#also love the fact that my brother has gotten to the point where HE sends ME trigun memes now hehehehehehe this is so fun

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

good afternoon. my brother just sent me an image of trigun funko pops

[foundnthestars]

UWAGH I FOUND YOUR ACCOUNT AGAIN!!!!!! YES!!!

Hi. Hello. Your fic is the fucking BEST. I read it earlier today and I'm definitely gonna go back and leave comments when I have more time to come up with proper words, but I wanted to come squeal about it sooner than that so! Here I am!

You write the conflict AMAZINGLY. Each and every chapter I was absolutely blown away by how *real* it felt. I especially loved the panic attack with Dipper and Stan, and how Stan was so out of his element but did his best anyway. I also just LOVE that Ford didn't want to restart the portal- and dismantled it instead. And the guilt, catching up to him in his nightmares like that, with him trying to come up with different ways to get them back while still tearing the portal apart.... it's so wonderfully done. All of it is so wonderfully done!!!!! Not to mention that brief glimpse of Mabel at home with her parents. I hope Ford doesn't send her back, but I've got a feeling that they're probably not going to give him a choice on the matter, lol.

I'm sorry for rambling AAAA I love your fic so much have an amazing day/night!!!!!!!!!!

HI! HELLO THERE! I'M SUPER GLAD YOU FOUND MY ACCOUNT TOO CAUSE YOU'RE MY FIRST EVER ASK!! :) fair warning, this might get long...

first off, wow, THANK YOU, this response made me smile and kick my feet — i just love that you love this fic. the response i've gotten on here in the past few days alone has been amazing and i love nothing more than talking about this thing with you guys. feel free to flood my inbox with asks or just come and ramble, seriously, you NEVER have to apologize for that i appreciate every word!

this au is conflict on top of conflict on top of conflict for the pineses. reverse drifting stars is really every member of the pines family stuck directly in their own personal nightmare scenario, and the uncertainty they all feel is bound to be at an all time high. i'm glad you think i'm portraying it well and that it feels realistic!

the panic attack scene was something i knew was coming the second i sat down and started writing. i'm a sucker for post-sock opera h/c fics, and i really wanted to explore dipper's post-possession trauma with stan as a witness. the kids really left him in the dark for a lot of things in canon, bill included, but a lot of dipper's walls will have to come down in ttwl. not just because of the lack of privacy when you're traveling tandem on unfamiliar planets, but because he doesn't have mabel by his side to help him through these things anymore. he's had his sister with him for every terrible thing that's happened since he was a baby, and now that support is just gone. that's where stan comes in, and they'll have to be that for each other. their bond once dipper starts trusting him and he loses some of that angst he's carrying around right now will be STRONG. super excited to continue exploring their dynamic.

(and, yeah, stan is extremely out of his element in that scene, but i imagine he's had some experience with panic attacks either from a younger ford or himself even, though i doubt he'd call it that if he was experiencing one.)

i'm also glad ford disassembling the portal felt accurate to the story. i struggled a bit with that decision, but i think ultimately it would play out like this, with ford battling with logic and emotion and his all-consuming desire to have a family and to belong. his nightmares are supposed to be the love he has for his brother rearing up and trying to tell him "hey! you're being incredibly selfish and stupid," but it really takes seeing mabel and seeing the true consequences of his actions reflected in her life for him to reconsider. though, without the oracle's foresight i think this would still be difficult for him. in ttwl, ford is banking on the fact that she's implied he will be the one to kill bill. his ego is very much still at play here.

and ohhh... the parents. i can do a whole post on them, and i probably will at some point. i've always wondered why people don't include them in drifting stars, though i understand it because they are a difficult work around. more on their reactions later, they'll be back! they handled things about as horribly as they could've but they love their kids very much and want what's best for them, and uh... let's just say the piedmont pines home isn't the greatest of places for a grieving child at the moment.

[astro-in-prog]

I know this won't happen in Bridgerton S3 but.....

I REALLY REALLY want a scene where Colin is fencing with the other gentlemen of the ton and he's a bit distracted because he's starting to question why Pen's suitors are bothering him so much. (Bonus if they tease him about spending time with Pen or his S2 declaration)

Then, in walks one of Penelope's suitors (preferably the douchey-est option or Fife), and Colin asks for a match (he's telling himself that he just wants to see what this guy is made of) OR the suitor asks him for a match so he can boast about being beating a Bridgerton (which Colin sees right through).

They fence, the suitor seems pretty skilled and Colin's heart isn't in it and he isn't winning. But while they're talking the suitor either disrespects Pen with some comment OR declares that he is going to propose and it sends Colin's entire world SPINNING. We see his entire demeanor change from chill Colin to what did you just say about my wife best friend to Colin 'I AM GOING TO END YOU' Bridgerton.

Colin proceeds to then DESTROY HIM and his pride (Colin in S2 was not the best fencer but I would love for him to pull a 'didn't see that coming did you?' and show off his newly acquired skills). He beats this suitor SO well in fact that the ENTIRE TON hears about it. People like to pretend that its only the women that gossip but are you telling me that Colin Bridgerton kicking another dude's ass at fencing is not something the other gentlemen are going to spread all over the ton?

Bonus: Anthony and Benedict are also present and are absolutely stunned that their brother just humiliated another gentleman of the ton like that. They ask him about it and Colin says the suitor was being ungentlemanly and disrespecting Pen. He brushes it off and pretends like its no big deal because he was just doing his duty. Anthony and Ben share an eye roll and a very pointed look because of course this was about Pen.

The speculation in the ton is WILD with people saying Colin did it to defend Penelope so much so that even Pen hears about and has to write about it in LW (but she underplays it and when Colin reads LW he is offended LW thinks Penelope is not worth fighting over).

Even better if Pen calls him out about it because why is he going around basically dueling her suitors to defend her honour? He is not her husband and he is certainly not Lord Featherington (more foreshadowing) and Colin is just confused because our boy can't even imagine NOT defending the love of his life his bestie. It would add tension between them and force Colin to question why he reacted the way he did (love my dear Colin... IT'S LOVE).

It would work as great foreshadowing (as we know Bridgerton loves to do) for Polin - all the other suitors aren't considering Colin competition at the moment and underestimating him because of his comments last season but he's going to come out of nowhere and win over Penelope.

Do i just want to see Luke Newton fence again? YES I DO.

Am I coming up with extremely complicated ways to make it happen? YEP

Am i ashamed? NOPE

All the male leads have had a scene in the show where we see how frustrated/jealous they are (Simon boxing with Will and Anthony fencing with his brothers). The idea of Colin secretly having gotten better at fencing over the past year and destroying one of Pen's more douchey suitors would be EPIC. (I will watch this shit on repeat for years to come) And I JUST KNOW Newts will deliver with Colin's microexpressions going from calm and unbothered to pissed off to cocky and charming when he wins.

WHO DO I HAVE TO PAY TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN?😭

(since we probably won't get it I am working on writing a fic about this on AO3 --- coming soon!🥲)

[eremorte]

You literally always send the best asks, so we’ll thought through and I’ve never seen you ask someone the same thing twice so I figured I’d sent you one

If you could write more seasons / specials / webisodes / crossover for eah what would the plot be for each?

Keep in mind that Mattel would still have to approve it so don’t go crazy with dark lore + queer ships but definitely can add more than what was originally in the series - or you can completely discard this and do what you want. Rules are made to be broken.

I would actually love to hear this extremely detailed if you had lots of ideas

I have been terrified of an ask like this one gracing my inbox. (Still grateful). As much as I ponder the franchise I haven’t thought of much that would objectively move the plot forward. What I’ve been obsessing over are the cracks in explanation or how plain everyone is in a world filled with magic.

Firstly, thank you? One of the reasons I haven’t asked anything twice is because if anyone wants to answer the prompt they are free to (Please do, I beg y’all). And because I figure people have already suggested these ideas already but outright saying “Hey, I want you to answer” appears to work best.

I really like asking people things! But it takes a while when a person has no clear prompt for questions ("asks are open" is vague in this bottleneck of a fandom). Or I see content on their blog that already answer a question I might’ve asked/not involved with other fandoms on said blog.

Also like, the asks I’ve gotten before were objectively a challenge so I just thought that was the bar…

I will say right now I don’t like crossovers so I don’t have many ideas regarding that (Even with g1 monster high).

So webisode ideas….

An episode in which Kitty either apologizes or doubles down on what she did in a Cat who Cried Wolf. (Let’s be clear, the consequences for Cerise would have been worse than death. I am still bitter) (and have also forgotten most of the books if this is ever rectified).

A few episodes where Apple and Raven don’t appear at all and also doesn’t introduce anyone new (they aren’t bad, I’m just bored of them appearing in everything).

Conversely, a few episodes where it focuses on the fact that allegedly Raven and Apple have a social circle outside of their room mate.

(Raven Maddie Cerise and Cedar)

(Apple Briar Ashlynn and Blondie)

An episode on what Apple and Maddie do as co presidents

(any extracurricular episode really)

An episode focusing on the brothers Grimm. I noticed that after Spring Unsprung continuity from the specials doesn’t seem to matter to webisode continuity. So it probably won’t delve into the resentment Giles has built up from being trapped. The next best alternative is something involving Milton’s obsession with the unicorns. Maybe Milton lost a unicorn but is too embarrassed to announce it and sends Giles (or Giles notices on his own and helps anyway) to find it.

And an episode where Ginger has to reconstruct something on her gingerbread cottage and Cerise and Ramona are enlisted to help her.

A boys only episode. Idc what the plot is.

Full salt ahead…

An episode where either Duchess or Ramona call out Poppy on her apparent Roybelness. (Ramona mostly, and then when Poppy reveals the sister secret Ramona is still annoyed, and points out that Grimm probably wouldn’t force them to switch places if he knew at this point (because you don't need two Rapunzel's, but you need at least one Badwolf). Cerise is the reluctant peace keeper)

Oh and also an episode where people eventually hear about the Red/Badwolf romance (friendship?) but mistakenly attribute it to Cerise and Ramona somehow. Obvious it gets cleared up by the end.

If nothing else a picnic date between Ramona and Red.

