#but I feel they add necessary context

[animezinglife]

I tried.

Thanks for tagging me, @sweetjulieapples!

Mira Trevelyan: Intelligent, introspective, and reserved, Mira was also a bit of a loner within Ostwick's Circle. Her reserved nature was at times mistaken for aloofness, and she threw herself into her studies. Though outwardly she was a model student, her diligence (almost obsession) towards her training was largely the result of her feelings of betrayal and abandonment she experienced at the hands of her family when she begun showing an inclination towards magic.

(This got long, so click to read more).

Her family was distrustful of mages overall with the expectation that their children would grow to serve the Chantry in some capacity. They made Mira's talents about themselves and how it would impact their reputation within the Chantry, Templar Order, and among other nobility. Mira becomes increasingly guarded when it comes to herself over time due to her sense of abandonment and the competitive nature of the Circles, not wanting to experience that hurt again. She blames herself even for occurrences that were not her fault.

Like so much else in life, her family loved her and she them despite it all. Fear and hurt contorted themselves as they so often do in human nature and both, combined with Mira being made to leave them, severely strained communication and chances at reconciliation. While the morality might be argued, the matter was complicated, especially given the world they live in.

Mira was always balanced and fair by nature, but she became cursed with what we might consider "radical nuance" as a survival tactic. She is a gifted mediator and that becomes prominent in her leadership style as Inquisitor.

She struggles with absolutes--it's unclear to her whether this has always been her nature or if it's a result of the aforementioned survival/coping tactics she developed during her upbringing. She has an uncanny ability to accept situations for exactly what they are, and her mental gears turn quickly to develop and analyze potential solutions and outcomes. She accepts that at times, that means being left with choosing the "best of the bad options."

She is an avid historian and doesn't view the world in black-and-white. She is a deeply critical thinker, and one who's fully aware of her own capacity for evil. Mira follows the path that she cannot fully understand her own capacity for good without acknowledging and understanding her own capacity for evil. This comes up often in dialogue options where she admits she doesn't know whether she or the Inquisition will remain uncorrupted--she is instead fully aware that there is a high risk it will become that way, especially if too many favors are promised or they have too many hands outside the immediate goal of sealing the Breach.

Mira is objective at times to a fault. This generally serves her well as a leader, but can also make her difficult for the people to understand. It can make her seem like something more or other than human.

She breaks complex issues down into smaller, more manageable problems. What basic need has to be met? Which elements are the problem are most immediate and non-negotiable? What resources are necessary for Person A or Small Group B to become self-sufficient? How can those resources be arranged and negotiated in a way that benefits both provider and recipient? Mira can't solve the war between mages and Templars, but how can she get them working together and functioning as a unit at Haven and Skyhold?

These are the same tactics she used in her youth to mediate and survive both her family and the Circle, and she continues to grow them with the Inquisition beyond what even she thought possible.

These skills combined with her perceptiveness towards human (well, any people's) nature make her extremely adept in handling herself in court. She utterly despises the Game and prefers authenticity and directness. She believes in simplifying problems to address the larger whole and believes the Game--very similar to what she experienced within her own family and the Circle--is made to benefit the inauthentic. It makes it more difficult to identify, address, and work to resolve real problems.

She's all about humility and self-reflection to be higher indications of quality character than most traits.

She is also fiercely loving, even if she doesn't tend to show herself that love.

In terms of faith, Mira believes in a higher power, though her faith is deeply fractured at the start of Inquisition.

She has a much harder time believing everything is the Maker’s will.

Mira does not believe she is anything other than a person. She makes a distinct point of mentally separating the Herald perspective held by others as a role just like Inquisitor: a job, and an opposing figure to Corypheus and tyranny. She doesn’t claim to be a holy figure.

She admires those who can maintain a steadfast faith, though she relates far more to someone who can openly express a lack of knowing or doubt.

In my game, she expresses this most freely with Mother Giselle, Cullen, and Blackwall (all for different reasons). Mother Giselle takes her doubts in stride and offers her gentle suggestions and guidance. Cullen tells her it’s enough that she will try to help, Herald or not (and later, has that conversation with her about luck and fears). Blackwall just rolls with not knowing and doesn’t overcomplicate it.

These approaches all comfort her—they acknowledge her humanity and that it’s remained unchanged.

Her walk in the Fade and the guidance of Divine Justinia (or the spirit taking her form) is the catalyst that begins to strengthen her broken faith again, and she is able to develop her own relationship with it.

Mira never perceives herself as the Herald of Andraste, but she grows to accept the Maker. She learns that part of having faith at all is a lot of blind trust and hope.

She opens her mind to hope out of her own, genuine will rather than responsibility.

It helps her having strong, steadfast support around her. She feels safer and more comfortable in the vulnerability of hope.

For the first time in her life, Mira starts to consider herself and her own happiness during her time as Inquisitor. She finds comfort, understanding, acceptance, and safety among her friends. She finds love in all forms; falls in love with the man who ends up being the love of her life and eventually becomes her husband. For the first time in her life, she starts to consider a future for herself that she might choose rather than simply accepting where the world has placed her and trying to bloom where she's planted.

I was tagged by @charmedcleric to make my OCs with this picrew! Thank you for tagging me!

Audrey Amell: Audrey is a very talented mage and was quite popular in Ferelden's circle, often making friends easily. She was more than relieved to be recruited by the Grey Wardens, always dreaming of adventure. She loved travelling Ferelden and being outside of the tower, dark spawn aside. She's very cheerful and chatty, often striking up conversations with strangers on the road. She loves to laugh and goof around, and has no hesitation to tease someone for being an idiot (Sorry Alistair). She comes up with some sick burns, which is rather ironic for an ice mage.

Rhiannon Hawke: Rhiannon is most definitely a "purple" Hawke. She rarely takes things seriously unless someone she cares about is hurt. She's a fierce warrior one moment and a smart-mouthed buffoon the next. She learnt fairly young to laugh off pain, especially emotional pain, which she has had her fair share of. She has a good heart and wants to do what's best for the greater good of Thedas, but also understands that sometimes the most morally correct choice isn't always the right choice.

Juliette Trevelyan: Juliette was always very quiet and reserved and was considered a bit of a loner during her time at Ostwick's circle. She has impressive natural talent as fire mage, however is very insecure in her abilities and is terrified of drawing too much attention to herself. She's kind hearted and nurturing, and once she comes out of her shell a little, can sometimes be a bit silly. She'd much rather spend time horse riding and daydreaming than being Inquisitor, but pushes herself to step up because she knows it's the right thing to do. (and well, she doesn't really have a choice, does she?) She can sometimes be a bit immature and bratty, especially when it comes to her emotions because she was never taught how to properly express herself. For the first time in her life she makes solid friendships with her companions & advisors and with their support learns to trust not only others, but also herself.

Tagging (no pressure of course): @animezinglife @sasha199 @johnny-i-hardly-knew-ye

[mokagachas]

As someone who knows nothing about Oberon but loves your art: where do I start if I want to understand your love for the man?

oh man. oh jeez ( wheezing ) haha okay. uhm. erhm. i didnt expect to get this far uhm ( shaking )

so here's the problem: oberon is from lostbelt 6, a chapter in hit gacha game fate/grand order. you can play f/go if you want and chug along to lb6 - which is unfortunately a chapter 6~ years into the game's main story. but i cannot with any sort of conscious recommend a gacha game to people.

so playing the game is one option. option two is checking out atlas academy database, a website that has all of fgo's stories and such conveniently catalogued! click 'main story' on the top of the page and it'll give you just, well, the main story.

if you want to watch the stories themselves - which at least for lostbelt 6 i highly recommend because the OST is amazing - there's also this commentary free LP on youtube that i've linked to people!

that being said that is still a lot of words to get to lostbelt 6, so- if you don't want to read everything pre-lostbelt 6, i recommend going to the typemoon wiki and reading the summary on each story pre lostbelt 6 ( so, up to lostbelt 5.5 ). just click on the link in each chart and you can find a detailed beat-by-beat summary of each chapter.

i've been told that, in all honesty, that lostbelt 6 is still enjoyable and easy to understand without full context for the outside story beats. it certainly reads like a fairly self-contained story outside a few things needed to understand why some characters are here in the first place, so i've been considering writing up a summary on just those key points / the premise to the lostbelts so that people can read that and then jump right into lostbelt 6 and love oberon...

hopefully this was helpful in any sense of the word heehe ... if you need clarification with anything feel free to send another ask !!!

lets all love oberon!!! lets all think about oberon!!!!!!

[possamble]

Ooff I see that threesome WIP. Appreciate all that warning. I don't think I have the heart in me to read that hahaha. Just feels weird to have two women in a relationship and insert a man for funsies. But hey, maybe it's just me being being into only Farcille and them being monogamous and only for each other. I'm just gonna pretend it's a separate Falin and Marcille from a little creature universe so I won't look at them differently when I read the fic hahaha. Still will be reading anything else from you though. You're one of my favorite fic writers and will be waiting patiently for updates!!

I truly appreciate you being frank with what you want and don't want to read and being civil about it-- but I have to say. I'd understand and accept if you looked at me differently for making that kind of content. Maybe I'm not the kind of creator you thought I was, or my creative priorities don't line up with yours, and maybe you enjoy my content less because of that. That's all fine and well--you have every right to curate your own fandom experience and I encourage everyone to do so.

But it's very curious that you specifically said that you'd look at the characters differently. I would understand if you wanted to separate them bc it doesn't fit into your preferred image of them and that's all. But at first glance, your wording implies that they would be somehow tarnished for you if they decided to sleep with a male friend for fun some years down the line.

I don't know you, and I won't pretend I have any standing to interrogate you on a minor word choice. But here's an unsolicited heads up, if you'd humor me: you may want to examine where that sentiment is coming from. It could very well just be a knee-jerk reaction to non-monogamous content for your favourite pairing (I get that, I'm usually the one privately bitching when I see Marcille or Falin shipped with anyone else) but it could also be coming from a place that's very disparaging to adult wlw who sleep with men of their own volition. And I hope you'll agree that's something worth being wary of in yourself.

[midnite-enjoyer]

so I finally beat Daphne. by uh.

by bullying her

[presumenothing]

watching the last 10 eps of mlc with the novel still rattling around in your head is truly just an extended experience in alternating between *chinhands* and (overwhelmingly) *head in hands*

[noir-renard]

"Can I ask you a serious question?"

Clark looked up from the coffee he was doctoring. Caffeine didn't really do anything for him—Kryptonian DNA had some downsides, after all—but he liked the taste. Even if Bruce always raised a very loud and judgemental eyebrow while he asked Clark if he’d like some coffee with his sugar and cream.

But Bruce and his judgmental eyebrows weren’t here. Dick, on the other hand, was. 

Dick was here, on the Watchtower, which wasn't normal but wasn't uncommon either— especially recently. He seemed to have something of a celebrity crush on Danny Fenton. After the whole Brainiac Debacle, Danny was Dick’s 'new favorite hero'. Understandable, really, considering Danny had saved their collective bacon and barely broken a sweat doing it.

The puns and the quipping probably didn’t hurt Danny’s image in Dick’s book, either.

So. Dick had been hanging around the Watchtower more often—mostly with Danny. It felt like it had been weeks since Clark had had an actual conversation with Dick.

Dick wasn’t talking to Danny right now, though. He was talking to Clark. Sort of.

"I don't know," said Clark, sipping his coffee, "can you ask me a serious question?"

Dick shot him a glare that was all Bruce—annoyed but fond.

"You're worse than Mrs.Higgins."

"Who is Mrs.Hig—"

"Serious question time," Dick interrupted. "Why don't you read employee resumes?"

"Resumes?"

"Personnel files and stuff. For support staff. Of the JL."

Clark stirred another spoonful of sugar into his coffee. He didn’t know what this was about, but a serious question demanded a serious answer.

"Well. I'm not part of the League's HR, I don't interview support staff, and it's not really my purview.” He sipped his coffee. It needed something. More cream, maybe. “Also, most science folks don't like non-science folk meddling in their business, I've found."

Dick didn't look impressed. He was in that stage of being a teenager, apparently.

"Meddling is like, literally your job twice over."

"I'm not sure—"

"Investigative is right in the title."

There was no one else around, and Clark wasn't as anal-retentive about his civilian identity as some he could mention, but Dick would never even hint at private information like that without good reason.

Dick was right about one thing though: Clark was a journalist. He might not be a detective, but he could put context clues together easily enough.

"Is this about Danny?"

"Not specifically," Dick lied. 

Clark sighed and sat down next to Dick. "I don't investigate people without reason. He works here, so that's all I need to know."

"B said you were all butt-hurt that Danny didn't 'share' his whole deal with you,” Dick countered. 

