#anyway hes definitely at least several years older than me

[bloodibambiidoll]

Pussy Liquor (Eric Draven x Stripper!Reader)

Summary: It’s a slow, boring night at the club until he walks through the door.

Warnings: Eric is implied to have a lot of money(he’s in the music industry), unprotected public sex, lust at first sight, choking 18+MDNI

✰ I think this one has been a long time coming for me. I’ve never written stripper!reader but I was a stripper for several years so this is v personal to me. The songs reader dances to used to be my favorite set. thank u for always encouraging me pookie @babygorewhore ✰

It was a dreary, slow night. There were bodies in the club but no money to go along with them. A few dudes you can tell just turned 21 and are here for the experience, they’ll definitely spend the entire evening at the same table drinking cheap beer while they whistle at the dancers with their wallets closed. A few of the girls regulars are here, either in the back or cozied up at a table. If you were lucky they’d ask you to come sit with them and at the very least buy you drinks but you didn’t feel like entertaining someone for nothing more than a few ones and some shots. There was a couple in the corner arguing and a few older men with their eyes practically glued to the slot machines. Classic.

But there was one individual that caught your eye. He wasn’t someone you would usually see in a place like this. He was more like a pretty face you saw on the street and thought about for the rest of the week. He’s tucked away in a back corner booth drinking what looks like shots of crown royal, the whole bottle, always a good sign. He’s approached the stage and tipped each girl generously but hasn’t stayed for a set. You’ve noticed a few girls go offer him dances but he declines, offering them a tip anyway. You couldn’t blame them for trying. He was gorgeous. He’s extremely tall, still towering over even the tallest dancers in their heels. His toned arms are covered in tattoos and the white tee he’s wearing sits taunt against his chest. His distressed black jeans are tucked into beat up leather boots and his face is otherworldly. Those bright green eyes shine in the flashing lights of the club, the way they dance around his face accentuating different parts of his statuesque bone structure. He has full lips and a perfect pointed nose and you’ve never wanted to ride a customer right in the middle of the club until right now. You haven’t felt nervous to go on stage since you were just starting out dancing but the way his viridescent eyes raked over your body as you climbed the stairs to the stage had your heart pounding.

Your first song starts to play and you grab onto the pole lightly as you prance around it to the beat. You press the tip of your healed boot against the bottom of the pole and spin your body around it with your other leg pointed before pressing your back against it. You nearly trip when you see the man you’ve been fantasizing about all night sitting at your stage with a $20 bill sitting on the bar. You regain your composure, smiling at him sweetly as you slide down the pole onto your knees so you can crawl to him. The sound of Rob Zombie’s “Pussy Liquor” thrums through your body, making you feel like a succubus. You stop on your knees in front of the top bar, never breaking eye contact with him as you pluck it with your manicured fingers and stuff it into the band of your black bikini top.

“Thank you, that’s so sweet of you.” You press your tits together as you lean over and stick your ass out behind you. “I’m Bunny, what’s your name?”

“Well, that’s kind of forward, isn’t it?” His voice is much softer than you expected as he returns your smile with one of his own, it’s not condescending though, it’s almost playful. “I’m Eric.”

“Well, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. You can just watch me dance.” You wink at him before leaning back on your knees and pulling the string on your top so it falls down your body, your tits spilling free. Eric’s eyes sparkle and his tongue darts out to wet his lips as he looks up at you like he hasn’t seen multiple pairs of boobs just within the last hour.

You pull the bottom string free and then toss it to the side as you push yourself up on your 8 inch heels. You sway toward the pole, running your fingers through your hair as you purposefully wiggle the fat of your ass. You grab onto the metal and roll your body before swinging your foot around it so you can climb up. You lock your legs together and lean backward, suspending yourself in the air. You watch as Eric pulls out a roll of cash and throws a huge stack of ones followed by several twenty’s. You grab onto your tits and jiggle them for him before titling yourself back up to grab onto the pole. You timed it perfectly so when the beat dropped so did you, right from the top onto the ground in the splits. Eric claps, which you find absolutely adorable because who the fuck claps in a strip club? And then he throws a literal hundred dollar bill onto your stage right as your first song ends. You tease him all through the next song, “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and when you’re leaning over to press your tits into his face he gives you this dopey smile and tells you that he loves the songs you choose. After your set is done you offer him a dance, and he insists on a private room.

You pull the thick red curtain back so you can lead him into the sectioned off area of the club. There’s walls on all three sides and an open face that’s completely blocked by curtains. You can’t help but giggle at the way he stands there awkwardly surveying the room. You can tell he’s never done this before.

“This your first time?” You grab onto a piece of your hair and twirl it, looking up at him through your lashes. He’s even taller than you thought he was and you have to stop yourself from clenching your thighs when how easily he could toss you around crosses your mind. You have no idea how you’re going to get through the next thirty minutes without getting turned on. You already are.

“Yeah. I’m just not sure how it works.” He chuckles lightly as he rubs the back of his neck but there’s this glint in his eye that tells you he isn’t going to make this any easier on you or your tiny thong.

“Well, why don’t you just sit down on the couch and I can dance for you?” You grab his hand and guide him to the couch, encouraging him to sit down. He obliges you and you lower yourself into his lap with your legs hanging over his. You’re back in your top now, but it leaves little to be desired and you feel your body heat as his eyes rake over you. One of his large hands lands on your thigh and he gives you a questioning look, instead of answering him verbally you swing your leg over his to straddle him and grab onto both of his hands, resting them on your hips. You throw your arms over his shoulders and grind down on him lightly and it has his grip on you tightening.

“I don’t know the rules and you’re making it really hard for me to control myself already.” Eric’s voice is a deep rumble that runs straight to your core and god you don’t usually let customers touch you like this but you’re starting to wonder if you can stop yourself from fucking him right here.

“Wanna know a little secret, Eric?” You ghost your lips across his pierced ear and you can feel his skin break out into goosebumps.

“Yeah.” He groans when you grind down on him harder this time, his grip on you turning almost bruising.

“I don’t usually let guys touch me, even for money, but you? You can touch me as much as you want.” You run your nose down his jaw before pulling away from him, flipping around on his lap and pushing yourself onto your feet. You roll your body and shake your ass for him while pulling your top off again. You shimmy back onto his lap with your back pressed to his chest and grind against his now hard bulge. You can’t help the little whine that escapes you. His large tattooed hands grip onto your tits and that’s when you lose all sense of reality.

“I really liked your songs, ya know?” Eric’s breath tingles against your neck, his lips just barely brushing your skin. “You’re the only girl here I wanted to talk to.”

“Yeah? You’re the only guy I’ve ever seen in here that I actually wanted to dance for.” You throw your hands behind your back so you can lace them behind his head as you continue to wind on his lap. “And it’s so fucking against the rules but I’d let you fuck me right here.” You lean your head back so you can look up into his eyes and his expression has changed drastically, it was like your words flipped a switch inside of him and he wants nothing more to eat you alive.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble, bunny.” He chuckles and brings a finger up to your cheek. He runs it down your face to your jaw before ghosting it over your lips and you can’t help but dart your tongue out to lick the pad of his finger. “Let me take you home with me.”

“Well, I’m not really supposed to do that either. But I really feel like breaking some fucking rules tonight.” You wind your hips in a circle and his cock slides perfectly between your thong covered ass.

“They can’t be too mad if I pay them off, right?” He squeezes your boob, rolling your nipple between his fingertips.

“That would cost a lot. You’re hot enough to lose my job over. There’s other clubs. I want you to fuck me.” You whine and pull the strings of your bottoms so they fall down your hips. You never thought you’d be here, sitting on a customers lap begging him to fuck you like a bitch in heat. But something about this man was making you lose all rationality.

“Money isn’t an issue for me baby. Hell, I’ll get you out of here permanently if you want.” He runs that perfect nose along the column of your throat, inhaling the expensive perfume one of your regulars bought you a few months back. “And you don’t need to beg, the minute I saw you I knew I’d give you anything you asked for.”

“Fuck, Those are some big promises, honey.” You giggle, sugary sweet, and it makes him melt. He grabs onto your hips and pushes you to stand, your tiny thong falling at your feet, leaving you exposed to him. Eric grabs onto the globes of your ass and spreads them open, your pussy lips coming apart with a click from how wet you are.

“Would you look at that? So fucking perfect.” He grips onto your hips to turn you around, making sure to steady you when you stumble in your heels. You watch with wide eyes as he reaches for his playboy bunny belt buckle and your jaw practically drops to the floor when he pulls his cock out. It’s fucking huge and pierced. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep, bunny. Come sit on it.”

Eric pulls you forward and you straddle him, your knees sinking into the leather of the couch. He grips onto his shaft and runs it through your wetness, the balls of his piercing bumping against your clit. He taps the head against your sensitive bud before lining up with your entrance and slowly pushing inside your wet walls. But it’s not enough, you want to feel the burn of the stretch while he splits you open so you slam your hips down onto his, taking him to the hilt in one thrust. It nearly knocks the wind out of you and a moan so loud that the music barely drowns it out.

“Oh fuck, you’re so fucking tight.” Eric grips onto your ass and bounces you up and down on his cock as he stares into your eyes deeply. “You sure nobody is gonna come in here?”

“Nobody will, they’re definitely watching on the cameras and I’m definitely fucked as soon as we walk out of here but they’ll let it play out.” It’s like you gave him the green light because he plants his feet firmly on the ground and starts to fuck up into you. He grips onto your throat so he can pull your lips to his in a filthy kiss, not wasting any time intertwining your tongues together. The metal bar in his cock caresses your walls as his thick head bullies your g-spot and your toes curl in your boots. “Choke me harder.”

“Yeah? You like it rough, bunny? I’m going to have so much fun with you.” Eric squeezes your throat tighter and his free hand comes to run circles on your clit with his thumb. The way he’s talking about you like he already owns you combined with the pleasure he’s giving you has you already teetering towards the edge. “I’m gonna keep you, make you my pretty little fuck doll. You want that?”

“Yes, fuck yes.” You whine, drool starting to drip down your chin as your eyes roll back. Your manicured fingers scratch at his back through his shirt and you wouldn’t be surprised if it has tiny rips in it by the end of this.

“Look at me when you fall apart on my cock.” Eric grunts as he shifts his hips so he’s fucking into you even deeper and it has euphoria washing over your entire body the minute your eyes lock with his. Your pussy clenches around his cock like a vise grip and you moan so loudly there’s no way it can’t be heard outside of this room. But you’re way past giving a fuck. “Oh, that’s a good bunny, come for me.”

“Oh my f-fucking god! Fuckkkk me!” Eric’s thrusts don’t let up as he chases his own high, his hands grip onto your ass again and he’s practically folded in half on the couch as he bounces you like a fuck toy on his dick.

“I’m gonna fucking come.” Eric grunts before he’s pressing your hips flush against yours with his cock twitching inside you. You watch as he throws his head back, exposing his tattooed neck and you can’t help but lean forward and bite down on it. “Fuck yes, fucking bite me.”

You suck and bite on his skin until he goes limp underneath you, panting as he tries to catch his breath. He pushes himself up with his cock still nestled inside of you before pulling you close so he can kiss you with a passion no man ever has before. Who was this guy? And why did you never want to leave him?

“Alright, we should get out of here so I can go lose my job.” You chuckle as you stand up and grab your bikini, tying it back on while Eric tucks himself back into his pants. He comes to stand in front of you, taking your face into his hands.

“I meant that shit I said. I know we don’t know each other, hell, I don’t even know your real name. But come home with me, I’ll pay off these assholes and buy you whatever you want.” Eric smiles at you so sweetly you feel like you’re going to melt into the beer soaked carpet and how can you say no?

“Fuck it. Let’s go.” You giggle and push yourself up on your tiptoes to kiss him before pulling him out to face the music.

You definitely lost your job that night. But Eric fucked you so good you couldn’t even bring it in yourself to care. And he kept his promise. He kept you as his little doll and gave you everything your heart could ever desire.

Tagging a few moots who might be interested: @nailbatanddungeon @myspacebrat @ghoul-friendz @taintandviolent

Divider is by @cafekitsune

[angstywaifu]

The Lost Sister - Part 30

Synopsis: Xaden is known as an only child due to his sister who 'died' during the Rebellion. Little do they know she didn't die and has been so close this entire time.

Garrick Tavis x OC (Ophelia Riorson)

The Lost Sister Masterlist | Masterlist

As the middle of May arrives, so does War Games. Meaning we are fast approaching graduation. Something I had tried to avoid thinking about too much. But it was fast approaching. Meaning Garrick and Xaden leaving was fast approaching. This year was going so fast. It felt like only yesterday I was crossing that parapet and being shoved in front of the stairs in the rotunda. Being reunited with my brother and Garrick. And now we had to face the prospect of being separated again for who knows how long. And with our line of work, there was also the reality we may never see each other again. I shake my head to clear the thoughts from my head. I needed a clear head today. Today was War Games. If I went into this distracted, there was a very real chance I could be killed. It wasn’t uncommon for riders to die during war games. None of us were safe.

”What do you think our assignment is going to be?” Liam asks as we stand in formation in the middle of the courtyard with the rest of Fourth Wing. “Deigh thinks we’re on offense. He won’t stop going on about getting to kick Gleann’s ass-” Pausing as his dragon clearly butts in to say something. “Guess dragons hold grudges.” He whispers.

We certainly do. Mealladh adds, causing me to chuckle.

Anyone in particular you want to get revenge on? I tease.

Mealladh chuckles. No, not yet at least. Though Cath might be tempting to teach her rider to pull his head in.

We might have to get in line for that one.

Ahead of us leadership are gathered, getting their assignments from Xaden. He had know about the task since yesterday and he used his spare time to plan who was going where.

”We’re definitely on offense,” Rhiannon answers, “Otherwise we’d already be in the field.”

I nod in agreeance. “I don’t think I’ve seen a single rider from First Wing since lunch.”

Which did not bode well for us. Out of all the wings, First Wing liked us the least. Mainly Jack Barlowe and his squad. He wasn’t going to forget that Violet had put him in hospital for four days after their challenge a few weeks back. Meaning she would be the most likely target if our squads crossed paths.

”I think you two might be right.” Violet adds as she fidgets with the collar of her uniform. It was a particularly warm day, and we we’re fast approaching summer. I suddenly envied the other quadrants who had far better uniform options than the black leather we wore. “Why do you think riders wear black anyway?”

”Because it’s badass,” Ridoc states from behind us.

”So it’s harder to see if we bleed,” Imogen adds.

”Forget I asked.” Violet mumbles as she turns her attention back to the front.

Any hints as to whats to come? I ask to Garrick who startles slightly as I speak in his mind.

I’m never going to get use to that. He replies as his eyes flicker up to meet mine.

You love it. But you didn’t answer my question.

You’re getting nothing out of me sweetheart. He tells me bluntly as he turns his attention back to the squad leaders in front of him.

Nothing? I can’t tempt you anything? I tease.

I watch as his shoulders tense and his nostrils flair. No

No? Not even me getting down on my knees, my mou-

Stop it! His eyes meeting mine again, desire and need heavily evident in them.

Make me. I tease before severing the connection as the leadership meeting ends, Dain and Cianna heading back to us.

”Which is it?” Heaton asks. “Offense of defense?”