It seemed towards the end we would have gotten something focused on the hood-badwolf sisters. I'm not sure if the reveal of the secret and acceptance is what I want. I would want a special wholly dedicated to the reform school. Or at least, whatever Ramona did to her sent there.

Because it feels kinda annoying to shove the whole arc of acceptance into 45 minutes start to finish. And nothing in the show explicitly conflicts with Cerise revealing her secret to Hood Hollow (Unfairest of them All) which is objectively the bigger fish for them, compared to the populous of Ever After High, so, I'd be bored watching it. Besides even if in show canon Cerise didn't do what she did. It'd still be just the high school they focus on.

Given how the webisodes are formatted I would've preferred they dealt with the reveal that way (or like how they did THD). The tension between uploads would help.

[silverspleen]

Still gently bewildered by Hadir's motivations, like, obviously not when it comes to main plot beats, I totally understand his motivations with the lengths he'll go to to ensure his goals are met, but why specifically did he encourage Alex to be in the position he's in with Farah. He is so chummy with him!

I mean besides the fact that Alex + Gaz are the two MW19 PCs so like, they are legally obligated to be actively involved in the narrative to draw in the player and keep them informed via the avatar of two very pretty military boys, and the players needs to be in a position where Hadir "Alex we're brothers now" Karim betrays you to be like "GASP but we're bros."

But Hadir, sir, that man's job is not just "killing russians" it's also destabilizing small countries for the united states government it is only by the grace of him being a MASSIVE SIMP for your sister and her iron fucking will that he's stuck around for as long as he has. Hadir wasn't even there for Alex being like "lol I'm defecting" when Laswell tried to pull him out. He was gone! The betrayal had happened! Dude you were there for the "I don't decide where I go they just send me" rooftop conversation, Alex is a third party with very ulterior motives why are you playing so niceys with him!

This man's entire job is to be here on behalf of the us government hunting down chemical weapons and you, the man who has stolen the chemical weapons with plans to actively use them against your very bullheaded sister's wishes are like, making cute lil' guns for him and your sister like :) "Alex pls tell my sister when I betray her to not freak out and try to murder me, Alex do u promise? promise to explain?" like, dude this man's entire job in your country was to hunt you down???

"Alex why did you bring her here?" (Wolf's Den) Man, first of all you clearly know Farah is going to do what she wants and it should be obvious by this point that Alex will 100% support her. Second of all this is literally his mission.

Third of all you have known this man for exactly

(checks wiki)

THREE DAYS

anyway

I'm assuming it all has to logically come back to Farah and the fact that he's her older brother. Obviously culturally I'm not sure how the older+younger sibling dynamic goes when you spend your childhood in russian prison camp and your baby sister is your CO but like, he clearly still loves her so much despite their ideological differences. And it really seems like ideological differences are not a huge deal for him. There's the fact that later he is very much convinced (correctly) that Price will help him destroy the gas factory completely based on their shared history and relationship with Farah, so like, emotions are really driving his actions. He knew Farah would hate him and he wouldn't be able to be there for her and idk he's projecting something onto Alex a little methinks. Alex is helpful for like... three days and Hadir's brain gets to thinking. Probably reading into it too much but that's what I'm gonna stick to as some kind of character analysis.

It's all means to an end but idk it feels weirdly naive of him to be so lackadaisical with alliances??? which is both charming and deeply tragic in it's own right. Like, it worked out, it was a good idea to get Alex so involved considering I'm vaguely aware that by MW3 he is still Farah's second, but like, idk dude were there not any nice ULF guys you could have gotten to replace you when you defected to the faction Farah fucking hates???? No??? This fuckin'... All American CIA guy you've known for three days is your brother now and who you're going to entrust your sister to? ok then

[candiedcoffeedrops]

omg my data became really spotty so i couldn't send this yesterday, so merry 1 day late christmas! 🎄🎁✨ can you brainrot a little (or a lot…?) about ring or jude in the answer to this ask? :3c

Oh hello, anon! Merry belated Christmas! Just now seeing this!

Ring brainrot! Why, don't mind if I do! Let's see what I've got knocking around in the old noggin today. None of this will be categorized or anything like that. I'm just diving in and throwing what I find to the wall and sticking it there lmao

*clears throat*

First of all, I want to talk about how pretty his eyes are.

I'll get into other stuff later but for now! Look at how pretty his peepers are!

And! And the fact that they can look so sharp and focused and alert one minute and then soft and endearing and innocent the next?? Be still my little heart!

I will pay Cybird a frankly stupid amount of my hard-earned money to see this man-- all of Vogel really but especially Ring, in a suit. He would look so good in one! Since Vogel's color is mainly white, I bet any suit they stick him in would also be white but I bet he could pull it off. If I get to see this man in a suit I will die a very happy beyotch. Gimme a suit CG, Cybird please I beg!

Speaking of happy, his smile legitimately makes me happy. I mean, how could it not, right? Like,

He's so darling!

Look at him he looks so soft! Oh, I just want to give him all the kisses!

I'm hoping that one of his route CGs will feature a full, genuinely happy smile like with teeth and it reaching his eyes and the whole shebang. Given Ikevil's aversion to teeth, will it happen? I dunno, beats me, probably not but I can dream, yeah?

I would also like to put him in a leather jacket. And a tank top and that's just to see the arms.

I headcanon that he and Nica are fairly tall compared to Dari and most of Crown. I don't think they're as tall as Ellis and Roger but I just picture the twins being on the vertically gifted side.

I imagine that being Vogel's guard dog and given his and Nica's implied upbringing, he has at least a few scars on his body. He would have to, right? With the kind of focus and determination he shows to following Dari's orders, I would think it would've led to a few injuries and wounds in the past. And that's not even touching on the crumbs of crumbs we've gotten of his backstory so far.

On to our next stop in this little adventure!

His main hobbies are training, and taking naps in the afternoon and eating. But he also loves animals and flowers and seems to know a lot about them and flower language. It's been stated that animals will follow/flock to him a lot of the time, and he never seems to feel full no matter how much he eats.

I'm going to look into each of these just a bit for this part here.

I believe that Ring not only trains as much as he does because he found a way to genuinely enjoy it, but because he and Nica were at one point in time very helpless and he wanted to make sure that if he could help it, neither of them would ever feel helpless again. I feel like Nica looked out for him a lot before Dari found them (not wanting to go into too much detail for those who don't know a lot of the JP lore) and so he wanted to return the favor. His big brother kept him safe so now he wants to keep Nica and Dari safe now that he's older and stronger.

I also believe that his and Nica's previous...situation is why he likes taking naps in the afternoon. I feel like perhaps they were in a place where they didn't have a lot of sunlight for a long while and no real way to see it a lot if ever, so now as an adult, it's something that brings him enough comfort to fall asleep.

(I legitimately can't wait to bawl my eyes out at his and Nica's routes when they're released. Ready for the PAIN)

The food bit is probably easily explained by saying they didn't have access to a lot of food as kids but I also feel like he just really really likes food. Definite foodie. He'd be the type to try almost anything at least once just to see if he likes it. I feel like he'd be particularly intrigued with spicy food, since Germany doesn't really have a lot of spicy dishes from my brief google searching.

Flower language was really popular in Victorian England but I'm not sure how popular it was in Germany at the time. Whatever the case, I love the fact that he loves flowers and knows so much about them. I think he'd be the type to painstakingly put together a bouquet for someone he has a thing for in an attempt to show his feelings since he gets so easily flustered saying them aloud.

As for the animal thing, I'm a sucker for a guy who loves animals and I could definitely see multiple instances of Dari having to exasperatedly tell Ring that no, he could not keep the pigeon that followed him home, or the dog he saved from being run over by a carriage, or the cat that innocently curled up in his lap while he was taking a nap under a tree...

Aaaaand on to the next stop of the brainrot train! The train of rot, if you will. This is even more random thought splattering don't mind me.

I took German in all four years of high school and was decent at it but promptly dropped it the second I graduated. This man? This man right here? Is single-handedly making me want to re-learn what I learned and go further with it and actually learn as much as I can just because I want to be able to speak his native language.

I feel like he'd be the type to give really long hugs. I imagine he and Nica are really really touch-starved so the second he starts getting regular affection, he'll drink up every drop he can. Neck nuzzles, long contented sighs, and like, you'd be able to feel him relax the longer you held him and I think that'd be really really sweet.

That would also go for sex. The wanting to have it as much as possible once he does actually have it, anyway. Like pringles. Once you pop you can't stop and I think he'd be like that for a hot minute...or forever.

I could go on and on for a while but I'll spare everyone paragraphs of my Ring Schwartz word vomit. I love Ring a lot. I can't remember the last time I got so attached to a fictional character and he's probably the closest to an f/o I've ever gotten. He hasn't been in the game for long but he already means a lot to me and I can't wait to find out more about him and his story and the rest of Vogel as well.

Thank you so much, anon, whoever you are for asking about my brainrotting. Thank you for an excuse to talk about my fave and I hope your Christmas was great! Here's hoping you have a happy, healthy, and auspicious new year!

[desertfangs]

For the fic ask: obviously I want to know more about your Loustat piece, Delicate Desires! Give me a fun fact AND ALSO I’m curious to know your thoughts on what you think happens after this occurrence! Do you think they celebrated Lestat’s birthday in any way the following year? The final line gets me every time about it not being a perfect evening, but also “not the worst” like what do you think his WORST birthday was 😭 lmao birthday fics are always so fun and bittersweet and I love this one!

Send me a fic and I'll reply with a fact about it, or ask me a question about a fic!

A fun fact is that a long time ago (like 90s? Early 2000s?) there was a long fic called something like "The Secret History" by a writer I believe was named Cesare? And possibly I have gotten that entirely wrong so my apologies to the author if so. But the crux of it was, Louis and Lestat spent the Rue Royale years often fooling around, being very physically close, but hiding their intimacy from Claudia and obviously Louis did not speak of this in the interview. Which... I mean... is also what people get from canon but that fic implanted itself in my brain and I always think of it when I think of the Rue Royale Era. So when I was writing this, even though my memories of that fic are dusty and weak, I thought of that a lot.

