#been having fun thinking more abt the setting of the AU it’s still vague but here’s what I’ve got

[nomairuins]

they r here

you get TWO ! scientist bc ok so the cadaver is an au cadaver jm not getting into it just yet its also to practice drawing him bald. a very scary fact is that he has to be bald for like at least a little while. soo yeah i am still working on avarice in that au it. um. yeha it isnt going well LOL so you get a normal avarice too. also rhese r very wuick and i think its been like A month since i actually drew. not just 4 my map

maybe ill draw them. ome time

[hypertimesstuff]

Was thinking more of my Hunger Games AU!! I'm thinking of making a few changes :)

uhh theres technically. kind of. hunger games spoilers but like this whole au will be full of spoilers lmao. Warning that there is a Lot of text below the cut, but I wld love if you guys read it since I've thought a lot abt it

District 2, I've finally decided, will be New York. New York and California in the present day are the most powerful states. I wanted to show that, with California being District 1 (previously established), and District 2 as New York. So, he and California are the two most powerful districts.

Because the districts are in totally different locations than where they used to be as states, the states chosen to be districts are chosen because they, as states, exhibit behaviors that make them favorable to be a specific district. Or, there are specific circumstances or situations that cause them to be favorable as a certain district.

The 11 states chosen to be districts, even before the disasters that caused Panem to exist, slowly, slowly changed into how they are in Panem. For example--New York slowly becomes more warm blooded, since he goes from, not only the east to the west, but the north to the south. Heights and builds also change, eye colors change, etc etc. personalities slowly change as well. When the disasters happen, it sets everything in stone. They are like this now. Theres no going back. When the disasters happen, they don't remember the names of who they used to be, and have vague, practically nonexistent memories of who they were. It's a reset.

Gov and DC are gone. completely gone. Replaced by the entities of the Capitol and Panem, they have no attachments to the districts (but they DO choose favorites).

District 13 won't be Florida !! he'll be district 4, fishing. Multiple reasons--1. He's known for, y'know, the ocean, the beach, the water, etc. 2. District 4 is a career district, a district favored by the capitol. I think its a lil bit ironic how Florida goes from,, y'know, how Florida is, bothering the government, to being a favorite of the government. And, lastly: Louisiana, whose Florida's best friend, who I imagine goes fishing and hunting with Florida, no longer exists. District 4 doesn't even remember him. I think it'd be fun to also make it hurt that way, that Florida's best friend will never join him in fishing again. So Florida gets to be the fishing district !! :] (I hope you appreciate my evil)

Regarding district 13: They're a new entity all together. They're a woman (she/they). All of the events that occur to District 13 have occurred in this AU as well. District 13 has always only been District 13. This, even from the start, causes distance between them and the other districts. Sure, the other districts all can't remember who they used to be, but there's still,,, a feeling, that District 13 is not like them. The other districts remember her, from before their rebellion and before they were forced underground, but they don't talk about them. Ever. They think she’s dead.

So. Nevada is mainly federal land right? I've seen some headcanons here and there that Nevada is, to some degree, controlled by Gov. I personally don't use the headcanon, but I'm using the concept behind it: that the government is able to control Nevada because he's mostly federal land. I'm applying this to District 2 (who was, as mentioned above, previously New York). District 2 is the district of masonry and defense. It's where the peacekeepers are stationed in. I'm imagining, because of that, District 2 is the one most under Panem's control.

All of the Districts have powers !! Reason being? The other states disappearing leaves magic behind, manifesting in the districts as abilities that suit the specific district. Sure, all of the people you love and care about are dead (or you can't remember them. Though, then again, you can't even remember yourself, so does it matter), but hey, you have powers now!

So, combining the last two ideas together. District 2's ability is to summon weapons out of thin air, kind of creating themselves. (Rise of the TMNT spoilers since his powers were inspoed by this, but think Donatello's ninpo, basically). As you can imagine, Panem and the Capitol pretty much completely controlling a living arsenal of weapons is. Not great !

District 5, the power and electricity district, is Ohio. Because he's one of the states that produces the most electricity in the country. Thats. It really.

District 6, the transportation district, is Illinois. Chicago is the busiest rail hub in the US (which I just now learned !!) so,, it seemed fitting for him to be the transportation district.

District 7, the lumber district, is Oregon. Oregon is a pretty foresty place, AND they produce the most lumber in the country. So. Lumber district now.

District 8, the textile district, is North Carolina. Another thing I just now searched and learned is that they make the most textiles in the country. Therefore, they're the textile district.

District 9, the grain district, is North Dakota. Once more, I just learned that North Dakota produces the most grain in the US. So, wow, they get to be the grain district, shocking!!

Previously, I chose district 11 (agriculture) to be Texas. I'm changing it. He's now district 10 (coincidentally the district number right beneath district 11), because Texas produces the most livestock in the country.

District 11, the agriculture district, is Iowa. Yes, California is the number one agricultural state, but Iowa is the second, and California is already district 1. So Iowa gets to be the agriculture district.

District 12, the coal district, is Wyoming !! I do in fact have multiple reasons for this one. Wyoming produces the most coal in the country. Additionally, Wyoming is often, as frequently seen, forgotten by the others and even Gov. District 12 is also, like Wyoming, forgotten and dismissed. So! Now they get to be District 12.

District 3, the electronics district, is Nevada. I chose this one for Nevada because, for one, Nevada with Las Vegas seems to fit the electronics idea of it the best--I would've chosen New York for this, but alas, he's district 2 already. Also !! I thought abt it rn and !! It also makes sense because district 3 is between two districts heavily favored by the capitol (district 2 and district 4). And yet. He himself is not a career district. So, SO close to being a favorite, but he's not. (passes you a "this reminds me of California and Nevada's relationship" card).

District 2, District 1, and District 4 are the Capitol's (and Panem's, in extension) favorites. They're treated the best.

District 1 and District 2 are very, very close. They never leave each others side, unless the Capitol or Panem needs them. (cough cough. California and New York, as completely new people, are still soulmates throughout it all. The love persists even when they and everything else around them changes.)

District list: District 1 (California), District 2 (New York), District 3 (Nevada), District 4 (Florida), District 5 (Ohio), District 6 (Illinois), District 7 (Oregon), District 8 (North Carolina), District 9 (North Dakota), District 10 (Texas), District 11 (Iowa), District 12 (Wyoming).

You may--or may not idk--have noticed that there is multiple states of each region now as districts. This was on purpose. Guess which region is the exception. :] <—the face of evil

I had ! a lot of ideas ! Please do enjoy and share your thoughts bc this AU is rotting my brain. If you have any questions, I would also love to answer. I have put so much effort into this. god

(psst. I'm also going to hopefully write a lil thing with New York--specifically, where the Changes start to become noticeable)

[rylekayner]

pls tell me more abt jets punk au 👂👁️👁️👂

Wooo yes let’s go.

Ok so i’ve got a bunch of vague unconnected thoughts hence why I’ve been making my little drawing series instead of an actual fic so this is going to be very disjointed. I don’t know how long this may end up being so I’ll put it all bellow the cut :))

Mark and Connor meet at work, Mark is a tattoo apprentice and Connor is a piercer. Initially there’s a lot of tension between them, they’re opposite sides of the same coin.

Connor is an agitator and Mark’s uptight.

Half of Mark’s personality is that he’s completely straight edge and Connor used to sell drugs in high school.

Connor is a crowd killer, Mark is Mr pit etiquette.

It comes to a head when they both end up at a house show, Connor elbows Mark right in the face (genuinely by accident but to this day Mark doesn’t full believe him) and Adam drags them out side and tells them they need to get their shit together and either fuck or fight but just get it over with. Given Connor’s reputation Mark assumes he’s about to have to start throwing punches when he’s grabbed by his collar until he realised he’s being pulled in for a kiss.

They end up actually talking things out a realise they actually do a good job of rounding out each others harsher edges. Connor aggressiveness, and Marks elitist tendencies.

They still fight even 4 years into their relationship but they understand each other now much better than pretty much anyone else.

-

The band starts with Mark on guitar and vocals, Connor on drums with back up vocals and Troubs on bass. They end up adding Josh as lead guitar after his old band breaks up (not sure of the details with this one but I want Draisaitl in there somewhere cause I like the history between Jmo and Drai).

Troubs ends up leaving the band when he gets a “real job” in New York but he introduces the rest of the guys of Kyle as their new bassist.

Kyle would never admit it but he was terrified of Helle for the first couple of months, Connor has been in Winnipeg for years at this point but his reputation from the Michigan scene still haunts him and Kyle and heard stories. It’s almost hard to reconcile this version of Connor as the same one who’d allegedly set someone backyard on fire back in Michigan.

They end up bonding over making fun of Mark and Connor’s happy to have someone to smoke with again. Mark is still straight edge just less pretentious about it and Josh will do edibles but doesn’t like smoking so it’s been a while since Connor’s hand someone who will physically smoke with him. Once Kyle gets over his fear he has a little bit of hero worship going on which makes it very easy for Connor to convince him to get up to mischief.

This is going to end with mark/Connor/Kyle if I can help it.

-

Josh is a musical prodigy, he was in a metal band previously and has a crazy amount of skill with a guitar, mark thought he was being replaced when Troubs suggested recruiting him until Josh opened his mouth and they heard his excuse for singing (even for a punk band it was shocking) but he’s got a natural inclination to music in a way none of the other quite do. Together with Connor they write a majority of the bands songs.

He had a messy break up with Drai which caused his last band to fall apart and after that he mostly just focused on music and collage (he’s getting a masters in anthropology, they all thought it was a joke when he told them) but then there’s this new bouncer at Adams bar (Adam owns a dive bar sorry this is all very disjointed) and Josh is enamoured. Spoiler alert it’s Morgan who is not at all involved in the punk scene, he’s just new to Winnipeg and needed a job and now he’s at all of the gigs the play at Adam’s and Josh won’t talk to him because “he barely looks old enough to be in here”

Uhhh I think that’s it for the moment I’m on a lot of pain meds but if you wanna know anythjng in particular please ask I’m so excited to talk about this au the more I talk about it the easier it is for me when I eventually do write it

TL;DR

Mark: Straight Edge, Sings and Plays guitar, in a long term relationship with Helle

Connor: Shit stirer, plays drums, sometimes sings, writes a lot of the songs, in a long term relationship with Mark

Kyle: Newest member of the band, plays bass primarily but can play several other instruments, has something suspiciously flirty going on with Helle and Scheif

Josh: the most traditionally talented, plays guitar, is not allowed to sing under any circumstances, helps Helle with writing, had a nasty break up with Drai a few years back is now busy making heart eyes a Bear.

Morgan: Not really involved in the scene, just works as a bouncer for a lot of the gigs the boys play. Spends a lot of time day dreaming about Josh serenading him (only because he’s never hear josh sing)

[zroem]

*jolts awake at 4am* Venti’s flying castle AU

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[doodlebloo]

ur take on whether or not u can trust someone ab not shipping real folks is based as always dude. one way i try to avoid real bitch shippers is blocking anyone who makes a headcanon or sum that seems even the slightest bit out of character and more like the cc's. what r they gonna do? dm you? cry? you gonna cry? oh also by blocking anyone who makes dnf or karlnap truthing posts.

real shit being a part of the cbeeduo side of tumblr has been stressful as fuck n its why ive distanced myself a bit bc im fucking tired of seeing shit in the tags thats just fucking disrespectful and gross. major respect for being a cbeeduo main in this day in age o7

(Do not reblog this ask)

You'd think in a fandom that has a shitty reputation based on a few weird people making everyone look bad you'd see less of people thinking a whole community is weird just because a few weird people are making them look bad.

And like once a community (like beeduo enjoyers) gets a bad reputation from a few weird people it makes everything look that much worse. Like for example if a community not notorious for having to deal with truthers posted something like "Omg x streamer said hanging out with y streamer was the hilight of their week!" It would be fine, but if a beeduo main posted it everyone would be suspicious. Which is kind of deserved! Because for some reason beeduo specifically attract irl shippers like a moth to a flame!

And it's really uncomfortable because as much as you can SAY over and over that you're not an irl shipper, there's no way to prove it. You can SAY that you don't have an alternate Tumblr acct for truthing under a different name, but even if you let someone comb through all your files you still may be able to hide it! It's entirely based on the honors system, and I don't know about any of you but I wouldn't accuse someone of truthing without genuine, solid PROOF that they're doing something fucked up.

It's really difficult because like the line between character and cc is THERE. It is. Tubbo is not a half goat ex president with burn scars nukes and a son. Like there is a line. But with this fandom it's really hard to make like AUs and such unless it's like still a fantasy setting like medieval setting or space or something. Bc if you're like "High school au!" Then like ok... How is your version of c!Tubbo who has never fought in wars wasn't found in a box has no scars doesn't have a son etc really THAT much different from just normal Tubbo? It's very complicated and hard to do in a way that's not weird

It's just a slippery slope. Which is why I AGREE with Ranboo's phrasing! He kind of HAS to be that vague, because the more vague he is the more leeway it gives him later to call out anything specific he thinks is gross. I get that and also He Especially has every right to be wary of IRL shippers and truthers, considering his chat's recent obsession with "jokingly" calling him gay/saying he came out. (Which, by the way, INCREDIBLY hypocritical to make gay jokes abt a streamer and then accuse other people of irl shipping/truthing but I digress.)

Also I don't even know that I'd consider myself that much of a CBeeduo main! I literally have just written a handful of fics about them (2/3 of my bigger ones are mostly c! benchtrio) but for some reason these two characters have the most like complicated and vague set of boundaries for writing them literally ever. Like I don't want to write anything that makes anyone uncomfortable at all, but I also don't want to say that everything cBeeduo has ever done in canon is platonic, bc I don't know what Ranboo and Tubbo's intentions were. And as time goes on it only seems to get more and more complicated and people seem a lot less willing to tolerate other interpretations (ppl who see them as /r being called truthers, ppl who see them as /p being told they're wrong or getting made fun of).

The way I see it there are only two correct ways to handle things like this: either BLOCK the person who made the content just like you said, or try and TALK to them - y'know, like in a civil way? Tell them what part of their thing you think might be breaking boundaries, if they agree they'll change it and if they don't you can block each other? No callouts no death threats no nothing? That sure would be nice huh.

[sonicfrontiers]

OOUGGH IM SO GLAD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE THINKING ABOUT SEA OF THIEVES HLVRAI AU... PLEASE !!!! PLEASE PLEASE SHARE UR IDEAS I WANNA HEAR THEM SO BAD

OHHH ANON YOU HAVE SAVED MY FUCKING LIFE WITH THIS ASK THANK YOU SO MUCH

SO !! i barely have anything yet bc i just had this fucking brain blast like an hour ago but. here are my Thoughts so far:

so the very first thing i tried to think of was like. what everyone is? i did my best w this but i am so fuckin open to ideas..... i don’t know shit! 

the easiest answer right off the bat was who the humans are (or at least the pirates who appear to be human) in this. we got the science team as the pirate crew—gordon, tommy, bubby, and coomer! they are sailing the seas and maybe they are not doing a very good job of it but it’s fine. it’s Fine

the second easiest answer was benrey’s situation. we got skeletons fuck yeah. benrey got some of that curse uh oh! however w benrey’s situation that’s more like... sometimes being a skeleton rather than just steadily turning into one, i thought maybe the curse fucked up on him? maybe it’s like. he’s only half cursed to just sometimes be a skeleton but he can also look human again too. i don’t fucking know. also OH SHIT BENREY HAS TO BE NOT HUMAN UHJHHHHHHHH fuck it guess he’s part ancient now too. i guess. shit i’ll have to spend more time on him but this is.. the gist

next we got uhh forzen babey. i’ll be honest i’m not too confident on this one. i had the vague idea that maybe he’s a mermaid? although whether he’s one of the mermaids that steals sunken pirates and turns them into mermaids or one of the mermaids who was turned into a pirate i can’t really decide. i mean the pirates-turned-mermaids are always helpful in game, and forzen. well. Isn’t, but the mermaid-mermaids live so far deep that they’re never seen? so i don’t know. but he’s out there.... in the ocean....... somewhere....... waiting for me to have more brain power to answer this

it’s darnold time! i’ll be honest i also don’t have many ideas for this guy. i thought maybe he’s got something to do with the order of souls? that’s vaguely related to potions right? sage darnold with the oos eyes curse and he reads the fuckin skull juices to help out the crew with their voyages..... i think? there are other options too but this is the one that jumped out at me the most!

