#She was in the year below me but less than a year younger

[mini-ism]

#— BIRTHDAY SUIT.

pairings: welt yang x afab!gn!reader

words: about 2.5k

synopsis: your neighbor, mr. yang, has a chat with you that quickly turns intimate.

warnings: MDNI, p in v, unprotected sex, afab (gender neutral) reader, neighbor!welt yang, praise kink, birthday sex, not beta read.

notes: i wrote this with hi3 welt in mind (hes in his 50s in this fic), but it can also be read as hsr welt :p

“happy birthday, you!”

what a surprise, really, your next-door neighbor was pinching your cheek. mr. yang has always been a friendly man, and although your interactions have been limited and cordial, he had always been quite kind and polite.

mr. yang was beaming, the tray of fudgy brownies he baked sitting on the table, lukewarm, but inviting. he let go of your cheek, his pinch not too painful, more or less playful.

“it’s nice to see you, mr. yang. thank you for coming!” you smiled back at him haphazardly. it seems your family decided to invite him over. that wasn’t much of a problem, the more the merrier, one could assume.

“not a problem. how is your special day going so far?” he asked with genuine curiosity, placing a hand on your upper back as you two stepped over to the dining table. it was strewn with presents, balloons, and other birthday-like decorations. mr. yang’s fresh brownies awaited their inevitable fate amongst the festivities.

your friends and family greeted you warmly as you took your seat. mr. yang’s hand left your back as he took his own seat, smiling every so often as something humorous was said. your mother sighed contently as she entered the room, recounting everything else she had done before loudly gasping, “shoot, i forgot the damn cake!”

she raced out of the dining room, then out the door, followed by a few other members of your family and some friends. you assumed they had left with her. now it was just awkward. you grabbed the pitcher of sugary lemonade and a paper cup, pouring yourself a drink and sipping it.

mr. yang was the first to break the silence.

“hey, how about we talk for a moment, is that okay?” he stood next to you, slipping out of his seat and quietly asking. you nodded and finished your lemonade, leaving the cup somewhere where you would remember. he, again, guided you with his hand on your back, to your room. you could hear your friends chatting amongst themselves in the living room, playing games and watching TV. you shut the door behind you.

“what did you want to talk about mr. yang?” you turned to him. he sat on your bed and patted the spot next to him, urging you to sit with him.

“you could just call me welt, dear,” he gave you a gentle look, “i wanted to talk about life with you. maybe i could be a listening ear or give you some advice. i felt that you’d be more comfortable in your own space.”

you took your place next to him, appreciating his thoughtfulness and consideration. “what’s life like for you, dear? is everything okay in your own world?”

“yeah, life is okay. it's… hard sometimes, but when it’s good, it seems more worthwhile than usual.” you looked at the ground below you, fidgeting with your hands.

“you’ll find it’s purpose eventually, angel,” he started after a moment, “it doesn’t always come to you, especially not when you’re in your younger years. believe it or not, i’m still trying to figure it all out even at my age.” welt patted you reassuringly on the shoulder.

“i hope i figure it out soon.” you looked back at him, who was still looking at you oh-so gently.

“you will.” his hand moved to pat you on the thigh. welt had such a tender demeanor, maybe that is something that comes with age or experience.

it was silent again, you didn’t really know what to say.

“i’m proud of you,” he whispered, his hand moving slightly upwards, “you’re already doing incredibly well.”

“thank you, welt.” you whispered back in the same hushed tone, his hand creeping further upwards, giving your thigh a squeeze.

you drew in a breath and held it, and the air grew tensely stagnant. you could tell mr. welt was trying not to scare you or seem creepy.

you scooted closer to him, feeling the same wound tension in your body. you were receptive to his touch, from what he could tell. he gave your upper thigh a tighter squeeze.

you tried to hold in that breath, making a squeaky, choked noise. he was terribly quiet, “…am i hurting you, dear?”

“no, mr. yang…” you said with a murmur, staring at his hand. it was slightly vascular, his knuckles were rosy compared to his lighter tone, and, weirdly enough, it looked like he took care of his cuticles.

“that’s good to know,” he glanced at his hand, then at you, “tell me if i hurt you at all, please.”

“…okay.” you replied.

you met welt’s gaze, which was intense, yet tender and loving. you could tell a fire was burning beneath his cool exterior. his eyes were warm, like pools of dark honey. his breath hitched, and his face inched closer to yours.

his other hand cupped your cheek as he went in for the kiss. his lips were soft, and you kissed him back without a second thought (or a first). his thigh hand anchored him with a tight grip, causing you to whine into his lips. he pulled back, eyes wide, huffing for air, “did that hurt you?”

you shook your head no, furrowing your brows. you pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, turning him on more than he’d like to admit, “that’s good…”

he gingerly maneuvered you to lay down onto your bed, getting on top of you with that damn look. his eyes were lidded, his lips parted, and his gaze passionate, yet caring. he nestled between your legs, spreading them apart slowly with his hands and hovering above you. he bent down to kiss you again, his tongue parting your own lips with caution. he gripped the undersides of your thighs tightly, savoring your taste as your tongues intertwined. he gave you another kiss on the lips as his tongue left your mouth.

your eyes flicked from his face, which was flushed and needy, to his chest, which was modest and clean, “do you want me to unbutton this, angel?”

with your nod, he straightened his back and unbuttoned his dress shirt with experience, he didn’t mess up even once, “i won’t take it off, but i hope you like what you see for now.”

you ran your hands over his slightly toned body, he was in great shape, and he smiled when you felt his chest. it felt right, the way he looked. he was undeniably handsome for a man in his late fifties — or so — he didn’t look a day over thirty. his chest and abs were very slightly chiseled, but you could still see a light outline of his ribs poking through. there was a little birthmark on his collarbone, and another on his neck.

his glasses were sliding off the bridge of his nose, and he elected to take them off and set them elsewhere. he brushed his brown hair out of his eyes, framing his face perfectly. his eyes had a mischievous twinkle in them.

wordlessly, you lifted your own shirt off your head, revealing the curve of your breasts to welt. a low noise escaped him. he kissed your cheek, then your neck, your collarbones, and the slope of your chest. you looked so pretty for him right now, and he couldn’t wait to see more of you.

welt gently fondled your chest, delicately rubbing your nipples and caressing your skin. his thumbs flicked back and forth on the sensitive bud, watching your nipples harden with curiosity. he smiled charmingly, his eyes warm and magnetic. welt held eye contact with you as his hands caressed their way lower to your hips. you gave him a nod, insinuating the motions of what’s to come next.

“are you sure, dear? you can tell me no, and we can put our clothes back on. don’t be scared to tell me anything.” his voice was comforting, his words were sincere and reassuring.

“yeah, i’m sure about it. i wanna do this with you, welt.”

welt kissed you again, responding with a soft sigh. he got up again, still on his knees and atop you. you removed everything from the waist down, leaving yourself bare for him. welt was glad you were enthusiastic, and he unbuckled his own belt. he kept your gaze as he unzipped his pants, letting you palm the bulge in his underwear, “are you ready?”

you let out a quiet “mhm,” letting him pin your knees to your chest and spread you open more, “keep your legs there please.”

welt slipped the waistband of his boxers down, revealing his happy trail. he drew his bottom lip between his teeth as his cock sprung out. he started to stroke himself gently, brows knitted together from the pleasure. “…do you want to take it?” he asked, quite shyly.

“mmm, yeah, i want to,” you purred, your body desperate for any sort of contact. welt grabbed the inside of your thigh with his other hand, stroking with his dominant hand as he teased your clit with his tip. his bottom lip remained tucked tightly between his teeth and cheeks flushed. the tip of welt’s cock slipped in for a brief moment before he pulled out, releasing his lip and drawing in a sharp breath.

a wanton mewl escaped your lips as he pulled out. welt groaned lowly in response, pushing the sensitive tip back inside of you with minimal resistance. he could stay like this forever, indulging himself in your tight pussy, watching you drool and whine as he pushes a little further before abruptly pulling out, stroking your swollen clit with his thumb. he could keep shushing you with his kisses and tease your entrance more, but his patience was slowly waning.

seeing you sprawled out on your bed, clothes scattered across your floor, your cunt needy and leaking like a faucet, he won’t be able to help himself much longer. it was a lot to take in at the same time, it was beautiful yet surreal. “don’t finish in your hand welt!” you slurred, crying out a bit louder than you should’ve. he was jerking himself subconsciously, dazed at the sight before him.

“i won’t, i promise.” welt smiled as the words left him, reassuring and effectively calming your worry. he slicked back the hair in his face, some of it falling right back into place. welt grabbed your thigh again, drawing in a deep breath, mostly to calm his nerves, and pushing into your wet, swollen pussy again. he released the breath quickly, sighing as he delved deeper into you, relishing the bliss of sliding into you. you kept babbling and whining, the stretch of your pussy left your tight hole burning. he kept shushing you gently, rocking his hips back and forth gently, only about halfway inside of you.

“it’s okay, it’s not gonna hurt like this soon. i’ll take care of you.” welt said as he rolled his hips slowly, smiling with sincerity as he hushed you again. with every tender and soft thrust, his cock sunk deeper into you, he could feel his tip brush up against your cervix with due time. “you're so wet,” he cooed, “i want to be inside you forever. you feel amazing.”

he felt you wrap your arms around his neck, letting you pull him down closer to you. you burrowed your face in his neck, your soft moans ringing in his ears as he gripped your sheets. it took everything in him not to fuck you senseless then, but he swore he’d be gentle with you.

“it’s alright,” he whispered to you, “i know, darling, i know.” he could feel you clamp down on him, your muscles tightening feverishly as he praised you. you couldn’t help but love the way he talked to you, he was so gentle and validating, welt was so sweet and understanding. your pussy gushed more as he muttered sweet nothings in your skin, his grip on your sheets as tight as your pussy’s grip on his cock. the pain subsided with each thrust, pleasure flooding your senses, your juices leaking from your hole and onto your sheets. “you’re doing so good for me, so, so good.”

it’s seriously taking every bit of willpower and control not to fuck into you. it’s disgusting, really, how badly he wants to fuck you with brutal thrusts, how badly he wants everyone to hear you scream out in pleasure, how badly he wants to make you squirm and cum everywhere. he wants to do that ten times over, at the least. he knows you can’t handle that, not now, but every shred of his being wants to fuck you until you swear your pussy is all his.

“so fucking good, baby,” he groans, his hips stuttering as he stuffs you full of his cock, milking out every drop of pleasure he can get before he inevitably cums, “such an angel for me.”

you continue to babble and mewl, feeling his cockhead thrust itself as deep as it can into you. you can feel himself slowly losing any sort of restraint he has, moaning with you as he slams his hips into yours. you kiss his neck as he huffs in your ear with every movement of his hips, groaning lowly when he slides back into you with vigor.

the world around you seemed to dull as your body grew hotter and needier. your blankets were damp with your slick, your skin burning and your core tightening. nothing really made sense but him, him and the way he was fucking you. you held onto his back, sliding your hands underneath his loose dress shirt, clawing and digging your nails into his skin. welt’s pace quickened, sweat dripping from his forehead, his back getting sticky from the perspiration.

every single muscle of yours was wound tense with pleasure, as were his, his control was slipping from his grasp. “just like that, hold me just like that.” he breathed into your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. your senses were heightened as the world buzzed around you, nothing else mattered in this moment other than him and your quickly approaching orgasm. your nails dug harder into his bare skin as your heart beat harder in your ears. the sound of your pussy, as well as his moans and his skin against yours was all too lewd.

you murmured in his ear that you were close, welt responding in gentle praises and reciprocation. the coil in your gut loosened with intense euphoria, ecstasy washing over you and your tight muscles. welt chased after his high with a few erratic and intense thrusts into you, a guttural sound leaving his lips. his head lolled onto your shoulder lazily, welt catching his breath as his grip on your sheets loosened.

“are you okay?” welt whispered, breathing heavily.

“yeah, i’m okay. are you?” you replied.

“…i’m okay. i’m great, honestly,” he said with humor in his voice.

“we should probably head back, your friends might be worried about you.”

[coldzonkprofessorturtle]

An Affair to Remember

Alright, let's get into Affair the Series, which has been giving me brainrot the past few weeks so feels like a good time to get into an analysis of why I find it so fascinating. Eventually I'd love to do a deeper dive into Thai GLs and that industry (that's a whole other thing though) but after having seen my share of them (Gap, Show Me Love, TSOU, The Loyal Pin) I've really found myself falling into the rabbit hole with Affair the Series and the way it depicts friendship, love, and acceptance.

Deep dive below and also thank you gif makers for your work 🙏🏽

(also will go over events from episodes 1-5, so spoilers ahead if not up-to-date)

So first off, I have read the novel, which is the first time I've finished one of those for a GL and quite frankly, the translation wasn't that great but the story still came through. I won't refer to it much and will base this on the show as I think they've done a fantastic job with the adaptation and fingers crossed continue to do so.

Where in most GLs the core conflict is external. The main couple can't be in love typically due to familial/cultural pressure or a man interfering (that still exists to an extent here) the main conflict in Affair is simply that Wan and Pleng love each other too much but they do so in different ways.

When we meet Wan and Pleng they're 17 years old and have spent their entire lives together. They're sisters but not and while Wan seems to have a social circle, Pleng really has no other friends outside of Wan. The spoiled rich girl and the maid's daughter. Couldn't be more different if they tried and yet by circumstance their lives are as intertwined as it gets.

At 17, they have different ideas for their futures. Pleng is musically talented, wins every contest and is financially set. She can live the life she wants. If she wants to be a musician then so be it. Her parents love and support her and there's no pressure. Wan on the other hand has an overbearing mother (and a resentful father), no prospects for her future but at least she has Pleng.

Despite her parents, Wan loves wholly and openly. She knows she loves Pleng and while she doesn't yet know it she does know that Pleng loves her too. I would argue that Wan truly knows herself, which is why she comes across as so self-assured in their younger years. She's slowly trying to guide Pleng to understand herself too.

Pleng, however, has never had to sit with her emotions in the same way. Take this as differences of personality, class and upbringing. Now that they're 17 and entering adulthood, Pleng has to start engaging with the world (and her emotions) rather than hiding behind the rich, insular lifestyle she's had up to this point.

As the idea of boyfriends comes up, Pleng starts to lash out. She's jealous, she's pushy but really she's just in love with her best friend and doesn't know it. Everything starts happening too fast. Wan meets a boy at an art gallery, Aunt Wi pushes Pleng to help Wan get with Ek, Pleng's dad is extremely stressed and she doesn't know to what extent and throughout that Pleng is dealing with her feelings that for some reason just won't go away. Feelings that Wan keeps bringing up in her over and over.

Pleng is a mess. She doesn't know how to connect with her peers, she knows something is wrong with her dad, she sees that Wan is seemingly moving forward in a way that she's not (dating a boy) and whether she realizes it she continues to isolate herself.

From Wan's perspective she couldn't care less about dating Ek. She's already completely devoted to Pleng (in ways that Pleng doesn't even know).

They're 17, hormonal, gay, and incapable of seeing each other's perspective. Wan wants Pleng to let her in. Pleng can't help but push everyone away.

As soon as Pleng starts to really come to terms with her feelings about Wan. That's when everything falls apart. Her dad kills himself, her mom goes into cardiac arrest, all of her family's assets are seized and she's now orphaned and staying with Wan's parents who clearly and vocally have no space for her. Pleng who was already struggling to find her footing before that fateful night now has absolutely nothing to stand on.

The break point is when Pleng finds out about Wan's academic achievements and that Wan had been hiding that truth about herself their entire lives. Wan has always been intelligent and capable but hidden herself behind a veil of ineptitude. Wan in loving Pleng puts her on a pedestal to her own detriment. She has no issue blighting her own light so that Pleng can shine but from the moment we meet 17 year old Pleng in the show we see her pushing Wan to better herself. Wan thinks loving Pleng means her own success doesn't matter whereas Pleng loves Wan and all of her potential.

They both love each selflessly but while Wan would burn the whole world to keep Pleng warm, Pleng loves Wan despite her own existence. So when Pleng leaves she writes,

"Your parents will feel at ease. And you'll finally get to live your life as your true self... I know you love me but I also want you to love yourself. And be proud of who you are."

For Pleng, her leaving is the ultimate way to show her love to Wan. A clean break. She runs away so Wan can thrive but here's the thing Wan needs Pleng to keep her grounded. Pleng does too but she can't see it at this point. Too much has happened and so, in her desperation she removes herself. She is her father's daughter after all.

So when 13 years pass and Wan has spent that entire time holding on to whatever she can to keep herself close to Pleng (becoming a doctor, riding a bike to work, marrying Ek, separating herself from her parents); Pleng has become a ghost of herself. Wan has imbued herself with all the things she thinks/knows Pleng would like while Pleng is stuck in a cycle that she can't get out of: play music, make a bit of money, pay rent, rest, repeat.

Pleng never reaches out to Wan because why would she? Her loving Wan means staying away and on top of that there's a sense of shame of what her life has become.

So when they finally meet again it's too much. Wan is successful but she's still clearly in love with Pleng and while it was all Wan's doing, in a way her success is a direct result of Pleng's influence. In removing herself, Pleng slowly begins to realize not just that she took Wan's smile with her but the why and how. Wan's changed and devoid of the joy and innocence that Pleng loved most.