Which brings me to your question! I feel like the bulk of what we get about that time is Louis trying to tell a very streamlined story about his grief and agony and guilt, and Lestat does mention that Louis left out of a lot of the fun times they had. So I think the truth is somewhere in between. I do think Louis would remember Lestat's birthday after he learned it and perhaps, if he was feeling like he wanted to try and connect with him, he might get him a small gift or try to make the evening pleasant without even mentioning he realized the date: get tickets for some show or something maybe, I don't know. They had so many years together that they probably did have an actual celebration at some point, although they were more likely to do that for Claudia's birthday ("birth" day) which would probably lead to questions from her and a bad time all around, so maybe it wasn't something they brought up a lot. ����

As for Lestat's worst birthday, I'm sure that was something in France, involving his father and brothers, and Gabrielle coming to his room to soothe him and comb his hair and tell him everything is okay at the end of the night. But with Louis, I don't know, probably one where they had some fight and Louis didn't even know what day it was. Maybe when he his father was still alive and he spent it in the big plantation house alone with his father while Louis wandered around the swamp eating rats.

Okay, this has gotten too long and rambly! Thank you so much for the ask! 💖

[jayflrt]

🎀 update since it’s been a while

haiiiii i haven’t been on tumblr in 5ever. i feel like im only ever on here now when u update LMAO. speaking of LIVING for jay/yn. it’s AMAZE. i’m also every excited for the next update. but anywho how have you been! we haven’t spoke in forever i really can’t remember what my last update was abt so im just gonna skim thru things!

like since the start of this year ive been SUPERERRR into f1 so i made a podcast! (podcast in question is my cf on my spam account 🥸) 😅😅 i’ve always liked it because my brother did but i’ve gotten more into it. i also took a listen to romance untold and it’s SO good my favs r defff moonstruck and royalty 🔥.

lowk this summer has been chill like any other. i went to a couple parties with my friends but then after that not much happened. there’s no guy updates bc unfortunately my life is no longer a wattpad story because that was very hard on my emotions 😅😅. i’ve lowk sworn off relationships for a while. obviously not completely but i don’t know recently a friend pointed out to me that whenever im in one its very tolling on my emotions and it’s not good so i don’t want that to happened again. i was also just not in a good place when arsal/cameron/marcus happened. REST ASSURED I AM BETTER NOW!!! #weUP

about my friends it’s going nice! we’re kinda doing our own thing since it’s the summer however one of them, m (i think i name drop too comfortably on here), recently started talking (ish) to a guy and she’s kinda obsessed with him. like it’s in a weird way in where she full blown cancelled plans that we made like 5 days prior just bc she had last minute plans with him so 😃😃😃😃 i’m so happy for her!! (NOT). i have to be honest there’s nothing wrong with him other than the fact he looks like he SNUCK ONTO EARTH WHEN THEY FIRST WALKED ON THE MOON. so 🤗🤗🤗🤗

i have been writing a LOT more recently. like not even just because it’s kpop i don’t know i get the inspiration to write and just open a google docs document. like for instance one of them the plot is mc breaks up with sunghoon and becomes closer to heeseung but plot twist! they’re in a band and there’s DRAMAA 🔥🔥🔥. and then another one is where mc and jake r ENEMIES bc her dog tried impregnating jake’s dog at a dog park 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. one of them is a sunghoon fic that’s heavily inspired by cmbyn (MINUS THE GROOMING) the other is a jay prank call au where he calls her bc he remembers his highschool sweetheart and she doesn’t even spare him a thought 🔥🔥🔥🔥. there’s a single dad sunghoon au somewhere in there. MY GOOGLE DOCS IS COOKING.

however i don’t think i could ever post it to tumblr. maybe one day when anyone is interested ill send in a little snippet of one of them 🤗 or dm u one of them and reveal my identity 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮. but i don’t know! i’ve tried writing on tumblr before but i was in highschool when i tried soooooo. i also think that im just too busy. maybe one day when im not so busy 🔥.

but yeah that’s really it 🤗🤗. but update me if anything cool is happening in ur life. r YOU having a hot girl summer. i also think u said you went on a trip recently (?) IDK. but pleeeekkk update me - 🎀

hihi 🎀 anon !! omg please i'm honored you're sticking around to update me 🥹 they're MUCH appreciated i love reading them <3 and thank you sm for tuning into yfi786 🥰🥰

omg i have a few friends who are super into f1 too!! the races look like they must be so fun to go to :') YKWW the close friends story podcast is always sm more fun to tune into than an actual podcast 🙂‍↕️ my fav rn is brought the heat back it's just been playing in my head 24/7 and that vocal run from jay hello!!!! moonstruck and royalty are SO good though they're definitely up there for me too

i'm glad your summer's been chill !! it's always nice to just have time to unwind before getting back to the uni grind 🥲 honestly relationships/situationships can take so much out of you mentally so i'm glad you don't have to feel that way anymore!! and im glad you get to spend the summer with your friends 💗

OMG NOOOO YOUR FRIEND NEEDS TO RUN FOR THE HILLS 😭 why would she cancel your guys plans like that?? LMFAOOO PLS we're always losing an angel to an ugly man 😞💔 no that's so upsetting tho :( i hope she gets over him he's not worth cancelling plans with friends over!!!!

omg wait SLAY 😌 the rush of writing inspiration always feels so so good and i hope it lasts a long time for you!!! HELP NOT THE DOGS MATING AT THE PARK 😭 but okay i see you grinding through those plots!!! 🔥 the google drive is being FED and oml if you ever feel like sharing,, my asks are open 🤭 also yeah that makes sense!! i don't bother with aesthetics because it's just sooo time consuming,, like don't get me wrong i'd love to have a super cute theme and stuff but it's def a lot of work :')

omg yes i went on a little trip with my friends :')) we did that thing where we pulled our vacation plan out of a hat LMFAO but it was fun!! i'm very sick of flying tho! 🫤 NO hot girl summer just hot corporate slave summer 😩 i have been trying to pick up new hobbies though because i just dropped my habit of doomscrolling on tiktok 🤧

[cyncerity]

Hi, I absolutely love your store shifter au and it gave me so much brainrot!! I’m borrowing a friend’s account for the moment because I can’t have a tumblr. Anyhow, I just wanted you to say that even if I can’t interact, I absolutely love all your ideas!!! If I understood the lore right, I would assume George is Sapnap’s younger brother and whatever traumatizing experience caused Sapnap to shift also took George away from Dream when they were young. Will Dream and George ever meet in person and if they met as tinies, would George realize it was Dream and what would he think of Dream having the pendant/braid? How would Tommy learn Dream was a shifter, and if one of them was tiny when that happened how would they deal with/would there be a language barrier? And how does Dream learn to shift back? This is much longer than intended, sorry. Feel free to answer parts of it or none of it, I just wanted you to know you’re wonderful!! And if this ask isn’t long enough, then here’s some writing prompts -a friendly admirer

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

“My clothes. They just look so, so…”

“Yeah. Hard to believe we even fit that size, right?”

“It’s crazy.”

xxxxxx

"Wow"

"What?"

"Nothing... I'm just not used to

seeing you from this angle.”

"Yeah, I guess it's usually the

other way around.”

This is literally one of the most personal asks I’ve ever gotten solely for the fact that how you described being on tumblr is exactly how I was

I wasn’t allowed on tumblr, so i’d wait till everyone in my house was asleep and then pull out my middle school ipod as a burner device, look at g/t posts for an hour or so, then delete the google tabs i’d pulled them up on and fully shut down the ipod and hide it.

I lurked in this specific community for about a year, then lurked with an account so i could send asks for about another half year until i caved and got the app without parental permission lol (my dad had seen how tumblr was before the bad bots started to get banned so he honest to god thought this was one of those kinda sites but hes chill now)

suffice to say i completely know where you’re coming from and I love you for it 💖

Even if you can’t like my posts or have an account, just coming on here and saying you like my content is so awesome and it absolutely means the world to me 💕✨💖

As for you’re thoughts on the lore (and thank you for sending so many questions I love when this happens):

You’re getting close >:)

Sapnap doesn’t have any siblings, but as I’ve mentioned before (i think), Quackity does! And the event that sparked Sapnap’s shifting was similar to what got George taken in the first place (which could definitely be a reason that it was distressing enough to cause him to shift 👀), just on a larger scale and at different times. George was gone well before Sapnap became a shifter.

As for more on George, i’ll limit myself to what I can say cause there’s so much I want to write for him. At some point it’s my goal to write a story for him as a sort of interlude of the “dream shifted for the first time” story (there will be more parts! I’m working on them! Ngl this ask kinda made me realize how much I wanted to finish the second part of that) and have him fully explained there.