GREGORY MAN. the man himself. SO I GOT TWO POSSIBILITIES HERE FOR THIS GUY. what i can’t decide on is how much of canon sot i want to be canon in this au... mainly, the stuff abt the pirate lord. i got two options here, one of which is that ramsey still exists as the pirate lord and he hangs out doing mostly the same shit he does in canon, and gman is like. an ancient who stuck around the sea of thieves for whatever reason? which would make tommy a descendant of the ancients too, hence why i specified earlier that all the pirates in the crew might not be human..... EITHER THAT OR gman is the pirate lord and ramsey fuckin uh doesn’t exist in the au. and i CANNOT for the life of me decide which i like better. ANY HELP APPRECIATE HERE PLS

OH ALSO I FORGOT SUNKIST HE’S A MONKEY THAT TOMMY HAS AND HE CAN DO COOL TRICKS AND EVERYONE LOVES HIM. HE’S IMMORTAL SOMEHOW. DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT

THEN. it’s tim,e for “how the fuck did everyone get past the shroud into the sot”

i think no matter who the pirate lord is in this au they’d have no problems letting pretty much anyone in honestly. ramsey just kinda says “oh you washed up unconscious on the shores of old sailor’s isle? cool let me just not ask any questions and part the shroud for you real quick ok bye” and honestly i can’t imagine gman would be much different—although he’d probably be more cryptic abt it than ramsey is

SO. GORDOS. i feel like him coming to the sot was a last resort of sorts. he feels lost in life, unsure what his goal is or where he’s going, and he hears of this mystical sea that nobody who enters ever leaves but apparently there’s adventure and treasure and wonder there so he’s like fuck it, i’ve got nothing else to do and goes there hoping to find some sort of purpose. and find it he does :)

tommy time! i feel like whatever brought him here had to be partially related to his dad? either he’s just There bc. well. his dad’s the fuckin pirate lord, or gman’s all cryptid abt being an ancient and left tommy to sort of grow up in the sot on his own while gman kept a distant eye on him, just so tommy wouldn’t find out too much abt being an ancient or whatever. uh. so he’s pretty familiar w the world of sot and all its wacky magic shit! 

(actual sot lore question here bc this is smth i don’t know—does all the magic that happens in sea of thieves happen beyond the shroud? i wonder if the rest of the world also has skeletons and giant sea monsters and magic and shit or if it’s just inside the sea of thieves...... hmmm for this au i’m gonna assume that all magic is something unique to the sea of thieves and doesn’t happen beyond the shroud) 

The Bubby. honestly i like the idea that bubby came to the sot just to like... get away from the outside world? like maybe he’s on the run from something............ this is very very vague in my mind and is extremely subject to change but i like the whole “I’M LEAVING THIS WORLD!” thing as bubby being like fuck the regular world i’m going into the flesh eating devil shroud and nobody can stop me. and then he did

coomer. the man himself. i think coomer came to the sot searching for adventure! and more to learn! he’s always looking to broaden his horizons and where else to go but to the mystical sea of thieves when looking for new experiences? coomer is just here to have a good time :)

UH i think darnold already existed in the sot... he just sorta Lives There... there are npcs who just fucking were born and raised there right. like tasha was in the sot at age 4 so it makes sense right?? darnold just live here and he helps get the crew from the outside world familiar with the sot!

FORZEN has been in the sot for ages—either he’s always been here as a mermaid or he got turned into one so long ago and he’s just been getting angrier and angrier w it every year he’s trapped here. he barely remember why he came anymore but god does he regret it. :(

gman either way just kind of Is There huh..... as the pirate lord i honestly can’t imagine his origin being much different than ramsey’s? like he just makes friends w the ancients like hey what’s up i like this sea. my sea now. or he Is an ancient and just fucking chills there. whatever

OK THAT’S MOSTLY IT FOR WHAT I HAVE FOR TECHNICAL STUFF WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT..... HERE ARE SOME OTHER FUN BITS I THOUGHT OF:

bubby discovers firebombs and Uh Oh. Uh Oh Everyone Watch Out Bubby’s Got Fire Powers Now. he only accidentally sets the ship on fire SOMETIMES it’s FINE. (also his favorite region is the devil’s roar. unsurprisingly. he likes the chaos it brings)

bubby and tommy + coomer as well are agents of chaos in general. they don’t follow the fuckin Rules and it makes gordon’s life a living hell. 

bubby: look gordon i dug up some grubs! gordon: cool man, put those in the barrel and we can use them to fish late- bubby: (shoving the grubs in his mouth) gordon: BUBBY NO WHAT THE FUCK DON’T EAT TH coomer: oh, what a good idea, bubby! i am feeling quite hungry myself! (also starts eating worms) gordon: I’M COOKING DINNER AT THE CAMPFIRE RIGHT NOW PLEASE DON’T tommy: oh are the worms okay to eat? i wonder what they taste like gordon: NO STOP benrey, shoving worms in gordon’s face: eat worms? eat worms now please?

coomer finds out how to launch himself out of a cannon and he becomes unstoppable. the crew is attacked by an enemy ship and everyone’s like “oh fuck everyone get to the cannons!” and they go there to find coomer fucking launching himself directly onto the enemy ship, and he kills their entire crew in seconds. by the time he mermaids back to his ship everyone is fucking stunned silent and coomer is just like “well, that takes care of that! let’s get back on course, gentlemen!” and since then they just fucking fire coomer at people like a weapon whenever they get attacked by other pirates or skeletons. It Always Works

UH AND I THINK THAT’S KIND OF WHAT I HAVE SO FAR? i might be forgetting something but this post is long enough as is...... 

IF ANYONE HAS ANYTHING TO ADD FEEL FREE!!! i love sea of thieves so fuckin much man... and i didn’t even TOUCH on anything like any of the reaper’s bones shit which i would be interested in looking at getting involved in this au somehow...... i will probably come back to this if anyone else is interested !! otherwise that’s all i got for now!!!! thank you so much for asking anon!!!!!

[sothischickshe]

2, 3, 4, 24, 30

2. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

ah, time. numbers. yes, definitely good topics to speak to me about, uh huh uh huh.

ummm while i’m writing and, particularly, editing, i’m definitely doing more writing than reading. bc i only really work on one thing at a time, that means the rest of the time i’m more reading than writing. though i do also spend time THINKING abt writing/staring into space....does that count as writing?! 

also also, i do some reading-which-counts-as-writing, i reckon. like i reread filing her nails last night as vague prep/attempt to get back into the headspace, although i passed out cos i was Very Tired. is that a reading or a writing or both or neither?!

i would guess though mm, maybe a 60/40 split reading/writing? but it’s hard to gauge cos my habits are pretty cyclical and also changeable based on whatever else is going on/how tired i am etc etc, and also i dont understand time or numbers and resent the idea i am imperfect in any way, how dare

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do?

i’m sure! idk if i can point to any specifically but i think like all of fanfiction first of all cos you get to read stuff that’s so creative and character-driven, where plot might amble around in the bg. 

and i think a lot of the stuff ive gravitated to or been taken out by is short/angsty/wordplay-y/character-driven/canon-y etc etc. but also i think that someone else might read the same stuff and be impressed by other aspects (say the emotionality or the structure or the dialogue or whatever), so i kiiiiiiiiinda feel like, idk, what resonates with you abt the thing (fic or otherwise) might be the stuff that you’re most interested in...?

also, i know with gg fic i was v touched by author’s notes that were like ‘hey if you’re thinking of writing something, do!’ or ‘idk i just wanted to read something like it so i wrote it’

4. Link your three favourite fics right now.

um i’m not sure if this question means like DO IT REALLY FAST or they’re FAVES RIGHT NOW or THEY’RE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW or what, but i guess i’ll interpret it as being about WIPs...? 

sooo here’s 3:

Get To Be Mine by @septiembur i love this story and it makes me really happy and i read the update today and i wanna yell about it!!!!!! i love this beth pov so much!!!!! and ruby and annie are so fun here too!!!!!! i love them!!!! and rio is such a wind up merchant affdfgffgf and so is beth and i hate them and i’m so glad i don’t have to have dinner with them. also!!! fake dating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

don’t give it a hand, offer it a soul aka political au by @medievalraven the last chapter was a delightfully chunky boy and this is such an interesting au setting for these morons and i love it!!!! the rio pov is hilariously grumpy and also v uhh beth-horny, but the premise is also kinda emo/griefy, and the story def gives due weight to that and doesnt minimise it. also!!! fake dating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do No Harm by @riosnecktattoo i love this so much!!!!! beth n rio are in a kinda better place but still a bit of a Mess, and mick is doing a horrid job of managing the situation afgffhf. AND INJURIES HAVE LIKE...REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES?! DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS???! no fake dating BUT there is like fake occupational therapising which if it isnt a trope it should be cos it is GOD TIER!!!!!!

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

lol, i’m not sure i have one of these??? i mean there’s def tropes i have no interest in writing, or reading abt, but idk that i NEVER wanna hear about them?! also like...naming a thing, allows you to discuss a thing? like, pointing out the manic pixie dream girl trope or fridging or bury your gays or whatever is useful

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

i have no real WIP and certainly no written words that I can produce a snippet from, so i cannot.

i do think that the next thing i write will probs be the next chapter of filing her nails though, and, at least at present, i think it will feature rio internally going on abt the fancy sashimi-grade salmon he buys but doesnt make sashimi with bc ofc, and how beth thinks he overcooks it, and how he thinks that is evidence of her being legitimately insane

distract me while i wait for this delivery for approx. ever

[udurghsigil]

9, 11, 13, 15?

9. do you believe in auras? it depends on what specifically we're calling an aura.... i DO believe in the idea of like. a spiritual energy field surrounding the body but the way alot of ppl talk about it i don't rly believe in, like being able to See them and having the color mean something... i don't even rly understand how other witches work with them. i work with them in the sense of needing to do shielding exercises to protect mine + also having to purify it alot when im getting rly rly down. IDK is this just energy work or aura-related magic??????

11. vague about your crush(es) i fell for them rly quickly... like i think it was just maybe a month and a half after we first met that i rly started acknowledging my feelings. i've been having a rly hard time opening up to loving ppl again and rly scared of the idea of being in a relationship again or anything like that so i think it is just like. so cosmically funny that someone so openly affectionate and filled with love came into my life at the moment. the way they talk to me reminds me of how i used to talk way way back b4 i got this insecure about things. talking to them is so nice, i think they're rly cute and sweet and friendly and every time i get a notification from them it sets off a bunch of chimes in my head and i kick my feet alot and am just. so happy man omg. knowing them has genuinely helped me learn to love again and feel what it's like to be loved again, since... it's been a while hehe. anyways :^) i guess things r more than a crush now and they will probably see this so <333 13. talk about an au or story you came up with HELPPP THIS POST IS GONNA BE EVEN LONGER THAN IT ALREADY IS. well i am working on an intricate kinda overarching plotline for the general universe my ocs live in... it's a post-apocalypse ... apocalypse story.... involving a cosmic war between god and lucifer. both of them actually split into multiple different people which i find very fun. lucifer splits into lucifer (2) and satan, who are still very much demons. god splits into two mutated human girls (forty-six and two r their names) and a physical manifestation of the holy spirit. there's alot to it so im not gonna clog this up any more than i already have but if u actually want me to ramble more abt it u can ask me and i gladly will 😭 15. do you prefer space or the ocean? SPACE. i was a big space kid in my youth. im forever enamored by the stars and the moon and everything else that's floating around out there. tell space i love her <3

[bronanlynch]

weekly media round up, whatever day of the week this is edition

me: I should do this on the same day every week

also me: cannot keep to a consistent schedule for anything ever apparently

listening: My Grand Plan from the Lightning Thief musical, which played on the radio the other day and I was like, oh wow this is good I wanna listen to the whole show when I get home, and also if I heard this in high school it would’ve absolutely destroyed me. and then I started sobbing on the highway so maybe I’m not really that far from the person I was in high school after all. y’know. love to realize that you relate to Annabeth Chase just as much now as you did when you were twelve.

and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings specifically about these lines and like, the intersection between being condescended to because you’re (seen as) a girl and being condescended to because you’re not neurotypical so all you have are academic achievements but none of them ever seen to actually matter

reading: I backed an f/f scifi/fantasy anthology called Silk & Steel on kickstarter a while back and I got the pdf for it this week and it’s good!! it’s really fun!! I’m only reading a few stories at a time to like. fully savor it, y’know? so I’m only partway through. I think my fave so far is either the one about parallel worlds and anti-monarchism by Freya Marske, or the one about two trans girls running away together by Neon Yang, but I’ve really enjoyed all of them so far (I got it through the kickstarter but you can also just. buy it however you normally buy your ebooks)

also lots of articles abt labor laws and workers’ rights because my coworker and I were complaining about how we don’t get paid enough and he made an offhand comment about how he wasn’t gonna ask how much I make because that would be breach of contract and I was like. I know that’s not true but I don’t have the sources to back it up right now so I’m gonna do some research and then have this conversation again (it is, in fact, super illegal in the US for your employer to prevent you from sharing your salary with your coworkers except in a few specific instances which don’t apply here so)

watching: I’ve been watching The Magicians, unfortunately, because the whole destiel thing made me crave content that’s simultaneously gay and homophobic. I got through most of season 2 a few years ago and then uh. the school year ended and I moved away from the person I was watching it with, and my review is that end of season 2 is good, season 3 is pretty fun even though there are definitely some aspects and plotlines that could’ve been handled a lot more thoughtfully, and I would be enjoying season 4 so much if I didn’t know how it ended. one of the main characters is possessed by the big bad of the season and everyone else is somewhere along the spectrum of ‘trying to defeat the big bad’ and ‘trying to help the possessed friend’ and there’s some tasty drama. there’s an episode about a third of the way through that ends with 1) the Main main character definitively ending any association at all with his ex-girlfriend and 2) the revelation that the main character and his possessed friend have been in love with each other for a while now but couldn’t get together because of plot and also the friend being afraid of emotional intimacy. which sounds like a nice set up for, y’know, them getting together, you would think? you would be wrong. by the end of the season the main character gets back together with his ex and then dies. this is outdated fandom drama but I’m still gonna be mad about it.

you would think a line like that would have any sort of meaningful follow-up. you would be wrong (also apparently I can take screenshots on netflix on this laptop?? wild)

playing: nothing recently, I’ve been either busy or too beset by headaches to Game, but I did buy the rest of the Dishonored games because they were on sale so. once I get through the first game I can play Dishonored content that I haven’t already played. knife daughter time here we come

making: continuing to pick away at the same cosplay I’ve been vaguely working on since like May, now I’m actually cutting the pieces for the mock-up down to their new sizes so hopefully I’ll start assembling mock-up take 2 relatively soonish. the thing about no cons in the foreseeable future means I don’t have any sort of deadline for this at all

writing: wrote my first m/f fic in a very long time for Persona Rarepair Week because I love a good academic rivalry regardless of genders. I also signed up for Secret Samol (Friends at the Table fandom holiday exchange) and realized that some of the prompts I was asking for I things I wanted to write myself so. I’ve added Clem/Gucci fantasy AU to my ideas doc specifically so I can do a scene where Gucci puts the point of her sword under Clem’s chin because I am a simple person with simple needs

[leatherbookmarking]

cql “college au”, but

set in ?????????

yunmeng trio lives together, having moved out of their family house, and is (attempting to) using this chance to SHINE

in which jiang yanli succeeds, jiang cheng would love to Shine, whatever it means, but the thought of it makes him ridiculously stressed. wwx is just ridiculous, and bi

twin jades live w/ their uncle who’s some, idk, professor or some other fancy thing. they are a shining example of proper behaviour

in which xichen has started going to parties in his second year. he is a happy drunk. everyone loves him at least as much as he loves everyone, and

wangji has been to one (1) party. with xichen. he managed 15 minutes, ate one (!)potato chip, and, seeing his bro is in capable, responsible, big manly hands of nie mingjue, left, for he had homework

they also have a big house and a pleasant amount of dogs in it.

