorizing Jimmy Two Teeth before they can even see him, they’re like a horrible mix of naked mole rats and piranhas lmaoooo

Also here is the first drawing I ever did of them :’)

When I was designing them I felt like there were already so many fankids out there that are a really perfect fusion of both of Sam and Max’s looks, and I wasn’t crazy about trying to do it myself so I just made an army of little maxlets. The Maxlings, if you will! But I did give them longer tails in later drawings and Crowbar has floppy ears like Sam, so they didn’t completely skip his genes jfkhsgs ^^; I have planned out how they came to be but I’ll probably put that in a different post (maybe I’ll even write a little thing for it teehee that might be fun). But I can describe them a little here!!

Maisie is the oldest (as in the first one to be found, they weren’t really born in the traditional sense so \_:p_/) and she just really loves sharp objects lmao. She is mostly non-verbal, but in kind of a Ferb way where she’ll occasionally throw out a cryptic one-liner and mostly remain silent with kind of an ominous stare. Her sisters and brother are completely unfazed by this and have absolutely no fear of her, but she loves being scary to everyone else. She constantly seems like she’s about to commit an act of incredible violence but she doesn’t like to be caught doing it, so it’s all off-screen. She feels like it’s scarier that way. Max is very proud of her.

Lacey (Shoelace, because she used one as a teething toy as a baby which is baffling because neither of her dads wear shoes where did it come from??) is one of the middle kids. She likes dressing up and bounces around between masc and femme and both and neither. She also likes chatting a mile a minute with Crowbar, and she’s less of a twig than her sisters. Later in life she might try and get a lil buff like Sam. She mostly likes to go along with her sisters’ ideas because her head is pretty empty a lot of the time, and she’s slightly less inclined to jump to violence than they are. But only slightly. She also maybe picks up Sam’s habit of grabbing random items.

Crowbar is the other middle kid and fairly precocious. She’s the first one to unlock language capabilities (I have a comic about that I can post later!), and she loves trying to imitate Sam’s vocabulary. Not that she’s, like, good at it yet, but she’s trying lmao. She’s always very cheerful and bouncy and probably the most likely to cry a little if something goes wrong, but also frequently swings back around to bouncy happy and tends to forget whatever upset her immediately. She swings violently back and forth between having zero thoughts and being head full many thoughts that she has to babble loudly all at once.

And Junior is the youngest, the smallest, the baby of the family. He’s very shy and sensitive, and his sisters are like his own personal bodyguards lmao. He has a lot of sensory issues that his dads make sure to help him with, like getting him soft clothes and a noise cancelling beanie (bc he ears not really suited to headphones) and shooting out overhead lights when they’re too bright for him hdkdhshs. He also likes napping in Sam’s pockets and under his hat and Max loves carrying him around like the baby he is. He’s also a creative little dude and he likes drawing (and also eating the crayons afterward).

All four of them are little goblins who have no concept of morality (like even Junior, he may be skittish but he still condones violence and chaos hdkdhshs) and will eat almost anything. They are truly their fathers’ children shjfjjdgdjshsh, and speaking of which Sam and Max are thrilled to have them around and completely obsessed with them hehe. They pretty much just carry on with their cases like usual except now they have a small pack of land piranhas that they can sic on difficult suspects lmaoooo

And I have some more sketches of them I can post, too!! So I’ll probably bounce back and forth between that and the virtues for a bit hehe :>

[otaku553]

How goes the fma x albedo fic? I hope that doesn't sound pushy, I'm genuinely curious. And in that vein, do you have any little drabbles you may have written or want to write? Especially with your recent kny ocs/yourself and your siblings. That'd be super fun to read about! Your art AND your writing is so freaking good, the moment I see you've posted something new on your blog I'm clicking it so fast. Same with your ao3 account ❤️

Thank you for the kind words!!! Currently not working on any fics, since I just came out of 10 weeks of summer research where my days began at 8 am and ended at 9 pm for probably less than minimum wage hahaha (doing research is a Bit Sad but I get a whole month to relax before classes start again so thank goodness for that)

I do however!!! Have a lot of plans!!! If you’re interested you can read more below!

Plans include but are not limited to:

Finally working on Homuncular Nature again!! I definitely do have a lot of plans and cool scenes playing out in my head for the next chapter, it’ll just come down to when I actually put pen to paper (or stylus to iPad) to actually organize and write them all. The road block I think is that I have seen neither Albedo nor fmab very recently and all my concrete ideas are for around the 30 episode mark for fmab, the turning point with the first actual confrontation against father and the subsequent Briggs arc.

Rewriting Ten Thousand Maple Leaves! A lot of people have been very kind but I think I missed the mark with my first chapter to be honest. My writing has gotten a lot wordier and less succinct, which feels like I’m filling a chapter more with fluff and unnecessary description than actual content. I think I also dislike how I characterized Sanemi and how quickly Kazuha was willing to agree with things. Writing both of them is kind of a difficult challenge tbh! I think in rewriting it I want to give back to Kazuha more of his vagrant role in the games, where he is avoiding the law for reasons somewhat out of his control.

Ebisu siblings content! I think it might be fun to try having them interact with more of the canon characters in kny but I also think there’s some value in a complete sort of outsider point of view when inserting characters into a piece of media. I feel like whenever I see self inserts I see a lot of ocs making themselves indispensable and making meaningful relationships with existing characters that way and that’s totally valid! That’s a lot of what I do for crossovers as well. I think when it comes to my own ocs though, I want them to feel grounded in some form and the reality of it is that none of the characters I make based on myself or real people are that impressive or remarkable. But I also think there’s a lot of value in showing smaller scale things outside of the main interactions and plot to show that even though we aren’t remarkable, we still have our own meaningful connections and ideologies and stories :) in the end the Ebisu siblings are a lot more visual though so I may just continue making doodles and art without writing anything haha

Kirby & Meta Knight ageswap AU: I was mostly doing this on my ask-gikabi sideblog in short form comics, but I lost sight of what I wanted to do after making the discord and starting to interact with some of the people who followed it. I think a lot of people are inspired and have their own very cool ideas that I wanted to take into account but then eventually it was no longer my story or the story I wanted to tell, which is why I’m thinking of restarting it as a fic. This one is still in very rough idea stage though, I have honestly no clue how I’m even going to begin organizing it

Yanfei ace attorney crossover: this one’s just pure crack lmao I would definitely write it as crack taken seriously but I think this is fun to explore just for small ideas that pop up every now and then, i.e. yanfei is semi-immortal because she’s half adeptus so it would be Really Funny to me if she showed up in dgs era, got her attorney’s license, went into hiding after it became obvious that she wasn’t aging, and then re-emerged after rebranding herself as her own daughter or granddaughter. That, and I have a lot of fun imagining someone as pragmatic as yanfei trying to get through the sheer chaos of aa despite being otherworldly

Continuing winter weather advisory: I got to a really good point in that fic and was rereading it today like,,, damn I wrote that? And it would be fun to see where I planned on going with it so I do want to also try working on that a bit if I can

Kazuha & Kunikuzushi role swap au: this is something I posted about a Long While ago but it’s an idea I continue to be fascinated with :) I especially enjoy how these two characters could have had completely different roles and personalities depending on how their pasts happened (with wanderer being so nice and turning so bitter and kazuha growing up so spoiled (for lack of a better word) and turning out so weary and yet kind

Link click and mha crossover: this one is honestly just a very recent idea but I think it would be fun to make a drabble on how lightime photo studio would be able to continue operating even in another world and the trouble they might get into for illegal quirk usage and what using cheng xiaoshi’s powers in a world where being able to tell the future is canonically possible would entail

I have!! So many ideas!! And not enough time or motivation to actually write any of them most of the time :’)

But I’m very glad to hear that you enjoy them and look forward to my posts!! :D I really hope I can work on some of these over the last month of summer vacation that I have :)

[the-cult-of-russo]

Just Beneath The Flames (Part 4)

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader

Warnings: cursing, smut at some point probably lmao, zombie shit, typical canon violence. You know the drill.

A/N: As always, thank you to everyone reading this and coming on this journey with me.

—-----------------

You watched carefully as Billy tried to hotwire the car to no avail. It wasn’t the first one he’d tried, you’d lost count somewhere between car four and five. After he’d calmed down slightly, he’d announced you’d both be taking one of these cars back to his camp. His rationale was that there were so many, that one of them had to work. Only a bunch of them now looked like swiss cheese and the others just didn’t run after being sat here for so long. Every single one he tried had been a failure and you were starting to get anxious. He was in a terrible mood, not that you blamed him, but he hadn’t uttered a word to you after he’d told you his plan. The only thing coming out of his mouth was curse words directed at the cars every time it didn’t work. Sometimes he’d even hit the car as if he thought that might help, but you knew this was your fault and it was prickling at you. The idea of him being mad at you because of what you cost the camp felt like a heavy stone settling in your stomach and you just wanted to leave. You’d been here hours now working on the cars and you needed to get back before it got dark. On the way here you’d driven through a neighborhood so you knew you could camp out there to wait out the night, the journey being considerably longer on foot than in a car. You didn’t know how to broach it to him though without the possibility of him blowing up on you. He was well within his rights to leave you here but you were further than you’d been out here and you weren’t sure you’d know your way back on your own. But as he lay on the front seat with his long legs dangling out of the open car door, once again cursing as the car wouldn't start, your eyes anxiously darted to the sky you knew would be getting dark soon before back to him.

“Billy… we should just leave on foot,” you murmured, your stomach twisting uncomfortably. He shot you a dirty look before trying once again with a car. 

“I’m serious, I don’t wanna be stuck out on the highway at night,” you added, worry lacing your tone. It was bad enough being so out in the open if the dead came but you’d already had a run-in with the living and you didn’t want a repeat performance if they came back. You’d hoped it would be a long time since you had to deal with hostiles again but you knew you’d asked for too much. You could only hope they had just been passing through. He heaved a large drawn-out sigh and you prepared yourself for an earful. Instead though, he sat up, wiping a weary hand over his face as he rolled his shoulder.

“Fine, let’s go,” he muttered, climbing out of the car and slamming the door shut roughly, making you wince. You grabbed the duffel from the floor that you hadn’t put in the van before it was taken. All that was in it so far were the comics but you wondered if there would be anything in the house you’d camp out at. Neighborhoods could be deadly but this one seemed silent with no sign of the dead or the living. Clearing out one house if needed wouldn't be too bad.

You followed him as he walked, not quite in step with him as you were feeling far too on edge by his silence. 

“We should go by those houses we passed on the way here, camp there for the night,” you suggested gently, eyeing him as you did. All you got was a stiff nod and you gripped the duffel bag tighter. The tense silence felt like it was suffocating you as you walked and when you were almost at the houses, you couldn't take it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” you blurted, a deep frown on your face. Billy didn’t stop walking but he turned to look at you, a confused look on his face.

“What for?” he asked, sounding oblivious and your frown only deepened.