But I can tell you that Dream and George will meet in person! I can’t tell you if Dream will be tiny when they meet, cause you don’t even know for sure what species George is yet, but i promise the boys will meet! Will George know it’s Dream when they meet and vice versa? Who knows! That’s for me to know and you all to find out later >:)

Tommy won’t learn Dream is a shifter for a while, since Dream is stuck at the store. It also takes a bit of time for a new shifter to shift back to their normal size, since they’ve been repressing their capabilities for so long, their body has to stay at the opposite size to get used to it initially. Dream will be able to shift back at some point, but not without some help :)

And now that you mention it, there definitely could be a language barrier, and that could make things really interesting 👀 (im imagining Tommy seeing Dream tiny for the first time at a loss for words and Dream frantically trying to explain what he is but obviously Tommy already knows, so Tommy starts talking about being a shifter himself and he can’t hear Dream’s absolute shock and confusion at this information and can answer none of his questions)

And the writing prompts, YES, i am IN LOVE WITH THEM

If i don’t write specific things for them, they will be put into the next few stories for this au because they are such good ideas oh my word

and as a treat because i loved answering your questions and it made me really happy to get an ask that hit so close to my own experience here’s some miscellaneous Store Shifter drawings from my chorus class, just for you bestie 💖

i have so many of these for so many aus you don’t even know the half of it

[boundlss]

❔ sends this again since our muselists have changed since last time :3

hahaha i feel like i say this every single time i reply to a meme like this but general forewarning that on my end i will be working exclusively with the muses of yours i'm actually familiar with, but this in no way means i'm not open to interactions with muses not listed on either end!! i am happy to write any and all muse combinations for the most part these are just a few that come to mind!!

okay! first and most obvious (in my opinion), i would absolutely LOVE to discuss some things between iorveth and isengrim at some point. aside from the fact that i just love writing isengrim in general, i've never fully gotten the opportunity to explore a potential dynamic between him and iorveth, and i think that's a shame. i've been itching to send something but because of my work and other hobbies i'm never on the dash at the right time to catch a meme being reblogged. in any case, when i DO luck out, you can count on that sort of thing being the first thing i send.

this one is a little more weird but i would LOVE to send tempest at legolas sometime (or even iorveth as well)!! he's an original elven character who has... semi work-in-progress verses for both witcher and tolkien. the general gist of his character is he's the sort of person who makes himself everyone's enemy so they can unite at his own expense---sort of a backline schemer type of character who's a lot more sympathetic than he lets on. i think the general dour and pessimistic tone of tempest's character would contrast well against legolas very much not being that way, and i also think it would be a good complementary interaction for iorveth.

the third and final muse of yours on this blog i know is venti, naturally, but i would like for them and parsifal to interact!! supposing you're not familiar with the artifact lore in genshin, parsifal was the wielder of the iron sting, alley flash, and alley hunter, and the phantom thief mentioned in wine and song, as well as the skipper's first mate from the heart of depth artifact set and serpent spine claymore. once upon a time he was part of a larger storyline related to old fabled "characters" from mondstadt and liyue's past suddenly being resurrected and given second chances, but he's pretty much alone in that now. i just think it would be interesting for the two of them to interact given parsi's famous history and odd resurrection. i don't know. he has a whole plot in modern mondstadt where he's learning about the extent of his brother eberhart's betrayal so maybe venti could have a part in that or something.

honorable mention to brynn and leslaw who are going to interact very soon anyway. also honorable mention to ciri and twain just bc ciri isn't on this blog and i feel kind of obligated to toss twain into these posts at least once but i do really mean this. i do.

muse matchups! / accepting.

[laesas]

Hi dear! For the ask game maybe 🧠 and 💭?

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?

🌸 Kimhanahaki 🌸 - KimChay + Hanahaki disease (flowers growing in the chest caused by unrequited love) this has spent the last few weeks pinging around my little brain.

It's a Chay POV fic where a few years after canon he's mostly moved on. He's gotten to the point where he can hear a WIK song on the radio and think about it almost fondly. He's not planning on becoming Kim's best friend but he can be civil with him and he understands why Kim did what he did to protect his brothers at the very least. Everything is fine until he gets dragged to some event where he stumbles into a back room and finds Kim collapsed on the floor coughing up flowers. At first Chay is caught by the fact this this is incredibly unfair, especially as Kim is the one that hurt him, but he eventually becomes determined to help because he feels responsible. Kim (predictably) wants no involvement in this plan and wants Chay to stay away. Kim is managing fine on his own. He's getting treatments, it's all managable, he just has to live with it. Chay convinces him to let him help by threatening to tell Tankhun lol. Chay is convinced that more distance won't help and realistically, it's been 2-3 years and Kim is apparently still in love with some teenage, pre-mafia version of Chay that doesnt exist anymore. If he can get that idea through Kim's head, maybe there's a chance he'll fall out of love and that the flowers will stop. Cue Kim and Chay developing a tentative friendship, Kim learning to lean on the people he trusts and a KimChay slowly falling (back) in love montage.

I have so so much more on this haha - The other day I got a leeetle bit tipsy and overexcited and accidentally pitched the entire thing to various little gay creatures that live in my phone. When I predicted 'at least 20k' for breathing room I got told 'at least 40k' which is! A LOT!! Maybe too much for lil ol me (a very very new writer) I'm torn because I love the idea and I feel like if I post the *ENTIRE* outline and all the plot points here, there will be absolutely ZERO chance of me writing it because *spoilers!*. BUT if the chance of me writing it is zero anyway, maybe I should just type up the full outline and hit post?! It might spark joy for someone haha

ANYWAY! that's Kimhanahaki! 🌸

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

OOH! - So this never makes it into the KimBig fic but I have so many headcanons about Kim's resentment of Big and how that came to be. My idea is that Kim used to be incredibly close with Kinn in their childhood. Tankhun was off doing much more imprtant heir related things and Kinn was left to dote on Kim.

Big was brought to the household at around the exact same time that Kinn became the heir (I've seen some fics where Big's was orphaned when his father (a bodyguard) was killed during Taknhun's kidnapping). Big moves in, determined to follow in his father's footsteps, and as Kinn's agemate he can convincingly go where other bodyguards can't. He's also a massive support for Kinn emotionally as while Tankhun is still alive, Kinn has still 'lost' his older brother in a sense.

Between all his new responsibilities and gaining Big as his new shadow, the now-teenage Kinn's relationship with a still very young Kim takes a hit. Kim is too young and too emotionally immature to fill the space that Big fits into, and as Kinn starts leaving him behind he ends up resenting Big for it.

Thanks so so much for asking lovely!! <3

✨📝 Writers Ask Game 📝✨

💌Send here!💌

[whoseafraidofliloleme]

Oof good question… if I had to pick top 3 not including Peace I think I would say The Second Choice, Unexpected Partners, and Enchanted/Wrecking Her Plans ( you have so many good ones it was kinda hard to pick lol)

The second choice: I loved seeing the build up between the love triangle and hee but reader ultimately picking Jay and Heeseung being okay with it and everyone being genuinely happy for each other. It was also really interesting to see the concept of an abusive friend and the reader finally realizing she hurt her so many times on purpose. It’s not a topic that used to be talked about a lot and as someone who has had an experience like that in the past it was cool to see the reader have such a huge support circle and my fave part was Jay making it very clear he had no interest in Hye won even AFTER she tried to BLACKMAIL him. Bro literally gave 0 fucks 😂

Unexpected Partners: The one side beef was insane Jungwon was soooo petty the entire time but he really put in the effort and sucked up at the end and they turned out to be super cute together. Glad my girls crush finally liked her back in a genuine way and not a “just cause they’re there” kinda way.

Wrecking her plans: Heeseung was literally that guy in this fic lmaooo bro did not give up at all and gave it 100% 24/7 365 days and year. President of the simp nation! The concept of everything starting with her book was also super cute as a fellow book nerd I love seeing stories where girls who read still get good and hot guys 💅🏼

Enchanted: Was just super cute, sweet, and to the point. Both of them were whipped the moment they locked eyes and Jimin’s mischievousness in this one really made me laugh

His versatility really is something else, he can give us the most unserious funny songs and moment while simultaneously giving us the most heavenly angelic songs. I do really love how his songs have a more classical/romance theme to them as I feel like it fits his vocals so well. I really want him to do a song with a nice violin/strings theme that would be awesome! Love how we’ll both just be sending each other various Jin gifs from now on 😂

Hopefully you get to see them live soon as well inshallah! I didn’t get to watch that one but I did watch I think it was the Bring the Soul one and I took my youngest brother with me and we were both in awe!! That was what made me want to really experience it live! I had actually gotten a ticket for him as well but oh well I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, so inshallah one day in the future I’ll get to see them.

There’s just something so nice and comforting about winter! Getting to drink hot drinks, have movie marathons with snacks and warm blankets. The candles! Love it (also love not sweating while I walk around lol)

Babes I genuinely don’t know how I did it but I’m pretty proud of myself! I have a bunch more ideas it’s just a matter of having time and being able to write it but thank you for reading it and I’m so glad you liked it!! That makes me really happy 🤭 Speaking of writing I’m so excited for Fake It Till You Make It, it already looks interesting from what you’ve posted!

Take care of yourself well my love!! Remember “love myself, love yourself” we gotta practice what our boys preach 💅🏼

Aww thank you for being so kind 😭😭. I don't think I'll ever get used to the fact that people actually like and read the stories I've written.

The Second Choice: It's so gratifying to hear that you loved the build up and the love triangle. I've always thought I didn't do the best job on it but genuinely good to know that someone did enjoy it 🥹. Heeseung was always going to be supportive, he loved YN and Jay. If they were happy together, he's happy and in the Where Are They Now, he got his happy ending too.

I do love having toxic something in my smaus. As someone who had a controlling best friend growing up, it was too easy to think of this friend of mine and how things would've been for us if we had stayed friends. I liked that it was something that connected to so many people, it very much isn't talked/written about enough.

Jay was NOT having it with Hye Won and that cracked me up. Originally the idea was more angsty with Hye Won being a good bestie so there's more guilt on YNs part over liking the guy her BFF does too.

Unexpected Partners: Ah my very first Asshole Jungwon fic 😂. Not gonna lie the reactions to Jungwons stupidity cracked me up.

The whole thing with Jungwon was you don't know what you have until it's gone. He didn't realise his feelings until YN wasn't there 24/7 and he realises that he hasn't even been a good friend to her which then opens the door for him to realise his feelings.

It was also important to me that YN learned to love herself, she became so caught up in her feelings for Jungwon that she forgot herself so there was her finding herself, loving herself and then accepting that Jungwon loves her too.

Wrecking Her Plans: Heeseung was down bad from the beginning. If he couldve my guy would've asked YN out after that first meeting. I really love their first meeting and how it started cause of a book. Girls who read deserve to get their hot green flag guys.

Enchanted: I actually re read it and ur so right 😂. I don't even like love at first sight but here I am writing it for these 2. It has to be the fluffiest thing I've written. I enjoyed writing Jimin and his mischievousness and the banter between him and YN.

That's true, he could try any genre and I would listen. Jin with any sort of an orchestra I think would be interesting. Sending Jin gif sounds wonderful to me 😂.

PTD definitely made me want to watch them live, tbf I wanna watch either BTS or enhypen live and I'll be good, maybe TXT or Seventeen too. It's so hard, they all do so much to make concerts amazing that it really will come down to who is in London and do I have the money to spend 😂.

Winter is that cosy time to be all snuggly and do the stuff you love, nice and warm. Oof yes, not sweating is what I love too 😂.

