#I've even gotten back into some comics

[ferronickel]

Thinking bout the time someone yelled at me because they didn't understand butches.

[moe-broey]

I. Did not achieve a lot today (understandable considering the circumstances), but. You need to See.

The SADDEST. SOGGIEST. Sharena I have EVER drawn.

Also maybe a little snippet as a treat...

You'll have to fight my messy roughs and handwriting for it though 😤😤😤

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

I've been looking for this one au where Len basically becomes a mad scientist and turns his friends into robots one by one for a while now, and I'm beginning to realize that I just read through your blog while half asleep a few months back and mixed together my memories of your flower hivemind and composite au

this is very funny to me. i'm absolutely honored this blog's posts were enough to evil-farming-game an entire vocaloid au into your memories 😂

i can give you this doodle; it's composite au but i'm sure it'd fit very well with this theoretical mad scientist len au lololl

[kodii-ak]

Death's Guide 🌙

After nearly an entire year of struggling, I'm so, so happy to complete this piece for my senior thesis!!! I am very excited, ah!

[id: An illustration of a young teen, walking cane in hand, chasing after a crow with white feathers. The crow flies underneath a yellow moon surrounded by towering pines. A blue aura emanates off of its wings. White lilies are covering the ground. /end id]

[tangledinink]

Will Swannie miss his wings? He’s been like that for about a year now, he probably gotten use to the wings and the pain in his calves/legs…would Donnie get like….phantom pain or something because of the missing wings? Would he in some way try to get them back or have a reminder of them? Will Donnie even try or want to dance again?

donnie doesn't usually dance on pointe anymore-- it was a rare occasion pre-curse, and now post, the physical demand is typically too much for him to handle. but when your little brother knows levitation magic, anything is possible for a special occasion.

generally speaking, though?

there's no way he's ever gonna want to stop dancing.

[ swanatello ] [ prev ] [ fin! ]

and... that's it! that's the end!

... well, the end of the main storyline, anyway! the end of the story for swannie that i wanted to tell. the au will still be around! <3 swanatello has pretty much always been built on the asks i've received about it, and i still have more tucked away in my hoard that i intend to get to at some point or another as little bonus side stories, and my askbox is always open as well...! and on that note--

thank y'all so, so much for your support on this magickal girl journey. i NEVER expected to get the amount of love or attention that i did for my silly little donniesona that was based on a pun, but i had so much fun with this comic and am so grateful to y'all <3 like i said, this entire au was really powered by the amount of asks i received about him and his story, and it was really such a fantastic experience for me all around. not including any non-canon crossover content, this comic is approximately 965 pages long! definitely wasn't my plan when i doodled him for the first time as a goof, haha.

thanks, gang. <3 i hope you enjoyed the ride, too.

[sundrop-writes]

Mister Mxyzptlk

Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader Blurb

Word Count: 800

Sundrop's Main Masterlist

Warnings: mentions of bullying (Stiles being bullied for having a 'weird' name); mentions of Stiles's trauma surrounding his mother's death; obscure comic book references; this is mostly just fluff - very light implications toward sexual themes, flirting and romantic attraction between Stiles and the reader.

A/N: So, the last time I was actively watching Teen Wolf (when S3 and S4 were airing) I thought it was a running gag that Stiles's real name was never revealed and it was just always a mystery to the audience (like how it's a gag in Degrassi that Heather St. Claire's face is never seen). But when I saw a tiktok showing his real name, I was shocked, and then entirely amused by it. And I was also really offended because I'm watching S1 for the first time and the coach calls Stiles's name 'child abuse' and his father doesn't even dispute that, knowing that it's a family name to honour his dead mother's side of the family. And the fact that he is a character whose real name is very hard to pronounce and very few people actually know what it is got me thinking about the comic book character - Mister Mxyzptlk - and I realized that Stiles, being a comic book nerd who is always referencing things like The Incredible Hulk and Batman and Robin, would fucking love that comparison. Thus, this mini fic. Usually, this is an idea I would save and put it as a moment in a longer fic, but I'm not currently working a fic where I feel like this fits in, so it has become its own mini fic. Random idea, but enjoy this random fluff.

...

"Is Stiles your real name?"

You inquired lightly, walking out of school with Scott and Stiles.

"It's something I've been wondering since we met."

Stiles felt a unique anxiety clutch in his chest at this question. He hated telling people his real name, especially when those people were pretty girls. Especially when they were pretty girls he had only met a week ago who were new in town who otherwise didn't know what a reputation he had for being a loser and could form their own opinions of him.

He could see any chance he had with you being flushed down the drain at top speed. But it wasn't much different from any other girl he previously had a crush on.

"Cause, I thought maybe it was your last name. Guys who play sports usually do that - always call each other by their last names." You went on, not sensing the awkwardness as Scott and Stiles eyed each other heavily, waiting for the other person to speak. "But I heard the coach calling you Balinski?"

"Stilinski." Stiles corrected you. "I think he gets my name wrong on purpose to belittle me." He gave a fake laugh to play it off, but you frowned.

"Stiles is a nickname." Scott added on, trying to usher Stiles away from the awkwardness of having to tell you himself. "His real first name is... really hard to pronounce, and not a lot of people at our school even know it. So - everyone just knows him as Stiles."

This brought Stiles back to a painful memory - in fourth grade, someone had seen the attendance sheet with his real name on it, and showed it to everyone else. And this had started a barrage of bullying and rumours about how he had gotten the name.

Some said that his mother hated him as soon as he was born and wanted to name him something really ugly to match him. Some said that his mother had a brain tumour and she named him in such an odd manner because her brain was 'mush' when he was born. And whenever people in the halls mockingly called him 'tumour baby' or 'brain tumour' - then he had to painfully be reminded of his mother's absence from his life.

"So you're like Mister Mxyzptlk?" You posed, a smile coming across your face from the joy of making such an apt reference.

Stiles looked at you then, unsure if he had heard you correctly - but his heart started to beat faster and he was sure that his crush developed into full, heart-stopping love in that moment.

A gorgeous, cute, sweet girl like you making such an obscure dorky reference - there was nobody else. Nobody else would ever make him feel the way you had in that moment.

Scott was entirely confused, looking between the two of you with utter dumbness across his face, wondering why Stiles' heart rate had increased so much.

"Ugh - yeah." Stiles stuttered out awkwardly. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"So, is learning your real name the power to defeating you?" You posed, smoothing your voice into a sultry tone, stepping closer to Stiles, running a hand up his bare forearm - clearly flirting now. "Do I get three chances to moan it in your ear without making a mistake before you're allowed to do whatever you want to me?"

Scott regretted his super-hearing, being able to catch exactly what you said in a low whisper against Stiles's ear.

Stiles's brain was short-circuiting.

You were making nerdy references and coming onto him now. His blood was rioting between rushing to his pants and giving him a heart attack, and soon, before he could stop it, he practically shouted:

"Marry me!"

And while this would have been a colossally awkward fumble with any other girl, you simply giggled and smiled.

"You're so cute." You complimented in return, reaching out to gently 'boop' a finger against his nose.

Stiles continued to gape at you, feeling like he needed to say more, needed to communicate just how epicly wonderful you were in his eyes.

"Chocolate? Or vanilla? Our wedding cake could have 4 tiers, or we could get one of those cupcake tower things, I heard those are really trendy."

You let out another laugh, thinking that he was joking - not realising that he was already picking out an engagement ring in his head, and wondering which comic book characters you would name your children after.

"We can start with a date." You told him. "Friday. After the game."

He nodded.

"Yes, date." He agreed eagerly. "A date would be amazing."

"I have to get going now." You added on - and he felt like he was floating when you leaned in and kissed him on the cheek before you departed. "See you later?"

"Everyday for the rest of our lives." Stiles mumbled quietly, entirely love-struck.

"What the hell was that?" Scott asked, still entirely baffled.

"We shall have a spring wedding." Stiles replied, his eyes still locked on your back as you walked away - clearly, he was still caught up in the euphoria of the interaction.

Scott had to drag him away.

[bluepeachstudios]

So. Cass' Apocalyptic Series by @somerandomdudelmao just ended.

I have many emotions none of which I can properly convey through words or anything. CAS itself has been a continuing beacon of creative light that's been lovely to see progress, and has inspired me through so many things, and I could go on about it but I cannot get into it without crying so I won't, I hope the sentiment comes across.

Cass did fanart of Ghost in the Shell HERE. It was like. I dunno. The third or fourth drawing of GitS I'd gotten from someone else? And the fact that Cass of all people had done it was like, wild to me at the time. I was still kind of reeling from the fact that people even liked my work at all? But Cass said it was good and I was like "oh damn must be good then" and kept writing. She also did THIS animation of Ghost which I still cry at whenever I watch it it's fine.