Clark was one hundred percent certain that was not how Bruce had phrased it. Just as certain as he was that Bruce was annoyed about something. Figuring out what Bruce meant by the things he did and didn’t say was something Clark had down to an art form. Filtering what Bruce meant by the things he did and didn’t say through Dick’s own unique way of communication, however, was a work in progress.

So, the facts: Bruce was annoyed about something involving Clark and Danny; Dick was speaking to Clark for the first time in weeks about Said Something; Said Something involved files, and Danny, and information Clark didn’t have—

Ah.

"I didn't read Danny’s files because I didn’t want to pry and it’s frankly none of my business—"

"But you did speculate." 

Dick stared out the window, watching the earth pass by beneath them. 

Rather than interrupt what felt like an important silence, Clark waited for Dick to say what he wanted to say.

"I just think,” Dick began slowly, “that rather than assume he's Mister Freeze's son—which doesn't even make sense by the way—you should do some basic fact-checking. Like, put 'Fenton' in a duck-duck-go search or something."

It was then that Clark was struck with the uncomfortable realization that he'd disappointed Dick.

"I know Danny isn't Dr.Fries' son," Clark explained. "That was Barry's theory."

"Barry's theory that you didn't discourage."

"Sometimes you have to let Barry spitball until he comes around to what he really means to say."

Clark certainly had enough experience with it, as one of the people who could physically keep up with the speed Barry sometimes talked.

Dick crossed his arms, unimpressed. “None of you need to spitball. You’re supposed to be good at communicating.”

Danny walked past them into the Watchtower kitchen then. Well, he walked through the wall, stuck his hand and head through the fridge, pulled out a snack, and left.

He'd been fiddling with the specs for something the whole time and hadn't noticed Clark and Dick sitting there. 

"That was—what was—?"

Dick stood up. "I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

He followed after Danny, a new spring in his step.

Maybe Clark should indulge the inherent nosiness of his day job, his life's calling, and being from a small town in Kansas—just a smidge—and read some personnel files.

Later, though. He couldn’t just go reading Danny’s personal information right after Dick all but told him to just because Dick told him to. He'd do it in his own time.

.

.

.

Clark still had yet to read Danny’s file when a Boom Tube opened up inside the Watchtower, Darkseid one foot through with just Danny and Clark there to stop him.

There wasn’t even time to panic. Danny just said, "Not today, Satan," and…covered the Boom Tube with some kind of green goo? From his hands?

"Fngh?" Said Clark, not even sure what he was trying to say.

Danny shrugged. "Not in the mood for Apokolips bulls—uh, bologna today."

Clark's brain and mouth caught up with each other then. 

"What did you do?"

"I put a lid on it."

"On…the Boom Tube?"

Danny shrugged again.

"It's an extra-dimensional wormhole," Clark said slowly, "You can't put a lid on it."

"You can if you don’t think too much about why it shouldn't work."

Clark opened his mouth. Closed it. Thought for a second. "Physics isn't a suggestion you can avoid by not thinking about it too much."

Danny smirked and jerked his head at the Green-Capped (lidded?) Boom Tube hovering ominously in the middle of the control room.

"Tell that to the Boom Tube."

There was really no good way to respond to something like that. Best just to move on. 

"They could still make a Boom Tube somewhere else."

"Yeah. But right now they're dealing with a ghost invasion, so I think we're good."

"What?" Said Clark, lost, yet again. "How do you know that?"

Danny looked back and forth between the Boom Tube (Green Capped) and Clark like the answer was obvious.

It was not.

"Anyway," Danny continued, "if those assho—I mean…jerks? Yeah. If those jerks know what's good for them and go home."

"And if they don't?"

"You know what they say: uh…muck around, find out."

So. Danny could, apparently, put a lid on a Boom Tube, but didn't want to curse in front of Clark. Not the thing to focus on here, but it was the least insane thing that had happened to him today.

"You can speak freely, you know. I don’t care."

"Oh, thank fuck."

Like that, the conversation was over. For Danny, anyway. He wandered off, muttering something about making a "Boom Tube Lid Gun for Next Time."

It wasn’t until later, once Clark had calmed down from the adrenaline of nearly having to fight Darkseid single-handedly and then, abruptly, not having to do that, that he was able to gather himself enough to access Danny Fenton's file and figure out what on God's green earth his deal was.

He was left with more questions than answers, but Clark decided to take Danny’s advice and not think about it too much and hope that made it make sense.

It didn't, but at least Clark knew now there was no reason not to worry when Danny only had a heartbeat half the time.

And if, a week later, Clark found a blue and red…device in his locker (it looked like a cross between a net gun and a water gun) labeled "Superman's Not Today Satan Super Soaker", well. Clark would do what his ma taught him and send Danny a thank you card and a casserole and never bring it up again.

But if Barry walked by, muttering about ice villains and why were there so many of them, and if Clark used that opportunity to tell him he'd been closer with his Captain Cold guess, but still wrong, and that Danny's situation was more like Barry's own, well. Hopefully, Barry would take the hint to do some reading.

Unfortunately—

"Danny got his powers from the Cold Force? Huh.” Barry frowned. “I didn't know there was such a thing as a Cold Force. That explains everything."

"…it does?"

"Yeah! Like why there are so many ice villains!"

Clark sighed. He’d planned to let Barry realize on his own that he should read Danny’s file, but maybe it was better just to tell him.

"Listen, Barry, I don't think that's actually—"

"Oh! Maybe that's why you have ice breath! A gift from the Cold Force! I always said that didn't make sense. Why would the sun give you ice powers?"

On second thought. Reading and investigation were important skills. Barry could figure it out on his own.

"Maybe you're right, Barry." He clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I bet there is a Cold Force, just like the Speed Force. I bet there’s a whole bunch of Forces out there."

Bruce caught his eye from across the room. His mouth was set in a particular way Clark recognized, caught between exasperation and amusement. You see what I have to put up with? He seemed to say.

As Barry rambled on about the different kinds of Forces that might be out there, Bruce stood up, melting away from the conversation he hadn’t exactly joined to begin with.

“Where are you going?” asked Barry, proving he could be observant when it suited him.

“I have some pre-emptive adjustments to make to Danny’s PTO.”

“Oh?” said Barry.

“Hm,” said Bruce.

He was probably right. Casserole and a thank you card wasn’t gonna cut it.

a lot of people asked to be tagged if this got updated but there are just. too many to go through. I'm sorry OnO

Short DPXDC Prompts #648

The League gets incredibly concerned that their main tech mechanic, Danny Fenton, has instances of his heart or breathing randomly stopping. His skin is cold as ice and his skin is deathly pale.

Danny didn’t realize that the League doesn’t look at hiring applications. If they did they would have seen that he put being a half ghost on his resume.

[adelheidvonschicksal]

⋆｡°✩ DARLING, DON'T BE AFRAID

Summary: Despite living with Xavier for the past few weeks, you still haven't taken the plunge to see if all this time together make you anything more than roommates especially when he disappears again in the middle of the night. Determined, you decide to question him on where his feelings lie. You just never thought a simple kiss on the cheek was the only push needed.

Pairing: Xavier x Fem!Reader

Content Warning: Roommates AU, Vanilla Smut (A lot of it. Like 7k words of smut), Love Confessions, Friends to Lovers, Emotional Sex

Word Count: 12,000~

Note: Sequel to Do Roommates Sleep Together. This part can be read as a standalone. So not necessary to read part one but it adds more context.

AO3 Link

You make a final decisive pull of the trigger. A loud pang resonates in the air and smoke spirals off the barrel. The Wanderer disappears in a wisp of debris and dust that is quickly caught in the wind.

Xavier stands a few feet in front of you. His sword twirls with one final arc of light illuminating behind the sharpened tip before it dematerializes in his hand.  You’re oblivious to the way his eyes search and find you on instinct as you run eager fingertips on the warm barrel of your pistol. 

“Mission completed. We should report back.”

You raise your head to meet his gaze while your gloved fingers remain faithfully on your weapon. The adrenaline from a successful mission is still surging through you.

“I want to test out my guns some more.”

His eyes soften at your response, but the weight of his gaze is still heavy as he walks towards you and places his hand on your head. 

“There will be more Wanderers tomorrow,” he murmurs. His thumb gently brushes your forehead before his hand swoops back over your hair. Though your hands were still itching for another battle, your mind was weak to the calmness of his tone, like the slow tumble of waves on the shore, as he coaxes your head back to look at him more directly. “Let’s go home.”

This time you do not protest. Even if you did, what could you possibly say? 

Your aggression relaxes along with your shoulders, allowing you to give in to his request with a quick holstering of your twin guns. 

You return to headquarters and give your mission report to Jenna – pausing only to poke fun when she mentions how much Xavier’s reporting time has improved since the two of you became partners – then you start on the way home with the sun kissing at your back.

Laughter fills the air on the streets. Immediately, you feel warm inside. It was only thanks to the work you do every day that citizens could enjoy this peaceful dusk without fear of monsters scrambling to destroy the city like so many years ago. 

It’s rewarding to know you hold some small part in the safety of the city after almost dying in the catastrophe as a child. You breathed it in fully, letting joy fill your lungs as you savor the calm moment. The emotion is only highlighted by the fact that when you look to your side, you can see Xavier there, putting weight to the empty space left in the wake of your family’s death. 

Walking home together in the past was a random occurrence, happening whenever your busy schedules after missions aligned. As freshly cemented roommates, it was almost a given you’d walk home together now. Not just to the apartment complex, but to an actual shared home. 

This path you go along every day has become special in that time. It’s full of promises, the kind you could only wish for on snowy New Year's evenings as you tied red ribbons to the shrine gate and prayed for good things to happen in your life. Not a lot of those wishes came true but Xavier did. 

In that way, you were a fortunate person. 

It was only your guess if he felt the same. You want to ask him. Unlike when you’re fighting Wanderers, you’re not brave when it comes to Xavier - a part of you prefers to leave things between you unsaid. It’s safer that way as you can keep living in a beautiful world of your own illusions. 

Therefore, you’re unable to help yourself. Pinching the sleeve of his uniform, you tug on it gently to gain his attention; Xavier looks at you with glossy glazed eyes. He’s always so sluggish after missions. His steps slow and methodical, like a robot, as he barely manages to straighten his spine and raise his head.

“Chin up, Xavier. We’re almost there.”

“I’m exhausted,” he says. 

You don’t need to hear him say it to understand. You think you’ve become good at reading his body language by now. Donning a sympathetic smile, you shift your hand, aiming for a lower target, and entwine your fingers with his under the guise of leading him faster.

“My next solution is carrying you by the way.”

A smile cracks on his face, impossibly light as his gaze drifts to the hold you have on his hand. “I don’t think you could carry me.”

“You dare doubt me?” Truth be told, he was right. He was tall and muscular and much thicker under that uniform than he looked. He would probably crush you under his weight if you tried to lift him. Despite how improper it was to think, you wouldn’t mind if he wanted to place his weight on top of you in another way. You tick up the corner of your lips into a surprisingly innocent smile opposite of the images in your imagination as you flash your bicep to him. “I’m very strong.”

“I think it would make more sense if I carried you.”

“I can walk.”

“I don’t see why that matters,” he says with a yawn, and you smile.

“Are you sure you won’t drop me?”

“If it’s a choice between falling asleep and dropping you then I’ll definitely stay awake. Otherwise, you might end up carrying me after all,” he says. Xavier always manages to be unfailingly charming. Given the mystery of his past and the way he carries himself, you often question exactly what kind of upbringing he had. You almost ask but your interrogation doesn’t have the chance to plant seeds when he stops in front of you and kneels. 

You thought he was joking when he said he’d carry you home but that doesn’t stop you from wrapping your arms over his broad shoulders and letting him scoop your legs up around his solid waistline. 

His clasp on the back of your thighs makes you shiver. You feel like a touch-starved virgin that the simple strength of his hands over the thickness of your pants incited such a reaction out of you, so you bury your burning face against the back of his neck. 

“Are you alright?” he asks.

Xavier must feel your hair against his neck, and you use the fact he can’t see your face to your advantage as you nod against his nape.

“Just hungry.”

For his part, Xavier doesn’t question your sudden hunger. Instead, he asks what you’re in the mood for and starts to list the restaurants that you pass on the way to the apartment complex.

You lay your cheek against him, watching the many buildings pass you by until you point out one you don’t recognize, flashing with many signs about a grand opening.

“How about that one?” you ask.

Xavier chuckles, continuing on in his steps past the building in question. “It’s not that great.”

“How do you know?”

“I tried them out.”

You squeeze into his shoulders, pushing off of them in a childlike manner and an even more dramatic gasp. “Without me?”

“I was going to bring you something back, but they weren’t very tasty. I like your cooking a lot more.”

You know he can’t see you, but you puff out your cheeks anyway. You wrap your arms tightly around him again, willing your heart not to skip when his back tenses as your chest compresses against him.  

“Are you asking me to cook dinner for you? I’m quite exhausted after all that running around,” you tell him sarcastically. 

