#this might sound bad without context

[manga-and-stuff]

Source: Gangsta Gyangusuta ギャングスタ

by Kohske

[oleolesimeeligen]

if you ever see me talking about misgendering my son frederick and think I'm a shitty mom please remember my son frederick was a MOUSE and by “misgender” I mean calling him “girlie” or “babygirl” by mistake after talking to his sister. who was in fact another mouse called babygirl.

[mechahero]

//Some HypnoOutlaw AU stuff because I have a problem

Lambda's username on there is jetixis (or cyberworldz maybe? If I go down the cyberworldz username route, he'd use it out of spite or some attempt to seem cool because it's ironic to use the name of Hypno.space's competitor while being on HS. Even though he uses Hypno.space and doesn't use CyberWorldZ at all.)

His desktop wallpaper is the classic light green and slightly darker shade of green checkered background. Or a Taurus X wallpaper. He changes between the two a lot.

Listen, his display settings are Squisherz themed, except for the sound which is default. His cursor setting is HS default or this cool gauntlet cursor he found while poking around one night. His screensaver is Oozle Drip.

Motor City isn't a thing but he still does live in Virginia. I don't know where in it yet.

He's usually on HS to hang out with people. He's kind of lonely in real life and uses the internet as a method to connect with other people and talk with them!

Yes, he has a virtual pet. It's Mushi. He used to have an April the Flying Hamster but he made the mistake of taking a weeklong break from HS and it sort of... died? (I know the pets don't actually decline or die when you log off but roll with it.) He's still upset about it.

The song that plays on his page is either Wild Sleep, or he managed to scoot around HS's copyright system so he can have Platinum Retriever or Glamopaster #2 as his page theme.

His page is... well, it's not really weird exactly. It's kind of just average? Imagine a page for a heavily masc 18 year old but slightly juxtaposed by the fact that he often talks about cute things he likes. And the background being pink perhaps, that too. Maybe a mix of cool and cutesy gifs and stuff.

He just kind of talks about whatever! From the music he likes, the shows and games he likes to watch and play. Average stuff. He won't shut the hell up about KATACLYSM and a vampire show he likes though.

Has a page dedicated to Taurus X. He wanted to make a fan club so he could talk about it with other fans of the show but he wasn't sure how to do that, so it's just a page.

Has an unlisted page that's tucked away. It mostly functions as a diary. It's more of a place for him to try and put his thoughts and feelings. It's rarely updated due to how weird he feels about it.

He has another unlisted page which is basically just a place for him to put his fanfiction. He mostly writes a lot of worldbuilding stuff for the world his character is in. He very rarely writes stories about his character, which is a cyborg catboy that takes cues from JRPG protagonists. (Just... roll with it. Please.)

Has a third unlisted page where he posts screenshots of drama he comes across and talks about it. Think like Gossip Girl. Lambda tends to follow these bouts of drama very closely. It's mostly for his eyes only as he's aware that it's really fucking weird to post about someone else's drama publicly, hence the unlisted page. Doesn't stop him from getting into the occasional fight outside of that page though. Because never knowing when to keep his mouth shut is just consistent with Lambda no matter the verse.

He's a sparklehaze disliker, sorry. He's tried to like it but it's not his thing. Dislikes a lot of cosmic music and coolpunk songs as well.

Ironic considering he's a Fre3zer fan lmaooo (he only likes Icy Girl and that's it so that doesn't even count.)

Secret Seepage fan. He keeps it to himself but Lambda really does like their songs. He just doesn't want to be made fun of for listening to the HS equivalent of nu metal lmao.

He's just kind of nosy. His nights when not spent in ChitChat talking to his friends or posting on his page consist of going onto other people's pages and looking through them. He has a lot of fun going through rabbit holes and seeing just how many pages are connected to each other. The downside is that he tends to find a lot of weird stuff. But hey, that kind of happens so he's not too bothered by it, he just moves on.

You know Lambda would have the HS_Lifestyles badge on his page. And HS_Music. And HS_GamersOnly while we're at it. He's not subscribed to a lot of things.

[farawaybreadohere]

well I'm going through a phase rn so /j

[sabertoothwalrus]

tips for getting people to like your ocs

*disclaimer: this is based on what’s worked for me, aka an artist that likes to make comics/storyboards. so this advice is directed at people who do that

you can do things like this:

Which is fun! Character sheets like this are great, especially for personal reference! But frankly, I don’t think most people engage with this (at least I personally don’t). You could have the coolest character in the world, but it will be harder for most people to feel invested when they’re presented so neutrally like this.

My main piece of advice is: get better at writing.

That might sound harsh when said like that, but let me explain what I mean! (Not trying to imply you’re bad at writing either!)

What I tend to do is just throw characters into situations with as little handholding as I can. Give enough context that readers can follow along, but don’t feel like they’re being explained to.

what can you learn about the characters through their designs alone? (age, personality, economic status, occupation, etc)

what can you learn about the characters’ relationship though their interactions alone? (are they close? familial? romantic? is there hostility? are they tense/relaxed?)

what are the characters currently doing? what were they doing previously (how long have they been talking)? what are they going to do next? can you convey this without dialogue?

how do they feel about what they are doing? are they content? focused? over/understimulated? would they rather be doing something else?

where are they? does it matter? would establishing a setting in at least one panel clarify the scene? is there anything in the enviroment that could tell some of the story?

what time of day is it? what time of year is it? what is the weather like?

Now, with all this in mind, I'm going to give you another example. I'm going to use completely brand new characters for the sake of the experiment, so you won't have any bias (aka I can’t use Protagonist from above, since you already know all about him).

Did this get more of an emotional response from you than the first example? Why do you think so? Who are these characters? How do they know each other? What else can you infer about them? What happened? Who is "she"?

Now, you don't have to actually answer all those questions. But think about them! You can tell people a whole lot about your characters without ever showing them a list of their likes and dislikes.

Obviously, comics aren't the only way to get people invested in your original characters! But regardless, easily digestible formats will grab people's attention faster than huge blocks of text, and comics are a lot less work than doing wholeass storyboards.

Now go and share your ocs with the world!!!

[chaosroid]

Trying to explain Warframe to new people is impossible without sounding absolutely insane. It's like, if a game had an identity crisis...but in a good way. An identity buffet, if you will. There's so much in this game it's sensory overload.

You like space dogfights? Rogue-lites? Fishing, mining, player housing? How about Guitar Hero, space shanties, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? Let's not forget the dating sim. Oh yeah, you can add a birthing QTE rhythm minigame too, because why not. I'm waiting for the inevitable sex update, cause y'know, we've gotten this far without imploding, so it might as well happen. Like what the fuck even is this game anymore. Nobody knows! Not even the devs themselves. It's all held together by dreams, duct tape and vibes at this point, but somehow it works.

Hop on Warframe, we have:

Bionicle meets Neon Genesis Evangelion

12 yr olds turning the geneva conventions into a checklist

your trans robot mom who has DID

old man yaoi

a traumatized group of bisexuals fighting the Y2K bug

an autistic child and his fidget spinner solos god

a fish voiced by Astarion

workers' union committing terrorism against capitalists

incel who tries to destroy the sun because he fumbled a bad bitch (she took the kids)

a boyband that you have to slay for weapons

and an eldritch entity beyond human comprehension that can only be defeated by the power of love

And if you think all that sounds unhinged out of context, don't worry, It's just as unhinged with context.

[fairestwriting]

Ruggie, Jade, and Sebek with a Reader that's reeeeeeeeally interested in how beastmen, mer folk, and faes work! Constantly asking them questions, following them around, working up the courage to ask whether they could touch their more non-human parts...

𐙚 Ruggie Bucchi

He’s a little bit flustered, honestly. Ruggie has never really gotten treated like he’s so… unique? He can’t quite word it at first. It’s just that hyena beastmen are so common back home, and then he went to NRC, where beastmen in general aren’t rare either. He’s answered a curious human friend’s question here and there, yeah, but they’re usually not… that excited over any small answer.

Soon enough, he starts to have fun with it, not taking it too seriously. ”What, are you surprised I don’t eat raw meat for lunch?” He’ll ask you when he catches you watching him during lunchtime, smirking. Ruggie thinks your fascination is funny. He wonders what kind of place you might come from, he’s really never seen someone be so surprised over a hyena beastman like him. He’ll need to ask you about it sometime.

Freezes up a little if you ask to touch his ears or tail. On a second thought, he should’ve seen that coming, considering how fascinated he seems to be to you… but it still surprises him anyway. Do you even know how that could sound, depending on the context? He just assumes you don’t.

Ruggie will let you touch his ears, though. He just doesn’t see a reason to make it a big deal, you might be an oddball, sure, but you don’t seem like you have any bad intentions. “…You’re lucky I’m so nice, y’know. Some guys wouldn’t take that too well.” He tells you through a slightly awkward chuckle. His ears get twitchy under your touch, and he subconsciously leans into it, just a little bit. You’re definitely an interesting person yourself, that’s for sure…

𐙚 Jade Leech

Feels a sort of endeared amusement similar to Ruggie’s, but without the surprise element. He’s heard his fair share of questions, despite his difference in species presenting less overtly than your typical beastman… Partially just because Floyd used to bite people last year, though. But if you didn’t hear about that already, there’s no need for him to tell you.

When you ask him questions, he’ll answer very clearly, coming off quite friendly. Your directness is a change of pace that he welcomes. Plus he can’t help but find it funny that this look of awe never quite leaves your eyes, even when he thinks his answer might not be that interesting.

…But if you come up to him and mention some kind of rumor or myth you heard about merfolk, he *is* going to play into it. Especially if it’s the scary sort. ”Well, merfolk are very diverse. I couldn’t tell you for sure if we grow to this size because it made it easier to hunt humans in the past…” He tells you, barely concealing the chuckle that it gets from him when you go all wide-eyed again.

Jade isn’t surprised you’re curious about the texture of his fins or tail. He shrugs at your request to touch them, smiling widely. ”Perhaps. We’d have to find a way to get you underwater, though…” Is his official answer, which is actually entirely joke-free. He’s not going to take it as if you’re implying anything, there’s no way you’d know it even had implications— If you did do your own research, though, that’s another story…

𐙚 Sebek Zigvolt

Oh, everyone knows how much Sebek loves to talk about being half fae… Well, everyone but you, it seems. It’s like a dream come true to him. And a nightmare to his peers that are a little more sensitive to sound.

At first, though, he definitely doesn’t seem like he’s going to be that much of an open book. He’s giving you a stern looking frown as you point at his ears and mutter your first question. ”What sort of question is that? Even the most clueless humans know fae tend to have differently shaped ears.” He near scoffs.

But that doesn’t really put a dent in your curiosity, even though you apologize if you were rude. The exact second that you tell him you have not, in fact, ever seen a fae in your life and were just curious about the topic, that initial icyness fully melts away. Oh, so you’re not that sort of ignorant human, you’re different— Sebek thinks, and then it’s like he’s sharing some of the wonder you feel.

He quickly proclaims that he’ll teach you all about the rich history of fae, all the incredible abilities they can have— What’s that? You want to touch his ears? You want to know just how different his body temperature is? Sebek’s got you, of course he does. Touch usually kind of flusters him, but he’s already decided to be your teacher about all things fae. And if you want to learn even more than he’s teaching, to him that just means he’s doing a great job.

if you like my work you can support me by commissioning me or tipping me on ko-fi ── ᵎᵎ ✦

[lovkitti]

“GO OUT WITH ME”

KARASUNO BOYS + ASKING YOU OUT. featuring ⋮ kageyama tobio, hinata shoyo, tsukishima kei & yamaguchi tadashi x fem!reader ⸝⸝ the haikyuu boys realize the assistant manager might mean a little more to them than they thought. 3.2k words.

KAGEYAMA TOBIO..