THEN THE PEEPAW POLLS HAPPENED. OH LORD. I made so many friends. I met so many people through that. I've never. In my life had this many people I could just talk to at any time. I never knew what to say either so I ended up just hanging out and getting dragged wherever the wind took me. It got me into doing polls in general!

Ghost made it to the FINAL ROUND??? Still confused about that. Then Uncle Tello won and Cass did a comic and I wrote something and I cried when I read the comic and I was still kind of processing so I ended up drawing something as well.

Then the next time GitS and CAS met was at the TMNT AU competition. It happened. Like almost DIRECTLY after Uncle Tello died in CAS so I was processing again and I do that through Ghost apparently so I drew a lil comic and wrote a lil somethin.

And then they never met again! But I like to think that some version of Ghost somewhere got to see the end.

GitS Part 2 has been kinda hard for me to write. I had to take a big break from it due to health stuff, and getting back into writing it wasn't as easy as before. And even after Part 2 is over, I still have the movie to do. My interest in TMNT is never going away, even after GitS I have other projects I want to finish, and that I've wanted to work on while writing GitS, but. y'know.

I'm determined to finish it. Drawing an x on my wrist. I really want to give Ghost the ending I've been imagining. And Cass has been someone really cool to look up to while I've been working on that.

So. Yeah. If Cass can get to the good ending, maybe I can do it too.

Love you Cass. Thanks for everything!

[zarla-s]

We move forward, 'cause we can't go back...

It's the EIGHTH anniversary of Handplates, and the first one after I finished the comic back in July! I decided to dig up a very old wip that I never finished and finally do it. I've always loved WeMoveForward by The Midnight, and I think it applies not only to the comic itself but also this period after it... there's no way to go back to when I was doing it, only moving forward after it's done.

Even more appropriately, since I did this wip, these characters all moved forward even further... even as this sat in my files, they moved forward, in a sense. I don't know, the song gives me a sort of plaintive, longing, bittersweet feeling... it's hard to explain.

I had a very insistent voice in my head that always made me do a Handplates page over the years I was working on it, no matter what happened. I wasn't sure if that voice would ever stop, even when it's done, but it has! It's gotten quieter now, mostly only nagging me about other projects I should be working on (Defrag, the Ace Attorney/Frozen fic, web design, fic ideas, art ideas...) whenever I'm doing something, much like it did before I started the comic.

How I feel about Handplates finishing though is strange. At times it doesn't feel like it's over, even if I don't feel like I need to do another page. At other times I get sad thinking about it and I miss it, and other times I look back on it with amazement that I was able to do it. Sometimes I look back on it and think about what was happening in my life at that time, and sometimes when I look at it it's unreal and it's hard to believe I even did it, like someone else did the whole thing. It's like it's there but it's not, it's present but it isn't. It's a very strange feeling, it's hard to describe or pin down. I know it'll always be with me in some way, but it is strange to be able to focus so much attention on other things without that feeling of having to set aside a few days to do a page every two weeks... not bad or anything, but I'm not used to it still.

I don't know! When I read the comments on the last page a lot of them made me cry, especially those talking about how the comic had been their childhood, and now their childhood is over. It was sad to think that I had a part in something like that ending... but it ends for everyone, no matter what you do. We, you and me, everyone... we move forward, 'cause we can't go back. That line was so evocative for me that I even used it as a chapter title for the penultimate chapter on Comicfury.

I don't know, just nostalgic thoughts! I don't know if that's the right word for it... but thank you to all of you who read it and enjoyed it. Even now I hear from new people coming to it and reading through it again now that it's done. Even if it's finished, it's still new to people just finding it. It's still "living" in a sense. And thanks to those of you who stuck around even though it's done, I appreciate it. |D

(As a note, the Gaster ukagaka has a surprise if you boot him on the anniversary after seeing the brothers, if you haven't done that)

[index] [patreon]

[skulkingfoxes]

A post-mortem of "Good Morning, Rose"

A few weeks ago, I posted my addition to the comic anthology GLIMM*R, a short comic called "Good Morning, Rose".

The reaction to it has been so uplifting and exciting. It really seemed to struck a cord with people, which, really, the best thing for me to hear as a creator. I absolutely love writing and making short comics, you can do much with so little, explore such interesting stories. The feedback I've gotten has been very heartwarming! It makes me want to explore short stories even more!

But, first, I want to talk about some of my feelings and about the process of making "Good Morning, Rose". This got a bit long, so you'll have to indulge me a bit. You should also read the comic first before reading this. Don't worry, it's only 8 pages.

Now the preamble is out of the way, lets go back to the beginning.

The idea of "Good Morning, Rose" was a nugget in my brain for a long time! Originally it was actually from the Dreamwalker's point of view, where she was a faceless entity who had a long term relationship with Rose and was trying to figure out how to explain that their relationships only were in Rose's dreams. It was a story about seeing, accepting, and loving each other truly and fully, and the trials and tribulations of getting there. Also a cute girl with an ancient eldrich being is always fun to explore.

A lot of it was too convoluted, emotionally and storywise. It also required to get into what the Dreamwalker actually was, which I ended up really not liking. So, ultimately, the idea didn't work, and I put it down. I ended up going to do my short comic Twigs instead.

When I was invited into the wlw anthology GLIMM*R and was told that the theme was "dreams", I decided to take another stab at the concept. This time, I inverted the pov, it's now Rose's story. And instead of a long term relationship, it was about the powerful first feeling of a perfect (maybe even too perfect?) first date.

One of the hardest thing to write in romance is getting readers to care about the relationship in the first place. To have the readers believe in the character's feeling, to be invested in their romance. This is even harder to do when you only have 8 pages to do it. Focusing it around a first date helped a lot in that case. There I'm not trying to sell that these two character will love each other forever and forever, just the fluttering first butterflies of realizing you're developing feeling for someone. It's why I leave it so open-ended about whether the two of them meet again at the end of the comic, or even if it was real in the first place. It's just not the point of the story.

That's something important about writing short stories, I find. You really have to hone in on an idea, on a thought. Take a simple idea and try to find all of the interesting layers. It's too easy to try to stuff a short story with too many ideas that ultimately go unfulfilled. In fact, the first draft of the comic, at the time called "Dream Date", there was a big problem with this and the pacing.

Here, take a look at the first stab at the roughs:

(BTW, there is something so fun about roughs for me lol. The art is so kinetic and loose, all about just getting the story across)/

As you can see, a lot of the ideas and imagery made to the final version of the comic. But both the initial readers and I agreed that the beginning and end were good, but the middle was messy and slowed things down. You can also see that I got stuck in the same problem I did when I first conceived of the story, it's bogged down trying to understand the Dreamwalker in a way that actually hurts the story. You simply dont have any room for bad pacing a short comic like this. I need to focus more on the character's and their emotions and exploring their actual relationship rather than blandly trying to explain the situation. A friend also suggested that I should hone in on the fluid dream-like aspects of the first couple of pages, especially since it's so fun to explore in the medium of comics. So I got to work gutting it out and trying again with the new, much stronger imo, direction.

Also there were some issues with the page format that needed changes for printing, thus the final spread had to be split up. Which is a shame, but oh well, it still works. I also honed in a lot more on Rose and her insecurities. I ended up putting a lot of myself into Rose. I'm glad readers seems to able to relate to her.

After figuring out the the story and the pacing, I went and, well, made the comic. Once you've done as many comic pages I have at this point, once you figure out a process, the actual drawing is fairly straightforward. Eventually, after thinking, and drawing, and toiling, and revising, and thinking hard about my life choices, I come out of the other end of the tunnel with a comic. One that I ended up really liking. One that other people ended up liking, which is always crazy to me.

I got a lot of interesting reactions to the comic. One demographic thinking it was sweet, wanting more of it (always a flattering thought), and enjoying the romance. Other remarking on the bittersweetness of it all, finding your soulmate in a dream, maybe never to see them again if they were even real in the first place. There were a lot of people remarking how they had a similar dream, one where they met someone they seemed totally and completely convinced that they were real and told the dreamer so, until the dreamer woke up. There was one person who asked if I had met the dreamwalker myself. Alas, my dreams are not this romantic and straightforward.

But all of us can hold hands, nod at each other, united by one universally true statement: big eldritch lady hot.

There's a lot of little bits I can talk about, like how Rose's dress is actively modeled after selkie dresses because I think they're cute, or some other trials and tribulations. But I think I've finished all I have had to say. I hope you enjoyed this and will stick around for my future projects! I definitely want to explore more short stories in the next year, especially as I am illustrating big graphic novels for my day job and don't have the time or energy for huge projects.