They slowly fall back into their natural rhythms but Pleng still can't accept her own presence in Wan's life. Wan is back to pushing (albeit more aggressively then before - time was wasted) and in pushing Pleng, Pleng pushes back. If they take their relationship that one step further, what then? What if it falls apart? Why not just stay in a cycle where nothing shifts? What if there's another ringing shot in the distance and everything changes in a moment?

If there's one core trauma to Pleng as a character it's her desperation to not feel like a burden to anyone. Especially Wan. And then she finds out that Wan (though separated) is still married to Ek and she can't accept that she could have ruined Wan's potential happiness. Not understanding that Pleng herself is Wan's happiness. Pleng feels like a disruption because at the root of it the thing she wanted above all for Wan, "I also want you to love yourself. And be proud of who you are" is not something that Pleng accepts for herself.

I'll leave it there and hope the show navigates the situations that are about to come as well as they have so far but kudos as Affair manages to oh so gracefully skirt what could otherwise be an incredibly toxic relationship. Somehow they manage to give these two characters so much grace despite their flaws. And truly that's also a huge credit to Sonya and Lookmhee's abilities.

It's chaotic and messy but in coming back together these two might just realize that's how they both best shine.

[lovebugism]

can I request steeb taking care of shy!reader who is upset after a bullying incident in school? I figured she would be a year younger (like robin’s grade) because I don’t think anyone would touch her if king steve was around. I feel like he’s be so soft with her but also reeling at the thought that someone hurt his girl!

thanks for ur request anon! idk if i can count this as a blrub because it's nearly 3k words but alas pls enjoy! tw for blood (knee scrapes) and j*son c*rver

You come to Family Video with a scrape on your left knee.

It’s not the weirdest thing in the world — you ride a worn-down bike that’s probably older than you are. Steve’s been begging you to get a new one for as long as he’s known you, outright offering to pay for the damn thing as long as he’s sure it’ll get you to him without getting hurt in the process.

You reject him every time. “It gets me where I need to go,” you always shrug. “What more could I want from it?”

And he wants so badly to be angry at the beauty you manage to find in mediocrity. But he can’t be, really. It’s why you fell in love with him in the first place, isn’t it? Why you took the heartbroken boy in your arms on Halloween night in 1984 and convinced him he wasn’t bullshit despite what he told you. He’d be an idiot to be mad at how kind you are.

But when you walk into Family Video, halfway limping with blood dripping down your knee, he knows it’s different. 

Something more than a toppled bike hurt you.

“Oh, god, babe,” he winces from where he stands at the counter with Robin. “What happened?”

“I fell,” you shrug as he races over to you.

“You fell?” Robin scoffs. “Knock me out with a feather.” You know she’s joking, but it’s a little too monotone, and you’re a little too sensitive. Something in her words hurts more than your throbbing knee.

Steve, who knows you like the back of his hand, understands exactly what your diverted gaze means. When you look down to the floor, he shoots Robin a firm glare.

What? she mouths, obviously confused at the sudden silence.

“Can you get the first aid kit from the back? I think there might be some gauze in there,” he asks, deciding to change the conversation entirely. He wraps an arm around your waist and walks slowly with you to the counter. He meets your grimace with a soft smile. “I’ll clean it, wrap it up, and you’ll be good as new.”

You don’t give him anything in response. Not even a pity smile.

He sits you on the counter with the open first-aid kit beside you. Robin flips the store sign to closed. It’s barely five o’clock. She starts tidying up the store to go home, anyway.

Steve wipes up the warm blood with a napkin and cleans the scrape with an alcohol wipe. You hiss at the feeling — it’s like a hundred tiny bee stings. From where he sits just below you on a worn swivel chair behind the counter, he leans in to press a kiss just above the cut.

Without all the blood, it looks a lot less gnarly than before.

“See? It’s not so bad,” the boy smiles as he unravels some gauze. “I’ll patch it up, baby you for the rest of the night, and you’ll forget it ever hurt by morning.”

Again, you don’t even smile. You just purse your lips to the side and nod.

Steve’s heart stings, but he doesn’t take anything by it. He wraps the bandage down and over your knee in an even rhythm. He tries not to be so direct when he asks: “How’d this happen, anyway, huh? Did Ol’ Sliver finally give up on you?”

You shake your head, eyes on the gauze instead of the boy. The white cloth splotches with pink from where your wound still weeps. “No,” you answer quietly. “Just fell.”

“Just fell, huh?” he repeats quietly. A few caramel-colored strands fall over his forehead as he peers up at you with his chin tilted towards his chest. He tries his best to smile. “You’re givin’ me the sad eyes, babe. I feel like it was more than just a fall.”

“It was stupid…”

He scoffs. “Never.”

“A car drove by me,” you confess, only half-lying. You try to look down at him, but your gaze wavers along with your courage. “And the music was kinda loud, and it… It startled me a little.”

You don’t tell him that Jason Carver intentionally swerved on the wrong side of the road to scare you — or that he yelled mean things through the rolled-down passenger window before speeding off again. It’s easier to keep it to yourself. You don’t want it to become a whole thing.

Steve’s brows furrow as he tucks the end of the bandage to keep it from unraveling. “Were they going too fast?”

“I don’t know. Kind of.”

“It wasn’t those football assholes, was it? I swear to god, they need their license revoked.”

“No,” you answer, quick to soothe his rising anger. “It was— It wasn’t anyone. I just got scared, and I swerved off the road, okay?”

Even in your mousy voice, it sounds like you’re being stern with him. And you’re never stern with him.

“Well, that’s okay,” Steve assures with a shrug. “We all get scared. It’s better than you getting hit, I guess.”

“I guess,” you echo with a huff, a teasing smile on your lips.

Steve grins back, happy to see you less pained. He smacks a gentle kiss to your wrapped-up knee. “Go get in the car, okay? I’ll clean up here, put your bike in the trunk, and we can go home.”

You go shy as you peer at him from beneath your lashes. “Your home?” you clarify, secretly hoping he’ll say yes.

His answer isn’t surprising. “Of course, my home. You practically live there, anyway.”

You smile and brush a soft kiss to the scruff of his jaw, murmuring a quiet thank you there before leaving. You’re not limping nearly as badly as you had been before.

Robin waits for the door to ding shut before blurting: “I think it was Jason.” 

Steve stills with the first-aid kit in his hands. He squints at her from where she stands between the horror and X-rated horror aisles. 

“What?”

“I think that’s who might’ve run her off the road.”

“…Why?”

“He gives her a hard time sometimes, I don’t know,” she explains vaguely and with a sigh. “Normally, it’s stupid. Like, honestly, I just think he’s super shit at flirting. Maybe he was just trying to scare her and… got a little carried away…”

Anger burns red hot in Steve’s chest. It blooms just behind his ribcage like a flower with fire for petals.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks through gritted teeth, trying not to sound too angry. It’s not like Robin was the one who hurt you, after all — just some douchebag who wouldn’t have laid a hand on you if he knew who your boyfriend was. 

Steve’s knuckles go white as his grip tightens on the plastic box.

“Because I thought it was harmless!” Robin agonizes as she rushes to meet him. Her deep ocean eyes swim with worry, frightened that he might be angry at her. “Seriously. Most of the time, it sounds like he’s just being mean to get into her pants. And, like, I don’t know if that’s how he landed Chrissy back in the day or what, but he’s obviously got no clue what kind of girl he’s flirting with because…”

She trails off at Steve’s hardened umber gaze.

Robin groans and leans over the counter, reaching for the boy’s wrist. “Please don’t be mad at me, Stevie. My heart can take that. I’ll be sick for days—”

“I’m not mad at you, Rob,” the boy promises. He sighs. “I just gotta… go beat up a kid now.”

—————

You’re too focused on the stars and the feeling of Steve’s warm hand on your thigh to notice he’s taking the wrong route home.

The car slows way sooner than you expected. When you come back down from the clouds, you find that you’re in a near-empty lot. The car jolts softly when Steve puts it in park.

“What are we doing?” you turn to him with furrowed brows.

Steve unclicks his seatbelt. “I’ll be right back.”

You look past him, at the large building lit up by amber streetlamps and the green door with a light in its window. Every so often, someone will whip by it wearing a white jersey. Your heart sinks.

“Why are we at school?” you asked, scrunched-faced in a mixture of anger and worry. You don’t know how he knows what happened to you, only that he does know.

“I need to take care of something here. It’s okay—”

“Don’t go in there,” you plead. “Please. Let’s just go home—”

“I’ll be right back,” he repeats. He leans over the console to kiss your cheek. You don’t lean into it like you usually do.

“Steve—”

The car door shuts and cuts off the rest of your pleas.

Steve has an easy time getting into the gym. The backdoor is propped open with a small wooden block like it always is. The coaches welcome him in like usual. They beam as the old team captain waltzes into the newly painted gym like he owns the place.

“Harrington!” the burly man calls over the sounds of squeaking shoes and bouncing basketballs. “Come to turn in an application, finally? I’ve only been asking you to be co-coach since you graduated.”

Steve smiles coolly. “No. Not yet… I, uh— I actually needed to talk to one of your players.”

The man shoots him a look.

“Jason Carver.”

“Oh,” the man chuckles, a deep belly laugh. “You only wanna pull my star player out of practice, huh?”

“It’ll take, like, two seconds. Tops.”

A momentary stare-off ensues. Steve knows the answer he’s going to get. Everyone at this damn school has got a soft spot for him. Perks of being Hawkins High royalty, he figures.

“Two,” the coach says in the place of any real answer. 

He takes the green whistle from his neck and blows into it. The shrill sound echoes through the gym. Like trained dogs, the boys on the court still.

“Carver!” the man shouts, almost too loudly. Steve winces from beside him. “Get over here!”

Jason passes the ball off and jogs to meet them without question. When Steve says he’s got something to tell him, the blonde-haired boy smiles like it’s a privilege. Red-faced and out of breath, he trails behind Steve as they walk out into the hallway.

“Don’t tell me you’re coming to be assistant coach,” the boy says with an audible smile. “Coach Blair has only been talking about it for a year—”

When the double doors shut behind him, Steve whips around and shoves the boy into the lockers. They clang beneath his sudden weight and echo down the empty corridor. Jason’s smug face contorts into shock. “—What the hell?”

He tries to regain his footing, but Steve only shoves him backward again. His hands twist in the neck of his jersey. 

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Jason shouts.

Steve’s stern features never waver. He leans in close, eyes trained on the boy like a predator to prey. “Leave my girl alone,” he threatens lowly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know who your girl is—”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Steve spits in response. The lockers bang once more when he shoves the boy backward again. “Should break your leg for what you did to her. What would the star player do then, huh?”

Jason’s wide eyes flit between the both of Steve’s. He racks his brain for what he might’ve done so wrong and who he might’ve done it to. He gapes at the realization — “Bambi? Bambi’s your girlfriend?”

“Oh, that’s what you call her?” Steve muses in a monotone, feigning interest. “How cute.”

“I didn’t know, man. I swear. If I knew, I never would’ve—”

“I don’t care. And stop pleading, alright? It’s embarrassing.”

Jason goes quiet. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. Steve’s hand loosens on his jersey. His ice-cold gaze never wavers.

“I don’t wanna know what you did to her. I don’t wanna know why you’re doing it, either — if you think she’s pretty, or if she’s easy-pickings for assholes like you — I don’t care.” He presses the boy further into the lockers, their noses inches apart. “But if I hear you’re messing with her, talking about her to your friends— if you so much as look in her direction again, I promise you won’t like what I do to you.”

Jason’s jaw clenches. He juts out his chin in a feeble attempt to make himself taller. “Yeah?”

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

“That’s real rich coming from someone who couldn’t even beat up Jonathan Byers.”

“I’ve learned a lot since then,” the older boy promises, weirdly composed. “Feel free to find out if you don’t believe me.”

The boy stays quiet.

Steve shoves him backward when he lets go of him. He gives him a final glare and one last warning before walking back toward the gym. “And plant your feet when you’re on the court, alright? It’d be a real shame if you broke an ankle.”

—————

The drive to his house is silent.

It usually is. Most of the time, you’re too zoned into the music or making shapes in the clouds to talk. But now it’s because you’re angry. Steve would be an idiot not to notice. He can feel it radiating off of you like steam.

He reaches for the console and turns the air-con up.

“Are you hot?” he asks in a feeble attempt to break the quiet.

With your arms crossed and your gaze out the window, you deadpan: “I’m mad.”

“I feel like that’s sorta the same thing,” Steve jokes with a weak, lopsided smile.

“I didn’t want you to do that,” you choke through a tight throat. “You’re just gonna make it worse.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have gotten so bad if you would’ve just told me.”

You turn to him with eyes glassy from unshed tears. A stoplight bathes the both of you in shades of neon scarlet. “I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d do something about it,” you spit.

“So you’d rather let some asshole run you off the road, huh? Is that it?”

He doesn’t mean to be so harsh. He’s just upset, and the adrenaline’s making him antsy. 

Steve learned a long time ago not to be so forward with you. Even if he’s just joking around, even if he’s mad and saying shit he doesn’t mean — you’re not built for that. You’re made of something softer: marshmallow fluff and crocheted yarn and flower petals. It’s why you let Jason Carver pick on you for so long without saying a word about it.

“It’s not like that,” you argue quietly, blinking back tears as you turn away from him again.

Steve sighs. “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean— I’m just upset, okay? I didn’t mean to yell.”

“I know…”

“I just wish you would tell me these things, you know?”

His hand is warm on the skin of your thigh as he smooths his palm over it. Your eyes flit to your leg and then to him. You nod. “I know. I just…” Your features crumple when you trail off. 

Steve squeezes your thigh in reassurance. “You just what?”

“I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t handle myself,” you confess quietly. “Everyone thinks I’m so weak. I didn’t want you to think that, too.”

“I don’t think you’re weak,” Steve scoffs out a laugh, like he almost can’t believe you’d even think something like that.

Your brows furrow. “No?”

“No. Not even a little bit. But as your boyfriend— ‘cause I am your boyfriend, right?”

You meet his teasing gaze with a half-hearted scowl. You’ve only been dating for a year and a half. You nod to humor him.

“Exactly. So, as your boyfriend, it’s my job to help you through the hard shit, you know? Just because you can get through it on your own doesn’t mean you have to.”

Your chest swells. You try not to smile too wide, but it’s hard not to. You’ve never had someone who wanted to protect you before. It’s as strange as it is gratifying.

“Okay,” you concede with a nod.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat with a giggle.

Steve leans over the console, moving slowly like his lips are made of magnets that drift to yours. Through the overwhelming urge to kiss you, he jokes: “Is it— and I’m just checking here— is it okay?”

You shake your head and lean to meet him halfway. “You’re such a dork.”

Your lips barely brush before a loud honk echoes behind you. You jolt apart from him, not noticing that the light had turned green until then. 

Steve sighs and mourns your unkissed lips. His engine roars softly as he presses on the gas.

He’d noticed. He saw the light change about twenty seconds ago — how the bright crimson changed into a softer shade of lime that bathed you in its neon hues. He just loved the way you looked in green.

[rieamena]

everything i wasn't and everything you were.

day 15 of inotober'24

fem aligned/intended reader

riea's comments: writing this made me cry bro

"please…" your voice came out strained and raspy from crying a few moments before, "come back safely."

"for you?"

"not just for me," you shook your head and drew attention to your extended arms. your brother's white and black wrapped weapon was sitting in your hands; his luxury watch atop it, twinkling slightly, "for him too."

takuma just stared down at it, frozen in shock. he knew what it meant, he just didn't want to believe it. "it's kind of funny, you know," you attempted to break the deafening silence although the tears welling up in your eyes betrayed you. "when he brought you to the shop for the first time, he told me that if anything were to happen to him, his watch and weapon would go to you." the man, only a few years younger than you, tore his gaze from the items, looking at you instead. your cheeks glistened with dried tears, new ones forming in milliseconds. "at first i brushed him off, my brother? nanami kento? the best sorcerer i know, bested by some curse? m-maybe he should've become a fortune teller instead of a sorcerer, maybe then t-this wouldn't have…" the memorabilia in your hands shook as you held your head down, the tears dropping onto the concrete below.

takuma dug his nails into his palm to stop himself from crying. he hated to see you like this, so broken, disheartened, and weak. and yet, nanami would know that there's still a mission to complete. that there's still people to protect. you to protect.

"ino, i know you." that's how his superior started, taking a sip of his chamomile tea afterwards. the cafe was homely, polished wooden tables and cushioned booths filled the space. the overhead lights hung low enough that if nanami jumped directly below one, it would hit his head. "i know that you're not the best at keeping things under wraps." he set his cup back down on the napkin, not wanting to possibly create a mug ring on the table itself. taking a deep sigh, the man intertwined his fingers and stared at his junior. takuma felt his hands get clammy and sweat run down his back. he doesn't even know what he's nervous about until nanami spoke up again, "you're dating my sister."

"please." you begged, wrapping your arms around him, eyes wetting his black crewneck. "please, takuma. stay alive." the man in question held onto his mentor's watch and weapon as he hugged you back tightly. "please. don't do something you'll regret and—" you continued, choking on your sobs, and that's when takuma felt himself break. he didn't care about being strong anymore, he let himself cry. to feel his grief and to understand your own.