As you should be!! 18k is a feat and should be celebrated!!!!. I feel that, there's never not ideas going on in my head too.

Funny you mentioned Jimin before. I've got Namjin and Yoonkook in Fake It Till You Make It and Jimin pops in to be a chaotic brother to Sunghoon. Side note, I didn't realise how much I wanted to write chaotic Namjin until this smau 😂😂.

Oh and another Jungwon smau masterlist is coming tomorrow, it's got a sunshine/grumpy vibe, fake dating, Law student Jungwon and Gymnast/history student MC.

Take care lovie!!! Gotta do what out boys told us to! Love yourself and remember self care is important!!.

Jinnie in glasses is something else and this is probably one of my favourite gifs ever.

[legalownerofufoemoji]

Submas asks you say? I can offer some fun questions!

What are some of your favorite Submas headcanons that you've seen from others?

Do you have a favorite twin? Why or why not?

How did you discover the funny train lads?

(And this is more just for me lmao) Any upbeat/fluffy fic recs, or maybe you wanna write a short one?

Okay HMM this one shouldn't be too long of a ramble but we will see! (It ended up a little longer than I intended, my bad. No ficlet here, just rambles! If you want a ficlet, send me another ask with a prompt and I'll write one out :D)

Some of my favorite headcannons? Well I can't remember exactly what I've gotten from other people and what I have made myself, but I think I've said before I do REALLY enjoy Ingo (if not both Ingo AND Emmet) being HoH or even partially Deaf! As a Deaf person myself, and the fact that I view both the twins as HEAVILY autistic, I'd say they probably both have Auditory Processing Disorder already since it is heavily co-morbid with autism, but I also think I saw somewhere that somebody thought Ingo may be properly Deaf with actual hearing loss because of how much he yells! I relate because I also yell and talk very loud because it's difficult to hear myself. I'd like to think Ingo likely has damage to his hearing, perhaps from a train incident or maybe something to do with feedback from the PA system. I mean we all know the twins are very careful and cautious but they likely grew to be that way from multiple incidents over the years LOL

That was a big ramble for just one headcannon but I genuinely cannot think of any others that I've seen that I knowingly picked up from someone else? Though I'd LOVE for you guys to send me in asks about headcannons you enjoy and I'll tell you my thoughts on them !!

Favorite Twin though? MAN that's tough. That poll was going around recently and I am pretty sure Ingo won the votes, but I can't remember. I don't believe I have a favorite just because I like them both for a few different reasons, but if I HAD to pick? Emmet probably. I just think the specific type of trauma he went through with his twin brother and closest friend up and disappearing for god knows how long is a very, interesting type of thing to explore, as well as I relate to Emmet a touch more in the way he's shown in fannon as more blunt and sometimes even aggressive, I like putting my own headcannons onto him of him either having IED (an anger issue disorder I have) or just having SEVERE emotional regulation issues to the point where he likely gets set off way faster than Ingo. And if you take that idea and run with it, it also would just add to the stress of him trying to navigate life without Ingo to keep him in check. I'd like to think he grows a lot emotionally from it, but also it deeply hurts him, though after Ingo (possibly) returns, they are both slightly less codependent and VERY codependent if you look at it from different angles.

Like yeah, Emmet would have learned coping mechanisms to use on his own without his brothers assistance, and so he can be on his own and deal with over-stimulation and frustration without going off on somebody now, which Ingo is very proud of as that was a life long struggle of Emmets, but the way he was forced to learn in such a short period of time makes him inclined to not want to be alone if he can help it. On top of I know he would be verrrry clingy to Ingo when he returns, and Ingo would likely be the same, if not for missing Emmet but just clinging onto the little bit of his past he finally found, up until he properly gets his memories back if that is a factor in the equation.

So yeah, Emmet if I had to choose is my favorite but I really enjoy them both. They are a set, do not separate!!!

How did I discover them? That's actually a REALLY funny story, to me at least. I had already been aware of them in pokemon B/W, but I wasn't insane about the fellas, I just enjoyed gear station and Emmet made me want to die with the 50/100 battles won in a row AUGH. But when Legends Arceus came out, I started seeing a lot of art of some silly fellas I didn't recognize across my dash. The art was amazing most of the time if it was full pieces, but also the shitpposting really got my attention for how silly the twins just, look. Muppet men. So I went down the rabbit hole one day at like, 3 am, and much to my fiance's dismay, he woke up to me SPAMMING him with photos and art of the twins and infodumping about the lore and how "THERES A NEW GAME OUT I NEED TO PLAY IT RAAGH" (he has the game now and I've played it a little but I keep forgetting I actually don't really enjoy playing the pokemon games much, I just enjoy the lore) and then it spilled over into my work life, where I kept ranting about AUs as they were coming out (that future Emmet AU where he possesses his past self in an attempt to save Ingo? AUGH that one hurts so good, I need to write a fic about it) and now all of my friends and ex coworkers know me as the rando obsessed with pokemon men. Good times

And for fic recs, actually as unwell as I am about the twins I have not looked on ao3 or anything for fics??? Maybe it's because I'm a little scared of coming across something gross, I also get majorly squicked out about shipping the twins with other people just because it doesn't feel right in my brain, though theres a handful of exceptions (I really enjoy one of the AUs that Emmet and Elesa got together after Ingo disappeared and had a kid, only for Ingo to return very confused, that ones funny, though I do also heavily characterize that Emmet much differently than I do 'classic' Emmet)

But if you'd like to give me a prompt or just, something silly and domestic, I could TOTALLY write out a ficlet for you! I just, am in desperate need of ideas because for some reason I'm able to come up with nothing on my own right now (autism burnout ftw)

[vaguely-functional-directions]

Act II starts with the song Made In America. This is basically about how bad things are at the moment, there is no hope for anyone, everyone is in debt, and no apparent future, so of course people are going to turn to crimes and who can really blame them for it. (This is like 1930s so like great depression etc etc..)

Don't 100% remember where this scene is, but I think it makes sense here, so I am putting it here. They arrive at a bank to rob it, and when Clyde announces that it's a hold up, this guy in line get so excited to actually see Bonnie and Clyde, and asks for their autograph. Bonnie is *so* excited and signs a note for him, signing it as 'Bonnie and Clyde'. And then Clyde is like, why does your name get to go first. And then they are asking the guy which version he thinks sounds better while pointing their guns at him and he faints. It's actually so funny I love this scene so much lmao. Moving on, Clyde goes up to the teller, and is told that there is no money at the bank because things have gotten so bad.

Clyde goes out to do another robbery, and it ends up with him killing someone. He tells Bonnie about it and while he wasn't intending to do it, she realizes that things have gone farther than she thought they have and she wants to get out before it's too late. But Clyde tries to convince her to stay. This is the song Too Late to Turn Back Now. Bonnie decides to stay because she is so in love with him, she could never truly leave, with the line 'My mistake was loving you, even if I walked away my heart won't let me get far'.

Buck is seeing all the news about his brother and Bonnie, and is saying that he wants to follow them. Blanche is adamant that he stays home; all she wants is a quiet amd easy life and she has the song That's What You Call a Dream, about how all she wants is to grow old with Buck and doesn't need a big adventure. Which is the exact opposite basically of Bonnie and Clyde's motivation for anything.

Clyde goes back to see his parents and his mother seems so lost about what to do about him, since she obviously knows what he's been doing and that he's a fugitive. But his father still accepts the money he tries to give him, but then leaves with his mother. This is the start of the song What Was Good Enough, which is Clyde singing about how the work his father does in the fields is absolutely not what he wants, and he can't see the appeal of living such a hard life for hardly any benefit and he's going for bigger things like his childhood idols. The next part of the song switches to Bonnie singing similar intentions about what she wants from life vs. the life her mother has, about having bigger aspirations.

I can't remember the order of a couple scenes but there's a part where Bonnie is reading from a magazine and sees her and Clyde mentioned, and they refer to her as a 'ravishing redhead' and she absolutely loves that. And there's another part where she is reading Clyde one of her peomes and he suggests she send it to the papers because they are printing anything to do with them, and she get so excited about the fact that her poetry is going to yet published, I love it so much. Then there is also one scene where Bonnie recognizes how far things have gotten and that there is no getting out of it. She realizes she is too far in things now that she can't escape, there is no way she'll see her dream of being an actress and from now on she will just be on the run with Clyde, from the law. She very much does recognize the severity of the situation she is in, which is heartbreaking. Also a scene where Clyde writes a song for Bonnie, called 'Bonnie', it's just about how he thinks of her and is a very sweet and cute song. At the beginning of this song, it's a complete parallel to how they bicker in the earlier scene when she is reading her poetry to him and it is literally so cute. This part is in the soundtrack so I knew about it, but obviously the earlier scene was new to me when seeing the show, so when that happened I was just like. !!! Knowing that it was actually an earlier callback to what was going to happen again later here, but roles reversed.

Bonnie meets up with her mother for a visit, as both she and Clyde have stayed in touch with their parents. Her mother is trying to convince her to come back home and take the short jail sentence she will get just to know she will be home safe again. But Bonnie won't do it; she is happy with Clyde and there is a whole moment where she tells her mother that her and clyde are the only ones truly alive and that everyone else is walking around dead, and she can't go back to how things used to be.

Buck and Blanche join up with Bonnie and Clyde (Buck went after Clyde, Blanche followed him to try and convince him to go home with her and to stay with him). Blanche asks Bonnie at one point if she likes how things are, and if she like regrets how things turned out for her, and she sings the song Dying Ain't So Bad. This is about how if she lived a full life and ends up dying alongside Clyde, she is ok with that. Living a mundane life in small town Texas was never what she wanted, and she got out and lived an adventure and that is what she and Clyde did. She knows the law is coming for her and how it will end, but she can live with that, knowing she actually lived. This song is where the line 'I'd rather breathe in life than dusty air' comes from.

