#SO I REWROTE IT LOL

[willowser]

now i wake up by your side—

bakugou x f!reader

wc: 2.8k+

tags: u.a. college au, canon-compliant, reader has a telekinesis/telepathic quirk, references (and potential spoilers) for the current arc in the manga, angst, a lot of secret hidden feelies

tysm to @alrightberries for giving me the opportunity to bring this lil thought of yours to life 🥺 your patience and understanding during the time it took me to write this is so appreciated it, and tbh you're the reason i'm even still here right now LOL you're so sweet, and i hold your kindness so close to my heart. i wish i could convey how much it means to me. i hope i did this even a lil justice !! happy birthday dear !!!! 🥺🩷✨️

Sero dreams of watching the sunrise on top of the Roppongi Observatory.

It’s a beautiful sight, one you’ve never seen with your own eyes, but you soak in the warmth flushing across his cheeks and the anticipated break of morning through the clouds. When he takes in a hefty breath, you feel the spring chill sting inside his chest, crisp and clear, like it’s you breathing instead of him, and it’s almost comforting enough to lull you to sleep, too.

But a clay pot shattering against a nearby bench has your eyes springing open, ripped from the haven you’d been lost to. 

You have to blink several times in order to fight through the exhaustion wearing you thin, but the evening returns to you in small, bleary doses. It’s the middle of the night—or at least it was when you’d first wandered out to the training field, and you can’t be sure how many hours have passed since then. Across the yard, you’ve successfully managed to carry four pots from the garden plot near the entrance all the way to your feet with your Quirk— but number five sits in pieces in the grass.

You’ll have to clean that up by morning or Eraser will make you run laps until you puke. Again.

Kirishima flits through your mind in a suit and tie: not as a Hero, but a spy of some kind, chasing down men with masks covering their faces and wielding a gun that looks odd in his hands, even in his own dream. Despite being back in the dorms, stories up and near the end of the hall, you can see it—hear him yelling out at the criminal to stop, feel the thud of the ground under his feet. His own determination blares through you like a freight train, as strong and damning as he is, and you fight to force yourself back inside your own shoes as you try to carry another pot.

Recovery Girl used to tell you that you did this to yourself: all your worry about losing sleep psyching yourself out of it completely, chasing it away before it even had the chance. When everyone is getting ready for bed, heading out of the common room and hitting the showers, you can feel that suspense building; what will come across tonight while everyone dreams? Fantasies? Or nightmares?

During the day it’s easier to drown out the foot-traffic of everyone’s thoughts—you do it without trying, now—but your brain needs rest, too. Letting go of control for even a second, just to get some shut eye is—

Something frightening is outlined in your peripheral vision, the dash of a pale shape you aren’t able to discern before it’s gone. The air turns metallic and stale and you can hear water sloshing, though you’re nowhere near the pools. All your blood rushes in your ears and your fingers curl, like you’re gripping your seat—gripping the edge of the couch in the common room, where you’d been sitting beside Mina when Kaminari put on that horror movie. The one with the—

“The hell are you doin’?”

Your eyes snap open for the hundredth time that night—show over, credits rolling—and it’s Bakugou. Standing only feet away from the new set of clay shards of your failure, tangible and real and staring at you with an intensity not even your dreams could mimic.

You blink, eyes stinging and heavy. You must look insane. “Oh, hey,” the voice that comes out of you is far-away, chartered off to distant lands, and he notices immediately, focus razor-sharp despite how late it is. “What did you say?”

Bakugou wrinkles his nose, like he’s offended at having to repeat himself. “I said, what the hell are you doin’? It’s nearly 2 in the morning and you’re out here throwin’ shit around in your fuckin’ pajamas.”

Almost on cue, the breeze brushes past your legs, chilly enough to have you shivering, and you peek down at them as if you don’t know what they look like. The sweater you’re wearing is from second year and the U.A. logo is half-worn off, but it’s the comfiest thing you own and if you’re going to be plagued all night by the forced intimacy of your classmates’ dreams—you at least want to be cozy.

When you look back up at him, Bakugou is pointedly looking away, taking interest in something other than your wimpy state of dress. 

It dawns on you then that he’s out here, too, in sweats and a simple back sweatshirt, hair a messy, golden halo in the pale, buzzing field lights. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think his face was a little rosy, but—maybe you’re seeing things.

Still. Being out and away from everyone, alone with Bakugou, makes your stomach tighten horribly. Like you’ve done too many sit-ups.

You try to brush off your sudden bout of shyness, because you know he’ll clock that in no time, too. “Well, I could ask you the same thing.” At the raise of your eyebrows, he only tchs, and casts you a filthy look. “But I think maybe I’ll just mind my own business.”

The face he makes is so awful and hot-blooded that you laugh, truly and earnestly, enough that a headache pulses to life. You wince, and the stream of pain that shoots down the middle of your skull brings back that image of Kirishima’s action-thriller: blood and knives, the sound of skin on skin, a fist against cheekbones, the ugly snap of breaking—

“Oi.”

