#yeah i dunno either i just always come back to this ship in this au every so often for no discernable reason

[jichanxo]

yakuza au xehaqus [from oct/2023]

[amethystfairy1]

Are there any deleted scenes/miscellaneous ttsbc things you'd love to share but haven't found the opportunity to yet? This is an open mic to ramble about anything related to ttsbc (if you don't have anything, feel free to ignore this ask)

OHHHHHHHHHH BOY YOU'VE GIVEN ME PERMISSION TO RAMBLE!

Ok ok ok...

Well, there are a couple little things I guess as far as 'deleted' scenes.

I was originally planning on having more heroes in the overcity alongside Scar and then having several other undercity vigilantes and really leaning into that concept. For example Cleo was going to be an older undercity vigilante who worked in the overcity and was helping Grian out as a mentor-type. There was also plans to have guy-in-the-chair Doc, and have him and Cleo be the two people who raised the avian trio. Alongside that, Pearl, Jimmy, Bdubs, and others were going to be vigilantes as well with various gimmicks/power sets.

But then as I was writing I realized I wanted to expand the AU, so I decided to lean more heavily into the idea of having various pairings that all had their own storylines. First up was Flower Husbands, and as I was considering them I decided on the route I ended up taking, with Grian being the only vigilante and having a support network behind him in the form of Pearl and Jimmy. Then it just sorta spiraled. 😆

As for other rambling about stuff I deleted/changed, I've always shipped Doctho but it's kind of a rarepair so I wasn't originally going to include it. Like I said, I was originally going to have Doc and Cleo be the ones who raised the avian trio, with Bdubs and Tango in that mix. The more I thought about it though, I decided that I wanted to have Doctho be the parental figures for the avian trio!

For Doctho, I originally was just planning to drop them as sort of a background thing and not really give them much attention. Just that they were the parental figures for the avian trio. But then people started saying in comments how much they loved Doctho in this AU and that they wanted to see the worldbuilding expand, and learn more about the undercity and it's history, and I thought the best way to do that would be through Doc and Etho and their history together!

And so we got 'Bleeding Sweetheart' and that was really when the ball started rolling on having this AU have an actual plot that is being driven forward by the characters instead of it just being a world for all these characters to exist in. Let me be clear, TTSBC will always be a character driven narrative. If anything is happening, it's for the sake of driving their relationships, both romantically and for the found families we've met, such as the Oddball Family, Cleo and Bdubs, and the Empires family whom we are getting to know right now in 'Blessing in Disguise'!

Anything else to share...I dunno, there's a ton of stuff in this AU. What I have posted so far isn't even half of it which is kinda ridiculous, huh? Theres lots I have planned for the AU! I know right now Traveling Thieves is getting a lot of my attention because of Febuwhump, but I'm really excited to get back to working on TTSBC and continuing it forward! Zedango is one ship I'm really excited to show off, I have a plan for them that I think is really interesting and unique. Not to mention Nature Wives, I haven't forgotten about them, either! So yeah, I guess the conclusion to this ramble is please stick around! I wanna share a whole bunch more of the AU with everyone!

Thanks for coming by 💖

[snootlestheangel]

NikGraves? They’re slowly becoming one of my favorite ships

This is gonna be a lot like the last one just without Price so it'll be interesting to see how that changes the dynamics

Feel free to submit ships or other questions about the ship like "Who takes the hottest shower?"

Who was the one to propose? Graves. He knows when he likes something and isn't going to shy away from keeping it

Who stressed more over wedding planning? Still Nik. I can see Graves being stressed at first but then he mentions it to a few of the Shadows closest to him and boom! He's got like a professional wedding planning team.

Who decorated the house? Graves. Nik wanted to but Graves has so much gifted to him from his Shadows they had no choice. Of course, the only stuff that goes up is stuff Graves likes. He's got class, after all.

Who is more organized? Once again going off the idea that Graves is really good at keeping up appearances of being organized, but it's Nik that's keeping track of stuff. They make an incredibly well-functioning duo which scares people. Truly a power couple

Who suggested kids first? Still Nik as a genuine topic. Graves gives in pretty easily, especially when they find the cutest little girl and take her in. Now, all I'm picturing is Graves waltzing into Shadow Base with their little girl just proudly showing her off. Idk why this is a thought I had with this, but Graves calls Nik his "big bear" cause like, duh? And it kinda sticks until they adopt their daughter and then suddenly he's "Papa Bear" and she's little "Pooh Bear". So of course Graves got her a little bear onesie complete with ears on the hood. And she's running around on the base, and the Shadows are all 'screaming' "There's a bear loose!" and it takes a bold Moose to rein the terrible monster in *I am not sorry, Mike :D* Another super cute idea relating to NikGraves and their toddler: Graves, holding her up like Simba in that one scene: BEHOLD, A CHILD! *cheers and screaming from the Shadows. There are some of them crying* *Graves could not be happier*

Who's the cuddler? Nik is still the cuddlier one. Graves gets dogpiled a lot during the day, but poor Nik has no one to cuddle "except for you, lyubov ;)"

Big spoon/little spoon? They interchange a lot, but Graves does his best to be a big spoon, even if he secretly melts when Nik just wraps around him from behind.

Favorite non-sexual activity? Horse back riding. I dunno I just see them doing that for some reason. They continue going to the same place after adopting 'Pooh Bear' because there's a special program for young families (ie families with small children) and she's just giggling madly while riding the cutest pony. (This idea has possessed me. This is your fault, @mike-like-t-scream all yours! We're just trading brainworms at this point, aren't we? First it was you with Moose, then me with the fucking YouTuber AU, and then you with Graves, and now me with NikGraves and their toddler daughter)

Who cooks? Graves. He knows how to feed his man. Mostly cause his Southern ass would drop dead if the love of his life hadn't eaten properly all day

Who comes home drunk at 3am? Nik on the rare occasion, but if there was a party with the Shadows, it's Graves or one time it was both.

Who kills the spiders? Nik, but he's under watch. I genuinely feel like Graves is the type of mf-er to have been like "Oh, yeah, guys I got this" during his recruit days, only for him to have been bitten and break out into a horrendous allergic reaction. Nik and Graves both don't to risk him having another allergic reaction like that

Who falls asleep first? Even though Nik is a pretty chilled out, sleepy looking kind of guy, he's genuinely so bad about sleeping. Look at that man and tells me he gets the recommended amount of sleep at night, I fucking dare you. SO therefore, Graves always passes out the second he hits the mattress. He's either 100 or 0, no in between.

A head-canon? Graves actually has a few siblings, and he's still relatively close to his family. Close as in he enjoys visiting on the holidays and for special occasions but other than that, they don't really talk much. Not for bad reasons, just more like he and his siblings all grew up and have lives of their own now. His family members were not fans of Nik, at first. Especially Graves's parents. Hell, this guy's probably a good ten years older than Graves if I had to guess, and which means Graves's parents are about the same age distance apart, assuming they were in their twenty's when they had Phil. It took a while for them to all warm up to Nik, which he probably expected, but they were never outright mean to either Nik or Phil. His mom definitely voiced her concerns, and his dad definitely threatened Nik (to which Nik treated it with such seriousness and he like shook Graves Sr.'s hand with a grim "With my life, I will protect him" to which Graves Sr. is like "oh yeah, this dude's chill!"). ALSO Graves is definitely a middle child. He gives off such strong feral middle child vibes to me, I just... He's the middle child, I promise.

Do they have any rituals? Graves's rituals for safety, fun, and winning during the Shadow Olympics and Nik's stretches for safe flying.

Who has the most patience? Nik, obviously. This actually concerns his parents-in-law cause let's be honest, the Graves family is probably a bit messy and they all have pretty short tempers with each other. Meanwhile Nik's just chilling, he's vibing with the old family dog while his husband and brother-in-law are wrestling over the last burger, as if they both aren't in their forties.

Gif that sums up the relationship:

*is still sick* Hehe cats

[ezzydean]

How did it take me this long to get to the og Samezuka Trio for the trick or treats? i dunno but here we are.

come trick-or-treat in my inbox requesting ficcies and I’ll either treat you to some fluff or humor or trick you with a horribly twisted sad AU  (I’ll use a random generator to pick trick or treat) send me “trick or treat” and a character(s) or ship in my inbox and I’ll write you a short little thing (I’ll be doing these all of October so send away!) i have no idea how it took you so long either. but here you go.

treat

Seijuurou looks at the crown of golden leaves in his hands.  Once it had been so bright it hurt to look directly at it.  It still hurts.  But for an entirely different set of reasons.  The love and awe is still there every time he sees it.  But it’s been tempered by time, the shining gold more burnished brass.  Just as breathtaking but more so for those who know the history.

The bedroom door closes behind him and warm arms wind around his stomach.

“It’s not going to get any brighter no matter how much you glare at it,” Aiichirou says.

“I’m not glaring.”

Aiichirou snorts and buries his face against Seijuurou’s back.  “Yeah and you’re not pouting either.”

“I’m not.”

Aiichirou’s fingers are familiar and warm and sure when they wrap around his wrist for a moment before plucking the crown from his grasp and tossing it onto the dresser.  He feels his heart clench at the careless gesture but Aiichirou just shakes his head and slips around so he’s leaning against Seijuurou’s chest and peering up at him.

“You have to let it go sometime.”  Aiichirou smiles at him.  “Forget the crown.  I’m right here in front of you.”

“I know,” he sighs.  “It’s just hard sometimes.  To forget a lifetime of training and instincts.”

“Believe me.  I understand.”

Seijuurou presses a kiss to the top of Aiichirou’s head.  “Forgive me, my prince?”

“You?  Always.”

—

Rin stares at the dull gold circlet on the dresser with a frown.  He doesn’t get it, doesn’t get Seijuurou’s attachment to the thing.  Which is kind of hilarious because of the three of them Seijuurou is usually the least sentimental one.

He pokes at the faded rings and runs his fingers along the edges of the detailed leaves, scowling and sucking on his fingertip when the still razor-sharp edge cuts his skin.