There is a reprise of Raise a Little Hell, where Buck and Clyde steal a bunch of high caliber guns, much more dangerous than the pisotols they've been using up to that point. And in the song as well, Ted has a part about all he wants to do is save Bonnie. But like. Does he even consider that she doesn't need saving?? That she is exactly where she needs to be? That the image he has in his head of who she is, is not real? So anyways. There is one time when they are all just chilling, and the song How Bout a Dance comes onto the radio and Bonnie starts singing along and for a moment there, the 4 of them are all happy, and everything seems perfect but then there are sirens outside the apartment where they've been staying. And there's a whole shoot out thing and they hit Buck, and there's a reprise of God's Arms are Always Open, and he dies cradled in Blanche's arms. And Blanche's fate is honestly so tragic; she's arrested immediately after that and is convicted of helping 2 known fugitives, and for not turning them in etc etc... but she didn't deserve any of that. She literally did nothing wrong, and spent the whole time trying to get Buck to just go home with her.

So Bonnie and Clyde then know they are just living on borrowed time until they are caught. And they have plans to meet up with their parents, which is so sad when you think about it because they have to know this will be their last time seeing them, so really they are going to say goodbye but neither can bring themselves to acknowledge it. They have a reprise of Dying Ain't So Bad, also. And as the instrumental to How Bout a Dance plays again, the show ends at the same moment where it started, with them in the car, and bonnie sings the last notes of the song 'You'll lose the blues, and you may lose your heart'. (And they never made it to their meet up, because the shoot out where they died happened shortly after). In the live show I saw, those lines were recorded which I though was so emotional, because she had already gotten into the car at that point so it was like just an echo of her life because it wasn't on-stage Bonnie actually singing it. Because the moment she stepped into that car, she was dead, even if she technically wasn't yet. And then in the digital ticket version, it doesn't have the car, but they walk off stage after Bonnie sings those last lines, and then it goes black and you just hear two gunshots go off. Like. Hello??? How was I supposed to emotionally get though that???

THIS IS AN ASK

WHAT’S THE PLOT OF THE B&C MUSICAL

OH YES I'M GLAD YOU ASKED. This will go into FAR too much detail and there *will* be supplementary images

The show starts at the end of the story, with a series of gunshots and then a car is shown on the stage with Bonnie and Clyde inside of it having been killed by law enforcement.

It then goes back to when Bonnie amd Clyde were kids with the opening song Picture Show, which goes through the years as they grow up. It has both of them in different 'scenes' throughout the song. Bonnie is singing about how she wants to grow up to be like her idol Clara Bow, and to become an actress just like her. Clyde, meanwhile, is singing about how he dreams of becoming like his role models, Billy the Kid and Al Capone. In the later part of the song it shows Clyde and his brother Buck getting arrested and sentenced to 2 years in jail.

The next scene is Bonnie working at a diner, and she has a conversation with Ted, who works at the sheriff's office and he invites her to go with him to a party.

After her shift ends, Bonnie runs into Clyde at the side of the road, with the car having been broken down and they start talking. This leads to the next song This World Will Remember Me, which is Clyde singing about all his aspirations and what he will do to make sure that he is remembered. The second verse of the song starts to include Bonnie in his visions, with him saying how he sees big things being possible for Bonnie and that she has the potential to do everything she dreams of, and she is very flattered to know that he can see that in her.

At this point too, Bonnie also becomes aware that he is ~lowkey~ on the run from having escaped from his prison sentence

So then it goes to Blanche's salon(she is Buck's wife) and Buck shows up, clearly expecting a warm welcome home, but what really happens is that she tells him he has to turn himself in to finish out his sentence so that they can start over clean after he serves his time. This is the next song You're Going Back to Jail, which is so fun because it's about Blanche telling Buck not to worry about her moving on from him with him being away, and telling her friends at the song to say how hard it is for them with their husband's in prison. But all they do is say about how great things are for them now that their husbands are gone lmao. So it's then settled that Buck is going to turn himself in the next day

Next we see Bonnie and Clyde on like a picnic, and she is reading to him poetry she wrote. And it's about Clyde and Billy the Kid, and it ends with Clyde getting shot at the end, and they bicker a lot in this scene and I love it so much. Bonnie then tells Clyde not to make fun of her poetry, and tells him that she's going to be a poet, and an actress, and a singer, and clyde then is like. Well why don't you sing something then. And then it's the next song which is How 'Bout a Dance. And in my very strong opinion, it is this koment in this song where Bonnie truly and irreversibly falls in love with Clyde and everything that follows becomes inevitable. Because after this song, she is never going to not follow him anywhere, and he is never going to go clean and so this song is really central to everything in the whole show. This song also book ends the show, with the instrumental playing at the very beginning, which I am aware I did not say before.

Anyways. Moving on.

There's then a short scene where Bonnie's mother catches Clyde in the house with Bonnie and she very much doesn't approve of him, revealing that Bonnie is already married. She knows her husband is never coming back though and he is literally completely irrelevant to everything forever. I think his name is Roy.

Clyde then takes Bonnie over to meet Buck and Blanche. This scene, we see that Bonnie and Blanche have kind of an instant 'rivalry' because Blanche does not approve of Clyde and his crimes at all, so she doesn't like Bonnie because if she is with him, she is clearly on board with it and is thus not her kind of person. This scene has the song When I Drive which is both Clyde amd Buck singing about how much they love being on the road. And it also features the like 'this is how I wanna live, I wanna die' which is like... I guess he gets his wish in the end??? Buck also reveals to Clyde that he and Blanche have decided that he is going to turn himself back to the authorities to finish out his sentence, and Clyde Does Not approve.

Next song is God's Arms are Always Open, which is sung by the preacher, saying that Buck is doing the right thing by turning himself in and that he will be forgiven for it. Throughout the later part of the song though, it is interspersed with mini clips of clyde commiting crimes, like car theft, and robberies. At the end he is caught and arrested, and is brought to prison where he is waiting for his sentence.

Bonnie goes to visit Clyde where she runs into Ted. The song You Can Do Better Than Him starts off being sung by Ted. Basically it's about how he remembers how innocent she was when she was younger and thinks she can do so much better than being with someone like Clyde. (He has feelings for her himself, if that wasn't clear). Later in the song Clyde joins in saying that she *could* find someone who is more conventionally 'better' but knows that she won't because they really do love each other.

When she gets home, Bonnie and her mother argue about Clyde, with her mother being very disapproving about who she is seeing. The song You Love Who You Love is a duet with Bonnie and Blanche, both singing about why they ate with their partners. I really like the line in this song 'You can't help how you're made/you don't have no say, your heart decides/It's that simple I'm afraid'. I just think the idea of your heart choosing who you fall in love with sounds very beautiful. And I also love the line 'And you never think what's down the road while the fairy tale seems real'.

NOW. We see Clyde in prison and they announce that his sentence is 16 years, and we see him being locked away. He is becoming more and more broken, being abused by both the guards and another prisoner named ed crowder. Bonnie comes to visit him and sees that he is injured and how horribly he is being treated. He tells her about a gun he has hidden and asks her to smuggle to him. This next song is Clyde's big song called Raise a Little Hell. He is so broken at this point and is very much the definition of 'nothing left to lose'. The big lyrics in the song are 'I won't get to heaven, why not raise a little hell', and it ends with him beating Ed crowder to death.

We see Bonnie arriving at the prison with the gun she is trying to get to clyde, and she is searched by the guard. He doesn't find the gun on her, and she passes it to Clyde in his cell. This is the act 1 finale with the song This World Will Remember Us. The first part of the song is Clyde busting out of prison, and the second part is him and Bonnie running away together. And important part in this song is that Clyde promises Bonnie that they will do a few more jobs to get some cash, and then they are going to hollywood so she can become an actress. And this song is just like. They've both just escaped from the lives they don't want, the future is wide open for them and they are *living* for it

So. "Apparently" there is a character limit of 4096 characters. I will reblog with Act II.

[givemeuniversalcrossovers]

Mario Sunshine remake/Sequel where its a canonically few years on from the last sunshine game and Bowser Jr is a bit older and a bit bigger and hears that the Mario and Princess are going back to the island on holiday and goes huh, well, I'm bigger. I think I'm gonna get that Mario.

And thus plans to kidnap Princess Peach again to try again because he's gotten bigger he's got a bigger ego big man syndrome but he's not dumb he recruits his siblings too because hey potentially fighting / messing with Mario AND warm holiday fun times. I feel like Wendy would love it like yes relaxation Sun and fun. So they go to cause mayhem, Bowser probably knows they're up to something since they all just leave but eh, they'll holler if they need help they're getting older he trusts they'll be okay, maybe sends Kamek to spy/for updates he doesn't wanna be a helicopter parent but also wants to see how well they do and be ready to leap in and help if necessary. It'll mean that each area likely has a Koopalings boss or two so fun spicing it up from last time with obviously some old bosses thrown in.

They don't realise though that Luigi got sent in advance as bait pretending to be Peach arriving early blacked out plane windows guards with umbrellas to hide the 'princess' from view ect, just in case of a repeat of last time/bowsers shows up so at least if they do cause problems the Princess can be kept out of the way as Mario arrives to fix things. So the Koopalings show up and go to the hotel demanding for the Princess' room, don't question the fact they're given her room number no problem and go and grab 'her' hastily tied up gagged and in a sack or something. Poor Luigi was probably just out/was going in the shower getting dressed/not yet undressed (no nakey weegie here) and the steam obscured the Koopas vision and so he got snagged.

