#Boxing combinations

[age-of-moonknight]

“Khonshu: Strikefile,” Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu (Vol. 1/2024), #0.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[muffin-snakes-art]

Professor Magolor and Nebula's Box

Daroach is Anton!

[clannfearrunt]

Realizing two seasons too late how badly I have fucked up. Ok so. Maybe. Don’t sow buffalo bur seeds directly into the main tub of dirt you are using. Unless you’re ok with ending up with a giant tub of “contaminated” dirt that has an unknown number of ungerminated seeds in it for years and years and years and years. Maybe try to start the seedlings elsewhere. In like an egg carton or something. Uh oh. I forgot. How this plant works.

[sickficideas]

if i drew a sick sskk thing would you look at it

-sockiehugs

OF COURSE I WILL ARE YOU KIDDING

[museaway]

what would you take from my room?

I was tagged by @rosemirmir, tysm!! This is adorable. I'm in my kitchen right now so the items are from that room.

tagging anyone who sees this & would like to play!

[starry-bi-sky]

ive been hesitating to ask this bc youve been on a roll with the clone^2au (which i am frothing over) but could i poke you for some childhood friend au? bc GOD i wanna see how danny reacts to reuniting w jason or how the rest of the batfam react to learning jason never told danny of his resurrection or wondering if dannys gonna put jokers dead body on a display/offering to jasons grave. i havent been normal about this since i first read it and was wondering. thank you for your writing.

RAAAAHHHH DON'T BE HESITANT I AM JUST AS FERAL OVER MY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AU AS I AM WITH CLONE^2 I AM DELIGHTED BY THIS. Like.,,,, i literally love them,,, so much. I can't listen to The Crane Wives without thinking of them.

(which is my fault - the ao3 fic of them has literally only crane wives lyrics for each chapter title and summary (posted AND the ones not written) so of course im gonna associate with them.)

(if you wanna listen to some of their songs while thinking of cfau here are my recommendations: "Once & for All", "Here I Am", "Hollow Moon" is a Danny AND Jason song to me, this would be my go-to song for an animatic of CFAU if i had the skills for it. "Tongues and Teeth", "Curses" and "take me to war" is a heavy cfau danny song to me, and of course, "the moon will sing")

Like they're BEST friends dude, they're two sides of the same coin and when they were kids they would do this thing where their 'fingers crossed'/'double-crossed' was them hooking their index fingers in the fingers crossed gesture.

and i'm actually currently rewriting my original post into a more fic-like format, and when I'm done I'll post it on here under the cfau tag - with the original post still in tact. But its,,, gonna be so long dude,,,, the original behemoth was just over 9000 words,,, and I've written 3k words already of the new one and we haven't even reached Jason and Danny reuniting at the gala yet,,, i need to get back to that,,,

and then to answer your questions!! god im almost hesitant to answer because i dont wanna spoil the little fic i had planned for it but also like,, its not like im gonna spoil everything, right? and answering the questions isnt the same as writing the scene down so!!

i love danny and jason's reuniting, like i've thought about it SO much and I've thought about it happening after Danny kills the Joker. I know the reveal could have been before that, and it could have been equally just as dramatic but like??? Thematically, doing it after danny kills the joker is SO good. To me at least.

Because like?? Jason's been in somewhat denial about danny's plan to kill the joker for months. ever since danny told him that he wanted to at the gala. And from Jason's pov its not even technically a plan. He sees his best friend for the first time after five years and his best friend still isn't over his death. He hasn't stepped foot in Gotham since his funeral and now suddenly he's here.

And he's still so full of grief over his death that he tells a masked vigilante that he's going to kill the guy that did it, who lives in said masked vigilante's city. And danny's got that look in his eyes that Jason knows so well that means he's being serious. And yet he still doesn't know if he should believe him or not.

And then he does. Danny kills him. And Jason can't fucking believe it. And when he goes and sees Danny, Danny's hands are still covered in blood. And that reunion? God like a fucking firework show. Danny's so fucking angry, and pissed, and hurt, and so goddamn overjoyed that he's alive and here that he sends them both to the ground, and if he doesn't calm down he's gonna take out the power in a five block radius.

there's just so, so much yelling on Danny's end. And then so much crying, first from Danny and then them both. because god, you're alive. you're here. i've missed you so much. i'm never letting you out of my sights again.

and Joker's death! God I don't want to actually say too much about that, but the way I have it set up thematically makes me actually not want danny to take any part of the joker with him as an offering. and he may actually forego that particular ghost etiquette and offer something else as an offering to Jason in substitute to not bringing him the Joker's heart/head/ritualistic body part.