A drop of red sits on the golden leaf, mocking him and everything the three of them stood for once upon a time.

“Hey, you,” Aiichirou says as he shuffles into the bedroom.  Rin rolls his eyes and grabs the towel in Aiichirou’s hand and starts drying his hair off.  Some things never change, despite all the things that do.

“Hey, yourself,” Rin replies eventually.

“You know if anyone has a right to stare mournfully at the crown and remember days gone by and all that it would be the one who was born to it.  The one who wore it every day of their life.”  Aiichirou twists so he can look up at Rin through his wet bangs.  “The one who died for it.”

Rin kisses Aiichirou’s temple and feels the warm skin under his lips, proof Aiichirou is very much alive.  Now, anyway.

“So the ones who killed for it and defied every god they’ve ever known for it are chump change?”

“No.  They’re mine.”  Aiichirou smiles as Seijuurou steps into the bedroom and gives them a curious look.  “Same as they always were and will always be.”

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

[shadowdianne]

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

[deeranger]

Fic Writer Questions!

@oddsocksandstuff tagged me in this, thank you so much, sweetie!  ❤️

 1) How many works do you have on AO3? I’ve got 40 so far (of which 25 are SPN fics). There’s more to come! 

2) What’s your total AO3 word count? 486,667, apparently. That tells me each of my fics has an average wordcount of 12,166.675… Seems about right. I was never any good at keeping things short.

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Uhh… On AO3 I’ve written for Supernatural, Supernatural RPF, X-men (Cherik) and McFassy (James McAvoy/Michael Fassbender). But I’ve written a lot when I was younger that has never made it online, including NCIS, Pirates of the Caribbean, and lots of weird one-shorts starring everyone from Michael J. Fox to Kevin Sorbo from “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”. 🤨  

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos? “A Lesson to be Taught” – an SPN Wincest pwp fic where a dominant Dean fucks (and spanks) Sam and they discover that Dean apparently has a daddy!kink. Comes with a photo manipulation too! There be dick.    

“Taking Game” – a semi-dark medieval Cherik (Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr from X-men) AU. Basically, Charles is a poacher hunting on king Erik’s land to his great dismay. And so, he’s captured and gets the choice between losing his life or serving the king for a bit… Dubcon and smut ensues.   “Only Like This” – a little SPN Wincest dub-con fic about hopelessly pining Dean doping Sam just so he can touch and kiss his oblivious little brother. It’s okay. Sam won’t remember when he comes to.   “It’s Only Carnal” – A dark SPN Wincest noncon fic where soulless!Sam needs to blow off some steam. And when it comes to carnal activities his brother isn’t exactly a novice – so why not use Dean’s body to make them both feel good?   “Demonized” – a long and dark af SPN noncon fic written in collaboration with the awesome @palishere. Sam is captured by some nasty demons who use him to lure in his brother. At first it seems the demonic scumbags are just really perverted and have a weakness for sexual torture, but they turn out to have ulterior motives…  

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Yes, always. I think it can be a bit demotivating for a reader to leave a comment and get zero response – and so, they might not bother to comment on the next fic. At least, that’s how I feel personally. And besides, I really want to let readers know that I appreciate them taking the time and effort to actually tell me what they think.  

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Oufff… Seriously? How can I possibly pick just one when 99.8 percent of my fics are not only dark af but have gut-wrenching ambiguous endings as well? I, err… I’m gonna have to think really hard about this one, hold on… *Insert buzzing cicada sound*… Uhh… Well, I guess it might be… “Play or Pay” – a dark female!reader-insert Wincest fic where demon!Dean has you and Sam trapped somewhere underground. Sam ends up being on the receiving end of the demon’s cruelty when he tries to save you. Using Dean’s body the demon ends up raping Sam while the reader tries to escape to get help... There’s a little twist in the end. Loads of dead dove here, including death (not Dean or Sam).     “The Orange Hour” – where undercover inmate!Dean has to rape CO!Sam in order to save both of their lives and get them out of the jail in one piece. It doesn’t go completely as planned. (Comes with an nsfw photo manipulation).  “Demonized” – loads of bottom!Sam torture, full of hurt and absolutely no comfort... It’s just… I dunno, I think I and @palishere had a collective meltdown in the noncon and angst department. Sorrynotsorry.      

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? Nope, I’ve never in my life written a crossover. Usually, I’m too laser-focused on 1 obsession at a time. I can’t multitask, okay?   

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yes, the fandom purity police has visited me on AO3. The usual self-proclaimed know-it-alls vomiting their bullshit all over the comment section about how “problematic” noncon is and how “sick” I must be. I thought about moderating comments for a while, actually – but I just deleted their follow-up comments until they left me alone. 😤

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind? Yes!! Gimme! Usually, I write noncon smut or just good ol’ pwps that feature some sort of dominance. That’s it. That’s my jam. In general, the only smut I don’t write is the cute, fluffy, feel-good, cuddly stuff… My smut’s usually pretty rough and/or some sort of dub/noncon.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes. Someone stole “It’s Only Carnal” and posted it as her own on some Portuguese fanfiction site. She even replied to comments, answered questions and talked about how much she loved writing it, etc… Luckily a sweet mutual on Tumblr let me know about it and I reported her for plagiarism. The stolen fic was taken down shortly after and the account deleted. Goddamn thief. 😡  

12) Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Honestly, I can’t remember which fic(s). But people have contacted me on AO3 and asked for permission to translate my stuff into Chinese. I have - of course - happily allowed them to. It’s such an awesome compliment to get, I think!  

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, 2. “Demonized” and the fluffy Ficfacers prompt fic “The Masks We Wear” starring Sam and Dean taking their pranks a step too far. Basically, the brothers get angry with each other and they need to talk it out… No smut in this one, can you believe it?!! But that was kinda the prompt we received. The prompt was literally: “Sam and fluff”. Anyways, both fics are co-written with the lovely @palishere. You can find her AO3 here. 😊

14) What’s your all time favorite ship? Wincest!!! Definitely. Gimme all the brotherfucking, please. No contest. And coming in on second place I guess there’s Samifer – never paired consensually, though. I just love Lucifer messing with Sam’s head and torturing him in all kinds of cruel ways.    

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Oh, that’s a mean question… I have a noncon WIP where Sam and Dean are in prison. I wrote a whole story outline, gathered my own little dictionary of prison slang, etc… But I never made it past page 10 or something. Sam was supposed to get jumped by a gang of inmates and then Dean was supposed to helplessly watch from the sideline, offering to trade places if they’d just leave his little brother alone… And after that it’s all about a mix of healing and vengeance… But the story has been lying on the shelf for more than a year and I doubt I’ll ever continue it. Oh, wait! I almost forgot – I have a long Cherik WIP sequel to “To Have and to Hold”! Just checked, its wordcount is 18,729! Holy crap…. What a waste, huh? But I honestly don’t think I’ll ever finish it, because I’m not into Cherik anymore. That ship has kinda sunk for me…. So, now I’m hyperfixating on Supernatural, yeah?     

16) What are your writing strengths? Description, I think. I just love details and setting the mood. I like to think I’m pretty good at writing in English too even though it isn’t my native language… I wish to be better and expand my vocabulary but I’m doing okay nonetheless.

17) What are your writing weaknesses? Description, I think. Yes, you read correctly. I often describe things TOO much. Sometimes to the extent where the pacing gets so slowed down that I feel like the scene loses its ‘feel’. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but that’s my major concern about my writing. That and my signature ambiguous endings, lol.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Love it. It can be difficult to pull off, but if you get it right it can be magical. Just don’t overdo it and make sure that the reader can follow. I don’t think I have any fics online where I do it, but I’m not a complete stranger to it either.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? Ack, my poor brain trying to go back to when I was friggin’ 13… You know how many years ago that was?! 25!!! Okay!? *Huffs*…. Anyway, I THINK it might’ve been Keanu Reeves’ character in “Johnny Mnemonic”. Or maybe David James Elliott’s character as Harmon Rabb in the early seasons of “JAG”. I dunno. Either way this question makes me feel really old and I don’t appreciate it. Don’t @ me. 😅   

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? That’s probably a tie between “The Orange Hour” and “It’s Only Carnal”. They’ve both got nice pacing and that’s my biggest challenge, I think. Also, I love the whole Morse code thing in “The Orange Hour”. I don’t even know what happened or how I came up with it, but hey, I can surprise myself if I want to, I guess! And of course there’s the smutty noncon and all of the hurt… So, those two fics are my personal faves. 😏  

I’ll tag @jackandthesoulmates, @pinkoptics, @palishere, @wrenseroticlibrary, @decadent-prince, @negans-lucille-tblr, @juinae and @impala-dreamer and everyone else who feels like doing it! Feel free to ignore, of course. 

[underfell-crystal]

Sea Thieves: Old Scars

TW: Past trauma, panic attacks, scars.

Alkai belongs to @mochamashi and Harp belongs to me! Written for @kiokodoodles / @okay-kioko 's mermaid/pirate AU

(first thing I write for this AU is angst/hurt/comfort. Dunno if that's good or bad.)

"Okay. This is gonna be great! We're gonna have so much treasure after this."

Harp swam alongside the beta fish mermaid, rolling her eyes. "Everything's about treasure for you."

"Says the selkie who has almost gotten killed cuz of her stomach."

Harp stuck her tongue out at Alkai, pouting. "I was HUNGRY, okay?"

"Yeah, I know. You're ALWAYS hungry. That's the only reason why you decided to team up with me in the first place."

"Nuh uh. I also thought you were cool and wanted to be your friend."

Alkai turned their gaze to her and gave Harp a sharp toothed grin. "Awww, shucks. You're too nice."

Harp grinned, lacing her fingers behind her head and swimming backwards. "Aren't I?"

"Now you're starting to push it."

"No take-backs!"

.

.

.

After a bit of swimming, the hull of a fairly large ship came into view. Alkai grabbed onto one of the planks and glanced at Harp. "Okay. Plan is you sneak up and grab some food and treasure. Once the coast is clear I'll come up and grab some more treasure. If you get caught, I'll rescue you, and then we'll escape."