Is one of those guys who takes forever to realize that they like you. It’s not that he’s dense, but more that he just doesn’t get it at first. He spends so much time focused on volleyball that he doesn’t even question why he notices you more than everyone else. You hand him a water bottle before he asks, and he just thinks, ‘Oh, that’s convenient’. You remind him to stretch after practice, and he nods without realizing that he listens to you way more than he listens to anyone else. But it doesn’t click that it means anything. Until one day, he overhears Tanaka and Noya hyping you up, talking about how cool you are, and how maybe they should try asking you out. Earning a small smile from you and an eye roll as you shrug off the boys and tell them to get back to practice—and suddenly, he hates the idea.

That’s when it hits him. Hard. He stands there, frozen, volleyball under his arm, his mind completely blank because—oh.. he likes you. Like, likes you.

And once he realizes, it’s all over for him. Now, he notices everything. The way you push your sleeves when you’re focused, the way you tie your hair back as you pick up volleyballs and clean the court after a practice, the way you always make sure he has an extra towel after practice because he always forgets. And it bothers him. Why does it matter that you smile at him a certain way? Why does his stomach do weird flips when you say his name?

But Kageyama isn’t exactly the best when it comes to emotions, especially love. So instead of dealing with it like a normal person he just… avoids you. Well, sort of. He gets all stiff when you talk to him, and when you hand him his water bottle, he mutters, “I can get it myself.” Which just makes you blink at him, leaving you confused.

The team figures it out before you do. Hinata straight up says, “You’re acting weird around her, what’s your deal?” and Kageyama freaks out. He denies everything, turns red and storms off. But it doesn’t matter—Noya and Tanaka got the memo. They start teasing the hell out of him, wiggling their eyebrows and nudging him whenever you’re around, and he's practically dying inside.

Eventually, he just snaps. Not at them—at himself. He’s tired of overthinking, tired of being weird, and tired of that fluttery feeling in his chest every time you so much as glance at him. So one day, when it’s just the two of you after practice, he just says it,

“Go out with me.”

No lead-up. No context. You were just putting volleyballs back in the cart when he blurts it out, and you freeze, turning to stare at him. “Wait.. what?”

And Kageyama, realizing how bad that sounded, immediately scrambles to fix it. “I—I mean. If you want to, you don’t have to. I just thought—maybe. Because. You’re good at stuff, and I like that. And I like you. So.. yeah.” He looks like he wants to run away, ears red, shoulders tense. And of course—you laugh, because what else are you supposed to do?

His face twists in horror, and he groans, throwing the last volleyball into the cart. “Forget it. That was stupid.” He whispers. But you grab his wrist before he can leave, “No, no, I just— Kageyama, yes. I'd love to go out with you.” You say shyly, looking up at the back of his head. When he hears that you said yes, he freezes. Just stands there, blinking, processing what you just said before turning around to face you, a soft flush dusting his cheeks. And then—just for a second—he smiles, all shy and relieved, before clearing his throat and muttering, “Okay, good. Um, so.. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He spends the entire night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the moment over and over, smiling into his pillow like a little kid hoping that tomorrow comes soon.

HINATA SHOYO..

Is the type who knows he likes you immediately. There’s no confusion, no slow realization, none of that. The second he catches himself grinning because you cheered a little louder when he scored a point during practice is the moment he knows that he has feelings for you. He doesn’t try to hide it either. Subtlety? Never heard of her. He’s always bouncing over to you during breaks, showing off, asking if you saw that spike—and then turning red when you smile and say. “Of course I did.”

He’d ask Kiyoko if you’re free this weekend just so he has a reason to hover near the manager’s table and hope you’ll overhear. And when you glance up at him with a curious smile, he practically short-circuits—waving his hands and blurting something like, “N-not that I was asking you out or anything! I mean—not yet! Wait—I mean—!” before Kiyoko kindly saved him with a sigh and a “Shoyo, breathe.” and he does, face red as he walks away from the table—nearly tripping over a mop bucket in the process.

He keeps trying to wait for the perfect moment. After a win, after you compliment his serve, maybe after you laugh extra hard at one of his dumb jokes. But nothing ever feels quite right. Every time he thinks he’s finally ready he sees you holding a clipboard and squinting at the practice schedule, and suddenly his brain just goes quiet except for a loud, looping she’s so cute, she’s so cute, she’s so cute…

Eventually, he gives up on planning it and decides to go with the flow. So after a regular day of practice—while you’re helping clean up gathering stray cones—he jogs over, his heart pounding. He doesn’t even think. He just blurts it out with every ounce of courage he has:

“Go out with me!”

You freeze mid-step, turning toward him slowly. “..Wait, what?”

And now he’s panicking. “I-I mean—only if you want to! You don’t have to! I just—I really like you and I think you’re awesome and you’re always so nice and you smell really—wait no! That’s not what I meant—I mean it is what I meant, but not in a weird way! Just like—like flowers? Or like laundry? Or just—clean? I don’t know..”

You start laughing—fully laughing—and he’s just staring at you, blush covering his cheeks and ears in horror, gripping on the edge of his shirt as he winces. “..This is going so bad..” You gently place your hand on top of his. “Hinata… I’d love to.” you say softly, locking eyes with the orange-haired boy.

His eyes go wide. Like he can’t believe it. Like he just won the national championship in his heart. “Wait—seriously?!” You nod, and he lets out the most adorable, relieved noise—kind of like a breathy “Yes..!”—before immediately turning on his heel and sprinting down the gym shouting, “SHE SAID YES! SHE SAID YES!” while the others look up mid-cleanup, confused looks on their faces.

He spends the whole walk home grinning like a fool. He couldn’t wait to see you tomorrow.

TSUKISHIMA KEI..

Is the type of guy that doesn’t do crushes. He always thought that dating in general was a waste of time. The way guys would cling to their girlfriends during lunch breaks, walking them to class like lost puppies. And then a week later, those same guys would be moping around the gym, complaining about how “complicated” things got. It was all so.. embarrassing. Pathetic. He swore he’d never get caught up in something that meaningless.

But that was before you.

Because suddenly, something inside of him shifts. It’s subtle. Annoying, even. Like a slow itch under his skin that won’t go away. One moment he’s watching Hinata trip over a ball, the next he’s watching you laughing at it—really laughing—and something about the way your eyes crinkle and your voice rises just slightly makes his chest feel… off. And it keeps happening. Over and over.

And it’s annoying.

You’re annoying. The way you wave at him when you pass, even though he doesn’t wave back. The way you talk to him during water breaks, teasing him for never smiling, and he rolls his eyes—but his ears turn slightly red. The way you’re always so kind, so effortlessly charming, even when you’re just doing your own thing. It’s all so very.. distracting. And he hates it. Hates how you’ve started living rent-free in the back of his mind. How your laugh plays on a loop whenever the gym gets too quiet. How his heart does this stupid little skip every time you smile at him like you know something he doesn’t. He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything.

But the worst part?

He’s starting to wish it did.

Which is infuriating because now he’s stuck in this weird limbo where he’s trying not to care, but also noticing everything. Like how you always tie your jacket around your waist halfway through practice. Or how you hum to yourself when you’re organizing the uniforms. Or how you always offer him the last sports drink without thinking twice. And the worst part is—he thinks you know. You have to. No one’s that kind for no reason. You’re always teasing him, leaning in a little too close, tossing casual compliments like it’s no big deal. And every time he acts like it doesn’t affect him, he’ll just turn away, ears red, and suddenly his whole afternoon is ruined because now he has to think about that stupid little smile you gave him for the next two hours.

Eventually, it starts messing with his routine. He zones out during blocking drills. Forgets to do simple tasks like packing his lunch. Even forgets his headphones once, which hasn’t happened since middle school. And of course, Yamaguchi notices first, but doesn’t say anything—just watches him with this quiet smirk like he’s waiting for Tsukishima to crack. And then one day, when they’re both sitting outside, Tsukishima mumbles something so out of character, it barely sounds like him. “What do you even say to someone when they make your heart do that annoying skip thing?”

Yamaguchi nearly chokes on his water, looking at him wide-eyed. “I think that means you should tell them how you feel.” And Tsukishima immediately regrets asking.

He doesn’t do anything right away. Obviously. That’d be stupid. He tries to act normal again—goes back to ignoring you, brushing you off with dry remarks, avoiding eye contact. But it doesn’t work. It never works. Because now, everything reminds him of you. And it’s driving him insane. And the teasing from the team doesn’t help. Yamaguchi keeps nudging him every time you walk by. Tanaka and Noya catch on eventually and won’t shut up about how “Tsukki’s finally growing a heart.” But really, he’s not mad at them. He’s mad at himself because he doesn’t want this to be real—doesn’t want to be one of those guys. And yet here he is, getting butterflies over the way you said “thanks” when he handed you a water bottle.

So eventually, he decides to just get it over with. Not because he’s ready or anything but because he’s tired of feeling this way every time you so much as glance in his direction. So after practice when the gym is quiet, he walks up to you—kind of slowly, kind of like he might turn around and leave at any second—and stands next to you, awkwardly shifting his weight. You're stacking cones in the corner, earbuds in, humming under your breath. Noticing someone beside you, you pull out one earbud and greet him.

He doesn’t look at you. Just keeps staring straight ahead. “I like you,” he says, voice flat—almost monotone. But his ears are red.

You blink. “Sorry—what?”

He sighs, forces himself to meet your gaze even though his stomach is twisting. “I said I like you. Like—like you like you. And I didn’t know how to say it without sounding stupid, so… that’s it. I like you. You’re annoying and I like you.” There’s a pause. His heart is beating so loud he swears you can hear it. Then you smile—slow and sweet—and it hits him like a train. “Tsukki,” you say softly, and he almost melts on the spot. “You don’t sound stupid.”

He exhales, tension slowly leaving his shoulders. “Oh. Cool. Uh… good.” You’re still smiling at him, and it’s honestly too much. He clears his throat, looking off to the side. “So, uh. Do you wanna go out sometime? You don’t have to. Just… figured I should ask.”

Your grin grows. “Yeah. I’d love to.”

He freezes for a second, like he can’t believe it. Then nods—super stiff, super awkward. “Okay. Cool. Yeah. I’ll text you..” He turns to leave before you can see the way his lips twitch up into the tiniest smile.

YAMAGUCHI TADASHI..

Isn't the smooth type. He’s the kind of guy who fumbles his water bottle if you say hi too suddenly. The type who accidentally stares too long and then panics when you catch him. Who gets flustered when you’re nice to him and even more flustered when you tease him. He’s always been like that—soft-spoken, a little awkward, forever stuck somewhere between trying to disappear and wanting to say something. And that was fine. That was his comfort zone.

Until you.

Because now, every time you laugh or look at him a certain way or call him “Tadashi” with that soft little smile, his brain completely goes blank. It’s like his heart can’t decide whether it wants to melt or explode, and he ends up just standing there, staring like a deer in headlights before looking away and pretending to be so busy tying his shoes for the fifth time that day. He doesn’t know when it started exactly. Maybe it was the time you stayed behind after practice to help him pick up the stray volleyballs, even though no one asked you to. Or maybe it was when you cheered for him after he landed a solid float serve—hands cupped around your mouth, smile wide, voice cutting through the noise like it was meant just for him. Maybe it was all of that. Or maybe it was because you saw him. Saw that he wasn’t just someone standing next to Tsukishima. Not just “that guy who serves.” But him.

And he’s starting to think that maybe—just maybe—you’ve always noticed him. He’s noticed that you always bring an extra towel on days when practice runs long, and without fail, you offer it to him first. That you remember his favorite sports drink from the vending machine. That you laugh at his awkward jokes, even the ones that came out all muttered and crooked. You ask him how his test went, or how his elbow’s doing after he banged it against the floor during drills. You even asked him once if he liked cats or dogs better—just because you said you wanted to know what kind of animal sticker to put on his water bottle. And he didn’t know what to do with all of that. All the ways you see him. Listen to him. Remember him.

So, naturally, he does nothing. Well—nothing helpful, anyway. He smiles back in that wobbly way of his, cheeks already turning pink before he could stop them. Says something safe, something simple, then replays that conversation in his head for the next three hours, groaning into his pillow as he thinks about how he should’ve said something cooler or smarter or better. Of course, Tsukishima noticed. Especially when Yamaguchi started stuttering just because you waved at him from across the courtyard. The way his hands got all shaky, or how he smiled down at his food like it just told him a joke—yeah. Tsukishima saw all of it. And he was so over it.

