#I think what I need are just a bunch of ace people who are 40+

[wandaluvstacos]

my ill advised midnight post is that the asexual community's obsession with calling everyone valid is annoying. I thought we moved on from that in 2015 but I guess not. i don't need anyone's affirmation for being myself, I am myself whether or not anyone on the internet thinks it's cool or not.

What I'd actually like is to find descriptions of experiences that are like mine, but all I find under certain tags are "if you are *insert particular identity* then that's valid!" like... thanks, that's not actually what I need, what I need is specific people with specific experiences to express their frustration with the shit that frustrates me too. I don't need my head patted like I'm a child. Even if you thought I wasn't valid, I would still exist and still have to deal with the world.

[tater-tot-jr]

DRDT spoilers below the cut.

So I’ve heard some people have complaints about the new episode? In the interest of starting shit let’s talk about it.

To give the devil his dues, there is a moment in the chapter I find shaky. No one seeing Ace grabbing the tape is the only thing that gave me pause (frankly though it’s more realistic than the actual danganronpa games sometimes). I’m willing to deal with it, but if that’s a big sticking point for you then I’m not gonna say it’s wrong. If this is something that broke your immersion I’m not gonna blame you.

Let’s talk about some of the common complaints I’ve seen.

1. Ace’s character had so much potential! Him dying now is bad writing.

Wrong. False. Incorrect. Killing off a character with potential is not a inherently bad writing. Arei, Min, and Xander all had fuck tons of potential. I don’t see y’all trashing that shit. It’s part of danganronpa. Dev needs to make sure you won’t call their bluff, so they need to mix more disposable characters with interesting characters and switch up who gets knifed. All good fangans do this. Secondly, an inherent part of the tragedy of danganronpa is how much life these people had left to live. Them dying with potential is like… kinda the point. I’m starting to realize some of you forgot what you’re watching.

2. Him being the killer doesn’t fit the themes of the chapter!

This is silly to me. The theme of the chapter is people not being who they say/you think they are. All that glitters and all that. Ace has been viewed as a paper tiger for this entire series. Someone who would make threats and then back out when it got serious. He was assumed to be someone who’d step to someone who’d actually kill him and become a victim, by both the fandom and cast. For him to not just be a killer, but murder in a way that required planning, stealth, and a level of sophistication is very unlike what he thought of him. This is textbook theming that fits the chapter. Y’all just mad because you were tripping out about people “being a good person”. (Side note: I’ve seen people be frustrated with J for calling Ace too stupid for this plan, but she’s essentially making the same argument I am. Just in worse words. She was bringing up the fact that this entire plan goes against Ace’s perceived nature.)

3. Everyone feels so sympathetic for Ace but is so harsh towards Nico!

I actually agree with like… 40% of this argument. I think the harshness towards Nico is very justified and I’m kinda disgruntled seeing people pass the buck on Ace’s actions. This is because the emotions are still fresh, more nuanced conversation will come in time. It’s also because while their motives were both very human, Ace’s is more relatable for a majority of people. Nico tried to kill out of anger, they tried to kill because Ace was upsetting them greatly and they wanted that to go away, they tried to kill because they were reminded of people who hurt them and wanted a form of justice. These are all very understandable and human. Ace killed because he thought he would be next, because he was afraid of everyone around him and he thought they all had it out for him, he killed because he was afraid. Are you seeing the difference? Nico attempted to kill a specific person because they hated him. Nico wanted a form of revenge and to dole out a punishment. If that got them out of the killing game, wonderful. Ace killed very specifically because he thought he would be next, he didn’t want someone to murder him so he murdered to try and get out first. In this was, Nico’s attempted murder is framed as very aggressive and Ace’s murder of Arei is framed as very defensive. All of this to say, murder is wrong. It’s obvious why people are feeling more connection to Ace’s motive, but he still killed one person and wanted to kill a bunch of others. These actions aren’t defensible. His actions are his own, and while outside factors pushed him in a direction, you always have a choice. He made the choice to kill, and that’s on him.

4. No scrum debate! He isn’t the killer!

That’s unlikely. That lack of a scrum debate can be better explained by like… a bunch of different things. Dev themselves said that they have more responsibilities now. It’s very likely they realized the scrum debate wasn’t necessary and decided to kill a darling to make things easier on themselves. Maybe a scrum debate just didn’t fit in the chapter. Maybe there’s a deeper meaning. Maybe it’s supposed to represent how much everyone kinda ganged up on Ace until he broke, how he had no one to consistently defend him. There’s plenty of more reasonable explanations besides a crazy last minute plot twist. …That is also not entirely off the table though.

5. Teruko was so hypocritical for ganging up on him like everyone else ganged up on her during chapter 1!

Yes, she’s a little bit of a hypocrite for not hearing his side better. This is a fact. This is also a character flaw. Crazy to think someone jaded and disillusioned with the world would act like a hypocritical jackass sometimes, eh?

—

I would like to stress that 99% of the people are being fine and reasonable and you’re all great. However, there’s 1% of people whose arguments just aren’t good. I wanted to talk about that. Feel free to make some new arguments, or respond to my points. I’d love to chat.

[umichenginabroad]

Burn it. Did I say stand there and look stupid? No. I said BURN IT.

* for everyone that doesn’t know what the title is, its a tiktok haha

Las Fallas. Ridiculous. Actually had no idea what to expect and was not prepared at all. I'll try to set the scene:

For some context, Las Fallas is a festival in Valencia on the last Sunday in February to commemorate Saint Joseph. It is a week-long event to celebrate each neighborhood's year-long work of making a construction called a 'falla,' which consists of several 'ninots' (a Valencian word for puppets). On the last Sunday of February, 'La Crema' occurs, where each of these fallas are burned. A year's worth of work burned!! I learned about the event in my Spanish culture class and was hyped up by a bunch of Spaniards who apparently all love to go to Valencia during this time. 

I also booked this trip two days before on a whim. It was organized with this event planning group that partners with the school and was 40 euros for the bus ride there and back. 

Storytime: 

We leave the buses at 9 am and get off at 1:30 pm. The drivers announce that La Mascleta is happening at 2. We don't know what that is. But it's a 20 min walk. And so we should run. By the way, I've just woken up, so I'm very disoriented already. We are speedwalking to this plaza when we finally run into the crowd. The clock hits 2. We are around the corner from the plaza and can't fully see it. Then the loudest 'boom' sounds start going off, and smoke starts filling the air. 

Anyways, we found out this celebration called 'La Mascleta' happens every day during Las Fallas at 2 pm, where they set off fireworks and smoke at the town hall plaza. Look up pictures- it's ridiculous.

After La Mascleta, we get breakfast and start walking around the city, looking at the beautiful fallas every few blocks. The detail in these sculptures is just incredible, and many of them are satirical in nature as well. 

We head next to the parade. We are lined up on the street, waiting around the corner of the start. A small drum line emerges, and we are a bit underwhelmed, thinking, 'this is it?'. Then we hear what sounds like an ambulance. People start running around the corner in devil costumes with fireworks strapped to their heads, moving in a circular motion and spraying into the crowd. Honestly, I have no idea how this was legal or safe, but it was crazy. 

I would describe the burnings of a couple of other fallas, but the one you need to hear about is the 'Big Falla':

Finally, the Big Falla. We are in the plaza across from the falla, and the clock hits 11. For a second time paused, and it didn't seem like the celebration was starting. Then an incredible fireworks display started, and we knew the time was coming. After one of the best fireworks shows I've seen in a while, everything goes dark. Then the fireworks spark around the Big Falla, and the crowd goes CRAZY. The Big Falla lights up with fire. It was kind of scary how suddenly the fire began and how ridiculously big it was. I could literally feel the heat standing so far away, so I couldn't imagine how hot it must have been for the people in the front. 

After the fire ended and the firefighters doused it, people started singing the anthem and celebrating. We pushed our way out of the crowd and headed back to our buses after a quick pit stop at Mcdonald's. 

Of course, 450 kids after 12 hours of celebrating was not going to be organized, and we barely made it on our bus after everyone mobbed them. We left around 2 am and got back at 6:30 after a long ride of someone snoring behind me and the AC blasting at full strength. 

I've never experienced as much chaos in a short amount of time. It feels like a fever dream, and I still need to sleep some off, but wow. What an experience. 

See you next week with Rania 2.0 (aka Priya, my sister, haha) and me in Granada and Sevilla!

Rania Uppal

Computer Science

UP Comillas - Madrid Spain

[redvanillabee]

how do you think members of the agent Carter crew (Peggy herself, Thompson, Howard or even Jarvis) would react if they were the ones brought to the future?

Anon this is such a fun question! The answer is gonna get a bit long though; I'll try to break it down into sections so it's not too overwhelming :)

I’m assuming you mean what if someone else in Team Carter is brought forward in time the way Sousa is in AOS S7? For the sake of this discussion, let’s play that out a little.

Peggy

I once read this headcanon on what 7x04 would’ve been like if it had been Peggy who was at Area 51 when Coulson & Co show up, and I think the initial reactions would pretty much be that.

In the short run, I can imagine Peggy reacting much the same way Sousa did in 7x05—demanding answers and the truth. Tell me what you are doing. If you are some version of SHIELD, if you are fighting the good fight, tell me. I am in. But you need to let me know what you are doing.

In the long run, I think Peggy’s adjustment to the 21st century will be...interesting. I think she will take to the brunt force side of being a SHIELD agent quite well. She will definitely appreciate the more speicalised martial arts training—and the fact that they put female agents through the same paces, better equipment, more convenient ways of communicating and bugging a place, etc.

In terms of adjusting to modern technology, I think of Peggy as less of a full-on clueless grandma than, say, your aunt who generally knows her way around a smartphone, but still prefers phone calls or more ‘retro’ ways of communication. Peggy strikes me as someone who is quite ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ with technology. So she can pick up what she needs to know, but she won’t suddenly go full techie.

One thing that does throw her off about the future is that: her entire strategy as a secret agent now has to be re-thought. So much of Peggy’s modus operandi relies on a very ‘40s brand of misogyny. She relies on, say, HYDRA goons who will pass right over her when taking down an SSRT team. On henchmen being more concerned with groping her than actually patting her down to see if she’s packing. Not to say this kind of misogyny doesn’t exist in our world now, but people certainly expect female operatives in Peggy’s capacity these days. Her old tricks are not going to work as well, and I think that will throw her off the most.

Jack

You know that post that’s like ‘you watch AOS and the founders of SHIELD are practically worshipped, but then you watch AC and they are just the biggest bunch of sassy, sarcastic disasters’? That rings particularly true for Jack Thompson, deputy director when Coulson and May were mere cadets. They remember him as the smooth, seasoned spymaster whose unreadable smirk can just as easily spell your disaster as it charms senators enough to drop their threat of a Congressional oversight hearing.

None of them were prepared for how much they want to absolutely deck him.

See, Jack isn’t a bad person, but he has a prickly personality. I can imagine him complaining more about being abducted out of time—and he will berate them equally for personally inconveniencing him, and not knowing what they are doing (a la Sousa in 7x05). He will offer unsolicited advice as the team stumbles their way through time.

Once he reaches the present though, I can imagine him being the one who struggles the most out of Team Carter. The social and political and ideological changes, that he can handle. It’s just like being handed a foreign service phrasebook when you get sent on a foreign mission. He can adapt well enough.

But it’s the way living in the modern world requires so much examination and unpacking and analysis of morals and intentions all the damn time.

Jack is, at heart, a good person. If you give him orders to follow, a mission to complete, a team to protect, he will do it. But his one fatal flaw is his insecurity in his own moral compass; he is constantly looking for outside assurance of what is right. And in an era where a simple tweet has to be parsed and analysed carefully, where you have to examine each source of information and pick apart every word choice, I can imagine it being a challenge to him.

So in this hypothetical future, if Astro Ambassadors is still a thing, I can imagine he might want in on that. Sure, establishing diplomatic ties with aliens is not quite the same as schmoozing with politicians at a fundraiser, but at heart, it is about being nice in a scenario where both sides have agenda. That’s something he can do.

(And just for extra funsies, I can kinda see Daisy and Jack being the annoying siblings the same way he is with Peggy. Just, snarking and sniping at each other, going from friends to fighting to friends again in the blink of an eye.)

(Which was all well and good until one day Daisy walks in on him snogging Kora.)

Howard

I think bringing Howard on board will definitely have the most interesting turn of events in the short terms, in those episodes following the time abduction. See, neither Peggy nor Jack nor Daniel are exactly scientists. They can participate in the fight, but they can’t do much regarding the technical side of the S7 mission—fixing the time drive, getting them out of the time loop, crossing dimensions, etc.

But it’s different with Howard. He certainly isn’t familiar with more modern sciences and theories, but he is the only one on board who can keep up with Jemma and Deke. More excitingly, I think Howard might be able to fill the blind spots in Jemma and Deke’s knowledge. Maybe some of the technical issues in S7 could have been solved by extremely rudimentary, very low-tech ways that we would never have thought of, because we are so used to high-tech solutions. Imagine

‘How did you fix the time-drive?’

‘Stuck a paper clip in there. It’s basically the same as the old generator we had in the LA office.’

I’m really struggling to imagine Howard in the modern era though. How would he even fit into the modern world? The other three are agents; all they need is some intelligence catch-up, qualify for some new firearms, and they are basically good to go. Could Howard catch up with modern science enough to retain some semblance of his status from the 50s?

Instead, I find it easier to imagine him choosing to stay behind in the speakeasy in the finale to close the interdimensional portal; basically playing Deke’s role.

[neproxrezi]

Are you participating in the proposed dbd boycott to get them to do a game health update?

yeah, i wasn't sure at first caus "dont play the video game for a brief period" isn't going to work but "this company has put all its eggs in one basket and they are frankly quite neglectful of said basket, everyone stop buying anything ingame for 3 months" has me interested

more than 'fix the bugs' or anything else like that what i want to see out of the game is them being less god damn stingy with cosmetics (you should not have to pay $10 for ONE FUCKING COSMETIC) and addressing the grind. holy shit the grind in this game is so rough and it could be fixed fairly simply (i'm in favour of removing perk tiers, to cut a long post short)

hold on im gonna complain about dbd under a cut caus itll get long, i love this game so much but oh boy it has issues

it's been said a million times already but dbd's grind made more sense when there were like 4 or 5 characters per side, there are now over 20 and each new one introduces 3 perks to each side

I want to write about the grind in this game for a moment. There are 95 survivor perks in DBD. Every perk has three tiers. Some of them are great, and many are kind of pointless. Realistically, I'd bet you're only going to see about 15 of those perks in action in most of your games. However, if you unlock a perk to be taught to other survivors (which I tend to do even if I don't particularly want it, out of a mix of completionism and a 'may as well get it out of the way' kind of thing), you can't get rid of it. It's in your bloodwebs forever. 95 perks. 285 perk tiers. Let's talk about how long that takes to claim.

You buy a new character in the next chapter. You have every teachable perk unlocked. The new chapter really excited you, and you want to claim every perk on the new character (who I am going to name... Doug), so you saved a lot of bloodpoints in advance. In fact, you played for days and days and saved the cap, which is a million bloodpoints. You buy Doug, after much excited testing him out in the PTB. You spend all million points on Doug. Doug is now about level 35 to 40, out of 50. Hm. Well, time to keep playing. The bloodwebs kind of gave you a bunch of crap stuff on Doug, and you don't feel like running Power Struggle, Ace in the Hole, Babysitter and Breakdown, so you can't play Doug yet. You go play someone else.

Solo queuing as survivor is a mixed bag, and your games range from getting 10,000 bloodpoints (pretty rough game where everyone got wiped) to 27,000 (a great match, maybe with a bloodpoint offering). You save enough to get Doug to level 50. In the later levels, you start being able to get two perks a level instead of one. Let's say from level 1 to 50, you collect a total of 65 perks, because I don't remember exactly when it starts offering 2 per level. Okay, there are 220 perk levels left. Because of the game's propensity for giving you the same perk over and over to get you lots of perks at level 2 out of 3, of those 65 perk tiers you've probably got something like 20 to 25 actual perks. You're missing like, 70. Best case scenario, the ones you picked up include a lot of what you want. Most likely, you've got like half a good build and some gimmicky crap to slot in alongside it. Worst case scenario, which has happened to me plenty of times, you have like maybe one good perk and a pile of gimmicky crap. So. How long is it going to take you to get what you want?

There are 220 perk levels to go. After level 50, the webs are all the same size. It costs about 50,000 points to level up, and you get two perk levels per bloodweb. That's going to be 110 webs to get everything for Doug. Which is 5.5 million bloodpoints. Oh no. How many points were you earning per game again?

If you play with friends, you're probably going to do better. I find this to be true even if me and my friends are playing without voice comms or anything, because I just sort of know these people a bit better. I know my friend who mains Lisa Garland is a hook-diving bastard, so I don't need to go rescue anyone. Ace, god bless him, makes batshit altruistic plays, so I certainly don't need to go protect my teammates when he's out there doing things like this. I think I'm just going to sit on generators in the distance, think about our final gen spread, and try get us out of here. I'd say if I'm playing well, and accounting for offerings and WGLF stacks, with friends I average 30,000 a match and by myself I average 20,000. Playing killer I average more like 60,000, but playing killer is a bit stressful sometimes and I'm very indecisive about actually queuing up for it, so I probably actually get bp faster as survivor. I'm going to call the average per match across everything 25,000, because for every good game there are plenty where you underperform, or things just go drastically wrong. To earn 5.5 million points like that, you're going to have to play 220 matches. A game, including queue times and whatnot, can take ten to twenty minutes. That's... that's going to take a while. And that's ONE CHARACTER.

Now, on the survivor side you only really need to do this once. They're all just reskins of the same gameplay loop. On the killer side, you need to re-earn those perks for every new character you want to try out, because they're all different. Miiiiillions and millions of points. Hundreds of games. I have no problem with the game having a grind, but at this point it's absolute insanity.

In my opinion, removing perk tiers would cut the grind down to a reasonable level. There'd still be a grind, which I'm completely comfortable with existing, but it wouldn't be excruciatingly long, and you wouldn't have to spend as long dealing with bad perks.