“why” what, are you a cop

wwx and lwj meet on one of those subjects you have to sign up for but you know it’s going to give you absolutely nothing. wwx is immediately smitten and spends the first class trying to hit on him. lwj doesn’t notice he’s being hit on, deeply immersed in the lecture

wwx does not, though, give up, and eventually bothers lwj into... gasp! sitting together at a library

wwx: pretty sure that’s almost like dating, ha    jc: yeah, in primary school, maybe

“this is so weird. why is everyone so quiet? it’s not natural, how can you be so quiet, i’m pretty sure this girl over there is dead, oh god, now i hear the sound of my heartbeat, it’s so annoying”

“i am studying.”

nanananana fast forward lwj at some point tells wwx about his dogs. a hint of a smile appears on his lips and wwx just (dreamy sigh) i love you...

lwj: hm?     wwx: i said i love (split second of terrible realization) dogs  .

lwj: hm. (the tiniest smile, still)

etc etc yeah i only care abt the fun bits. things happen and so wwx ends up @ the lan house (to work on a project, whatever), about to experience five levels of hell (for all five dogs)

Consternation.

wwx (currently hanging over the fence, which is intent on not letting him go) rattles into an apology mixed with an explanation and some additional words of adoration for lwj

eventually lwj Understands, but there’s xichen inside and he was supposed to come with a “friend”, a concept xichen was very excited about, so he tells the dogs to please go home, extracts wwx from the fence and leads him a dogless path into the house

while, at the same time, conjuring up a plan. he doesn’t want to send away his dogs every time wwx comes (of course, it’s not like he wants him to come, okay, he’s irritating, he’d rather do the project alone, etc, etc) so he’s going to Make It so wwx isn’t scared of dogs anymore

and so the adventure begins, with lwj talking more in one sitting than wwx has ever heard him in the course of their-- existence in a close vicinity, about how the dogs that gave wwx the fear were probably even more scarred than he was, mistreated by their owners (for a second lwj has a vague... irritation on his face. that irritation would manifest in other people by a fifteen minutes long rant with swearing and throwing things at the walls). usually dogs are not aggressive and mostly interested in either chilling or play.

he shows wwx dog baby pictures which also include some pictures of, well, lwj. wwx experiences emotions

the lans actually have a temporary home situation going on for those dogs, and are gently taking care of them, figuring out their fears and such so they could be integrated better into society, so

aside from that they have a lovely young mixed breed lady who is entirely fine. it’s just, when humans think they’re giving her a bath? she is actually dying

you are not dying, says lan wangji. she is not convinced. she yells

this is when wwx notices that lan wangji, while a little bit shorter than him, has, in fact, some nice shoulders (it is a good exercise to wrestle with a large dog for an hour). the fact that he is entirely -- not a hyperbole -- soaking wet is, well. helping.

they leave victorious, lwj with what feels like hectolitres of water on his person and clothes, wwx with a bruise on his nose from being hit by a dog snout, wiggling on max power

romance ?

nie mingjue is a glorious athlete with kickass grades, big plans for the future and sexy mustache. nie huaisang just wants to open his small etsy shop, and a drink

wen qing is a med student. do not bother her

she does, though, attend parties from time to time, to unwind. on one of them, jiang cheng, in the middle of stuttering through his list of things he likes in a girl, looks to the side. “forexampleshe’snice”, he mutters

wen ning, having taken a swig of his drink, processes what he’s just heard. the swig lands on his shirt

wen qing snarls at a dude hitting aggressively on her friend. jiang cheng feels something in him awaken

as wwx and nhs observe (utter mirth) and, in nhs’s case, almost take notes

yi city trio live in a shitty flat, being broke

xxc and sl were high school bros, that is until they got in an argument and sl demonstratively got a scholarship abroad

so yi city trio, consisting of xxc, an honor student, a-qing, a passing student, and xy, a human being who has definitely seen a syllabus at some point, are roommates

oh my god they are roommates

until sl comes back from the scholarship and xxc, fully aware their flat is shit, offers him a place, because he’s a beautiful man with a beautiful heart

for the first two weeks of sl’s living with them, xy and sl are sincerely convinced the other is xxc’s boyfriend, and antagonize each other accordingly

xxc has, as far as he’s concerned, approximately zero boyfriends

or does he???

a-qing has returning thoughts about moving out.

if jin guangyao loses a scholarship to some moron again, he Will commit mass murder

with what, inquires nie mingjue, you are a noodle with noodle arms and noodle legs. he says that while patting jgy’s thigh. said thigh indeed looks like a noodle next to his big, manly hand

haha oh stop it, giggles xichen, lovingly drunk, into jgy’s shoulder

????? profit?

[christinesficrecs]

Lost Sterek Fics

So many lost fics!  Please comment/message me if you can help. :) 

***

- I’m pretty sure it’s kind of long but I could be mistaken, stiles and Derek have children and at some point their son becomes an alpha and the near the end of the book Derek and his son turn into these giant wolves and fight off a creature that I can’t remember and stiles is really upset about it cause they might never be able to turn back. 

- it’s of sheriff spanking stiles and derek is in stiles room listening. stiles goes back in his room and they have sex!!

- Derek was confused by the other bitten werewolves saying things like "the wolf wants" or "the wolf part of me" because he always have been one since he was born a werewolf and never divided himself like that? 

- Derek is drunk & thinks that his feelings are unreciprocated& stiles takes him back & tells him that they are not so Derek lines up his fingers with Stiles & counts them to 10,so basically he's saying that he is not dreaming& the feels behind that one!!!

- Derek is famous and powerful & he and Stiles start a relationship. What I remember is one scene in particular where they are being interviewed and they get some judgement because Derek and Stiles are versatile and werewolves consider an Alpha as a bottom a sign of weakness. I remember Stiles & Derek basically rolling their eyes at each other about the stupidity of that while being interviewed. 

- Sterek are in love, but so are their kids. So they never get married, (because they don’t want to hinder their kids love) but their kids end up married at the end. (might be a series)

- Werewolves growls all have different meanings. Some generic ones everyone can understand. But some growls you have to know the wolf really well to know what that growl means. Derek has this growl that Stiles doesn't know the meaning of.

- Derek and Stiles are fighting and Stiles says something like "we don't trust ech other" and Derek brings what happened at the pool ans say something like "that doesn't mean nothing to me" 

- Stiles is writhing the story of his life with Derek and at the end he write it as if Derek have died in fire and his last words with Derek is something like if I die I lose you and that scare the sh*t out of me or something then he stop writing because his husband -SHOCERK- enters the room and it is Derek

- Stiles and friends cheat at lacrosse to make their families happy. Because they were fired from Hale Company. And Derek and stiles are in a secret relationship?

- Stiles, and the others, end up befriending Erica while Peter is still going around killing people as an alpha. I only remember that Stiles and Erica, with some of the others, were at like a diner? And Peter attacks, and bites, Erica when they leave.

- i’m pretty sure it was a human au that was set in New Orleans. One of them, Stiles or Derek, worked at call center and the other worked at a diner. I think Scott was Stiles’ roommate." & "update i remember that Derek was a 911 call operator and Stiles was the one working as a server at the diner."

- Stiles is magic and when they were lilttleish kids makes Scott’s father go away, possibly forever.

stiles’ mother/grandma always made him a special soup, and he never knew what the secret ingredient was until Derek made it for him the same way, when he realised it was love.

- Stiles and derek are running away together to fight monsters. At some point there was a troll closing up on them and they hid on top of a tree and stiles got loopy? 

- Derek and Issac are cops who follows who stiles is an agent gone rogue. I think stiles kills the bad guys in frond of them and saves Derek's life. 

- Stiles and Isaac alone in a house and they hear a suspicious noise so Stiles is like we should call Derek but the suspicious noise actually ended up being Derek and he’s proud of them for thinking to call him?

- it's either a season1 or 2 au where stiles and derek enter an arrangement where they sex it up in exchange for derek to try to teach scott werewolfy stuff. i remember at one point danny and stiles talk abt the arrangement and danny later chews derek out abt being more gentle. 

- I vaguely recall a season 1 canon divergence where Allison tells the sheriff that Kate has Derek chained up under the Hale house  

- Stiles and derek are mates and Stiles goes out of town for a while and derek goes into his wolf form and sort of becomes a bit feral but then stiles comes back and helps him

- derek and stiles are at some sort of searching ceremony esque interview and derek unconsciously flashes his eyes at stiles. Peter explains later in the fic that derek was trying to pique stiles' interest (unknowingly). 

- Stiles is patient/test subject on somenkind of shady facility where they do experiments on humans and I think he's been there most of his life. Derek is a new doctor in there and is the first one who is kind to stiles.

- Derek only asked stiles out to annoy Scott, but actually fell for him, stiles over hears Derek and Issac talking about it and I think he leaves for college, I remember near the end that the wolfs did something to his jeep so stiles had not choice to stay at the house to talk to Derek because Derek made a huge mistake and wants stiles back. 

- to help defeat the alpha pack Stiles and Allison go to Derek. Derek says he can only do it if they join his pack. Derek proceeds to have sex with Stiles, while Allison has sex with Issac and Boyd. Scott gets pissed, and Allison has Boyd’s babies. I think it’s a series, 3 short fics.

- I'm looking for a fic that has Stiles at a party. I believe he is used as werewolf bait or turns out to be alluring to werewolves and didnt know it.

- I think Derek and Stiles are in a basement under the Halehouse, and because of some kind of moon Derek wants Scott to be in that basement. They make fun of Scott but he hear them and he lock the door when Derek and Stiles are inside. Smut happens 

- Stiles being a spark and just learning how to use his powers, Peter Hale is helping him learn when he discovers that every time that Stiles uses his powers he gets aroused and Derek helps him out through it, 

- Stiles and Derek are in the woods, and some type of creature makes both of them hallucinate. Derek then attacks Stiles thinking that Stiles is a monster. It was like a horror or psychological horror. 

- everyone has a secondary gender (omega, beta, alpha) but there are werewolves as well. Derek is Alpha-alpha, and Stiles is human Omega while Scott turns into Beta-beta. It followed along the first season of Teen Wolf and instead of Derek manhandling Stiles in the show, he grabs his hand and squeezes it. (1/2)(cont) It progresses until Stiles, Lydia and Allison are shopping for formal wear for the dance and Stiles starts to get his heat when Peter shows up and takes them hostage. The end chapter has Derek helping Stiles through his heat as he looks up at the moon with red eyes. 

- im looking for this accidental mating fic where scott and stiles are at dereks and stiles accidently mates with derek after he tries to run etc?

- stiles was helping derek with school I think and they got along and one night - stiles had a nightmare I think and was having a panic attack and called derek but didn't tell him about the nightmare and talked about something else and stiles got calmed by derek voice ..  

- derek is an alpha and like everyday people try to fight him in order to get his powers? i think they’re all in high school and that stiles is the new kid? 

- it’s where derek was at a clinic, and stiles was the one to ‘examine’ him — with sex toys, etc., — on the last chapter, it was established that they were already together and roleplaying. they were in the clinic that scott works at which stiles had gotten the keys to.

- It has two parts. The first involves someone poisoning the wolves so that they'll shift/go crazy. Stiles is in high school and he and Derek drink wine?? The second, the pack goes to college, and Derek breaks up with stiles to protect him. Stiles starts taking pain killers and gets depressed, the Alpha pack shows up, and Peter ends up being evil and trying to kill everyone??

-  Stiles kinda is hurting when he has his first time with Derek?

-  stiles Accidental Voyeurism on Derek showering and he is nervous because he is nervous to talk to him because he’s just that hot!

- stiles is adopted by the hales I think and Derek figures out he's his mate, I think there's growing up time skips, but the ending is Derek rushing home from college because the Argents are there to start the fire, stiles stays back with Talia to help defend their home.

-  it’s girl!stiles and it’s where she has hairy legs and arm pits and just owns herself and she goes on a camping trip with Derek and they’re both naked because they don’t really care for nudity,

-  I'm looking for a fic that had Stiles continuously flirting with other people to make Derek jealous after he realizes how good the sex is.

- There is a similar new fic called ‘User Error’ (first chapter looks great), it’s the troupe where Stiles is the brains behind the business and his partner (Scott?) tries to push him out/limit his input, Stiles is hurt but agreed to leave, but not before pulling out receipts of patents and just totally owning the situation, leaving but pretty much taking the rights to everything with him epically schooling those around him.

- stiles goes back in time to before the hale fire and tries to stop it, (fire is on night of a school dance) but he could only save Cora? I think he went be the name Cris or something similar

- Stiles had a boyfriend but he loved Derek and he thought Derek didn't loved him back so he would hide all his emotions from the pack, cause he was in so much pain. And they would fight a lot. I don't know if he was a spark or no.

- stiles and derek hate each other and When they lost their friends they were stuck together to search for them..

- Derek is in heat at the hale house and told everyone to stay away, but stiles didn’t and so Derek kisses him and makes stiles go into a pseudo heat and then they ride it out together.

- stiles finds out that derek has never actually gotten a good blow job bc his peen is that Big™ and he decides to rectify that, and i think stiles find out bc derek never lets him give him one im not sure

- It's an AU where the pack are all friends who are into surfing and are going down the coast (in mexico) finding small beaches and Sterek hooks up but then they get all awkward and depressed until Derek apologizes and clears things up. I remember it had some bi Erica and beach sex.

- I'm looking for a fic where Stiles has trouble accepting compliments from Derek and he buys himself a second-hand leather jacket to feel like part of the pack and Derek compliments it which Stiles thinks is sarcastic because obviously the jacket is old and damaged so basically he thinks everyone pities his loserness. low self-esteem drama ensues.

- I’m looking for a fic where Scott pushes stiles away for his own safety and then stiles befriends Boyd and one day Scott after a fight with some monster? Or big bad of the week? Scott tries to call stiles and his number has changed. Then it’s scott showing up at his house and basically trying to befriend stiles again..I think I remember something about Scott and stiles having plans to blow up stiles piece of crap phone

- a derek hale one shot. the plot is that the reader has a crush on scott and derek decideds to help her forget. i think the fic was called 'make you forget'

[lizzieraindrops]

Your chance to make the sun rise thrice (Chapter 2)

a river that still runs (8803 words)

Beth Childs has come to Helsinki to meet her best friend Veera for the first time in the Herbs on the windowsill universe, an alternate timeline where the original Helsinki massacre was prevented and DYAD routed by Clone Club Alpha’s successful publicity stunt back in 2001. Veera Suominen and Niki Lintula survived and decided to live in a little apartment together as qpp’s. Numerous Leda clones worldwide are now in contact via a secure online network that Veera maintains. 

Note: This chapter is a bit heavier than the rest of the AU. Beth is still struggling with a lot of the same challenges in this universe, even if the events causing them are somewhat different because of such early canon divergence. But the whole point of this story is that things can end up okay no matter how rough it's been. She's getting the help she needs and she's gonna be alright. That said, warning for soft discussion of past abuse, the effects of trauma, depression and anxiety, and some suicidal ideation. And of course, lots of love and learning how to heal, with support from her best friend.

Fun fact: Veera's username is 3mika, and she always sets her font to the precise warm turquoise of hex color #2299aa. She thinks she's hilarious, and she's right. 

Also on AO3  |  Playlist  |  Aesthetic sideblog

Part 1: Herbs on the windowsill

Part 2: Someday colors

Part 3: Your chance to make the sun rise thrice  |  Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3

***

Beth wakes on a squashy couch that isn't hers. Morning-soft sunlight pours through the window above her, bouncing back off the walls to fill even the shady corners with a warm secondhand glow. Her limbs are soft, splayed under unfamiliar blankets and sinking into the cushions. She doesn't move yet.

The apartment. Helsinki. Beth's really here. She holds herself still, letting the truth sink into her. She half expects the usual anxious tension to clench her into a ball the instant she moves a muscle, but it isn't there. Neither is the invisible weight that so often pins her immobile. She still wakes frequently with both of them holding her body hostage, keeping her muscles unmoving but restless, even in sleep. Right now though, they're gone. She just lies there, soft beneath the window.

It's quiet but not silent. The occasional car on the little road outside chuckles as it passes. A soft rush of water echoes through pipes in the walls, running toward an early riser in another unit. These sounds fall strangely on Beth's Toronto-bred ears, isolated in the stillness of this of this little apartment on the outskirts of the city. Still, the early-morning atmosphere settles comfortably into her jet-lagged bones, murmuring a rhythm for her to sink into. The temporal upheaval of a transcontinental red-eye and a series of exhausted naps yesterday have left her a little unbalanced. And yet, here she is waking up with the day, and the ground under her feels so much more stable than she’s used to.

Beth breaks her stillness with a deep, deep breath that she can feel expanding all the way down to her feet. She stretches, too, but soon pulls the toes that get exposed back underneath the warm, scratchy blanket. The cushions of the old couch creak a little in complaint as she shifts, but her limbs remain supple. For a time, she just observes the sensations. Then, her awareness spreads beyond the couch and the window to the rest of the room.

All around her, an oddly blocky pattern covers the walls. It's one of the first things she noticed when she walked into the apartment yesterday afternoon. The pattern isn't wallpaper like it appears at first glance, but actually a multitude of small photographs. Most of them are unframed, but taped up in crisply aligned rows. In them, she sees the same face infused with a hundred different lives. Just above her, a sleeping, slack-jawed redhead with bulky headphones around her neck sprawls on the very same couch Beth's laying on now. A few rows down, a brunette and a blonde with their long hair in matching wild waves are leaning all over each other and grinning like devils. One of the few framed photos shows a girl with a hospital-short buzz cut and a delighted expression, sitting in front of what looks like a mouthwatering strawberry shortcake. Beth can see at least six others in the background behind strawberry girl. Among them are Mika with her unmistakable scars and Niki with her bright blonde hair, their arms around each other's shoulders.

Morning light glances off the glossy surfaces of the photos on the west wall. The particularly bright reflection off one of the framed photos draws Beth's eye. With a tiny jolt, Beth recognizes one of her own selfies beneath the glass. In it, she's wearing the same old turquoise blue sweatshirt that's spilling out of her suitcase next to the couch right now. Underneath it, she's wearing her track gear, so the photo is at least two years old. She'd had to quit cross-country so she could try to get the shitshow her life had become under control. She vaguely recalls sending it to Mika a long time ago. It's strange to think that her presence has been in this apartment for so long.