Because you know what the last thing a man whose been spending the last two decades of his life building himself up to be larger than life would want? A death that's unremarkable. :) and that's all i'll put on the matter for now.

and the batfam!! they technically already know that jason hasn't told danny he was resurrected, and plenty of them have mixed feelings on them. largely bruce and dick i think, considering they saw firsthand how close jason and danny were when they were kids.

Dick was honestly surprised at first when he found out that Jason hadn't told Danny he was alive - and on one hand he understands the reasoning for it, and on the other hand he isn't sure if it was such a good idea. Especially after he sees Danny again after he arrives back in Gotham and sees just how badly Jason's death was still affecting him. But it's not like he's going to try and convince Jason to tell him - he can make his own choices, even if Dick has questions about them.

Bruce has much the same thoughts as Dick, so there's not really much to add here other than he might bring it up once or twice to Jason like, vaguely. And then immediately drops it when Jason shuts him down. He might actually somewhat...?? prefer that Jason hasn't told Danny because that raises a lot of questions and could jeopardize their identities. However, again, Jason can make his own choices and there's not much Bruce can do about it other than disapprove from afar.

Tim who knew of Danny from stalking the Wayne family shares similars sentiments of being surprised that Jason didn't tell Danny, but again, yeah, understands the thought process to some extent. Doesn't bring it up ever.

Everyone else who hadn't seen firsthand how close Danny and Jason are don't really have much opinion on it -- Jason didn't tell his best friend he was alive, great, he also didn't tell them either so it's not like its that much of a surprise. It would've been more of a surprise to them if Jason had told Danny before he told Bruce and co. Damian may make a comment or two about Jason not telling Danny, but its not about how he can't believe he didn't tell him or anything like it.

[rubinaitoart]

I would love any crumbs of anything you're writing rn /nf /gen

(I keep seeing you go insane so thought I would see what you are interested in :3)

“I keep seeing you go insane” HAH yeah it’s even worse on discord lmao

The current WIP I have is based completely on spite. That’s it. I absolutely hated how the Lamia episode ended because. BECAUSE. BECAUSE.

You’re telling me after they kill the Lamia, everything is back to normal and perfectly fine between everyone. You’re telling me Merlin was actively threatened by some of the people he trusted the most, to the point he actually started COWERING a little when they got mad at him, and he walked out of that without even a little bit of emotional distress? A smidgeon of trauma? You’re telling me none of the knights apologized to him or to Guinevere, because even though it’s not their fault every single one of them would have still felt some form of guilt over scaring them like that, you’re TELLING ME—

^^^ Live footage of Rubin being carried off before he starts yelling even more /lh ^^^

It made me so MAD that it got wrapped up with everyone in good spirits and Arthur making fun of Merlin for being saved by a girl, and everything was fine and happy and ARGHHHH.

So yeah I started writing a fic to expand on what I feel should’ve happened after that episode I guess? Except make it a Merthur AU where they’ve been dancing around their feelings for all four seasons up until this point.

I’ve been going back and forth on this draft for a bit, so there’s a good chance whatever I end up publishing to AO3 will look COMPLETELY different. It’s also very clunky and not well edited but I figure that’s a given right now lol. Both options start the same before splitting into two different drafts, currently labeled D1 and D2 respectively.

I’ll dump a few snippets below the cut since this is already looking like a long post. Everything so far is in Arthur’s POV.

From the shared start: Set when Arthur shows up just in time to rescue Guinevere and Merlin from the Lamia.

A few seconds of silence stretched out before Arthur jerked forward and rushed to Merlin’s side.

“Better late than never.” Merlin groaned, but that stupid, goofy grin that Arthur loved more than he’d ever admit was plastered all over that smug face of his. “What took you so long?”

“You’re welcome.” Arthur said pointedly. Guinevere moved to help Merlin sit up, and the king didn’t miss the way his servant’s face twisted into a pained grimace, or how his hand quickly grabbed at his side. It hurt to see Merlin in any kind of pain, a dull ache in his chest that was somehow worse than anything Arthur had suffered in the past. “Are you hurt?”

“A little bruised, maybe.” Merlin leaned heavily against Guinevere. “Better off than everyone else though.” He added quickly, and Arthur’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Do you know where they are?” The king wanted to ask an entirely different question, but their objective held priority. They were safe, the lamia was dead, and the others were still missing.