HOWEVER, on top of that is the fact that they just. Holy shit the game updates slowly. I don't want to blame them for that in a way of like "these developers are incompetent and lazy", I really do love DBD to bits and I'm sure they do work very hard on it. That said, its update cycle is really slow. Reeaally slow. I wish they either had a bigger team, made balance updates faster (a handful of perk adjustments once every six weeks is... very very slow) or something to just try make the changes faster. Even when things do change it always feels so anxious and tentative, I wish they'd experiment more often. The time they disabled bloodlust to see what happened was really cool!

Yeah in short I just hope the grind gets addressed more than anything else, caus that's the part I actually think there's a relatively straightforward solution to. Also, I never got to play the older events where you could do shit like earn cosmetics, but they sounded way fucking cooler than the new ones. The halloween one last year was absolute shit, it's weird that their special events would get worse over time rather than better.

Buuut I agree with Scott Jund that the Resident Evil chapter was bad news for DBD's long term health because the one thing that would really give BHVR a kick up the ass is competition, and every time they land an amazing licensed chapter they become harder to compete with. They have an absolute monopoly on asymmetrical horror, and I honestly think the game would be in a better state right now if they had some competition >:[

[dropintomanga]

The Evergreen Shonen Story

A short while ago, there were some online conversations about the popularity of shonen stories. Almost all of them are based around the experiences of youth and some adult fans wanted action-oriented stories based around their life experiences as adults. Reading stories centered on teens and kids as the main characters isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ll admit that. But sometimes, I think shonen stories are somewhat of a reflection on what adults have been telling kids for years and how some/most of their advice has failed youth.

Life begins in the womb. We come out to a world of many possibilities. As children, we’re immune to bias until adults decide to tell us about the many differences of various people out there. Some adults may not care and have trouble dealing with their own pain, They may resort to substances like drugs and alcohol to cope. Under the influence of drugs or alcohol, these adults may start to abuse children and/or neglect them entirely.

There’s a term that relates to the overwhelming negative experiences of children growing up. It’s called ACE - “adverse childhood experiences.” Examples of such experiences include physical/sexual abuse, parent separation, physical/emotional neglect, and living with an adult with substance addiction. I look at a bunch of shonen flashback stories and many of the traumatic ones revolve around physical and emotional neglect.

Why is this important to acknowledge? Because some adults do a bad job in raising their children or guiding kids to become responsible individuals. We’ve seen examples of bad parenting in anime and manga. There’s also the fact that adults have been full of dreams themselves when they were kids, but have been fed advice on how the “real world” works. They’ve been told that they can’t make their dreams come true and/or they need to behave a certain way to get by. It’s a vicious cycle. A colleague of mine told me that when she sees young people with vision and a desire to smash the status quo end up being a part of the status quo themselves, she wondered if that’s due to those individuals seeing how hard it is and how long it takes to generate the change they want to see.

One of my favorite shonen characters in recent memory is Satoro Gojo of Jujutsu Kaisen. He was a student of Jujutsu High and ends up becoming a teacher there. Gojo is considered to be a prodigy, but he remains humble. He’s also willing to speak up to authority as he has gotten into disputes with upper school management over the fates of cursed students (particularly Yuji Itadori and Yuta Okkutsu) whose potential have yet to be realized. Gojo has once said that he needs to remind himself not to be a bitter old adult as he ages.

A good number of shonen stories drive the point that adults shouldn’t be bitter old ones. Or maybe more importantly, don’t be dismissive about teen experiences. I listened to a podcast a while back about loneliness and how much it affects mental health. There was a discussion point about adults ignoring teens that feel lonely with regards to dating. Here’s a quote from that discussion.

“The number one way that we do this (being dismissive of loneliness) in America is every single 30-year-old up completely dismisses the loneliness that a teenager feels about not having a significant other. Because once we hit 30, we realize that your 16 year old significant other is nonsense. It’s just nonsense. You’re gonna be in love so much in your life. You’re gonna love everybody. You’re going to date a million people. It’s gonna be fine. You’re going to realize how insignificant this relationship is. 

The key word there is you’re gonna realize it. It’s a future thing for them. So when every 30, 40, 50, 60 year old looks at the 16, 17, 18 year old and says, oh, you just broke up with your boyfriend? Yeah, who cares? That’s a meaningless relationship. I don’t care. That exacerbates the loneliness. It exacerbates the disconnected feeling because it really, really, really, really matters to them.”

I honestly think adults being dismissive towards teens’ current experiences is one reason why shonen stories still resonate with many. We’ve all been through those times where adults just shut us down because ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Yes, there comes a point where we have to move forward. But a good amount of emotional pain stems from adolescence and it lingers. Most mental disorders begin to happen around those years. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to give back in ways that stop the cycle. I do think mangaka are trying their best to give back the way they know how. 

Yet I think the biggest reason for the enduring popularity of shonen stories is friendship. We all know the Shonen Jump tropes - friendship, hard work and victory. All three are important, but friends are what really keeps us alive. The harsh truths are that hard work doesn’t always get you where you want to go and victories do come at the cost of important relationships. Over the years, I noticed that in my neck of the woods, friendship is frowned upon. When you’re ranking important relationships in life, first is your mother, then maybe your father, then your romantic partner, followed by your children. Friends are last. There was a nice read I found that listed a good amount of studies on the importance of friends (especially for those who are LGBTQ+ and faced stigma from immediate family). 

We don’t live on an island, contrary to what neoliberalism says. Families aren’t enough. Friends are what keeps us alive and helps build our sense of identity. 

Maybe the fans who want more mature/adult-centered stories with shonen action just want to see more nuanced stories about friendships in adult settings. Friendships are so hard to make and maintain as adults. There’s some glimmers of hope for those kinds of stories - in video games. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a great example of an adult hero in a genre dominated by young protagonists, the Japanese RPG. The story is about a 42-year old ex-yakuza who gets exiled into a unfamiliar city and manages to make something of himself with the help of new friends he made there. It was refreshing because the whole cast were adults who were unemployed and/or stigmatized due to underworld ties. They managed to save Japan from a vicious political alliance with action elements that felt shonen at heart.

I’m all for more adult-centered mainstream shonen stories because seinen material can be a bit too blunt for some tastes, but there’s a lot of focus on the mindset of youth lately than in decades past since there’s concern on how they will manage in a world that continues to disappoint them.

I love shonen because I honestly don’t feel like I’m an adult due to my depression. My development felt stunted. I feel that I have more in common with 20+-year olds than people my age. I want to be around people who are youthful at heart. I wonder about those who still enjoy shonen past the target demographic - what still draws them to it? Is it due to them embracing their inner child more likely than most people? Or do they just like to follow simple action stories that have a lot of heart (something that some people don’t have)?

Looking at shonen’s enduring mainstream status does make me think about the the feedback loops between adults and teenagers. I’ll end this by talking about an incident that happened a couple years ago where a somewhat prominent Anitwitter figure (I am NOT going to mention their name here, but you may know who I’m referring to), who made a lot of friends with people in the anime/manga industry, was outed be a sexual predator who went after young naive anime fans at fan conventions. One of the reactions from someone that was once close with them was how can older anime fans better connect with younger anime fans when needed. I know from personal experience, I sigh on seeing the behavior of teens at conventions at times. But I learned that by saying things like “Kids are so dramatic,” “Boys will be boys,” “She’s being emotional.” gets harmful in a hurry where proper context is warranted. Maybe they are being so-and-so, but it doesn’t hurt to ask and give validation to their concerns. Teens are the lifeblood of anime conventions right now.

Shonen is a gateway introduction for youth on how to process pain in a way that helps themselves and other people with the help of said people. It’s an escape from the distress and trauma of reality. That reality, which has situations like the incident I mentioned, is controlled by adults who don’t always have it together, can’t admit their flaws, and sadly take it out on the world. That’s why shonen is still so powerful today despite all the criticism the genre gets. And that’s the evergreen truth.

[deltas-writing-corner]

Courtship: Respect

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland (Malleus x GN!reader)

Warnings:  Mentions and depictions of smoking/tobacco usage

Next chapter | AO3 version

Slight revisions and full version posted on: 5/4/2021

The alarm clock on your phone is loud and annoying, but it’s the only sound that will wake you up without fail so you can get a head start on your more demanding days, like today.

Groggy and neck a bit strained, a sign that you’ve slept on it wrong, you carefully push yourself up and off your bed. You come across your first hurdle of the day. A few wolf cubs had settled on your chest and your sides during the night. You try carefully to move them off of you and to the side of their mother, who has settled near your feet and isn’t afraid to growl or snap her jaw should you even think of shifting or moving away from her. Unfortunately, the pups seem determined to stick by your side despite your efforts. Luckily the pack’s alpha, Gunter, is settled right behind your head and acted as your pillow for the night. He must be why your neck feels stiff as hell.

You reach back and start petting behind his ear, rubbing into the bunch of dotted scars beneath his coarse hair. You feel his body stretch and shake as he wakes up as well. A small whine comes out of him as he gives out an enormous yawn. It makes you yawn as well.

“Ready to start the day?” you whisper to him.

He huffs with a bit of attitude as if to say, “Not really, but what choice do I have?”

You redirect his attention to his pups, preventing you from sitting up without disturbing everyone else. With silent understanding, he removes himself from underneath your head and carefully steps over one of his brothers, who has graciously allowed you to use him as an armrest somewhere during the night. After another good morning stretch, Gunter begins the slow and steady process of picking the pups up from the scruffs off their necks and setting them elsewhere on your bed.

While he does this, you grab your phone and do a quick sweep of all your notifications. You have a few emails, one a weekly newsletter about current and future school events, most of it spam. You have a couple of dozen messages from Ace and Deuce detailing an argument over whether the former ate the latter’s piece of strawberry shortcake they were saving for after dinner. Apparently, they thought to ask you to be their mediator since it was clear they weren’t going anywhere arguing and pointing fingers back and forth at each other.

Unfortunately for them, they messaged you right after you conked out. You were exhausted yesterday, having to deal with an especially rambunctious and mischievous Grim. You were also scrambling to gather the reading materials needed for one of your classes before the other students can snag them. The most recent and urgent incident is figuring out what to do now that the only generator that powers up all of Ramshackle is going out or outright failing to even start up at all. You also have a decently sized garden to tend to, and the next large harvest is today. Once everything has been properly collected, washed, and either stored away in your pantry or given to Sam so he can sell and make a profit on your behalf and his own (it’s a 60/40 split and you had to fight tooth and nail for that 60), you have to replant everything once again after you’ve tilled the soil…

To say that there’s a lot on your plate is an understatement.

Free from your furry prison, you’re finally able to sit up and move your limbs freely. Something slightly damp presses against your bare shoulder, calling for your attention. Gunter, still clearly tired (expected of anyone, human or wolf, having to wake up at six o’clock in the morning), is now awaiting proper payment for his services.

“I got some dried venison in the kitchen,” you offer. The way his one good eye pops wide open and his tail begins to rapidly wag, the deer jerky will suffice.

You give the top of his head one last rub before standing up and heading straight for your bathroom to take a quick shower. Since the availability of electricity has been scarce lately, so is the availability of heating throughout the dorm. Unlike the ghosts, who can’t differentiate between hot and cold (unless it’s magically sourced), you can. Unlike the ghosts who are already dead, you will die in this late winter cold. Grim has better control of his blue flames compared to when you first met him, so he can now essentially be his own heater. He seemed a bit too comfortable keeping himself warm and letting you freeze to death, considering you’re the only reason he’s enrolled in this school.

You make do with what you have and your situation. Even when you gathered all the untorn and clean blankets and piled them on top of you last night, the cold still found its way underneath your cocoon. Gunter, the leader of a small bunch of wolves you had been taking care of during your first few weeks in Twisted Wonderland, must have seen you struggling to stave off the cold and settled himself next to you during the night followed by his brother, his sister, and finally Gunter’s mate and their pups.

Of course, with three full-grown wolves and four chubby wolf babies as your immediate heat sources, you overheated in no time and had to throw off all your covers and strip down to your underclothes in the middle of the night since your pajamas had quickly gotten soaked in sweat (and most definitely covered in their thick fur). A cold shower is just what you need to clean up after a long night drenched in sweat.

You also need to clean your sheets, but without electricity, your washer and dryer are out of order for the time being…

Dammit.

Cold showers suck, but once the ice-cold water hits your back, it woke you the hell up. You probably spent only five minutes in there before you quickly rinsed off and got out because of how unbearable the ice water was.

Once you’re properly toweled dried, you head to your closet and change. You put on clothes you don’t mind getting covered in dirt and sweat; a simple wool sweatshirt and some overalls lined with thick fleece. You also put on a pair of knitted crew socks and secure them to your leg with a pair of garters.

Right as you snap the final metal clasp on the knotted fabric, you feel a familiar bump on your shoulder. Gunter is giving you his best pleading face he can manage. Most people likely wouldn’t fall for it, what with the many scars littering across his body and face, making him look scary rather than cute. You feel a little tug in your heart. Luckily, you’re all dressed up and ready to start your day, so you quickly straighten up and usher him downstairs to give him his well-deserved treat. You grab your phone before you exit your room so you can peruse it on your way.

As you read over old texts and useless emails, a new notification comes in. It’s another message. As surprised as you are to receive a message so early in the morning (Ace and Deuce are likely still snoring and drooling into their pillows at this hour), it is the sender of the text that makes your slowed strides halt completely.

Good morning. I hope you had a pleasant and well-deserved night of rest. I’m currently getting ready to head over to the Ramshackle dorm to help you with your harvesting, as I promised. The coat you’ve made and gifted me during the holidays also fits perfectly and is by far the most comfortable piece of clothing I now own.

Thank you again for your most generous gift. I will inform you when I have arrived.

Yours truly,

Malleus Draconia

You can’t help but smack your palm on your forehead. You’re not annoyed or exasperated, it’s quite the opposite, actually. You’re happy that Malleus’s charm can somehow manifest even within a text message. In fact, this isn’t the first time he’s sent you a message formatted and written like a formal letter. If someone were to look at the small messaging history between you two, they’d see that a great majority of it is just Malleus sending you these long strings of text. They would also find your messages, or rather, your poor and embarrassing attempts at mimicking his language and style (he says he gets a laugh out of them, so maybe they’re as bad as you think). There’s also always a follow-up message, gently reminding and encouraging him to relax and not worry about offending you for speaking casually for you.

His response is always the same, and it makes your stomach feel strangely fuzzy.

You have earned my respect, now I must strive to earn yours.

It’s only been a little over a month since he dropped the bombshell that was his desire for your friendship to evolve into a proper, romantic relationship. To say it surprised you is another understatement. You were thoroughly flabbergasted once your mind finally registered his words as genuine. To hear him say “I love you” and direct such a powerful statement towards you was truly the last thing you expected since arriving in this strange world.

But through all the outer uncertainties there was one thing you were certain of, your inner uncertainties. Malleus is a dear friend of yours. Even amongst Ace or Deuce, two individuals who have been with you since the beginning and nearly every overblot incident that has come your way, Malleus holds a special place in your heart as your dearest friend.

But a friend is all he’s ever been in your mind. There was truly never an instance where you pondered or even held some amount of desire or expectation that your friendship could evolve into something more. You felt like a total prick during the end of his confession, asking him if you could sit on his words for a while and come back to him when you have a more certain and final answer to give. Watching the hope and nervousness in his eyes turn into one of pure and utter sadness and even embarrassment, yet he willed himself to conceal his heartbroken emotions back for your sake. It hurt like hell. What was supposed to be an exciting and relaxing end-of-winter-break party in Scarabia’s dorm (and an apology party for Jamil’s actions against you), turned awkward. Neither of you stayed any longer once you went your separate ways.

Despite what had happened, when you received a proper smartphone (and a proper phone plan to boot) as a gift for Christmas, one of the first things you did was transfer all your old contacts into the new device. The first person you messaged was Malleus, wanting to check in on him after your last encounter and to wish him a happy holiday. He answered back in a matter of minutes, much to your surprise. While he’s not the most tech-savvy, your major concern was whether he was holding up well after what happened and if you guys were going to remain as friends. You went on a whole tangent, trying your best to not sound so desperate and ensure that your response is in no way his fault because it most certainly is not. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s you.

Gunter suddenly tenses up. His fur instinctually puffs out, trying to appear bigger in anticipation of whatever threat he’s detected in the kitchen. Metallic clanking and clashing come from underneath the kitchen island where you store all the pots, pans, and heavy-duty appliances. A loud and harsh crash riles up Gunter enough that he feels the need to growl at whatever is underneath the cupboard.

You quietly move past him and wave your arm, signaling him to move back a bit. He listens to your orders and takes a few slow steps back. You position yourself on the side of the cabinet, fingertips pressing onto the top of the door to prepare to open.

“On my mark,” you whisper to Gunter. “One... Two…Three!”

You yank the door open, and Gunter quickly launches himself towards the potential threat. Though, not a second passes before he’s suddenly skidding across the floor, trying to immediately halt himself. He barely avoids hitting his head against the wood and giving himself a nasty bruise. When you ask him what’s wrong, he sticks his head into the cabinet and pulls out the apparent intruder.

It’s Blossom, a young fawn you rescued from the rose gardens of the Heartslaybul dorm. It was during the preparation of the unbirthday party near the start of the school year that subsequently led to dorm leader Riddle’s overblot. Cater assigned Grimm, Ace, Deuce, and yourself to paint the roses red with him. On top of rose painting duty, Cater was also on the lookout for a supposed ‘rose thief’ who had been snagging some roses from their garden right from under their noses. The scoundrel they were looking for was the fawn before you. From the way he still wobbled on his feet, he wasn’t even a month old when you initially rescued him. He’s lucky you found him when you did. His front leg was caught in a rusted and dull, but full-sized bear trap they set up in case the thief was a wild animal.

“What are you doing in there?” you ask the little troublemaker. “Probably trying to find a snack to chew on, huh?”

Blossom thrashes, trying to break free from Gunter’s hold on his scruff. He of course fails, but not without giving out a distressed scream and trying to plead for forgiveness by giving you his best innocent look. You shake your head before looking up at the small clock hung up on the wall above the refrigerator. It runs on battery so you have to worry about the time no longer being correct when the house lacks power.