He accidentally makes you regret your teasing when he agrees with a compassionate offer, “I’ll cook for you today.”

Hearing the word cook from his mouth makes your stomach sour. If there’s one thing after all these months you learned, it’s that Xavier is a…creative cook to put it gently. Or rather, he has zero cooking ability if it involves electricity. You didn’t mind. The two of you make it work with you doing most of the cooking and him cleaning up after, at your own behest, because if he had his way, he’d be in the kitchen much more often. 

“On second thought, I’ll cook.”

“You still don’t trust me,” he says with a sigh. Guilt tingles through you. However, your continued survival outweighs the guilt that the memory of his puppy eyes can draw out of you. “I’ll handle the cold stuff, and I’ll leave the meat to you.”

“Deal,” you say, nuzzling your head against his neck. 

When you get home, the night pans out like it always does. The two of you take turns in the shower with dinner being cooked shortly after, and the human garbage disposal known as your roommate leaves very little work for you to do once all is said and done. 

You decide to start on the last of chores for today while Xavier washes the dishes. It’s routine to check the plants before going to bed as the many potted flowers were like your own children after you spent so many hours tending to them, finding the perfect ratio of nutrients and water to keep them thriving. 

It is also routine to hunt down the birds so lovingly named Fatso and Alarm Clock by the sleepy man of the house to give them some of the seeds and nuts you regularly brought home from the store. You told Xavier that happy birds would stop eating his strawberries when in reality you liked to spoil them. 

So, you spread out the seeds on the ground for them, leaving them there for later. 

“If you feed them, they’ll never leave.”

You can’t help the laugh that leaves you. As much as he complains about the birds, you think, if his constant curiosity about the birds’ day-to-day lives was anything to go by, that he’d miss the two fluffy creatures if they were to ever find new nesting grounds. You turn back to the balcony door with a cheeky grin. “I have experience with things that don’t leave after you feed them. You enjoyed dinner a little too much.”

It’s hard to see in the fading light but Xavier blushes and brings a shy grip to the back of his neck. “Last I checked you moved in with me.”

That silences you. There’s no denying his observation, and you fail to notice him getting closer until he reaches his hand out to help you up. You willingly reach out, hand sinking into his touch as he lifts you to your feet. 

The coolness of your palms touching slowly births a lingering warmth. The soft squeeze around your hand makes it hard to let him go but eventually you must. Otherwise, you might say things that are better kept to yourself as you walk back into the house and close the sliding door behind you. 

With a pounding heart, you retire to your room early.

This room is a little different from the master room at your old apartment. The wall color is a little different brighter and it’s smaller. Luckily, you made the space work pretty easily by migrating half your plushie collection into Xavier’s room, checking like a dutiful mother to make sure he was treating them right and placing them with love should they roll off his dresser.  Sighing, you change into slightly more comfortable clothes, choosing a random pair of soft shorts and a tank top to wear before climbing into bed. It’s ten when you finally let your eyes slip shut, and it's around eleven you feel someone touching you.

Your eyelids are surprisingly heavy; you can barely pry them open enough to see the wisp of grey-brown hair shadowing medium-blue eyes. You don’t protest as you feel his fingertips brush along your waist or when his knee digs into the mattress, sinking you towards his weight.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he wants. You raise your arm enough to let your fingertips greet the curve of his chin in silent acceptance. Slowly, you drop your hand and squeeze his bicep. Like a good little soldier, he follows the order to fall into the bed with you. 

The most comfortable position is to slot your arm on top of his as he hugs your waist, props his leg on top of yours, and spoons your back. There’s absolutely zero space between your lower halves; and if he notices how you, with a small amount of shame, subtly shift and push yourself back on him a little more, he doesn’t say as he lolls his head against the curve of your neck while his incredibly light exhaling on your skin comforts you after a long day. 

With a flutter of your eyelids, you slowly slip back into sleep with the happiness that comes with being roommates with your crush. 

It’s times like these that make you think maybe he loves you. It’s also times like these that make you forget that despite all of the endearing things about him and despite how much you care about him, you don’t truly know a lot about him.

Xavier has always been a man with a lot of secrets. You’ve known this since you first met him asleep in the forest. It’s true that you once accepted the fact you’d never learn all his secrets but that was before whatever this abnormal relationship that the two of you found yourself in. 

Even after living together for more than two months now, you still had no idea where he would go when he would sneak off in the middle of the night. You didn’t question where he goes anymore, you found that he wouldn’t give you a straight answer to save his life. You merely stayed up until you heard the sound of the door opening or the warped echo of air being sucked into a vacuum, indicating he teleported inside. 

So, when you wake up at two in the morning, finding yourself alone and the side of the bed where he laid mere hours ago already cold, you’re not surprised.

Getting out of bed, you slip on your slippers and drag your feet to the balcony. It’s a familiar situation when you collapse into the swing chair, with nothing but the cold and the chirping of the birds to keep you company until he undoubtedly returns with his body hosting a family of fresh wounds.

It’s incredibly frustrating because you love him and seeing him hurt, without you having been there to prevent it, drives you crazy. You wonder why he won’t tell you, and your heart sinks, as quickly as a stone cast in a lake, with the idea that maybe you were the only one thinking that your relationship meant more than it did. Because even after all this time, you still aren’t close to him in the way you want. 

Clenching your fists, you shove your eyes against them. It was all so infuriating when he ran off to fight Wanderers or whoever and left you all alone to overthink and worry about him like some helpless house plant. It was enough to make you want to cry as the strange foreboding sense of losing him begins to echo inside of you, making you nauseous.                                                                                 There’s only one way to get rid of this feeling. Taking in a deep breath, you settle to give him a piece of your mind about sneaking off so much and also to bite the bullet to confess your feelings. 

It was only a matter of waiting for him to actually return home and to get your heightened nerves to stop firing in every direction in the meantime. 

By the time you heard the door to the apartment creaking open, you’d nearly fallen asleep in the wicker swing chair. You swallow down the bitter taste of fear, ignoring the tumultuous waves it makes when it hits your stomach. You’d never get anywhere if you didn’t face him. 

Carefully, you hop up from your seat and make slow strides into the apartment. It’s still dark in the house; you hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights earlier. Yet Xavier carries a lightness around him, mostly imagined by yourself, that makes him easy to spot in the darkness. 

For a moment, things seem normal as he takes a few stiff steps forward. Suddenly, he falls forward, the white of his uniform nearly a blur with how fast he collapses onto the sofa, but it is nothing compared to the speed at which you rush to his side. 

You call his name, press two fingers to his throat, and let your eyes slip closed with a desperate concentration as you search for his pulse behind the blaring red of his collar. 

It’s a gradual pace, averaging twenty beats a minute and slowly rising. For anyone else, you’d immediately rush them to the hospital. For Xavier, that number is a relief. 

You hold your hand to your pounding heart, practicing deep measured inhales to calm it. It appears he fell asleep as soon as he entered the room, with only enough awareness to kick off his shoes at the door. 

It looks like your lecture will have to be postponed for another day. 

You’re thankful for all the training you had to take to become a hunter because it takes an enormous amount of effort to throw one of his arms over your shoulders and drag him to his bedroom. You make a mental note to never let him question your ability to carry him again as you sit him on the bed and shuffle off his uniform jacket, leaving him only in his pants. 

In a tender motion, you gently cup his face and examine him. Dirt cakes his face; and when you brush it away, there’s a small cut on his cheek. It hits you again just how reckless and secretive he can be, echoing with a bitter thought that he didn’t bring you again. The only bright spot is the little cut is his only injury this time. 

Laying him on his back, you leave for only a moment to get a warm washcloth and an adhesive from the bathroom. It’s a blue band-aid with a cartoonish pink bunny on it, something a kid would love and has probably been collecting dust in the drawer longer than you’ve been alive. 

It takes all the seriousness out of your body when you return, clean his face off, and place the colorful bandage on his cheek. It’s hard to believe this narcoleptic pretty boy was the strongest member of the Hunters Association. 

“I didn’t think when we moved in together I was going to become a babysitter,” you commented with a little huff and poke of his cheek. “You’re terrible at taking care of yourself. Can’t cook. Can’t stay awake. Can’t tell someone when you’re going out. I bet you didn’t even lock the door when you came in. …What if a Wanderer floated in after you and trampled all the flowers, or did you just not want to leave any for me tomorrow?”

You know your complaints are falling on deaf ears as he cuddles up to his pillow without a care in the world. But if you didn’t complain, you’d get depressed instead. Dropping to your knees, you sit on the floor and prop your elbow on the bed to get a better look at him. 

He looks so peaceful.

There’s no tension, no crease to his expression. It’d be easy to mistake him for a normal young man if it weren’t for the strong humming of his Evol tickling at the wall of your resonance.

“I’ll let you sleep, but you’re getting it in the morning! I expect answers. Otherwise, I won’t cook breakfast for you,” you attempt to sound threatening in your words with every poke to his cheek a not-so-silent promise to follow through. “I’ll take my missions with the new recruit all the ladies at work gossip about. And the next time I get a snack shipment, I’m letting Jeremiah have first pick!”

With one last prod to his face and no reaction otherwise, you stop your demands and sit back on your legs. 

Bit by bit, you feel your energy dissolving. It’s no use. It’s all empty threats. You’ll probably not cook for a few days, eat in front of him too, at least until he gives you those puppy eyes, and you’ll fold just like origami paper. You’ll still save him the snack you know he likes even if you allow Jeremiah first pick of the rest. And you’d never be interested in the new recruit or anyone else. 

Xavier can be distant and formal. For others, his hyper-independence was evident. Taking on missions alone and avoiding group settings is just the way Xavier’s personality works. He’s reliable and gets along with everyone at a surface level and he’s known to go out of his way to help others without seeking validation for it so it never ruffled any feathers when he goes off on his own or rejects an invitation to drink with the others after work. 

They didn’t see. They didn’t see how easy it was to care about him. They appreciate him but they weren’t aware of how intensely and passionately he could feel when he unfurls that independent nature. How he always quietly adjusts his dominant foot to point your direction whenever a Wanderer appears. How his voice drops and his touch becomes the smallest bit more graceful and careful when he sees you upset. How sweetly he looks when he sleeps.

It makes your resolve crumble and your heart squeeze, something only he can do without even being awake to know it. 

“You’re lucky I like you,” you mumble to him. 

As you lean closer, you easily ignore the stirring in your gut that tells you to stop. 

The bandage is a little rough against your lips as you seize the chance to kiss him. It’s a short and small thing, much more delicate than your prodding from earlier because you want to indulge the romantic in you. You want him to somehow sense the feelings cultivated in your heart over the past few months though impossible when he’s asleep.

You don’t let it last long. Instead, the desperate urge to feel his heat against you spurs you to rest your forehead against his cheek. It’s warm and soft, and the faint scent of pine trees of the no-hunt zone fills your nose. You savor being this close to him, allowing yourself to indulge in it until the heat on your skin starts to match his, and you finally let him have peace for the night.

With no need to remain in his room, you stand and pivot towards the door, wondering how you’ll manage to grasp any form of sleep tonight. However, you don’t make it two steps before there’s a tug at your arm.

You yelp as you’re pulled towards the bed while the shock has you stumbling forward into it. The hand leaving your arm in favor of grasping around your wrist stops you from falling completely but your knees have already buckled. You’re left nearly a head under him when he finally swings his legs over the side of the bed and shifts into a full sitting position. This position is oddly familiar. When you uncertainly force your eyes up to meet his face, this vulnerable angle becomes unmistakable.  

His voice is husked and rasped from sleep, sending a chill up your spine when paired with the swirling shadows darkening his blue eyes under his hooded lids and dark lashes. That’s the look of a predator, of the association’s strongest hunter, and you face the inkling realization that you’re the prey. 

Nervously, you begin to divert your eyes. He takes a page out of your own playbook and reaches under your chin to guide your sight back to him as you fight not to whimper at the pressure of his thumb pushing down as if he wants to part your lips. It isn’t until now that you notice how close you are to his lap and how another few inches would drop you to your knees.

“Why worry about Wanderers following me home when you’re so much scarier.”

“What do you mean?” 

Memory has never been your friend. This though is the first time you’ve forgotten how to breathe when his fingers completely close around your wrist. His hold is firm, preventing you from wringing your way out of his grasp, but it doesn’t hurt.

He might as well take that grasp and use it to squeeze your heart instead when he brings your hand to his face. You’re unsure what he’s planning; the awkwardness of the situation makes your fingers straighten and twitch away as he holds your hand closer to his face. Sensing your trepidation, he closes the last of the distance instead by tilting his head into your hand with the same affection as always as he lets your fingertip brush against the silly little bunny bandage. 

The familiarity of the motion puts your heart a little more at ease but not enough to bring your breathing back to you as he mumbles, “I don’t remember giving you permission to kiss me.”

