#I think Phil is too salty but also I think it makes sense

[shadowslocked]

Tbf I do get where Philza is coming from (even if, I want to make this clear, I don’t agree with taking stabs openly at the admins)

Having OP characters is a delicate balance, and I think the Binary Code falls into such a way that if players feel completely helpless in a fight it does make things really frustrating. And not helpless in a way of, we have the ability to win but were outplayed and hit hard. Helpless in the way of, as Philza said, the boss has complete immunity and can’t take damage so all you can do is lose.

Tbf tho we don’t know their gear or what the Binary admins use.

It’s a play I think makes sense in wanting to spice things up with an egg death, especially after Ramon’s needing to be rolled back, but I think overall isn’t going to be a hit with every player and some just will not enjoy that kind of fight.

Basically, I don’t vibe completely with salty Philza but I do think I get where he’s coming from because playing in a game where it feels like you’re going to lose no matter what, with no chance of winning, just won’t go over well with everybody

[nekole-doodles]

*slams open door* @mcytblraufest

IT'S FINALLY POSTING WEEK FOR THE MCYTBLR AU FEST!!! YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA NOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT! Anyway, here's the art I submitted:

So, this is from my Rebirth DSMP AU based on the webtoon Rebirth! I haven't talked about it on here but it's definitely one of my favorite AUs :D For those who have read Rebirth, Wilbur takes Noah's place and Tommy takes Neo's place(and yes, they are brothers in this AU).

Also, it was an absolute pleasure to work with lemon_doodles(I don't know their Tumblr :']) and @deathshadowrules!!

Here's the link to deathshadowrules's fic:

And if lemon_doodles wants me to add the link to their fic, I'll reblog this with the link :>

Here's some info on this AU for a bit more context(this is pretty long btw):

(Also, quick note: The fanfics have a different interpretations of this AU and the information the art provided so the details might not line up)

Again, this is an AU heavily based on the webtoon Rebirth, I recommend it, it's really interesting :)

There are themes of time travel/time loops, zombies/zombie apocalypse, superpowers, and this is also a modern AU.

The world ended on November 16th(date idea credits to deathshadowrules) when during a solar eclipse, everyone on Earth passed out for an unexplainable reason and when they woke up the next day, half of those people became zombies, later referred to as the Undead due to them having abilities that exceed the zombies typically depicted in media. This day became known as Armageddon. Along with the rise of the Undead, some of the remaining humans gained abilities/superpowers.

Summary: Wilbur had experienced this apocalyptic world and survived for 6 years. In the later part of those 6 years, he ended up letting Tommy, his brother who he disregarded for years before Armageddon, get captured(I think by the military) for experimentation due to his unique abilities and body. (I'm trying not to spoil too much of Rebirth so some of this is vague TvT) He regretted this decision greatly because he found that he still cared a lot about Tommy, despite their relationship not being great over the years, so he decided to save Tommy from the experimentation. In doing so, he died right after he freed Tommy from the test tube he was being kept in, wishing he had one more chance to fix his mistakes, mainly to make sure that Tommy will remain safe and to (hopefully) mend their long-broken relationship. Then, Wilbur wakes up on November 15th, the day before Armageddon began, which was 6 years ago. He had traveled back in time after he died. He realized that this was his chance to save Tommy. Little did Wilbur know that Tommy has been in a sort of timeloop where once he dies in one timeline, he goes back in time near the start of Armageddon and starts another timeline.

Extra Details Time!

When Wilbur got sent back in time after his death, he got a white streak in his hair with a few gold strands(in the art, it literally just looks blonde because I messed up and couldn't fix it, I tried ahdkshj) Also, I was originally going to make one of Wilbur's eyes gold but I totally forgot while coloring and couldn't go back to fix it. Btw, the whole thing with the gold hair strands, butterflies, text, and eye makes more sense if you read Rebirth but I don't know how to explain it.

Wilbur and Tommy are not biologically related to Phil and Techno but Wilbur is still very close with them. He's known Phil and Techno since he was young and treated them more like family than his actual family. Tommy never really interacted much with Phil and Techno and honestly kind of avoided them. He didn't really know why he avoided those two, maybe because he was salty that Wilbur was always more friendly to them than to him. But otherwise, Tommy feels pretty neutral towards them and gains more respect for them throughout Armageddon due to how stable their living situation is for the end of the world(they've got a good base and everything. Their roles are based on the Blanche family)

Wilbur's wife is Sally, but unfortunately, she's a pretty self-centered person and attempts to hide this but her actions really expresses this fact. She takes the place of Parish, for those who read the webtoon, and I deeply apologize.

Fundy is Wilbur and Sally's son. He doesn't really like Tommy but they start being a bit less aggressive towards each other as the story progresses. He takes Abel's place.

Wilbur's ability is advanced fire manipulation instead of blood manipulation like Noah from Rebirth. Since Noah's blood manipulation has an unbelievable amount of possibilities, I kind of had to twist the possibilities of fire manipulation so that Wilbur's abilities are still able to fill the role they need to. If you want to get a good idea of a way Wilbur uses his fire manipulation, think like- Colonel Mustang's flame alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist but instead of using alchemy, Wilbur causes his fire to burst.

Schlatt takes Ian's role and is just as much of a prick but him and Wilbur aren't brothers. Schlatt is a businessman that comes from a family that is close with Wilbur's, so they've known each other since they were kids(they were introduced to each other at a young age in the hopes they would be friendly enough to be able to work closely with each other). They were sort of friends before Schlatt became a prick but Wilbur still had to deal with him because he is a genuinely good businessman for the company(btw, I should probably mention that Wilbur owns a pretty big business, for those who don't have that context from Rebirth. Idk if the business will be the same or if I'll change it to fit Wilbur better)

Tubbo is Schlatt's son(from a previous marriage) but Schlatt is a pretty distant father because he doesn't really care. Tubbo takes Iva's place but has a different personality because he's older than Iva, and therefore, less innocent.

Quackity is married to Schlatt but he isn't Schlatt's first partner. A few months into the marriage, Quackity began regretting the marriage but felt like he couldn't end it. He takes Lena's place but him and Tubbo act more like close friends. They're both happy with their friendship and don't feel the need to push it to "family". Quackity still takes care of Tubbo though since Schlatt definitely isn't :/

Niki takes Li's place but is a bit less emotionless/cold. Her ability is being able to control water and its temperature(basically waterbending). Also, since people usually ship Noah and Li, I would just like to specify that Niki and Wilbur are friends and only friends.

Some ages(these are still a work in progress though): Wilbur- 26/28, Tommy- 14, Fundy- ~8-10, Tubbo- 14, Niki- 21/22

I think that's enough lore dumping for today :| This AU is still a big work in progress but I'm having so much fun with it!

[fledermoved]

🏵️ Senses and Headcanons :

What does your muse smell like?

Phil typically holds a pretty strong odor of alcohol and cigarettes, at least in his prior verse :( He doesn’t get the opportunity to bathe all too often, so he tends to throw people off with his scent. In his manor verse, however, he’s much cleaner and smells like colognes and perfume or clean linen.

What do your muse’s hands feel like?

While they’re soft, they’re often pretty sweaty. He’s a nervous fella, so socializing in any case leads to some sweaty or sticky palms for him.

What does your muse usually eat in a day?

For his prior verse, he consumes what he can find, and it’s usually either fast food or gas station goodies. In his manor verse, he is typically the one who cooks, and it varies heavily. It can be pork chops, stew, lasagna... Pretty much anything. He has a preference for savory and salty foods. Sardines are actually one of his favorite snacks.

Does your muse have a good singing voice?

One wouldn’t think so on first glance, but yes! Phil is a very soft-spoken guy, but once you get him comfortable and happen to hear it, he sings pretty well.

Does your muse have any bad habits or nervous ticks?

Phil chews. A lot. When he’s nervous (or bored), he chews just about anything he can get his teeth on. He states that it feels good on his gums and teeth, and those jaws are pretty powerful. In his manor verse, he has destroyed wooden furniture. His teeth will also chatter and clack the more nervous he is.

What does your muse usually look like / wear?

In prior verse, he’s usually in a T-shirt and sweatpants. He often wears the same in his manor verse, but there he has an affinity for sweaters, and enjoys wearing dresses and makeup.

Is your muse affectionate? How much? How so?

Phil is a very affectionate man. He’s skittish, yes, but his love language has got to be physical touch in either verse. Once he’s close to someone, he’s cuddly, and sometimes he’s even a little overwhelming for people. Once he’s comfortable, he tends to forget about personal space.

What position does your muse sleep in?

He can sleep in about any position, but when he’s on a soft surface he has a habit of sleeping face-down, which markedly makes him look like a dead body. People usually do not like this. He also, of course, has trouble breathing when he sleeps like this.

Could you hear your muse in the hallway from another room?

Most of the time, yes. Phil has heavy foot-falls, and while I wouldn’t say it’s extremely noticeable, he does also talk to himself frequently.

Stolen from: @yellowhug​ Tagging: u

[spideyspeaches]

Roller-coaster ↬ p.p

gif’s not mine

A/N: My take on What if Peter was in Wandavision? But with a twist ;) Beta read by my wifey @stars-aligning​ 🥰🥰

Warnings: canon typical voilence? mentions of death. Also the timeline doesn’t really make sense, just pretend everyone is of the same age. OH and Wandavision spoilers :)

WC: 9k (longest one shot I’ve ever written 😭)

Pairing: Peter Parker x ex!Reader 

Masterlist || Taglist

"Ben? What's wrong? Why are you looking at her like that?" 

"I- I don't. I don't know. She seems familiar." 

"Familiar? Familiar how?" 

"Like her and I don't belong here. Like we're from another world." 

Working with Tony Stark as his intern, then head of the R&D and now working in the labs as the head of the department felt surreal, a fresh breath of air every time he looked at his desk, with his name written on it. It had been Peter’s dream to meet Tony Stark, maybe work with him too.

And then he got bit by a radioactive spider, giving him super strength, super eyesight and apparently super luck too, because though he liked to think that he was working in SI due to his intelligence, the spider bite did play a role in becoming his mentor’s favourite intern, without which he might have not had a chance to meet him hands on.  

Tony kept reminding him that even if Peter had not been bit by the spider, he would have still secured a high position in Stark Industries, with his disarming intelligence that rivaled Tony’s own and charmingly trippy personality. 

Peter begged to differ. But then again, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in it’s mouth. Ever since he was a bushy haired, rosy cheeked jittery teenager, he had always worshiped the ground Tony walked on. 

Peter remembers the day he got an anonymous letter, which turned out to be SHIELD's handiwork, asking him to join them in their base in New York, even if he insisted that he wasn't interested in being a superspy wannabe. He was skeptical at first, why would the most paranoid of paranoid agents send him a letter in mail? Him, twenty three years old Peter Parker, who lives in a shitty one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with termite issues and smokes weed like the government is going to ban tobacco and is barely able to take care of himself with the overload of work. 

Maybe it was just his Parker luck, or the fact that he was a freelance vigilante who looked after New York in a skintight spandex suit, because the safety of the people was apparently second in priority to the government. They'd rather have people die than have an illegal protector. 

Yeah so Peter was salty, and what about It?

Slinging his satchel higher, he saw the sleek black car in confusion, trying to get a look at the number plate before the lift binged on arrival, walking into the open door. He swore he was either hallucinating or in midst of an intense flashback of the events that lead to what people dubbed as the 'Civil War', back to when he had been shaken out of his mind watching Tony Stark eat his aunt’s homemade walnut date loaf that had more salt than sugar.

His thoughts were put to a halt when he entered his and his aunt's old apartment in Queen’s after a long week of Spidey on mission and nearly getting (illegally) fired, footsteps coming to a pit stop. It's not like it's everyday you come face to face with Agent Coulson, Nick Fury and your ex not- really- girlfriend, somehow all in one day all together. 

"So… um. What are you- What are you guys doing here again?" he asked, folding his hands on his chest defensively, leaning into his aunt's side as he whispered, "how long have they been sitting here?" from the corner of his mouth.

Fury raised a non-existent eyebrow, looking at him with a dagger for eye, making Peter shift nervously. Agent Coulson looked uncomfortable and You, You looked strangely in your element, sitting on the couch with one leg over the other, a neutral expression on your face. 

Back when he was still in high school, when he'd first met you, he used to be in awe of how outgoing you were, seemingly adjusting in whichever situation you were thrown in. You had always accommodated to your surroundings, but with a start he realised that he had never seen you so… You in a while. 

Not during your visit to the Avengers tower, not during the first time you came into his bedroom, all alone. Not when he had seen you take down a mugger on your way home from your first date without even as much as batting an eye.

"They were here ten minutes or so before you came home. It's creepy, as if they knew you were visiting," May answered with a whisper, wearily eyeballing them before moving towards the kitchen, leaving Peter unattended to Your and Fury's piercing gazes. 

"I'm sure they know my monthly schedule before I do," Peter said, turning to look at the aforementioned agents. "So... you like, work for SHIELD, too?" He asked, wringing his hands to abate the tension in them. 

"Yes, she does, but that's not what we're here for, Mister Parker," Fury said in his gruff voice, sitting back with a sauve expression. Peter gulped as Agent Coulson looked him in the eye, finally noticing the thin file he held in his hands. 

"Well what are you here for?" Peter asked, mustering up some confidence as he tried not to look at You or the eye that Fury had that wasn’t covered by the patch.

"We need you to come to Westview, New Jersey with us," You said, a final no nonsense undertone in your voice. He shuddered when he heard you, remembering how soft and sweet you used to be. But that was before you disappeared out of nowhere, and apparently that nowhere was with SHIELD. 

"Me as in Peter Parker or Spider-Man?" he asked, looking behind his shoulder to make sure May wasn't listening. It's not like she didn't know about his… nightly whereabouts, he just wasn't comfortable with making her worry. She already had too much to deal with, with the nephew by day and vigilante by night thing he had going on.

It was also a little concerning that the three in front of him knew that he was visiting her today. He wondered if his apartment was bugged (well, more than the daily roaches and ants) or if SHIELD had been keeping an eye on him after he had denied their offer, instead opting to stay in SI.

It was probably the second one, although the first one was entirely a possibility. He was going to need to talk with Mister Stark about debugging his shitty one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. 

"We need Peter Parker and his tech skills for this one," Fury said, before shoving the file in Peter's hands and crossing his own, “and my offer still stands.”

"For the last time, I'm not joining your little murderous boy band," Peter grumbled, scrunching his eyebrows as he looked at your twitching lips, as if holding in laughter. "I'm perfectly content with working with Dr. Connors in his little laboratory in SI." 

Fury didn’t look convinced and opened his mouth to probably threaten Peter, when Aunt May came in with a tray of cookies. They smelled amazing, too good to be made by her, she probably brought them from Delmer’s.

“Oh- Were you…? I just thought you guys might want to eat something,” She said awkwardly, looking at Peter with pleading eyes.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, May! I would love to eat some of those, I’m famished,” You butt in, taking the tray from her with a smile.

“Um, May, you can um- you know?” Peter gestured, shifting on his legs, hoping that May would get the message before she stood for a minute too long. He didn’t like the way Nick Fury’s eye was looking at him, his tranquilizer gun suddenly visible from his leather jacket.

“Don’t be rude Pete, here May, I’ll help you get that.” You smiled, winking at him and dragging May by her arm, who was mouthing “she’s such a sweetheart” behind her shoulders. 

"What if I told you that his man accidently got evicted due to some legal issues? And that now you're legally unemployed with severe financial issues that need to be looked after because the government suspects something illegal brewing?" Fury continued, looking him dead in the eye.

"Are you seriously blackmailing me? Threatening to unemploy me after all that shit you put me through with Mysterio?" Peter defended, raising a disbelieving eyebrow, watching you strutt back into the room, distracted by the sway of your hips in your mom jeans. He tried to shake the image, rolling his head to crack some tension that had built at the base of his skull.

"Mysterio was a mistake, Parker. This one is not; and we really need you for this one. Besides, remember that you're still a vigilante that hasn't signed the Accords of Sokovia." 

Peter stiffened that the mention of the Accords. He thought the government was over it after the second amendment after the arrest of Thaddeus Ross, but apparently not.

"You said that last time and I almost died! My ex-girlfriend almost died, my best friend nearly died, heck half of Europe almost died because you Director Fury, apparently trust some superhero wannabe in a green and purple costume and overlook facts that could potentially harm someone. So the answer is clearly no!" he retorted, flopping the file on the table as he resisted the urge to sit on the floor flat on his back. 

The three agents were looking at him with an unreadable expression, making him uncomfortable in his skin. 

"Well, it's all up to you then." His voice had a finality to it, one that irked him to no end.

"Do I have a choice?" He sighed after a beat, looking at the three of you with a forlorn expression. 

"Get your equipment ready, Mr. Parker. We'll be leaving for the camp tonight. You can read the details in this file." He heard Agent Coulson say (he was pretty sure his name was Phil), trying to make sense of how fast everything was going past the chronic tinnitus in his ears.

"It's Dr. Peter Parker," he muttered fruitlessly, blushing under your raised eyebrow. 

***

"So, I didn't know you got a PhD. I knew you were smart, still are, considering that you're a PhD at twenty two," You said, sipping on your virgin mojito, and placing the mug in front of you. 

Peter had taken you to a cafe after the confrontation, wanting to know more about your whereabouts and how he had not noticed that you were a superspy all of his high school years. You had retorted with a simple "I'm a spy, that's why,” which he found pretty badass.

"Well, yeah, I did my undergraduate and PhD together." He shrugged casually, looking out of the window to avoid looking at you. 

You had always been beautiful, but somehow, you had become even more beautiful than the last time Peter saw you. 

"That sounds brutal. Only you can manage that," You joked. You weren't going to admit it, but you had missed being with Peter, joking with him and watching his beautiful side profile as he blushed under your scrutinizing gaze.

"So, um. This thing, what is it about?" Peter asked, snapping you out of your daze. 

"Huh? Oh it's a long story. Like really long, if this was a TV show it would take five episodes for me to explain." You gestured, dismissing his scowl. "Okay, so you remember that time when that super high security facility was broken in back in december 2019?" 

"Which super high facility? There are a lot of break ins happening in high security facilities in America, and it's more than concerning, considering they're supposed to be super high security." He said, fiddling with his own drink. 

"Okay, Yeah that's true. It was a S.W.O.R.D facility, and long story short, Wanda Maximoff kidnapped her corpse husband to reenact the dad-knows-best suburban lifestyle with an entire town held as her hostage." You said, looking over your shoulders to make sure no one was listening. 

"Wanda stole Vision's corpse? Wait, is this about Westview? 'The Town that ceased to exist'? Is that what happened? Is this some sort of mind control thing? Cause I know she can make people believe what she wants them to..." Peter whispered, leaning in to show that he was interested. You took a moment to admire his front profile, his broken nose and dimpled chin, rosy lips and sharp cheekbones, accidently zoning out on his theories.

Leaning forward, you brought a hand up his face, pushing a stray curl behind his ears, cutting him short of his rambling. 

"W-what?" He stuttered, his breath hitching, making the table shake with a wince. 

"You have nice hair." You commented with a smirk, caressing his hair one more time. 

"You said that in the senior's party too, and well, there's no sex happening anytime soon." He said, rolling his eyes, sitting back in his hair with his hands folded on his chest.

"I like being optimistic." You rolled your own eyes, heart beating a mile a minute at the reminder of your relationship- ex relationship with Peter, "so what were you saying about Westview? I kind of zoned out." 

You watched him roll his eyes again, trying not to let your eyes wander around his biceps and the little bit of his collarbones peeking from his shirt, unbuttoned from the top, also exposing the thin chain that he always seems to be wearing. With a start you realised that it was the one you had gifted him on his eighteenth birthday.

"So this town, Westview, it just disappeared right? Behind a barrier of sorts? Is it like, coming from an energy source? Was it created by Wanda?  " he asked, ever his inquisitive self.

"Yeah, apparently she's created an alternate reality, sitcom style, with the people of Westview trapped in it." 

"So she's basically starring in a fanfiction alternate reality of sorts but a sitcom format? Wouldn't blame her, poor woman's been through a lot." He nodded, shifting in his seat. He could feel your eyes burning a hole in his skull, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. "Are you staying in a hotel? Or a shield facility?" 

"Nope," You answered, leaning back on your chair. "Am I still allowed to stay in your room? With the doors open?"

He watched you with narrowed eyes, tilting his head with a smirk, replying to you with a nod, "alright." 

*** 

"Did you pack your mittens? The extra warm ones with a built in heater? You know you're susceptible to frost bites-" 

"May! I packed my mittens." Peter murmured, ducking his head in embarrassment as he raised an eyebrow at your amused smile. 

"Okay, okay, that's great. Socks? Painkillers? Extra pair of glasses?" she asked, fumbling around the room like she did whenever he went on field trips. 

"Yes, May!" 

"Great. Stay safe, okay?" Her eyes softened, holding his cheeks in his hand like he was a seven year old, living with them with a knowledge of death no seven year old should have. Sighing, he leant into her palm, holding his own hand encompassing her small one. Giving her a smile, he kissed her cheek. “Ti amo, May. I’ll call you once I get there, okay?” 

She nodded, pulling him into her embrace, though she knew full well that he’s going to forget to call her, too excited to be in the vicinity of multiple certified geniuses and other figures of authority. 

***

"Is there anything I should know about? Like anything unexpected?" Peter asked, looking at the camp in awe as the jeep pulled over makeshift gates, a bunch of soldiers surrounding them. 

Peter was used to seeing the hustle and bustle of camps, considering all the missions he had gone through with the Avengers, back when Steve wasn’t retired and the newer generation of avengers hadn’t entered. 

“Your blood’s radioactive, right?” You asked, turning to face him with a smile. 

“Yeah. Why? Is that relevant?” he replied, raising an eyebrow as he saw someone carrying his bags before he could protest. 

“Well, Dr. Lewis found out about this hexagonal anomaly, no one really knows what it is, but the source seems to be emitting huge amounts of radiations,” You said, getting off the jeep, pulling Peter out with you. Walking towards the crowded camp, you came face to face with the tent where everything was set up.