“Elyan isn’t far.” Guinevere loosened her hold on Merlin—reluctantly, Arthur noted—and moved him to lean against a pillar. “I’m not entirely sure about the others.”

Arthur straightened up, gesturing for one of the knights. “Bevan, help Merlin outside. Cecil, with me.” He ordered. The king glanced towards his servant once again briefly before he extended his hand to Guinevere and helped her to her feet. “Lead the way.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Bevan gathering Merlin up into his arms and hefting him up into the air. The man made a soft, pained sound in the back of his throat that was horribly loud to Arthur’s ears. Carefully with him, or I’ll have you in the stocks lingered on the tip of his tongue, but he bit back his words and turned to follow Guinevere. Bevan’s receding footsteps faded, and they pressed onward.

“He’ll be alright.” Guinevere murmured to him. She reached over to lightly squeeze his arm, a small comfort for the moment.

“Mm, he better be.” Arthur said quietly in reply. “He’s a good friend, I’d hate to lose him.” They ducked under a fallen beam, and Arthur lapsed into a contemplative quiet. Merlin was so much more than just a friend to Arthur, something he’d struggled to admit to himself for a long time. What he was, however, was just out of reach.

So in typical fashion the king did what he always did best—try his damndest to ignore what he felt, because it could never come to be.

From D1, which is set as everyone leaves Longstead. Merlin is preparing Arthur’s horse before they leave despite still recovering from his injuries, man is just insisting on staying busy.

The king watched Merlin from afar as the servant busied himself with tacking up Arthur’s steed. He couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to.

Slightly curled raven locks and pale cheeks dappled with sunlight, Merlin’s brow furrowed slightly in concentration. His slender, pale hands deftly checked the leather straps, and his fingers occasionally strayed away to brush against the stallion’s ebony coat. A faint smile finally appeared in its truest and most genuine form as the horse turned its head to bump its nose gently against Merlin’s shoulder with a soft nicker. Arthur watched as Merlin finished securing the saddle and turned to gently take the horse’s face in his hands, rubbing his palm up and down the side of its head in slow, soothing strokes. Beautiful, he couldn’t help but think. That traitorous feeling of longing welled up in his chest and Arthur found himself tempted across the small clearing to join the servant.

Almost immediately, the longing was replaced with guilt and a hefty dose of self-loathing. Merlin was in no small amount of distress, and here he was practically ogling at the man. He turned away before Merlin could catch him staring and searched the clearing for something he could busy himself with, and hopefully rid himself of the shame that had overtaken the king.

From D2, which is set directly after Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, and the knights return to the village so Gaius can treat them: Gaius and Guinevere are busy with the knights, so Arthur takes it upon himself (as any good king no would do, of course) to try and tend to Merlin’s wounds himself. The best he can do is clean the gash on Merlin’s forehead, but he’s trying his best okay?

Far and few between were times that Arthur Pendragon found himself worried about his manservant. Merlin was an odd man, clumsy and strange at the best of times, prone to bouts of misfortune that he’d somehow miraculously overcome. Injuries were as rare as sickness, and he was right there at Arthur’s side day after day. Yet here he was, sleeves rolled up and a damp cloth in hand as he worried over Merlin. Thankfully the only ones around to see it were Gaius and Guinevere—the knights were still unconscious, and the physician and seamstress were busy tending to them.

It was just Arthur and Merlin, tucked away in the corner of the little hovel they were using as an infirmary.

“This feels backwards.” His servant muttered, wincing as Arthur lightly pressed the cloth to his forehead. Blood soaked into it quickly, weeping from a shallow cut on the side of his face that looked far worse than it actually was—head wounds were funny like that. And yet after all these years, after countless battles where he’d seen wounds worse than this over and over, seeing Merlin bloodied and bruised always made his heart lurch. It was so wrong.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Arthur mused, pulling the cloth back to inspect the injury. There wasn’t exactly much he could do other than try to stem the blood flow and clean away any dirt and debris until Gaius could take a proper look at it, but it was something.

He could feel Merlin’s eyes boring into him. “You’ll live, unfortunately.” Arthur added after a moment, flashing his teeth at the servant in a brief grin.

“Unfortunately for me, yes.” Merlin sank back against the cot. “I’ll be back to cleaning your stinking socks within the next few days.” His eyes remained affixed to Arthur, half-lidded and tired, and for the briefest of moments his face betrayed him to his king. Something heavy weighed on him, his gaze reflecting the burden of Atlas; then Arthur blinked, and it was like it hadn’t even been there in the first place.