She's here. In Finland. Staying with Mika – Mika - and Niki. Far, far away from everything.

Sprawling on the couch she slept on with a sigh as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Beth can't believe she's really gone and done it. She's run so far away that there's an ocean between her and her problems. It’s so much better than she's dreamed, even if it's only for a little while. It’s worth it, even though she'll be going back far too soon. For the first time in years, it feels like she’s where she’s supposed to be right now.

It had all started out as foolish idea she'd floated one Saturday morning, months ago. She hadn't been serious at all. She'd woken up so relieved at not having to get up and go to work, until she remembered her weekly therapy appointment with a hopeless groan.

Putting off the genuinely daunting prospect of hauling herself out of bed, she reached out to snag her phone from on top of her dresser, checking to see if she'd heard from Mika overnight. After all, Helsinki was nine hours ahead, so Mika had already seen most of the day that was just beginning for Beth. They talked so often these days, since they'd first made contact over two years ago. Rarely a day passed without touching base. But there wasn’t anything since Beth had checked last night. She took it upon herself to send the first message of the day.

runwaterblue: god, i dont wanna get up and deal with any of thsi shit today

After her world fell apart, after finding out about Project Leda, after realizing that all her nightmares and more were real, after her father...

runwaterblue: wish i could come visit u and get away form everything for awhile

Mika replied almost immediately.

3mika: you can

It was evening in her time zone, but to be honest, Beth had no idea if she had anything resembling a regular sleep schedule. The girl was always online.

3mika: though you really should go to your appointment. you always feel better afterward

runwaterblue: howd you know i have therapy today

3mika: you always have an appointment saturday afternoons

runwaterblue: yes but how do you remember that? i cant evne remember my own appts lmao

3mika: you mentioned it months ago when you switched from sundays to saturdays

Beth shook her head with a smile. Mika was so good with details.

3mika: anyway. you’re welcome here, if you can get here

3mika:  it would be great to see you

3mika: Niki wouldn't mind. we've had a bunch of Ledas visit us here, it's always fun

3mika: except that one time Dani and Ary got into a fight over football. some French-Italian team rivalry thing. that was not fun.

Beth laughed. It was funny how Mika was so good at making her do that, even on days like these. She leaned back against her pillow and held her phone over her head without sitting up, being careful not to drop it on her own face. She'd done that before. More times than she'd admit.

runwaterblue: i was kidding. id love to visit, but idk how id get there

runwaterblue: u should see the americans go off abt their football lmao. they're nerly as bad as the hockey freaks here

3mika: pls no

3mika: no more sports. it was a year ago and I’m still exhausted

3mika: sports are banned in this apartment.

Beth snorted. Mika wanted nothing to do with sports of any kind, and with Beth's athletic record, the topic had become a point of mutual teasing between them.

In so many ways, they were such different people, DNA be damned. Mika was reticent where Beth was outgoing. (Or at least, Beth had been. She was never quite sure how to think of herself these days.) Clone drama aside, Beth had been a pretty average Canadian high schooler. She got reasonable grades, played a few sports, and kept mostly out of trouble because there would be hell to pay if she didn’t. Mika was a brilliant homeschooled autistic orphan who had been raised in near isolation by her guardian after surviving the hospital fire that marked her skin for life. Beth mostly listened to pop music, and where no one else could hear, the occasional classical symphony. Mika held fast to Finland's weird obsession with death metal and dabbled in literally everything else.

And yet, Mika understands Beth like no one else does. And it's not just because they've both been through all this Project Leda bullshit. Though Beth doesn't know what she would have done without Mika to help her through that, too.

Beth won't ever be able to forget the moment that everything changed. Recognizing a her own face from the mirror on the evening news stopped her in her tracks, as something in her gut caved in with the hollow certainty that it wasn't her. Then face after face flickered before her, a flipbook barrage of déja vu. Blonde and smiling. Scarred and pensive. Braids and piercings and a rakish grin. Beth was rooted in place as people she had never been wearing things she had never worn said things she was never supposed to know.

That utter strangeness on the screen immediately seeped into her life like an oil slick into a river, tainting every thing she thought she knew with clinging uncertainty. Her father was inexplicably even more upset about it than Beth was, yet adamant that they shouldn't look into the matter. But it was already too late to stop herself from thinking. With slow horror, the truth of what exactly his behavior must mean dawned on her. And yet, even with the desperate growing certainty about who her Leda monitor must be, it was hard to believe that he could be anything other than her plain stern father.

He was always a bit strict and overprotective - probably well more than a bit, she realizes these days. But she’d thought that's just what it was like to be a cop's daughter. He'd never done anything really extreme, nothing beyond the firm discipline any kid could expect. He was just not a man to be trifled with, that was all. So until everything she thought she knew shifted that day and threatened to topple every assumption she’d built her life on, she had never truly dared to cross him.

Outright daring him to say to her face that he wasn't her monitor was probably considered a step beyond trifling. He did not take it kindly.

Two months later, Beth and her mother were living in an apartment on the opposite side of the city. It took two months for the two of them to lay plans to leave together, for good. For two months, her every move was watched. She spent two months knowing there would be hell to pay if she didn't give the performance of a lifetime pretending everything was fine, even while sirens blared inside her day and night. Two months was more than enough to teach her things she never wanted to know about the hidden marks fear leaves on the body.

Even after she finally escaped, her life was in tatters and nothing made sense. It wasn’t just the sudden jarring discovery of Project Leda, or the crisis it had forced her to confront. It was learning that, deep down, she had known that she’d never once felt free. She’d unconsciously kept herself from knowing to avoid exactly that conflict of wills that she’d known she would lose.

Trying to come to terms with what had happened and how it changed everything, Beth was continuously losing her balance. Questioning which parts of her life had been screwed over by her father and which by being part of some ridiculous supervillain science experiment was like trying to stand on two kickboards in a pool. She couldn't find her footing, and all she could do was try and stay afloat. She had to repeat her whole junior year of high school that she lost to this shitshow, while starting over at a new school, and only barely scraped her way into senior year. Now that she knew how honestly terrible she'd been at judging who in her life she could trust, it was as hard to talk to old friends as it was to make new ones.

Therapy helped her start sorting out what she was feeling, and how the environment she’d grown up in was really not the healthiest. She hadn’t realized how much she’d learned to doubt her own perceptions. That made constructing any kind of new understanding of her situation an uphill struggle. And of course, her therapist couldn’t help her confirm anything about a human experiment that was so illegal it had been an international secret. As she continued to stumble forward, Beth even started doubting her former certainty of the identity of her Leda monitor. She questioned herself and everything she knew until she wanted to scream with frustration or weep with confusion. The floor of the counselor’s office could have been mopped with her tears. It was, quite literally, driving her mad.

So, finally, Beth had taken up the invitation on the banner of every Leda news feature to "Contact the secure, clone-run Clone Youth Group Network (CYGNet) for answers by emailing info@cygnet.org."

She wanted something concrete that would help convince her brain to stop reenacting these head games that warped her reality. It still insisted on playing through the patterns it had been taught, even in its teacher’s absence. She needed something that could brace her against the ideas that she was really just paranoid, overreacting, accusing, that this was all her fault for making a big deal out of nothing. Even with his other faults (cruelties, her mind whispered) aside, at least his involvement with Project Leda was unforgivable, and she wanted proof of it. Maybe if she had that, she could stop being mad at herself for not wanting to forgive. And if anyone had that proof, CYGNet would.

Maybe it was just because of the sheer blunt honesty about her motives, or the inescapable vulnerability of the message Beth sent, but Mika had replied to her within a day. And she'd been so gentle about it, too, enough to make Beth later question where the stereotype of autistic brashness came from. Then again, over email, Mika had all the time she needed to compose her thoughts and lay them out as softly as she wanted. She didn't have to spit them out as fast as she could to keep pace with a quick and painfully overwhelming world.

Hi Beth Childs,

I'm so sorry for what you had to go through. I still don't know how they got away with doing things like this for so long. I suppose people will always find ways to be cruel. But we've survived this long, and the whole point of CYGNet is to help us all heal. The experimental network has been dismantled, and we are assembling resources to help us. We've brought mental health professionals on to the project to develop custom programs for our needs. We can make them available to you, if you are interested.

I attached scans of some of your files that we recovered from DYAD. There are a few case reports with the signature of the person you asked about, spaced throughout your lifetime. There are also financial records with his name in the list of paid employees. He was without a doubt part of the Leda monitor program. I can provide all of the documentation that we have related to you, if you like, but I thought that would be too much all at once. I know these are hard to look at, but I hope they help let your mind rest. They are very real, and every awful thing we have experienced was also real, no matter how they tried to convince everyone that we were making it all up.

Please take your time with these, and stay in contact if you want to. You can join our mailing list, if you want to know when we have new information or new resources available. We're here for you.

And hey, if you just want to talk to someone who knows what it's like to deal with all of this, I'm here, too. You can reach my personal inbox or IM me at wiz.of.dos@cygnet.org. It'll be okay.

-Veera

Beth had started crying before she even finished reading the letter, much less opened the attachments. She cried so often these days. She only knew why half the time. But this time, it felt like the tears were extracting some of her pain as they left her, instead of just overflowing from the unending wellspring of her directionless distress. All of this was real, and someone else knew it.

Though she was grateful beyond measure for her mother’s untiring support, they were each other’s too-close, ever-present reminders of what they’d survived, trying to act like they weren’t, trying to convince each other and themselves that they were okay. Beth had needed something else, too, something until now unnamed.

This was a handhold, a backstop Beth didn't know she'd been desperate to find. It wasn't just the confirmation of what she’d concluded about her father. The ability speak plainly to someone she didn't feel the need to pretend around was an exhale of a breath held too long. At least one person in the world not only understood, but really and truly didn't want or expect her to act like any of this was normal or okay, or that she would ever be the same again.

Veera – or Mika, as she often went by online – made good on her offer of a sympathetic ear. Their correspondence started off with awkward, grammatically correct messages about the less painful details of their lives. Mika told her about the farmer’s market three blocks away where she went walking early in the morning before it got busy, and the plant stand there that her best friend and roommate Niki (also a Leda) had to ask her to stop buying so many succulents from.

At first, Beth tried to chatter like she used to, but there were no safe subjects. What had happened had touched all of her life. Normally, she’d talk about school, or sports, or her friends. But she was trying to start all over again at a new school with all the struggles that came with it. She didn’t have the time or energy for sports anymore, and talking about them hurt, now. Running used to make her heart sing. But no matter how she tried, there was no joy in the motion anymore. To top it all off, it was as hard to connect with old friends from her old life as it was to try and make new ones. She spent most interactions either doubting her own character judgement or dreading the moment people recognized her Leda face from the news.

She didn’t know how to talk about any of it to anyone. Maybe she could have if it had been just the clone thing or just the dad thing. But the two were inextricably entangled, and she still couldn’t even explain it to herself. It was all unbelievably horrifying, and any time she tried to be honest about it, people ended up disbelieving or horrified. Shocker.

Maybe, though, it wouldn’t be weird to talk about it with Mika. Mika already knew the worst. Beth didn’t have to hide that hurt from her to keep from shaking her world, or to keep her dismissal from hurting Beth. Maybe that’s what was hurting the most: the feeling that even after escaping, she still had to pretend to be okay. That compulsive stifling feeling choked her whenever it bubbled back up. On her bad days, a simple “how are you?” could reduce her to a blank face plastered over a raw tangle of emotions held motionless her own iron grip.

But Mika mentioned having bad days, too. Days came where she was too scared and nightmare-weary to do anything but make herself some tea and soak up some sunlight in the safety of home. Beth could casually say things like after those two months, i still twitch every time i hear a door open, and i wish my body would quit feeling like it doesn’t exist, my legs feel numb. It barely broke the surface of what it was like in her head, but was discomfiting enough for people that she held her tongue at school.

Sometimes, Beth got tired of constantly thinking about all this shit and tried to lighten things up. On one comically disastrous occasion of cultural exchange, she liveblogged Mika her attempt at eating the infamous Scandinavian lutefisk, along with an audio recording of the incoherent horrified noises she made after tasting it. In return, she received a recording of someone, presumably Mika, laughing harder than she’d ever heard anyone laugh before. It made Beth smile. Not many things did, back then.

Slowly, as the formality fell away from their transcontinental conversations, their heavier stories seething below the surface seeped in. Beth had been in therapy long enough now to know that she couldn't just recklessly unload on people the way she did in counseling sessions. But a counselor couldn't always provide the same kind of unspoken solidarity that someone in the same boat could.

Bit by bit, slipped into the chats that were becoming a daily occurrence, they talked about monitors, about what the experiment had really all been for, why that both was and wasn’t important, and how they'd discovered they were a part of Project Leda. Putting words to the pain hurt, a lot. But the ability to lay out long-unspoken truths in front of each other, knowing they were believed in the way that only people who have shared something can, was a healing kind of pain instead of the festering one Beth had been living with.

The two of them had more in common than they'd thought, growing up a world apart. Beth's experience raised under the subconscious wariness of her father's hovering thumb felt a lot like what Mika described growing up largely isolated with her former guardian. But sometimes, whenever they realized that something they'd both thought was normal was pretty not, they got a good laugh out of it despite the weight of their pasts. Mika seemed somewhat accustomed to her normal being considered pretty weird, so she usually took the revelations in stride better than Beth did. Beth wouldn't find out for at least a year after meeting her that it was because of her Asperger's, since it was a topic Mika seemed quite sensitive about.

Mika explained it once, in a conversation full of long pauses on her part and watching the typing icon disappear and reappear on Beth’s. The way she put it, it just meant that her brain worked a bit differently than most people's, processing sounds and sights and all the information it took in at different speeds and with different emphases. The difference could turn everyday things like the sound of a refrigerator running into a splitting headache, or something as simple as the soft texture of her favorite jacket into a kind of bliss. That alternative way of processing also extended to things like words and emotions as well. Sometimes, it took her longer than the world was willing to wait to process them into something that made sense. It often made communication tricky, trying to compensate for the gap in mutual understanding with most people. The world and the people in it could be so overwhelming sometimes, so fast and bright and full of noise and uncertainty and bewilderingly arbitrary social conventions. But the biggest challenge was other people expecting her to do everything the same way they did, ignorant of the fact there were any ways to exist other than their own, and completely oblivious to the fact that she was already putting in at least twice as much effort to communicate with them as they were with her.

And yet, even coming from such a different perspective, Mika gets it. Beth says sometimes i dream of drowning and its not a nightmare and i wake up not knowing how to feel, and Mika says I still dream of burning and wake up not knowing which fires are real, and they both say yeah. And they sit there across the world from each other knowing these things, knowing that it doesn't fix anything. And yet, it does change something. Nothing's any better, really. But somehow, the knowledge that someone else understands makes it a little easier to bear.

And that's just it. Somehow, without ever even having seen her face, Mika sees Beth clearer than anyone. All of her, all the ugly parts she hides so that they can't hurt anyone, and all the good parts that she also hides so that nobody can hurt them or take them away from her. Mika sees all of that and then just tells Beth another story about the Northern Lights she sees on the regular. Apparently, in Finnish, they’re called "fox fires." Beth hardly ever sees the aurora, living relatively far south in a bright city. But her stories about life in the metropolis by the lake intrigue Mika as much as the tales of the twisting green lights do her. And Beth can talk about something lighter again while not having to pretend that the heaviness isn’t there, too, even while she’s just once more trying and failing to explain poutine. For her, the weight never really goes away. But the effort of pretending she’s not carrying it takes more out of her than the weight itself. Mika understands that.

Maybe that’s why Beth had talked it over with Mika first, even before her mom, when she was considering taking a gap year after she hopefully managed to finish her senior year of high school. (God, it was so hard to think about English or math or whatever when just that morning she’d woken from a nightmare about being back in a not-home house that she never escaped.) Beth's mom had been so unbelievably supportive of Beth's recovery, even while she herself was adjusting to the wrenching change in both of their lives. It was both inspiring and a little intimidating. If her mom managed to run a household and raise a daughter all on her own, even while trying to heal from her own trauma, how could Beth not do her utmost, too? She was grateful to be able to talk to Mika about it, to get a reality check from someone who both understood her situation intimately and didn't make Beth feel that pressure of expectation. In the end, Beth did decide to take a year or two off before considering college, and her mom was again nothing if not supportive. Beth figured, after this entire mess, she deserved some time to herself to work on sorting her shit out, and her mom agreed.

After graduating with reasonable if not flying colors, Beth worked a series of part-time and odd jobs that didn't stress her out too much, letting herself focus on her own healing. In between her mom's support, seeing a counselor regularly, and the security of having a friend she could really trust, Beth felt like she was making progress. Slow progress, sure, but progress, nonetheless. Considering that she had seventeen years' worth of lies to unbelieve and emotional trauma to finally acknowledge, Beth figured that there was only so much she could do in the three years she'd had.