Harp nodded firmly, gripping the strap of her satchel. "Got it."

She swam towards the surface, grabbing onto one of the nets hanging just above water level. As she pulled herself up, she focused her mind on her lower seal half and changed her tail into a pair of human legs, her seal skin appearing around her shoulders. She climbed the rest of the way up, peeking over the edge of the ship to make sure nobody was in sight before clambering over the railing and pulling her bunched up brown dress out of her satchel. She removed her coat for a moment, a feeling of queasiness washing over her as the coat left her body. She quickly put on the dress and put on her seal coat over it, breathing a soft sigh of relief as the feeling of sickness vanished.

She hurried to the back of the ship, tiptoeing so she didn't alert any of the crew members that might be around. She carefully opened a heavy wooden door, and her eyes widened in delight at the sight of all the food. Her eyes immediately went to the crates of vegetables, dried meat, and biscuits, and she quickly snatched up several servings. Food acquired, she snuck out of the storage room. Now to find the gold.

.

.

.

Of course the treasure would be in the captain's room. He was either very paranoid or very arrogant to have his gold in his sleeping quarters. And seeing as he'd fallen asleep counting his money, it was likely the second option. Harp crept forward, slowly opening her satchel and taking small handfuls of coins and placing them in her bag as quietly as she could. She really didn't want to wake the captain up as he slept less than three feet away. As she was distracted by her thoughts about food, her hand moved too far forward into the pile of gold and sent the coins clattering loudly to the ground. The captain jolted upright and locked eyes with Harp.

Shit.

Harp turned on her heel and ran, bursting through the door of the cabin as the captain shouted for her to stop. Several other crew members emerged from below deck and quickly zeroed in on her. She stumbled over a coil of rope, one of her hands instinctively grasping at the bag at her side as she barely avoided faceplanting the wooden planks of the ship.

The other crew members were on all sides of her. The captain appeared behind her, eyes ablaze with rage. He looked furious, and Harp wasn't about to stick around to find out what he did to thieves. She turned and hooked one leg over the railing, her gaze dropping to the water.

She froze.

There were several large shapes beneath the water. Mostly black with white markings. Sharp, SHARP teeth. Beady black eyes stared at her.

Orcas.

Harp couldn't breathe. She was trapped. She couldn't go back in the water. She was way too slow for them- even if Alkai got to her in time to help, it would be two versus five at the bare minimum. She- she-

A hand gripped her arm and yanked her away from the railing. She flailed her arms desperately, shrieking in panic, trying to get away. Her arms were pinned to her sides, and the captain's scowling face came into view. "You.... How the Hell did you get on this ship?"

Harp forced herself to take deep breaths. Breathe.... In and out.... She met the captain's gaze hesitantly. "I.... I stowed away..."

The captain crossed his arms. "Liar."

Harp felt a shiver run down her spine as the captain stepped closer, his dark eyes cold, calculating, and knowing. "I.... I do-"

"My crew and I double checked every room, every crate, and every barrel. We checked the masts and the hull of the ship. There is no way you could've snuck on here."

The captain tilted his head, his gaze landing on her neck, where some of her spots were visible.

Oh... Oh no....

Harp swallowed. "I.... I..."

Before she could come up with a believable lie, she felt her coat being ripped off her shoulders, and she was immediately hit with a wave of nausea that made her vision spin. The crew member holding her handed her coat to the captain, much to Harp's horror. The captain examined the spotted pelt before looking up with a slight smirk. "No way you could've snuck on here... Unless you came from the ocean."

Harp could barely register his words. Her head hurt, her eyes weren't working properly, she couldn't BREATHE-

Something big and heavy swung from to the side and sent the captain flying. A familiar figure appeared from the other side of the ship, and Harp felt a wave of relief wash over her. Alkai was here.

The crew member released her and drew their saber, letting her fall to the deck. Harp tried to stand, but it felt like she'd drunk too much rum. Her legs were shaky and barely supported her weight, and her spinning head wasn't helping matters. She collapsed to the ground, her vision going white for a brief moment. Through her pounding head, she could hear the sounds of swords clashing against each other. She tried to stand up again, but her legs felt like mush. She heard the sounds of rapid footsteps approaching, and someone grabbed her under the arms and hauled her to her feet, carrying her toward the railing.

Alkai's voice floated through the fog in her mind. "Change back!"

She felt something soft be shoved into her arms, and she clung desperately to it as Alkai dragged her overboard. She barely remembered to hold her breath before they hit the water, the sudden cold almost making her black out. Change back.... Change back.... She gripped her pelt and wrapped it around her shoulders, the fog in her mind slowly beginning to dissipate. She felt her legs reforming into a tail, and as she looked around, her vision slowly started to get clearer. The boat was pretty far away, but she could still see things moving in the distance.

Don't think about them. She felt hands on her shoulders and turned her gaze to Alkai, whose brow was furrowed in concern. "Harp, stars, are you alright?!"

"Y... Yeah.... I.... I thought I was finished..."

Alkai exhaled slowly. "You froze. Why?"

Harp tilted her head in confusion. "... You didn't see them?"

"What? The orcas?"

"Yes!"

Alkai frowned for a moment before a look of understanding passed over their face. "Were you scared?"

Harp looked down. "..... Yeah...."

Alkai noticed her expression. "Hey, it's fine to be scared. But we need to get further away."

Harp nodded in relieved agreement.

.

.

.

"So.... Why are you scared of orcas?"

Harp and Alkai were sitting together in front of a small fire, drying their clothes and cooking some fish they'd caught. Harp stared at the fire, silently debating whether or not to tell them the whole truth. Alkai waited patiently beside her. "You don't have to talk about it if you really don't want to."

Harp shook her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's fine... Just.... Trying to decide where to start."

Alkai nodded. Harp took a deep breath. "I ran into an orca mermaid when I was younger. Orcas in general are already freakishly smart, but having one be half human is a recipe for a swimming murderhouse."

Alkai stared at her with large eyes. Harp gripped her arms. "I went out too far... I was trying to catch some fish for us- um, me and my family- to eat, but I wasn't paying attention.... And.... Then he appeared. I tried to get away, but.... Orcas are faster than seals and....."

Harp took a shaky breath, feeling Alkai gently rest their hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Harp, you don't need to tell me everything."

Harp shook her head. "I want to tell you everything. I'm fine, I just.... need a minute."

After a few seconds of silence, she continued. "I escaped alive, obviously, but... Not unharmed. He gave me some nasty cuts on my back and tail."

"Really? How come I haven't seen them?"

Harp pulled down the back of her dress, turning her back to Alkai so they could see the upper area of her back. "Feel along my spine."

Alkai obeyed, and felt a slight groove next to her spine. A scar. "They're old, so... They're pretty hard to see unless you're looking for them..."

Alkai traced the pattern of almost invisible, jagged scars down her back. "Harp... Thanks for telling me..."

Harp nodded, letting go of her dress and turning to face them, eyes focusing on a very interesting twig next to her feet. "Yeah.... um.... That's why I'm scared of orcas..."

"Harp."

Harp looked up, confused. "Huh?"

Alkai's eyes were serious. "I won't let anything hurt you, especially any orcas. I promise."

Harp blinked her large eyes and smiled softly. "Thank you... You're a good friend, Alkai."

The two fell asleep looking at the stars, feeling just a bit closer than they were before.

~Aaaaah I finally finished this!~

[trashboatprince]

Since I’m still in a sci-fi mood (along with, like, monsters and romance stuff too, but that’s always there), and I haven’t been able to really... make any new written content recently, I decided to rework an old one-shot I wrote for the space pirate au with how my Henry, Hugo, met Bendy in it.

I honestly don’t remember if I ever posted it here, I know I posted it on discord for my friends to read, but I’m posting up a better version here. Plus, rewriting an old drabble might help me get back into the swing of things when it comes to writing! Especially since I’ve got a zine entry to work on. 

As always, Hugo is a half human/half alien (Asterian), and he’s fourteen in this. Bendy is a being from another universe or dimension, it’s unclear where Bendy’s from, but he’s a demon.

Asterians are a race of aliens that have the ability to travel through the vacuum of space with no need to breathe and have bioluminescent skin, but because Hugo is part human, he can’t last as long in space as he should.

On with the fic!

--

Hugo had lost count of how long he had been left on this stupid hunk of space rock, but he knew that he would probably be dead in due time. 

He considered that he’s probably got about an hour or two left, and knowing the Butcher Gang, they’ll either show up last minute to watch him suffer before putting him back on the ship, or they’ll just let him perish. They’re real jackasses like that.

At least he took his sketchbook with him after they threw him off the ship for their own enjoyment, but still, not much to draw when all around him was just inky darkness and a weak light source from a distant star. 

He sighed, soundless, his skin gently flashing a neon green, starting from his face down to his fingertips.

“Dat’s a real fancy trick ya can do, kid.”

Hugo’s eyes widened and he turned, shocked to have heard a voice, when he normally couldn’t hear anything in the vacuum of space. He was surprised to see something moving in the darkness of space around him. Something shifted, specks of lights moving around in front of him, before something formed. It looked like a wide, cartoon-ish smile, and from there a whiteness started to spread, forming an odd shape. Then two black, nearly full ovals, with little cuts in them, appeared in the white. It was a face!

“Hiya!” The face greeted in a childish voice, though clearly accented. The shape got closer and as it stepped onto the rock with Hugo, the half-human saw a shape form.

The darkness of space took on legs, oddly shaped, along with a long tail, them a small body that was sorta shaped like a bean. Arms with clawed hands followed, and the face seemed to have more of a head shape to it, though clearly shaped like a strange crescent form. The blackness of the body was covered in what looked like stars, twinkling and flashing, a variety of colors.

“What?” The strange creature asked. “Ya not gonna greet me?”

Hugo frowned, gesturing to his throat and then opened his mouth before shaking his head, his skin flashing involuntarily.

“Ah, right,” The creature nodded, frowning, “ya guys in dis universe can’t talk in da vacuum of space. Hold on.” 