And thus game begins Mario has to go save his brother who was kidnapped, recollecting suns in the process ect like a good person since the Koopalings probably screwed with them too and paint absolutely everywhere with probably color coordination/pattern coordination to each Koopa so you can guess who's in which level like pink hearts for Wendy, crazy multicolor swirls for i believe Larry or iggy whichever the hyperactive one is ect. At some point in the game there's a cutscene of the Koopalings all enjoying the steamy warm flying jacuzzi, some nursing wounds after a beat up from Mario and probably Wendy maybe Roy Roy strikes me as empathetic is like hey it kinda feels unfair to have Peach tied up in a sack in a floating cage while we enjoy the hot water, maybe we should let her out for a bit? And after some debating Jr mentioning that well she didn't want to join him and dad last time they agree cause like they all kinda like momma Peach even if they know she's not really their mom they're more here for fun than malice so it feels right to let her enjoy the warm water and drinks with them. Ludwig waves his wand and the cage floats down and they open it taking off the sack and, "LUIGI???" They're all fucking stunned cause???? The green one??? What?? Where's Peach?? How?? When?? Ludwig did you mess up your magic and swap them??? Promptly starting a major uproar argument between all the siblings over who cocked this up big time. Luigi is just eehhhehe. He's very awkward. At one point one of them is like well I mean sometimes hes there when beating dad this might stall Mario for a bit, plus we can always still get Peach later and that'll be two captives over Mario. This settles them as they murmur agreements and Ludwig magics more drinks which definitely helps ease over the mood, they're probably drinking pg safe coconuts with straws no tropical island drinks here if you get my drift they're probably not old enough to drink alcohol XD. One of them puts Luigi on the floating duck in the middle of the water so he can't escape and puts a drink in his tied hands adjusting the knots so he has enough mobility to lift it to drink from the straw.

Meanwhile Bowser? Absolutely cackling losing his shit laughing at his kids rookie mistake of not questioning the lack of resistance. He loves his kids but he is gonna laugh at the cock up. But he is proud they're doing well despite that but he's on the throne wheezing and has dented his arm rest from banging his fist down in laughing hysteria.

Another cutscene later in the game, Luigi still on the duck drinking coconut drink as Ludwig complains to him about something maybe his siblings not appreciating music as Luigi nods his head understandingly. Every so often there's a cutscene with a Koopaling just kinda talking to Luigi while he floats on his duck it's for character building and just funny imagining him just stuck duck floating around as the kids talk to him. Maybe at one point he's actually in the water floating on his back while Junior floats beside him also on his back like "I just worry ill never surpass my dad you know? Like, I'll always just be Junior. A smaller Bowser. A shadow of my father's glory." and Luigi balancing a coconut drink on his stomach is like "Hmm. I knowa what you mean." just lmao bonding floating about together, "Illa say you're definitely a lotta more scary then you were, youra growing into your own person with your owna style. Working witha your siblings very clever." and Junior scoffs and is like "It's nothing my dad's never done we've always helped him." and Luigi counters, "But, youra helping eacha other, Morton has beena here twice healed up went backa out there, Ludwig hasa boosted Wendy and Lemmy witha magic already fora rematches. Thata will be keepinga Mario on his toes. Workinga with other bosses too, tricky stuff, you have good ideas." just lmao being nice he knows what it's like to be in a shadow and he is kinda terrified and impressed by juniors game plan with the Koopalings being able to swap back recharge swap back in. Plus he doesn't know if the Koopas temper will shift so genuine compliments and peace keeping so he's not drowned.

This game definitely is probably longer and harder with the kids getting stronger and coming back for more but eventually they'll reach their limit unable to go back to fighting. In cutscenes they'll be seen sat out the water or in the water with bandages looking too tired to go back and fight. The end fight is likely with Junior at the jacuzzi his siblings tho tired lend some help making it very difficult but their attacks are infrequent and slow. Maybe Bowser shows up probably right at the end after beating junior but I don't think he'd join the end fight/be a final surprise boss, the kids did a good fight but they've lost and he doesn't think they'd want him jumping in stealing their fight so he shows up as the escape assist and they all escape to dad cause ya know a good future king knows when to retreat. And like you get Luigi back the kids noticeably waving bye to him Junior saying "I'll see you next time Luigi! And I'll get you Mario!!!" as Luigi shyly laughs cause oh no what has he started. Ends happy Peach arrives they all enjoy their holiday, though Luigi absolutely passes out at his hotel room on his bed as he's thoroughly holidayed out. Mario and Peach walk the beach together into the sunset chatting and laughing.

Cut to bowsers Castle of kamek helping heal the kids up while Bowser absolutely lovingly laughs at and bullies his kids for the hotel mix up and junior is very embarrassed before Bowser scoops him into a playful noogie saying "I couldn't be more proud of you!" and Junior just??? "but we failed to get peach??" and Bowser laughs and is like "you think /I/ succeeded the first time I tried?? It went horribly wrong and blew up in my face! You actually kidnapped someone, Mario was terrified and you all planned to raise the stakes if given the chance adapting to the situation. You did really brilliantly." just tells his kids how good of a job they did but also laughs and is like "oh the old wrong hotel room trick" wiping his eye from crying laughing. Let him lovingly rib on his kids XD bullying is a love language.

[whirlybirbs]

FEVER-DREAM    ;    echo/reader 

summary: echo is fine-tuning his new prosthesis. you have experience, you help. unspoken feelings are acted on. adoration blooms. you learn what mesh’la means.

word count: 3k

pairing: echo / f!reader

tags: mutual pining, lots of tender looks, victorian-era hand-touching sluttiness, echo is a gentle soul, reader is head over heels, a touch of ptsd mention, set on ord mantell, mention of our boy fives, in this house we love assistive devices, enough sexual tension to power the death star

a/n: this is me round-house kicking the bad batch writers in the throat because they made echo cosplay a droid — but, also because this man deserves to be treated as more than a means to a mission’s end. majority of you know i am ~bitter~ (understatement of the century) of tbb’s plot/design/writing. but echo has been a favorite from the original days... so have some very soft fic.

i reference character redesigns by @nibeul​ in this piece — please go peep them here, and some updated character spreads here! they’re really beautiful and add a phenomenal layer of storytelling to the existing designs that’s lacking. nibuel’s art and writing is lovely. please give them a follow — i can’t rec their work enough. 

“How does it feel?”

The words are nearly whispered; it’s clear you didn’t want to startle him, and Echo can feel the pinch in his brow soften at your sudden appearence in the doorway. 

His bunk, at the back of the Havoc Marauder, is small — the space itself even more so. There’s a makeshift partition, hooked together with spare parts and meant to offer a bit of privacy on the cramped vessel. Its slate grey color has faded, and the edges have become tattered in the cycles of use. 

When Echo pulls his dark eyes up from his work, you’re leaning against the frame — your expression is earnest.

For a moment, the once-ARC Trooper is quiet. 

He wonders if he’ll ever get used to your attention. Each and every time, it sends him into a spiral; his heart catches as he inhales and tries to push down the warm stir in his gut. The sight of you is enough, nowadays, to melt Echo’s well-maintained irritability. His attention is stolen from his ever-present pain, if only for a bit.

There are plenty of days where he misses the old him — the wide-eyed, eager ARC Trooper who had his brothers by his side. His real brothers. Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... Fives. 

Fuckin’ hell, Fives was probably staring down at him now laughing. 

No matter what changes, you’re still shit with the ladies, vod’ika. 

In a way he hasn’t fully admitted to himself, you make him feel like himself again. Like... Like some shiny cadet, on leave and distracted by the promises of pretty smiles passing-by. It’s good.

This makes him feel... good. 

He flexes, and his right hand — the new, gunmetal durasteel cyberized-prosthesis — closes into a tight fist. It’s taken him a bit, but the feeling isn’t so foreign now. It’s still... slow. Slower than he’s used to, but you’d mentioned it may take some time. The phantom feelings get better, too. All in all, it’s a good thing.

Your own hand, your left, glimmers back in the same gunmetal color.

(Echo had never pressed you about the missing limb — not until one day, in Cid’s, you’d joined him in a quiet corner. You’d spilled your drink and a complaint about getting the star-cherry syrup out of the joints had slipped out. Echo had laughed; a real laugh, the sort that was so rare coming from him, it had you staring at him as if he’d hung ever star in the sky. 

Can I ask how it happened? he’d said, breaking the heavy silence when your eyes never left his.

The Pykes, you’d said, and that was enough.)

“I haven’t, uh... Haven’t gotten the sensory calibration right yet.”

Then, his prosthesis cramps. His fingers go rigid, and Echo curses sharply as he reaches around his forearm to quickly reboot the appendage. It goes slack, then hums alive once more.

You wince.

You’re slow to move into the room — and you settle atop one of the crates Echo had stolen from the belly of the ship, an old Mantell Mix shipping container. You’re mindful to set his datapad aside, to not disturb his space too much. Before you reach for his hand, however, you lift your chin and open your hands in your lap.

“May I?” you ask, just as soft as before.

Echo feels small under your gaze.

Truth be told, you’re doing more than just... asking. You’re taking him in — appreciating him. It’s a habit that’s grown more and more apparent to not only himself, but the others.

In recent rotations, Echo has let his hair grow out — not long, but the once close buzz he’d kept has begun to curl at the top. Not entirely dissimilair to how it was before the Citadel. The dermal implants, the ones the Techno Union installed in order to parse the nuerological data in his head, stand out against his warm-colored skin. 

His usual AJ^6-inspired headpiece is resting on his bunk.

That damn thing.

A neccesary tool. One that, given the amount of user data Tech had procured when working on modifying the implant, Echo found himself immediately distrusting. It wasn’t as if the AJ^6 cyborg construct had a beautiful track record, and frankly, Echo would like to keep his personality in tact, thank you very much. There were plenty of days he felt machine enough. 

It wasn’t often you saw him without the headset; you knew it made linking in via his scomp easier to handle, it made the visualization of data transfers as easy as breathing. For Echo, it was a part of his vast kit, an important tool. For you, seeing him without it bubbles up a bit of a smile.

Echo catches it.

His eyes narrow playfully.

He looks... well. You — hell, are there words for it? For the way the sight of him makes you feel? It’s like there’s a world full of potential there, a thousand words unsaid, and feelings that have steeped in the warmth of longing gazes and half-there touches.

You’re still looking up at him, knees bent on the crate.

You blink, realizing you’ve been caught staring — not for the first time and certainly not for the last. In the beginning, it had left a sour taste in Echo’s mouth. But, now... Well, it stokes a sort of pride in his chest that he hangs onto. 

It never gets easier to recover from — certainly not when Echo smirks. He moves to allow you to take his prosthesis into your lap. The gesture is gentle; your fingers cradle the firm yet pliable metal.

“What?” he asks. His voice, low and rough and warm, is tinted with amusement.

“Nothing,” you say vaguely with a shrug — as if that’s supposed to explain any part of your enamored stare. Your attention moves to the prosthesis.