What a strange thing to see on Merlin’s face.

[jamiesfootball]

📓

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE THE LUCKY WINNER OF THE LONGEST RESPONSE. I'M SO SORRY.

Welcome to my Jamie can have more than 1 2 3 4 best friends agenda starring Isaac McAdoo From Isaac’s perspective See the one thing Isaac always had a thing about is people seeing him on his own merits. He knows all too well that his image fits a stereotype—there’s nothing he can do to change that—but what he can do is put the effort in to make sure the other parts of him shine through. So he studies up: on fashion, on kinesics, on Shakespeare. Anything he’s interested in, he puts the effort in. So it’s not enough for Roy to give him the captain’s band- he has to earn it. He has to put the effort in, or it doesn’t count as his.

Then there’s Colin. Colin came to Richmond during the same transfer period as Isaac, and from day one they've been getting scolded for talking during video review. Colin is easy; they share a wavelength. A silliness. Colin is judgy and a bit hot tempered, but also completely easy-going with whatever Isaac suggests. He’s never had to try hard with Colin. When Jamie shows up at Richmond the first time there’s a bit of that too. He’s got some of their silliness and humor, though it’s shrouded in dickish overtones. He’s more willing than Colin is to push back if he doesn’t like something, but there isn’t much he isn’t willing to go along with when Isaac suggests it. Plus Jamie thinks it’s funny when Colin gets into a proper bitch session (Isaac agrees). But Isaac thought Jamie appreciated him for the other stuff. He never came at Isaac the way he came at Sam about the football stuff, so he always assumed that Jamie could see that Isaac was putting the work in. That he respected the effort of trying to do well on a team that wasn’t doing well, but was certainly trying to do better. That he respected Isaac. Then Isaac was throwing a chair through a tv, and more fool on Isaac then- Jamie never respected any of them at all. But Roy gave him the captain's band and Isaac McAdoo always earns what he’s given, so when Jamie comes back to Richmond he knows it’s on him to set an example.

He lets the other lads take the lead, but mentally Isaac’s prepared to have it out if he needs to show Jamie who’s in charge this time around. It doesn’t come to that. Jamie comes sulking back in like a puppy who’s new and nervous to play with the big dogs. He stands there and apologizes. He takes it when the lads throw at him the same complaints that Isaac’s been fielding since he took on the armband- from the valid (Sam’s stewing anger) to the less valid (Richard deserved it) to the….Isaac isn’t sure (‘he unfollowed all of us on Twitter, Dani. It wasn’t just you’).

Jamie never challenges Isaac’s claim to leadership. It irks something awful, and something in Isaac suspects that Jamie still doesn’t respect him.

Then the gaffer goes mental one day, yelling at them like a Loony Tunes character, and Jamie’s the only one of them to say anything about it. Isaac should’ve said something. Someone needed to call the coach out and he should’ve done it. He keeps telling himself to do better as a captain, but then these situations crop up and he doesn’t know what to do until after the thing has happened.

But Jamie didn’t look at him after like he was trying to steal Isaac’s lead. If anything he looked confused, bewildered when the team gave him props for standing up for them. No, it wasn’t a power move on his part. He was just doing the right thing. The right thing that Isaac should’ve done.

Isaac games it out with Colin, the Jamie mess. Colin reassures him that it was a funky situation and that the lads knows Isaac is trying his best. Colin wouldn’t lie to him.

So Isaac figures ‘you get what you give’ right? If Jamie’s going to make an effort, then so is he. If he wants Jamie’s respect, he’ll give a little first. Isaac makes an effort to grease the way on Jamie coming back into the fold. He’s got a handshake with everybody on the team and he makes of point of showing everyone on the pitch that Jamie’s got one too (had one before the rest of them, if he’s being honest; had one since back when they used to hit the clubs together). It’s easier than he thought it’d be, folding Jamie back in to club nights, movie nights, the occasional cheat day brunch.

One morning they’re sipping on cheat-day mimosas at Colin’s (and watching the highlights from the game from the night before in a time-honored tradition of not even pretending they don’t have egos) and Colin finally cracks and tells Jamie his stupid gelled back hair last year made him look like a luge runner. Isaac is proud—that’s the longest Colin’s ever kept his opinion to himself. Jamie snorts orange juice on himself; Colin yells about his couch. Jamie tells them that he was just revisiting old haunts and the mood struck him, yeah? Swear I won’t do it again.