Her days were still hard. Getting sleep and waking up and eating and even just existing were still so fucking hard sometimes, and it was horrible. Some days, the thinnest sheet trapped her in bed like it was a car pinning her down. It felt so stupid for such simple things to be so hard. But then her therapist would remind her that that’s what mental illness and trauma was, that this was what the wounds in her mind and heart made her feel like. And once in awhile, sun broke through the shadows, and she had a day that reminded her what an okay day felt like – that okay days existed. That more might.

Now, she’s here, lying in a bright living room so far from home, with her dearest friend in the next room. She’s comfortable, except for the knot in her neck from sleeping oddly on the couch. The soreness pales in comparison to the usual tensions that are so strangely absent. Beth can’t remember the last time she felt this okay. She’s not steeling herself to go to work. She’s not dreading the next conversation with her mother that goes quiet as they both remember awful things they don’t mention. She’s not bracing herself for the next time her brain runs rampant worrying about whether she’ll run into the subject of her restraining order somewhere in the city and have to wonder if he'll honor it.

None of that reaches her here. There’s something about this quiet little pocket of space. It’s overrun with a proliferation of potted plants, from the sprawling lacy-leafed monster in the corner, to the fern peeping out of the kitchen, to the vine cuttings spilling out of an oddly familiar leaf-shaped glass bottle on the sill. Sunlight streaks through leaves and windowpanes and across the colorful patchwork of rugs on the floor. In the midst of it all, Beth is held by a palpable aura of gentleness. It holds her so softly that she doesn't need to hold herself in. It's like the layer of caution that she always keeps wrapped between herself and the rest of the world has simply dissolved away. In this moment suspended in morning light, she is okay.

She feels safe.

The realization undoes something in her. She feels the tears starting, and she expects the taut tension of involuntary stifling that always comes with them to return. But it doesn’t. She lies still and soft on the couch with the water creeping over her cheeks, breath occasionally catching but flowing freely. She savors it in the quiet.

The soft thunk of an ill-fitted door opening breaks into her odd reverie. Mika’s up. Beth sniffs and scrubs at her eyes halfheartedly, but she can’t hide them right now and she doesn’t want to. Mika notices immediately, and comes trotting over with quiet steps, leaning forward all concern.

"Beth," she says softly. She shifts from foot to foot like a nervous cat, watching Beth with enormous eyes. Beth has never met anyone else with such an intense stare. Or maybe it's just the fact that Beth knows beyond all doubt that she's being looked at by somebody who really sees her in her entirety. It's like she's staring right into Beth's soul. But Mika was able to do that long before they saw each others' faces. They've shared so many thousands of words over screens and seas, so many emotions that have gone otherwise unspoken, so many too-early mornings and too-late nights on the fringes of each other's dawns and dusks.

“What’s wrong?”

Finally, a flash of that sick tension runs through Beth’s body. It’s been okay when Mika has asked that before, when it was just silent letters on a screen. But out loud, the question falls on her ears like every well-meaning inquiry she’s ever had to scramble to find an acceptable answer for. The strain begins to cinch tight around her again like coarse ropes across barely-healed skin, ready to compel her to replace the truth with something safer. Her arms and legs tied, she begins to freeze, railing against herself for tainting the softness, the safety of this place.

"Beth." Mika says again, softer but more urgent.

In the gap between thoughts created by hearing her name, Beth seizes the chance to redirect them to the present. She clings to the welling in the corners of her eyes, the warmth of the sun caressing her back. The leaves of trees whisper outside the third-floor window in a mild breeze. The brightness spills over the sill and across Mika’s asymmetrical, half-craggy face and lights up tufts of her short hair as she steps closer. The couch dips as Mika sits down next to her, tilting Beth toward her.

Without meeting her eyes, Mika lifts a hesitant hand that hovers in the air between them, uncertain yet reaching. Her gentle palm falls onto Beth's forearm as softly as a floating leaf. The fingers curl around Beth’s arm just below the wrist, firm but not tight. Comforting.

The softness surrounding Beth seeps back into her, saturating her. As the memory fades like a ripple into water, the tension slackens. But it leaves her shaky, with traces of a familiar ache in her neck muscles, one that goes deeper than the simple stiffness from the couch. She sucks in a few unsteady breaths while Mika gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

“Sorry,” Beth says in a small, awkward voice.

Mika tilts her head. “Why?”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to bring all – this mess, in here.” Beth rubs the back of her neck with her free hand. “It’s so... soft, and okay, and – I don’t wanna ruin it,” she says, trailing off into a mumble.

“Hey.” Mika moves her hand from Beth’s arm to her shoulder. When Beth looks at her, she’s looking right back. Mika's eyes dart down to the floor for a moment, but then return to hold Beth’s with deliberate steadiness. “It’s alright. It’s like this here because we wanted it to be safe to be messy. You’re not ruining anything.”

“... Oh.” She’s steadied by Mika’s fingers curling around her shoulder, by the tendrils of sunlight spreading across her head and back and arms. Mika’s voice is small but steady, and somehow it comes from the same throat that makes that huge pealing laugh. It’s so strange how they sound nothing alike. Until yesterday, Beth hadn’t heard her voice since the lutefisk incident. They’d mostly kept to text and pictures. It had seemed easier, the way it gave them both plenty time to think before they spoke through their different uncertainties. Beth was already planning her trip before they realized that they’d never actually called each other. By that point, it sounded like more fun to meet in person the old-fashioned way.

"I'll make you some tea." Mika abruptly stands and lets go of her. Beth is sad to lose the contact. She flits across the room toward the kitchen in her soft cotton pajama pants, complemented by yet another black graphic tee for yet another Scandinavian metal band Beth's never heard of. Or at least, she'd never heard of them before Mika, who has something to say about all of them, and now Beth knows more than she'll ever need to.

Mika moves in and out of view behind the half-wall that separates the little living room from the kitchen. The fronds of the fern on the counter make a green rustling as she brushes by them. It sends soft feathered shadows waving across the wall opposite the window. Beth hears the rush of water boiling out of sight, and soon sees steam rising from the mug that's being handed to her.

"It's hot," Mika says unnecessarily. She sits down next to her again, this time leaning into Beth with her arm. Beth’s glad for it.

"Have you ditched the bags and gone loose leaf?" Beth says, eyeing the fragments of bright green leaf free floating in her mug.

"It didn't come in a bag. It came from the window."

"The window?"

"It's basil tea. For the fear and pain. Five large fresh leaves in two hundred and fifty milliliters water. We grew it here."

Beth takes a cautious sip. It's surprisingly sweet, and the savory smell of the steam rising from it curls into her sinuses. The aching in her head and neck begin to relax. It's unfamiliar, but it feels like home should, just like everything else here.

"Thanks," Beth says. On an impulse of craving closeness, she leans her head onto Mika's shoulder with a sigh. The sensation of contact deepens as Mika leans against her, too.

Beth holds the cup close, fingers wrapping around its warmth. She takes another sip and gets a bit of leaf stuck in her teeth. The way she scrunches up her face trying to dislodge it pulls a tiny laugh out of Mika.

“You don’t have to be okay here,” Mika whispers. “You can just be. That’s what we do.”

Beth finds her eyes wet again, but she smiles while she sets her mug down and wipes them away. “Kinda already wish I could stay here,” she says with a chuckle.

“... That’s probably not impossible.”

“Really?” Beth asks wryly. “Not even twenty-four hours, and you’d already be willing to put up with me?”

“Twenty-four hours and twenty-seven months.”

Beth melts a little even while waving the idea aside. “I wasn’t serious.”

“I know, but... weren’t you looking at the school here?”

“I mean, yeah, but... really, my mom just thought I deserved a break to get away for a little while. She’d saved up a bit, and I didn’t want to make it a big deal or anything, but she really wanted me to. She knew I wanted to come see you. Checking out the school was mostly an excuse. I know it’s a great place, but... I don’t really think it’ll help with what I wanna do.”

“What do you want to do?”

Beth sighs and leans back, looking at the ceiling. Mika follows her so that they’re still shoulder to shoulder, and pulls her feet up to tuck them in cross-legged.

She flounders for a moment, trying to find where to begin. She hasn’t told anyone this yet.

“This Leda crap has been kind of awful, right? It’s screwed so many of us up. But there’s only, what, a few hundred of us? And that’s not the only reason things get messed up.” She swallows. Her eyes trace irregularities in the ceiling: a knot in an exposed wooden beam here, a sealed and repainted crack there. “Kids like me are a dime a dozen. There’s so many people out there going through hell, just because they got stuck with people who are hurting so much that they hurt other people. And then they go on and hurt more people. It’s a cycle that’s really fucking hard to break.”

Breaths that have become harsh force her to pause and let them lengthen again. A touch on her knee draws her eyes down to a hand resting on it palm up, offering. Beth takes it. Mika squeezes her fingers in reassurance.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a cop like my dad, did you know that?” Mika, eyes wide, shakes her head. “Yeah. That was always my plan. I used to think he was so brave. Wanted to be just like him.” She shudders. Mika grips her hand, steady. “Even if I could do it better than he did, the system is still full of people like him. It’s broken. I couldn’t – I can’t end up like that. I can’t keep being a part of this shit. I want to actually help people.

“I never thought about it before I met you, but the people you brought in to do therapy programs and all for CYGNet? They’re amazing. The stuff I’ve gotten from them has helped me so much. And I don’t know what I’d do without my regular therapist. These people really help people like me. Like all of us. Those are the kind of people I wanna be like.”

Beth’s voice drops and becomes small and secretive, but firm. “I’ve been looking at the social work programs at home. There’s some really good ones at the uni near where mom and I live now. And that’s the city where I grew up. I know how things work there. I know it won’t be easy, but. I could really... do stuff.”

Silence stretches. Beth looks at Mika, only to be completely thrown off by an expression she can’t make heads or tails of. “What?”

Mika’s face is blank yet soft, only barely hinting at her thoughts in the faintest crinkling of her eyes. It’s funny, how quiet her face is most of the time. Beth never would have guessed, going off her online impressions of her. Mika’s so expressive and eloquent with her written words. In person, she is much more subtle. But even after only a day spent around her, Beth is already starting to see how her movements speak volumes in a language of their own. The flickering of her hands flares to life with excitement. The casual shake of her head tosses her hair out of her eyes even when it’s not in the way, like she’s clearing the slate of her mind. And much like Beth these days, she goes very still and tense when she’s getting uncomfortable or overwhelmed, the way she did after a particularly loud whistle at the train station. It shows in her shoulders. They’re soft now though, and she just watches Beth and squeezes her hand once more.

“You’re really amazing, you know,” Mika says.

“Wh- huh?”

“Well.” She looks away and turns their hands over, but doesn’t let go. “After the awful things you’ve been through – nnnh! Don’t pretend,” she says, looking back sharply as Beth begins to protest that she didn’t have it that bad. Mika knows her so well. Beth can’t help but laugh a little. “After all that, you just want to help people. All I ever want to do is get away from them, most of the time.”

Beth quirks a brow at her with a bemused grin. “Really? Because setting up and running an organization that provides mental health resources and extremely important information to a few hundred people is a really shit way to not help people.”

“I never talk to most of them! And CYGNet only has one hundred and thirteen members, not hundreds.”

Beth rolls her eyes with an exaggerated motion. “Yeah, so, you’ve somehow convinced, what, a whole freaking third of a huge group of scared strangers to trust you?”

“A lot of that was Niki and the press team, she’s way better at talking to people th–”

“And you’ve been careful enough and clever enough to keep them and all the information you got from DYAD safe and secure? I can’t even imagine the organization and, and cyber-security and whatever the hell else you put into all this. That you still put in. And look what you’ve done. You’re helping so many people. You found something only you could do, and do it really damn well.”

Mika looks down into her lap, half her face flushed. The raised ridges and swirls of the scarred side are pink, but not as dark. Her shoulders curl in a little, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from Beth’s. If anything, she holds on a little tighter.

“You don’t have to like talking to people to help them. You don’t have to be someone you’re not,” Beth says gently, then pauses as a new thought occurs to her. “Why did you talk to me?”

Mika gives a tiny shrug, eyes still downcast. “You reached out to me. Most people are scared, or suspicious, or hard to talk to, but you were just... honest. You told me exactly what you needed, even if that meant sharing your painful secrets with a stranger. I...” She trails off, looking toward the closed door of Niki’s bedroom. She blinks slowly.

“It reminded me of something Niki said a long time ago. When we first met. We didn’t trust each other at first. But when things got bad, we needed to, and she just... We’d only known each other for a day. She told me a true story that people had called her crazy for, and trusted me to believe her. And when I told her about... my Asperger’s, about being autistic, she just told me something about herself, too, another thing that a lot of people get cruel about when they know. This was back before she came out, too. She was hardly out to herself, then, really. But she told me anyway. ‘Secret for a secret,’ she said.”

“She’s really special to you.” It’s not a question. How could it be, with the sheer softness of love rounding out every syllable and making Mika melt into the couch and into Beth’s shoulder.

“She’s... yes. She’s my family.” Mika looks out the window, and the bright light dances over her nose. “I don’t remember ever having one.”

Beth slings an arm around Mika’s shoulders and smiles as she curls closer into Beth’s side. “Looks like you’re part of a pretty big one, now,” she says, waving a hand at the dozens of photos on the walls circling them.

“I guess so.”

“No need to guess. The evidence is right there. And I’m right here.”

Mika turns those huge eyes on her again. She’s done that multiple times now, even though Beth knows she rarely looks people in the eye. Eye contact is too much, most of the time. She describes it as too intense, too distracting, too intimate. Meeting those eyes – so like Beth’s own, but filled with such a different kind of light – Beth thinks she understands a glimmer of it. If every eye she met were as overwhelmingly expressive as Mika’s, Beth probably wouldn’t meet them all either. It keeps taking her by surprise, coming across their eloquence in an otherwise quiet face. Caught by that gaze, every emotion that lives in it touches Beth. Right now, it’s soft with adoration but shaded with a gradient of doubt. The width and depth of Mika’s eyes reveal a clear view of a vulnerable, aching, healing heart that spent eleven years starving for the love it needs and still hasn’t forgotten the famine.

It might be breaking Beth’s heart. No wonder Niki is always showering her with hugs and kind words and gentle hands on rounded shoulders. Maybe one of these days, Mika will have spent long enough finally getting to soak up all that affection that she won’t look at Beth like this when she says the simple truth.

“Hey. Here I am. Really.” Beth’s voice is a little choked up. She pulls Mika into a proper hug with both arms. Mika squeaks in surprise at being squeezed so emphatically, but returns it all the same. God, but she gives the best hugs of anyone Beth’s ever met. All contact and even, firm pressure and steadiness. “It’s so damn good to see you. I can’t believe you’re...” real, Beth thinks but doesn’t say. I can’t believe I didn’t imagine you. I can’t believe you’re just as kind as your words. I can’t believe how good it feels to be around you. “I can’t believe I’m really here.”

Mika doesn’t say anything. For a moment, one of her hands leaves Beth’s back to fiddle with something, then comes back to give her a little squeeze that Beth returns.

Beth’s phone buzzes a notification behind her on the little glass-top table next to the couch. The table’s wooden base is a round blob carved into the shape of a very fluffy and very ugly sheep with curly horns. Beth’s arms loosen from their embrace as she turns to look at it, bemused. No one but Mika really messages her except for her mom. But if it’s morning here, it’s about time for bed at home. She checks it, just to be sure she’s okay.

But it’s not from her mom.

Mika reaches out to gently grasp her forearm again as Beth shoots her a quizzical look and opens the message.

3mika: I'm glad you're here.

Beth's heart quails.

To think, that her darker days might have kept her from ever being in this moment. Beth might never have gotten to this point, hurt but healing and here. Here, she's seven time zones and an ocean away from the cycle of pain she grew up in, barely aware she needed to escape. She might well feel safer right here in this crossroads of time and place than she has at any other in her entire life. It's a realization that's as humbling as it is nourishing.

Already, the distance this journey has taken her has given her so much perspective. She wasn’t sure, before, whether the work she’s been considering was just a response to what she’s been through – or just a way for the cycle to keep her within its spiral. But she’s seen what Mika can do, what Beth could do one day, if she keeps on.

It won’t be easy. She’ll go back, and deep-seated memories will try to drag her back into small dark places. But being here, even for only a few hours, has already changed her. She can change, and she can grow, and she is already tapping into new strengths that her past has yet to reckon with. She is here, right now, in spite of all of it. And today is not a dark day.

“Me too, Mika. I’m glad to be here, too.” Beth’s tongue stumbles over the name, because she’s never said it out loud before, only read it on a screen.

Surprise sends Mika’s eyebrows up and her eyes wide again, like she’s never heard it before, either. Maybe she hasn’t. She tilts her head again like a question, touching her ear and looking at Beth.