"i will be back. nothing will stop me from coming back to you." he pressed his lips against yours in a gentle and sweet manner, wanting to convey just how much you meant to him. you kissed him back instantaneously with so much affection and force, hand slipping up his neck and under his beanie, fingers intertwined with his hair. you both pulled away and takuma kissed your forehead endearingly, rubbing your shoulders.

"i love you," were the last words he said before rushing into battle, and you didn't even get to say it back.

all that could be done was to wait, so you waited. hours turned into days. days turned into weeks. weeks to months. and months to years. sometime between then, you received word that takuma would be shipped off to the states for more advanced testing and healthcare. you still weren't able to see him. in the beginning, shoko would update you from time to time on how he was doing. you couldn't go and see for yourself though. he was in a high security hospital, no visitors allowed. shoko's updates got less and less frequent and the last time she contacted you was to say that he would be entering surgery soon.

you'd be lying if you said you moved on. on the day of kento's funeral, you stayed back and sat on the rain beaten grass, talking about whatever came to mind. you laughed at the irony of it all. it was always like this, you talking your brother's ear off and him occasionally saying something in response. he would always be less stoic around you, sometimes he'd even make a joke once in a while. you sat there for hours, talking to his gravestone, your heart anticipating a response but your head knowing that you'll never get one again.

the grass crunched under your shoes as you made your way through the cemetery, basket full of bread in hand. you made it a habit to visit your brother at least once a week, always making sure to bring something special, something that he loved.

"you're probably wondering about ino, huh?" you started, taking out a slice and spreading his favorite topping on it slowly. "i lost him too. don't get me wrong, he's not dead—at least i don't think he is—but i haven't heard from him since the day he went into the fight. i can only hope that he's safe and healthy or in the process of doing so—here's your slice." you set the bread on the stone, reaching back in the basket to start on your own. "i just wish i knew more about everything. you jujutsu sorcerers always kept things so secret…"

the crinkle of a bouquet of chamomile flowers against your brother's freshly cleaned marble gravestone made you jump. the bread and butter knife in your hands fell right into the basket you carried upon hearing a voice.

"keeping secrets isn't my thing. i'm sorry for making you wait so long."

jjk taglist

@blendingcaramal @gzchaos @theamazingrain @woah-girlz @voloslobotomyservice

@kyozvy @obessionofagrl @bubybubsters @sugurusbaobei @raindropsonrwses

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@stillnotherapy @oniondrip @cloudy-yyy @definitely-not-leena @kidd3ath

@atigerandabear @russianremy @ohnoitsamistakee18 @ivy-vivii @ourfinalisation

@1ndee @yourhornysister @ancientimes @cupcaketeddybehr @tomikixd

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@baekhyunsbestie @vorfreudevortex @leuriss @xaithings @jtoddlover 

@corvid007 @babysoo-meu @nickxz444 @strawbzies

[ps-cactus]

Headcanons for the Gaunts in the early 1890s

...and for Ominis staying at the Gaunt Manor, a place he calls "there."

Disclaimer: These are headcanons that work for me in my writing (recently posted a chapter of Ominis at home and my head nearly exploded of everything I had to keep in mind for that, so I'm 'clearing my storage') Of course I don't expect these will work for everyone.

CWs: Any you would expect from these people. Primarily - Toxic Family Dynamics, different forms of Abuse. General darkness.

The Gaunts

General

The family is still recognized for their pureblood lineage, but they're far less financially comfortable than they'd like people to believe. They rely on old connections rather than building new ones.

They had some issues with Aurors, with certain conflicts becoming personal for a while. Investigations have put more pressure on the family and forced them to spend a lot of money buying their way out of trouble.

Other pureblood families are growing more hesitant to marry into the Gaunt line—especially when it comes to the Gaunt sons.

Innate abilities, in addition to Parseltongue, can include Legilimency and/or Occlumency. More about Ominis in his section below.

The transition to Parseltongue can be unconscious, reflexive response to hearing it.

Ivraxus Gaunt (Father)

Works at the Ministry, Department of International Magical Co-operation, the International Magical Trading Standards Body, handling inspections, audits, and licensing. He will last there few more years while his 'friends' let him.

While he maintains a polished front at work and formal gatherings, his methods at home are far harsher, relying on intimidation to keep others in line.

He arranges (or tries to arrange) marriages for his children to maintain sacred alliances.

His wife’s declining health disturbs him—not out of love, but fear. Her loss would represent the crumbling of his already fragile household and it reminds him of his own eventual end. This fear alternates between withdrawal and bursts of anger.

Disapproves of Ominis holding a wand in his hand unless it is absolutely necessary for navigation.

He has a collection of expensive firewhiskeys and usually drinks after work.

Merope Gaunt (Mother)

Her voice is frail and ghostly, and her presence seems to fade into the background. Chronically ill all her life, and her health worsened with every child she bore. She was unable to have more children after Ominis.

She never blames her children in her state and avoids conflict at all costs—not even for her children’s sake, but to protect herself.

If some fight breaks out, she leaves, never offering comfort to anyone involved.

If forced (typically by her husband, if he’s busy) to intervene, she will do the bare minimum to diffuse tension before hurrying away. She prefers to turn away and forget.

Yes, Marvolo named his daughter after her. No, he never loved either of them.

Marvolo Gaunt (Older Brother) sighs

Volatile and aggressive, quick to issue threats or escalate conflicts.

Since graduation, he’s spent much of his time abroad; because of this, he didn’t meet Ominis for a year and a half.

Engaged to Miss Burke, he shows no real interest in the marriage but never opposes it. It’s possible he has feelings for someone else.

He was openly hostile to Ominis from the moment his younger brother was born, seeing him as competition for attention. Marvolo also felt unnerved by Ominis' perceived 'abnormality,' a term whispered frequently at home.

Korentha Malfoy, née Gaunt (Older Sister, the oldest child)

Embraces the family's traditions and social obligations, enjoying all the gatherings and taking pride in her pureblood status.

Quick to lecture Ominis for his "manners." For her, he is an unfortunate disgrace in the family, that affects her as his relative.

Married shortly before the mentioned major conflicts with Aurors. Her marriage into the Malfoy family is seen as the Gaunts’ greatest alliance in years, one their father takes immense pride in. It won't last, though: the marriage will 'cease to exist' within a few years. She also has a son who will never have children of his own.

Side note for their names: The same "alphabetical distance" for father and kids: I-K-M-O

Property

The Gaunt Manor is large, drafty, and perpetually cold. Ominis is constantly freezing despite fireplaces (that are too small for the vast rooms), and warming charms that seem to wear off too quickly.

Noctua's house, the family's second and last property, was left to Ominis in her will. He deeply resents how his parents treat this inheritance like a tool to control him. He has no intention of living there and plans to sell it the moment he gains true independence (after graduation), using the money to start a new life (tells himself it's to not feel like a burden to anyone ever again)

Noctua-Marvolo-Ominis side note (Korentha didn't like her): Noctua was kind to all children, including Marvolo, who loved her back. Until Ominis was born. With Ominis needing protection the most, Noctua's attention shifted to him. Marvolo's jealousy soon turned into violence toward Ominis and their aunt. Their father subtly encouraged Marvolo’s behavior, leading him to think, "Daddy loves me and loves me more than them." He'd kill and maybe die for his father's approval.

Ominis at home there

Keeping Appearances

He rarely spent much time there during summers, usually staying just long enough to prepare for school: he had to buy new clothes, books, etc. He had to maintain connections to use them (like saving Sebastian from detentions).

After fifth year: For the first time since starting Hogwarts, Ominis was forced to endure an entire summer break there.

While there, Ominis is obligated to attend all the dinners and gatherings, where he must act polite and respectful to the honored guests.

He is aware that every move he makes is monitored. Sending or receiving owls while at the manor won't go unnoticed. Ominis avoids it, and his friends understand to do the same to avoid questions and more threats.

Traumas & Coping

He flinches at loud sounds and tries to hide it (by shifting his weight or clasping his hands tightly).

Doesn't allow himself tears, even when he's alone.

Keeps a countdown of how many months/days remain until he’s free of his family.

Has nighttime anxiety and sleeplessness that worsens there.

Dissociates during punishments, struggles to recall them afterward.

Has an innate ability for Occlumency, it comes from a strong instinct to protect himself and stay safe within his mind. This powerful mental resistance once injured his father when he attempted to access Ominis' thoughts.

Some of Personality & Inner Conflict

Mr sarcastic remarks.

Skilled at masking his emotions, maintaining control during conversations. However, this control can slip if his anger is repeatedly triggered. (When alone and spiraling, he may physically lash out by punching things. When it happens near someone he doesn’t feel threatened by, he raises his voice or shouts.)

He's adept at giving his father the answers the latter wants, or at least enough to deflect suspicion (works only if his father is willing to listen, of course).

Would feign indifference toward people he cares about to shield them but feels physically sick afterward for saying things he doesn’t mean.

Deep down, he feels unworthy of help, friendship, or love. These thoughts overwhelm him when he feels he’s made mistakes.

Even so, remembering the voices, presence, and touches of his friends, calms and grounds him.

Still, he clings to the idea of leaving home forever, refusing to become like the rest of his family. Noctua's voice in his memories encourages him, saying, "You’re nothing like them." He's not interested in any kind of revenge, he just wants to be free.

[titanic-angel]

мιgυel o'нara х F!reader

◥︎ 『 coғғee ︎pт.1 』︎ ◣

▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎

ѕυммary ➞︎ yoυ вrιng мιgυel coғғee тo нelp нιм тнroυgн a long worĸ nιgнт

warnιngѕ ➞︎ none

noтeѕ ➞︎ part 2 is up ❤︎

▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎

The evening air was so dry in the summer, and the silence that invited itself into the coffee room buried deep in your skin. The tiles felt cold under your slippers, the setting sun stealing the heat and light from every inch of the room.

You let out a harsh breath, pouring the deep brown liquid into the two cups, staining the white glass with caffeine and steam.

You, Jess, and Peter B had made an agreement since your involvement in the Spider Society had started.

Miguel’s workaholism caused long periods of time, sometimes days, where he wouldn’t even leave his lair, chest deep in his own mind and perfectionism. You all initially believed that his inhumane attributes gave him the stamina to last weeks without rest, but after catching him in deep sleep on his own computer, you realized the goliath wasn’t, in fact, invincible.

So, like any good friends (although Miguel never really used those terms), you took shifts bringing him coffee. With the mugs, Peter and Mayday brought him laughter (all of which was their own, but there wasn’t an indication he didn’t appreciate it), Jess brought him a tough love and a listening ear that fueled his work and you…

Well you weren’t sure what you offered.

You never left without a conversation- and maybe a little coffee yourself. Sometimes he would explain whatever anomaly had taken his attention for the hour, or he would stay silent, listening to you talk about your own day, slightly less exhausting but much more exciting.

Most times, however, you’d give him his coffee, and without saying much, he would look at you.

You are convinced more and more each time that, years ago, his eyes were more brown than they were red. Deep bronze like the color of the coffee in his cup. Younger than they are now. Maybe it was his exhaustion seeping through his irises, but something in the way he looked at you…it felt softer.

Kinder.

You shook off the image as your slippers padded against the hallway marble, the once lively hub now hushed to an empty whisper.

Jess had gone to her universe, undoubtedly resting her weary body, and Peter B eagerly ran home to his beloved red-heads. Homes filled, endlessly, with reunions, warm meals and kisses doused in exhaustion and a love unique to them.

You were happy for them, but you would be lying if you told yourself that you weren’t envious.

Quietly, secretly, you much preferred the hub over your own home, it’s thrum of life filling the emptiness of your crammed apartment. It was depressing to go home to silence after a day of action, which meant many nights you slept in your office, feigning the stress of work and battles to avoid questions from your peers.

You stepped over stray wires and scraps of metal, amongst other abandoned equipment you were sure meant something, once. The dark room was illuminated in neon, flashing lights pulsing across the floor and ceiling.

His gigantic platform came into view, hovering over the pitch floor. The familiar sight of him, surrounded by yellow holograms, greeted your eyes with a brightness that made you squint, vision adjusting to the light.

You caught the butt-end of a conversation, Lyla glitching around his head with attitude. You kept your mouth shut, a little curious to hear their idle chat.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Miguel said, flatly.

“Don’t play stupid, I’m an incredibly intelligent A.I. I know fondness when I see it.”

“She brings me coffee- that’s all.”

You paused, muscles tense and the suggestion that they were talking about you.

“I don’t know Miguel~. Peter B and Jess do the same and you aren’t as soft with them.”

“I am not soft!”

“Sure, sure.”

Lyla’s hologram stuttered, and she suddenly focused you. Even from far below, you recognized her mischievous grin.

“Well, I’m feeling awfully tiered. It’s very late y’know! I’ll just let you do your thing!”

“But you don’t-“ Miguel followed her line of sight. He looked down at you with surprise, and you sent him an awkward wave through the cup handle.

“Bye!” Lyla’s drawn out y’s echoed even as she disappeared, Miguel’s hand swiping at the air before she vanished.

He let out a harsh sigh, and you slung up to his platform, handing him a cup. He looked at you again, that faint brown sparkling clearer tonight.

Strange.

“Thank you.”

You nodded, leaning against his table.

“Long night again?” You asked, thumb tracing the smooth glass of the handle.

Miguel nodded, letting another exhausted sigh escape his chest. “Yes.”

You waited for more, but it never came, Miguel shifting near awkwardly as he clicked on the screens with his free hand.

You nodded slowly, taking a sip of your cup. You shuddered, unfamiliar with the pure caffeine. You looked down at your cup, dark brown looking back.

Oh shit.

You watched in short-lived anticipation as he took a sip of your cup. He’s face scrunched in surprise, as if the sweetness of sugar and cream was completely foreign to him.

He looked at you, the red in his eyes more prominent now. Your cheeks strained, but soon the ballon of laughter burst from your chest.

It bounced off the dark walls, echoing around the both of you. You closed your eyes, squeezing out tears as you gripped his desk, laughter shaking your core.

When you regained yourself, you slowly sat up, wiping your wet cheeks and grinning ear to ear. You sighed, small laughs residing with your quickened breath.

“Oh, Miguel you should’ve see your-“

You stopped.

Miguel was smiling.

Well, in the generous sense of the word. Although it wasn’t bright like Peter B’s or gentle like Jess, it was genuine. His eyes crinkled, his lips drawn into a gentle upturn, highlighting his dimples.

Your shocked face must have startled it, because it quickly disappeared, now taught in a hardened, neutral line.

You smiled at him empathetically, slightly guilty you had embarrassed him. You reached out your hand, beckoning your drink.

“Here…let’s switch.”

You fingers brushed at the exchange, and you blushed, the warmth of his skin penetrating your own. If he noticed, he didn’t let it show, taking a quiet sip of his flavorless, bitter coffee.

An awkward silence fell over the two of you, agonizingly different from the laughter just seconds before.

You were beginning to think that he really only was fond of you because you brought him coffee. Sure, you had polite conversation but it never really passed surface level. Not to mention you always initiated it. Maybe Miguel was just playing along, desperately waiting for you to leave him to his work and study.

You sighed, your tone possibly letting on to more than you would’ve liked. You stood, flexing your legs and taking a sip from your cooling coffee, ready to breathe air that wasn’t so endlessly stiff.

“Why- why do you drink coffee with so much sweetness in it?”

You paused, looking at Miguel with surprise. He’d never asked you a question like that. A question about you.

“I uh- well,” you laughed a little bit, still a little startled at the sudden interjection, “black coffee is too bitter for me. The sugar and cream lets me enjoy it.”

“But coffee is meant to energize you, you aren’t supposed to enjoy it.”

You lifted a skeptical brow. “That’s a pretty serious take, don’t you think?”

Miguel paused, lips pressed together in thought before he replied, “I’m a serious guy.”

You laughed, a little quieter now, leaning back onto the table. But this time, closer to him. If you were paying attention, the way his eyes looked at your new position might of told you he noticed.

“I gathered.”

Silence fell over the two of you like a weighted blanket. But now, you had hope that he might want this conversation to continue. That he liked it- you.

“How about this Mr. Serious,” you leaned in, “I’ll give your black coffee another shot if you do the same for my sugar and cream.”

He scoffed, but when the corners of his mouth quirked up you knew the proposition interested him- if only a little bit.

“Absolutely not. I already did try it.”

“First impressions aren’t always accurate, y’know.” You shook your mug, the light brown liquid creating a small whirlpool.

“Try it? For me?”

He glanced at you, and although you thought yourself educated on his eyes and their looks, you were stumped by this one. It was entirely alien to you- there was something in it that you couldn’t place.

You liked it.

He let out a sigh, and held his hand out. You grinned, taking his mug and swapping it for your own.

You both took a sip, and you forced yourself not to wrinkle your nose.

His coffee was extremely bitter- as close as coffee could get to the bean. If his scowl and general demeanor was grown and grind into a beverage, his drink of choice is what it would taste like.

However, it was extremely warm. Somehow it hadn’t cooled off in the fifteen minutes since you had poured it. It’s bitter bliss seeped down your throat and made home in your chest. It was almost calming.

You opened your eyes, surprised to be as content as you were with the drink.

You glanced at Miguel, whose lips were pulled into a tight line. His brows were drawn in thought, eyes glimmering in the hologram light.

“Well?” You asked, rocking on your heels.

“You first.”

You paused, running your tongue over you teeth to remember. “It was a bit gross. But honestly? No bad.”