Your lips part with a silent puff while your brows push forward, highlighting the confusion in your mind onto your face. He takes advantage of the moment to nuzzle your hand. It’s a notion you can’t appreciate as his words finally sink into your mind and reform into a horrifying conclusion.

“…You were awake the whole time.”

He chuckles so easily at the dry peep that echoes from you, the rivet of that warm sound collects in your palm and makes your face scalding hot. You didn’t face a burning heat like this even when fighting one of those flame dragons. All the while, Xavier was laughing at you…

“Not the whole time.”

With your head catching up, you find enough of yourself again to actually glare at him and smack his shoulder. “That’s not the point!”

With another display of strength, he locks your other wrist, pulls you up, and then snatches you into him. Luckily, you’re able to flatten your palms against his chest to brace yourself. His heart as well as his face is unnervingly calm compared to your own organ that’s currently orchestrating its escape from your chest, battering your ribcage even harder as you unconsciously stretch your fingers over his naked skin. 

You don’t like this. This bullying, which you only describe as such because you can’t think of a word more fitting for the way he’s treating you, is too one-sided. 

“It was on the cheek,” you argue with a steeled voice. You fake the confidence to stare him back down, choosing to trade your determination to confess to him tonight in exchange for preserving your pride. “It was friendly.”

To your satisfaction, your declaration of war makes him the one to pause this time. His eyes widen and there’s a quiver in those waves of blue that he hides by glancing down and away. 

“…Is that what it was?”

You nod. “I wasn’t…going to do anything else.”

Xavier smiles, shaking his head, and there’s a new determination in his eyes that causes your teeth to clench down on the inside of your cheek as he leans closer. 

“In that case, is it okay to return the favor?”

He doesn’t give you the time to answer. He’s already closing the distance, his dark lashes already fluttering, and his lips already puckering to kiss you as you’re squeezed flushed against him, only your palms stopping your chest from colliding with his. 

“Wait!”

Hearing your disapproval, he pauses, but that cheeky grin still doesn’t dissipate. 

“What's wrong?” he asks with a sigh. You’re sure it’s not a true question. “Am I not allowed to give you a friendly kiss as well.”

The implications make your stomach twist while your thighs squeeze together pathetically with the sudden throbbing of arousal that spikes through you as you tumble further and further into this rabbit’s trap.

“I—that’s!”

“So, you were misbehaving,” he concludes from your sheepishness. “I guess that means I need to punish you instead.” He breaks his hold around one of your wrists to ghost his fingertips along your cheek and down your neck until all you can do in response is breathe out a moan, much to his surprise given by the rise of his eyebrows and the slight dust of pink on his bewildered face. “…I didn’t think you were that sensitive there.”

Your mind swims with the traitorous thought of wanting to show him where you’re more sensitive dancing in your mind before you can sweep it away. When his fingers dance along your neck again, you whimper and hold in another moan.

“Don’t hold back on my account. You know my most sensitive spot after all, as hunting partners, it only makes sense for me to know yours, right?”

You can hardly think of a response to that. It’s true. You know his biggest weaknesses and as you come to terms with the situation you run your thumb over the plump inside of your thigh hesitantly. It takes you almost an entire minute to decide on what you want to say, and you don’t notice his hold on your wrist weakening.  

“My weakness—” 

Suddenly, your arm drops back to your side.

“I’m kidding,” Xavier states; the small smile he normally wears comes back to his face as you look up at him with wide eyes. “I was only curious as to what your reaction would be.”

The tension in the air wanes and buries itself in your heart. The embarrassment clings to every cell living in you, unshakeable as you try to keep a brave face. “You’re cruel.”

“Am I? You were the one touching me, all the while promising to run off with some rookie,” he reminds you. 

“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t—you’re so frustrating,” you scream at him, and this is the first time he appears to take you seriously all night.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, with less teasing and more concern. He wraps an arm around your waist. His legs slot between yours, leaving your knees to collide with the plush of the bed as he hugs you tighter and tighter until you’re nearly seated in his lap. “Don’t be mad. I only thought—” 

“Xavier?”

“Did you really mean it then?” he redirects. He snakes his other arm around your waist, this time when he holds you it feels…weak, and his pursed lips and narrowed eyes hold back a troubled emotion. “That it was in a friendly way?”

Your breath hitches at the swirl of his thumbs nervously circling the small of your waist. Nervously, he waits for an answer you long lost in the rapids of the constantly changing tides of the last few minutes. 

“If you meant it…if you truly wanted to kiss me,” he pauses, trying to find his voice. The one to tell you that you’re all he thinks about. “Then you should have woken me up.” His face holds a serene glow that completely enraptures you as he looks up at you. “I wouldn’t have rejected you,” he swore.

He loved you so much it ached. Moving in together should have been enough to prove it. He guesses not; because when he thinks you want him back, you’re so hesitant to accept. Even now, you’re unable to respond. 

This cycle has become painful, even for someone as patient as himself, the wait when you’re this close to him is agonizing. So, he decides now to be the one to end this circle the two of you found yourself in with one decisive motion. 

He tests the waters, not knowing if he’ll swim or drown, but he has confidence in his ability to read your personality and actions as he cups the back of your head and pulls you in for a kiss. 

Your mind empties immediately, your body on autopilot when it registers the warm, silky skin of his lips on yours. Closing your eyes, you willingly tumble and fall into the taste of him, chasing after it when he breaks away. 

“There. We’re even,” he says, but to you, that’s far from the truth. You’re far from even after all the heartache and sleepless nights he’s been putting you through, after all the push and pull that left you aching and wanting both in your heart and between your thighs. 

The self-satisfied smile on his face quickly fades as you grope his shoulders, digging your nails in like you’re afraid he’ll escape. Your knees press to the top of the bed as you plant yourself more onto his lap. He braces his hands on your hips to catch you as you run your hand into his hair and crane his head back, so he has to look you in the eye.

His ears pinken at your sudden brazenness, but it doesn’t reflect in his voice as he smiles at you. “Are you trying to get more?” 

“Am I being too greedy?” you ask. He chuckles at the jut of your lips and the pleading eyes before you press another demanding kiss to the corner of his lips. 

Xavier moans from his throat as he latches onto your jaw to redirect your kisses to his lips. Kissing him is nearly maddening, the twitch of his muscular thighs under your ass making your mind hazy. With one hard squeeze at your hips, he catches up to the zealousness of your kisses. 

His tongue pokes and prods at your mouth. However, he doesn’t need much permission to keep going as you open your mouth wider. His mind skips and lags at just how quickly your mouth overtakes the slick appendage. It leaves him more than a little out of breath and flustered with the rate your mouths keep parting and meeting, tongues desperately searching and licking the inside your mouths as if this is the first meal you’ve had in weeks.

You’re hungry to memorize each other despite having all the time in the world now to do just that. When the two of you finally indulged enough and earned enough satisfaction, you’re able to calm down and readjust the pace. 

“I think we’re both greedy,” he jokes about the both of you before sliding his tongue back into your mouth. This time he’s slower as he presses down on your tongue, causing your teeth to lightly graze over the top of his.

There are too many sensations going on for you to keep up. The way your breasts hug his hard chest has you feeling sensitive while the heat seeping from his tongue stroking in your mouth has your stomach bundled in tight knots that won’t know release until he’s inside of you. 

Dreams were nothing compared to this. Nights filled with nothing but inappropriate thoughts of him turn into nightmares at the slim chance of having to face them again should this go wrong. 

Impatiently, his fingers curve into the hump of your ass to anchor you and encourage you to grind on his lap, or rather grind against the hard tent brazenly making its presence known with each hurried roll of your hips.

You whine from the separation of your sexes when he begins to lift you up, but your complaints quickly die in your throat. They’re replaced by a squeal as he flips you and your back bounces on the mattress.  

Xavier climbs over you, his face flushed, breath ragged, and overall, he’s just absolutely beautiful to you. Reaching up, you cup his cheek and play with the ends of his hair, unable to recall the last time you’ve felt this high. 

“Xavier,” you whisper breathlessly as you swoop his bangs back to see more of his handsome face and save it to memory. “What are we?”

Xavier tilts his head, furrowing his brow at your question, and there’s a second where a ray of doubt breaks through the clouds of lust in his irises. “We’re…whatever you want to be.”

“I want to be with you,” you say. Those words tumble out more effortlessly than you ever thought. 

Xavier overlaps your hand with his, holding on tight as if to prove a point. “You are with me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” he corrects. Then, he dazzles you as he always does, “I want you to tell me so there’s no mistake, and you can’t take it back later.”

You inwardly become embarrassed when it crosses your mind that this is the first time you’ve ever confessed to him without multiple drinks in your system. It’s too late to turn back now that you’ve crossed the Milky Way and landed on the other side. 

But why would you when you’re so close?

“I want to be with you always. Whenever and wherever you are. Whether that’s having fun together or fighting. I-I love you, and—”

“And I love you,” he answers. You’re not sure if you’re jealous or relieved that he can say those three words without hesitation.

“I don’t want anything to be between us. I don’t want any more secrets or hidden things. I’m tired of this. I just want to be real, more than partners or roommates or whatever other title that isn’t boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Okay,” Xavier agrees as easily as he agreed to be roommates with you in the first place. 

“Okay?”

“I want that too,” he agrees as he repositions himself on top of you and his lips curve into a small smirk, “girlfriend.”

You’re accustomed to the finicky organ known as your heart tightening with pain when you’re overwhelmed; this time when it skips a beat, it’s welcomed. Smiling, you gaze up at him as he releases a slow, strained breath. It’s validating to know he’s been just as nervous as you.

Everything suddenly becomes full force again when his knees move to either side of your legs while he pins your hands above your head in one tight fist. His teeth nip at your earlobe, and his free hand gropes at your breast, fingers outstretching to fully take it in his grasp. Wet kisses burn on your throat, each one firing off a rapid signal to arch your back. 

“Slow down,” you whine before cutting it off with a moan as he hits a particular delicate spot. The discovery spurs him on, like a pet with a new toy, and he bites your nape once again causing your hips to jerk. With a burning desire building in your stomach at every touch, you pitifully hug your thighs together to try to ease it. “I didn’t get a chance to absorb all that,” you tell him, mostly to get some time to catch up. It backfires wonderfully as he grips onto the bottom of your tank top.

“I have a better way to help you understand.”

The sheets shift with his movement, your lower half dipping towards him as if he holds his own gravitational field. He settles between your legs and strokes against you with one slow, languid rock. It instantly makes you throb. It’s painful how hard you clench over absolutely nothing, panties gathering the lust that’s dripping from you.  

You simultaneously hate and love him for causing this need that’s bubbling inside you. 

Large hands press your shirt further up your torso. “Arms up,” he demands softly, which you have no problem obeying, and he quickly lifts your shirt over your head.

He lowers his hands to hold at your waist, and they fall still on you as he takes in your naked skin. You’re not privy to his thoughts. The silence of the room feels defean-ing now that your needy gasps of air aren’t filling it.

He pauses, eyes taking you in as you raise your eyebrows at his hesitancy. Xavier smiles, mumbling out, “Just thinking where to start.”

Xavier smiles at you so tenderly. Everything about him is incredibly soft on first appearance. He has big blue puppy eyes, he prefers white, cozy clothes, and his voice is just as gentle as his appearance. Everything about him is soft except for his hands. 

Those are hardy and battle-honed, worn with calluses built up with every swing of the sword he’s taken since he was a child, enough of them to slay thousands of Wanderers over the years. 

They drag.

Oh, they drag so dangerously slow over your skin, dipping into the pudge of your stomach and highlighting a small circle in the warm, buzzing glow of his Evol. The rays shine gold over your flesh, shimmering brightly in the dark of the room. 

“Here,” he states before hunting down another spot on your torso. A beauty mark, like a beacon, earns the sharp eyes of a hunter. He zones in on the vulnerable location, creating a golden target. “Maybe here.”

You squirm with every mapped spot he creates. “Xavier.”

The residue of his power leaves your skin humming; you’re overly aware of each spot he highlights with his power. You like to think your senses would still be heightened regardless of this little game. After all, you’ve been wanting him to touch you forever.

Every night next to him felt like torture, being unable to touch him more than a hug when all you could feel on your back was his hard chest, his arm tight around your waist, and the outline of his cock against your ass as he sighed in your ear.

It runs through your head that he must have put more thought into touching you than you assumed as he continues to stripe lines over the top of your thighs right under your night shorts, making your breath heavy in your throat. You’re no longer sure if he’s marking you to tease you, to track what parts of your body he’s claimed for himself, or to simply make you laugh from the humming of his Evol tickling you like fuzzy static on an old tv screen. Even as he smiles at your shallow giggles, there’s no denying the aura of possession radiating from him that makes you antsy when he finally presses his finger to your sternum.

“Let’s start here,” he says followed by a soft hum as he tattoos a line straight between your breasts, leaving you highlighted in slowly fading graffiti.