Bakugou is closer than before, when you’re grounded back inside yourself. At least no pots have been broken this time. Less to clean up.

“Sorry,” you shoot him an apologetic smile that you know he must hate. “It’s just so—” your hand feels like it’s made of lead, but you drag it up to massage slow circles into your temple, trying not to grit your teeth and worsen the pounding in your head. “So loud sometimes.”

He’s silent until the pain ebbs out, and when you can blink without flinching, you peek up to catch how intently he’s watching your face. In the night like this, his eyelashes seem darker, longer, a kind of haunting beauty you would dream about, if you could get some sleep.

Again, you think of Kaminari’s horror movie, legs pressed against Mina’s under the heavy comforter she’d brought down from her room. It’s warm, the kind of pink, fluffy thing you’d imagine a girl like her to have—but it didn’t stop you from shivering every time you chanced a glance at Bakugou and found him already staring back.

The heat in your cheeks spreads to the back of your neck, so immediate that you think you might start sweating. “Dreams and stuff,” you murmur, by way of an explanation, “nightmares, sometimes.”

Bakugou's frown deepens, the muscle in his jaw tightening once as he grits his teeth. “What, you can just…hear that shit all night?”

“Usually,” you shrug, “It just comes in, you know? And I—” you steal another glance at him, aware, then, of just how intrusive you might sound. The veil of privacy is thin between you and others, and they don't often like being reminded of that. “Not for you, though. I don't—I don't get anything from you.”

And it's true, frustratingly enough. Not that you are ever intentionally peeking into anyone's head, but things slip through, occasionally—sudden reactions, wild, loose trains of thought. 

Bakugou's face twists, regardless, and you're reminded of all the times you've been forced to spar together, at Eraser's behest. One of the smartest in your class, quick on his feet and never without a plan; every time you've managed to get a hand on Bakugou, there's been nothing but a sea-shore calm.

It's hard to do and, at this point in your life, you've seen a thousand people try it—but he's the only one that's ever succeeded in keeping you at bay.

Nothing in his expression changes, but all your nerves spread to your voice until it shakes. “You're—I don't look in there, of course, but it's—you've always been…” Bakugou is terrible at taking compliments, you know that, almost as bad as you are at giving them. “Pretty, I guess.”

Awful, at giving them.

Embarrassment floods him, suddenly stained pink as he curls into himself. “Piss off,” he barks, and though he’s scowling at you in what must be disgust—you can’t help but to smile at how aggressively bashful he is.

You almost get the guts to make matters worse, just because you can. Admit how handsome you’ve come to find him, after the last few years, until his face is steaming in the sweet nighttime chill; the kind of intimacy you wouldn’t mind dreaming about again and again.

The absence of his thoughts are a comfort for your tired mind, has all the harsh edges of night fading into something a little easier to swallow, to breathe in. You know he does it on purpose as a strictly defensive move, but you almost want to thank him. For the quiet.

You don’t know if it’s from you or him, but when you reach a hand up to hover near his temple, the air buzzes between you, gently. Charged with that same thing that had you unable to look away from him in the common room only days ago. “In here, I mean,” you murmur, and the smile you pull on feels lame, but it’s as genuine as ever. “I don’t know, I don’t know how you do it. But it’s…nice.”

You’ve seen him die a thousand times.

Mostly in Midoriya’s dreams, sometimes in Eraser’s when he nods off during last period, but that horror—like many others, from that day—stains you all. When dinner is put away and showers are finished and the lights go out and the flood gates open, someone almost always relives the ugliness of it all; you’re more familiar with that moment than you are with any of your own.

Here and now, you close your eyes and see Jirou staring back at you, face beautiful and full of hope. You see Kirishima’s torn suit jacket and the blood on his cheek and the empty gun in his hand, the most dedicated secret agent. Aoyama is dreaming of his mother, something warm that makes you feel like you’re dazzling, too.

And yet—Bakugou is silent. Even right in front of you. Even after everything.

If anyone deserves the peace and quiet, you suppose it ought to be him.

“When’s the last time you got any sleep?”

You blink until his blurry figure is clear, and it’s like you can physically feel whatever energy you had left seeping from your body at the mere mention of sleep. “Maybe a morning or two ago,” you tell him truthfully, “I usually pass out after a few rounds of ‘throwin’ shit around’.”

Bakugou only stares at you as he digests the words, and once he’s gotten them down, he shakes his head before looking out over the mess you’ve made of the training field. With his head turned like this, you can take in the full weight of his scar—the one that’s wide and still baby-pink across his cheek. 

You almost get the guts to tell him he’s handsome. Almost.

Frustration is evident on his face when he looks back at you, but his voice comes out softer than you expect, like he's struggling to get out any words at all. “Can’t keep doin’ this,” he chastises. “Can’t be a Hero if you’re half asleep all the time. Gotta figure this shit out.”

“I am,” you give a lazy wave to your pots, “What’s wrong with this solution?”

“It's ass.”

“Alright, you have any better ideas, pretty boy?”