Till then, thank you so much! Happy holidays and have a good new year!

[angelpuns]

“ GET BACK!” Leo gripped his katanas tightly, backing into the corner. The lumbering, spiky creature before him grimaced, holding his claws out like Leo was some sort of spoiler animal. 

“ Leo, hey, what's goin' on, buddy?” The creature asked, voice softer than expected. It made Leo hesitant, if only for a second. 

But it must have been a ploy. A trick to trap him and-and do god knows what! 

“ I'M NOT YOUR BUDDY,” Leo hissed, keeping his eyes open for any movement from the hulking creature. If there was an opening, he'd have to take it, otherwise he'd have to portal away. It didn't feel right to leave this creature in his room, though, so that would be a last resort, “TELL ME WHO- WHAT YOU ARE! NOW!” 

The creature blinked in mock surprise and took a step back. Good. Maybe Leo could stun it and then go out the back way to his room. It wasn't a great plan, but it was all he had right now. Hell, maybe he could scare the thing all the way out the door and fight it in the lobby. Sure, it was a lot bigger than him, but he had two swords and it has nothing. 

“Wh- it's me! It's Raph!” The creature raised its voice a little, then immediately softened it again, “it’s- you're safe, Leo, its just me. You're in the lair. We're all safe…”

It was holding its hands out again and took two steps forward. Leo backed further into the corner and cursed under his breath. This was the opposite of what he wanted. 

“HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!? WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM!?” He bit out, cycling through several more half-baked plans where he didn't have to portal and didn't mess up his room. He didn't want to leave this guy here to mess it up either if he could. 

“ We're- we're brothers, remember? We explained it yesterday…. You were cursed by a witch and-”

Leo scoffed, “ that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You've got 3 seconds to leave before I cut you to pieces!”

He’d always been more of a playful banter guy than a ‘threaten to literally kill you’ guy, but this was dire. There was literally a random, dangerous looking creature-guy in his home. He wasn't gonna rake any chances to be funny, not right now. 

“Okay, okay. Let's just calm down, Leo….I really need you to take a deep breath and-and uh…name five things you see?” the guy - Raph, he'd said - was speaking even quieter, and getting even closer. 

He took another step forward and Leo couldn't think- there was nowhere to run, he was trapped. 

The creature reached forward slowly, mimicking slow breathing and Leo lashed out with his sword, barely nicking the guy’s arm with it. He either had tough scales or Leo was still too far to do any damage. 

He hissed in pain, and Leo saw a bit of red there, but he couldn't wait to find out if he'd finally pissed this guy off. 

He cut a portal beneath him and fell into it, heartbeat pounding his ears and electricity thrumming through his body. He heard a cut off “ LEO, WAIT-” before the portal closed and all he heard was the sounds if the city below him. 

 When he landed he was on a rooftop, somewhere far from his room and far from the creature. The sun was peeking above the horizon, a sudden chill making him shiver. Of course he couldn't have thought to put on a hoodie. Then again, he had been unexpectedly ambushed. 

At least he'd gotten away without a scrape. 

And not a moment too soon, because for a split second he'd seen two more guys in his doorway, each with shocked and then angry expressions. If he'd stayed even a second he'd be a goner, he just knew it. 

For now, he was safe. Now to think of a plan. 

----

Here's a blurb of that idea! I've written a chapter outline but writing has been hard lately, so I'm just gonna keep it in my docs for now. It might become a fic and it might become a comic, who knows. For now thus is what I've got. I just really wanted to write this bit :)

Part 1 | Part 3

[vaporclan]

Hi Tumblr. Sorry for being MIA more often recently.

TW: Talking about unhygienic and gross shit

So you've seen me talk about the state of my room before. With your guys's help when I opened commissions a few months ago I was able to replace some of the nasty furniture last time, but I couldn't fix the actual room. It's still a state.

It's gotten entirely out of my control. There's trash bags everywhere, mold, some of the bags that have used cat litter in it have ripped and spilled everywhere, mold mites, fruit flies, moldy food everywhere, the carpet is stained with all sorts, etc

I just want a complete fresh start for 2025. It's clear I cannot clean this by myself. I've had a new bed sitting downstairs for a year now that I can't set up cause my room is so bad.

It's clear I'm gonna Have to hire a professional to do it, but it's gonna cost so much money. I'm disabled - I get paid 1k a month in disability benefits, most of which goes to rent, groceries and cat supplies, so I legit just can't afford to pay a professional.

It's gotten this bad because I am practically bedridden - I have no energy to do anything ever and spend 24 hours a day in bed. Even my bed is full of garbage and moldly food, and even my mattress topper is moldy. I haven't showered in forever cause I don't see a point.

My hair is matted, I need a haircut. I need new clothes cause they're all either dirty or lost.

I've tried over and over again for a year now to get my room under control, but I NEED professional help. My brother / carer has tried helping me but he also struggled, cause he has similar energy issues as well as a weak stomach.

I've contacted multiple deep cleaners, and I haven't been given an estimate yet, so I can't quite say how much it'll be but it'll definitely be in the hundreds.

I genuinely don't think I can do commissions again. I'm sorry. I already have burnout from the comic. I don’t know what to do. (Don't worry, I'll finish the commissions I do have soon, but I think I'm closing them for a good while after.)

I have my Patreon, where I'm sketching as much of the story as possible (I'm 106 pages ahead) + the discord where I post script snippets and concept art and talk about future plans.

I also have a PayPal, if you wish to help - but don't feel obligated.

Sorry for this. I'm struggling recently. It was my birthday at the start of this month, and I told myself I'd get my room sorted for my birthday. I tried to do it myself, but after a couple hours I realized it was fruitless. I lost the energy entirely and just got back in bed. I'm so tired of living like this.

[arminsumi]

baby came home— 五条

note: nothing just comfort fluff about satoru coming home to you because i feel the need to apologize in some way for that soul-crushing angst lol

warnings — beware of spoilers for manga !! , not proofread, blood and hugging / kissing though he's bloody, scars mention, he cries, implied dating, "baby"

curled up in bed, muttering "come home, baby, it's cold without you." into his pillow. you feel sick with worry.

but you're trying to soothe your worries by inhaling his scent, sleeping in his bed, and wearing the shirt he bought in okinawa, the oversized one that he used to say looked so cute on you when you woke up bleary-eyed and brushed your teeth with him.

you fall asleep, numbed by all those shed tears full of hopelessness.

and in your sleep, while you breathe gently and clutch his pillow, the front door clicks open. a soft thumping of footsteps sounds down the hall.

he peers into his room, and finding you there brings so much comfort to his soul. he stands at the doorframe and stares for a while. just because.

all bloodied and beaten up like a soldier that just came off the frontlines, his feet wander over to you even though he planned to wash off the blood before touching you.

" 'toruuu ? " you mumble half-asleep, half stirring at a familiar touch. his heart flutters at the way you just know it's him without even seeing or hearing.

that's how much you love me, huh?

" angel. i'm home. "

you look at him through bleary, stinging eyes. plush lips kiss underneath. the scent of blood isn't disturbing, though it's pungent and filling your lungs — it's satoru's blood, why should you feel creeped out by it?

it's too dark to see all the scars that he collected through the battle.

" thank you for listening to me and staying here. " he mutters, kissing your lips without thinking.

" missed you, come here. "

" i'm all bloody, i'll go clean up first. . . "

" i don't care. come here, come here, satoru. "

that itself makes tears start glitter on his waterline.

" baby, " he chokes up, becoming completely weak as your arms wrap around him. " i missed you so b—ad it hurt. the idea of never being in these arms again hurt more than a—ny w-wound — fuck, hold me tighter. please. don't let go. " his voice breaks terribly, and he begins to cry like you've never heard him cry before.

he feels safe right here, cooped up in your arms. it's always been comical how much bigger he was than you, and yet he curled up like a cat against your body since he was a lanky teenager and even now when he's a big beefy boy.

when he feels you beginning to play with his hair and pull him undercovers, he melts into a tired slumber. it feels like he's never slept in his life. but now that he's back in your arms, he's sure he's going to get the most fulfilling rest of his life.

nothing can hurt the two of you anymore. he's fulfilled his duty as the strongest and gotten rid of the king of curses. now he's home, and he can happily become weak in your loving arms.

© arminsumi

Do not plagiarize / repost / translate / copy layouts / etc.

Do not steal what I've worked hard to create.