He nodded, and sighed. “Yours wasn’t….bad either.”

You gasped, a wide smile spreading across your face in stunned victory. “So you liked it.”

“I never said that.” He said, narrowing his brows.

You raised yours. “Didn’t have too.”

He shook his head, handing you the coffee mug. You looked at him as if to ask are you sure? To which he rolled his eyes and pushed it closer to your chest.

You sighed, taking his cup and swapping mugs for the last time. When you looked up at him, sending him a gentle smile, you noticed a thin line of cream that lined his dark lips. You stifled your laughter, stepping forward to a clueless and confused Miguel.

“What are you-“

“Stay put, you have a little-“

You brought your hand up to his face, cradling is course skin under your palm. Your movement stuttered, just for a moment, savoring the feeling of his rough jaw.

You lifted a gentle thumb, your touch but a whisper on his skin as wiped the sweetness from his upper lip. Contrary to his jaw, his lips were soft under your print, molding to your movement with ease.

You imagine they’d taste like coffee.

You paused, your eyes drifting from his lips to his eyes. When they met yours, they were the softest brown you’d ever remember seeing them. It could be how close you were, feeling his slow breath on your nose. It could be how small, short the moment was, catching his facade in a moment of weakness.

But you think, hopefully, foolishly, that it might be how good it felt- to be this close.

You drew your hand away, still staring at the warmth. You settled yourself on the floor, holding your cup with both hands, the once steaming glass now a cold comparison to his face.

“You…you had some cream left on your face.” You laughed weakly, your gaze looking to the side. “I didn’t want Lyla to make fun of you.”

You paused, uncomfortable with the silence your created.

“Sorry.”

Miguel stared at you for a moment, with that same glimmer you couldn’t quite place. He cleared is throat, eyes flitting between your eyes and your lips.

“It’s- okay…I-“ He paused, eyes finding your again, “thank you.”

He had whispered, speaking as though if he has said it any louder he would’ve scared you away. It was so- gentle compared to the gruffness of his voice. Warm.

The silence that followed was completely novel from the past dips in conversation. It was full of tension, thick and suffocating. It felt as if you had swallowed cement, every breath trapped in your collarbone and buried in your throat.

You stepped back, your vision so deep in his own- their intensity making it feel as though there wasn’t anything else to look at. Even in their softer colors, they were so deeply overwhelming it felt like they had woken something visceral in you. It wasn’t fear, or terror-

It was fondness.

“Well- I think I need to get my own rest,” you tore your gaze from his, setting your coffee down on the table next to him, “I won’t be needing this- I don’t want caffeine dreams. You’re welcome to finish it- now that you like it. A little.”

You smiled up at him, the thrum of your heart and the heat of your breath tickling your skin.

“Goodnight, Miguel.”

His chest rumbled, preparing to speak, before he sighed quietly and quickly, another genuine smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Goodnight.”

You took one last look at the brown- intimate and tailored to yours. One look at the coffee cups, different in every sense but comforting none the less.

One look at the man who may have just given you the home you’d been envious of.

As you slung off into the the void, you smiled at it all, welcoming the shudders of warmth that pooled in your stomach at the revelation.

︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎

The next morning, you woke up in your office yet again, the early morning chill crawling up your spine and beckoning you to wake.

The first thing your eyes were met with was your mug, matte in the morning light.

It was empty, a yellow note rested under it.

I didn’t want it to go to waste.

︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎

Part 2

[eemamminy-art]

I was talking with some friends about it just now and I wanted to share my headcanons for the bachelor/ettes ages in stardew valley! These are just my own personal interpretations of them and of course you can disagree if you feel differently, but I wanted to share anyway! I actually put a lot of thought into picking them and have reasons for each of them being the ages they are, which I summarized a little bit below :3

Alex - 20 He seems like he's still in this mindset of someone who just graduated high school and is about to move on to bigger things, but he's spinning his wheels talking about all the things he's gonna do and never taking meaningful steps toward achieving those things (until meeting the farmer, that is)

Elliott - 32 He seems like someone who maybe had a privileged background and lots of opportunities, spent a few years in a career and just realized he yearned for something more romantic and wistful out of life. He has these lines that seem kind of out of touch and idealistic, which makes me think he hasn't had to struggle too much in life but wants to experience that in order to live out his dreams as a writer (thus, living in the conditions he does and trying to live a very simple life in the valley)

Harvey - 35 He has to skew older just due to him being a doctor with his own clinic, but Harvey seems like someone who doesn't have too much practical experience in life and relationships, and also isn't really good at taking care of himself. So mid-30's fits perfect: still at that stage where he hasn't quite found himself or had a lot of experiences but has a very extensive education and on the surface seems very put-together.

Shane - 30 There's all sorts of reasons why Shane went off the rails (general listlessness in life, Jas' parents passing away, maybe unfulfilled dreams?) but I picked 30 for him as like, he had been struggling with all those aforementioned things and then hitting that milestone birthday kind of was a wakeup call that compounded his mental health struggles. I think he could even be older than that, honestly, but I like the idea of him still being somewhat young but just hitting that sort of "now what?" feeling in his late 20's and never pulling out of it.

Sebastian - 28 To me, Sebastian is similar to Shane in the sense of not having a direction in life and just getting by with the bare minimum while being unhappy overall. He has less life experience than Shane seems to so I put him in his 20's, but I like to think of him as someone going through a quarter life crisis who is maybe a bit more immature than people his own age but has no idea how to course correct and opts to just sleep his problems away as a means of coping with his depression.