“Doctor Darcy Lewis?” Peter said, looking at the place in awe. It wasn’t extravagant, but the technology surrounding the tent, the vans and what seemed to be a broadcasting antenna were all way beyond the regular one used in tech companies, which is funny, considering he’s been working with Mr. Stark his whole teenage life. 

“Yup, that’s her, nerd.”

“So, what exactly is this Hexagon? Is it, like, a barrier of sorts? Can everyone go in?” He asked, looking around with glinting eyes, lips twitching in a smirk as he saw the barrier in question. His super hearing caught the static sound it emitted, wincing at the sharp noises. His boots crunched under the snow as he felt the thing pull him towards it, your voice muffled by the noises of the hex. 

It was something he had never seen before, like the static of a TV with a lost signal, glowing red in places as if reaching out to him. His senses seemed dull, the world greying around the way it had before he was bit by the radioactive spider. The spider bite had enhanced his vision in a way that he saw colours not visible to the human eye, a technicolour wonder that even Bruce couldn’t solve. 

He felt a tug, looking down at his shoes, wondering if he had just imagined it. 

“Mom and dad have been, not fighting, just like different.”

He swore he felt a white light flash in front of him, his spidey sense buzzing at the base of his skull, tingling all the way to his spine as he straightened up to dissipate the feeling, shifting awkwardly.

“Only Captain Rambeau has gone in and come back intact so far. It’s emitting a colossal amount of cosmic microwave background radiation, also known as CMBR, and once you get into it, your mind doesn’t really stay your own, so no one has volunteered other than her. Everyone knows the risk,” You said, startling him, a sharp contrast to the voices that seemed to have suddenly accumulated in his brain. 

“If you’re going to break the sound barrier, please just take your brother with you!”  

‘Sound barrier?’ he thought, looking back at the hex as it flashed red, the tug strong enough to make him stumble in his place. You looked at him weirdly, asking if he was okay, but he wasn’t listening, turning to ask you what the red flash meant, distortion evident in the barrier.

“Captain Rambeau? The daughter of the director of SWORD?” he asked instead. 

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“Damn.” He sighed, running a gloved hand through his hair, and dragging it down his face. 

Walking inside the tent, Peter was hit with a face full of cold air, and the hundreds of monitors nearly gave him a sensory overload. The people running around didn’t help, either. “Where do I keep this?” He asked, pointing to his bag full of equipment that Fury had asked for. 

“You can set up over here, newbie,” A new voice said chirpily. Turning around, he came face to face with the Darcy Lewis, eyes widening as he took in her smiley presence, another human who he didn't recognise standing behind her. “Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself! I’m Doctor D-”

“Darcy Lewis, I know- I’m a fan!” 

“Aw look at you, you have a fanboy at your hand,” Captain Monica Rambeau said, strutting in and keeping a hand on her shoulder, confidence radiating off of her every pore. 

"And… You are?" he asked awkwardly, looking pointedly at the FBI agent. He saw Darcy hide a snicker behind her hand, patting his shoulder and shoving him forward. 

The man fell forward, steadying himself on the table before he flicked a card seemingly out of nowhere. "Agent Jimmy Woo, FBI,” he said proudly, a smile on his cute little baby face. Peter was left staring in awe, wondering how he had done that.

"Wait, can you do that again? How did you do that?!" 

"It's cool, isn't it? I could teach you if you want." 

"Yes, of course, but how did you do it? It appeared out of nowhere and if you take in consideration the law of conservation of mass, it can neither be created nor be destroyed and it just seemed to have accumulated-" 

"It's a trick of illusion. You see, when I opened my palms, I-" 

"Peter, let's set things up shall we?" You interrupted their session, a smirk on yours and the other women's faces, shaking your head.

Ditching the bag on the counter, he nodded, willing his heart to stop beating out of his chest. This was the coolest thing that had ever happened to him next to Tony Stark sitting on his aunt’s old futon. And the magic trick.

“This is the coolest day of my life,” he whispered, shrugging when you chuckled at his excitement. “Ned’s going to freak out.” 

“Wait until you see the schematics and control panels.” You smirked, making him raise an eyebrow as he blushed, the flush apparent from his neck to his ear. The others scattered just as he finished setting his station up, fidgeting with the radio, when the voice of Hayward boomed across the cubicle. 

“Ah, Mister Parker!” he says, a faux smile on his face as he looks at the station, making Peter shift uncomfortably. The weird tingling of his spidey-sense came up again, his hand automatically reaching there to scratch at the itch.

“Here we go again,” Darcy muttered, patting Peter’s back, her eye roll loud enough for him to glance at her. 

“It- It’s doctor,” he muttered, hearing a “he gets me” from Darcy.

“Very well, Doctor Parker it is, then. I’m Hayward, welcome to SWORD.”

“SWORD? I thought this was a SHIELD thing?” 

“...Fury didn’t brief you?”

“He did! He was just very vague, hence why I’m asking. What exactly have I been called here for?”

The silence that took over was palpable, with you shifting awkwardly as Hayward eyeballed them all, looking at the five of them morosely before saying, “Brief him Monica,” and leaving.

“God, is every higher official such a dick here?” Peter grumbled, watching him retreat, shaking his head as he threw the ball of paper he hadn’t noticed he had been fidgeting with.

“See? He agrees, I like him.” Darcy nodded, pulling him with her towards the briefing table. 

“This all started when the town of Westview disappeared after the second blip,” Monica said, pulling up holographs that showed the image of people reappearing from the snap, his breathing increasing in pace as he remembered vaguely of his own reappearance. 

The whole situation was fucked up. After stealing Vision’s corpse, Wanda had basically resurrected him, holding and controlling thousands of people, an entire fucking town. Looking at the list of all the missing people, his eyes zeroed on to one particular face. He racked his memory to remember who exactly it was, mouth hanging open when he realised who exactly she was.

“Is that… is that Agatha Harkness?” Peter said, pointing at the woman who had no name written under her photograph.

“You know her real name?” Darcy asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows as he nodded, wringing his hands around.

“Yeah, Wanda told me about her, she’s the witch from the Salem trials!”

“How is she significant to the plot, though?”

“She... she mentored Wanda, before she went to the dark side." 

In the time he knew Wanda, she had been the sweetest person ever. She was like an older sister he didn’t know he needed, empathising with him on a cosmic level. They had come close before the events of Thanos happened. She was his person, and they shared a lot of secrets, this one being one of them.

“That’s one connection to her. What about the others? She keeps telling Vision that she doesn’t know what’s happening, but when the drone strike happened, she looked straight at the camera, like she knew,” Monica intervened.

“He tried to deploy a drone strike? In front of her children, after knowing very well that she saw her parents die in the Sokovian attack when she was ten? Is he fucking insane?!” Peter seethed, nearly crashing his fist on the table hard enough for cracks to appear on it. 

“Peter, hey, calm down! You breaking things is not going to make the situation any better, okay? He already tried to chuck us out of this, you don’t go around breaking things now!” You said, holding him still as his body shook. You had never seen him this angry, and frankly, you would never want to see it again. 

Peter was a sweet person, respecting people’s boundaries and always so understanding. He was the embodiment of good, even after living a fucked up life, he never projected his trauma on the other. He wore his emotions on his sleeves, and your heart clenched every single time, seeing him in pain. 

"Listen, that's my sister in there, and she has no idea what she's doing. She needs our help and I'll do anything to help that woman and if you guys even think of hurting her I will make sure each of you regret it," Peter hissed, staring daggers at the silent team members of the room. 

“Is there any way to reach there?” he asked, more softly than before. Darcy exchanged a look with Agent Woo and Monica, opening her mouth before knowing better and shutting it. “What?! Is there a way to communicate with her?”

“Follow us,” the brown woman said, breathing deeply as she looked at the other two silently. 

"Where are we going?" Peter asked, fidgeting with your fingers. He hadn't noticed himself holding your hands, your lips twitching when you realised he had done that unconsciously.

“Trust me, I don’t know half the things these ladies do,” Woo whispered, and Peter nodded along seriously. 

“Whoa, I feel like there’s a secret underground base here! Is there a secret underground base?” 

“Well, it’s not underground, and not really a secret anymore,” Captain Rambeau said, unravelling a curtain, revealing a small space with a million monitors and a wooden desk littered with laptops and too many empty coffee cups. 

“This is so cool,” You whispered, watching in awe as Dracy lit up the screens, revealing various codes and stuff you didn’t really understand. Peter was already invested, babbling about codes and addresses and hidden files within hidden files, things that flew over your head at the speed of Darcy’s fingers on the keypad.

Leaning on the table with one hand, Your eye caught a flat round metal looking thing on the ground, picking it up and tracing it with your fingers. “Is this… a bullet?!” 

“Yeah, it was hit on that suit, which turns out to be 87% kevlar. That happened when Captain shot at it,” Jimmy answered, giving you a smile as you dropped your jaw. 

“She went in wearing a bulletproof vest right? Wanda just… manifested a dress made of kevlar?” You wondered, your words interrupted by Peter’s yelp.

“So, remember how Director Douchebag ordered a drone strike on Wanda?” she said, contemplating her words next as everyone turned towards her. “Turns out he’s been planning something else.” 

“What’s that?” Jimmy asked, pointing at the screen, which displayed two boxes full of what seemed like cells.

“That’s Monica’s blood work, he’s been tracking it the whole time. The first time you travelled to the hex? It changed your cellular structure on a molecular level, twice.” She said. 

A sombre expression took over the older woman’s face, pursing her lips. “He thinks I’m gaining powers.” Monica nodded.

“I may not be a genetic engineer, but from what I’m seeing here, he’s most likely right,” Peter interrupted, a silence taking over everyone. “He’s keeping track of the enhanced, if I’m not wrong.” 

Shaking his head, he clenched his eyes when he heard another voice. You watched him weirdly, reaching to ask him if he was okay, before retracting your hand.

“Chill out sis, it’s not like you can kill your dead husband twice.” 

“You’re right. He’s been tracking everyone who’s enhanced, including Vision.” Dracy said, typing something on the screen to show you the map of Westview, pulsing red and blue dots appearing in your sight.

“Do you know what his endgame is?”

“Yeah. Rebooting Vision.” 

Peter inhaled sharply, trying not to let his face show the anger inside him as he looked at Monica with wide eyes, both of them looking at each other dangerously, both of them realising same thing.

“Then, I’m going in. Someone needs to tell her,” he said, looking at the others for affirmation.

You took a step back, gulping in anticipation of his words. Reaching out with a hand, you stared at him, hoping he wouldn't lash out. "Peter, you have to know, the hex is a dangerous place. You won't even remember who you are so there’s no point in you going in. You won’t be able to convince her to magically leave her hostages, she’ll just see you as an outsider and throw you out-" 

"Captain Rambeau went in and she was able to get out!" he argued.

"Peter, I was tossed out because she saw me as a threat. She might not do that to you but going in that thing is dangerous, especially with your mutations-" 

"I don't give a fuck about my mutation! You of all people should know how it feels like to lose family, Monica," Peter said, looking at her. The fire in his eyes spoke volumes. No one dared to intervene. 

"Peter, your mutation could potentially kill you. You know the risks of going past the barrier due to your enhancements. The radiations are altering DNA to a molecular level, your cells-”

"-are already metastasizing! My spider DNA is going to get me killed some day because my body won’t be able to handle it anymore, so I don't care, I'm going and that's final." He nodded, puffing his chest to show that he wasn't going to step down. 

"Fine, I'll come with you then," You said, looking at him as you said that. A lump formed in your throat as you realised that he was so willing to sacrifice himself, and blood pumped in your veins as determination set in along with a rush of adrenaline. 

"Do as you please." He shrugged, pursing his lips, but his eyes were a different story. You felt sick, insides tearing themselves up as you took a good look at him and his pallor, the artificial lights illuminating the scar tissues on his face. Ones that you knew were inflicted by his years of being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. 

***

“Maximoff is never gonna negotiate with us,” Hayward said, circling the table as Monica looked at him with disbelief in her expression. “We’ll need all the guns we have here to stop her.”

“We can’t outgun her, but what we can do is try and talk her out of this. Antagonising her is only making things worse. If Wanda is the problem, she has to be our solution!” Monica argued, looking forward.  

“She’s already killed thousands during the Sokovian attack. How do you guarantee that she won’t kill another person she finds threatening?!”

“She was guilty about it. It wasn’t her fault, do not bring that into this.” 

“Yeah? Well, the guilt isn’t going to bring back the dead children is it?” 

"The dead children aren't coming back, but those people trapped in Westview? They can, if you fucking let us!" 

"Fine. But someone will be monitoring you."

Negotiations with your boss and commanding team of SWORD concerning the ship was a tough feat. you had finally convinced them to let you and Peter go across the border, but Darcy and Monica were to be on the radio in case everything went amiss.

Sitting in the (illegally acquired) van, you watched Jimmy, who was trying to teach Peter the card trick, invested in the trick yourself. Leaning forward to get a better view, you tried not to let the rush of blood in your cheeks get to you at the close proximity with Peter, heart pounding with every step you took closer to the hex. 

“I did it! I finally did it, Y/N, look!” Peter said, showing you the trick, smiling at his childlike enthusiasm. 

“That’s great! You should show it to Morgan, she’ll like it.” 

“How do you know about Morgan?”

“I know everything.”

You may have been bluffing, but he seemed to have caught on your cue, the awkward tension reappearing as he shifted in his seat, twisting and turning and going back to the magic trick. You tried not to smile, but your mouth never did coordinate with your brain. 

“We’re here,” the driver said, parking the van. 

“Okay let’s go through this again: Captain Rambeau and Dr. Lewis will be on the radio while you try and get in, stay near a radio as much as you can so we can try and communicate, and do not try to meddle with Wanda,” Jimmy said, going over your checklist. 

You were skeptical of the plan, thinking about how successful your mission was going to be, considering how powerful she had become in her own little sitcom. You had heard of her expanding the borders just after you had started driving near it. 

“You ready?” Peter asked, taking your hand as you nodded, and wrapped your fingers around his knuckles, before taking a deep breath.

“I’m ready.” You nodded, looking over your shoulders to see the FBI agent giving you a thumbs up, muttering something into the comms. Looking back at Peter, you felt dizzy with the buzzing anxiety, the pull of the barrier strong. 

Stepping close to it, you felt electricity buzz in your veins, shuddering at the chilling sensation and sudden exposure to stimuli, your gut twisting the more your hand went in the hexagonal anomaly. You swore you felt your physical being tear apart, your life flashing in front of you in a white hot light, your brain was practically mush with how much force you needed just to get in. 

"I thought we would be able to get in easily!" Peter shouts, his screams echoing in your eardrums, mixed with your own screams. 

"She's becoming more powerful the longer she stays inside, and so is the hex," You replied, gasping for a breath as you tried to move forward.

With a final scream, you closed your eyes at the static sound bombarded your ears, you couldn't fathom how loud it must be for Peter, sending a look towards him. His eyes were scrunched, hands curled around his head and ears to stop the sound. Before you could comment on his state, your own vision doubled, bright green and magenta lights appearing out of nowhere, the coiling of your gut intensifying, and before you knew it, the strong force pulled you inside, throwing you off on the hard concrete of the road, and everything went dark.

***

“I’m okay. I’m okay. Everything is alright,”  Wanda said, repeating the phrase like a mantra as she sat on the couch. 

She repeated the phrase like clockwork, just like being a mom to two half synthezoid pre-teens and the gatekeeper of Westview. Snapping out of her daze, she felt something in her brain stir, realising with a start that something had been messing with the barrier-- or, rather, someone.

Closing her eyes, she willed her powers, similar to the ones Tommy had, to look past the barrier, opening her eyes with a flash when she saw a familiar face.

“Peter,” she muttered, the brown eyed boy who she had come to think of as a brother materialising in front of her, dropping on the carpet with a thud as his unconscious form fell on top of Yours. Wanda remembered you from all the stories Peter had told her about. 

Crouching down, she reached out to touch you both. Her eyes glowing red as she held a finger to your and his forehead, scrunching her eyelids as she navigated both of your heads.

A lonely young girl was seen sitting on a rock, the wind blowing wisps of her dark hair along with her dress. Suddenly, the noise of clucking of horseshoes could be heard, a woman coming into view as she got off her horse. 

“Feeling lonely and afraid at the middle of the night when you’re a young and beautiful teenage girl?” the woman in the cowgirl shoes said, holding her hip as the girl nodded. “Well, don’t worry, every young girl must have a sword at her disposal!” 

“A sword?” the young girl asked, tilting her head as she took the object in her hand.

“Yes, a s.w.o.r.d, my dear. Fear not, for the sword will protect you from all the hexes around you.”

The girl smiled, looking at the camera with the cowgirl’s hands on her shoulder. “A sword to protect the young!” 

Buy now at your nearest convenience store, terms and conditions apply.

“What are you two doing here and not at school?” Wanda chortled, startling the two who were now very much conscious. The boy moved, fisting his eyes, and he curled his hands to stretch the kinks that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, the varsity jacket scrunching underneath his fists. 

“Babe?” the boy groaned, messing up his hair, looking at the general direction of the girl. 

Putting on a smile, Wanda folded her arms, biting her lips at how adorable the two of you were.

“Ben? Is that you?” the girl asked, looking at her disheveled frock with a confused expression, finally noticed the woman standing in front of her. “Oh my god, babe, I swear we were at the bleachers not long ago. Did you manifest teleportation powers now?” 

“Miss Maximoff! You’re Billy and Tommy’s mom! Babe, we’re in Billy and Tommy’s house!” The guy, Ben said, his voice rising up an octave as he looked at his surroundings. 

He couldn't remember much about the Maximoffs, except that his neighbours talk about the weird mom and dad almost everyday in the gossip sessions. Whatever, he wasn't interested in them.

"She turned them into teenagers." 

"Well there goes our plan. Do we still have back up ready?" 

“That’s right, kids. Now, what were you two naughty children doing out of school?” Wanda asked, helping the two kids get up as the boy blushed, stuttering an apology.

“We- we weren’t ditching, I swear, Miss Maximoff! We were just-”

"-Doing homework! Because… because Ben's a nerd and he doesn't like that he gets behind because of the baseball team!" the girl said, stuttering as Ben nodded along with her.

“Yeah! We weren't making out or anything! Even if we're totally dating." 

Their relationship wasn't exactly your normal relationship. It was more of a… mutually beneficial relationship. 

Well, so far they had the entire town fooled, having them all think that a guy such as Benjamin Fitzpatrick would ever date a girl like her, who liked her books more than her siblings. 

"Hmm, well, thankfully, I'm a cool mom and I will not tell your parents about this… thing. Whatever it was. Anyone want cheesecake?" Wanda smiled, clapping her hands once as she looked at the two teenagers. 

Ben's stomach growled at the thought of food. "You don't have to do it, Miss Maximoff, but I would love some," he said, sheepishly looking at the ground, and wincing at another growl. 

Wanda chuckled, patting the boys back kindly. "Oh honey, it's alright. Come on, don't be shy, the both of you!" she said, looking over her shoulder and saying, "and it's just Wanda! Miss Maximoff makes me feel old, you know." 

They followed her to the kitchen, taking in the interior of the house. Ben's eyes caught something from the corner, it was almost as if it was… flickering? Shaking his head, he dug his fingers in his eyes, wondering if he was still feeling the effects of the time he had hit his head during the baseball practice. 

"You okay?" the girl asked, keeping a hand on his shoulder to steady him. 

"Yeah, probably the aftereffects of a concussion." He nodded, burrowing his brows in confusion. 

"Hmm, should probably get that thick little noggin of yours checked by the nurse." She snickered, hitting his shoulders playfully. Her heart was beating fast, he noted, wondering how he could hear it so clearly. The thought that he would have to leave her after she gets a date for prom made him sad. 

They may be faking their relationship, but he had caught on very fast and realised that he wanted it to be real. As real as the town of Westview.

Wait, what?

"You know we don't have to pretend anymore, right?" Ben said, looking at the girl as she came to a halt. Miss Maximoff was nowhere in sight, the house eerily silent with her heartbeat echoing in his ears. 

"This is the best ship SWORD could ever make." 

The awkward silence was interrupted by the opening of the front door, a loud jingle as Agnes came strutting in, a big smile on her face. It made Ben's neck sting weirdly, slapping his hand at the base to nullify the feeling. 

"Hello, children! What are you doing, skipping school like the little troublemakers you are?" She grinned, pinching each of their cheeks as her voice took a baby-like tone to it. Ben took a step back, grimacing as she continued pinching his cheeks. 

"Um, we weren't- we have no idea actually-" 

"Agnes! Oh, what great timing! Were you here for Billy and Tommy?" Wanda came in, a plate full of cheesecake and crackers in her hand. 

"Oh, Wanda, Wanda, Wanda! Your little troublemakers are already in my house, or did you forget?" She chuckled, the sound of her laughter taking a higher pitch. 

Wanda furrowed her brows, opening her mouth to say something, before closing it, a grin taking over. "Right. Yeah, of course! They really love it there with you, huh?" 

"That's right, everybody loves Auntie Agnes!" 

Ben looked at his girlfriend again, feeling strangely out of place between the two women. 

"Um, Miss Ma- Wanda? C-Can we go now? I feel like-" 

"Oh, Ben, don't be ridiculous! Why don't you sit down and take a breather? You look pale, hon." Wanda smiled, setting down the plate and ushering the two kids on the table, both of whom looked at the table with hunger in their eyes. Well, it had been long since lunch break. 

"Thank you for the cheesecake Mi- uh, Wanda, we appreciate it," the girl said, promptly digging in after the affirmation. 

***

Vision knew something was wrong the moment Agnes showed signs of knowing what was going on. The first time it happened, he was sure his paranoid wife would do something, but she had continued to act as if nothing was wrong with Agnes' behaviour. 

Walking down the road in his ridiculous costume, he nearly sighed in resignation, before he realised that he wasn't capable of such human actions. 

One more thing that perplexed him to no end was his strangely human behaviour. It was as if someone was forcing him to act more human, some weird force that was so unlike Wanda's warm presence, something more foreign and way out of his realm (like the gum incident. He sure did remember Wanda chastising him for doing this atrocity, surely she couldn't have been the one controlling him? Right?).

His mechanical heart ached for his wife. She had gone through a lot, from what he had read from her thoughts; losing a brother (twice, if the absence of Pietro was anything but a confirmation), and then him (it didn't bother him much. He was a synthezoid, there was entirely a possibility that he could be revived). 