”Both.” Dain states as he stops in front of us. “First Wing has taken a defensive position in one of the practice fort in the mountains, and they’re guarding a crystal egg.”

The older riders in our squad murmur with excitement. Obviously this challenge is far more exciting than ones in the past they have encountered.

”What are we missing?” Ridoc asks as he looks around at the older riders. “Because you guys seem thrilled about an egg.”

”From past years, we know that eggs are worth more points,” Cianna states as she grins enthusiastically. “Flags have statistically been the lowest, and captured professors rank somewhere in the middle.”

As exciting as it would be to try get an actual human out, if it was Carr I would leave him there as long as possible just to make him squirm and suffer.

”But they like to switch it up,” Dain adds. “The same way we could be going for a real objective on the line only to discover its not as valuable as we thought.”

”So how is this both offense and defense? If they have the egg, then clearly we should go get the egg.” Rhiannon adds.

Dain’s excitement peaks with Rhiannons question. “Because we’ve also been given a flag to defend and no outpost to do it in.” He grins widely.

”And we’re carrying it.” I state as a grin of my own spreads on my face.

Dain looks over at me and nods, his grin faltering slightly as our eyes meet. He still wasn’t sure of me, and I don’t blame him. But right now we had to be on the same page.

”And who is going to carry this flag?” Imogen asks.

I don’t know how but Dain manages to smile even wider. “That is going to be the fun part.”

Immediately we jump into formulating a plan. Dain drilling into us the strategy he wants us to follow. It seems Dain had taken something away from out time in Monsteratt with Mira. But our plan was simple and easy to follow. Anything too complicated would have us too focused on trying to remember what to do. All we had to do was play to our individual strengths and pass that flag often, never giving First Wing a chance to spot who was carrying it. An almost perfect chance for me to try use my signet. But could I cast a believable illusion while moving and on a large group of people? That was going to be my test. With two whole wings out there it would be a massive test to see if I could. But if I messed it up, part of my signet would be known to the entire quadrant. Something I did not want.

It’s a risk worth taking. It will not be easy, but if we focus I have no doubt you can pull this off. Mealladh states as I meet her eyes as we walk into the flight field.

One way to find out then. I state back as I smile at her.

”We’re going to win.” Rhiannon states confidently as she puts her arms around Violet and I.

”What makes you so sure?” Violet asks nervously.

”We have you two, Tairn, Mealladh, Riorson and Sgaeyl. And obviously me.” She grins. “There is no way we’re losing this.”

”You are certainly-” Violet’s words die as Tairn comes into full view.

He’s standing proud and tall at the front of the section next to Mealladh. Dain’s dragon Cath pushed easily to the side to accommodate them. A glint on Tairn’s chest catches me eye. A buckle. On Tairn’s back is a saddle. A saddle made to help Violet keep her seat. That sneaky bastard.

”That’s…. That’s a saddle.” She stutters out.

”That’s cool, that’s what that is.” I tell her.

”Yeah, and it looks way more comfortable than Feirge’s bony spine, I’ll tell you that. See you two up there.” Rhiannon says before pushing past us and heading off to mount her own dragon.

I turn and walk over to Mealladh, leaving Tairn and Violet be to have whatever conversation they are having.

She’s not going to be happy with you. I tell Xaden who is walking over to Violet.

He meets my gaze and shrugs. It will keep her alive and let Tairn do what he needs to do. She will learn to like it.

I shake my head at him. Fucking mated dragons.

He gives me a vulgar gesture before walking past me to Violet who still looks shocked at the saddle that now adorns Tairn. I have to give it to my brother, he had thought of anything and everything to keep that girl alive. And honestly this was the best one I had seen yet. Hell I kind of wanted one, but I had not problems keeping my seat and I doubt Mealladh would tolerate it.

You would be correct. But if it kept you alive I would do my best to tolerate it. She states as I run up and mount her.

That might be one of the nicest things you’ve said to me.

I don’t have to look at her to see she’s rolled her eyes at me. As I settle in my seat I look forward to see Garrick mounted on Chradh looking over at me. I can tell from here how excited he is about this War Games. It would be challenging to do offense and defence, but we could pull it off. I feel his presence reaching out for me, clearly wanting to communicate before we take off.

You’re going to use your signet aren’t you?

Of course I am. It’s going to give us the upper hand with that flag. I tell him sternly. I was not backing down on not using my signet. I needed to learn to use it in real life situations.

I see him nod his head slightly. I know there’s no point in telling you Riorson’s not to do something, but please be careful with it. We can’t have everyone knowing what you can do.

If it means winning, I’ll do whatever it takes. And I know you will to.

I don’t doubt that. You just keep that flag safe sweetheart, and I’ll make sure Xaden or I get that egg.

How about this. You make sure you get that egg and you might just get a reward tonight. I tease, knowing he will do anything and everything to make sure he gets that egg.

A reward? What kind of reward? He practically growls in my head.

Get that egg and you’ll find out.

And with that Mealladh and I launch into the air, leaving a very shocked and dumbfounded Garrick down below.

@riorgail @going-through-shit @fw-gt @bbkissme99 @xceafh @leptitlu @came-to-laugh-but-cried @onthewaytotimbuktu @daardyrnitta @lovemesomevesey @mxtokko @krowiathemythologynerd @callsign-blue @1islessthan3books @side-angel @wolfbc97 @just-an-ace-elf

[nexility-sims]

𝐍𝐎. 𝟑   ❛ 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 ❜   |   NAKAWE, 2023

❧  𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲  /  𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠  /  𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬  /  𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

   ❛  Karolina Teague was hardly famous. Her name carried a certain heft among culture critics whose heyday had passed, but she liked the anonymity that came with being washed up. All of her favorite people were has-beens, after all, and she wasn’t ashamed to spend her time reminiscing about days past with them or anyone else who would listen. Today, she welcomed a whole crew of listeners into her Nakawe home—a film crew to be exact, led by a director-producer duo who had known her name well before a previous interviewee mentioned it to them. She wouldn’t be the star of their documentary, but they believed from its inception that the story wouldn’t be complete without her thoughts.

❧ honestly very proud of the scrapbooking !!!! this is basically just shameless exposition, but i am convinced i picked a creative vehicle for it :^) i watched that 90s docuseries on hulu a year ago and this specific story post was born fjdhjf anyway, canonically, no one would be writing or printing in script like that but i am simply NOT that committed to my worldbuilding sdkjfsf consider this whole thing an english language reimagining (^:

𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

Karolina took them on a tour of her colorful seaside house, one concluding in a room already set up for their perusal. It was the archive, she explained. This was what they came for; her recollections were valuable, but she had so much more than her own memories. Photographs waited on the tables, and an old television screen teased some scene from exclusive VHS tapes. Karolina plopped down onto a sofa and gestured widely, saying, “Have a look. I’m ready when you are.” 

The director, a woman named Ildaria, picked up a photograph. 

“Can you tell us about her?” 

Karolina beckoned for the photo, and Ildaria walked over to hand it to her. For a moment, she peered at it, keeping everyone in suspense. Finally, she replied, “Sure. What’s she going to do, sue me?”

“Maybe,” a cameraman elsewhere in the room snorted.

“I’ll take the risk,” Karolina laughed. “Look, I don’t know Princess Leonor, but I met her plenty of times. She was at The Den at least half the nights in 1991, for sure. Probably into 1992, but I didn’t really keep track of her comings and goings. Definitely not after 1993.”

The producer, Eilo, held up another photograph. “What’s the story here?” he asked.

Karolina reached for it. Unlike the other photo, this one was a proper candid. There were several people in the frame, but Leonor was at the center, kneeling by a table with her hand draped across Renzo’s thigh as he held her head in his palm and said something beyond the capture of still photography.

“It wasn’t anything formal,” Karolina explained. “Renzo didn’t date anyone in those days, and I don’t think she did either. They liked each other. It was mutual fascination with zero understanding, is how I saw it. They hung out—liked each other’s company. Hot and fast, burned out quick, that’s what it looked like.” She shrugged. “That was Renzo.” 

“And Leonor?” Ildaria asked, having sat down nearby. 

“Like I said,” Karolina began. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I didn't know her. Seemed like a cool girl. I’m older, mind you. I think she wanted to get a little wild and try new things—this is off the record—and The Den was for her what it was for everyone. You could kick your shoes off. Scream along to your buddy’s new song, have a movie star tell you his woes while he pours your drink, get high in the dressing room and probably be fine—” 

“Did she do that?” Ildaria’s eyes were wide.

Karolina cleared her throat. “No, of course not. Not everyone did! Enough, sure. We all know the quote-unquote horror stories.”

The crew listened, rapt, having stopped flipping through albums and poking around the bookcases, eager to hear something explosive. They had set out to make a documentary about a particular time and place. The Den at the turn of the century was their subject. That glorious decade solidified its place in celebrity culture, to say nothing of its place in music history. The princess was just a footnote in that story. Nonetheless, it was a tantalizing footnote. Most people below a certain age were shocked to hear that she hadn’t been a humorless, buttoned-up bureaucrat her entire life. The idea that someone whose day job involved keeping the country afloat may have once been young and reckless intrigued. That she was adjacent to the salacious stories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll they knew better nearly crossed the line into unbelievable. Yet, people in Uspana also knew their royals had been wrapped up in the glamor of celebrity for decades. Even now, they continued to rub elbows with rock stars, including the one elder princess who was herself a music star. 

“She’s a different person now, clearly,” Karolina continued. She spoke tentatively still but nonetheless addressed what everyone wanted to know. “But, for a time, she was at The Den with everyone else, drinking too much and carrying around a pharmacy in whatever cute purse you had that night. You may remember there was a big Reyes death around then. It’s like—when my mother died in 2009, I lost my shit, too.” 

Karolina shrugged again. “She was having fun. I was doing worse, alright, so I only feel judgmental about it insofar as she’d probably be embarrassed if you asked her about any of it today. Royals are supposed to do their sniffing in private, right, not in a bathroom Renzo forgot to hire someone to clean. She was snobby, but my sense was that she liked pretending she wasn’t—roleplay, you know, transgressing or whatever.” 

Someone coughed. The rifling through materials resumed. Ildaria and Eilo shared a look. 

“You haven’t talked to her since ‘92?” Ildaria asked. Eilo, meanwhile, had pulled out his cell phone and was typing with fast fingers. 

Karolina shook her head. “So, she knew I’d asked Renzo to let me collect photos and bring along my Zenith. I got a weird email in 2000 inquiring about them from someone who worked for her.” She grinned, then added as an aside, “Only one recording, by the way. The Den had a strict no video policy.”

“We’d like to see them sometime,” Ildaria responded. 

Karolina nodded, then shook her head and clarified, “Which—my tapes or the email?” 

Eilo answered without looking up, “Both.”

He finished what he was doing after a moment of quiet, then held his phone up for Ildaria and Karolina to see. “Seems like she’s still in touch with people,” he said.

They leaned forward to view the screen while he swiped at it, then Karolina laughed.  “Okay, maybe she just didn’t like me!”  

While they watched, Eilo moved through a hastily thrown together slideshow of the princess with various people Karolina knew well. Some looked like event photos. Others were captured with long lenses—paparazzi shots that made money but didn’t always generate enough interest if the other person was a comparative nobody. Not everyone had evolved in the last thirty years. Plenty of people who visited the bar during the decade of Renzo’s ownership continued to have flourishing careers. They were, at the time, young and beautiful and painfully unprepared for the lifetime of celebrity ahead of them. That’s what they brought to this place more than anything: their pain, which, being creative types, they eagerly spun into something beautiful and private. 

That’s what The Den gave them. These impossibly talented, dedicated stars created fleeting things for each other and no one else. Bands and dance troupes formed. An endless stream of songs and poetry and performance art kept the bar’s little stage occupied nightly for years. Offstage, people with no reason to meet in the real world bonded in this space of both contrived and undeniable intimacy. For some, the reprieve helped them endure the difficulty of becoming that invariably attended a rise in fame. It was detrimental to others. These were the ones who didn’t evolve—people who gave up their relevance to live forever in this meaningless, generative privacy or people who couldn’t make the choice and lost everything in the process. 

Karolina hadn’t evolved, but she hadn’t died or wanted to die either. From her perspective, what people like the princess and even Renzo himself had done wasn’t evolution. It was more like a revelation. People don’t change, she would tell Eilo and Ildaria later, over dinner, when the conversation had moved far away from the royal footnote. She believed people just uncover deeper truths about themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, and those became harder to conceal once they were exposed.

Have you felt that way before? she asked them. Exposed, like when you break your leg so hard the bone snaps right through your skin? They had. The conversation detoured to childhood misadventures, but Karolina had a point to make. She pulled them back. Some people get comfortable with that feeling and learn how to live in it. Other people, you know, they deny and lie and call it growth. That’s my opinion. I’ve seen it—artists are the worst for it, I swear. Artists who don’t want to be artists anymore? Worse than that. 

Can I say you sound bitter? Ildaria laughed. 

Now, Karolina threw her hands up. She exclaimed, joyful, That’s my truth, baby! I took too many bites of the world, and I’ve been disgusted by it ever since. Some people come out of their mamas malcontent.

Later that night, Eilo was exhausted, but Ildaria’s hand hovered over the light switch with uncertainty. She heaved a big, put-upon sigh, then asked, “Is it bad that I want to give Mencia Cipac a call?”

“Give her a call?” Eilo snorted. “Sure, Mencia Cipac, whose number you totally have, definitely won’t ignore your calls because she, for sure, knows who you are and has endless free time to spare.” He sat up straighter, then added, “No more overloading on projects. You promised. Besides, you don’t wanna poke that bear.”

“Not a bear,” Ildaria retorted. “A jaguar. Roar!”

TRANSCRIPT:

KAROLINA | Have a look. I'm ready when you are.

RENZO (O.S.) | Get that thing out of here, Karolina!

ILDARIA | Can you tell us about her?

KAROLINA | Sure. What's she going to do, sue me? CAMERAMAN | Maybe.

KAROLINA | I'll take the risk.

KAROLINA | Look, I don’t know Princess Leonor, but I met her plenty of times. She was at The Den at least half the nights in 1991, for sure. Probably into 1992, but I didn’t really keep track of her comings and goings. Definitely not after 1993

EILO | What's the story here?

KAROLINA | It wasn't anything formal.

KAROLINA | Renzo didn’t date anyone in those days, and I don’t think she did either. They liked each other. It was mutual fascination with zero understanding, is how I saw it. They hung out—liked each other’s company. Hot and fast, burned out quick, that’s what it looked like. That was Renzo.

ILDARIA | And Leonor?

KAROLINA | Like I said, I didn't know her. Seemed like a cool girl. I’m older, mind you. I think she wanted to get a little wild and try new things—this is off the record—and The Den was for her what it was for everyone. You could kick your shoes off. Scream along to your buddy’s new song, have a movie star tell you his woes while he pours your drink, get high in the dressing room and probably be fine—

ILDARIA | Did she do that?

KAROLINA | No, of course not. Not everyone did! Enough, sure. We all know the quote-unquote horror stories.

KAROLINA | She's a different person now, clearly. But, for a time, she was at The Den with everyone else, drinking too much and carrying around a pharmacy in whatever cute purse you had that night. You may remember there was a big Reyes death around then. It’s like—when my mother died in 2009, I lost my shit, too.