Sam - 25 I like to lean into Sam's relationship with his little brother and the role he plays as the man of the house while his father is overseas, so I see him as someone who has ambitions in life but he is very caring and sentimental toward his family so he has been stalling his own life in order to care for Vincent, since he feels like he's the only one who can.

~~~

Maru - 21 Given the way her dad talks about her "bright future" I imagine her being in college still. I liked the idea of her and Sebastian having a decently large age gap too, to better highlight how dysfunctional their relationship is and how she looks up to him while he is unable to connect with her in any positive way. On that note, I think her being so much younger and finding more success than Sebastian also could contribute to their sibling issues.

Penny - 23 I think with Penny I put the least thought into with picking her age-- she's someone who is relatively naive and inexperienced in the world but she has an air of maturity to her as a result of her parentification. She could easily skew older or younger than this, but putting her at this age just felt right!

Leah - 26 I see Leah as being someone who is well into adulthood but still quite young, but old enough to have experience living on her own in a way that makes her so self-sufficient as she is. I can imagine her leaving home at a young age and really struggling to make ends meet for several years while creating her art. Also her creeping toward 30 could be a reason for her ex to become so pushy about her settling down to have kids and a stable, boring life, as that's the expectation for a lot of women as they get older (or at least, after 30+).

Emily - 29 She just has big sister vibes to me. I wanted her to be older than a lot of the other characters who are from Pelican Town, as this idea that like, she's always been looking out for them like they're her siblings. :3 Plus she just has wine aunt energy, I wanted her to be older than the rest.

Abigail - 23 I think I make her older than a lot of people do, though I still keep her quite young at 23. She's in college still so I wanted her to be around that age, but maybe just going through it slower than her peers. The kind of person that had to retake classes because she didn't plan out her studying or homework appropriately, or she got overwhelmed and dropped classes, or she took a semester or two off, you know! That sort of thing!

Haley - 19 Out of all of these characters, Haley seems the most immature to me so I wanted her to be very close to high school age. She has these desires to shop and to travel and to just enjoy herself, she's not really thinking about the future because she is so young she doesn't really have to. She doesn't really think much about other people initially either, because she has this worldview that doesn't extend much farther beyond herself.

[aforeffective]

my headcanons of the socs' families, as created by me at 12:30 am instead of sleeping

(remember that these are just my personal headcanons so even if you disagree with me, please be respectful) (also some characters have less than others, i apologize about that. i promise i love all of them)

this is long so its below the cut.

trigger warning for bad parenting ig? basically it is exactly the level you would expect in the outsiders. there is not graphic explanations of abuse but definitely insinuations

marcia meyrink-mariani

her parents are great and they love her very much and she is their pride and joy

BUT her parents both grew up in lower-income families

they both grew up to have successful careers so they were able to get from like lower-middle class to like upper middle class

and both of her parents are pressured by their own parents to work to keep the status of the family because they want to see marcia get what they could never provide their kids

so her parents and her grandparents all love her very much and have great intentions

but now they are unintentionally kinda neglectful just because they are ALWAYS at work, so that they are able to provide marcia with everything she could ever want

i do think she is very close to her parents when they are actually home though

and because of their pasts of growing up in lower-income families, they aren't as judgmental as the other west side families, hence why marcia isn't as against two-bit and the greasers as her friends are

they liked her relationship with trip but they are also very supportive when she breaks up with him and begins dating two-bit

last name headcanon: meyrink-mariani. meyrink is her mom's maiden name while mariani is her dad's last name.

beverly jitney-bush

her mom is absolutely a toxic pageant/ballet mom (yes bev does pageants and ballet) (or at least she did when she was younger)

her dad is always "gone at work" but both bev and her mom know that he's with his girlfriend (who is probably controversially younger than him. like not too badly to the point where its close to bev's age/being illegal. but definitely like 5-10 years younger than him)

like this is a well known fact. everyone knows that he's cheating but her mom never acknowledges it so everyone else just kinda ignores it

due to the ballet and pageant stuff, bev's mom is very controlling when it comes to her health and her body

bev tries to spend a lot of time at brill's house to escape her mom's control but her mom will find excuses to keep her at home

bev hates both of her parents and honestly just wishes her dad would run off with his girlfriend so that she'd at least only have to deal with one bad parent

cherry valance

okay so she's the only one that has canon family info in the musical so we're going to build off of that

her dad is an alcoholic and not great to cherry or her mom

high school "sweethearts" but not in the same way as brill's parents. brill's parents stayed together cause they love each other. cherry's parents stayed together cause her mom felt obligated

when i was coming up with it, my brain kept thinking of daisy from the great gatsby; how she married tom because she had lost hope of running into gatsby again and then the whole "beautiful little fool" thing and that is definitely how cherry's mom felt when she was pregnant with cherry

and i think because she knows cherry has grown up to not "be a fool", she pushes cherry towards bob in hopes that cherry won't get herself into trouble

due to this daisy comparison, i'm going to say that cherry's dad was probably her mom's second love but she never truly got over her first love

cherry def read the great gatsby and just felt so depressed by daisy because it is literally her mom

i'm going to say that cherry's mom doesn't work so she is home with cherry but she's never really bothering with her. she'd rather hire a nanny to deal with cherry as a kid, and then just lets cherry watch herself as she gets older

bob sheldon

his parents are so neglectful

they just do not have the time (or the want) to care about him

he could be sitting next to them at the dinner table being like "yeah i murdered 30 people and now cherry and i are gonna drop out and go on the run together and get hitched" and they'd be completely not listening like "oh wow, that's nice honey"

he acts out in hopes of getting his parents' attention (iirc randy says this in the book) but even then they literally just do not care

he'll come home to an empty house with a note on the counter that just says 'your problem is dealt with, be smarter next time'

they literally just do not care enough to lecture him or acknowledge him causing trouble

i hc that they also barely even acknowledged him post his death either and cherry had to pressure them to plan the funeral (and she had to do a lot of the work for them) (despite being literally a teenager) (and doing this while dealing with her own grief and also the fallout of all of her friendships)

paul holden

his parents literally only care about him when it comes to what he does for their reputation

as long as he gets good grades, does well on the football team, and can attend fancy business dinners with them and make the family look good, they do not care about anything else he does

they definitely taught him that as long as he does the above, they will throw money to make any problems he has go away

which definitely screwed with both his sense of right and wrong and also just how he views love in general

i view his parents as people who were in love before but don't really care for each other any more but refuse to get divorced (again, all they care about is their reputation to the other wealthy west side families)

so paul has a very toxic view on what love is

and they also taught him nothing about handling emotions

so he is soooo bad with his emotions

his parents definitely having screaming matches at each other a lot

he has definitely snuck out in the middle of the night and went and slept at one of the guys' house because his parents wouldn't stop screaming and he needed sleep

chet baker

chet's parents are not great

his dad is a cop (this is inspired by skyforcherry's chet headcanons because i just love the idea of one of the boys' fathers being on the police force and being one of the people investigating bob's death)

he has two older sisters but they have moved out and gotten married and begun their own families

chet's mom loves chet but when he was a kid, whenever she would do anything for him, chet's dad would yell at her for "spoiling" him and saying that it is emasculating that chet needs a woman's help doing everything (despite the fact that this is literally just a child wanting to spend time with his mom)

chet was also very close with his sisters as a kid, until his dad made him feel bad about it, saying he needed to stop acting like one of the girls

so yeah, his mom and his sisters could barely do anything for chet without his dad complaining that they were making him girly and "messing him up" (not for lack of wanting to. they do love him but their husband/dad can be scary when he's angry) (he's not outright physically abusive but definitely threatens that he would 'be able to get away with it' when he's angry)

so the only people in his house that he can really get attention from is his dogs, but even then his dad will find excuses about how depending on animals for companionship isn't manly

when he is home, chet's dad will be very nitpicky about everything he does. if chet does anything wrong or just in a way he doesn't like, there will be yelling

and he will poke and prod until chet finally reacts and yells back

and then chet's mom will begin crying because she just hates the yelling and fighting

and then chet will feel bad so he'll stop arguing back and just let his dad yell

and after a few minutes, his dad will stop and chet is just so tired of this because it is a cycle where his dad will do this and then apologize and be like "i didn't mean to get that mad, i didn't mean to set off your mother, let's both apologize to her"

and then they do this all over again a few days later (over such minor things)

because of this, chet has learned to avoid home unless he feels like being alone, in which case he'll lock himself in his room with his dogs and avoids interactions with his parents to avoid argument

terrence "trip" dipp

trip lives with his parents, his aunt, and his cousin (melvin)

his uncle passed away, leaving his aunt widowed with a young son so they moved in with trip's family (it was his dad's brother)

trip honestly doesn't interact with his parents much

they're fine. they work, they come home, they all eat together as a family, and then everyone splits off to do their own things

his dad can definitely be harsh, especially to his sister-in-law and he has definitely been caught complaining about having to deal with this "random kid" living in his house (aka his nephew)

trip is very close with his aunt

the reason she moved in is because she has some sort of chronic illness that causes her to get sick a lot, which was only made worse after her husband died

so she moved in to get help with her illness and melvin

it was trip's mother's idea and trip's father only agreed out of respect for his now deceased brother

trip acts annoyed by melvin but he has grown to care for him as a brother (but he would never admit it)

clark "brill" brillstein

okay imo his parents are the best of all the socs' parents

they were high school sweethearts that got married (and pregnant with brill) like within the summer after graduation

because of this, they're younger than the other parents. the others all are in their 40s, having had their kids in their 20s but brill's parents are only like 36

they are THE parents of the group. if any of brill's friends need anything, whether it's just advice or someone to talk to, literally anything, they go to brill's parents. he has come home to every single one of his friends talking to his parents before. it is a common occurrence.

such a healthy family dynamic

yes they love brill's friends and want to act as their parents but they will never let brill feel sidelined to his friends because of their attention

[manicpixiefelix]

This is going to sound so pretentious to say, but I think that one of the most incredible things Emerald Fennell did with Saltburn was give it's audience both everything and nothing all at once. But which I mean that every moment we see on screen is so carefully chosen and wonderfully detailed. Every second of the story that Oliver chooses to tell us is perfectly crafted to give us the exact story he wants to create, nothing more and nothing less. Saltburn's narrative lives and dies in Oliver's obsessive recollection, his confessional. Its why these characters who are so clearly and wonderfully rich below the surface can, at a glance, come off as shallow. Oliver didn't care!! And the one he did care about, he gatekept so jealously (I saw someone else's meta discussing this and I absolutely agree) to the point where we as an audience barely know who Felix was. We don't even know who Oliver was, at the end of the day; he was manipulative and ambitious and obsessive and - I could not tell you a single thing he genuinely liked that wasn't Felix. Because that's it, isn't it. That's the story of Saltburn. Everything revolved around Felix, and Felix was everything, and so Oliver's story only focuses on the absolute tragedy of having everything and then losing everything in that one Summer.

And nothing else.

Emerald gave us the gift of Oliver's everything, and the vague, nebulous nothing that he cares about just behind it. The hints of more, jumping off points of intrigue and imagination, things we can extrapolate from and speculate about. There is so much room in this world around it's implications and offhand remarks for us to all build upon. We don't even know if Venetia is Felix's older or younger sister???? There is limitless space to play in this world, both before the events of the film, but also between the few moments Oliver chooses to show us. We see twenty minutes of Oliver's Full First Year at Oxford before he goes to Saltburn, so much of how he falls for Felix and becomes his friend goes so unsaid and unseen, little more than a montage, and Barry and Jacobs's phenomenal chemistry selling their closeness, so we don't have to know each detail.

But that's the thing, that's just bliss; the falling in love is a given in this story, he opens with that. These moments would simply be nothing on the road to everything.

Its like Emerald Fennell is kissing me directly on the forehead and giving her blessing to fill in the blanks. She knew we would; she literally said she knew Saltburn would be a hit on Tumblr, she knew what she was doing. This film was made for those of us who like to over analyse media and also create vivid and intricate headcanons and sometimes both at the same time.

Tumblr, and creatives especially, love Saltburn because it deliberately lets us play in its world, in that sweet spot between everything and nothing, all at once.

[eintausendschoen]

They grow up so fast.

Rhea's and Cronos's kids. Yes, all together for one pic. No, they didn't fight, I didn't bribe them, no one was hurt this was a peaceful affair I am totally fine and I totally did not stitch single portraits together because it was less of a hassle.

Oh, a few of them transitioned their appearance growing up. They have their reasons.

👀 Detail below from left to right (with a few shoutouts) 👀

Poseidon Enosichthon (Enesidaone) Themeliouchos — The pale, lively kid with the always busy hands. What happened to him? A younger brother and his detached father, basically. He's excited about life in general, but still very bad at saying no to his family (or anything else), so he'll end up doing everything at once and trouble always finds him. Being the middle kid ain't always easy.

Big shoutout to @rin-sith for the huge inspiration her Poseidon design was for his clothes and armour pieces. My Poseidon doesn't believe in clothes, usually.

Demeter Sito Thesmophorus — Though she isn't technically the big sister, she always took to the task of keeping her arms open for her siblings, no matter the grief it brought her. Always will she be singing songs, in part to forget the lot bestowed on her by her brothers and her father and keep on – but also in part to give the joys of life to gods and mortals who walk her realm and feel at ease with her. As Rhea's kid she'll uphold tradition gently and firmly, and feed everyone who comes to her table, even if it costs her.

Hestia — She might be gentle, but she can never be forgotten. To all that come to her hearth she will listen and grant them protection, even if this sacred solemnity cost her the arms of a lover. She is a lover to none, and loved by all, first she receives sacrifice. Herons gave her their wings to stoke flame, brush out cold cinders. She would rather her skin be stained white by flour than black by soot, though. Her baking is still the very best.

Zeus Olympios Panhellenios — Wide are the shoulders of this son of titans, and they carry burdens of judgement across all Greece. Over the years he aquired a thick skin on them, but never do the troubles of his family wear him down for long, although the same family has brought him to the brink of constant paranoia. The jewellery he chose to wear on the day Typhon cleared out Olympus is something he will never again take off, like the memory and fear of defeat it is part of him, conductor to lightning and passion.

A big grateful nod to @justcommander for the long and wonderful talks about Typhon, he is part of all my thoughts about Zeus now.

Hera Syzygia Alexandros — The sharp eyes of this queen of queens will trace you through darkest night. By her fathers sickle and her great veil she safeguards and upholds sacred laws and traditions and unions, and as protector of men her word triumphs. A guardian of women, she neither tolerates betrayal nor does she hold the cutting edge of her jealousy back for the sake of those who must obey discriminating law against those who the same law allows to overstep a hallowed bond of two. The shade of Baphomet suits you, honey.

Hades — In form and might and character he outgrew his father by far. He is still the same quiet and thoughtful person, but despite the darkness, he, too, is a guardian of life, a keeper of flames. In his gentle hand rests the light of life, on his other arm coils the means to give it, to take it away. Fiercely he rules over the line between realms, allowing hardly any crossing, but on a late summers evening he'll walk the golden shaded groves among the company of all flowers of the earth, too.

See, lovely @ruthlessness69 , how confident he has grown? The kindness of your Hades helped him. A lot! Ask Persephone, though, she'll tell you that he can solve his beloved crosswords without extra light, because he is still a big glowing kid in his heart.

All designs by me. Rhea's aspects come with a broader frame, more pronounced colours and animal traits, and no fear to show skin. Cronos shows in matters of lines, contrast and temper, and a certain tendency towards introversion.

So, what do you think? Next level eldritch? 🖤

[fictionalslvr]

SYNOPSIS: Leon hated you, but even more, hated himself. The pure anger growing because of his selfish mind. He was just jealous, jealous you were younger and prettier. But his chest couldn't help himself. Not on this case.

PAIRING: Vendetta¡Leon x Younger agent¡Reader

WORD COUNT: 1.148k.

WARNINGS: Age gap, but reader is +18! (Not really Enemies) to lovers, not use of y/n, based on the lyrics of "Cigarette Daydreams - Cage the Elephant"

Vorfreude:(n.) The joyful, intense anticipation that comes from imagining future pleasures.

NOTES: I'm trying really hard to get out of this writer block, so I'm writing slowly. This is just the start of what can turn into a series, so tell me if you guys like to motivate me to continue writing!

“You can drive all night…”

Leon really could. On nights like this, when the stars aren't visible in the obscure sky, his hands would grip on the steering wheel and drive towards nothing. He's definitely wrong for doing that. Driving while being drunk. Barely recognizing anything on the road, the semaphore lights look like a beam that irritates his eyes. Those same eyes who used to shine brighter than that. Those damn eyes who used to look bigger. Those same eyes who are now tired, exhausted, spent, worn out, every single synonym you could search up for to describe those parts he couldn't recognize anymore on himself. He's now nearly forty, and he never imagined this. The younger and pure him would always thought that forty was the age of success, where he would be resting all day, without work to do, without people in his mind, without worries, nothing to worry about. Silly him for thinking that.

“Lookin' for the answers in the pourin' rain…"

He never had his answers, never even had one. He would always question himself, like why he's alive and most of his friends dead. This wasn't a bit fair, and not a single fair for that big rounded younger Leon. When he looks to the past, he hopes he gets blind to not see those things again. Forget everything that happened, the days he spent in pure automatic, the bad things he said, the disgusting things he saw and had to participate in. Leon used to think that things would get better, when it didn't.

“You wanna find peace of mind

Lookin' for the answer

If we can find a reason, a reason to change

Lookin' for the answers

If you can find a reason, a reason to stay

Standin' in the pourin' rain…”

That poor old dog had his reasons to stay. Some reasons even seem foolish, like taking care of his dog. He always thought what his dear four-legged friend would do without him, he would probably die, and he can't let this happen. The big Irish Setter called Luis was a gift from Ashley after some years, she said it was to help them to deal with what happened in Spain. The blond was septic at first, and refused to call a damn dog as Luis. But they were very similar. Those eyes followed him everywhere, the way his fur looked like his hair, and soon…he found himself calling him that way he promised not to. It was stupid. But that stupid act helped. Leon felt like Luis was with him all the time, that his friend were there on his side. And he caught himself chatting with the animal, telling him how the day was tiring, and he seemed to understand everything, practically paying attention to his words. He would sniff Leon, place his snout below his hands to earn some caresses and help him forget the subject quickly. He sure is a clever dog, and he rapidly got attached to the pet, or better saying, his friend. Now, the man would enter his house and found the old dog running to him, jumping on his legs to earn his attention. And that futile act would take out a sincere chuckle out of him, only he could do that.

Old as he is now, he asked the D.S.O to work less. And as he worked so much for them, they granted it. Letting him do little jobs, more like a detective. And that only earned him more headaches. Specifically saying, one headache of a woman, his partner that he despises so much. That voice of yours would get into his brain and annoy him.

—”You drank last night again, right? I can see you're not looking well.”

That got him rolling his eyes up every time, groaning in bitterness. Why would you care about him that much? You never did, and he knows it. You were so much younger, so much brighter, so much like him in the past, and he hated this. You were always such a tease, that damn smile plastered on your face like he wasn't worthy of that happiness. Leon hates you. With the depths of his heart, his repugnance about you is real, and he knows himself enough for that. He just doesn't understand. But he thinks he does, and silly him for thinking that.

His true impliccance to you is your happiness. You can't be happy if he isn't, that's obvious. He started to dig why you're happy and he's not. In the serious cases you were alongside with him, you never took it one hundred percent seriously, you would make jokes all the time and he would just ignore. But deep inside, he was holding himself not to laugh.

—”Damn, where's everyone going?” — Leon looked behind, watching you circle on your place, searching for human sights.

—”Bingo.”

