#I’m thinking of this because my parents just watched crash landing on you and now THAT was a drama with SPARKLE 💖

[kiss-me-muchoo]

𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 || 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

summary_ Joel’s mother arrives for the weekend, she wants you to break up with him, even trying to set him up with his real state gorgeous agent. But Joel only has eyes for you.

warnings_ NO OUTBREAK, age gap! (20s/ late30s) but not specifically stated so do what u want, angst, fluff, mentions of dildos and inappropriate use of nightgowns, implied sex. NO PROOFREAD

notes_ Am I the only one who thinks good graces from Sabrina Carpenter is very pre-outbreak Joel! ????? HAPPY SEP 1! JOEL’S BIRTHDAY MONTH AND WE’RE CLOSE TO 🍂 AUTUMN 🍂

✰ 𝙄𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙓 (𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚)

♪ ♫ 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙋𝙚𝙙𝙧𝙤 𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙀

Eating cheap burritos, and sitting on the stairs of your parent's porch, by the end of the summer, Joel Miller asked to be your boyfriend.

“Can we be together?” you nearly choked at his words.

“Like… a couple?” He nodded, smiling shyly.

Truth is, you were shocked. You felt the tension since you met him in winter, but actually hearing from him that he wanted to be your boyfriend, being older and wiser than you, it was very shocking.

“Yeah… I’d like that, Joel”

And with that, he gave you the first kiss you had received in years after a hateful relationship.

You were in your twenties having a boyfriend in his mid-thirties, with a teenage daughter, and a hilarious brother, and his mother hated you.

But that wasn’t a worry at the beginning of the relationship.

-

You literally ran to the sidewalk as soon as you heard the mail bus speeding away.

Immediately you collected the package that landed in your grass. Because, since your parent's house was comfortable and big enough, they were not in a rush to kick you out. You were a local in the state university so… Why find a place away from your family and boyfriend?

Before you could have even thought about rushing inside, you heard Joel’s truck pulling into his home. Your hot neighbor had arrived.

Already blushing, you said hi to him.

“Hey, pretty one… Whatcha got there?” You looked down at the package in your hands.

“Books…” Joel noticed your shy smile, so he knew you were hiding something else.

“If you had let me find you a junk car, you could have avoided ordering them online” you rolled your eyes.

“Joel… we’ve talked about this, when the time comes and I feel confident, I’ll get that fucking license” he nodded, smiling widely at the sight of his girlfriend. He thought he was already too old to be into dating. But you hadn’t even tried, it was him who couldn’t get you out of his mind. And while he was embarrassed at the beginning, especially with your parents because of the age gap, now he was thankful.

“I know, baby. I’m not pressuring you, and certainly, I love being your chauffeur whenever you need me to…” you had told him you had been in a little car crash when you were eighteen, making you feel some panic about being behind the wheel again. And now, you weren’t afraid anymore, you just didn’t want to pressure it, the time would come naturally, it always did.

“So, I will go and open the package. I’ll come later to watch a movie with you and Sarah” you said walking towards the door, but Joel came hurriedly to grab you by the waist and hold you tightly.

“Sarah is having a sleepover with her friends. Tommy is doing extra hours at work. Why don’t ya come and show me what’s inside the box, darlin?…huh” you blush harder.

“Why are you implying there’s more inside the box?… other than books?” He smirked, his fingers were playing dangerously across your hips and you watched around to see if there wasn’t any nosy neighbor around.

“I know you like the palm of my hand, baby”

“Okay, you got me, Joel. I bought two cheesy romance books, a naughty nightgown, and a hearts dildo” he laughed, grabbing your hand and guiding you inside his house.

“You got to be kiddin’ me” you went straight to his kitchen to grab a knife and open the damn box.

Joel saw you very thoughtful, avoiding his gaze and noticing the shy smile resting on your face.

He got closer and almost choked once he saw the contents inside the box.

“You’re gonna kill me, y/n…”

There were indeed two books, a hot pink nightgown with lacy orange cleavage, very y2k. And the damn dildo, made of plastic that simulated being made of crystal, pink with a big pink heart handle.

“I told you…” you said playfully, Joel chuckled.

“Naughty girl…” Before you could blink, Joel picked you up, making you sit on his table and kissing you immediately.

“Are you gonna let me see you in that nightgown? Maybe let me watch you use that little toy?” Your cheeks were on fire as you listened to your boyfriend.

“God, Joel… shut up,” you said giggling.

“You cannot expect me to simply ignore what’s on the table, darlin’…”

“This is what we’re gonna do… we’ll seat and read one of my books while I wear the nightgown, I’ll be in your lap and you’ll get hard, so then… I’ll consider giving you a show with that fucking dildo."

“Fuck, baby…” Joel literally moaned.

“Let me tell my parents I’m staying and that Sarah is here,” you said, sliding off of the table. Joel knew your parents respected your relationship with him, but you still find it awkward to be publicly romantic in front of them. And he respected it as well.

“Fine, I’ll order Chinese food and we are taking a shower together”

“I can’t wait,” you said with your phone in your ear, watching your boyfriend disappear in the hallway.

-

Two weeks passed with simplicity and the summer was officially dying. You noticed that overnight you were slightly cold and the same in the morning. However, the days were still warm.

“Have you seen my everyday shirt?” Joel asked wandering in his closet, which made you giggle.

“I have it…”

“Darlin’…What am I gonna wear for breakfast then?” you hid under the sheets of his bed, feeling how he slowly made his way towards you.

In the sudden quietness, you tried to stay still, hoping to hear his footsteps approaching. You couldn’t lie, it built some tension and panic.

In a second, Joel finds his way to wrap his arms around you and captures you in an invasive embrace.

“JOEL!” You yell, being a little too dramatic.

He started tickling you, making you squirm and yelp, Joel couldn’t stop laughing.

“Hey, weirdos…” suddenly Sarah called from the doorframe. Joel uncovered you, lifting the bedsheets from your face and body, letting you see his daughter holding a phone in her hand.

“Grandma called, she’s coming this Friday.” The girl said, smiling at you.

“Oh… that’s nice.” You said, brushing Joel’s arm and trying to stay chill.

“I’ll call her later…” Joel muttered.

“Are you staying for dinner, y/n?” Sarah asked you.

“If you want to…” the girl nodded at you and then disappeared through the hallway.

You sighed, throwing yourself into the soft pillows. It was then that you noticed Joel hadn’t said a word and hadn’t touched you in at least two minutes, which was odd.

“Why do you suddenly look constipated?” Joel rolled his eyes but chuckled.

“We had plans for this weekend and you know my mother is not very… fond of you” Slowly, you nodded.

Mrs. Miller was quite young, Joel following her steps of being a parent in their youth. The woman made it clear the first time she met you that she didn’t like you. There wasn’t an actual confrontation but she usually ignored you.

“Why is it though? Because I’m younger?”

“Dunno, baby…” Joel said shrugging.

“But do not worry about her. We’re still havin’ fun. I won’t let her make you feel weird”

“I know that, Joel” he finally kissed you, soothing you in the way.

You won’t worry about that, because you immediately forget the moment Joel puts his arms around you and kisses you deeply.

-

It amazed you how fast things changed in two days. The moment Mrs. Miller arrived, she barely gave you a glance. She pleaded with Tommy, Sarah, and your boyfriend to have a family private dinner. Joel literally begged you to go with them but you wanted to be a reasonable girlfriend, so you said it was fine.

The following morning, you asked Joel if he wanted to have breakfast with you alone but her mother suddenly claimed she wanted to see some of the most famous spots of Texas. And in the afternoon, she made Joel take her to the mall because she wanted to crochet something for Sarah. Why didn’t she ask Tommy?

“Mrs. Miller, good evening” you greeted her, looking at how she was already perfectly styled, drinking a coke. She only gave you an awkward smile.

“Hey, love…” you then greeted your boyfriend giving him a little kiss on his cheek. The way his mother was staring made you feel odd.

“Are we going, son?” Mrs. Miller asked. You frowned confused. It was so strange to feel like the older woman was competing with you for Joel's attention.

“Uh-…” Joel stood there unsure of what to do.

“I promised Sarah that I would crochet a plushie for her…” The woman finished her drink while looking attentively at Joel, waiting for an answer.

“Fine, but it must be quick”

“I’ll get my jacket” Mrs. Miller finally disappeared.

Feeling irritated, you turned to face Joel.

“We were supposed to watch a movie together…” the man was visibly stressed out. And you didn’t want to annoy him but it was getting tiring to get dodged because of his mother.

“I know… I just…-“ you sigh, trying to be once again the comprehensive girlfriend.

“It’s okay, Joel. Enjoy having your mother around. Just let me know before making plans…” he nods, hugging you as if thanking you.

Through the door, her mother appeared once again, this time, holding the house wireless phone.

“Joel… Nani is calling you” Joel steps away from you and frowns.

“Who’s Nani?” You ask, crossing your arms and hoping to not sound too jealous.

“The real estate agent that works with Tommy and me. I just don’t get why she’s calling the house number” he sounds honest as he answers.

Your heart pounds a little faster and insecurity fills you in. You trust Joel, but you didn't like how nice his mother sounded about that girl named Nani.

“That’s the type of woman my son needs. You know?…” Mrs. Miller whispered as you brushed past her.

The only thing you did was to side-eye her and finally leave. You would call Joel in the night apologizing for leaving without saying anything. Although you weren’t in the mood to give explanations. An odd feeling grew in your guts, and that night, you couldn't sleep well.

Maybe the woman hadn’t been mean to you, but your blood was already boiling by the way Joel was handling the issue.

It was the day you were supposed to go with Joel and Sarah to the pumpkin patch. But with her mother being added to the plans, you weren’t so excited anymore. At least she would arrive later.

“Are you going to get ready anytime soon?” Your mother asked in your doorframe.

“I’m not excited to go anymore.”

“Let me guess… Joel’s mother?” You nodded at her. Your mother took a seat beside you in the bed.

“I’m gonna ask you something, okay?” Once again, you nod at her.

“You love Joel?”

“Very much, Mom”

“Then fuck off her mother, respectfully. You only have to be a good partner for Joel, not to prove anything to his mother, y/n”

She had a point.

“Now get ready and enjoy your evening with your boyfriend. If her mother joins, you are not there for her, remember…”

So you chose a cranberry sweater, you make a Smokey brown eye look that matches your gorgeous fall boots and 2000s coach handbag.

-

The sky is baby pink, which contrasts with the trees and their drying leaves. There’s a lot of series of lights decorating the pumpkin patch and making the place feel like it’s already later than it already is.

The laughs of Sarah and Tommy pull you back to reality. You spot them making fun of Joel who had bought a slice of pumpkin pie and the whipped cream of it was spattered across his face. How on earth did that happen?

“What are you doing?” You asked when your boyfriend stood beside you. He had a green and caramel open flannel with some white tee and jeans. He looked so fucking hot.

“My wallet fell and when I grabbed it, I forgot I had the cake in the other hand” you started giggling, whipping some of the cream with your pinky finger.

“Silly baby…” he rolled his eyes at you but then fixed his eyes on your lips. He couldn’t resist you, so he had to lean and kiss you.

Your fingers trace the little heart where his beard doesn’t grow as usual, and his big calloused hands find their usual spot between your neck and shoulder while the other softly grasp your chin.

“We can see you from here!” Both of you heard Sarah playfully yelling, which made you giggle and move away from Joel.

Sarah comes enthusiastically, gripping her father’s arms before also grabbing your hand.

“Hey, Tommy and I will go around and play…” you nodded at the girl, noticing the beige sweater with a pumpkin print. You wave at them one last time before turning to see Joel licking the rest of the whipped cream from his face.

His mother hasn’t appeared yet, claiming she would arrive later because she wanted to take her time. You haven’t told Joel about what she said last time you saw her. You also avoid prying about Nani. You just wanted to enjoy some quality time with him, only to remember how happy he made you.

“We should go to the haunted house and let me finger you in the mirror room”

“Joel, you’re disgusting” you answer laughing so hard at the unexpected comment.

“I was kidding, let's go and buy more food, I don't think I want to share my pumpkin pie with you”

“I like that plan” you answer, kissing his cheek. He offered his hand, which you gladly took.

“JOEL!” When both of you turn, you see his mother alongside a tall gorgeous woman.

“What the fuck?” Joel whispered.

“I found Nani!” Mrs. Miller said excitedly.

Nani was at least 5’7, with long dark hair, tanned skin, and green eyes. She had the thin body of a model and her clothes looked expensive. She also had a perfect smile.

“Joel, I was expecting you to call me,” the woman said giggling.

"Isn't she lovely, Joel?" His mother questioned with a fake smile.

Your heart stopped. You didn’t even know how to feel. You just stood there, ignoring the way Mrs. Miller was probably celebrating your downfall.

Joel turned to look at you, half pleading you and half panicking.

“Are you Joel’s daughter?” Nani asked and you wanted to cry.

Your eyes watered and you gripped your bag with violence to beat the anxiety.

“No, I’m not. Please excuse me… and nice to meet you” you said to the woman before bolting from there.

You heard Joel calling you but you ignored him.

-

That night you went out to take out some trash. The trash cans near your dad's car gave you the perfect view of Joel's porch, where he was smoking a cigarette. He had said in the past that he found himself smoking whenever he was under pressure or stress.

You remember his face when his mother appeared with Nani. He looked confused and annoyed as hell. But you also remembered the way he had barely put effort into trying to make you feel comfortable around his mother.

"I can see you, y/n..." You heard him calling you, but you had already turned around to go back inside the house.

"You know I love you so much, baby..."

Tears prickled in your eyes. You sighed.

"Seems like you can't love me enough when your mother's around" you spitted back, facing him, watching his hurt face before entering your house again.

-

The tranquility that filled your house was impressive. Your parents went out to a concert and then, they would have dinner, so they left you alone. And since you were ignoring Joel’s calls, your homework and chores were done, and there wasn’t anything else to do. Opting to play Lesley Gore in a low tone, you decided to bake something. It was colder, the neighbors had already begun hanging fake ghosts on their doors, some carved pumpkins decorated the grass and the smell of cinnamon was in every coffee shop.

But in your house, you started by placing all of the ingredients in the little island of the kitchen. Oat flour, granulated sugar, condensed milk, eggs, cinnamon and pumpkin purée.

The second day you didn't appear near the Miller’s house, you found Sarah and Tommy on your floor demanding to know why the hell you were mad with Joel.

You told them, avoiding some parts to discuss alone with Tommy but they both understood you. And it was obvious that Tommy would go and tell everything to Joel, but you actually hoped he did.

They also shared Mrs. Miller was officially gone. Tommy and Joel had a big argument with their mother. You couldn’t help but think it must’ve been hard for Joel. But then you remember how little effort he did to soothe you. Although Tommy promised you Nani and your boyfriend had nothing to do together, you were still mad.