He bristles, visibly enough to have you snickering, and—you’re not sure what you expect of him; to continue his griping or leave you to your own devices, building his walls up high as he always does. Ever the fighter, ever the protector; maybe it’s a good thing, you tell yourself, because you’re weak like this and one of you needs to be thinking straight.

Despite his flush, there’s a playfulness to his grouchy expression, his raspy tone—and it has you leaning too far into things you don’t know how to name.

You never know what to expect of him.

There’s the slightest brush of skin against the back of your hand, and when you drop your eyes to the slowly-dwindling space between you—the rough pads of his fingers are touching you, gently. Softly enough to be the breeze, if it weren’t so warm.

You’re afraid to look at him, suddenly, like it will break whatever spell the night is casting over both of you; instead you press your lips together to stop their wobbling and the smile fighting to give you away. You’re waiting for that sea-shore calm, that quiet comfort, whatever it is he’s trying to offer you, strangely enough, in this moment. When you turn your hand over to catch his, the air buzzes again and the blood rushes in your ears.

You focus and—all you can see is your own face staring back at you. In a flash, like he’s cycling through his cards in a hurry, trying to find the best one.

You, across the arena during the entrance exam. You, in the locker room before the Sport's Festival. You, sitting in the common room during Christmas. You, ruined with tears and your own blood and covered in grime, on the darkest day of your life.

You, now. On the field in the stale light, prettier than you think you must look, for being so exhausted, the lines of your smile deep as you grin up at him.

—And then there's nothing.

The absence of noise is louder than anything. A stark, white silence that cuts through; a different world trickling away. A single touch and a little focus is all it takes to take root inside someone’s head and that’s always felt like a weapon, but now it feels like coming inside from a snowstorm, relief shuddering down your spine. Everyone else's fears and nerves and heartaches dissolve until they’re only a bitter taste at the back of your throat. Something far, far behind you

There’s just Bakugou. A strong silence that feels impenetrable, invulnerable to the outside. The steady beat of his heart is comforting in a way you didn’t realize it would be, has that bloody, dead-eyed image of him shifting into something else: another moment in Midoriya’s memories, of his silhouette standing in the sun, tall and fierce and alive.

Returned. Here and now with you, after numerous, unforeseen turns of events. You wonder if the ease surrounding you is his own, something else he’s sharing—or if this is just how it feels to be with him after so long. Maybe in the past it was different—you know it was; during the entrance exam, during the Sport’s Festival—but now you feel more relaxed than you ever have. A reminder that, no matter how dark the nights get, the sun is only just beyond the horizon. 

Returned, comforting and quiet.

(You won't know this until much later, but your hand will go slack in Katsuki's and his fingers will tighten around your own because he's not ready to let go yet. When your knees buckle, he'll already be there, awkwardly holding you up against his shoulder as his face flames and his eyes dart around the empty field, checking for any shitty snoops.

Ears is always up damn late, too, and there's a decent chance he'd get caught trying to haul you back to your room on the third fuckin’ floor, so there's really no better option than to gently lower you both to the grass. After a couple of minutes with no movement, the field lights will shut off and only the distant glow of the stars will remain.)

(You won't know this until much later, but Katsuki will arrange the both of you so that your head isn't slumped on the hard ground, but resting on the plush of his bicep, an arm around your shoulders so that the warmth can be shared between you both. His heart will pound hard enough in his chest to be worrisome, and every time you shuffle and scoot closer to him and nudge your nose into his sweater—Katsuki will fight to stay open and true, only honest with you in this wordless way.)

(You won't know this until the sun rises high behind your lids and your bones ache and he’s shown you things he could never say, but it's the best sleep you think you've ever gotten. With him, under the stars, surrounded by his calm and his constant.)

(You won't remember this but in your dream—your real dream, born from with solace Katsuki offers you—the morning will rise and settle in and he'll walk you back to your room despite the stares and in the elevator when you're alone, his lips will touch yours and you'll feel his  heart in your chest and his nerves in your stomach and his fear and relief all in one.)

(And right away, when you wake up, you'll finally have a name for this thing that's been blooming between you both for as long as you can remember—and he will, too.)

[annasofthe11thdimension]

Pictured: Loop being extremely normal as they lay in their shallow (homemade) grave as they meditate on existence and also if they have annoyed the Researcher enough THIS time for her to murder them and bury them alive.

(Spoilers - they did not annoy her even CLOSE to that much.)

And there is the required reverse image of Odile arriving - she's had a LONG day (i.e. previous loop), and due to this it will take ten minutes before she even acknowledges the shallow grave Loop is laying in, as she was distracted complaining about what Siffrin just did to annoy her.

----

I'd say there's context for all of that, because like...there IS context? Here's the link to the series of fics that HAS that context even! But also...even with context...can't say that it's going to make any of this less weird.

Mostly Odile is looping because due to Loop's wish the universe got rewritten to make Siffrin's repression and emotional issues (the ones bad enough to get him stuck in a time loop in the game) 'someone else's' problem...or at least that's Loop's best theory atm!