“This was my fault. If you didn’t bring me here to cheer me up, the van and all of your supplies wouldn't have been stolen,” you lamented. Billy’s dark eyes roamed your face quickly for a minute and you couldn't read his expression.

“Did you steal the van?” he asked pointedly. 

“Well, no but-” you started, getting cut off by him.

“Then stop feelin’ guilty for shit that ain’t your fault,” his tone was bitingly final, his raised brow punctuating the sentiment. Part of you wanted to argue, to tell him it was your fault, that you were the start of the chain of events that led it to happen but you kept your mouth shut. Surprisingly, he wasn’t mad at you and you weren’t about to convince him to be, so you decided it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. You fell into step with him then as you both walked, feeling a little less tense at the idea of having to stay the night with him since he wasn’t pissed at you. When you finally got to the houses, it had started to get a little dark and Billy stopped, you stopping next to him as you looked around. The street was mostly silent, a few roamers lurking further down but they wouldn’t be a problem. You looked up at Billy as his dark eyes assessed the houses and you wondered what was going through his head, what exactly he was looking for as he picked one. But then he was off again and you followed him to a blue house. He banged on the door much like he had the time you went to the hunting store but no noise greeted you, so he pushed open the door. Despite it starting to get dark outside, it wasn’t dark enough to blanket the inside of the house in complete darkness and your eyes swept around the place as you both walked in and shut the door. You strained your ears to see if you heard anything. Any shuffling, banging or groaning, but you heard nothing.

“I’ll check upstairs, you check down here,” Billy muttered and you nodded at him before he started making his way upstairs. The house didn’t smell like death which you were grateful for. One of the houses you’d been to with your old group a while back had the stench of death so ingrained into it that you didn’t think it would ever leave. The family there had been decomposing in the master bedroom. The dad had killed his three kids and his wife before turning the gun on himself, seemingly thinking he was saving them all from a worse fate. Maybe he had. 

You looked around, your knife at the ready with every door you opened but nothing popped out and tried to bite you so you relaxed a little. You were just making your way back into the living area when Billy came downstairs.

“All clear,” he stated.

“Same here,” you nodded, moving to flop onto the sofa and give your weary feet a rest. You watched him as he grabbed a small trash can from the corner of the room and brought it to the middle near the coffee table. He then went over to the little bookcase along the wall, looking at the books for a long moment before selecting one. He didn’t choose it to read though, instead, he opened the book and started ripping out the pages, throwing them into the trash can. When he was satisfied, he took a lighter out of his jeans pocket and set a page on fire before tossing that into the trash can also, making a small fire. You were grateful for the warmth as it started to get colder as the darkness got worse. He moved over to a large cupboard then and pushed it in front of the front door, no doubt to stop anyone coming in. He then went into the back of the house and you heard scraping on the floor and you presumed he was doing the same with the back door. You’d offer to help him but you didn’t want to get in his way, especially when you still felt sheepish over him losing his van. When he came back in, he was carrying a saucepan, grill rack, a tin of tomato soup, two bowls and two spoons. 

“There’s food?” you asked hopefully and he gave you a smile with a nod.

“Yeah. Not too much but it’s better than nothin’,” he said as he put the rack over the trash can and then put the saucepan on it. You didn’t exactly have your own backpack with you, not packing for a trip overnight. You had no food on you for either of you and you hoped there would be enough to take back too, that maybe it would soften the blow of all you’d lost. He emptied the soup into the saucepan before sitting on the floor near the fire. It didn't take too long to warm up the soup but he still had to keep stopping to put more pages of the book in the fire since it burned so quickly. But before long, he was handing you a warm bowl of soup.

“Thanks,” you murmured sincerely, wasting no time in digging right in. It felt so odd now to eat out of a bowl and with a spoon, felt so foreign. Even just having warm soup for once was a pure delight that felt so far removed from all you knew. 

When you were done, you set the bowl on your lap for a moment as you enjoyed the feeling of being full with something warm for once. But now with the warm food and the fire, you started feeling a little hot. You shimmied out of your jacket, tossing it next to you on the sofa before rearranging your scarf out of habit.

“You wear that thing ‘cause you're cold or ‘cause of the scar?” he asked bluntly, dark eyes watching you. 

“What?” you squeaked out, body tensing at his words. 

“I’m just sayin’... I get it if you wear it ‘cause it reminds you of bad shit, probably doesn't make you feel good. But if that’s why you’re wearin’ it then you’re thinkin’ about it all wrong,” he shrugged, going back to eating his soup.

“And how should I be thinking about it?” you asked pointedly, drawing his eyes to you again. He licked his lower lip and tilted his head at you.

“Those assholes tried to kill you, slit your goddamn throat and somehow, you survived and here you are and now they're dead. You got outta there alive. You should wear that thing like a badge of honor. It shows how strong you are, that you're a fighter, a survivor. It shows anyone that sees it that you're not weak,” he insisted firmly, eyes never wavering from you. You looked away quickly, toying with the spoon for a moment. He wasn’t wrong. It wasn't like you got to see it often but just knowing it was there would make you feel sick. You’d wear your scarf even when no one was around as if you could pretend none of it had ever happened. Because when you remembered, you got flashes of what they’d done and how scared you’d been, helpless. You didn’t like it. But you’d never thought about it the way Billy just explained it and you weren’t sure how to feel about it. The whole topic felt very heavy and far too deep and you weren't here looking to get attached to anyone. That was a fast track for one of you to die and you didn't want Billy to die. You cleared your throat before setting your bowl on the coffee table.

“I’m gonna see what shit they have upstairs. They might have some clothes we can take,” you murmured awkwardly, not missing the look of disappointment cross his face at you not acknowledging his words. You stood up and walked up the stairs trying not to feel too guilty about it. 

You started in the master bedroom and found a suitcase in the bottom of the closet. You got to work filling it up with clothes. You weren’t sure if there would be stuff to fit everyone but you did your best, folding things up carefully so you could get as much in as possible. Even things like t-shirts or long-sleeve tees would be good for winter if you layered them. Once you cleared out anything usable, you went into the kids’ room. The pictures on the wall and the two beds in the room made it seem like they were twins, a boy and a girl. Once again, you had no idea if anything would fit but you put stuff into the suitcase anyway hoping they could make use of it. On your way out of the bedroom, your eyes were drawn to the nightstand where an iPod lay. You picked it up and turned it on, fully expecting it not to work. To your surprise, it turned on. A smile broke out on your face and you got the urge to listen to it but you stopped yourself and turned it back off, slipping it into the suitcase. You’d let the kids have it, give them some sunshine in their very dark world. It wouldn't last forever obviously but you hoped it would at least make them smile.

The suitcase was getting heavy but you made your way into the bathroom, setting the suitcase down on the floor before opening the cupboards and rummaging around. You found some pain pills, nothing major but maybe they’d come in handy and you put them in the suitcase too. You noticed some body wash and shampoo on the side of the bath and while they weren’t really essential, they were still hard to come by. You knew the creek ran behind these houses and you wondered if Billy would be okay with you cleaning up a little before you head out the next day. You knew you needed it, maybe he’d want to too. You put them in the suitcase too, leaving them at the top where you could easily get to them if you ended up needing them the next day. When you were done, you glanced into the mirror feeling confused about who was looking back at you. The end of the world wasn’t kind to anyone and you’d definitely lost weight out here with so many days you’d gone without food. You looked tired beyond belief, rings around your eyes. You blinked at yourself for a long moment before you carefully unwrapped the scarf from around your neck and forced yourself to look at the jagged skin there. It looked a lot better than the last time you’d seen it but it was still glaringly obvious. You felt that wave of nausea but you blew out a long breath and forced your eyes not to look away. You tried to remember Billy’s words, that this was something to be proud of. A badge of honor. This was physical proof that you’d made it out of there that day and Frank and Billy had taken care of your problem for you. As you tried to take his words to heart, it got a little easier to look at it. You kept repeating in your head that you were a survivor and you looked down at the scarf in your hands before you folded it up and put it into your jacket pocket. You weren’t sure when you’d feel the deep need to hide it come back but for now, you’d see how this went. 

“Find anythin’ good?” Billy’s voice startled you and you whipped around, a hand over your chest.

“Jesus Christ, you need to wear a bell or something,” you huffed, feeling your heart beat against your hand rapidly. 

“Thought I wasn’t stealthy?” he asked amused, raising a brow at you and you gave him a look. You noticed then how his eyes darted to the scar on your throat and your body tensed a little. He didn’t look repulsed or disgusted though and instead, you noticed how his lips curled into a small smile seemingly happy that while you hadn’t acknowledged his words, you’d clearly listened to him. You were grateful that he didn’t comment on it though, you’d feel far too awkward for that. 

“So, what d'you get?” he asked as he glanced down at the suitcase.

“Some clothes, not much but it's better than nothing,” you smirked, echoing his earlier words and he chuckled.

“I found an iPod too for the kids, and some pain pills,” you added and he smiled.

“That’s good. More than what we came here with,” he murmured, looking pleased and it made you happy. He grabbed the suitcase with ease from the floor before he left the room and you followed him. When you both got downstairs, he set the suitcase by the door before sitting in the armchair and you sat on the sofa again. 

“You should get some rest,” he murmured as you sunk into the soft cushions.

“What about you?” you asked, raising a brow at him. He also looked pretty tired.

“I’m gonna take watch,” he explained and you rolled your eyes.

“You need sleep too, Billy. You take first shift and wake me up, then you can get some rest,” you said, giving him a firm look before he could argue. He snorted but nodded.

“Alright,” he acquiesced and you felt a little better. You didn't need someone watching over you sleeping like you were some princess, you were more than capable of taking watch just like anyone else. You pulled your boots off before laying down on the sofa, facing away because it was weird to sleep facing him. You hadn’t slept around anyone else in what felt like forever and it was a strange feeling to do so again. You were so exhausted that it didn’t take long for you to drift off, feeling the safety of having someone else there with you and the warm fire going. 

When you woke up, it took your brain a moment to figure out your surroundings as your eyes adjusted, but once you came to your senses, the first thing you were very aware of was that it was now light outside. You sat up, glancing around and seeing Billy nowhere. Hearing some movement in the kitchen, you got up, padding over to the kitchen door and peeping inside. Billy was filling up the duffel bag you’d brought with you with what little food was in the cupboards. 

“What happened to waking me up for watch?” you asked as you rubbed your eyes tiredly. You’d admit it was the best sleep in a while. He shot you a wry smirk before continuing to stuff things in the bag.

“You looked peaceful,” he shrugged and you narrowed your eyes at him even though he couldn't see.

“Billy-” you started, a chastising tone to your voice but he cut you off.

“It’s fine, I got some sleep too. We were pretty safe, didn’t see the need in wakin’ you,” he explained, zipping up the bag and turning to you. Your eyes scanned his face for a moment and he did seem a little more well rested than the day before. You decided to drop it.

