#and if i actually wrote that this would have ended much differently

[endereies]

ENDEREIES' CHRISTMAS

Finally! It's fucking Christmas, cannot believe I didn't crash out just yet. To be honest, with a few more days left of the year I have all opportunity to do so. With it now being this festive holiday I thought it would be nice to give my mutuals a little bit of that festive cheer. I know not everyone celebrates Christmas so this won't be entirely Christmas themed, yet, it will be a cute little paragraph dedicated to a few of my mutuals or followed blogs. SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, I PRESENT ENDEREIES' CHRISTMAS!!

@phone4pills - I am on my way to wrap a wreath and ribbon around you and Robot!Chris' dick. On a serious note, you are so fucking talented and it blows my mind every time. The amount of thought and dedication that you put into your work is so admirable. I hope your holidays aren't as drab as this UK weather but nonetheless I'll be creating Robot!Chris as soon as possible (we are sharing custody). LOVE YOU AND YOUR WORK SO MUCH

@pasteldreams - OH MY FUCK, CAN WE TALK ABOUT YOUR MOODBOARDS FOR A MOMENT. I am so impressed by them all and if you see me stalking... no you don't! The images are perfect for each colour and you bet your ass that Avery and I were going feral on them. I'm so excited to read your fics when they surface. On my way to stalk the moodboards right now. But I love your moodboards and of course, the person who created them

@strnilolover - Gabby!!! Oh fuck I have too many things to say to you. You're so talented, I know I have yapped about your au's so many times but it's because they are STUNNING. They are produced so well. Everything you write is. When I am sent your works early, I am blown away. The descriptions, the dialogue, it is perfection on my screen. But all work aside, you're such a sweet person and I love talking to you every day. Even with our time differences, we still spend hours talking. Either about tumblr, fic ideas, edits or just random shit. In your post, you said you saw me as a bigger account and were slightly intimidated to talk to me BUT THATS HOW I FELT ABOUT YOUUU. I was in AWE over your work and the way you wrote (I still am) it's crazy to me how we are mutuals BUT I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK BABY

@hearts4werka - YOUR INBOX MESSAGES MAKE ME SMILE EVERY TIME. I know we don't interact as much as every fucking hour but when we do we have such nice conversations through our inboxes, I just wake up to a message from you and I am immediately smiling ear to ear. The first interaction was about my profile and the last was about seeing a biker look like Matt. Duality of friendship for SURE. Buying you merch bc yes.

@streamermattsgf - SAGEEEEEEEE We are fairly new mutuals and I thank Cece for showing me your account which then led to me seeing the Sturniolo Tumblr Awards. That idea was so sweet and creative and definitely brought the community together. I was even on there at one point which actually blows my mind but I digress. You're so sweet in everything you do, when there was hate about the awards you handled it in the most perfect way which I will always give credit for

@thenickgirl - MY FAVOURITE NICK ACCOUNT ON THIS APP YESSIR. Nick and Jalen are my babies, you cannot change my mind. Tumblr definitely lacks in Nick content and I will forever love yours. Everytime I'm drawing Nick or I see a tiktok, I immediately think of your account. AND YOU'RE SO KIND WHATTT ILY BBYYY I cannot wait to continue reading about Nick and Jalen as you post about them. I have to interact with you so much more than I do.

@lovesturni0l0s - ASTRIDDD I love you so so much and everything you do. We became mutuals and started talking quickly about random shit in our inboxes and they still make me giggle. They always end in appreciation too which is everything to me. I love yapping with you over random things hehehe. Your fluffmas is PERFECTION, I will always read every single one as soon as I see that it is released, just how you did on my NNN posts. You are SO supportive of everyone and it is truly so nice to see. I just want to talk with you whenever I can

@chrisweetheart - LIAAA We do NOT interact as much as I want to but whenever we do you're the kindest person everrr. Talking with you or reading your fics is always a highlight of my day. Your blog is so fucking pretty and I could admire it for hours, and I know you are the exact same. I am literally on my way with my basket of kisses.

@flouvela - My fucking bae. I've been following you for so long and when you followed me back I had a heart attack. Your writing is so cute and I love reading all of them. I still remember the one where Matt held your iced latte when it was cold outside so that you could stay warm. If she wasn't warm, my heart definitely was. You're so kind and thoughtful and definitely someone that I look up to within my writing.

@y3sterdaysproblem - Avery my baeeee I'm so so proud of what you have managed to accomplish this year. Your talent is actually so immense and anyone can see that in anything and everything that you post. Your series 'smoke and mirrors' still has me in a chokehold (I have read it 4 times). I cannot wait to see what you end up creating further along next year but just know I will support and love it all.

@chrislilcumslvt - Marls I will be forever thankful for you and your account. On anything that I post, whether it be a fic or me just yapping, I can always count on you to be one of the first people to like it. I will never get bored of your inbox messages, they are such a highlight of my week. LOVE YOU FOREVER

@issysh3ll - ISSYYYY MY AUSSIE GAL You will never fail to impress me LIKE OMGGG phases was and still is one of my favourite ever fics made in this fandom. It's so descriptive. educational which applying to the smut that this horny community love. I don't think I will ever get tired of your inbox messages, I always want to know how many wine glasses Chris can balance on his ass. If I ever have any questions I now know who to turn to

@sturnioz - CAS There are so many things about you that I could happily yap about lmao. My first introduction to you was a fic from the beginning of July, not that I even knew it then. Then your au's came along and it is safe to say I fell in love with everything you made. I am always drawn to your account and reread blurbs more times than I can count. When you followed me on your alt account I was giggling to my friends because I was stunned (I still am) I always wanna yap in your inbox but I never know what to say and lowkey I'm a little intimidated but I digress. You're so sweet whenever I am in your inbox and then I fangirl to Cece buttttt Love you and your work forever baby

@x0x0bunny - THE ONLY MUSIC ARTIST EVER, like you're talented in literally everything?? gimme some talent. And your fics are so so good. I'm so hyped to start talking about music production with you for my Producer!Chris au like it's so yummy you don't understand. I wish I interacted with you more and that shall be my new years resolution FOR SURE

@colorthecosmos444 - My big sister forever. Cece, you're literally everything to me ever. You're so kind, considerate, thoughtful and understanding at the same time. I will never get over our need for Emo!Matt, I am barking whenever he is mentioned. But I'd pick you over him any day. I love sharing my ideas with you and helping each other with everything. I WISH WE TALKED WHEN YOU WERE IN LONDON I'd rush to you in a heartbeat and show you everything. I could spend hours talking with you even if its 4am for me. Your work is perfection and no one can replace the true Emo Queen. Love you forever sis

@sturniolosiphone - AALIYAH MWAH You have the prettiest blog I ever did see and you give off the biggest Clairo vibes ever. You're work is PERFECT and no other word is fitting enough than pure perfection. Not to mention how cutsey you are when we interact with one another. You're so supportive and I will forever love talking about the triplets with you!

@missmimii - My inactive queen lol. When I first found your blog is the most heavenly thing I set my eyes on. The layout, the wording, the descriptions and such cute fics were and still are my roman empire. You are pure fucking honey and I still smile whenever your username is on my screen, it's so perfect. I will read your work so often and I will never ever get bored of it.

@55sturn - STAR one of my first mutuals on my account and I've been obsessed since day one. Your Loser!Chris x MeanGirl!Reader au is chiseled into my future gravestone so that I can read it after I die. The timeline and structure is just YES. You've been through a lot and I am forever proud of you. We may not interact a whole bunch but I love you dearly

@muwapsturniolo - PEACHESSSS It still shocks me how we are mutuals because you are the baddest bitch ever. You're like a celebrity role model to me and I'm just in awe. Not to mention how stunning your writing is, I could stare at my screen until my eyes burn just staring at your writing. LIKE I JUST LOVE YOU SO MUCH

@bernardsbendystraws - ROSEYYYFIGEDUHIJW MY DAY ONEEEEEE Baby you mean everything to me. Part of my Discord family that I cherish so much. I was honestly so intimidated by you when I met you on that server simply because of your energy. You seemed so confident and easy going which was something I could only dream of. And now we are friends and mutuals and someone I trust dearly. I will be forever proud of just how far you have come, with yourself, writing and followers. I'm forever grateful for our friendship in ways I wish I could show you. But I will always have your back in anything you do or have against you because you have done so much for me that is simply irreplaceable. We have also became so similar in how we speak which is hilarious to me as well. Love you forever and ever baby

@raysmayhem-72 - RAYYY Ugh where do I even begin. My fellow Londoner and yet we are yet to meet? That has to be fixed immediately. Talking to you is one of my favourite things ever and I love listening to you yap about books LIKE YESS LET ME SEE THOSE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. You'll forever be my Discord family, you can't escape. Forever grateful for all the yummy conversations about everything and how willing you are to support and listen to me, it means more than you could ever know.

@pattyshome / @patscorner - PATTY CAKE You are so fucking special to me in every fucking way. Talking you is free therapy and I love you for it all. You've been through so much and every single time you still manage to have a smile on your face and continue to spread irreplaceable kindness that is too pure. Even in your current situation the efforts you make with your friends are so special. I'm so proud of you and I hope things ease up for you, I will move you to England if I have to

@bueckerrss - ARI MY EDITING PARTNER IN CRIMEEE Your edits are impeccable and your improvement is so clear to see. You've supported mine since day one and I'm so grateful for that. Even if ride or die was initially meant to be a collab with you and it wasn't, I still think of you whenever I read it again and it's now an au! Your performances are also just so satisfying to look LIKE YES POP OFF QUEEN. Another one of my day ones and I love you so fucking much.

[northoftheroad]

Variations of Dick Grayson’s and Robin’s origin, part 2

Since DC can't stop publishing new versions and AU:s I’ve decided to start a new post instead of endless updating of my first post (see here).

Batman and Robin: Year One

Writer Mark Waid, art Chris Samnee. In # 1 (2024), Dick has come to live with Bruce, has started as Robin and helped to catch his parents’ killer in three weeks after the murder, according to Bruce’s thought bubble. Which must be a new record and indicates that Dick came to Wayne manor pretty much straight after the murder. (As he did in the original comics, but he had to train for some months before starting to fight crime.)

Batman: Justice Buster

A 32 chapter manga by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi (started publishing in English 2023). In this version, R.O.B.I.N. is the name Batman gives the AI he constructs to help him fight crime. It starts taking action by itself and decides human’s sense of justice is the problem.

Dick’s parents dies at the circus, as per usual, but he is taken from the circus by Sam Reynaud, the clown, who says it was murder. Sam is soon after murdered by Joe Chill, who murdered the Wayne’s and possibly also the Graysons. Chill uses drugs and some thingy for a hypnotic spell to get Dick to believe he is Sam. (For fun, he later tells Jason.)

Jason Todd is older than Dick, works as a private detective and is a vigilante called The Joker on the side. He lets Dick train to become a detective, looking to find the man who murdered his parents (the guy he’s unknowingly is living with). Jason manages to weedle Batman into a partnership. Somewhat later, he is (apparently) killed by Chill, beaten by a crowbar. Chill says he’s going to take over the moniker Joker.

As I publish this post, the last chapters are still not published in English, so I can't say how the story will end.

Batman: Dark Ages

6 issues limited series (2024). Writer Mark Russel, art Michael Allred.

A limited series set in an alternate universe. Gotham's underground is run by False Face society which takes control of Wayne Enterprises after Thomas and Martha are murdered and use it to, for instance, spread drug addiction. Bruce has a very different road to becoming Batman; so has Dick to becoming Robin.

He's from a family of acrobats and is working for the Falcone crime family, as the only way to support himself and his parents. When he is part of kidnapping Jim Gordon he is shot, Batman takes him home but he escapes after a few days. By then, his parents are murdered by the Falcone's and he would have been too, if Batman hadn't turned up. Bruce makes him take an oath and he takes on the code name Robin (nothing is said about why Robin.) He later becomes Nightwing, working with Barbara as Batgirl. They marry and have a daughter that we see as Dr. Grayson with an old Bruce in the part of the story that takes place in the future (2030). Dick dies, in Nightwing suit, during a fight with the Joker. Batman tries to catch Dick when he and the Joker falls, but he gets hold of Joker.

Nightwing vol # 4, Tom Taylor’s run (#117)

Tom Taylor wrote Nightwing 2021-2024 and took the chance to tweak Dick’s origin. He gave Dick an older and previously unknown half-sister, Melinda Grayson-Lin, from a short relationship John had before his marriage to Mary. And he wrote that Tony Zucco had actually wanted to kill Dick, not his parents. How much of this will survive later writers remains to be seen.

[talk-danmei-to-me]

Mo Ran and Promiscuity

A.k.a he’s actually conflated promiscuity with having a high sex drive.

Because I’m procrastinating and it’s been ages since I wrote a good bl meta. All references relevant up to the end of vol 7.