[suzukiblu]

. . . anyway LISTEN I told 'yall November was gonna be "obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU" month, and I really did not INTEND to post my daily words for it again this year but also, like, fuck it, we ball. No promises I will update EVERY day this time around but again: fuck it, we ball. ( also uhhhhh I've been writing this fic kinda-sorta-semi out of order lately but there is still a significant chunk of word count I'd already written that I would've pre-gamed and posted YESTERDAY if I'd thought I was gonna be doing this, sooooo hope nobody minds us kickin' off the month with like an extra 5.9k on top of the 1.6k of obligatory sugar that I ACTUALLY wrote today behind this here cut? yes? no?? Bueller???? )

get sugared, Super-boytoy. Tim, you just . . . you just do your future-supervillain best over there, buddy. you just do what you can with yourself. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“I wanted to,” Tim says again, and Kon glances away and bites his lip, turning the flowers by the stem again. 

“It’s, uh–pretty,” he says, then clears his throat. “I mean, it’s–cool. Thanks.” 

“If I can’t bring you fresh ones, well . . .” Tim shrugs. Kon glances back to him, and very briefly presses one of the orchid blooms against his own mouth. His face is still all flushed and his eyes are still a little soft, and it’s . . . it makes a picture, alright, even if it's not one Tim's specifically set up to take. Especially with the gold eyeliner and his blue eyes both matching the orchids. 

Tim didn't plan that, obviously, but he thinks it makes up for the sapphire versus ruby thing.

“Um . . .” Kon trails off, biting his lip. Glances down at the orchids from under his lashes. It doesn't make him any less of a picture, for sure. “So, um–do you wanna see the ‘something nice’ I got?” 

Tim blinks, immediately thinks of the most embarrassing option that Kon could possibly mean, and desperately tries to fight back a mortified flush at the idea. But, well–everything he can see Kon wearing is something he remembers buying him already, so . . . 

Oh god, he needs his brain to shut up right now. Immediately. Right now and immediately and forever. 

“Sure,” he says like a normal person, trying not to panic. “What is it?” 

Kon, thank god, pulls a little rectangular package inexplicably–and inexpertly–wrapped in newspaper comics out of the same coat pocket he tucked the jewelry box in. There's plain white string tied around it in a bow. 

Tim . . . blinks. 

If he didn't know better, he'd think Kon had . . . 

“I, um, got you something?” Kon says, and Tim stares blankly at the package. He–what? “For once, anyway. Well, I guess, uh, technically you got it for yourself, and actually this is kinda stupid maybe, you can literally just get yourself whatever you want whenever, obviously, but I just thought, uh–” 

“You got me something?” Tim repeats in surprise. Kon turns pink and shoves the package at him. Tim is too bewildered not to take it. 

“I thought it’d be, uh–fun,” he says, biting his lip and still very visibly blushing. “I mean–that we could have some fun with it. Y’know?” 

Tim stares at the package for another moment, then looks up at Kon. Alright, this maybe isn’t exactly the vibe he was going for here in terms of who’s paying for what and who’s giving things to who, but . . . well, Kon apparently used his allowance for whatever this is, at least, which gives him a reason to have wanted the allowance, so . . . he can work with that, he figures. Like, it’s an “in” to work from; a step in the process. 

He can’t tell what Kon’s gotten him from the shape of the package, though the edges are hard even though it doesn’t feel like it’s in a box or anything. “Have some fun” isn’t much of a clue, though he supposes it does imply something interactive. Maybe it’s a game of some kind, or–

Tim unties the bow and splits apart the clumsy seam of the comic-page wrapping paper with his thumb, tugging through its layers to reveal the package’s contents, and Kon flushes a little darker and watches him just a little bit nervously. 

Tim doesn’t actually know what to say. 

“I just thought, um, a real one’d probably take better pictures than a phone can,” Kon says sheepishly, slanting his eyes away and half-hiding his face behind the orchids. “I made sure the battery was charged and the guy at the store said it's got a lot of storage, I guess, so . . .” 

“You got me a camera,” Tim says blankly, which is the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him short of, like . . . no, it’s pretty much just the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him. By far it’s the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him. 

“You like taking pictures, right?” Kon fidgets a little, then smiles just barely shyly as he glances back at him. Tim's heart skips a few beats. Or more than just “a few”, maybe. “So, um–I thought maybe we could go do that . . . somewhere. You know, after dinner.” 

“Oh,” Tim says, blinking at him a little stupidly. It’s not a particularly good camera, honestly–like, it’s a perfectly functional model for casual amateur use and a decently reliable commercial brand, but he’s got much better ones that are all professional-quality. He hasn’t used any of them in a while and most of them are admittedly a few years old now, but . . . yeah, this was a hundred bucks max, if that, and his cheapest camera was over five hundred. 

Note to self: raise Kon’s allowance. 

Also, apparently now his favorite camera is the kind of camera civilian amateurs just take random family photos on. Apparently that’s a thing. 

Tim really doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that Kon not only remembered something he mentioned having an interest in, Kon bothered to actually get him something he thought he’d have an interest in. That is really, really not the dynamic he’s been encouraging here, for one thing. And also, why even would Kon do that? Like–really? 

“Thanks,” Tim says sincerely, turning the camera over in his hands and feeling incredibly embarrassed about all of this. “I love it.” 

“Cool,” Kon says, biting his lip around a smile. His face is still a little pink and he looks all soft and pretty like that, especially with the flowers still in his hand. Tim really was not prepared for Kon having “soft and pretty” in his repertoire. Like, that was not a thing he ever expected to see from his cocky, crowing brawler of a teammate. 

Kon’s only a brawler because he thinks he’s supposed to be, though, Tim’s pretty sure. Like–increasingly sure, at this point. 

He really, really needs to figure out how to get Kon to tell Robin more about his TTK. Or, like . . . anything about it, apparently. Just literally any single thing, at this point. 

“Thank you,” he says again, inspecting the camera assessingly and making note of all its functions and ports and the generally obvious basics. “We could go take some shots around downtown later, if you’re up for that?” 

Kon turns bright red, and Tim doesn’t understand for about half a second before remembering–the last time Kon had talked to him about taking pictures, he’d offered . . . 

Oh Jesus. 

Tim is either incredibly stupid or–actually, he doesn’t even know. Lucky? Embarrassing? The dumbest moron alive who didn’t even realize he was being flirted with again? All those things and several even worse ones? 

Kon had offered to let him take spicy pics of him the last time they'd talked about taking pictures, whatever “spicy” means to Kon–brash, impulsive, shameless Kon–and Tim’s the idiot whose first thought upon Kon following up that conversation by very literally giving him a camera was to go take pictures of fucking downtown.

He is the most useless “sugar daddy” to ever sugar. 

Well, to be fair, it is Gotham downtown, so it’s very–

“I like taking pictures of streets and buildings,” he blurts belatedly, fumbling to sound like just the oblivious idiot that he is and not some kind of weird fucking perv who’s trying to get Kon arrested for public indecency. Jesus, he’s stupid. “And people-watching is interesting too. You know, stuff like that.” 

“Oh,” Kon says, and looks several ways at once, including both a little relieved and a little disheartened, which . . . okay, Tim would literally die if they actually went somewhere to take spicy pics tonight, so is unfortunately unavoidable. He’s not trying to make Kon not feel–attractive or anything, but he needs at least twenty-four hours to make a plan and also two or three or seventeen contingency plans before . . . anything like that happens. Ever. Even in theory. “Um–yeah, sure. That sounds cool.” 

“Cool,” Tim says, still desperately pretending to be an idiot. It’s not hard, on account of the fact that he very much is an idiot. 

Kon pauses for a moment, then perks up a little, seeming to think of something, and asks–“When’s dinner?” 

“Our reservation’s in forty-five minutes,” Tim says, double-checking the time on his phone just to be sure. “Well, forty-six. I figured that’d let us take our time walking over and maybe we could window-shop a little on the way.” 

And also shop-shop a lot, if Kon gives him literally even the slightest indication that he wants or needs something. Just if it comes up or anything. That’s all. 

Tim definitely did plan their route to the restaurant to cut straight through the middle of the downtown shopping district, either way. 

“We could’ve just met there, dude,” Kon says wryly, but grins anyway, glancing down at the orchids in his hand again. “Forty-six minutes, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Tim confirms. 

“And you like taking pictures of streets and buildings?” Kon asks, his grin turning just a little bit sly. Tim frowns briefly in confusion, not sure what the grin’s about. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Gotham has a lot of really interesting architecture and design. Like, it’s an old city, and one that’s been pretty resistant to updates in a lot of areas or just not had the money for those updates. So you get a lot of places with a lot of character and it’s basically the bastard child of gothic and art deco design with a side of industrial warehouse, depending on the part of town you’re in. Like, Crime Alley and the Diamond District have very different vibes, but they’re both very Gotham vibes, if you know what to look for. It’s–” 

Kon is grinning really widely at him, for some reason. Tim realizes he’s rambling like a moron and turns red. 