“I was hoping before we left that I could go by the creek to wash up. I found some body wash and stuff last night,” you mused. It wasn’t like you really needed his permission, you were a big girl and could do what you wanted. But you’d cost him his van and supplies and you didn’t want him to just leave you behind if he just wanted to hurry up and get back.

“Sounds like a good idea, I think I’ll wash up too,” he nodded, flashing you a smile before he walked back into the living area. You followed him, watching as he went upstairs, and you grabbed the shampoo and body wash and also a clean change of clothes you’d found. You weren’t too fussed with finding things for yourself, you had a couple of things back at your treehouse. You’d been more concerned with making up for what you’d lost them. You did grab one change of clothes though simply because you needed them and you knew you’d need things to layer once it got colder. You grabbed a pair of dark gray jeans, a black long sleeve tee and a red plaid shirt to go over it. You’d also packed some underwear for everyone. While in the old world, wearing someone else's under garments would have horrified you, beggars couldn't be choosers here. They had been in the chest of drawers clean and it would give you an opportunity to wash your own in the creek as well as your current outfit. Billy came down then and you noticed he’d brought down a few large fluffy towels from the bathroom and it made you smile. There were a lot of things you took for granted in your old life that were precious luxuries now. Billy handed you a towel and you took it gratefully, bundling all your items together as he rummaged through the suitcase for some clothes too. You watched as he picked black jeans, a white tee and a dark red sweater. 

You both headed out the back door of the house and went out the back gate that was directly behind the creek. 

“Alright, you go first, I’ll keep watch,” he instructed and it was already something you’d anticipated. You’d been about to say the same thing to him. The both of you being naked and vulnerable was the quickest way for things to go south if a threat appeared, whether that was living or dead. 

“Are you gonna turn around?” you asked with a raised brow as he just looked at you. A devilish smirk curled his lips as he tilted his head.

“You really gonna deprive me like that? You know how long it’s been since I seen a naked woman?” he asked, amused. The wry grin tugging at your lips really took the wind right out of the ‘firm’ look you were giving him and his eyes danced with mischief as you gestured with your finger to turn around. He rolled his eyes playfully but complied. 

“If you take a peek, I’ll have to return the favor,” you murmured as you started stripping off.

“You say that like I got somethin’ to be ashamed of,” he laughed and you snorted at him. It wasn’t like you were too bothered with nudity these days, modesty had no place in the new world. There had been plenty of times where your old camp mates had seen you naked at some point or another out of necessity to get clean, the only person you point blank refused to with was your brother because that was just fucking weird. But something about Billy seeing you naked made your whole body flush. Once naked, you took your dirty clothes, shampoo and body wash over to the creek and got to work. You tried to be quick, not liking being so vulnerable like this and also not wanting to take up too much time so Billy also got a turn. You washed yourself and enjoyed how amazing it felt to be grime free and smell so good, even if the water was super cold. In the rare moments you’d been able to wash up at the creek that ran down the forest, you’d not been able to use products to do so. With your body and hair washed, you got to work quickly washing your clothes before you got out, squeezing out as much water as you could before wrapping the towel around you. You lay your clothes out on a large rock, not that it would do much good to dry them since it wasn’t really warm, but it would be better than nothing until you got inside. You took the towel from your body, giving you hair a rough towel dry before drying yourself. This was also something you didn’t get to do often and nothing sucked more than having to put clothes back on while you were still wet so you made sure to dry yourself completely. You were just stepping into your panties when Billy’s voice broke the silence. 

“Nice ass,” he murmured, a teasing lilt to his voice. Your head whipped over your shoulder but he wasn't looking at you and you squinted. You couldn't tell if he peeped or not. 

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, so now I’m gonna have to look at your ass. I hope you’re happy,” you sighed dramatically. He did turn then but thankfully your panties were now on and while the rest of you was still bare, your body was facing the other way, your head the only thing facing him. 

“Don’t sound so hard done to, sweetheart. I think you’ll like the view,” he smirked and you couldn't help the inelegant snort that left your lips as his confidence. 

“You flirt with every strange girl you meet, Billy?” you asked him teasingly as you turned back around and grabbed your bra. It was a size too small and not great and you’d often considered forgoing one altogether. But you felt like most of your body heat seemed to come from your breasts like some personal body heater and the bra added an extra layer of insulation. Without it, if your boobs got cold, the rest of you would soon follow and you’d have no chance. 

“Only the pretty ones,” he replied smoothly and you could hear his smirk even if you couldn't see it, you felt your cheeks burn hot. You shimmied into your new jeans and then slipped the tee over your head and then the shirt, buttoning most of the buttons but leaving the top few undone. 

When you turned around, he was still looking at you with a sly smirk on his face and you had no idea if he’d been watching you the entire time you got dressed. You couldn't even be mad at him with the boyish look he was giving you and you rolled your eyes, scooping your knife and thigh sheath from the floor where you’d left it.

“Your turn,” you snorted, moving over to where he was. With one last smirk, he walked over to the creek and you heard him shuffling around and getting out of his clothes. 

“Thought you were gonna look at my ass,” he remarked wryly and you smiled to yourself. You were quickly realising he was a cheeky little fucker. 

“I am, but I didn’t say when. Gotta keep you on your toes,” you replied playfully and he chuckled at you. When the sound of clothes rustling stopped, you waited a beat before glancing over your shoulder. He was walking over to the creek and you got a good eyeful of his ass, and what an ass he had.

“Nice ass,” you smirked, making him look over at you with a laugh. He didn’t look embarrassed at the least, only amused and a little cocky as he shrugged with a grin. You shook your head before turning away again and letting him get on with his task. You kept watch vigilantly, making sure to be aware of any threats that might pop up. Billy was counting on you here to have his back with him so vulnerable and exposed and he’d done the same for you. You stayed that way until he walked over to you fully dressed and clean. 

“God, I missed bein’ clean,” he sighed, rubbing at his hair with his towel. 

“Tell me about it. I always dream of finding some kick ass cabin in the woods that has a rigged up water system or something,” you snorted, making him smile. You’d love something like that. You knew it was possible but you’d have no idea where to start to make something like that yourself. You both grabbed your items and brought them back into the house, bundling the wet clothes into the towels and putting them in the suitcase. You’d lay yours out to dry once you got back, you didn’t have time to sit there waiting. After making sure you had everything, you both set off to make your journey back home. Billy had insisted on carrying the suitcase since it was ridiculously heavy, even at your insistence that you were fine and you’d been the one to pack it so full, so you wound up with the duffel which to be honest, was still pretty heavy. You’d shared dry cereal as you walked, passing the box back and forth between you both as you made small talk. He’d told you a bit about growing up in foster care and you’d told him about your family and brother. Before long, you recognised where you were as you weaved through the woods to his camp. Your body clock had a pretty good gauge on morning, afternoon, evening and night and it was telling you it was somewhere in the afternoon.

“Are they gonna be worried about you?” you asked as the thought occurred to you. Billy had essentially vanished the morning before and hadn't come back.

“Probably,” he answered simply and you nodded. It made you feel a little uncomfortable, the idea of his people running around like headless chickens wondering where he’d gone. This whole thing had been because of you, because Billy wanted to cheer you up. You didn’t want them all panicking that he was gone, but that was exactly the scene you came back to. Not everyone was there but those that were seemed panicked as they rushed about. Karen was the first to see you both and relief seemed to hit her like a train before she barreled over and tackled Billy into a hug.

“Oh my god! Where have you been?! We’ve been worried sick about you! Frank, Curt and Micro have been out looking since last night!” she rambled, squeezing him tightly. He smiled lightly and rubbed her back before she moved away.

“Got caught up, some shit went down. I’ll tell you when Frank gets back,” he murmured and she nodded. Her eyes drifted to you then and she smiled brightly at you. 

“You’re both okay though?” she asked, looking from you to Billy.

“Yeah, we’re good,” he smiled, tapping her on the arm.

“I’ll walkie Frank and let him know,” Matt smiled, grabbing a walkie from near a sleeping bag.

“Raven, come in, this is Red Devil,” Matt said into the walkie and you looked over curiously at the weird names.

“Go ahead,” Frank’s voice came through the walkie and he sounded stressed.

“Blackbird’s here, just got back…” Matt explained before he glanced over to you even though you knew he couldn't see you. “Artemis is with him,” Matt added and your lips curled in amusement as you turned to Karen who was closest to you.

“Artemis?” you asked with a snort and she smiled.

“We all have code names, we thought you needed one too. Billy was the one who picked it,” she grinned and you turned your eyes to Billy then who smirked at you.

“Artemis? Really?” you asked and he shrugged.

“Come on, Goddess of the hunt? You even got a bow and everything,” he grinned ruefully and you shook your head with a smile. It was a bit of a compliment if you were honest. 

“They’re on their way back,” Matt informed you, you’d missed whatever Frank’s reply had been since you’d been talking to Billy and Karen. You felt anxious then knowing he wouldn't be too happy to learn his van and the supplies in said van were now gone. You had the urge to say your goodbyes now but you couldn't do that to Billy and leave him to deliver the bad news on his own like that. With Billy back, the others in the camp seemed a lot calmer as they all settled around the fire. 

“Oh, before I forget!” Karen rushed over to a bag on the floor rifling though it for a moment before rushing back over and holding out a walkie to you.

“This is for you. It’s already set to our channel so if you have it on, you might hear us communicating if we’re not with each other and stuff. But if you ever need us, feel free. Not all of us have them on all the time but at least one person does so you should be able to get through if you need anything,” she smiled. You blinked at it for a moment before you took it, grasping tightly in your hand.

“I uh… thank you,” you murmured, a shy smile on your lips. It was an incredibly kind gesture and one they didn’t need to extend to an outsider. It said a lot about how much they trusted you, giving you a direct line to listen in to their conversations like that. It did make you feel a little safer though, knowing if you were ever in a bind, you could reach out if you needed to. You waited around a little bit feeling nerves and guilt twist at your stomach. You’d had to fight the instinct to gravitate towards Billy who was chatting to Sarah near the tent and you just leaned against a tree as you waited for the others to come back. It didn’t take them too long. 

“Jesus fuck, Bill! Where’ve you been, man?” Frank asked harshly, an accusing tone to his voice that was in conflict to his very concerned face. He made a beeline for the man and grabbed in in a hug that reminded you of when Billy had turned up after thinking his camp would all be dead. When he pulled away, he gave Billy a look.

"I got some bad news, Frankie,” he chuckled sheepishly, rolling his shoulder. He looked like a child about to be told off.

“What is it?” Frank asked seriously.

“I went out to the highway, took Y/N with me,” Billy started.

“I thought we were going out there in a few days,” Foggy frowned in confusion and it only made you feel worse. If the group had gone out there and not just you and Billy they might have had a fighting chance to keep their van if the assholes still showed up to take it.

“I know, but you know me,” Billy smirked and Frank scoffed.