He snapped his fingers, the snap actually made a sound, and a bubble surrounded the whole rock. Hugo let out a surprised laugh, before slapping a hand over his mouth, blinking. “W-what?”

“Just a li’l trick, super easy to do!” A grin formed on the other’s face. “It’s made outta natural gases dat drift around us, can’t just make it all, ya know, willy-nilly, but it’s super simple! So, what’s yours dat mine’s Bendy!”

Hugo had to take a moment to register what this guy, Bendy, has said. “It’s, uh, it’s Hugo.” He replied, coughing, trying to sound deeper than he naturally was. 

“Hugo, huh?” Bendy grinned brightly. “Nice to meet’cha! So, whatcha doin’ out here in an asteroid belt? Not really a social spot fer ya... what are you?”

“I dunno.” Hugo shrugged. “Human and somethin’ else, I reckon. What exactly are you?”

“Demon!”

“Demon? You mean, like, those human monsters?”

Bendy snorted loudly at this. “Pah-lease! Nonononononono- weeeellll... yes? No? Maybe so! Hard to tell, I mean, demons an’ angels aren’t technically natural to dis dimension, but we exist! We’ve been to Earth! I’ve been there, a number of times, really nice, an’ kinda bad, but it’s got lots of fun stuff there! Ya ever been?”

Hugo shook his head. “No, never really been in that area of the galaxy. Been, uh, stuck in situations were I don’t get to pick where I go.”

The grin slipped on Bendy’s face, as if he was reading the situation and figured out what Hugo was referring to. “Ah, I getcha. Still, maybe you’ll get to see it! It’s pretty neat!” The grin returned and cosmic eyes glanced to the sketchbook resting next to Hugo. “Oh! Ya draw?”

There was a nod, and Bendy asked to see. Hugo let him and Bendy started to look at the sketches and drawings Hugo’s done over the past few months. He seemed rather excited and giddy about them, chatting and pointing out what he loved, or pointed out what was good but could use some improvement.

It was... kinda nice, Hugo thought as he sat there, listening to Bendy ramble on and on. He hadn’t really had anyone to talk to in ages, not since his escape from his previous life and being cabin boy on the Butcher Gang’s ship didn’t give him much respect from anyone onboard, so having a strange being this excited to talk to him was like a breath of fresh air.

“So, why are ya sittin’ on this floatin’ rock, Hugo?” Bendy asked after a while, when their conversation had turned into small talk and such.

“I got left behind for no good reason by the Butcher Gang, they’re the pirates I ‘work’ for.” Hugo stuck out his tongue, making a face. “They’re a bunch of lowlife bastards, is what they are! I bet I could be a better pirate than them any day!” 

“You wanna be a pirate?”

“Yeah!” Hugo got to his feet, grinning. “I wanted to be a ranger when I was a kid, but I think a pirate would be cooler! Better! I can make a name for myself, I can rule the skies in my own ship! One day, I’ll have my name known across the galaxy! People will fear the name Hugo, no more lookin’ down on me and thinkin’ I’m just some freak or useless mutt!”

Bendy stared at him for a moment, quietly, and Hugo suddenly felt self conscious, before Bendy’s grin grew even bigger than it had before, nearly face splitting. His eyes sparkled with stars, brightly, it was so strange. “That... SOUNDS AMAZIN’! Can I join!? Can I be part of yer crew, Hugo!?”

Hugo was a bit caught off-guard by this. “You... you wanna be part of my crew? Why?”

“Cause dat sounds like so much fun! Look, I’m a drifter, I explore wherever I drift to, but dat gets so borin’ after so long! An’ bein’ a space pirate sounds like a blast! I’ll help you escape, an’ you an’ I can go on a bajillion adventures together!”

Bendy shoved his hand out at Hugo, smiling. “I’ll make yer dreams come true, Hugo. If ya want mah help.”

“...” Hugo looked at the offered hand. “What do you get outta this? No offense, but from what I know about demons, they like to make deals.”

“None taken.” Bendy shrugged, casually. “I getcha, not easy to trust a demon, we do have a rep fer deals an’ da like, kinda ruins it fer the honest demons like me. But listen, all I want outta this is a fun life! An’ I think yer just da guy to make dat happen.” He winked and Hugo chuckled.

“Alright, you’ve got a deal, Bendy!” Hugo took the offered hand with manic glee.

--

“Wait, you just... took the deal? Just like that?” Harrison asked, raising an eyebrow. “Did you not consider that it could have been a trick?”

“Honestly?” Hugo shrugged. “I considered that, yeah, but Bendy sounded honest, and somethin’ about him screamed ‘he’ll be the most important friend you’ll ever have’. And I was right.”

Hugo chuckled, rubbing at his right palm, where black mark was in his skin, like a tattoo. It was Bendy’s mark, meant for protection and connection. Harrison had asked about it, had asked how Hugo had even met Bendy, and the pirate decided to tell him.

“Do you regret it?” Harrison asked as he looked at the mark.

“Nope, never have, never will. Bendy and I are friends till the end.”

“I see... wait, how the heck did you two become father and son then?”

“Oh, see, now that’s a really funny story! So, when I was fifteen...”

--

It had been a slip from Bendy, by the way, he has accidentally called Hugo ‘dad’ and then it sorta just stuck around. Hugo has embraced the role of dad with his whole being, especially since he can get away with dad jokes now.

But yeah, here’s how these two met in this au! 

Harrison is my friend inkspottie’s Henry, by the way. 

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 38

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: A new semester is starting

A/N: We are finally done with the holiday chapters! When it comes to this chapter, I'd like to state that I only have some experience from a couple of Finnish universities so I really don't know a whole lot about how certain things work in practice in the States, so please ignore the possible inaccuracies for the sake of this fic. It feels weird after a couple of 'bigger' chapters to have a bit more 'fillery' one... but... but... there's Caleo in the beginning?? So I hope you'll enjoy nevertheless. I wish I could spread even more love towards this ship because they deserve it but sadly there are only so few hours in a day. The fandom seems so quiet these days...

Anyway, enough rambling! Now let's get to this chapter, and the usual reminder: I love to hear what you think! All comments are much appreciated :)

Words: 2500+ 

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

”Is something the matter? You look quite unhappy.”

Leo felt arms sneak around his shoulders from behind while he was sitting on the common area sofa, staring at his laptop with a frown. Some of the speaker’s reddish brown hair fell in front of his face, the smell of cinnamon drifting into his nose, and for some reason that alone was enough to relieve some of Leo’s uneasiness. The small, pale hands found their way down his biceps and stopped there, but he wasn’t going to complain. If he was honest, he was really happy about Calypso’s growing confidence when it came to the physical affection, because it told him she really trusted him. Sometimes he was still amazed that he out of all the people had managed to break the ice around her.

Before Leo let himself get too lovestruck, though, he reminded himself why he was staring at his laptop in the first place. The new semester was starting and that naturally meant new courses, new assignments, new texts to read and… new emails from his professors. One specific email had managed to twist his stomach quite badly. In it, the professor from his chemistry lab class had asked him for a meeting, and Leo assumed he wanted to discuss what had happened on the exam day. Wishing that he could just ignore that said message, he turned his attention back to his girlfriend.

“Just uni issues… nothing more severe this time,” Leo replied half jokingly. The holidays had given him some perspective on what really was important to him and failing a class didn’t feel quite as big an issue anymore. It was inconvenient, yes, on a few levels, but not entirely unfixable.

“Oh?” Calypso finally let her hands slide off of him and sat down next to him. She seemed a bit relieved that this was about the university and not something that was out of her reach, and if Leo was honest, he couldn’t blame her. “What kind of issues?”

“A professor wants to meet me face to face tomorrow. Probably to talk about my recent chemistry lab test or something like that.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Hmm… Isn’t it quite unusual for them to give special focus to a single student at this stage?” Calypso asked.

“Apparently they still do that in my department. Who knows, maybe they think I’ve caused them enough trouble by now and want me to quit.”

“But what happened in your lab test was not your fault. Do you think you are any closer to being able to finish it in case you get another chance?”

When Calypso was looking at him with those almost chocolate brown eyes, he felt that it wasn’t impossible.

“Some smart person once said that I need to believe in myself more, so that’s what I need to learn to do. After that… it might be possible.”

“I’m glad you’re listening to me at least sometimes.” Calypso gave him a lopsided smile. “The fact that you know what you should do means that you’re already on your way there.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Wanting to talk about something else, Leo asked: “Well, what about you? How are you feeling about the upcoming semester?”

“I’m feeling… pretty good about it, you know? Sure, I’ve been reading our course plans and it sounds like our professors are planning to make us work like every day is an exam day and we have some group assignments and important presentations coming up, but… I really like learning? And I like listening to the conversations between our professors and my fellow students during our lectures because it’s something I never got to do when I was stuck at home… I feel like I get new points of views from them all the time. And Annabeth is a really big help; she knows everything about everything so if I ever feel like I can’t follow the lectures, she can always clarify them to me.”

“I have a hard time imagining you not being able to keep up with the professors… but yeah, it’s good you can ask for her help if needed.”

Calypso nodded.

“You know, I’m glad you two got your issues sorted out in the fall,” Leo added as an afterthought.

Calypso looked up at him with a slight frown as if she had completely forgotten about what exactly had happened in the fall. “Oh, right, that. I feel like it was just one big misunderstanding. Both of us realized that we can’t get stuck on something that happened so long ago.”

Leo couldn’t deny that he had also felt a bit jealous of Percy when he had first found out about his and Calypso’s past, but she had clearly moved on, so he wasn’t holding a grudge anymore either. Calypso had decided to date him, and that’s what mattered.

“Yeah, I know from my personal experiences that ain’t worth it,” he replied.

Calypso leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed.

“I have a… maybe a bit weird question. Do you believe in some kind of greater power? You know, like gods?”

Leo wondered why she would ask that. “I dunno. Maybe. I’m not really strongly for or against that. I think I’m the kind of person who needs to see it to believe it, but I don’t think it’s impossible. But why do you ask?”