“About time you decided,” you say with an playfully exaggerated roll of your eyes. He cocks his head at you with a sly smile.

“I can’t help if I want to touch all of you,” he murmurs. Any response you had ready dies when he licks the encircled zone of your shoulder then swiftly to the notch of your throat, drawing a moan out of you that you didn’t think you were capable of until you met him.

Tilting your head, you allow him more room to work as he kisses your chest. His warm tongue slips through the line he marked, his nose dragging against you as he litters your engorged skin with kisses. 

“More,” you beg. Who was he to keep you waiting any longer?

He slips a fingerpad over the tip of your nipple, gently pressing down and then rolling it. It does nothing to satiate you. Satisfaction keeps escaping your grasp, the goalpost of what’s enough moving further out of reach with every pinch and pull of your pebbling nipples. Chasing it makes you brash, and you give a hard push to the back of his head. 

Just as you want, he spoils you. He bites and nips the supple skin, drawing out soft pleas from your angelic lips. When he finally graces you with the slick, velvety lap of his tongue on your pert nipple, you mewl and arch. His lips are a little rough after being out all night, his hunger for you more palpable than ever as he gropes harder and sucks at your wet skin. 

Your aching pussy throbs with every brush of his clothed cock. Your patience drains more and more as you crave something to fill you. It isn’t until he switches sides and gently nips and suckles around your other teat that you realize he’s been fingerprinting you with his Evol, the polka dots slowly fade away each time he adjusts his hand to knead your breast.  

“You’re still being cruel,” you manage between moans. 

“I think I’m being very fair,” he reasons, recapturing your lips to silence your complaints, and it works as your mind keeps repeating when his tongue makes a temporary reservation back in the confines of your mouth. 

When he parts with you again, he cements it with a soft kiss then another. He keeps peppering them on you so fast that you almost miss the way his tongue darts over your bottom lip before his teeth bite down. 

Xavier sighs between his kisses, each one adding more pressure, turning from loving, adoration-filled into needy, heavy smooches.

“Wanted.”

Another kiss that leaves you whimpering.

“To.”

He fondles your chest again, alternating between rolling and pinching your sensitive, puffed nipple then grasping your bare tits in his hands, molding and kneading them.

“With you.”

With your thighs closing at his waist, you curve your back and meet the sloppy buck of his hips. There’s a rush of excitement leaking from you when his kisses trail back over your breasts, hitting the tiny ring of bite marks he seared on you before tracing across the targets of light decorating your belly. 

“So bad.”

Skin on fire, legs spread wide to accommodate his chest as he sinks lower to press wet kisses to your stomach, you call out to him. “Xavier, baby,” you whisper and brush his hair to get his attention. And does he give it to you when his eyes flick up to look at you from under the grey tuffs of his hair.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight. 

You bring your finger to your lips, not only to pry them open so you can speak but also because you need to bite on it. Otherwise, the surge of lust in you at the sight of his head so close to your cunt and the back of your thighs resting on his broad shoulders would cause you to cum right there. 

“My most sensitive spot…is my legs…”

It doesn’t take long for him to catch on, and he quirks his eyebrows up at you with false concern. He lowers his head to kiss your stomach again, this time noticeably closer to your mound. “Are you sure you want to tell me that in this situation? It isn’t wise for the prey to put themselves at a disadvantage.”

“I said no secrets,” you remind him, curling a finger to beckon him back up. Inwardly, you curse that he decides to bring your legs with him by keeping them propped up on his shoulders. Somehow, you manage to ignore his obvious teasing and poke at the cutesy adhesive still stuck on his face. “If you were listening, you should know you’re still in trouble for sneaking off so much without telling me.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” he tells you, a layer of remorse riding his explanation. “I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere.”

Amused, you shake your head at how boyish he sounds as he defends himself while he pulls off that wide and pleading look to bolster his cause. Even with your amusement, you’re not willing to let him off just yet. Sternly, you tap his cheek again. 

“That’s not going to work this time.”

Pouting, Xavier holds onto your hand, stopping your playful jabs. “Please give me a chance to lighten my sentence, Miss Hunter, it was unintentional,” he negotiates with a kiss on your palm. The sincerity in his request eases your heart enough to allow him a little wiggle room, or perhaps it’s the slick trailing more between your folds. 

“You only got until morning to make a case for yourself.”

“I’ll make you forget by then.” He snatches up your ankle towards his face, a much more pleasant position than your last, as your muscles were starting to ache from having your knees pushed to your face. 

He caresses your ankle, pressing an airy kiss. The little bump of his nose against the ball of your ankle tickles, making a giggle cascade from your lips as you slide lower with the pull of your leg.  

“Silly,” he mumbles before shuffling off your shorts. Your underwear comes off with more of a fight, the stickiness soaked into it causing the dainty fabric to cling lewdly to your skin and outline to the shape of your cunt. 

You don’t often hear Xavier curse but that’s what happens along with his tongue rolling over his upper lip when he catches the image. He reaches out and his fingers twitch, threatening to curve against the spreading stain in your panties but he resists and hooks his fingers into the waistband. He takes his sweet time watching the doused material peeling from you with thin strands of cum sticking to it.

It takes him more effort than he’d like to admit to resist diving straight in. Instead, he keeps it slow, sensual, as much for his sake as yours as he skims his lips up your calf.

He does the same with your center, carefully pressing two fingers against you as he holds your leg up on his shoulder. His mouth stays on your inner thigh, but his eyes are entirely locked on his fingers and the way they effortlessly collect your cum and slip between your lips with barely a push. You can feel his breath shudder out against you before he forces it down with a bite of your thigh but that does nothing to hide the way his entire body tenses when his fingers slip from your clit all the way to your clenching hole. 

It does nothing good for your ego or your sanity to think how normally calm and collected Xavier is losing his composure just by touching you. How he’s so obviously turned on when you haven’t nearly returned as much as he’s been giving you. 

He presses his hands at the crook of your thighs, pushing your legs further apart, and quenches himself between your legs. His name leaves you in one low drawn-out sigh. Sure, you were baiting him when you told him your weakness, but you weren’t expecting him to abuse the knowledge so readily. 

He held your legs blood cuttingly tight to keep you from squirming away from his wriggling tongue, and by the moan that reverberates from his chest and the strong jerk against the mattress when your juices hit his tongue, you think he would only be satisfied if you crushed his head between your straining thighs. When he suckles your clit; when his voice, muffled, hits your pussy; when his biceps tighten around your legs as if encouraging you to do so, and when his eyes meet yours with a silent demand, you know that’s exactly what he wants.

At the plunging of his fingers in you, you break down, catch his head in a vice-like grip, and push him into you. Your heart flutters and the remaining butterflies in your stomach migrate away at the growl he lets out. Your walls happily clench around those thick fingers, your dripping hole making it easy and smooth work to pump in and out of you. You’re not sure when he decides he would rather feel your muscle tightening around his tongue instead, but you can only respond with the tilt of your head back into the sheets and the stroke of your heel on his bare back when it happens. 

The only thing better is his palm grinding down on your clit, alternating between slow rotations and rough sporadic grinding that has your toes curling and your eyes glossing with the buildup of tears.

“You’re too loud,” he comments yet he doesn’t stop, in fact, he presses down harder, making you whine. “You’re going to wake the neighbors.”

“Since when have you cared what the neighbors think?” you barely manage to whimper out. 

“I’m not worried about them. I just don’t want anyone else to hear what only I should,” he remarks, lapping up the juices spilling down your legs.

His confession is a surprise to you. You never took him to be so possessive. But if that possessiveness is what kept his tongue swirling on your swollen clit and an intense moan escaping your lips then you didn’t mind. 

However…

His fingers weren’t enough anymore. 

Choosing to surprise him, you decide to turn the tables on him. You jerk your legs, catching him off guard but not enough to tip him over. He looks at you with concern. It doesn’t stop you from trying again with extra force this time until you can weaken his grasp and force him down on his back. 

Having the world’s strongest hunter under you was only something you could dream of—first as a rival and now as a lover. The adrenaline has you tunnel-visioned as you straddle his stomach, your soaked cunt making a waterboard out of his abs, which Xavier has also picked up on if the dusky pink on his cheeks is anything to go by.

You grab his hands, gripping tight to regain his attention. Xavier looks taken back especially when your fingers interlock his and pin them back. Whether he’s shocked or curious you don’t know, and you also don’t ask to borrow his power. 

“You’ve been having too much fun,” you tell him as you check to make sure your finger is sufficiently coated with light. “For my turn, I’ll attack here and here,” you whisper, marking off his chest and drawing a line across his neck.

There’s a hint of worry finally when he sees you’re aiming for his weak spot. “If you’re trying to teach me the best spot to kill Wanderers, I already know.”

“More like the best spots to defeat a Xavier,” you remark, flattening your palm over his heart, finding your own thumping when you verify that you finally managed to raise his heart rate to the levels of a normal human.

“You’re pretty forward today.” Xavier reaches out to hold your hips and cocks his head at you with an inquisitive glance. “Are you always this easy to excite or is it because of me?” 

You feel your face heat at his question. As if he didn’t already know the answer. No one else could make you like this. Needy. Shy. Aroused. Flustered. Confused. Infatuated and in love more than you’ve ever been. 

Your eyes soften. “And if I said it was you?”

“Then, you can use me all you want,” he confesses and gently coaxes you back to sit on his hard cock. You smoothly slide your hands to his shoulders, rotating loving strokes into his fair skin before you stop to free his cock from his pants.

It springs readily into your palm, so responsive. You reward him by letting him have a little taste of you. He tries to hide the hitch of his breath as if he could hide any reaction from you right now. It’s so hard to get him to react to anything, and your brain won’t let you miss a single moment as you sit back onto his lap and grind.

His cock slides between your lips, so big that you can feel it stroking you fully, his swollen, dribbling head making you whimper whenever it bumps your clit. 

“You, you’re so—” he begins, his eyes flitting from the gentle shake of your tits to his cock glistening between your folds, but he loses his voice to a low whimper when you increase your pace. It’s not on purpose but you can’t help yourself; you’re aching for him just as much as he is for you. “Hah, please...” 

His cock is leaking onto him with each sleek thrust, a little pool of precum glistening on his belly as your hips buck. It makes your stomach twist and your insides twitch to see him so excited for you.

“Not yet,” you tell him, brushing fingers across the length of his throat. His mouth parts with a croak that plasters a crooked smile on your face.

His eyebrows knit, and he frowns as you decide to tease him a little by slowing your strokes while your nails continue to follow the thick vein protruding from his neck as he desperately holds down his whines. 

“And you call me the cruel one.”

He was gorgeous under you. Beautifully flushed and sheened with sweat. His lips were so close to quivering each time his swollen head was swallowed back under your heat. It’s strange how his pitiful expression actually excites you, leaving you wetter and funneling this cycle of him repeatedly scrunching his face before relaxing it with a moan. 

“Please,” he asks again, this time more politely, pleadingly, and downright cutely. He knows what he’s doing because you decide to take pity on him when he gazes at you. “Please let me have you?”

It takes only a second for you to reposition yourself and hover over him. There’s a split hesitation when it registers that you’re actually going to have sex with him and how large he actually is with his cock standing tall and the tip kissing at your entrance.  You press downward anyway.

The stretch is both painful and pleasurable, straining your nerves as you lower. The wince on your face is accompanied by a hiss on your lips. However, Xavier is there again to catch you.

“Let’s take our time,” he instructs.

You nod, slowly thrusting halfway onto him. Each rise and fall of your hips coating him with your cream little by little makes it a bit easier to sheath him each bounce. 

“Good girl,” he whispers soothingly. Face constricting, he bites down on his lip to hold in a weak groan. It’s not your fault that the praise made your walls flutter and tighten.

When you finally suck him in completely, your eyes roll. 

“There you go,” he continues. He slides his hand into one of yours, encouraging you to hold onto it as you slowly and pointedly follow the curve of his cock, “Just like that,” he rasps out.    As you take him in fully, your pussy reaching his lap and pushing against his balls, you find it hard to concentrate on the exact words leaving him.

You take a minute to sit with him fully sheathed inside of you, allowing your stretched core to get more accustomed to his cock and also for the high of joining with him to cool off. Otherwise, you’d lose control.

You feel so full. It’s a wonderful sensation, and the pleasure increases tenfold when you lift your hips then have him stretch you again.

Rubbing your fingertips into the back of his palm, you lift and slam back onto him again, causing a ragged groan from you both that ricochets off the walls of the room. It isn’t until now that you recognize how bad you’ve been needing this.

Needed him. 

You’re still nowhere near understanding why this need is inside of you. Anyone can give you pleasure, and he’s not the first, but nothing quite matched the warmth overtaking you when his cock pistons and rubs against your nerves as you ride him. 