Regardless, context or not, I'm quite happy with how the pics came out, and figured I might as well post them here too.

[alizibtheterrible]

Inside my heart is breaking, my makeup may be flaking

but my smile still stays on

wanted to draw this man for a while now. This song popped up on my recommended and all my brain cells started working overtime. Anyways Happy Thanksgiving!

[a2zillustration]

I carried this thing for MONTHS with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of putting Raphael in it (knowing full well Larian wouldn't let me do that, mechanically) and I had one major miscalculation.

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[worm-in-a-trenchcoat]

As much as I love G3 for what it is, I still absolutely hate the fact they they made it so were-creatures turn human during a full moon.

Like it genuinely irritates me so bad why did they do that 😭.

It just makes no sense?? It’s like they forgot they made Clawdeen half human last minute and were like “hmm what do we do to make this make sense?” And then made it makes even less sense lmao 💀.

I just saw the teaser trailer for the new YouTube series and they showed human Clawdeen, that’s why I’m randomly bringing this up. She looks so cursed lol.

Were-creatures turning human at some points makes sense, but during a full moon??? That’s so backwards 😭

[polux-aka-hyakunana]

Cooking my own food between projects pt.2

Pt 1 feat Tycoon and Buffa

And context on the rambling tags of this past post lol

[bbeelzemon]

as time goes on im realizing that describing your gender is tbh kinda similar to the naming of jellicle ca- hey wait no stay with me for a second here okay. im holding your hands and looking directly into your eyes now. listen to me. i have a public facing gender. a more specific and personal gender that i can share with my closest friends and family. and an innermost unique gender that only i can ever truly know. gender is just like a jellicle cats

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The prophecy x long story short

lmao first of all I missed this by one night but ANYWAY I'M BITTER BUT I SWEAR I'M FINE. Groupama Stadium you will always be (in)famous or whatever.

Once again: I love the way she plays this! Girl and Her Guitar Doing A Bit At A Coffee House! She sounds so beautiful and the vibe of the song is so different, even if the meaning is the same.

Spending my last coin for someone to tell me it'll be OK... Past me, I want to tell you not to get lost in these petty things. THAT IS A GENIUS TRANSITION. GENIUS!!!

She spends the whole "Prophecy" section singing about deep longing and yearning and loneliness, and then in comes "Long Story Short" to be like "lol what even was that THANK U NEXT." The unrelenting sadness of the first song gives way to the magical healing powers of time, where these deeply painful experiences fade into distant memories and you find yourself in a much, much better place on the other side.

Who do I have to speak to to see if they can redo the prophecy? ... Long story short it was the wrong guy(-uy-uy). Long story short, I survi(i-i-)ved. Is that not TTPD in a nutshell? Grieving all the things you have to give up inch by inch as you sink deeper into your loneliness, only to realize: hey, maybe I'm not the problem after all, maybe there's another variable that can change the outcome. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, maybe it's time to do something to change that. And she DID survive! She faked it till she made it till it was true! AND SHE DID REDO THE PROPHECY. Because she did end up finding someone who wanted her company and wasn't going to make her crumble in wait.

As an aside, I looooooooooooove how she sings "Slow is the quicksand, poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand / Oh, still I dream of him," because she is bordering on twangy and it just feels soooooooooo intimate. Once again, she sings so beautifully. And another thing about her delivery: On the album, The Prophecy is obviously so, so sad; there's such an air of defeatism yet desperation at the same time. Obviously on the B stage, the vibes are completely different in general, but it's especially notable when she comes back to The Prophecy after LSS: she did redo the prophecy! She didn't seal her fate, she changed it! SHE DID THAT! She reclaimed the land! And now she's all about the next person in her life! (Dare I say, him passing by rare like the glimmer of a comet in the sky was indeed a sign of a soulmate!) She wasn't condemned to shades of greige for the rest of her life, she found all the colours all over again!

The mashup is so much fun but also more poignantly a testament to the human spirit. She thought she'd be forever alone, and now she's found forever again! She thought that it would kill her but it didn't! In fact, she's found something even better. And I've come to love "long story short, it was the wrong guy" even more now, because it's another way of saying "lovers spend years denying what's ill-fated": e.g. trying to fit a square peg in a round hole until it drives you crazy is exhausting... at a certain point you need to realize you're working with the wrong tools. But look what happens when you find your match!

It's such a hopeful, cathartic story!

[simonscones]

BYEE I FOUND A LIST IN MY JOURNAL FROM 2020 OF THINGS I WANTED TO SEE IN AWTWB… this is what it said 😭

(the comments in parentheses are me telling my past self if we got our wishes or not)

holy shit if i don’t get this i will cry.

- simon meets lady ruth (✅)

- simon and baz tell them that they love each other <3 (i can’t remember if they said ily exactly, but they definitely made it known to the other that they love them!)

- simon gets his regular magic back (WOMP WOMP 👎)

- simon finds out about his mom and dad (✅)

- everyone to be alive (yeahhhh!!!)