One day during lunch, after you walked by and Yamaguchi nearly choked on his rice because you said, “See you at practice, Tadashi,” Tsukishima just said it. Plain as day.

“You should just tell her,” he muttered, casually pushing a piece of tempura around his chopsticks. Yamaguchi froze mid-chew. Blinking once. Twice.

“W-What!?” He sputtered, nearly dropping his lunch on the floor. “What do you mean!? What are you talking about? Who!? I—I don’t—what?!” His voice cracked halfway through that panic spiral, and his whole face flushed a deep shade of red as he gawked at Tsukishima like the boy had just committed a federal crime. Tsukishima gave him a long side-eye and popped a piece of sausage into his mouth. Yamaguchi looked away, embarrassed. “I—I can’t.. what if she doesn’t even like me back?”

Tsukishima shrugged. “Then she doesn’t. You’ll survive. Probably.”

“You’re not being helpful at all, Tsukki..”

But as time passed, it was getting harder and harder not to say anything. Because every time you smiled at him like that—or touched his arm when you were laughing too hard—or looked at him during practice like you actually believed in him—it made him want to try. Just a little. So one day after practice, he stayed behind. Told himself it was to help clean up, but really, he was waiting for you. Hoping you’d stay back like you usually did.

And you did.

You were by the benches, writing something in your notebook, the light catching on your lashes as you hummed under your breath. He stood a few feet away, trying to psych himself up, his hands clammy and his heart going absolutely feral. Taking in a deep breath, and then forcing his feet to move. “Hey,” he said, voice a little shaky.

You looked up immediately, smiling. “Hey, Tadashi. What’s up?” He swallowed. “Um… C-Can I talk to you? Just—really quick?” You blinked, curious. “Sure.” And then he just—blurted it.

“I like you.”

Your pen stopped moving. His face burned, but for once, he didn’t backpedal. Didn’t stumble over the words. Just kept going.

“I like you,” he repeated, quieter this time. “I like you because when I’m around you, I feel… different. Better. Like I don’t have to be nervous all the time, even if I still am,” he added, with a nervous little laugh. He glanced at you, then away, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. “I just… needed you to know. Even if it’s not mutual. Even if it messes things up. I didn’t want to keep pretending.”

For a second, everything was still. And then you stood up, slowly. You looked at him with something soft in your eyes—something that made his breath catch.“I’m really glad you told me,” you said, voice just as quiet.

“Because I like you too, Tadashi.”

His eyes widened. “Y-You do?! Wait—really?!” You laughed. “Yes. Really.” He looked like he was buffering—lips parted, blinking rapidly. “I—I thought I was imagining it. You possibly liking me back. I mean—you’re you and I’m—”

“You’re Tadashi,” you interrupted, stepping just a little closer. “And that’s exactly who I like.” He made a small noise—somewhere between a gasp and a squeak—covering his mouth with one of his hands.

“I—I can’t believe it. I feel like about to pass out,” he muttered. You laughed again, reaching out to tug his sleeve. “Don’t. I still want you to walk me home.” And despite everything—the nerves, the panic, the butterflies rioting in his stomach—he smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I can do that.”

a.n — guess who’s back after disappearing for so long.. me ! ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´- im sorry for suddenly going mia after just starting to post. life just got a whole lot busier, but whenever i have free time ill still try to write for all of you. i know this isn’t my usual MHA writings, but im not just a fan of one fandom ! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) anyways, i hope you still enjoyed it nonetheless! until next time, XOXO 💕

[maple-the-awesome]

Another Link Crushes On You || Part 2/3

Part 1 ||

Pairings: Legend, Twilight, Wind x GN Reader

Overview: You've known Link for years - Well, a version of Link. Neither of you have seen yourselves as being anything more than friends, although it seems not all Link's think the same, in fact when you're introduced to the Chain, one of the boys falls pretty hard for you. I spun a wheel to let fate decide upon random pairs this time. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with some of them😁

Zelda Masterlist 💚 Fandom Masterlist

Legend isn't a big fan of Skyloft which is something he decided rather quickly upon arrival - and no, it has nothing to do with the cold, thin air or hair-raising heights, although he’s also not a big fan of either. His problem lies solely on the cheerful atmosphere created by this village’s inhabitants. It’s all too easy going and mundane to fit an adventurer’s heart. Too familiar and painful, to boot. 

The others may think of him as aloof and, quite frankly, Sky might be a little offended, but Legend has no interest in exploring these islands or making friends with the locals. Never again. Instead of joining any guided tours or trading stories with inquisitive knights, he sinks into his own isolation, finding a quiet place to sit amongst the shore of Skyloft’s only large water source.

All by his lonesome, he’s free to find a good boulder to hide behind and tear away at his hair in a desperate attempt at calming his unsteady anxiety…That is, until he hears a sound - No, not a sound, a voice. A beautiful voice that doesn’t speak, but rather hums a delicate melody he’s certain he’s heard before, probably from Sky who has a habit of mumbling certain songs to himself while plucking his harp.

…And there you are, blissfully unaware of anyone else's presence by the lake as you approach the water's edge. Dropping a laundry basket in the sand, you carefully roll up your pant legs and kick off your boots, prepared to step into the cold water until you suddenly halt.

As if having developed some sort of sixth sense, you glance over your shoulder, quickly spotting the pink haired boy peeking at you from beside a boulder. The sight understandably startles you, yet despite how awkward this situation might look without context - what, to catch a total stranger apparently 'spying' from afar - you give him a kind, that be it nervous smile. People in Skyloft truly are too trusting for their own good.

"Oh hello there! …So sorry, I don't think we’ve met yet."

Legend sighs, realizing it would be creepier if he were to just ignore you. With his place of solace now ruined, he stands and dusts the sand off his tunic, "...That's because I'm not from around here."

"Oh?" You tilt your head cutely, likely confused as to what he could possibly mean, after all, where else would he have come from if not Skyloft? Looking him over, you take notice of his outfit, “Are you a knight? I see you have the uniform of one.”

The angel on Legend's shoulder begs him to be honest, after all there's no reason not to be. Naturally, Sky seems to be pretty well known around Skyloft, so maybe you wouldn't be too surprised to learn your local hero has become ensnared in another adventure, bringing home a handful of other heroes. You might even find Legend more interesting if he were truthfully, awed by the rare chance to meet someone outside of your own timeline...yet staying true to his own bad habits, he decides to dig his own grave instead:

"...Yeah, I’m a knight. I'm just usually really busy, so that's probably why you haven't seen me around, you know,” He explains boldly.

You furrow your eyebrows while finally stepping into the water, taking a handful of clothing items with you, "...Huh...I still could've sworn I knew everyone here, what, with the island being so small and all."

Legend cringes. He can't tell if you're simply speaking on your confusion or slyly catching him in a lie, although the uncertainty isn't enough to deter him, "W-Well, I don't live 'here' exactly. I live on one of the...outer islands - And I spend a lot of time there instead of here which would make it easy to miss me."

You give him a strange look that feels as if it could burn right through him, however you fortunately turn away before his heart can ignite, "...May I ask your name?"

"My...name?" He blinks as if that’s the strangest question you could’ve asked.

"I just feel a bit rude for never having noticed you before, but if I were to learn a name to put to the face, I doubt I'll ever walk past you again without a smile," And oh, how deadly your smile is, flashed over your shoulder so innocently, yet those eyes - They hold mischief behind them.

 "My name is Li - Ravio. That's my name," Another needless lie...

"Li Ravio?" You repeat, not looking very convinced, "That's certainly...a name, alright."

"W-Well, I didn't pick it!" Yes, yes he did...

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean any offense. It's a unique name, that's all, but that will make it easier to remember," You laugh at his misery, your eyes crinkling with the action. You then introduce yourself, your name sounding vaguely familiar, although Legend's in too much of a daze to think of why, "It's nice to meet you, Li Ravio."

He bites back a grumble, already regretting his life choices up until this point. Seriously, if he was going to give himself a cover name and story, couldn't he have picked something a little better? You probably think he's a weirdo, just showing up out of the blue with some half-assed backstory that sounds totally fake - Wait, what does he even care? It's not like he knows you! You're a random civilian from a timeline that comes generations before his own. If he wanted, he could march off and never see or think about you again...but does he want to?

Despite his previous desire for isolation, Legend remains standing there dumbly in the sand, entranced by the song you go back to humming while carefully scrubbing away at your laundry. You take no shame in your singing - which is good, because there's no reason to be. You sound nothing short of holy, and quite honestly, you match the look, practically glowing in the beams of sunlight. Even your movements are graceful, so much so that as you wade out of the water, you hardly disturb the water lilies around you.

"Where'd you learn to sing like that?" The question slips before Legend can help it, but there's no taking it back. You stop mid-step onto the sand, eyes quickly darting up to look at him in surprise. It's as if no one's ever been smart enough to give you that compliment before...or perhaps no one has ever sounded quite so astonished while saying it.

"My cousin and I sing every evening at the Lumpy Pumpkin," You explain, bashfully tucking a strand of hair behind your ear after dropping your laundry back into its basket and picking it up, "You should come by sometime. It’s on an island south east of here - Very cozy, and a great place to get to know new people, too.”

"I'll, um...think about it,” Legend answers awkwardly with a cough. Will they even be staying in Skyloft that long? How would he even get to another island, especially without anyone else following - Wait, why is he even considering this?! 

You seem to have lost some of your cheer. Perhaps that wasn’t the exact answer you were hoping to hear, however Legend, once again, has no way of taking it back.

“...Well, I, um, should get going. These clothes won’t dry themselves,” You mumble, gesturing to the basket you keep against your hip. Without waiting for any goodbye, you make your way up the shoreline, only stopping temporarily to shout over your shoulder, “Oh, and Li Ravio? I should probably tell you that Link was looking for you earlier! He wanted to make sure all you boys knew not to get too close to any edges! It’s quite the fall!”

Legend doesn’t respond, too stunned to form words as you chuckle to yourself before skipping off on your merry way. So you were aware of his lies the entire time!

Faced with tired bones and a sinking sun that plummets the world into night, the Chain has no choice but to call it a day (not that they have any objections towards rest). They practically collapse where they stand, taking a few greedy minutes to catch their breaths before picking up the work once again.

Setting up bedrolls, sparking a fire, organizing supplies, and chopping vegetables, the heroes are kept active for a decent hour or two until they can take another breather. Gathered around a wonky circle, their conversation is light and mostly focused upon their hunger which is only fueled by the pleasant smell of soup until it can be dished out.

About half the boys have bowls in their hands before a sudden snap of a twig causes them to trade their meals for weapons, senses on heightened alert especially when a stranger soon steps out of the shadows. At such a distance, the fire's light only barely outlines their silhouette, but that’s apparently all it takes for someone in their group to realize this is no actual stranger who's stumbled across them.

Hyrule's face lights up as he exclaims your name. Your own reaction is quite similar, switching from caution to excitement within the same second that you remove the hood from your head. The way you both move to greet each other, holding the other's arms with bright smiles and disbelief is quick to calm the other heroes. If you're a friend of the wary traveler's, then you'll be a friend to them.

"I thought it was your voice I heard from the trail, but then again, I haven't heard you in ages! And to find you in such a large group of companions? Never before! Where have you been for all this time, old friend?" You seem to go through several emotions all at once - a steady flow from relief, confusion, sorrow, and joy. Hyrule is hardly any better.

"It's a long story, but I haven't exactly been around to be seen," When you give him a bewildered look, he’s quick to brush it off, "I'll tell you all about it some other time - Hey, why don't you join us for dinner? There's plenty to go around!”

Your eyes instantly widen as you wave your hands in front of yourself, your smile suddenly strained, "Oh, no - no thanks! That's a kind offer, really, but I, um, ate not too long ago -"

"- Pss! He's not the one who does the cooking here," Someone whispers. At that, your shoulders visibly relax.