“Uh,” he says, repressing a wince. “Yes. Yeah. I like taking pictures of streets and buildings.” 

“Cool,” Kon says, and then he carefully packs the orchids back into their box and it back into the gift bag and transfers the chocolates and jewelry back into it too, then grins even wider at him as he hooks the bag’s handles over his arm and into the crook of his elbow. “Don’t drop the camera, babe.” 

“Wha–” Tim starts to say, and then Kon grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the closest alley, which is terrible survival instincts for Gotham, oh god, but before Tim can say anything about that Kon’s wrapped an arm around his waist just tight enough to just barely lift him off his feet and bolted straight up into the air with him. “Shit!”

Tim doesn’t drop the camera because he’s held onto cameras while falling off literal buildings before, but definitely only because of that. Muscle memory, or whatever. Also he’s been snatched off his feet by Bruce and Dick plenty of times and thrown off rooftops by multiple rogues and thugs over the years and these days gets regularly dragged around by Bart, all while holding very important things he could not afford to drop, so it’s not like either the sudden jolt or the effort to keep his grip on the camera are as disorienting as it otherwise would be. Just . . . 

Ugh, Tim realizes, absolutely unimpressed with himself upon realizing that the breathless feeling he’s having right now is not actually related to the swift and sudden increase in altitude, but is actually just because it’s Kon holding him. 

He is an idiot, isn’t he, he reflects resignedly. Just an actual literal idiot. 

Jesus. 

“Whatcha think?” Kon asks with a grin as he comes to a stop in mid-air with him. He stops very suddenly, but Tim notices a distinct lack of jarring with said stop, which implies Kon’s got his TTK around him again and probably completely around him, which means–

Oh god, Tim thinks, and very quickly makes himself stop thinking about that. 

“It’s cool,” he says, because a normal civilian would think flying was something interesting and unusual, but it’s hard to act too excited about a move Kon probably pulls on literally everyone he–

“I meant the view, babe!” Kon says with a laugh, and Tim . . . blinks. 

And then he looks down. 

They’re hovering a few thousand feet up, and downtown is already lit up bright in the early evening gloom. And Kon . . . 

“Streets and buildings, as ordered,” Kon says, grinning wider with a smug, cocky look on his face. 

Oh no, he’s hot, Tim realizes with dread, and then blinks again. Stares down at the city below, past the whipping wind and down into the busy streets and the bright, dazzling lights cutting through the murky gloom. He’s seen Gotham like this a thousand times, obviously, because of course he has–he’s been climbing these rooftops for years, and every night he runs across and swings back and forth between them and utterly fails to learn how to do more than a double backflip. 

One day, he promises himself distractedly, and then looks back at Kon. 

He’s seen Gotham like this a thousand times, but never just because someone thought he’d like it. Like–not like this, he means. Dick's shown him a few particularly special or exhilarating views over the years, yeah, but . . . definitely not like this. Not for a reason like this. 

And definitely not while peacocking all smug and pretty dressed up in clothes that he bought him and holding him close enough to kiss. 

Kon’s expression turns a little sheepish; a little soft. Not quite shy, but . . . 

“Do you like it?” he asks, his voice pitched a little quieter, and Tim has the much worse and even more dread-inducing realization of oh no, he’s CUTE.

He swallows, briefly, and feels his face burn. 

“Yeah,” he manages in an almost-normal voice. “I like it.” 

Kon grins at him, brighter than any city light, and Tim barely keeps himself from dropping the camera after all. 

“Thanks,” he attempts awkwardly, making himself focus on the camera and resisting the urge to take an immediate shot of that city-light grin. 

Then he takes one anyway, because of course he does. Kon laughs in surprise, then makes a face at him teasingly. 

“Hey, you can buy this face in any cheap gossip rag, focus on the fun stuff,” he jokes, jerking his head towards the city below. Tim looks searchingly at him for a moment, and then for obvious reasons snaps another picture. Kon flushes a little again. They probably won't even come out from this close, but . . . 

“You’re the most fun I’ve had all week,” Tim says, which is definitely too honest but clearly necessary to make a point of saying. Kon turns redder, ducking his head and grinning around his bitten lip. 

“You don’t have to say that kind of thing to me, man,” he says, and it comes across almost like a reflex. Tim hates . . . yeah, just literally everybody Kon’s ever known in his whole entire life, actually? Like, pretty much everybody? Bart gets a break because he grew up alone in VR and is therefore terrible with people and the girls get a break because they haven’t known any of them that long, but everybody else can just take a long walk off a short gutter, in Tim’s opinion. 

Especially any “everybody” from Cadmus. 

Or Metropolis, at this point. 

“I’m not saying anything I don’t want to say,” he says simply, and goes to the effort to frame a few shots of the skyline so Kon will know he appreciates . . . well, not the angle, exactly, but the thought. 

Technically he is usually on top of a building when he’s doing this, so the angle is actually a slightly different one than he’s used to–not that he’s been taking photos lately, just–not the point, really. Kon got him a camera and brought him up here because he clearly thought he’d like it, and damned if Tim is gonna do anything to make him think he doesn’t. 

He has better cameras for things like this–aerial shots and night photography and long-distance and the like, and better cameras for closeup candids too–but he already knows these pictures are all going to be exactly what he wants them to be, even the ones that don't come out. 

Or especially those, maybe. 

He's not sure how he'd explain that feeling to someone else. 

Kon flies them around, staying out of sight behind the light pollution and among the shadows of the buildings, and Tim takes . . . a lot more pictures than he needs to, actually. He was just trying to make sure Kon knew he appreciated him thinking of him, but actually . . . 

Well. 

It’s fun, that’s all. 

It’s . . . been a while, kinda, since he got to spend this much time on just photography and nothing else. Or–any time at all, really. 

Not that this is nothing else, obviously, given that Kon’s holding him and it is very, very hard to concentrate on anything besides that, but it is the kind of a view a standard civilian never gets, and it’s kind of nice to be flying for non-work-related reasons, for once. Like . . . novel, he guesses. A different experience. 

Technically he and Dick do “fly” together just for fun, sometimes, but that’s different. Like–so many kinds of different. It helps them in their work–keeps the rooftops familiar and them both in shape and in sync–but he can’t take photos when he’s trying to keep up with Nightwing across the rooftops of Gotham, and it’s not like Dick’s carrying him either. 

Also, it’s much less flustering and difficult to concentrate through, because again, Dick is not carrying him, and also Dick doesn’t do things like wear clothes he bought or do his eyeliner and paint his nails for him. Or, uh . . . anything like that. 

Also, definitely the “spicy pics” thing is not at all a thing, with Dick. Like, not even slightly, in any way whatsoever. And they’ve also never made out in a changing room or the back of a planetarium or– 

Look, there’s a lot of ways it’s different, okay? 

A lot of ways. 

“I'm not boring you, am I?” Tim asks a little bit sheepishly as Kon lands them on a ledge just behind one of the bigger gargoyles, tucked in tight in the shadows between it and the building it's perched on. “We can probably still fit in some window-shopping before dinner, if you want.” 

“Oh my god, dude, I promise we can do things you don't have to spend money on,” Kon says with a laugh as he lets him down on the ledge. “Though if it helps you technically did spend money on this, given how I got the camera and all.” 

“It's your allowance,” Tim says, because he wants to make sure Kon actually gets that. “You can spend it however you want.” 

“Well, I spent it how I wanted,” Kon says, and then steps closer into his space with a smile. Tim ends up sitting on the gargoyle’s back as Kon leans down to kiss him, and it's not like he's never kissed anyone while perched on a gargoyle before, but somehow it feels like something new anyway. New and electric, bright and easy and smeared with the city lights and thrilling in its shadows, and– 

Kon breaks off the kiss, though he keeps a hand on Tim’s arm, probably to make sure the squishy untrained civilian won't accidentally fall off the ledge and get splatted on the concrete. Tim barely holds himself back from chasing his mouth. 

“It's cool, anyway. Um, doing stuff you're into with you, I mean,” Kon says, looking a little soft and almost-shy again, and never mind, Tim not only needs to chase his mouth, he needs to set up a damn manhunt for it. “You're real cute when you get excited, man. I mean, uh–just–” 

The manhunt is going to require a very significant budget, Tim notes. 

Then he kisses him again, obviously. Kon melts down into it–into him, really–and wraps his arms around his neck, and Tim feels several kind of ways about it. Admittedly, it's the easier option with him sitting on the gargoyle and Kon leaning over him, but Kon's put his arms around his neck a couple of times now, and, well . . . 

That's just not something he would've expected from him, he guesses. Not “cool” or masculine or badass or . . . whatever, exactly, Kon thinks he's supposed to be. 