- baz’s family and dev and niall (yes we got both!)

- simon and shep bromance (ehhh sure what the hell. idk can’t remember)

if i don’t get this i think i’ll be ok, just very disappointed

- penny and shep getting together (YUPP #STORMCHASER)

- agatha confirmed aro/ace (no 😔 but i still hc her to be on the spectrum)

- the sword of mages to come back?? (well…no!)

would be awesome, but it’s unlikely

- simon confirmed bi? (no, hes still an unlabeled king)

- simon getting bitten but not turned (no BUT THEY TALKED ABT IT!!!)

- sex (… YEAH. i said this one as a joke but not really a joke lmao)

[faeralcatmeems]

愛しい魔女になるつもり

alternate caption: it's time for my yearly yasu redraw!!! jk, i don't redraw my yasu pictures every year, but every time i do draw anything umineko, i default to yasu. that part of umineko spoke to young me most directly, i guess. i find myself relating to yasu the older i get, actually

[omegalomania]

What are some of your favorite aro-/ace-coded fob lyrics?

oh fuck yes a little bowl of seeds just for me

boycott love from disloyal order of water buffaloes is a personal favorite of mine. its a lyric i really really want tattooed at some point. that's not the only lyric i latch onto from an aro perspective but it's probably the biggest one

basically the entirety of it's hard to say "i do" when i don't but a special mention goes to you are appealing to emotions that i simply do not have as well as the only ring i want buried with me are the ones around my eyes

it's true romance is dead / i shot it in the chest and in the head from the music or the misery is also a favorite of mine, also just that whole song in general

i thought i loved you but it was just how you looked in the light in hum hallelujah resonates with a lot of queer folks i've found, and it's no different for me

same goes for it's a strange way of saying that i know i'm supposed to love you from g.i.n.a.s.f.s.

i'm outside the door, invite me in / so we can go back and play pretend from alone together brings me back to when i was trying to perform heteronormativity/amatonormativity even if it was making me miserable

i also hold to a very similar vibe with she said "i love you 'till i don't" / i am just playing house, no idea what i'm doing now from sunshine riptide and also most of burna boy's verse, frankly. i fell in love but i didn't fall down and feel like i'm bulletproof, baby in particular

american beauty/american psycho, particularly the first verse. i think i fell in love again / maybe i just took too much cough medicine

golden is a big one for queer folks in general i've found. the chorus especially hits hard from an aro and/or ace reading. and i saw god cry in the reflection of my enemies / and all the lovers with no time for me

i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth is a heavy song no matter how you slice it. but that chorus gets to me in particular: we can fake it for the airwaves / force our smiles, baby, half-dead / from comparing myself to everyone else around me

the kids aren't alright reads to me as one big anthem for platonic love above anything romantic, which resonates super hard with me. the second verse has a lot of good lines that i latch onto from an aroace lens too. your love is anemic and i can't believe / that you couldn't see it coming from me

pretty much the whole chorus of HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T does it for me, and those verses have got some good aroallo vibes too! i never really feel a thing... confidants but never friends...

the whole of fake out is a gimme. that chorus rings real true. starts with love is in the air, i just gotta find a window to break out and finishing with but it was all a fake-out

i've got all this ringing in my ears and none on my fingers is one that has another highly applicable title but the whole refrain of the truth hurts worse / than anything i could bring myself to do to you paired with the one-two punch of that second verse REALLY gets under my skin

and of course, the culminating one: you are what you love, not who loves you from save rock and roll. obviously there are a LOT of ways to read that line

there are a couple other songs i latch onto - wilson (expensive mistakes); a little less "sixteen candles", a little more "touch me"; the (after) life of the party to name a few - but the ones listed above are the big lyrics that resonate with me on a personal level

just in general i have a shitton of fob over on my aro playlist (which doubles as a general aroace/queer playlist but has a lot of emphasis on aromanticism) in case i forgot to mention anything but like i said those are the big ones

[mikkalia]

mini-fic! Cal and Merrin training, from Greez's POV. 1k words.

Cal and Merrin face off in a small clearing not far from the Mantis. She has a staff in hand, new and sturdy, just picked up from an outpost market, and Cal has…nothing. In fact, his lightsaber sits next to a nonchalant Cere, who’s scrolling through a holopad, seemingly unaware that Cal is about to get his ass kicked by an armed Nightsister.

Their resident Jedi Knight is a powerhouse, sure, and Greez is thankful every day he’s on their side, but without his lightsaber… Greez takes one look at the situation and decides he really don’t want to know.

He asks anyway.

“Training!” Cal says without opening his eyes. Greez isn’t going to question it. Not this time. Nope. Merrin watches Cal closely, one end of her staff buried in the soil, her hands folded on the other end so she can rest her cheek on the back of them. She waits patiently.

They all seem to be waiting for something. Even Greez, who still has no idea how this qualifies as ‘training.’ And Cere, who still doesn’t look up from her ‘pad, takes a serene sip of her drink. She’s probably using some freaky Force thing to sense what’s going on.