"...Oh...Well, uh, now that I think about it, it was really more of a light snack earlier. I suppose I could stand to eat something more."

Hyrule beams at this, clearly happy to have someone he knows so well stick around even if only for a night. It's then that he finally introduces you to the group, explaining that you're a fellow traveler he often crossed paths with during his own adventures. Seeing how dangerous this time can be, you had a habit of sharing supplies, camps, and stories to feel less alone in the world, so it's no wonder that you'd be so relieved to see each other safe again.

"Mind if I sit by you, stranger?" You ask, peeking around at Twilight while Hyrule grabs you a bowl of soup. Despite your tired eyes and worn expression, you still manage a friendly smile that causes the rancher to nearly choke on his spoon.

With a cough and blush, he scoots to the side, probably making far more room than you actually need, "...Not one bit."

"Thanks!" Fortunately, you don't seem to think anything of his reaction as you gratefully take a seat nor do you take any notice of the way he steals another curious glance at you.

Seeing as you're a new face within the group, it's only natural that you become the center of attention. Questions are thrown your way left and right, many interested to know your story which you modestly tell with little fanfare. Apparently, you've been a traveler for the last few years, wandering from place to place while making a living off trading the resources you collect throughout your journey. Before then, though, you used to live at your family's ranch.

"You grew up on a ranch?" Twilight asks a bit too eagerly once the topic's mentioned, earning himself a lot of strange looks including one from yourself, although you at least seem more forgiving than his friends, quickly letting your confusion go with a gentle nod.

"I did - For most my life, actually," That's all you say before going back to stirring your soup which you're thankful not to find any bone fragments in.

"What made you move on from that life?" Perhaps it's an out-of-line question a gentleman shouldn't be asking, after all he's no more than a stranger to you, but learning a pretty thing such as yourself may have a similar background to himself makes him forget all manners.

"...It was destroyed by monsters some time back," You answer simply while taking a bite.

Twilight bows his head, shame burning inside, "...Oh. I'm real sorry to hear that."

Despite his fears of having caused offense, you merely shrug off any discomfort, “My family made it out alright and we make do with what we have now. Can't go complaining about that."

"...I'm from a farming village myself - From Ordon,” He goes on to tell in a quiet ramble, “I’ve worked there as a ranch hand practically all my life, overseeing the goats we’re famous for. It’s quaint, and about as far from the big towns as you can get, but homely. And the people there - Why, I don’t think you’ll find anyone more kind and welcoming. Like livin’ in one big family.”

Once again, this probably isn't something he should be saying. If it were him, he'd be beyond distraught to lose the ranch to the point that any reminders would send him spiraling, yet to his continued good fortune, you take his story for what it's meant to be, setting down your spoon with a comforted smile.

"I'd love to see that…" Orondian, how you enchant him with such a soft gaze, taking him hostage in the sea of your sparkling eyes. If Hyrule's tales are any indication for the horrors of this broken world, you must be a true diamond in the rough to be from a place so cruel. Any less personal control and Twilight wouldn't hesitate to ask you to join them - to come along on this adventure and see how beautiful life will someday be. He could take you to Ordon and show you all he’s come to adore - let you breathe the fresh air scented like hay and pine while overlooking the familiar green fields you’ve dearly missed. Who knows? Maybe you’d even ask to stay. 

“I’d love to show you…”

"...Is this still a group conversation ooor?" Wild pipes in awkwardly from Twilight’s side, seeming to speak on everyone else’s discomfort as the poor, stricken young man loses himself to this yearning in his heart. This might be a long night and an even longer day tomorrow if they get stuck listening to him fawning over you...

You’re starting to doubt this shift will ever end…

It feels like you’ve been stuck in here for hours with nothing to do aside from sit at the counter and beg the sun to set just a little faster. You've already restocked inventory twice, organized stock to perfection, and swept the floor until your broom broke…If this keeps up, your sanity might just break, too.

Ringing from the front door’s bell gives you at least something to do as you sigh your typical greeting: "Welcome to Gia's General Store, where we have all your - LINK?!"

With a complete shift in mood, you happily leap up from your stool and race around the corner to meet your friend halfway in a tight embrace that you've both gone far too long without, "It's been ages! How have you been? Where have you been?"

Four chuckles at your eager questioning, "It hasn't been that long."

"Really? Because I swear five years have passed from this shift alone…" You groan dramatically before breaking away from the hug to get a solid look at him. Despite the months that have passed, he looks no different than when he had first set out. Good. You like him just the way he is anyway. 

"Please tell me you're planning on sticking around for a bit. I’ve been dying for something interesting to happen around here and your stories are just the salvation I need! I only have an hour to go until I can close up, though I'm afraid I might stab myself with a fire arrow before then. It’s been terribly boring!” 

That, Four doesn’t doubt. Your home village is as serene as they come which isn’t always a favorable trait in the judgement of two teenagers with more energy coursing through their bones than they know what to do with. Of course, he’s probably done no good helping matters by always filling your head with envious dreams of adventure and mystery. 

“We’ll probably be spending the night in town,” He tells you, much to your relief, “In the meantime, we have quite the list of supplies that we need to restock on, if you don’t mind.”

"We?" Somehow you only just notice the group of young men who managed to sneak into the store after Four. A few of them are already looking around at the items you have to offer, while others wait patiently with the hope that they'll be introduced to...Well, whoever you are to their dear friend.

"I would introduce everyone, but we all share the same name."

"All of you?" You look at Four in shock, yet he nods as if it's the most normal thing in the world to him...Then again, it probably is at this rate. Honestly you shouldn't be that surprised yourself. This is Link you're talking to.

"...Huh...Well, feel free to have a look around, I guess, and let me know if you need anything in particular. Arrows are buy one get two free right now, and fully in stock, too, since Link - Er, this Link, hasn't been in town to buy us out,” You explain to the group, jutting a thumb towards Four who rolls his eyes.

Now, usually you become a bit overwhelmed whenever large groups enter your shop, but seeing as these guys are Four's friends, you feel comfortable letting them wander freely. It helps that they seem to know exactly what they're looking for, too, making your job all the easier.

For the most part, the group allows Four and you privacy to catch up, only interrupting your conversation occasionally whenever they have questions about your prices or the quality of your goods, however you aren’t blind to the curious glances they spare you even in silence. No doubt they’re wondering how deep your relationship with Four goes, finding it endearing how at peace the young hero has become in your simple presence.

Most of these glances are quick enough, although you can’t help noticing that one of the boys seems to lack the same subtlety as his friends. Each time you steal a peek through the corners of your eyes, you spot him staring in your direction with an awed look overtaking his face. Whenever someone else nudges him to ask a question, he blinks rapidly with a stammer before bashfully looking away.

‘Cute…’ You’re tempted to think, but then you take notice of how young the boy seems to be. He must be at least a few years younger than Four and you - still a just child, at least by your standards which is an upsetting thought since context clues point to him being a hero, too. If that’s true, that must mean he was as young as Four was when he first set out on all this hero business himself, if not even younger. Poor kid…

Soon enough, Four confirms your suspicions about his traveling companions’ identities, telling you all about the strange portals they’ve traveled through and the journey they’ve been on up until this point. It was mere hours ago that they found themselves this close to home and, well, he couldn’t bear to pass by without seeing you or his uncle.

“Smart. I would’ve been livid had I found out you were in the area and didn’t stop by,” You elbow Four who pushes you back with his shoulder playfully before suddenly glancing behind you. Following his attention, you find the youngest hero standing there shyly, a minish feather necklace in one hand and a small pouch of rupees in the other.

Wind startles, seeming to have not expected your turn, “I, uh, wanted to know how much this was - um, is…So that I can buy it, if I may - for my little sister!”

You notice Four hiding his smirk behind his hand, yet you elect to ignore him for now, instead giving the younger boy your full focus with a kind smile, “How sweet of you. Consider it on the house, kid.”

“R - Really?” He brightens with possibly the widest eyes you’ve ever seen.

“‘course. Think of it as payment for helping my friend here find his way home safely.”

“Wow, thank you miss!” Oh goddesses above, his smile is adorable! He reminds you of the village children who often come here seeking sweet treats, such a simple delight to create lasting joy in their hearts. How you wish you could return to those days yourself - to no longer bear the weight of the world and its troubles in your thoughts. Alas, you could never so skillfully rewind time, but at least you can help protect that same innocence in others, even if only for a moment.

And protect it you do. Even late into the evening, Wind still cherishes that necklace in hand, carefully inspecting its details while kicking his feet giddily in memory of you, the pretty shopkeeper from Four’s Hyrule.

Sure, it probably isn’t that big of a deal. You gave the entire Chain a rather generous discount on their supplies despite their protests, but he was the only one who received your kindness personally without having to share. No one else aside from Four had the joy of seeing your beautiful smile directed his way, your expression soft and comforting like a warm breeze on the summer’s beach. 

He hadn’t lied. He does plan on giving the necklace to Aryll once this journey is over, but until then, he’ll probably admire it a little longer, at least until this crush of his settles within his heart.

[alchemistc]

I decided to write it. Thank you all for enabling encouraging me. MCD implied even though I'm still team Not Gonna Happen

read on ao3

grief in two parts

Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life. - Anne Roiphe

Eddie's snores drift in from the hallway.

Tommy's used to the noise of a firehouse full of exhausted men, the noise of a full barracks, he's lived an entire life in close proximity to a minimum of six to ten other people. It's just -

He's not used to it in this context: Evan wrapped carefully around him, still sniffling like he can pretend Tommy hasn't seen him a sobbing, sloppy mess multiple times in the past week alone. Tommy doesn't know why he bothers, except -

Except he's been hiding his delicate underbelly for decades. He's just not used to seeing Evan do it.

He hasn't paid attention to Evan doing it.

God. They'd been so certain they knew each other. And then so sure they didn't.

And now they're in this limbo where they're trying: to learn, to understand, to know, to not fall into those bad habits and the patterns that become a glaringly obvious tell.

Eddie might have a deviated septum, Tommy thinks to himself - wonders if anyone has ever pointed out to him that his snores are kind of concerning - and Evan snorts against Tommy's chest, his lips curving up right under Tommy's nipple, and it's been a week and a half, and there's been so much going on, and Tommy hasn't brought it up because they're mourning, they're figuring things out, they're sleeping in Eddie's old bedroom while Eddie snores on the couch even though Tommy has a perfectly serviceable bed of his own thirty minutes away.

Evan shifts against his leg, and Tommy raises a brow when he repeats the motion, hips circling, pelvis rucking back and forth, the quiet moment of grief switching gears as Evan ruts against Tommy's thigh.

"Evan," Tommy hisses, blinking rapidly when, a moment later, Evan tilts his head to latch on to a nipple. "Jesus Ch-."

"Shh," Evan hums, and tilts his face up to meet Tommy's gaze. Mischievous, devilish, radiant as the sun.

Eddie's snore stutters, volume increasing until the sound stops altogether, and in the dead silence Evan hitches his leg up, rolls his hips, curls his fingers into the bare skin beneath the hem of Tommy's sleep shirt.

"He's still asleep," Evan assures him, and Tommy can't help the tingly feeling along his spine when Evan smirks back at him.

There are a thousand reasons not to. Starting with "sex is always a great distraction for us when we have bigger issues", meandering into "the man you consider a father just sacrificed his life to save mine and we haven't talked about it", landing somewhere around "your relationship with the man snoring down the hall makes the green monster residing in the pit of my stomach loud and angry".

"Evan," he hums again, and watches the furrow between Evan's brow deepen. This, he's learned, is a sign. A sign that Evan Buckley is working his way towards anger, annoyance, outright desperation.

Evan pulls himself loose. Shifts his weight. Turns over to his back, knocks his head against the pillow a few times. "Fine. Whatever."

Tommy feels cold without the weight of Evan against him. Feels cold when confronted with the chill in Evan's gaze before he closes his eyes.

Eddie's snore breaks the silence, and Evan twists to face Tommy again. "Do you just not want to have sex with me?"