The opening of vol 1 informs us that Mo Ran has a massive cock (true) and is renowned throughout the pleasure districts for being an exceptional lay (lies).

Why do I think this is lies? A) it’s coming from Mo Ran’s perspective which is always a little bit skewed.

B) Literally nothing that canonically happens insinuates Mo Ran has ever shagged around the pleasure districts.

Let’s deep dive!

- Who has Mo Ran actually slept with?

Early doors, the impression of Mo Ran burning his money in brothels comes from the uptight, definitely has no repressed urges or issues linked to Mei Hanxue, Xue Meng.

Xue Meng who was everyone’s first choice to fight the lust gourd. I do not think he is a voice of authority for the promiscuous.

In reality, yes Mo Ran is burning his money in brothels, but on (1) prostitute who he intends to buy freedom for. Mo Ran is basically in his Pretty Woman era.

And then obviously you have Chu Wanning who in the past Mo Ran was fucking seven times a day in seven different places, and in the current timeline pretty much as often as they can get away with.

Speaking of Chu Wanning… it could be argued that Mo Ran was going brothel hopping after he died, but he was also using his spiritual energy to keep his body perfectly preserved and spending every night talking to his corpse, so when did he have the time?

I guess he also slept with Song Qiutong, but then he pied her off on their wedding night and later turned her into soup so… probably doesn’t count.

Next point!

- Mo Ran’s game

I adore Mo Ran, he is my favourite danmei boy and probably a top 5 protagonist of all time. BUT to say he is meant to be this renowned lothario… his game… it’s terrible. Awful. His lines and his chat are so cringe, it’s adorable and for some reason Chu Wanning eats them up but that is the only way they work. And I guess the readers eat it up because Ranwan is compelling.

In the real world, Mo Ran is not seducing anyone else with his lines. 1.0/2.0 Mo Ran should have the memories of brothel hopping so I would expect his chat to be much better.

So what is the point of Mo Ran’s alleged promiscuity?

I’m wondering if it’s a side effect of the flower. Obviously it warps everything to hate, but for Mo Ran it’s seems to have warped his feelings for Chu Wanning into sexual obsession with fleeting glimpses of love (in the 0.5 timeline). So, I’m wondering if since his memories are all to pot, that also means he’s warped his desires into thinking he’s sleeping around when he’s not. Case in point, Taxian-jun was only concerned with Mo Ran fucking Chu Wanning when he saw him again and the fact that he hadn’t literally broke his brain.

I really want to do a re-read to find all the times Taxian-jun slips up where it comes to how much he hates loves Chu Wanning because it’s clearly there. It’s the reason I love the last chapter of vol 7 so much. There’s so much going on beneath the surface.

Like honestly, I think if you compared Mo Ran’s body count with other promiscuous bl protagonists they would laugh at him. Man is just super horny and talks himself up. And from a narrative viewpoint even then I think it’s just to spark jealous Chu Wanning.

[deityoftherain]

sculpting memories - Smalletho Soulmates & Sibling Bad Boys Fantasy AU

Rating: Teen

Relationship: M/M, Gen

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Status: Completed Oneshot

Word Count: 8,285

Summary:

Joel was content enough with his life as a sculptor, sticking around his hometown. Sure, it got a little lonely when his brothers were out exploring with their soulmates, left with only his creations and whatever managed to travel over the soulbound he shared with his soulmate to keep him company. A soulmate he's never met, and likely never will if he stayed where he was, according to his brothers.

He ignored their advice, forcing himself to accept fate in exchange for his own comfort. He was fine as things were. Obviously.

Luckily for him, and as a relief to Grian and Jimmy, fate had a different plan for Joel, showing its hand the moment a handsome stranger took refuge in his studio...

I wrote this for @i-got-hit-by-a-planet through the @mcytblrholidayexchange event! I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it :D

You can read the full fic under the cut if you don't want to reroute to AO3 <3

Joel could be cheesy and go on about how sculpting always came easily to him, but that would be a lie. Sculpting wasn’t just something he picked up one day and was suddenly a master at, no. Just like everyone else, he got himself an apprenticeship and worked his way to the skill level he was at now. 

What Joel could claim, however, was that he was really fucking ambitious. He always strived to create far beyond his skill level, which only pushed him to get better. He improvised, adapted, and overcame any challenge he faced until he was satisfied with the result. 

To be fair, he was a very slow learner at first. Like, astronomically slow, but as he worked day in and day out, that changed. Joel became more familiar with how the clay worked and the methods passed down from mentor to apprentice. 

He was actually quite quick now, all things considered. Joel could create small and simple cups, bowls, and vases within a few minutes, those of which became his source of income. Traveling traders would buy some of his wares and resell them beyond the territory of Woodland Forests. 

It was a steady gig, at the end of the day. It was certainly more steady than the freelance work he preferred. The freelance work was more interesting, of course, taking another’s ideas and making something beautiful out of it, but it wasn’t consistent. Consistency was necessary to support oneself. 

His favorite creations, however, were the ones that he made for himself. Joel liked to indulge himself after his work was done, taking the clay and molding faces and creating landscapes on vases. They often came to him in glimpses from his soulmate’s eyes for he’s never seen much of what he’s created for himself. Joel’s soulmate, after all, was what inspired him to sculpt in the first place.

Joel knew he had a soulmate far before he ever understood the concept himself. For as long as Joel could remember, he was bound to his soulmate. The connection was never strong enough to contact them with any sort of intentionality, no, but it was enough for Joel to deduct what sort of person they were. Their souls were connected to one another, after all, destined by the universe. 

Not all soulmates were romantic, but each was a life partner. Sometimes, soulmates were platonic, sometimes queerplatonic, occasionally familial, or something else under the sun. A soulmate didn’t complete another person, nor were they meant to dictate the other’s personal life, but a soulmate was a partner, someone meant to perfectly fit in their soulmate’s life like they had always been there.

And, in a way, they always have.

Joel knew deep within himself that his soulmate was to be his partner in the romantic sense. He didn’t know how to explain how he knew, he just did. His brothers would always laugh at him for being so… mushy. Grian did, at least. Jimmy occasionally laughed too, mostly relieved not to be the one teased at that moment, but Joel would always glare at him and he’d shut up quickly.

“What do you think your soulmate would be like?” Jimmy wondered out loud, though the question was directed at them both. He laid with his back to the floor and his legs on his bed. His yellow wings were sprawled out beneath him, a genetic trait from their mother’s side of the family.  

“Stupidly oblivious,” Grian huffed bitterly, arms folded across his chest as he sat with his legs situated to look vaguely like a butterfly. His macaw-banded wings– also from their mother’s side– were folded into a heart behind him, feathers brushing up against the wall. 

“Well, duh.” Joel rolled his eyes, tail like a wolf’s flicking once to the left before sweeping to curl around his right side. He was the only one of his brothers to inherit the wolf genetics from their father’s side of the family. “It’s Scar! He’s always had his head in the clouds. That, and he can never sit still, which says a lot considering he uses a wheelchair to get around.” 

“And sometimes crutches!” Grian rushed to his soulmate’s defense, despite the fact they all knew this and that Grian’s response was half-baked at best. 

“You should tell him you’re soulmates,” Jimmy suggested for the thousandth time. “I would want my soulmate to tell me if they found out.” 

“Grian’s not going to do that,” Joel cut in, already knowing the truth. He poked Grian’s side with his foot, earning a squawk of protest and a swipe at his leg. Grian missed, and Joel continued, “We both know that Grian’s too much of a chicken.” 

“I am not!” Grian tried to defend himself, face turning red with embarrassment. “I just… we’re too young to start any sort of romantic relationship. I don’t even know if he wants that. I’m just giving him space to try and figure it out.” “You’re fourteen?” Jimmy pointed out, brow furrowed. “Fourteen is a perfectly reasonable age to start courting, especially if the intended target is your soulmate!” 

“Not the point!” Grian dismissed Jimmy, but Joel ignored that fork in their conversation.  

“Really?” Joel deadpanned at Grian. “Scar Goodtimes? Mr. Physical Affection Extraordinaire? The fucker that makes innuendos all the time and pretends to not know what he said?” 

“He just doesn’t think before he speaks,” Grian murmured half heartedly. He cleared his throat and raised his voice to direct the conversation away from him. “What about you, Joel? Any closer to finding yours?” 

Joel clamped his jaw shut and averted his gaze. He didn’t want to talk about it. The air in the room soured from playful to tense. Luckily, Jimmy saved him, speaking up to talk about what he’s gathered about his soulmate through their connection. 

It had been a good several years since that moment, over a decade, in fact, and Joel still didn’t want to talk about it. The glimpses of his soulmate’s life that he was granted by the universe depicted lands far from his home in Woodland Forests. They featured faces of people he didn’t recognize with landmarks he didn’t know where to begin to locate. 

Finding his soulmate would require adventure and travel, but Joel had no interest in such a thing. Joel was a homebody at heart. He liked the predictability of his life. He enjoyed the connections he has with the other residents of Woodland Forests. He relished in the sense of community and solidarity clear between the townsfolk. And, while he wouldn’t always admit it, Joel loved and appreciated his family, no matter how much he teased them or they teased back. They knew this, of course, Grian often calling him a mother hen, but taking care of his younger brothers was just the birth-assigned task each eldest child was given. Joel couldn’t abandon them if he tried.

…even if they frequently encouraged him to go out and explore like they each had done many times before.

“Come on, Joel!” Jimmy whined, draping himself against Joel. The taller was lucky Joel was strong because they would have both otherwise toppled over, cracking their skulls open on the rough earth. “Please?” 

“I said no,” Joel huffed, irritated at Jimmy’s persistent questioning. 

Jimmy flopped off of Joel, jutting out his lower lip in a pout. “But it would be so much fun! Do you plan to stay in this kingdom forever?” 

“Yes,” Joel replied, dry and blunt. He turned on his heel and left Jimmy there, not intending to humor his brother any longer, and that was that. 

What purpose did he have to leave? He liked it here, and he had no desire to enter foreign lands and potentially land himself into trouble in another kingdom. His bad-mouth and anger issues had gotten him into enough ruckus over the years. He had no desire to widen the amount of available jail cells he could spend the night in.

Besides, Joel had set up a comfortable life for himself in Woodland Forests. Occasionally, his family expressed worries of him being too lonely or too isolated or some shit like that, something about how they couldn’t always be around and had their own lives and soulmates, but Joel always waved their concerns off. He was content with his clay and the pieces of his soulmate the universe chose to deliver to him. Plus, how could he be lonely when he had customers and the other townsfolk?

Speaking of his soulmate, they must be experiencing some sort of adrenaline rush because Joel felt wired up, hurried, and out of breath despite barely moving for the past hour or three. Extreme or strong emotions were often shared between soulbounds, which always gave Joel a bit of whiplash no matter how long that sort of thing had been occurring.

“I don’t know why I’m so sad!” Jimmy wailed in distress, tears rapidly flowing from his tear ducts and wetting the front of his tunic. His body shuttered with each breath as he hugged himself tightly, fingernails digging into his shoulders. 

Joel tried to comfort him the best he could, but there wasn’t much any of them could do. If Jimmy couldn’t pinpoint a reason for such emotions, then they were likely being shared through his soulbound, meaning Jimmy had no control of the sensations. It was mostly up to Jimmy’s soulmate to get their act together. 

Still though, Joel couldn’t bear it to see his youngest brother so upset, so he pulled Jimmy into a hug and combed his fingers through Jimmy’s hair, muttering gentle reassurances reserved only for tender moments. 

The door to his shop swung open, forcing Joel out of his memories. His wolf-like ears twitched to attention as his gaze snapped to the intruder. Joel barely had time to process what happened as the stranger ducked behind a cabinet and curled as small as he could in the corner between the wall and the cabinet. Their hair and fur were snow white, not surprising once Joel came to the conclusion that they were an arctic fox hybrid. He’s known other fox hybrids, but never an arctic fox, so that in itself was interesting, but also what the hells was he doing in his workshop? 

“Uh, hello?” Joel narrowed his eyes at the other man, crossing his arms across his chest. “The place’s closed. Come back tomorrow.”

The arctic fox hybrid had a black mask over his nose and mouth, covering most of his face, but the fear in his wide eyes shined with enough emotion to make up for the concealed parts. “Please hide me!”

Joel gaped at him in disbelief. Who did this guy think he was, telling him what to do? Joel scoffed at the ridiculousness of this situation. “Hide you?”

“Yes,” the other nodded quickly, voice no more than a whisper. “Don’t tell them I’m here. Please.”

Joel furrowed his brow at him, which only had the other flick his fox-like ears back and pathetically beg for Joel’s aid using only his eyes. He was clearly not from here, based solely on his accent and the fact Joel knew everyone in this part of Woodland Forests. Joel sucked in his lips, struggling to resist such a pitiful plea. His brothers always did this sort of shit too, and Joel was rarely strong enough to refuse for long.