The thought that Xavier was right about fate being written in the stars barely breaks through the thick fog of arousal clouding your brain. The heat spurs you to bounce harder to meet his jerking thrusts. 

He sighs under you; the pressure on his lower half increases while your eyesight blurs and your head angles back. You’ll both be each other’s undoing at this rate, he thinks, as he watches the beads of sweat accumulating in little shiny droplets on your forehead and on your bouncing chest in a light sheen.

Chasing that desire to see you undone, he pulls you to a halt, burying himself deep inside of you, before pressing his hand to your mound, brushing past the patch of damp hair to zone in on your sticky, swollen clit. 

The instant whine of his name makes him dizzy. Centuries have gone by, and he’s never heard you say his name with such wanton desperation nor seen you grind onto him, stirring his cock in you as if your sanity depended on it.  

His certainly depended on you. Always has especially in the many decades he thought he’d never see you again. That need is even clearer from how sensitive yet eager his cock is to you squeezing around it as you shudder on top of him while keeping an unbearably tight hold on his hand. Your movements come to a near stop except for the occasional rut to prolong the rush of your orgasm. 

The sight of you breaking down on top of him threatens to make his eyes roll back as he squeezes onto your legs for grounding. Your strangled gasp followed by your muscles relaxing tells him that you’re coming down.  

“I take it you’ve finished,” Xavier says with a smirk, and you only have half the mind to swat at his chest like a lazy cat. Your legs burn, your chest unable to fill with enough oxygen to catch your breath. You think you’ll skip the gym tomorrow but Xavier has other plans.

“I’m not finished,” he reminds you. 

You look down at Xavier; you’d been so busy finding your own pleasure, you didn’t realize he hadn’t cum yet. You feel a lingering guilt but he swiftly takes the situation into his own hands.

You’re still too sensitive to fight back as he slides his cock out of you with a wet pop. It takes two swift movements for him to lift you off of him and roll you onto your stomach.

Your chest feels restricted, tight to the mattress as he presses on top of you, his grey-brown hair rubbing your shoulder as he cuddles your back. It’s an affectionate notion, distracting from the pressure in your lower half as he slides off the last of his clothes and thrusts his cock back inside of you. 

You thought you were filled to the brim the first time, yet this angle was different. It felt much tighter, and the slightest shift of his hips had you muffling moans into your arms. 

“I want to hear you,” he sweetly requests, yanking on your hips to raise your ass higher and pull you further away from the muffling effects of the bed. Your fracturing mewls mix into his grunts, both sounds washing out the sloppy, wet paps of his cock pounding into you. 

His hand swoops down your bending back in one long soothing stroke before his head collapses onto you. His grunts are loud, tumbling right into your ear along with the slapping sound of his hips meeting your ass. Your legs feel like jelly, and the rest of your body becomes weightless as your mind only focuses on his cock recklessly burning its way through you.

Xavier’s breath rolls against your back along with his forehead as he buries you under his weight; his grip on your thighs tightens to an unbearable degree, leaving you to wonder if you’ll have marks in the morning. 

You don’t really care if he does when he moans your name and heat fills you, spreading with each sporadic thrust until he finally bottoms out inside you one last time and holds until he completely empties. 

Taking his time to enjoy the sensation, he waits before pulling out of you, making you whimper with the sudden void. Shakily, you collapse back into the sheets and flip onto your back with a sigh. His eyes are still half-lidded as he watches you; he chews briefly on his bottom lip, reminding you of the look in his eyes earlier. 

“Xavier,” you question but he silences you with a kiss, which you tiredly return. His fingertips slide down from your knee to your thigh, and he teases your opening, the mixture of cum making it easy for him to stroke your still spasming pussy. 

Xavier sighs against your lips before moving his kisses to the swoop of your neck. “You’re so beautiful and all mine.”

Your mouth parts with a dry moan as he slides thick fingers over your clit. It starts to ache from his touch but it’s hard to deny him, even as he tortures you with his methodic and precise rotations over the bead.

His name is on your mouth, each syllable heavy on your tongue. You leave garbled gasps in his mouth as he makes out with you while your hand draws down his chest, attempting to make a mental map of every twitching muscle and healed wound on the way down.

Your heart jumps with the twitch of his cock when you wrap your hand around it. There’s going to be no trouble getting him to rebound, you think. He’s already thickening again with the warm strokes of your hand and tracing of your fingers over the slowly beating vein lining the underside of his shaft. 

Xavier doesn’t even let you finish exciting him before he rolls back on top of you and settles his head between your breasts. Between all the cum in between your legs and his half-hard cock, it isn’t as mind-numbing to have him inside you. What is different is to feel him twitching and growing inside you with his renewed thrusts. 

You’re hiccupping by the time he pushes your legs back and starts to hit deep inside of you, leaving the corner of your eyes tearing. You’re overwhelmed with everything. The uncharacteristic amount of energy he possesses as his hips snap into you. How each powerful rock leaves tingles aftershock-ing inside you, ruining your chances to recover before he does it again. The heavy scent of sex mixed with pine overwhelms your nose. His sweaty chest blocks out any light in the room, sealing any notion that you can be distracted by anything other than him as he pushes up your knee towards your chest.

You’re quickly working up to your second orgasm; the painful cramping in your foot tells you it’ll be bigger than the last. You’re right. When you come undone again, it’s with a shrill sob. You’re too out of it to even register when he finishes until he starts kissing your neck again.

He’s still inside you, you realize once your mind finally lands back on earth. His cock is resting in the heat inside you, waiting for him to work the two of you back up again. You know that’s the goal when his thumb gently brushes over one of your nipples again. Your sore insides constrict and strain. You don’t think you could survive a third round. 

“Xavier, please, no more.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice dry and husky in your ear as he kisses under it. 

“Too much,” you tell him, pushing on his chest to make some space between the two of you.  

“I didn’t catch that,” he coos defiantly. When he notices that you’re being serious, he obediently pulls out of you. His kisses become smoother as he pecks your lips. “What’s wrong? Is it aching?”

You nod then puff your cheeks in frustration when you see the amusement on his face.

“It’s not funny!” you say, holding onto that angry, childish pout until his smile turns sympathetic. 

“You’re right,” he agrees and shifts off you. Quickly, he locates his briefs on the corner of the bed. He steps out of bed and pulls them on. To your surprise, he leaves you, alone and cold.  

“Where are you going?”

Xavier disappears without answering you and only the sound of running water gives you any sort of hint of where he might’ve gone. When he returns, it’s with a rag dangled in his hand. 

“A boyfriend should help clean his girlfriend up after times like this,” he explains and leans over you; he presses the wet cloth between your legs; the rag is incredibly soothing on your bloated skin. It’s a blessing to your sore muscles as he starts to massage and clean you. “It feels better already, doesn’t it?”

“I guess,” you answer pitifully, grumbling a bit because the look on his face still seems like he’s teasing about your neediness. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s my fault you’re a little sore.” He’s definitely taunting you, but you don’t have the energy to fight about it. “All done,” he remarks, tossing the rag to a forgotten section of the dresser. He carefully climbs back on top of you, waiting for the moment your hand finds his bicep to guide him down next to you. 

It isn’t the first time he’s been this affectionate, and it won’t be the last time. However, this time feels more special than any time you’ve slept together, and not just because you can feel the stickiness of his sex-clad skin against your naked body. Well, that’s part of the reason.

“Something on your mind?”

“Nothing. I’m really happy,” you explain. 

“If it really makes you that happy, maybe we should do it more often,” he offers, and you pinch his unwounded cheek to punish him. Jumping back, he knocks your hand away and caresses his wounded face. “I’ll need another bandage if you keep doing that,” he complains weakly. 

“You only have yourself to blame!”

Xavier sighs. “You’re always right,” he concedes, more so that he can cuddle you without fighting rather than actually agreeing with you, you fear. 

“I don’t believe you.”

“Are you really doubting your boyfriend?” he asks. Heartbeat skipped, you clamp your mouth shut as he unfolds the blankets over the two of you. 

It’s finally settling back into your mind that the two of you are a couple now. “I’m still…not used to it yet with you being that.”

“You will get used to it the longer we’re together. The same as I will.” Xavier sighs, happily so. “Although, we might run into the same problem again.”

You blink at him. “Why?”

Thoughtful, Xavier hums then explains, “First comes love then comes marriage as they say.”

He catches you off-guard once more. As always, Xavier is forever forging on ahead with little regard for convention. “Aren’t you thinking too far ahead?”

“Maybe,” he agrees but there’s no drop in his confidence as he smiles at you and draws his hand over your hairline. “But I loved you since we met.”

“Xavier, please,” you beg, finding your favorite place to hide your flustered face in the crook of his elbow. 

He can’t help but laugh at you as he curls his arm around you. “Especially that,” he confesses and places one more kiss on the top of your head before inviting you to go to sleep. 

You do, falling asleep against his chest less than thirty minutes later. For him, sleep is elusive for once as he mulls over the day’s events.

The word girlfriend on his tongue is sweet. The idea itself burns wonderfully in his chest, but it isn’t enough. He knows he still needs to wait a bit longer, take his time, your bashful response to his prodding was enough to tell him that it isn’t time yet. It’s hard not to rush when this is the closest he’s ever been to the one thing he truly wants. 

Xavier guesses he’ll still have to rely on his dreams for a little while longer. It’s okay, he tells himself, it’ll work out this time. He’ll find a place to settle with you and have a quiet life, a place where he can see stars. 

And this lifetime, when he asks you to marry him, he hopes you’ll say yes.

[janmisali]

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult

[ffverr]

Ok so let me add my two cents to this and say how it isn't a good reference to Ororo and Scott's dual or history.

To do that I'll also compare McKay's reference in Avengers (2024) #18, which is a just the proliferation of a fanon cliché at best, with Hickman's reference in House of X and Powers of X, which actually understands the context of the source material.

Storm and Scott's dual in issue #201 of Uncanny X-Men happens in a very specific context that both modern writers and fanon either forgot, don't know or misinterpreted it over time.

I-The necessary context:

Jean grey dies

Scott is deeply hurt by that

Over something like a dozen issues he decided to actually leave the X-Men as he doesn't feel up for it anymore.

The leadership of the team is naturally passed down to Storm that has always acted as a second in command to Scott. He often asked her opinion on plans and she often found last resort solutions when he was backed up against a corner.

On his "hiatus", Scott meets Madelyne Pryor. They fall in love, get married and Maddy is pregnant with a child as we learn when they reappear on the team in the mini: Alpha flight Vs X-Men.

Storm acts as leader of the team but goes through many changes, like losing her powers, which rattles her to her core and gives her some insecurities about her place in the X-Men and as a leader.

An Asgard adventure tells the story of Storm and the new mutants getting kidnapped by Loki.

This emergency makes the rest of the X-Men call Scott back to the team's leadership for a rescue mission.

Madelyne is brought to Westchester to wait for the return of her husband.

After the X-Men's comeback from Asgard, The trial of Magneto is happening in Paris, where they are attacked by evil Mutants. They're immediately teleported to that emergency.

Charles Xavier almost dies, but is at the last minute rescued by the Star Jammers and his love interest Lilandra in order to get emergency care.

Charles is stranded in space, and no X-Men knows if he's even alive

This hurts Cyclops enormously.

During this long absence on the X-Men, Madelyne gives birth to their child, Nathan, alone at xavier's mansion as Scott is gone fulfilling his momentary duty.

After their return, Madelyne feels like this huge absence from Scott and his half frequent comebacks to the team is making her lose him bit by bit.

So, with Charle's status as presumed dead, Scott, very paranoid and depressed, does the only thing he sees fits at the moment. Come back as leader because the team needs him without Charles around. This is Scott's pathetic attempt at regression to familiarity as Charles being dead and him becoming a father is a COMPLETELY new and very scary situation he's not sure to handle.

Becoming a leader again is a delusional idea considering he has pledged his presence and loyalty to his wife and newborn, in ALASKA, and Storm is already leader of the team.

Madelyne, with her insecurity over her husband's presence in their family, begs Storm to challenge him in a duel in order to banish the thought of leadership from Scott's head.

II- THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT THE DUEL:

Storm didn't initiate it! She did not challenge Scott because she thinks she's a better leader than him or because she wanted to prove herself or gain the leadership for the first time.

She was ALREADY leader and completely agreed with Madelyne that Scott had to stick to his new family and responsibility as a father and husband.

Thus, she complies with Madelyne's request and beats Scott in a duel for leadership.

#201 Uncanny X-Men

He snaps out of his delusional state ( in which he couldn't even bring himself to communicate with Madelyne or be happy about the birth of his kid). He feels completely lost and dejected and comes back to his family. His relationship with Madelyne becomes distant and strained.(This plot continues in X-Factor).

Storm continues being leader of the X-Men and goes through her own hardships and journey for self determination.

So, no. Mackay's vision as this moment in time being "Storm can't go back to being under Scott's leadership because she's better than him or too cool to be a part of an X-Men team she doesn't lead" is utter bullshit.