So Tim . . . likes it, he thinks, that Kon doesn't seem to think he needs to be like that around Tim Drake. 

Robin’s sure as hell never seen Kon in eyeliner. 

Robin's loss, Tim thinks. 

. . . maybe he's compartmentalizing a little too much these days, but still. 

Kon makes a very, very soft little sound between their mouths and then laughs, and Tim promises himself he won't stop at Gotham: he'll take over Metropolis for this asshole one day. Even if that means putting up with Lex Luthor and Superman. And also, like . . . everything about Metropolis. 

He'll figure it out. Supervillainy is still a long-term plan, so he's got time. 

Anyway, if he gives it to Kon after he takes it over he won't have to put up with it, so it's whatever. Sugar daddies do that kind of thing, right? Get their sugar-ees a city? 

. . . okay, definitely not. Like, very definitely not. 

“Okay date idea, then?” Kon asks as he leans back a bit and does a very bad job of biting back a smile, his face a little flushed and arms squeezing a little tighter around his neck. 

Tim will get him Metropolis if it kills Lex Luthor. 

“Very okay,” he says, smiling back at him. Kon grins, his face turning just a little bit redder, and then kisses him again. Tim has absolutely no complaints about that. Ever. He can’t even imagine a complaint he’d have about that, in fact. 

Worst case scenario, he’ll get them in at another restaurant if they miss their reservation. 

He really doesn't know what else he's supposed to do about how easy Kon blushes. 

They definitely spend too long making out against the gargoyle and Tim definitely lets himself get too riled up during it–and does not think about tactile telekinesis or any kind of related passive perception while he does–but by the time he’s the one pressing Kon back against the building, he really doesn’t care anymore. 

The fact Kon is even willing to let him do that when there is literally no way Tim could ever actually pin him anywhere without a way to sabotage his powers is . . . really, really distracting. Just–so distracting. 

Jesus, Tim thinks, breaking off just long enough to catch his breath for a moment. Kon pants softly against his mouth, which sabotages that even worse than kryptonite would sabotage TTK. 

Jesus, Tim thinks again, and then crushes their mouths back together. 

He doesn’t need to breathe that often. 

Kon makes a softer, breathier sound this time, and Tim does not let himself make it weird by letting his hands wander anywhere outside of second base territory. Frankly he’s not sure second base territory isn’t him making it weird, but Kon started it, so hopefully it’s not? Like–logically it’d follow that Kon wouldn’t touch him anywhere he doesn’t want touched, right? 

Well–hopefully, anyway. 

The air feels tight, Tim notices suddenly, like the feeling of sinking into deeper pressure when underwater but all at once, and then realizes–oh. 

Uh. 

Okay. 

“Um,” he says, and immediately the feeling of pressure vanishes as Kon jerks back and claps a hand over his own mouth. Which is mostly him pushing Tim back, given their position, but he does crack the brickwork behind him a little. 

Whoops, Tim thinks. 

“Sorry!” Kon blurts. “Sorry, sorry, that’s–sorry! I just, uh–got a little too into it. I won’t do it again.” 

“It’s really not a problem,” Tim says, with absolutely no idea how to take the idea of Kon getting “a little too into it” when kissing him, or the idea that getting a little too into it apparently involves getting wrapped up in TTK a lot more noticeably than making him bulletproof at the museum did. “I mean–it didn’t hurt or anything, I was just surprised.” 

“I–yeah, I know, it’s just–weird,” Kon says, still looking mortified. “So–sorry. That’s all.” 

“I don’t mind weird,” Tim says, because actually the idea of being temporarily at least as invulnerable as Kon is while making out with him implies being able to devote a lot more attention to said making out, as opposed to keeping half an eye out for snipers or rogues or random rooftop criminals. Not that he’d stop paying any attention to that, obviously, just–yeah. Well. 

It’s a little tempting, that’s all. 

“Uh–you don’t?” Kon bites his lip, still looking a little embarrassed. 

“It kind of just felt like scuba-diving, but with less equipment involved,” Tim says with a little shrug, keeping his tone light because “seriously, you have no idea how much I’d like to not be compulsively keeping an eye out for snipers right now” isn’t a very “civilian” thing to say. “And I’m not about to complain about you enjoying kissing me that much either way.” 

“Oh,” Kon says, and flushes a little. “Uh–really?” 

“Really,” Tim says, smiling at him again and tugging gently at the lapels of his jacket to pull himself back in. Kon blushes, and grins, and meets him halfway for the kiss. The sensation of pressure wraps him up again, gentle but undeniable, and Tim feels several kinds of ways about it. 

Maybe even a little bit safe, or at least as safe as anyplace outside the Batcave ever gets. 

Tim knows there’s no such thing as being perfectly, completely safe, but getting all wrapped up in Kon’s TTK and kissed for it makes it hard to remember that. 

Very, very hard. 

They spend a much longer time making out this time. Tim is vaguely aware that they still have a dinner reservation to make, but . . . well, he did pad the time to allow for window-shopping, so even with the time they spent flying around taking pictures, it's probably fine? 

Yeah, no, they’ve definitely missed their reservation by now. Probably way past missed it. Just so, so far past missed it. 

Weirdly, Tim doesn’t care as much as he should, even though he really prefers when things go to plan and also needs Kon to feel appreciated and like he got properly spoiled and taken someplace nice. He’s going to have to figure out something else on the fly, though, because he really does needs Kon to feel appreciated and also needs the excuse to get him more used to getting money spent on him and–

Tim remembers that he needs to breathe more than he's currently breathing and breaks off the kiss. Kon half-chases his mouth with his own, audibly breathless himself. Tim is not equipped to handle Kon breathless. 

That might actually be more flattering than the TTK thing. Or, uh–flustering, maybe. 

Both, maybe. “Both” is probably accurate here. 

Jesus, Tim does not know what he did to deserve Kon getting breathless over something he’s done to him, much less all soft and pretty and–

They have definitely, definitely missed their reservation. Usually Tim has a better sense of time than that, but usually Tim doesn’t have Kon wanting to make out on a Gotham rooftop with him, Like, he thinks he can forgive himself a little bit of disorientation on that one, considering. 

. . . as long as Bruce never finds out he messed up that bad, anyway. Because Bruce would definitely not like hearing he’d messed up that bad, TTK or not. 

Probably especially involving the TTK, actually. Probably Bruce would not take “yeah I let Superboy get distracted enough to unconsciously wrap me up in his Kryptonian-level superpowers while he wasn’t in full control of them and actually, like, encouraged it, kinda? like, explicitly encouraged it, actually”. 

Yeah, Bruce would not like that. 

“Um,” Tim says, and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “So, uh–hungry yet?” 

“You could say that,” Kon murmurs, then flashes him a sharp, wicked grin with his eyes slit open just enough to fix on Tim’s mouth. Tim spares a moment to compartmentalize just enough to not lose his mind about that, then makes the mistake of licking his lips anxiously, sees Kon’s hooded eyes go hot at the sight, and immediately fails to not lose his mind. 

“Uh,” he manages, and then decides they don’t really need to get dinner just yet and maybe they could just, like–no, no, Kon is definitely not getting enough calories from that stupid barely-legal underground lab’s stupid definitely-not-health-code-compliant cafeteria, Tim is not gonna be a bad enough date to not get his date a respectable amount of calories. That is just not a thing that he’s gonna, like . . . thing, as a thing. Or whatever. 

Not like Superman’s been bringing Kon casseroles or anything, the prick. 

“Um, I–uh, might’ve let us get a little too distracted, sorry,” Tim attempts after a moment of mental fumbling, making himself push back from Kon a little and pulling his phone out to check the time. Yeah, they have definitely missed their reservation. Very, very thoroughly have they missed it. 

Dammit. That is not Bat-quality situational awareness. 

“You think that was just you, man?” Kon asks with a little laugh, just barely ducking his head and biting his lip. It is . . . very distracting. As is his face. And his hands, which are still loosely on Tim’s back, and his TTK, which is still loosely . . . basically everywhere, yeah. Just–way too many places for Tim to be rational about, basically. 

“I mean, I was the one who made the reservation,” he says, clearing his throat awkwardly as he does his best to at least fake rationality. “So, uh, I should’ve been paying attention to the time. I can see if there’s someplace we can still slip in, it’s a little last-minute for a Friday but–” 

Kon kisses him again. 

Tim was saying something, he’s reasonably sure, but he couldn’t remember whatever it was with a gun to his head. A gun to his head while out of his suit and without Kon on the same floor as him, to be clear. 

Kon leans back and grins at him, all bright and pretty and cutting right through the shade and shadows of Gotham like a spotlight-signal lighting up the cloud cover. Tim remains vaguely aware of the fact that he was doing . . . something. At some point. In theory. 