And then a sudden knock on the door made you look away from your progressing baking. You weren’t expecting anyone, your parents had their keys and you didn’t order anything.

On the other side of the door, there was Joel. Looking nervous, holding a box of takeout and another bag with flowers peaking.

“Joel…” you weren’t expecting him. At least not on that day.

“I’m truly sorry, baby…” he said pleading.

“I wanted to enjoy having my mother around but I wasn’t expecting her to behave that way and it wasn’t my intention to lose you over that” You tilted your head.

“You haven’t lost me, dumbass. But I’m far from being happy…” he nodded.

“Can I come in? I brought your favorite noddles and tempura.” A little smile appears on your face.

“I was about to bake pumpkin and cinnamon rolls”

He had his dirty dark blue shirt, disheveled hair, and cozy joggers. Even when you weren’t pleased with him, you could feel the strong love you felt for him running through your veins with eagerness.

He followed you to the kitchen, where he placed the takeout and the other bag, then turned around to see you.

“Before anything else, I want to be clear and discuss what happened”

“Okay…” you answered.

“When Sarah’s mother left… I had nobody. Tommy was still a boy. Only my mother saw everything” Slowly, you offered him a cup of warm tea made of apples, cinnamon, cloves, and oranges. You were open to hearing him, just hoping he’d apologize.

“My mother helped me a lot eventually. But she knows how much I struggled… I was confident about not wanting to be involved with another woman. I even ignorantly started to believe all were the same” he says, drinking from his cup and watching you attentively.

“But thankfully I met you. We became friends before anything, you always showed how much you liked my family. And you turned out to be an amazing partner. You’re more than I could have ever wished for, y/n” you blush, nervously smiling at him. But he rushes to grab your hand as if he needs to confirm to you his words.

“I thought my mother was going to be happy for me finding the love of my life” he means it, you can tell by the way his brown eyes look up at you.

“Before this, I hadn’t even talked to Nina. I knew she was around but that was it. My mother had given her my number, Can you believe it?” For some reason, you laugh which results contagious for him.

“She said she wanted a woman like Nani for you” you admitted.

Joel sighed, rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I can’t believe her…”

For Joel, it had been difficult after you left the pumpkin patch. He apologized to Nani, explaining that it was a mistake and that had a girlfriend. Then Tommy and Sarah arrived home mad at him after visiting you. It was when he decided to have a talk with his mother. It didn’t end very well. And that was what tore him the most. Joel expected his mother to respect his relationship.

But he hoped she would understand one day. At the moment, it only mattered to him to make you feel loved and secure.

“I can easily see a bright future by your side, darlin’… I won’t let some stupid shit to ruin it.”

You knew very well Joel’s heart was too big and warm. You trusted him and you knew he never wanted to hurt you. Contrary to what his mother said, Joel was the type of man you needed. And you had him apologizing, promising to be good, and hoping to build a future along you.

“You haven’t lost me and I doubt you ever will, Joel….” you said hugging him tightly.

“See… I’m so lucky to have you, baby” Stepping on your tip toes, you kissed him deeply. Finding comfort in his embrace as usual. The memory of his mother is long gone.

“Love you…” he said in your ear.

“Love you more…” you whispered back.

And with that, the rest of the afternoon consisted of baking the fluffiest and softest pumpkin and cinnamon rolls, made with much love by you and Joel. And to his mother’s dismay, you would marry Joel Miller the following spring.

______________________________________________

I’m writing a new fic for Pedro’s Reed Richard’s and another Marcus Acaius based on the infamous emerald ring <3

[hardbeingcasual]

better off — lottie matthews. . . fem reader

warnings. plane crash, blood, losing a limb, typical yj stuff, angst, first fic in like 10 months so dont judge plssss, not proof read

summary. before the crash lottie shut you out, the only time she spoke to you was for soccer, until… you get hurt in the crash and she starts to regret her actions.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

A few hours ago you were nervous for nationals, but now you were nervous for your own life.

You were perched up against a tree, Misty right in your face trying to convince you that you were going to be okay as you clutch your arm thats bleeding… badly.

But you didn’t believe her. Why would you believe Misty?

Your arm was soaked in blood, it was disgustingly unfixable.

You knew it had to be amputated, like Coach Ben’s leg moments ago. You suck in a deep breath, tears falling freely down your face as you look up to see that most of the team (the alive ones) were stood there looking at you sorrowfully.

Your eyes land on Lottie, and you don’t even fight the eye roll. Your eyes move to Misty, more tears falling down your cheeks from the pain you’re feeling.

“Do what you’ve got to do.” You tell her in utter defeat. You just wanted the wilderness to swallow you up whole right here. Misty nods at your words.

You scream so loud at the pain, your vocal cords straining as the pain in your arm increases as Misty begins to amputate your arm. The group can’t help but just watch as Misty hacks your arm off.

Lottie wanted to go over and hold your remaining hand but she was frozen. A frown on her face as she watches you squirm in pain.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

A few days had gone by, you still hadn’t been rescued, it was getting tougher and tougher to get used to having one arm.

You were currently sat on the grass away from everyone to get some peace just for a little bit, you liked to take breaks from the group, just sitting alone with your thoughts when the group got too much.

You snapped out of your thoughts when you heard a twig snap behind you, whipping your head around you were face to face with Lottie.

You ask, “What do you want?” In a not so kind tone, but the tone was honestly deserved.

Lottie shrugs like she was a deer in the headlights, “Thought you would’ve wanted some company.”

You scoff at her. “Didn’t think you were talking to me.” You honestly felt offended, now that you had no arm she wanted to speak to you? Whatever.

She sits next to you on the grass, picking up with a stick and starts poking it in the mud anxiously. “How is your arm?”

“Still gone.” You say bluntly to which she nods awkwardly.

“Sorry.” She mutters, still digging holes into the ground as she never held eye contact. Your lip trembles, from the pain of your arm but also your heart.

“Why did you stop talking to me? Why did you shut me out?” You questioned, swallowing the lump in your throat as she finally lifted her eyes from the ground to look at you.

“I was ashamed.” She confesses.

Your eyebrows raise “Of me?”

“No, of me. Of what I was feeling. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship—”

You cut her off. “But you already did that, by shutting me out and ignoring me, Lottie.” Her name felt like venom on your tongue.

“When you kissed me, my parents saw us,” Your face falls at that, Lottie continues, “They told me not to see you again, so I listened, because I was scared on what was going to happen and I’m sorry, okay?” A few tears slip down Lottie’s cheeks as she tells you, tears pool in your eyes also.

“I thought I did something wrong.” You frown at her, as she holds your hand.

“You could never.”

[micamicster]

19th life simply does not have It

Gonna say something mean 💕 in my reblog let’s keep this between us girls ok?

[emo-batboy]

I’m 1000% certain there’s a file of test videos (for research purposes ofc) of Battinson trying all of his fancy gadgets. These include but are not limited to:

Flying right into walls with his grappling hook

Jumping and falling like dead weight in his gliding suit prototypes

Just staring at himself in the mirror with his new contact lens and muttering, “I swear I can still see it”

Bruce watching over Alfred’s shoulder and scribbling frantically as Alfred tests out the bullet-proofness of the suit and cape

Crashing the Batmobile with his various turbo engine prototypes

Tossing differently-shaped batarangs at a target to see how it affects their trajectory

(Getting yelled at by Alfred because he decided to put the target right next to the elevator and almost killed him)

Submerged in a big tub of water for ten minutes to see if the rebreathing apparatus he made works then realizing he forgot to bring down towels then looking like a drowned rat as he waits for Alfred to come down

Raising his eyebrows several times under the cowl before deciding that he needs to make it bigger because it’s still obviously him

Injecting himself with different doses of his adrenaline shot (Alfred rips him a new one for trying it without supervision)

A random video of Bruce spinning in his chair and mumbling along to Mitski while he thinks of his latest case (how did that get in there)

Eating shit every time he makes another attempt at handheld rocket boosters

Eating shit every time he makes another attempt at rocket boots

Cutting off power to the entire building after using an early model of his EMP gun

Pouring over footage on the bat computer, grease paint and all, while a little baby bat just nestles in his hair (how did that get in there)

Smacking himself in the face with a nunchuck while trying out a new technique (he was incredibly sleep-deprived, like 62-hours-without-sleep-deprived, Alfred confiscates the nunchucks)

Coughing up a lung while testing out his new smoke pellets and immediately regretting it because this is literally a sub-level basement, what was he thinking

Dick complaining about how annoying and heavy his first Robin suit is “How can I do cool flips off a building if I can’t even touch my toes?” “You are not flipping off of buildings.”

Testing over 200 prototypes of flexible bulletproof fabric for the new Robin suit. (Dick spends this time practicing flips off of high places. Just for fun.)

Breaking his new night vision lens by turning off the lights, realizing he forgot to turn the lens on first, and immediately walking into a chair

Trying out an audio frequency jammer, but when he turns it on, all of the bats in the cave swarm him and he freaks the fuck out (Dick starts calling it the Bat Beacon, Bruce refuses to acknowledge its existence)

Pouring over footage on the bat computer, grease paint and all, while Dick cuddles himself into the back of Bruce’s sweatshirt, fast asleep (how did that get in there)

Doing donuts with the Batmobile using its new remote controller while Dick cheers him on from a safe distance

Landing on his ass after shooting his net launcher without planting his feet first

Dick doing various flips and other skills in his new Robin suit while Bruce takes notes

Testing different skin-safe adhesives for Dick’s domino mask

Slipping on ice after using their new freeze grenades

Adding a parental lock onto the computer because Dick keeps playing Roblox on it when Bruce is gone

Installing a new entrance to the bat cave because Jason said he totally missed the opportunity to have a secret entrance behind a bookcase and now they’re all in agreement because it is much cooler than a boring service elevator

Cutting through random materials with their new set his collapsible knives and swords, including his table which he did not mean to break

Dick and Jason screaming bloody murder when they walk in on him testing a cloaking device prototype and appearing out of literally nowhere

Jason messing with the taser Bruce gave him and immediately getting it confiscated

Pacing in circles to perfect the tracking devices he installed in Dick and Jason’s utility belts

Pouring over footage on the bat computer, grease paint and all, while Jason is in his lap, rambling about what he did in school today (how did that get in there)

Bruce, Dick, and Jason in a puppy pile on Bruce’s office chair, despite there being two perfectly functional chairs right beside that one. They’re all fast asleep

[landoscaring]

landoscar fic masterlist

my amazing takes have garnered me a few new followers, so i thought i'd create a bit of a masterlist for the fics i've written for these two maniacs that perhaps you'd like to read, if you're so inclined (if not, that's okay! you can keep enjoying my frankly incredible takes, will buxton i am COMING for you in the cleanest of ways).

Edit: this started out small with just a few fics but now it's quite big, so, read below:

greet me with goodbye (completed, 3/3) (memory loss fic) (E)

Oscar is more than used to speed, for obvious reasons.

Speed has been a constant in his life, even as a child. His mom, embarrassingly, likes to tell people that as a kid he’d pretend to act like a car, revving up and down his house like a madman. He remembers his first karting competition, the confidence that flowed through his veins and the adrenaline of thinking he was the fastest 10-year-old to ever exist. He’s still confident, he has to be, in order to make it in this sport, but he’s had years to refine his technique, understand his car, and finesse his driving so he can achieve the speed he needs to win a race. His speed on track has earned him a spot in the most exclusive grid on the planet, a process that was fast-tracked itself when he made the move to McLaren, shocking the motorsport world as he did.

And yet.

a landoscar soundtrack (series) (4 parts/?)

we might as well be strangers (3/3) (what you need to know: oscar-moves-to-a-different-team-and-lando-has-feelings fic) (E)

Lando really should’ve known better than to get attached.

Scratch that.

He should’ve known better than to fall in love with a teammate. Again.

maps (1/1) (what you need to know: oscar is one jealous dude and has a lot of thoughts about it) (M)

Oscar’s never really thought of himself as a jealous person. His mom jokes that he’d been a pretty chill baby, and that even when his younger sisters came along, he never really fought for his parents’ attention, which at first worried his parents, afraid that he’d simply been building on his rage and would throw a fit eventually. But no, not really, Oscar had just been content with being there, watching the world around him with wide, observant eyes. So long as they let him read his car magazines and zoom around his house pretending to be a Ferrari, he was fine with having his younger sisters around.

only to live in your memories (1/1) (what you need to know: oscar yearns, lando flirts, it all comes crashing down at danny ric's wedding) (E)

“I think Ozzy here is not telling us something, mate,” George conspires, and Alex hiccups through a laugh before he stands, wobbly, and walks closer to where Oscar’s standing.

“Out with it, you rascal,” says Alex, hand aiming for Oscar’s shoulder but landing somewhere on his collarbone instead.

Oscar can’t help laughing at the ridiculous display in front of him and decides to simply accept his fate and tell them, as good-naturedly as he can: “Pretty sure he’s somewhere around here hooking up with Daniel’s sister.”

He’d thought his pals’ reactions would range from vulgar remarks to crude gestures, jokes at Daniel’s expense, that sort of thing. Instead, his announcement is met with drunk pity. They both look like they kicked a puppy, and the puppy is Oscar.

This is precisely why he’d been pretending to be drunk. So that they could maintain the guise of not remembering the next day and doing it all over again at the next wedding.

kisses (4/?) (what you need to know: post-race fics to heal or destroy, there is no in-between) (E)

chapter 1: zandvoort

chapter 2: monza

chapter 3: austin

chapter 4: mexico

never break the chain (4/5) (what you need to know: lando and oscar hate each other because of a racing incident when they were kids! but then they're teammates! oh no!) (E)

Zac looks at Lando, then at Oscar, and then back at Lando. “You need to sort this out, stat. I’m not having this –”

“What are you going on about? We’re golden, Oscar and I,” Lando bristles. “Practically besties, aren’t we, Osco?”

Lando knows using his old nickname for Oscar is a low blow, if his expression is anything to go by. But whatever. He’s fed up with this, and he wants Oscar as far away from him as possible, so if it hurts him, good.

Zac is turning red, and his mouth is opening, surely to remind Lando of his place, but Oscar beats him to it. He stands, inclines his head politely in Zac’s direction, and steps directly in front of Lando’s chair. His jaw is set, eyes cold. Lando has never seen him angry, had thought him incapable of it.

“I wasn’t expecting much, but I definitely thought you’d at least grown the fuck up,” he sneers. “Clearly, I was wrong. And for the record, you crashed into me. Thank you, Zac, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

secret's a blinking light (1/1) (what you need to know: fake marriage! oh no! lando needs to stay in australia what will oscar do!) (M)

So, he thinks he surprises himself and his sister Hattie and every single person he’s ever interacted with when he says, “I’ll marry you” to Lando Norris one Thursday afternoon in late May.