Beth grins. “Mika.” A smile blooms on that curious face, lighting it up. She’s the one who pulls Beth into a hug this time, and it’s both fierce and soft. When she lets go, she leans into Beth’s side again and they stay like that, arms over shoulders and comfortably curled up together, soaking in the warmth of each other’s presence like leaves drink in light. The simple sweetness and companionship of it soothes Beth’s heart, seeking its way into the aching crevices. It’s an odd feeling, both seeping inward and flowing outward, trickling all the way through her until it warms her cold toes in a way that feels both new and strangely familiar.

A long, sleepy yawn announces that Niki’s awake now, too. Soon, she comes out of her room stretching her arms over her head. Mika reaches a hand out toward her to wave in greeting, though she leaves the other arm draped over Beth’s shoulders. Niki smiles at them. That kind smile, too, adds to the warmth washing through Beth. Her feet practically itch with it, and with a growing sensation of déja vu. She fidgets her toes against the floor as Niki walks over to brush Mika’s outstretched hand like a touchstone.

“How'd you sleep? Isn’t that couch the comfiest?” she says to Beth.

“Well, I’ve got a crick in my neck, but I still slept better than I have in years.”

Niki turns her sunny smile on Beth. “Good to hear it. Weird, though, I nap there all the time and my neck’s always fine. Huh. Anyway, I think I might make waffles. You two want some breakfast?”

Mika nods, but doesn’t let go of Beth yet. Beth is lost in thought, trying to remember what that light, floating feeling in her feet reminds her of.

“Sweet.” Niki ambles toward the kitchen and bends down with pursed lips to peer at the fern perched on the counter. “Hmm. You still look a little pale. Let’s get you some more sun.” She brings the plant over to the living room and is fussing over settling it on the sheep table when it clicks for Beth. A physical memory washes over her, for once welcome. She lets it fill her, refreshing like a deep breath of cold morning air her lungs are suddenly hungry for. She flexes her calves and ankles, her legs remembering the joy and freedom of stride and strike. Her bones are finally recalling how they once carried her with ease, even while they're adjusting to the new weight of who she's become. Fully alive again for at least this moment, her soles are practically prickling with the desire to eat up ground.

“How about you, Beth? Do you like waffles?” Niki asks, fluffing the fern’s crinkly green leaves. Mika squeezes her shoulder.

Beth grins and plants steady feet on the blue rug in front of the couch. “Save a few for me? I think I might actually go for a run first.”

[hermannsthumb]

this weekend i couldn’t stop thinking abt that one dumb newt/herm college au ficlet i posted in like august so instead of writing an essay on pride and prejudice tonight i wrote a part two of it instead. enjoy, if you want.

Newton is far too eager when he answers the door, pulling Hermann in for a hug, asking him how the walk over was, even trying to sneak a little kiss. Hermann does end up allowing the kiss. “I’m only here to copy the lab notes,” Hermann reminds him, and Newton mm-hmms noncommittally and ushers Hermann inside.

“Newton,” Hermann says warningly, as the door is shut behind him and he ends up crowded against it with an eager, freckled face pressed up against his own. He prods at Newton’s shin with the end of his cane. “Only the lab notes.”

“You’re no fun,” Newton says, but he backs off graciously. He’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt that says Dad Bod in large block letters, his multicolored flora and sea creature tattoos on full display. “Okay, fine, grumpy, get comfy and I’ll grab them. You want tea?”

“No,” Hermann says, but Newton grabs a mug from his kitchen counter and presses it into Hermann’s free hand. He’s already made him a cup. The way Hermann likes, too. “Oh, fine,” Hermann says, following Newton’s advice to get comfy and slipping off his rain-damp oxfords. “But nothing else.”

“Uh-huh,” Newton says, distracted. He’s flipping through an impressively large collection of takeaway menus. “What are you in the mood for? Pizza?”

“I have homework,” Hermann says.

Newton holds up one menu. “Chinese?”

Hermann glares.

“I’ll paaaaay,” Newton says, waving it.

Hermann falters for only a minute, and that’s all the window Newton needs. He smiles. “Chinese it is!” he exclaims. He tosses the other menus into a drawer and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Seriously dude, get comfy.” Hermann casts a glance around the room. He’s never been to Newton’s dorm before. There’s a small futon stained with what looks like coffee in several spots, a ratty-looking recliner, a coffee table covered in old mugs and guitar picks and stacks of bent biology and engineering textbooks. “I cleaned up for you,” Newton says.

“Ah,” Hermann says, looking at bowl of completely dry and shriveled ramen noodles laying on its side under the recliner.

“I mean I cleaned my bedroom,” Newton corrects, and waggles his eyebrows.

“Lab notes,” Hermann says, setting his mug on the coffee table and swapping his cane between his hands so he can shrug off his parka, “and dinner. That’s it, Newton, so help me.”

“Uh-huh,” Newton repeats, grinning.

“I bought beer, too,” Newton says, kissing up Hermann’s neck, his stubble scratching Hermann’s skin in a not-unpleasant way, “if you want it, I mean.”

“The tea was perfect,” Hermann says. “Shut up and take off your shirt.”

Newton sits up, straddling Hermann’s thighs, yanks his t-shirt off over his head and tosses it over his shoulder. It lands on top of his alarm clock. He pats at his flabby, inked abdomen like he’s playing a drum. “You insanely turned on right now or what?”

Hermann is, maybe, turned on. He grips Newton’s forearms and tugs him back down to kiss him, and hears their lab books fall from Newton’s bed to the carpet below, next to the remnants of their cold rice and even colder vegetable lo mein. There’s what sounds like a fortune cookie smashing under the weight. Newton laughs into his mouth. “Whoops.”

Hermann eyes up the lab books and sighs, as Newton attempts to worry a hickey just above his collarbone. “I really do need to copy those notes, Newton.”

“You’re killing my ego,” Newton whines, but he rolls off Hermann.

Hermann kisses the tip of his nose. (Newton beams.) “Good,” he says, and sits up against Newton’s body pillow. Newton hops to the floor to gather up their notes, and Hermann finally takes in the rest of Newton’s room. He has a few wrinkled and torn posters--The X-Files, Godzilla, something Hermann doesn’t recognize--as well as art prints Hermann assumes he bought as comic cons tacked up on the walls, a record player, a lava lamp, a shriveled collection of plants on his windowsill, comic books half-hidden under piles of laundry. He also has several Polaroids of them together (Newton’s arm around his shoulder, Newton kissing his cheek, Hermann kissing Newton’s cheek, a blurry Hermann shouting at Newton about something) hanging on a string above his desk. Hermann likes those the best.

“Here,” Newton says, tossing the notebooks at Hermann, who catches them. And then, with a little ha!, Newton’s suddenly pulling his guitar out from under his bed. “Here it is!” he says.

“You lost your guitar?”

“Nope,” Newt says, sitting back on his heels. “I mean, yes, but it’s not lost anymore!” He strums it a few times, tuning it, and then pulls the rainbow strap over his head. He’s still shirtless. “Did I tell you I wrote a song for you?”

Hermann shakes his head, smiling a little. “Another one?”

“I was gonna sing it at that thing last month,” Newton says, the vague thing being an open mic night not unlike the one they met at, but at the campus coffee house rather than the student union, “but, you know.” Newton’s three-man band, tragically, broke up thirty minutes before they were due to go on when his bass guitarist and drummer staged a mutiny on account of being tired of only performing songs about Newt’s boyfriend and not covers of preexisting like they used to.

(“I can’t help that you’re my muse!” Newton told Hermann later that night as they ate cold pizza at the campus dining hall.)

Before Hermann can politely decline--he’s very fond of his short, odd, brilliant boyfriend, but as skilled a guitarist as Newton is, his original songs tend to be more like ballads and can last well beyond eight minutes and Hermann really needs those lab notes--Newton’s broken into song, eyes shut in concentration as he goes on about bowlcuts and English exchange students and holding hands under lab tables.

Hermann applauds politely when Newton’s done.

“Thank you,” Hermann says. “It’s very nice. I love it.”

“Did you really?” Newton says, beaming again.

Hermann nods. Newton tosses his guitar aside and stands up only to flop next to Hermann on the twin bed. They barely fit side-by-side in it. “Wanna spend the night?” he says, still beaming, his thick glasses askew. “We can watch Star Trek on my laptop and make out some more.”

Hermann has an essay on Wuthering Heights due for his English gen ed course tomorrow that still needs a conclusion paragraph, but the walk back to his dorm is long and it’s raining and Newton’s sneaking a strong, warm arm around his waist. “I’ll stay a little while longer,” Hermann concedes, and Newton hums contentedly and begins to wriggle a hand up the hem of Hermann’s oversized sweater. “But only a little while. I mean it.”

Hermann spends the night.

[seoulscenarios]

Kang Daniel College AU

Uhhhh,, happy 300!!! And I’m back with a new college series for wanna one!!! haha i know what you’re thinking, us doing wanna one content??? crazy, but this has been in the works for a while and i finally thought this was the right time to post it! And don’t worry, there will still be stray kids content as well i just wanted to take a break from all the stray kids content we have been putting out

side note: for the dance mentioned throughout this pls click HERE to see the dance that inspired this whole au tbh i promise you won’t regret it!!

-Major: business studies

-Minor: contemporary dance

-Sports: Star player of the football team (mainly bc EVERYONE adores him) but he rarely plays anymore bc he kept falling asleep during practice but they still keep him on the team bc how can you deny him anything

-Clubs: president of the bboy club, claims bboying IS a valid enough reason to set up the club despite the student board protesting it, set it up anyway, is also a very active member of the dance society and everyone was shocked that he didn’t apply for the president role but he skated away on his skateboard yelling about bboy he’s just a child at heart really

-Daniel is by far the most popular kid on campus

-Everyone knows who he is, even the professors on the other side of campus who have nothing to do with him knows who he is

-I mean, how could you not he’s literally the most happy and friendliest person in the world with a smile gracing his face for just about everyone

-Is always seen around campus in slacks and tee, normally a snapback on his head as he whizzes past you on his skateboard

-He’s literally the epitome of skater kid, big headphones around his neck blaring music as he speeds past you on the way to class

-Most people wonder how he’s a business major bc he looks like he should be part of the dance squad or sporting majors but Daniel,,,, actually kinda likes business

-He’s not massively passionate about it but he’s good at it and he enjoys some classes

-Is the perfect partner for group presentations bc he’s so diligent at any task you give him, though occasionally he doesn’t always understand what he’s supposed to be researching but rather than pestering his group mates at like 3am when he’s kinda high on energy drinks he comes into the meeting the next day with really garbled notes and they have to gently tell him exactly what to research and his face lights up

-His favourite class by far is his practical business class where he gets to go on an internship at a company bc he 1) gets out of class, 2) gets to go on fancy business trips with his boss which means fancy food and 3) leaves behind Jisung who is constantly nagging him in their dorm

-Not to mention,,, he wears a suit (which he proudly wears bc his mom gave it to him as a present when he got into college)

-The entire campus collectively swoons as they see Daniel walking across campus with a briefcase in hand as he’s with Seongwoo

-Even all the women at the company he interned, especially the older ones, swooned and doted on him as well

-Like,,, Daniel was sure it could be against company protocol that these women give him gifts and stuff but the boss just turned a blind eye to it bc he had way more important things to deal with

-Besides, Daniel appreciated it when they gave him food vouchers and stuff bc it meant he didn’t have to spend his or Jisung’s money on food

-Not that Jisung was ever in the dorm most of the time anyway, being a medical student and all he practically lived at the hospital

-Which meant that Daniel may or may not have sneaked in Peter and Rooney the first weekend his mom came to visit him

-(Jisung got the shock of his life when he went to flop on his bed and it MOVED,,, he beat Daniel’s ass bc he hadn’t agreed to this)

-After a few hours though, Jisung was cuddling Rooney in bed and Daniel was very smug whilst Jisung threw a lab report at him lmao

-Daniel running an Instagram account for the cats? Most definitely

-Was it the most followed account related to their university? Of course it was 

-Everyone who came up to Daniel on campus 95% of the time they’d ask to meet Peter and Rooney, but Daniel was adamant that only a few select people could meet his girls

-Literally only the boys had met his favourite girls and never would he allow any slander on them, any hate comments would be deleted and a swift block if there was more than one offence

-(Jihoon and Woojin tweeted abt how ugly Peter and Rooney were and it took WEEKS of apologising and buying Daniel food for him to unblock them and add their contact details about, no one gets away with vagueing Peter and Rooney on his watch)

-Their dorm room, for lack of better words, was AWFUL

-To the point that Minhyun had given up all hope that they’d ever listen to him or actually care for the fact he’d spent a whole Sunday cleaning their room bc he was stressed and he just refused to ever go to their room again for fear of a migraine and cold sweats

-Like,,, Daniel’s side was littered with cat treats and toys, bits of paper and sweaty dance gear though the picture frame of him and his mom was proudly displayed on his desk practically spotless and Jisung’s side,,, well let’s just say med books and scrubs galore

-Despite Daniel’s extroverted persona, he was very much a homebody and loved spending weekends on end cuddled up in bed with his cats binge watching Netflix or playing games tbh

-However, if he had a bboy competition or dance practice expect him there at LEAST 20 minutes early bc he loved dancing and it gave him time to warm up properly so he didn’t injure himself

-(Story time: once Daniel was rushing to dance class and tripped over his feet and injured his thumb. He didn’t think much of it until he was 30 minutes deep into his dance practice and fell flat on his face doing a spin bc his hand gave up on him. Turns out he fractured his radial bone in his fall and Jisung was very shocked to see him sat in the emergency room when he was doing his rounds)

-So yeah, Jisung despite his busy schedule always made sure Daniel was on time or early for things especially dance so he didn’t injure himself

-But boy can he dance

-Like, everyone was in awe of his dancing

-Obviously, he was extremely well known for his bboying bc quite frankly it was incredible at just how talented he was at it bc who the heck decides that spinning themselves around like that was something you could be really good and dedicate urself to but seeing Daniel do it ur like yeah ofc why wouldn’t you want to

-What shocked everyone though was the fact that he was INCREDIBLY good at contemporary dance

-There was a dance competition he attended in first year and the captain of the dance team asked him to do a special stage for contemporary and he enthusiastically agreed bc,,,, well he didn’t have opportunities to showcase it a lot in big routines

-It’s extremely safe to say that the audience was left breathless when he finished and rumour has it that Jisung cried at the end, though he would vehemently deny this at the time when his eyes were red from crying and Minhyun kept passing him tissues none too discreetly whilst his kids all laughed at him

-Ever since that day Daniel has always been scouted by the dance majors to help them choreograph their dance piece for their contemporary dance module

-Which also happened to be one of the dance modules Daniel took

-He really likes to help out and has a difficulty saying no to people

-Coincidentally, this contemporary dance module is where he first encountered you

-You are, for want of better words, are the most untouchable and icy person

-Everyone on campus found you intimidating bc you always appeared unapproachable, cold, distant and too elegant for people to even breathe near you for fear that you could possibly stab them

-You were also rumoured to be from an incredibly wealthy family,,,, though what they didn’t know was that your family cut you off and cast you out bc you pursued dance against their wishes

-All you were left with was your inheritance and whatever money your grandma and aunt sent you as a monthly allowance

-You didn’t hate this persona the student body had given you, it just meant that you were incredibly lonely and often times felt quite empty when you saw people around campus laughing and having fun with friends, and all the couples holding hands and going on dates

-Coming from such a background you had never know what it was like to make friends or fall in love

-You only knew business partners and were taught from a young age that everyone had an ulterior motive when they asked you to be friends

-Safe to say, you kinda already had this icy persona cultivated from such a young age

-Though when you got cut off you had hoped that people around you would see differently

-However, once the rumour mill starts it’s hard to get it to stop

-So you just roll with it, even if it makes the classes you attend awkward or you feel that dread of loneliness when you get back to your single dorm, unable to invite anyone round

-When you got to 2nd year, the option to specialise in contemporary and modern dance became available and you immediately jumped at the chance bc you LOVE this genre so much

-If anything it represented your life in a way

-You wanted to break free from this old, restricted you into a new, free you

-Your first day of contemporary and modern class was unlike anything you had experienced before

-Everything was different yet familiar to you that you left the class buzzing with excitement and nervousness

-After a few weeks, you were slowly emerging as the class’s top student much to everyone’s exasperation

-They all just rolled their eyes whenever your teacher praised you or used you as an example to the other students, which they hated tbh

-Only one student didn’t act like that

-And, you’ve guessed it, that one person is Daniel

-Admittedly, at first, you didn’t get him whatsoever and you actually rolled your eyes as you saw his 6ft frame stumble through the door, cast decorating his hand looking entirely out of place

-You honestly didn’t understand why he was there, especially when during the introductions he told everyone that he was a business major and did dance as a minor

-You just didn’t get the hype around him whatsoever, everyone else adored him and fawned over him both inside and outside of class that you didn’t want anything to do with him

-Which confused him when he tried to greet you in class one day and you just shrugged him off and went back to stretching

-All of that changed when ur dance teacher gave out your first assignment and had given you a duet piece with a certain Kang Daniel and inwardly, you groaned

-Not only were you going to have to cooperate with Mr Popular, but the whole class was glaring at you and whispering about favouritism and bribery

-Daniel, on the other hand, was DELIGHTED to finally work with you

-You see, you had caught his eye from the first day of class and he was so perplexed at everyone’s disdain for you

-In his eyes, you were an incredible dancer and Daniel really wanted to collaborate with you, and maybe he found u kinda cute but shhhhh

-After your teacher finished all their announcements about this upcoming assignment, Daniel bounded over to you like the big puppy he is

-“Hi, I’m Daniel! I can’t wait to work with you, it’s going to be so much fun!” his mouth is upturned into that big smile and his face is all crinkled bc he’s smiling so hard

-You’re just a little overwhelmed bc why is he so enthusiastic it’s literally 9am and ur running on iced coffee but as u stare at him u realise,,,, hey this boy is kinda cute when he smiles

-“Uh, yeah hi my name is Y/N”

-Nice one Y/N, you think to urself as you watch Daniel’s face drop as you returned his greetings very unenthusiastically

-“So, have you got any ideas about the project or songs you like?”