It’s 6:15, still way too early. You tell Gunter to let go of Blossom and he does it without argument. Blossom quickly runs up to you, using your own body as a foothold to jump up into your arms. Once you have a hold of him, he bombards your face with little licks and nuzzles of his snout. While this action is normal and you would gladly accept it, you know better than to think it’s not the fawn’s attempts at trying to distract you from his misdeed.

“If you’re looking for the sugared flower petals, you won’t have any luck down there,” you tell him. He immediately stops his loving ministrations and gives out a disappointingly snort before relaxing in your arms.

You chuckle and give him a few apologetic pets on the head as you walk over to one of the upper cupboards and rummage around the various jars, trying to locate the dried venison for Gunter. You also grab a jar placed far in the back with the aforementioned candied rose petals Blossom was most definitely looking for. The moment you open the jar and the heavy scent of sweetness and floral whiffs in the air, Blossom begins to excitedly thrash about in your arms and tries to stick his head into the container. Luckily, the small nubs on his head, his newly budding antlers, stop him from reaching too deep.

You spend the next few minutes feeding your companions their early morning treat. The doorbell rings as you let Blossom lick the last specks of sugar off of your now damp palm. After rinsing your hands off and drying them, you head to the door. You open it and take in the sight of a newly arrived Malleus, dressed in a simple black dress shirt and a pair of loose-fitting linen pants you made for him when he expressed discomfort over his PE uniform the last time he helped you in your garden.

“Good morning!” you greet him as brightly as you can without being too loud.

“A good morning to you as well,” he greets back. Unlike you, who is still groggy and slow, he seems properly energized despite the time. You’re jealous. You’ve been waking up at the crack of dawn for years, at least a decade now, yet your body isn’t used to the early routine. Though compared to the hundreds of years Malleus has on you, you probably won’t show any sign of improvement until your hairs are gray.

“Have you eaten yet?” Malleus asks.

You shake your head. “The electricity is out, so I can’t use the stove or open the fridge too often.”

“Crowley still hasn’t replaced your generator?”

“No,” you frown. “Every time I try to bring it up he either gives an outlandish excuse or just flat out tells me I don’t need a new one.”

His eyebrows pressed together, clearly upset as you are at the headmaster’s failure as your caretaker. You reassure him it’s fine. Everyone in the dorm has been saving money for emergencies like this, and it just so happens that the money you’ll make for selling the produce you collect today will bring in just enough to buy a brand new generator. You’ll be out of electricity for another week, two at most, but have enough firewood and nonperishable foods to last until then.

“You should at least make yourself some coffee,” Malleus urges. “It’s bad to work on an empty stomach. You've said so yourself.”

“I will once Grim and the ghosts wake up,” you reassure. “For now, let’s head to the back and get started. There’s a lot to harvest, so the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish up.”

He’s clearly unhappy at your dismal of his concerns. You know that being so nonchalant towards a fae is rude, but you don’t want to worry him with your own issues. You also have no desire to eat or drink, not this early in the morning at least. If you tell him as much, he’ll probably freak out like he did last time, thinking you were unwell and forcing you to lie in bed for the rest of the day.

Yes, you could have pushed back and argued that you were fine, but it’s very hard to tell him “no” when his intentions are purely out of concern for your well-being. Better to let him hover over you and see that you’re fine than to leave him stewing in his anxieties in silence.

“What have you been growing this season?” Malleus asks as he tugs on the loaned gardening gloves you handed him.

“The usual spread. Some potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. The only fresh additions I planted are some peas and kale. Oh, and broccoli!”

“Did the crops hold well when you were gone?”

“They did thanks to the ghosts. The heat from the fire faeries around the campus also made them easier to protect from the cold,” you explain. “I should probably give them some type of exotic wood as a little thank you gift.”

“You can never go wrong with a bit of mahogany,” Malleus says as he ties back his hair.

You hand him a straw hat, one that you weaved to accommodate for his black horns. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

“Your welcome,” he smiles at you before turning back to your garden. “So where shall we start first?”

“I’ll work on picking the cabbage heads. You can cut off the pea pods and we’ll go from there.”

“Very well. I’ll follow your lead.”

It’s 8 a.m. You know this because Ace and Deuce are woken up at this hour by Riddle and one of the first things they do is bombard you with text messages which usually forces you to turn your phone on silent mode. Despite it being late winter, you’re already working up a sweat from the repetitive and demanding motions of picking and carrying around baskets full of vegetables and cleaning them. Malleus is no better, hand continuously raising to his face to wipe away the constant wetness clinging to his forehead. You know he’s not used to manual labor like you are, so you try to bring him a pail of water every so often so he can stay properly hydrated.

“Oh my, you’re already up?”

You turn around to see who’s speaking to you and see one of the ghosts that live with you and Grim in Ramshackle floating towards you.

“Good morning!” you greet him. “Did you need something?”

“No no,” he shakes his head. “I just came to check up on my bees and saw you already hard at work.”

The ghost (Franklin is his name, but you all call him Frankie for short by his insistence), affectionately ruffles your hair with his large white palm. He’s one of the tamer ghosts, but he’s still capable of pulling a prank on you or his fellow housemates now and then. You and he have been cultivating and maintaining a small beehive since October, but he does most of the work and maintenance since he has more experience in the ways of beekeeping than you from when he was alive.

Frankie does a quick once over of the garden, his scanning gaze doubling back at seeing Malleus carefully rinse a couple of heads of broccoli.

“How long has he been here?”

“Since 6:30,” you answer back. “Why?”

“No one gets up that early unless it’s for someone they fancy,” he says rather nonchalantly, but the way he quickly side-eyes you show that he’s clearly talking about you. You try your best to appear unaffected and give a “Is that right?” type of hum, but your efforts are in vain since he just laughs at you.

“If even you know, that means he’s got it bad.”

You say nothing back because you honestly don’t know what to say, or if you should. You’re content to just go back to plucking potatoes out from the ground, but Frankie doesn’t seem to want to leave you alone just yet. He asks you to come with him to the greenhouse where the hive is being kept. The small glass enclosure also houses some flowers and herbs you use for cooking or medicine.

You quickly close the door behind you once you enter, reveling in the warmer air that hits your face. While Frankie lights his cigar and gets a heavy cloud of smoke going (his personal method of keeping the bees calm), he has you open the top and carefully pull out the panels one by one while he checks for any signs of a decaying hive and ensures the queen is alive and healthy. One of your initial worries about beekeeping was getting stung, but Frankie reassured you it’ll only happen if you purposely upset the bees or fail to care for the hives consistently. Now, you gladly let the buzzing honeybees wander around your bare skin.

As Frankie pulls out his cigar from between his lips and taps off the ashes into the respective ashtray, he looks over at you and asks, “Is everything ok?”

You give him a confused expression as you snap the cover for the hive back into place. “I’m fine?”

“You sure? Because if you ask me, you don’t seem like it.”

“I mean, I already have a pile of schoolwork I need to finish and a rundown dorm to take care of. I’m as ok as anyone in my position can be-“

“I’m not talking about any of that,” he interrupts. “I’m talking about you. Forget about Grim and your studies. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” you answer again.

“Are you sure?”

Well, when he puts it that way, even he must be able to see that you’re clearly not doing alright. In fact, you haven’t been alright since you were literally kidnapped and held against your will in the Scarabia dorm. Luckily everything worked out fine for everyone else, but not so much for you. You’ve noticed that your appetite is waning and you wake up multiple times during the night because you don’t feel safe, even in your own room.

Malleus’s confession unfortunately was another wrench being thrown at you. With your hands already so full of this and that, you’re struggling to figure out what needs a priority and which issues you need to either drop entirely or find someone trustworthy to take care of it in your stead. It’s hard to ask people for help when they either find a convenient reason to say no or you feel as if you can’t trust them to do something as simple as watering your plants. The only person you feel you can trust and ask for help is Malleus, and things aren’t exactly as they were between the two of you.

“Talk to me kiddo,” Frankie prods. “What’s been eating at you?”

He lifts his ashtray and makes to snuff out his cigar so he can focus on speaking to you, but you hastily reach over and stop him. You take the smoke from him and bring it up to your lips and puff a few grey clouds. Strangely enough, it tastes rather pleasant, floral, and creamy. You didn’t expect to taste like this because of the way it smells, like soil that was just freshly rained on.

“Sorry,” you hand it back to him. “I haven’t eaten and I’m practically running on fumes.”

“That’s alright,” he says, handing it back to you. “You look like you need it more than me.”

Malleus carefully blows small bits of green fire onto his freezing fingertips, trying to warm them up after being drenched in the icy water from the water pump. He looks over his shoulder, over the stalks of peas, towards you. You’re still in the greenhouse and frantically moving your lips. He can see your eyes are glistening with a fresh layer of… tears? You don’t allow a single drop to get past your lids, wiping them just at the last second before they can pass over the threshold.

He’s only ever seen you cry one other time, when he came to your rescue in Scarabia over the break. He initially thought he frightened you with his aggressive display of magic. Once the dust settled and the blot on Jamil was expunged, no one was more shocked than he was when you boldly ran straight towards him and jumped into his arms. It was all he ever wanted, what his mind dreamed of every single time he closed his eyes. He could no longer brush off the fluttering in his stomach as the mere excitement of making and spending time with his first genuine friend. He was determined to keep his newfound affections for you with him under lock and key, not willing to risk ruining your close-knit friendship with his selfish and potentially one-sided desires.

Your desperate embrace, your toughie exterior lowering to that of a sniveling and shaking human, gave Malleus the impression that the only reason you would display such vulnerability before him was that you reciprocated his sentiments. It gave him a sense of confidence he never knew he was lacking, usually so sure of himself most other times. It made his chest burn with an aching desire to say “to hell with it all” and spill his heart right then and there.

When you extended the invitation you received from Kalim to him, he saw it as his proper opportunity to let his affections be known. He was upset (according to Lilia, more than usual) that he had to take Sebek and Silver along with him for the usual security, but he was determined to get them distracted long enough so he can pull you aside and confess to you without fear of interruption or letting his personal affairs be known to anyone else, at least, for as long as he can keep something so monumental under wraps.

As a prince, he has been taught to look at the long term for each of his decisions, as they carry substantial weight. The long term of pursuing a relationship with you meant having to deal with the prejudices and stigma against humans that still live within the hearts of his people. For once in his life, he didn’t want to think like an heir. As he watches you continue to talk to one of Ramshackle’s ghosts with increasing frustration, he realizes his love utterly blinded him back then. The only long-term his rose-tinted mind could comprehend was of the happy moments he had long conjured in his head becoming a reality.

You didn’t explicitly reject him, however; he knows your behavior well enough to know that once his feelings were laid bare before you, you would not take them into your arms and hand yours over in return. Arms crossed and avoidance of eye contact, you do this when you’re nervous or unsure, sometimes both. He held onto the self-indulgent hope that you’d show him what you look like when flustered. Perhaps you’d stutter?

You did stutter when you spoke up, but they were not the words that he wanted, that he thought he was, going to hear.

“Malleus...I’m so sorry…”

“Ah, you’re here early!”

“It’s just that…I don’t think I can…”

“Hey! Are you listening to me? You better not be ignoring me on purpose!”

“It’s not that I’m telling you I don’t feel the same way, but I can’t exactly say that I do. It’s just... I’ve never- “

“Tsu-no-ta-rou!” Grim’s shrill voice, still a bit riddled with drowsiness, still pierce Malleus’s eardrums and nearly causes him to drop the vegetable in his hand. “Pay attention to me when I’m speaking!”

“Quiet,” he growls at the monster. “If you need your master, they’re in the greenhouse. Though, you might want to come back another time.”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

Malleus lifts Grim from the back of his fuzzy robe (you must have made it and gifted it to him during the holidays) and points to you. Frankie has one of his translucent hands on your shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly now and then while he speaks. You were no longer wiping your face so furiously, allowing your tears to fall and drip off of your jaw and wet your shirt as you listened to your fellow dorm resident.

“What happened? Did you smash all the tomatoes again?” Grim cranes his neck to look at Malleus accusingly.

“No, I didn’t. Those are out of season.”

“Maybe it’s about what happened at Scarabia,” Grim muses. “They haven’t been sleepin’ too good since we came back, y’know?”

Malleus nearly drops the cat. “They haven’t?”

“Nah,” the cat answers, far too casually and dismissively for the fae’s liking.

“This is news to me,” Malleus says, almost whispering to himself. He’s sad, almost offended, at the fact that you haven’t told him you’ve been having some difficulties this whole time. You normally keep him up to date with your personal life. He’s even more offended once he realizes that you’ve been worrying and reassuring him that your friendship with him isn’t ruined after what’s happened.

There’s a small voice in the back of his mind, conniving and twisted, that feeds into his already prevalent belief that your unwillingness to share with him your personal problems anymore is a sign that he hasn’t earned your respect. It’s a ridiculous explanation, but no amount of reassuring from either you or himself is going to stop his Mind from asking such a multi-sided question. Surely, if you thought admirably of him, you’d continue to allow him to bear witness to your moments of weakness and vulnerability. He feels close to you, connected to you in a way he’s never felt. He can be slow and downright miss some references to your jokes and behavior. You always put on a face of understanding, but is he so lost that your patience has worn paper-thin?

Are his feelings for you truly one-sided? Is he still jumping to conclusions too soon and just needs to give you more time and space? Did he just set a course for a ruined friendship or could his hastiness have been a fruitful gamble?

If it’s not iron that kills him, it’s the uncertainty within his heart and mind.

A shrill whistle pierces through the air and Malleus’s eardrums. Grim hisses at the sudden noise and the hairs on his neck stand up. Even Frankie and you can hear and turn your heads towards the source despite still being in the middle of a conversation. The one who whistled was another one of the ghosts who live in Ramshackle. Johnathan is his name, usually shortened to Johnny. His sunken cheekbones make him look unassuming, but you’ve rightly warned Malleus never to turn your back on that one for too long. It’s a miracle that you can keep up with all their shenanigans.

“I got the generator to start up and made some coffee!” Johnny happily announces. “Come get it while it and the dorm are nice and warm!”

“I’ll have a cup or two, so long as there’s a ton of cream and sugar!” Grim says whilst smiling. “And I ain’t skimping this time on the sugar!”

“You better if you know what’s good for you,” you sternly say, now out of the greenhouse along with Frankie. “We’re short on sugar and I’m not stocking up till next weekend.”

“Whaaaat?!” Grim exclaims, his lower jaw almost reaching the floor. “Since when did you become such a cheapskate?”

Everyone, including Malleus, did a sharp intake of breath as soon as the words passed the cat’s mouth. Everyone turns their head towards you, awaiting your reaction to Grim’s comment. This isn’t the first time Grim has gotten lippy with you and, given his nature as a mischievous little monster (a common trait between Ramshackle’s residents, Malleus is now noticing), it won’t be his last no matter how badly you scare or pull a fast one under his clawed feet. Even when your face is all puffy and wet with semi-dried tears, the look of “oh you’re in it now” is still so panic-inducing to everyone, ghosts, and feline alike. To the sole Fae present, he thinks of you as nothing short of adorable and wants nothing more than to wipe your messy face clean.

“Well, if you want more sugar there is one way you can get some more.”

“W-W-What is it?” Grim says, pudgy body shaking and sinking into the comfort and small safety of his fuzzy robe.

You approach him and bend down to grab him by the back of his neck, lifting him so he’s at your eye level before deadpanning, “Get a job, Make some money, and then buy your own.”

Once you set Grim down, he scrambles back into the home with an almost comical amount of fear in his eyes. He screams about how he’s never getting a job even if it kills him and his continued determination to find the small money vault you have hidden around the dorm and spend it all on canned tuna. Johnny, Frankie, and you all give a unison chant of good luck to him before he disappears completely.

“Has he made any progress in his search?” Malleus asks.

“Our money vault isn’t even in the house, so no,” Johnny answers, resulting in you and Frankie cackling and high-five one another.

With the power back on, you announce that it was time for a well-deserved break. It’s your turn to make breakfast and you immediately begin to ask everyone for their preferences. Frankie cuts you off and insists he take over your duties for the day. You normally would protest and insist to whoever was offering to cover for you it wasn’t a problem for you at all. “I enjoy doing [insert chore], so it’s fine!” is your usual go-to reasoning, but not this time.

Malleus notices the way you make to protest as usual, but you quickly back down and just let Frankie go ahead inside to take over for you. In normal Ramshackle fashion, Frankie mentions the cigar you were puffing and waving around earlier and says that you owe him another one, particularly an artisanal one that he’s recently read about in the local newspaper and has been aching to try.

“You got any more highly specific goods you want me to fight tooth and nail for?” you sneer.

“No, just the cigar will do,” he says before turning around to head back inside. Before he can close the door behind him all the way he pulls it back and says, “If you get it sometime this week I’ll buy a new bag of sugar.”

You whisper an impressive string of curses under your breath. Malleus has to restrain the urge to laugh at your colorful vocabulary.

“In that case, I hope your schedule is free tomorrow night. I’ll have it by then.”

Frankie gives you a thumbs up before heading back inside. Once the door behind him clicks shut, you turn towards Malleus and he physically feels his body shift from somewhat relaxed to stiff and proper. You notice this and crinkle your nose a bit, something to do when you find something endearing or as a way of silently giggling. Malleus watches with such an unnecessary amount of focus as you reach up to adjust his straw hat and wipe a bit of dirt off the collar of his shirt.

“I’m sorry for leaving you hanging back there,” you say as you pick off a stray leaf that somehow got tangled in his dark locks. “I’m also sorry you had to see me crying like that. I’ve just been so tired lately.”

There it is again. That damn twisting ache right in his heart.

“It’s fine,” he reassures you. “But if it isn’t too rude of me to ask, is your lack of sleep really all that’s wrong with you?”

You give out a long sigh. “I’m guessing Grim told you a bit of what’s been happening since winter break?”

“He has.”