“Impulsive is your middle name,” he muttered with a wry smile. You wondered why Billy didn’t rat you out about why he’d taken you there. He made it seem like he was the reason for all of this and he’d just taken you along for the ride.

“Well we went out there, I got a bunch of gas, Y/N found a bunch of clothes and shit, good for the winter. But then these assholes in a truck pull up, start rainin’ bullets down on us. And I’m takin’ heavy fire power here, rapid gunfire and shit. We were outnumbered and outgunned. Next thing we know, they’re takin’ off in our van. Took it with all the shit inside,” Billy frowned, a dark look passing on his face, you remembered how mad he’d been when it happened, how you thought he’d been mad at you.

“I’m really sorry, Frank,” you frowned and he turned to look at you.

“You’re kiddin’, right? I mean, yeah it sucks we lost our shit but you two are safe and that’s all that matters,” he said sincerely, looking at you like that should have been obvious. 

“We had to walk back, camped out in a house overnight. Y/N found some shit at the house though so we brought it back,” Billy explained as he gestured to the duffel and suitcase on the floor.

“What did you get?” Sarah smiled warmly as she glanced from Billy to you.

“Clothes mostly, just tried to fit in as much as I could. Billy found some food too,” you shrugged. 

“She got some shit for the kids too,” Billy grinned, unzipping the duffel bag. The comics were only in his hand for a second before Zach snatched them up.

“Awesome!” he beamed, running off to the tent with them.

“Zachary!” Sarah chided, her mouth agape as Micro snorted.

“Thanks!” Zach yelled before he was in the tent and you smiled to yourself.

“What’s this?” Leo asked curiously, grabbing the iPod out of the suitcase. It was obvious by her face that she knew what it was, just not who it was for.

“I found it in one of the bedrooms, thought you guys might like it. It still has some charge left,” you smiled. Her eyes widened, a face splitting grin taking over as she jumped up. She shocked you when she wrapped her arms around you for a very brief hug before she pulled away.

“Thank you!” she grinned widely, popping the earbuds in right away before moving to sit under a tree. You felt yourself smile, happy they liked what you’d gotten them. This life was hard enough but you couldn't imagine going through this as a kid.

“Thank you,” Sarah murmured, sincerity coating her voice as she squeezed your arm. You nodded, smiling shyly and not feeling all too comfortable with all the focus on you. 

You were thankful when Billy took the suitcase over near the fire and pretty much everyone started looking through it, pulling things out and claiming them. Frank and Karen were still standing near the tree as they spoke softly among themselves and you walked over.

“I’m gonna head out,” you said with a sheepish smile. It always felt weird to announce you were leaving like this, it made you feel awkward. Before Frank or Karen had a chance to reply, another voice came from behind you.

“You were gonna leave without sayin’ goodbye?” Billy asked with a teasing tone, moving to stand next to you.

“I’m hurt, thought we bonded and shit. Even saw each other’s asses and everythin’,” he huffed playfully, pouting a little. You almost choked on the air you were breathing as Frank barked out a laugh and Karen’s eyes widened.

“You what?” she asked with a laugh.

“I knew it!” Foggy exclaimed from near the fire, pointing at you and you felt your face heat up.

“I wasn’t gonna leave without a goodbye,” you muttered with an eye roll and a smile, willing your face to calm itself with how flushed you felt. 

“Mhm, sure,” Billy scoffed, his slight smile betraying his offended tone. 

“It was good seein’ you again, Y/N,” Frank smiled kindly and you smiled back. It seemed like that was his go to parting words for you and you wondered if he felt as awkward as you did with these goodbyes. 

“Karen give you the walkie?” he asked and you nodded.

“Yeah,” you said, holding it up in your hand.

“Alright, don’t be afraid to use it,” he said firmly, giving you a look.

“And you still need to come around for dinner sometime,” Karen reminded you with a grin.

“I will,” you snorted, making her smile before she glanced at Billy and then tugged on Frank’s arm to lead him to the fire with the others, leaving you with just Billy.

“I’d offer to walk you back but we seem to have the unfortunate habit of windin’ up in trouble when we’re alone together,” he smirked in amusement and you snorted.

“Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something,” you grinned.

“Maybe it is, but I like a little danger so not too sure what message it’s tryin’ to send me,” he shot you a toothy grin and you smiled.

“Stay safe, alright?” he added, raising his brows at you.

“I’ll try my best,” you murmured wryly and he nodded, moving over to the duffel on the floor. You hadn’t noticed but he’d put the towel and your wet clothes in there and you saw before he zipped it that he’d also left some of the food items in there for you and it made you smile.

“Thanks,” you smiled.

“Anytime. And remember what Frank said, you need anythin’, you use the walkie,” his face was a little more serious then and you nodded. 

“Do I need to use the codenames?” you asked teasingly and his grin was back then. 

“Obviously,” he snorted and you rolled your eyes playfully. 

“I don’t even know them, except for yours, Frank's and Matt’s,” you shrugged and he moved away, looking through a backpack you were sure was Karen’s since it was near her sleeping bag. He grabbed a notebook out of it and a pen and started scribbling something on it. You waited patiently until he tore the page out and sauntered back over to you.

“Better get memorizin’ ‘em. I’ll be givin’ you a quiz in a few days,” he smirked playfully and you took the paper, noticing he’s scribbled everyone's names and codenames down. 

“Yes, sir,” you muttered impishly and he raised his brow, a slow sly smirk spreading on his face that made you feel almost weak at the knees. 

“I’m leaving,” you huffed with a snort, making him laugh as you turned on your heel and left. 

When you got back to your treehouse, the first thing you did was bury the rabbit from the day before. It was still there and the last thing you wanted was to draw the dead to where you were sleeping. After that, you climbed up and pulled the ladder up. You clipped the walkie to your backpack before opening the duffel bag and setting your wet clothes over the hole of the window to dry, then you sat down and grabbed a tin of peaches, using your pocket knife to open it. You glanced at the paper Billy had given you, reading over the list. 

Billy - Blackbird

Frank - Raven

Curtis - Pirate

Karen - Swan

Matt - Red Devil

Foggy - Badger

Micro - Spook

Sarah - Mama Bear

Leo - Lion

Zach - Hawk

You smiled to yourself as you read it before putting it into the front pocket of your backpack and devouring the peaches. You settled leaning against the wall and sighed, your head falling back onto the wood with a thud. It suddenly felt far too silent in your little treehouse all alone. 

Taglist: (if you’ve been asked to be tagged and aren’t here, it wouldn’t let me tag some people.)

@firexfate

@blanchedelioncourt

@ariesbutalibra

@sunshinedaisies-anddeath

@snowkestrel

@music-indie-tv

@idaofinfinity

@sweetserendipity65

@ramadiiiisme

@k-marzolf

@celestialams

@woowwwee

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I have dyslexia as well so I listen to podfics a lot! Can I ask how you write so perfectly with dyslexia? No need to answer if you don't want to, jus curious about your process :-)

Hey, sweets, it's no problem, don't worry!

I'm gonna take this opportunity to do what I do best and... overexplain. (Which--the overexplaining, overwriting that I do--I'm convinced is due to dyslexia. It takes a lot of words, which I don't feel naturally attuned to, to communicate the thoughts I have in my head. I struggle with words and sentence structure, and it all comes out tangled, so I just keep trying until I have monster paragraphs, lmao.)

Yeah, I'm dyslexic! Very dyslexic, lmao. And I do a lot to work around it, trying my best to write (mostly) coherent words, but also, I don't really think about the process I use all the time because... it's just what I have to do, y'know? I've always had to have work arounds. Like, I've obviously been dyslexic my entire life, but I didn't get a diagnosis until late, late middle school, and at that point, the "accommodations" I got at school were entirely useless. Like, oh, wonderful, preferential seating. Sure. Yeah. That will definitely help with my dyslexia. Thanks.

I also remember, just as a side note, that it was during that time when I was refused accommodations like extra time for tests, reading aids, note-taking aids, etc. all which would've been EXTREMELY HELPFUL because I was doing "well enough" in school. So, clearly, I didn't "need" them, if anything, they would be "wasted" on me when they could go to someone else who was actually struggling (which, I get, public school funding is shitty and there aren't unlimited resources, but I'm still slightly salty, lol. Just because I didn't appear to be struggling on the outside didn't mean I wasn't struggling. It's similar to having "high functioning" depression, like, it doesn't matter if I can function if I still feel like fucking shit constantly). I was also so, so close to not being diagnosed in the first place because, according to the doctors I saw, I was smart enough that it wouldn't matter.

That's a reoccurring theme with my dyslexia, actually!

People never believe me!

Which, sure, is a compliment to other people. But it's a backhanded one. I don't want to be complimented by pushing everyone else down.

ANYWAY-

The process.

The process starts--background wise--with practice. The shit answer. I know. But, really, practice. I've been writing stories for a lot longer than I've been posting fics. I've written lots of fiction (short stories and nonshort stories), I used to write poetry, and I'm a life-long journal-er. I used to read a lot, lot of books, too, despite the challenges with my dyslexia. It'd just that now I write so much for fandom and with higher education challenging me, I find it hard to have the time or the energy to read and deal with more words than I already do.

So, I have lots of practice on my side, active and passive, but I also have other things...

I type all my fics, and I use fonts and font sizes extensively. I tend to use bigger font sizes overall, not like wildly huge fonts, but not 11 or 12, either. It depends on the font itself--some fonts have larger letters than others. Something about the letters being more visible and having smaller sentence chunks on each line helps me anchor the letters in place.

I also will plan my fics in one font (probably whatever the program is set to by default), then flesh out the plan more in a different font, after I'll actually go and write out my fic in a new font, and when I'm ready to make edits and add final touches I use a new font, again. I tend to bounce between Arial, Verdana, Open Dyslexic, and Comic Sans. Yes, I write smut I comic sans regularly 💀💀

I've seen research that says, yes, fonts can affect dyslexia and research that says it doesn't do shit so... 🤷🏻‍♂️ Either way, I feel like it helps me find mistakes because it tricks my eyes into thinking the words are new, lol. That, and I find it more comfortable to write in dark mode, I don't know why or if it's doing anything specifically to my dyslexia, but I get less lost in the words when in dark mode.

While I'm doing all that font changing, I'm also, as I mentioned, writing and re-writing, which means reading and re-reading. I go over my fics A FUCK TON. Pure repetition irons out a lot of shit by brute force, lol. I have friends who will write essays for school and look over it once, maybe twice if they're feeling spicy. I can not comprehent that. Not me. If I haven't re-read it, once I'm at the final editing and final touches stage, at least six times then... it's not going to be posted. I'll also change fonts between re-readings. And when I put the fucking thing into AO3, I re-read it again.

(I'm sure a beta reader would be very helpful, but I'm also very protective over my art--writing, drawing, sculpture, or otherwise, and so I haven't played with that, lol. You'd have to ask someone else about their experience there!)