God, Kon is so pretty. So, so pretty. And everything he’s wearing is something Tim bought him, coat and clothes and jewelry and all. Just–all of it, as far as he can see. 

Tim does not let himself think about what else Kon might or might not be wearing right now. Just–that way lies madness, and also Kon not getting a decent dinner and decent spoiling. 

. . . there’s probably some other ways Tim could spoil him, technically, if he just– 

Tim does not finish that thought. 

“You’re so fucking cute, daddy,” Kon says, still grinning just as signal-bright and pretty at him. Tim is not prepared for literally any of that and nearly melts right off the ledge into an incoherent mess of street pizza. 

“Uh,” he says, swallowing roughly. “We should–are you hungry yet?” 

Kon laughs, for some reason. Tim very quietly and carefully burns alive, and then Kon floats up a few inches and ducks around him and back out into the open air, leaning down to grin at him and reaching to–probably he’s intending to pick him up again, Tim’s brain is vaguely aware, but the rest of Tim is thinking more like hurr durr pretty boy, which is definitely why he ends up reaching up to cup Kon’s face in his hands and tug him down for another kiss, pushing himself up on his toes on the edge of the ledge to reach him easier. Kon makes a soft, breathless little noise, then laughs in delight and kisses him back. 

The wind is cold and sharp and the evening sky is all heavy dark clouds and hazy light pollution and Kon’s wearing clothes Tim bought him, some of which Tim even suggested to him, and he put on makeup and painted his nails to come see him and he’s got a gift bag of little things Tim picked out for him hooked in the crook of his elbow and he liked all of those little things, and they’ve not only missed but obliterated their dinner reservation, and they’re half-on a ledge high above the street and kissing and Kon is just so pretty.

And Kon also bought him a camera and brought him up here because he thought he’d like it and called him “cute”, which are all facts that Tim is definitely going to have to compartmentalize to fully process later, or else he really will melt right off the stupid ledge. 

The spicy pics thing, also, is a thing. The spicy pics thing is, uh–very much a thing. 

Tim is maybe just never gonna process that particular fact in, like, self-defense. 

Ever. 

. . . god, he’s going to have to process that fact at some point, isn’t he. God. That is . . . that is a whole thing that he is going to have to do. Like, effectively and well and throughly.

Maybe it’s not too late to just go supervillain right now, actually. Maybe Kon would be open to, like, minionhood or something. Lots of supervillains put their minions up in their lairs, right? That’s totally a thing, isn’t it? 

Ugh, no, Kon deserves a place he can really feel like is his place and also he has not laid near enough groundwork to get Dick to switch sides. Like, Alfred would, obviously. Alfred will be on-board the second the rusty crowbar and shrapnel bomb plan comes up and will probably have useful notes to add. But Dick is gonna require some more long-term finessing and Babs definitely won’t come if Dick doesn’t and– 

Kon laughs into the kiss and cups Tim’s face in return, which is incredibly distracting, and then squishes his face, which is incredibly annoying. 

“Hey!” Tim sputters, and Kon laughs again and leans back just enough to grin at him. 

“You are so weird, dude,” he says. “I can literally hear you thinking.” 

“. . . that’s not me being detached from the situation, I–” Tim starts, unable to repress a wince, and Kon just grins wider, grabs his wrists, and tugs him off the ledge and–oh, okay, that’s a weird sensation, Tim notes, because gravity does absolutely nothing at all to him until Kon’s pulled him into his arms and wrapped him up in them again all easy and secure. . 

So that’s . . . yeah, no, “incredibly distracting” isn’t actually gonna cover this one, considering. 

“Uh,” he says, blinking a couple of times. That. That is definitely not how Superboy holds Robin. 

Frick. 

“I just gotta keep you better attached, right, daddy?” Kon purrs–really purrs, his chest briefly vibrating against Tim’s–and then grins wider at him again with eyes that are, unfortunately, literally goddamn sparkling right now–thanks, gold eyeliner, Tim didn’t need those higher thought processes–before giving him another quick little kiss that Tim actually would like to turn into a four-hour make-out session and maybe also a sleepover and–

God he needs to remember how to compartmentalize. He really, really needs to remember how to compartmentalize. 

Also he needs to kiss Kon’s literal friggin’ brains out, the smug friggin’ asshole.

Mid-air makeouts are the worst possible idea Kon has ever inflicted on him and Tim would sooner fight Killer Croc without his utility belt than point that fact out to him. 

He winds his arms around Kon’s neck and kisses him back, and Kon makes this tiny little–not pleased, not content, but actually happy-sounding noise and kisses back harder. Tim feels gravity stop being a particularly relevant concern again and feels like he’s floating in deep, heavy water but also like he’s the lightest he’s ever been in his life, and it is . . . it is a feeling, alright. 

Kon is a menace. Kon is a problem. 

Kon is so, so damn cute. 

“You are an actual literal brat, baby,” Tim mutters slightly more feelingly than he means to, and Kon’s laugh comes out a little breathier this time and he ducks his head to the side and his face flushes and–

No. Nope. No. Tim needs to not learn anything new about himself or Kon tonight, or, worse, anything about him and Kon. That is just not a thing he has time for in his schedule. He’s got to fit in an anxiety attack and three full files’ worth of casework this weekend, for one, plus his science presentation and that make-up book report, and also come up with someplace else nice enough to take Kon to dinner tonight. 

“So, uh–dinner?” he says very quickly–self-defense, again–and Kon bites his lower lip and grins around it, his face still turned just a little bit away. Tim pretends they’re not effectively pressed together from knee to neck right now. Pretends valiantly. “I mean–um, if you’re hungry yet.” 

Kon laughs, ducking his head lower, the dangling gold teardrop hanging from his ear gleaming warmly in the murky electric city light. Tim goes through multiple stages of emotional processing to keep himself from kissing his neck right behind that earring and completely forgetting about not only dinner, but all his homework and casework and even the anxiety attack. 

Does Kon laugh this much around Robin? 

Tim really doesn’t feel like he does. 

He also doesn’t tell Robin very important things like the fact that he can make other people bulletproof on a whim and map out an entire mall just by standing in it, which is objectively much worse and potentially dangerous a thing not to do, but also Tim is already positive he’s going to miss that laugh like crazy every time he sees Kon with the mask on. 

Robin doesn’t get to see Kon like this at all, even when he lets the asshole eat both stupid boxes of cinnamon bread. 

“Dinner, yeah,” Kon says, grinning again and then taking off backwards across the sky, apparently unconcerned about their chances of hitting a building. Tim’s not really in a proper carry so much as just stretched out against him and wrapped up in his arms, but given the nature of how Kon’s powers work, an actual carry is obivously not really a concern, so . . . 

Oh, Tim realizes as Kon tips back just enough to be reclining in the air, still flying without any apparent care or concern for the aerodynamics of the situation or anything but staying more or less out of view of anyone on the street below. 

Avoiding the street view is good. 

The part where now he’s essentially laying on top of Kon is . . . less good, maybe. 

Maybe he won’t have to convince Kon to go supervillain, at least. Maybe Kon’s already there. 

“Where to, daddy?” Kon asks with a smirk, keeping one arm looped around Tim’s waist and folding the other behind his own head like he’s laying out in a lounge chair on the beach. Tim thinks longingly of smothering him and also of getting him to take down his TTK so he could bite a hickey or five into his neck. Maybe six. He could probably do six. 

Or seven. 

“Northeast towards Broad Street,” Tim says as he tips his head in the appropriate direction, then pulls up the camera again and snaps a quick shot of Kon’s smug smirk, which immediately breaks into a surprised laugh as the other flushes again. 

He takes a picture of that too. 

“You flirtin’ again already, man?” Kon asks with a sheepish little laugh, like the bastard has any room to talk. 

“The position’s pretty good for it, that’s all,” Tim says with a level of casualness he absolutely does not feel. Kon flushes darker and bites his lip again, still just barely grinning. Tim, ethically, has no choice but to take a few more pictures. 

“Oh my god,” Kon says, laughing again and unfolding the arm he has tucked behind his head to hide his eyes behind instead. Tim is maybe a little bit too aware of the line of his throat under the neck of his shirt, without his eyes and the sparkle there to be distracting him into a useless stupid mushbrained might-as-well-be-a-civilian, observationally-speaking. “I’m not a building, you absolute nerd!” 

“I said I liked people-watching too, didn’t I?” Tim points out reasonably, though mostly his brain’s occupied with the question of–“Hey. If you let down your TTK a bit, could a baseline-DNA human give you a hickey? Like, is that physically possible, or are you too Kryptonian for that?” 