(He can blame it on George’s and Alex’s pestering, that.)

Lando seems surprised, too, but he recovers quickly.

como te vas (1/1) (what you need to know: lando eats oscar's choco bunny. oscar is looking for it. chaos ensues) (T)

Oscar, who’s pacing around the room with a confused expression adorning his face. His gorgeous, kissable face. Lando quickly forgets about the stupid fucking game and instead starts to plan his attack. He could launch himself from here, probably. Oscar would catch him. Or. Well. He could also fall flat on his face, and everyone knows that’s like, 78% of his whole charm or whatever. Anyway.

He calculates. Closes one eye. Turns his head sideways. Oscar’s still pacing the room, rummaging through the discarded clothing on the floor; the mess on his bedside table.

Lando rolls his eyes.

“Something missing?”

new romance (ilysfm) (3/3) (what you need to know: oh no they get accidentally married in vegas! but then they talk about it! it's cool!) (E)

There’s a beat of silence, and Lando just has to know, he needs to know, so he asks: “Do you remember anything?”

Oscar shakes his head slowly. He lifts a hand, then starts enumerating: “I remember the podium, debrief, hotel, taxi, club, Max, some horrible dancing, tequila –”

“That’s what I—,” Lando starts to say, relieved and disappointed at the same time, and then there’s a glint of something on Oscar’s hand, and instead he says, “fucking hell, what the fuck.”

Oscar splutters, his eyes darting around the room and across Lando’s body quickly in search of damage. “Wha—?”

“We’re both wearing rings,” and Lando’s head is spinning, but something tells him he’s right. “We’re in Vegas. We’re both wearing rings in Vegas, Oscar.”

i just want you for my own (1/4) (what you need to know: secret-santa-exchange-at -the-office landoscar! they are secretly in love! santa fixes it!) (M)

Los Boyos

Today

Georgie (affectionate) [12:03 PM]:

Hohoho, mateys.

Albonito [12:04 PM]:

? good afternoon?

Albonito [12:06 PM]:

…well go on george don’t leave us hanging mate

Georgie (affectionate) [12:07 PM]:

Apologies. Ocon needed some help with the printer.

Georgie (affectionate) [12:08 PM]:

just overheard lewis and seb in the lounge room. apparently nando wants the whole floor to partake in a secret santa exchange. details to come.

december '24 (or, a landoscar fever dream) (series, 4 parts)

Lando [12:09 PM]:

mint. is that the one were you steal peoples gifts i love that game

you know how to ball (i know aristotle) (1/1) (what you need to know: post wcc 2024, landoscar finally do something about it) (E).

Oscar tries not to stare at Lando as he moves through the crowd, at the graceful sway of his hips, the delicate set of his shoulders. He sees how he places his hands over people’s backs, shoulders, arms, head tipped back in delight, lips stretched thin in a smile that radiates self-assuredness and confidence. A finally. Someone reaches over to adjust Oscar’s cap and he grins in their direction, hoping they can’t see where his eyes had been. Andrea catches his eye on the way down, though, and there’s a glint there that lets Oscar know he’s been caught on. He laughs, shrugs one shoulder. Andrea rolls his eyes, but the smile on his face never falters.

it's night time (time to play) (1/1) (what you need to know: fia gala + plus one allegations +strip poker +mile high club) (E).

Oscar almost forgets about the whole thing until Lando messages him three days later, asking him what he’s up to.

Not much, mate, I think I’m still hungover.

lmao lightwait. did you think about my offer

What offer?

to come to ruanda with me

Oh. Right. So he hadn’t imagined that whole exchange.

Not sure I’m what they mean when they say you can have a plus one, Lando.

in your eyes (i see and feel it all) (1/1) (what you need to know: galex conspires to gift landoscar a padel date) (T)

wdym? your my mate

and you won the thing to like

plus ill be so bored osc come on

Friends, Lando thinks, are overrated.

His certainly are, anyway.

Specifically, those who think they’re being coy by setting him up on a padel date with his teammate. Whom they know he’s been in love with for the better part of the year. And who remains painfully clueless about the whole thing.

He’d approached him, at the end of the season, holding up his padel coupons from Alex with a hopeful, knowing glint in his eye. The news of their conspicuously identical secret santa gifts had traveled fast across the paddock. Max had laughed, loudly, and clapped a hand over Lando’s shoulder in what Lando thinks was his idea of commiseration. Maybe, Oscar had said, floppy brown hair blowing gently back in the Qatari air, once it’s warm back at home, we could…and Lando had nodded before he’d even finished the sentence.

He regrets that moment, thoroughly and completely.

there's a hole in you and me (that pulls us together) (1/1) (what you need to know: lando says oscar's name on stream) (M)

He listens to Max ramble on and complain about the lag, and soon enough they’re playing. Lando ignores the chat and focuses on the mission. But then the guy next to him, his partner, takes a wrong turn and Lando says, without thinking, “On the right, Osca—Connor, on the right.”

And yeah, he knows how that’s going to go. Max is quiet, but he sees him subtly shake his head at him. Lando double checks that he’s not needed and turns around to find Oscar looking at him from the bed, mouth quirked up.

“Did you just –”

Lando nods, sheepish. It’s not like they’re a complete secret, even. They haven’t exactly been quiet about it. Their friends know, and the team, too. But –yeah, it’s not public-public, yet.

[georgie-weasley]

Spontaneous pt. 2 G.W. x reader

Warnings: One swear word, talk of self loathing, Fred and Lee Jordan shenanigans

Word Count: 2.8k

Pairing: George Weasley x fem!reader

Summary: George finally pulled it together and asked you on a date but it had some bumps along the way.

Masterlist Part 1

The week passed by painfully slowly. On Sunday, the day after George plucked up the courage to ask you out, he woke up thinking it was Saturday. He was very disappointed to learn he was wrong. Monday was slow but they usually are. Tuesday felt like Monday. Wednesday was only good because George spent his free period pranking Filch which happened to be one of his favorite ways to pass the time. He thought Thursday was Friday and he spent the whole day pouting every time he was reminded it wasn’t Friday. When it finally was Friday, George couldn’t sit still. He was sweaty and jumpy and got on every one of Fred’s nerves.

Now that it was Saturday, George paced around the courtyard, checking his watch just about every minute. 7:58. Everyone would be leaving in just two minutes and he couldn’t see you anywhere. You couldn’t have gotten lost. He knew for a fact your parents made sure you were always on time so you couldn’t have been late. You were standing him up. His heart dropped and tears pricked in the corner of his eyes. You said you wanted to come with him, in fact you said that you would love to join him but maybe it was all an act. You couldn’t tell him no to his face so you let him believe he had a shot with you only to leave him alone and embarrassed. With his head down, George started walking back to the castle when someone rammed into him.

George and the human bludger toppled to the ground, George landing harshly on his rear end. The attacker fell onto him, breaking their fall. Lucky them. With a glare and a flurry of curses ready to spring out, George looked up at the person who sent him crashing to the ground only for his anger to die immediately as he saw you. “George, I’m so sorry. I was so worried you’d leave without me or think I had forgotten you that I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

George blushed and snorted. “Why would you think that?” He smiled and once you got to your feet, he stood up as well. He offered his arm out to you and as you linked arms, he led you to join the crowd of students who had just begun their walk to Hogsmeade. “Why were you running late?” He was curious and maybe you would have brought it up on your own later but he had to know.

“I was reading a letter from my parents. I just received their response about me becoming a healer.” Your face fell for a split second before your smile came back. Part of you hoped George wouldn’t notice but another part of you wanted him to see. As fate would have it, George is very aware of anything concerning you. He saw your brief frown and when you smiled to cover it up, he didn’t see the spark in your eyes. They were not happy.

“They didn’t like it, did they?” He whispered, watching his feet as you walked.

“No, they didn’t. I was going to tell you later so I didn’t bring the mood down.” You pulled your arm away from his; after that rather disappointing topic, linking arms felt too intimate.

George felt the warmth leave his arm and he almost grabbed you, tempted to put it back. “I’m sorry. Let’s go to Honeydukes and get your mind off of it.” While he wanted you to focus on something else for a while, George was going to need the distraction as well. It was very possible your relationship with your parents could have been ruined all because of him. If that was true, he would never forgive himself.

The walk to Honeydukes was far too quiet. You didn’t say much and George wasn’t sure what to say. He already messed up when he asked you about the letter from your parents and he feared anything else would ruin the date completely. The store itself was the exact opposite of your walk with George. It was full of bright and colorful candies and people all talking excitedly about the unlimited sweets they planned to buy. Two men walked in not long after the two of you did and one of them looked shockingly similar to George. He was about the same height and covered in freckles. George would have bet money that he also had brown eyes but they were covered by sunglasses. He was a ginger as well but he had a mustache that looked like it was falling off. His friend also had sunglasses and a mustache but George could have sworn it was upside down. He looked a lot like Lee Jordan. He turned away from them and smiled a little at you. The environment seemed to neutralize the awkwardness between you and George, thankfully.

As you both wandered the aisles, George pointed out some of the candies that he preferred over the others. Of course he would eat just about anything there. “Can I buy you something?” He asked as he stood next to you. You had been looking at your favorite candy when he came up to you. If he was being honest, he shouldn’t buy you candy. Him and Fred were trying to save as much money as they could to try and save up for their products and eventually a store. It also was common knowledge that the Weasley family did not have much spending money so really, George should not have offered. That didn’t stop him though. He wanted to be the perfect date and that meant getting you some candy.

“That’s alright. You don’t have to.” You shook your head, trying to convince him not to buy you anything. It wasn’t like your parents didn’t have money. They were important people in the ministry and you never struggled for money. You could get your own candy and really, you could get George some as well.

“I insist.” Without waiting for you, George gathered a handful of packages and moved on to a different part of the store. After more time, George had his arms full of candy and his heart full of fear that he wouldn’t be able to pay for it all. As you both approached the counter, George set down the snacks and rummaged through his pockets. He counted up the coins and his heart dropped when he saw he was a Sickle short. His face burned bright red as he tried to do some quick mental math to get the total down when you slipped the silver coin into his hand. He only turned a darker shade of red at that. He didn’t want to use your money but he didn’t want to fight with you while the bored man behind the counter stared at him.

With the candy paid for, George gathered it back into his arms and just about sprinted out of the store. He kept walking, leaving you to run after him. He felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. He should have counted his money before they came into the store so he knew just how much he could buy you. He should have only got some for you and none for him. His eyes widened as a thought seemed to smack him right in the face. He wanted to take you for a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks before the day was over but now he would have no money to do so.

“George!” You yelled, grabbing his arm. Lost in thought and self hate, George had begun walking toward the Shrieking Shack and almost moved past the fence blocking it from the public. He skidded to a stop. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for at least five minutes. What’s wrong?”

Did you really not know? How could you not have figured this out on your own? He didn’t answer and instead he turned back to look at the haunted building. What was he supposed to say? I’m mad because I spent all of my money getting you some sweets and now I can’t afford to get you anything else because my family is broke. Not to even mention you had to give me some of your money you no doubt got from your super rich parents.

“I didn’t mean to George. You insisted on buying me the candy.” He said all that out loud didn’t he?

He slowly turned back to you with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you, it's just embarrassing to have to use your money.”

You moved to stand next to him, leaning against the fence. “I don’t think you should be embarrassed. Your father gets to spend his days doing what he loves. It’s not great that it doesn’t make him much money but he’s happy. Happiness is what matters most right?”

“Yeah but being happy versus being able to afford books and clothes for your kids is very different.” George loved his parents and he knew they spent a lot of money taking care of them but that didn’t make it hurt any less when he saw Ron wearing ratty old uniforms or Ginny using books that had been used so many times they were hardly holding together. It never got easier to see his friends have everything he wanted. It would never get easier.

You carefully took the candy out of his arms and shoved it into your bag before taking his hand in yours. “I’m sorry your family struggles and I’m sorry it affects you like this but please know, I am more than happy to spend my money on you. You’re right when you said my parents are ‘super rich’. They make more than enough money at the ministry which is why I don’t mind spending some of it, or a lot of it, on you.”

He opened his mouth to argue but the words died in his throat when he saw the pleading look on your face. It was your money and you would spend it how you wanted and he would just have to live with the fact that you want to spend it on him.

“Now, how about you let me spend some of this money on you and treat you to that butterbeer you planned on getting me?”

George laughed and nodded. “Only if you let me get you one next time.”

“Deal.”

---

The two of you laughed loudly at George’s story while you were tucked away into a corner booth. Something about promising that you like to spend money on him made George relax and you were finding out he’s even more fun when relaxed, if that was possible. You crammed yourself into the spot next to him and he had his arm thrown around your shoulders. He was perfect in every way.

“So you guys turned Ron’s teddy bear into a spider and that’s why he’s so scared of them? That’s horrible.” You laughed.

“Only a little. It was our job as older brothers to mess with him, we just didn’t know it would scar him for life. Oh well, it builds character.”

You only rolled your eyes and laid your head on his shoulder, pretending to ignore the way his body stiffened and his breathing stopped as you did. Despite the rocky start to the date, it easily became the best date of your life. George was funny and cute and probably the sweetest guy you ever spent time with. He was the kind of guy that would break his back if it would make you smile. You never wanted the day to end. Of course, it had to and with the warm glow coming in from the windows, it was time to head back to the castle. That didn’t make you move however. You were planning on staying here until the absolute last second.

“George,” you whispered, “thank you for asking me out. I’ve had a really great time.”

“Me too. I should have asked you out years ago.” His heart pounded in his chest as you moved to look at him, your face inching closer to his. He glanced down at your lips hoping he would get to learn if they really were as soft as he imagined. When you were just a centimeter away, a loud crash caused you both to spring apart. Across the way, the two men from before sat; the ginger was clutching onto his mug that had toppled over and now laid on its side, liquid steadily spilling out. Both of them quickly looked away from the two of you.

Moment officially ruined, you separated yourself from him and sighed. “We should probably get back to the castle.”

---

The walk back to the castle couldn’t have been more different than the walk to Hogsmeade. You two were laughing and holding hands and George seemed to have a permanent blush on his face. It was wonderful but the letter from your parents was in the back of your mind. He needed to know what it said but you were so worried it would ruin everything. In the courtyard, you stopped George even though all you wanted was to ignore the letter. “George, there’s something I should tell you.”

He stood in front of you and clung to your hand. You looked so serious and afraid of whatever it was you needed to talk to him about. He was getting scared now. George nodded, not trusting his voice.

“When I told my parents about what you said, that I should chase my happiness and all of that, they were not happy at all. They were disappointed and told me I was throwing away everything we had been working towards since I was born.” You took a deep breath and looked at your feet. “They said you were a bad influence and that I need to stay away from you. You were brainwashing me into thinking I wanted something that I didn’t want.”