KAROLINA | She was having fun. I was doing worse, alright, so I only feel judgmental about it insofar as she’d probably be embarrassed if you asked her about any of it today. Royals are supposed to do their sniffing in private, right, not in a bathroom Renzo forgot to hire someone to clean. She was always a snob, but I my sense was that she liked pretending she wasn’t—roleplay, you know, transgressing or whatever.

ILDARIA | You haven't talked to her since '92?

KAROLINA | So, she knew I’d asked Renzo to let me collect photos and bring along my Zenith. I got a weird email in 2000 inquiring about them from someone who worked for her. Only one recording, by the way. The Den had a strict no video policy.

ILDARIA | We'd like to see them sometime.

KAROLINA | Which—my tapes or the email?

EILO | Both.

EILO | Seems like she's still in touch with people. KAROLINA | Okay, maybe she just didn’t like me!

ILDARIA | Is it bad that I want to give Mencia Cipac a call?

EILO | Give her a call?

EILO | Sure, Mencia Cipac, whose number you totally have, definitely won’t ignore your calls because she, for sure, knows who you are and has endless free time to spare.

EILO | No more overloading on projects. You promised. Besides, you don’t wanna poke that bear.

ILDARIA | Not a bear. A jaguar. Roar!

[kimbapisnotsushi]

ojiro aran headcanons bc @luminouschaotic asked me if i had thoughts (which was. a while back) but i'm out of town for two weeks in a couple days and won't be on much so i wanted to get this done before then so LET'S GO!!

aran has like spidey-sense Chaos Instincts™️ honed by years of taking care of the miyas so much so that on his first day at inarizaki he feels a tingle down his spine and turns around just in time to catch akagi michinari falling out of a tree

aran, being the kind soul that he is, goes over to help. because if there's anything the miyas have taught him it's that if you don't intervene early on there WILL be even more severe consequences down the line than if you'd just helped them in the first place

it basically goes "hi i'm ojiro what do you need me to do and how much plausible deniability can i get from this"

don't worry akagi had just been get a paper airplane bc he might be a little shit but he's a little shit with morals who cares about the environment

he didn't get the airplane the branch broke before he could

akagi tells aran that he's going to try one more time and asks aran to stand under the tree so that aran can catch him if he falls again and aran's dreading the day akagi and the twins will finally meet

i actually think it WOULD be funny if kita and akagi had been childhood friends or something previously bc a) SOMEONE had to have been akagi's handle before high school and b) it just makes sense in my head

also i think a fundamental aspect of the shiratorizawa and inarizaki rivalry that we're overlooking is reon and aran bonding

like. they get it. they know what it's like. loving a place that does not always loves you back. having a home that does not always feel like a home. it can be hard, sometimes. but if there's one thing they agree on it's that their teams ALWAYS have their backs

(lev and liam my lovelies i have NOT forgotten about you)

also this just makes the whole "aran's irrational fear is tendou satori" a thousand times funnier

since it's established that aran references older pieces of media i like to think that means he sits down with like idk his grandparents probably and they watch all kinds of things together

sometimes the only other people who get aran's references are people who ALSO sit down and watch things with their grandparents (kuroo, kageyama, kita. . . )

the haikyuu club of good grandchildren . . .

anyways so that's how kita and aran become friends!!

oh my god . . . do you guys think his sister had those small kid puppy crushes on any of his friends . . . .

my vote is akagi or the miyas do you know how funny that would be

i think a bit that akagi does with aran is saying "oh my god this is just like [insert fictional media here]" when something (usually an Event™️ involving the miyas) happens and aran going "STOP SAYING THIS IS JUST LIKE [??] AND HELP ME"

when the third years graduate aran gives gin a gift and tells him not to open it until he gets home

when gin does open it he finds a booklet titled "how to survive the miyas: a comprehensive guide by ojiro aran" and it's at least a hundred pages long

the first page is an emergency contact list with the numbers of the miyas' parents, aran's parents, and every hospital/clinic within a fifteen-mile radius

definitely prefers a real newspaper to a digital one

i think the whole of the inarizaki third years are tech-averse tbh if you took them to one of those restaurants with the little robot servers with screens for faces they'd slow blink at it like really confused cats

this sucks especially for suna bc every time he gives his phone to one of them when he wants pictures of himself with someone or something they always come out blurry or too much exposure or some shit

i think aran and oomimi go hiking with each other on the weekends and are always pestering everyone else to go with them

they win when they promise everyone, yes, we can go out for brunch and boba after

(do the twins fall into a stream while trying to cross it? yes. did they still go to brunch afterwards, sopping wet? also yes. aran doesn't think he's ever laughed harder in his life.)

[angelosearch]

Okay fam, how do we think Raine died? And please let me know if it's been word-of-god'ed somewhere. I don't think I've ever seen it.

I have a thought. I wouldn't even call it a theory because I have virtually no evidence to support it. It's more like... what I would find interesting.

I'm overthinking a 25-year-old videogame again...

Lil bit of a trigger warning here... Mention of some severe impacts of mental illness.

Honestly, I hate the "died in childbirth" thing. It's just... vague. Uninteresting. I don't know, kind of lazy. Okay, maybe she did die as a side effect of having Squall, but how? There's more than one way to die in childbirth.

And I am not saying dying in childbirth is unrealistic--it definitely is realistic, unfortunately--but I kind of hate how introducing a pregnant character and then killing them is always joined with the (again VERY BROAD) concept of "dying in childbirth."

Maybe it's just because I'm a Star Wars fan and Padme's death ruined me for "died in childbirth" as a suitable end for a pregnant character. I also just get annoyed in general how frequently pregnancy and childbirth in sci-fi/fantasy media is seen as something alien or bad or the end of a character. There's so many episodes where pregnancy is used as a parasitic plot point. I could go on.

And how often a mother is just killed off with "died in childbirth" off screen... It's just lazy! It's like saying a guy died because he "went off to war." Is it realistic? Sure. But specifics, backstory, please!!

But like!! These women have already done the incredible act of carrying a child, sometimes through war zones and major stressors, or, in Raine's case, while completely alone and waiting for her husband to come back from saving her adoptive daughter. If she "had" to die (at least in the eyes of the writers) immediately after Squall is born, I want her to have a death more specific to her character and more interesting overall! Also, it would be nice if she had SOME time with our little baby Squall, no matter the circumstances... Now, the way I think about Raine's death isn't exactly a nice way to die (if there is a such thing), but I think it would be enough to lock her ghost in Winhill. And, again, I think it gives her plot a realism that I want it to have.

Here is where I launch into some pretty reaching headcanons so... buckle up.

So Squall, we can all agree, exhibits signs of depression. He's able to push through it, because lots of us depressed people adapt to do that, but he definitely does. From what I know about therapy and psychology, I'd also say he has C-PTSD but that's another story.

But I'd like to propose that Squall is not just depressed, but potentially even bipolar.

Now, the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder requires at least one manic episode followed by a depressive episode or hypomania. I don't believe Squall has ever experienced mania... But the thing about bipolar disorder is that a lot of times, it presents as depression until it isn't anymore. And for some individuals, that moment doesn't come until their late 20s or older. Hell, treating depression is sometimes what reveals the underlying disorder: Sometimes SSRIs trigger mania in bipolar patients.

I could see him experiencing hypomania, though. Accidentally training for 12 hours straight, racing thoughts, extreme agitation.

What we do see in the game is risk-taking behaviors, racing thoughts, anxiety, disregulated mood, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty sleeping, isolation... These are symptoms of C-PTSD, but ALSO bipolar disorder.

(which, his history of trauma makes him more vulnerable to bipolar disorder as well)

I will admit, I hc Squall this way because I see myself in him, and I was a high-functioning depressed person who had my first manic episode in my late 20s. But what I figure is, while he was probably never written to be bipolar, there's nothing in the game that completely refutes it.

ANYWAY, bipolar disorder is hereditary. It's not only hereditary, but it plays a part.

So here we go, this is the end I have in mind for Raine, and it's not a happy end, but I think it's realistic and I think it's worth representing in media. Trigger warning.

I think Raine was bipolar. We don't see enough of her in the game to know, but if Squall is (in my head) she might be too. I think she had a complicated pregnancy and that Ellone being kidnapped and Laguna leaving (reasonably) put her under a lot of stress. Any symptoms she had under control with medication/therapy/etc. probably flared. Who knows if she had her same access to resources, seeing that Laguna was gone.

I think, maybe, she suffered from postpartum psychosis. She might have had a few good days, weeks with Squall until things got bad. It would have been terrifying for her, and the people of Winhill, the delusions, the hallucinations. I can't imagine there is a doctor in Winhill that can help with that. And maybe, one of those hallucinations led her to her end.

Such a terrible death likely would have traumatized the people of Winhill, who we know cared deeply about her. Maybe they sent Ellone away so she'd never know; maybe they sent Squall away because he was too much of a reminder.

Thus ends my very sad Raine's death head canon.

My next long project may involve tackling this kind of stuff. I love writing/researching mental health!!

[lalalian]

let’s talk students: aethergarde dr (dragon rider academy dr)

date: july 1st, 2024

welcome back to another episode of me blabbing on and on about the students in this DR! Today, I’ll be talking about Callisto Lancaster.

pronunciation:

Callisto: (Cal-list-oh) (‘Cal’ as in ‘Callie’)

Lancaster: (Lan-cast-er) (pretty easy right?)

appearance:

Callisto is quite pale and has stark white hair. His eyes are an intense light blue along with a dark rim surrounding his iris. Unlike his brother, he has a large snake tattoo spanning from the left side of his throat down to his chest.

Callisto’s appearance is often described as intimidatingly ethereal— as if he’s some sort of deity.

He’s lean and boasts a more lithe and elegant physique compared to Teagan (I realized I was spelling his name with an o this whole time— I’m changing it to Teagan 😭). He has pierced ears, which is a bit rare for younger men who aren’t associated with some sort of crime syndicate.

Callisto did get the tattoo and piercings without his parents knowing, though of course they know about it now and are pretty mad about it.

personality:

Callisto is a free spirited guy that tends to like sneaking around and doing whatever he wants; if I had to pick a fictional character that kinda acts like him, I’d pick Jesper from Six of Crows.

He is usually carefree, but can definitely get serious if the situation calls for it. His risky escapades often gets him stuck in some dangerous situations, though, Callisto isn’t the type to get others involved. Instead, he likes to handle everything himself. He is doesn’t trust people easily.

He harbors a strong fascination for the underground and has several powerful connections with people that have as much influence as him, but in different ways.

Callisto has been obsessed with the idea that the gilded dragon hasn’t become completely extinct in the last 5~ years or so, and has used his connections to find evidence proving his theory. He’s been trying to locate the egg and find out who is its riders.

Out of all the students I’ve introduced to you so far, Callisto is the one you should be most wary about.

relationships + social status:

Callisto is the son of a duke— which means his father has a position in the Room of Consuls. He is also pretty disliked by nobles, though there are a good few socialites who support and adore him.

Callisto is not close with his mother, father, or nanny. He has no close relationships with his family.

He despises his older brother, Asterias Lancaster, because he thinks that he doesn’t deserve to be idolized by his parents; Callisto always felt like he was overshadowed by him.

He is close to nobody, and has no true friends.

If you do manage to get close to him, his nickname would probably be Cal.

likes & dislikes:

likes:

- alcohol

- smoking

- being away from home

- horse riding

- dragons & dragon riders

- investigating things

- fighting

dislikes:

- his parents, but especially his brother

- banquets and other noble gatherings

- he’d probably dislike you tbh bc no matter who you are, you wouldn’t live up to his standards (at least at first, anyway)

- kids

aura:

Callisto’s aura is categorized as a vivid sun, and consists of a dark crimson (inner) and a burnt orange.

#401320

#4d1d10

dragon:

Despite his hopes of obtaining a gilded dragon, he instead is bonded to a male white+red+black naeyndrah. He names him Aamon.

strengths & weaknesses

strengths:

- genuinely just a really good fighter

- may know about things sooner than the public does

- really loyal and protective if you’re close friends with him

- can be quite charming when he wants to be

weaknesses:

- has so many connections to dangerous people that if he wanted to, you’d disappear

- has no friends (Miaene and him are in the same boat, but for different reasons)

- uncooperative

- holds grudges sometimes for small things

fighting style:

Callisto fights without weapons often, but if does use a weapon, he’d use daggers.

He is as good as fighting with daggers as he is without.

upon shifting here…

Callisto will be a first year student at Aethergarde Academy.

wanna know more about my aethergarde academy dr? here's a masterlist with everything I've posted about it!

poll time!

[booksooks]

𝑳𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓: 𝑫𝒂𝒚 2

Author's Note: Hi friends, second part up on time? What? Who am I, god? Anyway, it's Toga's debut in today's piece, I hope you enjoy :)

Contents: College!AU, all characters depicted are STRICTLY 18+, no use of "Y/N"/any other variants, and possibly wildly ooc characters. I apologize for this. Light swearing.

Word Count: 2046

Summary: Entering your second year at college, only a few months after being broken up with, you weren't expecting anything special. Especially not in the romance department. But then a quiet, but friendly-enough boy on your floor catches your attention faster than you would like to admit. And oh, boy, are you in deep.

Waking up the next morning wasn’t as difficult as you thought it would be. Gentle sunlight streamed in through your windows, and all was quiet. It definitely wasn’t normal for your expectations of college, last year your roommate had insisted on blaring all sorts of TV shows and movies or music at any hour she pleased. You hadn’t minded, since whenever you were actually studying she had put earbuds in, but the silence was certainly a new sensation.

You took your time getting up, as your first class was only at 11am, which gave you ample time to wake up and rub the sleep from your eyes, and maybe hang out for a bit on your phone before taking a shower, and doing your makeup. You then arranged your hair the way you liked, poking at a strand that just wouldn’t lay right until you gave up, leaving at 10:30 to get to the building on time. Things were actually going really well, considering.

You got to class entirely too early, and resigned yourself to sitting on the floor in front of the doors as you waited for the professor or other students to show up. You weren’t alone for long, however, as a bubbly looking girl in as much pink as she could have had on skipped up. Her ashy blonde hair was tied up in two messy moon buns, and she had the cheeriest look on her face.

“Hi!” She crowed, waving at you on the floor. “Is this oceanography? Room 231? I’m Himiko Toga, by the way, nice to meet you! You can call me Toga.”

You looked up at her and waved back. “Yeah, I think so. At the very least it’s room 231.”

“Cool!” She brightened. “I’m a freshman, so I’m still learning my way around. This campus is so big! Especially compared to my highschool, which was only one building. I was afraid I’d be late.”

Toga continues chattering for a few minutes, putting her backpack (also pink), down on the ground to give her shoulders a rest as she talks about how she was supposed to dorm, how she had several friends here which was a major reason as to why she even chose this school, and how excited she was to make new friends, and would you be hers?

You couldn’t help but get caught up in her infectious positivity, and before long you were yapping along with her, of course you’d be her friend. And then it wasn’t long until the professor, an older woman with graying hair who walked slowly and talked with the same cadence, shuffled up to the doors and asked you and Toga to open them as she dragged a cart behind her on a dolly. The three of you settled into the room, the professor making small talk with Toga about her experience with college so far and the first few introductory days as a freshman. You were setting up your computer, so completely focused on trying to get the damn wifi to work, that you didn’t notice when the door opened and someone slipped in. But Toga definitely noticed, and she squealed, making your head jerk up.