Your arms cross and the ground suddenly becomes more interesting. You’re unsure, but the way your eyebrows press together is a sign that you’re conflicted. Malleus feels his frostbitten hands accumulate a layer of sweat as you silently mull over your thoughts. Despite the pain and hesitance in his heart, he wills himself to grasp you by the arm and pull you into an awkward hug. He knows it’s not exactly what you might need at the moment, and he was fully preparing you to push him away. He’s relieved when you bring your arms around his torso and reciprocate the embrace.

“I’m tired,” you sigh

“You haven’t been resting well, so it makes sense.“

“No,” you shake your head, the tips of your hair tickling Malleus’s neck. “It’s not just a lack of sleep that’s making me feel exhausted. After what happened with Scarabia, especially with Jamil, I don’t feel safe anymore.”

“Are you afraid?” he asks. To think of you as fearful is an entirely foreign concept for him when you’ve only ever been confident and certain of yourself since the first time he met you.

“Yeah, I am,” you admit without skipping a beat.

Considering what you told him, Malleus thinks your fear is justified. You have no defense against magic…

He fills a strain in his neck as his entire body suddenly seized up. You notice this and pull away to ask him what’s wrong. “Nothing,” he quickly dismisses, but you don’t let him go silent on you.

“If,” he hesitates. He’s thinking too rashly already, yet he’s still so compelled to act upon his thoughts. “Should anyone attempt to do you harm, I swear upon my name and title that I will do whatever it takes to protect you.”

He means every word, but you seem to take it far too casually than he would have liked. You press your face against his shoulder and laugh against his skin, your breath bringing him some much-needed temporary warmth. Such an ordinary action, yet it causes another pang within his heart. It settles next to the one that arose before, but he bites his tongue and endures it for your sake.

“Maybe you could play that electric violin for whoever comes after me,” you jest.

As embarrassing as it is to hear that you know about that incident (he’ll have to reprimand Lilia for telling you about that), he can’t help but laugh along with you. If making a bunch of teenagers’ foam from the mouth amuses you, then so be it.

“Thank you for offering to get your hands dirty for my sake,” you say. “That’s one thing I respect about you. You take care of the people you care for.”

His body goes still once again. “Is that right?” is all his mind can wrap around and say.

“Yes, oh Wise and Great Lord Malleus. I do, in fact, respect you.”

He cringes at that title. It’s something he has heard Sebek try to enforce you to refer to Malleus as, which you never do purely so you can get a rise out of his loyal guard. Before he can ask you to never call him that again, a bunch of howl’s ring out, and the two of you pull away from each other. The wolf’s howling is usually a sign that food is ready, which you seem rather eager to get to as you interlock your arm with his and drag him inside with you.

He looks back at his basket of still dirty vegetables. “What about-“

“It’s alright! I’m not throwing a fuss over a few broccoli heads!”

Crispy bacon, over easy and scrambled eggs, and a mountain of sizzling hash browns. Once everyone grabs a plate and sits down at the dining table (Malleus sticks close to you, hoping he can sit next to you), they grab whatever pieces of food they want in whichever quantity. Somewhere in the next room over, a faint melody plays through the speaker of an old record player. The vintage singer has a rather cheeky attitude in her vocals but with the accompanying music, it all comes together harmoniously. It’s perfect for a rather excitable breakfast.

It seems you never told the ghosts too many details about your sudden disappearance during the break. You downplay the true extent of your dilemma as you willingly giving your time and effort to help a desperate Jamil figure out what was causing his normally kind dorm leader to have a sudden personality switch. The ghosts listen carefully, and as you gradually get to the big climax that is Jamil’s betrayal and overblot, followed by Malleus’s sudden appearance, they’re all practically hanging on the edge of their seats. Your tale even intrigues the wolves and Blossom. They gather and settle near the legs of your chair, ushering you to continue your story by whining and scratching your ankle.

You don’t exaggerate Malleus’s part in your tale, something he greatly appreciates. You tell them how things happened just as they did: Grey clouds suddenly covering the sky and the occasional peak of lightning through their fogginess. Just when it seems like Jamil has the upper hand and is going to put an end to Grim and you, as well as Jade, Floyd, and Azul of Octavinelle, Malleus appears out of nowhere and effortlessly zaps the blot right out of the vice dorm leader of Scarabia.

“That deserves some praise,” Benjamin, the third of your ghostly residents, raises his half-filled mug of coffee and extends it towards the middle of the table. “To Malleus!”

Everyone, including you and Grim, raises your glasses and repeats his chant. “To Malleus!”

“To me, I suppose,” Malleus half-heartedly raises his own cup. “It really wasn’t much effort, or any praise really.”

He catches you looking at him in his peripheral and he feels a lump form in this throat that he immediately swallows. “I simply did what I believed you would have done for me if our positions were reversed.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there,” you say after swallowing a hefty mouthful of scrambled eggs. “But it’s nice knowing you have my back. It makes me feel safe.”

“Safe?” Malleus is surprised to hear you say this, considering what you told him earlier. “I make you feel safe?”

Now it’s your turn to be surprised. “Y-Yeah. I guess you do.”

“You guess?”

“You do,” you say, more definitively this time. “I promise. If you didn’t you’d know.”

He can’t help but laugh. “I can only imagine what interacting with you would be like then.”

“Probably not that good, or not at all. I steer clear of people I don’t particularly like.”

His eyebrows raise in intrigue as he sips his now lukewarm coffee. “What makes you dislike someone?”

“I dislike people I have no respect for,” you say casually. Malleus thinks you might be joking or poking fun at him, but how you take the time to look up to him while you busy yourself with feeding Gunter a few bits of bacon clearly means you’re trying to tell him something secretly. It’s definitely something along the lines of, “I don’t know where this mindset of me not respecting you came from, but it’s a load of bullshit and you need to get that thought out of your head.”

Even within his head, your language is still so vulgar and blunt. Only you would talk to him in such a rude manner.

But he respects that part about you.

[amydancepants-peralta]

mr mendes just released a new song & i was wondering if you could write something inspired by the line: "i wonder what it's like to be loved by you" 😌✨

Ericaaa I loved this prompt! 💕 Of course I had to throw in some Pining because it’s so good ... hope you enjoy! (here it is on AO3)

to be loved by you 

It’s a secret to absolutely no-one that Amy Santiago is the kind of woman that likes to excel in any skillset.  Unapologetic in her badass-ery, she can (and has) chase a perp through the boroughs of Brooklyn in boots that have a higher heel than three of her male colleagues put together.  Her finely tuned memory - the same one that has led Trivia Newton John to seven straight victories - helped solve a series of long-dead case files, and her problem solving skills are the reason that one of the city’s biggest kingpins is currently behind bars.   

With this in mind, one could consider it safe to say that Amy regretting her natural ability to ace any situation would be up there with hell freezing over, or for a flock of pigs to soar across the sky. 

But tonight, here in Shaw’s bar as she watches Jake have what seems to be a lovely date with Sophia; Amy just might be, if only maybe a little, slightly regretting her highly graded observation skills (yes, the same ones that pushed her into the highest percentile when graduating from the academy - which she very rarely brags about, and she really should - it was mentioned in the commissioners speech and everything).  

To be fair, it wasn’t all bad.  She could, for example; hear the jukebox in the corner, playing Come on Eileen for the fifth time in a row - unknowingly settling into a duet with squelching sneakers as a bunch of drunken frat guys danced, all of them too far gone to notice any repetition.  Plus, she could pick up on the subtle click of the acrylic nails on the woman at a neighbouring table, listening to them tap against a series of her friends’ photographs, rotating between descriptions of priddy and gawgeous.  

Mixed with the scent of spilled beer and day-old peanuts, it was exactly the combination that to others may appear seedy, but to Amy and the squad, just seemed … familiar.  Shaw’s was their watering hole, the basement bar each could disappear into and drink to forget their days, and despite the five empty glasses on her table and the half-full one in her hand, Amy was finding it incredibly difficult to stop noticing just how sweet Jake was with his girlfriend.  

Even more impossible was to stop imagining what it would be like if she were the one standing near the dart board, with Jake’s arm resting comfortably over her shoulders.   

It had all started earlier today, when she had glanced over at her partner just in time to pick up on the tiny little smile that grew on his face when he noticed a text from Sophia.

(Okay, it’s possible that it had actually started back at The Maple Drip Inn, with that look he’d given her after maybe, yes, a little.  It had definitely led to a series of Thoughts after Teddy’s departure, of which she’d only given herself just that night to think about.)

(Except ‘that night’ then turned into that week, and okay fine then it had turned into ‘just that month'; and now here she is, several weeks later; completely unable of getting Jake Peralta off of her mind, and it’s becoming very likely that this is more than just a little crush.)

It had been so endearing to see, that tiny glimpse of joy and enchantment as he’d read Sophia’s message - just fleeting enough for Amy to wonder if anybody had ever reacted to a message from her with such glee.  (Teddy, she remembers, preferred not to text; and would instead express his affections by saving her the last bottle of his favourite pilsner, or brewing a new concoction ‘inspired by her’ … sweet, but somehow didn’t hold the same sentiment.)

So she’d kept her eyes glued to the computer screen in front of her as she listened to Jake pick up the phone and order a bunch of flowers to be delivered to Sophia’s office - using his debit card, and not a combination of the five questionably balanced credit cards under his name - which in itself is huge.  Pretended not to notice the multiple kiss emojis in his reply, or the soft tune that he hummed for a few minutes after, focusing intensely on the case file in front of her as she described a recent interrogation in finite detail.  Kept up the facade of all that stuff with us is in the past as he recounted a romantic weekend to their squad in the break room - laughing along in all the right places, doing her very best to keep the wistfulness out of her eyes.  

And all the while, Amy’s mind had kept contemplating if she would ever get to know what it would be like to date someone like Jake: to have somebody who would take all the black and whites of her life and show her the beautiful greys in-between. 

So when he’d shown up at Shaw’s this evening, with Sophia’s hand carefully wrapped around his own and a grin that announced his contentment to anyone who cared to look; Amy had felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest.  Her painted smile had just lasted until the couple retreated to the corner for a crazily competitive game of darts, and Amy had decided tonight would be a great opportunity to drown her sorrows in a few glasses of whiskey, doing her absolute best not to notice all the little things she will never have.

Like the way Jake would punctuate each congratulatory high five with a kiss, even when it meant that his girlfriend had beaten him at a game.  The gentle way he steered them away from a rambunctious crowd, keeping an eye on the raised voices as his unaware girlfriend played her shot and came so close to hitting the bullseye.  Or the way Sophia’s hand would rest on Jake’s chest as he held her in his arms (just the way that Amy wishes she could do), and the way she would laugh so happily as he commented on the drunk guys dancing near them.  

It was all very simple, but undeniably sweet, and Amy doesn’t know how she ever doubted that Jake would be anything but. 

“Your covert skills need work, Santiago.”

The chair beside Amy scrapes angrily against the worn floorboards and she turns, startled by the interruption, quietly praying that her face isn’t quite as red as it suddenly feels.  Terry, far more interested in taking the last sip of his scotch than commenting on her appearance, settles in to his new location next to her, and his glass hits the soaking cardboard coaster with a slap.  

“Wha-huh?  Covert skills?  You really must be drunk, Sarge.  We’re not even on a stakeout right now.  Unless you’re talking about us staking out the contents of that fridge behind the bar haha!”  

(She’s rambling - she knows she’s rambling; but cannot stop the desperate need to pretend that she hadn’t just been completely busted for spending her entire evening staring at a life she may never know.)  

“Ugh.  Okay fine.”  Her mouth stretches out into a cringe, eyes flickering to the colleagues Terry had just walked away from.  “How noticeable are we talking here?”

“Noticeable enough that Charles has spent the last 40 minutes lamenting on ‘the beautiful tragedy of unrequited love’”.  Dropping his air quotes, Terry rolls his eyes, one eyebrow lowering as he returns to his drink.  “He lost me when he started quoting poetry.  Terry loves Shakespeare, but he could do with a little less soliloquies - and a little more spirits - tonight.”

“Oh!  You know what, there was just a Shakespeare play in Polonsky that starred - ” Terry overlaps her last words with his own heavy voice, and Amy’s stops in it’s tracks.  

“Dianne Wiest.  Terry knows.  That was his segue, Amy.”

She nods, sensing the need to dig up.  “Should have known.  Charles loves his Wiest feasts.”  Terry grunts his assent, pressing his lips together as he savours another verse-less sip, and Amy seizes the opportunity to cast another furtive glance at the happy couple.  

“Seriously, though.  Just because Peralta hasn’t noticed, doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t.”

Amy brushes her hair to the side, swirling the liquid in her glass with her free hand.  “Okay, so maybe I haven’t been very subtle tonight, or whatever.”  Her gaze returns to Jake, drawn to him like a magnet, and her heart squeezes once more.  

To his credit, Terry gives her a moment; waiting for a silence to settle over their table before leaning forward in his chair, ignoring the sticky residue of the tabletop as he rests his arms on either side of his glass. 

“Out with it, Santiago.”

She shakes her head, swallowing hard to push down the burgeoning lump in her throat.  “They look really happy together, don’t they?  He looks … happy.”

Terry shrugs, glancing in the direction of Amy’s eye line.  “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“He does!  All shiny and cheerful and just .. happy.”

“I don’t know.  Terry remembers a time when you and Teddy looked just as content.”  His look is pointed, and followed by the unsubtle raise of his eyebrows.  Amy nods, draining the last of her drink.  Somehow, she has a feeling that Sophia’s underwear isn’t lined with mesh like Teddy’s had been (and even if it was, it would be some kind of inexplicably sexy mesh, for sure). 

“Sometimes things aren’t what they seem, sarge.”

“You know that works both ways, don’t you?”

Nodding again, Amy wipes her thumb along the smudged lipstick print on her glass, choosing to remain silent.  Terry didn’t get it - none of them got it, really.  She’d had her chance, the very first time the words romantic styles were uttered, and she’d let it slip away.  And now, she has to live with the consequences.  

Clearing his throat, Terry continues.  “I mean … she is a defence attorney, you know.”

“But see, even that isn’t something that I can fault.  Not fairly, anyway.”  Clocking the look of disbelief on Terry’s face, Amy shrugs defensively, waving her hand vaguely in Sophia’s direction.  “I know we all like to joke and call them evil, but really … all they’re doing is making us prove that our findings are beyond reasonable doubt.  If anything, it’s people like her that push us to do better - to work harder to make sure that we’re definitely charging the right person.  And as annoying as that can be, it’s definitely not a reason to hate her.”

“Kinda sounds like you do, though.”

She shakes her head, feeling the sense of defeat sink into her bones.  “I really don’t.  She’s incredibly smart, and funny and beautiful … she honestly looks like she should be in a commercial for shampoo or something.  She’s perfect for Jake, and I’m just …”

“You’re just … ?”

Shrugging, Amy slots her thumbnail into the edge of the coaster underneath her glass.  It, like her heart, had seen better days, and it was time for her to cut her losses.  “I’m just … going home.”

“What?  No.  Stay!  Our squad kicked butt this week, Amy.  We all deserve a drink.”

Painting another smile onto her face (she really is getting good at them), Amy pushes her seat away from the table, allowing herself one more glimpse at Jake’s smile before shaking her head at Terry.  “Sorry sarge, I just can’t seem to celebrate tonight.”

Heading towards the exit without a second thought, Amy doesn’t see Jake pull away from Sophia, taking a half step in the direction of the door as he watches her leave.  She doesn’t notice him pull out his phone, start to type a message before hesitating, pocketing it without hitting send.  The night moves on as Amy walks away, and the streets are deafeningly silent as soon as the bar door closes behind her.  

The sky seems to feel just as morose as Amy this evening, tiny droplets dropping onto her grey work blazer as she waits for a cab; too lost in her thoughts to take in the frivolity of a parting crowd.  As the rain increases and the splotches on her blazer turn into tiny Rorschach Tests she decides to give herself one more night - one last night of wishing for things that will never be. 

In the backseat on her ride home Amy twists her hands together, linking her fingers and imagining not for the first time that one hand was Jake’s (she would imagine similar .. later).  She thinks of what it could be like to have his warm presence near hers .. to have his hand resting on her leg, not out of possession but just to be near.  Watching him get out of the car first, only to turn and offer a helping hand for her exit, every time without fail.  

She pictures what it would be like to feel the brick exterior of her apartment against her back as Jake presses his soft lips against hers, kissing the life out of her, making her see stars before pulling her into the apartment for so much more.   

He wouldn’t always be the perfect partner - and lord knows, neither would she - but Amy knows that through it all he would remain her best friend, because even through all of this yo-yo pattern of denial and admittance, thats who Jake has been for her.  After all these years, he’s become the only one she wants to talk to, at any given moment of the day, who knows her coffee order better than his own and remembers her Abuela’s birthday, even when she hasn’t mentioned it in weeks.  

The scent of rain lingers in her apartment as Amy readies herself for bed, casting her pantsuit aside with drunken abandonment and giving her face a half-hearted wash before stumbling towards her bed.  She closes her eyes, the thoughts of what could have been still so loud in her quiet apartment, hugging the pillow beside her tightly while her mind begins to wander.  

As she finally drifts off to sleep that night, Amy tries not to remember the smile that Jake gave her as they danced so long ago at the community hall - that special kind of smile, that made her think that maybe it was solely for her - and tells herself once. and. for. all. that sometimes, life just doesn’t work out the way you’d hope.

* 

* * 

It’s a rush of cool air that alerts Amy to a brand new morning, the drop in temperature squashed as quickly as it arrives by the wrapping of a warm arm around her middle.  She smiles into the pillow as it completes its protective loop, letting her body get pulled closer to the human hot water bottle in the middle of her bed, and if there was a better way to wake up on a cold day, Amy is yet to see it.  

She lets out a sigh of comfort as the bridge of a prominent nose digs into her shoulder blade, feeling the warmth of his breath through her old academy shirt, nestling closer until her legs are well and truly tangled amongst his.  It’s late, later than she would normally allow herself to sleep, but the two of them were far too invested in basking in the afterglow of a rainy Saturday filled with sex and movies to consider leaving the bedroom anytime soon.  