While writing, reading, re-writing, and re-reading, I'm also reading out loud to myself.

Everything.

All 👏🏻of 👏🏻 it 👏🏻

I say all of it.

It helps me with flow and writing style, sure, but really, it forces me to realize mistakes and lessens my mistakes. You mentioned podfics and while I haven't gotten into podfics I am a fucking podcast, music, audio guy. I find audio so much easier to process than written words.

(You might find this poll of interest, I do, lol)

Aaaand, while all of this is going on, I also, of course, use a grammar program. I use Grammarly because it was most accessible (re: free and recommended to me by an English teacher) in high school. I keep in mind that it has batshit insane suggestions sometimes, and I have all their bullshit AI helping tools turned off, but... it does help a ton.

In conclusion, something that I am working on myself is that sometimes when I'm having a bad day with my dyslexia--maybe I'm tired and I can't focus, maybe I have a headache, maybe my eyes are fried from staring at a screen all day, maybe I've done too much reading for college, maybe my threshold for frustration has been exceeded and I just can't deal with the challenge that writing presents that day, or whatever--I can't write and I need to accept that. I'm not gonna be able to produce something good, maybe not even something presentable, every time I sit down to write.

That's fine!

That's how writing works for everyone! That's how writing works for me, someone who struggles with letters and numbers and writing and reading and the whole fucking thing. That's okay. Let it happen. Let it go. Try again tomorrow.

Uhhh, I hope some of that, any of that, was of interest? Helpful? Maybe?

[thefakehedgehogaroundhere]

ok well if no one will msg me so i can copy and paste my sonic forces rewrite braindump i'll put it here

First off: The war has already gotten insanely bad before Sonic disappears. Eggman has been sending Badniks everywhere so it's impossible for the characters to fight them all at once. I'm taking Infinite's Jackal Squad and making them a city defense team rather than thieves. And to give the playable avatar a bit of story, they're a part of the squad as well. So after battling a Badnik, Infinite is knocked out. The squad runs to get him medical help, and he wakes up alone.

Then Starline shows up and gaslights Infinite into thinking he was abandoned. Starline gives him the mask, and takes him to Eggman. This way we get the whole "Starline meets Eggman and tries to show off that he can be a villain too" plotline. In the comics, he just sort of shows up, so if he brings a newly brainwashed minion, then that makes it a bit more interesting. Basically, Infinite sides with Eggman, because he believes siding with the Resistance got him abandoned and alone.

I'm also planning on changing that one scene where Tails cowers in front of Chaos. That was REALLY out of character, especially since Tails has literally defeated Chaos before. So I was thinking maybe he would try to fight Chaos, but as this is an illusion from Infinite, his fighting tactics are different than Chaos's actual tactics. This catches Tails off guard, so now he has a reason to be scared, but instead he's just confused. I think this works WAY better than just having Tails curl in a ball and hide.

The other main thing I want to change is what happens when Sonic gets captured. Honestly, I think changing Sonic's reaction to getting imprisoned and tortured, making everyone a little less hopeless without him, and keep them from finding out Sonic is alive for a while longer would make the whole game WAY better.

Sonic isn't just being super sarcastic and mentions "oh lol you're torturing me lmao anyway", he's actually weakened and injured. And this has an actual effect on the story and gameplay. He has less stamina, so attacks don't deal as much damage, and in cutscenes, he's still visibly hurt and distraught. He was tortured for six months and that's never really shown in the game??

I'm not saying we need to show the actual torture- just make it actually have an impact. Also why did they chain up his arms in the game? Why not chain up his legs? What's he gonna do, punch Zavok? He's the fastest hedgehog, not the strongest. That would make the torture even more impactful because he couldn't escape.

I also want to change everyone's reaction to Sonic being gone. In the game, the world falls to war as soon as Sonic disappears. But do you honestly think that with everyone's abilities combined- psychokinesis, invisibility, having a comically large hammer- missing just one team member who's just fast would mean the world collapses immediately? Eggman has been sending badniks to cities everywhere, so the team can't possibly fight them all at once. Everything's *already* collapsing.

When Sonic is gone, everyone carries on trying to stop the war without him, but also everyone looked up to him and they're devastated. They don't let it get in the way of fighting, but they're also fearing the worst and that Sonic may be dead. This is why I want them to not find out Sonic's alive as soon as they start thinking he was killed- they need to realize they've been too dependent on Sonic when they're perfectly capable of fighting on their own. Meanwhile, Sonic isn't capable of fighting on his own (at least not when he's this weak), and has to pray someone can save him.

I want to parallel this with Infinite and his Jackal Squad too. Infinite thinks everyone abandoned him, and wants to save himself. Meanwhile, the Jackal Squad doesn't have any idea what happened to Infinite, so they also have to realize that they're too dependent on him and can fight for themselves.

[ask-obt]

Is Dielle an actual meowth in-game, or another species entirely? From what I've seen they're not recruitable until post-game, so I got curious.

// Dielle is a Meowth in-game, and actually one of my Wondermail recruits, listed in my ruleset here!

And you can take a little peek at her profile in game too- with level and stats censored so you can't tell how far she is/gets in the game without dying (you are however allowed to see her IQ because I didn't give gummis to anyone except Rune for the most part lmao)

For the uninitiated, PMD: Explorers has the option to use a system called Wondermail (or Wondermail S for Sky specifically), where you can input a code to get specific jobs. The original intent for this was probably for kids to share jobs that gave them cool rewards with each other, but some folks figured out the algorithm the games use for this function to basically generate anything you want in the game. The website I originally used is no longer up, but I believe the archived version still functions as intended. When I did my first Sky nuzlocke all the way back in 2014 I gave myself the 5 Wondermail code as a mercy because I wasn't the best at the game, and gave myself a somewhat difficult ruleset by disabling the map. When redoing the comic/the run of the game in 2017, I just stuck with the same ruleset, but since then I'd gotten much better at the game and didn't need the Wondermail codes as a crutch nearly as much. So instead, I mostly used them to get recruits I normally couldn't get until postgame, to spice up OBT's roster a little bit. At this time I've used 3/5 of the Wondermail codes I allotted myself, with 2 of them being used on recruits. My gameplay for this run is still not finished, and I know it's cringe to not be done with a game after 5 years leave me alone LOL As for why I chose Meowth? I have literally no idea. I guess I just thought Meowth was cute and wanted to play with it since I never used it for the starters before. Around the time I recruited her I also had two TMs- Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. I waffled on which to give her, as it would influence her design. I wanted to give her a sabre tooth design of sorts, so Thunderbolt meant possibly a Raikou parent, and Ice Beam a Walrein parent!

As you probably guessed, I gave her Thunderbolt in the end. And then I remembered Zeraora existed and dropped the sabre tooth design altogether. Which is kind of a shame, I miss those little teefies and wish I kept 'em around. I did have one recruit who was going to show up as a species other than what they were, but later opted to keep them as their in-game species.

All recruits who show up in OBT will be the same as their in-game species (at least that's the plan at the time I'm writing this), though some NPCs may be swapped around with pokemon! Loudred being an Exploud is one of the more mild instances of this, while Team Charm's Medicham (tentatively) being a Hatterene would be a more noticeable one.

[baejax-the-great]

I have genuinely spent countless hours with nothing but All That Glitters on the brain since like mid December. As it comes to a close I just wanted to thank you for your writing. I’ve gotten so much happiness from it. (And also sadness but in a good, escapism-y way). I don’t think i’ve ever been so attached to a fic before. So sad to see this story end but grateful to have been blessed with ever encountering it in the first place. ❤️❤️

🎽👟🥇🐕

Thank you for this lovely message, Nonnie. I'm going to use it as an excuse to ramble way too long instead of writing the epilogue.

When I wrote even if it's a lie, I played around with a lot of tragic backstories for Achilles, though mostly non-seriously. I didn't really plan on including it--his relationship with Pat was basically comic relief. I wasn't even going to have it in eiial other than allusions to his fame and his clear fall from whatever fame that was, but a couple people asked, so I decided to have him give the abridged version to Zag.

Someone said they would read it if I ever elaborated on that story, and I remember thinking, lol I'm never writing that. Partly because at the time I assumed that painting Achilles in such a negative light just wouldn't go over well. But I also didn't really have an angle for how I wanted to tell that story, so it didn't interest me.

I don't totally remember how/when I came up with the plot for Gold, but I know @johaerys-writes was the one who really encouraged me to write it and I think @juliafied helped me with it a lot. I believe I posted the first chapter the day before I went out of town on what would be the first of many trips this autumn/winter. It's one of very few fics I wrote on google docs, mostly on my ipad because I don't own a laptop.

I think I was only a chapter or two into Gold when I started writing what is still titled in my docs as "Post-Gold." This fic ended up being such an interesting challenge because I had written what happens before and what happens after, and now I had over 20 years to cover to explain it all.

Here's what I knew at the start.

1. Patroclus got thrown out of his house the minute he got home from Seoul.

2. Achilles sets his own life on fire and Patroclus takes the blame for it, resulting in Achilles moving to Tartarus in shame and not returning until 2022 with Zagreus.

3. Because I'd already written it in eiial, the first time Patroclus sees Achilles in years, the first thing he does is make out with him. (I regretted this one a lot, but hopefully I made it work 🤣)

4. A 39yo got a silver medal in the javelin at the 2020 Olympics. As a result, one of the first lines I wrote was "Take me to Paris, Achilles." That entire scene changed, but I kept the line.

So then it was a game of filling in what actually happened (so much math to figure out the years and their ages lmao), and figuring out how to show the journey of two men growing up, growing apart, and then putting their lives back together. All the years were written out of order, which is why the different sections start the way they do-- originally it was just a system to help me keep track of what year it was and make sure I covered each one.

And with all of that, I thought this fic was going to be shorter than Gold. I figured each year would just be a snapshot--maybe 500-800 words to get a sense of it. Short and sweet.

I'm an idiot, of course. Just the reconciliation that took all of three sentences in eiial required over 15k words for this fic, and it could have been longer.

It was so fun to imagine all these eras of their life. I went from writing about guys who were much younger than me to men who were older than me. The way the world has changed between the year 2000 and the year 2022 is kind of astounding. Someone asked me why the boys couldn't just text each other in Gold and it's because it hadn't really been invented yet. We barely had wifi. They would have had an answering machine at their first apartment they shared with a goofy message recorded together.

To make a long, unnecessary essay short, this fic went from something I had no enthusiasm for and was certain I wouldn't write, to something I'm really proud of. I'm going to miss it.

I was talking recently with someone about this fic from Achilles' perspective-- over the 22 years, which moments would he pick as important in their lives for better or worse, and how many of them would match up with Pat's. I have no intention of writing that story, but it certainly would be a way to sit in this universe a little longer.

[arcaneglitch]

fic writer ask game: 5, 14, 15, 17?