“Tomura! I can’t believe you’re in the same class as me, already! This is gonna be so fun!” Toga nearly climbed over the tables to get to the man, wrapping her arms around his torso affectionately.

Shigaraki, to his credit, didn’t brush her off immediately, and even wiggled one of his arms free to awkwardly give her a side hug back. She let go as soon as he started trying to pry himself free.

“Hi, Toga,” Shigaraki greeted, much more quietly than Toga had. It was then that he had noticed you, and he gave you a few quick glances before looking away, moving further into the room to sit next to Toga. He gave the professor a quick nod and introduced himself before setting up his own computer, tuning Toga out as she shook your shoulder lightly.

“This is one of the friends I was talking about! His name is Shigaraki Tomura, but I call him Tomura because we’re besties,” she explained excitedly, and you didn’t really have the heart to tell her that you two had already met. Before you could say anything, however, Shigaraki spoke up in that soft, raspy tone of his.

“We met yesterday.”

Toga gasped excitedly, clapping as she smiled brightly. “Ohmygod, really? Ooh that’s so exciting! Now I have two besties in the same class, we can study together!”

Shigaraki glanced at you then, shrugging before turning back to his computer screen. The professor had been setting things up this entire time, and there was a powerpoint on the screen about plate tectonics. Several other students you didn’t know had also been steadily filtering in, taking up most of the seats around your little trio.

“Sure,” you told Toga, motioning for her to sit down. Class would be starting soon, it was 10:58. “I don’t mind if Shigaraki doesn’t.”

“I don’t,” he said quietly, and Toga took that as her signal to whip out her phone and make a group chat, already texting emojis in it with speed. “Put your phone away,” he muttered, pulling out his own phone to clear the now 10 notifications from the group chat. You sighed and finally got connected to the wifi, just as the last student came in sheepishly and sat down in the front of class, and the professor started introducing herself before roll call.

50 minutes later, and some very confusing instructions and explanations from the professor later, you were dismissed for the campus’s common hour.

“Let’s get lunch together!” Toga pleaded, already bouncing on her feet to get going as you and Shigaraki put your laptops away and stood up.

“Sounds good to me,” you agreed, following Toga out of the building. Shigaraki hadn’t said anything, but he followed you both out to the path without protest, so you took it as a sign that he was also down.

And so, the three of you made your merry way down to the commons, where there were several food chains open, along with… almost every other member of school. It was crowded and hot and loud, and you winced, almost losing sight of Toga as she dragged you along like she knew the place like the back of her hand. Which, was weird the more that you thought about it, because wasn’t she a freshman?

Either way, you wished for earplugs or something, scrunching your shoulders up to avoid touching anyone and making yourself as small as possible. Toga didn’t seem to notice, despite looking over her shoulder several times, and you tried not to be too annoyed. She was probably just excited and hungry. Shigaraki, however, did notice, and he held his sweater-clad elbow out for you to hold onto wordlessly. You take it gratefully, fingers curling into the soft fabric and trying to ignore how fucking solid he felt underneath, despite his lanky build. God you were touch starved.

You swallowed heavily and let Shigaraki somewhat bulldoze his way through the crowd. He was pretty tall and in his all black outfit he was more than a little intimidating, so people got out of his way like you were both surrounded by an invisible, protective bubble. You clung onto him tightly, incredibly grateful that people were less inclined to bump into you or push past you now that you were hanging off of Shigaraki’s arm.

Eventually, you finally caught up to Toga, who had somehow already bought herself a serving of sushi and a strawberry Fanta (sidenote, who actually liked those things? You had tried one during your freshman year and were barely able to finish the damn thing). She beamed up at the two of you, and was about to say something when she saw you hanging off of the crook of Shigaraki’s arm, and you let go like he had burnt you. Toga’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, and then she was moving on.

“I’m gonna go find us a place to sit!” She chirped, leaving you and Shigaraki behind, again.

You sighed and motioned for him to go ahead of you, which he took, also getting a container of sushi, and a monster, before checking out. You thought he was going to leave you behind to fend for yourself, but he stopped just outside the little cafe, waiting. You did your best to hide your smile as you acquired your own food and drink, paying for them and smiling at the cashier who looked like he would rather be anywhere but there at that very moment before you caught up with Shigaraki. He looked only a little less bothered when you stepped up next to him, and then once again he used his presence to clear a path to the little booth that Toga had claimed.

“How the hell did you snag this?” You asked, sitting next to her, as Shigaraki slid into the seat across from you. “These are normally never empty at this time.”

Toga smiled at you as she broke open the flimsy wooden chopsticks, and Shigaraki did the same. “Some people were leaving just as I got here,” she explained, bringing a piece of sushi to her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing. “And so I just sat down and threatened to stab anyone who asked if they could also sit here!”

You blinked at her incredulously, and Toga continued eating as if she hadn’t just told you she tossed around threats like she was talking about the weather.

“Is that normal?” You asked Shigaraki. He nodded, unperturbed, and shoved two pieces of sushi into his mouth. You gaped, blinked, and then decided if someone who’d known her since at least highschool said it was fine, it must be fine. Relatively.

The rest of your lunch is completed with more chatter from Toga, with you and Shigaraki occasionally giving input or asking her questions. The time flies, and soon you were all nursing your drinks, a neat pile of trash to be thrown out when you leave at the edge of the table. Toga is talking excitedly to Shigaraki about a game he’s… making? Playing? You had stopped paying attention after a while, letting the two friends catch up as your social battery depleted. You checked your phone, for a lack of anything better to do, and jolted when you looked at the time.

“Holy shit, it’s 1:50, I gotta go,” You exclaimed, cutting Toga off mid-sentence. The panic in your voice was unmistakable as you hastily shoved your phone into your back pocket, the screen dimming abruptly. You slung your backpack over one shoulder, the straps digging into your skin as you scrambled to gather your things, and with one last glance at Shigaraki and Toga, you snatched up the crumpled pile of trash from the table. Your movements were sharp and erratic as you waved absentmindedly at them, making a beeline for the door. You sighed and hurried your pace, mentally mapping out how to get to the library from where you were.

Just as you were about to push through the exit, Toga’s voice rang out, slicing through the clamor of the hallway: “Text us!” Her tone was light-hearted, but there was a pleading tone to her words that made it clear she already wanted to keep in touch with you. You threw another quick, half-hearted wave over your shoulder, barely registering her shout as you broke into a light jog. Unfortunately, people didn't get out of your way like they did with Shigaraki, and you were forced to dodge and weave until you got outside and were able to move around people more freely.

You’re not early, or even on time, by any means, but then again neither is the professor apparently, as he walks in 5 minutes late.

It’s not until hours later, when you’re back in your dorm, relaxing on your bed when you realize that you never texted Toga back. You quickly ran to your messages, and typed something out.

You smiled to yourself and put your phone away, getting ready for bed. Friday could not come soon enough.

End Notes: I hope you enjoyed :) Please let me know if you have any thoughts or comments, I'd love to hear them!

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[kanerallels]

Like A Flash Of Bright Light In The Middle Of The Night

For day three of @kaneraweek, we have a little prequel of sorts to day one! Hope y'all enjoy it, and definitely check out this art by @singswan-springswan that helped inspire it!

Read on AO3!

Taglist: @day-to-day-thots @auroramagpie @accidental-spice @opalknight @cassie-fanfics @ana-cantskywalker @lothalnyx (DM me or send me an ask if you want to be added or removed!)

Kanan hadn’t always believed in magic. Even in a world that had seen the effect of magical beings had recently as 10 years ago, there were many in the galaxy who believed beings like the fae were simply a hoax. At the very least, most who believed were certain that the last of the fae had died out years ago.

He hadn’t been raised in a family who believed that, though. The Windu family took the existence of magic as fact, though this earned them plenty of ridicule. Kanan remembered, when he was only ten years old, coming home from school after picking a fight with kids who mocked him for believing in something as childish as magic.

His mother had still been at work. But his grandfather—Grandpa Mace to him. It was only later in life that he realized what an intimidating, indomitable figure Mace Windu was in most settings, academic or otherwise—had been there. He’d brought Kanan into his office, given him a cold pack for his bruised hand, and frowned at him severely.

“You know better than to hit people for not believing the same thing you do, Caleb,” he told him. Mace always used his first name, even years later when Kanan had started going by his middle name. “Violence very rarely convinces anyone you’re right. Just that you’re willing to hurt someone to make them believe what you do.”

“I know,” Kanan—still Caleb then—mumbled, staring at the ground. “But they were calling you and Mom names.”

Mace smiled a little then, softening his hard features. “That means they don’t understand, Caleb. And that they’ve been taught to revile and fear what they don’t understand.”

Caleb wasn’t quite sure he knew what revile meant, but Mace continued anyway. “Hate can’t stop hate. Defending your mother’s honor is well intentioned. But you’re going to have to learn to work that out with words, not fists. Now, let’s see your hand, make sure you didn’t break anything.”

“I didn’t,” Caleb said, offering Mace his hand anyway. “I hit him just the way Styles taught me.”

Mace snorted as he examined Caleb’s knuckles. “We need to stop letting you hang out with Depa’s army friends.”

Personally, Caleb disagreed. He thought Styles and Gray and the others were cool. Besides, Styles’ brother was a few years older than him, but they still got along. But that wasn’t the most pressing of the questions in Caleb’s mind at the moment. “Grandpa Mace?” he said. “Why do you believe in magic?”

“Because it would be silly not to believe in something that’s real, no matter how foolish it seems to others,” Mace said. Handing Caleb back the cold pack for his hand, he added, “And because it’s good for the human heart to believe in something beautiful, Caleb. It gives us a longing for something better than the mundanity of the world around us. Sometimes, that means something magical. Sometimes, that magic is something as simple as the people you love.”

As Caleb turned that over in his head, Mace rose from his desk, resting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Now, come. Let’s get you a snack, and we can talk about some better ways to handle disagreements at school.”

Despite Mace’s best efforts, he’d still gotten into quite a few scrapes at school. His grandfather always scolded him for them, while his mother gently reprimanded—but generally, she also asked him if he’d won. As a former Army Ranger, Depa knew a thing or two about getting in fights, but she’d encouraged him to sort things out peacefully from the day he’d been adopted, when he was much, much younger.

His family was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Caleb had known that much, in a lighthearted sense. But he hadn’t realized just how much he needed them until one cold, slick night, when he and Depa had been driving home from a college visit.

There’d been something in the middle of the road—a large animal, probably a deer. Caleb could have sworn at the time it was a wolf. But he’d swerved to avoid it, and the icy pavement had sent them spinning out.

The car had been soundly totaled. Caleb had woken up with quite a few scars, and Depa? His mother hadn’t woken up at all.

Caleb barely remembered a time without his mother. He knew there’d been a time before he was her son—though she’d argued that he’d always been her son. “We just didn’t know each other yet,” she said with the wry, enigmatic smile she used whenever she was acting like the scholar her father had tried to raise her as.

But he’d never thought he’d lose her. Not now, not so soon.

And yet, she was gone. Mindlessly, numbly, he moved through the funeral, the wake, but even after the ceremony was over and his mother had been reduced to an urn of ashes, Caleb couldn’t put the pieces back together.

It was his fault. His fault that his mother was dead, that his grandfather only had a shaken teenager left to lean on. He could have handled it being his fault if it was anything, anyone else, but his mother? The one person in life he’d always known he could depend on, who would always protect him and guide him down the right paths?

The distraction of college was something he’d seized eagerly. They’d picked out a school in Lothal, a small town almost three hours away from his home. From Mace, and the memory of his mother.

Once there, he’d found plenty of other things to occupy his time, and not just studying. Partying and drinking seemed to push away the pain well enough. He started going by Kanan—every time he heard the name “Caleb”, it was like he could hear it in Depa’s voice—and firmly ignored his grandfather’s calls. When summer came, he found a job in town and stayed at a friend’s apartment, barely scraping by until school started again. All he knew was that he couldn’t go home, back to where her ghost was waiting for him.

And then. One day, in his junior year. Things changed again.

It was after a party, late enough that it was early. Kanan stumbled his way out of the abandoned house the party had been at, head spinning and stomach churning. The cool air of the spring night eased the ache a little, and he took a quick breath, letting it steady him.

Okay, I’m fine. Just need to get back to the dorm without passing out. Shouldn’t be a problem. All things considered, he’d had more to drink in one night before.

The abandoned house was tucked away from the rest of the town, along an out of the way road, deep in the woods. There were stories in Lothal, about things that prowled in those woods late at night. About people who’d gone missing in those places.

At the moment, Kanan didn’t really care about stories. All he cared about was finding his way back to his room and his bed soon enough that he would be semi-functional for class in the morning.

So he plunged into the woods, keeping his wits as about him as he could. The trees seemed to blur in front of his eyes, but he kept moving. Kept breathing. It wasn’t like he really had another choice.

However, his sense of direction wasn’t really the best under normal circumstances. This drunk, they were even worse, and soon Kanan paused, hand resting on a tree trunk. Am I…lost?

He squinted at the woods around him. Nothing but trees and shrubbery. No real paths, no signs of life or streetlights. Kark. This was not good.

For a moment longer, he wavered, trying to figure out if he should try and go back the way he came, or go forward—and then he heard it.

A voice. No, not just a voice. To call this voice beautiful would be to do it a disservice. It was ethereal, yet warm, like a moonlit night next to a fire. Unwavering and rich, it was…singing?

“Little bird, where are you going?

Would you mind if I came too?

I thought I had it all together

But then I saw your lovely colors,

And it’s almost too much for me to bear.”

Not much had made sense to Kanan in the past year. But one thing he was absolutely, 100 percent sure of? He needed to find out who that voice belonged to. Carefully, stumblingly, he moved toward it.

It was a woman, he was sure of that much. She kept singing as he moved.

“Little bird, tell me a story,

One you’ve never told before.

I wanna know what keeps you singing,

I wanna know what keeps you dreaming.”

He nearly tripped over a tree root, ducked past a few more trees. There was a dim light up ahead, but it didn’t look quite like a streetlight, or even a fire. It was purer, almost like a star.

“Little bird, wait a moment,

I only just found out your name.

I wonder what else lies behind those verdant eyes

A mine of mystery.

Little bird, stay a while…”

The trees thinned into a clearing ahead. As Kanan approached, he saw a ring of stones in the center of it, and something in the back of his mind pinged, whispering a warning. What is that? What do I remember about this?

Then he saw the source of the voice standing near the ring, and everything else dropped away.

She wasn’t human. That much, he knew. Rich green skin, horns that curved down from her head elegantly with gold markings etched on them. She wore a white  dress, shimmering with silver light. A cloak hung from her shoulders and he knew, just knew, that it concealed wings.

Her beauty was heartstopping, a punch to the chest. It was the kind of beauty that couldn’t exist in his reality, the kind that wasn’t human.

Faerie.

He didn’t say it out loud. But her head turned towards him, and glowing green eyes met his gaze. For a moment, Kanan could read every emotion on her face. The shock, the fear—but winding throughout it, the curiosity.

Wow, Kanan thought, wishing he could speak, knowing there was no way he could get a word out.

And then she took one step forward, into the ring of stones, and vanished into thin air, leaving him in darkness.