Isaac tells him he better not. Reflects poorly on him as captain if one of his crew shows up looking like a twat. He throws it out without thinking. It’s the first time he’s given voice to the new hierarchy between them and he’s not sure how Jamie will respond.

Jamie responds by complaining that the orange juice burned his nose. Then by texting Isaac the next morning, a photo of himself in the mirror rocking one of those puffy vests he likes and a stiff collared button-up shirt Isaac wouldn’t be caught dead in. His hair is gelled back, but it doesn’t look too awful with the halfway decent fade he sports these days (Isaac could do better, he’s just saying).

The text says, “all good cap??”

Isaac texts back a photo of himself. “needs work bruv”

He’s not sure if its respect, but it’s something good. Something that makes him crack jokes, and hang off of Sam’s shoulders, and defend Isaac’s artistry with the razor to Jan like it’s his own honor at stake. (This in spite of the fact that Jamie has never, not once cashed in his free yearly haircut).

It’s all good and then Wembley happens and Isaac thinks that maybe the real issue is that Jamie’s never seen what respect looks like in his life. Maybe the flaw was never in Isaac as a captain or a player, if this was the man who should’ve taught him what it looked like in the first place.

He tests the waters when Jamie comes to him and Colin panicked after the funeral and tells them he pulled some stupid shit with Keeley (‘the funeral got to me. I don’t know why I said that—Roy’s going to murder me’). Jamie’s got himself all worked up that Roy’s going to talk to the gaffer and they’re going to send him packing—as if—and Isaac tells him full stop that the only way through it is to be responsible for his actions. Tell Roy the truth. Tell him you didn’t mean to step on his relationship, and that you respect him.

Because Jamie does respect Roy. Isaac knows that much. He can see it in the way Jamie followed him around like a lost duckling when Roy first came back to coach. Now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can see it a lot in how Jamie looks at Ted when Ted is doing one of his Ted-talks. He can see it in how Jamie looks at Sam when Sam talks about how Twitter still won’t lay off about the Dubai Air thing but he refuses to let them treat him with disrespect but he also refuses to stoop to their level. Jamie’s respect looks a lot like awe and wonder with just a hint of confusion. Jamie never looks at Isaac like that.

Jamie does take his advice though, and by the end of the season him and Roy seem square. Isaac’ll take the win.

Colin complains that when Roy headbutted him, he got a concussion, but when Jamie gets headbutted he gets a hug.

Isaac and Jamie both go in for a very sarcastic hug at the same time. Maximum silliness reinstated. All is right in the world.

Zava arrives and Isaac, for a while, finds himself swayed and forgetting his purpose as a captain. It’s something he’ll look back at and regret, like the Loony Tunes situation, how he got so caught up in the flow of things that he forgot to ask himself what he should be doing as a captain.

Zava sticks around and Colin gets moved to second string. That, Isaac notices. He may not be the captain he should be, but he knows how to be there for his best friend.

Zava leaves. Isaac, faced with his shortcomings, doesn’t handle it well. He over-corrects and insists on everybody bonding in Amsterdam. He keeps half an eye on the hotel door so he can flag Jamie over when Roy’s done with him, but the night comes and goes and the two of them never show up. When they catch the bus the next morning, the two of them seem better, settled and relaxed the way Roy hasn’t looked all year. Isaac puts that down as another thing to learn: bonding ain’t just about the team. Sometimes the coaches need it too. A year ago he might’ve been worried about Jamie stepping on his heels. He hasn't worried about that in a while.

When Total Football goes awry, he over-corrects again but in the opposite way. Lashes out at Jamie for not scoring goals at his end of the pitch, while Isaac hasn't been holding up his half of the job either. But Jamie's the one with the strategy, and he explains it in a way that makes it seem so obvious to Isaac afterwards.

Jamie has respect now. From the team. From the coaches. From Isaac.

And there's Isaac, and he's still missing shit that should be so obvious.

“I told you boyo. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. You don’t have nothing to worry about,” Colin tells him one week.

The next week finds Isaac footing it after his best friend because Colin's a judgmental arsehole when he wants to be, but this time he's off the mark. The ladies who sent photos to their fellas didn't do anything wrong. Whatever girls sent photos to Colin, Isaac will sort it out. He's not happy that this is the side that Colin’s come down on, but they’ll work it out. He’s his best friend; they’ll work it out. He doesn’t have anything to worry about.

It takes holding Colin's phone in his hand for Isaac to realize he's never seen his best friend with a girl.