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

The DSMP Speed Racer AU (I think I told you about this one). I like the idea but I don't plan to take it any further than in my brain

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

Lmao ok. This one's funny to me because I was considering trying to adapt my stories into comics, but ultimately scrapped the idea bc I'm way out of my depth. I can draw and I can write, but I haven't practiced enough with comics as a medium (although who knows? it may happen in the future)

If I had to pick one fic to adapt, I think it'd have to be Requiem for the Departed. I think the story and pacing would work for a film, specifically one with a longer runtime

Tbh I might have to make another post about this going into more detail

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

It varies. Sometimes, I'll use songs/lyrics. You'd see that most with my DSMP fics. I believe only one of my Destiny fics has a song title, though more songs probably appear in chapter titles

If I'm not using a song, I'll try to come up with something that I feel encapsulates the subject or feeling of the fic. Sometimes I'll have an idea right away, but sometimes I'll have a whole list of scrapped titles before I get to the one I like

16. At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

It depends on the fic, but usually quite late. Titles are usually one of the last things I think about because I have to write the story before I can find a title that works for it if that makes sense

My first two Destiny fics are still in my google docs as "The Story" and "The Sequel" lmao. I didn't title them until I got to the title field on Ao3

On the other hand, I had the title for And A Song picked out before I was halfway through, and I knew what I was going to call some of the Per Audacia fics before I even started writing. So there's definitely a spectrum for me when it comes to titles

Thanks for the ask :3

fic writer ask game

[tathrin]

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about? ✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

Well, I don't have the very first stories I wrote on a computer anymore because they died when the old family desktop did, but I have brought all my files along with me ever since I got my own laptop for college, so let's go have a peek in my oldest folders...

From Star Wars:

Ooh look, here's Baby Tathrin's Very Mature And Not-At-All Mary-Sue-ish Lengthy Backstory Novel for Rhysati Ynr, who deserved so much more character development and screentime than Rogue Squadron gave her and I'll do it myself if I have to, dammit, fic... Yeah, I still think Rhys deserved more story-time, but I'm definitely never going back to that fic because I'm not thirteen anymore XD

Bounty Hunter's Winter, which was supposed to be a young-Boba-Fett-grudgingly-teams-up-with-Sheltay-Retrac-in-Clone-Wars/Purge-Era and then timeskips to juxtapose with an-experienced-Boba-Fett-grudgingly-teams-up-with-a-young-Winter-in-Rebellion-Era fic that basically just existed to show How Fucking Competent all three of them were. There's nothing wrong with this one, it's just not got enough framework/point to be interesting going back to now.

Padmé Jedi Prequels is the working-title for a what-if? re-writing of the Prequel Trilogy where Padmé, you guessed it, was a Jedi too. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon still get sent to deal with the Trade Federation over Naboo, but Obi-Wan has been recently Knighted and Padmé is Qui-Gon's new Padawan. I do like what I have written for this one, but it would be a LOT of work to write the rest of it (basically: everything between "landing on Tatooine" and "the ending scenes w/ the Purge"), and the canon has changed sooooo much since I started working on it that I'd either have to re-work a lot of details or just throw my hands up and go "this is pre-Clone Wars tv show continuity reconstructed from memory, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!" and know that everyone, including me, is going to be so fucking confused lmao.

From Lord of the Rings:

Okay I'm so glad you asked this question mainly for this answer, because I had completely forgotten I ever did this, but: apparently back when I was in college, I started writing a story where a portion of the Fellowship along with Elrond's kids, Faramir, Éowyn, and Éomer were all re-embodied (in the case of the mortals and Arwen) or sent from Aman (in the case of the elf, half-elves, and dwarf) to go deal with some Terrible New Threat by...pretending to be Normal Modern Humans Undercover In College, I guess??? The only things I ever wrote for it were the intro, an "everybody tries to figure out how modern clothing works in a big department store and it's a Disaster, thank goodness they have Éowyn there to wrangle everyone" scene, a snippet of Legolas and Gimli being Very Good At Acting Like Humans on a balcony and annoying Aragorn, and Legolas nearly having a stroke when a bartender serves Gimli and not him, because "he's clearly old enough, but you look way too young; sorry kid try again when you have a better fake ID."

I've also got an ancient Three Hunters get pulled into the Star Wars universe post-War of the Rings when Artoo and Threepio's escape pod lands in Gondor instead of Tatooine story that I can't imagine I'll ever touch again, but does admittedly have some amusing (if very painfully Old Writing) bits written for it, so that was nice to look at (and wince over) again.

Also there's this, of course.

From the X-Men Comics:

A fanfic about a New Excalibur Team being formed that actually has (if I do say so myself, and I will) an excellent beginning, but which I failed to write-down the Actual Planned Plot of, and now I can no longer remember wtf I was going to do with the damn story, so it's probably never going to get any further since that's uhhh. kind of an important part of Writing A Story lmao.

One where Illyana gets shunted back to Mythical Camelot somehow when she dies during Inferno, irritates/distresses Merlin, befriends both Guienevere and Mordred, annoys Morgan le Fay, learns some advanced magic, and eventually has to help destroy Mordred to save everyone else; only then does she find her way back to the present, and comes back to life several years after her younger self has died of the Legacy Virus to be re-united with Kitty and the New Mutants. Given that in the (many) years since I started that fic, Illyana already has been resurrected it's uhhh. kind of a moot point of a story now lol.

Also there's surely some half-started Potter stories sitting around here that idk if I'll ever feel the urge to touch again (Green-Eyed Snake included). Maybe the burst of celebration I'll feel the day she just self-combusts from all that hate and finally just fucking dies will be inspiring...

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

Detailed, plausible, and most especially verbose ;)

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

Writing, definitely; although I've read a lot more fic in the past few months than I'd read for years, and I'm enjoying it mightily (navigating on AO3 is sooooooooooo much better than trying to slog through FFnet and livejournal and geocities omgggggg I can actually find good stories now, what is this witchcraft???).

[mixxyumi]

MORNING

A great way to start the day, see your wife first thing in the morning. A wholesome comic with a little bit of lore

GOD this took me longer than it should have been, photoshop kept crashing my pc. There are lots of details and designs I have left out, they were mostly for the backgrounds so I guess its fine lol

WOw I originally planned on making it 6 pages short or less lmao :')

[showtoonzfan]

What Happened To The Official Hazbin Hotel Prequel Comics?

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for awhile. To get straight to the point, y’all remember the Hazbin prequel comics right? The official ones? The CANON ones that were written by Viv? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, Viv was never really vocal on this.

For those who don’t know, Viv had revealed that there were official Hazbin comics in the works, with her first mentioning them the day before the pilot, October 27, 2019. I don’t have the tweet of course cause I ain’t looking that far back, but that was when Hazbin itself got its official website: https://www.hazbinhotel.com/

During that day, it was when the first 7 pages of an Angel Dust prequel comic was released, introducing what happened before the pilot with him, and how he met Charlie and Vaggie. Maybe I’ll review it sometime, but for now, this is what happened at that time, with Viv promising the rest of the comic to come, “soon”. Spoiler Alert, it was A LOOONG wait. I don’t know what the hell happened behind the scenes, but the comic kept getting ridiculously delayed. I remember how impatient I was getting at the time, because I myself wanted to see the rest, but I’m not here to rant about that.

Anyway, before the rest of the comic came out, at the time of the pilot’s release, Viv uploaded an update video. https://youtu.be/s4RKc83V19E

In this video, she explains how she planned on continuing Hazbin’s story in the form of comics. There were sure to be more after Angel’s comic, as they existed so we could be entertained while we wait for the actual show. Now this of course, was the time when Helluva Boss’s pilot was in the works, but at the time, it was almost done. Another thing to note is that the official Alastor comic was confirmed on the surprise Q and A video shortly after the HH pilot’s release, literally BEFORE the full Angel comic was out.

Angel’s comic then literally went into DEVELOPMENT HELL, because Christ, it was a lot, I remember when fans were constantly asking where the rest was everywhere, and yeah, it was a ridiculously long time. That’s when Faustisse comes in.

Faustisse was a person who worked on the HH pilot, (specifically the detailed portraits in the background) and worked on the inking for both Angel and Alastor’s comic. The person who DREW the Alastor comic is also important, they went by the name “RiplaeChills”. While fans waited, faust would do livestreams and answer questions. They’re the one known for giving us comic content more than Viv did lmao.

Soon of course, the rest of the Angel comic FINALLY came out, on July 7th, 2020. So yeah, LONG ass wait. Unfortunately, Alastor’s comic went through the SAME development hell the Angel comic did, with fans asking Faust where it was, and Viv as well.

The funny thing was that when Faust said the comic was done at the time, the comic DIDN’T come out the next month, it took WAY longer. But of course, Al’s comic did come out EVENTUALLY so the fandom was happy.

However, now that I’ve talked about the Angel and Al comic, everyone seems to forget the CHARLIE prequel comic. You see, if you followed Faust around at the time, you’ll notice how she made livestreams working on ANOTHER upcoming Hazbin Hotel canon prequel comic that was written by Viv, one about Charlie.

In their livestream, they confirmed that the comic was going to take place before the pilot, and Lucifer himself was going to appear. Not only that, but Charlie’s comic would include a flashback to her high school years in Hell, where she was in a relationship with Seviathen Von Eldritch, a member of the royal family that appeared in two of the portraits in the hotel background of the pilot. His sister Helsa (the woman Charlie called a loser in the pilot during her rainbow song) was also going to be in the comic, as she was a bully, and this was also going to be where Charlie and Vaggie met. RiplaeChills was ALSO going to be doing the drawing for this comic as well, as over the months, Faust continued to do livestreams working on the comic. They also posted progress as well, so this was certainly a comic that WAS in the works. They said sketching was going great, and progress was being made. Here are the images they released from her Twitter. The images might be blurry, so I apologize. Damn storage!

I also found the comic layout in the background of one of her streams:

And then of course the image of the Von Eldritch table, another panel from the comic.

So yeah, the Charlie comic certainly wasn’t something that was planned to release and they hadn’t gotten anywhere yet, there was CLEARLY lots of progress made, with Faust at the time saying the comic was slated to release in October. Of....2020. So....yeah, something happened. If y’all didn’t know, Faust decided to work on other things, so they left the project altogether.

And yeah...the whole “people will see soon” by Viv never came so this aged like MILK lol. After that, the Charlie comic seemed to vanish out of existence, with no trace of it, nor anything from Viv, so obviously no, it never came out.

Now we don’t know what happened, but my theory is that after Faust left, Viv decided to just scrap the comic completely and focus on helluva, because at the time, she had been working on season 1 for the show. Hell, it was once revealed that Viv left Faust in charge of handling the comics, (which btw, was during the time Faust’s MOTHER DIED) so it was clear she couldn’t work on it by herself, and with Faust gone....I guess she couldn’t get other people? That or she just lost passion, it always felt like she cared for helluva more than Hazbin, especially since she described it as her number one priority yet decided to work on a spin-off.