He just really missed her, he realised. Their relationship had been strained ever since the boys were born. He didn't blame the drift on his boys, of course. He loved them to no end, would sacrifice himself for them, but he couldn't help but notice the change it brought in Wanda. 

The arrival of Pietro 2.0 didn't help either. 

His thoughts were interrupted as his feet halted their movements, and with a snap he realised that he had somehow made it to Ellis avenue, the border's static buzzing through his entire being. 

"You look lost, buddy," a strange man said. 

Looking at the man, Vision tilted his head, looking through the database of Westview to see that the man seemed to be nowhere in the records. How had he made it here? 

"I- I'm sorry, who are you?" He asked, leaning against the car door to peer inside, the man sitting rigid. It was only then did he realise that the man's eyes seemed… glazed, almost like he wasn't aware. Looking back at the barrier, Vision gaped at the view in front of him. 

The man's car was half inside and half outside the barrier, the slow moving particles seemed to be disintegrating the vehicle, watching in awe as sparks flew the closer the barrier came to the man. 

"Listen, you have to get out of here before that thing destroys you." Vision tried shaking the man, but to no avail. His attempts were in vain as the man simply grunted. "Listen! Can you hear me? What's happening? Why is the barrier moving?" 

He tried opening the door, but it was shut firmly. Groaning, he punched the door, nearly falling to catch the falling man, who was mumbling some incoherent mumbo jumbo. 

"Wanda, what are you up to...?" Vision muttered to himself, realising with a start that the barrier was expanding and the man had come from outside the barrier. 

Looking at the muttering man, he quickly moved them both away from the barrier, propping him up against the grass.

"I'm sorry," Vision said, his hands gliding yellow as he touched the man's forehead, his own circuits being bombarded with incoherent noises. 

"Oh god! I'm sorry, please save me! Please, this hurts, this- you- you're the Vision!" the man screamed. 

"Yes, I'm the Vision! Now, can you stay still? I'm trying to help you!" 

"-Please! She's in my head!" 

His hands lit up again, the yellow light smothering the man's forehead as he went still again, as Vision retracted his hands regretfully. Opting to leave the man there, he stood up again, startling once again that day when he heard a shrill cry, the body of… Geraldine? Appearing out of the barrier. Shaking his head, he was convinced that he was hallucinating, if that was even possible for a droid, and turned around to walk back home. 

(Agatha gave a satisfied chuckle, purple sparks erupting from her fingers as she turned back to Wanda, pretending that that didn't just happen.) 

***

"Do you think our school is a little… solitary?" Ben asked, inhaling a puff of smoke from the blunt in his hands. His girlfriend and him were sitting on the rooftop of Westview high, their feet swinging against the edge as she clutched at Pe- Ben for dear life. 

Peter? Who was that?

"Did you see that?? Peter was right, that was Agatha Harkness and she's been the one manipulating the people, it never was Wanda! It was meant to be a plot twist, but I totally predicted it."

"Um…"

"What? I'm invested." 

Peter? 

Y/n? Can you hear me? Please say yes if you can hear me.

She noticed the static sound of the radio speaking to someone. The static noise increased, and Ben didn't seem to have noticed the small portable radio malfunctioning. Shrugging it off, she went back to passing the blunt from her boyfriend. 

Boyfriend. The word ignited a flame in her chest. Ben, who she faked her dates with once upon a time, now was her actual, real boyfriend, who she was ditching homework to smoke a blunt with, uncaring of her nearing curfew. Her parents would have her head if she found out.

"Do you hear that?" She asked, exhaling the stale air from her lungs. She knew it was more of the deep breathing than the weed, but it made her feel serene. 

"I've been hearing a lot of things lately." He croaked, clearing his throat, sniffing the air as he leaned back, his Adam's apple bobbing with every gulp. His glasses were sliding off his face. She reached to push them back up, smiling at the flush of his face.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, slipping her fingers through his, rubbing a hand on his back. His life had been difficult, she knew about him being an orphan, but she didn't know he was having a hard time with life at the very moment, her heart aching for the poor boy.

"I don't know, I keep hearing these voices in my head. Children screaming, people crying, and this… this buzz at my neck, I can't ignore it anymore! I feel like I'm going insane and I can't keep them quiet! I've tried, but it's like they're trying to communicate with me." 

Her eyes softened, hands running through his thick, straight hair as he leaned his head on her shoulder. Suddenly, the height at which they were sitting on didn't matter, she had him in her arms. 

"He broke the fourth wall. He's been hearing things, just like Billy." 

Wiping away his tears, she kissed his forehead, rubbing her hands gently on his back. 

"It's gonna be okay. You're okay, they'll go away soon." She reassured, folding her legs to get up, and pulling him up with her. "It's getting late, and mom will have my head if I'm later than curfew." 

"You've broken curfew before." He chuckled, stepping closer to Her, his hands on her hips.

Moving forward, she enclosed her hands around his shoulders, intertwining her fingers at the nape of his neck. Standing on her highest tip toes, she crashed her lips into his, their bodies swaying with the cold wind. 

"Awww, they're so cute! Exes to lovers, I like it."

"I agree. Didn't see the fake dating coming though." 

"Right?! Wanda should start a production company." 

"If Agnes lets these people go." 

***

Meanwhile, Monica had managed to find an abandoned shack in the backyard of Wanda's neighbour's house, her body buzzing with a familiar tension. 

Opening the shack, she saw the trails of purple, vein like thing running their tracks until they reached somewhere she couldn't see. She didn't notice another person creeping up on her, too busy looking at the trails. 

"Snoopers gonna snoop," the voice said, making her jump out of her skin, and keeping a hand on her heaving chest to stop her from hyperventilating. 

"Pietro?!" She startled, looking around to see if anyone had heard her. The neighbourhood was eerily silent, leaning against the wall, before deciding against it and squared her shoulders, looking at the man in front of her. 

"Yeah, that's me. But who are you? And what are you doing in Margie's backyard?" he asked defensively. She would have found the expression comical if it wasn't for her racing heart and adrenaline filled brain. 

"I could ask you the same thing," she said, folding her arms to show a defensive stance. 

"I'm here because… I live here?" he muttered, borrowing his brows as his eyes glazed over again, "Yeah, wait, no... I live with my sister! Who lives two houses from here! What am I doing here?"

"I don't know, you tell me." 

"God, this is so weird. First Wanda was being weird, now I am." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Nothing." 

***

Billy was afraid. He knew that he should be stronger and braver, if not for himself, then for Tommy. His momma always told him that the only thing to fear was fear itself, and he didn't know what that meant, but he knew that he had to be braver to get back to his mom and dad. 

"Billy, I'm scared," Tommy whimpered. "I'm hearing voices again." 

"It's gonna be okay, Mom and Dad will be here soon," he reassured, just as scared as his brother. They were only twelve minutes apart, but he still felt a responsibility for him.

Mom said that they both reminded of her own brother- Uncle Pietro. 

Hearing the door open, he felt a chill crawl up his spine. 

"She's here! Billy, she's here!" 

"I know! I know! Shh!" 

Her footsteps came closer, the cackling of her laughter making his heart pound. His brother buried himself in his shoulders, both of them huddled next to each other, as if the inevitable could be avoided. 

"How are my best boys doing?" Agnes' shrill voice rang, making Billy breathe faster.

"We want Mommy," Tommy whimpered, sounding as small as Billy felt. 

"Oh, I'm sorry honey, that's not happening anytime soon." She tsked, sounding as apologetic as the villains in the action movies his mom forbade him from watching.

"Why's that?" Billy asked, squaring his shoulders as much as he could. 

"You didn't hear? Mommy's dead." 

And his world crashed, his brain crowding with darkness.

A/N: Lemme know what you think! 😁😁

[sodadrabbles]

hear me out- one more littleboo but like if they were crying or like going through smt and ranboo just helps//comforts them if that makes sense? GEHDDH okay have a good day :]

THE PEOPLE DEMAND HURT/COMFORT. I SHALL FEED YOU, MY PEOPLE

Also, I wanted to address why I use ‘Ranboo’ in these fics, when referring to the actual CC- We don’t know Ranboo’s real name. I want to respect his wishes and not speculate, because that’s creepy. So, I just use Ranboo. A couple people were asking in my inbox. I know Tubbo said his name was Mark, but that was never confirmed, and, again, I don’t want to speculate on his personal information, that’s WEIRD.

LIttleboo IV: Hurt/comfort or bust.

Pairing: Ranboo x sibling!Reader (gender-neutral)!

Rating: Soft. Bad ending, I’m so sorry (NOT ANGST, IM JUST BAD AT WRITING)

Summary: Being a freshman sucks ass, but Ranboo bought taco bell, it’s all good.

To say today was a bad day would be an understatement. It was probably the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day of your 14-year-old life. The whole day the universe would launch bad thing after bad thing at you, as if it was somehow testing you in your will to deal with bullshit. Like it was asking you ‘What are you willing to put up with today?’

Your answer was ‘Not fucking this.’

You woke up to your brother shaking you softly, telling you the power had gone out and you were both late. For an upperclassman this wasn’t a big deal- But you were a freshman. Your teachers were going to give you absolute hell for being late, and knowing Ranboo was going to get off scot-free made you a little salty. You had to skip breakfast and had to leave with your hair still a bit messy, barely able to comb through it with your fingers while Ranboo drove you both to school.

Then there was a pop quiz first period- English. You were never terrible at english, but being on the topic of the last three chapters of the book you were reading for class- Chapters which you had not read yet- The test had been a little difficult. Not to mention the hunger clawing at your stomach, and the strange fog that was settled about your thoughts.

You thought you could catch a break through second period and lunch, knowing Chemistry would be an easy day and you could grab something good with your brother, but fate had other plans in mind.

During Chemistry, you were tasked with picking a partner and completing an experiment afterthought worksheet, going over the experiment you had done in class the day before. You were paired with the nice girl sat next to you- At least you thought she was nice. As the teacher dismissed the class to begin talking amongst themselves, you turned to start asking her how her experiment went yesterday. You didn’t have a chance to ask, however, as the girl snapped at you harshly. “Don’t even bother! I’m not doing this assignment. Do it on your own.”

Her voice was pitched and loud, and it caused you to wince back. You tilt your head and try to ask her, but she cuts you off by flicking the paper in your direction. It sends both your papers flying, and you try to catch them, but fail miserably and fall out of your chair unceremoniously. As you fall, your foot comes up to counter balance and you nearly kick the girl in the head- Keyword being nearly. You were sure you were able to stop yourself, and hadn’t touched it, but still the girl screeches and begins screaming bloody murder. The teacher comes over to check what’s going on, the girl sobbing and holding her head.

And then she lies through her teeth.

“Sir, she just kicked me! I was just asking about her experiment and she kicks me!”

She’s sobbing dramatically, and though you’re clearly not at fault, considering it was clear you had fallen out of your chair. Even still the teacher sides with her, giving you a short and disappointing talk about violent behaviour in the classroom, ending with “I have no choice but to give you lunch detention and a zero on the assignment.”

You don’t try to argue- Exhaustion was already settling on your body and you didn’t want to just make the situation worse than it already was. The rest of second period dragged on like a snail. You sat awkwardly at your table, twiddling your thumbs and staring at the walls. You could feel eyes boring into the back of your skull with each passing glance at the students. A few whispers that seemed much too loud yet indecipherable hitting your ears, somehow knowing deep in your soul that the other students were whispering about you. By the time the lunch bell rang you were starting to feel tears prick at your eyes as your own thoughts betrayed you.

During lunch detention, you were at the very least allowed your phone. You texted your brother, alerting him that you had lunch detention. He promised to bring you food before your third period began- The gesture brought a smile to your face. Your third period was your favorite, because Ranboo was also taking that class. US History. You were able to push through detention with Philza’s stream, starting a TTS war with Wilbur in the time you were able to watch. Of course, mentioning you were in detention earned you a little rant from Phil, not doing much to better your mood.

When third period came down to bless you, you could feel the tears welling in your eyes at the happy sight of your tall older brother holding a taco bell bag in his hand. You basically tackled him, nearly knocking him to the ground. His arms flew around you for stability, and you gripped the back of his shirt as an involuntary sob came out of your mouth. 

Ranboo stared down at you with his brows furrowed with concern, his mouth pulled into a tight frown. He pushed you to the side to allow other students to get into the classroom, and released you from the hug to look you in the face. Your eyes were puffy and your cheeks and nose were red, stray tears still rolling down your cheeks. He wiped one away.

“(Y/N), what happened? Why are you crying?” He asked, your eyes avoiding him. You hated to cry in front of people- But the stress of the day weighed heavy on your shoulders. You had just gotten too excited. When you explained this, Ranboo shook his head. “(Y/N) it’s perfectly okay, you don’t have to apologize.”

He hugged you again, and you hugged him back. After standing there for a moment, the annoying ring of the school bell sounded overheard, alerting you that class was starting.

“Tell you what,” Ranboo beamed at you, picking up the bag of food. “We’re gonna go in there, annoy Mr. Anderson, and eat chalupas until we explode. Sound good?”

You smile and nod your head. God, your older brother is so cool.

---

The rest of the day was smooth as it could be. You spent all of third period messing around with Ranboo- The assignment given for the day forgotten as homework that you would sit down and do together before Ranboo had to stream. You feared that your fourth period, Algebra, would once again break you down into a ball of anxiety and terror. But to your pleasant surprise, you would be watching a movie with a substitute for that class.

Your mood had been significantly raised by the time the bell had rung, releasing you from the confines of the building. You packed your things quietly, the hustle and bustle of an emptying school occupying your senses. You had rushed down through the hallways towards to doors leading to student parking. Ranboo was supposed to be waiting for you at the car.

But before you could reach the door, you felt a hand grip your bag, pulling you backwards. Your feet flew out from under you as you fell to the ground, your bag being ripped from your shoulders. You felt you back collide with the cold, tiled ground, pain shooting through spine. 

Shrill giggling sounds from above you. You groan and roll onto your front, staring up at a group of three girls laughing at you. You recognized the one holding your bag from your chemistry class. By the looks of the other two, they were also freshmen. You try to get on your feet, but the girl swings her leg, knocking your hands out from under you. You feel something press against your back. 

The girl from your class laughs as she bends down to look at you. “You thought you could get away with that little stunt?” She sneers, her hand grabbing your face. Not able to think of anything else to do, you snap your jaws, nearly biting her. She screeches and backs away.

“DID YOU JUST TRY TO BITE ME?” She screams, her face twisted in disgust. You feel the presume on your back worsen, and you strain your neck to see who was standing on your back. You recognized the guy as a junior on the soccer team. You vaguely recalled the girl mentioned she was dating a guy on the soccer team. 

You squirm, freeing your hands from underneath you. Just as you were about to grab the guy’s leg, you hear a familiar voice shout. The three girls in front of you scatter like rats- But the soccer player stays. He turns to look at whoever shouted, his chest puffing out as if he’s prepared for a fight. However the color seems to drain from his face when he sees the mystery person- And he runs away like a dog with its tail between its legs.

As you start to stand, someone grabs you by the shoulders and helps you up. You’re met with the mop of brown hair and concerned gray eyes of your older brother. He helps you to your feet, handing you your bag. You thank him as you throw the bag over your shoulders, giving your older brother a tight hug.

You don’t even realize there were tears in your eyes again, until Ranboo tells you to dry your eyes. “Sorry…” You whisper, hand wiping away the water. “I don’t know why I’m crying.

Ranboo smiles at you again, his hand patting the top of your head. You smile at him too, and he leads you out of the school, asking if you’re alright or if anything hurts. You spend the walk to the car feeling grateful you have someone to help you out like that. It has you smiling to entire ride home.

[felidaefighter]

Fears To Ease And Flesh To Mend

Ranboo and Tubbo find out that unzombifying a piglin is a bit different from unzombifying a villager, and they start off parenthood with quite a few complications and in a little over their heads. For the sake of their child, they may need to put awkwardness aside and ask for help.

[Sick fic, canon divergence, Phil and Techno meet Michael, lots and lots of piglin lore headcanons] ~20,000 words per chapter

Chapter Four of Four

     Michael runs from the window to tug on Ranboo’s pantleg, and speaks in an accent that’s half-breathy, half drawn-out drawl. “Meeturrr Oo-itch eetch heerrr!” He says, which Ranboo, dedicated parent, understands to mean “Mister Foolish is here”. Between learning english for the first time and being, well, a toddler, his speech was actually coming along pretty well. Techno had assured them that the thick accent would ease up over time since the new sounds (mainly the ones made in front teeth and lips that gave him trouble) could be learned better since he was so young. “Oooh is he? Thank you Michael!” Ranboo patted the toddler’s head and received a high-pitched squeal of delight in return.

    Ranboo does a quick once-over of his son. His ear infection cleared up fast and left surprisingly little hearing damage, to everyone’s relief, and scar tissue had quickly started forming over the entire right side of his face. It still needed to be covered, but even the worst of the infections on his face and ribs had cleared up by now. There wasn’t a single bit of green or any other sickly color on him, and his fur was clean and healthy. Turns out, having a rotating team of very dedicated specialists, and loving parents-- (himself and Tubbo having very awkwardly asked Phil and Techno to help out regularly, who obliged)-- meant a very fast recovery for the little piglin. He was looking the best Ranboo had ever seen him, and appeared to have quite a decent amount of energy. “You wanna come down with me and say hi?”

    Ranboo hoisted the very eager Michael into his arms and went carefully down the ladder, then opened the door to let Foolish in. “Hey Foolish, come on in!” He greeted. Foolish gratefully stepped into the warm house out of the snow, eyes immediately landing on the piglin in Ranboo’s arms. “Hey Ranboo! Oh, and who’s this?” Foolish asked to Michael, feigning forgetfulness. Michael snorted out a giggle; Foolish had stopped in to say hi quite a few times during the month or so Michael had been healing after Ranboo and Tubbo had figured out rather quickly that the playroom, however cute, was too cramped for a growing kid, and hired Foolish to build a bigger house.

    “I’m Mikuh!” Michael introduced himself proudly. “Michael! Of course! You look like you’re feeling a lot better today.” Ranboo smiled, and set Michael down, who proceeded to scramble all over everything. Luckily, the trapdoor to the basement was sealed off and chests weren’t high enough for him to fall off and hurt himself from. Ranboo sighed a very parental sigh as he monitored the toddler out of the corner of his eye while he and Foolish talked. “He is looking a lot better,” Foolish commented. “Seems like he’s a fast learner, too.”

    “He is so smart,” Ranboo agreed, attempting to not puff out his chest with pride of his son. “And we’re consulting with some of the villagers both here in Snowchester and around where I live to see what the best material for a prosthetic eye would be. We’ve already got a leatherworker working on a prosthetic ear too-- he had a prototype but apparently he didn’t like wearing it ‘cause it felt weird. That’s what Techno said he said, at least.” Foolish seemed a bit surprised at that. “Techno knows about Michael? And about… you and Tubbo?” Ranboo nodded, recalling that particular conversation.

---

    “Ah, Ranboo, just the person I was hoping to see. Come in, come in,” Techno said as Ranboo stood at the door. Ranboo obliged, and stepped into Techno’s house. It was cozily warm, and Steve was taking up the only corner of the house that had a draft. Techno looked like he’d been either tidying up or searching for something before Ranboo had knocked on the door, and he busied himself with continuing whichever it was while he spoke. “I had these ah-- I had these golden carrots I think Michael might enjoy-- here, you can have some.” Ranboo gratefully took the bag that Techno had been searching for and put it into his backpack, thanking Techno a few times. 

    “I also wanted to thank you for what you mentioned earlier too,” Ranboo said, “About to not let him near shiny things until he’s a little older. I’ll make sure he doesn’t look too closely at the carrots, too.” Ranboo let out a small chuckle and Techno nodded. “Of course, of course,” he said, but then he paused his movements awkwardly, turning to face Ranboo. Ranboo involuntarily took a sharp breath in. He knew exactly what this conversation was about to be. Hopefully-- hopefully-- the gift beforehand was an indicator that it wouldn’t crash and burn and go completely terrible, right? It didn’t seem like it would make very much sense to give a gift in that case. Still, Ranboo waited for the weight to drop.

    “Phil and I have been talkin’,” Techno started, “And we’ve come to a conclusion. Well, I think Phil had his opinions about it a bit differently than I did but-- we reached the same conclusion.” Ranboo let him continue. “Y’see, I believe that people can change. When I went into retirement, I had changed-- until I was hunted down but still. Tubbo, he might’ve been the unelected figurehead of a power-hungry nation--” Ranboo bit his tongue, knowing Techno had every right to feel that way-- “But Snowchester is just some village. He helps maintain it, but he’s not, like, some dictator or somethin’. So what I’m sayin’ is, I’m down to believe that Tubbo has changed.” 

    Ranboo let out the breath he’d apparently been holding the entire time Techno had been talking. “Thank you, Techno,” he said, and it surprised Ranboo when it came out a lot more ragged (yet relieved) than he’d been expecting it to. Techno, ever averse to appearing soft for too long, continued talking. “Besides, I did some digging into what you mentioned about Quackity and it all seems to be true. Apparently he also tried to frame Eret-- the king-- for a bombing? You may wanna watch out for that guy.” 

    “Oh. I did not know that,” Ranboo admitted, taking mental notes, and then, on second thought, taking physical notes in his memory book. More importantly... “But does that mean-- about Tubbo and I’s marriage--” Techno raised an eyebrow. “Well I’m assumin’ you eloped and didn’t just not invite me to the wedding, since that would be rude.” Ranboo let out a full laugh, relief finally allowing itself into him. “Yeah, yeah we kinda really just eloped. We didn’t have a ceremony or anything. Oh god, hopefully Phil doesn’t feel the same. You both definitely would be invited if we ever do have one,” He added. 

    Techno made a dismissive handwave. “Ehhh I think Phil’s biggest issue was that he’s an old man and was grumpy about you two making a shotgun wedding decision or somethin’ like that. Like he was just salty about not having more intel on the situation beforehand. He’s got the same feelings about Tubbo that I have for the most part, especially after I told him about Quackity kinda running things from the shadows or whatever.” Ranboo nodded, smiling. It was honestly pretty heartwarming to hear that as the reason behind Phil’s apprehension. Hopefully now that they were all living in relative peace, Tubbo and Techno could both start to move on.