And his answer came out of nowhere. So suddenly you didn't expect it. That took a single giggle of you, your eyes squinting as you shook your head to it.

—”Yeah, okay old man.”

He found himself proud, proud that his same old joke made some effect. Even if it was on someone he hated it. Leon sighed softly, turning back to his place and wondering if you would find his other jokes funny. You were always laughing, so it would be easy to make you laugh. But that wasn't the time for it, and neither was important. Leon quickly got back to his serious face and focused on the mission. But you, you were surprised to see such a side of him, even a fraction of it. He never was the one talking to you, and you just thought he was the serious old man you heard of. And honestly, you heard a bit of his story, of his mades and how impressionnant he is. But you would never admit it, because that would be invasive, and you're not prepared to understand his pain.

But Leon is a bad liar, a really bad one. And he couldn't lie to himself, couldn't lie when his hurt hung to each other, not when his pupils dilated without his consent every time, not when his hands started to sweat or the words slipped out of his tongue incontrollably. He knew this was love, in the most bad time to come in, and the most bad person to fell in love, but there's no denial. The problem is, Leon Kennedy is also not going to accept it easy, so that's a big problem from now on. Even bigger if the problem is you, the so annoying rookie that's he's slowly wishing you two are on the same mission, the same rookie that laughs of his stupid jokes, that rookie that brings some desserts some times and he pretends not to like. That damn rookie.

[rainbowmothed]

── I'M NOT A VIOLENT ANGEL. I DON'T KNOW WHY I BITE.

· ★ · basically just me rewriting vaggie's fall + chaggie first meeting. trigger warning for blood, gore, murder, classic extermination stuff!

Vaggie felt the pressure settle on her shoulders as she spread her wings, lines of black smearing across the crimson sky of the underworld in a flurry of feathers as she and her kin descended from the beaming light illuminating the once darkened sky, atmosphere thick with the already fresh scent of bitter blood.

Guilt was all Vagatha could manage to muster in her soul, her very being. She never liked to be an exterminator. She didn't know why– most of her kin adored slaughtering the “demon scum” of the underworld. And Vaggie knew she was no different than them, no less shameful in comparison despite feeling butterflies churn in her stomach before she drew her angelic spear. Six years she had spent as one of Adam's top girls, always cast to be on the front lines, praised by her peers for being one of the most merciless, blood-thirsty ones out there.

And oh, how she despised it with every single fiber of her being.

Vaggie cringed as she remembered the proud slaps on the back and reassuring pats shoulders after every extermination as they rose back to the skies above afterwards, the shouts of “good jobs” and “that was even better than last year” filling the air, choking her, suffocating her as the words shoved their way down her throat until soft tears pricked her eyes and her skin flustered with shameful heat.

God, she hated her job. And it was strange. She was created for this. Created in the Heavens for the sole purpose of reigning massacre upon people who were seen as nothing more than the dirt under their heels, when, in reality, Vaggie knew they were far more than that. They were once human souls, who once had lives, and who once had families, who maybe still did have families. She knew she'd killed at least one husband who had a wife and kids at home, waiting, and one wife or one child. Likely far more than that.

So many denizens had crumbled to their knees at her hands as she lodged the blade of the spear into their flesh. The flesh she was meant to see as worthless, puny, disgusting, sinful. Wretched. But the flesh she saw only bore hints of light, shimmering under the surface, waiting to be unveiled, until it was cut short and dulled as their black blood splattered across the alleyway floors and concrete sidewalks, heads slamming down as they met their gruesome fates. Perished.

And this year, Vagatha knew she would do the same thing. Or rather, should do the same thing. She was given a sharp nod to descend as she continued through the air. Her previous guilty thoughts had made her work up a tad bit of a nervous sweat, so she pulled away the mask that concealed her face, swiping away the sweat that stuck to her forehead like bothersome glue. Not bothering to put it back on, Vaggie simply attached it to her waist, feeling it thud against her hip as she flew down into the alleyway, boots finally making contact with the glass-lined gravel below.

Expecting to see some looming, wretched soul, Vaggie was only greeted with a cowering little child, far younger than her, far less defenseless. Where were its parents? It didn't deserve to fall. Not like this. “Go, run.” Vaggie urged, before she could form a second thought about her own actions, pulling her blade far away from the thing's throat and waving it off. Sparing it. The guilt had become unfathomable, and she was no longer even in control of her own body. Pathetic.

However, the sounds of footsteps behind her made Vagatha quickly snap out of her daze, wings perking up with surprise as she drew her blade, expecting some idiotic, bold sinner, only to feel a hand grasp her shoulder. Vaggie’s eyes widened as her lips parted, attempting to let out a flurry of excuses as she saw Lute’s face before her. Grinning, merciless.

Oh God.

Vaggie let out a shrill shriek of pain as she felt the angelic weapon pierce her eye, gouging it out and letting it roll onto the ground below. Vagatha’s stomach churned with nausea as she naturally fell to her knees, letting out another cry as she felt Lute’s boot press against the top of her skull.

“Traitor scum like you have no place in Heaven.”

Vaggie attempted to choke out a plea, a beg for mercy, but was cut short as she felt Lute’s gloved hands wrap around the base of her wings, pulling back with relentless force as they were ripped from her body, another pathetic splatter of neon green, angelic blood splashing across the ground. Vaggie felt like she was going to retch from the pure amount of adrenaline and pain pumping through her skin, her being, her very soul.

Guilt. Harsher than before.

Guilt for betraying Heaven. Guilt for slaughtering the people of the underworld. Guilt for not living up to her superiors’ standards of her. Guilt for every single thing she had ever done wrong, crashing down on her at once.

—

Vaggie shakily stumbled up to her knees as Adam and Lute walked away, snickering under their breaths and beaming with nothing but pride. No guilt themselves; nothing but happiness and unfiltered glee at finding a traitor amongst their ranks and properly punishing her for it.

All for sparing one measly child.

Vaggie tore away the mask that still hung to her belt, exterminator uniform soaked with blood and torn in some places. In a moment of anguish, mixed in a blurred puddle with hints of anger, she ripped it all from her body, leaving herself in the clothes she had underneath. Vaggie tossed it into the dumpster that lay against the wall of the alleyway, her neon green blood splattering down the side of it as she threw it to be picked later.

Still weakly clutching the spear in her hand, she leaned her back against another dumpster, trying not to brush the stumps of her ripped off wings against anything to prevent any further agonizing pain. She already had plenty of that, her eye now an empty socket, vision nowhere to be found beside the one she still had. Thank Lute for that, she mused. Didn't take her vision completely.

Vagatha was silently praying for some random imp to come pick her off. Finish the game her superiors had started, end her pathetic life once and for all. Lay her corpse against the dirt of the ground she once saw as beneath her. Funny, seeing as how the people she once saw as her victims, albeit with a bit of shame, could slaughter her right here and now with absolute ease.

Vaggie didn't even cry. The tears would've hurt her eye too much. She felt them boiling under the surface, yes, but they never trespassed that burning point, never spilling or teetering over the edge just right to drop. Vagatha soon enough heard footsteps approaching. Great, her future murderer had finally come, just as she felt herself drifting in and out of consciousness due to the sheer amount of blood loss.

Instead of the expression of a cruel murderer, she was greeted by the face of a shocked denizen. Gorgeous, with blonde hair, streaked with honey hues. Pale skin, with rosy cheeks, akin to that of a marionette. Beautiful. If this woman was the last thing Vaggie was to see, she would definitely be able to go out happy compared to her earlier predicament. The bitterness flushed out of her soul as she stared up at the demon, waiting for the blade to press against her neck. For her to end her suffering.

But it didn't.

Instead, a bandage was carefully wrapped around her missing eye, the denizens fingers soft and delicate. Perfect compared to her own, scarred with the memories of the lives that had been taken by them. It made her expression soften. It was the little things that made Vaggie swoon like that, and this was definitely one of those little things.

Was she falling for the woman who she thought was going to slaughter her just a moment ago? It was a tad funny, actually. The flusterment only grew as she saw her tuck a piece of blonde hair behind her porcelain-hued ear, diverting her gaze as she cheekily smiled.

This girl would definitely be the death of Vaggie, but in a completely different way than she was originally anticipating.

[phi8]

Recently rewatched Gravity Falls with its resurgence online, and I was itching to give my take on an older Mabel with an absolute unit of a Waddles (who is a regular farm pig after all). To go along with this, I also wrote some fanfic: a letter from Dipper to Mabel, about his return to Gravity Falls years after the show. Read it on AO3 or below!

Dear Mabel,

I hope everything is going well back home!  I miss you already, but it’s so good to be back in Gravity Falls too. A  lot has changed since our summer here.

The first week of my internship at McGucket Labs has been amazing. McGucket has really transformed Northwest Manor into a fantastic campus (though he still insists everyone call it “the Hootenanny Hut”)! There are so many  brilliant scientists and engineers here, and most of them have a refreshingly open mind about the nature and use of all the weirdness you can find in Gravity Falls. My experience with all that stuff is already paying off big time. Yesterday some PHD dude asked for my opinion on practical applications of necromancy (I told him it was a bad idea)!

Candy says hi by the way! It’s funny, for me this internship is all the way across the country, but for her it’s practically in her back yard, even though we both got that scholarship. Also, she tells me Grenda is more or less officially part of the Austrian aristocracy at this point? Apparently she and that Marius duke guy got engaged, did you hear about that?? Turns out I’m completely out of the loop with your friend group.

Candy and I have been hanging out with, of all people, Pacifica and Gideon. Can you believe it? Pacifica works at Corduroy Lumber these days. Probably in some misguided sense to get back to her roots, but I think it’s doing her some actual good. Working with her hands has been teaching her valuable life lessons I guess. It makes it a bit weird if Wendy also comes hang out, because she’s technically Pacifica’s boss – but you know Wendy’s cool about that.

Gideon is still running the Tent of Telepathy, so, not all winners. But he’s turned into a more lovable kind of swindler I think, like a younger Stan. He’s honestly kinda funny now (except that he’s taller than me). Wendy also told me he has a thing for Pacifica, and once she did, I couldn’t unsee it. He’s all over her! Pacifica hasn’t noticed, even though they spend a lot of time together. Or maybe she just hasn’t deigned it with a reaction... Either way, both of them are a ball to go for a drink with, whoda thunk.

You also have a lot of hugs from Soos, Melody and the baby (Stan Jr is sooo cute). (Yes, I asked. Melody promised to make you godmother of the hypothetical next child. You owe me.) The Shack is as charmingly ramshackle as it was back when we were here, but Soos finally got the old man stink out. I’m staying in Grunkle Ford’s old secret office because our room was converted to baby chamber. I still haven’t gotten the Bill murals completely off the walls and I have no natural light down here, but I spend most of my time at Northwest Manor the Hootenanny Hut anyway.

Or in the woods! Being back here really was a good move for my Youtube channel, there’s so much more supernatural stuff here than in California, and people are loving it. (I saw you liked my last video, thanks!) I’m currently tracking down what I think is the actual Gobblewonker. I analyzed some detritus samples from the lake, and there were feces from a large reptile present. From what we know, none of the dinosaurs in the mine were aquatic, so my current hypothesis is that it’s an unrelated creature. Especially since, according to my research, the Gobblewonker story dates back at least a century. I also gotta show Ford some of my findings. You know they’ve come across some aquatic monsters in the Bermuda Triangle. (Have you also been getting his mails with scans of the fourth journal? Truly fascinating stuff.) Either way, I’ll keep you posted, and you’ll be able to watch the result online.

Give my love to mom and dad, and Waddles a tummy rub! Awkward sibling sign off, Dipper

PS. Along with the photo’s in the envelope is that stuff you wanted. Be safe with it! There’s a reason it’s illegal in the parts of the forest controlled by the gnomes. But also have fun, I have it on very good authority it’s the good stuff.

[henrysglock]

So...How Old Is Jane, Really?

Following up on this post about some time messiness I've noticed during my rewatch of ST. Again, if this has been talked about before, I haven't seen mention of it. So...bear with me.

1983, less 5 years, is 1978. That throws an initial wrench into "Terry tried to break El/Jane out of HNL in 1974".

It means all this ought to have happened in 1978:

However, Becky also says:

Terry has had Jane's nursery put up for 12 years. That means Jane should have been born in 1971, which means Jane should have been seven years old when Terry broke into HNL, which aligns well enough with El in ST4 being 7 years old mid-1979:

Okay, so let's say Terry did break into HNL in 1978 rather than 1974. What's the big whoop?

Well. The little blonde girl in Kali's rainbow room was played by Clara/Charlotte Ward, both of whom were 3-4 years old at the time (born 2013, ST2 was released in 2017).

So it's either Terry broke into HNL around 1974, saw 3-4 year old Jane (1971), and has been mind-broken for about 7 years, with Jane being 12 years old in 1983...or Terry broke into HNL in 1978, saw 3-4 year old Jane (1975), and has been mind-broken for 5 years, with Jane being 9 years old in 1983.

Someone's lying here...or mistaken.

This begs the question, at least from my end:

What if I've been thinking about it the wrong way? What if there's more than one Jane, rather than one Jane and one El?

What if we're dealing with two different Janes, one of whom is El?

So...what if this blonde girl is some other Jane, a girl who's years younger than Becky's Jane (1971)? This girl would have been born around 1975, which is congruent with one of the newspaper articles El leafs through in ST2 about Terry and baby Jane:

"...culminating in the abduction of Ives' baby daughter in the mid-1970s."

1971 is not the mid-1970s. The mid 1970s is 1974-1976. If Jane was born and abducted in the mid-1970s, then Terry's break-in would have to be after that point. So...Definitely not 1974. It's not physically possible, and it's not plausible, either, given the dates I laid out above from Becky. It's more likely to be around 1978.

This is later corroborated by the newspaper article we see during Terry's dream circle, when she's retrieving her gun from the safe:

"...as a special inquiry into a covert CIA operation, code-named MK Ultra, has expanded the extensive details about that which has been haunting the nation for the past decade."

MK Ultra was revealed to the public at large in 1975-1976, which means Terry could not have been retrieving her gun to break in before 1975 while also having this article exist the way it does.

The newspaper shown in that screenshot simply cannot exist before June 11th, 1975. It is physically impossible, given that MK Ultra is mentioned by name. Terry could not have broken in in 1974.

Additionally, the fact that the article mentions an expansion of details, especially when paired with that the article specifically says "that which has been haunting the nation for the past decade", leads me to believe it may have been written closer to 1977:

...given that MK Ultra was officially halted in 1972:

...meaning that any article written around 1977-1978 would have been referencing about a decade's worth of material/the nation would have been haunted by a) an article on other non-MK Ultra CIA operations published in December of 1974, b) the Rockefeller Commission's report in 1975, c) the Church Committee's report in 1976, and d) the FOIA discovery in 1977—in other words, as I said, events from the majority of the 1970s, aka "the past decade".

This same text (though in a different article...what is this, their Lorem Ipsum? Look how they duplicated the right-most paragraphs in the pic below) can be seen in ST1 as well:

We can even see both Richard and Martin Brenner being named in these texts, both of which create a network of "Jane was born in the mid-1970s, meaning Terry could not have come looking for her before the mid-1970s" and "MK Ultra was revealed to the public in 1975, meaning Terry could not have broken in before 1975 at the very earliest", which means regardless of which Brenner you're reading about...Terry broke in later than the fandom has been assuming.

This leads me to believe, given a lack of solid contradictory evidence, that Terry did, in fact, break in around 1978.

This is corroborated by the accessory comic Six, which states that Terry broke in in 1978. Accessory comics and novels, while not strictly canon, have been known to have small canon details peppered in before those things actually appear in canon (like Will seeing what appears to be Vecna's mindscape in a comic released years before ST4).

Terry could not have broken in before June of 1975, and yet...fandom wiki says 1974. And based on what?

An Instagram post.

When the actual show explicitly says differently? This is why we don't blindly trust the Wiki, kids. It doesn't tell the full truth.

Canon says Terry broke in after 1975. Canon specifically says she broke in circa 1978.

Anyway, the real questions remain:

Was Jane 6-7 in 1978, or was she 3-4?

Was Jane 11-12 in 1983, or was she 8-9?

Will Jane be 15-16 come 1987, or will she be 12-13?

The answer is...yes! (depending on which Jane you're referring to)

Which circles me right back around to the usual culprits.

Which like. Let me cook, ok?

An age gap of 12-13 (actor age)

and 15-16 (character age)?

Plus, some other bits and bobs linking Nell to Jane:

Alice in Wonderland

Casting and Costuming choices #1

Casting and Costuming choices #2

I'm wondering if I wasn't more correct here, here, and here than I originally thought.

[unholyhelbig]

Keep the kate angst coming pls

Title: Firecrest (Part 4/???)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Summary: Kate Bishop and y/n have an unspoken agreement that revolves around being enemies with benefits. But when Kate's new mentor is someone Y/n is very familiar with, things become complicated.

Warnings: Bad parenting, panic attacks, possible arson, descriptions of fire, fight scenes, blood, angst, and horrible grammar (I don't proofread)

[A/n: All of my Kate Bishop stories have a tendancy to flop, but this one is for you, six loyal readers, I love you!]

Bobbi Morse refused to release her hold on the duffle bag. It was comically pink but covered in different drawings that bled into the nylon as if the item had been wounded. You hated the color, despised it, really, but defacing it with sharpie markers seemed to settle your discontent.

Her other hand gripped her daughters shoulder with her usual confidence and you knew better than to pull away from her. The woman in front of you was only a head taller than you, her face pockmarked with zits of different pustules of width. When she smiled, her lips made an uncomfortable noise against her braces.

“Miss Morse, I promise you, Y/n will have a fantastic, safe, time.”

They were playing tug-of-war with the bag now. It was subtle enough that no one else would notice. But of course, Eleanor Bishop was always the first in the room to notice subtle. She materialized out of a Rolls-Royce that had a strange purple tint to it in the mountain sun.

“Oh, Bobbi, you have to relax.” The woman gabbed your mother in the side. If anyone else had ever tried that, they’d lose a hand or possibly a heart. “You think I would really send Katherine to Target Trails if it were dangerous? These are trained professionals.”

That seemed to relax Bobbi’s shoulders by half an inch. Your mother was not worried about safety. She had ensured that you knew how to take care of yourself from a young age, much younger than the counselor in front of you now.

The idea of leaving you in the middle of the forest wasn’t a problem either. You had survival skills, you could make a home for yourself out here in the wilderness and wander back to civilization on your own in time for school to start in the fall.

Bobbi trusted you. What she didn’t’ trust, was your powers. You had become less reactive over the years, relied on therapeutic techniques to control the fire that festered just below your fingertips. But there were moments, sporadic ones, where the heat got away from you and you were too groggy to chase it.

“Jessica, dear. Can you make sure that Katherine and Y/n are in the same bunk?”

“Mrs. Bishop, the assignments have been set for weeks, I can’t just-“ a crisp hundred dollar bill was slid across her neon clipboard. Her eyes widened, narrowed, but she snatched it up all the same. “Would you look at that? We just had a bed open up in the bullseye cabin.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but Bobbi was suddenly relinquishing her hold on your bag to cup both of your shoulders. At fifteen, you were nearly her height. She made a point never to bend down to speak to you. It was demeaning, and you both knew it. She addressed you like an adult in these moments.

“Okay, sweetie, remember what doctor Garner said.”

It wasn’t a question. Your coping mechanisms were drilled into your mind, tattooed against the softness of your brain. You were supposed to name five things in the room you could touch, five you could see, five you could hear, and five you could smell. By the time you’d puzzled it out, you had reached to the end of that ever-familiar heat.

There were other tools; an imaginary box to put your worries in, a safe-space that was fire retardant. But there were almost always moments you feared that nothing would work. That you’d torch a place and add more names to your ledger of misuse.

“I love you, firefly.” Bobbi kissed between your eyebrows and gave your shoulders an extra squeeze. “Send a smoke signal if you need me.”

She smiled jokingly before loading back into her jeep and expertly pulling from the gravel drive. She kicked up white dust behind her that tasted like the salt of the earth when you inhaled. Jessica smelled like sunscreen and sweat, and you stepped to the side before she had a chance to touch you in a nurturing way.

“Right, let’s get you to your bunk.”

There were four other girls in Bullseye, including Kate; America Chavez, who had somehow already found a stick to carve with a pocket-knife that should have been confiscated upon entry. Cassie Lang, a small blonde that had already claimed the top bunk. And Gwen Poole, a girl who would have loved your pink bag before you destroyed it, the tips of her hair dyed the offensive color.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s good to see you too, Katie.”

“Okay!” Jessica clapped her hands together, “Y/n, I’ll leave you to get settled. Dinner is at six and there is a mandatory campfire afterwards.”

She seemed to sense the tension and left fast enough not to get hit with the sticky screen door. She took the cabin steps two at a time and kicked up a trail of dirt much like Bobbi had. Kate had claimed the bottom bunk on your side of the cabin, leaving you with the rickety top.

“I hope you’ve curved that nasty bed-wetting habit of yours.” She said, just loud enough for the whole cabin to hear.

“Hope you packed an umbrella.”

Kate turned as white as a sheet and clutched her pillow to her chest. She could never tell if you were being serious or not. Of course, you weren’t. You’d never wet the bed. Setting it ablaze on the other hand? That wasn’t so far out of the realm of possibility.