Well shit. George told himself that he would never forgive himself if you ruined your relationship with your parents because of him. Let eternal self hatred begin. “I never meant to make them disappointed in you or mess this up for you.” He swallowed thickly as his heart broke. He was sure this was you telling him that whatever you had together needed to end. It would only make sense that it needed to. They were your parents, the people that brought you into the world and raised you and loved you. George was just… George. He was no one to throw away a good relationship with your parents for. There would be other guys that made you happy that your parents would approve of. Someone better and more deserving of you than George. He pulled his hand away from you but he didn’t get far.

Your grip on his hand only tightened as he tried to take it away. “I know you didn’t mean to. I don’t blame you, at all.” You stepped closer to him and put your other hand on his cheek. “You aren’t brainwashing me, you just helped me see that I would never be happy doing what they want me to do. So maybe they’re right and you are a bad influence but I happen to enjoy it.”

George’s eyes widened at your words, his heart mending itself. “I enjoy being your bad influence.”

“Good because I’m not letting you get away from me that fast.” You grabbed his face in your hands and surged forward, planting your lips on his. George didn’t move and for a moment you feared he had a heart attack or stopped breathing but he quickly recovered and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against him. Your lips melded together perfectly and you were certain he was the one you were destined to be with.

“Hell yeah Georgie!” A shout from across the courtyard forced George to pull away from you. Standing not far from you two stood the two men he had seen everywhere all day. The redheaded was jumping and cheering while his friend did the worst dance George had ever seen. As the one jumped, his mustache and sunglasses fell to the floor. Fred.

For a short moment, everyone stood frozen before George spoke. “Five…”

“What are you doing?” You questioned.

“Giving them a head start. Four…”

Fred and Lee took off running, glasses and mustaches left behind. George smiled and turned back to you, planting a quick and soft kiss on your lips. “I have to go beat up my brother and best friend but I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow and the rest of your life George. You’re stuck with me.”

“Oh my, whatever shall I do.”

Tags: @elijahslover

[gristlegrinder]

okay quick 2024 roundup of all of my new gw2 kids. including some people i've never posted about! yeehaw okay let's go

ZOOFAHSHOO

she/they | quaggan | herald

they’ve been an ongoing bit in some of my rps for a while but this is the year that zoof manifested fully in my brain! (zoof? my brain keeps wanting to shorten it to zooey, pronounced like “gooey,” and i have not decided if that’s too silly or if it’s cute). she’s a priory scholar who left their home village of kahloipoi to try and find a way to take care of the risen for good. from there, she becomes the noble pact commander and champion of aurene, taking up arms and leading the charge against the elder dragons. she quietly ignores everybody who demeans her station because of the novelty of what she is, and she bites her tongue whenever she wants to lash out at her enemies with the ferocity she knows she harbors within her.

when they get knocked out of the sky and crash land in cantha, an uninvited guest latches on while everything is dark. it’s an old “friend”— the demon deimos, crawling out of the shadows after being mercilessly slaughtered by her and her squad six years earlier. he’s only a mist reflection of himself, so he insists that he isn’t there to feed on their torment and misery. instead, he’s the worst enabler, finding the quaggan’s reluctance to embrace or even acknowledge all of the nasty impulses festering inside of them— a quaggan’s rage, her envy, her arrogance, her hungers— too fascinating to not spend his afterlife picking at. it’s an odd dynamic that serves as a constant source of uneasy temptation and bickering, but she has to admit that he has his merits, and that maybe he's right about some things.

this, as you can imagine, makes things interesting when she investigates strange camps in kryta and plunges headfirst into a rift, face-to-face with his estranged brother, his sister hissing in their ear, and a war about to start. there are some things that the astral ward doesn't need to know about their new wayfinder. and deimos can complain under his breath all he wants as long as they can keep their act together. i love her a lot.

OUR LADY SERRA

she/her | krytan human | tempest

serra ran away to the circus as a plucky kid with ideas bigger than her parents could manage. growing up with them, she specialized as an acrobat and aerialist, although her innate talent at magic definitely came in handy with more elaborate stunts. her troupe was her family, and her ringmaster ivy was like an older sister to her— she would follow them to the ends of the earth. and that’s what she did, when their ship crashed in the ring of fire on their way home to lion’s arch and they spent years stranded as castaways on the ember bay. afterwards (and perhaps after watching one of her family members get eaten by a giant sloth) she exited the high stakes of the circus business and left all of her grief behind with it, and now works independently as a burlesque performer in smaller venues.

i’m not entirely sure how deep her involvement was in the white mantle. i think it’s fair to say that ivy’s circus was probably funded by caudecus, at least originally, and i have a hard time believing they weren’t somehow involved in the white mantle when they were inexplicably in the heart of maguuma at the same time as the events of heart of thorns and everything going on in the forsaken thicket raid. but they also don’t mention their politics at all, and they seem unaware of the escalating tension back home and the imminent krytan civil war, probably because they would’ve shipwrecked and lost contact before xera was killed. do you ever just completely abandon your cult mission because you got distracted adopting a slubling and turning it into a circus attraction? surely there’s something going on there. she’s not happy about whatever it is. i definitely want to expand on whatever she's got going on next year, which should be fun.

anyways, why are carnival weapons so expensive? send help.

THOR (not pictured) + SIF 

he/him and she/her | norn | unknown + core necromancer

thor isn’t built in the game yet (my character slots…), but sif is! thor is the rhythm guitarist of THE BLOODBATH APOSTATES, a my chemical romance knockoff pop punk outfit that started in lion’s arch in the wake of its destruction. as the oldest of six or seven children, thor’s mother picked everybody up and left their father’s sons of svanir cult in the middle of the night when thor was a young adolescent. he’s got complicated feelings about that, in the way that you do when you know objectively as an adult that your father sucks and was not a good person to people who were not you, but you also can’t help yourself from hating what you lose in the process. he decided to channel that angst into making music with his best friend (a guy he met by getting into a drunken fistfight in a back alley) and the charr cub crashing on his couch. ultimately, thor’s a typical guitarist sleazebag who flirts with their fans a little bit too much and causes too much of a scene in public when he’s had a little bit too much of the good stuff, and arrogantly assumes they’re all the new rock gods of tyria.

sif is his wife, who is kind of miserable with the whole arrangement. she was cooler when they first started dating— a DIY show regular studying necromancy with all of the snarl of leopard, daring and bold despite a lifetime of insecurities. but she put her studies and her life on hold when she became pregnant, and agreed to support their new family if it meant he could carve out a legend for the three of them, and it wouldn’t change a thing. it ultimately wasn’t what she thought it would be, and she bears most of the heavy burden of childcare and managing a homestead (and being a creative consultant, and helping with budgeting and travel logistics) on her own while he tours, pretending she doesn’t know what he smells like when he comes home for a fleeting hour in the middle of the night, or what the gossip rags have been writing about him. she’s busy having an affair or two of her own and thinking about killing him before she runs out of time to get out of this lot. it's a bitter resentment festering.

guild wars 2 is a game about cycles repeating themselves.

IBUKI

they/he/she/it | tengu | profession undecided (probably a virt?)

imagine a world where we get playable tengu and i don’t have to fight with getting screenshots of an NPC with the closest character model. anyways, they’re my other 2024 character in me and saint’s bloodbath apostates project. ibuki is their keyboardist, and they also mess around with synthesizers and a lot of technical audio production.they’re classically trained in a lot of traditional instruments, and they’re figuring out the electronic parts as they go with some help from my thereminist oc they’re sleeping with. ibuki was born and raised into a prestigious family in the dominion of winds (possibly the Great House kalidris talks about), one that i’ve intentionally left vague while begging arenanet for a crumb of information. their life was largely predetermined and held up to intense scrutiny. they were engaged to a lovely respectable girl, they kept a respectable bureaucratic internship as they prepared for a serious career, they ran all of the minutiae of their life through their family for approval. it was a perfectly fine, gilded cage.

and then they were caught breaking the rules and sneaking around where they shouldn’t have. oh, the scandal! the impropriety! they won’t tell anybody what happened, but it involved other people with more power than them, and they were politely given the option to leave the dominion of winds without saying another word, before they caused more trouble than they were worth. exile was better than prison— or ruining the rest of their family’s lives. even though they were terrified of the world outside of those walls when they first crossed the threshold, they wouldn’t go back in a million years. ibuki’s fashioned themself into a rebellious art brat intent on shocking all good society (or a spun-out honors student finally learning about freedom), with a lot of bright-red eyeliner and a lot of nervous energy pacing around in the bathrooms backstage while thor repeatedly tells them to relax a little before it kills them.

MOURNING PEAT (in-game name that nasty bear)

he/him | kodan | harbinger

alright, technically i am still grinding convergences to get the bearkin combat tonic with more options, but this is what he looks like for now. peaty’s a lowland kodan who sincerely believes that rot grows inside of him. when he was a cub, he almost drowned in the bog while sticking his nose in places he shouldn’t have and wandering far too off the path. that’s a secret he’s been carrying with him for years— it, and all of the fossilized remains of white mantle victims that he still sees in his sleep— and it’s sort of bloomed into its own set of internalized neuroses. the bog queen isn’t just a legend; she’s real, and she’s claimed him as one of her own. he’s tainted, he’s rotten. that’s why he still feels her jubilant swarm crawling up his arms if he stands still for too long, and why he feels like such a fraud around all of the other bearkin, pretending he really belongs with them. that’s why he mostly keeps to himself, politely hanging back during celebrations and keeping to his charts until somebody needs a weather prediction. strange, but not bad, he is, they think.

(honestly, alessia couldn’t care less about some flea-ridden bear having a self-destructive fixation on her. she doesn’t even know he exists— having only been spurned awake in recent years due to the titan resurgence. this is all on him.) 

well, peat’s dumped six bodies in that mire so far over the last twenty years. the first was a frantic accident that he covered up. the last two were astral ward mages that he figured nobody would miss. it calms his nerves, and the rest of the details are between him and alessia, as far as he’s concerned, and they’ll die with him someday. i wanted a nasty bear for the bit, and so i made myself a nasty murder bear.

BLOODSTONE BUTCH (BB)

he/him probably | charr | renegade

i feel kind of bad about bb because i haven’t done much with him and he's definitely the least developed character on this list, but i am busy skittering around in the walls of various discord servers. technically he’s another musician oc (yes i have a lot of musician ocs do NOT say anything)— some other friends of mine started a band and so he’s the drummer in the bloodstone fems. bb was an olmakhan who left the village after coming of age to try and find himself, ended up making ends meet in amnoon for a bit while traveling around and experiencing the world, jumped in and out of a couple bands on tour, and eventually met his current group of unhinged freaks that he loves very much.

he’s also a revenant of sorts, having opened his mind up to bloodstone— a habitual indulgence (thanks, fems) that went wrong once, and now leaves him susceptible to the wails and memories of bloodstone ghosts, and other mists phenomena. i’m keeping this open-ended and subject to change, on the off-chance we get some really interesting mursaat lore in future JW updates, but i’m currently stuck between his main revenant echo being the seer doyen, sidony, or perhaps manikaz or one of the other mursaat we’ve gotten recent references to. (i’m leaning sidony because i already have a couple of characters with white mantle stuff going on in their backstories, and i think the seers are a fun enigma to play around with— but it kind of depends on what information we get!). either way, he’s vibing, and trying not to sink too deep in the sorrow that comes with centuries of horrible sacrifices singing in your brain. it’s honestly not that bad. some of us are dealing with deimos's theatrics.

anyways, yeah, i've been surprisingly productive this year LMAO ty for reading all this if you made it to the end <3

[ronearoundblindly]

Eighty-Three Kisses

CEO!Steve Rogers x CEO!Reader

an It Had To Be You tale of tender first aid requested by @anika-ann who thought: I'm not sure why but my heart would MELT upon seeing Steve giving Precious some ⛑ (as such, warning for mentions of blood) WC 1.3k

Not your favorite way to wake up…

Roused in the morning dark of New York winter, Steve’s mom calls him bright and early. She is one of only four people who can evade his Do Not Disturb setting, and as much as you enjoy Sarah, you groan in irritation when Steve has to untuck himself from beneath you in the sheets.

But that’s not where it ends.

He takes the call and walks out to his kitchen. His voice only just becomes inaudible when your mother calls.

Chatty. Mom is chatty way too early this morning, and she wants participation in her gossip.

You get it; your parents are pure balls of excitement about their upcoming trip to NYC to see you and officially meet your boyfriend for the first time, but 6:50 in the morning on a day off is not a great moment to get reciprocation of any amount of energy.

It’s not even five in the morning where your mom is. Come on now.

You hold the phone arm’s length away to scream into your pillow before heaving yourself out of bed. Maybe if she hears Steve’s voice in the background, your mom will think you’re busy and need to get off the call? Maybe standing up will help keep your eyelids raised? You’re so tired, you’ll try anything.

As soon as your butt hits the couch cushion though, your eyes shut again, too comfortable, too quickly. You jump up and meander over to the exercise bike, muttering something about the neighbor Mom’s had this same beef with for a decade, but she’s on a roll now. You barely need to interject an “uh-huh” or “yeah.” Your mother just keeps going.

So you sit on the bike, lazily putting one foot on the higher pedal, and you nudge it. Nothing happens.

Steve rustles the coffee beans into the maker and pulls down plates because if he’s awake, he wants breakfast. He’ll go back to sleep if he can, but if he’s conscious, food should happen. That’s the Steve Standard of a morning ritual. He also has very little input for his conversation, mostly humming every so often.

You hear the crack of eggs against the bowl’s rim and yawn, hiding that sound as best you can from your mother.

Your dad is equally grumbly in the background. He chides his wife with you in solidarity.

The pan sizzling acts as white noise countered by the first whiffs of brewing coffee.

“Of course, I’m listening,” you rush out, leaning forward on the handlebars and mock-bashing your head.

Steve must have turned to watch you because you hear his deep chuckle from across the room.

Absently, you step onto the pedal, thinking it will start rotating as you press down. You don’t realize how high Steve has turned up the resistance until it’s too late. You stand with your full weight on the tiny, shifting pad, and your foot slips right off when the mechanism caves.

Off-balance and crash-landing on your foot, your ankle tweaks out harshly, and the hard plastic grooves for friction scrape all along your bare calf. It hurts like hell but happens so fast that you hardly make a sound aside from hissing.

The phone drops out of your hand as you untangle yourself from the bike and trip down to the floor.

“Honey?” Steve clearly hasn’t seen until “shit” and you hear the pan torn off the burner and his own phone tossed to the counter. “Precious, you okay? What—“

Thin gashes are already red and bleeding all up your leg. The pain is such a tense sting that you can’t manage much else other than biting your tongue and clutching at the wound, but Steve peels your fingers away, ripping the kitchen towel from over his shoulder to apply pressure.

“It’s fine,” you still hiss. “I’m fine, Steve.”