---

    “Honestly it surprised me too,” Ranboo admitted to Foolish. “But Techno’s problem is with government and oppressive systems of power and Tubbo isn’t a part of either of those things, so.” He shrugged. Foolish nodded. “I see I see. That makes sense, though, yeah. Well, I’m glad he’s helping you with that sorta stuff then! It definitely seems like it’s doing good for Michael.” Ranboo grinned. “Yeah. What’re you here about, by the way? Payment for the next section of the mansion?” Foolish shuffled around sheepishly. “Well… sorta. I was hoping I could get the trident next? I kinda lost mine in an accident the other day.” Ranboo raised his eyebrows, knowing full well there was a whole big story behind that. They got to chatting as Michael enjoyed the running-around space of the downstairs room.

---

    “Nite Uh-oh. Nite Ranoo.” Michael said with a small yawn, snuggled into his bed and blankets. He was very fond of the color yellow-- they’d made a lucky guess with that one. Tubbo and Ranboo smiled fondly at him as they dimmed the lanterns in his room. “‘Night Michael!” They both answered, before heading down the ladder for the night, closing the trapdoor as quietly as they could. There was a small moment when they’d both reached the ground floor before they burst out into small, quiet giggles. “I like that he calls me ‘Uh-oh’,” Tubbo said with a bit of a wicked grin. Ranboo laughed. “Mhmm. I know it’s just because he has trouble with words that start with soft sounds, but it really fits you.” Tubbo nodded sagely. “It does, it does. It’s an accurate descriptor of my general status.” They giggled a tiny bit more.

    “Honestly,” Tubbo said, “I’m still shocked that Techno’s just. Okay with this whole thing. The whole marriage and kid thing with you I mean. He is right, I’m a different man now that I’m not president, but I woulda thought he’d be a bit more hesitant about it.” Ranboo thought about it for a moment. “Mmm. I think it’s a good thing, though. I mean, he’s changed too, y’know? Maybe this can be a fresh start for all of us.” Tubbo sighed at this, but it wasn’t his usual, world-weary sigh; it wasn’t the sigh that held the weight of a nation or war or problems with power. It was the sigh of a weight, however small, being lifted off of him. “That’d be nice, I think. I’d like that. And I’d like Michael to grow up in that world, too.”

    Ranboo couldn’t think of a better way to say it himself, so he hummed in agreement and leaned up against his husband affectionately. “I think… I think things might be okay,” he said, cautiously, optimistically, but gaining strength the more he said it. “I think that Michael will be okay. And I think that we’ll be okay. And I think that, if Techno and Phil and you are willing to set aside the past and focus on the future, the future might be something new.” A wave of nostalgia suddenly washed over Ranboo, and he was reminded of one of the very first conversations he’d had with the then-president that would become his husband.

    “Do you remember… do you remember the conversation we had when we talked about elections?” Ranboo asked, and when Tubbo chuckled Ranboo could feel it in his arm. “Oh god. That was ages ago. I do, though, I think I do.” Ranboo continued. “You said you didn’t need control, and that if I wound up elected, I should make things better.” Tubbo hummed thoughtfully, leaning in turn and bonking himself affectionately against Ranboo as he continued. “I think that maybe, that’s what this can be. We can’t change the things we’ve done in the past, but we have a chance to move past that and do something different.” The two husbands paused, just for a second, listening to the gentle snoring of their healthy son in the bedroom upstairs. “Yeah,” Tubbo agreed, sounding more hopeful than he had in a long time. “We can make it better.”

[nikibogwater]

Two Worlds, One Family--a Mermaid AU oneshot

I don't know, y'all, it's ten after one and I can't think of any other titles so just accept the cheesey Phil Collins reference and go with it--

A few weeks ago, my dear FMA Buddy Willow requested a fic set in my Merman!Douxie AU (you can see the rough character designs for that here). Well, today, I desperately needed a break from working on the RotT fic, but I also still felt like writing, so I sat down and cranked this one out in basically one sitting.

It uh, sort of got away from me, I'll admit lol.