“You take that back,”

A wolfish grin moved across your face before you pulled yourself up onto the scratchy green blanket. The springs creaked as if they’d been used for years. You were suddenly exhausted and made no move to remove your boots, or unpack the duffle shoved to the side.

“Do you two know each other?” America asked, shirking a long strip of birch onto her own bed. She was sitting cross legged, getting it as sharp as she possibly could. You had a feeling you would gravitate towards her throughout the summer. “Or is this some weird attempt at flirting?”

You sat up fast enough to make your head spin, “Our parents run in the same circles. We’re obliged to be in each-others presence at least 75% of the year.”

“Obliged? Try forced” She scoffed, scowling at you. “You don’t even like archery.”

“I like being better at it than you.”

“You’re not.”

“They’re totally flirting.” Gwen whispered to Cassie, who gave an exaggerated nod, barely stifling her blinding grin with the stuffed bear she’d brought along to suffer with the rest of them.

Most of that summer had passed by in a blur. You really didn’t like archery. Your aim was there, but your form was lacking. Kate ticked all the boxes and had even split an arrow straight down the middle on the second day of camp, much to your dismay.

The two of you mostly stayed out of one another’s way, on opposite schedules by design. You’d grown impossibly close with Gwen and America, the three of you none too enthusiastic about the sport that Target Trails boasted about. You were much too interested in the lake, and spent most of your time out there.

A week and a half before the end of summer, and you had let your guard down. You would never admit this, but you were actually having fun and participating. Gwen had begged you to attend a movie night at the fire pits, and you had agreed with the promise of sickly sweet marshmallows.

The two of you were huddled up under a blanket, biting through the late-night mountain chill. You hadn’t been paying attention to the content that would be shown, nor to anything other than the slow-moving bag of puffed deliciousness that was making its way towards you.

“We have a real treat for you tonight, campers. We’ve got first hand access to the new Hawkeye documentary! It’s not releasing until this November, but he loves what we do here at Target Trails and gave us an exclusive.”

A wash of numbness fell over you, appetite suddenly gone. You were frowning, you knew, at the documentary as it played on a hung white sheet, strung up between two evergreens. Your fingers curled around the edge of the blanket.

Gwen nudged you with the bag of marshmallows, but you shook your head, too engrossed in the picture on the screen. Seeing him as a hero, you could handle. He’d been on the news, and you’d caught glimpses before Bobbi shut it off. But this was different. This was about his life.

He sat at his kitchen table with his family. A baby cradled in his arms and a woman with kind eyes at his side. There was a girl around the same age as you in the other chair, pushing yellow eggs around her plate and doing her best to ignore the camera. A daughter.

“Lila, don’t be rude, say hi to the nice film crew.”

Clint was joking, and the frame was shaky, but she gave a small wave and dazzling smile regardless. The thought was bitter; what made her different from you?

You didn’t realize that your breath had quickened and you’d wigged out of the fleece blanket that you shared. Gwen looked at you with worry, but you had the stamina to hold it together until you could maneuver around other campers to the darkness of the surrounding woods.

Far enough to stifle your sob in the side of your hand and fall to the damp forest floor. The pain that ripped through you was unbearable, and you naively dug your fingers into the dirt to see if it would extinguish the building flames.

The pressure licked at your throat and pressed down your spine like a metal rod. It hurt to hold it in, to let warm tears soak through the glowing embers that had taken over your irises. You were doing so well. You were pretending almost too well, to be normal.

Arms were around you in an instant, but you were too far gone to push them away. Instead, you folded into the embrace. It was cold compared to your body-heat, the scent of artificial wintergreen rivaled the real thing. It was Kate. You knew from the strong grip of her hands and the gentle soothing words that you couldn’t process.

A growl had escaped you, and when you peered up at her, the orange glow of your eyes shaded her features. There was no moon tonight. They flickered like a lantern used as a beacon. Kate drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t’ push.

“You need to breathe for me, y/n.” She said instead, letting you clutch onto her camp shirt and stain it with dirt. You were in her lap like an insolent child, but you would combust if she let you go. As if on instinct, she held you tighter. “Four in, six out, come on.”

You tried to follow instructions, but the pain started to roll in waves. The rolling in your stomach felt like you were about to vomit up magma. Kate was panicked, you could see the beautiful gray of her stare flicker with worry. Your hands were getting hotter.

“Fuck it,” She hissed.

Kate leaned down with fervor and pressed her lips against yours. It was not graceful, her teeth hit your own with a dull clack and her hand was gripping your collar to hold you up. Her nose was cold, and her chest heaved up and down with anxiety. It was much too clumsy, and it was glorious.

Eventually, you sucked in a deep breath and used your heels to scramble away from her, back hitting the hard bark of a tree. She had a dazed, glassy stare that still seemed to seep with worry. The worst of it was over, and you were suddenly exhausted.

Your stare didn’t glow like engine coal and your skin had returned to it’s normal pigment. You were breathing normal, almost greedy for the tinny taste of it. “What the hell, Kate?”

“Me what the hell?” She whispered harshly, “You what the hell! I was preventing a forest fire.”

“You’re not smokey the mother-fucking-bear.”  

It was harsh, you should be thanking her, but you wanted to get as far away from the archer as possible. You clambered to your feet and started to head towards civilization. You needed to get to the payphone. Screw the last few weeks of camp. That was too close of a call.

Kate didn’t’ let you get far. Her fingers wrapped around your wrist and she held you in place with an impressive amount of strength for a girl her size. “I don’t understand a lot about what happened just now. That’s not important. I don’t get why you’re so mad.”

“Because,” The first word was easy, the rest got stuck in your throat. You tore your hand away and she let you. “You… stole my first kiss.”

Her features softened for a moment before she narrowed her eyes in what you could only describe as discontent. There was plenty to thank Kate Bishop for, and plenty more that you had to explain to her. Instead, you were hung up on this. And why wouldn’t you be?

You’d been saving it. You’d expertly dodged Tommy Maximoff at a game of spin the bottle just last week. And before that, you’d gone to see a movie with Teddy Altman who seemed as worried about grabbing your hand with his sweaty one as you were. None of it felt right, and the two of you both breathed a sigh of relief when the credits rolled.

She kicked dejectedly at the dirt. “You took mine too, you know? You were freaking out and I saw it in a movie. It worked. Didn’t it?”

You blinked at her in surprise. Kate bragged on multiple occasions that she and Eli Bradley, a kid that was way too into ROTC, had made out behind the bleachers. It made sense now, why the two of you had done your awkward little dance on the forest floor.

“Thank you,” You settled, working shaking hands through disheveled hair, suddenly feeling even. “For doing that, I mean. It could have been really bad.”

 An obscure pop song crackled through the overhead speakers in the grocery store. The lights buzzed under the melody, uncomfortable and neon in their flickering annoyance. You hadn’t been able to sleep, which wasn’t a surprise, so you took advantage of the low traffic to stock up on essentials.

Bread, milk, and dry pasta. Your diet wasn’t the best, but it filled you up and the staples still maintained an easy enough price for you to justify your purchases. The basket hung from your arm, slowly filling with off-brand items.

You were busy stocking up on bandages and antiseptic when you felt an odd crawling feeling up the back of your neck. You were being watched. Your movements stilled for half a second before you continued with your task, senses becoming overwhelmed with an expensive floral scent.

“Miss Morse, strange running into you here.”

Yes, it was strange. You didn’t know that Eleanor Bishop did her own grocery shopping, and judging by the single orange in her cart, you weren’t sure she had actually decided to do so now. There was a sheepish smile on her face. She had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed.

“Relax, sweetie.” She squeezed your upper arm. “You don’t have to be so guarded. I just wanted to extend an invitation to dinner this Friday. It’s a formal event, just a chance to get to know my daughters partner a little better.”

The air suddenly felt thick. You still hadn’t produced a comprehensive sentence and now you opened and closed your mouth like a goldfish that had hopped from it’s bowl. She had a thin smile on her face that failed to hide her true rage.

“I’ll even extend the invitation to your father.”

Finally, you found your voice. “I’m sure Lance would appreciate the thought, but he’ll, uh, be out of town until next Monday I’m afraid.”

“No, no. Not Lance, silly. Clint.”

Your grip tightened on the box of bandages. It made a sad noise under your crushing fingers. Eleanor’s unwavering gaze flicked down and then back up, hardly phased by your knee-jerk reaction. You were flushed with an odd type of calmness.

Five things you can touch: The rough fabric of your jacket. The metal handle of the basket. The obnoxious blue plastic at it’s end. The crumpled box of bandages.

“How do you know about that?”

“Well, dear, people talk.”

Five things you can see: The venom in Eleanor Bishops eyes. A single fly trapped in the light fixture above. A bored clerk that pushed packs of gum around the counter. The puke-colored floor tiles under your feet. The line of green vitamin bottles just below your shoulder.

“That won’t be a problem, will it? I’ve heard through the grapevine that you and Katherine are getting quite serious. It’s only customary to meet the parents. I know Bobbi so well, but Clint is all anyone can talk about these days. We’d love to get to know him better.”

Five things you can hear: The pitiful last cries of the trapped fly. The squeak of a cart that was three aisles over. The dull hum of the frozen section across the store. Eleanor Bishop’s even, calculated, breaths. An obscure rock-song blaring from the clerks’ headphones.

“Y/n?” She prodded, lifting a sculpted eyebrow.

“That… that uh,”

Five things you can smell: Your own sweat, quickly slicking your back. The musky floral perfume that Eleanor Bishop bathed in. The sharp edge of antiseptic contained by plastic bottles. The faux citrus scent of floor cleaner. The beginning of bile climbing your throat.

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Bishop.” You schooled your features into something you hoped was calm. “I’ll be there.”

She clapped her hands once, a moment of success. You were absolutely drenched in sweat with a heat that even the frozen section couldn’t cure. She went to pat you on the shoulder but thought better of it, before leaving her cart with the singular orange behind.

Shopping was the furthest thing from your mind at this point. Any semblance of productivity was morphed into shock, and then scathing anger. You set your own basket down and turned to rush from the grocery store, entirely overwhelmed in the area you’d just used to steady yourself.

The change in temperature between the store and city streets was minimal. You could feel your breath speed up, your fingers start to tingle. You had to get out of here, so you started to run. Kate’s usual haunts as a hero weren’t too far, and even if they were, you were positive that you could sprint to them.

People became scarce on the sidewalks, a humid mist coated your skin. White fairy lights adorned every other tree, and then none at all. There was a darkness, chain link fences and a dog that lunged on a short lead. The streets were empty, and your chest began to ache.

You stopped in the center of the street, shouting out “Hawkeye!”

It wasn’t certain which one you would summon. You tightened your fists, clenching your eyes shut as you tried to control your breathing. You hadn’t had a panic attack like this in years, high school, to be exact. The turmoil kept building. The memories you’d shoved down boiled up.

“Hawkeye!” You shouted again, letting the orange flames engulf your fingertips, cracking against skin. “Come out or I start torching everything!”

An overreaction? Perhaps. But part of you, a very small part, was tired of playing the hero when all of the cards were stacked against you. What was stopping you from being a villain? You had your nemesis in both archers for different reasons, and a formidable villain you would be.

It would be easy to let go of the control you’d worked so hard to build. Fires were uncontrollable, they were dangerous and deadly. There was no problem setting them. It was controlling the blaze once it’d been ignited that could bring absolute destruction.

“Five!” You called out, your boots on the ground the only noise. “Four!”

You spotted a trail of gasoline leaking form the bottom of an old Camaro that was propped up on cinderblocks, all four tires being ripped from the frame. Perfect. It was clearly abandoned, and far enough away from the brownstones to be a real risk. An attention grabber.

“Three!”

You were feeling heady now. A wash of dizziness had replaced the panic as your emotions were simmering down. You knelt, the sharp scent of gasoline filling your senses. Even the smallest touch would ignite the vehicle in a wash of flames.

“Two!”

Still, nothing. The quiet was eerie. Much like crickets and frogs in the country, the city relied on it’s staple noises. There was never silence, but it fell heavy on your shoulders now. You could cut your losses, raise to your feet, and walk away. But walking away never got you anywhere. Walking away was too much like your father.

The sharp sound of an arrow being pulled back pulled you from your thoughts. “Not another move.”

Kate was bluffing. You could see the uncertainty and fear in her eyes. Of course, you were positive that you were harboring the same thing. You weren’t obedient in this moment. The sight of her in her black tactical suit, marred in purple, was captivating. Infuriating all the same.

A rush of hot air pooled at your palms as you righted yourself. They’d gotten stronger, hotter. Blue licked harmlessly at your skin now. You clenched your jaw and lilted your head to the side. In this moment, despite the intoxicated hold she had on you, you wanted to fight her. Wound her as she’d wounded you.

“Do it. Shoot.” You called her bluff. Her aim was slipping. “Or we could put all of our flashy toys away and have it out like adults.”

She made no move to lower her weapon. “We can talk this out. Just step away from the car.”

“This car? God, she’s a beauty. It’s such a shame that it was put to waste like this.”

“Y/n,” She warned in a muted growl. “I will shoot.”

This time, you believed her. Any slack in her stance had tightened like she were on puppet strings. She aimed directly at your chest. Hawkeyes never aimed to kill, but they would. Kate would, if she was pushed far enough.

You lifted both of your hands up in a half surrender, letting the flames extinguish themselves. You’d shown so much restraint. So much leniency for an unfair situation that plagued the both of you. Kate lowered her arrow, the metal tip pointed at the ground before she placed it back in the quiver entirely, sensing the danger dissolving.

When she glanced up and closed the distance between the two of you, your breath hitched. There was insurmountable anger in her eyes. In a quick movement, she slapped you with an open palm, hard enough to make you taste metal, but not hard enough to cause a ringing in your ears.

Kate hissed “that was fucking stupid of you.”

Your head was turned to the side, the harsh sting throbbing in tune to your heartbeat. You pulled in a humid breath and let it out within the same sentence. It had been stupid of you, nearly starting another fire that could very easily get out of control. You’d never admit that to Kate.

In a swift move, you grabbed Kate’s arm, twisting it until she let out a yelp and fell clumsily to one knee. You stopped shy of breaking anything. “No, it was fucking stupid to tell your mother about Clint.”

Kate’s fist hit your stomach with a cheap shot. It was still effective, knocking the breath right out of your lungs. By the strap of her quiver, you dragged her back to her feet and slammed her against the side of the car.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re the only one that knows, Kate!” You snarled “Your mother invited me to a family dinner with him.”

Your knee was in between hers, she was panting, strands of hair falling into her slate stare. There was a smear of dark blood against the corner of her lip. You hadn’t put it there, and though she was pinned under you right now, you wanted to destroy the person who had done that to her.

Fist-fights were predictable for you and Kate. The first time she landed a punch was at her 9th birthday party. You don’t remember how the quarrel started, it was that trivial. It was a pool party with an inflatable slide that might as well be a boxing ring.

There was hair pulling and you remember Lance wrapping his arms around you while Derek Bishop wrestled to pull a feral Kate to the other side of the yellow slide. After fifteen minutes, the two of you were sitting at the edge of the pool digging into chocolate cake.

“Y/n, have you ever considered that other people heard the conversation we had at the benefit?” She sighed, letting her head thump softly against the side of the car. “My mother has ears and eyes everywhere. I didn’t even tell her we were dating. I would never do that to you.”

She shoved you off, and you went slack, allowing her to. You were close enough to a catering table that it was plausible. Kate sounded broken, and it filled you with a deep guilt that you weren’t quite prepared for. You had been so certain.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck.” She bumped into your shoulder as she walked past you. You turned, tracking her with your eyes. “After all these years, do you really think that little of me?”

“No, Kate I...”

She looked at you expectantly. Sadness rimmed her stare. All of your previous anger had melted away. There was nothing there but a deep dread. You never wanted to hurt her. You hung your head like a kicked dog, feeling a lump form in your throat.

“We’ll do the dinner. Keep playing the part. But after that, it’s done. I don’t owe you anything.”

“You don’t.”

Your voice was tight, chest suddenly painful. She used the edge of her thumb to wipe at the wound on the edge of her lip that you’d reopened. She swiped her tongue over it for good measure.

You were crying.

But she respected you just enough not to say anything.

Tag List💕: @noturlondonboy, @slvtformaria, @pianogirl2121

[heretichromia]

Exploring the Relationship Dynamics Between the Abyssal Hunters

I had a few people either misinterpret or express confusion regarding this post that I made, so I want to make a different post covering the same (and more) material that's more rooted in explicit textual evidence which doesn't use emotionally-charged language. I'm going to try my best to stay neutral here and discuss multiple possible interpretations.

In short, I want to break down all that we know regarding the nature of the relationships shared by the four* Abyssal Hunters. In long, see below. And...I mean long, it's 5,000 words.

*Abyssal Hunters as a faction of Ægir; sorry, Andreana. Note: Minor Path of Life (CN) spoilers below. None of the major events are spoiled, but I do talk about a lot of the context that the event gives us on Ægir society and the backstories of the Hunters.

What we know from the text:

I'll keep this segment as objective as possible, and only state things that I can directly argue as nearly indisputable from textual evidence. Some interpretation work is going to have to be done here, however, and I'm open to anyone who disagrees with anything here pointing out the passages in the text that contradict my assertions.

Ages:

This is a subject the community as a whole is widely misinformed about, so I'm highlighting it separately.

We know from Path of Life that the expected lifespan of an Ægir is around 150 years.

Gladiia is likely in her late 30s. She has 17 years of combat experience, which we're led to believe began relatively shortly after she received independence from her abusive, neglectful, and controlling mother. She was appointed as Consul of Technology before becoming an Abyssal Hunter, though her module description characterizes her as having been unable to decide the trajectory of her life, which implies to me that she was not free of her mother for very long before the operation. We don't have reason to believe Ægir uses child soldiers nor appoints children to be Technology Consuls, so this places her minimum age at around 35 and her likely age as a little older than that. She was still characterized as a young Consul ten years after her appointment, so I don't believe she'd be much older. Late 30s is my best approximation; much older than that, and things begin making less sense regarding the multiple parental figures still present in her life.

Skadi is likely also in her 30s, though the actual bounds are wider than Gladiia's. She has 13 years of combat experience, making her 31 at the youngest. However, from Path of Life we know that she was the most skilled technician in her division prior to becoming an Abyssal Hunter. This means she probably had at least a few, if not several years of work experience out of the Academy. If she's younger than Gladiia, it's likely not by many years, and she could even be conceivably older than her. I think she's probably a small handful of years younger, if you had to ask me my personal interpretation.

Laurentina is the youngest of the Abyssal Hunters. She has seven years of combat experience, implying that she joined a decade after Gladiia. This places her minimum age at 25. We can imagine she's probably not too much older than that, since she never fully embraced a career as a sculptor before changing circumstances caused her to apply for the Abyssal Hunters. She's probably in her mid-to-late 20s.

Ulpianus is the oldest, and potentially by a considerable margin. He was the first Abyssal Hunter, becoming one twenty years ago, as well as one of the scientists who created the Abyssal Hunters to begin with. He was already one of the most preeminent scientific minds of Ægir by this point. Since Ægir can live to 150, this means the upper bound on his age is potentially very high. This man could conceivably be in his 80s or older without it breaking anything we know about the story. The lower bound of his age is probably somewhere in his late 40s at an absolute minimum, assuming that the Ægirian process for becoming an accomplished scientist is anywhere remotely similar to the real-world one. It's completely up to speculation where his actual age falls between those bounds.

Connections between the Hunters:

An important note to make here that isn't precisely a connection, but does inform them: Ægir as a society does not have a compulsion towards nuclear family structures. In fact, the opposite is true. From Path of Life, we know that Ægir are usually raised in groups in dedicated schools. Ægir seems to prioritize careers over interpersonal relationships, and direct blood family ties are much weaker. Ægirian women don't give birth to their children directly; the embryos are surgically removed and then grown separately.

Laurentina's close relationship with her biological parents was noted as being somewhat atypical, and they still didn't raise her themselves. Instead, they allowed childcare services to raise her while frequently taking her with them on their trips when they could. Gladiia's upbringing, where she was isolated by an abusive and neglectful mother, is also atypical. From her conversation with Clemenza, we learn that she was in fact strongly suggested to give up Gladiia to childcare services, but refused to do so.

Onto the actual connections:

Gladiia met Ulpianus in the earlier years of the Abyssal Hunter project, when she was a young, emotionally vulnerable woman who was actively seeking new familial connections (see: her module). Given how well Ulpianus understands the other Hunters (implied in Stultifera Navis and displayed in Path of Life), it's very unlikely that he wasn't aware of this. Ulpianus declined his student Underflow's application to the Abyssal Hunters because he didn't want her to become like him. It's likely, then, that he personally processed Gladiia's entry into the Abyssal Hunters.