Jake’s voice is rough, the remnants of a deep sleep obvious in his throat.  “Today’s Sunday, right?”

Amy nods, wriggling herself just free enough to turn within her boyfriend’s embrace.  His hair is sticking out on all ends - unaided, she is certain, by her hands the night before - and she runs the tip of her thumb along his right cheekbone.  Though his eyes are still closed, he leans into her touch, and she grins.  “Definitely Sunday.  A rainy Sunday, but part of the weekend all the same.”

He nods, the short and prickly fibres of his morning stubble scratching her palm.  “Good.  More time for time machine building.”

“… we’re building a time machine?”

“Yeah, one that lets us skip past all the boring work stuff, and leaves us with all the time in the world for more of this.  Kinda like that movie Click, but a lot less ‘trying to change the past’ stuff, and a lot more sex.”

She chuckles, and his left foot rubs along the side of her calf under the blanket.  “You’re crazy, Peralta.”  (Although, she will admit - the ‘a lot more sex’ part did sound kinda great.)

His eyelids flutter open, gaze growing soft as a smile stretches across his face.  “You’re beautiful, Santiago.”

Amy feels her cheeks begin to heat up, resisting the urge to cool herself down by tucking her hair away, completely unable to move as long as Jake continues to look at her like that.  There’s a pimple growing underneath the surface of her chin that is going to rival Mount Vesuvius, and her morning breath could probably wilt the flower pots living happily on her kitchen’s windowsill.  But here, in bed with her boyfriend of almost two years, she feels more beautiful than all of her best days put together.  

“I don’t think I’ve told you this today, but I love you, Jake.”

Leaning forwards, Jake’s soft lips press against Amy’s, and he winks as he pulls away.  “I mean, we’ve both been awake for a sum total of three minutes, so yeah, you’re pretty late with the love you’s today, babe.”

Her free hand flies out from under the cover, delivering an indignant smack to Jake’s chest, and he grabs it back before she can pull away, linking their fingers together and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.  “I love you too, Ames.  Even if you don’t want to build a time machine with me, I still love you.”

She laughs - a giggle that starts in her belly and bursts through her lungs, something that she’s been doing a lot more of these days - and pulls Jake in for a longer kiss, morning breath be damned.  

One day, in eight or so years time, they’ll have a son - a miniature version of Jake that, much like his father, runs to the beat of his own drum; and answers to the name Mac.  Amy will fall pregnant again, and when they explain to their son that he’s going to be a big brother, his response is so perfectly him that it makes Amy’s eyes tear up with laughter.  

For they are, by Mac’s decree, now officially a Ninja Turtle family.  He is Raphael (or ‘Rafel’), Jake Michelangelo due to his love of nunchaku, and Amy nabs Leonardo purely out of homage to one of her favourite artists.  The mini-Peralta still growing in her womb is, by default, Donatello (or Donatella, depending), and even though there was a time when Amy truly felt like she could never be this lucky, she will love their little family with all of her heart.  

But for now, she has Jake; and together they have warm bedsheets and no plans for a future that isn’t together - no matter what obstacles may be thrown their way.  

And Amy realises, as Jake begins to trace a series of kisses along her side of her neck; truly, being loved by him is better than she could have ever imagined.  

x

[the--highlanders]

Fandom asks: P, T?

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

I have never heard of aus ever, in my life,,

uhh okay I always wanted to do a team two-era companion backstory switch au? like, say, zoe was from the eighteenth century and jamie was from the future, or victoria was from the twentieth century and ben and polly were from the nineteenth. never really sat down and planned out what their roles would exactly have been or how it would affect them though!

if this is bc I said in the other ask that I wanted to do fairytale aus then I’ll pick one of the ones that @ettelwenailinon and I have living in our heads rent free so like. the little mermaid au, but the version of the story where she turns into seafoam at the end bc her love is unrequited. two’s fascinated by the human world and leaves it behind (bc running away from gallifrey parallels hgfjd) but because he’d done it for the love of a whole world rather than a specific person, there’s no way his love could ever be returned. so after a while his time is up and he’s turned into seafoam. chills in the sea for however many years and then one day finds someone walking on the beach talking to himself/the sea, meets jamie, and well, hey, turns out that the curse/spell that turned two human ends up getting a specific person to lock onto.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

oh yeah a bunch dfgjk. have some jamie headcanons:

- he’s gay and ace which (combined w/ internalised homophobia from his time period) makes it a bit harder for him to come to terms with being gay because there’s extra plausible deniability. what do you mean he’s in love with his man-shaped alien best friend, there’s no sexual attraction involved, it’s totally platonic

- he’s from drochaid sguideil (though he probably knew it just as sgudal - the bridge wasn’t built in his time) rather than skye. forgot what book the exact location came from (it’s one of the big finish short trips, maybe the one with the antarctic expedition?) but it just makes sense! easier access to the mainland for participation in the ‘45, and explains why kirsty knows the cave in the highlanders if her family’s land is situated around that area. also I am projecting and I would like him to be from the black isle thank you

- his father was a very staunchly stuart-supporting jacobite; his mother was less sure about the stuarts themselves but a strong believer that it would be better for scotland/the highlands to have them on the throne (like a lot of people she puts down the various crop failures through the 1730s-40s to their absence). jamie takes more after his mother than his father with that (see: his readiness to believe that prince charles fled after culloden rather than laying the blame with one of the generals, at a time when lord george murray was widely believed to be a traitor/a lot of the scottish jacobites felt that the irish jacobites had been too influential and given bad advice)

- actually he takes after his mother in a lot of ways! he might have been his father’s piping protege but he learnt his first songs at his mother’s knee. a lot of the folklore-y stuff he uses to rationalise the stuff he sees when travelling with two comes from her, so he thinks of her often

- he has one brother, a couple of years younger than he was, who also attended their father’s piping school but who chose to support the government army rather than the jacobites. jamie and his father were furious with him and they parted in anger. when he finds out that his brother had been the only person killed at the rout of moy (for the sake of the irl story that a maccrimmon piper was the only one to die, despite the doctor who universe supplanting the family onto the jacobite side) it’s a major source of guilt for jamie.

- he’s a weird horse kid. he liked hanging out with the horses and ponies his family owned/that were in his village, he was a pretty good rider, and he gets the hang of some future transport by comparing it to horses (kind of canon bc of the wheel of ice but w/e!)

- because his family are pipers to the laird they hold their land rent-free and permanently. by contrast he’s living in an area where the social structure is Very quickly changing as the landlords’ motivations are more more for-profit capitalist rather than kinship/military-based. most of the people around him are living on shorter leases and with higher and higher rents. jamie’s sympathetic with them, doesn’t like what’s happening when he gets old enough to become aware of it, and doesn’t quite know what to do with the fact that that’s not something he has to worry about even though it’s a very prevalent worry in his community.

[alethiometry]

How are you liking AC Valhalla so far? Any characters you love? Any characters you hate? Is there anyone as sexy as Brasidas?

hiiii thank you for asking!! i’m going to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

i’m really liking it so far! i have my gripes about gameplay mechanics and the buggy launch, but at this point i have either grown used to them or am happily experiencing stockholm syndrome and am just enjoying the game for what it is (and hoping the stuff that needs patching gets patched soon).

here are some things i love:

the voice acting is so good. SO GOOD!!!

eivor! she stands out among the protags of other ac games i’ve played because she always has this community about her. she’s a loved and respected leader to her people, they’re always happy to see her return to the settlement, she’s got her crew to back her up at a moment’s notice, there’s always portions of the main quests where she has companions fighting beside her.

basically all the other characters in ravensthorpe! they’re a fun bunch and a loving community and they have their quirks and i love hanging out with all of them. petra in particular is an absolute sweetheart and not a day goes by where i don’t feel awful for breaking up with her bc my goblin brain decided “lol i want to fuck my stepbrother’s wife who looks like kassandra in sweatpants”

HYTHAM IS A SWEETHEART. we love an assassin who is also, to use 2012 lingo, a pure and sweet cinnamon roll, too perfect for this world.

petting dogs and cats!

how dynamic the settlement is. every time i go back there’s something new and interesting happening, whether it’s a new sidequest an npc wants me to help out with, or a dispute between neighbors, or new dialogue with npcs i repeatedly interact with. i love having a home base that i can upgrade and that i want to spend time in.

the minigames! orlog is fun and frustrating but mostly fun, and the drinking contest is AWESOME.

quick-time assassinations for higher-level enemies! it’s a good balance between the old games where you could just indiscriminately kill fucking anybody in one overpowered hit, and odyssey where you had to either stack your assassination damage to get that sweet OHKO, or straight up fight the polemarchs.

the relationship between eivor and sigurd. i’m only about 40-50% of the way through the game so i’ve only seen a bit of it, but as someone who generally gravitates towards sibling narratives (i.e. odyssey, fullmetal alchemist, and way too many of my prime years wasted on supernatural) i really love their dynamic. i think it was an excellent idea to have that become one of eivor’s central narratives from the very beginning of the game. also, i get to fuck his wife.

(forces through gritted teeth) the... modern... day. i HATED layla in odyssey, to the point where i don’t even remember what happened in the modern story at all because every playthrough except for my very first one i simply mashed the skip button until i got back in the goddamn animus.. and i do not remember a single thing she did in origins. and maybe it says more about me than anything else that i wasn’t able to care about her until ubisoft (finally!!!!) brought back shaun and rebecca to make me care, but... this is the closest the modern day has felt to the desmond games, and there’s post-odyssey continuity with layla’s struggle as the keeper of the staff or whatever, and i really like it!

when you hover over different things in the map, the sound effects change. you get chanting music when you hover over monasteries, and ocean noises when you hover over the ocean! IT’S SUPER NEAT.

taking damage when you swim in the cold cold waters of norway made me chuckle. i can see how it might get annoying, but it doesn’t really bother me that much and it’s not that much damage.

THE SOUNDTRACK GIVES ME CHILLS IT IS SO GODDAMN GOOD

things i’m ambivalent about:

fall damage? i’m peeved that it’s back, but it makes sense. i do love that the breakfall skill makes it so that the most damage i’ve ever gotten from taking a long fall is like... 5 hp lmao

kill animations. they’re really cool and i love seeing what new fun way eivor has to brutally murder her enemies. on the other hand, the shift in camera angle can be annoying in the middle of a massive battle, and if there’s an object in the way of the very specific camera angle then sometimes i can’t see the animation at all and have to just stare at some wood/stone texture for like 10 seconds.

environment puzzles. sometimes they’re fun but sometimes i’m too damn tired to try and figure out the 3895th way to break into a locked building.

side quests world events. they’re fun but also seem largely... pointless? i wish we had one or two longer sidequests; some of my favorite moments in odyssey were on long sidequests like mykonos or the battle of 100 hands. i feel like this was a reactionary mechanic to people complaining that odyssey had “too many” sidequests or something idk.

tattoo parkour. i would like it more if eivor didn’t feel so “sticky” if that makes sense. i like the return of parkour puzzles, and i like collecting tattoos (the tattoo shop is always the first place i visit when i return to ravensthorpe), but the parkour in the game often feels quite clunky.

social stealth. another excellent idea that they brought back, but executed clumsily. i just don’t understand how it works, or, more importantly, why it’s even necessary in the first place. but it’s also easy to ignore, so whatever.

animus glitch platform puzzles. they’re super cool but for some reason give me massive anxiety.

things i don’t love:

some combat mechanics, like having a stamina bar and losing adrenaline when you get hit. i’m not here for any of that *~*~sO gRiTtY aNd rEaLiStIc~*~* bullshit. i just want to have fun and hack shit up.

that motherfucking god damn terrible fucking skill tree/map/web. who the FUCK thought it was a good idea??? the incremental changes between the big nodes feel kind of meaningless, and it’s very difficult to see the (completely arbitrary) progression towards the big nodes because they’re pathed out on SKINNY WHITE FUCKING LINES

synin got nerfed real bad :(

dag is a massive chode. and not even in a fun way, like stentor was in odyssey.

don’t really care for ivarr either if i’m being honest.

i do not give a single shit about fantasy asgard, and i’m kind of peeved that i apparently have to finish that arc in order to finish the game. (i didn’t like the atlantis dlc in odyssey either—a couple hades sidequests notwithstanding—so go figure.)

congratulations on reading this far if you actually bothered to do that! i don’t think any game will top odyssey for me in terms of setting/storyline/general vibes. but valhalla is a great, solid game in its own right.

no npc will EVER be as sexy as brasidas, but eivor is definitely sexier. she and kassandra and aya hold the 3-way title of Sexiest Assassin’s Creed Characters But Not In Like A Creepy Incel Gamer Way.

[tafferling]

%!0$#

Two days ago, a morning scroll on Twitter led me to a retweeted PSA. It was all pro-love and can be summarized to:

Go find someone to spend your life with. Being lonely is terrible and only gets worse as you grow old. Don’t be alone.

I’m 38. I’m alone. And I’ve previously struggled with this so much it almost killed me. But I’ve managed it. Sometimes pretty well, too. Sometimes less so. Unfortunately, that day was already a bit touch and go, so as you can imagine the message was ill timed and ultimately very damning. 

It hit hard. I fell hard. Things got a little out of hand. 

That it was the 23rd of December. Around that time everyone’s all about spending time with family, which didn’t help. It made it so much worse. I can’t go visit my family. And even if I could, we’re pretty estranged, even if I am finally now (at almost 40) making progress with my mother to the point where we don’t argue every time we are on the phone. We’re just fundamentally different people - and that’s not what that message was about anyway. 

Don’t be alone when you’re old. 

I so often get reminded that this world is built for two and that being by yourself is not desirable. Something I get shown every time I’ve tried to step out of my comfort zone and tried to do these social gathering things with the few friends I’ve made here in Sweden. Ultimately though, the topics shift to something “everyone” can relate to. Family. Kids. Way too often someone then looks at me and goes “When are you having one?” and there goes the will to ever do that again.

Before that, I often got asked: “Have you tried Tinder?” Which, yes, yes I have. It’s just I’m Ace and people don’t dig that, so I stopped a couple of years ago.

“What’s Ace?”

“Asexual.”

Cue confused face.

“I don’t like sex. I don’t want to have sex.” (The only sexual attraction you’ll get out of me is towards fictional men, but that’s not something I’ll try and explain over a dinner table with a bunch of couples judging me. “But Taff, why do you go out with couples?” you may ask. ‘cause they only go out in pairs, because that is what you do.)

It also doesn’t help that I am not very good with people.

Or that I have social anxiety (which, granted, I have managed to get therapy for and I can actually function again now! Woo!).

Anyway.

Stop signalling people are less just because they don’t come in pairs. Stop making points that it’s the End Game and that all hope is lost if they don’t get there. 

I’ve been happiest alone, but with love in my heart. Love for someone an ocean away. And, yes, love for someone who’s only come alive in my imagination, where I get loved in turn.

Yet, the world is relentless. It tells me I shouldn’t be happy. That it shouldn’t be enough. It says it over and over again, and so of course I doubt. My resolve cracks and it all falls apart, because you’re not supposed to be alone. 

I sat in my fucking closet for two hours that day crying my eyes out and really nots sure how I’d ever get up again.

But you know what? Fuck you. 

Fuck you, whoever you were, for dropping that on my Twitter timeline. 

Fuck you, world at large, for touting you’re best enjoyed in pairs.

I don’t need your End Game. Your ‘you’ll understand when you have children’.

Because I’ve got everyone I need to share my life with already - and no one’s got the right to invalidate my choices just because they don’t fit a pathetically narrow view on desired relationships.

. . .

Okay, I think I feel better now. Thanks for coming to my taff-talk. I guess. 

Carry on.

I’m going to play some Cyberpunk now, because guess what, I’m happy there. 

[morningfears]

By the Pool

Rating: M | This is smut! No one under 18!

Summary: Dad’s Best Friend!Ash, older man!Ash (mid-40s) x younger!Reader (21) | “I could just pull your bikini bottoms to the side, no one will notice. But where’s the fun in that?”

Word Count: 6k (this was supposed to be a drabble, sorry)

The spacious backyard is filled with people, neighbors and friends of friends, all milling about with beer bottles and wine coolers in hand as they share mindless small talk. Tacky, over the top red, white, and blue decorations litter the yard while oversized pool floats in the shape of flamingoes and pizza drift in the water. The scent of charcoal fills the air as the neighborhood men stand around the grill, all laughing and drinking as they watch the various meats (and the few vegetables their wives insisted on including) cook. Bits and pieces of their conversation, laughter at ridiculous jokes and complaints about the heat and recommendations for a new lawn service, filter through the air and carry around the backyard as Ashton steps through the wooden gate.

The sun is beating down, sweltering heat too much to handle even for the bathing suits that most of the guests don, and he finds himself wishing the party was being held later in the afternoon. However, this is tradition. A mid-day pool party at the home of that years volunteer, complete with burgers and beer, before everyone retreats to their own  homes to shower and re-dress for the fireworks show to be held at the park that night. Ashton sometimes skips the mid-day party, depending on his mood, but this year, that wasn’t an option. His best friend, an old college friend named Max that’s remained in his life for over twenty years, is hosting and Ashton knew that his appearance would be required.

So he finds himself dressed in an old band shirt and a pair of board shorts, even though he doubts he’ll get into the pool, and lugs a case of beer that he and the rest of the men in the neighborhood can (usually) agree on. He remains by the gate for a moment, watching the crowd mill about the backyard. There are neighbors he rarely sees, people he only vaguely knows, as well as friends that have lived in the neighborhood almost as long as he has. There are teenagers he barely recognizes, kids of friends, and babies belonging to the children of older neighbors. The event, which started a few years after most of the neighborhood started to fill with happy families, has grown substantially over the years and, though he used to attend nearly every event, he’s skipped the last few and feels as if he doesn’t know anyone anymore.

Ashton scans the backyard for familiar faces, searches for Max or his wife, Elaine, and finally finds the pair of them by the grill. He decides to abandon his post at the wooden gate as another family enters behind him, a new set of neighbors who he hasn’t had a chance to get to know yet, and weaves through the crowd of people to reach his friends on the patio.