We've got sappy Siren!Zoe x Merman!Douxie, Underwater Found Family, Archie having to be the Adult of the group, and also an honest-to-goodness argument between our favorite Magical Siblings, which is something I've sort of always wanted to tackle, but I was never able to find a good way to do it while sticking to current canon. Here, they're both younger and have been in a pod together for several hundred years, allowing the stress of their situation to build up and--Y'know what, I'll just let you guys read the dang thing now.

~~~~~

The black waves rolled beneath an inky, starless sky. A freezing wind cut through the air like a knife. Salty foam sprayed up from where the water lapped against Zoe’s perch. It was a thoroughly miserable night to be away from her nest.

But still, she waited.

She shivered and folded her wings around herself tightly. Twenty-seven years, one-hundred and eighty-three days. That was how long it had been since she’d last seen him. He had said in his last message that he would be here tonight. And so, no matter how fiercely the wind beat against her, no matter how badly the freezing spray stung as it hit her, she refused to move. Douxie’s life was already haunted by uncertainties and betrayals. She would rather die than contribute to such things.

Finally, she heard him. His call was masked beneath the sound of the sea, but she could feel it reverberating through her like a roll of thunder--the steady, fast-paced, yet gentle clicks of a merman searching for his mate.

Her wings snapped open, and though the rush of cold air that met her was unpleasant, she didn’t flinch. Electric blue eyes stared fixedly at the water below her for a moment. And then she finally saw it--the silvery sheen of moonlight hitting dark blue scales.

Zoe didn’t even wait for him to make it all the way to the surface before she dove in.

Douxie tumbled back in the water as she slammed into him, and for a few joyous moments, his world was made up entirely of swirling bubbles, warm feathers, and the feeling of Zoe in his arms. He had just enough sense to bring both of them back up to the surface before her lips were on his. Her wings closed around him tightly, and he could feel the tingle of her electric magic in the water around him, but she was just as careful as ever. She’d never shocked him, not in all the years they’d known each other.

“Sorry I’m late,” he breathed, once she’d pulled back for air. She shook her head, nose brushing against his.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said gruffly. Her voice was choked with tears, but he knew better than to point that out. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

“I never would have guessed,” he chuckled, trailing a few kisses down her cheek as she huffed and half-heartedly swatted his shoulder. There were a few moments of silence as they simply held each other, broken only by the sound of the waves and a few soft, contented clicks from Douxie. Zoe had asked him centuries ago why he always clicked when he was happy. He’d seemed genuinely surprised to hear that she didn’t do the same. Merperson biology was a very strange thing indeed. Finally, Zoe picked her head up from his shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“Nari and Archie?”

“Safe,” he answered. “They wanted to see you, but I didn’t want to risk bringing Nari up to the surface, and Archie agreed to stay with her. We had a close call with the Order a few weeks ago off the coast of Ireland--they never actually saw her, and I don’t think they know she’s been hiding in the ocean but...” He shook his head, sighing wearily. “...They can’t know where she is. Not ever. I just couldn’t let her come with me tonight.”

“I understand,” Zoe said, brushing his wet bangs out of his eyes.

“How is the flock?” Douxie asked.

“...Surviving,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. “...We lost Ariadne to a navy ship two years ago. They shot her right out of the air....took her body on board and we couldn’t get her back. We don’t know what they did with her corpse.” She felt him shudder at the news. He pulled her back in and kissed her temple.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, and she knew he meant it, knew he felt her pain as keenly as if it was his own. He always was a little too empathetic for his own good. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, so she simply clutched him tight and let him stroke her hair, as the waves gently rocked the both of them.

“The world’s getting more and more dangerous for people like us,” she murmured into his shoulder. “And the ironic thing is now it’s all because of mortals. As if angry demigods and warmongering trolls weren’t enough on their own.”

“Killahead tipped the balance in their favor. But I’d hoped they would use that as an opportunity to make peace with magic. Not try to exterminate it for good...”

“You’ve always put too much faith in humans, Douxie,” Zoe sighed.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, hand still carding idly through her feathery locks. “...Merlin was a human too, though.” Zoe snorted at that.

“If that crotchety old windbag was the best humanity has to offer, then it’s no wonder things turned out like this.”

“He saved my life, Zoe,” Douxie argued softly, pulling back to look her in the eye. “I would never have met you if it weren’t for him.”

“I still say he was a far ways off from being a ‘good man,’” she retorted. “...But I understand your loyalty to him.” Douxie felt her right wing shift around him--the same one he had bandaged and tended all those centuries ago. “...Enough of that. I have more important news for you. There’s talk of a secret community of magical creatures like us forming in the New World--a settlement off the western coast. The trolls found a new Hearthstone there, and they’re building a sanctuary. The water there is supposed to be charged with all kinds of magic, and I’ve even heard rumors about merpeople living there. The flock has decided to migrate there, at least temporarily. I would advise you to do the same. Nari would be happier in warmer waters, and there’s a chance you could join a larger pod there. You haven’t seen one of your own species in centuries, right? And we...” she faltered, realizing that she was letting her eagerness get the better of her now. “...we could be together again. No more of these long separations.”

“...It almost sounds too good to be true,” Douxie breathed.

“Maybe it is,” Zoe chuckled mirthlessly. “But we won’t know unless we check it out for ourselves. I’m leaving with the flock in the morning.”

“I’ll....consider it,” Douxie relented. “If it was just me and Arch, I’d be on my way there tonight, no hesitation. But now that I have Nari to protect--”

“I get it,” Zoe cut him off quickly. “I just....thought I’d let you know. In case it works out somehow.” She looked down, the hand that was resting over his heart clenching into a fist.

“...Hey.” Douxie tilted her chin back up to look her in the eye. “Whatever happens, wherever we go, I know we’ll always find each other again. That’s what it means to be a pod.”

“...Right.” Zoe gave a half-hearted laugh, and gently bumped her forehead against his. “Alright. Now I want to know what you’ve been getting up to. Tell me everything.”

“We’d be here all night if I did that,” Douxie chuckled.

“Sounds good to me,” Zoe murmured, drawing him close once more.

*****

Douxie didn’t return until it was almost sunrise.

Nari hadn’t been expecting anything else, but she still couldn’t help the way her heart twisted in her chest at the sight of his exhausted, melancholy countenance. He slipped into the den quietly, stopping just long enough to renew the concealing spells around the entrance, before floating to the floor with a sigh, burying his face in a still-sleeping Archie’s fur. He’d hardly been there a full minute when he blearily opened one eye, and looked around as though he was missing something.

“Nari?” he whispered into the darkness. “Everything alright?” He must have felt her aura--there were times when Nari found the magical bond they shared somewhat inconvenient. She sighed, unhooked her tail from the frond she had anchored herself to, and flitted over to him.

“All is well. I....woke early.” The truth was, she’d been awake for most of the night, head too cluttered up with unwanted thoughts to let her rest. She curled her tail up beneath her and settled on the floor. “How is Zoe?”

“Beautiful,” Douxie answered without thinking, then turned bright red. Nari stifled a giggle in her hand. “I-I mean she’s fine. The flock’s down to just twelve sirens now... The mortals are getting braver and more dangerous. They’re going to fly west and try to find safer nesting grounds.” He paused, his tail swishing up and down thoughtfully.

“...Douxie?” Nari prodded.

“Zoe was telling me about a settlement across the ocean--a secret community of magical creatures. There’s a Trollmarket near the coast, and....possibly merpeople like me. That’s where she and her flock are going now. She... She wants us to go too.”

“This idea troubles you,” Nari observed, feeling the way his aura was turning with uncertainty. “Why?”

“It’s quite literally on the other side of the world,” Douxie explained. “We would have to cross open waters to get there, and even with my magic, the journey could take months. There’s no guarantee we would be able to find safe places to hide on the way, and even once we get there...” He sighed, ears drooping slightly. “...I don’t know if we’d really be safe.”

“We will never be safe anywhere, Douxie,” Nari said softly. “For as long as you are with me, you will be in danger. The Order will continue to search for me. They will not stop until they have found me and opened the Genesis Seals. They are not limited by time and space as we are. They could find me on the other side of the world just as easily as they could here.” She hated the way his aura seemed to grow cold as she spoke, his hand clenching against the stone he was resting on.

“...So what are you saying?” he asked after a long pause. “Do you think we should go?” Nari looked down, hands wringing in her lap.

For nearly five-hundred years, Douxie and Archie had dedicated their lives to caring for her. They had been her fins when she was still learning to swim, her warmth in the cold, deep waters of the north. They had been her guardians, and more than that, they had been her brothers. Both Douxie and Archie had taken her into their tiny pod, accepted her as one of their own, though she could not be more different from them if she tried. She had lost count of the number of times they bled for her, and she for them, as they fought to withstand the dangers of the sea together.

But she could never ignore the longing she felt in Douxie’s spirit, his heartache every time he was forced to part with Zoe in order to take Nari to safer waters. She couldn’t blind herself to the tears she knew he shed when he thought he was alone, couldn’t pretend all was well when that empty space in his heart hurt so much he couldn’t keep his aura from twisting in pain.

Which was why she now found herself telling him something she had never wanted to tell him.

“...I think you and Archie should go,” she whispered. “...and I will stay.”

Douxie’s tail thrashed suddenly, and his soul sparked with something akin to anger. Archie snorted and whipped his head up, ears perked and blearily searching for the source of his Familiar’s distress.

“No.” Douxie’s voice was hard as he grasped her by the shoulder. “That’s not an option.”

“You know it is, Douxie!” Nari argued. “You are not bound to me by the laws of magic, I am not your appointed ward--You could be with Zoe if you would only--”

“If I would only what? Cast out one of my own? Break my pod apart?!”

“Who are we casting out...?” Archie yawned. “Can it wait until morning, perhaps?”

“But you love her!” Nari argued desperately. “You deserve to be with her, you deserve better than this.”

“And I also love you! I don’t give a damn about the wizarding customs, you are part of my family, and down here, family is just as much of a binding contract as any ward-appointment or whatever!”

“Oh for the love of Poseidon, didn’t you two just have this fight not three decades ago?” Archie snapped. “Nari, you know how important pods are to merpeople--that includes mates, friends, offspring, and siblings. We leave none behind, no matter the cost. And if you’ve got a problem with that, well you should have considered that before agreeing to come with us all those centuries ago. I did try to warn you, after all. Now both of you, settle down and get some sleep, for goodness’ sake! It sounds like we have a long swim ahead of us.” He swam around in a circle three times, and resettled on the ground. Douxie opened his mouth to argue further, but Archie grabbed the front of his shirt with his teeth and pulled him down on top of him. “I said settle down,” he huffed. “You too, Nari. I know you were awake half the night working yourself into this state.”

“I was not working myself into anything,” she grumbled, curling up between Archie’s paws.

A long, heavy silence fell upon them. Nari could feel Douxie’s aura gradually settling, as anger gave way to exhaustion. She could have sworn he was almost asleep, when suddenly, his hand found hers and squeezed it.

“...I won’t settle for less Nari,” he whispered. “That’s why I won’t leave you. I need all of you--Zoe, Archie, and you, and I won’t....I can’t stop fighting until all of you are safe, and we can all be together. I know Zoe will be alright with her flock, and we can always find each other again. But I won’t leave you to face the Order on your own.” She heard him shift, readjusting his head where it was pillowed against Archie. “...I’d rather die.”

Nari swallowed the knot that rose in her throat and squeezed his hand in return.

“...Merpeople are so very unusual,” she murmured. “Even after all this time, I’ll never fully understand you, or your ways. But....I am truly happy to be part of them--part of your pod--even if I cannot fathom these sorts of bonds.”

“You’ll get it eventually,” Douxie huffed. “...Anyways, Arch was right--”

“I’m always right,” the Familiar interjected without bothering to open his eyes.

“--we should get some sleep. I guess we have a long journey ahead of us.”

“You have decided then?” Nari asked.

“The opportunity’s too good to pass up. Just promise me you’ll stay with us.”

“...Alright,” she whispered. “I promise.” There was another pause. “...And I love you too. More than I know how to say. That is why it hurts so much to know when you are suffering.”

“I know.” Douxie’s hand squeezed hers one more time, and Archie shifted his head to rest across her shoulders.

Come what may, they had to stay together. That was what it meant to be a pod. And though the thought of the journey ahead of them was daunting, it was made easier by the knowledge that they would undertake it together. And that at the end of it, the last missing part of their family was waiting for them. The pod would be whole again at last, safe in a secret haven for all displaced magical creatures.

A haven that would, in another few centuries, come to be known as Arcadia Oaks, California.

Hope you enjoyed, Willow! Thanks for reading. ✨

[angeloncewas]

For the new MCC watcher:

Orange, Lime, and Purple are likely to be really chill and fun teams. Those are the ones with the Hermits and Hermit teams pretty much always have mellow vibes. Green is good too since Rocket Duo and 5up are pretty easygoing, though Punz can get a little try hard if that stresses you out. Blue is likely to be loud but easygoing. Phil and Sneeg are relatively laid back but they are very funny and they emote at high volumes. Sneeg is also a “fake rager” where he sometimes pretends to be mad/salty but in a sarcastic manner (if that bothers you).

(Sorry to use your anons for this Angel but it’s clear they follow your blog and this is the best way I could think of to add on)

Don't be sorry ! When I say all sorts of anons are welcome I mean it lol, and this is really helpful.

I didn't mention Lime because I really don't know anything about them, but I've always heard good things about the Hermits' synergy. And I didn't know that about Sneeg either, but it makes sense - hopefully this helps 'em too :D

[shyrose57]

🌹When i say man of its own i mean mind of its own i think google to mess that up i'm really sorry for not checking and his blessing whenever he's doing something the outcome will always be good so the outcome of his project is something he will always be proud off

Why did dream closed off the end is because the secret inside the end and the power the end have like you know it gives you the power of flight because of

elytra a closed off after wilbur blow up the country because he's afraid someone will open that

And yes the end is her domain originally it was supposed to be a void given by motherinit (their friends) so it's a black canvas for her to do projects that she will be proud off

Oh we could call them by their domain sure makes life easier

So flower (mum-bo) her domain is the earth she sometimes travel around the world to give blessings to those farmers or just give life in dead lands but sometimes she stays in the forest so steak if you go in there you might not come out in that forest he raised her children( as a side note i named her flower because i think tubbo will point out the flowers that's on her head or arms) also she has a bag of seeds but if planted in a desert or somewhere where no life is no plants whatsoever the seeds will grow and the lifeless area will turn into beautiful paradise

Also how will foolish( i dub thee cousin of life) be in there so here's the thing secrecy dreams mom is best friend with puffy so puffy is a sailor and when secrecy traveling around they met each other they have a talk and secrecy is so fascinated at the deep secret and mystery puffy solve when she was sailing around so sometimes secrecy with would give puffy hint about secrets in the sea and puffy will solve it one time secrecy have learned that some other god already had a son or daughter so she's quite jealous because whenever her best friend is away she's alone so she made a clone of herself with the help of life (who i do not know who is yet but i got an idea) so then she got two children dream and and when puffy come back she has foolish he's the mystery puffy is trying to solve and yes they share custody dista also exist but she is in another server but she sometimes visit( maybe she and lani both exist in the server and their best friends) she also has a scroll that keeps all the secrets dreams blessing is that he has hint about people's secret he doesn't know all of it he just has hints to help him

So motherinit/void her domain is the void she stays there but tommy is not staying there will she is but when tommy was in his toddler stage she's sent him to the earth were there he lives for bit because she's afraid tommy might lose his mind on the void she will visit tommy but when something happen like at some part of the void is eating the piece of the world gonna like the rising void mod video that tommy made so she asked death if her family can take care of her son( void also had a magical item which is a sewing kit the void cracks she will just saw it back together like nothing happened that's why tommy is so good at sewing) tommy's blessing is that every time he's alone he doesn't feel lonely he always feel warm whenever his lost in the dark he will always find his way back sometimes when he's alone he will always feel a warm embrace his mother's embrace

Mumza /death her story is like romance forbidden love so philza is supposed to be dead but death fell in love with him they met he also fell in love has a son but sometimes death can't always be with her family because of her job but don't worry she has holidays going to make this as wholesome as possible( so she also has a soul lantern where she keep all the evil souls in you also keys that will open the gate to heaven hell for the purgatory to the souls) wilbur's blessing he has a lower chance of dying because his mother don't want to see him yet but of course he's dumb so he died i'm sorry i'm still salty about what happened ghostbur!! Why did you leave us aahh

Also technos mom i saw a clip where techno said his mom will make them cookies so the first thing that came into my mind is the goddess of peace and harmony the exact opposite of techno let's make it so technos dad is the blood god practically opposite attract that's his parents relationship they cancel out each other so they're perfect technos father also have voices and when the voices got so loud his mom got scared and take techno to the earth where phil found him also his blessing was supposed to be he will always have peace but because of the voices a curse that was passed to him by his father you know bloodline the blessing was canceled but sometimes bits and pieces of the blessing show up and he will have peace and the voices will quiet down for a bit ( his mom has an aura a very calming aura that brought peace to anyone that came across her)

( i kind of want to make nikki flowers assistant bakery and have a flower shop i want to make her flowers apprentice)🌹

That actually makes a lot more sense, thank you for the clarification. 

And Ranboo’s blessing seems pretty cool! What are some flaws or limitations to it? 

So the End was open previously? Was anyone aware of that, or did they just not know about it in general? Is it just the Smp’s End that is Pride’s domain, or all Ends?

Is Flower a goddess who’s followers would mainly consist of farmers? Does she have a specific forest she stays in? If so, what’s it called, why is it dangerous, and do her kids stick around there, when they were growing up? 

Secrecy and Puffy being friends sounds really awesome. So Dream is a clone of Secrecy? Would that make him a full god? Or? And who’s the other person she made? And is Foolish, like, a young god? Or is he as old as Secrecy, but just rolling with the adoption thing? Where does Eret fit in here? Is Drista one of Secrecy’s kids, or did she just reverse adopt Dream and get on her way? 

Was Tommy created, or adopted? Why doesn’t he have his mother’s immunity to the void? Because he’s mortal? Or did he just not inherit it? Tommy lived in a different world before, and the void destroyed it? Was Void just not able to fix it like usual, or did she just decide to take the opportunity to get Tommy somewhere with more people, or? Tommy’s blessing sounds cute, actually, very sweet.

So Philza was suppose to die? Did Death save him, or let him return to the living? Is he her angel? And hey, she’s still around, awesome! Why does Wilbur have a lower chance of dying, as the blessing? Is he like, more resilient? I miss Ghostbur too, but now that they’re technically two separate beings, consider this-Death adopts Ghost son into the family too, and now he helps out in the Afterlife instead of being stuck in Limbo. 

Not gonna lie, I figures you’d make his mom the Blood God, but this is an interesting take. Why harmony and peace, exactly? What does the Blood God’s domain consist of? Does this make Techno a full god? If so, what’s his domain? Why’s he down on earth and not doing godly stuff? Who’s voices frightened Harmony, and why did she decide dropping him on earth was the best solution? So he only has bits of the blessing? How does it show up? 

(And you could always have Niki as Flower’s kid, or follower too, if you wanted)

[banashee]

Part 2/2 of Tony setting the kitchen on fire for @hopelessly-me :D ♥

Enjoy ♥

...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.

 One day, Clint finally caves.

 “Tony. You know I love you, but       please     - let me show you how to cook. I can’t take it anymore.” he tells him over ice cold dinner. The archer pokes a piece of meat with his fork to prove his point.

 Tony nods slowly, but he also says,

 “Last time it was burned. So now I cooked it for less time.”

 Clint blinks at him, knocking on his plate with the meat, which results in a solid noise.

 “...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.”

 “...Okay, yeah.” Tony sighs, shoving the plate away from himself.

 “Sorry, I know the last few months of my cooking haven’t been pleasant. At least I didn’t burn the house down yet.” he adds, with a small smile to lighten the mood, but it is clear he is not happy with his results.

 “The alarm didn’t go off in a while, that’s progress, right?” Clint shoots back a lopsided smile, before he continues,

 “Honestly though, I don’t mean to be condescending because that’s probably how I sound, and I’m really sorry for that, but… I know you’re trying, and I know you don’t like help with things… In general, and I get that. But don’t you think that it would be better in the long run?”

 Their hands meet over the table, warm and solid as they squeeze and hold on, thumbs caressing each other. Clint and Tony have been home to one another for a long time now, and they know with a bone deep certainty that they can talk about things without making a personal vendetta of it, no matter how small or big the issue is. It’s just not how they work - what they have is easy going and it always has been.

 A casual friendship with benefits quickly turned into more, and after months of pining and awkwardness, they finally got a move on and figured out their feelings for each other. That talk had been halting and even more awkward than the weeks before, but it led to mutual three-word-sentences and a future full of happiness.

 Tony smiles, squeezing the other man’s hand as he asks,

 “So, you don’t mind having to show me basic shit like cooking eggs without burning them to a crisp?”

 “No, of course not. I love you and I love cooking - there really is no downside here if you ask me.”

 “Alright, then. Thanks, Babe.” Tony leans forward for a kiss, which Clint is all too happy to give him. The cold dinner on the table is almost forgotten in the next few minutes, but as it turns out, it is the perfect opportunity to start.

 “Okay, so, let’s put this back into the pan and crank the heat up. You want this to be warm and cooked through entirely. Then you - Tony… Please put down the salt shaker.”

 “I have salt and I am not afraid to use it!”

 “Yes I know, and that’s a problem! No, go away with that!” Laughing, the two of them tackle each other through the kitchen, until they end up pushed against the counter, foreheads touching and giggling like lovesick teenagers.

 “Will you give up on any harsh decisions regarding the salt?” Clint asks, in a mock-serious tone that is actually a pretty good impression of what Phil Coulson sounds like, and Tony grins at him, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

 “I      am     small and salty. Never.” he tries to snatch back the salt shaker, attempting to distract Clint with more makeout opportunities. He leans in, pulling Tony close with one arm and holding the salt shaker up over his head with the other - it’s a dick move, but it works. His boyfriends sputtering at the offensive act only makes Clint  laugh more, but they need to flip the meat in the pan before their dinner burns once again, so their bickering is interrupted.

 A little while later, their dinner is actually warm and not only edible, but really, really good at that. Tony is still surprised that they managed to save it, especially since there have been instances where this would have been simply impossible. But then again, he is lucky enough to have a partner who knows how to save messed up food, given there is a way left to salvage it in the first place.

 “What’s the worst that ever happened to you while cooking?” Tony casually asks another night, while he is chopping vegetables into accurate cubes - they’re making stir fry, and the task at hand is easy and repetitive enough to chat away. Besides, he is used to handiwork, so this is totally doable.

 Clint shoots him a knowing, amused look.

 “...I almost set my kitchen in the SHIELD bunk on fire. It was like three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I wanted to make a dessert with flambé bananas. Well, let’s just say it didn’t go as planned and my neighbours fucking hated my guts for setting off the fire alarm in the middle of the night… That was about 15 years ago, and goddammit, some people      still    bring it up.”

 Tony laughs, loudly.

 “Well, thank fuck you know what you’re doing now - imagine the two of us being Fire Hazards together, the tower would have burned to the ground ages ago. Imagine SHIELD on our asses for it. Or worse, Cap.”

 Slowly, he shakes his head. No one wants to see Steve’s “I am very disappointed in you”-face if they can help it. To be fair, when it doesn’t come to cooking, and more like, battles or developing weapons, the two of them combined are still a fire hazard. But that’s different, really.

 Clint, however, stops chopping with his knife mid air, head crooked to the side as he gently lowers it onto the cutting board. Then, he asks, completely straight faced,

 “...Did I ever tell you that Fury has backup-plans, just in case the two of us should be going rogue?”

 Putting down his knife as well, Tony fixes his partner in a suspicious stare. Despite everything, this is news to him, and he is about 90% sure that at least on this occasion, Clint isn’t fucking with him. Also, this is totally something he’d expect Fury to do. The man is paranoid, and Tony definitely wouldn’t put such a thing past him.

 “Wait what? No, you didn’t. Spill.”

 With a laugh, Clint tells him,

 “Ever since Nat went undercover as your PA and it was clear that both of us would be part of the Avengers, Fury put protocols in place - covered a lot of hypothetical situations, actually, it was quite funny to read. I think the short version is he knows both of us and our, dare I say, slightly chaotic tendencies…”

 With a snort of laughter, Tony collapses against the counter. This is putting it lightly and they both know it, but he enjoys hearing the story.

 Clint continues,

 “Technically I’m not supposed to know that, but Tasha told me about it. She laughed for like, 10 minutes straight. Me, too, by the way.”

 “I bet - heh, sorry i can’t” it takes a bit for Tony to calm down enough to say,

 “I bet he put a lot more protocols in place ever since he got wind of us being an item. Honestly I’d love to see that list.”

 The corners of his mouth are still twitching, and he wipes amused tears out of his eyes as he keeps cackling away.

 “Oh hey, we should do a dramatic reading of that form!” he says then, and Clint is laughing too hard to answer, but he nods, vegetables forgotten on the counter for several minutes.

 He only barely manages to stop Lucky from stealing the chicken right off of the counter, which only makes him laugh harder as he tries to hold his dog back by the collar. Once again, Lucky looks like he is judging his humans - even his one remaining eye is pretty expressive.  

 Once they have calmed down a bit, they continue. Tony is about to put the vegetables into the frying pan, but Clint stops him.

 “Wait. Put in the onions and garlic first, let them get glassy and then add the rest of it in. One after the other. Hardest stuff first, softest last. That way you have everything cooked through without having some parts mushy in the end.” he explains, which is met with a surprised noise from his boyfriend.

 “Huh, that makes sense. Cooking       is     logical, after all.” Tony says, as if that’s news to him - truth be told, it probably is.

 “Of course it’s logical. What did you think?” Clint asks, even though he already knows the answer.

 “Magic? I don’t fucking know” Tony shrugs, but he looks very much satisfied. Even more so once everything is done. The stir fry turned out perfect, and the pasta only boiled over once - the kitchen is a mess, but the food is amazing, so it comes to no surprise that one after one, the other Avengers show up in the kitchen like a bunch of hungry sharks. Food always brings them together, especially if the delicious smells are wafting through the tower.

 Apart from the obvious - having to eat, having to help out and later on, hating the SHIELD cafeteria with a burning passion - this is why Clint learned how to cook in the first place. Food brings people together, brings in company.

 As someone who spent most of his life either lonely or socially awkward or both, Clint learned early on that if he feeds people, they will stick around - at least for a bit.  It is a long standing habit, and although he genuinely loves cooking and baking, because it’s fun and relaxing, the people aspect is a big motivation as well.

 Feeding people keeps them around and Clint recognizes that this might be a little sad. But he can’t deny that he likes doing it, one of the reasons being that, making food for someone shows that you care. As much as his social skills suck sometimes, Clint likes to take care of the people around him, especially loved ones.