We know from Specter the Unchained's module that the two of them spoke at least somewhat often, discussing subjects like philosophy. In the one conversation we see, Ulpianus is explaining to Gladiia his concerns about the direction Ægir is heading in these "protracted days of calamity," and she seems to either agree with or absorb his pontification. He certainly takes the lead in this conversation with the "young Consul," and while a mentorship role can be inferred from this, it's not directly stated anywhere.

From Gladiia's IS3 ending, we know that Ulpianus never directly indicated to her that he felt any connection between them, nor did he bring up concepts like seniority around her. However, his actual feelings concerning her were clearly more sentimental than he let on, as he unexpectedly sacrificed his life for the sake of his "junior." Gladiia hadn't realized he was so sentimental until it happened, but in retrospect she looked back upon it warmly, realizing she never truly understood Ulpianus.

We have fewer interactions between Ulpianus and Skadi than we do between Ulpianus and Gladiia, but we can infer something of a dynamic from what we do have. Ulpianus trusted Skadi implicitly. From Path of Life, we know that he treated her differently from the other Hunters in his company. Ulpianus was a brilliant tactician who gave complex plans to each of his soldiers, but when he got to Skadi—who frequently spaces out when listening to others, and by her own admission in the event doesn't like to think—he merely told her that he trusted her to carry out her duty. He understood her, and didn't belittle her for her weaknesses. He had faith in her, and was right to do so; Skadi completed every mission exceptionally.

In the Second Company, meanwhile, Gladiia and Laurentina clearly had a closer relationship than just their positions would imply. Gladiia considered herself Laurentina's teacher, instructing her not only in the art of war but also in life skills. Their first lesson was not in violence, but in dance (Specter the Unchained OpRec). Whereas Laurentina is now frequently associated with her dancing, not just in narrative framing but actively by Ulpianus in Path of Life, she had barely danced much at all prior to her dances with Gladiia.

Already by the time of her aforementioned conversation with Ulpianus, Gladiia had developed a fondness for her subordinate. She even smiled when she spoke of her glowingly, something she almost never does. Gladiia, as critical as she is of almost everyone, can hardly find fault with Laurentina. From the aforementioned OpRec, we see that even Laurentina expects her to lecture her more than she does. Frequently, when confronted with her peculiarities and the choices she makes, Gladiia will approve of them warmly. The OpRec also has a wonderful passage of them just talking and spending time with one-another. It's very warm and gives a lot of small insights to their relationship and their relationship with the arts (a subject they're both very attached to) that I can't really explain effectively here without exploding the already extremely high word count. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't already.

In short, though, the relationship between Gladiia and Laurentina is very warm despite Gladiia's frequent brusqueness and coldness. In Ægir, they would see plays together—but because of Gladiia's insistence upon minimizing distractions while experiencing art, would sit apart. In Specter's post-Under Tides OpRec, Laurentina had to practically beg Gladiia before she showed her any more warmth than would be warranted to any other subordinate, as Gladiia kept her emotions tightly to her chest. Laurentina's emotional intelligence and close bond with her allows her to see through Gladiia's practiced emotionless exterior. Like Ulpianus, she understands Gladiia well enough to see through the strong facade she fronts to get glimpses into the deep well of anxiety beneath. In Laurentina's story in IS3, their bond is described as so close that she doesn't need to speak with Gladiia to understand her. She continued to dance with her as their primary method of silent communication for months after Gladiia had ceased speaking because of how much she hated how the Seaborn assimilation had changed her voice.

Of course, Laurentina and Skadi also share a deep bond, which is probably the most well-known one. Though how well they knew each other prior to the attack on Ishar'mla is still somewhat unclear—though it's clear from multiple sources (e.g. Specter OpRec, Path of Life, etc.) they weren't strangers—the important bulk of their relationship concerns their time spent together at Rhodes Island on land. Tortured by the Church of the Deep's horrific experiments and driven insane by the originium that Bishop Amaia injected into her spinal column, Laurentina was in an almost unrecognizable state when she was reunited with Skadi (Specter OpRec). She'd developed a second personality called Specter as a result of her experiences, one that was fully unfamiliar to Skadi, and the real Laurentina seemed to be locked away inside her own mind, in endless sleep, unable to awaken.

Skadi took care of Laurentina. She was not easy to care for. Beyond just requiring intensive care to keep her alive, Specter was mentally unstable. She would be unable to leave her treatment room for long stretches of time, and if the way she spoke to Skadi during her OpRec once she'd 'fallen asleep' again is any indication, some of the things she'd say to Skadi were truly vile. To continually bear this cannot have been an easy burden to shoulder, but Skadi would nonetheless come into her room constantly, sing songs to her, and tell her stories. Laurentina heard it all, though she couldn't speak. Though she teased her for it mercilessly when she awoke after Under Tides, she expressed legitimate gratitude to Skadi for all she'd done taking care of her.

If their bond was not intensely close before, it is now. Laurentina, now awake, teaches Skadi to dance in Unchained's OpRec, just as Gladiia taught her before. Just as she can see through Gladiia's facades, Laurentina understands Skadi enough to be able to see through hers to the genuine, warm, and caring person she is. Skadi, meanwhile, goes to great lengths to make sure Laurentina is okay. She cared more about her wellbeing than she did about obediently listening to the orders of her superiors; when Gladiia came to take Specter from Rhodes Island, she protested, and followed Gladiia to Sal Viento to take her back.

Skadi and Gladiia do not have nearly as warm a history. Both are rather emotionally unintelligent and wear masks of indifference around each other. That isn't to say they don't care about each other, though; if anything, we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Gladiia did not hesitate for a moment about risking death for Skadi's sake in Under Tides, feeling a duty to protect her from both the First to Talk and the monster that dwells inside her head. They share a bond of camaraderie that's constantly reinforced in every event.

In Stultifera Navis and its supplemental material, we got more inklings of the development of a deeper relationship between them, though it's naturally strained because of their natures. Skadi, who always calls Gladiia "Second Captain," accidentally called her Gladiia in SN—to which Gladiia brusquely remarked that she was getting rather comfortable around her. She corrected her mistake and hasn't made it since. In the oft-mentioned now Specter the Unchained OpRec, when Laurentina teaches Skadi how to dance she remarks that Gladiia would like to dance with her. Skadi brushes this off as a mean-spirited joke, but it's much more likely that Laurentina knows they both feel an unspoken fondness for the other and is steadily poking at them to share it with the other.

Lastly, and certainly least, we have Laurentina and Ulpianus. There's...almost nothing here. We know that they're not strangers, and from Path of Life we know that Ulpianus at least understands Laurentina well enough as an individual, but as far as I'm aware there's not much to suggest what sort of relationship they may have had beyond just comrades, if any. Ulpianus seemed to become disinterested in continuing his conversation with Gladiia once she started gushing about Laurentina, but that's more likely a case of him being averse to talks about feelings in general than it is any distaste for Shark herself.

---

Possible interpretations:

From this, we have a pretty good idea of the general shape of how these dynamics work. There's a lot of room to talk about the intricacies of their relationships, and I...can't cover every single possibility here.

I'd love to. If you ask me, I can keep yapping. I didn't write all of this because of some solemn dedication to archiving these fictional fish. Please, litter my inbox if you have questions. I can yap endlessly.

Instead, I'll focus on some of the predominant interpretations that I've seen across discussions and fanworks. Namely, the idea of the Abyssal Hunters as a family and the idea of some of the Abyssal Hunters as romantic partners.

I'll be covering interpretations that are both supported and not supported by the text to varying degrees. I'm going to outline how well I believe the text supports these interpretations, which is obviously going to be subjective, but I'm going to try to keep my own personal bias out of it. I have my own preferences, but I will be as neutral as I can be here.

The Family Angle

The Abyssal Hunters are a found family. That's not so much subtext as it is text—again, see Gladiia's module about how she failed to find the warmth and belonging she sought from her biological family, and instead searched for a new family. They have dynamics between them that are clearly at least meant to mirror existing family dynamics.

But a found family is not the same thing as a biological family. It does not necessarily feature the same dynamics as you'd find between actual family members. The "family angle" is the interpretation that the relationship between all of them is in fact completely familial in nature. While found families do not preclude romantic and sexual relationships between their members, a familial relationship between these characters implies that their bond is strong in a way that is neither romantic nor sexual in nature.

This, in itself, is neither confirmed nor denied by the text. It's consistent with what we're shown, and is perhaps one of the more 'pure' interpretations of these relationships—in the sense that it doesn't read more into the characters than the information presented. The Abyssal Hunters are characterized in expressly familial terms, and so this interpretation says that this is the extent of their dynamics. For clarity, it is neither more nor less correct than other interpretations for this, and is not personally my own. If there's anything limiting this interpretation, it's that Ægirians don't have nuclear family ties in the same way that we do, but that doesn't in my view contradict a familial interpretation as much as it modifies how it's perceived by the characters.

There are, of course, a lot of different ways you can approach the family angle. I'll outline some of the more sensible ones that can be concluded from the text.

One of the more common interpretations is that of the three female hunters as siblings. Again, there's no real confirmation of this in the text—only sentiments that the bond between them is thicker than blood—but there's nothing in the text which contradicts this. They certainly could play into typical sibling dynamics fairly well, with Gladiia as the serious, beleaguered older sister who whips the younger siblings into shape, and Laurentina as the brattiest child of the family who's nonetheless more emotionally intelligent than her stubborn sisters. It's one I see a lot, and I don't really see an issue with it.

Another common interpretation is that there exists something mirroring a parent/daughter relationship between the Captains and their subordinates: Ulpianus/Skadi, and Gladiia/Laurentina. From what's been outlined above, there's definitely food for this sort of interpretation in the text. Gladiia, for instance, is definitely motherly towards Laurentina. I do not believe this is a coincidence; as someone who was failed by her mother in horrendous ways, she's taken on a motherly role towards those she cares for and whom she believes she has a responsibility for. I think this, in itself, is a fine interpretation.

I think it gets much weaker when it's taken a step further into a literal parent/daughter relationship between them. These are adult women. At most, the age gap between Gladiia and Laurentina is a little over a decade, and they were adults when they met. She might feel a motherly responsibility for this woman, but I do not believe she'd consider a fully adult woman only around a decade her junior to be her daughter. Friendships between people in their mid-20s and mid-30s happen all the time in the real world. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything like real parent-child relationships. The age gap between Ulpianus and Skadi is likely wider, and thus it's more reasonable that Ulpianus would see someone Skadi's age that he met in her 20s as someone who could have been his daughter. Even in that case, their dynamic would be heavily qualified by the fact that he has always known Skadi as a fully adult woman.

One similar possible dynamic that I almost never see is the idea of Ulpianus as a father for Gladiia. They're of similar ages, and if he saw Skadi as someone who could have been his daughter, he surely see Gladiia as the same. Gladiia, as well, desperately needed a parental figure in her life and never got one. They clearly have a senior/junior, possibly mentor/student relationship in the text, even if neither of them explicitly acknowledge it as one. This is the logical next step, which many have taken for the other plausible parent/daughter relationships, but I never see this one.

The Romance Angle

People like shipping. I'm people, too. I like shipping. It's pretty natural that, when it comes to characters we like that have close relationships like this, there's going to be people who are primarily invested in slapping two or more of them together like Barbies. Some of these relationship dynamics are more plausible than others.

Here's where some of the objectivity might break down. I'll try my best to limit my personal bias, but it's extremely hard to speak objectively about topics that are so obviously subject to personal interpretation.

First, I'd like to emphasize that Ægirian social dynamics, likely including romance, are alien to us. The likelihood that these characters would feel exactly the same about romance as we do in a predominantly monogamous society structured around nuclear families with a marriage at the core is...very low. Ægir and the nations of land are fundamentally different in ways that make understanding one-another difficult. Listen to some of Specter the Unchained's voicelines expressing her frustration about how she doesn't have the means to convey to the Doctor everything she'd like to. While we can (and should if we'd like to) have fun with applying our concepts of romance to them, we should always keep in mind that they might not actually share them as characters.

On the more fun side, this opens up a world of possible arrangements. We can speculate, for instance, that these characters might be much more open to polyamory than others might. Or, perhaps, their courtship looks very different from ours, and we can explore how that might look through fiction. One relationship existing does not need to preclude the others even in our society, much less theirs.

The most obvious potential romance that most people would identify among the Abyssal Hunters is Skadi and Laurentina, and I have to agree that it's one of the most plausible, if not the single most. I...don't think I even need to linger too much on this one, because most of it's already been laid out. Their story reads like a tragic yuri plot. The romance is practically already written; if you showed me the exact same story that these two have, but they kiss at the end, it would not remotely feel like it came out of nowhere. It's one of many dynamics between characters that would be readily interpreted as romantic by a wider audience if, say, Skadi were a man. It's already one of the most popular Arknights ships as-is! It fits their characters, and makes sense as an interpretation.

It isn't necessarily the only interpretation of these characters, of course. As discussed, there's a wide array of ways you can interpret their bond, and many are just as supported by the text. While there's plenty of subtext that can be said to be romantic between them, that subtext can all be interpreted in platonic and familial ways. This is a Chinese gacha game; we're not going to get explicit confirmation of any of these relationships, and all romantic subtext will be written to resemble other kinds of subtext. That means that other subtext that was legitimately not meant to be romantic can scan as romantic. There's no strong argument here for authorial intent regarding the two of them either way.

...You can tell how strong the potential for a ship here is that I felt the need to use one of the two paragraphs I spent talking about it to discuss how it's not necessarily the only possible dynamic.

The second most likely, in my eyes, is Laurentina and Gladiia, which I'll elaborate further on than Skadi/Laurentina because of its rarity as a ship by comparison; it's legitimately plausible that most who might read this haven't considered it at all. Of the pairs possible within the trio, they're the two with the oldest history, who clearly have a deep and intimate bond. The exact nature of this bond is subject to interpretation, of course. As discussed earlier, Gladiia is quite motherly when it comes to Laurentina. A familial interpretation of the two of them is common, but as uncommon as a romantic interpretation is, I think it's both easily supported and already has plenty of material in the text to feed it. You can easily read the time they spent together in Specter the Unchained's OpRec as a date. That their dynamic has motherly characteristics does not stop it from being romantic. Plenty of romances in popular fiction have motherly elements to them; that behavior can simply be Gladiia's chosen language of love.

An issue that I can imagine is the power dynamic between them—not necessarily even as a moral argument about the ship, but as an issue between their characters. Laurentina was, of course, young when she joined the Abyssal Hunters, and Gladiia became both her superior and her mentor. I would be surprised if Laurentina was much older than 21 at the time, and I would not be surprised if she was in fact 18. Gladiia, meanwhile, would have been probably in the range of 28-30. While almost the same exact age gap would be present between Laurentina and Skadi, who would have met her at a similar time, the fact that Gladiia served as her mentor definitely colors the relationship in a different way.

As someone who clearly felt a responsibility towards Laurentina, I find it very unlikely that the nature of their relationship was immediately romantic. Even though Gladiia was immature in many ways and inexperienced compared to others of her age as a result of her isolated childhood and arrested development caused by her mother's abuse, she still likely would have seen a romance as unacceptable between the two of them. That may have even contributed to the arm's length she seems to sometimes keep Laurentina at, to the latter's chagrin.

However, critically, they aren't that age anymore. Laurentina is firmly an adult who can make reasoned decisions for herself, and frankly often showcases more emotional maturity than Gladiia does. Their situation is radically changed. Gladiia is still her commander, but she's her leader more because of mutual trust than any necessity to follow the orders of the Ægirian military. They're no longer student and teacher; they're much more akin to equals now. There are now things that Laurentina can teach Gladiia; Gladiia is now the one who most desperately needs character development. The barriers that could have stopped their feelings from becoming a romance have eroded, and there is now the potential for one to form that is completely fitting within the bounds of the text and our understanding of their characters.

...

Okay, it's time to discuss the subject matter of the post I linked at the top of this one. Ulpianus and Gladiia.

...Almost everything I've just said about Gladiia and Laurentina applies doubly here.

It's the same dynamic. A junior who becomes an equal. It's much more common, in my experience, probably because it's heterosexual. Like with the other dynamics, there's nothing in the story that outright contradicts it. I do think its claim is weaker than the last two, though. I find it much harder to believe that Ulpianus would have harbored romantic feelings towards Gladiia.

She was much younger than him at the time they met, compared to the age gap between the other Hunters and Laurentina, and—as mentioned—he was likely very aware of her emotional immaturity, vulnerability, and desire to form real connections for the first time in her life. Ulpianus is, from what we can tell, a very thoughtful man who understands his comrades very well and reckons solemnly with the consequences of his actions. As I put it in a previous post, he's a man who "constantly pontificates on duty, responsibility, and what 'ought to be.'" I don't believe a principled man like Ulpianus—who is stubborn about principles to the point of contentiousness, who considers emotions to be secondary to duty and righteousness, who is prepared to throw away everything for what he believes in, including his life and his humanity—would do anything that could be considered taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable young woman. That seems incredibly contradictory to his character. Even if she's grown physically, I think it's easy to read from his actions that he still sees her as someone who's still immature. I think he would have a much harder time seeing Gladiia as an equal peer than Gladiia would Laurentina.

Now, to play devil's advocate somewhat, I will say that there's material within this to work with. The love of a man who won't even confess that he cares at all for his younger student, much less act upon his desires is a setup for what could be a great fan-made story. I don't personally think it could ever end with the two of them together while staying true to their characterization, but that's up for interpretation. This is, however, not the way I see this ship characterized at all. If anything, they're most popularly depicted as ex-lovers or the husband/wife of a nuclear family. I've probably belabored the point enough that I don't need to break those concepts down, so I'll leave it there.

Briefly, I want to pay some lip service to the idea I floated earlier of a...fish polycule. I don't believe that Skadi and Gladiia have the most romantic flags at present out of the trio, but (especially in the event that both of them are romantically involved with Laurentina) I can easily see them growing closer and eventually breaking down the barrier of communication between them that stops them from expressing their fondness for one-another in ways that aren't professing they'd want the other to kill them if they became a monster.

There's not a lot of material in the text for this, but that's hardly stopped anyone before. It certainly hasn't stopped me. I ship Gladiia with Lavinia/Penance. I don't need them to acknowledge each other's existence to see a line there; I'm not about to judge anyone for pairing off two characters who have had considerable screen time together, where one nearly died for the sake of the other.

Lastly, I feel like I should at least mention e.g. Laurentina/Irene and Gladiia/Kal'tsit. Mostly because this post isn't about those dynamics. I could talk about Gladiia/Kal'tsit. I could talk about the parallels in Gladiia's first IS3 scene, where Gladiia's recollections about her mother's neglect are immediately juxtaposed with Kal'tsit's concern for her. I could further elaborate on Gladiia's complex relationships with the concept of motherhood, and how Kal'tsit relates to that. I won't. But I could.

I don't even know if I ship Gladiia/Kal'tsit as a romantic couple. I just like their relationship a lot, whatever form it takes.

---

Endnotes.

Thanks for reading! I don't have a sweeping conclusion to finish with; the point of this post was just to compare and contrast popular fandom depictions of these characters with the actual material found in the text.

I hope you enjoyed, or learned something. I know there's so much goddamn text in Arknights that it's kind of impossible for anyone to reflect thoroughly on every single part of it. If you have any questions, criticism, or suggestions, my inbox is open!