Kanan’s jaw dropped. He took a few wavering steps forward, then stopped. He might have forgotten a lot of the fae folklore he’d been taught, but there was something about that ring of stones that triggered alarm bells. If she disappeared when she stepped into it…what would happen to me?

Nothing good, he decided. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave without a souvenir. So, stepping towards the ring, he located a small pebble of stone, barely visible by the moonlight through the trees, that had fallen a few inches away from the ring. Tucking it in his pocket, he took one last look, and left.

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. He was still hopelessly lost—however, he figured the fae would try and stay as far away from humans as possible. So he turned, put the ring of stones at his back and faced the way he’d come, and started walking.

The rest of the night was very, very blurry. He remembered stumbling over roots and fallen branches, unsure of which way he was going. There was a moment—a brief one—where Kanan seemed to sense a massive shape near him, nudging him gently in a specific direction.

And then, the next thing he knew, he was waking up to police sirens, and was blearily sitting up from where he’d been laying on the grass next to the road. He was soaking wet and had a blistering headache, but he wasn’t dead.

The cop who approached him, Officer Kallus, gave him an exasperated look as he approached. “Someone called in a dead body. I was hoping it wouldn’t be an irresponsible college kid who hopefully hasn’t been drinking.”

“Who, me?” Kanan said. Usually, this statement would be paired with a winning, innocent smile that made Kallus scowl. But this time…his head spun as he remembered the encounter of the night before. “I…think I need to call my grandfather.”

Kallus did not look displeased by this comment. In fact, he actually gave Kanan a ride back to his dorm and a stern lecture that was only half as long as usual before returning to work.

Kanan’s roommate wasn’t there when he made it in. Dropping onto his bed, Kanan fished his cellphone—somehow barely alive—out of his pocket, plugged it in, and called his grandfather’s number.

The first ring had barely finished when Mace picked up. “Caleb?”

Kriff, he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to hear his name again. “Hey, Gramps,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “So, uh, I’m not sure if you’re busy today, but…there’s some stuff I want to talk to you about. Do you mind if—”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Mace’s voice was steady and calm. “Is there anything you need me to bring you?”

“Uh…some of your weird books about the fae.”

There was a very long pause on the other end. “I have a feeling you’re going to have a very interesting story for me when I arrive.”

Kanan snorted. “You have no idea.”

Despite the three hour drive, Mace somehow managed to narrow it down to two and a half, and arrived in time for lunch. The first thing his grandfather did when Kanan met him at the restaurant they’d found was hug him tightly. Kanan swallowed hard against the prickle of tears and hugged him back.

After a few seconds, Mace pulled back and studied him. “Sweet Force, are you hungover?”

Should have known he’d guess that. “Calm down, Gramps,” Kanan said, waving him towards a booth. “I’ll explain it all.”

Over burgers and fries and plenty of coffee, he recapped the events of that night, describing what he’d seen. “I know I had a lot to drink,” he said. “But it wasn’t that much, you know? And I couldn’t have come up with all that if I tried. So…was it? A fae?”

Only Mace Windu could look like a serious, dignified scholar while eating fries. “It certainly sounds like one,” he mused. “I’d always heard the rumors that Lothal was close to an area where the faerie had lived. It’s far away from most of the modern world, the perfect place for the fae to show themselves. Of course, there haven’t been any reported sightings since you were very, very young.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “And you say you took something from the ring of stones?”

“From next to it,” Kanan emphasized, digging the rock out of his pocket. “I’m not dumb enough to mess with something like that.”

“Good,” Mace said. “Otherwise I would have gotten a very different call this morning. That was a portal, directly into their realm.”

“Kriff,” Kanan muttered, setting the rock on the table. It wasn’t much more than a fragment of stone, crystalline and dark blue. In the fluorescent light of the restaurant, it seemed to shimmer.

Mace’s eyes widened. “That. Is not part of the portal.” Carefully reaching out, he picked it up, examining it intently. “You found this on the ground?”

Picking up his coffee cup, Kanan said, “Yeah. Why? What is it?”

“I’m not totally sure,” Mace admitted. “But it’s not from this world.”

Kanan choked on his coffee. “What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. You saw a faerie last night. Magical rocks aren’t that big of a change.” Studying it for another moment, Mace slid it back across the table to Kanan. “I doubt it’s dangerous. But it’s definitely not from around here, and it’s probably magical. Keep it safe.”

“Got it,” Kanan said, slipping it back into his pocket. Pausing, he said, “Thanks for coming. I know it’s been a while—”

“And why would that stop me? Love isn’t a subscription you have to renew every so often, Caleb,” Mace told him, gaze serious. “We’re family. I’ll always be here.”

It took a minute for Kanan to work past the knot in his throat as Mace continued eating. “I missed you,” he managed eventually.

“I missed you, too. Now eat. You need something for that hangover.”

Snorting, Kanan said, “You’re not gonna let that go, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Something about that night, that moment, was like a breaking point for him. It still hurt, thinking back about his mother. But finding the faerie in the woods had pushed him to see his grandfather again, knocking him out of the fugue state he’d lived in for far too long. And, if Kanan was being honest, there was still a part of him that hoped he’d see her again.

Mace had warned him about going to look again. “Most people don’t survive seeing a fae without a glamour these days. Either the sheer magical exposure kills them, or the fae does. So don’t tempt fate.”

Kanan had agreed, reluctantly. But there was the tiniest part of him that, whenever he walked near or in the woods, was keeping an eye out.

Maybe that was why, when he graduated and got his first job as a teacher at Lothal City High, he bought the abandoned house that party had been at. Sure, he’d been up to his eyebrows in debt for a while, but it could be worth it in the end. 