It’s like he’s the epicenter of an atom bomb, the way the world fizzles away to nothing in his ears, thoughts blown far from the radius until all he could do is hand the phone back and walk away.

Another one of those things he should’ve noticed, but didn’t. Except worse.

He tells Colin everything, and it feels like Colin’s lied about everything.

It hurts. It’s a ball of rage so deep it takes him out at the knees, and it makes him want to do worse than throw a chair at the TV.

For the next month there’s no cheat-day mimosas. There’s no impromptu late-night FIFA matches and avoiding Roy’s wrath when he catches them yawning the next morning. Colin slinks around him in the locker room and makes jokes with the other lads and looks to Isaac for a sign of a smile like this is just a tiff. Like any day now Isaac’s going to roll his eyes and say ‘okay I’m over it we’re square now.’

Isaac doesn’t know how to be over it. He feels himself tearing up just thinking too hard about it. When he doesn’t say anything back and Colin looks away in disappointment, Isaac wants to do worse than throw chairs.

Isaac’s always tried to make sure he gets what he deserves, but he doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

If this were anybody else it wouldn’t be happening, he’d call Colin and game plan that shit. But it is Colin, and given the potentially sensitive nature, what Isaac really needs is someone who won’t ask too many questions.

That’s what he tells himself when he hits up Jamie to see if he can carve out some time to grab a drink with Isaac, between Roy’s insane extra workouts and the team’s new everyday insane workouts.

He needn’t have worried about spilling any secrets. Jamie wasn't Colin. Colin had an unassuming way of under-reacting that makes you feel like you could tell him anything and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is false—what he actually does is he lets you pour your heart out and then tells you you’re being an idiot (judgmental prick).

Jamie on the other hand finds a bone to pick and then natters you into fighting over it, and before Isaac knows it they’ve spent two hours arguing about the end of Inception and he hasn’t once thought about Colin and the huge, stupid secret Isaac’s got locked inside his chest.

Isaac invites Jamie out again two nights later, when the breathing gets tough. Then again on the weekend, when its starting to dawn on Isaac how a Colin-less life makes a calendar feel like an empty hallway after the party’s over.

He spends a month patching over the Colin-holes with Jamie-shaped gauze.

For a shit month, it's pretty enjoyable.

Around week two they go on a shopping spree. An honest to god break out the champagne full fucking wardrobe shopping spree. (Colin doesn’t really like shopping; Jamie isn’t Colin). When they finish ransacking the first store, Jamie lays down his card and tells the shop assistants, "It’s on me." Isaac gets the tab at the next place. He talks Jamie into expanding his pallet to include more summer colors – sneaks a sky blue hoodie into the pile when Jamie isn’t looking – and in return Jamie hypes him up to hell and back, saying he looks mad fit every time he comes out of the dressing room while daring Isaac into trying some basic color blocks ("Not everything needs a print, mate"). He even finds Isaac a pair of pink-tinted sunglasses that are surprisingly tasteful.

The thing is it's become a habit, Jamie hyping him up. Going on a year later, most days him and Jamie are still swapping pictures of their outfits each day. Slowly but surely, Jamie's style has stopped looking like ‘DSQUARED2 but only the lame parts.' His style now is fresher, more dialed in. Occasionally, Isaac will admit, he looks fucking fly. Not as fly as Isaac, but the effort's there.

(Colin’s fashion choices are atrocious—if he ever complimented him, Isaac would burn the outfit on the spot.)

When they finally split afterwards, Jamie pulls him into a tight hug and thanks him like Isaac’s the one who’s done him the big favor, instead of Jamie being the one anchoring Isaac to sanity.

After a month he's mad at Colin, and he’s mad at himself for still being mad at Colin. He doesn't know how to fix it.

But no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to throw hate at Colin.

The damn breaks when Isaac isn’t ready, and then Roy's pulling him back and he's in the locker room yelling and all the unfairness and the anger and the guilt and the missing-Colin boils to the surface, and Isaac is gonna cry if he doesn’t get out of there.

Isaac isn’t so far gone that he forgets about the armband, the weight of the thing he’s earned but certainly doesn’t deserve right now. He leaves with Sam, with his steadiness and grace and discernment. He'll either keep it safe or give it back, depending on which way the scales tip for Isaac when he leaves the room.

Roy sets him straight. A year ago Roy’s lessons were sharper, lessons under streetlamps that you had to fight through yourself. Since Amsterdam, he’s been as soft with the team as Isaac’s ever seen him. He doesn’t know what Jamie did to bring that out, but he feels a similar softness in himself when Jamie corners him after the game to tell him what went down in the locker room after he left.