“Oh my god,” Kon repeats, laughing harder even as the flush on his face spreads down his neck. Tim wonders how warm that might feel under his mouth. “I, uh–dunno, man. Maybe?” 

Tim silently resolves himself to finding literally any excuse to conduct that experiment and moves a hand to cup the side of Kon’s throat, eyeing it consideringly. Kon makes a slightly weird noise and visibly swallows, and Tim belatedly realizes that he’s paid literally no attention whatsoever to whether or not they’re about to hit a building or a flagpole or a roof this entire flight; he just assumed Kon had it handled. The Bat-paranoia kicks in and he glances up reflexively, and just as reflexively slides the pad of his thumb across Kon’s pulse. Their flight path is clear; they’re high enough to avoid most of the buildings in this area. Definitely still gonna need to keep an eye out for radio towers and billboards, but . . . 

Kon swallows again, the gesture a little bit rough this time. Tim feels the other’s throat flex against his palm. That sure is . . . that sure is a thing that Tim feels right there. That invulnerable throat flexing right there against his palm, and maybe not necessarily having to be invulnerable, if Kon didn’t want it to be. 

. . . . . . he already said he didn’t have time to learn anything new about himself tonight, dammit.

[maxwell-grant]

So is Worm good from what you have read

"Yes" doesn't begin to cover it but yes. Worm is a brain-rewiring mobius strip disguised as a bible disguised as a superhero web serial that either cured your cancer or shot your dog or both depending on who you ask, and it has many extremely dedicated, brilliant scholar priest surgeons publicly dissecting it on this platform on the regular to the point I don't think I have much to add to the conversations surrounding it, even if I do have some The Thoughts about it. I had never even really seriously thought about superhero prose before and Worm isn't a thing I go back and reread frequently but it did a complete and total 180 on the way I think about superheroes and even fiction, and I've never stopped thinking about it since I've read it.

It is a monumentally impressive story with completely absolutely incredible characters that I cannot stop thinking about. No matter where it was going, even past stretches that were less interesting or more of a slog to read or worse, I could not put the story of Taylor Hebert down for one minute. Tattletale fascinated me every step of the way, I had to keep up with her. Rachel Lindt was a character I feel like I'd been waiting my whole life for. What was I gonna do, not see them through? I feel like Worm easily loses you if you don't particularly connect with the characters enough to justify to yourself the amount of time you'll spend with them, but man, I could not unglue my eyeballs from these people enough (I love all the core Undersiders, to be clear, I'd say it's Rachel > Taylor > Tattletale > Aisha and Alec and Brian, there are very small gaps between these, I just don't go berserk for the last three like I do for the first three, I'm taking Bitch and Skitter to the grave I'm dead serious)

Everybody who read it has one or several gripes with it with some major dealbreakers in the mix. Tumblr's kinda the only place online where you can really talk about them at length without the spectre of John Wildbow hanging over the discussion, which enables discussion to the point where yes, maybe it does look like to outsiders that nobody can agree on whether Worm is good or what is it even about or whether it even has worms in it (it has at least one, although it's a very big one).

And it is good, it has the Undersiders in it and the Undersiders are one of the greatest groups of characters ever put together, but everyone has at least one major point of contention with Worm whether it's the timeskip or the length or the racism or the gross fatphobia or aspects surrounding the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus and etc. I'd say it has maybe the most racist vision of Latin America I've ever seen in a superhero text a hair short of pro-colonial tracts in Golden Age comics and that is a tall fucking order by any metric (part of why I started WEON4 as a project was motivated by spite, to try and make my own stories about non-American superheroes even if just as practice). It is Complicated, and that winds up making it so fascinating to talk about.

Worm has self-sustaining ecological systems of posts up here, far away from the Spacebattles and Reddit battlegrounds where it has different ones and that's not getting into Weaverdice or the sequel or Wildbow's larger body of work, which I haven't gotten to and probably will not any time soon because Worm was enough of a commitment as is. Do I recommend Worm to everyone? It is certainly not to everyone's tastes and I personally find it difficult to describe it simply enough to make it sound appealing or not like a pyramid scheme. But yes I do think it's good, in fact great, in fact, amazing, except when it isn't, and except it Plainly Sucks, but then something like Taylor vs Mannequin or Kevin Norton's interlude or "You needed worthy opponents" happens and it fucks harder than anything has ever fucked before and you don't walk away from it the same, so yes I guess "good" will have to do now.

It's certainly a lot but I definitely found it worth my time to read and then read the texts written about it here. You'll have to take my endorsement of Worm as proof of it's quality and proof of how deranged it makes it's readerbase, they're not mutually exclusive. If you can make it, Worm and the wormosphere has layers and layers to wade through and talk about and enjoy, despite how we're all so very small in the end *gunshot*.

[aloeverified]

i love all of @gin-juice-tonic's trans stan twins comics and i've centered all my gf beliefs around them, but i can't stop thinking about how funny it would be for stan to be a trans man and ford to be a trans woman.

imagine you're stan and you've been disowned for about ten years and haven't seen your family at all since, and during that time you've found and lost yourself more times than you can count, but you've finally settled on the fact that you're a man and it's time for you to transition. and then as soon as can finally start testosterone, your twin brother wants to see you ASAP.

and so you're stressed out the entire way there, not just because your brother seems to have gotten into some trouble, but because you have no clue how he's gonna react to you now being his brother.

only for him to not even notice or say a single thing about your new wardrobe that still has some of the tags from when you shoplifted it or about the scruff on your chin that you've been pretty proud of.

no, instead he's going on about the fbi and people who want to steal his skin or something.

and so everything happens the same way, and stan has essentially gotten the life he's always wanted: everyone thinks he's his genius brother, he's still in contact with his family (though stanford didn't exactly call home everyday so neither does he), and he's a man — and not one person doubts it. except he's not the man he's always wanted to be because he doesn't have his brother beside him throughout it all, becoming a man with him.

and then stanford comes back and is impossibly autistic and bitter so he just assumes stan went through the process of transition (assuming he used some gender changing potion he found noted about in the journal) just to further steal ford's identity.

and stan explains, no, you fucking idiot, i've been a man for thirty-something odd years and you just didn't notice because you were too busy being insane. and so yeah, that's how stan's whole coming out goes.

and ford just responds with, "oh. yeah, me too. she/they is fine."

[artbyblastweave]

I've seen your capeshit posts thinking about The Boys, Worm, Invincible, the Big Two and their media landscape, etc. and I've enjoyed them a lot. You've got a good understanding of the creative and fandom forces surrounding the superhero genre. The one burning question that has sat at the back of my mind since I read Worm back in 2018, which I think you might have an interesting answer to, is simply this: IS an adaptation of that serial possible? Like in any practical sense? And would a mass-market Worm adaptation, however compromised by the adaptation process, have a positive or even significant at all impact on the genre going forward, and the way it's perceived both by hardcore fans and the average consumer?

People (including Wildbow himself at one point) have bounced around ideas for how you'd execute a tv adaptation of Worm, so I certainly don't think it's conceptually impossible. It would definitely be hard, because you'd be kneecapped by the absurdly short runtimes of modern tv seasons and the long turnaround time between seasons. Worm also has a wealth of detail and scene staging complexity that would be really hard to reproduce in a visual medium where someone has to either dress up as or animate all those bastards. And as the third kick in the teeth, I've mentioned before that there are ways in which I think Worm is in conversation with the superhero genre and fandom as it existed in 2011- the MCU cape boom has really heavily altered the space. Reference how The Boys (comic) was really specifically swinging a bat at the post-crisis comic book fandom, but the much tighter and more critically successful and broadly appealing Tv show is swinging at the MCU and DCEU.

But something I think Worm still has going for it over basically every other cape thing is its status as a worldbuilding project. Even if you don't understand every single comics element that it's riffing on, it's a story that, despite having a single definitive protagonist, does a really good job of having the setting be a character in the world and not just a bare-bones launchpad for that single protagonist. If the adaptation could really strongly integrate the setting-specific ways in which there have been, like, procedural reactions to the existence of capes, cultural reactions- really capture the sense of accumulating entropy that characterizes the tone of the setting, the sense of everyone being caught up in dynamics too big for any individual to control, the sense that all of this is in some way adding up- it would be doing something that's really just really not currently covered by any cape adaptation that's gotten big. And tonally, this would pan out (in fact does pan out) as something unique as well, because the fact that there's this entire setting out there constantly disintegrating under its own weight juxtaposes really well with how Taylor is constantly fighting like a maniac to sandbag her own little corner of purgatory. I really can't think of another superhero work that strikes that balance! And it's a balance you can't strike unless you're able to convincingly render that disintegrating world.