 Lucky for him, there is almost always someone around, here in the tower, to enjoy whatever he spent the day cooking or baking. Especially if either Steve or Thor are home, he knows nothing will stay untouched for long. While those two will eat anything and everything that isn’t nailed down, Clint knows that Tony is usually a bit of a picky eater, but he will try everything Clint makes, because he knows from experience that it’s always good. He does have a bit of a sweet tooth though. Bruce on the other hand prefers savory things, which is why he himself is cooking a lot of spicy, indian food, but he will also happily go to town on a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven.

 Natasha, much like Phil and Pepper whenever they’re around, has a huge sweet tooth - whenever there are cookies or cake or anything else, she is the first to creep into the kitchen. Oftentimes, she steals balls of cookie dough and bowls with batter remaining in them. It gets even worse when Phil is around, because the two of them will team up to get all the sweet things - It’s highly classified, but you can totally buy Agent Coulson with sweet things.

 Clint knows all of this, especially since he’s known Phil and Nat for many many years. Therefore, he counts in whatever they are likely going to steal whenever he is baking - he’s known their systematic approach for ages now, but he doesn’t mind it. Not at all.

 Later that same night, Clint is sprawled out in bed, legs tangled with Tony’s and one arm wrapped around him. His head is pillowed on the other man's shoulder, face pressed into his favourite spot - the crook of Tony’s neck.  Restless fingers are lightly scratching his scalp, and the even breathing of his dog by their feet are almost lulling him to sleep. His other hand is lazily tracing invisible patterns on Tony’s back, fingers creeping under his shirt and against warm, smooth skin. The happy hum he gets in response causes small vibrations to travel through his entire body, even when he can’t hear it.

 They drift off to sleep like this, and when they are in the kitchen the next morning, Clint asks, as Tony keeps an suspicious eye on the scrambled eggs,

 “Do you want to bake bread with me later? We can use it tomorrow for french toast.”

 “...I’ll have to touch wet dough, do I?”

 “...Ideally, yes. But it’s fun, I promise. Careful, your eggs.” he adds, and Tony jumps to flip them - just in time - no harm done. He lets out a sigh of relief.  As it turns out, having someone close to help him get a hang of this really helps. Besides, Clint is a good teacher, and the whole love thing helps a lot. Just spending time together, really - and the compliments from their other teammates for last night’s dinner for example. All of it makes him want to keep going.

 “Okay, let’s do it” Tony says, and the happy smile on his boyfriend's face is more than enough motivation to say “yes” again the next time he asks if he wants to bake.

 As it turns out, baking is a whole different thing than cooking, which takes him by surprise. Especially since he needs to be a lot more accurate for this, while with cooking, there is at least a little bit of freestyling allowed. With baking? Not so much.

 “It’s sticky. Ew. Babe, why? Why did you do this to me?” Tony complains, making a face as he holds up his hands that are covered in admittedly clingy bread dough - he’s not quite sure he actually likes doing this.

 “It needs more flour - hold on.” Clint scrapes off as much dough from his hands as he can, carefully grabs the paper bag with two fingers and sprinkles a little bit more flour in both mixing bowls.

 “Try again, it should work itself out. If it cleans out the bowl we’re good.”

 “You said this was fun… Oh hey, that’s actually better now!” Tony exclaims in surprise, relieved that his bread dough isn’t nearly as sticky anymore - now, he can knead it with his hands without thinking of hacking them off right after. Truth be told, he is starting to see the fun part of this whole thing now.

 “See? You’re doing great by the way.” Clint tells him, a warm and happy feeling spreading out in his chest. He is incredibly happy to be able to have this - to have Tony by his side in the first place. Words can’t express how much he loves this man, and he hopes that Tony knows nonetheless.

 “I’ve got a pretty good teacher - you should meet him some time. He’s got amazing arms and an even better ass.” Tony is grinning over at Clint, absolutely not checking out those very much appreciated body parts while he does so. They have been together for quite some time, but the attraction to one another has not died down - not at all.

 “Oh, does he now?”

 “Very much so.”

 Cheesy flirting and easy banter is what they do best, and by the time their dough is covered and resting, Clint and Tony disappear upstairs and into the bedroom. They lose their clothes on the way, leaving a trail through the entire apartment until they fall into bed, wrapped tightly around one another and laughing in between kisses and wandering hands.

 There is plenty of time to pass until the bread is ready to be baked, after all.

*+~

Prompt 10: Teaching

[okimargarvez]

PUSH TO THE LIMITS

Original title: Push to the limits.

Prompt: post 12x7, Luke tries to make amends.

Warning: none.

Genre: romantic, funny.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, Jennifer Jareau.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 63 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💑😘🎵.

Song mentioned: Perdono, Tiziano Ferro.

GARVEZ STORIES

PUSH TO THE LIMITS

He remains motionless staring at her as she screams at him, before leaving the room, not without having thrown him one last sharp look. The others giggle, arguing over who won the bet, but he just can't concentrate and, with a certain (fatal) delay, comes out in turn, trying to figure out where she may have gone. -Garcia!- he calls her, obviously not getting an answer. -Garcia!- he tries again, not wanting to give up. He straightens his ears, striving to pick up any noise. Nothing. His feet lead him to the IT department. And it is from the corridor that he sees a colored stain running towards the elevators. – Garcia, wait, Garcia!- as soon as the woman hears him, she changes direction, preferring the stairs. Despite her heels she proceeds quickly and safely. He chases her until he reaches the terrace. She is very close to the edge (too much for him), she seems to be looking towards the void. He reaches her walking slowly, step by step, fearing to be able to scare her and cause a far more serious tragedy. -Garcia...- he repeats, when he is a few inches from her. He flanks it and notices tears in the corners of her eyes. It is not really the first time that he sees her in this state; he especially thinks back to the day they discovered that Scratch had threatened Jack, forcing Hotch to resign. This doesn’t make this situation more bearable.

Suddenly, after a good minute of silence, Garcia whirls towards him, with such impetus as to risk unbalancing herself. -What do you want? What else do you want, aren't you satisfied with what you did?- she asks, half screaming and half broken. If at other times she had only pretended to hate him and forced the discomfort she felt when he was around, now she is not simulating at all. -Do you want to make fun of me a little longer?- she slings the last question, naturally rhetorical; then the woman begins to ignore him again, deliberately pretending that he doesn’t exist, that he is not present. But those salty drops are still there, immobile. She has no intention of crying, much less with that infamous being. She will not grant him such honor, to see such an intimate part of her soul.

And the man understands it perfectly. He remains silent, contenting himself with breathing her air, sharing the same space. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye so as not to disturb her too much. He observes all her nuances. The geometries of her dress, for once not particularly low-cut. The fake flower in her hair. Her face red with anger. The slight trembling of the lower lip. After about ten minutes he decides to venture an attempt. -Garcia, I...- he realizes he is babbling, that he looks like a real idiot and doesn’t believe that this can help him win back her graces. He takes a long, deep breath. - I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd take it so badly.- he finally manages to say, not trying at all to disguise his displeasure.

Instead of turning around as suddenly as she did earlier, she prefers to keep looking at the horizon. -And how should I react?- her tone is strangely low, a little lower and he wouldn't be able to hear it. But it is not even a whisper. It doesn't sound like a question and maybe it isn't. -My friends, whom I regard as my family, took advantage of my vulnerability to make fun of me.- if ever there was a way to make him feel even more guilty, even more like shit... she found it. He focuses on every single word, on each of her choices. He has always known that the BAU is different from the other teams, and certainly from his previous one, since Phil is gone, at least. But it is a term above all that hit the mind of the SSA in training. Vulnerability. As if he hadn’t already noticed this characteristic of his! And was it not perhaps an extra element that attracted him towards her, fatally? Wasn't it going to tease his innate sense of protection exactly, his aspiration to play the hero, the knight in shiny armor, with lots of tights?

He realizes that he has been silent for a century, conversing with himself. He is used to doing it, to being his only interlocutor (if he doesn't consider Roxy), but he will have to change his attitude. Now he is part of a team. Of a group. - I don't think...- he says, but Garcia doesn’t even grant him this grace. She turns slowly, raising one of her splendid, very clear hands, with her palm and her fingers extended.

-Shut up.- she says, but her gaze is much sharper than her voice. She is slowly turning off, like a burned-out light bulb. It is an image that Luke doesn’t particularly like, but finds confirmation in her subsequent sentences and in her shaky and deeply desperate tone. -I just want to be able to stay alone for a moment. To reflect.- she voluntarily chooses to seek and find the eyes of the man, before concluding. -Maybe I'm doing something wrong.- she will also be naive, but she is the undisputed genius of her field. How to make the two things fit together? Because she knows, when she wants to, what to say to get a certain effect.

Agent Alvez swallows, failing to try not to be surprised. -You will not want to leave the BAU.- his fear turns into possibility coming out of his mouth. She hadn't really considered it, but she does it now. Luke curses himself for the umpteenth time in less than a quarter of an hour.

Penelope looks away again and shrugs. -I don’t know.- the thing that scares him the most is to understand that she is not lying at all, nor making fun of him. Although he is not that far away, he gets even closer, as far as he can before she rejects him badly. He feels the need to reach out and touch her arm, shoulder, fingers, something. He needs contact with her, not that this is also new. The more she tries to avoid him, the more he is attracted to her. Certainly, it is only one of his self-defeating pastimes, or...

When he is about to reach the goal, i.e. touch her arm (he has decided that it is the least ambiguous part of her body, the friendliest, even if the two of them aren’t friends), the blonde looks at him and he stops. -Hey, no, don't joke about this.- it sounds like a plea, even if it wanted to be a joke, with the aim of getting a smile or at least a pitiful laugh. But she interprets it in a completely different way.

She raises an eyebrow seductively (probably not aiming at this second effect) and scrutinizes him with a stern but also amused air. -Why, are there things you think you shouldn't joke about?- Luke opens his mouth to reply, then realizes that the best choice is to genuflect and beg forgiveness.

He raises both hands like a suspect in arrest. -Touché - she just nods, with a dry gesture of her chin. -I beg your pardon, Garcia, I didn't want to make you feel bad, but...- he uses the puppy look, the big eyes, the tilted head, the tight lips. She couldn’t resist him, the first time he exploited it, to save himself from the accusation of being a liar and that he didn’t like her gifts (this was the real lie! How could he not ever get excited about whatever she had donated to him?).

But today he is decidedly less fortunate. -But you did it anyway, and you ruined everything!- perhaps noticing their closeness, Garcia pushes him away, only to move (with extreme relief from the man, who is trying to recover from that sudden contact) in a safer area of the terrace.

He follows her, of course. -What do you mean?- he asks, while fearing to know the answer.

Penelope pleases him with a smile that has nothing sweet about it. -After discovering that Roxy is a dog and after seeing that you aren’t so bad as a company at O'Keefe, I had decided to treat you better.- she reveals, simply, disregarding the increasingly shocked expression of the colleague. -I thought we were becoming friends, but you stabbed me in the back!- another accusation and another push. Only for a hair he can't hold her hand on his chest.

Luke shakes his head, trying to catch her eye again. -I, no, I...- but her face leaves no room for doubt.

-I'm not interested in your apologies.- she says and he catches both senses of that sentence. -You sided with the others!- he doesn’t reply anything, because he knows she is right. -You chose them instead of me. You don't deserve my friendship.- she deduces, widening her arms, like a judge who issues a sentence of death, implacable. And that's when Agent Alvez realizes he has no choice but to make a move, the one he never would have considered, probably not even in a thousand years, if things had gone differently. But he cannot afford to lose the little he has laboriously earned.

He looks at her in a strange, different, new way. Original. -And if that's not enough, for me?- he asks her, gradually reducing the inches of air that separate him from her. Penelope opens her eyes for a moment, forgetting the subject of their conversation. He always liked to put her in trouble, but this time his intentions are very different.

-What are you talking about?- he watches her pupils dilate while he makes another step. -Stop there where you are.- she intimates him, but fails to sound very authoritarian, so he doesn’t listen to her. -You're too close.- she says the last sentence in a lower voice, because the man is almost completely bent over her.

He turns a few degrees so he can whisper in her ear. -I mean if it's not enough to be your friend.- ok, this time he really said it. Now he can't go back and doesn't intend to do it. He doesn't want to believe that Garcia's attitude towards him is only due to the fact that he took the place of her best friend. Or maybe he needs to think that behind there is more to find enough courage.

However, she chooses to suddenly return naive. -And what the hell would you like to be?- she stutters, overlapping words, but unable to break eye contact and hating herself deeply for this. If he had been less attractive, would it have been so difficult anyway? She doubts it. -Why the hell do you care so much about what I think of you?- she bursts out and finally she has made the right question.

Luke chuckles, impressed by her innocence as much as by her job skills. -Don't you really get it, Garcia?- her big eyes are enough for an answer. -I like you, I have a crush on you, that's why I 'sided' with the rest of the team, as you say.- he feels his heart beating like the one of a teenager in a movie. He almost certainly also has sweaty hands. The blonde remains silent, so he adds some more details. -To provoke you, as you do with me.- even if, thinking back, he understood that he had started this, not she. -I thought it was just an innocent game...- Penelope seems to believe him for about two seconds, then bursts into a resounding laughter, which however doesn't seem at all joyful, but bears traces of bitterness and sadness.

She claps her hands in a theatrical way, even managing to take a few steps away from him. -Congratulations, really credible! You're getting better at telling lies, but if you think I'm stupid enough to fall into the same trap twice...- she shakes her head. Those tears at the corners of her eyes finally hover in the air. -You have a worse opinion of me than I thought.- she concludes, revealing herself once again able to identify precisely the thing that will hurt him most.

Now that he has freed himself of this enormous weight (to think that it is only a few months, but it seems to him much longer, like his whole life), he cannot conceive the idea that she can think that he is a liar, that he could joke about a similar topic, which can be so petty. -I'm not lying, it's the truth!- he almost shouts, grabbing his own head to avoid doing something more reckless. -I like you a lot, I don't see what I could earn to make you believe it.- after this last sentence, however, he looks directly into her eyes. Anyone knows that it is very difficult to simulate a feeling while maintaining eye contact. Penelope seems to think of that, she seems uncertain, she approaches him, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

And in front of the man's shocked look, she begins to search him. -You certainly have something on you, maybe not a bug wire, at least a tape recorder...- her hands run down his chest, covered only by a light gray shirt, and stopping just before the belt. Then she comes to her senses and understands what she risked doing. But now it's late. Taking advantage of her sudden loss, Luke has brought her closer to him and now holds her firmly by the shoulders.

-Garcia, look into my eyes, and you will understand that I am sincere.- the man's hands rise up to her neck, causing her to shiver (not only because of their glacial temperature), finally lingering on her face, barely caressing her cheeks. She obeys him for a few seconds, so she manages to look away with difficulty.

-No, I can’t.- she detaches herself from him, violently. Unable to conceive how she could allow him to touch her in such an intimate way. -You could have thought of a more credible one excuse and I didn't think you would be able to go that far.- she comments, finding her own safety or at least a semblance of it, as soon as she is distant from him. -Even playing with feelings... Maybe I should really ponder a transfer.- Luke is not considered the best hunter of men of the FBI undeservedly. He takes very little to capture her.

-NO!- this time he's really screaming. He tries to calm himself, to think lucidly. -No, not for my fault.- he really is a good actor, no doubt. It would be really too easy to fall into those brown eyes, to get carried away by the current down and down... -Let me prove that it's all true.- he pleads her. His hands are on her again, with his thumb he touches her neck, while with his other fingers her face.

She tries to ignore the feelings that this contact causes. -And how are you going to do?- her eyes are wide open as she watches him bend over her and trying to bring her face closer to his, as if he wanted (and it seems so) to kiss her. She waits that Luke is a few millimeters before stopping him, with some satisfaction. Or maybe, most likely, she had to struggle hard to do it. -Huh, no, even if you weren't a liar, I wouldn't make things so easy for you.- she tells him, but in her tone there is new malice and this is enough to reassure him. -If you really like me, you'll have to work a lot.- not bad, since he had already taken it into account. He is annoyed enough to have been interrupted so close to the goal, but... if she is giving him a chance, this is what matters. -Do you think it's worth it?- she asks, crossing her arms, almost certainly expecting a no.

Luke, however, disappoints or surprises her, depending on your point of view. -Yup.- he answers, decided as he has rarely been in his life, above all about personal relationships. -Absolutely.- he adds, to make matters worse.

She shrugs. -Happy for you. If the road was uphill before, now you can consider it directly a wall.- she makes it clear however. That grimace on her red mouth. He will be able to taste it, to discover what it tastes like. If it was the last thing he will do. -A very slippery wall.- she adds, with a wink. -It's easy to fall and get hurt...- now she seems serious, she seems to want to suggest something to him, but he doesn't know her long-term relationship history: he can't know that she refused two marriage proposals, that she has problems too only to think of living with a man who is also convinced she loves. That from that point of view she is no less solitary than he. Sergio is enough.

Of course, he can't know (JJ wouldn't have talked to him about it), but he seems to sense it, getting closer to the solution. -I'll be careful.- he proclaims, as if he were about to leave on a mission, get on the jet. -I’ll conquer the lost land.- he says, resolutely, trying to convince at least her, if not himself.

He gets a hearty laugh in return. -Well, they say that self-confidence is everything to achieve a goal.- he nods. -But to regain mine, it would take a miracle.- Luke is not discouraged.

-I believe in miracles.- he promptly replies. And it's not a lie. There are many things of his faith that he doesn’t fully share, which cause him internal conflicts. But not this one.

-Good for you.- she says. -Now, go away. And, Newbie, tell the others that I am very disappointed by everyone.- it's so nice to hear that nickname again without nuances of real disappointment.

He nods before leaving. -I will do it. –

 And Luke keeps his implicit promise. During the next two weeks both the office and the home of the computer technician Garcia become places frequented by express couriers of all types, florists and pastry shop clerks. The man slightly distorts the classics, the romantic clichés, preferring live plants of the most disparate species to the bouquets of real flowers, desserts from all over the world to the chocolates in a heart-shaped box, puppets with recording personalized messages instead of cinematographic declarations; and hearing his unique voice, deep and fret, making certain statements… it’s different anyway. But it's not enough.

Penelope doesn’t reply to any of the gifts and only when one evening, returning from a case, he stops her to get a response, she deigns to consider him. -It’s all you can do?- she replies with a question, dismissing all his efforts and leaving him partially sad, but also too stubborn to give up on the first attempt.

She doesn't expect that he can do anything right that evening. Nor that he can go that far. When the first notes of classical guitar begin to spread in the air, she doesn’t suspect that this may have anything to do with her. But then he starts singing. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... At first, she is so shocked that she doesn't even have the strength to look out of the window is to verify if it is not by chance, that her brain shows signs of imbalance. Luke cannot be in the courtyard where her apartment is located, to serenade her, like a medieval minstrel. Even if it's a pretty retro thing, something that suits him. With this joy that hugs my heart, four days from Christmas... a mixture of enchantment and pain, I think back to when I hurt someone, and there are so many people, good pretexts, always too few. Between desires, labyrinths and fires, I begin a new year by asking... She should have imagined, however, that he would sing so good. She doesn’t know where this kind of thought comes from, why she is so convinced of it, since she has never thought about it before. She sighs, resigning herself to the need to control. She spies from behind the curtain, but he notices however that he has managed to capture her attention and continues much more determined and with a smile on his lips. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... It is undoubtedly thanks to his vocal talents if none of the Garcia's neighbors throws a bucket of water at him (or worse), drops a vase on his head or simply shouts at him to dislodge. And maybe even the fact that it's not yet eleven o'clock and her neighborhood is a fairly populated until late. To say that I feel good with you is little, to say that I feel bad with you is a game, a mixture of truce and revolution, I think it's a good opportunity, with this magic... of Christmas, to remember... how special you are, amid the contradictions and your faults, I still try to want you… She shakes her head, thinking that there are still months left to think about pulling the tree out of the box in which she put it. She laughs, but her is a sweet laugh and no one misses those nuances. She feels she has become the center of general interest; the way in which Luke is looking at her as he sings and plays has left no room for any doubt about the addressee of his stornello. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... But he himself claimed not to just want her friendship, but something more. And this is also clear to all those present, who wonder who that young man is and where dear Penelope may have known him. A good part recalls another kind of evening and another kind of companion; the sirens and the lights of the ambulance, the cries of the paramedics. But this one seems a good guy and certainly cannot have bad intentions. Besides the fact that his gesture would have a lot of witnesses. Here winter is not afraid, I got some without you... here anger is without measure, but without you... I don’t know and the night dances alone, but without you I will not dance... captain, knock down the walls with me, that by myself I won't make it... That reference in particular hits her straight to the heart and his wink gives her the suspicion that it was precisely for that sentence if he decided to dedicate this song to her, instead of another, and not for the refrain, which also repeats endlessly what he had already said and pleaded in a completely different way. I ask your forgiveness, if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... Penelope wonders if this song will ever end, not that she minds, far from it, if she really has to be sincere... but to the pleasure and that boost to her self-esteem, embarrassment and blush on her cheeks should be added. Didn't she always want a man to make such a crazy gesture just for her? Didn't she always say that she wasn't the kind of woman that men write songs for? It seems like a century has passed since that time. If what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I… She is concentrated now on his hands, on the way he uses the pick, how he caresses the ropes, and finds herself wondering what else he would be able to do with those fingers. And if maybe they can play something together, one day, she with the clarinet and him with... She shakes her head to get out of her own fantasy. I ask your forgiveness… if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... forgiveness... sorry… rose… comes… When the last notes echo in the evening, everyone understands that the performance has ended. Spontaneous applauses start from all the windows except from the only one that really interests him. Luke bows, thanking the improvised audience. When he raises his head, those windows have closed completely. Behind the curtains, the blonde begins to convince herself that he is really interested for her. Better late than never. But it's still not enough.

 A few days go by without any new surprise and the woman seriously begins to fear that he's get tired of her, of her coldness and her too high claims. She doesn't suspect in the slightest that in reality Luke is using his knowledge in quality of ex-fugitives team Agent. For now, he has limited himself to doing what all women are supposed to want. But Garcia is not all women. He deduces that this was his mistake and remedies it.

With her mind half occupied by the current case and the other part by mulling over her own stupidity (she could at least find out what kind of kisser the Newbie was, if she had been just a smarter pinch), Penelope crosses the threshold of her office and finds a note in front of the main screen. Her heart recognizes his calligraphy well before her eyes. Look in the refrigerator, second shelf on the right. Although she might well wait, since it's too early to eat, she almost runs to find out what's in store for her this time. And in an instant, she forgot all the fears of having pushed her luck. The dining area is deserted. She opens the door and sees what looks like a pan covered with silver paper. And another piece of paper. I made Lasagna. All vegetarian. And a little face that winks, hand-drawn. Without realizing it, she caresses it with her thumb. At the same time, she chuckles, definitely impressed. Then she realizes, she feels that someone is watching her. She turns and Alvez is there. How did he get so close to her without she can hear the steps? Damn profilers and hunters of men!

For a moment they simply remain stare at each other, saying nothing. It is clear that he is challenging her to find a way to ruine his gesture. And she accepts. -Nice, but still a little bit.- she comments, crossing her arms. Luke can't hide a grimace of frustration. -I told you it would be tough.- she continues, in a much more serious tone, trying perhaps to justify herself, when instead she would simply like to invite him to share those Lasagna (which she hasn't even seen or tasted yet, it could be very disgusting, but sometimes the thought is really enough, isn't it?). -Do you want to give up?- and that's when the man does something really completely unexpected and out of every script. He comes so close to her that he almost touches her breast with his forearm.

And the way he looks at her. It should be judged illegal, at least in some countries, at least in Virginia. He shakes his head, in an authoritarian way, only letting her see what the unsubs and the fugitives feel during an interrogation or a capture. -Never.- but he doesn’t do just that. He caresses her cheek with a decidedly determined act that she, puzzled, finds herself closing her eyes to better enjoy that gesture. But she opens them up to his next statement. -You'll be mine, Penelope, and when that happens, you won't be able to stand on your legs, how much they'll shaking.- she opens her mouth, understanding that any reply would be useless. And indeed, he is right, because her knees are already starting to have problems (and not just her knees). However, she hides her excitement behind a mischievous and at the same time strange smile. Placing a hand on his sculptural chest she pushes him away just enough to get back to the office. With the note tight in the left hand.

 By now she has lost control, the situation, with a man so courtly in such a shameless way, is too stimulating for him to be able to put a stop to it. If it had been Kevin or Sam, in his place, surely, she would have already given up. But every time she ends up looking at Luke in the eye, she wonders how far they can go, she denies him the satisfaction and he has understood it. The fact that he is not ashamed at all to show his interest in front of the whole world and above all in front of their colleagues... it's just one more reason to let the game continue for a while longer. From O'Keefe, for example, there is not a single evening that he doesn’t offer to pay her cocktails (only to her) and also covers her with another kind of attention, so as to push more than a guy to give up in order to flirt with that shapely blonde at the right point (she naturally doesn't even realize it, too busy to restrain herself, but nothing escapes him). Above all it is again the way in which he looks at her, exaggeratedly shameless, that exasperate and amuse their friends.

-If you keep act in this way, we'll have to censor you, Luke.- Rossi complains on one of these occasions. But Penelope doesn't just enjoy free cocktails and looks back at him. She plays her part in this kind of performance. She makes him go crazy with every known or not known method. She flirts with strangers, albeit in a decidedly innocent way, compared to when she plays with him, even before all this started. This is why some people got a fantasy, but then they notice how he shakes her hand on her hips and give up, believing that they have dreamed everything. Many times, after having returned to her place, the blonde is in fact instantly captured by her colleague, always sitting next to her, who whispers threats that seem anything but frightening, such as: -You will pay for each of these actions.- but she, lingering in the same way and making him believe every time that she was about to bite his lobe or grab his lips, merely laughs, filling his ear canals with the sound of her giggling.