Am I really going to do this? Joel wondered to himself as he sighed heavily, absentmindedly tugging his long hair out of its ponytail and then redoing it to be more secure. “Fine, but I demand an explanation after.”

“Deal,” the arctic fox hybrid was quick to agree to the terms, somehow shrinking back into the corner even more.

Joel averted his gaze from the stupidly handsome man and walked to the door to his workshop. He had thought he had locked it, but apparently not. This time, he ensured the door was not going to budge without inhuman strength. The sign on the door indicated that he wasn’t taking customers or commissions at the moment, so it would hopefully deter whoever was after the stranger.

The arctic fox hybrid’s breathing hitched in his throat door as shouting grew closer to the door, but they both were deadly silent by the time someone rattled the doorknob in an attempt to open it. “It’s locked! He must have fled further down. Come on, before he gets away!” 

Joel waited until he couldn’t hear them anymore before pressing his wolf ear against the door. He could feel his own heartbeat, though he wasn’t sure why because he wasn’t scared! What reason did he have to be scared? He hadn’t done anything wrong! Why was anxiety pricking at his skin so furiously?

Eventually, Joel backed up from the door and turned around. He didn’t bother to look in the stranger’s direction, simply gesturing for the other man to follow him toward the door in the back, one that led up to a small loft above his workshop. Joel was about to enter when he paused to glance over his shoulder, checking to see if the other was following him.

He was not.

Joel raised an eyebrow. “What are you waiting for?” “You–” the arctic fox hybrid squinted, obviously confused, “you want me to come with you? You’re not kicking me out?”  “Does it look like I’m kicking you out?” Joel rolled his eyes. Hadn’t his intentions been obvious? “Come with me before I kick you out and you take your chances with whoever is after you. This better not bite me in the ass, by the way, or you’re going to regret it.”

Joel didn’t wait this time, climbing his way up the spiral staircase to his studio flat. The flat wasn’t very big, but it was plenty for one person– maybe two if they were comfortable being in close proximity– complete with necessities and not too much more. Truthfully, it was all he needed, and he utilized the space well. While it may not be his main passion, Joel could confidently decorate with the best of them.

In an attempt to be courteous, Joel gave his guest– the stranger seemed to have been upgraded from intruder to guest in Joel’s mind within a short timeframe– space to take everything in. He retrieved the kettle off the counter and filled it up with water before stretching toward a nearby cabinet to fetch a pouch of magic fire dust. There were many ways to bring a kettle full of water to boil for tea, but fire dust was Joel’s preferred method.

“Do you need help?” his guest offered, suddenly appearing behind Joel and startling him. Joel cursed loudly, and his guest apologized, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Uh, my name is Etho, by the way.”

“Etho?” Joel parroted, eyeing him up and down. “That’s not a name you hear everyday. Did your parents name you after the then-baby prince of whatever that kingdom is called? The one to the west, I think. Are they fans of them or something?” “Something like that, yes,” Etho chuckled awkwardly with a half-hearted shrug.

“Bet they felt all fancy and foreign,” Joel joked, finding himself slipping into a far too familiar territory with someone he didn’t know. “Etho, so exotic I can’t even pronounce it like you can. Accents, ey?”

Etho’s expression morphed into an almost fond one, the look he gave Joel making him feel strangely but wonderfully warm. Joel didn’t quite know how to handle that, nor the butterflies in his stomach or the intoxication that came just from a masked smile. The blummin’ smile reached his eyes, and Joel found himself wanting to take a peek or five under that mask of his.

“It’s okay,” Etho assured him. “I find it cute.”

Cute. Joel studied Etho, somewhat warily but also a smidge flustered, before flicking his ear and turning back to prepping the tea. “I’m Joel, by the way.”

“Joel,” Etho repeated with a single nod. “I like that name. It’s nice.” “Thanks.” Joel had almost expected Etho to make unsolicited comments on his name next, but none came. It almost infuriated Joel, wishing Etho would take the mickey out of him like he had to Etho.

Not sure what else to say, silence fell between them. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t very great either. Etho simply stood there awkwardly as Joel finished the tea, too close for comfort, but not close enough to properly make content. It was strange– Etho was strange– but Joel couldn’t find it in himself to be too bothered.

Once Joel poured the tea into the cups, he led Etho over to the two-chaired table Joel often spent meals eating at alone. That was, if his brothers didn’t come over, anyway. If they did, he pulled out a spare chair he could fold down and tuck away in a multitude of locations. It was currently slid under his bed.

“So,” Joel started once they settled down, green eyes piercing into Etho’s soul, “are you going to tell me why you’re on the run?” Etho blinked rapidly at him, as if surprised. Perhaps he was. Something in Joel was confident that he was, but he didn’t linger on that thought. “How did you know?”

“You broke into my workshop, ducked behind the nearest cabinet, and begged me to keep you hidden,” Joel deadpanned, unable to resist rolling his eyes. Was this fox guy dumb? “Plus, I know everyone in the greater Woodlands, and I don’t know you, so d’ya wanna tell me what you were running from or where you were running from? Maybe even a why, may I be so lucky.”

Silence seemed to echo off the walls, as impossible as that was, each moment feeling impossibly stretched thin before Etho shook his head. “I don’t want to say.”

Joel scoffed and took a sip of his tea. “So you’re a coward.” “I am not!” Etho denied, the part of his face Joel could see around his mask flushing pink with embarrassment.

“Mhm, yep, sure,” Joel agreed dryly, swirling the liquid in his cup. 

Etho averted his gaze, and Joel allowed quiet to fall over them. He had expected the hush to be awkward and full of tension, but it felt oddly… peaceful? It was strangely comfortable, like they were meant to be together as they were. Just… existing beside each other. Did the arctic fox hybrid have magic? Was he bewitching him somehow? Did Joel even care if he was or not?

Joel was halfway done with his tea when he broke the silence to ask, “Do you not like tea?”

“Huh?” Etho asked only to answer his own question before Joel got a chance to respond. “Oh, I do, I like tea, I just…”

“What? Are you scared?” Joel teased, a smirk growing on his lips. “It’s not poisonous, if that’s what you’re scared about. If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you already, or handed you over to the people looking for you.”

Etho crossed his arms over his chest, ears flicking back for just a moment in a way Joel honestly found really fucking adorable. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Oh yeah?” Joel raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Prove it?” “Prove it?” Etho repeated in disbelief. 

“You think I’m joking?” Joel didn’t back down from the challenge, staring him dead in the eyes. 

Etho sighed in defeat with a slight shake of his head. “You’re impossible.”

And perhaps Joel was impossible, as it were, and he knew many would agree, but there was… something on Etho’s face that felt… fond? Was Joel reading that correctly? 

“Yet you love it,” Joel shot back in a near automatic response.

Etho chuckled and… yep, the something was definitely fond. “That I do.”

Creases formed by Etho’s eyes, like he was smiling underneath the mask, which only made Joel want to smile back. They were bickering, sure, but it was simply playful, maybe even fun. Warmth spread throughout his limbs as his heart beat just a little faster.

Time seemed to slow down as Etho started to remove his mask. Breath caught in Joel’s throat as the other peeled away the fabric to reveal what he looked like underneath. Joel had thought he was stunning before, but damn. His tongue darted out to wet his lips as Etho raised the tea cup to his to take a sip.

Joel averted his gaze for less than a second before meeting Etho’s eyes again. He wasn’t a coward; he could look some blummin’ guy in the eye! He studied the now-maskless man carefully, hiding the action by sipping his tea and maintaining idle conversation.

Etho was peculiar, but Joel didn’t find that fact necessarily bad. He had a scar over his left eye, a wound that must affect his vision in some sort of way. The eye almost looked bloodshot or like one of Joel’s clients– an albino cat hybrid– but it was less of a crimson or scarlet, and more blood red. His unaffected eye reminded him of Grian’s slightly soulless irises.

Neither Etho nor Grian’s eyes were truly soulless, but the inside joke had lasted between the brothers far too long at this point for Joel to forget. He and his brothers tended to be the kind to hold onto terms like that for reference later, especially if the term in question was stupid, funny, or an unintended innuendo.

Next thing Joel knew, hours had passed, the sun long gone below the horizon. They moved from the table to the “love seat”. It was a two-cushioned couch, meant for only two people, but Joel, Jimmy, and Grian have made it work when none of them were in the mood to sacrifice the prime spot and sit on the floor.

“Tim, get your boney hip away!” Grian shoved Jimmy away from him and toward Joel, which only resulted in protests from Jimmy and the loss of Joel’s couch space. 

“Jeez, man! Grian!” Jimmy tried to slap away Grian’s efforts to avoid being forced off the couch. “I wasn’t even that close! Stop shoving!” 

“Don’t make me kick you both out of my flat,” Joel threatened, resisting Jimmy’s intrusion in his space and pushing him back towards Grian. 

“You wouldn’t do that to your favorite brothers!” Grian countered, wings fluffing out. 

“You’re my only brothers,” Joel deadpanned, his wolf-like ear twitching. “And yes, I would. Would you like to test me?” 

“Guys!” Jimmy whined as he was seesawed back and forth between his older brothers. 

…it didn’t always work.

Etho and him fit just well on the sofa, and it helped that Joel didn’t mind when they brushed against each other. In fact, Etho’s touch felt electric, perhaps magnetic, drawing Joel in despite his reservations. As someone who wasn’t huge on physical contact from others, that desire caught him off guard. He didn’t fully know what to do with himself, but that didn’t stop him nor Etho from shifting closer and finding excuses to come into contact.

“Stop touching me!” Joel ordered in a whine, maybe eight years old. 

“I’m not touching you!” Grian’s finger hovered over Joel’s skin, close enough Joel’s hairs could inform him of where Grian was touching without him having to look. 

Joel smacked his hand away, but that didn’t deter his brother. “Yes you are!” 

“No I’m not!” Grian continued to be a nuisance, as most younger brothers tended to be. 

That memory occurred so long ago that Joel couldn’t recall how it ended.

Either way, even when ignoring the physical, Joel still found it odd how easy Etho was to talk to. It was like they had known each other their whole lives, and were just meeting to catch up. Joel had never gotten along with a stranger this well, especially when he wasn’t doing his best to behave. Sucking up to authority to hide that he was a menace in every other situation was more of a Grian tactic than his. Joel was more likely to be unapologetically himself and suffer whatever consequences came with that.

Not that Etho was an authority, hells no! Etho was an equal; they were on the same playing field. They just fit together like adjacent puzzle pieces. Etho seemed to get him, and Joel relished in the fact that his quips and teasing were well-received. As Etho grew comfortable, he began reciprocating the jabs in his own witty way. 

Joel loved hi- it. 

“It’s getting late,” Joel announced with mild regret, finding himself not wanting the night to end. Stars, was he falling for Etho already? His brothers would never let that go if they knew. 

“That it is,” Etho acknowledged with a slight frown.

His eyes followed Joel’s gaze to the skylight he had installed, positioned to allow for sunlight while maintaining privacy from those walking around outside. The day’s light was far gone now, but the stars were visible and he didn’t have to worry about onlookers, and that was more than enough for Joel. 

The stars were truly gorgeous this time of year, bright and twinkling on the cloudless night. Maybe Joel would be able to show Etho at some point. They could find a nice place to lie down and stargaze… would Etho enjoy something like that?

What is wrong with me? Joel cried inwardly, wanting to shove his face into his hands and half-groan half-scream his feelings out. Instead of groan-screaming, he tried to muffle a yawn into Etho’s shoulder before hugging Etho’s arm like a stuffed animal and using his upper arm as a somewhat-boney pillow.

“Are you planning to stick around?” Joel asked in a sleepy murmur, more hopeful sounding than he would have preferred. He shifted so he could observe Etho’s reaction before expanding on his previous question. “Sticking around Woodland Forests, I mean.” “Maybe.” Etho hummed non-committedly, a falsely innocent grin tugging at his lips as his gaze pierced down through his soul. “Why? Do you want me to stick around?”

Sly fox, Joel’s mentally accused with feigned annoyance, like he wouldn’t do similar in Etho’s situation. 

“As if!” Joel scoffed, though he made no effort to move. “I just wanted to know if you planned to use my shop to coward again or not.”

“It was not cowering,” Etho corrected, nay insisted. “I was simply using the resources at my disposal to avoid an undesired situation, like being smart and clever and stuff.”

“Sure,” Joel rolled his eyes, though there was no bite behind the motion. He struggled to hide how happy he was, which was easy considering the weariness that pulled at his limbs. It was past his bedtime, as he had woken early that day to work on his sculpting.