Personally for me, I was very upset. At the time I was SO excited for the Charlie comic, especially since....ya know, it’s a HUGE part of the story, with Lucifer appearing and Charlie and Vaggie meeting ect, only for everything to seemingly get thrown away. And it’s strange, Viv sounded so passionate in that update video I posted above when it came to the comics, and I feel like she just lost interest like she did with Zoophobia and decided to work on Helluva. As months and months passed and NO talk of the Charlie comic, low and behold, she soon said something in her Twitter thread on the subject of her “dropping” projects.

Dear god. When I first saw this, I got so pissed. Ever since the beginning, the comics were handled so poorly. Not only did both of them get ridiculously delayed and took forever to come out despite promises of certain dates, but most of the fandom at the time didn’t even know the comics EXISTED simply because of viv’s poor communication skills, hell, if this is the first time you’ve even HEARD of Charlie’s prequel comic, I don’t blame you. Viv had promised her fans Hazbin comics, even on her Patreon (when I was subscribed to her at the time) she promised to post peeks and updates, saying there was going to be a three chapter comic about Vaggie, Charlie, and Alastor, as well as an “Overlord comic”. We all know Viv has a history of promising certain things that never happened, and in this tweet she mentions them nonchalantly, saying their “not her world”, which....is funny, again, she sounded so passionate in that update video, so what the hell happened?

And before you go “BUT SHOWTOON, SHE WAS WORKING ON HELLUVA AND ITS HARD TO JUGGLE SO MUCH STUFF” yeah I know, and I hate to say this but...who’s fault is that? Viv has NEVER leaned her lesson when it came to juggling more than one project to this DAY. In the past, she was freaking working on Allison, Zoophobia’s reboot, the new Jay Jay animated music video, AND Hazbin ALL at the same time. Then, after she lost passion for Zoophobia to work on Hazbin, she THEN decided to do more by creating a spin-off. She should have KNOWN this was too much to handle, and she should have known NOT to promise her fans Hazbin content when she couldn’t provide it. She’s a grown woman and has been in this situation countless times before, and after all that promising, for her to just call the comics “not her world” anymore really hits a nerve. And since this tweet was freaking February of LAST year, I think it’s safe to say the Charlie comic is gone, and not just her comic, the Hazbin comics as a WHOLE. Now you might go “Oh, well maybe she scrapped the story of Charlie’s comic to explore it in the show instead!” Yeah, but if THAT’S the case, what about all of freaking Faustisse’s and Ripale’s WORK? All the stuff I showed above is the work they did, and for Viv to just throw it all away would be off, even for her. But...again, what I’ve been saying when it comes to the comics is all speculation. We don’t know if they’re still in the works, but since it’s been 2 years since Charlie’s comic was SUPPOSED to come out, and Viv is clearly working on Season 2 of Helluva right now, I think that’s a sign.

The reason I decided to make this post is because nobody EVER talks about the comics lmao, and since they were something I was genuinely excited for, only to be thrown away and forgotten about ticked me off, so I had to say something. Maybe the Charlie comic will come, who knows, but for now, it’s clear Viv is more passionate for Helluva right now, and the fact that Faust and RiplaeChills’s work hasn’t been shown to the public is just sad. It’s also disappointing, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to be excited for the comics, only to watch them just slowly die. This was once a big deal, but now the comics are just forgotten.

[dreamkidddream]

Those Doll!anon fics were really amazing! I really wanna do something like it if you don’t mind. Could I maybe get a Yorkie!MC? Like, a really short, really friendly MC until they feel like they or one of the brothers/undateables are being threatened or insulted, then they try to pick a fight they’d obviously lose? I’m just laughing at the mental imagine of this short, unthreatening human yelling at and trying to square up against a demon lol.

Awww tysm!! 💙I missed writing for Obey Me (and we also hit 666 followers at this point 😈💜) and since this was so interesting I decided that I’m gonna do the Undateables first and then do the brothers cause I feel like I don’t show them enough love 😔 reader is gender neutral!

The Undateables with Yorkie!MC

Diavolo

He is LOVING your energy

Your happiness is so contagious, it just adds onto his already cheery demeanor. He honestly feels his cheeks hurting from smiling even more when you’re around (and he doesn’t even care!)

He’s gonna buy Lucifer so much Demonus as a thank you for picking you for the exchange program. Seriously, you’re PERFECT (for him)

As the President of Student Council and future King, he loves seeing you interact with the other students, and he’s glad that they’re reacting positive to you. At least some of them do

Now, no one is to foolish (or powerful) enough to threaten Diavolo or do anything to you that can bring you harm. They can try, but they won’t be getting the results that they hope for

But he can’t help it but find it amusing when you try to “defend his honor” when someone bad mouths him. He makes sure to not let it show (gotta be professional after all) but he does tease you about it later. You’re so small and seeing you just yelling square up to this demon is hilarious. He has no idea what geometry has to do with this, but he’s learned some new slang thanks to you!

He’s finally found someone who’ll go along with his antics and more. Whereas other people may complain about him wanting to do fun activities that seem basic, you just flash a big smile, grab his hand and tell him to lead the way

(You even made matching friendship bracelets and he refuses to take it off, ever)

You really make him happy MC. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever felt this lighthearted, and he doesn’t feel the sense of loneliness that he felt himself getting used too

Also Lucifer gets twice the headache now, but the Demonus helps it go away (temporarily)

Barbatos

Ah, so another Luke, except older and that you take your threats of violence very serious, if what he sees (both in the present and the future) holds true (which it does)

You’re still harmless in his eyes though

Your friendly personality makes it easy for you to be forgiven for a lot of things…even if your actions make him give you the side eye at times

Despite how energetic you are (which is something that he’ll never grow tired of) your presence has a relaxing effect on him. Even if he has to warn you sometimes to be careful with the way that you bounce around so much, especially when he’s in the kitchen

He unfortunately can’t be by your side as he is Lord Diavolo’s butler, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t keep watch on you, even without the use of his powers

With how outgoing you are, you’re bound to attract trouble, in which you do at a constant rate. What was comical however, is that it seemed like the trouble you attracted was on his behalf

“MC, what seems to be the issue here?”

“BARB! You won’t believe this! This jerk has the nerve to call you stuck up- well I can show you stuck up! After I stick my foot up your- Huh? Hey, why am I the one being dragged away?! W- count yourself lucky that Barb is saving you right now demon! But this isn’t over- MPH!”

“I hate to spoil you before our tea party, but you were already late and I have been meaning to have you try my new recipe that I’ve been working on…”

You were too busy trying to savor the delicious flavor to focus on what just happen, which was his plan all along. You get to try more of his delicious treats and he gets to enjoy your touch and company. Crisis averted!

He’s crafty enough to have plans to evade you “fighting” and you haven’t caught on yet (or maybe you did and just feign ignorance? Either way works for him)

It doesn’t bother him what people say about him, he doesn’t care in the slightest (and they’re not bold enough to say it to his face). What he cares about is making sure that you keep your carefree energy, and that he keeps to see you with your radiating smile on your face

Simeon

You remind him so much of Luke. Are you sure you’re not from the Celestial Realm too?

Don’t worry he’s only teasing you (kinda) but you do have just as much energy if not MORE than Luke

And you don’t mind helping him either, no matter how “silly” his requests may be

“You’re doing great Si! See, you didn’t even need my help!”

“MC, I couldn’t have gotten to this point without you. My pictures are still coming out a little blurry, but that could be because you wouldn’t stand still- but it does add special kind of charm to them…”

He’s keeping them btw

He was shook when he saw you go off the first time, like he really wasn’t expecting it (Solomon did try to warn him, he was laughing but he did try to warn him)

“Don’t think just because he’s an angel means I’m bout to act like one! I will end you!”

MC please don’t make this demon “catch these hands” violence isn’t necessary

He doesn’t know what that means but he’s scared that he’s gonna find out if he doesn’t hold you back

He has reprimanded you each time when you try to fight others. He knows that demons see him as weak and talk behind his back, but he chooses to ignore them, to turn the other cheek. But just because he does, doesn’t mean that you do, and he sees that now

Simeon really doesn’t want you to fight, and it’s not even because it’s against his nature (it’s part of the reason, just not the whole reason). Fighting leads to injury, and injury leads to distress, and that’s the last thing that he wants to happen to you. And he’s not going to let anything happen to you!

He truly believes it’s a waste of time and energy, and you could find better things to do. For example, by spending time with him!

Simeon may not be your guardian angel officially, but he’s your guardian angel. Always

Has definitely written a character based on you

Luke

Is immediately upset that you don’t stay in Purgatory Hall with him, and even more upset that you don’t live in the Celestial Realm

You’re like the best older sibling he’s never had! And you don’t treat him like a baby either!

Or he’s just admiring you too much to notice

You never hesitate to help him with anything; baking, homework, pretty much anything and everything. He may try to make it seem like you need his assistance, but we all know it’s the other way around (with the exception of Luke himself)

We all know that Luke gets teased by the brothers and even his roommates sometimes (looking at you Solomon), but it’s just harmless teasing (for the most part). It’s when he hears what the other students say about him that gets to him- he tries to show that it doesn’t bother him and he tries to stand up for himself but- their words really hurt him

And no one hurts Luke and gets away with it

You already get onto the brothers for their teasing when it starts to bother him, and now the brothers have to jump in to stop you from trying to rip this demon horns’ off

You can’t really reach them and they’re pretty sure you won’t do any damage, but they rather not take the chance of you getting hurt

It’s not the first or last time that you do this either, and it just makes him feel horrible. He’s the angel here, the one that’s suppose to protect you, not the other way around!

You help him out so much, either without defending him you do so much for him already. How can he ever repay you? He feels like whatever he does won’t be enough…WAIT- he figured out what he can do!

He can get stronger and protect you! He can go to Beel so that you don’t have to fight for him anymore, or maybe have Solomon make some potions that’s like demon repellent but only for those jerks. If those mean demons see how serious and strong he is, then they’re bound to leave you guys alone! Maybe he can show you some tricks too once he’s done. He has to hurry up and tell you the plan then, you guys can’t wait any longer!

Their words do hurt, but so does seeing you putting yourself in harms way to protect him. You can’t do all the protecting MC, he needs to watch out for you too, no if ands or buts about it!

You and Luke are the duo we never knew we needed

Solomon

Ah, it’s about time he found a human as interesting and adorable as you. Where having you been hiding all his lifetime?!

He has wayyyy more fun teasing you than Luke. Your pout just makes things x100 better and cuter

Congrats on becoming his new victim MC

Another one to find you very amusing when you try to fight and won’t stop you either

He will dead serious be recording you trying to fight on his DDD. He’ll make sure that it doesn’t escalate but who is he to stop such entertainment?