And moving away, at all intimidate, at the same time removing his hand from her, she replies always the same in a low voice, but not too much. -First you have to catch me.- that answer which, despite so many repetitions by now would have become banal, silences him all the time.

 She couldn’t say that it was her friend who wanted to bring up the topic, because she was the first to let it out. Just a hint, the only evening he hasn't arrived yet and the rest of the table is occupied in an animated discussion of the criteria for awarding the Oscars. -Then... you have nothing to say to me?- well before she mentions it explicitly, she has already got the point. -You and Luke...- in another era she would probably deny, she would reject, she would say to her friend she is a visionary. Not in this one.

Watching the chair next to her (empty), she leaves the river of her emotions flow out. - Do you remember when you all sucked, and he too? He followed me to the terrace and at one point... he said he had a crush on me.- a smile of pure affection, satisfaction (I knew it!) and joy paints the lips of the other blonde. -I didn't believe him, but... now...- they nod simultaneously. -I'm afraid that I’m exaggerating. He will soon tire of trying to conquer me.- the fact she said even this last part is what makes her proud of herself.

It's up to JJ to express her thought. -Do you want my opinion?- she doesn’t wait for an answer. -This can’t happen. I did the same with Will, at the beginning... I was a little cold.- she chuckles, thinking back to those moments with nostalgia, but at the same time happy about the here and now. -You know, In love’s war, he who flieth is conqueror.- she winks at her. Then, she suddenly turns serious. -That's not what you should worry about, in my opinion.- she adds, looking over her shoulder.

Penelope knows that Luke has arrived and probably he is standing at the counter to make the first orders. -What, then?- she asks. There is no room for shyness and pride.

-You have to think about all the time you will waste, just to act like teenagers.- she replies promptly, sensing the course of her friend's thoughts. -When, in short...- she shrugs and almost seems to blush. But she wouldn’t be able to swear it -...you could live and find out how it is.- she understood what JJ meant, but she has no way to reply, because he is there, the chair is no longer empty, his hand brushes by chance (yeah, right for this) her knee while he is settling.

 And despite all those fine words, spending so many nights repeating that JJ was right, another month passes, during which he alternates the actual courtship with explicit and clear requests for a full-fledged appointment, which she declines every time, cursing herself like the crocodile after eating too much. Her only excuse is that he hasn't done enough yet, but she knows that it ceased to make sense long ago.

Garcia then reaches another, different conclusion: what she really expects is, masochistically, to see him finally losing interest in her, so she can consider herself a fool and be able to do it, later thanks to the passing of time that erases and obscures everything, convincing herself that in reality he never felt anything for her.

A sea of shit that fortunately crashes against the rocks of Luke's stubbornness, which fails to consider sporadic touches at the bar as real progress. But he still has an ace up his sleeve. The winning card. He wonders why he waited so long to do it.

 He is forced to talk to Emily. Leaving everything to chance would mean risking compromising the plan. He waits patiently (patience has always been one of his main qualities) that there are no cases. And finally, that day comes. He waits for her to go to the bathroom, for take his gift to the bat-cave. He stays hidden at the end of the corridor, watching her returning to the office. He hears her scream and realizes that maybe this time the job is really done.

Inside, Penelope tries to censure her joy by pressing her hands over her mouth. Roxy, beautiful as always, is covering her with kisses. But it doesn't take long to notice that there is ticket rolled up and stuck in her collar. The more she reads it, the stronger her heart beats. Forgive the fool of my master. He didn't want to hurt you, but you know, human beings (especially males) are so foolish! He always liked to hunt, but without weapons. Because of this pursuit he no longer has a crush on you. Now he is sure he is in love. Please give him a chance so we can see each other more often. I miss you! Rox. And it is not the third-party declaration that causes her to collapse definitively. No, it's that paw print as a signature. She fears to burst into tears. She takes long breaths to calm herself.

Now she has discovered her breaking point and doesn’t care a damn she will never know which of Luke would have been. Hearing only silence, the man dares to enter. -Then?- he asks, even though he knows how to read her expression perfectly.

She wants to show herself a little distant. -All right, Alvez, I'll go out with you. But, mind, this means nothing.- she likes to play as precious thing, and he will let her do it, because she is. She is the most precious jewel that he never would have aspired even to contemplate.

He takes her hand, helping her to get up. -It may turn into one later.- he declares, bending down to kiss her cheek. He would never have wasted their first kiss at such a time, however important it's for him.

 The evening of the date comes. Penelope keeps to repeat in front of the mirror that it is nothing; Luke tries to explain to Roxy why all depends from this, but she already knows it. The message arrives on time; she can't make her heart beat regularly. She goes down, risking killing herself, on the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. When she sees him, so beautiful and knowing that it is her merit, because it is for her if he has dressed like this, that he has chosen every single damn detail, she can no longer play the part of the detached and disinterested.

Penelope expects him to take her to dinner somewhere. Even the time is quite compatible with this hypothesis. But she is wrong. When she sees the silhouette of the building and recognizes its profile, when he parks right there, she is incredulous. He will also be a profiler, a hunter, but how the hell did he find that this was her favorite theater and that she dreamed of going there all her life?

He opens the door for her; he touches her hand every so often, caressing her fingers in a sweet and sensual, delicate and possessive way; he looks at her in that way but also in a new one. If they had just played until recently, he is now doing damn seriously. How can he be single for years (did this information been picked up long before all this started)? Then the concert begins, where the clarinet is the absolute protagonist, needless to say.

He speaks only once, whispering something that completely contrasts with the serious and prim atmosphere. -I can't wait to show you my fingering techniques, chica.- she swallows, not answering. Fearing her own reply.

Towards the end her stomach starts gurgling in protest. With red hands for long applause he leads her to the exit, opens the door again, does the same when they arrive at the next stop, helps her to sit at the table. He wants to make her feel the most desired and important woman on the planet with a thousand small attentions and almost never taking his eyes off her. Penelope stops noticing her own red cheeks. It has now become her dominant color. She is still along the way to convince herself that this is really happening. At the time of ordering, she lets him speak only, not feeling at all overwhelmed, but rather enjoying seeing how well he knows her.

All exclusively vegetarian. And, after paying the bill, he opens his mouth again to say something that gives her the final thrust. -I could easily get used to this diet.- she is still thinking about it, wondering if it could be serious or if it was a simple provocation that she had misunderstood, while they are walking with Roxy, in the calm of the evening. He stops, breaking the silence at the same time. -If you just give me the chance, this would be our typical evening even in ten years. I don't want a conquest of a night and I know that passion would never fade, don't ask why I know, it's just like that.- he speaks freely, even if she would never have stopped him because... she wants to see how far he gets. -I would never take you for granted, nor stop courting you, I would conquer you every day.- perhaps he would have added more, but she bursts.

She throws her arms around his neck. -Fuck, Luke.- game over. He won the match.

But he lingers a moment longer. -Penelope, can I kiss you?- it's not a provocation, he's fucking sincere.

She tilts her head. -Yes, you can, Newbie.- but he hesitates too much, just a second too long. Penelope, who certainly doesn’t count the calmness between her main qualities, drags him against her, kissing him as if there were no tomorrow. Surely her patience threshold is less than Luke's, but... now they both care very little about it.

------------------

TAGS: @martinab26   @thinitta  @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado  @shyladystudentfan  @pegasus-scifichick @paperwalk  @inlovewithgarvaz @the-ellen-stuff @astressedwriter  @symphonyashley​ @jess-the-introvert​ @veronicafiore88​ @kofforever​ @myhollyhanna23​shadowystudentcroissantpickle

[panlight]

What is your favorite paternal moments for Billy, Carlisle, Charlie, and Edward? We don't see much of Harry or Phil, and Emmett sadly doesn't do much with Nessie, but if you have moments for them please do share as well!

I loved Edward thanking Carlisle in the BD 2 movie, but alas we never got anything quite like that in the book(s). After all those years of Edward’s angst and literally arguing with Carlisle about their doomed nature and soullessness, it was a nice a moment. Generally I liked a lot of their interactions in Midnight Sun as you got not only a better since of their relationship but also of Carlisle’s personality. There’s a lightness and a sense of humor to their interaction that is mostly missed from Bella’s POV. Like when the go for a hunt and Carlisle’s suggesting they could leave Forks, and that the others wouldn’t hold it against them because Edward has moved before because of them, and Edward is like “really?” and Carlisle’s like “LOL okay yeah Rose might be upset.” It was nice! Subtle! 

I just kind of love everything about Jacob and Billy, which is part of why Jacob ditching him to spend all his time with Renesmee really just does not work for me, completely separate from the horror show that is imprinting on a half-vampire baby. Again, there’s just such a lightness and humor to the two of them, even when Jacob is just talking about his dad. You can see him roll his eyes but there’s so much affection behind it. He’s been his dad’s caretaker and confidante since his sisters bailed, despite being so young. That’s really powerful to me. I can’t think of a particular moment though. 

Charlie putting the snow chains on Bella’s tires was a really nice, understated moment. It demonstrated a lot of care and concern without a lot of fuss or mushy emotional stuff that Charlie (and Bella, to a degree) is not comfortable with. Hell, him buying her that truck in the first place! I love those moments where Charlie is just really thoughtful and practical at the same time.  Bella’s not used to that, because as loving and fun as Renee is, practical she ain’t. 

I still just … have a really hard time with the idea of Edward being a father. It’s so surreal. It feels like it should be a different book series, or at least like three or four books further down in the series. It happened way too fast for me, not to mention that he is physically only seventeen years old. Does not compute. I still struggle so much with the whole Renesmee storyline. It just doesn’t feel natural to me and her name is still distractingly out of place among the other names in the series. And if they HAD to have a baby, I wanted more … joy? More playfulness? Babies make people smile! They make people talk in silly little voices and make nonsense sounds and sing ridiculous songs. Like, give me Edward Cullen playing “Baby Shark” on his piano or something. But since we don’t get that, I guess it’s really quite sweet that Edward loaded up an iPod with his favorite songs to share with his daughter … but it’s still so weird it was a Christmas gift for a three-month-old. 

I wish we had seen more of Phil because I’m just a sucker for healthy step family relationships and I’d have loved to have seen him being a good guy and a good husband to Renee and a good step-dad. Bella seems to think he’s steady enough to help Renee with the practicalities of running a household, which from Bella seems like pretty high praise? 

Also forever salty how little weight Harry’s death was given in the narrative. Everyone is just “Leah’s upset about Sam” and it’s like HER DAD LITERALLY JUST DIED?! And he was such an important figure in the community you’d think they’d all be feeling it? It should have been a much bigger blow vs just a plot device so Edward can think it’s Bella’s funeral and so Sue will be free to hook up with Charlie later. Do Seth and Leah even ever talk about it in Breaking Dawn. The only time I can remember it coming up is when the rest of the Pack is trying to guilt trip Leah and Seth into going home “how can you do this to Sue when your dad just died.” It wasn’t that long ago! BD is in Aug-Dec. Harry died in March. It hasn’t even been a year. Let them grieve, and give Leah some support! 

[shortmania]

Hi Shortmania! I send this ask for character design reasons. Do you have any headcanon heights for any of the HA! characters at their "The Patakis" age? I don't need all of them. Just Arnold and Helga will do nicely as a starting point. You can google mrinitialman if you want to look for something to have a better visual representation of what you have in mind Thank you for taking the time to read this regardless.

Well, first of all, thank you for the neat new resource, whoa. That is super helpful and I will definitely be using that in the future.

As for my headcanons, I’m a little nervous to say because I know they’re unpopular, lol. So little disclaimer there, but.

At age 15 (and likely the rest of their lives since growth spurts after 14 (female) and 16 (male) are rare):

FOR COMPARISON:US MALE AVERAGE: 5'9"US FEMALE AVERAGE: 5'4"

Arnold: 5'7"Helga: 5'6"Gerald: 5'10"Phoebe: 5'4"Harold: 5'5"Patty: 5'11"Stinky: 6'3"Sid: 5'6"Rhonda: 5'4"Curly: 5'12"Eugene: 5'3"

And those are the ones I’ve thought about and stand behind. I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory, they’re just based off their parents, but I’ll explain the ones I know most other fans are likely to be confused by. You can skip anything you’re uninterested in, Anon. ❤️I just like to be thorough. 

It is controversial to propose Arnold and Helga end up about the same height–most everybody prefer one of them to be significantly taller than the other–but it’s… just not my preference, for a few reasons. The Shortmans are a tall folk, Craig has confirmed that, but I like to think the males on Stella’s side of the family run a little smaller just because the idea of Arnold tall seems strange. He’s been consistently small throughout his childhood, and even at age eleven didn’t really grow more than maybe an inch or two since the fourth grade. Specifically, I think Arnold’s namesake, Stella’s dad, was the same. That is to say, I think he was a shorter than average dude, and I like to think Arnold strongly resembles him. That’s a baseless personal headcanon, and I acknowledge that. Arnold could be a late bloomer. I just like him a little smol.

On Helga’s end of things, my reasoning is just that… Well, there isn’t really any wrong way to calculate Helga’s height because we know basically nothing about her roots apart from Bob and Miriam. And Miriam appears to be average-ish, maybe above, Bob actually isn’t too too much taller (maybe 3-4 inches, and 2-4 inches shorter than Phil who I imagine is about 5'12"-6'0"), and Olga’s either average or below since she’s noticeably shorter than Miriam, so it’s just easiest for me to headcanon Helga as a couple inches over 5'4". It’s safe, it’s comfortable, it’s funny because it subverts expectations a bit. But I will say this: Miriam’s family is from South Dakota, Bob’s probably is as well, and South Dakota boasts some of the tallest folks in the US. Bob is also some form of Scandinavian – Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, Polish, who knows – and men in those countries tend to float around the benchmark of 5'10", and women an inch or two below the US average. So, Helga could easily be tall. Helga could also be pretty short. I do enjoy it when people portray her as this hulking powerhouse of a woman who could lift Arnold with just one arm, it’s a high quality option I would like to see more of, but my thing is that I’m always trying to a) be realistic, and b) leave room for funny scenarios. And Arnold being literally just one inch taller than Helga and Helga being endlessly salty about it is hilarious to me. 

Apart from all that, I hate to mention this, but: Helga isn’t consistently fed, and when she is fed, it’s usually with crap, so. When kids aren’t fed well or often, they don’t tend to grow quite as much as they might have otherwise. So, that is something to take into account. Moving on now.

About Gerald: thing is, there’s that stereotype of black men being absolute mountains because of basketball and I think that’s probably why most people see Gerald being like six feet, but… Gerald’s dad is a frugal numbers-obsessed business man. He’s nerdy. He’s kinda short. It makes a little bit of sense to me that Gerald might be tall-ish because for a nine-year-old boy, he is fairly big? But eh. I just try to split the difference, to honor both his genes and his onscreen rate of development, and I arrive at a little above average because the thought of Gerald being the sole Tol of his immediate family (taller than Jamie-O, especially) is funny to me, and I will always pick the option that is funny to me.

Aaaand both of Harold’s parents are tiny. I don’t really know why people always draw/write him tall--I guess it’s more attractive? he always refers to himself as big? he’s a part of the hulking bully/gentle giant archetype?--but people forget he’s 13 in-show and actually pretty small for his age. At least compared to, like, fifth and sixth graders. Wolfgang is at least twice his height, and I’m pretty sure Harold is older than him. This show is ridiculously confusing and inconsistent about age and child development, but, well. These are the only points of reference we have, so. Yep. 

I love Patty… That’s it. That’s my reasoning. Let her tower over us all as she rightfully deserves.

I hope this was helpful! You don’t have to agree with me, of course, but I hope I at least gave a fair baseline for you to form your own conclusions. Thanks for caring about my dumb opinion, lol, and best wishes on all your projects.

[fanresearcher-blog]

My Criticism of Planet Puto

You know, just in case HC never finds about my criticism...

“Hello HC! My original criticism was lost…unfortunately but I`m determined to get my message to you. I wrote it on Word first before posting it in your submit. If you managed to get my old submission, then I`m glad that it worked, but if it didn`t then that`s why I have this. So HC, I wanted to do this for a long time but I needed to be composed of my thoughts first. Now I`m ready.

In this submission, I want to talk about the character development of your personification characters and character design. I`ll also talk a little bit of the lore by the end of the post. It is not intended for hate, it is just criticism. I am also aware that Planet Puto is more like random posts instead of comics or something. The reason I feel like giving criticism is for HC`s improvement in some stuff and to voice my concerns. Before I write my criticism, I would like to praise HC for her/his dedication to creating that group of Actor AU (I don`t know their names but it`s the Aswang lady and her Spanish-y husband and they had twins). I love your work since it has good art but mostly it`s because you post so often. Reading your posts become a part of my everyday routine.

So before we get to the specific criticism and tips, I`ll talk about my general problems with the personification characters. It appears to be, that the characters are used for meaningless fanservice. When I`m scrolling through the Planet Puto archives, once in a while I will see characters drawn with sexy poses or they have ship tease with someone. If it is part of their character, then that would make sense. So is everybody…smutty? It seems like whenever there is a major foreign country, they would be shipped with Elena or Emilio. There are entire pages filled with random pick-up lines from Emilio and all the art of Elena with the guys.

I`m not saying that shipping is bad. I think it is perfectly fine for some countries to be attracted to Emilio or Elena. What I don`t understand is…why? Why do those countries find Emilio or Elena attractive? What do they see in them? Please don`t say, that they love the Phils because Emilio is pogi and Elena is maganda. If that is the reason, why they love those twins, then that is not real love at all. Also…they can`t just be compatible because of politics! It is like shipping someone with another person just because they had a good business deal. It also makes me wonder if a country can even decide who to love instead of who they are told to by their bosses. It`s sad no?  

It would be best that you create the character before the ship. If you create the ship before the character, they may end up not being their own person. Also pair the ones, who are naturally compatible. It`s like food combos, there are basics like cheese and tomato go so well but when you experiment you will also find out that green mango tastes great with bagoong. Relationships, like food combinations, should be compatible. When people talk about food combos, you hear “The tomato`s freshness balances out the saltiness of salted egg” or “A bit of chili actually brings out the flavor of vinegar”, so characters should be like “He has a great mind but sometimes he can be really tough. She quite emotional but she can be the best friend you can ever have. Together, his heart softens and he learns how to get along with other people. She learns how to keep cool and keep things together now.” Characters by themselves are great, like peanut butter bread and jelly bread, but when you put them together, they are even better.

Be careful of red flags! If the relationship is starting to break boundaries, border on abuse, and toxic behaviors, please stop. It will just give the wrong message to the audience if you ship something like that. After all, in a food combo, if one of the ingredients are rotten it would make you sick. The pair should not be toxic to each other. You can still portray abusive relationships, but please don`t romanticize or encourage it because it`s not okay. It will never be okay.

 You must develop them first, though. After you got their character, then you can start thinking about shipping. They must care about each other. That is the bare minimum for a good ship. In psychology, people are more likely to be attracted to someone they have in common with but not too much in common. The thing they have in common could be anything like background, motivation, interests, etc… After that, be careful not to make them too similar or too different. To add special garnish, if the work has a theme, then it would be best if that ship reflects opposite or different sides of the theme. That would make everything really juicy. Remember to not force it, if they can`t match no matter how hard you try, then they weren`t meant to be. Move on. The best ships will just come into place.

Summary for writing ships:

-They must care for each other

-It must be natural

-They must have something in common but different enough

-Experiment

-Avoid Red Flags

My other general problem is random sadness. I`m okay with sadness, but the sadness in Planet Puto is very random. Everything is happy then boom! Sadness. I don`t understand what it is supposed to mean, what am I supposed to know here? There is a pattern of using historical events for angst. It would be much better if the angst was more built up and more meaningful if the characters had character.

Let`s start with the protagonist, Emilio. Of all of the characters, he is the one I have problems with the most. I find it hard to discern a characteristic to him other than a pabebe, a flirt, and a pushover. I`m sorry if that is insulting, but that is my own impression. He may not be like that, but the way he is portrayed gave me that vibes. So what makes a protagonist likable and memorable? They should:

Struggle: Hmm…does Emilio struggle? I have been searching all the pages with Emilio in them to know. None of those posts indicate really big things. I try to dig deeper like a Language Teacher but it is hard for me to see the meaningful struggle. All I see is meaningless angst. The problems that Emilio faces are politics, love life, and history. Politics, I understand that it is hard to live with such a corrupt government. What I need to know is…how does this affect Emilio personally? Normally, citizens of this country will not feel affected by politics. Sometimes they will be affected, but most of the time they would live most of their lives without worrying about this. It would be best to show how it affects Emilio on a personal level, so I can feel why.

Love life, it is now a more human problem. I wonder why personifications aren`t marrying each other by now. So many feelings and ship tease! Are they forbidden? If that is so, then that would be impractical. There are so many countries in the world, so at least one government permits a country to marry another country. I also wonder why Emilio only dated Brunei. I remember you said it is because of the union of the Kingdom of Tondo and something Brunei. So does that mean, whenever a country is joined by political alliance or merging of kingdoms, are they are automatically in love or dating? Heartbreak happens, it is a human thing but I hope it isn`t too much of a problem. There is such a thing as move on, right?

 History, now that could have a lot of potential. I think there is a lot of creative potential with this. The problem is…how do you portray it properly? The best thing to do is to look in history books and determine what he would be doing at a place in time. Give him a backstory based on the things taught in history. I know you are doing that, but I think it is unrealistic that Emilio is everywhere at once. How is he in a lot of historical events!?! There has to be an explanation. I think it could be answered by knowing his occupation exactly. What is his skills? What are his abilities? Does he have powers to help out? What does being a personification mean? These things could really help me understand how the plot works.

 (Out of topic: What is being a personification? How immortal is he? What if we cut off a personification`s head? Would they die? What if we chopped off their fingers? Would they be crippled or would their limbs grow back eventually? In your WWII drawing, Elena asks Japan to finish off her useless brother, so are you saying he can die? What if no one saved Emilio?

Do personifications get paid for being personifications? Can they resign? Do they have insurance or vacation days? Do they get a bonus? Do they get senior citizen`s discount, after all, they are older than our grandparents? Why do countries have a girl and boy version? Let`s say Emilio resigns from being Phil, would Elena have another twin?

What jobs do personifications do? Are they immediately conscripted to be a soldier, kind of Captain America? Captain America is a super soldier and also used for propaganda. Do they go in missions assigned to them by their presidents? I remember your Brunei and Phil post, that countries might be super spies by their governments. Is it really something like that? Are countries allowed to have other jobs? I remembered a post, I asked if personifications can have jobs. Emilio answered that he wanted to be a general, so he is not allowed to? He is the amang bayan after all, can he use his influence to get the job that he dreams of. Why can`t he be a general? I also heard your answer that being a personification means that you help people, how do they help people? Do they work in social services? Military? Education? Counseling? Psychology? NGO?

Can they have superpowers or are they as strong as an average person?

PLEASE ANSWER THIS, EVEN IF IT TAKES TIME. I CAN WAIT. You don`t have to make a drawing for it. Just type or draw if you like, I just really need to know. What if you randomly gave the characters abilities out of thin air? That would be really confusing. You might risk yourself with plot holes. We would be left out with the information needed to know what their life is like. If they have more detail what is their job exactly, then I would feel like they are more relatable because they actually have a life of their own other than being a mascot.)

Not whine: Back to one of the general problems, random sadness. Emilio is the one with the most random sad posts, so he has that main problem. I don`t know about you but if you put it in real life. It would sound like whining (I`m sorry). What is whining? It is a negative connotation of complaint. Complain is to express grief, pain, or discontent. It is okay to show strong emotion possibly even required but it would be weird to hugot it a lot.

 I already talked about the struggle part, not whining is the combo for struggle. Why? When someone suffers and they whine, suffer, whine, suffer, then more whining, then it would feel like handling an annoying baby. I know that they have pain but I would not respect them if they whine. They would be just like an average person to me, “That sucks, but the way you reacted made me not like you.”

Struggle makes the audience root out for the protagonist because it is natural human behavior to root out for the underdogs and struggle is what everyone goes through so it`s relatable. Not whining is what makes the protagonist respectable. Who has more virtue, a person that complains whenever there is something inconvenient vs someone who endures it instead?

A protagonist should be relatable hence, struggle, but they should also have something admirable because if they are so painstakingly average it is not any more interesting. We did not ask for reality to be displayed, we already live with that every day. What we want is to be entertained, learn, or feel something. A protagonist is someone we should admire, respect, and relate to.

In my opinion, Emilio in the Yandere!Adam event actually shows a bit of character and for the first time, I find myself surprised to actually care about a fictional character even if it is a little bit. What I am talking about, are the normal posts before that.

Be active: This is what makes an ordinary protagonist, entertaining. An active protagonist is a protagonist that shapes the plot while a passive protagonist is pushed by the plot. Why I believe that Emilio, isn`t an active protagonist, he is controlled by events. I have never seen an event that Emilio started because of his actions. For example, Yandere!Adam event, Yandere!Adam is the one that sets the events in motion, while Emilio just watches. I can understand since it is a Yandere!Adam event, it has to focus on Yandere!Adam. I just wish that there is an event of Emilio`s own doing.

(Out of topic: I feel like Emilio and Elena`s relationship isn`t that strong when I looked at the Yandere!Adam event. Letting your own twin die?! It affects me a little bit personally because I have a twin of my own. I would never imagine killing my own twin or letting that happen. According to research, boy-girl twins are even closer than same-sex twins, so they should be closer but they are not. Maybe it is because they were separated for so long, so that is why they aren`t that close.)

So in totality, I think Emilio needs a lot of work in his character.

IN SUMMARY:

-Please elaborate in his struggles

-Tone down the hugot

-Have an event focused on Emilio

-Add more to his backstory

-Tell us more about him

  So that is all with Emilio. The other main characters like Elena, Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, Manila, Cebu, and Davao don`t get enough characterization. They feel like caricatures and stereotypes sometimes. I don`t get who they are supposed to be like. Cebu as INTJ really? As a fan and deep researcher of MBTI, it is hard to see why Cebu will be that. In a nutshell, my impression of them are:

Elena: Oh I`m going to help Emilio, get shipped with so many dudes, and do most of the country work.

Luzon: I`m Miss Serious who is kind of like Manila by design. I`m also the boss and hate insubordination.

Visayas: I`m the guy that has such a peaceful life and brown streak of hair. (Apparently, I also betrayed my countrymen by siding with Spain.)

Mindanao: ….

Manila: I hate probinsyanos! Especially Cebu. I`m swimming in the trash and I have problems…with Cavite. #ampalaya #lifesucks #dacapital

Cebu: I hate Manila! (Hehe I speak Bisaya so he can`t understand) I also don`t get along with Iloilo.

Davao: Yay! (Anime hair).

(Out of topic: I get confused with the glasses on capitals. You said that it was a sign of progress and you put the capitals of other nations with it. It feels quite the opposite. People need glasses to see, so when someone becomes a capital do they become visually impaired? Or they don`t really need it. Does that mean that glasses on capitals are like crowns on royalty? It gets quite confusing to theorize over simple stuff like that. It seems to be too much of a coincidence.)

I`ll talk more about character design later which involves the main characters.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While writing this, I realized that foreign personifications were more developed than the main characters. They show more personality in a page than Emilio or Elena can show in 10 pages. For Adam, I thought his character design immediately gave me the vibes of someone who would be America. He tries to keep his reputation so he hides his brown eye with contacts and he hides issues to show that he is strong. When it came to struggling, I feel like that is implied. He seems admirable at some aspect and he sets the story forward as a colonizer.

His character design also gives an implication of his character. He has blonde hair and blue eyes (something that is associated with America), he has a blue business suit, red tie, and white underneath. That is the colors of the American flag! Colors like that are usually associated with heroes. I immediately saw a developed character in him. I wonder why that can`t be the same for Emilio or Elena.

Emilio`s outfit is a Filipino barong, he has sun-kissed brown hair, tan skin, and really, really light brown eyes. He is basically brown all the way through. While Elena has similar eyes, black hair, and light tan skin. Their outfits are traditional Filipino clothing. Luzon has a yellow tie and female business suit. Visayas has a red shirt and brown pants. Mindanao has a white robe with blue highlights. It seems like the island groups are wearing the colors of the Philippine flag.

 Their character designs are okay enough. It could possibly do better but it`s okay. When I mean to do better, I think you should modify it a little bit so it can look better. Like add detail to the clothes, use a different shade of color perhaps (the current colors aren`t bad on its own but I think it is best to experiment), and I think that is basically it. I get that you gave them really unusual eyes, to give them an anime feel (Personally I don`t like it, but I would not criticize that. It is your own personal aesthetic decision.). Maybe give Emilio and Elena an alternate casual outfit, the traditional clothing makes them seem like they can`t move on from the past (unless that is what you are going for).

The provinces are what I have a problem with. I can see that you tried, but some of them need work. They look unique but not unique enough. Sorry but, I think they look like branded food from the grocery sometimes. The Mindanaoan personifications are the most unique, Visayan personifications vary in quality but mostly unique, and the Luzones personifications have the most problems. I think you should do a bit more work in Ilocos Region, Cagayan Region, Central Luzon, CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, a bit in Western Visayas, and Zamboanga Peninsula.

Ilocos Region:

Pangasinan. Despite being part of Ilocos Region, he isn`t exactly Ilocano. He is Pangasinense. That means he has a different ethnicity than the rest of his fellow region mates. His economy and some of the way he acts is a bit different from the Ilocos. In all means, he is different from the other members. So he should look a little bit different. His fashion sense isn`t that good either. Come on! That collar shirt looks too long and does nothing to improve the figure. The hair is all levels baduy.

Ilocos Twins. They seem too similar to each other. It seems like the only difference is how they tuck their shirts and belts, and that Ilocos Norte is wearing a fake mustache. The minuscule detail is that Ilocos Norte has his pants tucked in more neatly while Ilocos Sur has slightly loose pants. You can differentiate them a bit unless you like it that way.

In general, they are kind of plain. It would be best to add more variety and fashion sense. (Unless you intended it that way)

Cagayan Region, Zamboanga Peninsula, MIMAROPA, and Western Visayas:

Make them a bit more varied.

Central Luzon:

Pampanga. My DEAR province would never wear something like that! It`s like he didn`t move on from the past. Bro, it is the modern days not revolution. Besides, Pampanga would wear a uniform during that period of time. In reality, Kapampangans like to dress well to the point it is a stereotype. Whenever there is an event or casual life, we always like to dress up. I think it would be best if he has a more fashionable outfit or you add something to the outfit to make it more fashionable. The most fashionable ones always seem to be the Metro Manilenos. It would be good if there are provinces that are really, really fashionable. Fashion is a really big deal.

What feeling are you trying to invoke when you made him?

 Bulacan. Really baduy. This outfit is something I imagined to be in a cheap fantasy project. The upturned collar according to historical events was a trend because it was “preppy”, so okay then I guess since it indicates character. The shirt is really plain and does not catch the eye. It feels like it was cheaply done. The color of mint green or light green used for the shirt does not add to his character. Light green is used to indicate the more positive aspects of green like growth or healing. Quite ironic, since his eyes were turned grey due to fireworks.

The outfit is even worse than Pampanga`s, at least Pampanga`s outfit is something that someone would wear but that is something I don`t see in a traditional outfit or normal clothes.

Others. Bataan`s outfit is also baduy as well as Nueva Ecija. Why do the girls always have to wear traditional clothing? What is Zambales ordinary outfit? He does not dive all day, you know.

CALABARZON:

I have fewer problems with these guys but...does Cavite have to always wear the uniform. I`ve seen him in a different outfit before. I wonder what his signature normal outfit would look like. Laguna wearing a baro`t saya…a classic for Planet Puto women. What does Quezon have that is different from QC? They are pretty similar.

 GENERAL CHARACTER DESIGN

Character design is of utmost importance because it can determine first impressions and show personality. What I`m looking for in character design is Personality, Color Scheme, and Symbolism. Personality is displayed by the little details like a business suit to indicate the character`s work-like personality or a suspenders to indicate a person`s old-fashioned/gangsta/a cop/compliments the figure of a muscular body. Colors have multiple symbolisms, blue can indicate dependability but can also give a depressing feeling. Light blue has more positive connotations but dark blue indicates the darker aspects. Little things like the wear the clothes are worn can indicate if someone is a slob or a neat person. Clothing can also indicate the standard of living, fashion style, personal preferences, and attitude. After all, you are what you wear.

Of course, character design is not just clothing it could also be a hairstyle, how the body is built, and stuff like gesture can add a push of characterization. Do they wear their hair in a neat manner or they have long hair? Things like that can indicate the beliefs of the person or attitude. Are they muscular? It might indicate that they workout, part of the military, or some physically demanding work. Are they thin? It could indicate that they don`t eat much, but why? See, that adds more character.

IN SUMMARY:

-BE FASHIONABLE (unless it is part of their character not to)

-MAKE THEM STAND OUT

-ASK “Why would they wear this?”

-COLOR IS IMPORTANT (research their meanings)

-COLOR SCHEME IS ALSO IMPORTANT (make it still look good, unless it is part of the character to clash)

Optional:

-Give each character a signature color that fits their personality

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to my character design and characterization criticism. The lore is really difficult to get into. The only lore I can theorize perhaps is the Yandere!Adam with his eyes. That is basically it. I want to know where personifications come from, how immortal are they, and their origins. How was Emilio made? Did he have parents? Or he just appeared into existence? How are Elena and Emilio twins? How are they related to Mindanao, Visayas, and Luzon? You know, questions like that.

I`m sorry if I was offensive or anything. I really mean the best.”

[disneydreamlights]

So, every Christmas there'd be a "From Santa" Banner in the Moogle Shop. It would cost 0 Jewels to pull from the Banner, and you can only pull from it once a year.

I would honestly love something like that. It should have a guaranteed EX too. Maybe not a Kairi EX/Xion EX level EX but even KH3 Sora EX would be nice.

So, going over a Keyblade's cost would lock you from using Special and Nova Attacks, opening chests, collecting Keyblade Materials, and gaining EXP, Lux, and Guilt. Also, I was thinking, what if you got Party Coins every time someone borrowed your Shared Medal? Just to encourage people to share good Medals. Fusing Medals would transfer all EXP to the main Medal, with a 50% penalty if they're different types (not counting typeless Medals, which transfer all EXP regardless).

Some people would see the benefits more than others but I’m all for this. Reward the person which is sharing the Ira EX with the rest of the party. XD

Event Quests: You'd automatically receive the first Quest in the chain when the event starts, and they'd work kind of like Story Quests in that you'd automatically receive the next quest in the chain upon completion of the previous. Unlike with Story Quests, you CAN have multiple Event Quests. The Quest Description would show how much time you have until the Quest Expires. Boosters would automatically activate once you collect them from the Event Quests.

Makes sense.

If you can clear a Tournament Round in one turn, you'd get the chance to skip multiple rounds and have a try at a later round. If you can clear the round, the tournament will continue from that point as normal, and collect the prizes for the rounds you skipped. If you can't, you'll be sent back to the round immediately after the one you DID beat, and have to work your way back to that point as normal, or skip past it if you do well enough.

So, and I think this is how it works in game, but every Round of the Tournament you clear would earn you a number of Coliseum Coins equal to the Tier, while clearing the Tier will earn you the number of the Tier times 10 Coliseum Coins. As for how to access the Coliseum Boards when they're not with the other Prize Boards? Well, let me explain how NPC's would work. By clicking on an NPC's Nameplate, you would pull up a menu. The choices are "Bio", "Talk", and a few context sensitive options.

"Talk" is greyed out unless you're standing close to the NPC. The context-sensitive options I mentioned are "Shop" (exclusive to the shop Moogle), "Coliseum Boards" (exclusive to Phil), "Coliseum Rank" (exclusive to Phil) and various quest-related options that aren't even presented to you unless you have the appropriate quest. They would typically be greyed out unless you were within talking distance. That's all there is to it, in all honesty.

Everything about this sounds fine. Just don’t let it screw up how I do the Coliseum given how I always do it by quitting if I can’t one turn the round with my current set up. Xp

Okay so, I changed my mind on one of the details regarding how Moogle of Glory would be unlocked. Instead of being based on Story Progress, it would be based on Level. So, once you reach a certain level, and enter the World Map, you'd be treated to the cutscene of Donald and Goofy crash landing in Daybreak Town. Exiting the Moogle Shop after seeing this would unlock the Moogle of Glory Keychain. Additionally, I'm forming plans for the anniversary events.

I’m excited to hear about anniversary events. owo

Okay but, I just came up with a unique mechanic. Basically, imagine if there was an icecream vendor in Daybreak Town, and if they gave you a different flavor of ice cream depending on what type your Share Medal is. Speed would get you Double Crunch (more damage to Magic Enemies), Power would earn you Rockin' Crunch (more damage to Speed Enemies), and Magic Type would earn you Royalberry (More damage to Power Enemies). I haven't figured out how much the Ice Cream would cost yet, however.

Aside from getting Ice Cream for yourself, the Icecream Vendor would, in order to encourage cooperation between different people, make it so you can buy Seasalt Ice Cream for your friends. Seasalt Ice Cream would slow the timer on your revive counter, giving your friends more time to revive you. Additionally, the recipient of the Ice Cream would have a 1/13 chance of getting a "Winner Stick" from the ice cream. You can redeem the Winner Stick for "prizes" from the Ice Cream Vendor.

The Prizes would Ice Cream themed Decorations, Avatar Parts, and Pet Accessories. Included in the pool of prizes would be the Sweetstack Keychain. Collect all the Prizes, and you'll instead get Munny and Skill Medals. The Ice Cream Vendor would be a Keykid who moves their shop every day. There might be two vendors, one who makes the ice cream and the other who hands out the prizes for Winner sticks. Buying Seasalt Ice Cream for your friends would earn you Union coins. The vendors might be twins.

I’d love if that was a thing to be honest, it would be really cute and would flesh out the X world that much more. owo

So uh, redundant Boosters wouldn't really be a thing. As soon as you get a Booster it would run for 30 days. So we wouldn't have a Booster [Donald], just another chance at getting Magic Boosters. That's way more efficient in terms of programming than creating a "new" item that is synonymous with one that already exists. If Donald Boosters were in the MMO AU, they'd boost Medals that depict Donald, just like Mickey Boosters boost Mickey Medals. End of story.

I don’t understand why there are so many magic boosters, I think they’re cute flavor but it’s still dumb. XD

As I try in vain to escape from the Ice Cream Twins, let me know share an idea for an event. The Balloon Letter Event. Starting from October 31st, there would be a Banner which, in every pull would give you a 4 star Boost Medal, the Balloon Letter and 9 Attack Medals. Fusing the Balloon Letter Medal to a 4 star or higher Medal would add an exact copy of that Medal to a special pool. Starting on December 1st, a new item would sometimes be found in chests or dropped by Heartless.

This Item would be the Balloon Letter, which would give you an exact copy of an attack Medal that has been fused with a Balloon Letter Medal. The Player would receive Union Coins whenever they fuse a Balloon Letter Medal to an attack Medal. The more valuable the Medal, the more Union Coins the Player would earn. The banner ends on Christmas and unopened letters would be replaced with 30 Jewels at the end of the year.

So basically a fully customizable medal pool...it’d be fun, but we all know players would honestly abuse that. There’d have to be a cap on what you could add to the pool, or maybe limit it to party members only. Otherwise everybody would just throw in EX medals.

The BBS version of Sweetstack would be Sweetstack's weakest form. The Ice Cream in the Keyblade would gain more toppings and vibrant colors as you level it up, so that it will actually be nice to look at instead of the somewhat dull, kinda dusty looking weapon from BBS. I haven't decided what color it's glow would be since it's such a colorful Keyblade. For that matter, I also haven't decided how Failed Rescue would get leveled up. I guess I could just have it's materials be everywhere.

Honestly that’d be a really cute change as it evolves. owo

So, I just did the math, and there are 11 Keychains obtained through Story Progress in the MMO AU, 6 from the Premium Keychain Banner, 2 through other means, and 10 unobtainable ones wielded by NPCs (Star Seeker, No Name, Sora's Kingdom Key, Aqua's Master Defender, Terra's End of the Earth, and the Foretellers' Keyblades). That makes a grand total of 29 Keyblades in the MMO. A number that will only get higher as more Proud Mode Keychains are unveiled in canon. I have WAY too much free time

That’s okay you have some really fun ideas. XD

Okay so, in order to get the Adamantite Ore Challenge series of quests, you'd have to go to an NPC who's wielding the appropriate Keyblade. Sunday and Sherry would be the only NPCs with Sweetstack, while only the Wayward Winds would have, well, Wayward Wind. No NPC would carry Failed Rescue though, that's a Player exclusive. So yeah, still not sure how those materials would be collected, unless I made it work like a Premium Keychain. That you get from story progress.

Ooooooooh, a Keyblade just for us. I like that.

Adamantite, Electrum, and Dark Matter would all be earned from Daily Challenges. Daily Challenges would be special quests that you have to speak with specific NPC's to earn, and would ALL have fail conditions. You can only attempt the Challenges once a day, and can't retake them once you beat them. Instead, you'd unlock harder challenges. They'd all reward Jewels alongside the material in question.

UNLIMITED JEWELS FROM THIS PLEASE I’M VERY SALTY ABOUT GULA I’M BEGGING YOU.

The Trial Lobby would play a 0.2 style remix of "Another Day", just to set the eerie mood, while the Trials themselves would have the RoD's standard theme. The Dark Corridor Trials would be the ONLY place in the MMO where Guilt can be found in chests. Except maybe the End of the World. Opening Chests would eat up Light Points instead of AP. Occasionally, you'd stumble upon a room that takes elements from one of the outside worlds. Trial Boards are basically Cross Boards in how they function.

Damn, guess we’re encouraged to do these a lot then.

I'm still trying to work out how High Score Challenges would work. So far, I've figured that at the start of the challenge you'd get a special item that would keep track of your score. You would be earn prizes as you pass certain thresholds, and would have your score tallied against everyone else at the end of the event. Beyond that, I'm not sure of the specifics. There would be a competitive aspect between the Unions, but I don't know if it would go by cumulative score or top Players.

I’d say cumulative scores personally, that way everybody can contribute a little bit.

So, I just checked the Wiki, turns out Rainbow Pupstars and Kitstars are a thing, so I CAN have those as the permanent Blind Boxes. YAY! Ahem, so the Nova Attack would automatically recharge with time, though dealing damage to enemies would make it recharge faster. I was contemplating having a Chat Phrase with an animation where you pet you interact with your Pet, because darn it, Toontown let you interact with your pet when it was running and it would just add more character to it.

Yeah, they’re JP only and YES PLEASE. LET ME PET MY PET.

So, what if on Christmas, Daybreak Town's over world theme became "What a Surprise" and the battle theme became "Happy Holidays"? And, during Halloween the music became "This is Halloween" and "Spooks of Halloween Town" respectively?

...Given how much we can change our music...why isn’t this a thing?

So, the End of Pain's materials (save for the Mythril, Orichalcum, and Adamantite) would ALL be found in the Dark Corridor Trials. They would be Dark Shard, Dark Stone, Dark Crystal, and Dark Gem. They'd basically just be purple Mythril in terms of design though. Each one would sell for 150 Munny. Same for the Sweetstack materials. The MOG materials actually wouldn't be sellable due to their only being enough to level up the Moogle O' Glory. I haven't decided for Wayward Wind yet

Is that how much the Mythril stuff sells for since tbh that’d make sense.

So, side quests that AREN'T Daily Challenges or Event Quests would be called Errands. Completing them would typically earn you things like Items, Support Medals, and Synthesis Materials. The quests that reward the Moogle O' Glory's materials would be Errands, for example. You might also sometimes earn Avatar Coins or Avatar Parts from them. They typically require either reaching a minimum level and/or progressing past a certain point in the story.

...More easy access materials like that would be a blessing tbh.

So, until the Wretched Witch battle, when you wrap up a plot arc, you'd receive a quest that requires you to defeat a specific Raid Boss. I mean, they have "Boss" in the freaking name, until Story Battles are implementation how else would you get a boss battle against a powerful Heartless? In case you're wondering, you'd have to fight a Purple Gummi Hound at the end of the Gummi arc.

...Why weren’t they used as actual bosses in the story, I mean they were implemented later but given Proud Mode that was done so poorly I don’t want to count it.

Okay so, this is an idea I had after the total Keychain tally so that's now one off: What if the Player was rewarded with Sweet Dreams for getting the Spirit's Rank/Tier/Level all the way up to 7? You know how that works in game, you equip Medals to the Pet to increase it's Rank/Tier/Level. I'm just not sure if that would be a nice bonus or annoying, particularly since this doesn't account for the materials you'd have to collect to level it up, nor the "Pay to Win" factor of the Medals needed.

I think it’d be fair. A pay to win exclusive Keyblade isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and it’d give some incentive to players to spend a little bit of jewels here and there as well as reward the lucky free to play players.

Wait, it turns out that the Dandelion I've been referring to as "Black Hair" actually has Green Hair. Oops. Well, lesson learned: always check the Wiki. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe NPC helpers would deal Neutral damage instead of Power, Speed, or Magic Damage. Either that or they'd receive a boost from the appropriate Boosters. Whoever triggered the NPC helper's attack would receive the Lux that helper's attack releases. Raid Bosses would be the best way to get Evolve Medals.

Every Player would have an invisible "Raid Counter" that goes up every time they defeat a Heartless. The boss summoned depends on the last Heartless the Player defeated before the Raid Boss spawned. Some Heartless (such as Shadows and Neoshadows) would have a "pack mindset", where the first Heartless of that species in the battle is assigned the role of leader, and all the Heartless of that species will attack whoever the leader chooses to attack.

I think Ven should still do damage in accordance with his medal, but otherwise, agreed that they should deal neutral damage.

...Honestly I like that method more, it’d allow Quest 57 to produce some more variety.

So, what if Seasalt Ice Cream were to instead provide the combined affects of the three other Ice Cream flavors? You know, just to make it a bit more useful, with the Winner Stick just being a little bonus. It would also probably keep the Seasalt Ice Cream from being a Scrappy Mechanic... I'm so sorry if you don't use TVTropes and therefor have no idea what I'm talking about.

I still think giving it its own ability in addition to the other three might have some use, but then again the count down timer annoys me because some people dealing one damage won’t even tap off to heal the one off so having an extended timer means those people don’t have to quit.

Okay so, you probably wouldn't want to let too many swarming Heartless to join a battle. Just because they'll all attack the same player, which is dangerous, even if they're all Shadows. You don't want to lose your Healer because everyone was ignoring the Shadows now, do you? Now, imagine facing a group of Neoshadows, with the knowledge that they'll all gang up on a single Player. That one Player WILL need to be revived if there are enough of them.

Damn, that’d actually sound pretty dangerous, but really hammer in the cooperative aspect of an MMO.

[heavynumbumwriting]

Capital D Depressed

Dan closed his eyes. Of course today. He could feel it yesterday, and last night. The slow numbness creeping up on him. Making him not hungry, or craving the sugary and salty foods. His reactions were slower yesterday as well. He figured that out when he and Phil were trying to film a gaming video, and he zoned in and out. Phil could tell. The second he missed a turn in the video, he was onto it. Pausing the game, and asking if he was okay. Dan had shrugged, said he was feeling the creepiness, but wanted to keep playing, incase he physically couldn’t the next day. So they did. For a while, he felt content. Mostly.

But then he woke up the next day. He only felt the hole in his chest. Seeming to be moving as it absorbed everything around him. A mumble came out of his mouth, as he turned around, grabbing a pillow and pulling it to his torso. He wondered the time, but he didn’t want to open his eyes. That was too much effort. Far too hard to check. Either the digital clock that sat on his bedside table, or reach out to grab the phone.

He had no idea of the time until he heard a soft knock at the door. By the time of the knock, he had been laying for well over two hours. It didn’t help, but it didn’t not help.

“Dan? Are you in there?” Phil was speaking very softly. Almost afraid Dan was asleep, and he’d be waking a depressed and hecking angry Dan. Dan ran over what he could say back, but the speaking seemed like too much of an effort. He’d rather just not reply. Hopefully, Phil would come into the room so he could crack open an eye. And Phil would do what he does best. Just, be there for him. “Dan, can I come in?”

Maybe a grunt? That could work.

“Dan?” Phil said again. Dan gave a small grunt in response. The door clicked open, and Phil was standing there with a box of pizza. “I got your favourite.” He cracked open an eye slightly. “It’s okay, I’m not here to talk. Just to supply the goods.” And with that, Phil left the room. He didn’t close the door completely, almost though.

Phil knew Dan lost his appetite completely when he felt like this. But he also knew Dan tried to fill himself with pizza as well. Like the pizza would stop the growing feeling of nothing.

It took him well over three hours to eat all the pizza. Slowly eating bites, and closing his eyes. Holding his phone above his face and watching videos on youtube, but not really. He didn’t really hear them or see them. They were just there to stop the silence, and to make his eyes focus.

He didn’t mean to worry Phil when he left. Leaving his phone on the bench, grabbing a coat and leaving the house. He heard his friend ask when he would be back, but he didn’t respond. He just needed to walk. Clear his thoughts a bit. He guessed. He wasn’t sure if this ever even helped. Or if it just prolonged the numb for when he came home and ended up on Phil’s lap while Phil watched TV. He didn’t really watch or listen with Phil, he’d just lay there. Feeling, nothing. But it made Phil feel okay, so he guessed that mattered. A little. It wasn’t that Phil kept him from suicide. God no. He kept himself from that, but Phil helped because he gave Dan a reason. Just one, that he would have a happy face to say good morning to, and a reminder of the fanbase. He wouldn’t give it to Phil and say he saved his life, but he would say that he helps. Phil helps Dan, save his own life. Yeah. He liked that. He liked owning his own life. When it didn’t feel like nothing.

He didn’t know why he walked when he felt this way. It didn’t make much sense. He hated walking so much, but the looming silence seemed to help the tiniest bit. He liked seeing the other people as well. Walking around. Alone, together. In a rush, or just swinging along the road, stopping sometimes to check their phones or the shops along the street. He liked to imagine what people were doing with their lives. Where they were going. He’d give them names. Today, there was Sam. He was walking along with Sam for a lot of the journey. He was a businessman. 29 years of age, worked at a firm he hated but it got a lot of money so he was content with that. There was also Sarah. She was a young girl, who liked clothes but didn’t have the money. Dan guessed she was a college student.

He walked into Starbucks, grabbing out some money, mumbling an order and his name. And waiting to the side for his coffee.

“Dan?” He looked up, there was a young girl standing in front of him. He wracked his brain, trying to think of how she knew him.

Then he remembered. A meet and greet, she went to a few and was one of the most people to ask if he was okay because he spaced out completely. 

“Uh, yeah. Hey,” he mumbled, closing his eyes for a second. “Ha, sorry. I’m a little tired.”

“It's okay!” She gave a small laugh. “Can I have a hug?” He nodded, as she jumped forward, giving him a massive hug. He hated physical contact when he was like this. It made him feel panicky and shit. She backed off after a second. “An, um. Can I have a photo?” He nodded again, as she leant over, taking a quick selfie.

“Sorry, I’m a bit out of it this morning. Up way too late.” He tried to joke a bit, she smiled.

“It’s okay, oh shoot. That’s my coffee, I have to go or I’ll be late to uni. Thank you by the way! You saved my life!” She ran out of the Starbucks. Her words rang in his ears, taking over his thoughts until someone nudged him.

“I think they’re calling your coffee mate.” He refocused. Shit, they were. He muttered a thank-you to the man next to him, and went over and grabbed the mug, walking to an empty book, sitting down and staring out the window. He half expected Phil to come waltzing down. He often visited this Starbucks. Dan knew that Phil wasn’t going to look for him. Especially now. He knew how Dan was, and he knew that Dan needed to be alone. As much as he hated it.

Dan did want to see Phil. But not talk. Just, maybe see him walk past and smile at him like he was a stranger on the street like he did to so many others. He smile was a comfort, the talk was too much.

By the next time he blinked, there was a girl tapping on his shoulder.

“Sir, its nearing close time. I’m really sorry but we’re going to have to ask you to leave. My mate, Sam. He said he could drive you home if you don’t feel up to it. We see you in here a lot sometimes, and I guess, we want to make sure you’re safe.” She bit her lip, as if she wanted to say more, but couldn’t think of something to say. “Sorry if I’m being invasive.”

“No,” his voice was croaky from not speaking. He gave a small cough, trying to clear whatever it was that made voices croaky from not talking. “Jesus no. It’s okay. I appreciate it. Um, “ he paused, thinking about calling an uber, but then remembered that uber had been cancelled in London. “Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much.”

“It’s all good. He’s not very talkative, by the way.”

“That actually sounds perfect.”

He muttered a thank-you to Sam, who replied with a simple nod. He had parked a few houses down. Dan’s anxiety getting the better of him. He waited for a second until Sam drove off, and he walked up a few houses to his house, grabbing out the keys and walking into the house. He saw Phil’s head turn around, giving him a quick smile.

“Hey! How was your day!”

Dan smiled a bit in response, giving Phil a nod. He didn’t ask for more. And he loved that about Phil. He knew what Dan needed, and giving Dan normality was the best thing he could do.

“I’ve made tacos for dinner, by the way. I hope you haven’t eaten because there’s a lot of tacos.” Phil smiled again, his eyes watching Dan walking over to him. Dan stopped for a second, standing a little bit behind Phil, leaning against the bench.

“I’m not feeling great.” He mumbled. He closed his eyes. He knew Phil had turned to him. He felt Phil’s arms wrap around his waist. Dan lent in, putting his head on Phil’s shoulder.

“I love you. And it’s okay to not be okay.” Phil gave Dan a quick kiss. “Now, to taco or to not taco?”

“To taco.”