“This will sound extremely cheesy but sometimes I wonder… if there was a reason why we two met. Like some greater power that pushed us together for some reason.”

“Wow. I don’t know if any greater powers had their fingers in that but I am glad that it happened.” Leo threw his arm around her shoulder and wondered briefly why it felt like such a natural thing to do. At one point he had been too intimidated to initiate any kind of physical contact but now that they were more open with each other and she had seen him in some of his worse moments – he didn’t mind anymore.

“Yeah. Me too.” Calypso whispered.

Only the buzzing of the fridge and some other kitchen machinery could be heard on the background while the flatmates were simply enjoying each other’s company, resting their heads against each other, but eventually Calypso suggested:

“Hey... I think I need something that will allow me to disconnect a bit, so… how about some Friends?”

Leo didn’t have anything against that suggestion. In fact, he always enjoyed the TV show or movie nights with Calypso, for various reasons. “Sure. That sounds great to me. You know I’m always ready to roast my homeboy Chandler.”

“I know you are.” Calypso nudged him and took the remote control to find the right episode. As they started watching and commenting on it (he always enjoyed how snarky Calypso’s comments could be), Leo almost forgot about the upcoming meeting with the professor.

…

The next day, Leo found himself in the building where the office of his lab professor was located. At the breakfast table he had practiced the meeting with Calypso, and Jason had also joined him a bit later to wish him luck. To Leo’s relief, he did seem a lot happier than when he had seen him before the holiday break, but he still didn’t talk a whole lot about his current situation. Leo himself decided that it was better if he didn’t guide his friends too much so instead he did a quick recap on the recent developments in his own life – without mentioning his new relationship status. Luckily Jason didn’t ask, as he seemed to be more worried about Leo’s upcoming meeting.

As he was waiting for the professor to arrive, Leo kept glancing at his clock nervously. The man was already a few minutes late. While Leo knew that wasn’t anything unusual in the university world, as the professors tended to be busy, he still kept wishing he could get the meeting over with as soon as possible. His leg started bouncing again on its own and his fingers were tapping against the wooden handle of the chair. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite as sure about what he was going to tell the professor as he had felt earlier.

Finally, he was pulled from his thoughts by a loud ‘ahem’.

“Mr. Valdez? Sorry I’m late, my meeting with a couple of coworkers got a bit long,” the professor said.

“That’s… that’s fine,” Leo stuttered. Some months ago he would probably have said something snarky as a response but right now he knew better than to take any risks.

“Go in, go in, so we can have a talk,” the professor encouraged. Unwillingly, Leo followed him into his office and had to be told to sit down before he even realized that there was a comfortable looking arm chair right next to him.

“So…” the professor started once he was seated behind his desk. “You probably know why I invited you here.”

“I… I do have an idea…” Leo said hesitantly, looking everywhere in the room except the professor. The man had a lot of engineering related books in his bookshelf, a big stack of papers - probably students’ assignments - and a fancy looking calculator on his desk. Behind him on the wall there was a single photograph of his family. Pretty much exactly how Leo had imagined the said professor’s room looking.

“I will be direct with you. Your achievements in the lab classes - or lack thereof - is a cause of confusion for us. In almost all of the theory related classes, you are on the top of the class – despite the occasional reports that your behavior towards the lecturers could use some improvement.” The man raised his eyebrow, but Leo thought he could see a glint of amusement in his eyes. That didn’t last long, though. “However, until now we have been willing to overlook that because of your talents. Maths, physics, chemistry… those things you clearly don’t have any issues with. But already for the second year you have been avoiding the lab classes for which you have been signed up and last fall you even left the chemistry lab test before you managed to get it completed. I’m sure you are aware that if you want to move onto the more advanced classes, you need to complete the mandatory ones before you are allowed to do that.”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware of that,” Leo replied stiffly, wondering briefly when was the last time he had called anyone sir, other than ironically.

“In that case…” His voice turned less formal, more fatherly as he continued, which surprised Leo. The professors he was used to dealing with were usually not all too nice to him, although he was willing to admit that some of it was probably deserved. “Can I ask you, is there a specific reason why you haven’t attended the lab classes?”

Leo wondered if he should come up with a quick lie. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life that he would have to do that in order to protect himself. However, the professor really seemed sincere and concerned about him and in a way his expression reminded him of Jo’s when she was expecting him to open up. Perhaps that’s why he ended up deciding to answer honestly:

“Yes. There is.”

“And? What is the reason?” The professor raised his eyebrow.

Leo inhaled deeply before forming his response. “I’m afraid of fire. Yeah, laugh ahead, but it’s true. I can’t deal with anything that requires heating because of some nasty as hell childhood trauma.”

To his surprise, the professor didn’t get angry at him for talking to him in such a manner. Instead, he furrowed his eyebrows.

“And you’re still planning to make mechanical engineering your career? Despite your fear?”

Leo nodded slowly. “Yeah. Building and fixing inanimate objects is the only thing I’ve ever known how to do. I was basically born with a hammer and a wrench in my hands and I was capable of building toys for myself when I was like four. After an accident…” He refrained from mentioning his mother because he couldn’t guarantee he would be able to stay calm if he brought that up. “… I haven’t been able to light up a match or anything like that. But almost five years ago, two awesome women adopted me and one of them is a mechanic. She reminded me what I really love about tinkering and it was then that I decided that I wanna keep trying. It’s a process but I am working on it.”

The professor smiled a little. “You know… a lot of our students were unable to take the chemistry lab course in the fall, so we decided to organize another course now in the spring. As it happens, there’s still some room for new people in it. So, if you’re interested, you’re welcome. But remember, you would need to attend all the mandatory classes and complete the tasks that you are assigned, no exceptions. That means we will not be going easy on you just because of your fear.”

Leo’s eyes widened with surprise. He hadn’t expected to get a chance like that.

“Woah, thanks sir! I won’t let you down!”

“That’s good to hear,” the professor nodded approvingly. “Can I ask you a question, though? Why do you want to become a mechanical engineer? I mean, what exactly is it that fascinates you about it, other than the influences you have gotten at your home?”

Leo imagined that the professor could probably see the bolts and nuts moving in his brain as he formed his answer. “I… I wanna learn to develop products that will help us make the world a safer, more sustainable place for us. We engineers, if anyone, can develop technology that will help us achieve that goal. But that’s not all. I also wanna learn more so I can help to share the information forward. I wanna show kids who come from similar backgrounds as I that they should keep on dreaming. There was a time when my mom ate porridge - only porridge - for her meals so she could pay the rent when her business was slow, but she still kept doing it. Because that’s how much she cared about her job. And I want to continue in her footsteps.”

The professor shifted on his seat. “That is an admirable goal, Mr. Valdez. I hope you will succeed. Remember, you do have the skill – you just need to know how to use it.”

“Yeah… Thanks professor.”

“No problem. Don’t forget the class enrollments end tonight so you need to be fast if you want to participate. That’s all for now. Good luck in your future endeavors.”

“Thanks. I’ll go enroll myself then. Bye for now.”

“See you, Mr. Valdez.”

Leo breathed a long sigh of relief the moment he stepped out of the professor’s office. The meeting had gone way better than he had dared to expect. He hadn’t thought he would get another chance so fast, but was grateful for the opportunity. Now, he would only need to kick his fears into the deepest pits of Tartarus, as Calypso would say.

[izzyfandoms]

Lies Have Never Tasted So Sweet

SHIP: Emceit

CHARACTERS: Emile Picani, Janus Sanders and Remus Sanders

WARNING: Lying, mild sexual implications from Remus, swearing

GENERAL TAGLIST: @quillfics42 @aj-draws @phantomofthesanderssides @phlying-squirrel @sly-is-my-name-loving-is-my-game @because-were-fam-ily @imtryingthisout @a-creepycookie @emo-disaster @littlestr @spooky-scary-virgil @fuyel @mimsidoodles @soupgremlin @aroaceagenderfluid @birdsbookshiddeninrealbirdsskin @quirkalurk @gingers-trashy-stuff @iinyxtello @justaqueercactus @melodiread @mrbubbajones @glassferns @pun-master-logan @gayturtlez

Masterpost

A Series Of Soulmate AUs Masterpost

Emile was someone who always liked to look on the bright side of things.

He liked to stay positive – to be cheerful and happy as much as possible, for both himself and those he surrounded himself with. Happiness spread happiness, and he was a sunshiny influence on everyone around him.

But sometimes it was difficult to stay positive, with Emile’s soulbond being the way it was. Out of all the different kinds of soulbonds in the world – and there were many, many kinds – the ability to tell when your soulmate was lying was the one that led to the least number of meetings. It wasn’t a way to communicate, nor was it a way for them to track each other down, nor was it a way to identify their first meeting. It was useful for soulmates who’d already met, but didn’t really come in handy when trying to find them in the first place.

It was difficult, sometimes, to stay positive that one day Emile would meet the love of his life.

He tried, though. He tried to be positive and hopeful, and he also tried to be truthful – or stick to little white lies that hurt no one, because he needed to make sure his soulmate could still find him, even if dishonesty made him uncomfortable.

Apparently, his soulmate had no such qualms.

The fireworks that burst in Emile’s chest whenever his soulmate told a lie were undoubtably a good feeling: sometimes making him so bubbly he giggled. But their frequency was often... concerning, as he could never forget that every firework was set off by a lie.

What kind of person was Emile’s soulmate, if they lied so much and so often?

And what did that say about Emile, that that kind of person was his soulmate?

But Emile wasn’t one to judge so quickly. All he wanted was to meet his soulmate, and he knew he’d love them no matter what.

The first thing Emile noticed when he woke up was the firework-like feeling in his heart, earlier than usual, but not too surprising. It happened once. Twice. Thrice. Four times in a row, before it calmed down again, and Emile took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling as he waited for it to start up again.

To his surprise, it didn’t, so he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He patted his bedside table a few times, before finding his glasses and slipping them on.

The fireworks returned once in the shower, startling and causing him to almost slip, though he caught himself just in time.