Cal looks like he’s meditating standing up. Deep, slow breaths. Calm expression. He keeps his hands lowered, like he’d used them to direct his breaths and then left them down on the exhale. Greez has seen Cal and Cere on early mornings, moving in sync with each other as they go through a fluid, tranquil set of movements without their lightsabers. It always started and ended with them directing their breaths like that.

Greez moves next to Cere, feeling like an intruder, but unable to stop watching.

The atmosphere is calm. Poised.

Then Cere says, “Go.”

Merrin is fast. She kicks her staff up and swings fiercely, devastating even without her magicks. She’s aiming straight for Cal’s head –

 – who doesn’t karkin’ move. Greez lurches, a shout on his lips, but Cere puts out a hand to stop him. Wait and see, she doesn’t say, but Greez knows that look.

Cal dodges without opening his eyes. Minimal movement, languid in a way Greez’s never seen before. Merrin’s eyes flash in determination and she’s quick to go in for another strike. He dodges again, body twisting, never taking more than a couple centimeters more than he needs to avoid her staff. Greez’s heart eventually calms as the two of them move in tandem. Like a dance. An elegant and mesmerizing back and forth.

It could almost be a performance. Something specially created for a dramatic stage.

Eventually, though, Cal’s calm expression starts to pinch. Mouth twisted into a grimace, sweat beads up on his forehead and darkens his training top. He falters. Dodges a second slower. Moves a little further out of the way than he was before.

Merrin swings her staff just has hard, just as fast as she has been, but Cal doesn’t dodge in time. He flinches and stumbles – and Merrin’s not stopping.

That determination slides into panic, Merrin’s eyes widening, but the momentum is too quick even for her. She tries to change the target from Cal’s head to somewhere safer, like his arm, because a broken arm is better than a broken skull, but she’s too fast and he’s fumbling and –

Just before the staff connects – it wasn’t going to make it to his arm, Greez realized with a sick horror – it flies out of Merrin’s grip into Cere’s hand. Holopad and drink forgotten, Cere twirls the staff in one hand before she plants the edge into the dirt. Greez hadn’t even seen her move. Hells.

Cal drops to the ground, heaving for breath. He groans out a heartfelt swear in some language Greez doesn’t recognize – Greez discovered early in their mission for the holocron that the kid knew way too many languages. Seriously, a kid that young, five years on a backwater planet like Bracca or not, shouldn’t know so many languages! Let alone all those karkin’ swears.

“Language,” Cere scolds mildly. Cal just groans again. “What happened?”

He props himself up on his elbows, hair in disarray and the side of his face speckled with dark soil. Merrin carefully pats the soil off the back of his head, her movements stiff. “It started to feel too easy, and I panicked,” he admits. “I started overthinking.”

“How do we fix it?”

“…Don’t do that?” Cal offers, grinning. Cere raises an eyebrow. He takes Merrin’s hand and allows her to heave him up. Greez doesn’t miss the way he subtly squeezes her hand in reassurance before he lets go. “I got complacent. If there was another opponent, I would’ve been taken out a lot sooner. It was only the Force and Merrin, and I freaked when I realized I didn’t know anything else.”

Cere nods. “In other words, you sank too deep. That’ll only be fixed with more practice. You can’t do that in the middle of real combat.”

Cal sighs gustily. “More practice,” he agrees as he holds out a hand and Merrin’s staff comes flying to smack into it. He twirls it with a flourish before presenting it in a low and dramatic bow to an amused Merrin just to make her smile. She does, helplessly charmed, before she quickly twists it into a smirk as she takes it back, a faint blush on her cheeks. Cere hides her own smile behind her hand.

“Next time, maybe don’t aim for his head?” Greez suggests.

Merrin looks disgusted by the very idea. “Then how will he learn? Training must prepare you for battle. If you do not fear for your life in training, then you will not fear for your life in true war. You will die.”

Cal laughs loudly over Greez’s sputtering. “Yeah, Greez, how will I learn? Merrin, aim for the head any time.”

“With pleasure. Someone must knock sense into you.”

Greez drags a hand down his face in despair. What did he get himself into?

[theirwolfbicanthrope]

no blood for you will ever be enough (can't bury anything without digging it up)

rating: Explicit relationship: Ellen/Thomas, Ellen/Orlok, Orlok/Ellen/Thomas, Orlok/Thomas trigger warnings: please see tags, very dubious consent and bad Dom behavior summary: “Take me in his grave,” she had whispered in her husband’s ear. “Let us have each other there where he sleeps.” It was a wicked thought, a wicked act, to fuck there in the cold soil of his grave-bed. To put their scent there, their sex, like animals in heat marking their territory.

[googleeyes]

I would have been soo invested in Ezri and Julian's relationship if Ezri just liked him and they didn't try to convince us it was Jadzia all along. Dax joins Ezri and is so excited to see their good friend Julian again and Oh God No he's Hot

[keepthedelta]

since this is the delta help desk, I have come to you once again to dip into your vast swathe of motorsport knowledge.