It's a stage whisper, at best, and they hadn't bothered to close the bedroom door so there's every chance Eddie could wake up and hear a whole conversation, instead of murmurs behind a door.

They're in Eddie's bedroom. Former bedroom. Whatever.

He wants to believe Evan when he says there isn't anything there, but the problem is even if it's completely platonic from both ends of the equation Tommy still feels like second fiddle. Still feels like he'll never stack up to almost eight years of a friendship forged in blood and sweat. Still feels like the man down the hall could snap his fingers and steal away this tiny sliver of happiness Tommy is trying to allow himself to have.

It doesn't matter if Eddie would. Just that he could.

Tommy opens his mouth. Closes it. Rolls his jaw and fights the urge to bolt.

"Tommy."

Snappish isn't a word Tommy would have used to describe Evan, before. Bratty, maybe, and fully aware of it, but Tommy has always enjoyed that, indulged it, fed into it because oftentimes it ended with one or both of them panting and sated. The tone has changed. He's not playing games, this time around, not dancing around the issue the way both of them had before.

Tommy shifts to face Evan. Thinks about the way his stomach had twisted, earlier tonight, watching Evan and Eddie slide around each other in the kitchen, working as a unit while they recalled fond, bittersweet memories. The annoyance in Evan's eyes snaps, at whatever he sees in Tommy's gaze, the brows furrowing a different way now as he slips a hand across the sheets to slide over Tommy's neck.

"I'm...overwhelmed," Tommy admits, as the space between their faces gets smaller, Evan sliding closer to gap the distance. "You just spent an hour crying, Evan, my mind wasn't really -." He pauses. Forces his hands to unclench, tries not to let the tremor in them be too noticeable as he grabs for a fistful of Evan's basketball shorts to tug him close. "Of course I want to have sex with you," he murmurs, and ignores the way Evans breath hitches, the way his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. "I'm almost never not interested in having sex with you."

Evan's tired, he can tell. Crying about your dead dad for an hour really takes it out of you. He's tired enough that he has to mull the sentence over for a minute, and Tommy considers rewording without any double negatives in the mix. They're not great at communicating.

Sex was always easier.

He doesn't know how to bring that up without pissing Evan off.

"So this is... one of those rare times you don't." It's not quite a question, and there's a bit of a huff to the end of it, like Evan is also badly attempting to keep the peace.

He's in his own head, is what it is. Eddie'd gotten the fun, fond reminiscences, the tearful laughter, and Tommy had been there too, had even told them some stories they'd never heard before.

But Tommy had gotten fried, sad, heartbroken Evan, clutching at Tommy like he was afraid he'd disappear. He'd gotten the full scope of Evan's hurt, anger, loss, and he doesn't quite know what to make of the difference. If there is one. If it even matters who gets which parts of Evan. Not when Tommy wants it all.

(You got both, he reminds himself, and tries to convince himself that was always the case.)

"Feels like I'm taking advantage of the circumstances," Tommy whispers, now that the space between them has dwindled enough to know he'll still be heard that way.

Eddie's snores pick up volume. Maybe it's the couch? That thing isn't exactly the most comfortable to sleep on.

Tommy remembers the Boils debacle, and takes a moment to remind himself how fucking grateful he'd been to see Eddie in the aftermath, when Evan was so stone-cold with grief Tommy hadn't known where to even find a fissure to break him loose.

That's the worst of it. How grateful he feels, knowing Evan's people are here for him. How he can't sort the gratitude from the envy.

Evan sits up, jostling Tommy's arm free, his own hands retreating from Tommy's skin, and Tommy's ninety-three percent certain he's about to leave, but instead he takes two strides to the door. It swings silently on its hinges, snicks closed.

Evan settles back onto the bed in a sitting position, criss cross applesauce with a hand held over his ankle, and Tommy feels exposed, lying in repose.

Which is how he's supposed to feel, he reminds himself. If they want this to work - if Tommy wants this to work - they're both going to have to say and do things that make them feel cracked open and vulnerable.

Closing the door on Eddie was Evan's concession. Tommy should return the favor.

"Everything is - is so messed up," Evan starts. "I don't know how long Eddie is staying, and I don't know what I'm gonna do the first time I walk through the bay doors and Bobby isn't -." His words catch in his throat. More tears well at the corners of his eyes and Tommy wants to reach out, wipe them away, comfort him. "And I don't know where we stand because you're - you're here, and you said some words, and you hold me when I'm sad but you won't - you're not -." He trails off, frustrated. "I can't just drown in grief, Tommy. I need to - I have to -" The noise he makes is so self deprecating Tommy wants to soothe it away. Smash it with a hammer once it's back is turned. "I want to have a life, Tommy. And, yeah, maybe not the most appropriate time to be feeling so freaking horny, but I'm not exactly the picture of mental health on a good day."

The laugh escapes his throat before he can help it. A snort follows, and then a peel of something closer to a giggle, and before Tommy knows it he's in fucking stitches, leaning his weight on his knees in a desperate attempt to calm down, except now Evan is laughing, too, infectious, boisterous, the laugh that had pulled Tommy in, hook line and sinker, over a year ago now.

"It's not -." Evan presses fingers to his eyes, tries to look serious, fails miserably. "It's not like Bobby would expect me to grieve any other way."

That sobers Tommy up in a hurry, because he hasn't found the right time to tell Evan exactly what happened there at the end. And Evan hasn't asked.

Also. He has no fucking clue what Evan means.

"What?"

Evan blinks. Purses his lips. Raises a hand, waits for Tommy to do the same so they can press their palms together. It's new, and Tommy isn't feeling particularly great about its origin, but it's worked to settle them on even ground for a few of the rougher conversations they've had since... Since.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a reformed slut."

Tommy hates the word, hates the joking way the words tip from Evans lips. But. They'd said they wanted to get to know each other, and then spent six months not doing that. He can work on the language later.

"Bobby fired me once," he says, and it's soft, quiet, tinged with a kind of bittersweet amusement that Tommy would spend years trying to understand. "For stealing the ladder to hook up with a girl from a call on a roof."

Tommy blinks. Tommy swallows. Tommy's brow furrows in when he bites his lip.

"I'm - I use sex. I know I do. As a distraction, as a crappy way of trying to communicate my feelings, as a desperate attempt to feel, like... important. It's - I'm better, now, but I know it's still..." He sighs, fingers drifting, sliding to wrap around Tommy's wrist. "I want to be close to you right now, and I'm also sad, and I also really, really want you to put your dick in me."

"You have such a way with words," Tommy jokes, and then pauses when the expression on Evan's face plummets. Honesty. Openness. Vulnerability.

Shit.

"Full disclosure? I'm gonna try everything I can to make you loud. And I have a funny feeling that's gonna piss you off."

It takes him half as long as the last time to figure out what Tommy isn't saying. The head tilt is unexpected. So is the smirk tucked behind his wagging tongue. "Seriously?" he asks, and one hand twists into the fabric at Tommy's knee before it slides up, up.

"I never claimed to be a rational man."

He hasn't claimed to be an insane one, either, but the evidence sure is stacking up.

"But you're still here," Evan points out, and Tommy doesn't have many rational thoughts left - not with Evan's hand still travelling, or the thought of waking Eddie up percolating in Tommy's hindbrain.

Tommy realizes for maybe the first time in a week that he has his own house. That Eddie could have stayed here, and he and Evan could have made it work for a few days somewhere else. Had he ever even thought to suggest it?

"I'm still here," Tommy murmurs, and presses in to catch Evan's bottom lip between his teeth.

---

"Ow."

The banana bounces off the side of his head, wobbles in the air, hits the corner of the counter at an angle and makes an unappealing squished noise as it finds the floor.

Eddie gives him the bitchiest look Tommy's seen a straight man make in years.

(Has to remind himself he's feeding into stereotypes he's been trying to shed his entire fucking life.)

"Seriously?" Eddie asks, and Tommy has the decency to scrounge up a blush at the tips of his ears. Once they'd really gotten into it, Tommy'd sort of forgotten his threat, but clearly he'd made it happen anyway, if the stink eye he's receiving is anything to go by. Tommy shouldn't feel so smug. Maybe one day he'll get over it.

He's trying to decide between contrition he doesn't feel, and a snide comment that will definitely go over Eddie's head, when Evan stomps his way into the kitchen holding the stray sock he's been complaining about no one picking up from behind the bathroom door for four days now. He's got it pinched between forefinger and thumb, held out and away like they're fifteen and he knows exactly what that sock has been used for, when in reality one of them definitely gathered up dirty clothes and just missed it in the dash to get out and allow someone else the lone shower in the place.

Tommy makes a mental note to remind Evan that if they wanted free reign of a bathroom, his is more than serviceable.

"Three days," Evan says, and waves the sock in Eddie's face. If his expression is anything to go by, it doesn't smell like roses. "Three days I've been asking -."

Tommy interrupts, "Four, actually, but babe, that's definitely your sock."

Eddie manages to mouth a teasing 'Babe' back at Tommy while Evan turns a thunderous look on him. "It is not."

He says "not" like there are three syllables in the word, and Tommy has to choke down the urge to smack the hand holding the sock away and press him against the kitchen table for a kiss.

This he knows. This he's familiar with - the argumentative banter that usually led to them being late somewhere. He's glad they haven't lost it entirely. He's glad Evan isn't drowning, like he's been worried he might.

"How would you know, anyway? You been peeking in Eddie's sock drawer?" It's - oh, it's a challenge, a tease, just a slight nudge of a reminder that Evan had been jealous, too. Maybe not for the same reasons, but they've both been there.

"Technically it's a sock section of a duffle bag," Eddie points out, and Tommy would love to throw all caution to the wind and lift Evan up on that fucking counter right now, maybe resolve the jealousy issues with an audience. Eddie seems to realize he's lost both of their focuses. "Yeah, I'm gonna just. Go be somewhere not here."

"Without rinsing your dirty dishes?" Evan asks, and just like that, they're off again.

Christ.

The two of them living together would be a goddamn nightmare.

Tommy settles in to watch them squabble, and wonders if Bobby would consider his promise to take care of Evan satisfied.

[theemporium]

Honey, I’m so so sorry. But it happens to every artist at some point.

I had a smallest idea, Lando and his girl workinv on her gag reflex, doing some training 🥵🥵

And he’s trying to be sweet and caring BUT his dominant side takes over for a moment or two???

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

.

As stupid as it sounded—and trust me, he knew how it sounded—Lando thought the determination in your eyes might’ve been the hottest thing about the situation. 

Not the fact his cock was down your throat. 

But, fuck, it drove him fucking crazy. It drove him crazy when you walked into the living room, brows furrowed and lips pursed like you already had a game plan. It drove him crazy when you told him to take his sweatpants off, zero explanation or context given. It drove him crazy when you kneeled down on the carpet before him and pressed the palm of your heel against the bulge in his boxers. 

Now, Lando wasn’t stupid or oblivious. He was big. He knew he was big. He was fucking cocky about it. And truthfully, he didn’t really care about his size—at least, not in the way you seemed to. If anything, there was almost a shot of pure, ego-stroking cockiness that flashed through him when past partners had failed to take all of him in their mouths. 

Lando didn’t even think you had an issue with it. He certainly didn’t. Fuck, to him, it never mattered if it was just the tip or half his cock, your mouth just felt heavenly and drove him to the edge every single time in minutes.

But something had tipped you over the edge. Something had made you determined. Something had made you want to take Lando’s cock down your throat, every single fucking inch like it was a challenge you were going to complete no matter what.

And that fucking ambition might have him coming and ruining your whole challenge in seconds with the way you were looking up at him, eyes wide and glossy and so fucking adamant that it made his breath hitch.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted breathlessly, slumped back against the couch as your tongue ran over the slit on his tip. “Shit, baby, I’m already hard. Can’t keep pulling tricks like that if you want me to last.”

Your hand continued to pump the rest of his length as you pulled off, grinning at him with those red and swollen lips. “But I like the sounds you make.”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Fuck.”

“Can’t wait to hear what noises you made when your cock is down my throat,” you continued, pressing light kisses along the length of his dick that left his hips bucking into your hand. “Can’t wait to feel how full you make me.”