Twice during breakfast.

(The first happened while he was pouring milk into cereal, making him jolt and spill milk over the side of the bowl.)

And then it didn’t happen again until Emile reached the building he worked at, which was simultaneously both a disappointment and a relief: a feeling which Emile was rather used to at this point. As he approached the front doors, he could hear two young men about his age having a conversation just between the building Emile worked at and the next. They were only a few feet away from him, and talking loudly enough, so Emile overheard them without having to strain to listen.

“Wow, I just love the shirt you have on, Remus,” said a masculine voice, dripping with sarcasm.

The moment the words left his mouth, a firework went off in Emile’s chest, and he paused, his hand freezing halfway to the handle of the door. He swallowed. Was that a coincidence, just some interesting timing? Or...

Another voice laughed loudly, followed by the sound of someone clapping another on the back. “Ha! I see you’re still as dickish as ever, Jan. Never change!”

“And I see your clothes are just as clean as ever.”

Another firework.

Emile turned his head, finally taking a look at the man with either impeccable timing or a soul that would fit his perfectly. He was short, though Emile was, too, with curly black hair, a yellow button-up shirt and a black bowler hat on his head. There was a shiny, coiled snake-shaped earring hanging from the one ear that Emile could see, and he wore a pair of clean, lemon yellow gloves.  

His expression was amused, with a half-smirk and raised eyebrows, and he was by far the most attractive man Emile had ever seen. Emile’s breath caught in his throat, and he knew.

He knew.

Well, he figured he should probably check first, just in case he was wrong, but he knew.

Emile pulled his hand back from the door handle. He snuck a quick glance at his watch. There was still half an hour left until his first patient of the day arrived. He let out a sigh of relief. He had time to wait, and listen to the man who he hoped would start lying again.

His eavesdropping was probably incredibly unsubtle, but the man wasn’t facing Emile, his attention fully on the friend in front of him, so he fortunately didn’t notice.

“How is Roman?” Emile’s maybe-soulmate asked his friend.

The friend blew a raspberry. “He sucks! He’s so annoying. Yesterday, he stole my cereal, and then he wouldn’t even admit to it! Asshole.”

The maybe-soulmate clicked his tongue.  

“You have my sympathies,” he spoke in that same smooth, sarcastic tone, with a slight hiss on the ‘s’, making his friend let out an exaggerated mock-offended sound, hand over heart.

(Firework.)

“Rude! You know, maybe you’d get laid more if you weren’t such a bitch.”

“I’m sure.”

(Firework.)

“Whatever. Did you know that ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises?”

The maybe-soulmate let out a disgusted sound. “Wow. I’m so glad you told me that.” (Firework.) He then let out a sigh. “Why are you like this?” He asked in a regular tone.

His friend shrugged and grinned at him. “Dunno.”

Emile’s heart was pounding harder and harder with every firework that went off inside of him, so loud that he could feel it in his ears. His hands were shaking and he was sure his staring was probably very obvious. It was a wonder he hadn’t been noticed by the pair, yet, though a mother with her child had given him a weird look as they walked past him.

“Well, as fun as this conversation is-” (Firework.) “Don’t you have work, now? It’ll piss Remy off if you’re late, you know how he gets.”

“Ugh, who cares? Fuck that bitch.”

“You should care, he might fire you.”

“He’s my cousin! He won’t fire me.”

“It’s Remy. You’re annoying, of course he would.”

The tiniest of fireworks went off in Emile’s chest at the word ‘annoying’. Apparently, the maybe-soulmate was fond enough of his friend that he only sort of found him annoying.

The friend huffed and crossed his arms. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

“You should care. If you’re unemployed you won’t be able to afford all that inedible food you like so much.”

“I can eat garbage!”

“Literally, how are you still alive? You’re going to poison yourself and die young.”

Emile waited for a firework that never came.

The friend shrugged again, showing that he apparently had no qualms about poisoning himself and dying young. The maybe-soulmate sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes for a brief moment as he took a deep breath.

“What am I, your mother?” He asked his friend. “Go on, shoo!” He made shooing gestures with both hands. “Get to work!”

The friend tilted his head back and cackled, but began to walk backwards in the gestured direction.

“Ha, kinky!” He called out as he turned and continued to walk down the street.

“There is nothing kinky about me making you go to work so you don’t get fired,” the maybe-soulmate shouted back, louder than he probably intended, as his expression turned sheepish at the few stares that came his way after that.

He sighed again, and Emile was suddenly struck by the realisation that he really, really needed to talk to this man now, before he walked away, or he might never get the chance to find his soulmate again. And he was now almost certain that this man was his soulmate. So many fireworks at just the right times had to mean something. This couldn’t have just been a coincidence.

He took a deep breath, grounding himself and clenching his hands into fists.

Then, he marched over to the man he hoped was his soulmate – perhaps a little too determined and aggressive, as the man gave him a slightly alarmed, confused look when he stopped in front of him.

The first thing that slipped from Emile’s mouth was a lie.

“My name isn’t Emile Picani,” he said, before cringing internally.

Perhaps that wasn’t the best introduction.

The other man gave him a bewildered look, but the moment the lie came out, his hand shot up to cover his heart.  

“What?”

“I- just- hear me out. Humour me. Please lie to me, just- just quickly. I’m testing something.”

Realisation crossed the other man’s face, and his eyes widened. He looked Emile over quickly: a down and up that was over in an instant – just a quick flick of his eyes – but made Emile’s heart beat harder and faster.

“That’s-” the other man breathed. “Okay. Uh... I hate your cardigan.”

Firework.

“I hate your hat,” Emile said back, and the reacting twitch of the other man’s eyebrows at just the right time made him feel like he was floating.

“Your make-up is appalling.”

Firework.

“I don’t like your hair.”

“Wow...” the other man looked back at him with an astonished expression that Emile was sure was mirrored on his own face. “That’s- that’s not a coincidence.”

Emile shook his head. “No, I... I don’t think it is.”

“That’s- you’re my-”

“-Soulmate,” Emile finished.

The other man took a deep breath. “Wow...” he repeated.

“Yeah...”

There was a beat.

Then, the other man lifted and held out one gloved hand for Emile to shake. Emile took it without hesitation, shaking it easily and enthusiastically. Before he could stop himself, the delight that was filling up inside of him bubbled out of him with a giggle, and the other man gave Emile a soft smile in return that made him feel like he could do anything.

Climb a million mountains. Dance amongst a million stars.

It felt like he could do anything, anything he wanted, just as long as this man kept looking at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

“I’m Janus,” he finally introduced himself. “Janus Sanders.”

“Emile Picani.”

Janus’s smile turned into an amused half-smirk. “Yeah,” he said. “I got that.”

“I, um...” Emile trailed off, finally releasing Janus’s hand and adjusting his pastel pink tie. “I have to go – work. I have a patient coming soon, and I have to finish my paperwork before then. But, um... can I get your number, maybe?”

“Absolutely.”

Emile smiled, relieved, especially at the distinct lack of a firework in his chest. The astonishment and enthusiastic smile on Janus’s face spoke for themselves well enough, but it was always nice to know for sure. They exchanged numbers quickly, before pocketing their phones again.

“I suppose I’ll see you around, Emile,” Janus said, speaking his name slowly, like he was tasting and savouring it: like dessert.

It made Emile feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“Have a horrible day,” Emile said.

Janus’s smile grew at the resulting firework, making Emile’s matching smile grow, too.

“Have a horrible day.”

(Firework.)

[taiey]

RELEASE the jonelias soulmate au!!!

okaaay

i revised it At All so all the problems u identified r mostly now New Problems :disdain: also i made it more about basira ♥

—

"You could have stopped me," John said. His heartbeat seemed to be pounding in synch with the waves against the ship. "But you wanted to know as well, didn’t you?"

He watched Basira stare at him until uncertainty cracked through the edges of her stoic mask. She believed him—or she might—he was right, wasn't he?—it didn't matter. He couldn't think. His whole skin itched, and if she would just—stop saying things, like that, then—

"Get some rest," he said. "Two days yet."

She kept looking at him a long moment more, but she turned away, drifted slowly towards the cabins like Floyd had, just minutes ago. Could he breathe, now? Could he think, without—

He thought he'd understood her. What she cared about, how she thought of him. Practical, pragmatic, logic and use and action, that was supposed to be it, he could cope with that, he didn't need more than that. You’re the one who wants to be like Gertrude. And yet still...

It was fine. Wasn't it? She'd accepted it. He could stop worrying about all her - expectations - and think about what he learned of Salesa (about every drop of horror Floyd had felt) or Ny Alesund, or why he kept wanting to scratch at the back of his neck.

He wrapped his hand over the spot in hopes the pressure would help at least; just above where his hair had grown out to, but sitting under the edge of his shirt collar. Nothing about it felt odd, nothing raised or ridged or rashed or any other texture to inform him.

Yet he knew, as he touched it, as he flinched away, what mark lay under his fingers, and what it meant.

John had always preferred second-genre romance novels, he thought numbly. Back when he'd had nothing better than second-hand books to give his time to. First-genre tended to fall so strongly into the same formulae that their similarities drowned out the peculiarities of the plot, characters, and style. After all, there were only so many ways that you could position two people to already know they were soulmates and keep them apart for the length of a satisfying novel.

The stories about couples who knew each other first and worked through their varied conflicts and became soulmates were far rarer. More unique.

He stared over the railings of the ship into false-midnight sea, watching the shadows of the waves in the dim, slanting light. The academic study of soulmates was - never something he'd been particularly interested in. That they really were happier, less likely to divorce, often more similar—that much, he knew had been verified. Something on the position of soulmate marks; usually discreet but easy to display, sometimes bright and brazen, but for disfavoured couples—gay people in homophobic societies had been the main category—they could appear in far more hidden places. They did usually show up in places that a person could see with their own eyes, or were tactile—but that fit, in its own way.

He caught his hand wandering up to the back of his neck, and wrapped it around the railings. The paint was slightly flaked under his fingers, and he tried to focus on that instead. He knew, nevertheless, exactly what shape the mark was, and exactly where its mate was.