If Etho said something else, Joel didn’t catch it, half-slipping into unconsciousness. Perhaps he would have fully entered the dream realm, but something alerted him enough to jump with a start, forcing Joel back into the awake world. He partially sat up, brushing his hair out of his face– when had he let it down?– as he blinked rapidly in confusion. “Huh? Wha?” “Shh, it’s okay,” Etho soothed, arms securely around Joel as he whispered into his ear. Joel settled back down and Etho’s fingers returned– returned? How did he know that?– to combing through Joel’s brown locks. If Etho were anyone else, Joel may have been embarrassed, but… no one had to know. Not when Joel wanted it so bad, wanted that comfort. “Sleep, don’t worry. I got you.” A soft ecstasy covered him like a warm blanket, constant and overwhelming, but also secure and not too much to handle. Joel wasn’t sure if the emotion was dulled by his half-awake state, or if it was just another thing that his soulmate unintentionally shared through their soulbound. Before he could think about it too hard, Joel lost hold on his intelligent thoughts, slipping into the world of the unconscious.

If Joel had taken a moment to step back, perhaps he would have noticed the signs earlier. Grian and Jimmy teased him for being dense, but how did they expect Joel to connect the dots when Etho’s presence was so natural, much like he had been there the whole time? There was no “adjustment period” or significant effort put into getting used to living together. They just were. 

“What inspired this?” Etho inquired one day, not too far in the future. 

“What inspired what?” Joel responded with his own question, shifting his attention from his busy work– from creating bowls to sell for profit– to Etho. “Hold on, give me a second, and I’ll look.” 

The arctic fox hybrid had spent a lot of time watching Joel work, as if he were studying techniques with nothing but his vision to aid him, but, those past few days, Etho turned his focus elsewhere. Instead of watching Joel create, he studied previous creations of Joel’s instead. 

Many sculptures perplexed him, Joel could tell, but Etho denied the claim whenever Joel brought it up. Etho had reassured them that they were very good, just vaguely… familiar. Joel shrugged, not often having an answer for him. Perhaps the illustrations he committed to sculpted pottery weren’t as unique or specifically detailed as he thought his imagination was, not if Etho had seen such works before. 

Joel got to a stopping point, wiped his hands with the designated rag, and got up to join Etho where he was gawking. He froze as his gaze landed on a sculpted boat, one of his most prized creations. Joel had spent well over a month dedicated to specifically it– tending to every detail he could possibly think of including– so long that he even gave it a name. 

“The Relation. The relation-?” Etho read off the lettering Joel had meticulously added as a little inside joke to himself. Joel had thought it was hilarious, at the time, and Etho must have thought so too by the smile creased by his eyes. “The Relation Ship! Aha, I get it. That’s clever, I like it.” 

“Thanks,” Joel grumbled, carefully picking up the boat like it would break if he looked at it wrong to locate it somewhere else away from Etho. 

That must have confused Etho, for he scrunched his nose and tilted his head as if trying to view the situation from another angle. He didn’t protest Joel’s action, however, something Joel appreciated. Etho was good about that, not pushing Joel’s boundaries when it came to something clearly important to him. 

The Relation Ship wasn’t for other people to see, only Joel and his soulmate. His brothers hadn’t even seen it! Perhaps that was a little overprotective of him– perhaps silly or childish were better words– but The Relation Ship was one of the only things he and his soulmate shared! 

Joel hoped it was something they shared, at least.

No one could ever truly know what would be shared through one’s soulbound. One could make an educated guess or a half decent prediction, but nothing was for sure. Just because Joel saw flashes of sketched boats through his soulmate’s eyes via the soulbound link didn’t mean his soulmate received any notice of Joel’s recreation. 

He sometimes worried that they’d never see it, but that thought saddened him too much to linger on…

Okay, anyway–

There were times Joel and Etho simply existed together, doing their own things or working on nothing at all. Parallel play, he thought Etho called it when referring to that time at some point. He wasn’t sure, but either way, that wasn’t the point. The point was that Etho had started to hang around even while Joel sculpted, but not always to watch this time. Instead, Etho brought down some parchment from the loft that he had paid for himself and sketched whatever he fancied.

Despite Joel’s jabs at Etho for being a lousy freeloader, he was actually anything but. He did persuade Joel into letting him stay with him at his flat for free, despite all logic and good sense, but Etho strangely didn’t disappoint. Etho made himself useful, helping keep the flat clean and going out into town for odd jobs. Apparently Etho was handy with redstone– a sort of magical technology Joel only knew the basics of– brushing off the skill as just a hobby despite his expertise. He raked in more than enough money to earn his keep.

Based on what Joel knew about his handiness and tendency to be creative in his crafts of choice, he shouldn’t have been surprised when Etho asked, “Can you teach me?” 

“Teach you?” Joel prompted, raising an eyebrow. “Teach you what? To sculpt? To be as hot and sexy as me?” 

Etho snorted in amusement, tail swaying idly behind him, though all he said aloud was “Yes.” 

“To be hot and sexy? That’s not a teachable skill, unfortunately, for you would have come to the right place. Luckily for you, you already do fine– just not as good as me, of course,” Joel joked lightheartedly before answering what he assumed was Etho’s real question. “If you want to learn to sculpt, on the other hand, you’ll have better luck with a master.” 

Etho mulled over Joel’s response for several heartbeats, so long that Joel hadn’t expected the conversation to continue any further. He had gone back to what he was doing when Etho spoke again, “Are you not a master?” 

Pride bubbled up in his chest as he straightened his posture and wagged his tail, beaming brightly at Etho. “Not officially, no, but I’m flattered you think I’ve mastered the craft already.” 

“Have you not?” Etho glanced at some of Joel’s nearby works that he decided to keep when they were finished, skeptical of Joel’s not-yet-mastary. 

“Ha!” Joel threw his head back in a dog-ish– wolf-ish?– bark. “Hells no.” 

They both filled a hole in the other’s life, one that neither of them fully realized had been empty. Joel found himself enjoying the company, something he’d been missing with his brothers off doing their own things. It didn’t help that Joel tended to isolate himself in his studio, zoned in on his projects and nothing else. Business transactions and small talk had nothing on a genuine friendship. 

Without his brothers there as often, he had no one to watch after or drag him out to do things he claimed he didn’t want to do. Joel hadn’t realized just how lonely he had become until he got a taste, much like a sip of water after unintentionally slipping into dehydration. He just couldn’t get enough.

Now, It had been a little over a year since Etho had entered his life, and Joel was eternally grateful for it. His lonesome flat had become more lively with Etho’s things added among Joel’s and sketches Etho had gifted Joel pinned up in a gallery to decorate the walls. It was perfect, their relationship was perfect, but their understanding of their status was… admittedly embarrassing, to say the least.

“What do you mean he’s not your boyfriend?” Grian exclaimed a little too loudly, flabbergasted.

“Quiet!” Joel growled under his breath, rough and rumbley as a byproduct of his wolf genetics.  “I don’t need the entirety of Woodland Forests in my business!”

“Fine!” Grian huffed back, mildly irritated at the correction, but not enough to refuse submitting to Joel’s request. He repeated himself, this time at a lower sound level. “What do you mean he’s not your boyfriend? Haven’t you two been dating this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy agreed with Grian, seemingly astounded by this news, “I thought you had found your soulmate and started dating him, and just didn’t want to tell us directly yet for some reason–”

Joel pursed his lips, ears flattening back against his head. He didn’t want to admit anything, but with his brothers looking at him so expectantly, and, well… there wasn’t much they could hide from each other for long. “We haven’t talked about it.”

“It?” Grian parroted, the word pitching up an octave with his disbelief. “It? Joel, I can’t believe you–”

“Why not?” Jimmy cut in before Grian could say more, face all contorted and bewildered. “Don’t you like him?” “Of course I like him!” Joel snapped, face growing red with embarrassment and shame. He groaned, leaning forward as he tangled his fingers in his hair. The tug on his scalp was just enough stimulation to distract his mind from blowing a fuse and doing something he’d regret. 

“Then what’s the problem?” Grian questioned, not granting Joel any empathy. “You like him, you’re soulmates, you’ve been functionally dating for months now– what’s the issue? Honestly, where is it, ‘cause I don’t see one.”

“It’s not that simple!” Joel claimed with a desperate wail, tugging harsher on his scalp. Jimmy shifted closer to Joel, taking a more sympathetic approach. He wrapped his arm around his shoulder and rested his wing against the back of his torso, but he didn’t say anything. Not yet. “You of all people should understand, Grian, with Scar, and with–”

“Yes, and I’d be the first to admit that I was an idiot in my youth,” Grian deadpanned, before sighing. “Joel, I would have saved a lot of heartache if I just was transparent with Scar years ago. I am passing on that advice I had to learn the hard way for you and your soulmate–”

“I don’t even know if Etho is my soulmate…” Joel murmured defeatedly, hands dropping from his unstyled hair to his lap. He curled his tail close to his body, so tightly that the end of the wolf’s tail was close enough for Joel to fidget with the end of it. “Not for sure, anyway. I mean, I have a hunch, but how can I really be sure when–”  “But you want it to be true, don’t you?” Jimmy spoke up, far more caring than Joel deserved. Joel was supposed to be the responsible, mature caregiver of the trio. He wasn’t supposed to be the one needing help. That wasn’t a job for the youngest nor the middle child, yet here they were… 

“Of course I do,” Joel’s voice cracked as he squeezed his eyes shut, tears trickling down his cheeks. “How could I not? I mean, I love– like him! Stars, how could I not like him? I wish I knew, for this… infatuation is such a problem.”

“I can’t believe you just called what you and Etho have an in-fat-u-a-tion,” Grian drawled out that last word. “You two have been living like a married couple for months! I don’t know how else to tell you that that is not ‘infatuation’, mate.”

“Even if it was, how is that a problem?” Jimmy leaned his head against Joel’s shoulder, arm still wrapped around him as he idly twirled and curled Joel’s hair around his fingers. “Does he not like you back like that? Or do you mean to say he’s not a romantic soulmate? A platonic one, perhaps? I have a friend like that, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with it, they’re happy–”

“Our relationship is anything but platonic,” Joel corrected, smiling weakly at the thought of what they had being anything else, as if it were amusing or something to entertain themselves with. No one looked at only a friend like Joel and Etho looked at each other. Joel’s smile fell and he bit the inside of his lip with his canine teeth. “I just… I don’t want to fuck it up.”

Grian took a deep breath, presumingly to calm himself down before he allowed his annoyance at Joel’s dumbassary to influence his comments anymore. “The only way you’re going to fuck it up is if you don’t do anything about it.”

Jimmy nodded briefly in agreement. “At the end of the day, it’s better to know than to live in this limbo of inbetween.”

Joel didn’t respond right away as he mulled over their words. He sniffed as he dried his eyes with his sleeve. “When did you two grow up and get so wise?”

Grian and Jimmy didn’t respond with any sort of actual answer, instead mwah-ing kisses all around him in between cooing playful sentiments at him. Joel swatted them away lightheartedly, not using most of his strength so he didn’t accidently hurt them. “Oh, enough you two! Fuck off!”

His brothers only giggled in response, and Joel couldn’t help but join the chorus. 

They were right though. He had to do something about it. If he didn’t, he feared he might burst.

That was a bit of an over exaggeration, but he’s always been good at those.

Joel had gotten his wish to show Etho the stars properly fulfilled multiple times before, stargazing even becoming one of their favorite pastimes. Etho had built a reputation for himself, meaning he got rather busy, and Joel still maintained his business, but they tried to find time to stargaze at least once a week, even if it was from the comfort of their flat. 

It didn’t matter to Joel if they went out to lay in the grassy outdoors or if they chose to observe the constellations through the lens of their flat’s skylight. As long as they got to have that time, he was content. Honestly, as long as Etho acknowledged Joel’s existence, he was over the moon.

…maybe he had fallen for the arctic fox hybrid a bit harder than he first guessed.

Huh. Anyway– 

Now Joel’s never done yoga or anything, but he was fairly confident that their stargazing had that same sort of meditative effect. Ever since Etho and Joel decided to make stargazing a regular event, Joel’s found himself less quick to anger or prone to explode. The urges and impulses were still there, of course, but they had… dulled. They’d become more manageable. 

Joel couldn’t recall the last time he’s gotten in a tiff with a merchant or pissed off the guards enough to spend the night in a cell. Maybe his brothers had been right this whole time. Maybe having something– someone worth coming home to actually did help. Joel had always been too full of himself– too arrogant– to actually ever take their advice.

Speaking of his brothers’ advice…

“Etho?” Joel broke the silence cautiously, though he didn’t yet lift his head from Etho’s shoulder.

They two laid under the skylight staring at the stars with pillows supporting their heads and a large blanket draped over them to share. Etho laid flat on his back with his arm under Joel as Joel sandwiched his right arm between them and rested his left arm on Etho’s chest, hand over his sternum.

Etho didn’t respond at first, making Joel worry he had fallen asleep just as he had gathered his nerve, but those anxieties dissolved once Joel shifted just enough to see Etho’s face only to find it flushed pale pink. The pale pink always looked so lovely against the snow-white of Etho’s hair and fur, and Joel found pleasure in eliciting a blush from him. “Whatcha looking at?”