If he glimpsed her one more time, or heard her voice again, it would be worth all of it.

~~~

(7 years later)

“Hey, Kanan? You home?”

“In the kitchen!” Kanan called, a smile crossing his face at the sound of Ezra’s voice. It was good to hear the kid calling this place home. It had taken them long enough to build trust when they’d first met—partially because Ezra had broken into his house, and partially because he’d been on his own for far, far too long—but two years later, things were a lot better.

The kid appeared in the kitchen a second later, a frown twisting his face. “Are you making cookies? Do you ever work?”

“In two weeks, you’ll see that not only do I work, I’m excellent at it,” Kanan said, sliding a baking sheet into the oven. “That’s the one upside of you becoming a high schooler. Besides, your text said you were having friends over, so—”

“Wha—Kanan, I told you to stop doing that,” Ezra groaned. “We can just have chips or something.”

“No can do,” Kanan said, closing the oven. “My rivalry with Zev’s mom doesn’t disappear just because Zev’s not who you invited. Who is here, by the way?”

He glanced up just in time to see Ezra’s hesitation. “Uh. Promise me you’ll be normal about this?”

Before Kanan could even begin to ask what that meant, a voice came from the kitchen door. A voice belonged to a teenage girl, with brightly dyed hair and a leather jacket.

“Okay, where are the snacks you promised me?” she asked, glancing at Kanan with an air of suspicion. “Who’s this?”

“Kanan,” Ezra said, giving him a look that very clearly said, Be cool. “This is Sabine. We met while I was, uh, out…doing stuff.”

“That’s reassuring,” Kanan said drily. “Just tell me this much—when Detective Kallus shows up at the door, how much trouble are you in?”

“...not that much?” Ezra offered. “I was looking at that old abandoned storefront you were talking about the other day, and Sabine was putting up some art—ow!” he let out a yelp as Sabine kicked him in the shin. “What?”

“I told you not to tell him that,” she said, glaring.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ezra said, “It’s fine, Kanan’s cool. He only yells at me if I do something really bad. Graffiti is barely even a real crime. Anyway, Kallus rolled up, so we took off on our bikes, and I offered to let Sabine come hide here and also there would be snacks.”

“I can leave,” Sabine said, not looking at Kanan. But he could see her tense a little, as if she was waiting for the inevitable reprimand, and…kriff it.

“Hey,” he said, and waited until she looked up at him. “You can stay. After all, I didn’t bake these cookies for nothing. You’re welcome any time.”

“Thanks,” she said, a little of the tension leaving her expression. “It’s…Kanan, right?”

“That’s me,” Kanan said. “You guys want to sit down in here, or in the living room? Cookies will be out in about 10 minutes, and I can rustle up some other stuff while you wait.”

“In here’s good,” Ezra said, pulling out a chair at the table and dropping down. Sabine did the same, and as Kanan turned to start stacking dirty dishes next to the sink, he felt her studying him.

“Kanan,” she said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the name of that crazy teacher at the high school who believes in faeries?”

Ezra let out a snort. “Yeah, that’s cause that is him. Don’t worry, we both know he’s crazy.”

“Is it crazy if I believe in something that’s in most history books?” Kanan countered, and Ezra groaned. Glancing over his shoulder, Kanan saw the kid drop his forehead onto the table with a thunk as Sabine eyed Kanan skeptically.

“So…you think the fae are real? Or alive right now, I guess?”

“There’s no reason to suspect they’re not,” Kanan said with a shrug. “After all, just because we can’t see something doesn’t make it not real.”

“Except that it is,” Sabine said, and Ezra snorted.

“Oh, this is gonna go well,” he said, getting up and heading for the fridge. “Also that argument doesn’t work on him. He says he’s seen one.”

“You WHAT?” Sabine stared at him. “No way.”

Kanan felt a smile crossing his face. “It was a long time ago. But yeah, I saw a fae.” 

“He was also super drunk at the time,” Ezra said helpfully, rummaging through the fridge. “Do we have any juice?”

“Try the left hand side, and I wasn’t that drunk,” Kanan countered. “I’ve been way more drunk than that.”

Leaning back in her chair, Sabine accepted the small bottle of juice Ezra handed her. “I can’t believe I accidentally befriended two crazy people.”

Looking smug, Ezra said, “So we’re friends now?”

“As long as you don’t secretly believe in Bigfoot, too.”

“We won’t go into that now,” Kanan said, holding back a grin as Ezra rolled his eyes.

Dropping back into his chair, he said, “You haven’t even heard the best part. He thinks there are faeries actually living in Lothal.”

“I’m starting to think you just like mocking him for his conspiracy theories,” Sabine said thoughtfully.

“Not conspiracies,” Kanan said, turning to switch on the faucet. “And she’s right, find another subject.”

Ezra accepted this without complaint, and as Kanan started working on washing the dishes, he thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t mentioned to Ezra exactly who he thought the faeries in Lothal were.

It wasn’t that crazy of a theory. The fae could glamor themselves, disguise their true forms in any way that they wanted. Why not as humans? True, they’d have to avoid anything iron at all cost, and that could be difficult. But Kanan was completely sure there were faeries in Lothal.

One faerie in specific, in fact.

It wasn’t obvious. Hera Syndulla acted fairly normal, all things considered. But he knew those green eyes, remembered them with startling clarity from a night where not much else had been clear. Of course, there was one other very clear thing. Her voice was still the most gorgeous thing he’d ever heard, warm and melodic.

It wasn’t something he could forget, or mistake for someone else. Kanan knew that she was the fae he’d met that night. His only question was why she was here. Was it for some other mysterious reason, or did it have to do with him?

Out of habit, he reached up, touching the blue crystal he wore on a cord around his neck. Maybe it had something to do with that. He’d found it left behind, and while he and Mace had never been able to figure out what it did, Kanan was sure it belonged to the fae he’d met. To Hera.

Maybe I should return it, he mused. But then…would she leave? Selfishly, he’d rather hang onto it if that was the case. And she probably wouldn’t appreciate him revealing that he knew who she was, anyway.

No, for now things would stay the way they were—Hera running her slightly strange coffee shop/bookstore across town, and Kanan showing up to hassle her every so often. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy it, even if it had technically started out as him investigating whether or not she was actually the fae he’d met.

Now, he went to visit her because he wanted to see her. Because he liked exchanging snarky banter and drinking her coffee which was somehow far better than anything else he’d ever drunk. He liked watching her laugh and teasing her and just listening to her talk, about anything and everything. Even a few minutes in her presence left him refreshed, happy.

Ezra’s claims that Kanan didn’t think she was a fae, he was just in love with her might not have been that far from the truth.

But that was a problem for another time, if it could really be called that. Right now, he had dishes to wash.

[somevillainfuckery]

RANTETHING TIME, WORMS (pt.1 PTP)

I said I was gonna rant on some random interests of mine soooo- first rant, yippee! I was wanting to do a rant today anyways [even though I slept "today" away], and thought well I did some doodles of random characters, maybe that'll help, and Popee happened to catch my eye. Funny psychotic rabbit man that isn't luring kids into the back room 🤭 I kinda just binged a couple random episodes of that since I started getting tired of Salad Fingers and having to hear him moaning over a texture every ten seconds Apologizing ahead of time, this is way too long of a rant 🤦‍♂️ Watching some of PTP, I'm just chilling, watching Kedamono get traumatized for the millionth time and Popee being a spawn of satan, and then the worst thing on the planet decides to fill my screen- FUCKING PAPI. NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE WHO LIKES THE SILLY MAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG, I FUCKIN LOVE HIS DESIGN AND A COUPLE SCENES OF HIM, HE'S GREAT FOR THE SERIES, BUT THERES A PROBLEM. I noticed in some scenes he has some... gross tendencies, to say the least, and other times he kinda just sucks. Like how fuckin old is Popee?? He's definitely not an adult, or at least he doesn't act like it, I'm assuming he's fuckin 17 maybe a bit older- who in the actual fuck is gonna step up to their teenage, almost adult son, with a goddamn bottle??? LIKE- STOP. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU. POPEE IS NOT OK WITH IT, EVERYONE CAN SEE EVEN KEDAMONO IS BOTHERED BY IT, I ALREADY KNOW AT LEAST SOME OF YOU AS VEIWERS WERE BOTHERED BY IT. AND HIS RESPONSE TO THEM NOT DOING WHAT HE WANTS IS.. BECOMING GOD OR SOMETHING???

HUH??? I mean sure the argument for him is just he wanted to help- but Papi, that is NOT the proper help needed here, and I feel like nobody should have to actually point that out, he's an adult and should know that. And then another thing that kinda freaks me out is the reoccurring theme of vore? Yeah pretty sure rule34 artists had a lotta fun with this episode 😭 And what's worse is that his ass is unbearable in other episodes as well, not as freaky as this shit maybe, but still overall not making a good image for him. Poison happens to be one of my favorite episodes, just another episode where Popee gets sick of Kedamono basically existing. Papi is there of course, but he kinda just makes me uncomfortable the whole time like-

YOU'RE JUST SUCKING POISON OUT TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T DIE. YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOOK AT YOUR SON THIS WAY. I'M ACTUALLY ON POPEE'S SIDE HERE, I WOULD ACTUALLY PREFER PUTTING A GUN TO MY HEAD THAN LET THIS MAN HELP. Really don't like how the scene goes, and when shit hits the fan you just- kill your kid?! EXCUSE ME??? Of course, as I said, there's other shit that just- doesn't sit right with me, now no its not exactly the immense perv levels of these two right here, but its more over the fact that Papi is supposed to be a father. From the very first episode we see the man, he comes in while Popee and Kedamono are practicing a trick, and his immediate reaction isn't some super flashy self introduction, or yknow- a fucking "Hello, son, I'm back from my several years of searching for the milk". It's to one-up his son? Assuming, being trying to understand any actual story out of this show is as difficult as understanding the FNaF lore, Popee is only even apart of this circus, or training to be apart of the circus, probably because of his father.. so Papi's intro is kind of a dick move. But then again, it could just be something that's going over my head entirely, since he proceeds to mentor them [and get a chainsaw to the head in the process]. I wanna believe that, or yknow find some sorta less asshole-y explanation, but then you kinda notice the difference from before he arrived, and after. When it was just Popee and Kedamono, Kedamono was impressed and supportive, and whether he wanted to or not, he'd end up practicing some sorta trick, or just sticking around to witness Popee practicing. After Papi arrived, and there was another member to the little group, I realized that everything Popee did was- disapproved by Papi, if I'm wording that correctly. A couple times here and there was some applauding, but other then that Papi kinda just seemed overall disappointed. No, I didn't rewatch the entire series again, but from what I can remember its usually disappointment, showing favoritism to Kedamono, or just constantly doing whatever his son is doing but better. I don't think I'd want this man as a mentor ngl. I mean if your son kills you and digs a grave with no hesitation, and is barely even upset at your death at all, pretty sure that means something is wrong with the relationship.😕 And besides the points where he's shown to "care", he is also pretty neglectful. The episode Ghost is one example, where they practice a magic trick on Popee, I genuinely love this little bit at the start because it seems like they actually have a decent relationship with each other-

but then everything just goes downhill immediately, and that's because Kedamono is a royal fuck up and kills Popee. That's when my point comes in. Look at Kedamono. AND THEN LOOK AT PAPI.

BROTHA WHERES YOUR SADNESS- YOUR CONCERN- YOUR SON JUST DIED, KEDA IS FREAKING OUT.. AND YOU'RE JUST DIGGING A GRAVE LIKE ITS AN AVERAGE EVERYDAY OCCURANCE. THE ONLY TIME YOU ACTUALLY START GIVING A SHIT IS WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO SAVE KEDAMONO- AND AS FAR AS I KNOW, YOU BARELY EVEN KNOW THE WOLF. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Another great example is in the episode Medicine, where Popee is sick with what one can only explain as this shows version of Covid-19. Papi and Kedamono are trying to help him by mixing some random ass concoctions that I'm gonna assume is a mix of medicine and soup, and overall none of them had worked. By the time they found something that didn't taste like straight death, they get distracted by that and decide "lets go off and enjoy ourselves", MEANWHILE POPEE LOOKS LIKE HE'S FUCKING BEGGING FOR HELP. I GET IT, POPEE ISN'T EXACTLY SOME SWEET ANGEL, QUITE THE OPPOSITE ACTUALLY BUT NOW YOU'RE STOOPING AS LOW AS HE DOES. An episode that really stands out is Loneliness, where Papi and Kedamono leave while Popee is asleep, and they stay gone for a few days. Popee is the definition of an asshole, duh, we all know he terrorizes everyone around him for a living. But according to the episode, they had to have been gone for maybe two or three days. Popee slept the entire day away, and thats the day they left, I'm gonna assume he spent that night/the next day trying to figure out where everyone went, and then went insane the day after. He'll kill Papi and Keda, no hesitation, but obviously he cares about them still, after all that's his father and his best friend. I assumed the pantomime episode plays a little into this, being Popee creates what looks like a hallucination of himself to cope with what he assumes to be abandonment, and its a hallucination everyone else can sense/see as well. (and take note of this, it appears that the easiest[?] way for somebody to duplicate themselves in a mental hallucination way is when they cry, so obviously Popee freaked out when he came to the explanation of abandonment so I'm assuming absent father = pretty fucked up mindset). Papi and Kedamono come back, they get rid of the duplicate by having Papi make a duplicate of himself, and Popee freaks the fuck out about it. Kedamono offers a solution- talk to him, try and calm him down, being a decent person to Popee. Papi literally refuses to even acknowledge the idea, or his son, and tries literally any other solution that doesn't involve talking to his child. I'm sorry... your child is having a mental breakdown. And you refuse to look at him. As I said, there are a lot of things that make Papi a great character, but he could be so much better if he was just a decent father. When I first watched the show, I genuinely thought Popee was just the most heartless prick known to man but like.. CMON, LOOK AT THIS SHIT, POPEE IS SO FUCKED IN THE HEAD BECAUSE OF HIS PIECE OF SHIT DAD. I'VE SEEN A LOT OF PEOPLE TALK ABOUT HOW THEY BELIEVE HE WAS JUST GONE FOR MOST OF POPEE'S LIFE AND I CAN SEE THAT, AND THEN WHEN HE DOES COME INTO THE PICTURE, HE JUST RUINS EVERYTHING. THE SECOND IMAGE HERE FROM MEDICINE, WHEN POPEE IS BEGGING FOR HELP, HE'S REACHING FOR HELP RIGHT??? AND WHO DOES HE REACH FOR??? NOT PAPI, NOT HIS OWN FATHER, HE REACHES FOR HIS BEST FRIEND, KEDA.

THE DUPLICATES HAVE A BETTER FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP. HELL, WITH POPEE AND KEDAMONO, THEY'VE KILLED EACH OTHER, POPEE TERRORIZES HIM FOR FUN EVEN, AND EVEN THEY HAVE A BETTER RELATIONSHIP. WHEN THE WHOLE CIRCUS JUST VANISHED WHILE KEDAMONO WAS FREAKING OUT, POPEE STAYED... I DON'T SEE PAPI DOING THAT FOR POPEE.

THE SHOWS ENDING WAS GREAT, YEAH... BUT I WISH IT WAS POPEE AND KEDAMONO BEING STARS OF THE CIRCUS ON STAGE, AND PAPI OUT OF THE FUCKIN PICTURE.

[chaotic-goodsir]

Good morning, might I interest anyone in some hyperfixated rambling re:

1) Me being wrong about Wilbur Cross and John Macnamara's canon ages.

2) The newly explained Mega Bastards SaF lore (I know it's just Actor Curt Mega's headcanon but it's canon to me now)

3) The implications for my hcs about Wilbur being the Spankoffski bros uncle and John being related to Curt?

Keeping it under a readmore so I don't annoy everyone about this, because I have a lot of thoughts.

*

So it turns out I misunderstood John and Wilbur's canon ages in Black Friday.

According to the wiki they're around 42 and around 44 respectively in 2019. I'd imagined them as being 10 years older than this and therefore in their early 30s back in 1998, but in fact they should have been only 21 and 23 in that Saf/Hatchetverse crossover fic I wrote a while ago, and they were only 28 and 30 when the portal incident happened.

The question of whether Wiley can physically age post-2005 makes this interesting, though. Was Wilbur 44 in 2005, making Wiley eternally 44? That would mean that pre-portal Wilbur was a whole 15 or 16 years older than John, which works well I guess for the canon mentor-mentee context but not so well for my own MacNaCross headcanons. I think such a big age difference would change their dynamic a lot, plus I prefer the idea of Wilbur having been promoted at a fairly young age for a PIEP colonel.

For those reasons I'm gonna go with Wilbur being 30 in 2005 and Wiley being technically 44 in Black Friday, whether or not he ages in a normal human way. The most tragic implication of this is of course that I can't call Wilbur/Wiley a boomer anymore, since being born in 1975 makes them definitely Gen X :(

But it would also make the age difference between Wil and Annie (a Hatchetfield OC of mine who is Wil's sister and Pete and Ted's mom) much larger. Ted was born in 1984, so Annie would have to be at least 10 years older than Wilbur.

Having a 10 year age difference between the Cross Siblings would be kinda cool (it parallels the Spankoffski bros age difference!!) but it does mean rethinking all my headcanons about their sibling dynamic. Plus it would make Wilbur less than 10 years older than Ted and an actual uncle since the age of 9.

- Implications for my headcanons about where the Uncle Wiley character/voice came from? Perhaps.

- Would Ted have known Wilbur better when he was growing up? Seems more likely, especially if Annie helped her younger sibling out when he left home.

- What about Ted and Wilbur knowing each other around the time of the Jenny incident and the portal? Or when Pete was born in 2002? Or Homeless Ted's reasons for queuing up in Black Friday?

MUCH to consider and perhaps draw or write about some time.

*

Anyway. On a different note:

Combining Actor Curt Mega's headcanon about Agent Curt Mega having several illegitimate children with John and Wilbur's canon ages, it's completely possible (if you like SaF/Hatchetverse crossovers) for John Macnamara to be Curt's grandson.

If John is around 42 in TGWDLM and Black Friday, then he was born around 1976. So his mother or father could easily have been born in the early fifties as one of the illegitimate children resulting from Curt's spy activities. And it's likely John wouldn't know this, if the truth was kept a secret from him - which it probably would be, if his grandmother's line of work/status was the kind where you end up being seduced for espionage reasons by the world's greatest spy.

Again: Much to think about.

[m-n-m-s]

Hiiii, could you please write headcanons of 1610!Miles having a younger sibling? Not a spiderperson tho. Also pretend that his younger sibling was also in ITSV and ATSV movies! 😄 (fun fact, Miles actually had a little baby sister in the comics)

HIII

1610! Miles with a younger! sibling

1610! Miles Morales + Gn!Younger!Sibling Reader

red: miles

green: you

ok so depending like how much younger than him you are

it would be a lil different

let's say you were like a decent few years younger, not rly close in age

y'all would be pretty chill ngl

"miles?"

"yeah?"

"can you help me with my drawing?"

"..."

"..."

"ok fine. just stop with the puppy eyes."

if you're like way younger than him and you give him your best puppy eyes that man is a goner.

however.

if you guys are like similar in age, with you being a few years younger

the two of you will be switching between:

BESTIES!!!!

i hate you.

"wow, this is actually a great drawing."

"...thank you?"

*literally five minutes later*

"get your arachnid-looking ass out of my way."

"extremely unnecessary. but okay."

you found out the fact he was spider-man relatively quick

yk that one scene in itsv when he gets everything in his dorm room stuck to him?

that happened once at home

you just strolled in and he's standing on one of the walls sideways

attempting to un-stick several drawing tools off of his hands.

one of which was also stuck to the ceiling, may i add.

you kinda just stood there for a moment

both of you engaged in like a staredown typa thing

"i can explain."

"why the fuck are you standing parallel to the floor??"

"..."

"you spiderman or something?"

"...maybe?"

you were originally joking with that sentence, but okay

anyway from that point on you had to restrain yourself from using the "miles is spider-man!" card with your parents

forced him to swing you around the city once

big mistake!!