His huge palm and fingers splay across the fabric, his other hand guiding your over to replace them after he coos, “I know. I’m just gonna clean it up. I’ll be right back. Can you hold this? Just there. Good girl. Ok.”

He jumps up and thunders to the bathroom.

“Sweetheart, what’s going on? Hello?”

You look up to where your phone dangles in the water bottle holder by the bike’s handles, but you can’t reach it without harsh sensations shooting around your foot and leg.

“I’m fine, Mom,” you yell toward the phone. “I just fell. I’ll call you back later.”

There’s an incoherent fuss, your dad’s voice joins what sounds like muttering but is more likely a heated argument on the other end, and then the screen lights when the call disconnects.

Steve returns with a little box and a white bottle.

“Ok, precious--" he leans to kiss your knee "--you ready? This part is gonna hurt.”

You pull back the stained towel, lip lodged between your teeth, and Steve soaks a cotton ball. He bares his teeth when you react to the bite of alcohol.

The excess drips down to the mat.

“I know, honey. You’re doing so good though. Just a little more." He tries to move the foot. "Can you—“

“OW!” Like a shot, your ankle cries all the way up to your hip. “Sorry,” you say through threatening tears, “I landed on it wrong.”

Steve’s hand cradles the joint, keeping it still even as he lowers to kiss there, too, his blue eyes worried. “Okay, I’ll get ice for that, but first, we cover this.” He wipes gently at the deepest gash by your Achilles tendon before ripping open a packet of antibacterial ointment. “Just another minute, alright? You’re doing great.”

His rough morning voice and soothing tenor nudge your heart rate back in the right direction.

At least the medication doesn’t hurt. Between treatment and bandaging, he lifts your wrist to his lips and plants a double tap of encouragement.

"So good," he rumbles.

Steve carefully unfolds and layers some gauze across the whole area and carefully tapes the edges. On instinct, you bend your knee to get yourself up, but the tape pops right off when you flex.

“Uh-uh, precious. You’re not doing anything until we get some ice on that.”

You think he means to leave you sitting on the ground, but Steve pivots to a squatting position, tucks his arms beneath your knees and around your waist, and lifts you straight into the air, kissing your cheek for good measure.

Well…all that gym equipment’s been good for something…

He carries you all the way back to the bed, kissing your forehead to force you to relax backward and excusing himself to the kitchen again. A few drawers open and shut. There’s a racket of ice clattering into a bag.

Another light scuttering noise.

“Ma, I gotta go. Yeah, I love ya. Okay, bye.” He rounds the doorway again, compress and coffee at the ready.

Steve wraps a fresh towel over your skin before arranging the ice to lay just right, covering as much curve as possible without too much pressure. By the time he’s satisfied, he’s created a majestic-looking nest of sheets and blanket around your foot.

You chuckle as you blow across the hot liquid in your toasty mug.

This is his near-military precision and focus again, except this time, you are the mission.

Finally, his equally warm gaze meets yours, dawn breaking outside the wall of windows surrounding the corner room.

“Want your phone back?” he asks softly.

You shake your head. “They can wait.”

Everything still aches, the dull throb seeming miles away when Steve grips your thigh before straightening.

“You know, precious, if you wanted breakfast in bed, you could have just asked.”

You shrug, a little embarrassed but very appreciative. This certainly hasn’t been your favorite way to wake up, but it’s not the worst either. Plus, the morning has just begun.

“Sometimes the only thing that gets your attention is a crisis, Captain.”

from this game of "Comfort My Characters"

Thank you for asking!

@bucky-fricking-barnes-reads @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @fallinallinmendes @deandreamernp @rach2602 @patzammit @royalwritersoftheuniverses @supraveng @1950schick @yiiiikesmish

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[untaemedqueen]

At Your Service

Escort!Jeongguk x CEO!Reader

Genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, Angst, Fluff, Smut

Chapter 9.

Series Warnings (Will Be Updated): Angst, Fluff, Cold Heartedness, Emotional Trauma, Healing, Smut, Dark Humor

Warnings For This Chapter: Making Out, Pet Names, Praise, Jeongguk Has A Tongue Ring, Daddy Kink, Cunnilingus, Big Dick!Jeongguk, Begging, Unprotected Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Cream Pie

By the time you got home from the long night of social interactions with people who count money like sheep, it was just simply too dark to drive further from your mansion to take Jeongguk back home to his apartment.

It's not that you couldn't drive but then the rainstorm began and it wouldn't be safe with the slippery roads.

So now as it strikes one in the morning Jeon Jeongguk is paralyzed with fear to even be in your mansion at such a late hour.

"So where am I even supposed to sleep?" he inquires softly.

He sounds almost like a lost, scared child looking for his parents.

And you would feel bad for him if it wasn't hilarious and he wasn't almost thirty years old.

"Well none of the guest rooms have furniture so either on the couch that's harder than a rock or in my bed. Your choice, really," you reply, pulling your gloves slowly off your arms.

He opens his mouth to respond before tilting his head to look at the artistic couch down below the banister of the second floor, his eyebrows notch and he groans long and low at the prospect.

"I can't sleep in your bed! I'd be violating your privacy!" he guffaws, shaking his head sternly as if to wipe away any bad thoughts.

"Guk, the bed is from wall to wall. You don't have to sleep on top of me. You'll fall asleep and won't even remember a thing," you promise, unzipping the back of your dress and stepping into your closet.

"But…But… Why don't you have any furniture in your rooms anyway?!"

He sounds nervous and anxious, a sign that just screams to you that he might actually enjoy it if he just allows himself to.

When his eyes rake over the smooth skin of your back, the wildest of thoughts flit through his brain and he really loses all sense of self then.

"Because I don't want people staying over… duh," you chirp, stripping out of your dress.

"But I'm an exception?! You have no backbone!" Jeongguk scoffs, folding his arms childishly.

When he notices that he can catch the reflection of you getting naked in one of the glass doors that house your couture gowns, he wrestles with himself for a moment before turning to face the large fish tank at the end of the long hall.

"You sound embarrassed," you tease, grabbing your nightgown.

When you slip it over your head, your eye catches your shortest nightgown and you freeze.

You haven't had fun in a long time, probably longer than what most doctors would consider to be normal. So maybe tonight, just tonight, you'll have some fun.

"I'm not embarrassed! I could sleep next to you just fine! I just-just… It's not right! It'd be taking advantage!"

"It's not taking advantage," you counter, stepping outside of your closet, "and if you feel that way then you could sleep on the floor."

"I'm not gonna sleep on the floor! It's marbl-"

Jeongguk stops mid-sentence to choke on his own spit as you step in front of him. Your nightgown is incredibly short, the rich lace hem landing right below the curve of your ass. As for your breasts, well, he's lucky your nipples are covered.

With his eyes widening to the size of saucers, he opts to staring up at the ceiling.

"I think you're a baby," you tease, heading off towards your bedroom.

With every step you take, his eyes seem to become grounded more and more until they're watching your hips sway with criminal intent towards the room that has brought this panic on to begin with.

"Change," he begs, his voice sounding weak.

If his body did what it wanted without the help of his brain, he'd be crashing to his knees and crawling toward you begging to let him have any inch of you that you'd offer him.

"No, you're a baby," you giggle, entering your room.

"But-"

"Guk, it's just sleep. It's almost two in the morning. I'm exhausted. You can either sleep with me or on the floor, it's up to you but I'm laying down now."

The handsome escort makes his second fatal mistake by watching you crawl into bed. Your breasts sway and you look at him with these doe-like eyes that make his legs go weak.

Luckily, he's holding himself upright as he leans against the doorjamb.

"I'm not staring at you all night as you loom over me in the distance like some kind of fever dream monster or something," you sigh, laying down on your side and putting your arm beneath your pillow for comfort.

"God!" the handsome man complains, walking over to the bed beside you.

He begins to strip off his clothes, revealing more and more of his golden toned skin that sings with black and grey ink.

He's staring at you hoping you don't stare at him but you do. Your eyes are becoming less and less dead by the second, every time a new ab is revealed your head is even lifting up off of the pillow.

"I thought you were tired?" Guk chuckles.

Now it's your turn to get defensive.

"I am! I'm not looking at you!" you retort, turning away from him with pinched eyebrows.

Now he's got his confidence back.

When you're flustered it's easier for him to play around, he's not used to being flustered himself.

"Come on, baby," he purrs playfully, crawling into bed behind you and pressing his bare chest to your back, "kiss me."

"God! Go sleep on the floor!" you hiss, squeezing your eyes shut and shimmying down the bed away from him.

His chuckle is deep and delighted, almost carefree to the point of dangerousness.

"That…" he begins, wrapping his arm around your stomach and pressing his lips to your ear, "would be uncomfortable. You were right, it's just sleep. I can stay the night in bed with you."

His cologne is still pleasant and it tickles your senses to have him so close.

Guk's arm is warm and comforting around you, not so much claustrophobic as you would have assumed.

The air is turning into something tumultuous, something powerful and Earth shatteringly dangerous.

You're getting turned on.

You can feel every inch of his hard muscled chest and stomach digging into your scantily clad back and the escort is doing nothing to stop it.

"I'm not paying you for this," you remind him, grabbing a pillow and squeezing it to your front for comfort.

"You're not paying me at all, Y/N," he counters, closing his eyes, "If you want me to stop, just say so. I respect that no means no."

But you don't utter a word.

Jeongguk shifts closer, allowing you to feel the effect you have on him.

The globes of your ass are supple against his hips and you can feel his erection digging into you for relief.

Your lips open in surprise but you only squeeze your eyes tighter.

"You don't fuck clients," you whisper, gripping the pillow against your chest harder.

"No," he agrees, drifting his lips over the shell of your ear slowly, "you're not paying me, you're not my client, baby."

Jeongguk fucking wants this. He's throwing caution to the wind, he might be making a hell of a mistake but he'll take that on the chin too.

He knows you both have a connection, he knows he's into you and he thinks you're pretty into him too.

"Do you not want me to touch you, Wednesday?" he asks seriously, sitting up on his elbow.

"No," you answer immediately.

"Okay," he breathes, pulling away from you.

You shimmy your way farther across the bed before the encroaching loneliness begins to eat at you again.

When Guk is around you, you don't have time to feel it.

So all you do is pout.

You're confused! You don't know what to do! You want to be happy and live in lalaland but can you really indulge in that?!

"Yes," you say in the silent bedroom.

The escort is on you in a matter of moments, pressing his full lips to yours in a searingly hot kiss.

Your hands tangle into his black locks and you tug softly. He hums against you greedily, the sound sending tingles through your limbs at a satisfying pace.

"C'mere, c'mere," he hisses, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you up into his lap.

He feels like a drug addict, he's strung out on you and he needs more to function

Your legs wrap around his waist and when you whimper against his lips, his eyes roll back.

"Is this expensive?" he inquires, wrapping his fingers in the spaghetti straps of your nightgown.

"Yes," you answer, pulling away from him.

"Oh, good," he breathes, tugging roughly and feeling the fabric turn to strings before him.

He lays you down softly, watching how your hair billows out around you in tendrils on your pillow. Guk stays nestled between your thighs, running a free hand over your skin.

"You're so smooth and soft," he groans, pulling the useless fabric away from your body to see all of you.

At this moment, you want to cover up and hide. You want to push him off and just curl into the fetal position.

He can see that. He can see the sudden fright in his eyes and his heart hurts at the sight.

"I'm right here, just focus on me," he whispers, pulling at your hands until he lays them flat against his chest.

Your nails dig into his skin softly and the hiss he gives, the way his hips rut to yours on instinct has you distracted all over again.

Finally, he lets his eyes travel down your body.

"God, you're perfect," he mumbles, cupping your breasts.

"Guk, I-I don't know. I'm not… I don't…" you whisper, looking up at him.

When his mocha irises meet yours, they soften. "We can stop, do you want to stop, baby?"

He goes to retract his hands but the prospect of not having him might eat you alive more than if you do.

"I don't know," you answer honestly.

"That's not an answer," he chuckles, leaning down and kissing you softly.

His tongue fights for dominance with yours and it wins so easily that you can feel the ice cold walls around your heart melt within seconds.

You don't want to stop.

But you're scared.

So you're truthful with him and you voice it.

"I'm not going anywhere, Wednesday. I'm not Jasper. I'm here with you, I'm not leaving," he promises.

He's so confident and so heartfelt with his words that you just let yourself be.

You don't want to be this person anymore.

You aren't this person with Jeongguk and you really like that.

He makes you forget heartache and pain, he makes you forget anger and emptiness.

"Do you want this?" he asks, brushing some stray hairs from your face.

"Yes," you nod, giving a shaky breath.

His smile is wide and beaming and he caresses your cheek with the softest touch.

"Good girl," he praises softly, going back to his earlier route.

The praise has your mind spinning, like you're on some kind of serotonin drug.

His hands cup your breasts and he can only compliment them as his lips trail down your neck. "You've got a gorgeous body, Wednesday."

His thumbs flick at your hardening nipples and your back arches with a whimper that sounds so odd tumbling from your lips.

"That's it, gorgeous," Guk hisses, wrapping his perfect lips around your pert nipple.

He hasn't touched a woman in ages either,  he himself hasn't been touched in what feels like years.

The escort wants this so badly, he can't even remind himself to pace himself, he just needs you, he just wants you so badly that it feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest.

"Say my name," he whispers, moving to your unattended breast and flicking your nipple with the tip of his tongue.

The action sends shivers up your spine and you cry out softly for more.

"Jeongguk!"

His eyes flutter closed at the sincerity of the word and he's all but ready to just give his whole self to you.

He could fall in love with you right now if he's not careful.

One hand continues to play with your breast, pinching and plucking at you until you're short of breath while the other rips your satin underwear away from your core with ease.

"Oh my God," you gasp, putting your head back and squeezing your eyes shut.

The escort kisses down your stomach until his arms are wrapping around your thighs to cage you into a device of his making.

He licks his lips, ogling how much arousal has made you a sodden mess before him and he wants to scream to Heavens to thank them for this opportunity.

"You okay?" Guk inquires sweetly, kissing from your knee to your inner thigh.

"Y-Yeah," you breathe, lifting up on your elbows.

"Good," he hisses, licking a flat stripe up your folding.

Your hands grip at the sheets, mouth dropping open at how warm and wet his mouth is.

"Tongue ring or no tongue ring?" he asks, letting his tongue hang past his lips.

"J-... I-... What?!" you whine, bunching your hands up in his hair.

His smirk is devilish and he chuckles deeply. "Tongue ring it is."

He begins to devour you, suckling and licking at your slit like a man possessed and you crash back down to the bed with moans ripping from your throat.

"Oh fuck! Guk!" you cry out, tugging roughly in his hair.

"Call me daddy," he murmurs, wrapping his lips around your swollen nub.