No one had ever ascertained why or how certain people developed matching images. That was the province of, of glossy magazines and websites about crystals or star signs. The only person he could ever consider treating as a reliable source who had a theory on them was Gerard Keay. Gerry. John had asked him what sort of powers there were; if there could be any beyond fear.

"Well, sure, " he had said. "There's whatever does soulmates."

"What?"

"Yeah, they're obviously not normal, " he had smirked. John had never really thought to put them in the same category before. They were too ordinary for that, even if he'd never personally known anyone with a soulmate, nor did they appear in any of the statements more than incidentally. "But they don't go all scary either, so... there's got to be something out there that's very interested in nice happy loving romantic relationships. Specifically. Of all things. Dunno why. If it was interested in anything else that's good for humans it could probably do a better job than that."

If it was interested in anything else that was good for humans... John sighed. He couldn't see any argument for why this would be good. Probably it - didn't need to be, for anyone but the two in question. There were lurid stories sometimes, headlines in supermarkets and online ads, serial-killer-terrorist-criminal-soulmates, the horror! At best that sort were rare enough to be shocking. Or maybe people ignored them.

This was one argument that he was still human, at least. There was nothing else reassuring in the idea that this was a match of... pure compatibility.

It hadn't even been the hunting, he knew. Wasn't even seeking out strangers to tear the trauma from their mind and drag them into his dreams and haunt their waking steps. That - that, he could have blamed on something else. The Eye, or the Web, maybe. No, the resolution of conflict here was - was something else.

He hadn't noticed the exact moment; he had, after all, been a little distracted. But somewhere between telling Basira he was sure about this, and telling her that it was Floyd Matharu's fault that he had to compel him, and telling her it was her fault for saying he needed to be at full power for Ny-Alesund, and telling her it was her fault for not stopping him—

—whatever power pointed people at others who fit them well decided that his soulmate was Elias Bouchard.

The slap of a wave and the creak of the ship for a moment coincided to sound like a foot step on the deck. John looked back, just for a moment, thinking Basira had come back to look for him or talk to him, to ask all of those questions.

It was necessary, he'd said. She got the job done, and didn’t care about the cost. He'd thought that would - be enough, for her.

But I thought you did.

She'd expected him to still care. About everyone, about a single stranger, even now. Even after everything he'd - not told her about, could barely stand to think about, she—

She trusted him. To be better than that.

He didn't know how to cope with that. Hardly knew how to think.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.

-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...

-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question

-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)

-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.

-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*

-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.

-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!

-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...

-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.

-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?

-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.

-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.

-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.

-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?

-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.

-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)

-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao

-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.

-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...

-is he....

-you know....

.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)

-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!

-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!

-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.

-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)

-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.

-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...

-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.

-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...

-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.

-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)

-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/

-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize

-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.

-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)

-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...

-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)

-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!

-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.

-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!

-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(

-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!

-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)

-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.

-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!

[ezzydean]

I don't know how many times I've done this but you'll forever be my favorite writer. So I ask again, like last year and the year before

Trick or Treat

IwaTeru

come trick-or-treat in my inbox requesting ficcies and I’ll either treat you to some fluff or humor or trick you with a horribly twisted sad AU  (I’ll use a random generator to pick trick or treat)

send me “trick or treat” and a character(s) or ship in my inbox and I’ll write you a short little thing (I’ll be doing these all of October so send away!)

awwww thank you so much for your kind words!

treat (under a cut cause it’s just over 1k)

The picture absolutely captivates him and he can’t even figure out why.  Technically it’s nothing all that special.  Just a close up of a spiderweb covered in dew drops.  But every single time he looks away he’s pulled back in within a few seconds.  He finally drags his gaze away from the photograph when the solid thunk of a coffee mug hitting the table is paired with a cleared throat.

“Your pumpkin spice monstrosity.”

Yuuji grins up at the man who had brought him his drink.

“Thank you!”  He doesn’t get very many of these, even when the weather is cool and crisp, and he does his best to enjoy every moment when he does.  From the first inhale of pumpkiny goodness to the last sip with cinnamon lingering on his tongue.

“You know,” the man says thoughtfully, “if you like that I think we have a cookie you’d absolutely love.”  Yuuji opens his mouth to decline.  “On the house.  Our baker is trying new stuff this year and he’s been insisting we hand out samples to people who seem like they’d appreciate it.”

He really should say no but free is free so he simply nods his agreement and goes back to staring at the photo above his table.

“You seem really into that picture,” the man says as he sets down the cookie in front of Yuuji.  It looks as delicious and Yuuji sniffs at it curiously when he breaks off a piece of it.  The little whine he lets out when he pops it into his mouth is entirely involuntary and the man smiles at him.  “I’ll be sure to tell Makki you approve of the cookie.”

“It’s amazing,” he manages to say around a second bite.  “And yeah.  I dunno why I like it so much.”  He gestures towards the photograph.  “Something about it is just captivating.  Maybe something about the way it’s something you see all the time but you don’t really stop to look at it that way?  Like there was one here a few weeks ago that was basically like looking straight up the trunk of a tree.  And I’ve seen trees all my life and I’ve even stared up into the branches.  But I’ve never pressed against it and stared into the sky that way.  It was just a change of perspective but at the same time it was a change of perspective you know?”

The man is staring at him, smile still on his lips, and Yuuji flushes.  The guy was just being polite and making small talk and here Yuuji was damn near waxing poetic about a simple photograph hanging on the wall.

“I get what you mean,” the man says.  “Not a lot of people see it that way.”  The bell over the door jingles and he looks up to the counter with a sigh.  “I gotta go.  Enjoy your treats.”

-

Yuuji has been back to the shop and drank more pumpkin spice goodness in the last three weeks than he has in the last year but he can’t even bring himself to regret a moment of it.  Because each time he goes in there’s a new photograph on the wall above his table and he loses himself in it.  (He might also make a lot of small talk with Iwaizumi, the man behind the counter, who always seems to have a treat that Yuuji just ‘has to try’ and give feedback for.)

He’s early today, a lot earlier than usual thanks to his cousin waking him up at the crack of dawn to help her put the finishing touches on her nursery, and he can’t help but hope that he’s not too early to see Iwaizumi today.

The bell above the door rings as he steps inside and he makes his way over to the counter, eyes darting around curiously.  Most of the decorations have been removed and there are only a couple of photographs on the wall and it feels almost like an entirely different shop this early in the day.

“We’ll be right there,” a voice calls out before it continues in a softer voice that Yuuji can still hear clearly.  “Seriously, Iwa-chan.  Just decide which ones you want to hang up so I can decorate accordingly or I’ll choose.  Honestly.  Artists are so picky.  All your pictures are amazing and if you’d just let me sell them you’d be rich in like a week.”

“Shut up, Oikawa.  I just.  I have to pick the right ones.”

The first voice, Oikawa, grows closer.  “Is this about your—” His eyes light up as he steps out of the doorway behind the counter.  “Pumpkin spice guy?”  Oikawa holds his finger to his lips and winks at Yuuji.  “The one you have a huge crush on because he likes your pictures but you refuse to actually tell him you’re the photographer?”

Yuuji raises his eyebrows in surprise.  Really?  He mouths.  Oikawa nods.

“It’s not that simple.  Now help me out.  The pumpkins or the fairy lights in the trees?”

Oikawa hums loudly and gives Yuuji a questioning look.

“The trees,” Yuuji says softly.

“The customer at the counter says the trees.  Now get your ass out here and do your job since you refuse to let me pay you for your pictures.”

Iwaizumi comes out from the back, grumbling under his breath, and freezes when he sees Yuuji.

“Um, hi,” Iwaizumi says.  Oikawa plucks the framed photograph out of Iwaizumi’s hands and wanders away to hang it up.  Yuuji can hear him putting up other decorations and muttering about lights and jars but his gaze is stuck on Iwaizumi.  Iwaizumi who he has spent countless hours talking to.  Iwaizumi whose photographs he has gushed on and on about.  Iwaizumi who is staring at him, wide-eyed with cheeks that are steadily getting pinker the longer they simply stare at each other.

“Hi,” Yuuji replies.  “So, um.  I hear this really amazing photographer whose pieces I absolutely adore might work here and might maybe possibly have a crush on me.  Any idea who it is and if he’d be willing to, you know, go out to lunch or dinner with me?”

“Uh.”  Iwaizumi blinks a few times before he smiles at Yuuji.  “Yes and, uh, definitely yes.  Lunch sounds good.”

“Excellent.”

Yuuji orders his pumpkin spice monstrosity to go, since he has a lunch date to get ready for, and grins when he sees the phone number written on the side of the cup.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

14 (bodyguard AU) and 46 (blind date) sounds fun,,, your choice of ship ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥

14. Bodyguard AU || 46. Blind date

Random choice generator got me creativisleep!