-He’s trying so hard bless him but ur just not very cooperative bc heck,,, no one has ever tried to spark a conversation with you ever at this college that u don’t really know what to do

-You just blink at him slowly and he’s a bit confused, pausing scrolling through his playlist of songs and he just looks at you

-“Are you okay? You’re a bit, I don’t know, dazed?”

-“Oh, um, yeah I’m fine just early morning class haha”

-“You’re never normally like this though”

-O H

-You can pinpoint the exact moment that Daniel maybe kinda regretted saying that to him bc he completely froze and was staring at the ground, red tinting his ears

-Cute,,,, wait does that mean that THE Kang Daniel has noticed me in class before??Aӣ1;

-Anyway,, it’s an awkward few moments with u and Daniel not saying to each other and trying to forget what he just said

-He continues to scroll through his playlist and you decide to go and stand next to him so you could see the songs

-They were all pretty good songs, the boy has good music taste

-But one in particular caught your attention

-“How about this one?” you pointed at one of the songs

-It was a song you loved and had always wanted to dance to, and the lyrics were too beautiful and really fitted the dance style

-Daniel’s eyes lit up when he saw what you were pointing at

-“That’s one of my favourites! Let’s listen to it now” and before you could even protest, Daniel had plugged in his headphones and then shyly put the other headphone piece into your ear

-WHELP THERE GOES MY HEART

-For the remainder of the class, the two of you sat in relative peace listening to the song and occasionally sharing ideas about what theme and moves you wanted to include

-As the class drew to a close, you couldn’t help but notice just how damn attractive Daniel was and u found yourself glancing at him way more often than you should’ve been and you nearly didn’t notice class finishing

-You were packing up your stuff when you felt a hand tap ur shoulder

-It was Daniel

-“Uh.. I was wondering if maybe I can give you my phone number so we can…. Meet up and practice?”

-Was Daniel blushing?? Ofc he was, how could he not he thinks you’re really cute and attractive and he doesn’t normally give his phone number out to anyone

-(He literally has his friends, mom and a few classmates from his societies and that’s IT)

-You blush as well, putting ur number into his phone and handing it back with a small smile

-ICY PERSONA WHO???

-Ur classmates were all very intrigued by this behaviour bc they’ve never actually seen you talk to anyone nor have they seen Daniel act so,,,, shy around someone

-Well, you get an immediate text from Daniel and ur first thought is,,,, why is he so damn cute???

-He just sent you loads of emojis and stuff gosh he’s really just a kid huh

-You quickly realised that Daniel was a very enthusiastic person and loved to text you what seemed to be all the time

-Like, you even asked if he actually slept and he reassured you that he does sleep bc his roommate made sure he did

-The first week of being acquainted with Daniel was such a shock to you bc he’d always say hello to you whenever he saw you and if you were walking to class u can bet that Daniel would frighten the living daylights out of you when he ran up behind you and slung an arm around your shoulder, asking about your day and ur like Daniel pls,,,, don’t do that again

-As the weeks progressed, you became much closer to Daniel and it wasn’t long before you were rarely seen without him

-Heck, you had even been invited to meet his cats bc he kept talking about them and showing you pictures that you joked about saying “maybe you should just let me meet them for myself”

-Well Daniel’s eyes lit up and he grabbed your hand, pulling you to his dorms whilst enthusing about Peter and Rooney that you couldn’t help but laugh

-Jisung gave you a funny look, that only Daniel noticed bc u were too busy cooing over Rooney, and Daniel FLUSHED

-Yeah, Daniel never lets anyone meet his cats bc they’re too precious to him and Jisung was like,,, oh baby u like them don’t you, you don’t let anyone meet your cats unless you like them

-Daniel tells him to shut up, red blooming all up his neck and ears and Jisung freaking smirks and whips out his phone to text the gc

-You’re oblivious to this all bc you’re cuddling Peter and Rooney on Daniel’s bed and ur startled out of ur cooing to Daniel sitting beside you, lifting Peter onto his lap

-(You end up falling asleep with Rooney and Daniel is like,,, is this an angel? He lays a blanket over you and brushes your hair softly, taking in all your features)

-(That’s when he realises okay maybe Jisung was right and maybe he does like you just a bit more than the admiration he had and maybe he wants to date you and stuff but you didn’t hear that from me)

-(Cue Daniel sending panicked texts to Jisung and just getting winky faces in return)

-ANYWAY

-Back to the duet the two of you were doing

-Creating the choreography almost came like second nature to the both of you and you always ended practice on such a high note

-There was one move you were always kinda reluctant to do

-And it was a jump into Daniel’s arms

-It’s not that you didn’t trust him not to catch you,, you just have never done this before and you were nervous

-Daniel constantly reassures you practice after practice but still,,, you’re too tense to complete the move

-It wasn’t until your final practices that you told Daniel that maybe you could do this

-He grabs your hand and rests his other one on your cheek, looking deep into your eyes

-“Trust me, I won’t let you fall”

-That doesn’t mean you’re not nervous but when you’re going through the motions of the song, immersing yourself in the music you realise that maybe the jump isn’t so bad after all

-You throw yourself into Daniel’s arms and his arms wrap securely around you

-You feel at ease

-And you realise, as the song progressed that maybe you wouldn’t mind staying in Daniel’s arms for longer

-You couldn’t deny that over the past few weeks that you grew closer to Daniel that you found yourself falling for him

-All the late night texts, Netflix “dates” and everything else, you saw the happy puppy vibe that you found yourself drawn to

-“Hey Daniel, for the end of the dance….. maybe we should ask for a curtain to be put up and we could you know…… pretend to kiss behind it?” you ask shyly, eyes cast downwards not wanting to see Daniel’s reaction

-Well, this boy was BLUSHING bc this was unlike anything you had ever suggested choreography wise and pretending to kiss his crush?? Kinda heartbroken but at the same time,,,, he was THRILLED

-It wasn’t like your choreography wasn’t suggestive as you decided to go for a love theme, focusing on the getting into a relationship and the fears of it, but a kiss??? That was so intimate for Daniel and he was not okay

-“Uh yeah!!! I think it could work!!! Let’s try adding it to the routine before the next lot of kids come in” and he bolts to the music desk to put the music back on

-When it comes to that part, Daniel gently holds your face and draws you close to him

-His touch is electrifying and you lean closer into him, eyes flicking to his lips momentarily

-You swear he was about to lean in but before you could find out, someone knocked on the door and you two jumped apart from each other

-“Uhh bye Daniel I’ll see you tomorrow for the performance yeah?” and with that you bolted, leaving a very confused Daniel touching his lip slightly before he went back to his dorm with a slightly dazed look

-Well, the two of you were kinda awkward as you met the next day donned in ur performance costumes

-The two of you were wearing matching loose white shirts and black slacks, and you were gripping onto some black blindfolds that were featured in ur performance

-U were kinda nervous bc you hadn’t ever performed a duet with someone you actually liked before and Daniel sensed that as he handed you a water bottle

-“Y/N, you’ll be fine we’ve done this 1000 times and we could do it a 1000 times more and I still would have no words to describe how incredible you are” he mumbled into your hair, arms wrapped around you tightly

-You sink into his embrace, letting him give you words of comfort and sweet nothings

-You stayed like that for what seemed like forever and were only interrupted by the backstage crew member who announced that you guys were up soon

-As you stood in the wings, Daniel interlaced his fingers with yours and smiled at you

-These past few weeks working on this project seemed to have flown by and you were sad that it was coming to an end

-Just as you were about to say something to him, he led you onto the stage, hands still intertwined and you swear you heard some guys wolf whistle (you did, Seongwoo and Woojin let out the biggest wolf whistles and Jisung had to literally clamp a hand over their mouths but he did admit that you two looked like a real couple)

-When the music kicked in, everything felt so…. Electric

-All of Daniel’s touches on you left little shocks on you and you were dizzy from how much you craved his touch even more

-As the song reached an end, Daniel grabbed your hand as you went to move behind the curtain and pulled you back to him

-And his hands landed on your waist and before you knew it, you felt his lips crash against you as the song hit it’s climax and you immediately melted into his touch

-Well, all of Daniel’s friends were wolf whistling now and the two of you broke apart to the sound of thunderous applause and whistles and a disapproving look from the mc of the evening

-Daniel just gave you an embarrassed grin and tugged you off stage, a matching grin gracing your face

-Well, it’s safe to assume that Daniel definitely asked you to date him after this performance much to the hollering of everyone backstage and the roar of approval from his friends when he introduced you to them properly, holding your hand tightly

-Dating Daniel is an actual dream

-I mean you’re dating the actual campus god and everyone is absolutely shocked that their campus golden boy is dating the most feared and iciest person on campus

-Thought,,, they were absolutely bowled over at the fact you no longer seemed so unapproachable and perfect as you laughed happily at whatever Daniel was telling you, leaning into his shoulder as the story got funnier

-Like,,, who was this person they thought they knew?? They’re gone lmao

-Daniel is also the CRINGIEST boy to date

-If he wants to kiss you he’ll be like “baby you’ve got something there” and before you could check he’d grab your chin and kiss you softly on the lips and ur like,,,, Kang Daniel u need to stop

-Jihoon and Woojin just look on disgusted bc how the HECK can you fall for his trick every single time

-Jisung just coos bc it’s like watching his baby grow up and find love, before swatting at the boys bc they’re making retching sounds or something

-Sleepovers at Daniel’s??? Absolutely especially when Jisung is on night shift and he has the place to himself wink wonk

-Lmao no, his cats are too precious to him he doesn’t want to scar them

-That’s reserved for when ur at ur place instead hehe

-Daniel really loves to have an arm around you at all times, especially around your shoulder bc it makes him feel so manly and protective what a dweeb

-He also teaches you how to ride his skateboard, though you protest a lot bc heck I may be a dancer Daniel but I have no balance on actual ground much less a skateboard I will fall

-He just grabs your hands and guides you slowly around the park, grinning as you shriek turning corners or something

-Will reward you with hundreds of kisses later though so is it worth it?

-Sometimes when ur not covered in bruises bc u kept falling off and rather than helping you Daniel ended up laughing bc he found it really funny

-Someone help him please

-Nights with Daniel are spent with Netflix playing in the background as you cuddle with the cats and he’s running his hand softly through your hair as you tell him all about how growing up you could never be you and always had to be perfect your parents

-I’m not saying he cried when you told him that you got cut off and haven’t seen your parents in years,,, but that’s what I’m saying bc he’s such a family orientated guy that he doesn’t know how you coped

-You have to wipe his tears away, calling him an idiot before kissing him deeply and well,,,, u kinda get the idea from here (daniel got a little caught up in the moment and forgot his cats were there lmao)

-Oh, speaking of family he definitely introduces you to his mom like a month into dating

-He tried to do it beforehand but Jisung literally locked his skype account so he wouldn’t scare you off lmao

-You needn’t have worried though bc Daniel’s mom ADORED you and was fawning over you on skype

-She basically became the mother you never had and she always text you asking if you were doing okay and stuff it’s just really sweet

-She comes up one weekend to see the two of you and now Daniel has three new photos on his desk next to the one of him and his mom

-There’s one the three of you together, then you and his mom,,,, then one of you and him that his mom took bc you looked so happy and in love that she couldn’t resist taking a photo how CUTE

-Anyway,,, he constantly is leaving his clothes at your place bc he’s forgetful but also he really wants to see how small you’d look in his clothes bc he’s a GIANT lbr here

-You do turn up to class one day wearing his shirt and Daniel malfunctions for the rest of the day bc it should be illegal how cute you look in his clothes

-Seongwoo and Sungwoon just snicker at him bc he’s so dazed that he missed his mouth whilst eating at the cafeteria bc he’s too busy staring at you

-Please protect this baby at all costs bc he’s so accident prone but also,,, he’s a damn mess and needs all the love in the world thnx bye

-You two are just sickeningly in love and it’s the best thing ever

-Daniel really helped you to grow and express your true self more and more and you couldn’t be more grateful whereas you helped Daniel love something beside his cats and mom

-Like,,, he was finally discovering how to love something and it was so pure and raw that you saw stars every time he looked at you, touched you, kissed you that galaxies were painted in your eyes and at the centre of it all was Daniel

-Young love huh, it’s truly remarkable

and that was the first installment of the college series for wanna one!! i hope you enjoyed it and i’ll be back very soon with some more content!!!

[authenticaussie]

Maybe MarcoSabo for send a ship????

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

Marco again as the werewolf bc like…………….wb fammmmmm wb fam are Totally this rock’n’roiling pack of messy & dumb werewolves and he’s long-suffering but in an endlessly fond and adoring way, and like?? Imagine Sabo being raised by hunter!parents and knowing that what they tell him is wrong but also like they’re his parents, who is he to question them, how can he question them when he’s never known any different, when the werewolves he’s seen have been vicious and angry and cruel and tried to kill his best friend-

Marco who protects Haruta, who’s the smallest and the newest shift and they’re all so proud of her and he’s the one that’s closest to a goddamn dire wolf, what sort of beast of legend would he be if the only tale to his name was  I let my younger sister die? But Also Sabo’s never seen one of them protect anyone before and he’s like whaaat the Heck is this even a werewofl (and then sudden half-clothed man and sabo’s like ashjdfg yep he is very much a werewolf) and like!! Haruta growling and trying to get sabo to stay away but sabo has a gun and marco’s telling her to run and then because he knows she won’t run telling her to get help, and she whines but?? Does so?? And Sabo is just. What the Fuckity is going On Here and demanding to know wtf marco was doing and also jfc he keeps forgetting—(well, repressing,) that…the werewolves aren’t just wolves. They’re human under there, too….and it’s awkward talking to a wolf you just shot but he can’t shoot it(him) again. And so they talk and marco’s growling at him and being like if you go after haruta I’ll rip your throat out and sabo’s like look you’re gonna have some problems w/ that????

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Sabo’s a marine biologist studying the effect of pollution on coral and marine life coughcoughhe’s also totally a really aggressive protester who does a Lot of shit like exposing corruption and infractions of environmental law and Marco’s the mermaid!! Sabo, while diving, accidentally snaps a picture of his tail and is like woah I’ve never seen that before…And then he’s like!!! RARE FISH MEANS WE CAN GET THIS CORAL PATCH DECLARED A PROTECTED ENVIRONMENT AND THEY CAN’T BUILD AN OIL SITE HERE. And so he goes diving heaps to try and catch sight of this fish again. And like?? random stuff also keeps happening around him?? Like, some of his notes are put in the wrong spot, and he’s sure he put them down by the table why are they now near the stern?? Why’s his sunglasses/cap missing??? where’s his left flipper??? And it all comes to a head when he looses his camera overboard while they’re sailing to a new patch to dive and he’s like !!! no!!!! Bc they can’t really get another out here and like?? Koala’s got one, but it’s hers, and it’s also technically the spare, and even if he could use it his was…It was his, and it was one of the first things he bought for himself and it’s…Sentimental

Anyway when they go diving he finds it perched on the reef and in the camera memory there’s a picture of this guy looking super shocked and heavily illuminated by the flash and holy shitting fuck the dude has a tail.

Following those photos are also really gorgeous ones of fish and coral and stuff, but Sabo’s more preoccupied with THE UNDERWATER DUDE WITH A TAIL  

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Again shapeshifting birb!marco as the familiar but Sabo is much better than ace at magic/practicing and is much more fascinated than ace is by the concept of magic so a lot of marco/sabo witch/famillair is sabo blowing stuff up/doing stuff he isn’t meant to and Marco being like whY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS THING I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO??

“It looked fun!!!/I was curious!!!” 