“You’re a fucking menace,” he breathed out, muttered out with a soft cry as you licked a long strip from his balls to his tip. 

“You say that like you don’t want it just as bad,” you retorted, flashing him an innocent smile that he almost would have believed if it weren’t for the fact your chin was slick with drool and his precome. 

“Of course I want it, baby,” he muttered as he reached his hand out, brushing his fingers along your cheek before his fingers raked through your hair and remained there. “Can’t fucking wait to feel that pretty mouth around my cock, feel you squeezing me tight.”

Your face heated at the desire burning in his eyes as he guided your mouth back to his cock. You followed without hesitation, obeying the silent command as your lips wrapped around him again.

“So fucking determined to be the first, hm? To be the one to take all of me,” he cooed, something about the smirk on his face making your thighs clench together as he began to control your movements, control the speed your head bobbed up and down. “Just wanna be good like those girls in those videos you think I don’t see you watching, huh?”

You let out a pathetic noise around his cock, something quite like a whimper that made him grin wider. 

“My good girl wants to be like one of those fucking pornstars, huh?” Lando moaned as his hips jerked up, as those teary eyes stared up at him with such purpose.  “Shit, baby, gonna let you practise until you’re so much better than them.” 

You whined, your eyes fluttering shut as a soft gagging noise sounded through the room as his cock hit the back of your throat.

“Shhh, doing so well, baby,” he cooed, sounding almost patronising as you let him continue to fuck his hips up into your mouth. “Atta girl, baby, gonna be taking me all in no time.”

.

[thefirsthogokage]

Fuck AMPTP and the bullshit going on. I'm tired, might not do this well:

(link to article in above picture) From The Article

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”

The studios and streamers’ next think financially strapped writers would go to WGA leadership and demand they restart talks before what could be a very cold Christmas. In that context, the studios and streamers feel they would be in a position to dictate most of the terms of any possible deal.

[Image IDs: Twitter thread by David Slack posted July 12th, 2023 that reads in totality:

And right on cue, here’s the inevitable Deadline article claiming that the AMPTP and their CEO bosses are ready to wait us out and let us “go broke.”

They’re not. They can’t. This studio propaganda, and here’s why.

In the increasingly mega-merged and hedgefundified Hollywood, these companies live or die on their quarterly earnings reports. It only takes one bad quarter for their stock price to plunge, putting the company and the CEO’s job in jeopardy.

But their stock prices are holding steady, right? Right. For now. Because our industry is a pipeline that starts with writers. The TV and movies they’re releasing now are shows we started making for them 4-12 quarters ago. But what happens when that pipeline runs dry?

What happens is they run out of product. No new shows in streaming to drive and sustain subscribers. No new shows in broadcast and ad-supported to bring in ad revenue.

No shows, no money.

No money, bad earnings report.

Bad earnings report, bye-bye stock price. Bye-bye CEO.

After 70+ days with no writers to create their product for them, the pipeline is running dry.

Their stock price isn’t tanking yet. But if they don’t make a deal with us, it will.

And they know it.

If they make a deal soon, they might be able to weather it. Stretch out releases. Rush some new stuff through.

But the longer they keep us out, the longer that pipeline runs dry, the more unavoidable a catastrophic dip in new high-quality shows becomes.

And they know it.

So yeah, the studios are planting articles in the trades that make it sound like they’re so determined not to pay us the 0.02% of company revenues we’re asking for that they’re willing to hold out forever.

Bullshit.

I’m sure the AMPTP bosses would love to break our union. But they love their jobs more. They love money more. They can’t make that money without us.

And they know it.

Ignore the trades, walk the line, stand together, and win. #WGAStrong

/End ID]

Bonus: John Rogers' Reaction

[Image ID: A tweet from John Rogers that he posted July 12th, 2023 that reads:

I was trying to be cool and professional about this strike, but this AMPTP “we want to drive them to homelessness” shit means I’m going to be dug in at WB Gate 4 like Hiroo Onada. They’re gonna have to send @ellenstutzman with a bullhorn to order me out of the bushes.

The second image is Ellen Stutzman's Twitter bio that says:

Cheif Negotiator for WGA MBA, Assistant Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, West; Cornell ILR and UCLA Anderson alum. Views are my own.

/End ID]

EDIT: Please see the update on this HERE

[anim-ttrpgs]

Help Save the World of TTRPGs and Their Creators.

Okay I’m being a little dramatic, but at the same time I’m pretty serious. This is a call to action, and the livelihoods of myself and lots of other people, many of them (like myself) disabled, are depending on it. This is a post about why, what you can do about it, and (perhaps least often answered) how.

This post is actually an accompaniment to another discussion by someone else. If you don’t want to listen to a 90-minute in-depth discussion of much of what I’m about to tell you, you can just keep reading. Otherwise, click here or here and listen to this either before or after you read this post. (They’re the same thing, just different sources.)

If you have ever made or reblogged posts urging people to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox, you should be willing to at least give a try to other TTRPGs besides D&D5e for much the same principle reasons. I’m not telling you you have to hate D&D5e, and I’m not telling you you have to quit D&D5e, I’m just asking you to try some other games. If you don’t like them, and you really want to go back to D&D5e, then go back to D&D5e. But how can you really know you won’t like other games if you have literally never tried them? This post is a post about why and how to try them. If you’re thinking right now that you don’t want to try them, I urge you to look below to see if any of your reasons for not wanting to try them are covered there. Because the monopoly that WotC’s D&D5e has on TTRPGs as a whole is bad for me as a game designer, and it’s bad for you as a game player. It’s even bad for you if you like D&D5e. A fuller discussion of the why and how this is the case can be found in the links above, but it isn’t fully necessary for understanding this post, it’ll just give you a better perspective on it.

If you’re a D&D5e player, I’m sure at some point or another, you’ve been told “play a different game”, and it must get frustrating without the context of why and how. This post is here to give you the why and how.

[The following paragraph has been edited because the original wording made it sound like we think all weird TTRPGs suck.]

Before that though, one more thing to get out of the way. I'm going to level with you. There’s a lot of weird games out there.

You are gonna see a lot of weird TTRPGs when you take the plunge. Many of them try to completely reinvent what a TTRPG even is, and some fail spectacularly, others really do even up doing something very interesting even if they don't end up being what a core TTRPG player wants. But not every indie RPG is a Bladefish, lots and lots of them are more 'traditional' and will feel very familiar to you, I promise. (And you might even find that you like the weird experimental bladefish type ones, these are usually ideal for one-session plays when your usual group can't play your usual game for any reason.)

You're also going to probably see a lot of very bad games, and man have I got some stories of very bad games, but for now I'm just saying to make sure you read the reviews, or go through curators (several of which will be listed below), before you buy.

Now that that is out of the way, I’m going to go down a list of concerns you may have for why not, and then explain the how.

“I don’t want to learn a whole new set of rules after I already spent so much time learning D&D5e.”

Learning a new set of rules is not going to be as hard as you think. Most other TTRPGs aren’t like that. D&D5e is far on the high end of the scale for TTRPGs being hard and time-consuming to learn and play. If you’ve only played D&D5e, it might trick you into thinking that learning any TTRPG is an overwhelmingly time-consuming task, but this is really mostly a D&D5e problem, not a TTRPG problem as a whole.

“D&D5e has all of these extra online tools to help you play it.”

So what? People have been playing TTRPGs without the help of computers for 50 years. To play a well-designed TTRPG you won’t need a computer. Yes, even if you're bad at math. There are some TTRPGs out there that barely even use math.

“I’m too invested in the narrative and characters of my group’s current ongoing D&D5e campaign to switch to something else.”

There are other games, with better design made by better people for less money, that are the same kind of game as D&D5e, that your current characters, lore, and plot will fit right into and do it better. And no, it's not just Pathfinder, there's others.

“I can’t afford to play another TTRPG.”

You probably can. If you’ve only played D&D5e, you might have been made to think that TTRPGs are a very expensive hobby. They aren’t. D&D5e is actually uniquely expensive, costing more than 3x more than the next most expensive TTRPG I can think of right now. Even on the more expensive end, other TTRPG books will cost you no more than $60, most will cost you less than $20, and a whole lot of them are just free. If you somehow still can’t afford another TTRPG, come to the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book club mentioned below, nominate the game, and if it wins the vote we will straight up buy it for you.

(By the way, if you had any of the above concerns about trying other games besides D&D5e, that really makes it sound like you are in a textbook abusive relationship with D&D5e. This is how abusers control their partners, and how empires control their citizens, by teaching you to think that nothing could ever get any better, and even though they treat you bad, the Other will treat you even worse.)

“If I don’t play D&D5e, which TTRPG should I play?”

That’s a pretty limited question to be asking, because there will be no one TTRPG for everything. And no, D&D5e is not the one TTRPG for everything, Hasbro’s marketing team is just lying to you. (Pathfinder and PbtA are not the one system for everything either!) Do you only play one video game or only watch one movie or only read one book? When you finish watching an action movie like Mad Max, and then you want to watch a horror movie, do you just rewind Mad Max and watch it over again but this time you act scared the whole time? No, you watch a different movie. I’m asking you to give the artistic medium of TTRPGs the same respect you would give movies.

“I want to play something besides D&D5e, but my friends won’t play anything else!”

I have several answers to this.

Try showing them this post.

If that doesn’t work: Make them. Put your foot down. This works especially well if you are the DM. Tell them you won’t run another session of D&D5e until they agree to give what you want to do at least one try instead of always doing only what they want to do. This is, like, playing 101. We learned this in kindergarten. If your friend really wants to play something else, you should give their game a try, or you’re not really being a very good friend.

If that doesn’t work, find another group. This doesn’t even mean that you have to leave your existing group. A good place to start would be the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club which will be mentioned and linked below. You can also go to the subreddit of any game you’re interested in and probably meet people there who have the same problem you do and want to put together a group to play something other than D&D5e. You might get along great with these people, you might not, but you won’t know until you try. Just make sure to have a robust “session zero” so everyone is on the same page. This is a good practice for any group but it is especially important for a group made of players you’ve just met.

“I only watch actual plays.”

Then watch actual plays of games that aren’t D&D5e. These podcasts struggle for the same reasons that indie RPGs struggle, because of the brand recognition and brand loyalty D&D5e has, despite their merit. I don’t watch actual plays, or else I would be able to list more of them. So, anyone who does watch actual plays, please help me out by commenting on this post with some non-D&D5e actual plays you like. And please do me a favor and don’t list actual plays that only play one non-D&D5e system, list ones that go through a variety of systems. The first one I can think of is Tiny Table.

“I can just homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e.”

Even though I want to, I’m not going to try and argue that you can’t actually homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e. Instead, I’m going to ask you why you’re buying two $50 rulebooks just to throw away half the pages. In most other good RPGs, you don’t need to change the rules to make them fun, they’re fun right out the box.

“But homebrewing D&D5e into any kind of game is fun! You can homebrew anything out of D&D5e!”

Firstly, I promise that this is not unique to D&D5e. Secondly, then you would probably have more fun homebrewing a system that gives you a better starting point for reaching your goal. Also, what if I told you that there are entire RPG systems out there that are made just for this? There are RPG systems that were designed for the purpose of being a toolbox and set of materials for you to work with to make exactly the game you want to make. Some examples are GURPS, Savage Worlds, Basic RolePlaying, Caltrop Core, and (as much as I loathe it) PbtA.

“I’m not supporting WotC’s monopoly because I pirate all the D&D5e books.”

Then you’re still not supporting the smaller developers that this monopoly is crushing, either.

Now, here’s the how. Because I promise you, there’s not just one, but probably a dozen other RPGs out there that will scratch your exact itch.

Here’s how to find them. This won’t be a comprehensive list because I’ve already been typing this for like 3 hours already. Those reading this, please go ahead and comment more to help fill out the list.