“You.” The word flowed from Etho’s lips so smoothly that Joel had half the will to deny its genuinity. 

Joel’s own blush killed any notion of doing so, however. “Okay, sure, yeah. Whatever you say, Etho.”

Etho’s breathing hitched, followed by what Joel could almost swear was an “Oh, snap–”  

What a blummin’ dork, Joel couldn’t help but think, huffing a laugh. “You okay there?”

“Yeah,” Etho whispered airily out as he turned his head to bury his face against the base of Joel’s hair, his fingers absentmindedly messing with the ending strands. “Yep, yep, everything’s okay here.”

Joel kept his hair well-maintained, a requirement for being allowed long hair as a child, and he has simply kept it up into adulthood. Fidgeting with it became a staple for not only himself, but his brothers, and apparently anyone else who managed to get close enough, proved by Etho.

Their unplanned detour led to Joel momentarily forgetting the intentions he had for tonight so, instead of using the silence as an opportunity to bring it up again, he stayed quiet, simply enjoying Etho’s presence. 

For better or for worse, Etho pressed a close lip kiss against the top of his head before speaking again, “I’m always a sucker for how you say my name, no matter how many times you do it. Actually, I’m just a sucker for you in general, to be honest.”

Joel detached himself from Etho’s torso, sitting up and looking down at the fox hybrid, ignoring the way Etho made his heart flutter like nothing else. The sensation only became more intense with their soulbound. Was he making Etho feel the same way?

Etho rose to sit up alongside him, a glimpse of fear on his features. Joel resisted a frown, instead deciding to tease his soulmate– his soulmate!– by leaning into the “Eefo” pronunciation that came with his native Woodland Forests accent. 

“What a cheesy romantic you are, Etho,” Joel jested with faux and playful disgust. Ugh, when had he become such a sap for this man?

“Could you blame me?” Etho didn’t wait for an answer, cupping Joel’s face gingerly. Joel melted into Etho’s hold, letting his eyes flutter close. He placed his own hand over the one cupping his face, partly to help support the weight of his head and partly to nonverbally convince Etho to not let go. 

As this happened, Joel did his best to ignore the way his tail involuntarily wagged like an excitable dog, thumping against the blankets with a dulled thump, thump, thump. As bad as that was, he worked even harder to get his brothers’ childhood teases about him really being part dog further away. Joel didn’t need their comments in their head right now, as deserved as they may be.

Stars above, how had he managed to delude himself of Etho’s feelings when he acted like this? 

“Can you blame me,” Etho asked again, “for being sappy when I have you as a soulmate?”

Joel’s eyes flew open as his body went all tense and rigid, hand falling to his side. “You knew?”

“I’ve had a hunch for awhile,” Etho admitted, scratching the back of his neck and not looking Joel in the eyes, “but I wasn’t sure, because you never said anything, but, uh, yeah.”

Laughter bubbled in his chest and spilled out of him, less out of joy and more out of shock. Joel’s unexpected laughter must have caught Etho off guard for he hesitantly checked in with, “Your reaction confirms that we are, right? And that you’re… good with it, and want me too– want me like I want you– and–?”

“Yes!” Joel tried to contain himself, but he wasn’t very successful. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over. “Yes, of course, you beautiful, blummin’ idiot.”

“I– You really have a way with words, don’t you?” Etho replied sarcastically, though no negativity could be detected among the sarcasm. “I’m, like– I’m getting mixed signals here, Joel.”

Joel rolled his eyes affectionately, throwing his leg over Etho’s legs so he could practically sit on his lap facing towards his soulmate. Joel tugged on the collar of Etho’s top until they were close enough for their lips to brush and for Joel to feel Etho’s breath on his face. He didn’t try to contain his tail this time, and Etho didn’t appear to either. 

“You talk too much.” Not true in the slightest, especially with Joel being the more talkative one out of the pair, but logic and rationale weren’t exactly on his mind at the moment. “You should do something about that.”

Etho pulled Joel flush against him, using the fat just above Joel’s hip bone to secure his grip. His lips parted briefly, as if he were going to respond with some sort of witty retort. Before he could get anything out, Joel traced his tongue against the ridges of his sharp canines, effectively attracting Etho’s attention. His soulmate’s pupils dilated, their mutual desire only amplified by their soulbound.

Their lips collided like two forces of nature fighting to consume the other. They devoured each other, intoxicated with each give and take, getting lost in their venture for pleasure and bliss. The ever present want refused to die down now that it was given what it had yearned for for so long. Joel knew it would be difficult to stop once they started, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

It was difficult for Joel to differentiate where he started and Etho began, especially with the building sensations they traded back and forth. Joel understood his brothers actions and mindset in accordance to their soulmates a whole lot better now, a realization that brought a strange sense of enlightenment. 

Euphoria pulsed through his veins, and he never wanted to stop. Not when he’s wanted so long, not when they have needed each other for so long…

Neither he nor Etho knew what the future held for them, but something told Joel that, as long as they had each other, they were more than ready to take on the challenge. Joel wanted nothing more than to see where life would continue to take them. Etho was worth it and more, after all, but don’t tell him Joel said that. He would tell Etho himself in due time, but the proper words could come later. For now, though, Joel enjoyed what they shared, and he knew Etho felt the same, and that was more than enough for him.

If you got this far, please like and reblog, and maybe even kudos and comment over on AO3! Thank you kindly, I appreciated it <33

[noodle-is-unstable]

Hey, just a question but why were you fine with the abusive power dynamics between Sukuna and Uraume (Ume being so devoted to Sukuna and Sukuna only that they killed themself and Sukuna being fine with this blind devotion + Sukuna, a curse/cursed user, making Uraume, a human, cook human meat, including children, for him) so far but the moment he might have met them as a kid/teen you aren't fine? It was a "problematic" ship from the start, idk why everyone is acting horrified that the villains do villain things. But also meeting as a kid and dating as a kid is soooo different, they're both thousands years old in current days so like...

So first of all, you're more than welcome to ask questions and have a discussion but the tone in which this is written is coming off as agressive in my opinion. I don't appreciate that. Perhaps I'm reading into it wrong and that wasn't your intent, but it still has an unnecessary agressive tone to me. Especially in how you chose to end it with "so like..."

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I'm misinterpreting the tone because it's very possible I am.

Now onto the actual question.

So unless something happened in the epilogue I missed I don't agree with your assessment of their relationship at all. If this context is given in the epilogue the point is moot because it was still something I wasn't privy to.

So I'm going off the manga for my knowledge of their relationship.

I think it's possible and valid that this is the interpretation you got from this, but it's simply not the same one I have.

I don't see their relationship as an abusive dynamic. (this can change with the new knowledge or context in the epilogue but we're taking about my perspective and why I wrote about it before this)

I saw Uraume as a very loyal servant, but not an abused or manipulated one. I didn't see Sukuna forcing things onto Uraume, I saw them choosing to do these things. (Remember this is in the context where we didn't know how Uraume and Sukuna met). I saw Uraume as choosing to follow Sukuna, choosing to cook humans, choosing to be devoted to Sukuna. They chose to follow him. They chose to be reincarnated to stay by his side. Uraume isn't some innocent little lamb being tricked by a wolf. They killed many people too. Also I think you forget Sukuna was a human too. Sukuna was a human eating humans and Uraume was a human cooking humans. They both participated in fucked up activities. Uraume isn't innocent and being forced to do anything. If they were I doubt they would have worked so hard to bring him back rather than just leaving and living their reincarnated life without him.

Simply put I saw Uraume as a very willing participant in everything that happened. I don't see their dynamic as abusive. You do and you have every right to, but I don't.

I also don't agree with your logic that their villains and do villian things so I should be okay with everything. Stealing is against the law, but so is murder. They're both bad, but they aren't equal. There is so much nuance to situations like this it's not realistic to just make it all equal.

Not to mention there is zero feelings that aren't platonic shown in the manga, that's all headcannons. It's not actually apart of the series at all. This is something fans have put onto the characters. This whole argument is in a fan made concept.

I am uncomfortable with pushing a romantic relationship on them when the situation is that he took Uraume in as a kid. I don't like it, it gives me the ick. So shocking, but if I don't like or agree with something, I'm not going to write about it.

Like I said in my last post I don't give a shit about the argument they're 1000 years old now, I don't like it.

He met Uraume as a child

He helped raise them

I'm not going to push a romantic aspect to that situation

You're allowed to disagree. You're allowed to not have a problem with that dynamic. You're allowed to see their dynamic differently than I do. But at the end of the day this is my page and I'm allowed to decide what I do and don't want to write for. And I don't want to write for that dynamic

[ventismacchiato]

Okay I have far too many headcanons/ideas about scarayn and music they’ve done or would later do post-swy. So bc I have no life atm and this is all I can think about here are a couple:

• I’ve already mentioned them shifting their music to literally only writing shit about each other (largely to spite everyone telling them to write about anything else than each other for the rest of eternity), but I raise you — one of them finally writing about something else like a breakup or other relationship issues and dropping it with no prior warning to anyone. Naturally this causes everyone and their mother to question if their beloved otp is going to break up or if they’re having trouble getting along again. Only for their friends to find out they wrote the song bc a) they just felt like it, literally no other reason or b) they wrote it together just to fuck with everyone

• second/last one (bc I didn’t realize this was already pretty long and I wanna get out of your hair abt this before I end up writing you a 50 page essay and analysis on this smau 💀) — I was listening to My Kink is Karma by Chappel roan and can’t get the idea out of my head that that’s a song y/n made in this au. The music video is this au is similar to Chappel’s actual mv. And it just so happens that one of scara’s previous mv’s have a very similar vibe to y/n’s, leading to a now very popular scarayn edit where Simone used clips that work surprisingly well together to make the my kink is karma mv with both y/n and scara together and it’s hot and done concerningly well to where a small amount of people have seen clips of the edit and thought it was the real mv. (Hopefully that makes sense 😅)

Okay, that’s enough from me, I loved the new chapter tho!! Got me giggling, kicking my feet over two characters unable to express their emotions ❤️❤️

omg i love long asks don’t even be sorry SEND ME ALL THE ANALYSIS’S U WANT MY WAY EVEN IF IT TAKES ME A WHILE TO REPLY

omg i love this i can see scarayn in their lowk honeymoon phase and only wanting to release songs about each other or related to each other. like obviously the albums do well but the fans r like wow we miss scaras old style can he release smth different and scara fucks around and releases an album that’s the opposite themes of his usual happier songs centered around u and ppl think u both broke up for a few hours anyway i have more but ill save it for the end of the au so i don’t spoil too much

OMG YES I GET WHAT UR SAYING it reminds me of when ppl edit together hyyh yoonkook with their new mvs ,, another song i had a head canon about was close to you by gracie abrams and its a song one of them wrong about eo, maybe scara about yn and he releases it a while after the show and gets yn to be in the mv and it cuts between them two do u guys see the vision or do i sound insane

and ahh thank u!! im so glad u enjoyed and i’m always so flattered people have headcanons for my fic

[misslycoris]

THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!

I CAN FINALLY LEAVE! MARTHA I'M COMING HOME SWEETIE

But in all seriousness I thank you all for sticking through Signed, Alastor, there had been times when I was just completely over it and stopped writing and yet through it all your comments really helped on getting rid the annoying effects of writer's block. Stick around if you wanna hear my yappings and a few details about this story in general, or not, it's been great having you guys as my audience either way.

• In an Alternate Universe Somewhere...

Squeaks and George were never even planned right until a few days after the supposed release of this fic. I've mentioned this in the first chapter as a passing comment but I wasn't kidding when I said I wrote eight chapters worth of content about a different plot. It wasn't until a few days before the release of the first episode of Hazbin that I completely scrapped it in favor of the current plot of Signed, Alastor. I was thankful that I did because this was the first fic that I truly hauled my shit together and made a whole ass organizer and timeline chart.

How different was the plot? Basically, the story starts with Alastor meeting the reader again after having them tailor his suit, they were previously close friends and the story's about them catching up with each other. There will be flashbacks that will start from the day they met and until the time they parted ways. During this there will be a lingering thread that the reader isn't truly who they seem to be and the first arc will end with the reveal of who they are and Alastor's death in 1933. I'll tell you guys what it is since I don't have any plans on reviving that story, the reader would be revealed to be an angel and that they died a few years after they got separated from Alastor. Reader saw how Alastor was with his whole murder schtick and wanted to try and dissuade him, eventually culminating in being sent back down to Earth.

It's a bit of a jumbled mess but it doesn't work in the end and they both fall to Hell. The second arc will then start in their afterlife, with Alastor at odds with the reader, I'd say even treat them as an enemy or something similar. They'll eventually work their way back to being friends, maybe something more. So in a way, that part stayed with this story.