You're so blissed out that you can't even process his words but you still do as told. "Daddy! Oh my God!"

"Good girl," Guk breathes, inching two fingers towards your entrance.

Your lungs heave with heavy breaths and you watch with rapid fascination as he inches his fingers inside of you.

"You're fucking tight," Jeongguk groans heartily, attaching his lips back to your clit.

He fucks his fingers into you quickly, subsiding the burn of the stretch immediately.

Your legs tingle with pleasure and your toes curl, your mind is jumbled up and all you can feel is this deep ache within your stomach getting bigger and bigger.

When you had sex before, Jasper never looked up at you. He never even went down on you usually but Jeongguk is so present with you.

He stares up at you like he wants to see your pleasure, he wants to treasure this moment. He adores how you writhe and moan for him, he wants you to give everything over to him.

There's adoration in his eyes and you've never seen that before so it pushes you towards the precipice even faster.

He fucks his fingers into you dilligently, groaning at your taste and how loud your moans are that echo off the mansion walls.

"Give it to me, baby," he seethes through his teeth, "I can feel your pussy begging for it."

The handsome man between your legs curls his fingers quickly to the soft patch of muscles inside of you and you yelp softly at the overwhelming feeling.

It's like he already knows how to coax what he wants from you.

"Cum for me and I'll give you my cock," he promises.

It's strange how even in the throes of pleasure you can still find the sassiness you've become so used to peeking out of you. "Wh-Who said I want it?"

Guk chuckles against you, the ragged, hot breath making your back bow. "This pretty pussy says, now cum for me."

He curls his fingers faster until the ache in your stomach bursts and your thighs lock around his shoulders.

Your orgasm is filled with loud moans and white eyelids, your body quivers and racks and Jeongguk sits up to watch it all.

Fuck, you're gorgeous.

Why don't you understand this?

How is he going to make you understand?

Pulling his cock out of his briefs, he strokes it leisurely, waiting for you to come back down to Earth with him.

When your ears stop ringing, you blink once or twice only to be met with the beautiful sight before you.

His cock is long, longer than you expected and so thick that it makes your breath catch. The mushroom tip is red with need and the precum that weeps from his slit is so enticing that your legs open up for him without a second thought.

"Do you want to?" he inquires, leaning down to kiss you.

The kiss is slow and passionate, and he lets go of his cock to hold your face between his hands.

You nod against his lips and he can only smirk.

"Fuck me," you beg, dragging your fingers over his arms.

"Yes ma'am," he whispers, leaning up on his elbow.

You don't know this but he's not going to fuck you. He's going to make love to you but he won't tell you that because it would probably scare the hell out of you.

He positions himself at your entrance, staring deeply into your eyes.

This feels almost too emotional for you but you can't seem to tear your eyes away from his for even a second.

Guk enters you slowly, groaning at the tightness before kissing you languidly to distract you from the stretch.

"Oh my God!" you groan against his lips.

"I'm sorry, is it too big?" he asks with a knowing smile.

"No!" you hiss, letting your eyes flutter shut.

"Oh, no? It's not the biggest cock you've taken in this tight little pussy?" he teases, pulling out and thrusting roughly into you.

Your moan is so loud it could constitute for a scream and you grab for anything to steady yourself.

He gives you his hands, intertwining them and holding them over your head.

"You're so beautiful, Wednesday," he whispers, pressing his forehead to yours.

"Daddy!" you whine, squeezing his hands.

"I got you, baby. I'm not going anywhere. I promise," Jeongguk avows, thrusting into you harder.

His promise is heartfelt and sincere and that radiates deep inside of you.

Every thrust has meaning and an intention to solidify that.

"God, this pussy feels so fucking good. You're so fucking wet!"

"All for you," you breathe.

You're sincere too.

And he knows it.

"Fuck," he curses, picking up the pace.

Your breasts jiggle with his movements and your mind is muddling again all on its own.

He lets one hand go to slide it down your stomach until it nestles against your throbbing bud and he rubs smooth, fast circles.

"Daddy! Fuck! Yes!"

"Yeah? You like that? You want more, baby? You want to cum for me again?"

You nod incessantly, wrapping your legs around his waist.

"Then cum," he coos softly, burying his face in your neck.

Your perfume wraps him in this loving shroud where nothing could ever bother him. You keep him peaceful in this moment.

"I feel it, baby, give it to me. Your pussy is milking my cock so nicely," he groans muffled into your skin.

"G-Guk!" you cry out, squeezing his one hand tighter.

The way you call his name, the anxiousness behind it has him lifting his head.

"I'm right here, Y/N," he whispers, kissing you and coaxing the orgasm from you peacefully.

You whine loudly against his lips, letting go of everything.

The escort groans loudly at how your pussy clenches around him, practically begging him for his seed so he can only comply.

"Oh fuck! I'm cumming! I'm cumming, baby girl!"

His thrusts become shorter and harder until he spills his seed inside of you with shaky breath.

"Baby," he moans loudly, wrapping his arms around you.

Both of your hearts are beating so fast that it feels like they might just give up out of nowhere without warning.

He pulls out of you slowly, laying down by your side and he doesn't even give you a chance to pull away. He wraps his arms around you, burying his face in your hair as he closes his eyes.

There's comfortable silence for a while, it's so comfortable that you haven't even had a chance to begin to worry yet.

"I want you to meet my dog," he mumbles sleepily, kissing your shoulder.

"Your dog?" you inquire with a tired giggle.

"He's the only other one that means more to me in this universe than anything."

"The only other one?" you breathe curiously.

He smirks tiredly, closing his eyes.

"Yeah. You heard me, Wednesday."

<----- Last Chapter            Next Chapter ----->

[luvhaos]

skate and slip | kmg

pairing: kim mingyu x gn! reader genre: non-idol! au, established relationship, fluff, humor word count: 683 summary: in hindsight, maybe you and mingyu, the two clumsiest people in existence, shouldn’t have accepted the invitation to an ice skating outing.

You swear that you weren’t this clumsy before you started dating Mingyu. You’re pretty sure it just rubbed off on you. You also swear that you never used to be this bad at ice skating but you guess it has been over a decade since your parents last took you to a rink.

Mingyu has your hand in a death grip as you two shuffle awkwardly along the edge of the rink, Mingyu shouting, “Show offs!” as Minghao and Joshua whiz by the two of you. It makes you personally feel a little better when you see Seungkwan trip and fall at the other end of the ice rink, earning laughs from you and Mingyu, but that satisfaction doesn’t last long.

Mingyu stumbles himself and, because of his vice hold on your hand, drags you down with him. “Ouch!” you yelp as you land on him and you huff playfully, “Jeez, Gyu, take us all down, why don’t you?”

Mingyu scoffs, “Oh, please, you would have fallen eventually.”

“Would not.”

“Would so.”

“Would not.”

“Would so!”

“You’re both equally bad,” Wonwoo says, skating over to you.

Mingyu glares at his best friend as you grip the wall of the rink, pulling yourself up. Wonwoo, despite his taunting, helps you haul Mingyu up as well. You hold onto the wall and Mingyu leans against it. You watch as Wonwoo skates away, studying the motion of his legs and his stance. You push yourself off the wall and tentatively move away, gliding at a snail’s pace but at least you’re not actively falling down.

As you move farther away, Mingyu whines, “Where are you going? Don’t leave me here!”

“I think I’m getting the hang of it, babe,” you say and you move a few more inches forward.

“Woohoo!” Seokmin cheers as he slides past you, just a tad faster than you. “Go, Y/n!”

“I thought we were a team!” Mingyu calls from behind you.

You sigh in faux sadness and glance over your shoulder. “Sometimes, we need to leave people behind to move forward.”

You laugh at your boyfriend’s overdramatic cry and Vernon shouts, “Cold, Y/n, cold!”

You nearly tumble down again but you catch the wall in time, keeping yourself upright as you watch Mingyu gradually move himself off it. “Watch out,” he warns you, “I’m coming to get you!”

Wonwoo, who had taken two laps around the rink, settles beside you and mutters, “I highly doubt that.”

Mingyu skates a mere four inches before falling again. You and Wonwoo exchange glances and you say, “I don’t know if I’ll make it back to him without falling and I kind of like my high ground right now.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes good-naturedly and makes his way over to Mingyu on his own, once again helping him up. Mingyu pouts at you and you hold your arms out. “Come on, babe! You’ve got it!”

Mingyu clings to the wall as he shuffles towards you, one painstaking foot in front of the other. You’re barely managing to balance yourself waiting for him and as he draws closer to you, he makes a final push and flies towards you, crashing into you and sending you both down.

When the initial ache fades, you two stare at each before bursting into loud laughs. Mingyu leans down and kisses you, earning whoops and retching from your friends and you swear that Jihoon yells, “Get a room!”

The two of you struggle to your feet and you say, “I, sadly, don’t think we have careers in figure skating, Gyu.”

Mingyu hums in agreement, wrapping an arm around your waist and resting his head on top of yours. “I like where we’re at right now.”

“Wow,” Seungcheol says as he passes you two. “Way to make the rest of us feel single.”

“That’s right,” Mingyu says, puffing his chest out. “Be jealous of our love.” He pecks your temple and then your cheek and soon, he’s pressing sweet kisses all over your face, earning another round of cheering and gagging.

“I second Jihoon.” Chan says, “Get a room!”

[waitmyturtles]

Alright. I’m all caught up on The Eighth Sense. WHOA. Whoa. WHOA. Good. Lord. 

First off, before all the theories: this is obviously a really fantastic show, by way of the soundtrack; the use of silence; the cinematography and very varied filming styles; the use of LIGHT and lighting; the film editing and smart, sharp editing cuts (more on this in a sec), and the utterly, UTTERLY amazing acting. CHOPS, we are seeing CHOPS in a show that’s just reducing the usual K-drama tropes to DUST. WOW, KOREA. KOREA SHOWED THE HELLLLLLL UP for this one. This is like zeitgeist-level stuff.

And, oh my god. The kissing scene in the waves. The scene in bed. My heart was taken away. The last scenes, the storm coming in, the waves getting higher and higher, Jae Won yelling Ji Hyun’s name. WHOA.

I know from what I’ve reblogged so far that these points are all being discussed, and I have yet to really dig into the tag because I need to process all of this out in writing first, so I’ll do tag and conversation-digging over the rest of today and tomorrow and re-group with the fam. But working in part from my last post after episode 5, I’ll offer a couple thoughts and theories now, because I just need to get them down, whoa. 

I want to set some macro context for myself first, to kind of do a journey map on my understanding of Jae Won. From the start, his friends talk about how Jae Won’s dad is a big shot. Jae Won’s life is supposedly set: if you know about chaebol, you’ll know how controversial it is in Korea (many, MANY K-dramas feature chaebol, including Crash Landing On You and the much more recent Why Her?). It’s controversial because, of course, you always wonder if the "right” people are taking over a business, not by way of merit or talent, but only by way of inheritance (peep the “nutgate” incident with Korean Air as an example) (it’s INSANE) (chaebol is INSANE).

So Jae Won’s friends are, in my view, seething with jealousy that Jae Won has his life set. His dad is prepping Jae Won to take over. Jae Won is rich, good-looking, smart, and the ladies love him. 

That’s a lot of pressure for Jae Won. Putting together that his younger brother died, and he’s seeing a therapist, and that it was his parents that had originally sent him to therapy, and it’s indicated that he’s drug-dependent: I do believe, as many of the fam does, that what we’re watching in many of these scenes are dissociations and/or hallucinations. I do believe that, particularly by way of how the show is edited, with REALLY sharp cuts, scenes ending awkwardly and jumpily, scenes filmed in really fuzzy and weirdly lit ways, and threading pieces of scenes together in inconsistently-told ways. The hand-holding scene on the outdoor steps earlier in the series, and how it’s changed by a quick edit when the guys are shown NOT holding hands while walking on the sidewalk right after. I feel like the editing of the show serves as a correction for the jumps happening in Jae Won’s mind and memory.

I offered a theory in my last post that Jae Won might not have gone to the military at all while he was out of school -- that he was instead institutionalized. I set that theory in part on his therapist referencing a previous hospital stint, and on something he said in episode 4: “I just came back from the army. My sense is not on point.” When I first heard him say that, it didn’t smell right to me, as I thought that acclimating back to society after the military was more common for Korean men as almost all Korean men have to get drafted. But I’ve changed my mind somewhat after convos with the wonderful @emotionallychargedtowel and @stl29tide in the comments of that post, with ECT mentioning in part that it’s very common for returning soldiers to experience difficulties while re-acclimating back to society.

So I’m now caught between two theories here, and I wonder if either can be applicable.

Theory 1) I do still think it’s plausible that Jae Won didn’t go to the military while he was away from school -- I think it’s plausible that he could have been institutionalized, but I’m less sure about that now, after the convos with ECT and S2T (thank you BOTH for your insights!). 

Theory 2) Jae Won DID indeed go to the military, but his difficulties re-acclimating -- VERY MUCH ALONG with his other present issues -- have contributed to a serious dissociation episode in episode 6. This is likely more plausible.

Both theories are linked by yet another opinion. I believe that when Jae Won woke up after his bender in episode 5, he dissociated after his dad began knocking on his door and yelling. I’m not sure if the camera breaking was in the dissociation or in reality, but I believe the entire beach trip in episode 6 was part of the dissociation triggered by Jae Won’s dad and the pressures that Jae Won’s dad represents. I believe the utterly gorgeous filming style, the lighting, the weird jump to sleeping inside on a bed from the beach, the inconsistent scenes from morning on the beach, to surfing, to sex, to surfing again, to possible drowning -- I believe all of that is meant to be representative of dissociation.

Whew. Okay. Another theory. I do believe that Jae Won’s dad/family sent Jae Won to therapy in high school, possibly after his little brother’s death. I also still believe, as I posited in my last post, that Jae Won’s therapy could be a form of conversion therapy. Why do I think this?

(I just want to say that I keep repeating “I believe” because, y’all -- I totally think this entire series could be one big dissociation. Fight Club-like. So I’m trying to grasp at what I think is real-ish by indicating those factors as such.)

I can’t find it.... damn it, I can’t find it, but someone posted about the bed scene, and how Ji Hyun seemed more comfortable than Jae Won in bed. How Ji Hyun actually seemed/seems more comfortable in his queerness than Jae Won. (If anyone can link me to that post, I would be forever grateful!)

That REALLY got me thinking. I thought that was SO SMART, and I rewatched the scene to confirm that I agree there, which I do. 

Another piece of evidence to this theory, as I mentioned in the comments of that last post, is when the therapist says in episode 5: as Jae Won talks about Ji Hyun (or....at least....we *think* he’s talking about Ji Hyun), the therapist says “I hope you can build a good relationship without crossing the line.”