Elaine is the first to spot him. The tray of vegetables in her hand tells him that she’s attempting to get her husband to provide healthier options and, knowing Max, she isn’t getting very far. Her face lights up when he steps closer to the grill and she exclaims, “Ashton! I’m so glad you’re here. You’re the healthiest of this bunch. Tell them that vegetables are important.”

“A balanced diet does you good,” Ashton agrees readily as he leans in and captures Elaine in a hug. “But cauliflower steak, El, really?”

“Amanda, one of the new neighbors, is vegan,” she points out as she subtly nods to the couple that entered the gate behind Ashton. “And our daughter has decided to go vegetarian,” she offers by way of explanation, waving her hand at the plate containing various meat alternatives, “I’m just trying to make sure they don’t feel left out.”

At the mention of you, Ashton pauses. Realistically, he knows that he should’ve been expecting you to attend a party held at your own home. However, you’ve been away for college and, since moving into an apartment off-campus, you haven’t been home much. He hasn’t seen you in nearly a year, not since the dinner party your parents hosted just before you left for your third year of college, and it feels as if it’s been entirely too long.

He glances around the backyard in search of you, looking for the young girl with the glasses and unruly hair that he’s always had a soft spot for, but when he spots you, he almost drops the case of beer in his hand. If there is a Hell, a section of the underworld filled with fire and brimstone waiting for sinners to arrive en masse, Ashton knows that that’s where he’s going to end up. He can feel it in the pit of his stomach, can hear the little voice in his head reminding him of the very fact, but, as he watches you emerge from the pool, water dripping down your body, he can’t really bring himself to care.

Gone are the glasses, gone are the too-big clothes and shorts and t-shirt he was used to seeing you in whenever you went swimming. Gone is the girl that he remembers and in her place is an adult he barely recognizes.

The t-shirts and shorts have been replaced by a royal blue bikini, high-waisted bottoms covering just enough to be deemed appropriate by your parents for such an outing. You look comfortable and confident, a far cry from the reserved, shy you of the past, and he notes that confidence is a beautiful look on you.

He knows that he’s staring, knows that his jaw has dropped and it’s bordering on inappropriate, but he can’t help himself. You’re embracing your body, no longer ashamed of the things you once considered flaws, and Ashton is proud. A small part of him, though, a part that surprises him, notes that he’s not looking at you because he’s proud of you. He’s looking at you because he likes what he sees and that sends a flurry of guilt swirling in the pit of his stomach.

He’s twenty years your senior and has known you for your entire life. He absolutely shouldn’t be looking at you in that way. However, he finds himself sneaking another glance before he returns his full attention to the conversation your parents are having.

“I’m just glad that she didn’t go to the beach with those hooligan friends of hers,” your dad huffs as he flips a burger and shakes his head. “Didn’t one of them fall off a balcony last year?”

“I don’t think you have much room to talk, man,” Ashton laughs as he pats his friend’s shoulder, “you weren’t the upstanding citizen you are now at her age.”

“Fuck off, Irwin.”

The three of them share a laugh at this, memories of their own debauchery filling their minds, before Elaine gestures to the beer in his hands. “Here, make sure he puts this on the grill and I’ll take these inside,” she offers, glancing pointedly at her husband.

Ashton nearly agrees, nearly hands her the case of beer, but when he spots you head into the kitchen, he decides against it. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take them inside. You’re better at convincing him to do things than I am, anyway. Do you need me to bring anything out?”

“There’s a plate of tomatoes and lettuce for the burgers on the counter. If you could grab that on your way out, I’d appreciate it,” she nods, a grateful smile on her lips, before she returns her attention to her husband.

Ashton watches the pair of them for a moment, the twinge of guilt getting a bit stronger, before he shakes it off and steps around the group surrounding the grill to enter the kitchen. As he expected, you’re sitting on the island, cell phone in one hand and a wine cooler in the other. He knows that you’ve retreated to the safety of the kitchen because your parents don’t like for you to drink at home, even if you’re old enough, and that you felt the need to chug alcohol to deal with the neighbors whose less than progressive politics have long pissed you off.

He smiles at this, smiles at the familiarity, but the spell of nostalgia is broken as a low moan echoes through the kitchen. He blinks, surprised, before he realizes that the sound is coming from your phone. He raises an eyebrow, certain that you’re not watching porn in public, and allows his curiosity to get the better of him as he steps around the back of the island and glances over your shoulder.

Snapchat, an app that you’ve explained to him a few times but he’s never really cared to learn, is open on your phone and he watches you click on a message from someone he recognizes as one of your roommates. The image is of the girl, who he assumes is your roommate, dressed in a bikini far more scandalous than your own and pressed between two guys with a caption reading, “Pray for me. Nothing is wrong, I just won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”

He watches you giggle, a giddy smile on your lips, before you take a sip of your drink and shake your head. You tap the screen to move to the next message and a short video plays. Your roommate, now completely bare, is standing in what looks to be a bathroom with one of the guys on his knees, face between her legs and hands wrapped around her thighs, one of which is wrapped around his shoulders, as the other gropes her breasts and nips at her neck.

Ashton blinks, surprised by the messages and by the company that you keep, but is unable to look away as you respond with a snap of your bare legs and a message reading, “Wish I was there. :(“

He knows that he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, knows that he should just mind his own business, place the beer in the fridge, and go back to the party, but he feels frozen to the spot. He doesn’t think he could bring himself to move, even if he wanted to, but he finds, as he really thinks about it, that he doesn’t really want to.

“Livvie’s living her best life,” reads the message you send to the group chat he can only assume contains all of your friends, “fucking two babes at the beach? Lucky bitch.”

“She’s the only one of us getting lucky,” comes a response, “the rest of these dudes are mega creeps.”

“At least there’s potential,” you return, fingers flying across the keyboard, “I’m stuck in Boringville with my parents and a ton of old people.”

“Your dad’s friends are hot,” someone replies, “fuck one of them.”

“Fuck Ashton!” another chimes in, “No wife, no problem.”

Ashton wasn’t aware that your friends knew who he was but he realizes that you must’ve mentioned him at some point, must’ve shown them a picture, and he’s both flattered and a bit curious to see how you’ll respond to their recommendation. He’s waiting for you to tell them that that’s a stupid idea, that you’d never sleep with him, but the response that you type out has him gripping the counter.

“I would in a fucking heartbeat,” you return, “I haven’t seen him yet, though. Don’t know if he’s coming.”

Ashton feels his breath catch in his throat as he reads your message. He hadn’t been expecting that, not in the slightest, and he knows that he should stop reading before this conversation goes any farther, but the twitch of his cock, the arousal pooling in the pit of his stomach, has him desperate to keep reading.

“Go to him, then. Fuck it. Live your best life, girl. Tell him you’ve gotten off to thinking about fucking him before, that’ll boost his ego,” one friend instructs.

“Tell him that you want him to call you princess while he raws you,” another advises, sending a string of laughing emojis and a crown.

The thought of doing just that, of calling you princess and filling you with his cum, is something that he’s never thought about. He’s never considered you in any way other than as his friend’s daughter, but as his eyes rake over your body, a few droplets of water still dripping from the strings of your bathing suit top down your sides, he can see it. He can see that you’re not the little girl he once knew, that you’re a different person than you were even a year ago, and he finds himself curious to get to know you.

“He’s my dad’s best friend,” you return, laughing at the stupidity of your friends and drawing him back to the present. “He’s known me my entire life. He wouldn’t fuck me even if I was the last girl on earth.”

“You’re stupid hot, he’s a man; of course he would,” a friend points out. “Get on your knees, tell him you can deepthroat him, and watch him melt. Men are easy.”

Ashton knows that he should agree with you, knows that he shouldn’t even entertain the fantasy because you’re his best friend’s daughter, but, fuck. Your friend is right. You’re beautiful, even more so now that you’re embracing your body and are comfortable in your own skin, and the thought of you choking on his cock has the blood rushing to his cock. He feels arousal pooling in the pit of his stomach and he knows that he needs to leave the kitchen. He knows that he needs to step away from you, to think with his brain instead of his cock, so he places the beer on the counter and grabs the tray of lettuce and tomatoes without glancing at you to see if you noticed him.

He imagines that you’re so engrossed in your conversation that you don’t, imagines that you’re so caught up in giggling about the things your friends are saying and sharing fantasies you don’t imagine will ever come true, that you don’t notice his presence and he’s right. He manages to slip out of the kitchen undetected and hands your mother the plate before excusing himself. He decides to hide in the pool until the semi he’s sporting goes down, decides to just sit in the shallow end and wait for his heart to stop beating so quickly, but that plan goes to shit when you emerge from the kitchen and head straight for him.

“Ashton!” you squeal, eyes lighting up as soon as you see him. “Hi!”

You don’t hesitate to barrel into the pool and throw yourself at him, pulling him into a hug as soon as you reach him, and he returns it just as enthusiastically. Ashton is seated on the steps of the pool, the water barely reaching his mid-stomach, and you don’t think twice about taking a seat on his lap. Although you have a crush on him, although you’ve always had a crush on him, you never imagined it would be reciprocated and never really saw anything wrong with showing him physical affection.

Ashton, while used to this affection from you, is still reeling from reading your conversation. He knows that he shouldn’t act on his impulses, knows that he should nudge you away and remind you how this could look, but everyone in the neighborhood knows just how close Ashton is to your family and knows that he’s a good person, that he’d never do anything inappropriate.

But he doesn’t know that himself.

“Hi, princess,” he breathes as you keep your arms around his neck and grin at him. “How’d your parents get you home for the Fourth?”

Ashton can see the flicker of arousal in your eyes as he calls you princess, can see the brief motion of your thighs as you resist squeezing them together for some sort of friction, and he feels his willpower wearing thin. He wants to tell you that he’d give you whatever you want. He always has and this will be no different. But he knows that that’s a terrible idea.

However, as you shift on his lap and your chest is pressed awfully close to his body, your heat radiating into him, he thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, after all. No one would ever have to know. Even if you told your friends, which he imagines you would, they wouldn’t tell your parents. And you’re an adult now, capable of making your own decisions, and you clearly decided that you’d like to fuck him.

As you answer his question with a story about your parents earning your commitment before your friends could solidify their plans, his hands drift to your thighs. His fingers brush your skin, swirling water around you both, and you pout at him. “I love being home but I’d rather be at the beach.”

“Yeah,” he nods, debating whether he should go for it. However, when you curl into his chest and glance at him from beneath your lashes, pout on your lips, he decides that he’s already going to hell for thinking about it, might as well have fun with it. “Your friend looked like she was having fun,” he hums, his voice low as his hands drift just a little higher.

You blink, momentarily confused, before you suck in a sharp breath. “You saw that?” you question, frowning slightly as you attempt to read the look on his face. “You’re not going to tell my parents, are you?”

“No, princess,” he hums, voice quiet to match yours and this time he does catch the clenching of your thighs as soon as the nickname spills past your lips, “I won’t tell them. But I want you to tell me something.” When you nod, eyes wide and eager, he asks, “What you told your friends, is that true?”

At this point, you glance around the yard in a desperate attempt to see if anyone is watching the pair of you. Although you’re paranoid, anxious that someone will catch you, no one notices anything out of the ordinary. No one gives either of you a second glance so you return your gaze to Ashton and ask, “Which part?”

Ashton knows that you’re playing coy, knows that you’re just trying to make sure you’re on the same page, and he’s always been one to indulge you. So he pulls you just a little closer, maintaining just enough distance to keep anyone from getting suspicious, and breathes, “That you would fuck me. That you want me to call you princess as I fuck you raw. Was that true?”

Your heart is beating a million miles a minute, threatening to pound out of your chest, and you’re half afraid that he’s going to tell your parents just what you and your friends talk about. You’re half-afraid that this is some sort of joke, that he’s going to tell you that your fantasies are disgusting and that you shouldn’t be thinking about him in that way, but, a small part of you, the little bit of your brain that is hopeful, tells you that this is him making sure you want the same thing he does. This is him making sure that the pair of you are on the same page and that you’re just as interested in fucking him as he is you.

So you nod. You nod and quietly breathe, “Yes, yeah. The other part was true, too, that I can deepthroat you. I would, if you wanted me to.”

You’re so eager for him and Ashton is beyond surprised. He’s never seen this side of you, never imagined he would, and he takes a moment to take it all in as his hands drift just a little higher. His fingers play with the band of your bikini bottoms, toy with the elastic at the juncture of your thighs, before he very lightly, barely any pressure at all, brushes his fingers over the crotch. “I could just pull your bikini bottoms to the side,” he hums, voice low as his eyes scan your face for any sign of discomfort, “I could unzip my shorts and you could sit on my cock right here in front of everyone and no one would notice. But where’s the fun in that?”

Ashton catches the whimper that leaves your lips, catches the way you bite your lip and the way your nails dig into his shoulders, and he grins at you. “Don’t worry, princess,” he nearly whispers, his hands returning to your thighs, “that’s not a no. That’s not right now. When everyone starts to leave to get ready for the fireworks, you can come to my place. Until then, be a good girl. Wouldn’t want anyone else seeing those messages, would we?”

When you shake your head, Ashton mumbles a quiet, “Good girl,” and carefully nudges you off his lap. He’s harder now than he was before but this time he has the excuse of wrapping a towel around his waist to keep himself covered. He knows that he has to get out of the water before he loses anymore of his willpower, before he does something to get you both caught, so he gently squeezes your shoulder and climbs out of the pool as quickly as he can and hastily wraps the towel around his waist.

The three hours between Ashton agreeing to fulfill your fantasies and the party ending are the longest in your life. Your group chat has been blowing up with message since you sent, “Uh. Spoiler alert, Ashton does want to fuck me. I’m sneaking over to his place in a bit. How do I tell this man that I want him to absolutely wreck me?” Each message is crazier than the last, each begs for every detail and some even beg for pictures. You find yourself watching Ashton as he mingles with neighbors and, to your surprise, find that he’s watching you, too.

Every time you meet his gaze, he sends you a flirty wink or a smoldering gaze that sets your entire body on fire. You can feel the anticipation threatening to overwhelm you, you can feel the arousal pooling between your thighs, and you want nothing more than to just have him take you then and there, decentness and politeness be damned. However, the moment the party is over and Ashton is gone from your backyard, you tell your parents that you’re going to go for a run before the fireworks show and attempt to slip out the door before anyone can stop you.

You do your best to slip into Ashton’s house unnoticed by any of the neighbors and, even if someone noticed, you’re certain that they wouldn’t think anything of it. However, the knowledge of what’s going to happen has you cautious of every move you make. You feel as if everyone can read your intentions on your face and, while you don’t really care what people think of you, you know that if anyone finds out, Ashton’s the one that’s going to take the brunt of the criticism.

When you step into the house and lock the front door behind you, you turn to find an amused Ashton sitting at the bar, watching you. He’s got a grin on his lips and a beer bottle in hand as he sits there, t-shirt abandoned and board shorts hanging dangerously low on his hips. The tattoos that he’s collected over the years have aged beautifully, all of him has, and you want nothing more than to rake your nails down the expanse of his chest.

You’re not sure what to say, not sure what to do in this situation, so you settle for, “Hi,” and remain in your spot by the door.

Ashton studies you for a moment, attempts to read the look on your face, and when he reads the bit of apprehension, he holds his hand out and motions for you to get closer to him. “Come here, princess,” he hums as he places his bottle onto the counter and holds his arms open for you. When you settle between his spread thighs and wrap your arms around his middle, pressing your cheek against his chest, he hums, “We don’t have to do this. If you’re not comfortable, if this is weird, we can just forget this happened. That’s okay with me.”

“I am comfortable!” you assure him quickly. “I do want this. I just, you make me nervous,” you admit quietly. “I’ve wanted you for so long. This is so embarrassing,” you mumble, “but I’m going to tell you anyway. The first time I ever came, I was touching myself and thinking about you. I want this. I want you.”

Ashton is surprised to hear this, surprised to hear you speak so bluntly, but he appreciates the honesty and the assurance. So, he nods. “I believe you,” he laughs, hands moving to brush your hair away from your face. “What do you want from me, princess? How do you want this to go? I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“I want whatever you want,” you promise him. “I, um, when I was younger I overheard one of your girlfriends and my mom talking. She talked about some of the stuff that you were into and I’ve always thought it was hot. I don’t want you to baby me. I want you to treat me like you would any of your partners. Fuck me. Spank me. Tell me what to do. I’ll tell you if I’m uncomfortable with anything.”

Ashton stares at you for a long moment, studying the look on your face, but when he sees nothing but excitement and sincerity, he nods. “The minute you don’t like something, you tell me. Understood?” When you nod, he tangles his fingers in your hair and tugs at the strands. “I asked you a question, princess. I expect an answer. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” you whimper, biting back a moan at the feeling.

He hums his satisfaction, happy with your response, and feels his cock twitch at the use of ‘sir’ in your address. “Good,” he nods, “now, on your knees. Let me see how good you really are with your mouth.” Ashton watches, biting back a groan of arousal, as you sink to your knees readily. He watches you place your hands on your thighs, waiting for his instruction, and leaves you in suspense for a moment as he drains the rest of his beer. As soon as the bottle is empty, he stands from his seat and steps out of his board shorts. He kicks them away from the pair of you and takes pride in the way your eyes widen and your tongue darts out to lick your lips at the sight of his cock.

You’ve always known that he would be big and you’re proven correct as you watch him grip his cock and slowly jerk it. “Fuck, princess,” he hums as he steps close enough for him to feel your breath on the head of his cock, “you look so pretty on your knees, so willing to take me. You gonna be a good girl and let me fuck your mouth? Let me shove my cock down your throat?”

“Yes, sir,” you whimper, unable to help yourself as you watch him brush the bead of pre-cum with his thumb.

“Good. Open your mouth.”

Ashton feels any thoughts of anything other than how good you feel leave his mind as he slips his cock into your mouth. He starts off slow, careful not to hurt you, as he places his hand on the back of your head and begins to sink deeper and deeper. Your hands remain on your thighs and he can see you itching to move them, itching to touch him or yourself, and he can see you shifting to gain some sort of friction as you allow him to completely control the pace.