miles will insistently claim that you were clinging to him so hard that you cut off his blood circulation.

"we are HUNDREDS OF FEET UP IN THE AIR MILES! DO YOU WANT ME TO FALL AND DIE??"

"you really don't need to yell in my ear. maybe i should drop you-"

"do not."

miles will literally never admit it but he was ridiculously worried for you while he was with the other spiders during itsv

the same in atsv

but both of you would rather eat the dust beneath the other's bed than admit that you missed each other

the most you would probably do when he came back home would be like this sad shoulder pat

"good on you for not dying."

"thank you for not getting kidnapped by a random villain dude."

"aww, were you worried about me?"

"nah. did you miss me?"

"no. i finally got to take my time in the bathroom in the morning."

this is a lie.

if miles wasn't preoccupied with trying not to die, he would be picking at his nails, hoping you were okay

meanwhile, you were almost missing the annoying knocks on the door and the accompanying "god, hurry up!"

when gwen finally visited him in atsv, you were so prepared.

subtly embarrassing your older brother in any way possible

for funsies!!

"yo, miles! why is your bright pink teddy bear in the middle of the fucking hallway??"

"shut up. that's not mine."

bro definitely apologized to the teddy bear afterward

you definitely tried to fight someone for miles at least once

he watched in amusement the whole time.

but if it actually started turning out to be a physical fight he would pick you up and/or drag you away

you're not gonna get hurt because of him

"let me go! i can take him-"

"sorry, no can do. mama would murder both of us."

there was one time when he almost got into a fight with someone because he heard them talking about you

you had to use all your strength and will to drag him outta there

"damn your stupid mutant spider strength-"

"radioactive."

"i didn't ask. c'mon, spidey."

shenanigans aside, you were always there for him whenever he came back late after his spider duties

you didn't ask questions, because most of the time, he didn't look like he would answer them

so you quietly patched him up, cracking stupid little jokes to see him smile

if he wanted to talk about it, you would listen

maybe even give him a hug, which you never really do

the next morning he would let you steal some food from his plate to thank you

maybe even take you for a swing, only if you promised not to cut off blood supply to his arms

all in all, miles n his younger sibling's relationship would be very funny to watch but also very sweet <3

his lil baby sis in the comics was so adorable omg 😭 🫶🏻

i was gonna make this shorter but it ran away from me 😦

[kenzan-kiwami]

i ought to get better at writing down my thoughts so i actually remember them. anyway, it's kashiwagi time again. strap yourselves in cause this is going to be very long & punctuated with discord screenshots

i've discovered recently that people seem to like it when i lay my thoughts out on him, which is honestly wild to me but here we are. like i say, i'd like to put my ideas somewhere i can actually access them somewhat easily instead of peppered randomly through two or three discord threads and my own tumblr tags, so this post will probably function as my own personal meta archive for him, because i'm allergic to tables and spreadsheets and i don't really want to rely on google drive any more than i am already.

(speaking of google drive, i have a repository here of most of kashiwagi's audio files. refer to the readme document for the reasons it's not all of them for now)

>the basics?

i'll start with his age because that's at the forefront of my mind at the moment. i like to think he's in the ballpark of 10 years older than kiryu and nishiki, which would put him around six years older than majima, two years older than adachi, and 13 years younger than kazama. thusly, with a calculated birth date of around 1958, discounting birth month, he is (approximately):

30 in yakuza 0 (1988)

37 at the start of yakuza 1 (1995)

47 through the rest of yakuza 1, after kiryu gets out on parole (2005)

48 in yakuza 2 (2006)

51 in yakuza 3/when he "dies" (2009) (also goes grey around this time, maybe the year before)

61 in yakuza: like a dragon & gaiden (2019)

66-ish in rgg8 (2024).

(this list has been incredibly helpful to me actually because my original thought was that he was eight years older than the boys... that would put him at the same age as adachi, which i'm not a huge fan of)

next up, sexuality - i think he's (almost) exclusively attracted to other men, with yayoi being an exception that proves the rule.

however, my idealised "ship" "timeline" for him is that he's with kazama until kazama gets naded, then does some FWB shit with majima until he himself "dies", then somewhere down the line after opening the bar ends up in a slow-burning "friend"ship with adachi, because who better to take out for dinner than the strapping old geezer in the glasses who serves you drinks and keeps a watchful eye on your extensive tab?

next, i think he's definitely nd. which is something you can say for most characters in this series in some way, but he has an interesting relationship with food (not just limited to what he eats, but how), is shown infodumping on several occasions, hardly if ever switches up what he wears (at most, colours), flat affect/resting bitch face/autism stare, hires extra staff at his hobby bar so that he doesn't have to speak to his customers as much, and behind his intimidating mask he has this awkward kind of energy that reminds me a lot of my own experiences with being a bit not-normal. he probably has an oral fixation.

also, sort of crack but also not, i enjoy the idea that he's light sensitive (or at least moreso than kiryu is):

>the meat

he is very highly strung - we see this on multiple occasions. he seems visibly less so after "dying" in 2009, so i'm chalking it up to the stress of having to run things as someone who has the right mentality for leadership (the other patriarchs call him "soft" in y3 for trying to resolve conflicts rather than fostering them) but just doesn't enjoy doing it. he does exceptionally well as kazama's number two, but in yakuza 0 while kazama is in jail, and in yakuza 2 after kazama dies and he inherits the family (and clan captainship), he seems very stressed out. i absolutely think that his reputation for lashing out and his "violent" disciplinary methods are due in part to stress shortening his fuse (with the latter also being learned behaviours from kazama - an old school yakuza & assassin). age and the experience of staring death and a CIA attack helicopter in the face also definitely play a part in mellowing him out.

on kazama, i'm shamelessly stealing inoue's reasons for joining the shinsengumi and applying that to kashiwagi, because, while i don't really think of them as the same guy, there is absolutely a reason they chose him specifically as inoue's bakumatsu face claim. i don't have many ideas as to what kashiwagi did before swearing up, but he's a man of debts and undying loyalty, so i believe kazama must have saved him or turned his life around in such a way that he felt he could do nothing but pledge himself to him. i also really enjoy the idea of kazama having given him his scar, but i'm not 100% on how that might have come around either.

to extrapolate even more bullshit headcanon from insignificant canon details, i think in the 80s he was a beginner hobbyist keyboard player. mostly looking at the judgement cinematic where he's not plugged in and playing a little out of sync BUT still doing whatever fucked up fruity little dance he's doing. the presence of the piano at survive makes me think he got a hell of a lot more into it in his newfound free time, as something else to keep his hands mobile as he ages and recovers from getting shot up by a heli. also, still love the little anecdote we get from iroha when she says he's good with his hands.

(related: i think he taught himself to blend traditional medicine for residual chronic pain relief)

>weirdguy momence

in a one-to-one phone conversation with kiryu, his younger brother figure, he calls daigo (with whom he is on a given name basis) 六代目

that moment near the start of y0 where he stares down at kiryu on the street from the family office window

i don't think any of his suits were fitted correctly until kiwami 2 because his jackets ENGLULF him on PS2 & PS3 and he's straight up rectangular in kiwami

fills an empty bottle of high-end whisky with pish to make his bar look more expensive and comes up with an elaborate cover story to stop people from buying it

the way he acts towards his direct authority figures

>i'm ill

using up the last of my image real estate to post some moments where i kind of maybe lost it just a little bit. by my own standards, of course.

[festivalofthe12]

SO this is probably something covered in the manga which I have since entirely forgotten, but. The Juunishi thing is reincarnation, right? As in, whenever the old Horse or Dog or whatever dies, they're soon/immediately after reborn as another new Sohma family baby?

Obviously there are metatextual reasons why the main characters are mostly grouped around the same rough generational range... but if you think of it that way, it makes more sense: in modern days, there's not that much variation in how old people get before they die, so it kinda makes sense that they tend to die and therefore be reborn at within a couple of decades of one another? maybe????? (of course this has been going on for a Long Time and stuff like infant mortality or just death at a young age due to injury/illness used to be much more common but. ignore that. maybe.)

ANYWAY my point is. Could Sohma adults potentially try to game the system and time it such that their kids will be born around about when older Juunishi members die? Thus giving themselves a way better chance of having their kid be one? (For those who would care about that, which we know at least some do.)

Specifically, I'm not sure if we ever got a stated reason for the huge age gap between Yuki and Ayame... but this sure as hell sounds like a plausible one, giving everything we know about Yuki's mum. Like, IDK if she deliberately tried to get the Snake (the Snake, Dog, and Dragon are all very similar in age, so presuming that their previous reincarnations' deaths weren't super sudden, that'd offer better than usual odds of getting at least one) and then realised she could do better, or if she got the Snake but wasn't satisfied and started planning things out for the Big One...

Though. the Rat would most DEFINITELY have been a high risk/high reward goal. Because. This time around, at the very least, the Rat and Cat both ended up the same age. :'D

Which, now that sounds like a fanfic idea just waiting to happen... but in practice, IDK if it would've really changed all THAT much? Yuki's mum would almost certainly have just disowned Kyou lmfao (possibly while trying to hide that he was even hers so she wouldn't be associated with the Cat??? no clue how she'd manage that though. I feel like the two options are some other random woman gets him and immediately the curse is revealed [and the main house would find out about that, ofc] or Kyou fjucking dies. I guess she could try to pass him off on a single father????????)

anyway uhh I know less about Kyou's parents. but. his dad doesn't seem the type to NOT send his kid off to Akito, especially if there was something in it for him.

So if this isn't that wacked-out 'the Cat gets weirdly lost for a while because he grows up with a random dude who doesn't even figure out about the curse for several years making it way harder for the Main House to track him (and honestly given that the juunishi transform when they're too weak and babies are Definitionally Defenceless even this doesn't seem all that realistic)' scenario. I guess the main difference would be just that Kyou and Ayame are siblings. Presumably in this case Kyou still gets raised by Kazuma and everyone knows his mum is his mum but she maintains some level of status by having the Snake. And I guess in this world Ayame gets treated more like Yuki because she doesn't have a better option this time round and is desperate to distance herself from the Cat lmao.

That's about as far as I've thought it through hahahaha because in the end this is more of a Kyou-centric thought experiment than Yuki really. But it's still kinda interesting (to me)!!!!!

[amethystina]

I've been making many comparisons between Hannibal (Series) and TDJ, so I need to know if you have ever watched Hannibal and if you also saw any similarity between the two or if I'm just going crazy 😞

I have watched it, yes! I binged it in a matter of days (several years ago now) and, BOY, was I loopy afterwards. I had to call a friend and legit go: "I have to talk to someone about something that isn't Hannibal because I feel like I am losing my mind a little."

(Which sounds corny but, uh, I have a tendency to sink really deep into the feelings and mindset of the characters I watch — not unlike Will Graham, hilariously enough (which is also why I'm so good at writing them, I guess?) — and that makes any show a bit of a journey but Hannibal even more so. It was NOT good for my mental stability x'D)

Anyway! Yes, I can see it, at least to some degree. There are definitely a couple of similarities but, in my opinion, honestly more differences, at least when you start looking at it a little deeper. For me personally, it's easier to compare Hannibal to a drama like Strangers From Hell than The Devil Judge.

Like, say what you will about Kang Yo Han and his habit of manipulation, gaslighting, and lying (which I do, very frequently) but it wasn't anywhere near Hannibal or Moon Jo levels of viciousness and depravity. Though I admit that's a very low bar.

Congratulations, Yo Han — you're less despicable than two cannibalistic serial killers.

That's not to say that what Yo Han did was good (he is, by definition, a mass murderer x'D), but the framing is completely different. Hannibal does it for the heck of it — to see what makes Will tick — and also because he wants Will to join him and become his other half, a.k.a. his murder husband. Meanwhile, Yo Han is looking for a useful accomplice to help him avenge his dead brother and, if he happens to get a husband out of it, that's just a bonus.

Hannibal does it for his own amusement and enjoyment, while Yo Han has a purpose behind his actions that's actually connected to his love for someone else. And while his actions DO hurt Ga On on more than one occasion, he's by no means as flippant about Ga On's life as Hannibal is about Will's.

Adding to that, Ga On was a lot more willing to be seduced than Will Graham, probably because Yo Han is by no means as wicked as Hannibal. He's got a lot of soft sides that Hannibal just... doesn't. Which alters the tone of their story and turns it into something quite different.

So yes, on the one hand, there are some similarities in the concept of an older, dangerous yet suave man trying to tempt a younger, idealistic man into committing crimes with them, but the lengths which they go to, the methods they use, and the motivation behind it are too different for more than a surface level comparison for me.

And that difference is honestly one of the reasons why I never wrote Hannibal fanfics. I was tempted, but I soon realised that Hannibal is too rigid. He's pretty one-dimensional in the long run and while the show does make a point out of showing that Will could change him at least a little bit, it's still too little to make him fun to write for me.

But, more importantly, when it comes to ships like these (i.e. the morally grey ones) it's never the dark one that will make or break it, but the other party. For me, a pairing like that only works if the softer/weaker/brighter/whatever you want to call it person is, on some level, in on it. And sure, Will does eventually end up being Down With Murder, but he didn't start out like that. He truly was a good guy at the beginning and the only reason why he ended up a murderer was through emotional and psychological osmosis — which he struggled against every step of the way until he eventually gave up.

Compare that to Ga On who, clearly, had a lot of darkness even before Yo Han showed up and pulled it to the forefront. Like, he dove headfirst into it after a while because he'd clearly been waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to do so — he wanted to come along for the ride Yo Han invited him on.

Or Jong Woo from Strangers From Hell, who had violence and anger-management issues long before he met Moon Jo and got pulled into becoming his murder husband. Or Pete from KinnPorsche, who clearly had a dangerous and kinky side long before Vegas showed up and... uh, made him embrace it?

Sometimes, it hinges more on the other person, is what I'm trying to say. And that can totally change the tone of the story being told. Like, while I am 100% certain that Hannibal loves Will in canon (or as much as he is able while being who he is) I can't say the same for Will. He's attached, sure, but love? Not sure. But what I am sure of is that Will would be better off without Hannibal. Without a doubt. Yeet him off a cliff (pun entirely intended). There's just too much violence between them and while it is fascinating to watch, I don't really want to see them as a couple xD

Yo Han and Ga On, on the other hand? There is genuine attachment between the two of them, and a genuine desire to see the other safe and happy. And while Yo Han definitely isn't the easiest person to live with — and much too vicious and dangerous for things to be entirely healthy between them — he does give Ga On something that, arguably, very few can, by embracing Ga On for who he is WITHOUT trying to change him. Like, the very core concept of their relationship is different from Hannibal and Will's.

Basically, while Hannibal turned Will into a killer to make them more compatible — sawing off the pieces of Will that didn't fit and tacking on new ones where he pleased — Yo Han and Ga On kind of fit from the beginning, because there was already a darkness in Ga On that called out to the darkness within Yo Han. They just have to figure out which way to approach each other for everything to fall into place but, once they do, the puzzle is easy to solve.

So, in essence, they're the opposite of Hannibal and Will. Will is forced to become someone else for him and Hannibal to work, while all Yo Han wants is for Ga On to accept and embrace who he truly is. Yo Han doesn't have to change Ga On for the two of them to work, they just need to love each other, flaws and all.

(which they do, in my subjective opinion)

... that became a lot longer rant than I had planned. I'm so sorry x'D

TLDR: Yes, there are some similarities but, on the whole, they're surface level in my opinion. Their dynamics at their cores are too different.

[x--ghost--x]

Tech support #1

[Rottmnt Donnie x gn!reader]

Is breaking into a lab at your university a crime? Maybe. Does one of the greatest geniuses in the world (this is not exaggerated at all) care about it? No.

Story about certain turtle meeting a superhero and becoming their tech support.

Warnings: none (yet)

English is not my fist language so there might be bad grammar or spelling errors, sorry! (I'm trying my best to check everything before posting but if you see smth let me know)

Masterlist

Hiii sooo I finished the first chapter and I'm excited to write more!

I love tmnt and spiderman so I thought it would be cool idea

Anyway, enjoy ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

━═━═━═━═━

Is breaking into a lab at your university a crime? Maybe. Does one of the greatest genius in the world (this is not exaggerated at all) care about it? No.

That's pretty much how Donnie found himself creeping through the empty halls almost in the middle of the night. It's been a while since he started searching for one of his school's more abandoned labs. But he was determined.

Recently he accidentally eavesdropped a conversation between two of his classmates. Well, not really eavesdropped, because the were talking on definitely lounder volume than most of the class and Donnie just happened to be sitting behind them. They were talking about some older lab in the farthest corner of the school that no one really visited.

And who would pass on such an opportunity for a new quiet workplace? Definitely not the Donatello Hamato.

With self-made goggles on his eyes he scanned the area slowly making way further and further into the dark corridor carefull not to make to many sounds. He's never been to this part of the school so navigating there was quiet a challenge with how many turns and doors were along the way. Seriously, they at least could have given them a layout of the building at the beginning of the year.

Reaching the end of the hall, Donnie stopped in his tracks. Rays of yellowish light filtered through a small window in the last doors falling on the greyish floor.

Maybe... someone just forgot to turn of the light earlier before leaving? No, janitors always check it after everyone leave.

No matter with how many excuses Donnie's been trying to come up with there was no other explanation.

Someone already was there.

Sudden wave of anxiety washed over Donnie as he reached to pull lightly at the end of his purple mask. Were those this guys talking about the lab in his class? That would make sense. But for some reason he had a feeling that it wasn't them.

After the moment of paralyzation, Donatello began making steady steps ahead. Stopping before the door he exhaled shakly not knowing he was holding his breath. Being as quiet as he could, he listened to the hushed voice from the inside of the room.

"Yeah, yeah I know I was a little bit to reckless." said the voice with quiet whine. Donnie guessed the person that voice belong to was talking through the phone, because he couldn't detect any other presence beside them. "But what could I do when he just suddenly trow a wHOLE BENCH-"