Now. BEFORE episode 6, where Jae Won talked about his little brother, I wondered why Jae Won was in therapy. It was STATED that he was there because of high school pressures. But the ways in which that therapist has been presented have been so weird. Like in episode 1 -- in only the SECOND scene of the entire series -- we see the therapist joking around, saying “For God’s sake, just tell me what your worries are!” and then giggling. I mean -- um, maybe they have a good rapport, but that’s definitely not how *I* learned how a therapist should act in grad school, ha. (I’d LOVE @emotionallychargedtowel‘s thoughts on the therapist’s bedside manner if you’re up to it -- no pressure at all.)

After putting together the chaebol deal with Jae Won’s dad, and that his family sent him to therapy in high school, and that the therapist talked about him being in a hospital in episode 5, AND that line about “[not] crossing a line” -- all of this screams to me of Jae Won’s family trying to “set him straight,” if you will. I seriously wonder.... if Jae Won became drug dependent vis à vis his therapist because his family needs him to be “normal” to take over the family business. I wonder if Jae Won, with EVERYTHING he might be holding -- from his queerness, to potential guilt related to his little brother, to the PRESSURES of being the family heir -- was either PUSHED to be drug dependent to fall in line, or has fallen into addiction as a result of those pressures.

I... would not put either of these theories past a domineering chaebol family.

Finally. After re-watching the very first scene of the series, and the very last scene of episode 6, and seeing how they’re the same, it all seriously makes me wonder if everything that we’ve seen so far is one big dream sequence. 

IN OTHER WORDS, Y’ALL. HOLY SHIT. Anything and everything is possible in this absolute MASTERPIECE of a show.

Other quick notes before I stop:

1) I stan Joon Pyo and Ae Ri -- MVPs. They care for our boy! (....if Ji Hyun even exists.)

2) Jung Seo In, who plays Ji Hyun’s boss, was also in Where Your Eyes Linger (I knew I recognized her!).

3) I’ve seen so many posts referencing the AMAZZZZINNNGGG music of this show, placed and edited SO WELL, and I just want to say that I am loving all the analyses.

Okay, phew, that’s all I got. I’m on the train with y’all for the rest of this ride. 

(@lurkingshan, tag tag!)

[noneknxws]

more good dead I mean dead I mean dad jack drake :))

Bart is a little concerned.

That’s actually the understatement of the year. Bart is a lot concerned. Extremely. Colossally. Humongously. That may not be a word, but he’s going to use it because it’s true, and it’s true because Tim is breaking down in Kon’s arms right now.

It’s kinda scary— Bart doesn’t think he’s ever seen Tim crash this hard. Tim’s usually the one who lands safely, even if he’s patched together with Gorilla Glue. It’s like watching your parent cry, and Bart is not a fan because he might start crying too.

Tim didn’t even say anything when he walked into the Tower. His hands were shaking when he grabbed one of the files he left on the table, and Kon- who had been chilling in the living room while Bart rambled about binary code- had caught the mug of pens Tim almost knocked over. Then Bart asked if he was okay, and Tim sort of just.. broke.

They were in Kon’s room now, and Tim was clinging onto his boyfriend like he was a lifeline. Bart sat on the floor, leaning against the bed and Kon’s leg.

“I’m sorry,” Tim whisper-repeats like a mantra in-between sniffles. Kon only hugs him tighter, and Bart scrambles onto the bed to offer his own hand.

Tim’s hand is freezing cold, per usual, and Bart almost wants to shiver. Every time Bart grabs Tim’s hand, it’s like he took a skinny dip in the arctic. It’s really nice in the summer though, and- yeah. He should focus on the crying bundle of Tim he has next to him.

Eventually the quiet hitched breaths recedes, and the death grip Tim has on Bart’s hand loosens, and Bart knocks his shoulder with Tim’s lightly.

“I just-“ Tim takes a shuddering breath. “I just miss my dad.”

“Dude,” Bart says softly, leaning his head against Tim’s shoulder. “That’s a really valid reason for crying. I wouldn’t judge if you dropped your icecream or something because that’s also a valid reason, but y’know.”

Tim actually laughs wetly at that, and Kon snorts. An absolute win, in his books.

[sapphoshands]

happy birthday!!! (i know i'm late!!) dvd commentary on Rabbit Heart? i love one (1) possibly not a bunny.

overdue and over-long response to this behind the cut! full commentary on all four chapters of Rabbit Heart. thank you for asking - i had fun poking through the story for bits and pieces.

John doesn’t sleep, exactly, the night after the green clouds clear over Westview. But he lies in bed and does the grounding exercises his last therapist gave him, box breathing until his heart rate slows to something approaching normal, then switching to his trusty standby, the five-things exercise.

this was absolutely me going, look, these poor people of westview, they must need so much therapy, i hope they are getting so much therapy.

Five things he sees: curtains rippling, moonlight reflected on the ceiling, the framed Larry Doby card he saved up for in college, the light on the tv, his nieces’ photo.

i wanted to keep these short but try and build a bit more character by putting in something concrete. larry doby is a famous Black baseball player from new jersey. and the nieces? john/herb doesn’t seem to have kids or a partner but i wanted to give him some family (he needs it, poor guy).

[...] a big messy stack of hay and grass lands smack dab in the middle of John's laundry basket with a soft thud. He about jumps out of his skin when it’s followed by the tinny crash of a cage bouncing off his bed. The rabbit flops onto its side on the quilt [...]

rabbits do that flopping down thing only when they are super comfortable and relaxed. i wanted to imply here that scratchy is, a, incredibly different from a typical rabbit (they are pretty high-strung, to my understanding), and b, so used to agatha’s brand of chaos that loud weird noises are very normal for him :P

Agnes frowns, screwing up her nose in frustration. “You know, that’s a very loaded question for me right now, Herb. Let’s just say I am temporarily unable to take care of Scratchy in the manner to which he has become accustomed, and I’m not quite sure how long this state is gonna last. So I’m doing the responsible thing and making sure he’s got a safe place until I can do something about all this.” She gestures at her grey, flowing, see-through body. “You get me?” John absolutely does not get her. He nods vigorously.

each of these chapters started with a mental image and i’m pretty sure this is the one that gave me the idea for this chapter. full ‘oh heck no’ energy from john.

Agnes—Agatha—reaches out and runs a finger over Scratchy’s head. John can’t tell if the fur moves or not.

poor agatha not being able to pet scratchy was also a significant factor in needing to write this! you’ll notice that by the end she is fully able to pet him again, because i REFUSED to leave her yearning for bunny snuggles.

He sits down on the side of the bed, puts his head between his legs and starts box breathing again. Tomorrow, he tells himself, he’s gonna start looking for real estate agents.

HONESTLY WHY DO ALL THE WESTVIEW RESIDENTS STILL LIVE THERE

*

“I need Scratchy,” Agatha says, turning and drifting back down into the basement. Billy immediately thinks of the cat from that old cartoon his parents like to watch on Sundays. 

okay do Kids Today even still watch the simpsons??

Billy suddenly has a premonition about the next few weeks of his life. He wonders whether there’s a way to speed up a ghost’s ability to interact with the physical realm.

hahahahaaaa poor billy. poor billy! 

Billy looks at her like she’s nuts and she rolls her eyes in annoyance. “The cage, Billiam,” she says, exasperated.

i’m sorry, i’m way too amused at myself for ‘billiam’

She drifts along ahead of him to the car. “You know, I used to own one of these,” she says, hovering behind his back bumper. Off his surprised look, she snorts. “I had an outdoorsy phase, okay. And it was an easy way to meet… people… for a while back in the ‘90s. The 1990s. Obviously.”

i am not immune to a subaru joke! i will eventually write something about agatha and her extremely the craft-influenced 1990s coven and there is a good chance a subaru will show up in it. also, agatha saying ‘the 90s… the 1990s’ was one of those things that happened as i was writing, and i kind of also want to write something with her and rio where they go through decades but keep getting the centuries wrong. (hm, i think i may have stolen this from the old guard, actually. sorry, greg.)

Holding eye contact, Scratchy bares his teeth and hisses. Billy pulls back.

this was the inciting image for this chapter! billy, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into.  i like to think billy’s mom is really going to get on with scratchy, though. many bunny snuggles in her future (as billy frantically tries to hide all the weird shit scratchy does).

*

How long will a man lie in the earth ere he rot? Eight or nine years, if he be not rotten before he die—or if Rio can’t stand to look at her slack empty face any longer. Shakespeare didn’t get everything right about death, but he knew a few things.

so i spent a while thinking i was going to title all my rio fic with quotes from poems about death, and then i decided that was too pretentious EVEN for me, but it sparked a couple of conversations with people about whether rio would pay attention to that sort of thing. my opinion is that she treats it like reading her reviews - she pays attention to her press.  in this case it’s obvs a “hamlet” quote and i think it probably came around because i wanted to make an ‘alas, poor yorick’-style joke about rio and agatha’s skull, but decided to go for something slightly more tasteful.

For the second time, Death’s world tilts. The weight of a new reality settles into her bones. She feels… lessened.

the first time, of course, being when nicky died.

To steady herself, she counts the poisonous mushrooms that have popped up out of the grave. They’ll bring her back here once or twice more, she thinks. A last gift from her destroying angel.

a destroying angel (genus amanita, related to the death cap) is one of the deadliest mushrooms known around the world. and it grows in new jersey! yes, of course rio sprouted toxic fungi off agatha’s grave.  yes, this was an excuse to have rio give agatha a disturbing pet name.

The rabbit doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, it hops closer and starts nibbling on one of the violets.

i was going to make an azalea joke here but turns out azaleas are toxic to rabbits! so, violets, very queer, very purple.

“You really are hers, aren’t you?” Rio murmurs. With a little effort, she detaches the bunny’s teeth from her skin and settles back with him in her arms.

agatha bites. that’s it, that’s the joke. that's also the inciting image for this chapter. well, scratchy biting. not agatha. ;)

Shifting the rabbit in her arm, Rio grabs her knife out of its holster and cuts a hole in reality, staring through it into the contents of the grave beneath her feet. With a sharp shock, she realises it’s empty. At some point Agatha’s soul snuck out and ran off without Rio noticing. How in the seven hells had she managed that? Rio looks down at the rabbit. “Were you just here as a furry little distraction?” she demands.

speaking of poetry about death, i was thinking about An Arundel Tomb when i wrote this and i couldn’t quite figure out a way to work in any of it. ‘sharp shock’ is a little nod to ‘sharp tender shock,’ which, again, was a little too pretentious to lift directly. but thinking about rio making agatha some sort of lasting effigy lies underneath some of this story (“What will survive of us is love.”).

also yes, scratchy was totally just being a cute distraction so agatha could go ghosty.

i should also add - i worked it out for 'you open always,' originally, but it took some time to figure out how rio would swear! what would she swear by! not god, for sure, right? i've settled on hells/seven hells/hellfire for the most part because i am guessing she has a healthy respect.

and actually, two larkin poems almost made it into this - i was trying to figure out a way to cite Myxomatosis, but that didn't work out either. but 'you may have thought things would come right again / if you could only keep quite still and wait' is... not not related to how rio feels on realising agatha is actually dead.

To the south, there’s an old, dilapidated cabin. She and Agatha spent some time here, back in the day, and Rio has kept tabs on the place, using it when she needs to be in this realm for a while. It’s… she supposes humans would call it nostalgic.

i wrote this after you open always petal by petal myself but posted it first. anyway, the cabin in both stories is intended to be the same one. good chance it will show up in other fic too.

*

Rio’s wandering through another massacre in another part of the world—they blur into each other, year after year after year—when she gets the uncomfortable prickle down her spine that says there’s a ghost nearby. There’s no reason to think… but she has a really bad feeling.

i just think she has a sixth sense for agatha shenanigans after so long, okay.

“Me?” Agatha flutters her spectral eyelashes. “What are you doing here?” Rio makes a face. She throws up her hands, fingers spread, indicating the streets of rubble surrounding them, bodies buried in all sorts of places. “Yeah, okay. Fair,” Agatha concedes with a tilt of her head.

TROLL 4 TROLL. i love writing them.

She showed up in the aftermath as usual, finding Agatha inside a cottage tearing through a witch’s paltry treasures and Nicky in the farmyard entranced by the small herd of goats. He opened the gate to set them all free—a practised move—and one headbutted him, seeking a crust of bread from his pocket.

two bits of headcanon here - one that rio senses it whenever agatha kills someone, and one that nicky isn’t always a total bleeding heart but has his own jobs in their way of life - letting the goats free so they won’t starve in the pen, for example. 

Agatha bit into the apple, the crisp flesh yielding with a sharp crack. “He often asks if we can keep one,” she said, chewing. “But I see no point, if it is only for a short time.” She pinned Rio with a glare, hostile and hopeful all at once. All Rio could do was meet her gaze evenly. She had no new answers to give.

also something that might show up in more fic: i think rio was actually around nicky and agatha a fair amount, not just observing them from the shadows - because wouldn’t agatha want to try and manipulate rio further and get as much time out of her as possible?

“Traitor,” Agatha coos at him, still waving her fingers coaxingly. “Death rides a pale bunny, is that it? How far you’ve fallen,” she adds, glancing up.

‘death rides a pale bunny’ was the excuse for writing this entire epilogue.

“Baby, I missed you,” she says to the rabbit, and Rio sulks. She shifts her stance, leaning to one side, then the other. She���s not jealous of a rabbit. That would be absurd.

she’s totally jealous of a rabbit and it IS absurd. but understandable.

Agatha glances up, still stroking Scratchy’s head. “I was in the neighbourhood.” She raises a sarcastic eyebrow. “And I had to check in on Señor Scratchy, of course.” Rio huffs, exasperated. “You didn’t even know I had him!” Agatha smiles, irritatingly beatific. “Didn’t I?” Rio’s genuinely not sure if Agatha’s fucking with her.

‘i was in the neighbourhood’ is, of course, twitting rio for showing up when summoned onto the road. and is agatha fucking with rio? i mean… always. probably. right?

Scratchy doesn’t usually tolerate petting for too long, Rio knows, and sure enough, he hops away from Agatha’s gentle touch.

i wanted it to be clear that rio spends time with scratchy. no one can resist the bunny snuggles.

She still doesn’t know how Agatha managed to become a ghost, or why she was here in the first place. But all Rio can think about is Agatha’s expression when she promised to come back. Rio squeezes Señor Scratchy until he lets out a little bunny snort. “I’m counting on it,” she says.

bring! back! agatha! 

*

the epilogue was self-indulgent and an excuse to write more rio, but of all three people i saddled with scratchy, i actually think billy is the most likely option.

[tegr1dy]

The Blue Angels Came to South Park

Stan brought two Coca-Colas to school: one for himself, and one for Kyle, stuffed inside of his jacket pocket.

The first time a plane flies over the school they’re in the middle of a lesson. It’s loud, and he thinks the sky is actually breaking, because that would be more in line with something he’s actually experienced before.