~

roman's a semi-popular actor- he's never really been to an awards show, and he's not been in That much, but he had a small but strong role in a real popular film and plenty of leading ones in lesser known movies. he's got enough of a following to be satisfied with himself, even if it isn't That huge of one

because of this, roman didn't take the possible dangers of his fame seriously... until he got jumped by one fan at a play in his hometown. he came out fine (he's always fine ;p) but it made him reconsider his choice to not have some sort of protection

he ends up hiring remy to be his bodyguard, a choice he Slightly starts regretting when he realizes remy, despite having excellent marks out of bodyguard school, is about as professional as a golden retriever

they take roman's food out of his fridge Whenever, borrow Way too many of his shirts (and roman hasn't seen his BMC 'boyf riends' hoodie since they got their hands on it), and is never in typical bodyguard wear (they wore a suit for the interview and never again)

but they also bring roman coffee (when did they get his regular figured out...?), talk to him like he's just a Person and not a celeb, and have yet to try and kill him themself so. roman's alright with them staying

(plus, is it so wrong if roman enjoys how they look? he deserves for a bit of an eye-candy sorta bodyguard, damnit, they're with him all the time after all)

remy's been with roman as his bodyguard for a few months when roman decides he cant just keep Lookin at a pretty person, he deserves to have a pretty person to kiss and cuddle with too!! so he pokes around for a bit, finds a non-homophobic service (he's pan, so he could Technically use a plain ol' straight service, but he refuses on gay principle), and uses it

idk how datin apps work but this one that im makin up is a blind match up app, which takes ur information and uses it to randomly pair u up with random accounts. the app keeps account info privated until After the first date has been gone on, to really maintain the 'blind match' aspect. the matched up people play a mini guessing game through the app about places they can go for a date until location and time is determined

roman likes the idea of the app mostly to keep his own identity secret as long as possible- he doesnt want people pickin his account Just bc he's a celeb, y'know?

the first couple of blind dates dont go well tho... most are nice people who roman just isn't compatible with, one was a straight woman who spent the entire date being Very homophobic despite roman's rainbow heart + pan flag pins, and someone who was clearly Too Much Of A Fan (remy had to physically pull them off of roman and help him escape the park before they could latch back on)

oh, did roman not mention? remy's been coming on all his dates with him

because of course they are! they need to protect roman! whether that's by eating dinner in the booth over or sitting two rows back at the cinema or awkwardly half-stalkin roman and his date while they walk about

so they're always there, to bring roman there and take him home, and listen when he complains about the bad matches and lament the almost-winners, and convince him he is a catch that needs to try again because eventually Someone will realize he really is too good to pass up

(remy always says that line in a weird way)

so he keeps trying... until roman has possibly the worst date ever

because he gets stood up. it's fifteen minutes past the scheduled date time, he's gotten no text explainin where they are, but he's sittin at the restaurant alone and starting to become rather upset by the pitying look the server gives him when he says he's still waitin on someone else before he orders

remy slides into the seat across from him at the 20 minute mark. shoots roman an apologetic smile that an outsider would mistake as a 'sorry im late' one when roman knows it's a 'sorry they didnt show' one

roman appreciates the gesture to save him, but he almost just wants to go home at this point. he's tired and bein stood up feels like Shit, actually, and he's about ready to call off the whole dating thing really, dramatic as that may be (like it's not his middle name)

but remy says smth about this place having really good sandwiches, and it's clear they're tryin so hard to help roman out here, even a little, and roman can't just dismiss that effort, so he picks up his menu again and orders smth and tries to ignore the way his face heats up just the slightest at the relieved smile remy flashes next

lunch with remy is great, actually, better than it would've been with whoever couldnt be bothered to show or apologize or Anything. remy even knows the way to an ice cream shop on the way home, sayin it's for roman's 'broken heart' as they pay for it

except, well... roman's heart isn't feelin so broken anymore

it's actually feeling pretty put together. really functional. functioning really fast. especially when roman's looking at remy. or when remy's lookin at roman. or when they smile. or when they laugh. or when they speak. or when they-

roman doesn't fall asleep until 2am that night, heart still racing a bit, screaming into his pillow a bit as he acknowledges he is wholly and totally head-over-heels for his bodyguard

he tells remy the next day he's done with dating for a bit, saying he's still upset over being stood up. he doesn't mention that it's also bc remy's ruined all other people for him

things try to fall back in routine from there, but it's a bit harder when roman's trying to not be so in love with someone who just works for him. and remy's definitely started pickin up on it too- they had asked him just last if he was okay, that he didn't seem as upset by remy takin his clothes anymore, and that didn't seem like him, was he getting sick?

the opposite, actually, absolutely nothing makes me feel better then seeing you walk around in my shirt or jacket or whatever else, please never stop and also kiss me?

roman just said he was tired

eventually... roman decides this can't keep going on. remy's giving him more weird looks these days, and roman is pretty sure being around remy so much without Any kisses is starting to cause brain decay (it's not, it's really not, remy always bein on his mind is just a side effect of.... pretti........). so, he takes matters into his own hands

admittedly, maybe firing remy wasn't the best way to go, given remy immediately demands to know why, what they did wrong, even asking if roman's being blackmailed into this

"blink once for yes, twice for no" remy asks, lowering the sunglasses they always have on to look directly at roman's eyes

roman doesn't blink for a full minute. he might not be breathing for that minute either. has he ever seen remy's eyes this close? has he ever seen them at all? they're such a brilliant shade of brown. roman could drown in them. he might be already

roman's pretty sure he started this conversation standing up, but maybe not, because when he finally blinks and remembers things outside of remy's eyes exist he's sitting down and remy looks extremely concerned

"okay... what's wrong, hun?" they ask, and oh no, they look so sad, and worried, and that's not good, roman should fix that right now, regardless of whatever he was doing before (he's forgotten)

"im gay" he responds intelligently. this will fix everything

remy, however, just looks confused. "yes?"

"for you" roman adds, helpfully, sure that Now remy will understand they're just really very pretty and nothing's wrong and if they feel bad still they should look in a mirror because then they'll be good again

now it's remy's turn to sit in silence, expression frozen in one of shock. they still havent put their sunglasses back on, so roman doesnt mind, bc this gives him more time to stare at remy's eyes

"you're having a breakdown because you're gay for me???" remy finally asks, expression unfreezing to look incredulous and a little hurt

roman returns a similar look. "im not having a breakdown!"

remy scoffs. "yeah, sure, right, that's why you suddenly froze and completely stopped breathing and minorly collapsed after i... look off my shades to look at you..." they suddenly break out in a smirk. "oh my gods, you're a gay disaster"

roman doesn't try to deny it, especially with the knowledge he apparently did stop breathing to admire remy's eyes. they have a point

"how long?"

"since that date you hijacked after i got stood up" roman admits. he finds it extraordinarily rude when remy starts laughing

...until they're pulling out their phone, hurriedly opening up the exact same dating app roman had been using, showing a log of all the dates they had planned- there's only one marked as having actually been attended

same date time and place of the one where roman had assumed he had been stood up

"you broke my heart!" roman says as remy puts away their phone, over-dramatically, not actually giving a damn, just feeling gay and a bit giddy at the thought remy hadnt gone to any of the other dates, just theirs

no longer worried quite as much about roman for the moment, remy's smirk just grows, smoothly moving from being crouched in front of roman to being set firmly in his lap, lazily brushing hair out of his eyes and wow was remy always this warm? and stunning? and perfect?

"i dunno babe... sounds more like i stole it" remy teases, movin from playing with roman's hair to cuppin his cheek, leaning in close and not even bothering to pretend to be looking at anything other than roman's lips. "which, yeah, bad bodyguard etiquette... i hope you can forgive me..."

roman doesn't need his words to answer that tease

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Okay but listen... been thinking about an everyone lives AU and I need to write it down. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone’s got an “Everyone Lives AU” so nothing special. But I started thinking more and more about this after that last briolet fic I posted, y’know? I don’t care if it’s unrealistic because “it’s the walking dead and people die that’s the point get over it--” and to that one person always whispering this in my ear, I give you a dismissive grunt before blabbering on. 

I love the idea of all muh Ericson crew surviving but there’s always a catch. They don’t come out unscathed. Like Brody survives Marlon’s attack, but comes out of it injured with partial blindness and a massive scar. She makes it to the end of the season after doing everything she can to atone for the mistakes she made in the past. Also, briolet. 

Look, I hate the fact that Violet ends up alone every time I play TFS and in this au she gets a girlfriend who loves her, comforts her, and helps her through the blind/burn healing process. 

Then you have Marlon, who doesn’t get shot by AJ because Clementine wasn’t a huge dingus who tosses a gun aside-- she hands it over to Louis or Violet, whoever she appealed to. Half of the group put Marlon down in the basement until they can decide what to do with him, while the other half help Brody.

Then comes morning and the group has a vote, and Marlon has to leave... only to run into the raiders again and get himself taken back to their ship where they try to get info out of him. Marlon holds out for as long as he can, but by the time they chop his second finger off, he’s spilling how to get to the school. They throw him in a cell and get ready to attack. 

Ultimately, Marlon ends up helping everyone escape before the boat explodes. He even goes back to the school, but knows that him staying isn’t the best option for them or himself. After what he did to Brody, the twins, and the whole Ericson crew, he can’t face them. He ends up living in the train station-- far enough away from the school that he won’t accidentally run into anyone, but close enough that he could get there if they needed his help. 

Louis is really the only one to go out there and visit him, but sometimes Clementine and AJ will join him, or Ruby, to make sure he’s doing okay. 

Oh, and because I’m sure you’re wondering-- Yes, leader Aasim. 

Now... James. Clementine dragged James back to the school to help them in their fight. He’s awkward, but at least Willy thinks he’s cool. Also, cue the slow burn enemies to friends to lovers Jamitch. Why? Because it’s my AU and I say so. And yes, James does save Mitch’s stupid ass from getting a knife to the throat. 

James doesn’t turn into an idiot for the sake of plot, either. No turning his back on Lilly, not giving her a huge opening to murder him. Nah, he faces her as AJ hands him the gun... y’know, like a normal person. 

Then the boat explodes, everyone’s together-- Well, Tenn’s over there so Clem and AJ gotta go get him. They meet back up with James and he doesn’t turn into a huge bitch over the whole Lilly thing. They make it out of the caves where Louis/Violet show up. It’s a happy reunion until Minerva corners them on the bridge. 

Luckily, James doesn’t fuck around and yeets Tenn and AJ over before Clementine and Louis/Violet can even think, and tells them to move before he does the same thing to them. Louis/Violet jump first, having to hold Tenn back from that side. Clementine still gets her leg fucked up by Minerva, but then tags James into the fight and well... y’know.

Does Clem still get bit? I dunno, probably? We’ll assume that Louis/Violet, Tenn, and James made it over the gate even though they could’ve just broke the padlock but they’re a bunch of dinguses and get separated from Clementine and AJ. Clem gets bit, everything is sad, AJ yeets the leg and rolls Clem back to the school. 

And they all lived happily ever after... well, until the next bullshit thing but we’re not gonna get into that. 

Okay, I got it all out. My Ericson crew are alive and safe. I feel better now.