I'm kind of grateful I changed it, I adore the current plot and wouldn't be any happier with how it turned out. But who knows? In an alternate universe, I could've continued down that old route.

• My Original Vision of the Story

This was supposed to be a much more lighthearted book actually, it was supposed to have stories contained only within each chapter and maybe like have one plot that connects each of them kind of like how cartoons work, you can go to any chapter and not be confused as to what was going on. It was supposed to be more centered on Squeaks as a person and it's just them navigating through their occupation as a postmaster. Each chapter would be a different adventure and then they would meet the Vees, the Hotel, and it's just random hijinks for the sake of hijinks. I eventually deviated from that as time went on and I just went with the flow as I did.

• Interpretation of Alastor

This incessant, annoying, showy, overgrown Bambi has always been and will always be my favorite. It truly makes me happy when people comment that my interpretation of Alastor is something that they appreciate and think is accurate. Gives my needless fixation on him some use.

Another thing to talk about is his sexuality, I don't have the right to tell people how to write Alastor and I also enjoy Alastor acting out of character and being a fluffy softie. As a bit of a confession, I have a oneshot series that I didn't move into this site that portrays Alastor differently, looking back at it now I'll probably delete a few chapters since I'm starting to regret my choices back then. It was my choice to make his character act the way he does in this fic but I'm not opposed to people taking his character on a different route! Everyone has the freedom to write whatever they want, even if I don't necessarily like it those stories weren't written with my opinions in mind. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's the rule of thumb for fanfiction.

If I have to describe how it feels to write about Alastor it's like trying to walk on a rickety old bridge that'll probably break at any moment. Alastor, who's canonically asexual, possibly aromantic, is an enigma that I lose sleep over every night trying to understand and I bet you he probably would find it amusing. I try to keep both worlds happy, where people who'd prefer to keep Alastor opposed to traditional romance and people who'd like to see him in a more romantic light are both happy with this fic. Optimistic in nature, difficult to execute you get what I mean? Of course this doesn't imply that asexual people can't experience love! It's just that Alastor's a complex character that has a lot of nuances. At the very least I hope I <strong>m</strong>ade something that didn't offend anyone, invalidate Alastor's orientation and identity, or just kept this fic from being weird in general.

But the fact that this is a reader pairing already fails the not-weird plan. In the future I'll just shut up and pick a kind of Alastor to write consistently.

• The Series Itself

I've been in the fandom for over half a decade now and looking back at it I never expected Hazbin Hotel to really make an impact, especially with me being a writer, I have a lot to be thankful of and I'm happy to see the show make it to where it is but I also have my gripes about certain aspects of it.

Do I still like Hazbin Hotel? Sure! I still believe it's a darling little series that started with a pretty strong passion. But the series has its flaws and I can't say it's the best out there. Not to mention ths several instances from both the fandom and its creator that made me want to curl up into a ball and dissolve.

• Will I Be Continuing This Book?

Most likely? I want to make small little special epilogues every now and then but as far as the main story goes this one is already done. I'll also be coming back to edit this book frequently, or as frequent as my schedule allows me to be so look out for that.

• Future Projects

Will there be any other fics after this? Yes! Eventually? Someday? Okay, I may or may not have something already planned but I'll probably hold off until Season 2 comes out. But I do want to start a new fic! I just don't know when it'll be out exactly, maybe it'll be after S2, maybe before, maybe during. I'm not gonna spoil you on the details but it will be about an OP reader since some of you are really vocal about the apparent lack of it.

Although if you're paying attention, you can probably guess what the title of that new book will be.

• A Special Thank You

This is dedicated to all those talented stars that made fanart for this silly little book of mine. These always made me so happy and I still can't believe that so many of you dedicated your time and effort in these lovely drawings.

baezzz-mid on Tumblr

pieofpieee on Twitter/X (couldn't find the fanart but please check them out they're amazing)

cyan-111de on Tumblr

melesmania on Tumblr

song_stat on Twitter/X

aliensketches on Instagram

kattywattyisonhere on Tumblr

If you have the time, go check them out! They have other cool stuff in their pages and deserve all the love we're legally allowed to give. Again, thank you so so so much!

And with that, I have nothing else to yap about, it was fun writing this but for now thank you and goodnight! See you on the other side. For any further comments I'll be here, lurking around for a few days or so before I fall off the face of the Earth.

Signed,

misslycoris ♡

[ragnarokhound]

((you don’t have to do both if you don’t want to, you can consider this one a back up / alt))

“If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.” 💞

From this writing prompt list i reblogged in...november lmao fljdsjfa

anyway this grew legs and sprinted away the second I picked it up yesterday - clearly it just needed some time to proof lmao. Thank you for the ask, tauria!! From *checks watch* almost 5 months ago fjdslafjsa I will be cross-posting it to Ao3 in my new oneshot collection fic :)

Warnings for: Vague allusions that Ra's Al Ghul is a creep (what else is new), threats of gun violence, canon-typical violence

15. “If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.”

When Tim arrived in Gotham this morning, he had no way of knowing that his day would end in Jason Todd’s bed. 

Frankly, he wasn’t really sure what bed he’d end up in— because his own certainly wasn’t an option right now. But If he had to pick, Jason Todd’s was somewhere near the bottom of whatever list he’d make.

He didn’t exactly plan on this, okay? 

But, uh. Let’s back up a little.

—

Tim knew his day was going to go to shit when he got back from the airport at 7 AM.

He had his driver drop him off two blocks away from his townhouse for the sake of caffeine at the hole in the wall place he likes. Wealthy CEO he may be, but a sixteen hour flight is still a sixteen hour flight and Tim is cursed with an inability to sleep in the air. 

Don’t ask. He’s tried. It doesn’t work.

So he wants coffee, and he wants a shower, and he wants his own bed. In that order.

With the first thing on his list acquired and blessedly burning his tongue, he managed to tug his brain cells together enough to realize that the building they’d passed that had been shrouded in tents and canvas was his building.

"What's going on here?"

The worker outside his building looks up from her clipboard, her face wrinkling into apprehensive confusion.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

He hasn’t slept in roughly seventy two hours. He is not awake or patient enough for this.

“My name is Tim Drake. I own this building. What’s going on here?” He repeats.

The woman raises her eyebrows and looks down at her clipboard again. “Mr. Drake?” She questions, clearly expecting him to look like a grown-ass man and not a sleep-deprived college student coming home from spring break or whatever.

“Yes. Timothy Drake-Wayne. Why are you—” he tries to gesture with the hand still holding his suitcase handle, walking towards the tarps and tents erected around his townhouse with increasing trepidation, “—here?”

“I’m sorry sir, but you can’t go in there. Not for at least forty-eight hours.”

Tim stops in his tracks.

“Forty-eight—?”

“We've been scheduled to fumigate the property today.” She says it like she’s reading it out of a handbook. “It won't be safe to enter the building for at least forty-eight hours. You should have received prior notice. Uh. Sir.”

Tim's jet-lagged brain kicks into overdrive. 

Bruce hasn't made any disappointed noises about Tim’s perfectly normal work ethic lately so it probably wasn't a misguided attempt at benching him. And besides, rendering Tim’s apartment inaccessible is counterproductive on that front. 

Dick wouldn’t. They haven’t been exactly— great, lately but he wouldn’t. Besides, if he wanted to get Tim out of the house more, he’d show up to drag Tim out into the daylight himself. This is a little too roundabout for him.

It’s too much work to be Steph. She would think it’s funny, but there’s no way she’d follow through.

Damian might, but this doesn’t quite fit his preferred methods for making Tim’s life hell. It could be some cloak and dagger maneuver to leave him vulnerable, faking a complaint to the city so he’ll—

And then Tim thinks about the call.

The call he’d brushed off at fuck o’clock in the morning somewhere over Europe, too busy with another project. The call his secretary took for him instead. He thinks about the distracted confirmation he’d given to whatever it was she’d asked him about five minutes later. 

He also thinks about the form he signed about two weeks ago, before this last minute trip to Hong Kong had consumed his entire attention. The one with “Two Weeks Notice” stamped across the top. His stomach sinks.

“Today,” he repeats.

She looks apologetic. “Today,” she confirms. “And we just started about an hour ago. I’m very sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne but—”

"No it's—" he says through gritted teeth, "fine. I'll just. Make other arrangements."

—

He does not make other arrangements. Though not for lack of trying.

Tim has a handful of safehouses scattered throughout the city. He has options. He gets a taxi to the closest neighborhood, and nearly falls asleep in the backseat. The cabby has to knock on the glass divider to get his attention when they come to a stop. He grumbles and hauls his suitcase out of the backseat, and tips the man excessively.

Shower. Bed. Sleep. He’s so close he could cry.

Except when he finally rolls around the block, coffee half gone and trying to remember if this safehouse is the one with in-unit laundry or if he’ll have to haul his shit down to the laundry room, his building is a blackened husk with police tape all around it.

He stops on the sidewalk. He peers up at the window of his unit, squinting at the peeling black wood and shattered glass. He ponders whether two is enough data points to be considered a pattern. And whether he could get away with napping in the alley on this street or if that’ll end with him stabbed and robbed.

As he’s pondering, he catches sight of a passerby and stops him.

“‘Scuse me,” he says apologetically. “What the hell happened here?”

The guy looks up from his phone and takes in his rumpled clothes, his suitcase, and the scorched remains of his apartment.

“Oh, uh. Yeah, there was a big fire about a week back? Bad fire. Took out, like, half the block. Cops are saying it’s arson.”

“A week ago,” Tim repeats. The guy’s eyes widen.

“Oh shit, bro, did you live here?”

“I’ve been out of town,” he explains numbly.

“Dude, that sucks. And right in the middle of con’ season. Good luck finding a hotel!”

“Yeah,” Tim sighs as the guy walks away. “Thanks.”

—

The next safehouse he tries isn’t in much better shape. 

He remembers hearing about Freeze going on a rampage a few days into his trip, but he hadn’t realized another one of his places had been caught in the cross-fire. The cold burst the pipes, and now the whole place is undergoing renovation.

He hears all this from the crotchety old lady who lives in the next building over (her building needs renovation too, but will the city pay for it? Of course not, they weren’t ‘directly impacted by disaster’ so they won’t see a penny of relief funds even though their pipes are on the same line. Typical) and when he finally extricates himself from the conversation, it’s almost noon, his second cup of coffee is long-since empty and he’s at the end of his goddamn rope.

By the time he sees his next safehouse, he isn’t even surprised anymore.

“Does God hate me?” He asks the boarded up building. “Is this a punishment? What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”

He is 99% sure at this point that someone is burning his bolt holes. There’s a short list of people with the resources and the intel to do it, and while he’s not above ruling out the likes of Damian just yet, he seriously doubts anyone wearing a bat is behind this. 

Besides, Dick would have noticed by now if Damian were sinking this many resources into convoluted covert ops designed to make Tim suffer. Definitely. Probably.

Fuck it.

He goes around the back and hops on top of his suitcase to reach the clunky camera watching the back entrance. This building is on the shittier side, closer to Crime Alley than his other haunts; cameras break all the time around here. He’ll have it replaced after he’s a functional human again.

Reportedly, this building was tagged for ‘high toxicity levels’—  which is pretty typical for any building where fear toxin or Joker gas are found in any amount. They must have found a lot to condemn the whole building, but Tim is confident he’ll be fine. The airborne shit dissipates to safe levels within hours depending on the ventilation. If it was in the air, it’s long gone. Anything else needs to be injected to be effective.

Once the camera’s busted, he kicks out the boards and heads inside.

He drags his suitcase in after him, and mourns the shower he probably won’t be getting. The hall lights are out, and chances are the water’s been shut off along with the electricity. But at this point, he simply does not give a shit. All he wants are four walls and a mattress.

Leaning on the door to his floor to make it open, he stumbles out into the hallway—

And catches sight of the glistening curved dagger stabbed into the wall next to his door, the hilt gleaming green in the sinking sun.

“Nope,” Tim says, spinning on his heel and going back down the stairwell double time. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He is now 100% certain that the League of Assassins has been burning his bolt holes. Ra’s al fucking Ghul can eat his whole ass.

—

Seven blocks away, Tim sits on the sidewalk in front of a bodega and contemplates a third cup of coffee. The shittiest one yet.

See, here’s the thing.

The thing is, he has options.

He could go to the Manor. Or the penthouse. Or to Steph’s place. He’d have to answer some unnecessary questions like ‘Master Timothy, you know you can’t sleep on aircraft, why didn’t you sleep before your flight’ or ‘Tim, why didn’t you come here first, you know you can still come to me if you’re in trouble, right’ or ‘why did you agree to fumigate your fucking house, you loser, lmao’. (Stephanie is not going to let him live this down). 

He is absolutely certain that he would be welcomed in any of these places and after a completely undeserved amount of fussing, he could take a fucking nap and someone else would deal with the League bullshit for him.