The entire school goes outside to watch. They’re watching the planes cross each other in the sky, their engines leaving behind puffy X-shaped trails of smoke in their wake. Stan elbows Kyle.

“Here,” Stan says, and hands him his Coke.

“Oh, sweet!” Kyle takes the soda, his fingers brushing Stan’s around the width of the can.

“I had to sneak this, so appreciate it,”

Kyle nods in thanks and smiles, cracking it open.“Your parents don’t let you have soda?”

“No, they do. They just don’t let me pack soda in my lunch.”

“My mom doesn’t either.” A plane whirrs above them and Kyle looks up at the sky. Stan is still looking at Kyle. “She says it’s too much sugar.”

“But you always have chocolate milk.”

Some kids are beginning to get distracted, looking away, running around on the grass while their teachers scowl underneath watchful eyes.

“Milk builds strong muscles,” Kyle retorts.

“Strong, sure…”

Stan just about jumps out of his skin when Kyle wraps his arm around him and squeezes. He can’t lift Stan up very far, but it’s clear that he’s trying. Their chests are pressed together. Stan stumbles and then they’re toppling over, Kyle’s arms still locked in a death grip around Stan’s waist. Their Cokes spill all over the grass, a little bit of sticky, sugary drink splashing onto their faces, too.

“Told you I’m strong,” Kyle says as he pushes himself off of Stan to lie on his back next to him, holding his forearm over his eyes to block out the sun.

“Stan! Kyle! Quit the horseplay!” Mr. Mackey calls to them from a distance, but they’re already sticky with soda, covered in dewed grass, dirt on their clothes, and they don’t care. Kyle snickers first, and then they both start laughing.

Another blue plane, identical to all the other blue planes, makes a loop-de-loop for the fifteenth time above them. “This is kinda boring,” Stan sighs.

“Better than that Grammar diagraming lesson. Mr. Garrison’s sentences are always so weird. ‘A tea bag helped the the delivery man in dispensing his load.’ Like, what does that even mean?”

“I have no idea. Maybe we could ask Tweek, he knows all about hot drinks.”

Stan and Kyle both look up when above them, a plane begins to nose dive before catching itself and ascending with glory back into the sky until it’s nothing more than a tiny black speck.

“Woah! I thought it was gonna crash.” Stan likes how wide Kyle’s eyes get when he’s fascinated. He splays his left arm out until he’s brushing Kyle’s right hand. It’s Kyle’s turn to eye Stan carefully now while Stan keeps his eyes on the sky where all five planes are flying in unison, synced up in a neat little line. He’s not paying attention, though. Rather, his focus is on the tips of Kyle’s fingers grazing his knuckles, tickling the hairs there and making his wrist twitch away, regretful.

Kyle takes Stan’s hand, holding it still.

When the Angels make their final swoop down to low ground and then back up again, one swift, fluid motion, Stan’s stomach flips and he figures he must have a distaste for flying.

As they drift away to their landing site, Stan closes his eyes against the harsh light of the sun and pictures himself and Kyle drifting among the clouds too. As South Park, everyone, and everything in it fade away into dreams, they’d float along into a new plane of existence made carefree just for the two of them.

[ofastureheroics]

Continued

@valiantcharisma

Relief; is what Conrad felt. He knew his body was weak. He knew that it was a miracle that he had woken up. Given the amount of pain he was in when he crashed. When he felt those bullets hit his skin. The flesh pierced with blood. He recalled seeing the droplets of blood strayed across the pavement; it was the hero in him. He had sacrificed himself for Cade, he wanted to take the burn for her. He wanted to protect her from the mob. And frankly he felt a bit of responsibility, he knew Cade had the urge to run when she was made to be involved in the FBI, when I had found out why my name was being tainted through the mud. She wanted to run; the only reason Cade had stayed at Chastin this long was because of me. 

Because I pushed her to stay. I was selfish to ask her to stick it out. I was selfish to ask her to stay on my behalf. Today she was on the move planning to leave town, to go into hiding; but yet again I wanted to have the last word. I wanted to have one last touch, one last conversation and look where it landed us? In a hospital room, me as the patient. I was scared of the repercussions of the mob, once they had word that the hit they intended was still alive. Once they found out both parties involved were okay. I was worried for the redhead sitting besides my bed, I was worried for Gigi she was my priority, she already lost one parent to death. I couldn’t bare the thought of her seeing me weak. Of her lift being put at risk. 

Yet the parent inside of me was willing to risk it all for Cade; I heard her; I saw the fear behind her eyes. The way she watched our connected hands with ease, the way she held herself up as strong, brave. Despite the fear that was screaming out of her chest. I didn’t want to live in fear; nor did I know what happens next. 

“ If I need anyone on my side, you were always my first pick. Kit on the other hand; she might put up quite the fight. She did manage to get me through my surgeon now didn’t she?” She was a badass; she also meant business, she cared for her staff, she cared for others in her hospital. The hospital had taken a turn around since she began her regin as CEO the changes have been implemented, and Conrad knew he was in the right hands. He had to think on the bright side, he didn’t want to feel the fear that if he was left alone long enough in this room someone, from the mob could sneak inside, he didn’t want to second guess himself. For just a second he wanted to embrace what he felt in his heart was real. He wanted to put the worry on hold. 

A light smile pulled at the corners of his lips. Fingers ran along the female’s knuckles reassuringly. “ I know we can’t pretend the shooting didn’t happen. I’m living proof that it did. But for just one second I just want to hold my daughter, I want to hold your hand and not feel like it’s the last time. For just a second can we just not think about what lays ahead.” A sense of plead written in his voice; for now it was only us. Gigi was on her way down, I trusted Billie had protected some aspects of my accident from her; the last thing I needed was to worry curious eyes; worry the one thing that felt safe. 

A tighten grasp; he would’ve tugged Cade closer if he could. But he hoped the words he spoke told her he was serious about this, figuring out what an us looked like. “ I don’t want you to run. I want you here, and I know this is scary, it feels scary. But I think it’s worth fighting the storm through.” Assuring Cade decided to stay; I was all in; we felt pain, we felt fear but we could also embrace the happiness if we allowed ourselves to.

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

“How? How can you be sure he isn’t tricking you?” Batman growled, voice barely kept below his version of a scream.

painfearnonotagainpleasefearnonopainfearfearfearfear

“How?” Jason bit back, “The same goddamn way I knew that Willis was a coward who beat up on his girlfriend and kid ‘cause it made him feel big but who whimpered like a dog at the first sign of danger. That Catherine’s friend Luci who came by every Saturday was in love with her loooong before she broke down on the couch watching Thelma and Lois. That Catherine loved me more than almost anything. I know the way I know every goddamn bastard I’ve ever put a bullet in was never, ever gonna change because, fuck, there's a difference between regret and not wanting to die. The way I know just how much Alfie adores us all and all the fucking anger he’s been harboring under since nine years old is still right there under Dick’s witch hazel-soaked skin! He just got fucking guilty about it! I know...”

The wind swept in strong from the east, blowing a steady stream of rain against his face. Fuck the old bastard, didn't even have the decency to confront him when he was in costume. No, he just landed on his fucking roof at fuck all at night. Now he was standing there in a weathered old teeshirt, plaid flannel pants, and a pair of knit socks gifted to him by the old woman next door, all of which were growing progressively soaked.

“I know the same way I knew that day when you grabbed me, that Batman wasn't some fucking Cryptic, he was a sad, lonely little man and, hell, maybe I was feeling kinda sad an’ lonely too. I thought maybe, just maybe you’d get me, but it turns out your just some fucked up billionaire, and me? I’m a useless freak who can’t even fucking die right.”

Nonononopleasehowhelpsorrysorryhelp?

“Jason...”

shockhurtshockconfusedhelp?hELP?

“But Danny... He’s... He’s something else. The first time I met him I was pissed and looking to get blackout drunk. He went out of his way to calm me down and cheer me up, even though he was absolutely miserable. He just... Gets it. He makes me feel like person in a way that I haven't since I clawed my way out of that fucking grave. He knows what it's like to feel like a freak; to feel so goddamn helpless and useless and alone.

“Yeah, he’s dangerous. So am I. Hell, so are you. But he chooses every. single. fucking. day to be kind, even when he’s hurting. Yeah, he’s a sarcastic, petty bastard. I probably couldn't stand him if he wasn't. That doesn't change that he’s experienced the absolute worst humanity fucking offers at the hands of his parents and your buddies at the GiW and still only wants to keep everyone from the pain he’s suffered. I mean, the man’s been fucking vivisected! But he still wants to help; to be good for some godforsaken reason!

“You’re a genius, you can’t be a fucking idiot too. You know how to check for bias in fucking research. You know not to trust someone just ‘cause some fucking politicians got payed to think they’re a good idea. Danny doesn't deserve to be hunted like this. He’s just a person! Same as you or me or your stupid blue boy scout! Just...let this go. I know that phrase isn’t exactly one that fits through that tiny ass crack in your skull new ideas seep through, but please…

Let us feel like people together,”

A familiar clawed hand landed on Jason’s shoulder. He looked up, met not with a mask but the face of the man who had taken him in so long ago. He looked worn, exhausted in the way only those who’d seen far too much for their years could be.

SorrypleaseForgIvEmE “I’m sorry.” hUrtSorRypLEasesorry

Jason felt Bruce’s words more than he heard them, an overpowering rush of agony crashing into him like a hailstorm.

“I didn't mean... Didn't mean to hurt you, but I did, and I’m sorry.”

“……………………………………………………..The fuck…”

Jason had expected a lot. He had expected a fight, some overwrought, battle of will type bullshit. What he hadn’t expected, what he’d never expected since the first time he and Bruce had got in anything that could be considered a fight was for the old bastard to actually apologize. Hell, up until a few seconds ago Jason wasn’t sure it was even in his vocabulary. Suddenly he was enveloped in strong, armor-clad arms, the thick leather like material of a pitch black cape as warm and comforting as a worn childhood blanket.

“You don’t have a meta gene.” SorRoWgRieffaiLedfAiledhow

“Really,” he sopped tearily, “that’s what you’re gonna focus on here?”

“It’s true.”

(It’s all he could think to say)

Jason felt some small satisfaction in that he could at least give the single most irritating answer situationally possible.

“‘S not genetic, ‘s magic.”

“Hmrrr” whywhyfrustrationwhywhy

“Danny’s helping me with it.”

“Good.”

Now, if Jason hadn’t been expecting Bruce’s apology, it’s quite understandable that Bruce’s then proceeding to condone an unknown “helping” one of his children with something even remotely tasting of magic, especially something which had apparently been an ongoing issue hidden behind Bruce’s back which he still didn’t understand was almost enough to have Jason wondering if this was all a highly elaborate dream being used to trap him in his own subconscious. Still, Jason could smell Bruce’s cologne. It was something rich, probably from Dick and probably called something “deep bourbon dream”, not at all like the musty floral stuff he'd worn back when Jason could wear scaled shorts without a hint of irony.

( “It was my mother’s,”

“I found a bottle in her room before it was sealed shut. The smell always makes me feel safer; like she is still here to protect me when everything becomes too much. Don't know what I'll do when it runs out.”)

(An undersized boy, clinging tight to his father, his B, like a koala against the barrage of feelings pushing at his head. He’s safe here, in the dark, the smell of sweat and old perfume drowning the negative emotions he so easily forgets are not directed at him.)

“Look who needs to be checked for possible mental manipulation now.”

Jason tries for sarcastic but his words come out as soggy as his socks.

“Hmh,” he said, a soft grin poking the unwieldy corners of his face.

“Goddamnit I’m trying to be pissed at you right now.”

The two sat there for a long moment, both unwilling to be the first to break whatever fragile spell had tessered together the frayed corners of their relationship for them to have a moment like this. The rain was letting up. Heavy clouds held their breath at the seemingly impossible sight.

“‘Should probably go back in before I freeze off something important.”

Both stood. Bruce pulled his cowl back up in a clean motion and Jason made a feeble attempt to squeeze the rain out of his utterly soaked shirt. Still, he wiped it across his face, more or less clearing his vision and absolutely failing at playing off his reddened eye as yet another byproduct of the storm. Goddamn it, he hadn’t cried this much when he died. Then again that could just be because of the extreme heat and his stubborn refusal to cry in front of off-brand Crusty the Clown. Already Bats was halfway across the roof, the slick concrete meaningless in the wake of his decades of practice in getting the Hell outta dodge.

“Hey,” there was something fragile in Jason’s chest as he spoke, as if the wrong word could tumble out at any moment and break him, “Try not to die, ‘kay? It's not fun.”

Bats briefly paused, not even looking back as he nodded. Hesitationfearapreciationcarewhy?why?why? why?

“And tell Alfie to set an extra place for Sunday dinner!” Jason shouted, “‘Got someone special I’d like you all to meet!”

Empath

Jason Todd is an empath, something that probably no one would believe if they were told the story of Red Hood. It's not an ability he likes to brag about either, honestly, Jason hates it, as much as he hates being back from the dead, it makes him feel different, it makes him feel like he doesn't fit in.

It starts small, with a boy who feels his mother's pain and his father's rage. With a child who sees Batman and instead of a big scary bat feels layers and layers of sadness. It starts with Robin, feeling too much and wanting to change everything for the better.

He never tells Bruce, what good would it do? It's not a useful skill, sensing the Joker's madness didn't help to prevent his death. Feeling Bruce's despair wasn't enough to keep his eyes open.

It ends too quickly, too soon. Maybe for that reason he was given a second chance. One that Jason didn't want. Pit madness feels a thousand times stronger than it should, it pollutes his mind, it seeps into his heart and Jason hates it a little more every day.

Then, he meets Danny in a bar, full of smiles and biting comments but so so scared. He hears his silent pleas, his regrets, his desire to belong, to not be hated. And for the first time in a long time, Jason's heart breaks a little.

For the first time in a long time, the pits fall silent and give way to the confused feelings of the boy beside him.

Danny becomes part of the routine, Jason doesn't quite know how but the boy refuses to leave. He never asks about Red Hood, though the small flicker of doubt every time Jason leaves the apartment confirms that he knows. He never stops him, he just smiles and waits for him with a first aid kit under his arm, bandages his wounds and sleeps beside him.

Jason knows he is dangerous but can't help but love him as much as he can't help but feel the pain that accompanies the boy.

Then, his little home life is invaded by Bruce (worried, always worried, overly cautious), he warns him that Danny is a dangerous creature, warns him that he will hurt him. Jason can't help but snort.

Jason knows Danny isn't human, it's not something his ability tells him, it's just easy to deduce. But when Danny confesses it to him (scared, so so scared), he downplays it, tells him it's okay and he can go back to sleep. Danny doesn't fit into what's normal, but that's okay, he doesn't either.