The voice stopped. He heard the sound of several papers being picked up and stuffed in a drawer. The sound of his heart was louder than the stapes coming out of the lab. Just as Donnie started to think of an escape plan he heard the voice again - this time more nervous.

"I think that someone-" they were cut off by the person they were talking to. How could they know that he was here? "But what if it's- Can you stop interrupting me for a second? What should I do?"

And this was the moment Donatello decided it's time for him to go. No matter who that person was or how they knew he was here he didn't want to be spotted, and in the worst case scenario reported to the teachers. He never will get detention like his twin (Leo was almost always in detention and Donnie certainly didn't want to deal with being in one room with his brother at the same time for so long). It's not like Donnie have never done something that would put him in so called 'after-class prison'. He just never got caught like his dumb-dumb brother(s - every one of them got it at least once).

Maybe he could just threaten them to not tell anyone?

...what they were doing here in the first place?

Lost in his head Donnie failed to notice a shadow slowly approaching the door. With one quick motion the door opened revealing the mysterious person from the not-so-abandoned lab.

For a few first seconds both of them were just standing staring at each other. It was so quiet (and probably as awkward).

As he lifted his goggles of his face, Donatello watched them with a strange kind of disappointment seeing that they were just some random normal student. They had [s/c] skin mostly covered by dark clothing in which the most signifying thing was the colorfull jacket (that gave him the sense of deja vu for some unknown reason). One of their hands was tightly wrapped around the strap of the cross body bag. Donatello noticed several pins, patches and keychains from different types of media on it. He could even recognize most of them (especially that one pin wit Atomic Lass on it).

"Uh, I was just leaving so-" they started talking startling Donnie a little. "-could you just... pretend you never saw anything?”

The mysterious person said nervously darting their eyes at everything but on him and just now he looked at their face. Even in the dark he could see every bigger and smaller detail, his own eyes jumping from the shiny [e/c] eyes to nose and lips and even to tiny scars scaterred on their skin. Scars huh?...

"Oh..." they breathed out finally laying eyes on him. "Turtle."

Donnie sudently felt a pang of irritation.

"Yes, excellent observation. I am in fact a type of reptilian, to be exact a one from the Trionychidae family." he responded totally not sarcastic.

The [h/c] haired teen stared at him in shock not knowing what to say for the first few seconds. Donnie was just about to start going on a rant on the topic of different species of turtles when they opened their mouth.

"Fancy way of saying you're a softshell turtle but okay." they muttered to themselves. "What I meant was, you're one of the turtle brothers. For so many yokai and mutants going to this school, you guys are the most recognizable." the teen started lightly bouncing on the heels of their feet before adding. "And we have at least four classes together every day."

Huh, that was a surprise. The turtle never noticed them in class before. Then again, he never pays attention to other students unless they're doing projects, which requires having a partner, or they are talking about something that catches Donnie's attention.

"I am not a bit surprised that my intellect is so recognizable among my peers and many others." he proclaimed with confidence. "However, now I'm more intrigued about what someone like you is doing in a school lab at 11:53 p.m."

Donatello rised one of his drawn eyebrows looking at them suspiciously. Small bead of sweat rolled down their neck.

"Well, I..." bright eyes shifting from his face to the ground and again on him. They cursed internally to themselves for not being able to hold eye contact for long enough to not appear suspicious. "I have permission form a teacher to use this lab."

"Why and which teacher would get you an access to-"

"What are you doing here though?" the more human one of the pair, swiftly avoiding the topic, tilted their head curiously.

It was his turn to sweat.

"I may have heard about an unoccupied lab and simply thought that such a place couldn't go to waste." the purple turtle pointed his tree fingered hand at the entrance to the room, hiding the other in the pocket of his hoodie.

"Understandable." they nodded at his reasoning. "Though, could you not tell anyone about it?"

"Why is that? I thought that you had permission form the teacher." Donnie questioned.

The teen scratched lightly their arm.

"Well, I do have a permission form Mr. Stark." they send him knowing look.

Oh, that made sense. Mr. Stark was known to be genius but rather... nonchalant teacher, which caused him to appear ignorant and selfish (being rich certainty did not help erase this assumptions). However, that wasn't true at all. He just cared in his own unique ways like, in this case, providing the workplace for one of his students. Although, he didn't really conducted any lessons, anyone in school could cusually talk to him about anything school- or no school-related. Mr. Stark was just kinda there if someone needed him.

So, in conclusion, a permission from him specifically isn't very reliable for other teachers.

Donatello hummed to himself, thinking for the most profitable solution.

"Let's make a deal." he requested firmly. "I won't inform any of the authorities of this university, which could get you and Mr. Stark in trouble, and you will give me an access to also use this lab. Of course, I won't interfere with your work and I expect to you do the same with mine."

[e/c]-eyed teen went silent, thinking expression on their face. The deal was pretty fair, they really didn't want to get them and the teacher in trouble, and letting him work in the lab shouldn't be a problem. Except, it was risky. He could find out.

But maybe they just need to hide their things a little better.

"Okay."

"I don't think you want to get into unnecessary trouble- wait, what?"

"I'm okay with that arrangement. I mean, I won't lose anything on that and I don't mind sharing." they shrugged, extending their hand. "So, deal? Oh, I'm y/n Parker by the way."

The turtle stared intensely at their opened palm not moving neither of his own. Instead, from under his purple hoodie appeared a metal limb reminding the other teen of spider legs. It grabbed their hand and firmly shook it.

"It's a deal then, y/n Parker."

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Donnie ever so often found himself spending time in the lab. He observed that the class was much bigger on the inside that he thought. It also had an equipment that the turtle couldn't find in any other place in school. They were clearly bought or constructed by y/n (which the latter he was doubtful of).

Speaking about the teen, although Donnie never was really interested in his peers, he sometimes caught them walking somewhere in the back of his mind. They never stayed for long, only leaving unanswered questions that lingered in his brain later. He could learn nothing from the brief conversations they had every time they were switching turns in the laboratory. Or even when they started making small talks during the day in school (which he kind of enjoyed, because the turtle rarely had any classes with his brothers due to being on different profiles). What he could learn, however, was that with the level of sarcasm and jokes they could almost match his. Almost. Which made every exchange of words interesting.

But despite their friendly and teaseful nature, Donnatello was convinced they were hiding something.

He even made a list of what he found suspicious. It mainly contained things like:

- the fact that they never wanted to tell the purple turtle what exactly they were doing in the lab and always perfectly covered any evidence of teen being there,

- y/n was also avoiding certain topics, like, what connects them to Mr. Star or why they were just randomly disappearing from school,

- and the colorful jacket, which Donnie still found weirdly familiar.

And after a long internal discussion with himself, Donatello decided today was the day he will find out the truth.

That's why he was now searching every drawer in the laboratory for any kind of clues. Today, for some unknown reason, y/n hurriedly left seconds after he opened the door, throwing a quick 'hi', before disappearing around the corner. Therefore, Donnie decided it was excellent time to pull on a little investigation.

Shuffling through the papers scattered on the table, his dark eyes scanned every bit of information on them. However, they seemed to be encrypted, making it difficult for the turtle to understand exactly what was written on them. When he was starting to get irritated, he spotted, under all the other paper sheets, something what looked like a blueprint of unknown mechanics. Small device in the shape that reminded him of a tear, was drawn with precision. Every little detail was carefully described, from how the parts were made, to in what way they need to be put together.

Donnie could probably analyze it for hours and lost himself in the vortex of work, but what most cached his attention was what was on the other side of the paper.

A recipe for web fluid with a 'Synthetic Webbing' written in the top left corner of the page.

"Salicylic acid, toulene, methanol, carbon tetrachloride, potassium carbonate, and ethyl acetate, huh..." he read out loud. "What would they need to create a webbing like that for? Judging by its structure it needs to be load-bearing and strong, hold with extreme amounts of tension and stress, yet have a little stretch to it."

The most important thing he could recall now, was that spiders were able to produce sticky thread, using it to create webs. Which, somehow, was the missing puzzle piece that he yet needed to put in the right place.

What exactly spiders have to do with that-

"Wait a minute." Donnie mumbled to himself.

In the New York City was one particular spider that everyone recognized - Spiderman. The faceless hero, in the black and [f/c] suit with a jacket thrown over the shoulders, protecting the city from any danger. The turtle himself was never really as interested in superhero as his brothers, but because of them he knew more overall informations.

Rubbing his chin, Donatello looked around the lab trying to put all those informations together. His eyes, however, landed on familiar colorful piece of clothing left hanging loosely on the chair back.

Suddenly, with wide open eyes, his stomach twisted uncomfortably giving him this weird feeling of dread and realisation. Quickly he stuffed the rest of the papers in the drawers trying not to accidentally rip them. Seconds later, the door to the lab opened revealing [h/c] haired student.

"Sorry, Donatello, I just forgot my-" they halted seeing the blueprint in turtles three-fingered hand.

He felt his heart stopped beating for a moment before he was able to speak.

"You were in a hurry and left couple of things, so I thought I would offer my assistance and clean up! Yeah..." the purple turtle explained tugging at the end of his mask. "Although, I may have accidentally get to know the content of one of your projects, which leads me to the question. What is the purpose to create artificial web-"

"Cosplay!" they expressed loudly, surprising him and themselves. "I mean- yeah, I just wanted to make, uh, Spiderman's cosplay! For convention! Yup, that's right."

The teen nodded with a smile, not knowing who they're trying to convince more, him or themselves. Donnie only rises his eyebrow.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), both of them were terrible at lying.

"So, are you..."

"Yeah, well..."

Both students were staring at each other uncomfortably.

"I'm assuming that Mr. Stark knows about that, and that's why he let you use this lab?"

"Well, actually, I was there before and he caught me while I was testing the web." they explained, scratching their arm. "He helped me with the whole... hero thing, I guess."

Donnie nodded, still being lost somewhere in his head.

"How exactly did this... happened? What I mean is, I noticed that you posess only certain aspects of a spider, like, being able to attach yourself to different surfaces." the turtle trailed off ready to go on a rant. "However, you need to fabricate the webs yourself, so, I'm assuming that means your body can not produce them itself-"

"Donatello, as much as I would like to listen to your genius talk, I'm afraid I don't have many answers for you." they hold up their hands in defensive manner and dropped their [e/c] eyes to the floor trying to avoid his gaze. "Besides, it's not really interesting story. I was bitten by radioactive spider and started sticking to random things. That really freaked me out. But I guess I just grown up to accept that now I have weird superpowers."

"What about being a hero? Why-"

"Can you not tell anyone?" they cut him off hastily while focusing up on him again with pleading look. "I know I can't really force you to do that, but maybe there is something I could do? I can't really think of anything I could offer though... It's easier and safer when less people know..."

He began to think, wondering what he might possibly want from them. What might they have that Donnie couldn't construct himself? Or what information they possessed that could satisfy him? For a brief second he even thought of organising a meet-up for his brothers who certainly would be delighted to converse with a hero, but quickly dismissed the idea realizing that it would led to questions how he was able to meet Spiderman in the first place.

However, maybe there was something that Donatello would be interested in...

"How about this," he started clasping his hands together. "For exchange of my silence, you will provide me with informations on your whole hero life, including the topics like, what style of fighting do you have, what your enemies are like, how exactly does your tech works, and so on. I would also like to help you advance your inventions, because for what I see there is still room for improvement."

y/n just stare at him dumbfounded, trying to process all the information he threw at them. That was kinda a lot. Didn't Donnie said sometime before that he wasn't interested in superheros or any of that kind of stuff? They still could clearly recall that one time in class, when group of people were talking about Spiderman, saying that the hero must have some cool magic stuff helping him fight, and the purple turtle lould expressing that it had to do something with technology and not non-existing magic. Then he proceeded to dismiss the need of having a so called superhero, saying he had better solutions in terms of improving the city's safety.

It's almost like he wanted to...-

"Are you saying that you wanna be some kind of my tech support?" they smirked suddenly feeling smug. "You're asking for much there, turtle boy. You should know it's not really the safest job."

The [h/c] haired teen furrowed their brows saying the last sentence in sceptical tone. The last thing they wanted was to put another person in unnecessary danger.

"Must you have put it like that?" Donnie rolled his eyes at the silly title. Then he put on a more serious face. "I am aware of the risk this request might bring with it. Nonetheless, I have my own reasons of doing that. Also, I may or may not took a pity on you and simply thought you could require a little assistance."

"Assistance? Me? Please, I am very well organized with everything-"

"Why were you in hurry earlier?" he asked crossing his arms while lifting one of his drawn eyebrows.

Their eyes widened in realisation.

"Oh, shit- aunt is so gonna kill me." the young hero said hurriedly and darted to the door in such speed that even the blue hedgehog would be jealous of.

"I think you forgot something." Donatello lifted their colorful jacket of the chair and extended his arm towards them.

The teen hastily turned around, grabbed the jacket and again speeded of to the exit.

"Thanks Donatello, see you tomorrow!"

"You can just call be Donnie or whatever. And try not to fall of the stairs!" he shouted after them not expecting any answer.

Despite that, he could hear a distant 'Bye, Donnie!' accompanied by sound of running.

The purple turtle stood on the center of the lab a little longer.

"Sigh. How this dumb-dumb is even alive..."

This is going to be interesting, wouldn't it?

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It's only the first chapter so nothing crazy happens here, but it'll be more interesting later

I think it's not bad tho

I'll also post it on ao3 and probably also wattpad later (I'll post link to it)

Updates will be under the tag

#tech-support ☆

And any questions, answers, fan arts and comics (that I plan on making) and else related under

#tech-support ☆: talk

So if you have any questions or just want to share something related to this fic then please go ahead! I really like talking about my AU's (￣∇￣)

Anyway, hope you have a great day/night! Bye~

- ghost

[sapphire-weapon]

I can't help but pick apart characters I like and resonate with. Where RE is concerned, it's kinda infamous to offer only little insights and tidbits. That personally leaves me to deepdive into fanbase opinions and thought pieces. Anyway, my question is, do have any favourite headcanons about Leon and his lifestyle/personality? :)

My two cents is that he's very introverted and a little bit awkward and lonely. Idk if that's obvious, or maybe you disagree? Just curious, if you'd like to weigh in with anything extra. :)

The thing about Leon is that I don't think he's introverted by nature; I think his emotional breakdown and subsequent depression and drinking problem sort of forced him into that lifestyle. This is for both versions of Leon, too -- Remake and OG. I think that pre-RE2 he was fairly extroverted (OG moreso than Remake, but still both) and would've rather gone out than stay in.

And while his actual nature hasn't changed, his mental health and lifestyle both have. On some level, he'd still prefer to go out than stay in, and he'd rather be with people rather than be alone, but his job keeps him pretty socially isolated, and the depressive part of his brain doesn't have the energy/doesn't want to be bothered with trying to navigate around it, because he also has a newfound sense of paranoia and self-loathing to fight through, too. So his brain just kind of goes "it's not worth it" now.

I think it's gotten worse as he's gotten older, too. OG RE4 Leon still seemed to want to try to hold onto some part of who he was before Raccoon City -- ID Leon, too. But then we start getting into Damnation and then RE6 and then Vendetta, and he just seems to crawl further and further into whatever post-trauma hole he's dug for himself.

Remake Leon is a slightly different beast in that regard; his character arc seems to have been accelerated a bit compared to OG, and he just went straight to the level of cynicism and self-isolation that his OG counterpart doesn't hit until RE6.

He's definitely lonely, though. There's no denying that. Leon exists in a world so far removed from the average person that he probably doesn't even remember how to have a normal conversation anymore.

Could you imagine post-RE4 Leon trying to just like... date normally...? Leon, who was kidnapped and coerced via the threat of violence against a child into his career -- a man who's been completely estranged from his family since 1998 -- just sitting there listening to some girl talk about how her boss is a dick and she's having problems with her sister or something. He's just like "... yeah that sounds... that's crazy :T" He's the personification of can'trelate.jpeg

And the people who do understand him are so physically far from him (I think Chris and Jill still live in Europe, at least for part of the year, if I'm not mistaken) and have their own lives that it's not like he keeps in touch with them very well.

Most of Leon's life probably blurs together, and he has a horrible concept of time as a result. Like, he'll go several years between actually physically seeing/hanging out with Claire, but every time he sees her, he's like "I just saw you last summer" -- but no, he very much did not.

Very few of his days are different from the last. He wakes up, works out, showers, goes to the office, comes home, has a few drinks and dicks around, then goes to sleep. Every day. And he doesn't really do anything much on the weekends, either. He cleans if he can muster the will to do it (fuck it, if not; it's not like he lives with anyone or ever has guests), and then he drinks and dicks around some more. And then the weekend is over. And the cycle repeats.

And when I say "dicks around" I mean that Leon has watched so many movies at this point in his life that he actually could be fun for conversation if he would just pull his head out of his own ass and realize that even normal people have, like, hobbies and interests and shit.

And while I make fun of him for being a dumbass idiot butt monkey all the time, I do genuinely think he reads a lot -- both fiction and nonfiction. Especially once ebooks really start taking off and becoming a thing.

I like to think that the big secret that he'll never tell anyone is that he's a sucker for a good romance. It's not his preferred go-to genre or anything, but every once in a while, he'll self-indulge and live vicariously through a romance story.

This next headcanon is 100% just me projecting, because this is what I did during and after my own breakdown when I still lived on the east coast -- but when he does want to get out of the house, he waits until late at night (like 11pm or later) and then goes and just. Watches the ocean.

And thinks about throwing himself into it. But never does.