He has become tempted to cast a superhuman strength spell on you, and he ends up doing it “on accident” (which has happened more than once)

Lucifer has done the “I’m watching you” thing to him every time he has lmao

But no seriously, he won’t let you get hurt; he won’t even let the chance arise. He’s already pulling you away before you can get yourself worked up fully, dragging you to the library or his room to test some new spells (one that he tempts you can use on these demons). It’s enough to get your attention back on him

You’re a daily source of his amusement and someone that he wants MC, but that doesn’t mean he can afford his favorite human getting hurt on his watch!

He’s no stranger to the gossip about him, nor is he clueless. It’s just all talk anyway, he doesn’t care and neither should you. But it is touching to know that you care this much about him and how he feels…

But he doesn’t want you to do this for him. He’s a powerful sorcerer, he can easily solve this without breaking a sweat if he wanted to, but he doesn’t deem it worthy to even waste a drop of potions on. But since you’re so concerned, maybe a quick kiss would make him feel better?

He thought you were a little gullible, but that’s not the case. You just have a very open and bright personality, one that he finds himself getting attached to more and more as each day passes

If he’s not careful, he might get more enamored with you than he already is-

[alygatorwrites]

can I request a lil something? during the end of the manga or after the timeskip if you haven't read it yet, reiner still has feelings for historia and reader has one-sided feelings for him.

pieck gives reiner a small hint, saying he's wasting time while there's someone close to him that cares for him and points to you. he doesn't understand at first and maybe is conflicted about his feelings for you because of historia. reader is cool about it as she doesn't expect him to reciprocate her feelings.

a rollercoaster of emotions later, maybe there is a happy ending tho? i am curious to see what you can come up with 😭😭 i have dreaming of this scenario before bed and i can't help but get jealous of his crush on historia abjdsndks maybe you can help reiner reciprocate reader-chan's feelings or not

thank u so much aly 💖🥺

reciprocation

pairing: reiner braun x reader

a/n: OMG yesss! honestly, i was kinda annoyed at how reiner still had a crush on historia. i know that isayama wanted to show how everything went back to normal, but i was hoping that reiner would have a bigger role in the allied nations instead of being "dumbed down" to having an obsession with her. MAYBE THATS JUST THE JEALOUSY SPEAKING LMAO 😭 i was hoping this would be longer, although school has been killing me so im really sorry!! i hope its okay 💗💕 thank you honey!

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as reiner is handed historia’s letter, you fold your hands on the table and watch him without a word. when he reads the lines and smells the parchment - jean saying something snarky afterward - you say nothing.

you want reiner to be happy: you want to see him at ease like this more, face soft as the leaf of the page flits from his pinched fingers.

and so you let the man speak about historia like she’s a damn goddess, gushing over her handwriting, and keep your goddamn mouth shut. ignore your jealousy. your feelings.

the truth is, you’re in love with reiner.

you can’t even remember how it happened, but you can remember the first time you looked into those hazel eyes, and how you knew that they were going to stick with you for eternity.

you’ve come to accept his crush on the queen, though. reciprocation was never an option in your mind.

when jean begins to chew reiner out for lusting after a married woman, and reiner says something about jean being a horse, pieck’s gaze lands on you. “you’re rather quiet,” she says softly, resting her head on her palm.

you shrug, turning away from her. “i’m just tired.”

pieck catches your chin between her lithe fingers, and turns you to face her with a tiny smile. the young woman is very perceptive, and you’ve known her long enough. 

that’s when you notice the twinkle in her eye. she’s planning something.

pieck releases your jaw then, sitting up in her chair. “you’re wasting your time, reiner,” she says suddenly. “there’s already someone you know who cares for you.”

you pretend to not hear pieck - and definitely pretend you don’t see her faintly point at you through your peripheral. the movement of her fingers is barely there, but you catch it.

damn you, pieck.

the way you’re now pinned underneath armin, jean, connie, and reiner’s stares makes your stomach tie itself into knots with bubbling reluctance. shit, this is awkward. you want to run away.

still, you peer over to study reiner’s reaction. he looks confused at first, the contours of his face unreadable. you swear you see connie facepalm at the man’s cluelessness.

then reiner’s expression slowly changes: his eyes widen in awe, lips parting slightly, and brows knitting together. he seems genuinely surprised - and conflicted.

conflicted? why?

there’s no time to explain yourself though, because the door creaks open and annie steps in. her words fall on your deaf ears, and when everyone stands up to leave, you’re the first one out of the room. work beckons you as always.

two days pass.

you’ve been busy filling out tons of paperwork pertaining to the allied nations, so when you’re finally given a day off, you take it with open arms. 

freedom at last.

you lean against a bench outside of headquarters, enjoying the salty breeze that flutters along your skin. it’s dusk, the sky covered in a gradient of neon colors as the sun dips below the horizon.

you haven’t seen reiner since that day in the conference room. you wonder how he’s doing, what he’s thinking, how he’s holding up -

“hey.”

speak of the devil. you glance over your shoulder toward the voice, low and familiar.

reiner approaches you, clad in his uniform: the suit hugs his large frame perfectly, showing every flex of his muscles, and his blonde hair is neatly parted. the black tie looped around his neck just pulls it all together. it has you weak at the knees every. single. time.

“hey,” you answer, giving reiner a smile as he stops beside you.

and that’s when your heart lurches at the sight of him.

the sunset highlights reiner’s profile in gold, a heavenly shine that settles upon his blonde lashes and the flawless slope of his nose. the flecks in his irises sparkle – a beautiful mixture of soft browns and muted greens. the only thing you can do right now is admire the man. 

his words are what breaks you out of your daydream.

“work has been crazy lately, huh?” reiner says, focused on the candy-floss clouds and their fluffy shapes.

“well - yeah, pretty much. i don’t want to look at a pen or a piece of paper ever again.”

“that bad?”

“you have no idea. i almost regret marley and paradis reconciling.”

reiner chuckles gently at the joke, but it’s strained. his forehead remains creased, and he’s not really smiling. the emotion there is more … doubtful. it’s like he’s having some sort of inner conflict.

hopefully reiner’s not acting cautious because of the other day. you know he doesn’t return your feelings, and that’s totally okay. you’re happy enough being with him like this. “i’m not mad or anything, y’know.”

reiner stiffens at that. there’s a white flash of teeth when he chews on his lower lip. “i know.”

“good,” you hum, breathing out a sigh of relief. your core twists with envy when you force a grin. bite it back. tease him like always. “so about historia … ”

reiner’s eyes go wide almost comically, and you hear the breath in his lungs leave his firm chest in one exhale. there’s a light blush staining his cheeks now. it’s funny; he’s so goddamn big, yet he’s such a teddy bear.

“y-yeah,” reiner mutters. you observe the way his brows pinch together as he awkwardly shifts in place. it takes a while before the man composes himself again, which is strange.

is he scared or something? what the hell?

“pieck,” reiner hesitates for a moment. the golden strands of his hair ruffle in the wind and he appears ... well, lost. “was she being serious?”

the question is a shocker - jeez, he could have at least let you prepare yourself. a firm ‘no’ almost slips out, but you’ve never been much of a liar. not to reiner, anyway. crossing your arms against your chest, you inhale sharply and nod. avoid staring at him face-to-face. “yep.”

“ … why me?”

reiner says the words with a mixture of spite and anguish, a casual and rumbling voice. you immediately turn your head, frowning. “what?”

“i’ve done so many horrible things.” reiner exhales heavily and stares down at his hands; perhaps he’s imagining all the blood they’ve been stained with. “i betrayed everyone. i killed innocent people - all because i was selfish.”

it’s no surprise that reiner is broken after everything he’s been through, but it pains you to know that he continues to suffer in silence. whatever war is raging inside his ribcage tears him apart piece by piece, and you wish you could carry the burden. 

there’s probably nothing you can say to convince reiner that he was just a kid, a victim of circumstance. there’s nothing that can persuade him to see himself the way you do.

so you decide to tell reiner why you love him. 

you explain the amount of admiration you hold for him. tell him that you love the way he just wants to be someone his comrades can lean on, like a big brother. tell him that you think he’s the most gorgeous person you’ve ever seen and how you think he deserves the world.

the way you spill your guts out snaps every nerve in your body. you don’t say everything you want to – but you tell him enough. a dark flush spreading across your face, you find the courage to look at him.

the world seems to stop on its axis when you find reiner staring right on back. the intensity of his eyes is stunning; they’re lit up with astonishment and affection.

god, the affection. you see it clear as day. maybe one of the greatest regrets in his life is how he forced himself to see you only as a friend.

that’s when he reaches out to you.

reiner retracts his hand twice, unsure, before slowly brushing his fingertips against yours. the touch is so feather-light that you almost can’t feel it. it’s a test - he’s waiting to see if you pull away. you can’t even move if you wanted to, because his fond gaze keeps you rooted to the spot before him. 

when you don’t recoil, reiner finally moves to gently hold your hand; his palm is so much bigger than yours, and your fingers slot together perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle’s final piece. 

heart thrumming like a hummingbird has been stuffed into your chest, you’re almost at a loss for words and come to a realization.

this utterly amazing man likes you. always has. 

but reiner shoved away the feelings for one simple reason; you deserved ‘better.’ focusing on the old crush he had on historia was a distraction - an attempt to convince himself to stop thinking about you.

because looking at you everyday and not being able to act upon his feelings was too painful.

“is this okay?” reiner asks lowly. there’s a slight pinkness to his cheeks, the color of a selfless love.

by some miracle, you manage to nod dumbly. “yeah, of course. it’s fine.” it’s amazing is what you actually want to say.  

reiner squeezes your hand at the reassurance, a sigh escaping from his throat. “i really—”

you wait for him to finish, but he doesn’t. reiner just searches your profile for signs of discomfort, and then untwines your hands to bravely swipe a thumb along the length of your cheekbone. 

there’s no time to speak because he’s already leaning down.  

the sensation of reiner’s lips pressing against yours lights your skin ablaze; you can feel the curling flames of passion sear your soul, made even more intense by the warmth of the sunlight on your back.

it’s natural, it’s tender, it’s warm.

reiner’s breath rattles into your mouth when you rest both palms against his solid chest and deepen the kiss. the musky smell of his aftershave and cologne envelops you completely, and fuck, it’s so good. your arms wrap around him, fingers passing over the sharp slopes of his shoulder blades.

as much as you wish the kiss could go on endlessly, there are people gathering outside. avoiding any unwanted attention from nosy strangers is very much appreciated.

you pull away to nuzzle your nose into reiner, and he rests his chin on your shoulder, protective arms moving to loop around your waist. it’s such an intimate caress that it sparks your brain into overdrive.

as the rushing sound of the breeze comes back to your ears through the quiet, you tuck the kiss away to be remembered forever. that’s all there is to it. being close to reiner like this - swaying together like wildflowers in the wind - is more important than anything else.

“i like you,” reiner murmurs.

the suddenness of it makes you laugh, and you can feel the upward quirk of reiner’s lips - a whisper of a peaceful smile and a sweet, sweet promise.