When he pulls away to let you take a breath, you remind him, “I can take it, Ash, please. Don’t go easy on me.”

He hesitates for a moment, thinks about it, but when he sees the pleading look in your eyes and the way you’re staring up at him from beneath your lashes, the perfect epitome of sin with spit coated lips, he decides to go for it. He doesn’t hesitate as he shoves his cock back into your mouth, his hand on the back of your head pushing you down farther as you dig your nails into your thighs.

Ashton is impressed. He tries not to think too hard about how much practice this has taken, tries to imagine that you’re a natural, but, no matter the case, you’re able to take all of him as he fucks your mouth. He sets a harsh pace, thrusting quickly, and groans at the sounds of you choking on his cock. You’re entirely compliant, willing to take whatever he gives you, and he decides that two orgasms isn’t such a stretch for him today. He wants you, wants this, so he takes the opportunity he’s been given and cums in your mouth.

Part of him assumes you’ll spit, part of him assumes you’ll be angry at him, but you swallow what you’re given and hold your tongue out for proof of a job well done.

“Who knew my little princess was such a little slut?” he questions as he grabs your arm and tugs you to your feet. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you, princess?” When you nod, your answer immediate, Ashton slips his hand down your shorts and raises an eyebrow at you when he finds that your bikini bottoms have been removed. “No underwear?”

“Easy access,” you shrug, a small smile on your lips as you wait for him to touch you.

Ashton stares at you for a moment, contemplating what to do with you, before he decides on a course of action. “Clothes off, princess. Bend over the table, hands gripping the edge. I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare move,” he orders before he turns you in the direction of the table and places a stinging slap to your ass.

You’re quick to follow his instructions. You’re wary that his dining room faces your home and even though the blinds are closed and the curtains are drawn, a chill of anxiety pricks at your nerves as you strip out of your tank top and shorts and bend over the edge of the table.

You’ve sat here many times, sat in this dining room and ate or listened to your parents talk with Ashton, but you never could’ve imagined that this would be your fate. That Ashton would be fucking you over the same table he once helped you with a history assignment at is mind-blowing.

True to his word, Ashton is only gone for a moment. To his pleasant surprise, you’re exactly as he wanted you. Your hands are gripping the edge of the table, your shorts and tank top lying in a pile on one of the chairs, and he admires you for a moment. He can see the slick coating your cunt, can see the arousal between your legs, and he doesn’t hesitate to slip his hand between your thighs as he approaches you.

“What’s got you this wet, princess?” he asks as he drops the condom onto the table.

“You, sir,” you whimper as his fingers brush your folds, avoiding your clit and your entrance with every swipe. “I want you so bad.”

Ashton hums at that. He pretends to give it some thought, pretends to consider it, before he slips two fingers into your entrance and closes his eyes when he feels just how tight you are. “Fucking hell,” he breathes before he can stop himself. “You’re so tight, princess. Gonna feel so good.”

He listens to you breathe a sigh of pleasure, feels you shift beneath him as he drapes himself over your back, and it’s the best sound he’s ever heard. Listening to you, feeling just how much you want him, is almost too much for him to take. As he scissors his fingers in an effort to open you up, he notices that you’re desperately attempting to keep yourself from rocking back onto his fingers. He notices that you’re gripping the table harshly, nails scratching at the wood, and he’s proud of your restraint.

“Ashton, please,” you whine as his thumb circles your clit, rubbing tight circles onto the bundle of nerves, “please just fuck me. You can do whatever you want to me later, just take me now.”

He isn’t sure how you mean that statement, isn’t sure if you mean it at all, but he relents. He always does, always gives you exactly what you want, and this situation is no different. As he continues working you open, he reaches for the condom and rips it open with his teeth. He manages to roll it on with one hand and, when his cock is fully sheathed, removes his fingers from your heat.

You whine at the feeling of emptiness, desperate for him to make you cum, but you’re not left empty for more than a second before he’s got the head of his cock positioned at your entrance. He starts off slow and you find yourself feeling grateful for that as the stretch of him proves to be an adjustment. You can feel every drag of his cock against your walls, can feel the stretch of him sinking into you, and you don’t hesitate to moan at the feeling of him.

Ashton himself bites back a groan as he feels just how tight you are around him. It’s bordering on painful, the squeeze of your walls around his cock, but he doesn’t really care as he sinks into you. You feel like heaven, tight and warm, and he has to still as he fully sheathes himself inside of you so he doesn’t cum far too quickly.

You find that nothing has to be said as Ashton fucks you. He seems to know exactly when you want him to go harder, seems to know exactly when you want faster, and it leaves you in awe of how in tune with your body he already is. He can tell, just by the way you whine, what you want and you’ve never had a partner who was even half as perceptive as him. You imagine that it’s his age, that it’s the experience, but you don’t dwell on it as he fucks into you. His pace is quick, his hips snapping against yours roughly, as he returns his fingers to your clit.

You’re almost embarrassed at how quickly he manages to push you over the edge, almost embarrassed at just how fast he makes you cum, but you can’t really bring yourself to care as the most powerful orgasm you’ve ever had crashes over you. Ashton moves to pull away, moves to keep from overstimulating you, but you reach for his hand and keep him in place. “I’m okay, promise, I can take it. Please,” you whimper, pleasure still clouding your brain as you beg him to finish inside of you.

Ashton hesitates for a moment before the need to cum outweighs his better judgement. As you lie beneath him, moans freely tumbling past your lips, he chases his orgasm and breathes a quiet, “Fuck,” when he does. He stills inside of you, pauses to catch his breath, before he pulls out and disposes of the condom. He helps you stand, steadies you when your legs shake, and stares at you for a moment before he cups your cheeks and leans in to pull you into a kiss.

Although he’d just fucked you, the kiss feels far more intimate than any act of passion. It’s careful, delicate, and full of everything left unsaid between the two of you. Neither of you know what will happen next, neither of you has thought that far ahead, and though you’re both worried about the future, a lingering spark of hope in the back of your mind tells you that everything will be okay.

Maybe, just maybe, things will turn out fine.

_______________________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: What is it with me an older men? I thought about titling this Daddy Issues but figured that would be inappropriate. 

[ckret2]

How are you able to write such good romantic scenes when you’re on the aro spectrum?

Gonna start with the weird answer and then explain the logic behind it:

I’m fascinated by the concept of obsession.

Like, particularly, when one person is obsessed with another person.

Typically what fascinates me most is the darker end of the “obsession” spectrum—the “I’ll die for you and/or kill for you,” the “I can’t imagine existing without you and will reinvent myself into some sort of idealized person who can support you as perfectly as possible,” the “I literally worship you like a literal actual god because you are that perfect to me,” the “I hate your guts but I can’t stop thinking about you for more than three seconds and I haven’t slept right in months because of it.” So, yandere tropes, “I’m stalking you out of love” tropes, zealous cults, unrequited love, knight & lord, all that stuff. I’m very interested in the psychology of how what ought to be a positive emotion can get twisted the wrong way into something so negative—how something protective can be twisted into something destructive, how something supporting can twist into something harmful, etc. You know, good horror shit. And so that’s something I spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, and ultimately writing about.

Here’s the thing though. If you understand how obsession works inside and out, you’re like, 90% of the way to being able to write romance. That is, I think, fundamentally why I’m interested in writing romance in the first place. Because on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being “total indifference to a person’s existence” and 100 being “can’t go five seconds without thinking about the person and dreams about them at night,” romance clocks in at, like, 40. You’ve just gotta take Full Obsession and dial it back to a reasonable, healthy, sane level, and then paint it pink and that’s the Romance Feeling.

And then you chuck in a bunch of other positives to go along with the “can’t stop thinking about them” factor to make it a convincing romance.

The characters have gotta be friends with each other—if you can write friends, hell, turn it into “friends who call each other ‘my love’ and are making plans to spend their lives together” and you’ve got a quick and easy romance right there without any extra effort. And I understand how friendship works, I’ve got friends! Friends are a thing I can do. Lovers are friends with benefits. (The benefit is love.)

The characters probably find each other attractive in some way—if it’s physical, then you just gotta think “okay, this character finds that look attractive somehow,” and then describe their physical features in poetic language—the more you wanna emphasize the physical attraction aspect and the more it’s infatuation instead of an old steady love, the more deliriously flowery you can get with the description. If it’s attraction to their personality or other mental traits, just, do that same thing, but with mental features instead of their body. I know how to use descriptions to make things sound pretty, I can do this one too.

If there’s sexual attraction, then apply that same flowery language to generally eroticized body parts and/or body motions, and/or describe the arousal these observations cause the viewpoint character. (I’m also ace—I have never looked at someone and felt sexual attraction—but I do know what a state of arousal in and of itself feels like, and I understand on an intellectual level that people can feel it spontaneously when looking at someone they find attractive, and from there it’s really easy to combine “he looked at someone he thought was very good looking” and “he is feeling arousal, this is what arousal feels like to him” into “he looked at someone good looking and because of it he felt arousal” like it’s a pretty simple cause-and-effect there.)

The characters have gotta respect each other as, like, people, instead of idealized statues and/or dolls (as would be the case if it was obsession instead of love), which means they’ve gotta understand each other really well—so just, you know, write them comprehending each other’s quirks, recognizing each other’s oddities without needing them explained and not finding them weird, being generally familiar with each other. If you know what both your characters are like, you can write each of your characters knowing what the other one is like, too. Bam. Done.

The characters, especially if they’re only newly attracted to each other, probably feel the physical symptoms of that—rapid heartbeat, butterflies in stomach, tongue-tied nervousness, etc. I’ve never felt those things in direct connection to having a crush but I’ve felt them in connection to other things, so I can write about them too, I can intellectually imagine a “this character likes that character so much that it causes this physical reaction” cause-and-effect scenario.

And I could go on but it’s just gonna be a longer list like that.

All of the above things—feeling lowkey obsessed, being extremely close friends, looking at each other and going “ooh you are aesthetically and/or intellectually pleasing,” respecting each other, understanding each other, physically reacting to being around each other—are all things that make perfect sense in my little aro brain without having ever felt romantic attraction in my life, and they’re all things that I know come with romance because like, I see romances in movies, read them in stories, see people talking about them daily, and have several psychology courses and books under my belt that talk about the mechanisms of love along with all the other things that come in human brains. The very first movie I was ever taken to was Aladdin and I’m not sure if I was even speaking in full sentences by then—I’ve been passively absorbing research on romance practically since I was born. I’ve just gotta remember what I’ve learned and put it together in a way that sounds sensible and that matches up with what I’ve learned about how romance works and what I know about, like, how humans work.

And if a given couple’s romance differs from the above list—like, they’re totally in love but they aren’t best friends and they don’t have that deep knowledge of each other because they fell in love in two days and eloped in under a week—then that’s fine, that just necessitates amping up other factors to strengthen the love—maybe increase the obsession factor if it’s a rapid infatuation rather than a slow burn, maybe have them idealize each other more than they should which keeps them feeling attraction for each other but covers up flaws they’ll probably notice later... and when you’re writing inside their perspective you can write their romance to be as beautiful and perfect as they feel like it is, but if you recognize those flaws in their relationship you can hold onto them to use later—either to shake up the relationship and force them to grow and stabilize it, or else to make it come crashing down.

The point is, you gotta keep it realistic even when from the characters’ perspectives it’s an idyllic perfect relationship. If they’ve known each other a week, then they don’t know everything about each other. You can’t claim they do without it sounding ridiculous. They might feel like they know “everything that matters,” but it’s disingenuous to try to demonstrate No They Really Are In Love by giving them knowledge they haven’t earned yet. Show they love each other in spite of their ignorance. That goes for any other trait that a “full” “developed” romantic couple has but that they lack.

What matters, ultimately, is that at the end of the scene, it’s got to read like the characters are attracted to or in love with each other—even if it’s for dumb or shallow reasons—and not like the author put the attraction on top of them like funny hats.

And on that note?

Although being aro gives me a very obvious disadvantage writing romance that alloromantic folks don’t have—no personal experience to draw upon, even as little as knowing what it feels like to have a crush—I think it does give me one specific advantage over allo writers: I’m going to side-eye a romance plot line unless I’m convinced it works, and that applies to my own plot lines as well. And I think that being aro sorta automatically gives me stricter standards for what it takes to convince me a romance works.

Particularly in movies, it’s easy for the writers/directors/whoever to default to shorthands to “demonstrate” that characters are in love: tropes like “they argued and insulted each other for half the movie, then in a heated moment they kissed, then they were clearly attracted to each other the whole time,” that sort of thing. I can’t stand that. I know not being able to stand poorly-written hollywood romances isn’t an exclusively aro/ace thing. Plenty of allo folks complain about piss poor romantic subplots. But I have noticed a higher willing suspension of disbelief among allo folks to accept it as a given that two characters belligerently sniping at each other are doing so because they’re suppressing attraction (perhaps because there are hidden Signs Of Attraction that are invisible to me? I don’t know) while I see a much lower willing suspension of disbelief for that sort of thing among a lot of my ace- & aro-spectrum friends. I recognize I’m working off a limited data set, here, but I theorize it’s just harder to accept that two characters being assholes toward each other are better off boning than ignoring each other for the rest of their lives if the person being asked to accept this doesn’t have personal memories of Attraction™ to fall back on to fill in the gaps between the shorthand the director is using to symbolize (but not demonstrate) attraction.

So I can’t use those kinds of shorthands in my own work, because they don’t work for me. If I want the audience to feel like two characters are in love, I’ve got to bust my ass to demonstrate to myself, first and foremost, that they’re in love. That means I can’t just say they like each other, I’ve got to SHOW why they like each other. I can’t just say they’re attracted to each other, I’ve got to SHOW the audience what it is find attractive about each other—I’ve got to describe it clearly and compellingly enough that the audience can see their attractiveness too, no matter if I’m describing a robot disguised as a spider or a pile of volcanic rock in the shape of pteranodon. If they’re arguing and hate each other but are suddenly going to kiss in a moment of passion, I’m not going to trust that the audience will just Get that they were secretly attracted the whole time, I’ve got to go into their heads to demonstrate why they feel attraction in spite of their arguing and why, to them, that attraction overweighs their differences.

At no point am I able to create the skeleton of a romance and expect the audience to add the flesh and blood simply because I myself can imagine the flesh and blood based on my past experiences—because I don’t have those past experiences.

Anyway that’s what goes into how I write romance.

[bookenders]

10 Questions Tag!

Tagged by @ettawritesnstudies! (Here’s their post!) Thanks! These are so fun.

(I’m tagging a bunch of people because #norules.)

Bilbo Taggins: @thelordgreen, @shirasade, @abalonetea, @quilloftheclouds, @quillwritten, @waterfallwritings, @writingwitherebus, @writing-with-melon, @lukes-writing, @radiowrites, @one-voice-rising, @reininginthefirewriting, @pheita, @cluelessbuttercup, @holotones, @mercutioswriting, @metaphors-and-melodrama, @adayforducks, @corsairesque​

My questions for y’all:

1. Is there a story you just can’t stand? What is it and why?

2. What’s your favorite cliche? What’s your favorite way to twist it?

3. What are your favorite tings to do as self-care?

4. What’s the softest thing you’ve ever written?

5. Is there a story/book/essay you’d 100% recommend?

6. What’s your fondest writing memory?

7. Who’s your favorite artist? Are you inspired by any other forms of art?

8. Do you have a favorite kind of pen (or other writing utensil)?

9. How often do you write for yourself? For others?

10. What about your writing are you most proud of?

My answers under the cut:

1. How did you come up with your WIP’s title? What does it mean in relation to the story? Heart to Heart is a pun with many many layers. Because everything I do has to be a pun. It references the emotional connection, the literal physical connection, a pseudo-metaphorical thing that happens, and the big emotional climax of the story. Fish Food is a weird joke that I made and thought it was so great it had to be the title. The story started off as a single scene, which involved the classic “dangle hero over pit of hungry fish” thing where the hero was “fish food,” and then it evolved into something that kinda turned all the characters into metaphorical fish food. 

For my short stories, it’s usually something that fits the #aesthetic. Or a pun. I can’t help it, it just happens sometimes. 2. Do you title your chapters? If so, what’s your favorite? I’ve never really written anything long enough to have chapters before. I do title my fanfic chapters, because it’s fun and it makes it easier to remember where you were when reading on AO3.  My chapter titles for The Neither Days are excellent, if I do say so myself. Each one is a pun. My favorite so far is “Stakes, Medium Rare.” Because the stakes get raised, and they visit a medium.  3. What’s a recent line you really like? I haven’t written much lately (yay grad school), but here’s a little something from a short story I’m writing for my friend. It’s about wives.

“They fish, sometimes, some early dawns and evenings, poles light in their palms, feet brushing the gentle sea. They wrap their hands in fishing wire and cast the lines beyond their reach. They peel the scales with their fingers, mindful of how they stick and stay. They set the bones aside. They drink white wine, which is far more romantic than red. They dine together by candlelight once the sun shuts its eyes. Their stars sing them to sleep.”

Okay, more than a line. I like this section. Needs some editing, but there’s some cool stuff there.  4. Are there any writing-related quotes you really like?

The entirety of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. 

5. Do you have an idea for cover design for your story? Nope! But my good bud @denaramor / @dc-writes / @dcdarrells made some covers for me!! Look at their glory:

6. What sort of AU can you imagine your story being?

I can see H2H being a sci-fi space AU, definitely. Oh wow, that’d be really cool and interesting. Gemma as the expedition’s doctor, Mel as a stranger they meet when they rescue a drifting vessel, Oz as the “commander...” 

Ugh, now I wanna write it. 

7. Which OC would be the most angry with you as the writer?

Hm. Probably Iron Will, to be honest. He starts off in a pretty rough place in Fish Food. Sorry, bud. 

8. If you had to tell the story from a different POV, which character would you choose?

I’m planning a prequel of sorts of H2H from Treena’s perspective, but if it had to be the current story... I’d say Mel. There’d be enough mystery on her end to keep it interesting.

FF would be from Nightmare’s point of view, maybe. That’d be super weird. Following the main villain as the heroes try to convince her that she isn’t serving the purpose her organization makes her think she is. 