First, I’m gonna plug one of my own major projects, because it’s my post. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club. It’s a discord server that treats playing TTRPGs like a book club, with the goal of introducing members to a wide variety of games other than D&D5e. RPGs are nominated by members, then we hold a vote to decide what to read and play for a short campaign, then we repeat. There is no financial, time, or schedule investment required to join this book club, I promise it is very schedule-friendly, because we assign people to different groups based of schedule compatibility. You don’t have to play each campaign, or any campaign, you can just read along and participate in discussion that way. And if you can’t afford to buy the rulebook we’re going to be reading, we will make sure you get a PDF of it for free. That is how committed we are to getting non-D&D5e RPGs into people’s hands. Here is an invite link.

Next, there are quite a few tumblr blogs you can follow to get recommendations shown to you frequently.

@indierpgnewsletter

@indie-ttrpg-of-the-day

@theresattrpgforthat

@haveyouplayedthisttrpg

@indiepressrevolution

Plenty of podcasts, journalists, and youtubers out there do in-depth discussions of different systems regularly, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are:

Storyteller Conclave (I’m actually going to be interviewed live on this show on April 10th!)

Seth Skorkowsky

Questing Beast

The Gaming Table

Rascal News

Lastly, you can just go looking. Browse r/rpg, drivethrurpg.com, indie press revolution, and itch.io.

Now, if you really want to support me and my team specifically Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is going to launch on Kickstarter on April 10th and we need all the help we can get. Set a reminder from the Kickstarter page through this link.

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, there’s plenty of ways to get one!

Subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

Donate to our ko-fi and send us an email with proof that you did, and we’ll email you back with the full Eureka prerelease package with the most updated version at the time of responding! (The email address can be found if you scroll down to the bottom of our website.)

We also have merchanise.

[lexirosewrites]

Hello, I saw you only had one submission for tomorrow and so I have come with Thoughts that I have made just for this. It's Steddie but we're going to focus on Max for context and fluff; you CANNOT have O!Steve without considering his pups, okay??

Max, with all her Family Issues, doesn't always immediately believe that people care about her, at least as much as she cares about them??? And also, she's never going to SAY she cares. You kind of just have to Figure It Out through proximity and the rare times she is willing to imply she would not say no to your company or assistance.

As such, she knows O!Steve cares about her. He got hit in the head with a fucking plate for her (and the others, but it was Billy, so it was also very for her), not to mention the rest of the UD stuff with him protecting everyone. But she doesn't really know that A!Eddie cares about her like that?? It's not like she thinks Eddie doesn't like her, they talk and joke and he gives her rides to group events because they're neighbors, but there's a difference between "I don't mind this kid" and "i care about what happens this pup," you know? She's not offended, it's just a fact of life that not everyone is going to be particularly concerned with her.

Max used to show up randomly at Steve's to spend the night when home was a bit much, but then Eddie and Steve started dating. Steve would never ask her not to come over even if Eddie is there, and Eddie might not mind her presence sometimes, but she doesn't want to impose so she just deals with it and stays home.

Maybe one day she's out on her skateboard after Hellfire (she doesnt play, but she and El hang out in the vicinity and talk), and the weather turns bad super quick. Thunder, lightning, freezing cold, pouring rain, the works. She doesn't have any change to use a payphone, so she's like tucked under an awning that shields her from about 10% of the rain.

A car comes by after about half an hour, and she gets briefly blinded by the headlights, but then they're driving away. Except then they're not. The car did a super illegal U-turn and is parked on the sidewalk, and it's not a car, it's a van. It's Eddie's van, and he's jumping out of the driver's seat and running over. He's got his leather jacket on, but as soon as he's next to Max, he's taking it off and holding it out to block her from the rain.

They run back to the van, Max still wrapped in his jacket, and Eddie cranks up the heat and starts rambling about trying to find her while he starts driving. Max is like "?? Find me??? You saw me half an hour ago???? Weren't you going to your boyfriend's????" And Eddie looks at her like she's speaking in tongues and is like "yeah?? And then it started fucking pouring so I called your house to make sure you got home okay but no one picked up. I drove over to see if you were just asleep, but no one was at your trailer so I came looking. "

Max is like. Positive she's not processing this correctly. So she's like "you were at your boyfriend's house. And you stopped your date to call me. And when I didn't pick up, you left your date. To drive all the way home, in this weather. And then drove around to find me because I wasn't there." And Eddie's just like "yeah, that's about it"

And look, Max isn't just going to Announce that this sounds like absolute nonsense, because that's a bit too much vulnerability, but it's probably written on her face, because Eddie glances over and suddenly the van is full of Reassuring Protective Alpha scent. His tone is super light and chill (probably for her benefit) but he just goes "like it or not, Red, you're one of my pups now. I might have to share you with Stevie, because he'd fight me for sole custody in a heartbeat, but that just means you're ours. Now come on, you haven't been home in ages and Stevie missed you."

Max just kind of looks at him confused, but then she looks out the windshield and they're at Steve's house, and Steve is already throwing open the door looking super relieved and he runs over with like a huge umbrella and holds it over Max specifically while he gets her inside, and he fusses over her and she allows it (just this once) and then she takes a shower to warm up and when she gets out there's a pair of Steve's shorts and Eddie's shirt waiting for her to put on while her stuff dries and their scents are super nice together and they smell like Home and Pack. Then they all drink hot chocolate and watch a movie and Max stays the night and never worries about coming over again.

The End and whatnot

-irrelevantbutembarrassing

🥲🥲🥲 she’s their pup

[greenwitchfromthewoods]

you in my eyes [6] l Javier Peña

Summary:  you weren't friends and you certainly weren't planning anything more together

Warnings:  angst, some kissing, enemies (?) to lovers, misogyny and sexism at work, some bad language, Murphy shows up, guns, blood

A/N: let me know you're reading this. I've had too little time lately to devote to this story, and I like it.

your feedback is very important to me and I want to thank you for all the reblogs, comments and likes. I secretly hope you like this story.🖤 sorry for all the mistakes

[previous chapter] [masterlist]

"Did you lose something?"

Loise watched him closely as he appeared near your desk and noticed your absence.

"Is she at work?" he asked, nodding towards your usual spot.

The woman smiled and adjusted the stack of files she held in her arms. Javier had the impression that she was having fun delaying the answer.

"Yes, she is." she finally answered.

"Where?" Why did she have to be like that, shit.

Loise analyzed his question again for a moment, until she finally answered, "She went to the archives. She said she had something to check."

"Thanks." he said dryly and started walking down the still empty hallway.

It was early, but not early enough, because he didn't find you at home when he showed up to pick you up. Okay, you didn't expect him to come back sooner, but shouldn't you have been at the apartment? Where were you that night when he showed up on your doorstep? Who did you meet looking like that... Peña remembered the smile of your neighbor who informed him of your absence that evening. Where the hell did you go?

He pressed the elevator button, but he was too impatient and eventually went down the stairs to the archive. His footsteps echoed in the hallway, and when he stopped in front of the door he noticed that the light was on inside. Loise might not be lying though.

As soon as the door opened he smelled dust and paper, and the quiet hum of the fan. Javier slipped inside and quickly made his way through the maze between the shelves. He spotted you after a moment, you were standing with your back to him, searching carefully through one of the boxes.

"I finally found you." he mumbled, and you quickly turned around.

His heart leapt at the sight of you, and your smile made the corners of his lips turn up a little. Did he miss you?

"Javier!" your voice filled his ears with a pleasant sound "I thought you were coming back in the evening."

"We managed to come back earlier." he replied, walking over and folding his arms over his chest "Yesterday, exactly."

"Oh, that's good." you replied, pulling out another folder and placing it on a couple more that you had on the shelf below "Did you manage to find anything? Any new leads?"

"Yeah, we have something to work on." he mumbled "And you?"

"I think I have something too."

You reached for the folders and started looking through them, excited, clearly wanting to show him something. Javier watched you closely, he felt the blood in his veins starting to flow faster, his thoughts speeding up.

"Yesterday I managed to meet with a guy, he had important information." you said without looking up at him.

"That's good." Javier replied.

"I didn't want to believe what he told me, but he had pictures and..." your eyes widened "Shit! He wasn't lying."

He didn't know what you were talking about. He didn't care. He finally blurted out what had been eating at him since yesterday.

"Did you have fun while I was gone?"

"W-What? What are you talking about?" you finally looked at him, distracted from your train of thought.

Javier cleared his throat. "I was at your place yesterday. Right after I got back with Murphy. You were gone."

"I had to go out. I had an appointment." you replied surprised, frowning.

He nodded. "You're dressed up for meetings with informants? Your neighbor told me."

Finally, the context of his words sunk in. Javier saw your eyes light up and your fingers clench tighter.

"What are you suggesting, Agent Peña?" you hissed.

"I'm just saying you weren't home. And now that you're saying you met with an informant, so..."

"I got information about a mole in our office. I couldn't go there and look like an agent from a distance." The words fell out quickly through your clenched teeth. You turned the folder and pressed it into Javier's hands. "This guy is collecting information from our office. He also had information about your last mission with O'Connell."

Peña looked at the photo of the man, he looked pretty average, but since he was in the files he had to be related. You pulled a folded photo out of your back pocket and put it on the one Javier was looking at.

"She's having an affair with him. They've been seeing each other for a while." You said, Javier looked at you. "I caught the mole, Agent Peña. And I didn't have to spread my legs."

Javier gulped. He already knew he fucked up. You glared at him and he really considered what he should say. Finally he spoke.

"I didn't say that..." you rolled your eyes in annoyance "Listen, I..."

"You better not say anything, Peña." you silenced him by pulling the file out of his hand "I have to meet with Messina. You can write it off as my next fling if you want, I don't give a damn."

"Shit! Sorry, I panicked!"

"Right, and you immediately thought of me like everyone else in the office!" you walked past him and headed for the door "I was so stupid. I thought you were different..."

Before he could say anything or react, the door slammed shut behind you with a bang.

The entire office had been pretending to work for over an hour, but everyone's eyes kept wandering to the door of Messina's office where she, you, one of the agents, and the person you had identified as the mole had all disappeared. Javier also caught himself looking in that direction, but his motivations were completely different. The guilt was eating him up inch by inch and he wondered if he would ever be able to look you in the eye again.

"I can't believe it's her." Murphy mumbled, stretching in his chair and clasping his hands behind his neck. "She worked with all of us."

"She also had access to the documents and everything else." Javier mumbled, lighting a cigarette and scratching his temple, your name finally leaving his lips. "You know if she wasn't sure, they wouldn't be sitting there right now."

"Yeah, I know." Murphy nodded. "Maybe I was expecting someone else. A guy. Someone who would do it for money or something."

"Loise did it for a guy." Javier replied. "People do a lot of stupid things because of feelings."

Murphy looked askance at his friend, wondering for a moment if he was still talking about what was happening behind the office door, or if he was talking about something else. He didn't ask about that, though, instead he glanced back at the office where muffled screams could now be heard. The sound of tapping on machines and conversations stopped for a moment, but no one heard anything distinct.

"Williams is there, I'll ask him when he comes out." Steve finally stated. "Maybe we could jump on..."

The door opened abruptly and Messina walked out of it with a lively step, right behind her was you leading Loise. The woman's face was covered in fresh tear tracks, but yours was unreadable to Javier. You didn't even look in his direction, with your chin raised you led Loise down the corridor and soon you all disappeared.

Peña and Murphy stood up almost simultaneously and as soon as the floor seemed safe they glanced into the office where Williams was filling out some paperwork.

"Hey. What's up?" Murphy asked, Javier slipping in after him.

Williams looked up at them and adjusted his glasses on his nose. "You already know, guys." He replied. "Loise was the one who was providing information from our office. Tough case, only this Agent could have come up with that."

"And the screaming?" Javier asked and noticed Williams shaking his head, smiling crookedly.

"You know," he replied. "Women. Loise tried everything to undermine her position. She called her the office's number one whore, said she spread her legs for anyone and for any information. She threw up everything and Messina finally told her to shut up." his mouth twisted in a strange grimace, but when he spoke there was admiration in his voice. "I don't know how she did it, and then endured it all with a straight face. I would have exploded. Loise will hear the charges, she'll be flying back to the States on the next plane." 