Colin came out to the team.

Colin came out to the team for Isaac.

“Everyone was really supportive about it,” Jamie reassures him. He’s tugging his ear, an awkward tick he’s picked up from Sam, and he’s not quite looking Isaac in the eye but Isaac can’t look anybody in the eye right now either so that checks out. “About him, but also about you, in case it were you too.”

That'd be a new level of drama even for this team. Isaac snorts. “Nah, it wasn’t me.”

Jamie huffs, “Yeah. Didn’t think so.” Then he pauses for a second and adds, “But if it ever was something, you could let us know, yeah? We’re here for Colin. We’d be here for you too. If you're upset about something, you can just tell us. You don't got to spend a month making excuses to hang out.”

It’s Isaac’s turn to instigate one of those crushing hugs. Jamie hugs back just as tight.

There’s too much going on for one day, a red card and Roy Kent telling him to calm down and sort himself out and Colin—fuck he’s got to talk to Colin—but one of these days—

—it’s been poking at the back of his mind, the way that Jamie sometimes is a bit like a can of Lynx. It smells like Lynx and it looks like Lynx but sometimes Isaac suspects he only thinks that because he saw the label first. Another one of those things that he learns that'll make more sense after Isaac figures it out, he’s sure. That's for another day.

For now Colin hears him out. Colin lets him talk. Colin says something about one-percent uncertainty feeling like ninety-nine percent terror, and it strikes a chord, harmonizing with the uncertainty he’d felt over the idea that if Colin lied about one thing, then Colin lied about everything.

Colin doesn’t lie to him. Isaac should’ve remembered that. He should’ve let the ninety-nine percent truth bury out the one-percent lie.

Colin does that thing where he lets Isaac talk himself into numerous dumb dead-ends and only sort of mocks him for it afterwards. Judgmental prick. Lighthearted arsehole. Isaac missed him.

He’s so fucking grateful for the return of Colin-time that a good month goes by. Issac doesn't clock the fact that he’s not hung out with Jamie for a while until fucking Roy Kent side-swipes him with it out of nowhere. Roy had been looking for Jamie, and Isaac quips without thinking, "why would I know where he is? I thought you two were attached at the hip these days?"

Roy grits his teeth and says, "Would’ve thought you’d know, you being best friends and all."

He says it with emphasis, like he’s quoting something. Someone. Jamie. Like he’s quoting Jamie.

He says it as if it’s not news to Isaac’s ears.

He says it and Isaac feels like a fucking idiot. He'd replaced his actual best friend with Jamie for like a month, and Jamie had let him even though Jamie knew Isaac was full of shit and making excuses to hang out. And Jamie was being supportive, stepping back and skipping out on cheat-day mimosas while Colin and Isaac re-navigated years’ worth of late-night conversations, now with the pronouns flipped over.

Colin was Isaac’s best friend. But if Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend—

Well.

Isaac wasn’t in the habit of keeping things he hadn’t earned. If Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend, then Isaac was going to earn it.

Maybe he could convince him to start with a haircut.

[raindingrandom]

I was playing that Infinite Craft browser game today, and I think I just won the game.

[askchilchuck]

Hi! I’m the last person who… uhm… asked to get adopted…. (I’m sorry I just have a horrible father and what a new father figure:/)

But I drew you as an apology and I hope you like it :D <3

Look, I’m sorry if I came off rude before. I’m just… Not really sure what I even could do for you at this point. Most of you are adults now, there’s no more raising to do in the first place.

And, quite frankly, I’m not sure finding a father figure would help at this point either. It sounds like you’re looking for someone to base your worth on, rather than looking for someone to guide you. It might be good to figure that out first, if you ask me.

[cross-mountain]

Happy new year everyone! Here's my 2023 art summary but it's all xenoblade ;;;;

[he1ian]

warden silver from da ask game

request from twt :3

[toast-in-a-cowboy-hat]

Thinking about Episode 141 and I just wonder how Tex felt when Outlaw told him that not only had Blue (the guy he spent his time in the compound sheepdoggin', tried to protect, stayed away from Base to try to keep from getting killed) not only had he gotten consolidated and killed, but he did it to protect them and that he had hoped Tex would be proud of him

[age-of-moonknight]

“Crusader,” Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #1.