9. What would be your OC’s taste in music if they lived in our world?

Here’s an ask I answered about the H2H cast’s music tastes!

For FF:

Overseer: pop punk, Billy Joel, AC/DC, top 40

Iron Will: country, mashups, classic rock, post-rock

Lithium: 80s hair bands, David Bowie, R&B, protest rock

Bablyon: musical scores and soundtracks

10. What’s one personal goal you want to achieve by the end of the story?

H2H: Get better at writing soft things.

FF: Figure out how to plot a mystery!’

[thismightbeaterribleidea]

FAQ

Hello! So, during a global pandemic and at the beginning of what will probably be a long and severe recession, at the age of 40 and with basically no knowledge of how automobiles work, I’m going to live in a van.

This might be a terrible idea. Hence, I’m calling my blog This Might Be A Terrible Idea.

If you’re reading this, I imagine it’s because you know me, so I’ll skip the introduction. I like a good FAQ, so let’s start there.

FAQ

Where are you going? Short answer: I don’t know!

Long answer: I’ll probably primarily split my time between Colorado/northern New Mexico, Maryland/Pennsylvania, and Florida. I want to stay as low-budget as I can and also avoid crowds during the pandemic. So whenever possible, I’ll opt for free, dispersed sites in national forests, state forests, BLM (which I now read as Black Lives Matter but here it’s the less-important acronym, Bureau of Land Management), state game lands, etc. I’ll pop into a developed campground every now and then to refill the water tanks, empty the portable toilet, and take a shower.

What kind of van do you have? In late June, I bought a 2007 Ford E250 with a high roof. In its first life, it was actually an Embassy Suites hotel shuttle, so when I got it, it had SO MANY SEATS. After it retired from the hotel biz, it went to a guy who owned a brewery and used the van for ski trips. Then he eventually traded it to a friend’s college-aged son in exchange for lawn-mowing work. This young man was actually going to make it into a camper too but didn’t have time, so he sold it to me.

I got the van for a very low price ($2000) because it’s really high mileage — almost 300,000. It also has a few issues: the dashboard, power windows, and radio only work sometimes. The doors are creaky and don’t like to close. There are splatters of paint (?) on the inside of the driver’s door. The air conditioning wasn’t working. And the interior is pretty beat up.

With help from my brother who actually knows about cars, I recharged the air conditioning. A new, functional instrument cluster is on the way. And the type of engine in this van (5.4L V8) supposedly has a reputation for being extremely durable. If I get a couple of good years out of this vehicle, I’ll be happy.

How are you going to afford this? A few years ago, I paid $4200 for an acre of land in the San Luis Valley, a few hours from Denver. I hoped to eventually put a little camper on it and make a very low-budget part-time home. But a few months after I bought the land, the county changed its rules to prohibit living in campers or mobile homes for more than a couple of weeks at a time. So the camper idea went out the window, and in June, I sold that land for $5000. This was my funding to buy the van and associated stuff. I’m going to try to keep the initial total cost of the van (vehicle, repairs, materials for the interior, solar installation) to about $6000.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I don’t have to choose between my job and a weird nomadic lifestyle. About a year ago, I went full-time freelance as an editor and writer. So I’m self-employed and I work from home. I don’t even need the internet that much — aside from checking email, file downloads/uploads, and occasional googling for research and editing questions, I can be mostly offline. Also incredibly fortunate: the pandemic hasn’t affected my work, at least not so far.

I’ll have new and unexpected expenses: food will be more expensive, I’ll have to pay for campgrounds sometimes, the van will need gas and repairs and oil and new tires, and then I’ll want to make livability improvements (like insulation). But I hope that I’ll be able to cover all of that while still living within my means.

Aren’t you selling your condo? Why don’t you get a newer/lower mileage/already converted van? Yes, I am (fingers crossed that the sale goes through) selling my condo in Denver. But I also have no savings, no retirement fund, no emergency fund. And the recession is just getting started… the whole future seems pretty uncertain. I’d feel better if I kept as much of the condo money in the bank as possible, even if that means having a crappier van.

Don’t you worry about safety? Absolutely. I’m a worrying person. I worry a lot! But if I responded to those worries by not going anywhere alone, staying in only developed campgrounds, etc., then I’d have missed out on some of the best experiences in my life, and I’d never go much of anywhere at all.

To stay safe in a van, I’ll use the same approach I use for solo car camping. If a place feels sketchy, I go somewhere else. To avoid trouble from bears, I try not to get food on the ground, do food prep and brush teeth away from the vehicle, and keep the car doors locked when I’m away and at night. To avoid trouble from bros, I try to stay out of sight. I pick spots and set up my campsite so that people passing by mostly just see the vehicle and not me or my single chair or small tent. I have bear spray, which stays in arm’s reach when I’m out hiking and at night, and I have a sharp knife, which is always pretty accessible too.

In fact, safety is why I chose a van over a truck with a camper, which actually would have been preferable. If a truck ever had recurring or expensive mechanical problems, I could just get a new truck and put the camper on it — but with a van, I’ll either have to do the expensive repairs or get a new van and re-do the whole interior. And if I wanted to stay in one place for a while, I could take the camper off and just drive the truck around, saving on gas and wear and tear. But with a truck camper, if I were ever inside the camper and felt unsafe, I’d have to *go outside* and then get into the truck cab in order to leave. With a van, if things start feeling sketchy, I can just hop in the driver’s seat and go.

(Side note: It’s upsetting and frustrating to me that these safety concerns and choices are so linked to gender. Of course men also need to think about safety when they’re out camping alone, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to think about it at least 200% as much as my equivalent 40-year-old non-threatening-looking out-of-shape single dude.)

If we’re talking about safety from non-sentient threats — bad weather, injuries, mechanical breakdowns, etc. — then I…

a) try not to get into situations that I can’t get out of — whether it’s a too-rugged road, a too-steep trail, or a spot that is likely to turn into a mud pit if it rains. I also think about whether I could walk to get help if I needed to. b) have some basic safety and first aid stuff. Tape, gauze, and a mylar blanket for me; jumper cables and a portable air compressor for the car. c) have a Triple A membership in case I need a tow.

The van came with a handy fire extinguisher strapped to the driver’s seat. To reduce the possibility of being unable to call for help if I get stuck somewhere, I eventually plan to get a cell phone signal booster.

The fire extinguisher or even my bear spray won’t keep me safe from COVID-19. But like I mentioned, I’m trying to stay as far away from crowds as possible. To cut down on contact when resupplying, I’ve got storage for 10 gallons of water (I’m actually going to expand this to 15) and plan to carry enough food for a month. Unless there’s a mechanical problem or breakdown (definitely my biggest concern), I should be able to drive coast to coast while remaining in a relatively firm bubble. The riskiest thing I’ll *have* to do is refuel at gas pumps, but I can pick gas stations that seem less crowded, refuel in smaller towns rather than busy highway rest areas, and go at quieter times of day.

Does your van have air conditioning? Nope! Well, it has the standard vehicle AC, but that only works while the van is running, and most of the time I’ll be parked. There are AC units that can go on top of campers and vans, but they use a ton of power: either you have to be plugged in to shore power at a campground, use a gas-powered generator, or have a million solar panels and batteries. I’m going to get a good roof vent and fan installed, plus maybe put some smaller battery-powered fans in the windows, so that will hopefully keep me from getting heatstroke in the summer.

Does it have running water? Nope! Right now, I have a portable foot-pump sink and a self-contained portable toilet. I plan to eventually build a nicer/bigger sink. I’m also going to order a collapsible tub so I can do sponge baths or use a solar shower (a black vinyl bag that heats up in the sun and has a hose attached). Swimming in freshwater lakes will need to become a bigger part of my life. I’ll probably be a little stinky at times, but people should be social distancing anyway, so if anyone can smell me, they’re way too close.

Does it have electricity? It will! I’m planning to have one large solar panel and a lithium battery installed. (For those who are curious, it’s a 315 watt solar panel with a 100 AH battery.) This will power the roof fan, my laptop, my phone, some plug-in lights, and eventually also built-in lights, the cell phone signal booster, and maybe a small fridge or cooler. The solar power system is going to outlast the van and will be easily switchable to my next vehicle.

Wait. “Maybe” a fridge? What are you going to eat? Ummm… I’ll figure it out? I eat like a scavenging raccoon, so I’m not too picky. I bought a bunch of freeze-dried legume-based soup and stew mixes from Harmony House, some high-protein shake mix from Huel, and I plan to stock rice, quinoa, peanut butter, oatmeal, hard cheese, packaged salmon and tuna, and dried fruit. If I’m driving, I’ll probably also keep an eye out for farm stands and grab some produce that will keep unrefrigerated for a few days. During the pandemic, I’ve been using support for local businesses as a way of justifying takeout or delivery once or twice a week, so I’ll probably keep doing that when I pass through developed areas.

Can you poop in your van? Does it smell? Yes to the first! I haven’t, um, tested it out yet. But after road trip in my sedan in May, when I had to go into a scary (no one wearing masks or social distancing) gas station in Colorado Springs, bathroom and hand-washing facilities for the van became a priority. Right now the portable toilet is just sort of hanging out in the open, but I’m going to build a plywood box to contain it. I did pee in it a bunch during my inaugural camping trip, and I’m happy to report that the chemicals I added to the tank made it not smell gross while also not producing an overwhelming chemical smell.

How will you get the internet? Unlimited data plan FTW! I recently figured out that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot and connect to it with my laptop. It’s not fast, but it’ll do what I need it to. And I should be able to have connectivity even in more remote areas after I get a signal booster.

Won’t you get tired of living in a tiny space? Maybe. I do have some good practice, though. In the last decade, I’ve gone from living in a 700-square-foot condo (Denver) to a 400-ish-square-foot studio apartment (New Jersey; grad school) to my childhood room in my parents’ house (Maryland; post-grad-school student loan debt). Each time, I’ve gotten rid of stuff, even things it’s painful to get rid of: old books, childhood knickknacks, cassette tapes, drawings, horse show ribbons I remember winning, cutlery and glassware I got as housewarming gifts.

I also tend to feel really at home in my car. I’ve napped in my car, drafted novels in my car, had long and meaningful conversations in my car, had existential crises in my car, eaten hundreds of meals in my car. Car = house makes sense to me. And I hope to be staying in places where I have access to big and engaging outdoor spaces.

What will you do after you live in a van for a while? I have no idea. There are definitely things that I want to do — write fiction, build my career, be more involved with community/communities, get healthier, be a better human — but all of those things are geographically nonspecific. And everything both personally and nationally feels so up in the air. I could end up living in a van for a year, or five, or ten. I might eventually buy a house or a boat or a farm, or settle down somewhere (I don’t know where) in a more permanent way. But I’m not making plans for any of that, and I’m not making plans for an “after.”

I think that’s it for the FAQ! If you have any questions, let me know and I will address them in a later LFAQ (Less Frequently Asked Questions).

Also, please bear with me because I don’t really know how Tumblr works. If you want to start reading, start FROM THE BOTTOM.

[weekendwarriorblog]

30 Minute Experiment: The Future of Comics #30ME

Okay, let’s do this. I wasn’t going to do a #30ME today cause I was put in a rather foul mood due to something that happened last night, but I’m trying to move past it, also because it’s been a few days since I did one of these. I had other things going on yesterday and Friday that it made it better for me to not spend time on this experiment. Either way, I’m back doing one on Sunday and today’s topic was offered by my friend, Peter, so here goes nothing...

I will freely admit that I am not as knowledgeable about the comic industry as my former boss at ComicsBeat and some of her staff, who cover the comic industry in such great detail and who know so much about the ins and outs of the industry. Right now, comics books are generally in flux and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I’ve been someone who has bought and read comics regularly. I’ve also bought comics that I’ve never found time to read. I also have reached points where I couldn’t afford to buy comics at all. And then there’s that thing about selling off my 40-year collection last year for way below what I thought I’d get for it.

I’ve generally been reading comic books since I was 9 or 10 when I found a bunch of ‘70s Superman comics in a clubhouse near our new house in Framingham, Mass. As a rather impressionable kid, I was a fan almost immediately, and even to this day, if you find a kid who likes to read, you’ll find a kid who loves comic books. It’s just something that you can always count on with younger boys and girls... if you hand them a comic book, they will read it. 

I was no different but I became quite obsessed and spent most of the money I earned from various job when I was a teenager and even younger on comics and records, which led to all sorts of issues later in life when I was living in a tiny studio apartment in New York City and was forced to put a lot of my old collections into storage spaces that I eventually couldn’t afford.

But this isn’t about my past with comics and about the future. I’m not sure if you’re aware or even if you’re somebody who still regularly reads and/or collects comics, but shortly after the pandemic struck the States, Diamond Distributors had to shut its doors. The problem was that Diamond was the top distributor of comic books from the publishers to the comic book stores. Even though there were many comics in the works to come out in April, May and June, on April 1, that distribution system just stopped dead and there was no way for the big three, DC Comics, Marvel Comics and Image Comics to get their comics out to the masses. The entire economy of the comic business quickly ground to a halt with no way for stores to pay for comics, no way for Diamond to properly and safely distribute them and very few stores actually open to sell them. At least that was the case in New York where a giant like MIdtown Comics had to close up as it wasn’t considered an essential business.

I felt a little mixed on this because I’ve already tried to quit buying and reading comics a few times over the past few years. In 2018, I thought I had reached a point where I could no longer afford to buy them nor have time to read them even while most of my time was spent looking for jobs rather than doing them. When I couldn’t afford to keep up my mail order subscriptions, I took the opportunity to stop. I then found myself having to get rid of my expensive storage spaces and that gave me another opportunity to quit. That was February 2019 and in the exact same month, I started writing for The Beat, and let’s just say that it’s hard to work for one of the top comic book sites on the planet and NOT be interested in what is happening in comics.

I vowed to keep things in control in terms of my spending and for the most part, I was able to do so, although I still have a lot of unread comics piled up near and around my bed that i just haven’t taken the time to read, especially with so many other distractions during the pandemic.

It’s now been a full month without comics and I still have plenty to read if I want to, but DC Comics have already started to come back slowly and Marvel will soon follow suit. Neither company is releasing nearly as many comics as they did in March when both companies would release 30 to 50 (or even comics) of all types and varieties. There’s just no way for someone with a limited income to keep up with it all so I feel like the pandemic closures gave me another opportunity to get out of my buying and non-reading habits. So I’ve written quite a bit about the topic of “the future of comics” without actually addressing it head-on, and maybe I’m a little biased, but my good friend David Lloyd had the best plan when he came up with the idea for Aces Weekly, which is a digital-only comic book site that offers brand-new comics that have never been seen anywhere else but only in a digital serialized format. No printing costs, no waste of paper... but some of the best comic book storytelling and art working out there that just hasn’t caught on as well as all of the usual superheroics from DC and Marvel who have also made the jump to digital.  What I like about Aces Weekly is that it reminds me of the Heavy Metal of my youth, stories that were in different genres than the usual superheroes, whether it’s sci-fi or fantasy or horror or even comedies. Part of why I got into David’s own work originally was because I regularly read his series V for Vendetta with Alan Moore when it was published in Warrior Magazine. In fact, having to get rid of my collection of original Warrior Magazines was one of the many heartbreaks from Midtown getting my entire collection for way below what I thought it was worth. (I probably shouldn’t bring that up again because it really puts me in a mood.)

But David did have something write that’s perfect for the post-pandemic world and that’s that if consumers are still relying on having physical books in print and there’s still a possibility of COVID-19 potentially being spread via packaging and shipping of such books... then yeah, we just have to go digital. I mean, everyone has a computer nowadays and most people have phones or tablets as well. Aces Weekly was designed beautifully to work in the landscape formatting that we’ve become so accustomed to from computers, TVs and tablets. It was never meant to be read on smartphones as that would destroy the beauty of the artwork and the sequential storytelling which is meant to be read as one does a comic strip in the Sunday papers (which still probably get more readers than the average comic book).

It’s kind of a strange time because comic books are more popular than ever due to the huge amount of superhero and comic book movies that have come out over the past 20 years, both good and bad. The success of these movies, particularly those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has made it for publishers to get comic books into avid younger readers who want to know more about the heroes they seen on screen. 

And yet, there’s still a big glut of comics being released that aren’t of the greatest quality and are kept around just because someone in editorial thinks that readers want these books. 

We’ve already seen a lot of comics going to digital services and a resulting outcry of comic book stores who realize that some people might be fine reading the stories in that format, thereby cutting out the middle men, but I personally still prefer physical comics, mainly because I can just sit back and read something without the use of technology and the screens that I’m looking at for so many hours over the course of the day.

Sure, I can’t really afford physical comic books and don’t really have the space to store them, plus I’m always in danger of them taking over my apartment and my ability to live comfortably, a constant problem, but I also wonder why more publishers haven’t gone the direction of David’s Aces Weekly and just created a solid product that involves great storytelling, writing and art and just rid the need for printing and paper, which is a bit of an ecological nightmare when you realize that comics are rarely recycled and are frequently just piling up in someone’s closet or backroom as a “collection.”

We’ve reached a point in technology where digital comics should very much be the standard and unfortunately that means that comic book shops need to change with the times and not be as beholden to having huge stocks of comics and toys taking up real estate just for those who show up and want to look around who may have some spare cash to buy something they clearly don’t need. Heck, most comic shops seem to do better business with Funko Pops and statues than actual comics these days so maybe they should be converted into toy or hobby shops... but with a knowledgable staff who can point those who want to read to sites/publishers that offer digital comics.

It’s kind of weird writing this on the day after what would have been this year’s Free Comic Book Day and what would have been the start of the summer movie season with Marvel Studios’ Black Widow, their first movie since Spider-Man: Far from Home  last July, but it seems we’re also at a very clear turning point where now is the time to change things to rid ourselves of the issues (pun intended) that have plagued us, like consumerism, the ecological nightmare that we’ve turned our globe into by destroying trees, and so many other things that physical comic books as they’ve existed for 80 years or more have only contributed to rather than helping us to get away from those issues.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this subject as more books are available from DC and Marvel but I’ve run out of time and Cuomo will be on soon, so back tomorrow!