I've seen a lot of pictures of Nico from his early years in the sport and read a lot of articles where he is described as good looking, handsome, blonde etc and have heard some discussions where pre dts f1 fans have called him the og pretty boy, and charles' predecessor etc. I wanted to understand the cultural hype around Nico in his early years? Like the current f1 fandom is very americanised and charles definitely enjoys the fruits of being good looking. Did Nico have something similar? Like fans emphasizing their love for Nico because of how pretty he is, giving him an almost pop idol sort of worship. I understand that f1 had a smaller fan base back then and it was more men that women probably so this sort of talk was probably frowned upon. But did Nico drive people un poco loco, essentially? Would love your thoughts.

Side note: the nico pfp is soooo darling and the photoset you reblogged of him carrying his little daughter on his shoulder where she is holding onto his ear with her chubby baby hand...... sewercideeeee

oh this is kind of a hard one. i feel like the most accurate and honest answer i can give you is no. and yes. which is very irritating of me, but bear with me.

the culture around f1 was massively different back then, both when nico first started and when he left. the audience was smaller and mostly male, and information about the drivers and their personalities was extremely limited, mostly due to FOM rules regulating what behind the scenes stuff teams and drivers could post. most of the "fun" content and insight that teams can do now was only done through the broadcasters like sky, the bbc, espn etc.

the other main source of information about drivers i would say was tabloids. and certain drivers like jenson button, kimi raikkonen and to a slightly lesser (or different) extent lewis hamilton became very famous because of them. michael schumacher was a god of racing, and lewis had the whole young prodigy dating an american popstar thing, but even before jenson and kimi won their championships they were very well known for drinking and partying and dating lots and lots of very beautiful women, some famous, some not. it was a bit more rockstar than popstar i guess, where the extremes of the life, the heavy drinking, the hard partying, the fast driving, the beautiful women were seen as aspirational for the mostly male audience.

and nico never really fit into that. he did the drinking and partying, but away from the cameras usually, and his awkwardness and resting bitch face made people think that he was boring and stuck up. he was also so steadfastly loyal to vivian, who seems like his only real relationship (they began dating at 18 and people who worked with nico back in the junior formulas said that he never brought girls round other than her) in an era where cheating was so widespread and normalised that some fans speculated about his sexuality, suggesting that vivian was a beard and he was actually gay (he was also close with lewis, adrian sutil and nelson piquet jr who also all had speculation over their sexualities so i think that was part of it as well).

i think there was some pop idol-ism in women's treatment of nico back in the day. when he was in formula bmw as the most aggressively blonde 17 year old in existence he was sponsored by viva, which i believe was the german version of mtv, and i think more broadly the whole formula bmw championship was promoted on that channel, making the racers relatively popular with the teenage girls of germany. i also remember seeing an interview nico and some of the other drivers like romain grosjean did (i think in canada 2013 but i can't be sure) where a couple of women in the audience said they were there to see nico because he was so pretty. and if you go into some of the old reddit threads on f1 there are some comments about how pretty nico is and can you blame the camera operator for zooming in so the audience can count his eyelashes? (i believe reddit's consensus was no, you can't blame the camera operator).

i think one of the major differences (other than the different fan cultures) between nico's early years and charles's early years is that charles was promoted to ferrari almost immediately while nico was stuck outdriving fairly terrible cars. one of the reasons why charles has such a large fanbase is because he's driving for a top team, has done so for a long time, and is hailed (rightly or wrongly) as a future world champion. nico never really had any of that hype. he had moments of brilliance in his early years and outdrove all of his cars and teammates (i know mark webber beat him in the head to head in nico's first year but he beat everyone else), but the williams was at best a midfield car and so the hype wasn't really there in the way it has been for charles at ferrari. i think it's also fair to say that as well as nico did in his early career, he was overshadowed by lewis coming into mclaren and immediately challenging for a championship. maybe things would have been different if nico had been able to accept the mclaren seat in 2008, but ultimately he got very few opportunities to show his talent in his early career. and in an era where fandom gravitated either to the challengers (michael, kimi, fernando, lewis) or the playboys (kimi, jenson) nico didn't really fit either mould.

i also think we have to acknowledge the negativity that surrounded nico throughout his career, largely because of his looks. i (and f1blr more broadly) joke a lot about nico causing sexuality crises throughout the paddock, and while it is a joke, i do think there was a lot of very genuine homophobia (and misogyny) directed at nico, especially in his early career. while other drivers, like jenson for example, were thought of as good looking, it was in an aspirational way (aspirational for women to have in a partner and aspirational for men to be, and therefore to get women), whereas nico was viewed as attractive in a "feminine" way, which was seen as the wrong way. he was too pretty, too conscious about it, too effeminate. the britney nickname, fans constantly calling him barbie as an insult, the most attractive woman in the paddock vote where someone (pretty sure nico has said it was seb) voted for him, it was all based in a perception of him as "womanly" and therefore "weak". he was good-looking in a way that men couldn't fantasise about being, because they associated him too heavily with the people, usually women, that they wanted to fuck.

as much as people like to talk about how feral men are for charles now, it is largely in a positive way. when men talked about nico being pretty it was in a derogatory way, rooted in the culture of the time, which was generally quite homophobic and misogynistic. i think he did drive them crazy, but not necessarily in a good way 🤷🏿‍♀️

[incandescent-creativity]

I haven’t done a @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt in a while, but I’ve been neck deep in SOLE work trying to finish a draft by September and

I saw this and thought “You know, I’ve never written out how Agau told Beth about her powers…”

So that’s what I did! It barely squeaks under 1,000 words at 940 but hey—that counts.