III-Text, meta and fanon:

This fanon vision of the duel and later history between the characters just further carves the drift between storm and her friends that is already prevalent because of how many writers like to dehumanise Ororo as a character and limit her personal relationships to the X-Men to a maximum.

Her and Scott have a deep friendship built out of mutual respect and their shared grief over Jean's passing.

God loves, man kills

She doesn't believe that her and Scott "can't go back to getting orders from one another" that's just a misconception....

The truth is, neither one or the other would mind taking orders from each other considering they work insanely well as co-leaders. (As they did during their time on the team as leader and second in command from #94 to Scott leaving the team)

The Meta problem :

The issue, of course, is meta-textual, and shouldn't be baked into the text.

Storm hasn't "outgrown" being on an X-Men team or being submitted to hierarchy. This is just mixing up meta textual and text.

Yes, as a character, Storm deserves to be pushed forward as a leader. It's a spot that suits her and puts her in a very interesting head space. It would be unfortunate for FANS and for the journey of the character to keep her subordinated to other leaders.

HOWEVER this isn't a feeling she has in comics. That just makes her relationship with Scott more bitter when in actuality, there is none of that.

Not to say they both don't enjoy a little fun teasing competition as "who's the best leader?" But it isn't that deep. It's not something they actually querelle about.

McKay's reference just feeds into the misconceptions about them and it sucks because they love working together! And this vision of their relationship just puts a useless drift between them that would, in the long run, take away their interactions from us.

IV-Hickman:

Hickman's reference though is quite good! Not perfect, but it holds an overall good understanding of that spot in their relationship. (And their friendship in general)

In hoxpox Scott says "Once, I thought I was strong -- a leader of mutants. And then you showed me what strong was."

This line stays up for interpretation. But for me, it's Scott recognising that at that time, because of Jean's death and Charle's presumption of death, he wasn't in the right headspace to be a great X-Men leader. He was still dealing with a lot of codependency of Charles and jean and didn't just yet actually stand on his two feet in a way that wasn't fragile, strained and harmful for HIMSELF.

Meanwhile, Storm had lost her powers! She was going through a very very hard identity crisis. Dealing with imposter syndrome and overall depression. But that didn't completely hinder her leadership like it did Scott. She rained in her problems and handled the team the best she could.

Scott running away from his responsibilities as a father because of how complicated his bond to the team's leadership and members is, wasn't real strength. But Storm dealing with these life changing moments and still holding her ground was strength.

And that duel taught him this lesson. And that's why Hickman's reference is great. Not because Storm is an objectively better leader than Scott or whatnot, but because the two of them learned lessons about personal strength and perseverance from each other.

Storm responding with "I learned it watching you" is the cherry on the cake because she did. To a certain extent, on a tactical aspect, Scott taught her a lot about leading missions and that's undeniable.

Anyways, ted talk done.

Stan Ororo and Scott! The greatest leaders of the X-Men! Don't pit them against each other and leave their friendship feeling odd and distant for no real reasons. They'll never grow over cooperating.

[deerspherestudios]

Hello! 😊 I wanted to add onto the what-if mind reader scenario and further ask about what kind of person would this kind of Michael be able to end up wanting as a partner and what would enable him to trust them. I find this version of him really intriguing and I have a few ideas of my own of what he could want: Someone who is incredibly honest, and finds it difficult to lie - overall an open book. It would possibly allow him to gradually ease up and trust them as they are always easy to read, and he can finally not always heavily rely on reading someone's thoughts for once when he is around them allowing him to further relax. Someone very sincere and genuine especially in their empathy and has a lot of it. Considering all of the bad thoughts and intentions he has heard, he is probably going to need to hear a lot of kind and genuine words to be able to believe them to be true; even if they are already there in that person's thoughts. Being kind, gentle and slow as well as predictable, in general movements and also getting closer to him. I would imagine that he has had to face a lot of aggression as he wouldn't have the ability to force things to be peaceful like in the original version and has a great deal of paranoia. So, he would be less on edge and find comfort in a pattern of actions as well as being slow allows him more time to react and feel overall safer - he also has more layers to protect himself so it would be ideal with someone who would be able to take things slow to allow him to open up on his own time. Someone who is an optimist and has a very stubbornly nurturing, motherly/fatherly kind of personality as well as some naivety and clumsiness. I think his desire to be alone comes from the pessimism that formed from his experiences overall so I think it would probably help him heal and give him hope to have an optimistic way of viewing life - or at the very least be able to find a way to see things in a better light even if he wouldn't agree with the perspective. I also think having them being stubbornly nurturing as a core part of their personality would probably be somewhat necessary for this version to have a story between the two, where the person would be stubborn in getting to help him out and also him feeling reassured that this person is safe and not violent, as that would be a core part of their personality. Additionally, having some naivety with optimism would allow for an interesting clash of personalities between the two; and at the same time when he opens up more them being more clumsy and naive would also encourage him to want them around more to help them out and protect them like they helped him.

I hope I was able to provide some interesting ideas that you could enjoy! 😊 and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day 😌✨✨

For context! That's honestly a pretty good analysis of his character and on the kind of person he'd fall for! Honesty is policy and it's not just on the outside; you have to mean it with your whole being when you say that you don't find him disgusting.

Not a single doubt, not a single hesitance. Perhaps some trace of delusion but he'll take any niceties he can get. Thank you so much for the ideas!!!

[tainbocuailnge]

I think there is a difference between the comic as a sequence of images with text and the comic as a comic. it's a subtle difference that an untrained eye might not see but the more one as artist draws comics the clearer this difference becomes, because one who first aspires to draw comics will soon find they are merely drawing sequences of images with text.

when people say an artist is clearly inspired by anime they often use "anime" to refer to japanese pop culture in general, but if you look more closely you can often tell it really is specifically anime rather than manga that inspired them, because the paneling and camera angles in their comics will read like a series of anime screenshots rather than a manga page. similarly, when I was a teenager really popular manga that had anime adaptions would sometimes get "animanga" reprints where they replaced the panels with the equivalent anime screenshots of the scene, and they often looked like dogshit because the very premise showed blatant disregard for why the original comic worked in the first place. these two examples are both about anime because i am a weeb but it applies outside that context too. a cartoon storyboard can be read as if it were a comic, but what it really is is a sequence of images with text that has yet to be refined into its actual intended format.

there are many artists who only employ the medium of comic because what they actually want to draw is a video, or a video game cutscene, but the only tool actually at their disposal is the ability to draw a series of images and add text to them so that is what they use. there is no shame or mistake in doing this, you have to make your art with the tools that you have available, and if the sequence of images with text is enough to convey the idea then it was the right tool for the job. but these are different mediums with different visual languages, languages which have a lot of overlap and can occasionally be used in each other's stead to achieve similar results (especially when drawing a fanart comic of a video game for example), but which are still ultimately different. the comic and the video and the cutscene are all different forms that a sequence of images with text can take but they are far from completely interchangeable.

there is a key difference in approach to the comic as a series of images roughly interchangeable with other forms of series of images like the video and the cutscene, and the comic as specifically the comic. this difference in approach is not always necessary to achieve results, an artist who wants to convey a scenario they came up with needs only the sequence of images with text to achieve this. but the difference between a comic with good writing and art, and a comic that is a good comic, is in whether it was treated as a comic rather than a sequence of images with text. I say this as an artist whose nearly every comic has been simply a sequence of images, because I just don't have the patience to refine it into a comic when I merely want to convey my idea rather than draw a comic. it takes a particular skill and insight that have to be developed and practised separately from the ability to draw well and the ability to write well in order to become good at making "the comic" as synthesis of the two.

it's hard to specifically point out the essence of this difference between the sequence of images and the comic because it's kind of a vibes thing honestly, and it depends on where and how the comic was meant to be published too. comics meant to have paper print editions have different constraints and requirements and frameworks to work with than webtoons meant to be read on slim mobile screens in a continuous scrolling format. a good traditional comic will consider not just how each individual panel looks but also the way each page as a whole looks, and how the pages look next to each other in a spread, and how it feels to turn the page towards the next spread. a good webtoon will consider the movement of scrolling down and how this affects the transition from one moment to another in its composition. time is time in videos and cutscenes but space is time in comics, and the space your have available determines how you can divide time across it. when you make a webcomic on your own website you have no constraints but the ones you set for yourself, and sometimes this leads to things like homestuck, which would not work in any other format than the one it created for itself.

the best comics are good because they tell their story and present their images specifically in the form of a comic, in a way that would not be possible if it were not specifically a comic. I think this is true for basically every medium, I'm just thinking about comics specifically lately, because even though I don't really consider myself a comic artist - because I usually draw sequences of images rather than comics - the thing my clients want to pay for is often still "a comic", and they don't know or care to tell the difference. it's a difference that, as established, is often fairly moot anyway, because as long as it successfully conveys your idea it's good enough. but it's precisely because the sequence of images is often good enough that the specific skill of the comic artist is often overlooked.

[archaeren]

Hello!! I hope you're having a good day ^^ I came across your post about writing non-linearly on Notion and I'm excited to try it out because the advice resonated with me! Though, I'm really new to using the app and, if possible, need help with how to do this part: 'where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry.' ;v;

Hello! Thank you so much for messaging!!! Since that post about writing non-linearly (linked for context) blew up roughly ten thousand times as much as anything I've ever posted, I've been kind of meaning to make a followup post explaining more about how I use Notion for writing non-linearly, but, you know, ADHD, so I haven't done it yet. XD In the meantime, I'll post a couple screenshots of my current long fic with some explanations! I'd make this post shorter, but I'm unable to not be Chatty. XD (just ask my poor readers how long my author notes are...) (There is a phone app as well which syncs with the desktop/browser versions, but I work predominantly in the desktop app so that's what I'm gonna be showing)

(the table keeps going off the right side of the image but it's a bunch of unimportant stuff tbh) So this is more complicated than what you'll probably start with because I'm Normal and add a bunch of details that you might not need depending on what you're doing. For example, my fic switches POVs so I have a column for tracking that, and my fic follows a canon timeline so I have a column for dates so I can keep track of them, and I also made columns for things like if a scene had spoilers or certain content readers may want to avoid, which they can access in my spoiler and content guide for the fic. (As I said, I'm Normal.) I also do some complicated stuff using Status and estimated wordcount stuff to get an idea of how long I predict the content to be, but again, not necessary. Anyway, you don't need any of that. For the purposes of this explanation, we're just gonna look at the columns I have called Name, Order, and Status. (And one called Part, but we'll get into that later) Columns in Notion have different types, such as Text, Numbers, Select, Date, etc, so make sure to use the type that works best for the purpose of each column! For example, here I'm using Select for Character POVs, Number for Order and WC (wordcount), and Text for the In-Game Date. Okay let's get into it! Name is a column that comes in a Notion table by default, and you can't get rid of it (which drives me up the wall for some purposes but works totally fine for what we're doing here). As you can see on the scene I've labeled 'roll call', if you hover over a Name entry, a little button called 'Open' appears, which you click on to open the document that's inside the table. That's all default, you don't have to set anything up for it. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like when I click the one titled 'I will be anything for you' (I've scrolled down in the screenshot so you can see the text, but all the data fields also appear at the top of the page)

(This view is called 'side peek' meaning the document opens on one side and you can still see the table under it on the left, which is what mine defaults to. But you can set it to 'center peek' or 'full page' as well.) All my scenes have their own entry like this! Note that I've said scenes, not chapters. I decide the chapters later by combining the scenes in whatever combination feels right, which means I can often decide in advance where my chapter endings will be. This helps me consciously give most of my endings more impact than I was usually able to do when I tried to write linearly. So hopefully that gives you an idea of what I mean by writing inside the table and treating the table as a living outline. The 'Status' column is also pretty straightforward, and might require a little setup for whatever your needs are. This is another default column type Notion has which is similar to a Select but has a few more specialized features. This is how mine is set up:

(I don't actually use 'Done', idk why I left it there. Probably I should replace it with 'Posted' and use that instead of the checkmark on the far left? whatever, don't let anyone tell you I'm organized. XDD)

Pretty straightforward, it just lets me see easily what's complete and what still needs work. (You'll notice there's no status for editing, because like I mentioned in my other post, I don't ever sit down to consciously edit, I just let it happen as I reread) Obviously tailor this to your own needs! The Order column is sneakily important, because this is what makes it easy for me to keep the scenes organized. I set the Sort on the table to use the Order to keep the scene ordered chronologically. When I make the initial list of scenes I know the fic will have, I give all of them a whole number to put them in order of events. Then as I write and come up with new scene ideas, the new scenes get a number with a decimal point to put them in the spot they fit in the timeline. (you can't see it here, but some of them have a decimal three or four digits deep, lol). Technically you can drag them to the correct spot manually, but if you ever create another View in your table (you can see I have eight Views in this one, they're right under the title) it won't keep your sorting in the new View and you'll hate yourself when it jumbles all your scenes. XD (And if you get more comfortable with Notion, you probably will at some point desire to make more Views) The Part column isn't necessary, but I found that as the fic grew longer, I was naturally separating the scenes into different points along the timeline by changes in status quo, etc. (ex. "this is before they go overseas" "this is after they speak for the first time", stuff like that) in my mind. To make it easier to decide where to place new scenes in the timeline, I formalized this into Parts, which initially I named with short summaries of the current status quo, and later changed to actual titles because I decided it would be cool to actually use them in the fic itself. Since it's not in the screenshots above, here's what the dropdown for it looks like:

(I've blocked some of the titles out for spoiler reasons)

Basically I only mention the Parts thing because I found it was a useful organizational tool for me and I was naturally doing it in my head anyway. Anyway, I could keep talking about this for a really long time because I love Notion (don't get me started on how I use toggle blocks for hiding content I've edited out without deleting it) but that should be enough to get started and I should really, you know, not make this another insanely long post. XDD And if anybody is curious about how the final results look, the fic can be found here.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

I can completely break down the notion that jews do not experience ethnic discrimination within western countries, specifically the USA.

for context I am genetically half jewish and half italian, and since I was born i have been more connected to judaism in a cultural and a religious sense. though its not a huge part of my life like judaism is it's definitely still important.

a lot of people like to argue that jews were once not seen as white and now we are, just like Italians, Greeks, Irish, etc were (at least in the USA) and I can confirm that's total bullshit. I have, not once in my life, been treated badly for being Italian. I have never had someone shame me for my appearance, make fun of my cultural food, threaten me, insult me, insult my father, say they wish I died, harassed me, or any other violent or demeaning acts because im Italian. not once in my entire life has that happened. even living in the rural USA where traditional white supremacy is alive and well that did not happen.

yet I have absolutely been harassed, verbally abused, demeaned, belittled, etc. for being jewish. Ive experienced antisemitism since I was 5 and possibly younger. ive heard holocaust jokes, nose/eye jokes, had swastikas drawn on my things, received death threats, gotten rape threats, been called a murderer, been told I should burn, was told I was poisoning the seas, had people deny my very real trauma, was told that I should've stayed dead (for context I overdosed and had to be resuscitated once), and many more things all because im jewish. these are just instances in which it was specifically mentioned or heavily heavily implied that its because im jewish.

Many of these things happened when theae people didn't even know I'm a practicing jew and some even when I stopped practicing for a couple years. a lot of the time the only reason they had to believe I was jewish was my appearance and yeah sure they were right but what it shows is that appearance alone is enough for people to be antisemitic. you know, if jews weren't ethnically discriminated then why do people target us for having things like large noses and curly hair? or for the foods that we eat? or for anything that isnt directly related to religious practices?

anyway I dont believe for a second that anyone who thinks jews dont experience ethnic discrimination in the USA has ever had a genuine conversation with a jew about antisemitism. 5 year old me did not deserve to feel like he was ugly all for some assholes to say that jews are making all this up.

☆this is part 2 in which I will add important context bc if anyone is gonna overanalyze my argument its me. u can read it if you want its not necessary to understand the post.

like I said I have spent most of my life in rural areas where there are many less jews than in big cities and obvious white supremacy is common. im 100% sure this affected a lot of the antisemitism i received.

I am sephardic, not ashkenazi. most goyim do not have a clue what this means. those who do generally think it means "jewish but spicier and more exotic (aka less american)" which could have contributed to some of the discrimination i faced for not being seen as American enough.

this is my experience not anyone else's! I am not discrediting what other people have gone though regarding any experiences with discrimination

[deception-united]

Here, have some writing tips.

Celebrating 1000 followers! Love you all ❤

Your first version doesn't have to be permanent.

A lot of writers—myself included—may feel a sort of connection or duty to their original story, draft, plot, or characters. But being afraid to change what you already have will only hinder you. My current WIP (which I'm working on with @leisureflame, check out her blog!) has been changed—and I mean completely flipped around—countless times. We started out in a medieval setting with kings and queens and burning witches, and now it's a dystopian novel set in the future in a country they're forbidden to leave. Our main character was originally dark haired, olive skinned, reserved, fierce, independent, and now she's a sunburn-prone ginger with a sanity deficiency. We've scrapped and replaced multiple characters and sacrificed plot elements we loved to attain what is best for this story. It's incredibly sad, but sometimes, it's necessary.

Don't delete your ideas.

Or excerpts. Or character ideas. An idea's occurred to you at three in the morning? In the shower? At work? Write. It. Down. Immediately. The top surface of my bookcase is littered with random notes in smudged pencil that I've jotted down. Referring back to the last point, if you change or scrap a part of your story, keep it somewhere. I like to keep a notes document that I perpetually add the most random things to: out-of-context lines of dialogue, phrases I like, new vocabulary, character descriptions—anything, really. Even if you know you're probably never going to have occasion to use it, take note of it anyway. You never know when a previous idea will be just the element you need in your story. And if not, well, they're fun to read over later.

Free write.

I know I covered this in a recent post, but I'd just like to stress on it again. Open a document or a page in your notebook and just start writing. Whatever comes to mind. Doesn't matter how nonsensical or embarrassing or muddled, as long as you're writing. This exercise can really help regain or maintain your creative flow. You'll end up with some passages that are horrible and that you will never deign to set your eyes upon in the rest of your years, and others you'll cherish. In any case, whether the result is good or atrocious, you'll have written something. It's a good way to combat writer's block, or boredom. I recommend it.

Hope this helps. Thanks for all your support!

Previous | Next

[sparrowlucero]

Hello sorry I am being shy and anon but do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into Doctor Who again after briefly dabbling (and enjoying it very much) in like the early, early 2010s? I know this is mostly your art blog but you were the only person I could think of to ask you're like the Doctor Who authority of blogs I follow

Oh yeah of course! People can be really confusing about this so I'll try not to be.

So first, the majority of doctor who episodes are self contained stories that you could just watch and understand perfectly without any further context. even when there is some overarching context it's usually written in a way that's either pretty easy to glean and/or just doesn't impact your understanding of the story. 99% of the episodes don't even care if you know the premise and are just like "what if some people were on a spaceship and the devil was there? wouldn't that be fucked up or what??". Don't feel like you have to binge a 60 years long show to watch it. Some standalone episodes I think are fun if you (or anyone else) just want to check out one or two:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (A supposed-to-be-dead boy in a gas mask haunts a young woman in world war 2)

Blink (A woman gets wrapped up in a mystery involving statues that make people disappear. This one is especially good if you flat out know nothing about the show. Has some really great time travel stuff.)

A Christmas Carol (A christmas carol pastiche (of course) where the doctor tries to rewrite the past of a cruel man who's going to let a lot of people die. very sad and sweet. I love the "wintery planet with sky fish" setting of this one)

Vincent and the Doctor (The famous Vincent Van Gogh Episode™)

The Rings of Akhatan (A pretty lowkey little adventure story about an alien festival. has supreme autumn vibes)

Flatline (A species from a 2 dimensional world tries to break into our 3 dimensional one. really fun special effects)

Midnight (A tour bus breaks down on a diamond planet where nothing can survive. Something knocks at the door.)

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (The Doctor and friend go to a library that covers an entire planet and finds that everyone has disappeared. Has a lot of really great, interesting concepts baked into it that I won't spoil)

It Takes You Away (A girl is left alone in a cabin in the woods when her dad disappears through the mirror. Has a famously goofy ending that I really love)

73 Yards (A character is steps on a fairy circle and is followed by an old woman who always stands exactly 73 yards away)

The Devil's Chord (This doesn't really have, you know, a plot, but it does have jinkx monsoon as an evil music god)

Boom (The doctor steps on a landmine on an alien planet and cannot move)

Wild Blue Yonder (A two hander where the Doctor and co are trapped on a dilapidated spaceship at the edge of the universe. really atmospheric with some fun/strange visuals.)

That being said, it does add a lot to watch it in order; there's a lot of plot twists, character dynamics, and general payoff you get if you marathon it. I would personally recommend starting with either the first episode of the 2005 show ("Rose") or the first episode of the 2010 season ("The Eleventh Hour") and just watching in order from there. I think you could also start with "The Snowmen", "The Pilot", or "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" if you wanted, but the first two (especially rose) are the better jumping on points.

some other little notes of advice I don't often see people mention:

it's stupid sometimes just roll with it

once in a while the show sort of "reboots" with different writers, actors, directors, and a new tone. it's much more like watching several small shows than one long show, so don't be too put off by the length!

IMPORTANT: pretty much all streaming services will separate holiday/anniversary specials from the show proper and you have to deliberately search them up on the same service to find them. It's really necessary to be aware of this because many of these specials are the first or last episodes for characters/whole eras of the show and are genuinely unskippable. I strongly recommend looking up a list of the episodes and checking it after finales just to make sure you don't skip anything on accident.

there's two spin offs (Torchwood, a more adult (read: gay sex) show about a mysterious agency that solves sci fi crimes, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, a pretty good monster of the week kids show) that ran concurrently with season 1-4. You don't have to watch them to understand anything happening in doctor who, but sometimes they cross over with the show in fun ways, Ex. the first season finale of Torchwood continues directly into season 3 of Doctor Who. My friend and I got a kick out of watching them at the same time so maybe you will too. (either way I recommend watching "Children of Earth", the torchwood miniseries, if you want to see a weird dark sci fi show about the government making contact with aliens. It's a bit like arrival (2016) if it was way nastier.)

alternatively, you can inject fast acting brain poison into yourself with this

anyways I hope this all reads as, you know, more approachable than the way dudes on quora recommend this show:

[commsroom]

OK I need you to point me to the nearest entry point into this fandom. I don’t know what this is, but you popped up on my dash.. and I need to know what this is. Please lead the way.

oh!! that's exciting. yes. okay!! wolf 359 is a science fiction audio drama about the isolated and questionably competent crew of a deep space research station, the u.s.s. hephaestus. the initial four characters are comms officer doug eiffel, 'everyman' pop culture guy who really, really hates his job; commander minkowski, who cares about her job and the rulebooks that come with it a little too much, and desperately wants to feel like she's keeping everything under control; dr. hilbert... eccentric? station medical officer and mad scientist whose methods and mission objectives are not entirely above board; and hera, the station's mother program, who struggles with her job and the ways she's perceived by others.

there are other characters who show up later - i would say only three of the above characters are "main" characters, while the actual fourth main character is introduced in s2 - but that requires way more context, and i don't want to get into spoilers, obviously.

wolf 359 is a character drama - it's my personal gold standard for character writing - and the brief descriptions i gave you are the most surface, surface level parts of them. the writers once said something about it, like... that they weren't interested in subverting typical sci-fi character archetypes so much as looking at them and asking "why would a real person behave that way?" and i think it really worked. whether i like them or not, they all feel like real people to me. it has great sound design and a lot of "physicality" in the performances for an audio-only show, which i think comes down to gabriel urbina's film background and the way the scripts are written and performed. (and alan rodi's incredible soundtrack and sense for music cues.) you can't see a lot of what's in the scripts, but they're acted out in a way that you can kinda feel it anyway. i love that.

here's a fan made trailer that i think captures a lot of the right energy. it's a show about a lot of things, but some of the primary themes are communication + music, and i think the collaborative nature of the show itself adds something very sincere to that. it's also about corporate and medical exploitation, resisting dehumanization, what makes us human, connection, identity and autonomy, guilt and accountability, the stories people tell themselves to justify who they are or what they feel it's necessary for them to do, and, of course, the enduring philosophical question: "what's wrong with handcuffs?"

you can check it out at the website i linked above, or anywhere you can listen to podcast feeds! it's free, but they added ads a few years ago, which i hate, so you can pay a dollar here for the ad-free feed if that'll make a big difference in your ability to enjoy it: https://www.patreon.com/Wolf359Radio

it's a sequential story, nothing you really need to know about listening order except that i recommend not skipping the mini episodes (they have important character context and are where they are in the feed for a reason) (with the exception of mission mishaps ones near the end; those are comedy bonus episodes you can listen to whenever) and that you should definitely watch the live show after ep 26 and listen to special episode change of mind between s3 and s4.

i also have a folder here of every recording script where i edited any parts that were different from the show's dialogue + added transcripts for the ones that didn't have available recording scripts, if that's something you'd find useful! i also recommend checking them out just to see what i mean about how they're written.

the first season is pretty short, so i'd say stick with it until at least episode 12/13 (two part finale) if you can - i love the first season, personally, but that's the point it really becomes serialized, and so that's where i think you can safely say if it's something that's going to capture your interest or not. ... and that's it! sorry this is kind of an essay, but i got excited about it. i hope you love the show, please keep me updated, and let me know if there's anything else!!