“Nothing?” he asks, moving to thumb his left ear with his free hand with a dash of nervousness. A habit. Echo tilts his head as his fingers brush the cochlear implant there. The panel rests neatly against the side of his head, a small rounded-off square. The bite of self-consciousness has dwindled around you — but still, it creeps back up every now and again.

The Corporal’s brows knot playfully as you turn his new hand over in your lap; you’re admiring the upgraded feel, the more seamless panelling in comparison to your own. Echo watches your lashes flutter in silent thought.

Then:

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

You blink slowly at the hand, swallow down your sudden sheepishness and ignore his gaze. You bite back the smile digging into your cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks suddenly, and you look up.

A baited trick. He’s smiling. 

The warm sort — the sort reserved for you and for Omega. The two souls that hold a piece of his heart, with all its ticking valves and electric timed pulses. There are machinisms that keep him alive, and then there is you. Your wide-eyed expression melts, giving way to the sort of smile he’s tried to memorize over and over. It’s the same smile that has warded off that reoccuring nightmare of the night on the tarmac at the Citadel, the same smile that has pulled him through the grit of phantom pains.

“What—” a sudden laugh bursts from your chest, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were staring, mesh’la,” he rumbles out as a reminder, enjoying the fact he’s suddenly become the center of your attention. Echo leans back, his boot toeing yours. You nudge it back. Your face feels hot. You ignore his pointedly teasing look with a roll of your eyes.

The nickname started a few weeks ago. You haven’t asked what it means — no, for now it’s meaning hangs in the balance. Untouched but there. The affection the word carries makes your heart feel heavier and unbelievably full.

“Bad habit,” you chirp back, looking up at him through your lashes.

His laugh is warm.

“Maybe not.”

“No,” you say quietly; your voice is soft as your eyes bounce across his face, tracing the lines of his face with your gaze, “I don’t think it is.”

There’s a silence that slips between you — a comfortable one. It’s heavier than before. That has begun to happen recently, especially with the petal-soft utterance of mesh’la becoming more and more frequent. You hold his gaze. Echo lets out a soft, contented sigh.

Then, you remember the task at hand.

You clear your throat.

“Uh... The access panel I’m looking for,” you say slowly as your raise your finger to point to your own arm, “It’s on your bicep.”

Echo blinks. He clears his own throat before looking down — he hadn’t even noticed that access panel. That could explain the jarring miscommunication stalling the limb. This model had more bells and whistles than he initally realized. 

Better than a fuckin’ scomp link, that’s for sure.

Wordlessly, Echo makes room on his bunk. You move to settle beside him, your bent leg resting aginst his hip as you half-straddle the bed; your other knee brushes his thigh — and Echo tries to sit still. You’re close, now. 

“Is it okay if...?” you trail off, fingers tugging on the short sleeve of his blacks; you pause until Echo offers a curt nod. You catch him swallow. You push onward, fingers nimbly rolling the fabric up over his broad bicep. 

Echo steals a glance your way as your fingers pass across a slip of his bare skin. 

In his lap, both his hands twitch.

He’s no small man. Lean and athletic, Echo is built like a soldier. Omega had said once that Echo was an ARC Trooper, one of the best of the best. You believed every bit of it, and you’d hung on her words when she’d rambled on about ARC training, about Kamino, and about who Echo was before you knew him. It was all in the past, though. That Echo is a part of this Echo but... They’re different men. He’s been changed by the things that have happened.

You don’t press him on the details. 

In time, they’re slipped into conversation here and there — between the here and now.  

In the beginning, when you’d found yourself amongst the crew of the Havoc Marauder — be it for a simple job on Cid’s behalf — Echo had hardly paid you a moment of attention, though you admit you’d been curious from the start. It had taken three jobs for you to finally see his face. Then began the slow and gradual bonding over catching joints, grating plates, and hardware updates. His legs, your arm. Two pieces of a pair.

Now, he has this. A beautiful new upgrade — something he’s wanted for a long time. A part of his old self is back, in a way.

You liked that it was more than just a tool. That, in having this piece of his body back, he felt like more than a tool. More than a scomp link. 

After all, he is a man — a... a very handsome man. One whose proximity is sort of distracting you, again, from the task at hand.

“The panel here,” you say as you slowly press on the seam that enables the settings panel to be revealed; you’re mindful to explain, “It controls sensory outputs, as well as synchonized synaptic commands. The panel on my forearm does the same to my hand, yours is just... well, you’ve got the new and improve version.”

Echo ducks his head as you work, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Feeling a bit jealous, mesh’la?”

“Maybe,” you breathe out with a smile. 

Then, you lift your eyes. You intended to see that he was still comfortable, but instead you come face to face with the Corporal. His nose nearly brushes yours when you lift you chin, completely dragged in by the closeness shared.

There’s a beat of tension. Echo’s mouth goes dry.

You fingers pause. You swallow hard. “How... uh, how does it feel?”

Echo tightens his grip, then releases. His breath tickles your cheeks. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, flit from your eyes to your mouth, and then back. His voice is a croak. 

“...Same as before.”

You tinker with a dial, eyes never leaving his; your voice is above a whisper. “And now?”

It’s immediate. Like a rush of cold air up his arm — and on instinct, Echo’s hand twitches. His fingers grip the fabric of his blacks, along his thigh, and... he feels it. The smooth, stretch of the material. It’s... it feels like a lot. His fingertips, metallic and cyberized, tingle. It’s distracting.

He can feel. 

His hand is slow. It moves across to bridge the space between you. His pointer finger settles on the curve of your knee; the feeling of your tactical pants beneath his fingertip is ignored, instead he chases the heat of your body.

Your breath catches at the touch. 

Echo’s face is turned to you, but... his attention has settled on his hand. His palm then sweeps across your thigh. He follows the curve, soaks in the feeling. You’re frozen in place, beating back the desperate sound of appreciation that threatens to be pulled from your throat. The touch is... more than welcomed. 

The closeness itself is making you dizzy.

Then, Echo turns — and the warm, durasteel-plated palm finds your cheek.

Your skin is hot. 

“Is this okay, mesh’la?” he whispers, words riding on a quiet exhale — the sort that make you feel... well, you don’t even have words for the way he makes you feel. Echo is... kind, honest, and loyal. Above all else, he’s gentle. Despite it all, despite every bit of horror he’d been put through, he’d never lost sight of the importance of a gentle hand. Especially now in a moment as intimate as this. It coaxes you closer.

You lean into the cybernetic attachment, cheek resting in his palm. You nod, then, with eyes eager to take in every bit of this moment.

He chuckles at the enthusiasm. Echo’s thumb, deft and smooth, then traces the line of your lower lip.

The feeling is... the gnawing pain that he’s felt for nearly a year has melted. Finally, the itch has been scratched in his brain and the hollow ache of his bones is gone. It’s relief, and comfort, and excitement and all these beautiful things — and you. 

You’re stuck — you don’t want to move, you won’t move. He’s rooted you completely, and when his other hand — the calloused and warm one of flesh and blood — finds it’s spot along your thigh, you swallow a lovesick sigh that would only exaserbate your desperation. 

Your mouth is moving before you realize it. 

“What does it mean?”

Echo’s eyes narrow, only a bit, and he runs his thumb up your cheekbone.

“What does what mean?” 

“Mesh’la,” it sounds foreign on your tongue. It’s not Hutteese or Twi’leki, not like any language you know, “Will you tell me what it means, Echo?”

The corner of his lips quirk. Your eyes jump to it.

You feel like someone’s reached right into your chest and given your heart a squeeze — and it only worsens when he laughs. He laughs, deep and quiet and warm, like a thunderstorm on a summer night. It feels cruel, to string you along like this when you’re here, lips parted, hanging off his every touch and his every word.

“Beautiful,” he says quietly as his other hand touches your jaw — it’s so damn reverent, this little moment in time, that you almost don’t believe it’s real.

It feels like a dream — like someone has come in and stolen your thoughts from you; like the unrequited yearning has finally stoked a fire large enough to burn you up entirely, a fever you never knew you wanted.

His nose brushes yours.

Your fingers wind into the fabric of his chest. You’re clinging, lost to the moment — and you can’t help wonder if this is how it feels when he catches you adoring him. He’s admiring you so tenderly that you nearly break.

You want to kiss him.

He’s thought about nothing but kissing you for the last five days at least. Longer in his dreams. Nowadays, it’s a constant pull, a constant want.

And now, it’s here — a present and current moment where it can happen. Where he can stop being a shiny cadet and he can make a move...

Enter Omega.

“Echo, we’re back—!”

The telltale hammer of a girl’s boots on the floor signals that the party is back from their supply run — but you’re so far off, spinning in a different universe, you don’t even hear her until its too late... Until Echo is yanking himself away and clearing his throat and rolling his wrist to test the prosthesis in a different way, a less intimate way. 

You blink, then rattle yourself back to the present. Omega is in the doorway staring with a quizzical look. Clearly, your state does little to dissuade the assumptions she’s already making and you can see the gears turning in her head. The dark-haired girl then slowly grins.

“Hi.”

You swallow. “Hi, Omega.”

“...Whatcha guys doin’?”

Echo coughs. “Uh, just fine-tuning the new upgrade.”

“...Riiiiiight.” 

You rub your cheeks and laugh — clearly forced and incredibly pained — as you stand up and nearly ram your head right into the top of Echo’s bunk. It’s met with a hiss of warning from the trooper as he jumps up to try and protect you from the impact. 

“Well! Uh, thanks for letting me help, Echo,” you clap, rocking back and forth on your boots, “I, uh... Oh, Cid called. I should... I should get back—”

“Yea,” he says, straining a bit to find the words, “Yea, I’ll... I’ll comm you if it starts to, uh... If it starts to act up?”

Omega watches the exchange, big brown eyes moving from left to right. 

“Good, great — yea, that’s,” you inhale as you rub your thighs and move towards the door, “Perfect. Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye!” Omega calls, waving.

You wave back, smiling. “Bye, Omega.”

Then, once it’s only Echo and Omega in the bunk, the tween speaks.

“...What the kriff was that?”