And that’s the thing. There’s the rub.

No one should have to deal with the League bullshit for him. This is his problem. He’s not in a hurry to bring them down on anyone. Not even Damian.

With grim resignation, he reaches for his phone to try and find a hotel room (during a con’ weekend apparently, RIP) and maybe get a fucking handle on this whole stupid thing, when he hears:

“Hand over your wallet!”

He lifts his head slowly and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun held by some guy wearing a ski mask in broad fucking daylight. There’s another guy next to him who’s watching the street. There’s a third guy somewhere behind him who he can’t see, but he can hear the scuff of his boots.

Sure. Why not. With the day he’s had, this might as well happen. He holds up his hands placatingly.

Tim contemplates his muggers. The guy with the gun is jittery, probably new to this, or hopped up on something. He keeps glancing between Tim and the bodega behind him, so they were probably planning a run on the till. Might have chickened out, or thought Tim was an easier target, an unexpected meal ticket plopped right in their path. Or they were already inside when Tim sat down, which wouldn’t bode well for his situational awareness seeing as he just came out of there himself.

The grinding gears of his tired brain keep getting caught on the fact that this is happening in the middle of the fucking day. Tim glances at the street corner and bites his cheek in frustration. Yeah, he’s smack dab in the middle of the Alley. Figures.

“Are you deaf or somethin’ man?” The guy with the gun is saying. “Hand over your fucking wallet!”

The other guy doesn’t seem as crazy-eyed. He’s nervous, though. He keeps looking around like he’s expecting Batman to materialize, to come whistling down the street like a beat cop.

“Dude, come on, it’s not fucking worth it,” he says, grabbing at the gunman’s shoulder. “We got the money, let’s fucking go.”

The third guy kicks over Tim’s suitcase. “Yeah, come on, Don, let’s just grab this shit and bounce.”

Tim can’t do anything. He’s not Red Robin right now. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he’s getting mugged in front of a bodega at two in the afternoon in a rumpled suit and tie and still toting his suitcase from his early morning flight. 

His hands are trembling from unspent adrenaline, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. His eyelids are the heaviest they’ve ever been in his godforsaken life. His ears are ringing. He could knock all three of them down in less time than it takes to tie his shoelaces. But he can’t.

“Shut up, Johnny, look at him shaking! What’s he gonna do? If he doesn’t wanna get shot, rich boy’s gonna hand over all his fucking shit!”

“Hey, let’s just—” Tim tries to say.

Stars explode across his vision as Tim takes a punch he genuinely wasn’t expecting. He stares up at the blue sky for about half a second, more confused than anything else, before the gunman grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him up to shout in his face.

“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?!”

Caught on the exhausted edge between vigilante training and the preservation of his identity, Tim is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to cry.

“Gee, Donny, what is it gonna be?” A fourth voice says, full of false cheer.

Tim blinks. So do the muggers. 

He knows that voice.

“Who the fuck—?” The gunman drops Tim, spinning around and into a fist. He tumbles down to the ground, out cold.

Everything happens pretty quickly after that.

Jason Todd is in civvies. He’s sporting a worn out looking hoodie and a pair of jeans that have seen better days. But his heavy boots are the same ones he wears for his uniform, and the kick he delivers to Johnny’s face is all Red Hood.

Almost in a daze, Tim watches him fight with the usual mix of seething envy and raw desire that rears its ugly head any time he gets to see Jason in action. He’s fast, decisive. Efficient. Beautiful. Tim wishes he had Jason’s skill. And he wishes— 

Well. He wishes a lot of things about Jason Todd.

Tim is pretty sure he and Jason are friends. Maybe. Probably. They’ve pretty much moved past the whole “replacement”, “zombie-dickhead” part of their relationship and have graduated to occasionally providing backup on ops that overlap in each other’s sectors, ganging up on Dick when they’re all in the same room, and maintaining a surprisingly steady stream of vigilante gossip to keep each other in the loop. 

So, ok, yes, due to the aforementioned, he’s pretty sure they’re friends. And also because Jason wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for him otherwise. He would have just let him get mugged.

Watching Jason fight is one of Tim’s favorite pastimes. But right now, Tim’s usual appreciation is soured by the gut-roiling embarrassment of being caught in this position by Jason of all people. His eyes itch. His cheek throbs. He’s so fucking tired.

“Hey, little stalker,” Jason says suddenly, holding out an expectant hand in Tim’s face. The muggers are groaning on the ground around them. Tim isn’t sure when that happened. He might have zoned out. “Did you know that you had a stalker for a change?”

Tim flushes. “I resent that. I haven’t stalked anyone in years.” He takes the hand. It’s warm, and calloused, and big around his.

Jason laughs at him and yanks him to his feet. “Liar.”

Tim’s mouth twists into a scowl. He tries to glare at Jason, but he can feel himself swaying and Jason still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s ruining everything.

Also, lowkey, Jason is right. But in his defense, it is literally their job to stalk people, so.

“I haven’t stalked you in years then. Just other guys. Bad guys. Not non-bad guys. Fuck. You know what I mean. Whatever.” He pauses; recalibrates. “Had?” He asks.

Jason’s eyebrows inched higher and higher the longer Tim talked. Tim doesn’t blame him.

“Yeah. Had.” 

So much for the League, Tim muses.

Jason gives him a once over before tugging decisively on Tim’s wrist, easily grabbing the handle of his suitcase and starting to walk with both in tow, to Tim’s rising horror. 

“You’re coming with me, shortstack. What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? You look like shit.”

Tim tries to yank his wrist out of Jason’s grip, but the asshole doesn’t budge. “I’m not drunk,” Tim snaps. “I’m fine. I’m just. I’m just… really tired.”

Jason stops abruptly, and Tim stumbles into his shoulder.

“I can see that,” he says, steadying Tim with an amused but ultimately sympathetic look. He loads Tim’s suitcase onto the back of a motorcycle that Tim literally just now noticed. 

God, he’s fucked. And not even in a fun way. 

“C’mon,” Jason says. “Don’t fall asleep on the way over— road rash sucks ass.”

—

They don’t talk on the way to— wherever Jason is taking them, but once they’re parked in a random garage and walking towards the elevators, the game of twenty questions begins.

“So why’ve you got League assassins after you, anyway? Piss in a lazarus pit? Push over the baby brat on the playground?”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants my body,” Tim says, dejected but resigned to this bizarre fact of his life. “Since I was seventeen, I’m pretty sure.”

Jason wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“I don’t think it’s a sex thing? But it could also be a sex thing.”

“Again. Fucking ew.”

“Yeah. Also I blew up a bunch of his shit and I think he’s still salty I got away with it.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the Manor?” Jason asks, herding Tim out of the elevator and down a long hallway. “Or anywhere but a random street in Crime Alley?”

Tim nods. “Yeah. They found all my safehouses, but— my mess. My problem.”

Jason thwacks him upside the head.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

“You’re the dumbest person on the planet.”

“Am not. B is on-planet right now.”

“Then you’re pretty fucking close,” Jason snarks, fishing out some keys and opening one of the apartment doors.

Tim scoffs at him as he’s pushed inside. “Oh, please. Don’t try to tell me you would let Dick swoop in and solve all your problems for you.”

Jason rolls his eyes, stepping into the side kitchen and popping open the freezer door of the fridge.

“Dickiebird can’t even solve his own problems,” he says as he rummages. “But maybe when I’m fucked up enough to let three nobodies robbing a fucking bodega get the jump on me, that’s a sign that, maybe, it might be time to call in the cavalry. Dick isn’t the only person who’s got your back.” He presses an ice pack to Tim’s face until he takes it himself, and keeps steering him through the apartment. “Just saying.”

Tim would protest with all of his very good reasons why Jason is definitely wrong here, but he’s too busy processing the fact that Jason has led him into a bedroom. With a bed. There’s a bed, with a mattress and pillows and blankets. Right there. Tim stares at it with lustful eyes.

Jason catches him staring. He rolls his eyes, but he’s sporting a small smile that Tim has the presence of mind to memorize. He walks over to a dresser and pulls out a big shirt and a pair of shorts that he hands to Tim.

“Look. If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here. No guarantees I’ll be always around, but, yeah. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”

Tim eyes him up, clutching the bundle of Jason-smelling fabric in his hands. “And you’d do that for me because…why, exactly?”

Jason flicks his forehead, a stinging reprimand. Tim hisses.

“Because, dumbass, you need help and I feel like it. And you don’t actually suck to be around, so shut up and be grateful.”

“Oh, yes,” Tim deadpans, rubbing at his forehead. “So grateful to be allowed the privilege of squatting with you.”

The thing of it is, Tim is grateful. But Jason doesn’t need to know that.

Jason squawks, and before Tim can duck, he’s snatched Tim around the neck in a headlock. His arm is thick and doesn’t budge no matter how Tim shoves and kicks. The ice pack and the clothes go flying, and Tim just about dies. Jason is warm.

“Jason—!”

“Brat!” Jason crows, not giving an inch. “I paid for this place fair and square— you’re the only squatter here!”

“Blood money doesn’t count as square!”

“Tell that to half of Gotham, kid.”

“I’m trying to, thanks for noticing,” Tim says, finally wrenching himself free of Jason’s grip, stumbling into the bed and giving into its siren song. He sits down heavily on the edge, toppling over sideways and reaching pathetically for the fallen ice pack that’s just out of his reach.

“And don’t call me kid—” he complains, muffled by the pillow. It also smells like Jason. “You’re barely two years older than me.”

The cold ice pack is pressed into his fingers. He cracks an eye open to look, but Jason is just smirking at him, like he’s giving Tim the win. Ass.

“Coulda fooled me, shortstack.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and onto his back, toeing off his shoes and letting them clatter to the floor. He can’t tell if Jason’s bed is the best bed in the world, or if he’s just deliriously inventing things.

Frankly, Jason Todd’s bed is the last place he ever thought he’d end up, this morning or otherwise, so he’s never bothered to speculate. He does not have a contingency plan for this.

“Is there a reason you keep calling me short,” he complains, “Or will I just need to fill in the blanks myself?”

“Can’t help it. You’re just so small,” Jason coos. Tim props himself up on an elbow at that, raising a disgusted eyebrow.

“You don’t hear me constantly talking about how big you are.” 

Jason grins like he just won the lottery; Tim shuts his eyes the second it’s out of his mouth.

“Baby, you don’t know how big I am.”

He does, actually. Not in a creepy stalker way, just— there was this one time. A big rogue breakout at Arkham, all-hands on deck type of situation; Tim, Cass, and Jason were covering Poison Ivy in the park. Acid-spitting pitcher plants were involved.

And look, Jason’s tactical gear is fine in the day to day, but it’s not like any of them had time to prep a neutralizing agent, so when Jason needed his pants off, stat…uh. Well. Tim was right there.

He knows, okay?

“Alright,” he rallies, trying desperately not to replay the memory of Jason adjusting himself through his boxers. All of himself. “I walked right into that one.”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll know if you’ve walked into it.”

Tim scoffs, but he can feel how red his face is.

And the thing is. He says it without really meaning to. 

But he still means it.

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, big guy?”

The change is immediate. Jason had been halfway out the door, but now he turns to Tim, giving him his full, undivided attention. He looks at Tim, laid out in Jason's bed, giving him a very slow once over. The scrutiny is at once nerve-wracking and thrilling.

“Thought you didn’t want my money,” Jason murmurs.

The temperature in the room spikes. If it weren’t for the slow throb of his bruised cheek, Tim would think that he’s already asleep and dreaming.

But he isn’t. He’s very much aware that he’s wide awake.

Tim swallows. “Well. It’s not your money I want.”

Jason’s grin is electric. 

He stalks over to the bed, and Tim is frozen like a rabbit, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Jason settles a knee on the sheets between Tim’s legs, looming over Tim and boxing him in against the mattress. Tim’s free hand reaches up of its own accord to tangle in the collar of Jason’s hoodie, and the cotton is softer than he expected.

Jason’s eyes rove over his face, dark and heavy. He catches Tim’s face in his hand, swiping his thumb lightly across the bruising hot ache of his cheekbone. He leans in deliberate and slow and—

—and stops about an inch away from Tim’s mouth.

“Get some sleep, babybird,” Jason teases, his breath puffing gently over the skin of Tim’s lips. “You can proposition me again tomorrow.”

“It’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon,” Tim argues, breathless.

“Yeah, and your body thinks it’s 3:30 in the morning. You’re dead on your feet. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and go the fuck to sleep.”

Jason moves to rise. But Tim hooks a stubborn arm around his neck and pulls him down that last remaining inch. 

The kiss is— bad. At first. 

Tim basically smashed their mouths together to prove a point, and Jason muffles a surprised sound against Tim’s teeth. He lands heavily on top of Tim at an awkward angle, and he’s kind of crushing him. Tim refuses to let go, but— Jason doesn’t pull away.