Murphy looked at Peña and they both left the office. They knew that what had been said would soon be known to everyone in the office. Every word Loise said would be repeated, even the words she said about you. There was a fear that instead of success and a pat on the back, you would once again hear whispers behind your back, because people would wonder how much truth there was in Loise's words.

Javier felt even worse, now he was one of them.

It was after midnight when a knock on the door woke you up. For a moment you ignored the sound, hoping that some resident had had a few too many drinks and simply got the wrong door, but eventually when the knocking continued, you stood up and pulled on your robe. You reached the door in the dark and opened it just wide enough for the safety chain.

"Peña." you mumbled, resting your forehead against the door, "It's late."

"I had to." he mumbled, looking around the hallway, "Can we talk?"

"I don't know. Can we?"

"Please, I know I screwed up. I don't want to leave it between us like this."

Your eyes were judgmental, or at least that's how he felt. You stared at him, considering his words, but eventually you took off the chain and opened the door wider. He walked in and a familiar scent filled his nostrils, your scent, the scent of your place.

"I heard Loise is coming back to the States. You did a good job." he said as you closed the door and leaned back against it, folding your arms across your chest.

"I know." you replied coldly.

Javier shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. You didn't need his praise, you didn't need any man's praise, because you knew you were good at what you did.

But despite everything, you didn't roll your eyes, you didn't scold him. You waited, or rather gave him a chance.

"I should apologize." he finally began. "I reacted... fucking idiotically." you tilted your head. "I wanted to surprise you, and when I didn't find you at home... Your neighbor told me you went out and looked nice. I thought... I fucked it up, I know. I was scared that you... that you might have... with someone..."

A small wrinkle appeared between your eyebrows as you furrowed them. "Were you jealous, Peña? About me?"

He shrugged, he was a grown man, and for a moment you had the impression that a teenager was standing in front of you. "Maybe, does it matter?"

"I don't know, does it?"

Your eyes met and something inside you twitched. If Javier felt jealous, that could explain his behavior.

"You know..." you began slowly, unraveling your arms and pushing your messy hair out of your face. "I was mad that you thought I could do what you thought. I mean, since when...we do what we do, I never..."

"I know." He interrupted you quickly. "I was an idiot. I felt so fucking insecure, because I really feel good around you. You're so much more, you know."

You raised your eyebrows, surprised by his confession. "Do you have a soft spot for me, Agent Peña?"

Javier rolled his eyes and lowered his head, trying to hide the smile that appeared on his lips. "You're good, you know? So fucking good."

You pouted and shrugged. "I know. And you? What are you like, Javier?"

He took a few slow steps towards you. His shoes stood on either side of your bare feet, you could feel the heat radiating from his body, the remnants of his cologne and cigarettes dripping down to you. 

"I think I'm at a disadvantage. How could I possibly compete with you, huh?" His fingers brushed your thighs, then climbed up your hips, squeezing them lightly. "What have you done to me, hermosa? I barely recognize myself."

"I hope Murphy gave you hell on this trip." You mumbled, smiling.

"Oh, yes! He's taken it to his limits. He kept wondering out loud why you even looked at me."

"You've got a nice ass in those tight jeans."

A sly smile appeared on Javier's face, he raised a cocky eyebrow. "Are you watching my ass, hermosa?"

"I'm watching your back, Agent Peña." His lips barely brushed your cheek, his warm breath on your skin sending shivers down your spine.

"Can I kiss you?"

"Good thing you asked. Yes, please."

Your lips met in a sweet kiss, tender and gentle. Your hands climbed up his neck and slid into his soft hair, and when you parted your lips without hesitation he slid his tongue into your mouth, deepening the kiss. His body pressed against yours and in that moment you had no way of escaping. You didn't even consider it.

"You know she's too good for you, right?" Murphy smirked.

"Shut the fuck up." Javier muttered, throwing his cigarette butt on the pavement and crushing it with his shoe.

"I'm just saying." Steve shrugged and checked his watch.

He leaned against the car door next to Peña, the sun warming their backs, but they were both staring at the embassy door where you had disappeared almost an hour ago. After Loise flew to the States, you had to sign a few more documents and promise that the information about the mole in the office would not get out beyond the people in the department. 

Javier thought it was stupid, but he couldn't fight the bureaucracy, and he didn't want to keep repeating it to you. You had been getting along really well for a few days, he didn't want to ruin it.

Even though Murphy teased him every chance he got, Javier knew he was right. He felt that you were too good for him, but despite everything, he was the one who made that incredible smile appear on your lips. It was in his arms that you fell asleep almost every night, that had to mean something.

"Connie wanted me to ask if you both would come over for dinner on Sunday." Murphy spoke again. "What do you think?"

"Have you already told her about us?"

"And what did you think, that I would keep it to myself?! Jesus, she thinks the same way as me..."

"It's her."

The doors of the embassy opened and you walked out onto the sunny street with some man. He shook your hand and exchanged a few more words with you. It took Javier a moment to realize that something was wrong. A car that was parked under another building screeched towards you.

"Fuck!" Steve hissed when he noticed that one of the passengers had drawn a gun. "Get down! Get the fuck down!"

The shots from Javier's and his guns mixed with those fired towards the embassy entrance. Panic broke out on the street. The screams of people mixed with the sounds of a car that bounced off one of the cars parked nearby and started to flee. Meanwhile, Murphy and Peña ran towards the embassy building. The whole situation made it so that they didn't see if you reacted, but when they were closer…

"Jesus Christ! Call an ambulance!" Javier growled when he reached you.

You managed to hide behind a car parked nearby, but you weren't fast enough. The blood stain on your side was growing with every passing moment.

"They hit him too! Fuck!" Steve's scream reached Javier's ears. "What about her?"

"She's bleeding like hell." Javier hissed, lifting your shirt and revealing the gunshot wound. He pressed it hard, and you groaned in pain. "I know, I know, babe. The ambulance is on its way."

His hands began to cover in blood. The seconds dragged on endlessly. He saw you weakening with each passing moment.

"Stay with me, hermosa. Don't even dare close your eyes!"

But he had no control over that. He had no control over anything anymore.

☆☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

taglist: @qpiiee @missladym1981 @axshadows @djappleblush @picketniffler @txmel @wowitsafemale @cheekychaos28 @underneath-the-sky-again @misstokyo7love

[taevescence]

Green Light | Min Yoongi

Author’s note: Hello everyone! It's me again ^^ I just came to drop this little thing during my short break because I feel like I've left you all hanging lol. Maybe I'll upload something here and there without context, who knows? It all depends on how I feel at the moment. Anyway, enjoy! Pairing: Yoongi x Fem!Reader AUs: Too Hot Too Handle Word count: 1.1k  Status: Unedited Permanent Taglist: @thunderg @minjianhyung @queenv1997 @yoongtism @lizzymizzy-blogg @superbbananananana @drpepperobsessed @themwordsblog @taekritimin123 @bluecloudss @yooglefics @tan-veee@angellekookie @madussthougths  @yoonkooks-yn You can join the taglist here!

"What do you think of the food?" you murmur, finishing the lobster on your plate. When Lana told you there would be a romantic dinner, just the two of you, you almost screamed with joy. It had been a tough few weeks since Junmyeon and Minah arrived—well, for everyone else.

At least, thanks to that, you now realize that Yoongi, despite having a beautiful woman in front of him, would still remain faithful. That’s quite an achievement. None of your past relationships had reached that level of loyalty. Should you celebrate it? Maybe Lana arranged this to congratulate you both for being such good human beings.

"It’s fine, I guess," Yoongi's voice barely reaches your ears. The way he stirs his food with his fork, how his eyes drift from side to side, lost in thought... it’s clear that he’s too distracted to pay attention to the taste of the food or to you.

You notice it right away.

"What’s wrong? You have a weird expression on your face."

A heavy silence settles between you. Yoongi’s fork stops just as his teeth sink into a cherry tomato.

"I was just thinking," he mutters.

"About what? Didn’t you like the food?" you let out a nervous, uncomfortable laugh. You feel the same way. How could you not when Yoongi doesn’t even dare look at you? It’s your first real romantic date, and he’s just sitting there in silence? What is he trying to do?

"About us," he sets his plate aside, licking his lips. Only then does he look up. His eyes seem unstable, blurry. He looks scared, which only scares you even more. "I... I hadn’t thought much about the kind of relationship we had until the new participants arrived, and... I don’t know..." He sighs in frustration, running a hand through his hair. His leg bounces up and down at an unstable pace. "Before everything with Junmyeon, I… I think I’d never been jealous before, and... and that frustrates me so much because I really didn’t want to feel this way for anyone again, but you’re so... so..."

"So what?" you murmur, feeling your heart race. The sound of your heartbeat echoes in your ears, and your hands begin to sweat coldly. You don’t want things to end, not yet, not when you’ve finally achieved what you’ve longed for all your life. You know Yoongi is the one—you know it—but what will you do if he doesn’t feel the same?

"I don’t know," he rests his elbows on the table, hiding his face behind his palms. He lets out a soft groan of frustration before continuing. "You're always smiling at me, and you seem to love everything I do, and, and you look at me with those eyes that make me think... that... that you’re really in love with me, and that... that scares me so much."

You watch him silently, your fingers gripping your fork so tightly that your knuckles turn white. You still feel insecure, unsure if what he just said is good or bad. Is he confessing his feelings, or admitting that he’s afraid of yours?

"Is that bad?" you whisper, your eyes fixed on Yoongi’s troubled face. It’s easy to notice how the green in his eyes blurs as tears threaten to spill. He doesn’t want to cry, but it feels so hard not to when he might break your heart at any moment. "That I’m falling for you—is that bad?"

Yoongi’s head snaps up so fast you wouldn’t be surprised if something cracks. His mouth is slightly open, his eyes wide—so wide that, in another context, you might have laughed at him.

"What?" he says, his voice trembling slightly. His hands now rest motionless on either side of the table, and his eyes stay locked on yours. He probably hasn’t looked away since the moment he first saw you at the pool, in that bright red swimsuit and the white shirt that reached your thighs.

He still remembers your smile, your cheerful tone, your soft, flirtatious voice, your laugh—how you always seemed to want to be close to him, just him, throughout the whole show.

"I like you," you whisper, keeping your posture firm to sound serious, to make sure he realizes you mean it. You always have. "I liked you from the moment I first saw you. I like your smile and your sarcastic tone, and I love how you always seem to avoid people praising you or giving you affection, even though, deep down, you love it. I like hearing you sing at night, and how it feels like you know me so well that you always know exactly what to say to calm me down," you bite your lower lip gently, trying in vain to hide its tremble. "I like you, Yoongi."

Both of you jump at the sound of a soft beep from your wrists, and soon, the dark night is no longer illuminated only by the distant house lights or the candles. Two small green lights glow brightly from your wrists.

Before you can even react, Yoongi’s lips are already on yours, moving so gently that your legs tremble and a soft sigh escapes from you.

You wrap your arms around his neck, letting his hands tangle in your hair, pulling you as close as possible. The kiss quickly grows more intense when Yoongi brushes your lower lip with his tongue, silently asking for permission to deepen it. You don’t hesitate to accept, gripping his shoulders with all your might as the kiss melts your brain.

You’ve kissed before, yes, but none of your kisses have ever felt as good as this one. Not even passionate one-night-stand kisses, or the affectionate kisses from long-term relationships. This one feels right.

Both of you groan when you hear the beep again. Yoongi pulls away just a few inches, your foreheads still pressed together.

"Lana, you have the worst timing," he murmurs in a rougher voice than usual, making you let out a soft laugh.

"She does," you agree, looking at his face with a big smile and a soft blush on your freckled cheeks. You feel so happy to be wrong. "So... should I assume that you like me too?"

"Well, it’s not like Lana gives out green lights to just anyone, you know?" He gently caresses your cheek, observing every little detail of your face as if it were a masterpiece crafted by the greatest Renaissance artist in history. "I like you too. More than I’ve ever liked anyone."