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

They’re both coffee addicts but Marco would Totally be a barista and like no-one knows how much coffee he drinks every day bc well who knows if he’s filled up the cup again or if it’s the same cup from this morning?? (it’s totally been filled up at least 7-10 times) and Sabo is this Perpetually Exhausted young man who is like?? doing a ridiculous amount of work, people are like how have you not keeled over and d i e d yet and sabo’s like *raises coffee, looking at it vaguely like it is his god, absolutely exhausted,* “how can I die when there is still such beauty in this world??” and everyone think he’s being pretentious/talking about something actually beautiful but marco’s seen him confusedly mumbling to his laptop/coffee cup when it’s empty and bemoaning his loneliness bc how could coffee, coffee!!! of all things, leave him. Marco just gets into the habit of making sure Sabo gets a new coffee before his runs out, and also that sabo leaves the cafe rather than staying there for 24 hours in a state of absolute exhausted delirium.   

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

Sabo would be TA!!! Like I can see him being a professor but I can also see him just like, angrily colour-coding marco’s schedule and organising so much shit and marco’s vaguely annoyed because he knew what was going on and now it’s this fucking rainbow riot in his notebook and oh god sabo’s following him around and taking notes on how marco interacts w/ others and teaches and offers hints and has little stars next to things he thinks are Good and—-

sabo’s bringing him coffee at 4am Sabo is a God

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Marco’s the knight and Sabo’s the prince!! Kind of. He’s a noble and he’s set to marry the princess but he sure as fuck doesn’t want too and he totally sneaks off and disguises himself as a pauper/doesn’t introduce himself to marco properly and marco’s like oh are you one of the new guards from the Outlooks’ place?? don’t worry abt being late I know some of the other knights are dickheads and like making sure the newbies get lost. And sabo’s just like uhhhhhh yeeeep that’s me, guard in training, t o t a l l y

Accidentally introduces himself as sabo as is like SURE DOES GET CONFUSING AT THE OUTLOOK HOME, BEING THE SECOND SABO. HAHA. HAH. Marco totally ends up figuring it out, mainly because when Sabo is confronted with things that look interesting but he knows nothing about he is curious and inquisitive to a degree that he cannot hide, and he gets curious/confused about so many things that don’t make sense, like sword smithing and break times/shifts and training regimens and what you need to study to be a knight, but like?? I don’t think Marco would make a big deal out of it. Like….he’d be shocked, and confused, and be like hooooly shit and maybe act a little weirder/stiffer around Sabo because he’s like this dude is going to be my boss some day I should really really really not find him adorable and funny and clever but also?? He totally figures out why Sabo hid it from him and why he did what he did- because there was so much freedom in curiosity, in being able to see something new, in being somewhere where people didn’t know you. And like, Sabo’s parents totally discouraged him asking questions, so like?? Marco not only permitting it but encouraging it??? Sabo loves that. 

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Marco is the eternally tired and utterly adored/adoring single parent that dotes on his kids and also has several thousand siblings who also get referred to as various mom/dad/uncle/auntie/sister/brother titles and Sabo-the-only-child is like oh my god I’m So confused. He later finds out that Marco is basically just helicopter mom to all of these orphan/abandoned kids and that the wb fam is the Best foster home/orphanage system in town and all the adults are trained to deal w/ the different issues the kids might have, and support tf out of them, and Marco usually gets??? problem kids??? Or ones who need a lot of attention and to be the only kid?? Bc Marco can handle one kid, and can honestly be kind of suffocating in his affection/worry later on in the kid’s life, but he’s still?? Dude he’s raised for 40 other siblings he Knows how to Control the House. And sab’s just…super impressed and they talk about what marco’s current kid needs and sabo works harder at his job bc like!!! damn,,,marco’s inspiring w/ how much he cares……  

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

Either Sabo or Marco would make good editors!!! Sabo can be a perfectionist and is very stubborn when it comes to learning things he’s interested in (sometimes I’d like to see like….or I mean, something I’d like to see more of??? Is like, his dream was to write a book or every place he’d ever been and all the people and have a great adventure, and just?? I wish I could see more of how that would affect him in aus where he doesn’t loose his memory, BUT. DIGRESSION.) I think that while both would write, Sabo would write to a vicarious, excessive degree. Fantasy novels, travel books, food reviews, short stories, poems! Everything, and constantly. Marco is his harried and amazed editor who’s always like sabo before you start your 29873th novel what about novel 29872 and Sabo’s like,,,,,,,,,,,,,,#sweats

I can see him primarily writing travel books and huge adventure novels. Massive and intricate and delightful and !! they’re just super good. They can be a bit hard to read, bc they get a bit dense and complicated, but he’s a super smart and captivating writer, and though he errs too far into description (Marco one time sent him back a manuscript with two chapters circled and only the comment ‘sigh’ because they’d been two chapters on the history of some people who lived on a mountain who only came up once) he’s enjoyable and clever and his books are so interesting. 

[authenticaussie]

✫ MarcoAceSabo 86

Commissions! || Ko-fi!

ace as a runaway god

he’s basically just a teenager who Does Not Know what he’s meant to be doin in his immortal life and w o w he’s super bored and also his dad is an asshole to humans? lol?​ ace does not agree? don’t be a dick dad

sO BASICALLY HE POOFS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AS A “HEY DAD IMA GO LIVE W/ HUMANS BC I WANT TO HAVE A BETTER WAY TO SAY FUCK YOU”. Roger is UPSET and torn bc he’s like oh! I remember this stage of my life! Wanting to find myself! Burning shit! Exploring! Stealing things! but then he’s also like [godly scream] “WHERE IS MY SON”

Also Ace is a dumbas bc he doesn’t tell his mom and so she’s actually on Roger’s side and is like no i do not support my runaway son he hasn’t sent us a single letter im very mad at this young man. He could’ve at least said goodbye before disappearing w/o a word!!!

Chasing Twisters by Delta Rey is a Good Time for this AU (especially the first lines; ‘I was born / with lightning in my heels / set a spur upon my ankle / put a horse under the steel’ )

Anyway! Ace ends up travelling a lot and bein a dork and accidentally outing himself as godly all the time omfg. He’ll fly up to pick fruit and fall out of shit and get stabbed and be fine and then get confused when people freak out???? It’s hysterical

ANYWAY he figures out how to (relatively) pass as human ///after like so many errors omfg and ends up running into Marco!! Who travels from town to town doin magic and offering his protection and trying to chase down an old god / some other myths just because he’s a curious fucker

Ace STILL fucks up being human it’s a GOOD TIME, LIKE!!! They’re campin somewhere, idk, near a mountain pass???? huge rocks everywhere???? and Ace keeps picking up rocks and throwing them everywhere like they’re nothing and Marco’s like “uhhhh isnt like. That huge stone monument heavy????”

-ace, holding it w/ one hand over his head and cursing as he tries to find where his hat has gone-  "uH YES. HAHA. WOW. YEAH. ITS EXHAUSTING. CANT HOLD THIS FOR LONG!!!!“ ///drops it awkwardly with a thundering crash

Basically what I’m saying is Marco totally knows he’s at least a demigod / blessed by the gods but is so unperturbed by this bc he’s a demigod too? (Ace being an actual god is another story entirely.)

a n y w a y they go through a town where a friend of marco’s called Sabo lives and Ace gets along w/ him super well and they have a lot of common interests and Marco moves on to the next few towns by this. like. mountain thing that encloses it??? so it’s  a dead end basically??? and ace stays and gets to know sab better

whispers Sabo’s Totally Flirting with / flustered around Marco but marco doesn’t notice s h i t

Anyway Marco comes back and is like yeah I usually stay here for the winter bc the passes freeze over so badly??? And Ace knows he should go and that he could easily find his way, the cold has never bothered him, but he-

he stays

(they’re fascinating, and they’re clever, and they’re kind, and Ace finds himself drawn to Marco’s easy grins and Sabo’s quick, clever tongue just as easily as he’s drawn to a flame). They turn from “heyyyy humans are so Interesting” into “These Humans are so interesting” into “these are my friends and they’re so interesting and Have Interests that  I love hearing them talk abt”

ACE STARTS GETTING SUPER FLUSTERED AND NERVOUS AROUND THEM AND ACCIDENTALLY USING HIS POWERS AND FORGETTING WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE DO. AND THEN TRYING TO COVER IT UP LIIKE “WOAH SURE WAS A COINCIDENCE THAT ALL THESE CANDLES IGNITED AT ONCE HAHAHAH”

Marco ends up just patting sab’s shoulder and leaning down to whispers that he thinks ace’s old place didn’t take to kindly to demigods and sabo’s like ooooohhh and they NEVER BRING IT UP

Ace eventually!!!!!!! asks them on a date!!!!!!!!! and theyre like weren’t we already doing that????????? and Ace is like what. no. uu taking me ice skating and me taking u to a frozen waterfall that i unfroze for the two of your bc Marco Looked Sad are totally not dates!

Fuck ace goes a minute later. Sabo bursts out laughing bc he’s thinks it’s h i l a r i o u s and even Marco’s having to hold back a grin and Ace buries his face in his hands and is like why didn’t you TELL ME and sabo laughs even harder

Proper date!!! With ace giving them flowers !!! that he flew to idk persephone’s garden to get or smth and trying to Look his Best and marco and sabo are like. hearts melting awww gosh he’s just Trying So Hard they think it’s adorable they’re dying

BUT LOL ANYWAY WHILE THEY’RE ON THEIR DATE ROGER ENDS UP FINDING ACE BC ACE HAS BEEN IN ONE PLACE FOR SO LONG

AND SUMMONS THE THREE OF THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR DATE

AND ACE IS LIKE FUCK SERIOUSLY???????? W O R S T TIMING

also: “if i jumped off this god-summons cloud would u two get mad???”

“UM YES???” goes sabo, “dont leave us alone to face your boss!! you asshole!!!”

B o sss//// ace says, wheeze-laugh-dying, and Sabo’s like that’s Not making me Feel Better

“Lol so like……….I know this is breaking the only rule of first dates……..but like. Hey. Guys. Meet uh…My family lol”

[Marco, internally dying as he stares up at the towering figures that are Obviously trying to tower just for the kicks but haha doin a Good Job]

Sabo and Marco, slowly processing their boyfriend is n o t in fact a demigod, but rather an ACTUAL FUCKING GOD

WHAT THE FUCK ACE is Sabo’s first thought

that explains the rock thing is Marco’s first thought, followed by how the FUCK did i not see this coming

Roger who’s trying to glare at ace for running away and leaving, like NO!!!! NO!!! NOTE!!! THIS IS NOT POLITE BEHAVIOUR, SON!!!!

but then also DATES??????????? D A T E S ???? HIS LIL BOY IS D A T I N G??? HE’S ONLY LIKE 200 YEARS OLD HE SHOULD NOT BE DATING THATS ONLY LIKE 20 IN HUMAN YEARS

Roger who’s trying to look sternly @ ace and also threaten sabo/marco at the same time

Rouge standing in the background like “ace im going to kill you how dare you not say goodbye to me” except like the vague aura is directed at everyone (Mainly ace but like. Everyone knows she’s Super Annoyed)

Look Ace if you’d Just Said Goodbye, everything would have been Fine. Your mom’s Cool.

You didn’t say goodbye

or send her a single letter telling her how you were

she’s not that cool

Roger basically Dismissing Marco/Sabo and Ace gets super pissy and starts y e l l i n g at roger and then bc it’s like. realm of the gods ala mt Olympus or w/e the surroundings start to echo the mood and Ace is quite literally spitting fire and is shifting more and more into his less human form???? So a lot Taller and glowing, wispy eyes, and parts of him encased in flames, flames trapped and visible beneath his skin and Sabo reaches for Marco’s hand because he’s never seen Ace this angry and look he’s only human, he’s been exposed to a lot and he’s pretty brave, but Ace is-

upset. he doesn’t want to see Ace upset, because it hurts something in his own chest, and he can tell by Marco’s tight grip on his hand that Marco feels the same way

But then they almost get hurt in the backlash of Ace / Roger’s argument, and Marco yells at them to stop and Ace gets snapped back to himself rather than just the anger he is in god form, and almost immediately shrinks, and Roger gets SUPER mad bc he thinks they’ve been manipulating ace???????/ and trying to make him smaller than he is????? trying to make him human, and Roger views humans the same way one might view a stray, mangy pet; pityable, and a bit cute and fun to play with, but not-

not worth much.

“This is what humans are! They’re cowards and liars and thieves! And these two are trying to-”

“Make me fucking happy!?” Ace yells back, but he stays small and stands in front of his friends and refuses to go to his dad’s level because he’d gotten better. He wasn’t so angry and useless and bored and entertaining himself by hurting people, he was-

(Humans are worth just as much as gods. they sacrifice themselves for nothing more than it is right and kindness, when they know they won’t come back, when they know people won’t remember them, or know their names, or think of them again. Humans don’t ask to be worshipped, or praised, humans just- are.)

(And these two? These two, the way roger had spit out who they were like that could encapsulate who they were-)

Roger puts her hand on Roger’s shoulder just as Ace turns his back on his father and whispers carefully to sabo and asks if he’s okay and runs his fingers over Marco’s hand and assures himself that theyre okay and apologises for what happened and asks them to forgive him for hiding the truth and Ace being interested in something again, not looking lifeless and hollow and bored, and how ace had been arguing to protect them rather than just arguing because he was so uselessly angry-

Ace turning around again to glare at his father and snapping his fingers and dropping them back on earth and staggering to the side bc he didnt usually do that and Marco immediately helps steady him and they just

talk softly into the early hours of the morning and ace presses careful kisses to their cheekbones and lips and hands like he’s the one worshipping them, their callouses and scars and birthmarks, the way their bodies have changed over the years in ways that his never will, because he can change how he appears

There’s peace, for a week, a peace of careful exchanges as they slowly grow comfortable with this new knowledge - ace knowing that they know, marco and sabo coming to terms with the fact that ace could be terrifying (but he’d never scared them. he’d never, ever tried to scare them)

Then Rouge shows up. Obviously a goddess in human form, obviously perfect, obviously gentle and kind and smiling, and presses a kiss to Ace’s cheek and then one to Sabo’s and then one to Marco’s, and she smells like flowers and summer and home, like warmth and love and she’s so- perfect

Ace is cautious, because his mother can be worse than his father (he loves her more, afterall, she’s his mom and she has always been the one to protect him, with a fury that he never wants to be on the receiving end of). She smiles at him and tells him that as long as he’s happy she’s fine but that a letter or two wouldn’t have gone amiss and basically invites herself in to have tea / lunch and makes ace tell her about all his adventures and he starts off carefully and faltering because he still thinks it’s some plan of his father’s, but she laughs at all the right moments and asks questions and is just

his mom. She’s his mom and she loves the fuck out of him-

and he’s happy. Any fool could see that, and no fool would take him away from that

She bids them goodbye at sunset, promising to come back later if invited, and Ace says that he’ll try, and then rouge asks him to grab her shawl from inside and shoos him off to get it and looks at Sabo and Marco and her eyes soften and that almost makes it worse when she says, “you won’t hurt him, would you?” because to answer yes would be to disappoint her

Then Marco shakes his head and glares at her and goes we won’t. But not because we’re afraid of you, but because we don’t want to hurt him. First and foremost he’s our friend.

Rouge smiles, properly this time, with teeth and laughter and it sounds a bit threatening but they can tell she’s amused. “I’m so glad he found you.”

She kisses them both on the cheek and is gone before Ace comes out with empty hands, and they’re left to explain what happened before she left (Ace sighs and apologises, and Sabo laughs and says he’d never expected to deal with gods in his daily life).

Random members of ace’s family show up sometimes. Rouge declared it a Thing. They just. give the mas fam stuff. Tree that blooms all year round. Tiny plants / terrariums that are accurate details of places they know, right down to the tiny - living - animals. glass panes that show the weather in the future and mirrors that put together what you want to wear and have it folded up on the bench when you come back.

They don’t realise they’re still younger than everyone else until they realise just how old everyone else is. They don’t realise that gifts from the gods are sometimes ones you can’t see. They don’t realise, but by the point they do there is nothing to contest; they don’t want to leave Ace, and Ace doesn’t want to leave them. It helps that, for all the years they were living in the city/town no-one had become super c l o s e to them.  

They get known as the weird magicians at the end of the road, and kids get dared to knock on their door and ask for stuff. Sometimes ace opens it with part of his eye on fire and sometimes marco answers it with dough on his face and laughter from behind him and strange things in the kitchen and sometimes Sabo answers it but keeps the door half closed and as you walk home you can swear there’s something by your side.

(“What do you get when you mix home and something free?” Rouge asks one day, before they’re really comfortable around each other, tapping her teaspoon against the side of her cup, ankles crossed and poise perfect, and Sabo makes a curious noise in the back of his throat.

“What?”

Rouge smiles mischievously. “You already know him.”)

a Thing that I tried to write as the Start that would’ve been Fun: (from an alt!idea where Ace was literally on the run from angry gods for having stolen something ala prometheus and sabo/marco are gods/demigods sent to get it back but Whoops they’re In Love now).

Ace had run away from a lot of things in his life.

He’d been doing it his entire life, after all.

(He just really hadn’t expected to add “fleeing from angry gods” to his list of skills.)