The knock on the door startles her, but she doesn’t fall off the bed, so Beth keeps sticking glow-in-the-dark stars to her ceiling.

“Come in!”

She doesn’t have to ask or look to know who it is. The scientists never knock, so it will be Connor here to accompany her to breakfast. They didn’t eat together yesterday, but yesterday was her birthday. That means she got to make her own schedule, and she never sets a start time for her birthday schedules. It’s better to wake up without an alarm, even if she never wakes up more than an hour past the usual start time anyway.

As the door opens, she sticks the final star into place and admires her work. She had thought long and hard about what she wanted her present to be this year, and the sticky stars had won out. Fifteen is a satisfying number, and she wanted to celebrate with something just as beautiful.

So she had spent hours yesterday examining every star, organizing them by size, and running through iterations of display to decide which one she wanted to put up. The last thing before going to bed last night had been to line them up in order of placement and keep her lamp on all night to charge them. She hadn’t slept well, but it’s the first day back to her studies after her birthday. There shouldn’t be anything too intense today.

“Very thorough,” a feminine voice compliments.

That isn’t Connor Millard. Beth turns to see a figure that she associates with pictures and screen displays standing in her room: Dr. Barbara Agau.

Scrambling off the bed, Beth fixes her hair and hastens to meet her. She can’t help but be conscious of her appearance in comparison to Dr. Agau, who looks even more perfect in person than she does in her photos. Her hair is slicked back and captured in a bun, her clothes are pressed and clean, and her makeup is subtle but perfect. Beth, on the other hand, abounds in tangles and wrinkles.

“I—thank you,” she says, looking up at Dr. Agau.

“I trust you are hungry enough for breakfast?”

Dr. Agau turns without waiting for her answer, and begins to leave. Beth hurries to catch up, taking the wordless walk to review the lessons she has been taught on how to engage with her superiors. They should be easy: she has practiced silence and timing and general manners on every scientist who engages with her. But she’s never had to engage with the head of Agau Laboratories. The sudden change makes her heart twist in her chest.

Familiar anxiety creeps its way through her entire body. She barely tastes her food. Dr. Agau doesn’t select anything for herself, but seems to know exactly what Beth is prescribed to eat on all non-birthday mornings, and arranges it herself. She does fill two cups of water, though, and hands them to Beth to carry to their table.

“I understand it was your birthday yesterday,” she says as they sit.

“Yeah!” Beth says with a smile.

“Yes,” Dr. Agau agrees, a random note of reproach in her voice. As Beth is trying to figure out where she went wrong, she continues, “I had hoped to discuss things with you then, but my flight was delayed.”

Beth only partially understands this explanation. She knows what a plane is, of course, but she didn’t know Dr. Agau had been riding one. Beth had thought she would be where she always assumes the doctor is: overseeing her SOLE Project from her office, one of the currently restricted areas.

“Regardless, I am back now, and eager to bring you up to date on your role in the Project.”

Beth abandons her spoon and sits up a little straighter. She knows that Dr. agau is working on saving the world, but she never knew she would have a role in it. She simply understood herself to be here, at home, while Dr. Agau worked. There was promise of understanding when she was older, but Beth never expected it to happen the day after she got older.

Dr. Agau has paused long enough that Beth decides this is one of those predetermined places for her to respond.

“What do you need me to do?”

This is the correct response, as evidenced by the way Dr. Agau smiles at her.

“Now that my work preparing the world for your arrival is sufficiently in place, I have returned here to personally oversee your work strengthening your hydrokinetic abilities.”

Beth hardly got a word of that, and it must show on her face, because Dr. Agau sets her cup down and tries again.

“You spend hours in this facility’s recreational pools. You require strict time limits on your morning showers so that you do not fall behind in your studies. You frequently use the water coolers installed in every room, the ones we had to teach you to use from a young age to preclude your constant requests for water.”

Dr. Agau doesn’t recite Beth’s behavior with judgment or shame, but neither does she sound proud. She simply lists facts, none of which Beth can deny.

“You are intrinsically linked to the water, Beth. I designed you this way, so that you would use your abilities to help me and my Project.”

Beth hears the truth behind the doctor’s words: So that you help me save the world. She still doesn’t understand how, but the idea is so exciting that she couldn’t reject the doctor’s high expectations even if she wanted to.

“How do we start?”