Writer: Benjamin Percy; Artist: Rod Reis; Letterer: Cory Petit

[atopvisenyashill]

let me translate this for you it says: well i saw the rumors about nettles being daemon’s bastard as true and i thought rhaena’s story would be boring tv so i simply combined the two theories for funsies but now that everyone is yelling at me and hurting my feelings i’m wondering if maybe the change is more trouble than it’s worth. i might still do it tho fuck you.

[greenerteacups]

do you have any thoughts on luna and harry as a potential couple post-canon? i was reading your post on harry/ginny and i really loved your perspective on it, especially when you said your vision for harry post war was basically just lots and lots of big dogs (i LOVE that mental image and i agree it would be SO good for him!!) but i was wondering if you'd consider luna and harry to be a good match for each other? personally i have a sort of soft spot for the pairing because of how fond harry is of her in canon, and i think if anyone was going to understand and be unfazed by all the difficult trauma responses and long healing process he's going to be dealing with for years after the war, luna seems like a good fit :)

My love for Harry as a character is kind of unusual to me, considering I go pearl-diving for ships when I read things, and I fall in love with dynamics as a conduit to falling in love with characters. That said, I don't really ship him with anybody. I just genuinely adore That Weird Little Dude. Same with Ron; I'm just as pleased to see them with a range of people, because (A) I believe they're good partners and can have great relationships with many people (Ron Weasley get behind me they could never make me hate you Ron Weasley), but also (B) I don't see either of their canon relationships as Definitive. Some characters I ship together because I sincerely believe they are (non-deterministic) soulmates, in that they bring out parts of each other that make them the freshest, happiest, most interesting versions of themselves. With other characters, I'll look at a couple and go: "Huh. Could work!" and smack my giant rubber [APPROVED] stamp on it, then get back to work on my blorbos.

Luna and Harry are one of those couples for me. As I mentioned in that other post, I think Harry's primary requirement in a partner is someone who can treat him normally, i.e. will be generally chill about the Became Wizard Jesus Twice situation. Which is a big ask. Luna is uniquely capable of doing that because Luna is not normal at all, and so treats all things, extraordinary and ordinary both, as uniformly dazzling and delightful. I believe this is why Harry enjoys her so much in their friendship, because he gets to feel valued and treasured without feeling unusual or othered — a hard line to toe, and one even Ron and Hermione occasionally trip up on. He seems to like hanging out with her a great deal, and I think it says something sweet that he asks her to the Slug Club party instead of any of the girls in Gryffindor from his year, whom he'd ostensibly know better.

Luna is a bit of a cipher to me, I admit. We know she's the daughter of an eccentric and probably traumatized single father, raised without a mother; deeply lonely, because of how she's been ostracized for her beliefs and hobbies, and the victim of some degree of bullying for it; and yet full of a passionate, almost effortless wonder and joie de vivre. She's also intensely loving (cf. painting her friends' faces on her bedroom ceiling) and very hard to embarrass. She likes Harry for understandable reasons; they share most of those qualities (Harry's more sensitive to others' opinions, understandably so), and the only point where they diverge is their actual hobbies and interests. Harry seems pretty fond of her nonsense, and I bet she could sell him on crumple-horned snorkacks given some time — maybe if Hermione took a vacation to Switzerland and left them alone together.

In general, what I find sweet about the idea of these two is they're so chill. These are two people whose chief ambition is to hang out, enjoy their hobbies, and see some cool magical shit. Date night is so fucking easy for these two. Plus, Harry is a hothead a lot of the time, and Luna just... vibes. Literally never bothered. Insane levels of not fussed at all times. Very helpful for Harry, who has a bad tendency to bottle up his feelings and then blow up at the first person to sneeze at him. Conversely, I'd hope that Harry would age into the kind of genial, confident dude who would be able to rock up with a function where people were talking shit about Luna and be like :) My wife? You mean my wise and beautiful wife? Surely you are not talking about my wise and beautiful wife. :) instead of doing what he'd do from age 15-17, which is get mad and stomp around sulking. Which, again: teenager. Orphan. Non-stop trauma gauntlet from age 2-18. Excuses are made. But still. Would think it best if Luna's husband were not perhaps so keenly sensitive to gossip, for Luna's sake.

Anyway, these are just some dissembled thoughts. There's also something in there about Harry, boy under the staircase, falling in love with the magical world and ending up the Most Magical person, i.e., the person who took believing in magic to such an extreme that she imagines magic that doesn't exist yet. And Luna ends up with the one person who's inarguably stranger than she is.