Jason gentles the kiss instead, and Tim thrills. He levers himself up onto his elbow, wrapping an anchoring arm around Tim’s back. He finds a home between Tim’s legs, and he lets Tim kiss him until Tim's lips are tingling and his fingers go slack; until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Somewhere between fifteen minutes and a small eternity later, Jason presses one more kiss to the corner of his mouth. He curls around Tim on his side, and Tim turns his face into Jason’s neck with a soft wondering sigh.

“I’ll keep it. Promise. Wait n’ see,” Tim mumbles. Jason snorts, but doesn’t budge, and Tim can hear his smile in his voice, lilted and lulling.

“Sure, babybird. I’ll wait. I got nowhere else to be.”

Tim is already asleep.

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[jrueships]

can you please walk us through the relationship between wemby and jabari the people need to know

i think the most notable thing about vic and Jabari's relationship is that they don't have one, when it would be so beneficial if they did. they're like two soldiers fighting for the opposite sides of a war, too loyal to the cause to stop and think about what could have been if they just lowered their respective weapons aimed by cold hands larger than their own. foils by fate, friends by freedom.

' remember, you will Always be Different. '

' remember, you will Always be Replaceable. '

'Replaceable'

Jabari's dad made it in the NBA, then didn't. He was a big that could shoot, but wasn't a post-up man. Back then, post-up was the desired style. Ironically, now, it's all about shooting. But his dad didn't live in the now, and his career in the US was short-lived, to keep it cordial. Jabari's older brother played basketball throughout his whole life, but stopped after college. Jabari's cousin, Kwame Brown, was drafted 1st overall in the lottery, and became a notorious bust for the Washington wizards.

Basketball is a business. Basketball is fleeting.

It doesn't matter that a big with sharpshooter skills is valued as something so 'prized' in today's nba, not back then, not when it would have mattered for Jabari's dad. Making it is one ballpark in its own, but Staying in it? Can perhaps be an even more painful ordeal when the hoops to accomplish it aren't circus hoops, but a plain hill some just don't have the strength, mentality, or the materials to help climb without distraction or pitfall.

Jabari's dad made sure Jabari had this threat forever ingrained in his mind. When he yells at Jabari for misplaced eye contact, for typing the wrong words in a public social media reply, for reacting in a way a camera might misinterpret, it's out of love. Jabari's dad was known for being a hassle to coach back then, maybe because he knew his potential and no one else did because it was too new to the mold. So he makes sure Jabari doesn't follow his same habits. Jabari is polite to authority, simply replies with a 'Yes Sir' or a 'No Ma'am', he holds eye contact, he wakes up hours before he needs to just to jump rope, just to uphold the standards that his family could not. He is Everything his father is and isn't, plus more. When his team wins, he's still talking about his missed freethrows even 8 hours later. Because someone else could have won the game And hit those free throws too . someone from a family that gained success and stayed in that success. Someone who wasn't Just Another Son of a basketball player trying to do what his father couldn't, someone who was Different .

Everyone knew wemby was different. When his literature class was asked to write an essay about your future dreams in life, he wrote a fictional romance about a couple where the woman got in a car accident and was comatosed as a result, but got better in the end. He didn't write about being a great basketball player one day, because his parents don't pressure him to hunker himself into the norm, even though his mother once was and now coaches. If Wemby one day realized this wasn't for him, they would encourage him to leave and follow whatever greater passions propelling him. He's so agile for his size because his dad was an Olympic talent in track and field. He is someone who has hobbies and talents that are considered common alone, but strange combined, because he loves what he has and what he does. He reads every night for one hour before bed not to appear as some pseudointellectual, but because he Genuinely loves it, and when he loves something, he excels at it. He does try to be different, but not out of ego. He just loves to be. He either accomplishes at 200% or zero. It may be 200% in an unexpected direction, but it's His direction and that's what matters. If he somehow does wind up a bust, a possibility he considers without fear but acceptance as potential fate, then he won't go down as yet another failed first pick. He'll fall as he flew, Victor Wembanyama.

' Different '

' Replaceable'

Jabari winces each time he's subbed out, even for a second, even on an injured ankle, he's silently Stubborn, his posture shrunken and his gaze at the ground yet his eyes, big, wobbling, staring up always at the speaker, he's silently scared.

Jabari doesn't Want to be different. He just wants to be what his family couldn't be when it came to fame: irreplaceable . His parents split when he was younger, he tries his hardest to appease them both as to not cause any more issues. The relationship relies on his shoulders more than ever, and he can't fumble it again. He has to be what his dad couldn't so his dad can stay, commenting on commonality or surprises. He wants to support his still working mother, especially after the split. He doesn't Want to be unique, he just wants Security.

Because this can crumble any moment now, it doesn't matter how high your pick was or how bright the future Could Have been or how the game would later shift to your style if you had just somehow Stayed. Why bet on low chances if you know you can't handle the risk. He shakes any college coaches' hands that showed up to his practices, personally thanks them for coming even though he's one of the best in the country so their presence should be a given to him, it's not. When he picks a college, he picks one that guaranteed their faith in him from day One, and didn't require any further prodding to finally say '.. Maybe we'll offer you a position' like Kentucky did, as big and famous as it is, it wasn't Secured . They saw him as a risk at one point, and that's everything he's been trying to avoid when it came to attention, negatively standing out.

Jabari wants to be known as the strong shoulder to the world. He WANTS to be known as That One Guy who can just carry everything, nameless but Good. He just wants to be Good. Please tell him he's good. Please tell him what he's doing is Good. That basing his entire personality around yet another soldier who ultimately fell in battle but fought nonetheless being nameless is Good. Please feel free to give him all your burdens to bear like he's just some mule, an animal, a Tool .. because that means he's Useful, at least. That means he's Good. And if he isn't good, then he's nothing. Because you can always just buy another one anyways. A better one.

'Different'

Although his parents try not to treat Wemby by simplifying his differences into a strictly labeled, simple FUTURE BASKETBALL PRODIGY box at birth, that doesn't mean that can always stop others from doing it. Wemby signed his first autograph at ten years old.

It didn't matter if he was a kid who was so much more than just his basketball future, basketball fans wanted one thing from him and one thing only: Success. People didn't care about his literary skills or his drawing hobbies. The eyes on his alien needed to be smaller 'so your shoe can sell better, trust us, it's still Your drawing.. your weird little .. not money-making hobby, do believe me, Vic, We know what We're doing. You just stick to whatever you do.'

His differences, in the end, are minimalized just to that. He's just Different. That's what everyone says who wouldn't really care to say anything at all if he never hooped as well as they wanted in the first place. The youtube videos of 40 year old men criticizing his 15 year old games didn't Really care if he was just a kid, they just cared in the 'imagine when he reaches peak physicality? imagine the points (money) he'd make for the nba.' His beautiful differences, artistic, soft, unique but oh-so wonderfully common and passionate.. are all dissolved into 'Different', the Base definition.

he's an alien. Someone you can just dump all your poverty franchise worries onto because don't worry, he's Different. Trust me, he'll save your team. 'He's Different. ..am i talking about how he'd effortlessly answer questions in class while also trying to hide the fact that he's playing on his phone by tucking his bony legs awkwardly in his chair and crouching his spine over that it looked almost scary? HELL NO? what does THAT have to do with BASKETBALL?? no, he's just freakishly long, but like. Gifted. Though. ... I don't know, man, he's just DIFFERENT, okay? you can trust me, i'm a sports podcaster, okay? everything i say is gold.'

A celebrity approaches him because he was different than most famous basketball athletes. He was Different. And yet, when he didn't recognize or notice her presence due to Different cultures ( due to Being Genuinely, Detailedly Different ), he was scorned and ushered out of public eye so another possible pr bomb couldn't injure his reputation as a Difference That They Really Would Rather Not Want.

that's what his reading falls into, his old friends, his family, his art, his personality. If it's beyond ball, if it's beyond Business. The world only cares if it's marketable. Sure, some reporters will ask a question outside of sport, but only because it'll be a Different.. funny little nugget of knowledge for fans to laugh at then soon disregard for what Really made him famous. But, Wemby is what he always wanted to be. He's Different. So What if it's not exactly the kind of Different he actually wants, he actually functions on? No one has the time to perform 200% anymore. Slap the label you wanted and call it quits, stop being so High-Maintenanced. That's not marketable.

You're just different. And to some people, that's all you'll ever be. No need to explore it any further. Who knows, your Consumers might find something they won't like. And we can't risk that happening to our greatest circus freak.

i mean. Generational basketball talent .

If there's a press conference going on that somehow includes the two, then Wemby just wants to be sure everyone can hear what he really wants to say, in his own words, not echoing anyone else's, and Jabari just wants to Be in the Room.

His brother stopped playing basketball because his family said he didn't try hard enough. Jabari Can't have that. His whole life revolves Around basketball, around sport. He doesn't WANT to be DIFFERENT if that isn't the soundest option, he just wants to be GREAT. Because GREAT is SUCCESS. Jabari Smith is not success. It's just a retry at it . His father shares the same name.

Wemby's life did not always revolve around basketball, to people, at one point. At one point, Wemby's life was just his life. Now, it seems like only his family think that, and they're from a whole other country. When he comments on videos critiquing his playstyle, he doesn't do so out of anger or questioning, he does so because he genuinely Wants to improve. He Does want to be great. But, he wants to be great in Everything that he finds interesting. He always did. When he likes an author, he reads All their books, not just their most notorious novel. He wants to be transported into other people's worlds so he can learn, so he can change, so he can be Different. Even if he somehow were to lose all of this fame, this Greatness, this job, this opportunity, he will never really lose. Because he's someone who's always taken opportunities to the fullest, so even if they pan out a little differently, that's Fine, really, because he's different. Not in the minimizing, dictionary definition then leave the meaning at that different, but in the butterfly effect. What he once was ten days ago is not exactly the same of what he is now, and it hurts, sometimes, when people fail to see that, or simply don't want to because textbook different is easier to digest than worldly different.

IN SHORT.. theyre foils. i can't Exactly walk u thru their relationship bcs .. there Isn't one.. & that's what's so Interesting about them. That's what makes their relationship, to me. Because if they WERE to be friends, if they somehow in some alternate world WERE to get paired up on the same team... they would be friends. I really think they would be. Not only because their signs are so compatible, or their differences are so stark, but because their similarities would triumph everything beautifully. Maybe. We don't know because they Weren't paired together, we can only speculate. But i think it would be big and beautiful, whatever they would have, it would be Something.

unfortunately, we don't live in an alternate world where they're teammates though ! Double unfortunately, Jabari and Wemby's biggest similarity is their loyalty to the game (a double-edged sword in both their lives from Jabari's silent unhealthy desire to be limited and Wemby's silent desperation not to be) Wemby, in Jabari's eyes, is Indeed a powerful...

Problem.

He's not really a person to him . In all fairness, no one really is when they're involved in the basketball world, not to Jabari, not from the way he's been taught. Everyone's supposed to be Replaceable, a faceless tool in the pocket of good business.

.. except for This freakazoid. Apparently.

APPARENTLY, he's some supposed 'saint'. someone to be feared for being more. APPARENTLY, the reporters just LOVE yapping about him SO much, that Jabari HAS to take the time out of his training just to talk about some guy who doesn't even GO here, yet when they ask him about his opinion on future prospects. WELL, that's ALL wemby IS to Jabari, just another future prospect. Just another problem.

A problem he'll be sure to check off his list.

... okay, so Maybe he's a bit more than a problem.. maybe.. he's just a really persistent problem? yeah, that's it, nothing more. Jabari will work through this. He Always does. That's what he does well, Work.

Wemby wonders if that's all he ever does .

But he doesn't have long before Jabari's marching down the tunnel to beat himself up over all his mistakes other people would never make, and Wemby's being escorted to an interview that other people would never make solely to show how Much he just Stands Out as a soul... in basketball .

I hope they find each other in basketball, and out of it as well. I just feel like

Something would Happen

[mutalune]

me when people hate on aos trek:

[sunbunnyyy]

chapter 5 of “love, like sleep to the freezing” is 6,793 words long. (chapter 4 was roughly 5.5k)

there is no smut in it, just a retelling of the guanyin temple scene from jgy’s pov with some parts edited out for redundancy or swapped around to account for A Change I Made

i wrote this all in the last 24 hours

[zoekrystall]

Saw certain tweets and here once again a reminder which a twt mutual luckily wrote shorter than I could (plus public so I can rb bc no way I do that myself on that site)

Also

And if you want smth I wrote myself which is longer and not just abt that here you go

[babieken]

We really cant ever have good things huh :/

[afterthelambs]

.

[inkskinned]

no, actually, where is the whimsy?

my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?

we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.

earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.

i stared at my ex. he stared at me.

his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!

it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.

and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.

my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.

which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.

but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.

the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being naïve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.

so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.

and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.

where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.

it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.

this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.